Guild Wars 2

Iyeru.5240:

Shields are considered armor (literally, even though it’s in the weapon category), so they only go up to exotic currently iirc. Only actual Legendary grade has effects.

Actually, in game shields are considered as weapons.

And you might want to go look up The Flameseeker Prophecies. It’s a Legendary tier weapon.

Not entirely sure where you got your impressions from.

I think a trail of pages flying off while you’re running would be pretty cool.

Pawstruck.9708:

• Random drop chance – Anybody who’s played WoW knows what the Ashes of A’lar was. They also know that they have almost no chance of EVER getting that item, because it was like a 0.02% drop chance from a raid boss. I’m not saying GW2 should have no random drops of high rarity, but they only make for a certain degree of RNG-based fun. It’s nothing to build a system like Legendary BiS’s on.

I agree that I wouldn’t like Legendary weapons to be based on RNG.

Pawstruck.9708:

• A “massive” quest/storyline – This would either a) be so massive that it was ridiculous and un-fun, possibly taking up valuable Arenanet resources from developing/polishing the rest of the game, or b) be short and easy such that everybody could get it. Would you really like everybody to be running around with a Legendary?

This is where I disagree a lot. This current set of Legendary weapons lack context: Why are they Legendary? Who wielded them? Who created them? Why did they lose their power?

As it stands, there are lower level Karma items (Pyreshot’s Arrowhead) that have more story than the Legendary weapons.

Hell, keep the current grind. Just add context to it by giving certain parts (maybe the last part where you apply the effect) that tell a story, or reduce certain parts of it and add more variety, and make Achievements more required.

• Shards of the pre-cursor are scattered all through the world – locations could be made random per account AKA, like a scavenger hunt. Make it so you need, say 70 shards for a 1H weapon and 100 for a 2H weapon. Shards would be account bound.

• Reduce the grind and spread it over a variety of content – For example, reduce the cost of dungeon gifts to, say 420 (that’s roughly all three paths for two days), but make it so you need all of the dungeon Gifts. Reduce the cost of Karma for Obsidian Shards, but you need a Gift component from getting max Emergency Response Hero (or introduce a Gift for completing every single event in the game). Make all of the Dragons have a component you need as opposed to just one (while you’re at it, give them their own vendors with recipes like the Corrupted ones from the Jormag vendor).

• The various Gifts could only be forged by certain blacksmiths of old, hidden within the world – Within the mini-dungeons in the world these blacksmiths could be hidden. In order to empower these Gifts, you need to take them to places of power in the world (Dungeons), for example, Foefire’s Heart.

• When you got all of the required pieces, then you need to take them to their ‘place of origin’ i.e. Twilight, being Grenth’s sword, would need to be taken to the Statue of Grenth, where you’d need to absorb the lingering power from the area. Yes, I’m aware this might not be true

And your comment about it being ‘massive and unfun’ – unfun is an opinion. In my opinion, giving the Legendary a story that you need to follow would be a lot more fun that the current grinding for an expensive Exotic (because without a story behind it, that’s all they are’.

Pawstruck.9708:

The only thing left is a massive resource grind. Compared to the other options, it’s really not that bad: Not everybody will get one, but everybody could get one if they wanted. People act like they “have to grind all these resources and get a Legendary.” Wait a minute. Have to? Isn’t this a video game that we play for fun? They’re not even the best weapons in game; they’re just ridiculously awesome skins.

Your statement about the story either being A) be so massive that it was ridiculous and un-fun, or b) be short and easy such that everybody could get it also applies here.

I personally don’t mind a grind. I’m slowly making progress. But the current grind is ridiculous, simply because of the amount of gold required. While I don’t want it made easier, I do wish there was more variety in the process than: Get Gold, Get Karma, Get BoH.

Note: I’m using the term “quest” as a generic term so everyone understands the context. This post isn’t about an epic journey sort of quest.

Suggestion

Dot around the place one-time miniature “quests”.

These would have the following traits:

- No Hand-holding – You don’t get a marker telling you it’s a “quest”, or a marker on your map telling you where to go. Instead, you have to pay attention to your surroundings, feel out clues for what happened ect.

