Guild Wars 2

Fractals are the present and future of this game. The days of open world, explorative game play are behind us. It is now instance or GTFO, so I can’t imagine they would do a monthly that didn’t incorporate it.

Don’t worry, they will remove fractals from the monthly… the moment the next instance with the next batch of gear to grind for is released. :-P

The servers aren’t dead and I don’t believe they changed the population ranges to display “full” when there are less people online… it’s just that no one is in a place where you can see them. Endgame is all about running an instance for the best gear, now, so that is where everyone is. They are either idling in a city looking for a group for it, or they are in the instance itself.

The players are still there, they just aren’t doing open world content anymore.

projectcedric.6951:

My opinion:

What is it about WoW that makes you NOT play it but play GW2 instead?

Please think about it for a moment. Have you figured it out? If so, I think it would be a much effective way if you suggest that on the WoW forums instead of the other way around here.

It seems that what you are looking for is “WoW on steriods”. It is much easier to turn WoW into “WoW on steriods”, than GW2 into “WoW on steroids”.

It WAS easier. Since Nov 15th they’ve been working diligently to do just that. We really just need the trinity (which would only require a few threat buffs on a couple of warrior skills) and raids the game will be set. Endgame already revolves around instance grinding now.

If the only thing between them and this suggestion is how difficult it would be for this game to emulate WoW, they have alleviated much of that difficulty in the past 2 months.

JaironKalach.4938:

Tolmos.8395:

If the expansion is similar to WoW expansions in that it increases the level cap, introduces new gear stats to grind for and basically makes all current content outdated and pointless to run: No. I will pass on the expansion and quietly retire my character.

If the expansion is similar to GW1 expansions in that the level cap remains the same, only new gear styles are implemented (thus leaving gear stats where they are) and all previous content remains as viable a playing option as it is now (or moreso, since the only real viable playstyle at the moment is instance grinding): Absolutely. I bought a Guild Wars game, not a WoW game, I will happily buy more Guild Wars content when it releases.

Whether there will be gating and obsolescence or not, I don’t know. But I know they’ve already promised level cap increases with expansion, as far back as 2011.

Vertical Progression Promise
Vertical Progression Promise 2
(Search for Expansion)

It’s quite an assumption to make on my part, but it seems highly unlikely that they will increase our level cap and still have us running around in the same gear… meaning new, stronger gear. Also meaning all our current gear will become outdated. Which means anything that drops our current gear would be outdated. Which meeeaaaaaaanss… WoW style expansion > GW1 style expansion.

Still, I suppose that’s the natural progression of any MMO. Everyone wants to follow in the footsteps of the giant.

The trinity is and always will be a bad idea. There are only 2 skilled roles (tank and healer) and 3 people getting carried along with them. Every game that tries to implement a fourth support role just ends up never using it, since the Trinity is always superior to it.

It gets old only playing tank and healer if you actually want some semblance of a challenge (not that either role particularly provides one in most Trinity games, except maybe TERA). It’s nice finally having EVERY player in a party be challenged. It’s also fun to watch the people who are used to being carried in other MMOs and considered themselves “skilled” get steamrolled and then QQ about how “bad” the current system is.

If the expansion is similar to WoW expansions in that it increases the level cap, introduces new gear stats to grind for and basically makes all current content outdated and pointless to run: No. I will pass on the expansion and quietly retire my character.

If the expansion is similar to GW1 expansions in that the level cap remains the same, only new gear styles are implemented (thus leaving gear stats where they are) and all previous content remains as viable a playing option as it is now (or moreso, since the only real viable playstyle at the moment is instance grinding): Absolutely. I bought a Guild Wars game, not a WoW game, I will happily buy more Guild Wars content when it releases.

Legendaries are only temporarily the same strength as exotics. What their end strength is equivalent to none of us know for certain, beyond the fact that it has been stated that Legendaries will always be Best in Slot. Maybe that means equivalent to ascended gear, maybe that means better than ascended gear… who knows.

The game has already picked up WoW’s instance gear grinder design. I see no reason to do a job halfway- bring the Trinity along with it and lets finish off this transition.

Waffler.1257:

Tolmos.8395:

Glad to see everyone here is enjoying the new gear grind, and that it has helped bolster GW2’s population.

Looks like, in the end, an open world gear plateau game like pre-Nov 15th GW2 is not nearly as popular as an instance grinder like the current GW2.

