Guild Wars 2

SkyShroud.2865:

Tigaseye.2047:

From what I can ascertain (and, admittedly, I am still a little confused…), these changes will be hurting small guilds the most.

Small guild and solo guild are very different.

To begin with, it is absurd that a solo player can get 3/4 of the guild stuffs by themselves. Solo player can even buy their way through. Of course, a lot of people took it for granted but honestly speaking, you don’t actually see such thing happening in another MMO. You don’t really see solo guild in other mmos, to even start a guild, you need to have a number of people to do so.

I solo levelled a guild, in WoW, to max level (when guilds still had levels there).

It took a long time…

But, all I needed was a few friends to sign my guild charter and then leave again.

I have nothing against large guilds and am a member of a couple.

But, we can be a member of 5 guilds, simultaneously, in this game and personal storage is limited, even if you pay to max out your bank tabs (which I already explained I did).

I’m not happy that I can’t, also, have a fully functioning bank guild, without trying to con innocents into slaving for me.

If I run out of space and cannot earn more on my own, I will probably quit, or play a lot less, as space is something that is important to me, in games.

That is all.

SelenaDread.2814:

Gazille.7381:

That’s what expansions do, it adds new content and won’t let people that don’t buy it have access.

You are using to much common sense for this thread, get ready to get yelled at.

I think you will find that common sense involves knowing the difference between expansion and contraction.

Or maybe that is more about English language comprehension?

Either way…

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Tigaseye.2047:

DoctorDing.5890:

Your guild storage is there. Anything in the queue auto-completed. Talk to the guild bank guy in LA in the same place he was yesterday.

Yes, I have my existing guild storage, that is not in question.

What I don’t seem to have (or have any use for, anymore), is the queued upgrade I paid for, for an upgrade to “Architecture”.

This upgrade was required to, subsequently, allow me to purchase a final upgrade to my bank space.

Which it now looks like I won’t be able to earn, on my own?

You have HoT, so you can earn upgrades, but you will have to get a guild hall and access the scribe trainer. Dunno about the Q’d bank upgrade. I lost anything that was not a consumable, my PENDINGs were 24 hr buffs, and they are gone.

Also peeved this was buried here. It is not a HoT issue, it is a normal, core game issue affected by NOT HAVING HoT.

Yes, ITA.

Gazille.7381:

That’s what expansions do, it adds new content and won’t let people that don’t buy it have access.

Expansions shouldn’t remove access to existing, fundamental parts of the game, though.

That is not supposed to be their purpose.

The clue is in the name…

If they want to remove existing stuff, maybe they should call them “contractions” (and watch their customer base numbers plummet)?

Glad to hear it.

They have actual flying in WoW, of course (even though, like the idiots they really can be, they tried to remove it…).

Kind of hard for me to get very excited about gliding, TBH.

I guess it’s better than nothing.

DoctorDing.5890:

Your guild storage is there. Anything in the queue auto-completed. Talk to the guild bank guy in LA in the same place he was yesterday.

Yes, I have my existing guild storage, that is not in question.

What I don’t seem to have (or have any use for, anymore), is the queued upgrade I paid for, for an upgrade to “Architecture”.

This upgrade was required to, subsequently, allow me to purchase a final upgrade to my bank space.

Which it now looks like I won’t be able to earn, on my own?

I’m not very happy, either.

I have a bank guild I was levelling on my own, simply because I would never expect other people to have to work for my storage needs.

I had spent 10,000 on a (queued) upgrade, so I could then get my final storage increase and not only has that just disappeared, but (unless I’m missing something?) it looks like I won’t be able to re-earn it, on my own, at all.

All this will probably be fine for bigger guilds, but the game doesn’t just exist for them, surely?

I have HoT, BTW and have spent £100s on this game, so far, including buying all personal bank slot upgrades and full bag slot upgrades, on two chars, so this really doesn’t feel fair, at all.

SkyShroud.2865:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

10k influence = 50 favor? What kind of math is this, when a banner that cost 200 influence now costs 500 favor?

This is seriously kitten. Expansions should add content and features, not take existing features away.

I Guarantee there will be no HoT purchase from me. Not when you pull this kind of low garbage to sell it.

I enjoyed making banners and sharing them. I enjoyed making upgrades for WvW and my guild catapults.

Now, I can’t make anything. I got 0 initiative refund for all that was taken away. My Guild has a storage chest, and nothing else.

I’m furious.

It isn’t about math. Anet made it clear is to stop large guild from overpowering everything. That is why they even have a favor cap per week.

My guild had 3m, we rushed all consumable and stocked 100 guild cata. Still have 1.8m i think.

From what I can ascertain (and, admittedly, I am still a little confused…), these changes will be hurting small guilds the most.

Paralux.6714:

I thought the idea about the hourglass body (why it is so popular worldwide) was that it’s considered very feminine because of the wide hips (which is a sign if fertility) together with a bigger bust along with the symmetry of the shoulders and hips. First celebs I come to think of is Monroe and Johansson. I’ve never considered the typical hourglass to be a athletic one with less wider hips ane more muscles (if that’s what you mean.) Maybe I’m being conservative, but I think that there’s a certain concept behind that figure, and that is that it’s not meant to be skinny/athletic. Not obese either, but with fat divided symmetrical throughout the body with less around the waist.

Well, in the UK, if your hips are as wide as your shoulders (and especially if they are very rounded), you are generally described as “pear-shaped”.

Basically, bottom-heavy, in terms of measurements, unless you have very large breasts to somewhat balance it out.

What we tend to think of as “hourglass”, is an evenly balanced body, with slightly straighter lower hips (like the shape of an actual hourglass), where the bust and hip measurements are roughly equal.