- They can only be done once, for the most part – With some exceptions, it makes more sense to have them as one time tasks. For example:

• Non-Repeatable – You find the body of a Seraph. Find out what happened.
• Repeatable – Hagar the Unluckitteneps getting his mead jug pinched. Try to find out who pinched it.

- Placed into the game without notification – Gives the sense that stuff is happening, and rewards those who take the time to explore.

Example

Wandering through Queensdale, you notice the body of a Seraph. Examining him closer, you find him bloodied and covered in hoof-shaped bruises. Find the ones responsible and bring them to justice. Also, let his commanding officer know of his fate.

[Received Dog-Tags]

Now, this can go one of two ways:

• Around the body there are a mass of hoof-prints, with a definite trail leading in one direction. Following these tracks will eventually lead you to a Centaur camp. The camp will be quite a distance, and hidden in a far corner somewhere. Arriving there, slaughter the camp.

• Find out who the Seraph’s commanding officer is. The identification says he was stationed at Shaemoor Garrison. Taking the ID will result in the officer thanking you, and asking you to bring the Centaurs to justice, leading to the first scenario. If you have already done the first scenario, she’ll thank you, and reward you appropriately.

uknortherner.2670:

They ran a parallel Wintertide event in GW1 over Christmas so it seems that the devs haven’t completely abandoned the game just yet. Sadly, there were very few people playing when I logged in at the time.

Ahh, apologies, I meant no new content (since all they have to do for holiday events is insert the event and let it run).

To be honest, I think a pretty cool idea would be to have GW as a development platform for apprentices to work on to get a feel of game design, balancing, QA ect. As in they could add in:

• New quests
• Small, bitesized expansions (kind of like the bonus mission packs)
• A new profession every now and then (coughChronomancercough)

That sort of thing.

Fair enough.

They’re not going to use resources on a game that isn’t going to net them any money, since their funding is entirely dependent on how much money the make NCSoft.

As it is, I’m pretty sure GW is only in maintenance mode, meaning there won’t be any content added to it.

However, I agree that GW is a great game, and there are many aspects I wished they brought over to GW2.

Arnath.2319:

At first it was “two HUGE updates with content equal to a EXPANSION!”, now its a tiny boring patch at the end of January and nothing exciting till March.

You forgot the Feb patch. And how do you know that:

• The Jan patch will be boring?
• Nothing exciting until March?

Can’t really assume anything.

If these patches strengthen the core of the game, add to the current content + fix the most common complaints, then it’ll be worth more than additional new content.

Asglarek.8976:

Professions aren’t the culprit behind this “jack of all trades master of none” AN went without the classic trinity role for professions making the mechanics of the encounter the reason why since during a particular encounter you will be kiting, healing, tanking and dps’ing and since everyone will be doing this at some point no build can effectively be traited to be a master of any of them.

I’d have to disagree with you there.

My Warrior is built for Control (since there isn’t any tanking [having aggro isn’t tanking. Tanking is keeping aggro off of everyone else while they whale on the guy]).

I can spam Immobilize often and on more than one enemy, interrupt the big attacks and then burn through Defiance ready for the next attack. I can take a beating thanks to all of the passive health Regen, meaning I’m not constantly kiting.

I can’t deal lots of damage, and I can’t heal or buff party members outside of Combo Fields, down to my choice of skills and traits.

Now, while another Warrior can also do that, if they aren’t running a few key Traits (namely Leg Specialist, Hammer Mastery and Fast Hands), they aren’t going to be able to do it as well as me.

As for other professions, if they haven’t brought them sorts of skills, or traited to make them more effective, then their going to be nowhere near as effective as me. By that logic, I have ‘mastered’ the role of Movement Controlling.

Same with the Trinity. Sure, that Druid can throw out a few heals. But unless they’re specced and geared for it, they aren’t going to be able to do it as well as one who is.

kKagari.6804:

Another vague answer about the progression of development.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Some of these additions will come as early as the January release, and will get covered in more detail in the next week or two as well release all the details about this release once testing has signed off it’s all ready to go in January. (we’ll also provide a high level summary of our goals with reward systems, etc. in our 2013 blog post, which should be out next week)

Just in case you missed that, and the reason why he hasn’t gone into detail here.