Looks like Arenanet chose wisely in pursuing the footsteps of WoW.

It’s all the long-term unemployed wanting to do something that feels like work.

I loled at this statement. I haven’t heard that before. =D

Glad to see everyone here is enjoying the new gear grind, and that it has helped bolster GW2’s population.

Looks like, in the end, an open world gear plateau game like pre-Nov 15th GW2 is not nearly as popular as an instance grinder like the current GW2.

Looks like Arenanet chose wisely in pursuing the footsteps of WoW.

I have no intention of getting a legendary, via good or grind… But that said- anyone who DOES go for one deserves to do whatever the crap they want with it and shouldn’t be limited by some game mechanic put in place for no particularly good reason. If they want to have it and look legendary- awesome. If they want to sell it and be filthy rich- also awesome.

Just do like everyone else and roll up a level 80 thief alt. Then we will all be OP together!

With every patch you will see more and more thieves. They are the staple of WvW pvp. Sucks for anyone who honestly wanted to be a thief, since they are now a dime a dozen, but it can’t be helped.

Kanto.1659:

Don’t blame Anet if people want to get those 20 extra points of stats, when already having 1800 to begin with. What you are trying to say is that the players should be protected from themselves. Like children playing with fire. And new content should not be added because, dawwwww, players might get into a (mostly useless) farming binge.

20 extra points in stats!! W00t!

15-30% stat increase across the board would come out to a couple more than 20 out 1800.

tigirius.9014:

It’s the “you’re being punished for being level 80” bug. It’s as ridiculous as the “you’re being punished for farming in the same location forever” bug.

Or the “Why are you wasting your time doing something that isn’t fractals” bug…

You can thank the November 15th NGE-redux (Star Wars Galaxy reference…) for that. :-P Everyone is in fractals now, grind grind grinding for that next tier of gear.

Isn’t that a fun and unique MMOing experience?! =D Shame no other games thought about gear grinding. This is a huge improvement over the crappy open world, exploration based and aesthetic farming gameplay we had pre-Nov 15th!

Dante.1508:

What is Guesting?

It’s a system that allows you to log into a server other than your home. You can only do so on servers that have an active friend on your friends list, though. You can’t just pick some arbitrary server and run off to it. This makes it so that you can do in game stuff together regardless of your server.

No other info on it out besides that, though.

I actually disagree with all points on that article. I honestly expected to see ascended gear not only on that list, but at the top of it, especially considering the negative impact they have had on the moral of a large portion of the playerbase, as well as slaughtering the population of open world zones… but instead it was a list of things that I actually think work really well for the game.

I love the events and they easily acted as a quest replacement for me. The story actually almost engrossed me. I say almost, only because I hit a story bug that held me on my level 45 quest for over a month, until long after I hit 80. By the time it got fixed on Nov 15th, I no longer cared what happened next. But up until that point I actually was really interested in what was happening.

His crafting section I only mildly, mildly agree with in the regards of “you will likely outlevel what you need”. But honestly, that was fine. The requiring prerequisite items for another was really engrossing to me, and the gaining experience was a huge boon. My only complaint about crafting is that it is practically worthless for making money with the way the market has been since release. But for getting experience and being a generally amusing way to waste some time? I like it.

The area flow paragraph I’m not really understanding at all. There were times where I ended up getting left behind by the zones I was in, unable to do the next heart quests because I somehow finished the rest but didn’t level at an appropriate rate… but nowhere near to the extent he is talking about. I almost always ended up in the right zone at the right level, getting level appropriate gear from the karma vendors. And it happened thoughtlessly. No planning necessary on my part. I just did everything in one zone, moved to the next.

All together I have to say that while I was expecting to agree completely with the article, given my complete disdain for the direction this game is heading in since the November 15th reenactment of Star War’s Galaxy’s NGE patch, it instead chose what I consider to be the games strongest points. I simply can’t find myself agreeing at all with what they wrote.

I always thought it was a shame that glasses and similar headgear from the Black Lion store were town clothes only. For a player like me, town clothes practically never get worn, and yet the glasses would finish off my current armor set perfectly. I can understand why some armor items were relegated to town clothes, as it is obvious that Arenanet was focusing on creating as immersive experience as possible… but glasses? Is it really more realistic to assume that my character, if he needs glasses, would only wear them in town… as an archer?! =D “I’m aiming for the blur on the left!” “0_o wait what?” “ARROW AWAY! I GOT THE BLUR WOOO!”

