Guild Wars 2

I would go with human, just because the human elite is semi-functional in a condition build.

Galen Grey.4709:

if the past is any indication everyone will have no trouble acquiring a full set of ascended gear by that time.

I mean we’re one year in, can we say there is any content that requires exotic gear?

I had sometime tell me that in WvW I should increase my armor above X because of ascended weapons. This X would require 100% defensive setup. Now I don’t think it’s necessary, but perceptions are already out there that ascended weapons is changing things.

@Vol.

I don’t know about the actual effect, but the perceived effect is inflationary. Whether it is or not. That’s sufficient for the anti-farming hounds to be released.

Again, this isn’t advocacy, it’s just an explanation about why people may be upset.

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

@Vayne,

Sorry but I disagree with you. The game is about all the parts they’ve added to it. It’s about WvW, Fractals, Dungeons, Open world PvE, living story, tPvP, it’s now also about vertical progression.

It’s ok for someone who loves fractals to be upset that they get no love. If ANet added content specifically to woo some types of gamers, they should be expected to support those gamers.

But it’s not JUST about Fractals. That’s my point. It’s like my ex wife who was a very picky eater. No matter what restaurant we went to, she complained about the selection. The problem was very rarely the menu.

Anet didn’t make Fractals. They made Guild Wars 2 of which Fractals is a tiny, tiny part. And if people want to live in that tiny tiny part, that’s fine. But if they want the company to make the game so that they can never leave that tiny tiny part (Fractals isn’t WvW…it’s not an entire play style, it’s a single series of mini dungeons), then that’s their prerogative.

If it’s so painful, the people who ONLY play Fractals and want to do nothing else will leave. Most of those people have probably already left, anyway.

Yep. I misunderstood your post. My bad.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

No thanks. I’ll probably stick around in GW2 until the time where having full ascended becomes expected, and then I’m gone.

Seems like ANet doesn’t cater to players whose playstyle deviates from champion zerg farming and sitting at a crafting station.

Me too. I just can’t make myself do the leveling.

Vol.5241:

I really don’t get why anti-farmers want to enforce their own tendencies on farmers.

It’s like casuals trying to instill casual tendencies on hardcore players.

Good luck.

I don’t think they’ll succeed but I can tell you why they try. The champ farm trains increase the price of everything on the TP. Or at least they seem to. Much more gold goes into the system than mats.

@Vayne,

Sorry but I disagree with you. The game is about all the parts they’ve added to it. It’s about WvW, Fractals, Dungeons, Open world PvE, living story, tPvP, it’s now also about vertical progression.

It’s ok for someone who loves fractals to be upset that they get no love. If ANet added content specifically to woo some types of gamers, they should be expected to support those gamers.

Galen Grey.4709:

@TooBz
In 30 minutes you can get 4 alts to farm all ancient logs for a day easily. If you’re unlucky and dont get any extra drops due to WvW bonuses you’ll still get the minimum 144 logs. Players are asking 11.5g for that! Gathering ancient logs isnt particularly excited granted but is it worth 11g? NO! in 30 minutes I am going to make maybe 1g? if even! 11g isnt justified I am much better off gathering it myself.

I don’t disagree with you, but there is some food for thought. If we agree that chopping down wood logs isn’t very fun. Let’s call it work. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to want to be compensated, otherwise I won’t bother. So, for 30 minutes of doing tedious stuff I want 11g. 11 g will cost me about $4 in gems. So I’m doing something tedious and asking for $8 per hour to do it.

It probably doesn’t actually work this way. But I find people to seem less crazy if you think about this in terms of work. It probably works the other way. People who see the price of the logs and decide that they’d rather spend $4 in real money for the logs rather than spend 30 minutes swapping alts and whatever. Or (more likely) champion farm for the gold for 2 hours rather than spend 30 minutes chopping.

The price jumped because ANet shifted the demand curve by introducing ascended gear.

