Guild Wars 2

Did they say every weapon? I have a hard time seeing what use a Warrior, Thief and Engineer would have for a Scepter or Focus.

Azhure.1857:

Angangseh.3754:

When do we for example get Elona or Cantha?

Always find it interesting when people start talking about expansion for Elona and/or Cantha when we don’t even have all of Tyria open and explored yet.

Not to mention there is no point whatsoever to go to Elona or start a fight with Cantha.

Well, they’ve said most of the content this time around will be permanent, not to mention they’ve hired an AI consultant, so here’s to hoping.

cainejw.7142:

I disagree. They can be questioned based on past performance. Frankly, the China thing is a sign of a larger problem along with the constant gem-only content.

Simply put, Anet has sold out.

I think we all keep coming back in hopes we find out they have found that spark again. Unfortunately, they’ve probably released more content through the gemstore than they’ve released content that has stuck in the game.

While I agree they as a company can be judged on past performance, you can’t judge future content that you haven’t played; for example, dungeons at launch and Fractals. It’s opinion, but I think the Fractals were an improvement on the dungeons from launch.

Also, they have told us, time and time again, that content updates would resume after the launch of China, since the updates would be released within days of each other. As for content vs gemstore items, content, regardless whether it was temporary or permanent, was still content that was playable for those playing the game. You can’t simply not count that content.

As for the continuing gem-store updates, if it’s a case that they have a dedicated gem-store team, you can’t reasonably expect them to sit around doing nothing.

I can’t agree with the ‘sold out’ comment. It’s not as if they’ve completely stopped development for EU/NA – heck, the last new patch we had was only just over a month ago. I would say the patch from 2 days ago, but that mostly had the assets created for it anyway. Not to mention you’re assuming that they’re not currently making content, judging from your ‘sold out’ comment.

nibblesalil.3561:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Your acting under the assumption that it takes equal amount of effort, expertise and time to create playable content and gem-store items (which it doesn’t).

You’re also assuming that they aren’t currently working on any content which, if this post is gives any indicator, will give you what you ask; permanant content.

On another note, people were complaining about the aquisition of some Adept traits, which they adjusted in this patch, which also shows that they are listening to feedback and working towards fixing issues.

I will say though, I don’t agree with the focus of putting the majority of armour into the store, and the whole ‘gems to gold’ posts in the blogs do leave a bad taste in my mouth.

thats not what im saying at all we have waited a long time and they go yes the expansions are coming , They can promise the world words are cheap very at the moment , im saying to anet where is the content we wait and wait and wait a year later still where is it ? there is only so much time someone is prepared to wait till you just get bored and leave

They’ve never said an expansion is coming; on the contrary, they’ve said they’re focusing on the LS at the moment and have no current plans for an expansion.

Also, I don’t know how much you frequent the forums, but at the moment the content has been put on hold because of the China launch. As for the past year, most of the content has been temporary, which everyone knows. That’s where most of the content was; been and gone.

And yes, while words are cheap, it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve let us know that new content won’t be starting until after the China launch. Until they actually start releasing said content, they can’t make good on their word, neither can they called liars on their statements for future content.

Your acting under the assumption that it takes equal amount of effort, expertise and time to create playable content and gem-store items (which it doesn’t).

You’re also assuming that they aren’t currently working on any content which, if this post is gives any indicator, will give you what you ask; permanant content.

On another note, people were complaining about the aquisition of some Adept traits, which they adjusted in this patch, which also shows that they are listening to feedback and working towards fixing issues.

I will say though, I don’t agree with the focus of putting the majority of armour into the store, and the whole ‘gems to gold’ posts in the blogs do leave a bad taste in my mouth.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Nerfing reward systems is not always a good thing. Sure in Queensdale things sometimes got ugly in chat. However, taking away rewards is a slippery slope. Perhaps your favorite farming area will be next.

I have not run the train in about a month. I’m just not a big fan of reward nerfs. Rewards in this game are already skimpy at best. Just look over the forum and see.

The nerf wasn’t about the rewards though, it was about the new player experience.

If it was simply about the rewards, they wouldn’t have bothered changing the Champions in the other starting areas as well.

haviz.1340:

Just tell people Aragorn was a ranger.

Or that the ranger archetype is based around knowledge of nature, and not fighting exclusively at range.

Slowpoke.2749:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Slowpoke.2749:

…and Anet taking their sweet time with even the smallest of fixes because the devs are too busy churning out gem store items.

I agree. We should get them modellers and animators onto fixing bugs, stat!

Ah, I love this argument. Maybe, just maybe, they could hire more of those who work on bugs and class balance instead of those who design and model the umpteenth bland outfit for the cash shop on a bi-weekly basis. That won’t happen though because the former not only costs more money but has no direct positive effect on the gem store revenue.