I’ve been hoping they would make some skinnable glasses at some point. I think that would be a pretty neat addition to the trader. That or just convert all the current glasses into skinnable level 1 items. I would certainly buy some in that case!

This thread made me think of Robin from the latest youtube “Epic Rap Battles of History – Batman vs Sherlock Holmes”.

I’ll have that in my head every time I log into my character.

xiv.7136:

Although you can go for ascended items if you really, really really want to have a few extra stats and do hardcore PVE — it’s only a couple of slots and overall it definitely will not make you overpowered compared to someone in full exotics.

Yea, the full set will only be a 15-30% increase in stats across the board. Nothing major.

I love how folks say “Lions Arch is in overflow” as if that proves PvE isn’t dead in this game. In actuality, it is the reason PvE is dead in this game. Every other zone is completely empty because everyone is crammed in Lions Arch spamming “LFG LFG LFG” and “LFM LFM LFM” for fractals. Or, they are in the fractals.

There really isn’t anywhere else worth being right now.

Yep. Get exotic gear. Then run the same dungeon over and over for ascended gear. Then hope they don’t add another tier after that… Though if they did they would claim it to be “wildly successful”.

I miss pre-Nov 15th GW2

I had a lot better loot drops at head start than now. In the first weekend of head start I had a black dye, 2 midnight fire dyes, and a white dye drop off of trash NPCs in the norn and human starting zones. From my 4th black lion chest, also in head start, I got the infinite mystery tonic potion.

My luck on drops has been crap ever since.

Shoulda gone to Vegas that weekend instead =D

Khemizt.5104:

Tolmos.8395:

Khemizt.5104:

Foolish that you guys are crying about gear treadmills and grinding in an MMORPG. I mean how stupid can you be to buy into something like “horizontal progression”, it’s the same as NO progression. So stop crying and HOPE for vertical progression or enjoy your game dying at it’s current rate.

It’s the rate of progression that your worried about, not progression in itself, it should be assumed that if you quit playing GW2 for a year your going to have some work to do to get caught up, if not then why in the world would you even come back to begin with????

Just take one second to try your best and comprehend the situation, I’m sorry anet confused you all with their manifesto, It’s an MMORPG there will be progression of some sort don’t know why they would state differently.

This, boys and girls, is what a WoW player looks like. Someone who has never experienced gameplay beyond chasing bigger numbers from month to month. The idea of Guild Wars 1, where the stats introduced in 2005 were the same max stats in 2012 and yet the game remained successful is absolute voodoo to this type of player.

This complete lack of ability to comprehend a game type outside of the WoW mold is exactly why so many clones exist, and why this game is trying to join in on it. It’s sad, but true, that most MMO players honestly believe the above quoted statement

“Guild Wars 1, where the stats introduced in 2005 were the same max stats in 2012 and yet the game *remained successful” Thats why we needed a GW2 rite? The game was not successfull for the past few years whatsoever, this one is already on the fast track to failing (check any site that has a population ticker) WoW on the other hand has remained popular because they engage users and keep them playing unlike this game where you get your legendary and your done. Thanks for your input, even though it’s completely wrong. This game is not a good MMORPG no matter how you look at it.

Just the fact that you think GW1 was wildly popular when they released this shows how foolish you are, no company would make a product to compete with a current one if it was doing well lol, it was not received well by the western audience hence why you have GW2…….

The outdated graphics or a current running lifespan of 8 years has absolutely nothing to do with the release of this game, and the current population of it, amirite? GW1 lasting longer than most modern AAA MMOs must just be a fluke, huh? It producing content 7 years after release was just Arenanet clinging into the dead husk of a game, I suppose?

You’re on a roll, for sure man. 2 for 2!

I won’t lie- my turrets have been outstanding for this. I roam for 1v1s and thanks to them I almost never lose. They may be garbage in pve and large pvp battles, but 1v1 or even 1v2 they are AMAZING

Rebus Sohal.4108:

EDIT: THIS IS NOT A SUGGESTION ANET!

Too late. That fits in perfectly with their vision of where engineers should be. It’s probably being implemented as a hotfix as we speak. :-P

TWMagimay.9057:

Fabsm.5897:

Then… what is “skill”? Who is the “skilled” player, or better, the skilled TEAMS?

