Guild Wars 2

Sylosi.6503:

Anyone who plays a thief knows AoE is not a counter. When I WvW on my thief, the chance of one guy hitting me enough times with AoE attacks is very small, even if I am crippled or chilled. The only counter to stealth in this game is hard CC (stun/immoblize) followed by immediate burst damage (assuming shadowstep is on cooldown or not equipped), however as a counter it is weak and unbalanced, many builds lack the burst damage, many lack even hard CC or those that do have it, have it on longish cooldowns and it can be broken by shadowstep or dodged (often easily , things like engy netshot)

The thief stealth design in this game is the worst peice of OP garbage I have ever seen (in regard to WvW):

- You can’t be knocked out of stealth by damage.
- You are not prevented from stealthing by damage.
- You have multiple in-combat stealths, in most games you get 1 on a long cooldwon 2/3 mins.
- No class has stealth detection.

When you combine that with how the game plays thief for you, e.g – teleports to target, teleports you out of danger, so even if a player is constantly moving it is very easy for the theif to get right next to them, you have possibly the worst class design ever.

Yeah, except Stealth breaks when you attack and you don’t avoid damage when Stealthed so someone who is aware of how to fight a Stealthed opponent (especially a Thief) can still fight back.

Seriously, this comes up quite often about how the Thief is broken due to Stealth and immense spikes of damage but there’s a lot of help out there describing how to take care of this. You can ask Reddit and they’ll provide, and there possibly can be people on this forum who know how if you ask on the “Players helping Players” subforum. You may have to be patient for an answer and sift through the chaff but you can find help.

In WvW I handle someone trying to kill me out of Stealth by trying to avoid the damage as much as I can and looking for somewhere . . . anywhere . . . I can get away. It’s really only a major problem if you’re running alone. You shouldn’t be alone in WvW. Unless you’re a stealthy backstabbing Badge-grubbing lil thief asura.

The guy was also backed with materials by a guild, if I recall right. They did it largely to see if it was possible, and the end verdict was “possible, but exceedingly reliant on others”.

Then . . . I’d like to point out it’s a good idea to prevent new members from getting in the stash and Trove, and only people you TRUST getting access to the Trove.

. . . wait I’ve had this discussion before, and heard it even more recently. Something about spaceships and valuable blueprints . . . nah, must be misremembering.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

kRiza krimos.1637:

So thief should be only class who’s unique ability should have counter? Thats sounds fair. How about we give everybody banish skill that can remove rangers pet for awhile? Or we give every class adrenaline drain ability? I could go on with this…

You’re describing Guild Wars 1.

- Anti-minion spells for Necromancers.
- Anti-spirit spells for Rangers and Ritualists
- Anti-Adrenaline Hexes for Warriors and later Dervishes.
- Silence skill for Paragons and Warriors.
- Energy-drain spells for . . . just about everyone, really, but mostly Elementalists and Monks.
- Enchantment disruption for Monks.
- Blind for any class relying on hitting in melee.

Yes and this is gw2. Difference is obvious.

I’ll also note a lot of those skills were highly conditional in use, as in, you really only tapped into most of them for certain outings. And there was the obvious problem with taking one or more of these skills/spells; that the skill wasn’t useful if you happened not to be facing what it countered.

GW2, however, you can change skills so long as you’re not tagged for combat, while GW1 you can only change before you leave town. A bit more flexibility means a skill to counter Stealth even if it did that alone can be slotted in with short notice as opposed to before you go out.

If there was a bundle item? Maybe. A fixed-location revelation weapon? Possibly. Skill? I’d say that’d be overkill.

Odd question, since I haven’t fooled with permissions. But can’t you segregate access to the Guild Stash versus the Treasure Trove? Keep the valuable stuff in the Trove and only officers/leaders can access it, and use the Stash for every-day things?

GuzziHero.2467:

blinkblinx

What?

A thief’s standard heal, Hide in Shadows, cures bleeding, poison and burning

Why are people struggling with a poisoner?

I might make another thief, JUST to try this. If I recall correctly, my first time round (as a noob to GW2 and to all MMOs) I was downed, retried from checkpoint, and finished it second try.

The other thread about this quest was about a thief having the trouble. Hide in Shadows is one thing, “Prayer to Kormir” also dumps 3 conditions. I’ve not yet played a thief but I’m seriously considering it at this point.

kRiza krimos.1637:

So thief should be only class who’s unique ability should have counter? Thats sounds fair. How about we give everybody banish skill that can remove rangers pet for awhile? Or we give every class adrenaline drain ability? I could go on with this…

You’re describing Guild Wars 1.

- Anti-minion spells for Necromancers.
- Anti-spirit spells for Rangers and Ritualists
- Anti-Adrenaline Hexes for Warriors and later Dervishes.
- Silence skill for Paragons and Warriors.
- Energy-drain spells for . . . just about everyone, really, but mostly Elementalists and Monks.
- Enchantment disruption for Monks.
- Blind for any class relying on hitting in melee.

Wanderer.3248:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

A small note: Crafting becomes more significantly profitable when you’re not buying your materials.

People who don’t understand opportunity cost is the other reason crafting is unprofitable.