Why would Anet spend money on fixing things or bringing in more permanent content when the kind of players F2P garbages are aimed at don’t really care about anything as long as there’s a new pair of bunny slippers in the store every week so they can log in, do the living story chapter that can be finished in three hours, purchase a limited edition pet that farts rainbows or something and be satisfied?

First, we have no idea of what Anet’s budget is, nor how many people are working on certain things.

For all we know, there could be only small team working on gem-store items; just enough people to get by with the occasional person drafted in from another area of expertise (like sound) while they’re on downtime. After all, most of the gem-store updates recently have been a mini, one or two pieces of armour, and the occasional finisher. Heck, they might just put the interns on the gemstore for all we know.

Second, they are hiring more programmers, or at least they got vacancies for that, so that point is moot. As for class balance – as well as bug fixing – not all problems are solved simply by throwing more people at it. All it would mean is that people would QQ more often about how “x is now even more OP, nerf x” when the patch notes hit.

Third, permanant content vs temporary has nothing to do with it. Why? Because the people working on the temporary content could quite easily be assigned to work on permanat content and they could adapt their shedule to the change. For example, there are allegedly 4 content teams who work in cycles to produce the 2 week temporary content, and they have around 2 months to develop the content – they release and get to work on their next release two months down the line (and before you mention it, content designers aren’t neccesserily programmers – bugs are introduced through the tools they use to create content). Take two teams off, and you’d adapt the shedule to have monthly events instead.

Slowpoke.2749:

…and Anet taking their sweet time with even the smallest of fixes because the devs are too busy churning out gem store items.

I agree. We should get them modellers and animators onto fixing bugs, stat!

Flash.6912:

what happen to the things that anet promised to us last year:

- new legendaries weapons/ new legendary trinket
- precursor crafting?

This is why I think they’re reluctant to tell us of their plans.

People think that “We plan to do this by such a date, but it’s subject to change” = “we promise to do this by the deadline”.

I think ANet could be a little more forward in their communication with regards to long-standing issues (conditions in OWPvE, for example). I don’t think anyone would begrudge them if they come out with a list and said we’ve tried such and such, but it didn’t work all that well.

Beldin.5498:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Raids as content wouldn’t be too bad, I don’t think. As long as they left behind gear requirements and such.

After all, raids are simply dungeons with more people.

After all Raids give way better items than normal dungeons in every raid-centric MMO i have played so far.

And better don’t ask there why you can’t have better stuff if you don’t raid .. because you don’t need it .. you don’t deserve it since you don’t work so hard ..

Key phrase: Raids as content.

I didn’t make a statement about also including the reward or requirement structure from other MMO’s.

Skins unique to the content (both something you can work up to and RNG), crafting recipies, titles, achievements ect. You know, pretty much exactly the same reward structure for dungeons.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I know, I know. It’s better to gate stuff behind a cash shop so you can just buy it and everyone’s equal, rather than actually having to play the game and clear content.

Strawman, ahoy!

No-one has said anything about it being better to gate things behind a cash-shop.

Raids as content wouldn’t be too bad, I don’t think. As long as they left behind gear requirements and such.

After all, raids are simply dungeons with more people.

maha.7902:

Stacking does not negate boss mechanics, TheDaiBish.

Yeah, I worded that wrong.

More along the lines of it reduces the effectiveness of boss mechanics by a large amount, while most bosses themselves don’t have a way to reduce the effectiveness of stacking.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But don’t you see that melee stacking, zerker gear meta, the uselessness of toughness and vitality, the etablishment of one shot mechanics, and many more flaws are the direct result of the ablility of every single class no matter of specialisation to avoid all incoming damage very frequently?

Parts of this I agree on, even if I don’t agree that they’re neccesserily bad. For example, zerker vs gear with toughness and vitality is all about risk and reward. In exchange of sacrificing some defense, you get higher damage output.

However, I disagree that the establishment of one-shot mechanics and stacking are down to every class having dodge.

One shot mechanics, stacking (as well as high health pools) are more of a result of the bosses being built completly different from players. If a boss had the same amount of skills as a player, then the fight wouldn’t need to use one-shot mechanics as the boss would have more skills to use, would be able to attack more frequently thus reducing the effectiveness of dodge.

Not only this, stacking negates pretty much every boss mechanic in the game, while bosses don’t have a tool to negate stacking. If bosses had a mechanic that countered constant stacking, it’d be different.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

On the other hand, I like the fast paced combat while soloing or doing open world stuff (yeah I know, that’s for noobs and stuff), it is just that I really prefer a multiplayer game to feel like every dungeon is made for a group and not for a bunch of individuals that are just doing their own stuff till the boss is dead.