Except in the case of someone with very large breasts, where the bust measurement may be slightly larger.

…but, let’s not get bogged down in semantics, here.

If you don’t like the term “hourglass”, for what I’m describing, that’s fine.

BTW, I’m also not suggesting a very muscular body, here – “athletic” is just intended as a description of the shape of the hips/thighs.

It is not intended to refer to the amount of muscle mass, or to weight.

Funny.

It doesn’t matter though, we’re all equal as human beings anyway (whatever we do, or don’t do, for a living) and it’s not like he was rude when he banned him, or anything.

Good luck with your job and congrats on the soon-to-be new addition to your family.

Good gaming laptops do cost a small fortune…

Was looking at the Alienware ones and pondering whether to buy one, but with all the customisations it was nearly £2K and knowing me, I will have pretty much “killed” it within 2 years…

£1K per year, just to play games in style, is pretty hard to justify.

Dikeido.8436:

Tigaseye.2047:

Just wondering if it would be possible to add another body type option (or two, depending on how you look at it), for female humans?

Going to call it/them “hourglass” and “athletic” for want of better names.

ATM, we basically have two variations on pear-shaped (at various weight options).

One variation has a small waist and the other has a larger waist.

I’m suggesting a third option, which would (or could) use the existing top halves, waists and upper hips of both of the existing options, but would then have straighter, less rounded, lower hips and slimmer outer thighs.

So, in the case of the existing smaller-waisted options, this would result in an hourglass type figure and in the case of the larger waisted options, it would result in an athletic type figure.

Thanks for your time.

How about Anet just give us the ability to custom our character like how its done in the mmo call black desert. I’m sure most people will jumping for joy if it were to ever happen.

Never tried that, but ESO’s one is pretty good, too.

But, doubt that will ever happen in this game…

Maybe in GW3?

Ardid.7203:

I will be happy just with the plump one having plump boobs. Like typical plump girls in RL…

This is a good point, actually.

It’s good that they also provide bigger body types; but, again, they are both (think there are two?) very pear shaped.

Like all women, pretty much exclusively, put on weight on their hips, thighs and butts and the only way to have bigger boobs (even if you’re not thin/slim) is via breast implants.

It’s a very narrow view, in general.

Obviously, there are far more variations of female body types, in existence, than they could ever hope to implement in-game (without customisation sliders), but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a few more options.

Iarrau.8197:

How about a plea to get a more extensive character customisation. More of everything!
There are people who love spending time fine tuning their character and may or may not want to be a carbon copy of sombody else. Which brings us to the very limited variety of clothing in the game.
Of course there are people who skip in character customisation, name their character something like ‘I Stealth You Die’ and run around in CoF armor spamming profanities. But let us try to forget those exist.
I find the game lacking in options in general when it comes to customisation of how the character can look. In a game where getting the gear you want/need is easy and changing appearance on clothing is easy, it becomes alot more important to not look like everybody else.

Would be nice, but I expect complete customisation options really would be asking too much, at this stage, sadly.

Revolutionen.5693:

kitten no, there’s enough sexualization of human females as there is

I’m not suggesting “sexualising” them further.

Just representing different body types.

Not all women are pear shaped, you know.

ekkue.3754:

I seem to have understood something different from others here as to what the OP is saying.

It sounds to me like she is saying she wants slimmer hips and thighs to balance out the rest of the body? that the models as they are create extremes that are unrealistic.

This is not sexualising, in fact quite the opposite. It is reducing the waist to hip ratio so you don’t get the insane ‘barbie’ figures (or very bottom heavy).

Did I misunderstand?

Exactly.

I’m not really suggesting sexualising, or desexualising them; just offering other body type optons.

Ones that do also exist naturally, IRL, after all.

I’m also kind of surprised that people view anything other than variations of pear shaped as “sexualised”?

…and like you, I would have thought that very curvy bottom halves would be considered, by many, as being more sexual, if anything?

Less curvy lower hips are normally considered to be more “athletic”, than overtly sexual, surely?

Paralux.6714:

First of all, there’s already a bodytype which is 100% hourglass-like. Hourglass means shoulders equally wide as the hips, big bust and curvy bodytype. Apart from the curvy hourglass bodytype, there’s a more skinny hourglass body to choose from. I’ll add pictures of these. Since when are less rounded hips more curvy? >.>

I really like the female bodies you can choose from when creating a character. Of course, as this is a game, they’re a little too perfect but I don’t expect the graphic designers to put those kind of details to the bodies and therefore I don’t mind. They are not all overly big busted (but you can choose from bodes with big bust), they have different waist sizes and are of different weights (it seems like.) There is even variations of the feet and hand sizes.

Pearshaped body means that the hips are wider than the shoulders. Some of the bodies you can choose for human female are pearshaped, but definitely not all of them. Some are more straight (square-shaped.) And then there’s the hourglasshaped. If you want an atlethic looking female sort-of-humanish character, just play as a short norn.

The ones you picture are what I have always considered to be “pear-shaped”.

I live in the UK, though, maybe we have a different view on things?

One of those body types is the one I have chosen, as I prefer the slightly wider shoulders; but, she still has very rounded, curvy lower hips.

Which is fine, but I just think there should be more options than curvy pear, or straighter pear.

I’m surprised this has sparked such controversy, TBH.

BTW, I don’t really want to play a short Norn, as I don’t like that they have virtually no hips at all (especially the upper part).

I’m not trying to remove human hips entirely, I’m just suggesting they provide options with slightly less full lower ones.

Also, I prefer the human racial dance – it’s far more complex and actually corresponds with the music I play in the background.