I think that:
- dodging at the right time and knowing when to retreat
- using your abilities at the right moment
- coordinating with your group and doing teamwork
- focusing the right target when there is need to burst
- adapting your strategies to the group

is what a skilled TEAM has to do.

At the contrary, the unskilled team:
- whines because it is instagibbed by boss abilities (solution: tank and trinity, so i can tunnelvision heal or pew pew DPS without interruption)
- whines because their abilities have too long CDs and they can’t DPS/heal (solution: specialize roles and give more specialized abilities)
- whines because there is no structure and tactics (solution: trinity)
- whines because feels it should do much more damage and the boss have too much health (solution: specialized roles so i can pew pew more)
- whines because some bosses are too hard (solution: trinity)

but, read, the solutions are already there. Up in the previous list. I don’t think that the skill of the player should have to limit to “building a good spec”. It is part of the game, but the most important is TEAMWORK.

I’ve been looking for a way to say this for 2 days now… Ultimately, GW2 is not more or less skilled based than any other MMO out there. It just seems to attracted mostly dps players who think that it requires more skill just because now they have to do a fraction of what tanks and healers do all the time… Kind of sad though…

It also had a lot to do with the fact that people can’t be carried as easily. So many folks in WoW and Rift claim to be “skilled”, but at the end of the day they just rely on their teammates to get them through. Their “skill” amounts to little more than having decent gear and a solid rotation.

In GW2 you have to get out of dodge fast when an enemy is coming at you, dodging attacks and running like a madman. All of this while managing combo fields (unless you are a crap player) and still maintaining a decent rotation?

I raided for 5 years in WoW and 1.5 in Rift, switching between tank, healer and dps, and I can say dungeoning in this game is an entirely different beast. But my favorite part is watching self proclaimed “skilled” raiders from other games come here, get roflstomped in a dungeon, and go home saying GW2 sucks.

Khemizt.5104:

Foolish that you guys are crying about gear treadmills and grinding in an MMORPG. I mean how stupid can you be to buy into something like “horizontal progression”, it’s the same as NO progression. So stop crying and HOPE for vertical progression or enjoy your game dying at it’s current rate.

It’s the rate of progression that your worried about, not progression in itself, it should be assumed that if you quit playing GW2 for a year your going to have some work to do to get caught up, if not then why in the world would you even come back to begin with????

Just take one second to try your best and comprehend the situation, I’m sorry anet confused you all with their manifesto, It’s an MMORPG there will be progression of some sort don’t know why they would state differently.

This, boys and girls, is what a WoW player looks like. Someone who has never experienced gameplay beyond chasing bigger numbers from month to month. The idea of Guild Wars 1, where the stats introduced in 2005 were the same max stats in 2012 and yet the game remained successful is absolute voodoo to this type of player.

This complete lack of ability to comprehend a game type outside of the WoW mold is exactly why so many clones exist, and why this game is trying to join in on it. It’s sad, but true, that most MMO players honestly believe the above quoted statement

I learned my lesson in Halloween. I will never spend another gem on a Black Lion Chest as long as I live. 15 chests and I received nada to show for it. Which would have been fine, since 15 may not be that many… until I met a guy who paid out over $900 in gems, all on keys, and STILL got nothing.

Never again. Even if I play the game regularly again like I used to, I will never waste another dime on black lion keys. The RNG is just too terrible.

I must be the only person who doesn’t like quaggans…

I take that back, I did like 1 quaggan: “Quaggan’s a piwate! YARRR!”. Besides him, I don’t like any of the others.

Vasham.2408:

GW2 doesn’t deserve any praise, let alone GOTY.

If this was Nov 14th or earlier I would argue vehemently with you over that…

It does deserve some praise though. Some parts of it have really become crappy since mid Nov, but the rest are still pretty good and worth playing with.

I voted for it, though I don’t expect it to win this time around.

I had posted this in another thread, but decided to expand on it a bit.

For the past month, players have been bashing Anet on this forum and others, covering everything from Ascended gear to nerfs, etc. For many of us, one patch changed the game in a vast way. But while everyone is upset with changes, few bothered to thank Arenanet for the awesome job they did BEFORE those changes.