Isn’t that what happens in content with pre-defined roles as well?

Each person is focused on their own role, that they’re playing a different game, if you will, to everyone else. The only unified thing that people have to pay attention to is unique encounter mechanics which, more often than not, don’t actually have anything to do with the roles themselves.

Cormac.3871:

I am hoping that the megaservers were put in with a thought as to how they could add more maps without making other areas even more deserted.

They did say in an interview just before releasing the feature pack that now they have a way to combat dead zones that they wouldn’t be so adverse to adding new areas.

Source (Starts around the 44 – 45 min mark)

Knighthonor.4061:

How hard is it to make a pod cast telling us what they plan on doing?

really? You all are defending that crappy argument that developers cant talk to us?

Not hard, but I can understand why they’re reluctant to. Unfortunately, some people around here don’t have the reading comprehension to understand that “we plan to, but it’s subject to change” =/= “we promise”.

However, on long-standing issues and complaints they’ve said they’re looking into; they could post a small post as to what they’ve tried and what they plan on trying.

It’s recently changed. It used to be you had a different set of gear in SPvP that was normalised, meaning you could have a different look. Now, however, SPvP uses your PvE gear, but normalises the stats so everyone has the same; there is no tiers of gear in SPvP. All this really means is that there’s no visual distinction between your SPvP and PvE gear.

If you go into the Mists, you’ll see near the top a button that says PvP Build. Clicking that will bring up the PvP Build UI. That’s where you choose your runes, sigils, weapons, traits and amulet.

Southsun
Guild Missions
Fractals
2 World Boss Event
A few jumping puzzles
1 Dungeon Path

Xae Isareth.1364:

Perhaps Anet is working hard to address them, but another side of the argument is also quite valid: there is just no urgency to fix them.

Both of these statements aren’t valid for the simple reason we don’t know how hard they are to fix / how many people are working on it / how high a priority these issues are.

This, I feel, is where communication should come into it.

While “we’re looking into it” wouldn’t cut it, if someone made a post as to what things they’ve tried to resolve the issue but it turns out it didn’t work I feel it would sate a lot of people that they are looking into the issue.

Mob Design

I feel one of the biggest issues with mob design is that they’re not built like players. Players have access to more tools and such in comparison to mobs:

Players

• 10+ skills at any point (with a few exceptions)
• 5+ skills on weaponswap
• Traits
• Combo Fields + Finishers
• Upgrades (sigils and runes)
• Dodge
• Unique class mechanics
• Revive

Mobs

• Far less skills available
• No traits
• No weapons
• No bonuses (sigils and runes)
• No dodge in the majority of cases
• Unique mechanics don’t have as much ‘presence’
• No revive

Now, times the tools the player has by 5 (since, you know, 5 players), and the amount of counter-ability available to players far, far outweighs what is available to the mob.

I feel mobs should be built like a player. Give them 10 skills minimum. Give them Traits and Dodge. Give them a unique mechanic. Heck, if there’s other mobs / the boss fight consists of more than one boss, give them the ability to combine their abilities and revive each other.

Mechanics

I feel there should be a simple rule:

For every tool in the game, there should be a counter and a situation where it’s especially effective. By tool I’m referring to a tactic, mechanic or skill.

This applies to both players and mobs.

For example:

Stacking

• Counter: Players fight on a platform. Stacking for more than 3 seconds results in the mob digging and bursting up from below, destroying that part of the platform. Stacking too much will result in no platform being left.
• Effective: Mob has a skill that deals reduced damage and reduced fear duration for every player it hits. Let’s call this skill Fear of the Dark, simply because I like Iron Maiden.

Dodging

• Counter: Mob has a skill that deals deals damage to Endurance.
• Effective: Mob has a skill that sets all skills onto a cooldown if not avoided. The chain would have the mob use Condition Removal and Stability before using this move so, unless you strip it, you can’t interrupt it.

Boons:

• Counter: Mob has a trait where they deal increased damage based on how many boons they have on them. Boon Stripping / Theft / Corruption counters this. Mob has a skill that steals boons and deals damage based on this.
• Effective: In pretty much any situation.

And so on.

I disagree.

I think the sigil is fine as it is, simply because that 250 power (when fully stacked) is available at all times when that weapon is equipped, unlike other sigils where you’ve actually got to be using / swapping to the weapon set to get the effect of the sigil.

I think it’s a fair trade-off.

Kurrilino.2706:

Close combat eles is far beyond ridiculous and ranger with axes in close combat makes me speechless. Maybe people should think why a ranger is called “RANGER” it comes from range.

Why is a close-combat Ele ridiculous? I quite like the fact that I can be a magic user and not need to be forced to play at range.