At every price point there are a number of people who are willing to supply a good at that price (I’ll go and get the logs and sell them to make 15s) and people who are willing to buy them (I’ll but logs for 15s). As the price goes up, more people will supply them (I’ll go chop down a tree for 1g). And fewer people will buy them (that’s too expensive).

They meet at an equilibrium price, where the number of suppliers roughly equals the number of buyers.

This is where the supply and demand curve meet. However, ANet has a lot of influence over where those curves are.

For other reasons, it doens’t matter if someone goes and gets there own logs or not. If you value a log at 15s or more, then you will pay 15s for one. If you value a log at less than 15s you will sell the log you have rather than keep it.

What I think happened is that ANet created a HUGE money source with the Champion farming they introduced and consequently created a HUGE money sink to counterbalance. Will link to the forum post that is the smoking gun in a moment.

They problem is that if you didn’t do the money source, you’re kittened on the sink.

Found it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Economy-concerns/first#post2635292

The exponential grown in the level of grind required for each new item scares me so that I don’t want it. I’m not looking forward to the day when a legendary is the easy way to get max gear.

TheDaiBish.9735:

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

who sets that 15s each? Arenanet? Nope, its players….

Why are players willing to pay 15s for a single ancient wood log where in literally 30 minutes you can gather 144 of them (assuming a Conservative 4 level 80 characters which I would assume most people have). Thats 21g in 30 minutes for crying out loud.

Dont ask me, ask those players who have no problem paying the 15s being asked of them.

But stop blaming the game… its not Arenanet or Gw2 who decided choping trees should be more rewarding then a high level fractal. It was the players who decided saving themselves 30 minutes of gathering time was worth an astronomical amount of gold.

So increasing the amount of logs you need for one plank was a players’ decision.

It’s the same thing though.

Players are the ones who make the planks and logs worth so much. Before Ascended, I remember the price of Ancient Wood logs being around the 60c mark. By that, it’d have still cost you around 1s80c to make a plank, as opposed to the 15s now.

ANet sets the price (within a margin of error) based on actions they take. I had a long post explaining why, but ANet made me log in again and I lost it. The very short answer is that in a virtual world natural laws don’t apply. ANet can shift the supply and demand curve at will.

Longer answer requires looking at how much players influence supply and demand vs. how much ANet does. Let’s say that price is set by supply and demand.

For supply, players decide whether they are willing to go chop down trees, but ANet decides how many trees there are, where the trees are (how much of a pain it is to get there), how many logs you get from a tree, how long you have to wait before you can chop down the tree again. There is no natural rule that determines any of this, it’s all made up. Suppose ANet changed things so that one swing of an axe gave 100 ancient wood logs. What do you think would happen to the price?

For demand (where most people think they have a choice), players decide if they want to craft an item, but ANet decides how desirable the item is and the recipe for the item.

In real life, you need a certain amount of wood to build a picnic table. But that doesn’t apply here. There is no natural law that says that a lump of mithrilium requires 50 mithril ingots. There is no natural law that says 3 logs make a plank (for example, at one point ANet increased them to 4 for one type of plank only). There is no natural law that you need an exotic insignia to make an ascended item. There is no rule that says you have to discover 10 exotic items to level crafting from 475-500.

I don’t think players have nearly the impact on price that you think they do.

Edit: To answer the question of why is it so expensive then? The obviously answer is that ANet wants it that way. What you need to consider is why.

Soulbound isn’t an issue unless stuff is difficult to obtain. Who cares if Exotics are souldbound, run a dungeon or 6 and get another one.

The problem is when they make a $10 pick axe soul bound.

Or alternatively, the GW2 staff could spend time fixing forum bugs.

I think the living story is easy to ignore because it includes a lot of useless stuff to get the end reward. Who wants to hunt kites, dragon teeth, lost toys, pinatas, pumpkin’s to carve, etc… etc.. etc..

Some of it is really well done, but there’s way too much filler.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Answer this question, while you’re at it. Why do so many players who complain about lack of difficulty reject the suggestion that they just kitten their character?