Chazz.6709:

Well was just saying … But yeah i think your suggestion will be sadly unheard by anet.I mean more variations at character creation are really nice and cool and make every class unique for example now almost every race got almost the same hairstyle ,face and so on … just the skin or well armor makes the diffrent.

Well, I was thinking about your concerns, while doing some EOTM and it did occur to me that it would probably not look realistic to make the existing slimmest body types have this option.

As they are so petite, in terms of their upper body and their wrists and ankles and so on, that this would really make them look too tiny, all over.

This is part of the reason I don’t use the smallest size – as they look so delicate.

I think you should try to maintain some kind of realism and certainly not risk promoting eating disorders, or unrealistic expectations in males…

But, I think it would be OK for the less small sizes.

I hope Anet will listen, if for no other reason that it would (almost certainly) give people more reason to buy their Total Makeover kits!

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maybe there would be a problem with the bodies clipping through the armor if it exceeds the limits that the game has set for the current individual models. If so, all the armor would need to be reset to match, and therefore it would be unlikely we would have new body types.

This I obviously don’t know – maybe…

Although, this suggestion would obviously make the lower hips and outer thighs slightly smaller (not larger).

So, I would have thought it would reduce clipping issues, if anything?

Most of my clipping issues, on human female, have been from things clipping through her lower hips/thighs.

Chazz.6709:

You want to make … male players drooling on their female characters ? and … well … other stuff ? How they should play the game or being focused on other stuff like fractals ?

Um, no?

Also, why would they be drooling over them any more than they are now?

It’s just requesting a third option, for everyone.

Just wondering if it would be possible to add another body type option (or two, depending on how you look at it), for female humans?

Going to call it/them “hourglass” and “athletic” for want of better names.

ATM, we basically have two variations on pear-shaped (at various weight options).

One variation has a small waist and the other has a larger waist.

I’m suggesting a third option, which would (or could) use the existing top halves, waists and upper hips of both of the existing options, but would then have straighter, less rounded, lower hips and slimmer outer thighs.

So, in the case of the existing smaller-waisted options, this would result in an hourglass type figure and in the case of the larger waisted options, it would result in an athletic type figure.

Thanks for your time.

This is partly why I hate stacking and meleeing and the fact that, via their bad design decisions (partly due to bad player “advice”), they have made it pretty much obligatory.

Not to mention that you’re staring at the interior of other people’s toons while you do it…

They should ideally do what you suggest – but, even more importantly, they should just make ranged an equally viable option, again (and ideally, also make buffs group-wide).

As you’re not going to remove the problem of staring at the inside of other people’s toons, while you stack and melee, pretty much whatever you do.

…and some people just prefer playing ranged and that is perfectly OK and should have remained equally viable.

If they want to retain a maximum number of newer players, this is what they will do.

Burning has certainly seemed pretty OP, lately.

BobbyT.7192:

Can we get the zodiac weapons back please, I don’t feel like forking over the cash I could be using to buy a precursor with.

I know.

The longbow costs almost as much as the legendary. :o

Whatever the specific details of where it comes from, in this case, there will almost always be greed involved in businesses that are over a certain size; it’s naïve to think otherwise.

It’s almost irrelevant to wonder where it’s coming from.

If you want more say over what an online games company does, you have to be prepared to pay a sub and then, withhold that sub (and not play), if they do something you really dislike.

As long as you keep logging-on, they will think everything is OK (or OK enough).

Even if you stop buying gemstore stuff with real money, in protest, it won’t help much…

As then, they will just assume that they’re not providing the gemstore stuff you really want to buy and/or that you can’t afford it and/or that they’re rewarding you too much in-game, so you don’t need to open your wallet.

They are even more unlikely to put 2 and 2 together and realise that they’re doing things wrong than they would be in a sub game, where not paying means not playing.

…and even in a sub game, it’s not by any means guaranteed that they will get how the (silent) majority feels.

Especially if there is a loud minority, screaming their baby-like heads off, constantly and giving misinformation, all over the internet.

As there very often seems to be.

It’s a dilemma, frankly.

One would hope that the games companies would, therefore, choose to do the right thing.

But, the larger and more successful they get, the more they seem to lose sight of what exactly that is…

Not only that, but as there is no longer one individual (or small group of individuals) to blame, they no longer seem to really care if they come off as somewhat “evil”.

With the attitude that they will just be viewed as yet another evil corporation, in the long list of evil corporations.

…and in fact, it could almost be viewed as very convenient for the original company, if they join forces in some way with a larger, faceless corporation.

As then all the blame for their greedy and/or unfair decisions can be silently switched to the faceless corporation.

The faceless corporation, of course, doesn’t give two hoots about being blamed (fairly, or unfairly), as it is faceless.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

(Not talking specifically about Anet, here, BTW – more in general.)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

Yeah, people also say stuff like this on the WoW forums, all the time, but what they seem to be missing is that it’s, normally, different people saying different things.

Obviously, if it really was the same people saying contradictory things, all the time, that would be unfair, but it’s not.

Occasionally, it will be the same people, but normally only if the design direction has done a total U-turn, or has swung from one extreme to another.

That’s not to say it’s always easy for developers to strike a balance, but still.

In the case of WoW, they did a remarkable job of pleasing (almost) no one, in WoD.

Only the super-casual and the super-selfish elitists were left, even vaguely, happy.

…and in the latter case, that “happiness” just added further fuel to their elitist fire and made them even more demanding that other people’s part of the game was removed entirely.

Proving I would have thought, once and for all, that you simply shouldn’t strive to please certain people, at all.

But, I digress…

They’re lovely.

I posted before that I think they would look nice (and would be more versatile) with rainbow colours on a black background, but they’re still really pretty as they are.