As for Rangers, it doesn’t come from range. Ranger as an archetype comes from someone who has wisdom of nature. Also, Aragorn says hi.

Kurrilino.2706:

I would love to bring back roles to fill without being depending on a single person.

This could be done through encounter design and mechanics.

For example, Baddy McBoss has:

• A stacking damage buff the more boons he has. Decays over time.
• A stacking damage reduction buff the longer he stands still. Decays over time.
• Auto-attack that steal boons.
• Lots of condition damage.

You’d need:

• Someone with boon-stripping. Optional: someone that can exploit the boons he has.
• Someone that can apply boons frequently.
• (Preferably) someone with blind.
• Someone with a lot of condition removal / condition to boons.
• Know when it’s appropriate to keep the boss rooted.

Alternatively, a highly co-ordinated group could bring a little of each (or some more than others) and co-ordinate it’s use.

Pow. Roles without pre-defining the roles for every encounter.

Since encounters of this nature also allow people to choose their approach (do I strip, corrupt or steal the boons? This will vary depending on your party composition. For example, if a Warrior has Destruction of the Empowered, it might be worth holding back the boon removal until he’s used a high-damaging attack, meaning that damage reduction would be needed because of the stacking buff) as opposed to telling the player you have to have this setup otherwise you’ll fail, it also adds more depth than the Trinity.

It’s two identical sigils that don’t stack, not sigils from the same group.

So two force or two paralyzation wouldn’t stack, but you’d get the effect of one force and one paralyzation on the same weapon.

The greatest schemers are always up to something.

Chances are:

• because he’s the biggest trader around, he stands to pocket a profit off of the disaster and rebuilding efforts.
• It’s a black mark against Kiel in her first term on the Council (who I’m still convinced is working with an enemy faction).

Also, off-topic: Neural, you spelt Gollum wrong.

lordkrall.7241:

Lankybrit.4598:

Did I say anything about new gear? :0

How useful would lvl 80 gear be at lvl 90?

Unless the gear scaled as the player leveled, not very.

Although the benefits of keeping the cap at 80 outweigh the cons by a long shot.

eekzie.5640:

Right now we only get skill points. He wants a system where you would still level up, but no increased gear cap. For instance, if you reach level 90 you get an additional 100 all stats.

Horizontal leveling like that is already seen in fractals in the form of Agony Resistance.

It’s an interesting idea that I personally would like if implemented properly.

Except that’s vertical progression, since numbers are going up.

1. I agree that there needs to be a balance between permanent content and temporary content. I don’t, however, necessarily think that LS automatically equates to mostly temporary content. At the end of the day, LS is a concept, and that concept and how it works can be defined however ANet wishes to define it.

In some sense, I’m glad for the LS Season 1. Just take a look at the Zhaitan fight (something that is established in the lore) and you’ll understand why making Scarlet a scapegoat and having mostly temp content for that trial and error is a good thing.

2. You can’t simply copy/paste the skills from GW1 to GW2 (although something I would like to see would be swappable weapon skills). The combat systems are different. If, however, you mean get inspiration from them, I agree.

3. This seems to be more of a list as to what you want in the game; Cantha, Elona, FoW, Underworld ect, without actually considering why it would or wouldn’t make sense, story-wise, to go to these places at this point. For example, why does it make sense for people to travel to these places when a Dragon has just awoken in Magumma? We have very little word as to what is happening in Elona, so it makes no sense to attack Kralky, and Cantha has shut itself off from the world, so it’d take nothing short of a battle to get in which, because Dragons, makes no sense to start another fight currently.

Soulstar.7812:

Excited…?

Don’t worry, as soon as you find out how much they recycled from last year, it’ll cure the optimism.

What I got from this was “How dare you find something fun!”

Allegedly, it also links into rebuilding LA:

Source

I didn’t get much chance to play the gauntlet, so I’m hoping for the chance to at least punch Liandri in the face.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Zephyr Sanctum had quite a bit of Canthan-inspired architecture.

The ship
The market

Indeed but for example this ship looks way more Canthan than anything released during ZS

The Bloodtide Coast loading screen also has a ship similar to that though

Loading Screen

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Zephyr Sanctum wasn’t Asian-themed that much, was it? (can’t check, wiki’s down)

Plus, there are the Canthan ships…

Zephyr Sanctum had quite a bit of Canthan-inspired architecture.

The ship
The market

Shew.6827:

FOLKS,

that_shaman data-mined some Canthan items. Whether they’re for Dragon Bash or Cantha-related, or both, we don’t know, but time to refresh this hype!

I’m actually going to go with it being related to Zephyr Sanctum.

Harper.4173:

@TheDaiBish – that’s all nice and fine but do you really think players want to fight against that?

Do you really think it would make for an enjoyable experience for the majority of the player base?
And how much staying power does your system have?