Kitten has been here since forever, practically.

Personally, I opted for ‘pony’, simply because on the Internet that could be considered a swear word by many.

Each mob has a loot table.

Each item has a percentage in which it can drop.

Magic Find affects that percentage.

So if, say, a rare has a 2% chance of dropping, Magic Find will boost that to 4%.

While you won’t see an improvement straight away, over a longer period of time you’re bound to see a marginal increase.

I also think Magic Find doesn’t affect chests, but don’t quote me on that.

Personally, I think if the shield had pages flying off of it as you run would be pretty cool.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Or you could play the game hardcore for about 4 days and get the 300g for it.

Oh you don’t want to play hardcore? But you still want the game’s ultimate cosmetic item? Well, sounds like you have two competing ideas in your head right now. Which one will win?

Charging a 20-strong zerg and taking 6 of them down before dying is hardcore.
Taking a Norn’s ale away from him / her is hardcore.

Playing the trading post isn’t what I’d consider ‘hardcore’.

Rysinsun.7306:

Yes I saw that post. However this has been an issue since beta and even pointed out to A-net since beta. Quite simply I cannot understand how a lot of these “boss” encounters passed as “fun” during testing.

I will admit I have not touched fractals yet, so props to A-net if they are indeed better than open world bosses. That being said, please do follow through with improving world bosses by making them more interesting and rewarding…since your original promise was to focus on open world and not dungeons.

Didn’t we only have access to AC during beta? Not too sure, never got that high.

And yeah, not only are most the boss-fights better, but the entire dungeon mechanics are as well.

Personally, concerning open-world, I’d like to see them ramp up the difficulty on the events a lot, and have bigger consequences for failing. For example, Pertinent Path. If Shelter’s Camp falls, the Risen should co-ordinate a pincer attack on the other camp, and visa versa.

Killul.9685:

It is nice to see them posting but they aren’t not really saying much. Most of what they are saying is that the precursor scavenger hunt won’t be added in soon. They not addressing any concerns or informing us of what they will add.

You mean like the blog post due next week, which hasn’t been released yet because they’re waiting for the OK from testing?

As CriticKitten rightly said in another thread, if they go announcing something is in the works, people get impatient, and want it now. If for whatever reason they need to delay, people QQ, to hell with the reason.

TheLaughingMan.4320:

1) but from the creeping monetization of ascended

2) but because the huge number of skills per class (not tied to weapons, stupid idea that) made many builds available for pve and pvp, and left room for creative experimentation.

Aggressive much? How do you know that people who worked on GW1 didn’t leave on their own accord?

1) Ascended is monetized? What?

2) There actually were a lot of skills that were tied to weapons. There were Hammer Skills, Axe Skills, Dagger Skills, Sword Skills, Spear Skills ect.

You get the gist of it. The only skills that weren’t tied to weapons was magic and skills that didn’t revolve around the use of a weapon (Utilities in this form) / were tied to a Primary Attribute (i.e. Strength).

Also, your mention of there being a lot of skills. Earlier on, you mentioned that the team didn’t know how to balance. How would having a large number of skills improve that?

All that being said, while I don’t think that we should go back to the ridiculous amount of skills there were in GW1 (1319 altogether), I do wish that:

1) We had a choice of maybe 2 or 3 skills per slot, per weapon.

2) Skills had additional effects and synergy, depending on certain conditions (for example, Auspicious Blow, which was unblockable if the target was Weakened, or Shatterstone [Water Hex] > Teinai’s Crystals [Cracked Armour if Water Hexed] > Teinai’s Prison [Health Degen if Cracked Armour]), which is what made the system interesting (and not the amount of skills).

Totally disagree with the adrenaline revamp.

Unlike other MMO’s, Warriors would only have one move we can open with and use to build adrenaline, whereas every other class would have 5.