They work well with the Profane outfit, as it has a piece of fabric, at the back, that sits between the wings and looks a bit like the butterfly’s body.

Forum bug. 15 chars.

The only leather available in-game that is somewhat sexy, without being almost inappropriate (blatant underboob!), or a long coat, is the Sneakthief set.

This “choice” might be OK for a straight man, who is playing a female char, as he will probably like the underboob look; but, for a woman playing a female char, it’s obviously not really an adequate choice, at all.

I hope they will add more plainish, leggings and top/jumpsuit options, that are neither nun-like, nor really overtly sexual.

Light armour is almost worse, in terms of options, though.

As the only non-skirt leggings (that don’t have the bottom half of a heavy jacket over the top of them) are the Profane ones and they have a gap at the top of the thighs with garter straps.

It’s a nice set, in terms of the overall silhouette etc., but I just wish a slightly plainer, more modest version was available, with no thigh gap, or straps.

In both cases, they seem to go from one extreme to the other, in terms of modesty (or lack of it) – we need far more options in between the two.

I want my characters to look streamlined and dynamic (and I guess somewhat “sexy”); but not semi-naked, or dressed in what looks more like underwear.

Kasmeer’s Staff, please.

Now I have the butterfly wings, I feel I “need” it, as the best match for them…

Also, a matching torch and focus for the Princess Wand would be nice, too, as I can’t find anything that really goes with it…

I would assume those should probably be easily available in-game, though, as the wand itself is.

SleepingDragon.1596:

Simple answer is this… If you feel that flipping is violating your game mode, then don’t do it and avoid the trading post if you can. I sometimes feel the pain cause by the flipping, but I admire it and think of it as reality. Supply and demand will always dictate the prices. Those who chose to flip are taking a risk as well. Not every buy or sell makes money. Anet charges a 5% listing fee and 10% sales fee, so some people who failed math flips the item for a loss and didn’t notice it. And by saying every item should be account bound is being a bit ignorant. There are many times I buy items for others and send it to them. By making it account bound, it’ll kill this game and make it pointless.

I doubt very much that making it impossible for people to buy things on the TP and then send them to others would make the game “pointless”.

In fact, it would probably have little to no impact on most people.

The only person I have ever sent anything I bought to was a F2P player I felt a bit sorry for, as they had no dyes, or runes.

So, I relented from my usual position of “trust no one” and sent them a few inexpensive things.

This action probably wouldn’t even be approved of by Anet, as if too many people do what I did, it means that fewer F2P players will bother paying for the full game.

This, presumably, includes people who now have multiple free accounts they send things to, from the only account they paid for?

Drow.2081:

But the title of the thread is Magic Find is a Myth which means we are talking about more than just precursers here. And I agree with OP it’s a very frustrating aspect to this game. I have to class it as “GRIND” along with all that “SALVAGE” we do. Grind grind grind.

Well, if you’re talking about having to deal with constantly full bags and disenchanting endless drops, for only a marginal improvement in your finances, then I would have to agree with you.

But, I doubt magic find is “a myth” – as in, I think it exists and that it does increase your chance of finding better loot.

Otherwise, they would just be straight out lying to their playerbase.

Whether they give out exact percentage chances of the drops involved, or not.

Substance E.4852:

Ill just copypasta my post from the essence of luck eater thread.

Substance E.4852:

CandyHearts.6025:

I had 0% luck. I was on a level 14. I fought Shadow Behemoth. I got exotics.

I learn about magic find. I stack it to 101% and I return to Shadow Behemoth on a level 80 character. Haven’t gotten 1 exotic from him since.

A 100% increase in the drop rate of something that only has a 0.001% of dropping is still only 0.002%.

Even the max of 300% is only 4x the rate. Quadrupling insignificant = only slightly less insignificant.

200% increase only means 3x as likely to drop, not 200x more likely.

Yeah, this is the problem, OP.

The truth is that you were extremely lucky and significantly beat the odds by getting a precursor so soon after starting playing.

Even though you are slightly more likely to get one now than you were then, because the chance is still so low, you’re still extremely unlikely to get another one.

Think of it like this: 0 × 200% is still 0.

…and OK, your chance of getting a pre is not 0, but it’s not that far off.

Whereas, say you have a 5% chance of getting a rare (no idea what the actual % is), a 200% increase of that 5% should mean you get significantly more rares than you did previously.

So, it’s still worth having.

I hate to have to make this topic, as I know complaining will probably just get me criticised and/or advised it’s all my (and/or my equipment’s/connection’s) fault, somehow, but the game is unplayable for me, ATM.

I have always had pretty poor fps and some lag but, starting on Saturday, it’s suddenly got a lot worse (I’m on the NA servers, but located in the UK).

Nothing has changed, at my end – my internet connection is the same and is working fine for everything else and I’m on the same fairly basic (but still fairly new) laptop as usual.

My fps have gone down by about 1/3, across the board and I have horrible skill lag, the occasional crash and just a general feeling of the game running really, really badly (it’s really “jittery”, for want of a better word).

Previously, in EOTM, I was consistently on about 13 fps when just running alone, which then dropped to about 8 or 9 fps when running with a largish zerg and then down to (at worst) about 5 fps when we met an enemy zerg.

I know that sounds pretty bad, but I could just about cope with that, most of the time.

Then suddenly, on Saturday, it dropped to about 9 or 10 fps when running alone, 5 or 6 fps when running with a largish zerg and about 3 or 4 fps when we met an enemy zerg.

…and even just running around in Lion’s Arch I’m now down to about 5 or 6 fps.

It’s awful.

At first, I thought it might be due to it being an especially busy weekend, but it’s early Monday morning in the US now (and early Monday afternoon, here in the UK) and nothing has changed, or improved.