People repeat dungeons now for the loot. How much do you think they’d repeat a hard and adaptive dungeon?

If you make it too hard for players to get what they want in game they’ll just move on to the next game.

Anet is here to keep the game alive and going not to cater to people who are confusing Guild Wars 2 with Dark Souls and Dark Souls II.

Firstly, there are degrees of difficulty between GW2 and Dark Souls. I don’t remember asking in my post for content that is as difficult as content in Dark Souls.

Secondly, I don’t pretend to know what the majority of players want. What I think would happen though is that players would complain for a few weeks, then adapt. Overall, I feel that adaptive dungeons wouldn’t increase the difficulty of dungeons, but have dungeons maintain a level of difficulty. This, IMHO, would also increase replayability.

Thirdly, adaptive dungeons would also get players to look at the tools in their toolset. As it is, when most content can be done with a single tactic and the same set of skills, it’s completely pointless to add new skills and traits. The whole point of horizontal progression in the form of skills is to add new tools for the player. If the content doesn’t get the player to use these tools, then progression in this form is meaningless.

Finally, I think it’s pretty sad that dungeons have devolved into nothing more than loot gauntlets, but maybe that’s just me.

Slowburn.5319:

Housing…. an absolute waste of time that could be spent implimenting open world dueling and mounts.

Dueling and Mounts…an absolute waste of time that could be spent implementing Guild Halls.

I agree, although I’d also extend this comment to “lack of pre-defined roles isn’t the problem aka the Trinity” as well.

The issues with the AI, IMHO, are:

1) They don’t have the tools to counter players tools and tactics, while players have tools and tactics to counter the AI. For example, stacking. Mobs don’t have a tool to counter stacking, but stacking is a tactic that pretty much negates all of the mobs tools.

2) They’re built differently than players. In total, players have a minimum of 10 skills at any one time, 14 Traits, 6 runes and 4 sigils. I feel that the bosses massive healthpools and Defiant are put in to replace the fact that they’re missing most of the things available to the player.

3) It never learns. By this I mean that player’s approach to dungeons never change because the AI never learns from it’s previous encounters. Whereas a player can go “This went wrong, if I take this skill and trait instead, the fight might go easier”, AI can’t do this. They’re doomed to staying the same. This is an issue with content in pretty much every MMO ever, and it’s why content get’s easier over time, thus stale.

How to improve these issues?

1) For every tool and tactic in the game available to the player, there should be a mechanic available to the AI that a) counters and b) can be countered by a particular mechanic.

Using stacking as an example again, there should be a mechanic that counters stacking (say, a skill that deals increased damage and strips boons based on how many people it hits [2 boons for every player it hits. 5×2 = 10 boons removed]), as well as a mechanic that stacking counters (say, a skill that deals reduced damage and strips boons based on how many people it hits [2 less boons for every player it hits. 10 / 5 = 2]).

Add in multiple mechanics to a single fight that is appropriate for the level of the dungeon (2 mechanics that directly oppose each other in AC, then add 1 or 2 mechanics per dungeon) and a) it serves as a tougher tutorial for players and b) players can choose how they approach the fights; either a dedicated person for each mechanic, or each person brings a little something to the fight, thus requiring more co-ordination.

2) Build mobs as you build players appropriate for their level.

Give the level 30 boss in AC 10 skills, one minor trait, a full set of masterwork runes and sigils appropriate for them. The skills and traits that are available to the AI don’t necessarily have to be the same as that of a player. Why build them like players? This ties into my next suggestion.

3) Have the dungeon encounters ‘learn’ from player metrics.

Firstly, build a pool of mechanics for bosses.

Have each path gather metrics as to how the player’s have approached the path. How many mobs were killed? How many boons were applied? How much damage and healing was done?

The next week, have the metrics build the path differently:

• Very few mobs were killed? Remove leashing on mobs / give mobs tools to prevent running away (immobilize / Line of Warding ect).
• Boss was killed through sheer damage? Swap out the condiremoval skills that the boss had for skills that apply protection and confusion, and a trait that aids survivability.
• Players didn’t move around much? Swap out two skills for two others that a) remove boons and b) blows players away from each other. Give them sigils that have a chance to remove boons on hit.
• Players kept kiting the mob around? Swap out a skill for another that applies Immobilise.
• Players did quite a bit of healing and condition removal? Swap out a skill that does Bleeding for a skill that applies Poison.

And so on.

Zaoda.1653:

The thing is though, even when they don’t have a busy schedule, they still don’t communicate as much as they should, OR listen to and implement the many brilliant suggestions posted on these forums on a daily basis (with the exception of some of the CDI’s – I’ll at least give them some credit there). But they certainly don’t have my full respect. Like trust, respect it is earnt.