I understand opportunity cost just fine. But as I posted, I don’t like essentially running economic review subroutines in my head when I’m playing my game.

“So I can salvage this blue worth 89 Copper and get one to three Mithril Ore or one to two Elder Wood Log, or one Orichalcum, or one Ancient Wood Log. The Mithril Ore will be worth 40 Copper each, the Orichalcum about 75, the Elder around 35 each, and the Ancient around 50 . . . so hmm, if I salvage it and get the most Mithril I’ll get the better value but what if I get one instead? Should I salvage it knowing it’s likely I will lose 2/3 of the value . . . or sell it and take the guaranteed . . . "

Yeah, no, I salvage it or sell it based on whatever I feel like doing at the time. (shrug) I don’t play this game to wring every little copper I can out of the drops, I play this game to relax.

Also, the value of all the materials is usually pretty fluid and pointless to look at except for Tier 3-6 Fine materials and Tier 6 standard materials. Technically, it’s not worth the time or the effort to get anything else if you count all potential opportunity costs.

But then, if you want to really count opportunity costs? It’s not worth your time to be playing video games when you could be making money in the real world.

I don’t have considerable problems with stealth. I have considerable problems with what happens after someone LEAVES stealth

bluewanders.5297:

I can say something similar to you by intoning that you must never have been in a position of responsibility where you had to both interact with customers, as well as make decisions that would affect your product.

So few (in comparison to sample size) have been in that kind of position, or been responsible for a balancing act, that a lot of people just don’t think about it. This isn’t an attack, or an insult, it’s just how it is.

“It’s an interesting point, which deserves to be looked into” is a polite wrapper around several different possible phrases:

- “Huh, I hadn’t thought about that.”
- “We’re aware you think it’s a problem, we don’t see it, so it’s interesting you think it’s an issue. What are we missing?”
- “We would love to look into it, but we neither have the time nor resources to devote to doing more than poking at it with a stick in our off-time.”
- “We’ve already noticed it but haven’t come up with an actual solution yet.”
- “It’s an interesting point you make, and it should be looked into.”

GuzziHero.2467:

Well, I took an ele (a class I suck at) and equipped 2 Cure Condition utilities.

I sat back and Quinn solo’d her.

Actually, in all seriousness, I only had to use one of the CCs and finished her off first time. I agree it does take some preparation to think of using a CC (and this game really needs a tutorial…) but she went down much easier than Pete in the same story or Riot Alice in the story where you fight her in the hideout.

This is good to read and useful information.

. . . but most of the problems are being had with a Thief.

Oreoz.2573:

Heijincks.9267:

Let’s see. 36500 influence is needed to get Art of War 5.

The conversion between gold and influence is exactly 20c/influence.

So in other words, to get 36,500 influence, it costs exactly 730,000 coppers which is 73 gold.

Let’s assume we have here a very small guild. 5 active members.

If each pays their equivalent share of work, that would be ~15g per person. That’s not a lot. 3 CoF path 1 runs already generates ~2 gold/person and only takes half an hour.

Personally, I’d pay that much for the content I will receive. In game speaking of course.

yeah I really can’t justify paying 15 of my hard earned gold to play a mission that’s probably gonna take 10 minutes and, given the sorry state of rewards in this game, will compensate you little to nothing at all.

Cheaper waypoint costs means nothing to the person who realizes a simple dungeon takes care of any and all WP costs for that day, and then some.

So 73 gold? Each guild participant best get an ascended piece of their choosing then. No? Then I’ll hold on to my money thanks.

Dropping in again to say that the reaction in my guild so far has been mixed until I pointed out you can buy Influence with coin. Then the attention turned to “so now we pool our gold…” which was better than the “well, we can wait it out I guess”.

Yeah, my guild’s a little crazy We just enjoy playing the game.

Gomoratoad.9867:

^Yeah, same. People seem to focus on the “I’ve decided to call it Fort Trinity” line, while completely forgetting all the times the NPCs (Trahearne included) tell you how awesome you are. He makes it very clear that he considers you a friend and appreciates your help.

I played that mission a long time ago, but what I remember is that he asked you for advice on a name, and then turned around to the three order leaders who were still sort of growling at each other and said it to assert authority and keep them from laying into each other. Because, remember, your character is a member of one order . . . if “the Commander came up with the name” was said, then one of the orders then had a reason to think they were above the others in importance.

Ain’t politics grand . . .

There’s a good reason I don’t count the value of every piece of Mithril or Orichalcum Ore I dig up. Or try to weigh the value of one against a blue item I’m about to salvage. Well there are two good reasons, but you folk won’t like either of them.

1) I find it less fun to constantly and consistently crunch numbers looking for the way to eke out a few extra copper or maybe even a silver when I can pull in a couple gold. For reference, spending three hours running around Orr being active in killing things as I run through and taking part in events? I made roughly 1.5 gold and then stopped because I was satisfied.
If I were to sit down and figure out the value of every item salvaged against the value of the item, then figure out the value of the materials versus using them, I’d add an extra hour to my playtime which isn’t fun, is tedious work, and will reliably lead me to the conclusion I already am at: “it’s not profitable to sell this ore/wood/cloth at this time”.