It’s a mental thing. A lot of people only feel ‘good’ about their character when they can generate those huge numbers. They don’t feel like they are getting any better unless they have the ever climbing stats. “Oh look at me, I’m awesome, I do so much damage I can just faceroll through the game. No skill required”

shrug We could go into the whole human psychology thing… and I started to, but opted to delete it. It’s just too long and boring to be honest. Chalk it up to its a mental drawback of the human ego, the inability to outgrow the need be “the big bad.” Some might say it’s a form of compensation….

I think this is exactly right. And I have no problem admitting that this is one of the things that draw me to games. I want to be “the big bad” but in real life, not so much.
Real life is real life. Part of the appeal of these games is that it’s not real life.

For some people, the journey to become the hero is what they want. They like the feeling of getting one step closer to the goal. For other people, they just want to be the big bad.

This is actually the source of almost everything I don’t like about the game. RNG isn’t suppose to be random. Like James Bond, I’m suppose to draw the inside straight! Rare isn’t suppose to mean rare. I mean, I’m the hero, the big bad, I’m suppose to find the rare item! That’s what heroes do. Rare should be commonplace!

If you just want to be the big bad, then another tier of gear is terrible. If you like the journey it’s great.

To get to 40 my advice is (this may be overkill, but you said you were struggling. If you do this you probably won’t struggle anymore).

1). Buy power based gear every 5 levels. (this means you will buy, at most 4 armor sets and 4 weapons sets before you hit 40 (now, 25, 30, 35)

2) Buy a minor sigil of bloodlust for each weapon set (one per set) Put in a buy order for 8 of them it will cost you less than 4 silver.

3) Buy 4 minor runes of the elementalist(< 1 silver), 4 minor runes of vampirism (< 1 silver), 4 minor runes of balthazar (< 1 silver), 4 minor runes of the flame legion (< 1 silver), 4 minor runes of the citadel (< 1 silver), 4 minor runes of the pack (< 1 silver).

4) When you get a new armor set, add 1 rune to each piece, each set should have 1 of each. So the set would have 1 elementalist, 1 vampirism, 1 balthazar, 1 flame legion, 1 citadel, 1 pack. This will give you +60 to your power. (if you are not familiar with this, each piece of armor (helm, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, and boots) can hold 1 rune. The runes give bonuses. Here I’m going for a straight power stack).

5) when you get a new weapon set, add a sigil of bloodlust to the mainhand weapon of each set. This will avoid doubling up.

Stealth + Blink is the best disengage combo we have.

If that doesn’t work, focus 4 can cripple / pull pursuers.

Mesmers have no good access to out of combat mobility.

Nope nope nope. Do yourself a favor and do not work on Alt’s. Focus on your 80, get ascended gear, make a fortune, craft a legendary, get map completion. If you start an alt you will be sorry.

I struggle with this all the time. I wish I had never tasted the forbidden fruit of leveling an alt. Society will punish you if you do.

AntiGw.9367:

TooBz.3065:

If you had said “hey, can we get a check box for speed runs?” I don’t think you’d see a huge backlash. It could even be required that groups match (your only presented with people who select speed runs).

Backlash aside, you also need to think about the design consequences of such a checkbox.

Does it reduce the list of groups people are immediately exposed to?
- Yes -> remove checkboxes unless absolutely necessary (and most elitist features are not absolutely necessary)

Does it increase the number of steps one needs to make when looking for group? Can this be avoided or with a simpler interface, or the same goal be reached with a simpler interface?
- Yes -> you can use the description box to find the perfect group (which will result in about the same effort and amount of steps)

Does it cost more money?
- Yes, the list is dynamically updated, the longer you keep it open the more money you are draining -> your group needs to be removed asap.

Ok. I stand corrected.

The problem isn’t “casuals” it’s “hardcore with limited time”. Of course it all depends on your definition of casual. I’m extremely serious when I game, i min max, I study skills, I work out damage calculations over lunch, and I can play maybe an hour a day.

The problem is, are there enough of me to be worth worrying about?