Except we have no idea what a regular day is like for them, so you can’t really say “when they don’t have a busy schedule”. For all we know, they could be busy constantly, and any replying they do could be in their breaks.

As for implementing player suggestions, development takes time, and player suggestions aren’t going to take priority over anything they have on a to-do list. Not to mention ‘brilliant suggestion’ is in the eye of the beholder. For someone who enjoys the addition, you’ll get someone who’ll start a sentence with ‘why have they wasted their time doing this when…’.

phys.7689:

TheDaiBish.9735:

You’re aware that the people who create the framework for the content (game designers, gameplay programmers ect) aren’t the people who create cash-shop stuff (modellers and animators)?

Playable content teams and gem-store teams are seperate.

Hmm, actually thats one of the issues, they could have modelers and animators working on new enemies, new skills, and new rewards for new content.

Except:

• the modellers and animators are either a) part of seperate teams; that is, content and monetization or b) animators and modellers use any down-time to create these gemstore items.
• enemies, skills and content are more than simply animations, thus they require other specialities to work alongside them.
• it’s pointless to start animating and modelling enemies before the content team have devised a theme on which to base them, and the concept artist has drawn out roughly what they’ll look like.

One thing I will agree on though is armour and weapon sets. At the same time, we don’t know the allocation of staff. It’s all well and good saying that they could work on such and such when we don’t actually know their workload, how many modellers and animators there are ect.

Vitus Dance.4509:

Yargesh.4965:

Yes, but the OP is under the impression that they actually know something about business or games making or programming or, well the list is fairly long.

I’ve just a minor inkling that they probably do…hence the existing ‘no subscription’ model.
From reading, the OP’s under the impression that subscription equals quantity or, at least, the expectation of quantity given that the player is paying for the product and so deserves (or feel they have the right) to demand it – which obviously they don’t.

I think Yargesh is referring to the OP thinking they know about business and game design.

saye.9304:

omg cant you people see that such so called scenario is already happening in china with vip thing for same stuff which is basically free here.
is it wrong to send message to anet that vip works here only you start working hard and give us much better game overall.

If the game started out with a subscription model, fair enough.

But going from a B2P model to a mandatory sub model? Unless it was an optional sub that give some gems and freebies every month (trans charges, for example), it’s like you’re asking Anet to take GW2 out the back and put it down.

Arundo.5802:

Thats great, the fact is that after 1,5 year Guild Wars 2 has had no expansion or any big content patch. Sure the living stories are fun for about a week but why do we not get something more then the same old stuff with some news quests ?

I doubt the two teams are equally divided, it seems Arenanet is more busy making cashshop content then to create new zones (yes more then 1) for use to adventure through.

It doesn’t take more people to model a hat / create a set of armour than to create them content patches, since content patches in themselves require a wider range of expertise.

Second, they’ve said in the past that they were a bit tentative of adding new maps as to not spread the playerbase out too thin. However, with the introduction of the megaservers, in an interview with MMORPG.com, they also said they were less worried about spreading the playerbase too thin now.

Arundo.5802:

This is why I always hope game have some sort of subscription model. All Arenanet is doing is create more skins, finishers and other crap for the cashshop. I dont want another fuzzy hat, bunny ears, lama finisher… I want to see a new expansion and new zones to explore.

But there is not room to create those because they need to create items for the cashshop to stay healthy on the cashflow.

You’re aware that the people who create the framework for the content (game designers, gameplay programmers ect) aren’t the people who create cash-shop stuff (modellers and animators)?

Playable content teams and gem-store teams are seperate.

Verasol.1234:

This is true, but is it necessarily bad? Maybe, but certain classes are already favored in high level content. I’d imagine a healer wouldn’t be required, but most people would probably fall back into the LFH standard if the option were there.

In one part of his / her concept, he said that, and I quote: “Monks will not be required for storyline or story mode dungeons, however, they will prove to be invaluable in explorable mode dungeons, fractals, pvp, and end game content.”

In order to make a healer ‘invaluable’, you have to base certain mechanics and numbers around that healer, mainly in the form of constant damage at a rate and amount where the healer becomes a requirement since the player won’t be able to dodge or slot enough defensive skills or stats at the rate needed.

If you introduce these mechanics, then it becomes a case of you have to have a healer otherwise you can’t complete the content. There’s a slight difference between ‘required’ and ‘favoured’.

While I do think things are lacking in the mechanics and variety department, I think the solution should be that for every tool available to the player, there should be a mechanic to a) counter it and b) use of that tool would help the encounter go smoother.