Not only that, your generic layout of weapon skills defeats the purpose of having different weapons: to bring different things to the fight. Notice how the Sword is different from a Mace and Axe?

Utilities

CC – Throw Bola, Bull’s Charge, Kick, Stomp, Fear
Reduced damage – Dolyak Signet passive, Endure Pain
Improving Damage – For Great Justice!, Signet of Might + Fury passives, Banners, Frenzy

critickitten.1498:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Could be they’re going to tell us with these blog posts in a few weeks?

Just saying.

Colin has already revealed that the scavenger hunt is not even in coding yet, and it’s not coming out in these upcoming patches in Jan/Feb/March.

So we’ll be waiting until at least April unless something changes.

Indeed.

But I did say that before CJ come along and clarified

leprekan.7248:

I do apologize for sounding like I am nagging but when people about face from common sense it drives me nuts.

The funny thing about ‘common sense’ is that sometimes it does make sense, but at the same time it doesn’t.

In this case, it makes sense for the reasons you listed.

At the same time, the scavenger hunt, if implemented properly, also makes sense, since it would help with the lower level area issue.

IMHO, the scavenger hunt just sounds a lot more fun.

I don’t think you know how business works…

Rysinsun.7306:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Vasham.2408:

That’s the price you pay for removing the holy trinity. No mechanics, no strategy, nothing but high HP pools and fake difficulty.

You don’t need the Trinity to create interesting mechanics.

Just saying.

Then why take out the trinity and not put in the interesting mechanics?

Just saying.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-do-PvE-bosses-seem-to-equate-to/page/3#post1176040

They’re working on it.

Also, some fights do have interesting mechanics (Lovers, for example), they’re just few and far between.

The Fractals are more interesting in that the entire dungeon has a mechanic, as opposed to just the fight.

Asglarek.8976:

Great post and spot on. The professions in this game fit the cliche “jack of all trades master of none”perfectly.

Professions are build to specialise in something through:

• Traits
• Weapons
• Utility skills

In short, Builds.

Yes, every profession can do everything. But not as well as someone who has built for that particular role.

critickitten.1498:

Ehra.5240:

critickitten.1498:

How exactly is a “new rewards system” going to fix the problem of precursors depending heavily on terrible loot tables?

I thought Colin’s post was pretty clear cut on this…. did you actually read it?

ColinJohanson.2394:

We are however working on expanding reward systems to make them more re-rewarding across all parts of the game, making the open world more rewarding, and adding new ways you can earn precursors as rewards via new reward systems taking advantage of our open persistent world.

Yes, I read it. But it seems you have a very interesting definition of “clear cut”.

That statement says absolutely nothing about how this will fix the problem of precursors being subject to the whims of the RNG, all it says is that there will be “new ways” to obtain them. All that really implies is that they will be adding precursors as possible drops to more locations in the game.

I personally can’t see how you’d see:

• New reward system
• Rewarding across all parts of the game (read in my eyes as PvE, WvW, SPvP)
• New ways to earn precursors

As more RNG, when the only way to create precursors at the moment is through RNG.

A reward system, in my eyes, is a definite. You do something, you get rewarded for it. Maybe in the case of the precursors, you have to build up your rewards.

It’s also possible he doesn’t want to go into specifics because:

• It’ll be in the upcoming blog posts
• It’ll be like the Legendary weapons, where we had to work the recipe out for ourselves.

Vasham.2408:

What roles? Damage dealing with mindless button spamming while dodging like a CODkid high on pixie sticks? There are no roles in this game, just mindless spamming with zero teamwork, strategy, and synergy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Legendary-Imbued-Shaman-requires-nerf/first#post1179670

Read the OP’s complaints there about how it can’t be pugged easily, and say again that there isn’t any teamwork, strategy or synergy.

darkace.8925:

TheDaiBish.9735:

I sense a lot of rage building that’s going to manifest itself into a billion threads.

Anyhows, thanks for the update. Looking forward to them posts.