2) I have a known . . . thing. And it’s kept with me since way back in the days I picked up my first RPG. See, if I think an item might possibly be of some use down the line I’ll keep it instead of getting rid of it or using it. It’s led to many a cramped inventory, and it makes me unhappy if I’m forced to throw out or use up items which I might still get use out of. To use a more common ground? This is why I have so many Elixirs at the end of a Final Fantasy game and never . . . use . . . any of them.
By extension, in an MMO I’ve found that in a shifting market I’m terrible about picking times to sell. I sell too early because the deal feels on the edge of “too good to be true” only to watch the item skyrocket in price. Or I decide to hold it for just a little more and watch the value plummet like a stone.
Because of the these two experiences I use materials rather than sell them, since their value to me is always a set amount. I don’t consider them valuable because I have no interest in selling them . . . if I don’t intend on selling them then what does it matter what the market would pay?

I am still waiting for examples of where Trahearne takes away your glory.

Khisanth.2948:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

A small note: Crafting becomes more significantly profitable when you’re not buying your materials.

Does that take into account the money you could have gotten if you just sold the raw materials?

Why should it? I don’t take into account the value of armor/weapons I wind up using when I calculate how much loot I earned in a day.

bluewanders.5297:

This entire debate probably would have never happened if the launch content were gated behind level 5 in economy. It doesn’t belong there either, by the way… not the first ever available content for guilds to do that is specifically for guilds to do… sure later content can go wherever… but launch content should never exclude people when there are reward systems attached to it.

I’m staying out of the debate other than to drop that post off that you quoted for input purposes. My full opinion on this matter isn’t wanted, needed, or popular enough to warrant giving

I’d much rather just sit back and enjoy my Saturday.

Honestly? I expect my guild to do more WvW since a fair portion of them are enjoying poking at it with a long stick currently and finding it’s not distasteful

Chaos? Meh, I think that’s overselling it . . . I’m wagering guilds who are interested are lining up for Art of War right now, or are making plans on how to achieve it. Those who aren’t . . . won’t bother. Kind of like the response to Fractals I saw going on.

Slalom.3174:

Let’s not decide for other players what is best for them… just point out the options and let them play how they wish.

Indeed . . . though I just was putting that post there to caution away from throwing all money into Gems prematurely Having lots of bag space is awesome. Having no money and lots of bag space isn’t as awesome.

To the OP, what server are you on? I might be able to help you get started with some bigger bags when I go to upgrade my alts.

Tachenon.5270:

Certain things can change a lot in 250 years – buildings, even towns and cities, can be built or torn down, forests can be destroyed or burned or arise in areas no longer cultivated/tended, and in some areas there might be dramatic changes in shorelines – but the underlying terrain, the ‘lay of the land’ shouldn’t change.

It might change, especially with natural disasters (or unnatural dragon-related ones) taking place. I could expect if a dam was put up over a river then the difference would be significant to the area downriver.

This is all academic, even if it’s interesting to conjecture. The changes to terrain which are of more extreme magnitude have been explained as a dragon did it

Odd thought, please disregard if it sounds like it’s stupid.

- Ill-prepared small guilds can’t start Guild Bounty, but can find a ready guild to go do the events on.
- They’re ill-prepared to start because of Influence cost and time, presumably?
- By getting the whole small guild together in one spot to do the event, they earn Influence at an already-inflated rate. Thus, they earn more Influence faster for participating even if they don’t earn these Merits.
- If they participate enough, they can afford the upgrades and wait out the 2 weeks of build time to get there. I’m fairly certain 2 weeks is a conservative amount, I don’t know for sure.
- BY participating, they know what to expect and thus when it’s their turn they are more capable of doing it. They find another small guild to invite along . . . and thus help someone else start climbing the ladder.

A small note: Crafting becomes more significantly profitable when you’re not buying your materials.

Slalom.3174:

On your Inventory panel left side are shown your various bags. The padlock at the bottom of the list indicates you can buy more Bag Slots.

It looks like to can buy 3 more slots (total. Same for bank slots.

400 Gems per bag slot; there is a current sale 20% off.

I don’t think more bags would be as good a solution as bags 100%+ bigger than what she’s got now. THOUGH if you are interested in bag slots or bank slots, indeed, now is the time to go get them. Before the Gem prices spike up.

Conner.4702:

The problem gauging the playerbase in GW2 is simple. In pretty much every other Themepark MMO you have a lot of people at the start and the majority at the end with a desolate middle. This is not the case in GW2 due to downscaling. Any zone is relevant for a level 80 character. This means people will be a lot more spread out instead of in 4-5 areas as it is in other Themepark MMOs.

Furthermore with the game not having a subscription fee, some people feel less inclined to log in to get their monies worth. They still play but might skip an evening here and there.

This just makes it hard to say if the population is going down or not. It feels like the population is down, but without solid numbers to back it up it remains a feeling, which could very well be wrong.

Honestly I think it’s the case of what I went through at the end of GW1. “Is there a special event? I might log in, but I don’t have much to do other than fool around aimlessly. Obby armor? Yeah I could but I’d rather put my hand through a woodchipper.”