Verasol.1234:

This idea does change Anet’s initial vision of the game, hence why I see these posts as a “what if” and a throwback to an actual sequel to Gw1. What if Anet, instead of the Gw2 we have today, pulled these things from their original game and created what NoPants has imagined here. I’d find it very interesting, and would buy it just the same. I don’t mind the trinity, nor do I mind breaks or changes to it. At the very least, having the Dervish back would be nice.

Also, it’d be easy to change the name of the Avatars to fit the current lore. Avatar of Giganticus Moosicus, for all it really matters.

I’d like to see the Dervish as well, but in a different way (since, you know, there’s no Gods). I suggested something to do with the Zephyrites (or at least the Elonian ones) and utilising the Aspects.

So, in terms of professions in a nutshell:

• Certain professions are going to be favoured for their abilities.
• Dedicated healer with Warrior’s mechanics followed by cries of ‘Anet lied about the Manifesto!’ and ‘It takes ages to get a healer!’.
• Charr, Asura and Norn – who have their own respective deities – will be channeling Human gods.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/PvE-Dueling/first

This thread was directly under yours.

As for OW-PvP in PvE; PvE is supposed to be based around co-operation. Not to mention lorewise there aren’t any playable opposing factions.

RoRo.8270:

anet is so cheap they can’t have more than 1 studio?

Or maybe the income gained wouldn’t justify the expenditure in opening a second studio?

It’s not a case of ‘being too cheap’.

Drakent.9605:

1 healer does not work b/c the healing alone is gimpy, alone you heal about 20% of ppl HP every 10 sec that is to low to keep any person half alive when mobs are able to take down 60% of your HP under 5 sec

That 20% when used at the right time can mean the difference between a wipe and success, right? Them few seconds until a player has enough endurance, their heal comes off of cooldown, a lag spike that hits meaning they miss a dodge.

Not to mention that amount every 10 seconds isn’t bad for a build that is also supposed to be putting out DPS as well (which I assume you are, since you said you weren’t talking about having dedicated healers).

As is, you’re singling out a single part of the entire support concept (healing, CR, boons, fields, reviving, vulnerability and, depending on your perspective on it, weakness and blind [although you could also argue that that is part of control]), and complaining you can’t provide constant support in that one small part of it.

At the end of the day, you’re not supposed to be able to, hence the whole ‘no dedicated healers’ thing, which is more or less what you’re asking for despite you saying you want a healing / dps hybrid, judging from the comment I’m replying to.

Trinity, Raids, Mounts…I kid.

For PvE:

For WvW:

Nerelith.7360:

If you played gw1 you will realize that while one trait was specific to a class, the other 4 were usable as a sub-class.

I did indeed play GW.

So what you’re suggesting is that the player has access to the 4 trait lines that aren’t tied to the profession-specific recharge?

That leads to problems all on itself, since a lot of these trait-lines also have Minor traits tied into their profession mechanic, making putting points into these lines pointless.

It’s not like you can also simply give players extra trait-points as:

• Power-creep: Players stats would be boosted even more. This could be remedied by not attaching stats to the secondary professions trait lines.
• Effectiveness: Players would more than likely simply put the extra points into their own trait-lines, outside of a few examples. Imagine a Condition Bunker putting 30 points into Earth Magic, getting access to Earth’s Embrace, Serrated Stones, Strength of Stone and Diamond Skin. Again, this could be remedied by only allowing players to access the Adept Traits of these lines.

Nerelith.7360:

But… I can see your Point. it just feels that… some boss mechanics make Control unimportant. Some Fights are easilly dodged, that toughness, and Vitality lack importance. I Guess i expected a different game than what it’s become. I also think that gw1, with all it’s balance issues, was more fun to play.

You got to ask yourself why the game isn’t fun, and why GW1, for the whole, was fun. Would GW1 still have been fun without secondary professions? Easy way to know is play a bit of GW only using your primary professions attributes and skills.

If it’s for the reasons you’ve just given – the fights are easy and don’t require much – then how would secondary professions solve that? Answer: It wouldn’t. Secondary professions would add short term amusement, but every fight would still be the same since it’s the encounter mechanics that bring out the depth of the character customization mechanics, and not the other way around.

Nerelith.7360:

I Guess the whole " this makes things harder for the devs" is Just a bit..letting them off the hook. They are the ones making dough off the game, what it takes to earn it… should be as fun a game as Possible. I guess " it’s hard" is not really something I accept as an excuse with the Money that people pay for this game through Boxes, and cahs shop, gems,..etc…

Time and manpower are resources. Why spend time on something that ultimately a) won’t really add anything to the game because of the reasons I give above and b) will just have players up in arms (at least on the forums) because an OP profession has just gotten more OP?

They’re better off using that time and manpower into improving the current system.

Nerelith.7360:

Now, an answer would be appreciated to the actual question. Isn’t a deeper game, a better game?