While I’m not advocating this, the only way to “fix” beserkers is to either

a) make enemies who are vulnerable to conditions but relatively impervious to direct damage.
or
b) remove beserkers as an option. Then people have to decide between power + precision, power + critical damage, and precision + critical damage. There would also be more variety in the last stat (healing, vitality, or toughness).

The simple truth is that the synergy from power, precision, and crit damage will always be superior in PvE.

Calae.1738:

The problem is if they try to focus on every kind of player they aren’t actually focusing on any kind of player.

Truer words have never been better spoken.

One of the biggest failures of modern MMO’s is their inability to understand their target demographic. The average MMO player is getting older; reaching their mid 30’s. If younger generations are part of that target; how is leveling, grinding, and farming going to attract the instant gratification generation?

Yeah, one thing I’ve noticed is every 10 years Time magazine publishes an article about the most recent generation coming into their 20’s. It always says that they are impatient and self-absorbed. Do you want to know who is impatient and self-absorbed? 20 year olds. I really don’t think we are any different generation to generation.

Any perceived difference may come down to free time. I had a lot more unstructured time as a child when compared to my children. Kids are kept very busy.

As for older gamers, I had a lot more free time in college than I did when I started working. A lot more free time when I started working than I did when I got married. And a lot more free time when I got married than I did when I had children.

Consequently, I have less and less desire to grind. I imagine it’s the same for anyone else who is time constrained,

Harper.4173:

marnick.4305:

haviz.1340:

SamSerious.9624:

LFG tool is simply amazing. I’d prefer ANet not to add any more filter option. People who wants to filter casual players can go somewhere else to find their kind of players but for average players it is perfect.

To give an example, I could never find lvl1 fractal group. Without LFG tool I’d be waiting hours even days to find a group. With LFG, I was able to find a group in less than a minute during morning server time and not only that we did level 1 to 3 at stretch without any problem. People were so helpful and understanding. I was also able to find story mode dungeon group who did not curse for not skipping cutscene.

LFG tool is designed for such players and should be kept as it is. One of the reasons I quit GW2 was because of difficulty in finding casual players to do contents with. Now I can stick around because of LFG tool

How does pooling casuals with casuals contradict your utopian vision?

Because, on the internet, unless strictly moderated, such tools become as good as the worst part of the community. WoW went downhill due to gearscore and other elitist nonsense. Many casuals fled to this game because the community here is intended to be friendly. I hope the worst and the scrub of the internet is handled on the LFG tool. I’m talking about elitists, obviously, those who have no place in this game unless they respect the rights of the casuals.

Good one – I’m casual and have rights that should be respected.
You’re a hardcore elitist – you have no rights.
How about you people respect OUR rights to not play with you if we so choose to?

As you said, if you see a group you don’t like, you can drop out and try again.

To me, the the issue is all in how you present your case.

If you had said “hey, can we get a check box for speed runs?” I don’t think you’d see a huge backlash. It could even be required that groups match (your only presented with people who select speed runs).

But instead, some genius had to say “I don’t want no scrubs, rawr” which, of course, immediately earned the ire of the rest of the community. Pro-tip: presentation is 90% of everything.

Haven’t read anything. Posting anyway.

Please stop talking about the manifesto. It’s completely counter productive. It’s like saying to someone “I’m mad because you promised you wouldn’t steal my ice cream” Be mad because they stole your ice cream. Whether or not they promised not to is, at best, a periphery concern.

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

Alright. But is that what he said right there? I could only gather from that post that he and other people are upset with the game.

What he said right there is no different than what he said in countless other threads. People are mad. We’ve known those people were mad since last November. They’ve been made since then…at a game they’re disappointed in.

The direction of the game changed…no one denies it. Ten months on and they’re still mad. They come to the forums of this game to complain about ascended gear..that was announced last November. You’d think by now they’d have figured out that the game has changed, it’s not for them, and they’d find a game that was.

Because saying OMFG there’s vertical progression in the game for ten months solves what? Is Anet going to stop and take it all out tomorrow?