There are petulant children who are going to throw a tantrum no matter what. Make precursors too hard to get, and the game sucks because it requires too much grinding. Make precursors too easy to get, and the game sucks because it panders to casuals. It’s literally a lose/lose scenario. If I were the devs I’d not let the whining cacophony from the peanut gallery sway me too far from my original vision.

Agreed. Some people on the forums lately have been down-right hostile, which is shocking.

These coming patches could bring so much to the game, fix so many issues, and yet people will still complain.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey guys,

Just a quick update on where the whole scavenger hunt system stands since I know that’s a topic many of you have brought up recently. We’re not currently actively working on building any sort of legendary precursor scavenger hunt, this is something we want to do in the future and we’re in the midst of designing how this would function, but no one is actively building this feature and you should not expect in the Jan/Feb/March releases at this point.

We are however working on expanding reward systems to make them more re-rewarding across all parts of the game, making the open world more rewarding, and adding new ways you can earn precursors as rewards via new reward systems taking advantage of our open persistent world.

Some of these additions will come as early as the January release, and will get covered in more detail in the next week or two as well release all the details about this release once testing has signed off it’s all ready to go in January. (we’ll also provide a high level summary of our goals with reward systems, etc. in our 2013 blog post, which should be out next week)

I sense a lot of rage building that’s going to manifest itself into a billion threads.

Anyhows, thanks for the update. Looking forward to them posts.

Blissified.8369:

In soviet russia shield holds you

Also Sorry the translator isn’t working 100 percent, we don’t understand what your asking.

I think:

1) He was under the impression that all classes can Tank, Heal and DPS.

2) He likes to play a healer to save others, and a tank to take hits like a boss, but there’s no way he can do that, despite what ANet ‘said’.

3) Engineer was most productive healer, but even then he couldn’t heal to full. Distance is a problem with Guardian heals.

4) He wants to know why the shield doesn’t have a block chance, and why the block stance works when hit from behind. To OP: Aside from Crit Chance, stats aren’t RNG based

5) He wants to know why characters can’t forsake DPS for control. _To OP: Warrior with Hammer + Greatsword, Throw Bola (and Shrapnal Mine if you’re a Charr) with the Leg Specialist trait is a pretty strong control build).

6) He wants to know why the forts in WvW are made out of leftover boxes from Xmas presents.

7) He thinks the developers should compromise and bring healers and tanks in, so that the game doesn’t die.

Ronah.2869:

Its only 1 experience jar / 24h offline time / account. I didn’t mention “per character” I said similar with the dailies karma jars. You can use that Experience jar on a lvl 80 character or on any other character, but its only 1 jar / 24 h.
so the number of alts will not affect the amounts of jars earned.

Touche. I forgot Daily Achievement was Account bound. Apologies.

Iyeru.5240:

I won’t be getting level 80 in a few weeks, even though I play more than 5 hours a day. It’s just how I roll :P I don’t mind raw grinding, I don’t mind rerolling, I don’t mind anything that limits me from getting to the level cap fast. Slow and steady I say.

Yeah, that was my plan. Except when I started doing everything (Gathering, Crafting, Exploring, Every event I could get my hands on) I found myself leveling quite fast. 20 of them levels were from crafting. Another 7 from WvW.

I didn’t craft on my other alts, and they took a bit longer to level, but it still wasn’t a struggle to level. XP is just so kitten easy to get.

It took you 3 months to get to 80? Wow. Took me all of 2 weeks, playing about 3 hours a week. Not rushing, exploring ect. I couldn’t stop the XP rolling in

A Rested experience system where you get an experience multiplier for every x hours you’ve been logged off in your home instance (what? at least it’ll get some use) would be better than a straight up jar of XP, since you’d still have to work your way to level 80.

All someone has to do is create 4+ alts not touch the game for just under 2 months (210 days / 4 = 52 days) and bam. Insta-level 80 number 2.

Because the Devs also work on the Monetization team, amirite?

Devs – Give news on features and what they’re working on.
Monetization – Gives news on cash shop promotions.

Vasham.2408:

That’s the price you pay for removing the holy trinity. No mechanics, no strategy, nothing but high HP pools and fake difficulty.