People will ebb and flow, especially the ones who have done most of what they wanted to do already. They’ll come back when new content comes out, check it out, then go back to being idle.

Ratty.5176:

If you swap MF for Precision you don’t get any squishier than you were with the MF. Precision stat doesn’t decrease your survivability.

I’m not wearing MF anymore. I only wore it on trinkets in the first place and those have been slowly replaced. I’m wearing the armor bought with Karma from the Temple of Balthazar (unchanged). About the only difference is that I’m not getting dropped 100% of the time by a thief burst-damaging on me in WvW. More like 80% of the time.

I’m also not happy to report that the bump in Power hasn’t made too much difference. I still barely break 3500 on a Rapid Fire.

Sinifair.1026:

I agree with you on that. A lot more population there. I remember the quest called “The Villainry of Galrath” from GW1 very well.
- The thing is just that it feels like the characteristics of Kryta have vanished. Back when I first saw Kryta in GW1 my personal preference was woodlands and such, so I wasn’t overly thrilled. Later, however, I came to have some great experiences in Kryta and the different areas there. I expected more of the tropical environment around Kryta in GW2 than I found. While charming, it doesn’t feel like I’m hanging around in Kryta. Just because some people inhabit some of the areas around Queensdale, doesn’t make the palms turn into Pine trees and whatnot.

- My personal opinion is that it would have been better to preserve the characteristics of Kryta somewhat more than they did, and savor those woodlands for other areas (such as the outer parts of Woodland Cascades).
Hope you can follow my point with this thread.

Oh I can follow your point . . . but I can also have the counter-point: “So why shouldn’t the world change after 250 years?” Sometimes you just can’t release the same material over again, because it plain doesn’t make sense in context. In 250 years, I really would expect to go back to where I was born and find it completely different. Heck, I could go back there now after ten years of having left and I know already the whole neighborhood has changed :P

It’s like the thing with Jormag and the fang or tooth or whatever… If pops up some Random son of Randomness, son of Plot no Jutsu the 3rd, rightfull owner to the throne of the Eye of the North, Hand of the King and master of the mytical sword Greyskull, I swear the only way A-net is gonna see my credit card again is by looking to a photo of me that I will send to them in that case: with my credit card in a hand and my finger in the other.

I told you before, you know it’s going to happen already. There’s going to be someone who moves into the limelight and strikes the Tooth. The question is, are they going to have a significant plot or are they just going to be the thing that makes the norn decide to actively move north and fight back against the Icebrood?

Seriously, that’s the most possible thing I see from here. A person steps up to take their swing at the Fang and they succeed in cracking it. The norn stop, take notice, and can’t wait to pull on pants before rushing off to fight Jormag’s minions. And it turns out the “great hero” isn’t anything special, isn’t some unstoppable warrior of legend, but just the one spark to light a flame and it’s your character pushing forward. They go down in history as the person who broke the Fang, you go down as the one who won back the North.

This is really the extent of what I have to say on this topic to you, so I’m going to let it stop here. I get the feeling you and I aren’t going to entirely see eye-to-eye but I’m okay with that. It’s just a sign that what I said above is true – not everyone is going to react to your story the way you envisioned when you wrote it.

In a videogame you have to make sure your player is the protagonist. And if you introduce an element, naming a right hand, npc that dies, best friend, girlfriend/boyfriend, you have to make the sensation real, you have to make the player care for that character or like/love it. In the case of villains the two best possible choices are absolute hate and ‘I kinda like him/her but I want him/her dead’.

I disagree a bit, because . . . and again, from the professional view, there are umpteen amounts of cheap narrative tricks to compel emotional reactions. And they all come off as cheap if people are familiar with the tricks and have seen them before. The doomed hometown. The mentor’s death. The childhood friend dying or turning against you. The sadistic choice. The theft from the player. The party betrayer.

All of these I can take off the top of my head which can easily be calibrated into making an emotional reaction drive one way or another. Anyone who is savvy with plots will see them coming, and call it ahead of time, and it fails to have the proper reaction.

For the people who see it coming, the gut-punch of having your mentor die is more an eye-rolling “of course…”. Having someone from your party turn out to be a mole for the enemy can elicit a “but that makes no sense!” reaction. Forcing a decision between two bad options leaves people who can think of a third option going “but why can’t I do this?” and . . .

And then you’ve broken the spell, the player’s no longer invested in your game on an emotional level. Now they’re looking behind the curtain. This is an inevitable thing, that you’ll have players doing this, and the best you can do is really just go with what you wanted to do in the first place and be aware that someone . . . somewhere . . . might possibly not like it or react the way you wanted.

(Take how many people don’t react to “Dark Side” stuff in Star Wars works as evil but as “really freaking cool”, or the ones who really will be the baby-punting destroyer of villages with gusto given the chance.)

But Trahearne… Unless you are sylvari, the guy pops up from nowhere. And I noticed the writers tried hard to make him look cooler, with the flesh golems thingy, how he changes from being insecure to a bossy son-of-a-tree… But I can’t stomach this kind of characters, those that the writers love so much they push aside protagonists to try to make us swallow them.