I don’t like the vertical progression either. I’m not in complete disagreement with what’s being said. The only difference is, I’m not taking the inclusion of vertical progression as a personal attack. Anet saw a problem, Anet moved to fix the problem. I don’t agree it was the best solution by ten months on? I think people would have moved on by now, instead of hanging around to complain on a forum over a change that was announced so long ago.

Even I think the game is too grindy. So?

I think, at least for me (as one of those who has been complaining about this for a long time (maybe not quite November)) I think I remain with the game due to a lack of a better alternatives (if someone has one, please PM me, I know you can’t post one) but at the same time I remain deeply disappointed in this direction.

Once the new MMOs come out next year you will see a drop off in complaints.

I can’t wait, actually…because I know what happens. SWToR was once one of those new MMOs. TSW was. Hell, Neverwinter was a new MMO, people talked about it and now I hear nothing about it.

Everyone talks up the next big MMO and has been for years..but there hasn’t been a next big MMO because it’s easier to say what you’re going to do than to accomplish doing it.

There are too many people who want too many conflicting things. You can’t please everyone (and you need to to have a blockbuster) or you remain niche. I don’t see any new MMO having less problems implementing change than Guild Wars 2 has had.

But I’ll be happy when those people who aren’t happy find something they’re happy with.

Hmm… I may be wrong. Forgot about Neverwinter. That came out after ascended gear and didn’t capture the hears and minds of people. Sigh. I guess your stuck with us.

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

Alright. But is that what he said right there? I could only gather from that post that he and other people are upset with the game.

What he said right there is no different than what he said in countless other threads. People are mad. We’ve known those people were mad since last November. They’ve been made since then…at a game they’re disappointed in.

The direction of the game changed…no one denies it. Ten months on and they’re still mad. They come to the forums of this game to complain about ascended gear..that was announced last November. You’d think by now they’d have figured out that the game has changed, it’s not for them, and they’d find a game that was.

Because saying OMFG there’s vertical progression in the game for ten months solves what? Is Anet going to stop and take it all out tomorrow?

I don’t like the vertical progression either. I’m not in complete disagreement with what’s being said. The only difference is, I’m not taking the inclusion of vertical progression as a personal attack. Anet saw a problem, Anet moved to fix the problem. I don’t agree it was the best solution by ten months on? I think people would have moved on by now, instead of hanging around to complain on a forum over a change that was announced so long ago.

Even I think the game is too grindy. So?

I think, at least for me (as one of those who has been complaining about this for a long time (maybe not quite November)) I think I remain with the game due to a lack of a better alternatives (if someone has one, please PM me, I know you can’t post one) but at the same time I remain deeply disappointed in this direction.

Once the new MMOs come out next year you will see a drop off in complaints.

Daily’s aren’t good for any player. They hurt the hardcore by slowing them down. They hurt the casuals by pressuring them to log in everyday.

These things were not done for our benefit.

Eurhetemec.9052:

TooBz.3065:

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Is it bad that the first thing that passed through my mind was “oh no”

Tachenon.5270:

If ascended gear was (metaphorically speaking) triage, what happens when the (hypothetical) 45% of the player base (that stuck around for ascended gear) has gotten ascended gear, done what they’ve been given, and stopped?

Masterwork infusions

To me, the interesting question is do you need fundamentalist to keep the game alive, or are we properly dismissed as an unimportant minority.

I’m going to guess that ANet has decided that either they don’t need the core or that a VP core is better than a non-VP core. I hope the former is true, because if they are relying on the later they may discover that what they think is a VP-core is really just part of the unvested masses.

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

This was suppose to be a non-judgmental discussion of what people actually use. I assume Colesy has a reason for wanted to know. Can we stay on topic? Make a new thread to argue efficiency / optimal whatever.

AntiGw.9367:

TooBz.3065:

Two points, first, no check box or gear selection option on a LFG tool is going to weed out that kind of “bad.”

The way LFG is being designed, it would simply make your party invisible to anyone that doesn’t have a certain weapon or a certain skill equipped, so yeah it could weed out quite a lot.