You don’t need the Trinity to create interesting mechanics.

Just saying.

Could be they’re going to tell us with these blog posts in a few weeks?

Just saying.

As for your idea, while it might help the economy, it’s kinda boring. Having to scour the world for items to create the pre-cursor sounds like so much more fun.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/January-updates-Any-sources/first#post1136181

A high level summary for the first part will be introduced in the next few weeks.

Pretty sure somewhere else CJ said that it was currently going through localisation.

Edit: Knew I saw it somewhere

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/One-blog-or-two/first#post1176001

Kahrgan.7401:

Well, there is a major patch at the end of january, but given that the game has been out for 4 months and not a whole lot has been fixed or changed, I don’t have much faith in anet.

Fractals have been out for a while now, getting rings for AR has gotten easier, but if you are getting them from daily anyway, then you really dont need “an easier way”.

Make purchasable fractal weapons with relics, for one.

Change the way precursor are received (and people can still make money on them)

Change lodestone drop rates, or make them purchasable. (with fractal relics perhaps?)

• Ascended Fractal weapons aren’t out yet. They’re Exotics.
• There’s a precursor scavenger hunt in the works.

Well, considering that these coming updates are supposed to improve the game, I’d leave the QQing until then.

If the grind and RNG isn’t fixed by then, I’d be right behind you.

As for:

• your bot complaint, the bot team are only human. If they get, say, 1000 reports a day, chances are they don’t get through them 1000 reports, meaning there’s a backlog. Just saying.
• your bug complaint, bugs are given priorities, as in game-breaking bugs first. I’d wager a lot of them are working on the Fractal disconnects atm, since they’re truly game-breaking.

The only disappointment I have, coming from GW, is the lack of synergy between skills, and how skills would affect each other (since a lot of this has been put into passive traits). For example:

• Instead of Backbreaker > Belly Smash (inflicts Blindness if foe is knocked down), we got a Hammer Mastery Trait (which deals extra damage to knocked down foes passively)
• Chaining Shatterstone (Hex) > Teinei’s Crystals (Cracked Armour) > Teinei’s Prison (Health Degen)

I think in this regard, GW2 could implement a similar system to give synergy between weapon sets, and more importance to conditions and states:

• If target foe is afflicted with Bleeding, your Thief Venom effects last twice as long.
• If target foe is Weakened and Blocking, Fierce Blow (Warrior Hammer 2) knocks down that foe.
• If foe is confused, Mind Stab (Mesmer Greatsword 3) removes an additional boon.

Thinks like that I feel would add more to skill synergy.

So let me get this straight.

Because the fight requires tight teamwork and preparation before rushing in, otherwise PUG’s and the average player will fail it, it should be nerfed?

Things like this make me laugh, especially when people say stuff like “what’s the point of having a guild?” Pretty sure this is a good reason to have one.

Thing is, if everything is supposed to be doable by PUG’s and the average player, how do you create encounters that require tight teamwork and preparation, and are challenging for well-organised groups?

• Get Achievement “Is that what they look like?” for seeing all God forms.
• Different forms have different combat styles (kind of like how Master Ranger Nente switches between melee and ranged)

lothefallen.7081:

i wish i could dodge and heal someone as i see them about to get blasted by a huge boss

Look out for the attack, hit:

• Virtue of Courage
• Virtue of Justice (if Justice is Blind is traited)
• “Retreat”
• Flashing Blade
• Ray of Judgement
• Leap of Faith

Job done.

At the end of the day, healing is just another form of damage race, except you’re trying to make sure that you can fill up the health bars before the bad guy drops them down.

lothefallen.7081:

Why can’t they adjust numbers and just add healers back into this game so they will be able to design better encounters and a more robust skill system?

How do healers encourage better encounters? And adding healing skills wouldn’t make a more robust system. It’d be the same skill system but with healing skills (unless the word you’re looking for is diverse, then I apologise).

Encounter mechanics encourage better encounters. Encounter mechanics where you have to look out for your allies, know their position.