If this had happened gradually, I might have wondered if it was my graphics card, or whatever, but it didn’t; it just, suddenly, dropped off a cliff.

Similarly, if it varied according to time of day, I might blame internet traffic, or whatever; but, it’s exactly the same, now, all the time.

If you have upped the limit of players on maps, or something, I wish you would reconsider.

As I can’t be the only one this is totally ruining the game for.

Yeah, it would be good.

I guess I just assumed that it would be available for males, as well?

The only issue I have with the slider, is that it seems (at least on the preview) to only increase the mid part of the cheek, as opposed to the higher, apple of the cheek (which is quite flat on my char’s face type, anyway).

It looked a bit weird, so I just ended up leaving it at the standard size.

Not entirely sure if it ends up looking like that in-game, as well, or whether it’s only on the preview?

A playable game without terrible lag, horrendous skill lag, fps normally associated with zerg vs zerg when you’re not even facing an enemy zerg, crashing…

Which is what I have been experiencing last night and this morning.

jia li ng.8415:

I completely agree with the Gem Store issue .. I could list numerous MMO’s the have Cash shops that don’t limit or rotate items from their inventory .. They just add more and more stuff you want or feel you need .. making items limited leaves you wanting ..

The same is true with the weapon skins, why make them so exclusive and eliminate options, and then have players selling the skins for thousands of gold .. I don’t play to make other players even more wealthy so they can manipulate the market .. Seriously.

ITA.

Although, thinking about it, how do you actually know it’s players selling most of that stuff for thousands?

Could be, at least partly, Anet themselves, for all you (or I) know.

Having said that, they have at least brought some of the older stuff back, but at a cost of anything up to 5 tickets each, as opposed to the original 1 (presumably).

Which actually points to what I’m alluding to, which is that Anet themselves would appear to be trying to profiteer off this completely artificial “exclusivity” they have created.

I guess it’s still better than not bringing the items back at all, but still…

Eggshells.1748:

Remove stealth from any class that isn’t a thief.

Terrible idea.

No offence to the nicer PVP/WvW thief players (I’m sure they must exist?), but you already have all the worst (as in, the would-be serial killers) kind of people using thief and newer players and classes like Ranger, are their constant prey.

People can try to say that anti-stealth measures, like sic’em, are somehow equal to untargeted stealth, or imply that 3 secs of solely targeted stealth, on a significant CD, is of any real worth in WvW, as much as they like.

The truth is that Rangers are called “free bags”, in WvW, for good reason and making thieves the only stealth users would just exacerbate that situation even further.

This is why I say “If you can’t (or shouldn’t) beat them, join them.”.

Give more classes untargeted stealth.

Either that, or just remove all stealth from everyone and let highly unpleasant classes, like thief (and to a lesser extent, Mesmer), die a natural death (or evolve entirely).

The main reason I am against the latter idea, is because I really, really, don’t want to be put in the position where I am forced to fight every single person I meet (and who decides they want to attack me), while running to catch up with the zerg.

This is exactly why I switched to Mesmer – so, I could avoid constant combat.

Bezagron.7352:

Tigaseye.2047:

I would go the other way.

Give more classes decent, untargeted stealth.

Ranger should definitely have it, for a start…

The only classes that shouldn’t have it (or shouldn’t have much of it) are heavy armour, potentially tanky classes.

If necessary, for balance, make it impossible for some classes to attack from stealth (so, it’s just defensive, not offensive).

That way, it’s fairer all around, without removing/nerfing it as a mechanic for its existing users.

Thanks quite interesting, but I wonder how much of a nerf is knowing a general location for the bonus of the ability to bait movement. I wouldn’t mind more stealth but only if you could achieve some greater positive feedback for the stealthed components of the battles.

I do like the idea of a type of stealth that can only be used to reposition & not attack, but how to you stop burst, control attacks straight after un-stealthing.

Well, I think the problem is that, if you even know a general location, it’s going to seriously reduce stealth’s effectiveness, especially in a WvW type of situation.

Clothies and leather wearers are already at a serious disadvantage in heavy AOE, zerg-type conditions and the call from the commander is very often to just get off them and onto your heavy armour classes.

Take away stealth, or even just give a general idea of the location of the stealther and you are making these classes even less viable.

TBH, if you’re going to do that, you pretty much might as well just dump them as classes altogether and make everything a variation of a heavy armour class.

Either literally, or in some other way, in terms of automatic levels of passive protection.

Which, I guess would be another solution.

On the other hand, allowing thieves to attack, serial-killer style, from stealth, from behind and then stealth again and either attack again, or run away (whichever takes their fancy!), with very little you can do about it (as a non-stealth, non-heavy armour class) is also very far from ideal.

I think, especially as a light or medium armour class, you should have the means to at least avoid that kind of highly disturbing, repeated attack, if you want to.

Giving decent, untargeted stealth to other classes would achieve that, without having to remove thieves from the game entirely, or reduce the effectiveness of their stealth to such an extent that you might as well remove them (and Mesmers).

Thieves and Mesmers would just, then, have to get used to the fact that, after their initial attack, someone in light/medium armour might choose to stealth to avoid them, rather than being attacked further, or trying to fight something they simply cannot see.

Much as Thieves and Mesmers can themselves, currently, choose to hide from others, after being attacked, if they want.

As far as a defence stealth-only class attacking, immediately after de-stealthing, is concerned, that is something someone could obviously choose to do.

However, that would either require an extra click (if you could choose to de-stealth at will) and would put that stealth ability on a longer CD, or it would require waiting for the stealth ability to expire naturally, meaning it would be pretty awkward to do, timing wise.