To me, pre-November 15th GW2 was the closest to the perfect MMO that I had seen. A beautiful, immersive world. Horizontal progression. Rewarding exploration. A focus on open world play over instanced dungeons. Alternate level routes (can level entirely on crafting if you can find a way to afford it!). Awesome diversity in armor styles. A stat plateau, something that all those WoW clones lack miserably.

I was like a preacher, screaming of salvation on the shores of new Tyria. Anyone I could convince to try this game, I would. And why not? When you play a game so immersive and different from the rest of the games shaping to WoW’s mold, you can’t help but want to show it off to as many people as you could. It had a few quirks, but they were things we expected would be fixed at some point so it didn’t matter. And expansions would increase the content of the game without power creep, just like its predecessor did.

Unfortunately, things change. The stat plateau was scrapped, the open world play was slapped in the face and the focus was shifted towards dungeon grinding for bigger numbers on your gear. It changed from trying to be a sequel to GW1 and more to be a hybrid of the story of GW1 and the gameplay focus of WoW. It was the greatest disappointment of my MMO career.

However, for those 2 months I got to experience a truly unique and different MMO. I logged well over 500 hours during that time, and bought quite a few gems. At the end of the day, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even though this is no longer the game I enjoyed, with its dead zones and everyone standing around LA screaming “LFG LFG LFG” for the latest and greatest gear that the treadmill has to offer, I won’t forget the fun I had in it originally and will give credit where credit is due.

For 2 months, Arenanet held the single greatest MMO I had played.

There are still things in the game which break the mold, and for that I’m happy. The size of the cities. Not many people mention this, but to me that was the first big draw of the game. The first time I walked into Divinity’s Reach and realized “This city is larger than most leveling zones in other games”, I was blown away. And it was one of several.

The engineer class. Yea yea, it’s a little broken atm, but the CONCEPT. I can’t think of another class in a fantasy MMO that plays like it does. Also, the necro class: it, too, is a little broken, but it can be a zookeeper… with CoH/CoV gone, it’s the last bastion for pet class lovers in MMORPGs. The issues with both of these classes are superficial- quick fixes with a content patch if they sit down and do it, so I’m not at all concerned with them. It’s the CONCEPTS of these classes that I love.

While I no longer log in (though I do check forums from time to time to see if Arenanet has thrown a bone to those of us who came from GW1 and still hold a foolish hope for a stat plateau), I can honestly say I don’t regret the time I spent in this game. In fact, my only regret with GW2 is that new players will never get to experience the game that I did.

Cheers, Arenanet. You gave me an awesome MMO experience.

Aeranima.2853:

Am I really wrong for expecting Guild Wars 2 to be the best MMO out there? I mean, they nearly nailed it in my opinion.

Pre November 15th GW2 was the closest to the perfect MMO that I had seen. A beautiful, immersive world. Horizontal progression. Rewarding exploration. A focus on open world play over instanced dungeons. Alternate level routes (can level entirely on crafting if you can find a way to afford it!). Awesome diversity in armor styles. A stat plateau, something that all those WoW clones lack miserably.

I was like a preacher, screaming of salvation on the shores of new Tyria. It had a few quirks, but they were things we expected would be fixed at some point so it didn’t matter. And expansions would increase the content of the game without power creep, just like its predecessor did.

Unfortunately, things change. The stat plateau was scrapped, the open world play was slapped in the face and the focus was shifted towards dungeon grinding for bigger numbers on your gear. It changed from trying to be a sequel to GW1 and more to be a hybrid of the story of GW1 and the gameplay focus of WoW. It was the greatest disappointment of my MMO career.

However, for those 2 months I got to experience a truly unique and different MMO. I logged well over 500 hours during that time, and bought quite a few gems. At the end of the day, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even though this is no longer the game I enjoyed, with its dead zones and everyone standing around LA screaming “LFG LFG LFG” for the latest and greatest gear that the treadmill has to offer, I won’t forget the fun I had in it originally and will give credit where credit is due.

For 2 months, Arenanet held the single greatest MMO I had played.

This article covers the concepts of Horizontal progression in an awesome way. Atm, there are is only 1 true horizontal progression game (GW1), since GW2 has decided to go the way of Vertical progression. It’s a shame, but I do hope other games will take up the mantle of Guild Wars 1. I’d love to see a true sequel to that game.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/strangesands/122012/24271_What-is-Horizontal-Progression-Really

Yea that was my main issue with the cash shop. Town clothes simply do not appeal to me. I won’t ever wear them. And there are no combat ready clothes worth looking at- 3 ugly sets that are terrible ports of GW1 armor sets. >_>

Give us headgear that we can wear in combat. New helmets, glasses, etc. Skinnable headgear. I know poor warriors/guardians could use it. All they get are fugly helmets or full mask helmets.