And characters that doesn’t make sacrifices… Elminster and Trahearne are in the same category for me. Not ‘cause they are equally good or something, but because in my mind I’m always saying ‘Die, please’. Guys that doesn’t bleed. I hate that kind of character, characters that are always cool, hair in the wind, smile to the camera and like an eau de toilette commercial.

The problem is, I don’t feel I was pushed aside from the story. I can see how people think that, but the Commander is an integral part of the process and as I point out a lot even in this thread: if he shows up, the Pact members know their chance of coming back improved. They openly thank and admire your efforts, as much if not more than Trahearne’s.

Sure, Trahearne doesn’t suffer . . . but then we already HAVE a sylvari who is suffering and gripped with doubt: Caithe. And there’s Malomedes who was tortured by the Inquest. If more were wrestling with these issues then the sylvari come off as punching bags rather than their own people.

But the guy lived, like a freaking threat from A-net to include him, again like a protagonist, in another part of the story. And sorry, unless the guy turns evil and I get the possibility to kill him badly, I really want him to take the retirement.

He’s not going to turn evil unless all sylvari do. And don’t think people haven’t been waiting to find out they’re a sinister threat which had been hidden all this time. There are a lot of odd details people have put together to try to support the Pale Tree is a dragon-related thing.

Some of this is out of order because my thoughts bled all over the place answering this. Sorry.

Vengerin.6013:

The problem maybe is that you relate to them in terms of professional view and not a player/dev relationship like the rest of us.

. . .

They did a marvelous job with Tybalt and Forgal (I don’t like that crazy plant of Seiran but I get why some people like her) and some other characters… Logan, for starters… I hated him badly. I hate him with all my guts… In fact I made my human characters last ‘cause I couldn’t stomach the guy. In Citadel of Flame I started to like him, a little, but I loved him in Arah… A guy that can break a rope with a fist have my respects :P

I’d argue that’s probably the developers’ perspective too, but you’re right. Part of this is because it’s the only way to point out where this character is rooted in (pun not intended). As a player, I didn’t have much distaste for Trahearne, I diliked Logan’s whining and aggressive crap towards Rytlock but not the character himself. I had an intense love/hate of the same manner towards Tybalt; some of the things were downright fun (pirate drinking contest and the bit with him disguised as Demmi) but other aspects of it . . . look, I wanted the Agent who recruited me to be the mentor in the Order. And handing me off to a Lightbringer who never had been in the field? A raw recruit, in the hands of someone who isn’t a field operative, doing things in the field?

Yes, I’m sorry to say, there are things to complain about even though Tybalt’s personality was fun to hang around. When I found out he was not a field operative I wanted (for an intense brief moment) to belt him upside the head and walk from the Order to go join the Vigil.

Sure a writer should write first for himself and then to sell… unless you really want to sell, then you have to let aside your personal taste and write what people really want to read. In the case of a videogame, that’s more true than ever.

If you create a story people don’t like, you risk yourself to don’t sell your product. And rpg videogames, doesn’t matter if it’s mmo or single player, I see them more like ‘Follow your own adventure’ stories, not like novels.

I’d argue less true in the sake of video game RPGs. Tell the story you want to tell, not the one people want to hear. That’s where lots of recent games have fallen down with people I know – the story isn’t strong because it’s too compromised with other things ‘people want’.

Also if the “choose your own adventure” novels I had growing up were any indication, those are rarely anything to brag about. The choices were never always good and even if they were the writer would cheat all too often to bring the story where they wanted it to go. This also applies to “you build your own story” RPGs especially. Very rarely do any choices have significant impact on the gameplay in a lasting form, despite some alterations to dialogue or maybe who’s left standing where. And the few which allowed significant impact fall victim to “and what’s the point?” more often than not.

(More)

TheBlackLeech.9360:

There is no “gamble” when you replace MF with a useful stat. There is a guaranteed increase in performance. You can’t argue with results.

I can argue with results, if the results aren’t what people say I should be getting. Or if, as the case was when I actually mostly ran Berserker’s . . . I spend a lot of my time on the floor for catching a hit.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

You are pretty much always gonna be landing critical hits, and its only gonna take 1 total to make it more effective then mf.

If nothing else simply from fury.

. . . yeah, I don’t always land critical hits, never had a run where every hit was a critical. Even with Fury involved. I guess I need to wear Berserker’s armor of the Berserker instead of Medium Armageddon armor of Balthazar.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

Rezzet.3614:

you wont even notice the MF on skilled players even i trash dungeons in a blink with MF gear. so its more a L2P issue.

Of course you will notice it… basicly you are tieing a entire stat + your runes in a stat that brings absolutely nothing of benefit to the team.

If you got the skill to drop toughness for mf, then you also got the skill to drop it for Crit Dmg, which makes a hell of a diffrence.

Only if your actually landing critical hits. Much like “Magic Find” will only come into play if things actually drop :P Both are gambling on actually being effective.

Of course, someone could come in wearing Cleric’s instead of Knight’s.

Sinifair.1026:

Well, Kryta is hardly overpopulated enough to change from tropical to rural.
- I went to Divinity Coast in Guild Wars 1, and even with the floodings and such, the climate and plant-life would not have changed that drastically.