You could, presumably, even stick a short CD on offensive attacks, after stealth was intentionally de-activated by the user, if you wanted to?

TBH, though, I don’t even know how necessary defensive-only stealth would be, anyway?

As, as far as Ranger goes anyway, I don’t really feel that it being able to attack from stealth would be any worse than Thief, or Mesmer, currently being able to do so.

I guess Ranger knocking-back off a cliff, or Necro fearing from stealth, would be a no-no.

So, those type of attacks should almost certainly be off-limits while stealthed.

But, regular, DPS-type attacks? Not so sure.

TBH, I really only suggested totally defensive-only stealth (as opposed to regular stealth) as a possible solution, if it was deemed to be absolutely necessary.

As defensive-only stealth would still be better than nothing, at least.

I would go the other way.

Give more classes decent, untargeted stealth.

Ranger should definitely have it, for a start…

The only classes that shouldn’t have it (or shouldn’t have much of it) are heavy armour, potentially tanky classes.

If necessary, for balance, make it impossible for some classes to attack from stealth (so, it’s just defensive, not offensive).

That way, it’s fairer all around, without removing/nerfing it as a mechanic for its existing users.

From what I gather, it’s this simple:

If you’re uncomplicated in your tastes and like standing around all the time, waiting to fear people off bridges, in EOTM, play Necro.

For (pretty much) everything else, there’s Mesmer.

I can’t stand crafting, in games.

I tool a deep breath and did it, in WoW, when it gave prof bonuses and I felt the game itself was pretty solid; but I just can’t get the impetus up in this game.

A game which I feel has too many other, ongoing, issues.

I just haven’t bothered.

I suppose I may do, eventually, but it is extremely off-putting.

Especially if you only do WvW.

It’s, basically, the same amount as I’ve spent on everything else I have bought, with real money, so far.

For one weap…

Not only that, but the complicated nature of the “recipe” puts me to sleep, every time I look at it on the wiki.

It’s bad enough having a complicated job, without unnecessary complications, in games.

I think you meant to say; “Irenio, the Changer of the Forgotten Huntsmen”.

Because Druids are not Rangers/Hunters.

They are something else entirely.

They may turn out to be good, or they may turn out to be bad, but they are definitely not huntsmen.

“Forgotten Huntsmen” is (still) about right.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

If your pet is dead…
SWAP PETS.
Ranger is about pet-management, like it or not. That isn’t going away, ever. However, rangers being able to ignore any cc infinitely on a 10 second ICD regardless of the fact that the pet can be dead, and therefore there is no downside to taking the trait.
Anybody defending this bug or insulting me with false xenophobic statements is frankly delusional, because this isn’t working as intended.

It is about pet management, to an extent, but sadly pets die almost immediately in most cases and pet swap has a long CD, even with the trait.

This leaves the Ranger, which is already a sub-par class compared with pretty much all other classes, with a drop in DPS and an even less defence than usual.

I honestly don’t get what people, who don’t play the class, want from Rangers?

As I say, I’ve already given up on the class here, even though I mained a Hunter in WoW and had about 8 of them at max level, at one point.

Will you and your ilk honestly not be happy until no one plays Ranger, except a few confused new players?

Because that is what it looks like.

Sandzibar.5134:

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

If your pet is dead…
SWAP PETS.
Ranger is about pet-management, like it or not. That isn’t going away, ever. However, rangers being able to ignore any cc infinitely on a 10 second ICD regardless of the fact that the pet can be dead, and therefore there is no downside to taking the trait.
Anybody defending this bug or insulting me with false xenophobic statements is frankly delusional, because this isn’t working as intended.

The Frack.

60 second.

Its on a 60 second cooldown. Where the hell are you getting 10sec ICD from?

Sounds like you’re the one being delusional now mate.

60 seconds is a lifetime in PvP. Have you seen the stability uptime other classes have access to btw?

Quite.

I totally agree with you re. Rangers using bows.

Unfortunately though, I found shortbow really disappointing and pretty much never see any Ranger using one, in WvW/EOTM, let alone in PVE.

This really needs to change.

Some kind of bow.

Shortbow, crossbow – I don’t really mind.

I would just like ranged/ranged to, once again, be as viable/optimal as ranged/melee, or melee/melee.

…and in fact, I would like this to happen regardless of elite specialisation.

Oh and also, untargeted stealth.

Ranger should be able to blend in with the environment.

Vendetta.1958:

ShadowKain.9410:

Vendetta.1958:

I’m a straight PvP player / WvW roamer. Druid is precisely what we needed in our profession toolset.

We always lacked meaningful team support/utility, and now we have it.

Druid has some bugs, and some skills that aren’t perfect (vine surge, unity glyph) but this is a step forward for our profession, and I think that it is a very well thought out elite spec.

I see alot of people complaining that druid is too support-ey and lacks damage. I understand where those people are coming from, but as Irenio said, if you’re looking for heavy offense, you probably shouldn’t be running the Druid spec.

Elite specs are supposed to open up new combat options and playstyles for that class (see druid, scrapper and dragonhunter) not be flat out upgrades to the class (see reaper and herald)

This is constantly re-hashed on the forums, however, take a look at turnout for the Elite Specs. Player favorites are Revenant, Reaper, Daredevil, and Tempest.

Of these, Revenant is its own class, and therefore irrelevant in the Elite Spec “purpose” discussion. Reaper is not a new combat option/playstyle for the Necromancer. Thematically, Necromancers have always been aggressive and already have two weapon sets designed for up-close combat. Even since GW1, Necromancer was a favorite among melee classes and other damage-dealers for it’s dark magic damage and life-stealing ability. Reaper is not a new playstyle, it is an expansion on the class and it’s already existing capabilities. Daredevil is almost entirely dodge-mechanic focused, again expanding on the pre-existing playstyle of the Thief class. Tempest is a PBAoE Elementalist with animation flair, but more-or-less the same in regards to overall playstyle.