If I’m suddenly hit by a condition that can only be removed by another player, and has to be otherwise it’ll kill me in 5 seconds, then that’ll promote people to keep an eye out.

Maybe the boss will connect two players together, dealing heavy damage over time until both of them get into a safe zone?

Maybe I get hit with a debuff that, after 5 seconds, it will kill me, unless I get close to team-mates, in which the damage is spread out.

There are plenty of ways to make encounters require teamwork without resorting to having a guy stand there only filling up health bars.

lothefallen.7081:

How about a combat and skill system that engages a full team with all types of tangible, effectual synergy options, roles, etc? Why does it have to be so simplified and boring? Anyone else feel this way?

Depending how you play, that’s what we got now. If you play in a PUG, fair enough, you’re less likely to see it. Our guild kind of made our own roles following the Control / Support / Damage options:

• I play a Control Warrior. Lots of AoE Immobilize (very useful since Immobilize isn’t affected by Defiance), stuns, knockdowns ect
• Another player a Support thief, stealthing allies in the event they get into trouble.
• Another plays a Condition Necro
• Two more play as damage, but they also bring utility (Mesmer brings Illusion of Life, Engi brings Elixir Gun) for the “OH SNAP!” moments.

And the funny thing is, if you go making encounters that require co-ordinated and tight teamwork, the usual response will be:

• dedicated roles are needed to do content as a PUG
• the encounter is too hard – it needs to be nerfed

instead of adapting to the system, getting creative, and creating a build that doesn’t focus on just putting out damage.

So while I think the combat system could do with improving, like skill synergies like in GW, as opposed to them being passive in Traits i.e.

Shatterstone then:

• Glowing Ice for Energy return
• Icy Prism for AoE burst
• Teinai’s Crystals for more damage and Cracked Armour, then Teinai’s Prison for health degen.

I don’t think dedicated roles are the answer to interesting fights, since you’d have to balance it around having dedicated roles, meaning those who don’t want it, who like the free-form groups, are then forced into roles to do content.

Personally, I think there are quite a few systems they could have used and adapted instead from levelling:

• Guild Wars’ Profession Attributes – Right from the beginning, players have the majority of their attribute points, with mini-quests in the world to dedicate points to their main attribute. For example, bench-pressing a Norn would dedicate one point into the Warrior’s Strength attribute.

• Guild Wars’ Blue Mage-ing – A.K.A Elite Skill Capturing. I’m personally hoping they bring this back if they add new Traits and Skills.

• Runes of Magic Skill Ranks – Instead of XP going towards levels, the player can spend XP to boost their skills, with each skill maybe having a different boost the higher the rank, whether it be straight up damage, reduced activation, increased duration ect up to a max limit.

• Path of Exile Support Gems – Support gems give skills passive effects that boost them. For example, Fireball has upgrades that either increase the size of the splash, or reduce the size of the splash, increasing damage. Maybe a system where you can unlock upgrades at certain skill ranks / through research, or upgrade slots in skills to slot skill upgrades.

• FFX Sphere Grid – One of my fave progression systems in a game of all time. Mobs drop random spheres, which are used to purchase upgrades on the characters Sphere Grid. Character also gains levels, which are then spent advancing across the grid. Each one would have 5 different paths depending on the Profession (keeping in line with Traits), containing minor stat boosts that suit that path (i.e. Tactics would have -0.1 cooldown to Shouts and Banners, Fire Magic would have +0.1% crit chance against Burning targets), as well as skill upgrades (i.e Critical hits with this skill apply Fire Hex for 5 seconds. Hitting Fire Hex with a Blast Finisher deals AoE damage and Burning for 1 sec). This would essentially be a passive progression system that, given enough time, can be filled out entirely, and would have a straight levelling curve (i.e. every level after level 10 needs 50,000 XP to gain a level.)

We are talking about different forms of progression, no?

- VOIP: Also a strain on bandwidth on their end. Can you imagine how much worse culling would be?

- iPhone app: I’m pretty sure there’s an app in the works? And don’t make it just for iPhone. Make it for Android as well.