The obvious problem with that is that would work more effectively than anyone can imagine or predict, causing a lot of issues.

My point was not that you wouldn’t weed out a lot, but just that if the expectation is that you only want to run with warriors who don’t camp on a great sword, then unless LFG includes a long questionaire you aren’t going to hit that level.

So the logical next step is to have the game constantly analyze your performance and generate a historical DPS while in each dungeon. You could weed everyone out on that.

Frankly, I half want you to get what you want just so I could watch the game die as a result. I think it would be fascinating to see first hand.

colesy.8490:

TooBz.3065:

colesy.8490:

Eurhetemec.9052:

colesy.8490:

I’m sick of people making excuses for bads, get good or get out.

This is really an incredibly silly attitude for GW2. If you like elitism, there are dozens of games which support it extremely strong.

GW2 never has, and is never likely to.

You are like an olympic-level marathon runner going to the London Marathon and screaming that every runner except the elite needs “get good or get off the road!”. No, they don’t. That’s not how it works.

It’s not like what you’re asking for requires skill, either – it requires gear and specific builds, not skill. So let’s drop the attitude and stop pretending skill is the issue, not gearing.

And yet most PUGs can’t dodge even if their life depended on it. There is a skill element to the game, people just prefer to shut off their brains, and then when they wipe have no idea why they did and refuse to use any good builds because “well it’s just cookie-cutter, I’m going to be hipster with my terribad condi build”.

I’ve never run with anyone that bad (no dodging). But you run more dungeons than i do.

I should also add that in my above post where I said your variation was slim, I don’t mean PVT or Condi builds. I’m talking about straight up zerkers than don’t use the weapon / traits that you like.

To offer you an example, a warrior camping GS is bad even if they’re in full zerker because while they think they’re getting nice DPS with HB/WW, they’re not actually understanding that it’s meant to be used as part of a rotation, that the autoattack damage is weaker than their axe, and that big number doesn’t always equal big damage (case in point – phantasmal warden has pretty average DPS but it gives big number).

Two points, first, no check box or gear selection option on a LFG tool is going to weed out that kind of “bad.” Second, I think those expectations are best kept to speed runs with people you know.

It works the same way with WvW. If I’m with my guild, we all know what to do and can wipe a normal zerg twice our size. If I’m running with a random zerg, my expectations are lowered.

colesy.8490:

Eurhetemec.9052:

colesy.8490:

I’m sick of people making excuses for bads, get good or get out.

This is really an incredibly silly attitude for GW2. If you like elitism, there are dozens of games which support it extremely strong.

GW2 never has, and is never likely to.

You are like an olympic-level marathon runner going to the London Marathon and screaming that every runner except the elite needs “get good or get off the road!”. No, they don’t. That’s not how it works.

It’s not like what you’re asking for requires skill, either – it requires gear and specific builds, not skill. So let’s drop the attitude and stop pretending skill is the issue, not gearing.

And yet most PUGs can’t dodge even if their life depended on it. There is a skill element to the game, people just prefer to shut off their brains, and then when they wipe have no idea why they did and refuse to use any good builds because “well it’s just cookie-cutter, I’m going to be hipster with my terribad condi build”.

I’ve never run with anyone that bad (no dodging). But you run more dungeons than i do.

I should also add that in my above post where I said your variation was slim, I don’t mean PVT or Condi builds. I’m talking about straight up zerkers than don’t use the weapon / traits that you like.

colesy.8490:

Well if players didn’t suck so much or wanted to play awful playstyles this “elitism” wouldn’t be a problem.

I’m sick of people making excuses for bads, get good or get out.

Having established that I’m “bad” and we won’t EVER run together (I recommend you block me so that it’s not a risk), I think that part of the problem is that your version of “not bad” is incredibly narrow. Basically if it’s not optimal it’s bad. No middle ground, no variation, no fun.

That’s cool with your guild or on an advertised speed run (which, really you should only do with people you know). Not cool in pugs.

I have 7 at 80. But only 2 I play a lot. Although while boss farming for Dragonite, most of the others have gotten more play.