When you say that they “decided this over that” it is like saying that Blizzard decided to give Deathwing the power to bring Onyxia and Nefarian back to life as to staying with the originally designed powers given to him. It’s called lorebreak, which they of course can decide over staying with the lore, but that doesn’t make it the best decision.
- I don’t think the drastic change of climate in Kryta could occur even with the floodings, and the change in USA is due to the industrial evolution.
They would have to destroy the whole of Kryta down to every last palm, and plant new trees in their stead to make it this rural. They haven’t become that industrial in Tyria yet, mate.

The charr have become that industrial, though it’s focused entirely on war machines and such.

And I didn’t say “overpopulated”. A LOT of Krytans in GW1 didn’t live out in the wilderness of open zones. There was one spot in the Talmark Wilderness, the Ascalon Settlement, Shaemoor, and Nebo Terrace . . . I don’t think there’s all that much else which would have survived the flooding. Now there’s small settlements in places where there weren’t before (ESPECIALLY in the Kessex Hills and Black Curtain regions).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Though I’ll admit, the disappearance of the Frost Gate is confusing (I originally thought it to be Frostgate Falls, but that doesn’t seem to be so…).

And now you have me comparing maps. Grandmaster Cartographer in Tyria in GW1 and now a full 100% explorer in GW2, I’ve got a lot of stuff to look at. Trying to extrapolate using this link here it seems the low path Rurik was on is now flooded with snowmelt runoff. And a Lionguard Haven is now built in the same area.

A few other things:

You have Leather Bags, and you can get more space than that.

- Certain champions or veterans in starting areas can drop dyed leather bags which hold 5 slots instead of 4. In Queensdale there are four of these you can find very easily, though one is time-limited. See: “The White Lady”.

- Get a crafting discipline such as Tailor, Leatherworker, or Armorsmith and learn how to make 8-slot containers. All you need is the materials to do so. As you get higher you can make larger bags up to 20-slot containers . . . though, ummm, those take a huge gold investment so 18-slot is really “good enough”.

You have some white items, it looks like. There’s a way of dealing with that.

- Carry a salvage kit around, a Basic will do fine. Salvage any white or salvage item then send the materials to your collection. You can salvage anything higher than that at your discretion.

- If you find a merchant you can sell to, if you’ve got a lot of your inventory full with loot you don’t need? Sell it. Coin takes up no space or weight. Items take up a lot.

Iruwen.3164:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Iruwen.3164:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You can’t “evade” damage from stacks, mostly. Since this isn’t an actual thing going on and I’m not in a position to run tests? I can’t say other than to speculate weakly. WvW is not a huge strength but I’ve seen Damage over Time effects with more unrestricted stacking rules cause problems in the past.

You can purge or transfer conditions though. Many people are simply incapable of monitoring conditions and acting accordingly instead of just watching those big direct damage numbers pop up, unfortunately.

Well of course you can get rid of the conditions, but you can’t get rid of them constantly/continuously over short periods of time. There is an upper limit on how often you can drop conditions off yourself, depending on your class. And race, if you think about it.

The same is true for direct damage, unless you found a way to constantly evade it I don’t know of.

PS: it’s already way too easy to escape a fight for many classes once you notice you’ll probably lose, even if a whole zerg is hunting you down, which is a problem with scouts in WvW. Active conditions at least have a chance of forcing people into downed state.

Constant evasion? In a way, Stealth can do that, people have said a lot of unkind things in regards to that. I am not entirely sure but having a long-timed Vigor can help you get an impressive amount of dodge capability.

I play a ranger (badly), so honestly, no matter what changes I’m still going down way more than anyone else.

Calae.1738:

We all want this game to succeed. No one wants any MMO to fail. We get emotional when we get the feeling that the developers don’t care.

. . . yeah, I’m not sure if you noticed, but there are people who wish doom upon this game and have ever since 11/15. There are people who seem to come here specifically to go “game is dying . . . what, no I don’t play it anymore”.

There are plenty of people out there who would want a given MMO to fail. I’ve met people who actively wish WoW would get shut down any given day of the week. Or League of Legends, or whatever else you can name. There’s always someone wishing a game will fail.

Sad, but true. This is the internet.

Ratty.5176:

I think the real test is the people that are taking Magic Find should be up front about it, and tell there group. If the group doesn’t want someone with Magic Find in it, it really shouldn’t have to deal with them. However I doubt many of the people that run with full Magic Find sets would do this. But it’s the real test of the pudding. If they find they are kicked from every Dungeon group because of it, or asked not to use it, it suggest the majority are against it in it’s current incarnation.

. . . which becomes more of a reason to hide it rather than a reason to think about changing it Many of the people investing in high Magic Find aren’t going to put it away.

On topic here, I posted in another topic a few places which might interest you as to GW1 references. Sadly, not much in the way of player character but we’ve covered that dead horse with a nice tarpaulin and mourned it.

- There are ruins of the Granite Citadel in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. As well as other areas around Sorrow’s Furnace/Grenth’s Footprint/Spearhead Peak

- Brisban Wilderness is a lot of old Maguuma, but significantly you can find the Druid’s Overlook I think. Also “Aurora’s Remains”, which A LOT of people don’t even know about.