They need to do the opposite- they need to make LESS stuff soulbound. Like the Ascended gear.

If I want to put the time and effort into getting a legendary or ascended item, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. If that includes getting filthy rich on so much gold that I can swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck, then I should be able to do just that.

critickitten.1498:

Did you ever play GW1 in the early years? Probably not, because if you had then you would know exactly what he’s talking about.

People have awfully short term memories and tend to forget that it took years for GW1 to find its own niche as a game, too. So did Rift, and so did WoW. GW2 is not unusual in this regard and it will take time for it to find its place, too.

I’m wondering if you played GW1 in the early years. I logged more hours in prophecies, before Factions had even been mentioned, than I did in any other expansion they put out. I easily dropped 1,000 hours pre-factions alone. With the exception of W/Mos being OP, I had no complaints at all.

We remember early GW1 very differently.

Everyone would just think we are there looking for Fractals groups, just like every other player in the game >_>

A proper protest would be to go out into the open world, since they made it abundantly clear in their Nov 15th patch that this is not what they want to happen anymore. We’ll scoff in the face of their “plans” to make GW2 a dungeon gear grinder and we’ll go to Orr and do temples and events!

That’ll show em!

The link working for anyone else? I know this sounds crazy, but the forum is adding kitten to the link when I click it. 0_o

http%3A%2F%2kitten.gamespot.com%2Fbest-of-2012%2Fpeoples…

ZeroArmada.9426:

How are condition builds “worthless” in groups?

The stack cap. The conditions are being placed by everything, so just because you dropped all your points into condition damage doesn’t mean bob and his 10 buddies have, too. AND, if they stack it pretty high before you get involved, you might not even get that many on the NPCs anyhow. The result is that you are kind of a dead weight on the group.

You’ll see this most plainly in Orr (if you can ever find a group there anymore…) Back when Orr was populated (pre factals), Plinx farming was the big thing. I joined in on that group – level 80, full exotics, all condition damage dual pistol engie. I couldn’t even get my kills to register. I would be the first person shooting an NPC, and when it died I STILL wouldn’t register as a participant, because of how little damage I did, and so I got 0 XP, 0 loot and a silver badge for the event.

I switched out my condition gear with power gear and haven’t had that problem since.

Astraea.6075:

Hellkaiser.6025:

There was a fellow during the first days of the Halloween event that dropped $900 on gems for the event.

Moral? Someone will always buy, regardless of price. The rest of us “voting” quietly won’t do much except leave us without

Exactly, and they’re the kind of players that feed this rubbish, vote with your feet, not with your wallets.

I don’t think many people are going to leave the game over the price of costumes in the gem store… the chests might be a different story, but again, I doubt that they are causing people to walk away from the game completely.[/quote]

I think it might have a backwards effect from what they want. I really wonder, after the RNG fiasco that was random bags during the Halloween event, how many people will spend near as much money on the gem store from now on as they did then.

It’s one thing to dump a good bit of cash and get just one or two rewards. It’s another to dump a good bit of cash and get no rewards. I can’t imagine the motivation is still there to try again.

Wrain.6792:

The day they bring back them STUPID AI bots is the day I sign out again. Total waste of gameplay. I prefer REAL people, not stupid NPC’s I have to gear up and drag around.

Well considering we don’t have real players to play with either, and you don’t want “stupid NPCs”, I guess we’ll just all AFK in towns for a while. :-\

It’s about time they brought one of the two most OP classes in the game down to the rest of us mortal men. I actually saw a grenade Engineer get a warrior to 50% in a 1v1 fight. FIFTY PERCENT. Anyone with half a brain can realize there was something wrong with that. 30% nerf to grenades? They were too kind. I would have aimed a lot higher. Or removed them entirely. I mean, come on people: 50%. To a warrior. Ridiculous.

With Engineers now in their proper place, we can work on sorting out how to nerf Necros down to be in their intended spot as well, since they have inherited the spot of “Most OP class” after this patch.