The rest of the Elite specializations are either largely marginalized and considered relatively mediocre, or polarizing in nature, such as the Druid – which ham-handedly forces an entirely new playstyle on the Ranger that has virtually zero synergy with the other trait lines. With a small minority loving it, a small (but larger than the first) crowd that absolutely hates it, and a majority that are ambivalent but agree the class needs re-working.

At it’s announcement, Anet made it a point to mention Druid early alongside HoT, making it clear that the Druid would be plant-based, not Celestial with only one plant-based skill, the vine attack from the trailer, a re-skinned Earth Ele Eruption, and a terrible pustule plant proc.

Returning the Druid to what it had been announced as, and turning it into a truly plant-based spec that enhances and expands the class as a whole (like the other specs) is what Rangers desperately need.

Save the Celestial mechanics for a future class, because I am genuinely a fan of the Celestial theme and skills. Just not for use on a Ranger Spec – they do not fit.

There’s a ton of fluff in that post.

I predicted exactly what Druid would be 4 months ago, with the only clues being that it was called ‘Druid’ and wielded a staff, simply by looking at our core traitlines and asking myself what we are missing.

Again, as my original post quite clearly stated – elite specs are not supposed to ‘fit’ the stereotypical gameplay of the class. They are supposed to, as you quite aptly put it, expand.

Elite specs are supposed to expand a class, but they are also supposed to fit with the existing theme of that class.

Ranger and Druid are two separate things.

One is “one who ranges, or roves” (essentially), in terms of what the word means, or more specifically a hunter, or archer, with a pet, in terms of how the class was originally designed to function and the other is a priest, magician, or soothsayer from the .Celtic religion.

How do these two themes have anything in common?

How are Druids rangers?

They’re both thought of as being close to nature, I guess, but what else?

If they want to put two separate themes into one class, that is up to them, but it is confusing and will, of course, feel more like they have just given up on improving the initial premise of the class and have decided to change it, instead.

Naturally, lot of people, who chose Ranger for what it is/was, won’t like that.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Not only that, but they cannot even open their eyes wide enough to see all the other builds that Druid can run and be effective at. This is how you know they are utterly hopeless Rangers.

That is hugely unfair.

Ranger and Druid are not the same thing.

They might not be good Druids, but they didn’t pick a Druid class; they picked Ranger.

…and you can’t say they’re “hopeless Rangers”, just because they’re not interested in (now) being Druids!

They just want to be Rangers.

Most of them just want to use bows and do DPS and what is wrong with that?

Nothing.

…and if there is anything wrong with it, due to ranged being sub-optimal and other problems, that is a (huge) failing of the game design; not them.

Totally unfair.

I don’t play Ranger anymore, even though I would love to, because it’s so ridiculously rubbish compared with my second choice of class (and most/all of the others, from what I keep hearing).

Rangers are frequently called “rallybots” and “free bags” in WvW.

So, the idea that anyone could think anything needs nerfing about Ranger just leaves me feeling totally incredulous.

Some people just want an even freer bag, I guess?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Make astral force a thing for every ranger player (stay with me if you don’t want to heal all the time in this matter).

I didn’t play the Beta.

If I could have just copied an existing character, I probably would have, but I couldn’t be bothered to make a new char to test their game for them, for free.

So, I can’t really comment on all the details; but, I will say that I don’t think adding Astral Force to core Ranger would sit well.

Rangers are supposed to be earthy and real.

They’re not supposed to be a strongly magic class, in theme.

They may have some magical aspects to their attacks and abilities but, thematically, they are not supposed to be powered by magic.

For the players who already struggle to understand the odd blend of Ranger and Druid, here, I think that would be more than a step too far.

.

Ehecatl.9172:

Tigaseye.2047:

Ehecatl.9172:

Core ranger is…..still functional without the druid trait line.

It’s not for a lot of people, though.

That’s the problem.

It’s unintuitive and kind of sketchily designed and has all sorts of existing issues that never seem to be tackled.

Ranger players are also treated really, really badly, by other players.

Basically, because they (apparently) think we are idiots for choosing/sticking to what they consider to be a bad class!

Kind of like being treated badly, on the road, because you supposedly chose the wrong brand of car, or something.

It’s not something most adults would do, but many of the players of games will do all sorts of things most adults wouldn’t do, unfortunately…

So, the class needs to be solid, even if some people can cope with its foibles, just to convince other players that we’re not idiots for choosing it (if you see what I mean?).

This used to be the case in WoW, as well, when Hunters were more like the Rangers in this game.

Then they made some changes and the only people still saying that stuff, there, are imports from other games (this one maybe?) and/or people who haven’t played WoW for years and are still stuck in the past.

This game needs to look to what they did there, with Hunter in MoP, because GW2 Ranger is far too much like the clunky, old school, WoW Hunter.

My point was that druid is an addition to ranger, not a core aspect of it that you absolutely need to take to play it.

Core ranger still has problems, certainly. But the elite spec wasn’t going to be a straight upgrade that fixed core ranger’s problems. In fact it shouldn’t be. Ranger needs to be improved. It needs it’s traits and utilities improved as well as some tweaks to certain under performing weapons. Adding an elite spec that fills the same role core ranger fills would only serve to make core ranger worse by comparison.

In an ideal world ranger and druid would be taken in the same group for providing different benefits. Ranger would provide good DPS while druid provides healing support. To use your WoW comparison, ranger is feral druid while druid is resto. Both are viable but fill different roles in a raid and/or pvp team.