- Frostgorge Sound has some places in the southern third which correspond with locations in the Northern Shiverpeaks.

Narcemus.1348:

What I’m saying in the first part is more of a creation of a personal library in the finding these pieces. I understand what you are talking about, I have seen the Orrian History Scrolls and such.

. . . you mean like finding things about the world and writing them down in an in-game journal? I would love this so hard I’d blow two weekends searching out all the lore entries in a history book the character would fill up.

Vorch.2985:

Weren’t most of the tropical areas destroyed when Lion’s Arch and the surrounding areas flooded?

And there is still some tropical foliage found in the area of lion’s arch. It just appears that there has been a lot of township formation, warring, and disasters in the last 250 years which could definitely attribute to the change in environment.

This is the point I pretty much made – Kryta was so jungle-grown because people weren’t living in those spaces. Once you have people moving in, well, things change. If you need a real world example, pick a major metropolitan area and study it for a while. If you’re in the United States, you’re looking at roughly two hundred and fifty years of development in a lot of places. The climate may be the same, but the land is rather different . . .

. . . and we can’t really feel the climate playing the game. (yet)

Ratty.5176:

In a game which is social, this feels off. It feels in someways like a Baseball player going into a game with one eye shut because he’s being payed by the opposition coach. He is not being up front with his team, he’s lowering his performance that has a knock on effect on his team, and he’s taking money on the sly to do so.

It’d be more like the Black Sox affair I suppose, if you want to go way over the top in how it gets applied. Or a player phoning in their play because they’re thinking the team isn’t going to be big enough to suit him. (Think the character Roger Dorn of “Major League”.)

While this game is social and oriented to encourage players to work together there’s still . . . and always will be, a strong competitiveness at work in some players’ minds. They’ll want the most out of what they do, and will react in differing degrees to other peoples’ impact on their play.

Disclaimer: There is nothing wrong here. I am not saying people need to stop being competitive. I am saying it’s natural and understandable.

If there was a lobby to make MF/GF, et cetera partywide, then you’d probably see some other complaints in reverse starting up . . . that people are being pressured to help the group by running more of these so they can benefit the team. Yes, I can see that argument starting right now in an alternate world’s web forum

Sinifair.1026:

Heya, guys.
- I just came to wonder about something here the other day. Actually, it has been in my mind for some time. Anyhow, what is your take on the look of Guild Wars 2?

I think it looks better than Guild Wars 1, especially in Ascalon. Especially especially in Ascalon.

- Now, before you answer, I am not talking about the graphics here. I played GW1 and I was surprised to find, say, Kryta having a completely different feel as opposed to the first game. The look of Kryta in GW1 was more tropical, and I actually liked it that way. The look in GW2 is more the standard rural woodlands, and although charming, I don’t look at it as an improvement.

There are reasons this could be. We start with a changed coastline thanks to the flooding, and end with the idea we have more humans crammed into Kryta needing it to be more on par with someplace they’d live. There’s still enough damp and wet jungle. Also, Watchtower Coast was mostly on par with what I can see in Queensdale.

- Don’t get me wrong, I like the look of Guild Wars 2, but to be honest, I would have preferred if the zones would remain true to their original design. If they wanted a more traditional kingdom with woodlands surrounding it, they might as well have migrated the Ascalonians north into the Woodland Cascades and have them settled there, and then have kept Kryta the more tropical place that it actually is/was. 250 years have passed, it would have been possible for ANet to accomplish this.

Every time I see this I wind up saying the same thing: they didn’t decide that, they decided this instead.

Now, I’ll look up the map but the Ascalonians weren’t going anywhere. They were staying in Ascalon and dying out slowly to the charr or the fact they were living in a barren waste . . . . or they were living and acclimating to Kryta in the Ascalon Settlement.

- To me it is a matter of staying true to the world and the lore in the Guild Wars universe. I know it probably won’t be changed now, but it could help ANet when it comes to designing the new zones that are yet to come. Awesome look, with a twist of nostalgia.

“Awesome look with a twist of nostalgia” describes my trip through a few places even now. Brisban Wilderness, Harathi Hinterlands, Lornar’s Pass . . . there’s enough old hanging around to avoid preventing anything new from taking form.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Here is a pretty funny story on the subject.
When I told my gf about the WvW requirement of map completion I expected she would be demoralized like you guys but she actually just said “ok we gather up some people and go blast off those players and I get all the points”.
And so we did lol.
She even asked why I asked her that in such a worried manner, but I did a ninja subject change because I didn’t want to admit some people here are scared of stepping into pvp.

You really should have had a talk with her about it. By the way . . . she can read the forums too you know. (Busted?)

And my guild is pretty much saying the same thing, and a few of us actively monitor when we’re doing well enough on Stormbluff to snatch up things. “Hey, fearless leader, we just took Stonemist, didn’t you need it?” “Yes! Thanks for telling me.”

Narcemus.1348:

I really want to agree with you Curuniel, it definitely does have that kind of feeling to it. I really feel like this would move to another level if you could hunt out locations in the world, dungeons or caverns, and find books of lost lore, ancient tablets, and the such.