- Target Forwarding: We got this, in a sense. Someone calls a target (ctrl+t), you press T, you automatically target the called enemy.

I like this idea. Although I’d say for developer consideration, rather than to be implemented.

Additionally:

• Sub-forums to sort types of suggestions (UI, content, tweaks ect) reduces the chance of good suggestions getting buried.
• Make people summarise the suggestion in the title, as in no ‘look at this suggestion’ (although this is more a personal annoyance)

I like this idea. Although I’d say for developer consideration, rather than to be implemented.

Additionally:

• Sub-forums to sort types of suggestions (UI, content, tweaks ect) reduces the chance of good suggestions getting buried.
• Make people summarise the suggestion in the title, as in no ‘look at this suggestion’ (although this is more a personal annoyance)

I think this would be pretty cool for evolving Exotic gear into Ascended.

I.e

• Weapon must be level 10
• Must have completed all Fractals with it.
• Needs to be infused with Gift of Ascention.

Inb4 you start complaining when this thread gets locked.

They only delete posts that:

• Offer no constructive debate.
• Have devolved into a mud-flinging contest.
• There’s already a running thread discussing the topic.
• That calls out the company or individuals in the company.

There are plenty of topics that criticise the game. The difference is that they’re put constructively

Inb4 you start complaining when this thread gets locked.

They only delete posts that:

• Offer no constructive debate.
• Have devolved into a mud-flinging contest.
• There’s already a running thread discussing the topic.
• That calls out the company or individuals in the company.

There are plenty of topics that criticise the game. The difference is that they’re put constructively

Erebus.7568:

instead of allowing diversity by removing the “forced roles” that the trinity provides they have forced every one to become the exact same thereby instead of having a 3 types of roles you could basicly provide you now only have ONE and that one every one will have to follow…

Disagree.

No one has forced my Warrior as a DPS character. I chose to build it as a Mass Control build.

Erebus.7568:

…while with gw2 system its impossible to do such a thing without super lame 1 shot none avoidable mechanic’s…

Then that’s a problem with encounter mechanics. Encounter mechanics that force teamwork are needed, not pre-defined roles.

For example, let’s say Evil McBadguy has does an attack that, in 5 seconds, will explode, killing that player. However, if there are other players close by, then the damage is shared amongst the players (2p – 50%, 3p – 25%, 4p – 10%, 5p – 5%).

Or maybe he has an attack that ‘links’ two players, which causes a continuous DoT until it’s broken by the players moving directly near each other.

Encounter mechanics can be made and introduced to force teamwork, and not make content solo-able, without resorting to ‘you NEED a Tank/DPS/Healer’.

1) Where did you get the impression they’re laying people off?

2) Hiring ‘new’ programmers to look at ‘existing’ code would make the process take even longer, since they’d have to orient themselves with the code that the existing programmers know.

The Flame Sword might be Volcanus, in which case, that’s pretty expensive.

Most of the ‘out of the ordinary’ swords are pretty expensive. For example, Foefire’s Essence has exactly the same skin as as the Guardian’s Sword of Justice Spirit weapon, and that has a massive material requirement of Charged Lodestones.

And yes, I’m talking about the Dungeon vendors in Lion’s Arch, all grouped at the south (going through the Mists practically puts you right there).

One thing you could do is use GW2G’s database, copy and paste the Chat Link code (will look like: [&AgE4fAAA]), and then you can preview it.

Arthur.8302:

Raid 8/12 would be cool.

Or, they just got to add elite areas, not linear, awsome armor and 8/12 guys.. awsome new content.

The both of them would be perfect! Yeah i know, i have a dream..

Yeah, I loved Elite Areas, with the massive quest chains, and multiple levels.

They really should bring these back, not to house the biggest, toughest bosses, but just as larger group content.

Define ”awesome”.

What sort of style were you after? What Order are you?

In terms of ‘not really expensive’, Jotun Greatsword is a nice skin to use, if you got any Transmutation Stones.

In terms of Dungeons, Ascalon Catacombs and Citadel of Flame are quite nice too.

Also, there be a Player Helping Player sub-forum, for future reference