Thanks for posting the vids. Looking at the playstyle, it seems like most of your time is spent autoattacking. Summon phantasms and auto attack. Is this correct?

Is this optimal? I assume you are saving blurred frenzy for the dodge. Or is blurred frenzy actually worse than autoattacking?

Ryn.6459:

Are you serious? Yoy guys dont retrait cause you are lazy? I dont mind spend all time needed in a dungeon but not for people who is so selfish and dont have any kind of considetation for other people time. RETRAIT IS EASY FAST AND CHEAP. Think in someone else beyond you please.

No. This is completely wrong. Whether or not something else is optimal, I’m use to my WvW build. I’m in WvW 70+% of the time. My build affects how I play at a fundamental muscle memory level. For me, 20/20/30/0/0 is a tanky build. I get use to being willing to take a couple of hits (not a ton, and I’m usually one of the last men standing if my group gets wiped, so it’s all good in WvW).

If I suddenly switch to a build with no toughness, I’m going to go down until I adjust to the new situation. No party should want me to do that for the occasional dungeon run.

Were I to dedicate myself to speed clears and dungeon running then I would retrait and get use to the new build.

On a side point. I think you may have better success if you rephrase your point. For example, if you tell me to do something I instinctively say no. On the other hand, if you had said. “Why don’t you retrait? It only takes a couple of minutes and you’ll be much more effective in a dungeon.” Then we may have a discussion about why I don’t retrait and usually, I don’t run dungeons unless there is a guild chat call for them, in which case I’m usually in a hurry because I don’t want to keep my guildmates waiting, and as I said, suddenly changing from a tanky build to a completely glass build is difficult for me, and….

And you may even have suggestions about how I could deal with it and be a better player.

The content may be free, but my time isn’t. If I am giving a game an hour of my time then what I receive needs to be worth an hour of my time.

Many games fail to deliver at this point. This is why so many games are never finished by players. What I’ve gotten so far is worth the money I’ve spent, but they are still asking for my time and, frankly, my support in the gem store.

Free is not an excuse.

Zeldain.5710:

Calae.1738:

I HATE crafting and I HATE gathering. These are chores; not intense game play.

That IS gameplay. If you’re looking for one-dimensional twitch, then MMORPGs aren’t for you.

I can never tell if these responses are serious or just trolling.

This all ties into how is ANet working to retain players. For me, I’d be all for raising the bar. It think they just did with the Teq update, which by all reports is hard.

I think dungeons could be made harder too. However, instead of making the game harder in general, they have elected vertical gear progression, which makes the game easier. Since I think that ANet is savvy enough to realize that if they suddenly toughen up the content so soon after releasing ascended weapons people will scream gear grind. Personally, I would have much preferred harder content with the same gear.

I would not expect anything new or more difficult for at least 3 months (dungeons only, world bosses are currently getting revamped).

Edit: Although the twilight assault may be a revamp to twilight arbor so I may be completely wrong.

wouw.5837:

Well they did.

They anounced ascended items 1 year ago

Yes, but they launched > 1 year ago.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

kitanas.3596:

don’t have time to read whole thread, sooooooooo

OP, It wasn’t advertised because it wasn’t planned imo, and the reason the plans changed was because of massive player outcry about a year or so ago

I don’t recall anyone asking for tier gear, much less an outcry.

I do recall a massive 11,000+ post outcry against Ascended gear, that got unceremoniously closed. Seems most people back then bought the game under the assumption that there wasn’t any, because they advertised it that way…

Strange, cause I remember people asking for gear grind. Usually they get shot down pretty fast so they stopped posting.

In fact, one of my most highly rated posts on this forum is warning a guy that he just opened a can of worms by asking for it.

I’m thinking the onesy-twosey folks bringing it up were a far, far smaller crowd than the anti-gear-grind crowd (as evidenced by the afore-mentioned mega-thread).

ANet really misread the community on that one (or got greedy and panicked at the perfectly normal drop in players a few months after a game launches), and screwed the pooch when it comes to making GW2 redefine the genre.