It is.

However, the game is currently short on depth, and this isn’t because of a lack of sub-classing or whatever.

Depth is brought out in games through the tools you give to players, and designing content that gets players to consider these tools. This is even more important in a game where horizontal progression in the form of new skills and traits is introduced.

In my opinion, for ever tool a player has, there should be a mechanic that, when that tool is used, will make the fight go much more smoothly. For example, players have access to Immobilise, so there should be a mechanic somewhere in the game where bringing Immobilise – using it correctly – will help the fight go smoother.

Content should get the player to think ‘how am I going to approach this fight?’

Before the game should even think about introduce dual-classing, it needs content that gets players to ask this question. Otherwise it’s simply adding meaningless depth.

On the issue of balance:

• Think how effective some cross-profession skills (Shouts, Signets ect) could be. An Elementalist with Written In Stone (passive effects stay when using a signet), or a Guardian with Perfect Inscriptions (increases effectiveness by 20%) and Healing Signet. A Warrior with Shadowstep, Stealth and Basilisk Venom.

• At the same time, it would also add a lot of pointlessness, especially regarding profession-specific skills (Banners, Consecrations ect) and profession mechanics. A lot of the Ranger skills utilise a pet, while a lot of Mesmer skills utilise clones for example.

Punch.3507:

Unlock requirement: a large amount of that dungeon’s tokens.

I’d say Dungeon Master should be the unlock requirement in replacement / in addition to this.

Punch.3507:

Changes:
- Improved AI
- More enemy health
- Enemies hit harder (making skipping difficult/impossible)
- Maybe dungeon specific debuffs or quirks?

- This doesn’t need to be carried over to just Hard Mode. This should also be implemented into the regular dungeons as well.
- Disagree. More health =/= more difficulty outside of more chance to mess up.
- Disagree. Rather than making enemies hit harder:

• create pre-defined groups that work together (using combo fields ect). Randomise these groups every new dungeon instance (for example, the first trash group might have Warrior, Ranger and Ele skills. Next dungeon run it might be Guardian, Thief and Necro).
• remove leashing. I sure as heck wouldn’t stop chasing someone if they broke into my house simply because they went upstairs.
• Creating groups that roam and cross-over other groups. This would encourage players to be aware of their surroundings.
  - This could be interesting. CoF could have increased Burning Damage and Duration, Arah could have constant heath degen and HotW could have decreased movement speed and endurance regen.

Punch.3507:

- Emphasis on coordinated team play (eliminating stacking)
- I hate that stacking kills the designed dungeon mechanics

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with stacking as a mechanic. It’s when stacking can trivialise and negate the mechanics of pretty much every dungeon.

In terms of designing mechanics (and this isn’t limited to just dungeons but should apply to the entire game), I feel that there should be a mechanic for every tool the player has.

For example, players have access to stacking, so there should be a mechanic where stacking helps the fight go easier (for example, a skill that deals reduced damage the more people it hits). At the same time, there should be a mechanic that punishes constant stacking (for example, a skill that destroys the part of the platform that the players are stacking on if they stack for more than, say, 5 seconds).

Ultimately, this is the whole point of horizontal progression in the form of skills and traits; expanding options. If the content doesn’t capitalise on this, then horizontal progression in this form is meaningless.

Punch.3507:

- Others?

- Add a variety of tactics that are implemented based on statistics. Make each dungeon run a different experience.

For example:

• if players are running past mobs (tracked by amount of trash killed), give groups of mobs tools to CC players (stun, cripple, immobilise, Ring / Line of Warding ect).
• if that dungeon is mostly being run with by players just dealing damage and stacking (tracked by damage dealt and frequency boons are applied), replace mechanics on the boss that is mostly useless (say, condi-removal) with others (grants protection / inflicts weakness + confusion / detonates combo fields / strips boons ect).

Punch.3507:

Rewards:

- More gold and tokens for completing
- Achievements (of course)
- Others?
- Maybe RNG drops for very rare weapons (or Black Lion Tickets?)

- Unique animations for skills. For example, a boss might allow players to unlock an alternate skin for Stoning (Staff Ele Earth 1) called Ebon Hawk, which fires out a stone hawk instead of a rock.
- Completing all hard-mode dungeons unlocks a vendor that sells Ascended gear. This person will take either x amount of tokens from all dungeons (equivalent to one run of HM) or y amount of tokens from a single dungeon (equivalent to 8 runs of HM). Give bosses a chance to drop Ascended gear.

Add a NPC who will forge a precursor with Ancient Shards.

Each map has 2 Ancient Shards, hidden completly at random for each player. Could be in a Jumping Puzzle, could be in a Dungeon, could be in a remote corner of a map.

“Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Dont concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

Bruce Lee