But if the elite spec was just a straight upgrade to ranger DPS there’d be no point in anyone ever using ranger, and that would be sad.

I agree with you, in general, but basic Ranger is, clearly, not Feral Druid.

Ranger is, clearly, Hunter.

Anyone who plays/played WoW would tell you that.

Hunters coming from WoW will choose Ranger as an equivalent class, here – Druids won’t (or wouldn’t have, prior to this).

That is why a Druid healer spec seems such a weird choice.

I suppose what I was trying to say is that, as a developer, you shouldn’t even be asked to add fancy, “Elite” specs, when you haven’t even made sure your core classes function properly.

That “Elite” specs should be the icing, on an already pretty perfect cake.

Not as an attempt to cover-up and distract the eye from the hollow mess of a cake, underneath and not as a way to make one class you can’t, or don’t want to, deal with into another.

“Come, eat our lovely icing!!! Just ignore the cake – you were never here for the cake, right? Right…?”.

It’s a mistake, IMO.

Most people are (or were) here for the cake.

If they wanted Druids, they probably should have added a separate Druid class and if they wanted healing Rangers, they should have done something appropriate to the class (like healing bows, or something) and only after making sure core Ranger worked properly.

Ehecatl.9172:

Core ranger is…..still functional without the druid trait line.

It’s not for a lot of people, though.

That’s the problem.

It’s unintuitive and kind of sketchily designed and has all sorts of existing issues that never seem to be tackled.

Ranger players are also treated really, really badly, by other players.

Basically, because they (apparently) think we are idiots for choosing/sticking to what they consider to be a bad class!

Kind of like being treated badly, on the road, because you supposedly chose the wrong brand of car, or something.

It’s not something most adults would do, but many of the players of games will do all sorts of things most adults wouldn’t do, unfortunately…

So, the class needs to be solid, even if some people can cope with its foibles, just to convince other players that we’re not idiots for choosing it (if you see what I mean?).

This used to be the case in WoW, as well, when Hunters were more like the Rangers in this game.

Then they made some changes and the only people still saying that stuff, there, are imports from other games (this one maybe?) and/or people who haven’t played WoW for years and are still stuck in the past.

This game needs to look to what they did there, with Hunter in MoP, because GW2 Ranger is far too much like the clunky, old school, WoW Hunter.

stale.9785:

Title has it all.

Dedicated healer, in a game that doesn’t need dedicated healers.

Another ranged weapon, to go with our 3 pre-existing ones.

We’re still shackled to pets, which are still a fail mechanic.

I’ve got nothing. Shaking my head here.

Well, they seem to think dedicated healers might be needed in raids…

Ranged weapons, in themselves, are not a bad thing and are totally appropriate for a Ranger class.

What is bad (leaving out the healing aspect, for a sec), is that they are inferior, in terms of damage output, compared with their melee counterparts.

If that was not the case, there would be no issue with them.

However, what I do think is weird, is just chucking a healing Druid spec onto Ranger, period.

To me, the two simply don’t go together naturally, at all.

I’m pro the idea of a healing Ranger/Hunter spec, in a game that needs healers, but I never envisaged it using a staff, or being called a Druid.

So, even if it turns out that healing is useful and even if Anet once again accept that ranged does not have to mean inferior DPS (with the appropriate changes) and even if you like the idea of a healing Ranger, you’re still left with this rather weird seeming combination of classes.

As for pets – I think a lot of people chose Ranger for the pet, so it would be wrong to remove them.

I would say give the option to not use them – but the problem is, assuming that option is automatically better (as it probably would be), where does that leave the people who like pets?

Forced to not use them, or switch class?

They should, really, just put in the work to improve pets and change certain, very restrictive, mechanics within the game, which both work against pets (such as the short range of buffs etc.) and also, cause a load of other problems within the game.

Well, my point was, that Druid (the new Ranger spec) seems a far worse fit for Ranger, than Warlock spec would be for Necro and yet, they still did it.

WoW Druids and Hunters (the WoW equivalent of Rangers) have pretty much nothing in common (not even armour type, at mid level onwards).

So, I just thought that, if they’re prepared to shove (healing) Druid onto Ranger, like that, they would probably think they had even more reason to do the same with Warlock and Necro (if they added Warlock, at all).

That’s assuming that you think of Necro as the nearest equivalent GW2 class to WoW Warlock (as I think most do?), obviously.

Not saying it’s right (I wouldn’t mind if they added a Warlock class as well) just that it would seem more likely that they would do that, if they did anything.

Yeah, it’s weird.

I’ve noticed that something says “only 17 hours left” (or whatever) and then, I’ve logged back on about 10, or 11, hours later and it’s already gone…

I wonder whether sometimes the times are a bit off, or maybe it’s because I’m in the UK and it’s reading the time wrong, somehow?

Nick.6972:

So is the entire game being removed with the addition of Raids?
From what I understand all open world maps, events, jumping puzzles etc. will be removed and replaced with Raids.
After the release of HoT, Raids will be the only content type in GW2.
Furthermore, from what I heard and read, players who don’t own an ascended set will be disabled from forming their own parties to do the Raids.

That’s really unfortunate.

The point is, that if the dev team is mainly focussing on non queue-able raid content, for the small percentage of people who tend to participate in that kind of stuff, they will, obviously, have less time and resources to spend on the rest of the game, in future.

Thus, it becomes the majority of the players, effectively, paying for content done only by the few.

This is exactly what happened in WoW, pre-LFR (and even post-LFR, now they have trivialised it and its rewards) and is what people are now expecting from GW2.

Forum bug? 15 chars.