There are places you can do that, but I haven’t found them all. A few places in Orr have history scrolls laying about, the Priory has books (I understand they do, I don’t play Priory . . . yet . . .), and there are places where engravings or headstones can be found. An entire place in Brisban Wilderness is a love letter to “Druid’s Overlook” and “Sage Lands” from GW1, the Granite Citadel ruins has some fun stuff in it, and then there’s this tree somewhere with “two fives followed by an M” carved into it.

And Aurora’s Remains. These are four things which specifically connect back to GW1.

Narcemus.1348:

There are wooden dwarven ruins at the bottom of a lake, I’m pretty sure they’d last above ground longer than underwater.

Given the Shiverpeaks’ weather, I’m going to go with a “I doubt it”, with a side helping of a shrug and “that depends on what the dwarves did to that wood”. In Guild Wars 1 there were swamp ruins in Kryta and leaning shells of buildings in Ascalon which had no right to be standing either. There are some things you just stop thinking about before you get yanked completely out of a game by how unrealistic it is.

Have you considered “Prayer to Kormir”? I mean I know it’s fashionable to hate her but when she removes 3 conditions in one shot I’d at least send a kind word that way.

Iruwen.3164:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You can’t “evade” damage from stacks, mostly. Since this isn’t an actual thing going on and I’m not in a position to run tests? I can’t say other than to speculate weakly. WvW is not a huge strength but I’ve seen Damage over Time effects with more unrestricted stacking rules cause problems in the past.

You can purge or transfer conditions though. Many people are simply incapable of monitoring conditions and acting accordingly instead of just watching those big direct damage numbers pop up, unfortunately.

Well of course you can get rid of the conditions, but you can’t get rid of them constantly/continuously over short periods of time. There is an upper limit on how often you can drop conditions off yourself, depending on your class. And race, if you think about it.

Leamas.5803:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Here’s a thought . . . try adding an opposing server person to your party and asking if you can just get help doing mapping. Tell them they can even escort you around with superior firepower to be sure you’re not about to try flipping stuff for your side.

I had someone from the other server actually ask me for help doing one of the three battle-based Skill Points a while back. And every now and then I watch a couple people who are friends across servers “dueling”.

How do you actually talk to someone on the other side? They all have a generic name, so a whisper won’t work. I was wanting to message someone in the Obsidian JP a while back and couldn’t figure out how. It was someone trolling and I was going to message him to get out of my way or I’d kill him. Ultimately I opted to just run past him as it was late and decided I didn’t care enough to kill him.

I don’t know how personally, but I think it was through right click → block → copy the name into invite or mail. I could be wrong but that’d be the first thing I try.

critickitten.1498:

Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.

Their sales dropped off tremendously after the first month. They went from selling two million copies in two weeks….to just recently breaking three million back in January. And it’s known that the player base was already in decline as early as November, given the reactions to changes being made at that time and the subsequent damage control rush from the devs following the event.

Now it’s technically not all doom and gloom. According to Colin, their numbers “went up” after the holidays….though to be fair, that could mean anything since he didn’t specify how much that “increase” was. However, if we’re to take the home page’s most recent announcement as evidence of a problem, I’m guessing that their sales are doing badly enough that they’re starting to get really worried.

So, yes, the game’s in decline. I don’t think it’ll be enough of a decline that the game keels over and dies, necessarily, but it’s certainly not on pace to compete with WoW either.

I’d posit that it’s probably reaching saturation; anyone who wants it has it and people who don’t want it wouldn’t buy it without a reason to. Hence “it’s cheaper”.

I also got an email from Blizzard about WoW being 75% off. That’s another game entirely, but it supports the idea that there is a point where more new people simply aren’t going to play your game. Without a subscription coming in, and with rather significant community pressure not to buy Gems, there’s a recipe for real bad potential.

vespers.1759:

it doesn’t really, but it means everyone else has to work harder to make up for you. in a good group nobody will notice, but in a less skilled group the difference becomes more noticeable.

nobody benefits but the guy running MF, which seems silly as they gain at the expense of others even if it a small thing.

We run into the same argument about people who aren’t skilled or can’t seem to run their character at 100% effectiveness with what they have. Or if they mess something up in the run (“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to go into the room already.”). It starts at a different spot but it winds up into the same end point:

“This is making it harder on other people/me for no reason other than this person making a choice which impacts all of us. And possibly doesn’t bother them as much.”

The main reason this topic is getting such defensiveness is this argument can . . . even if it’s not . . . easily have phrases replaced and penciled in to make it about anything else. People are worried if this point is conceded then it could come back up later for something more drastic, and more aggressively limiting.

Please try to understand that. I’m aware of your arguments and agree the first principle you outline (“It makes one person less useful to the group without giving back a benefit”) but starting from that principle you can file off “magic find” and replace other things in there.

It’s less important that “Magic Find” never should have been in the game . . . it is in the game. “Gold Find” is in the game. “Experience/Karma Bonus” is in the game, and all of these benefit the individual rather than the group. There is only one place this actually matters: in dungeons/Fractals. (This point is one we can all agree on.)

The best fix is a tweak to allow the bonus to be beneficial to the group, which adds something to the game . . . rather than remove all four of the above effects, which takes something away from the game.