Oxstar.7643:

Because it they do that then it becomes a matter of grinding money to buy that awesome gear. Even I can see that.

That would at least be an alternative to the current path of just grinding dungeons.

The way it is now: grind dungeons to get the best gear. The end.
The way it would be: grind dungeons to get the best gear OR grind gold to get the best gear.

plasmacutter.2709:

please explain to me how gw2 emulates wow at all.

I’m just not seeing it.

I’m seeing a game combat system and content that is focused on players’ overall skill rather than their ability to mash a dps rotation. I’m seeing pvp that’s competitive and not based around out-gearing your opponents.

I’m seeing a very well implemented game with more available content than WoW had 3 months after its launch, and more content coming out at a faster rate than Blizzard ever maintained.

People who bash this game as being “like wow” have some real blindfolds on.

Their only real balance failure thus far is the in-game economy, but I have enough patience to wait that out.

GW1: story driven, gear plateau based gameplay. Hit max level early, max stats early, play the rest of the game (the remaining 90%+) for looks, exploration, story and fun.

WoW/GW2: gear driven gameplay. Open world zones are bordering on ghost towns in both games, end game consists of everyone farming the same dungeons over and over for the newest tier of gear. Future enjoyment of the game revolves around getting bigger numbers for your character.

I leveled an alt from 42-80 in2 days doing only crafting. It cost me, at the time, ~15 gold per profession, but I made some back selling stuff on AH over time. It may cost +- 5 gold now, with market changes.

I personally rebound my keys and don’t use the F keys.

1-5 = 1-5
Shift + 1-5 = 6 – 0
Ctrl + 1 – 4 = F1 – F4

Azjenco.9425:

minbariguy.7504:

Azjenco.9425:

Ugh, no. They frustrated the kitten out of me in GW1. They could never come close to a decent human player, and you had to babysit them far too much.

I understand what you’re saying, but the NPC’s we’re saddled with during our personal story are exponentially worse. Not only can they not come close to a decent human player, they can barely approximate the skill level of my cat if I were to sit her down at my computer and sprinkle catnip on my keyboard.

I’d rather have to do a little babysitting of henchmen than constantly have to rez useless cannon fodder.

Exactly, the story NPCs are atrocious. Now imagine them in a dungeon.

There’s a lot more going on in GW2 battlefields than in GW1. In GW1 NPCs could get away with ability spams, and sometimes there were some parameters that required a skill at a certain moment.

Now imagine NPCs needing to dodge at a very specific time, or needing to move to certain areas, or having to not use some skills at certain times, or doing an action at a very specific moment. What about some dungeon areas where there are some precision work that needs to be done, or where a very specific strategy works more effectively and now you need your henchman to do exactly what you want at exactly the right moments while focusing on what you’re doing yourself. The dungeons will need to be drastically redesigned to accommodate them, and frankly you’ll loose some of the interesting parts in the dungeons because of it.

I disagree. I love the idea of heroes and henchmen, but I also understand why, in GW1, they made some content too difficult to complete with henchmen only. It would be no different here. Henchmen would open up a lot more content for people unfortunate enough to want to be enjoying anything other than fractal farming, but wouldn’t alleviate the need to run with real people. Some content would simply require that.

Walle.6087:

Grim.5728:

You don’t NEED other people to play though. Just yesterday, I hopped on GW1 and vanquished 3 or 4 zones with just heroes.

I happen to enjoy playing with other people. If i want to play a solo game I will go play a RPG.

GW1 seemed to do everything better than GW2.

I just don’t understand why they would want to alienate they’re core fan base by removing design/mechanic concepts that made GW1 great.

Pretty simple, really. WoW sold more copies in the end. Raw numbers > loyalty to fans. They figured it would be more worthwhile to emulate WoW than their own previous game.

It’s a shame because that’s not how it started and not what so many of us dreamed. But in the end, it was an unrealistic fantasy to think this game would be the sequel to GW1 in anything other than name only.

Being unique doesn’t pay well.

Just wait. With the current state of the zones, it will give them the oomph they need to push henchmen/heroes through. We will finally get something that makes this game feel like a sequel to GW1.

Honestly I can’t wait. It’s super exciting thinking about that system in this game. Sure we lost our gear plateau and open world play in favor of WoW style gear grinding and dungeon farming, but we’ll still get at least one of the best parts of GW1.