We’ll never know for sure, but I bet they blew their chances as becoming legendary in the long-term trying to knee-jerk fix a short-term hiccup. That one decision, back in October/November is the one that’s going to haunt GW2 for the rest of its existence.

They could at least do what CCP did after Monoclegate, admit what happened, and put up a monument to the player’s epic dissatisfaction. I don’t think ArenaNet is that classy, though. Not any more.

I don’t believe Anet misread the community. I think the forum community thinks they’re THE community and that’s not necessarily the case.

People were bored and leaving. What evidence do you have that more people wouldn’t have left if ascended gear wasn’t here than more people left because of it?

I know you really believe that forum posters are the majority or think like the majority, but in my experience that’s not true (and this was backed up by something said not too long ago by an Anet dev).

What’s really funny about this is that to me ascended weapons are soooo boring. We’re talking like OMG boring. Any attempt to get one is met with an immediate attack of “what’s on TV?”

This is not just a game it’s an MMO. In an MMO you must work, do chores, strive, stand around bored for an hour waiting for Teq, buy gems, envy those with better luck than you, and above all you must grind. What does fun have to do with it?

Apparently you don’t understand the kind of game you are playing.

/sarcasm

colesy.8490:

TooBz.3065:

Do you have / know of any videos of this play style in action?

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Brazil’s veteran risen giant kills.

I really should go record something but I haven’t got a clue what to do once I have the base footage. Is it literally just click > upload or is there something more to it?

I don’t know, I don’t record either. But the style seems interesting and I’d like to see it. I know I would probably get into trouble on cooldowns if I played the way I normally do.

I know you will hate this, but. I don’t gear up much just for dungeons. I don’t speed run. I don’t retrait. So my focus is being good enough in a dungeon when I come out of WvW.

Full Zerker, sword / focus – sigil of fire, sigil of accuracy, gs (yikes) sigil of generosity.

Usually I will stick to those. I don’t like the focus, but it has too much utility.

The fire sigil on the sword is additional damage. (I also have one with a sigil of force)
The accurracy sigil on the focus is to proc the fire sigil + more crits.
The sigil on the GS is left over from WvW builds, where I wanted to condition dump.

I don’t use bloodlust because I usually don’t get enough stacks. I don’t use battle because I didn’t know about it when getting zerker gear and i’m too cheap to throw away a sword or a sigil. (WvW weapons are knights)

I usually stick to those items. I change around utilities all the time.

But I also use a highly unoptimized 20/20/30/0/0 build, because I’m usually coming from WvW and I don’t retrait.

However, since the change to WvW I’m thinking about getting into dungeons.

Do you have / know of any videos of this play style in action?

That happens. I had a COF p. 1 mesmer the other day who insisted on doing the boulders (I was also a mesmer) and he flubbed it. It just doesn’t bother me.

Like I said, a checkbox to indicate that you are serious and will basically be mean to anyone who doesn’t measure up to some arbitrary standard is good (well not good, but I don’t want to run with you (too much stress) and you don’t want to run with me (I’m bad), so let’s make it official).

However, demanding automated class/gear/AP check is bad. Mostly because it would encourage people who aren’t like you to act like you.

haviz.1340:

Sylv.5324:

They won’t stop being scrubs until they learn from someone who isn’t.

There are plenty of guides on internet. Should everything be handed to them on silver platter?

In general, watching a guide is not the same as experiencing the dungeon. It’s why driver’s education isn’t just watching videos.

One the other hand. I agree there should be someway to isolate the elitist from the rest of the population. If having an “i am an elitist kitten” checkbox on an LFG will do it then I’m all for it. But I only support it if you guys agree that you will otherwise leave the rest of us alone. That means no more “omg greatsword in dungeons” posts. If we don’t check the box, we are obviously bad and don’t give a kitten.

I think anything more than that will be disastrous for everyone who is not an elitist. I almost want to see it implemented, just because it’s interesting to watch this game shoot itself in the foot.

Don’t delete blueprints. Sell them on the TP.