Guild Wars 2

SkiTz.4590:

Windsagio.1340:

Still looking for an answer:

How does this ‘requirement’ make practical sense to people?

Anybody who’s played much of the upper end content knows how tiny the effective change is.

Why don’t you bloody wait until the full details of the raids, requirements, mechanics, etc are released???

You think anyone has an answer right now? besides anet obviously.

For all we know, masteries could boost ascended gear only in raids and that is why they would be require.

Who knows. Wait and found out.

Or you know, we could talk about what it could mean instead of cheering or crying (depending on attitude).

Per your example, I hope they have more grace in their design than that.

Still looking for an answer:

How does this ‘requirement’ make practical sense to people?

Anybody who’s played much of the upper end content knows how tiny the effective change is.

I wanna keep going back to “How can that NEEDING be true?”

The stat difference is insignificant.

Laggo.8973:

Windsagio.1340:

lordkrall.7241:

Windsagio.1340:

Until you find out it’s gated on AR

Windsagio.1340:

Also the math isn’t cumulative like that. It essentially can’t be the stat difference, it’s not significant.

Agony is most likely the way they’re going to gate it, although I expect OUTRAGE.

The other possibility is that “Ascended Gear Required” is a PR lie to make raids sound more hardkore.

They have already stated that Agony Resistance will not be needed.

https://twitter.com/All_Caulle/status/649248858195668992

Then it’s PR bullcrap. The effective difference in ascended stats is just that insignificant.

I’ve noticed more and more that 90% of this community doesn’t actually understand the difference between exotic and ascended, they just repeat what incorrect information somebody else told them.

I love that this post could be read two entirely diferent ways

lordkrall.7241:

Windsagio.1340:

Until you find out it’s gated on AR

Windsagio.1340:

Also the math isn’t cumulative like that. It essentially can’t be the stat difference, it’s not significant.

Agony is most likely the way they’re going to gate it, although I expect OUTRAGE.

The other possibility is that “Ascended Gear Required” is a PR lie to make raids sound more hardkore.

They have already stated that Agony Resistance will not be needed.

https://twitter.com/All_Caulle/status/649248858195668992

Then it’s PR bullcrap. The effective difference in ascended stats is just that insignificant.

Rabe.2456:

Seera.5916:

Rabe.2456:

Are we talking about Agony Resistance or what’s the big deal about Ascended Gear? I don’t get it. If you tell me 90 main stat points make a real difference then I wonder what’s going on with the design.

Well, 90 may not be a lot. But what about 900 when multiply that across the full group needed for raids? 900 may be a noticeable difference.

That only applies to offensive stats, but they wanted to encourage us to invest into defensive stats, as far as I remember.

Also the math isn’t cumulative like that. It essentially can’t be the stat difference, it’s not significant.

Agony is most likely the way they’re going to gate it, although I expect OUTRAGE.

The other possibility is that “Ascended Gear Required” is a PR lie to make raids sound more hardkore.

Ronnie Hu.1694:

Ascended Gear to be required for raids sounds stupid.

Never underestimate the mighty players.

Until you find out it’s gated on AR

Now I’m gonna have to derail again some.

This isn’t a legitimate “meta”. It’s one of the worst misusages of a term in MMO discussion.

It’s not competitive
It’s not required to be successful

It’s a preferred style for optimization.

These things are very different!

(Yes I will man the walls of linguistic purity until the last brick is torn away)

Neox.3497:

No. You won’t complete the raid in record-setting time. Without the “meta” you won’t be able to finish it at all.

That is pretty unlikely no? Has that been the case with ANY GW2 content?

The guy’s being snarky, but dealing with people who demand a particular build can in fact turn play into work if you let it.

Ninjeff.6510:

I think only average and below average skilled players are constricted by the current Meta. Because these players are less skilled they have to bring the “best comp” to clear content.

The good players can most likely play what they want because they can play it at a higher skill lvl. These players usually define the Meta by testing and finding the best solutions for problems.

It’s a question of motivation;

The good players that aren’t stuck on optimization do what you say. The problem is that’s a pretty small group. Most good players, especially in the dungeon/fractal environment are really into optimizaiton even when it’s not super meaningful.

Roxtar.6487:

Guardian can get over 800 health per second (symbol, regen, resolve) with a sizable bump from courage (over 1500) every 10s. What I’m afraid guardian lacks is any on demand healing, which is where pure of heart should shine – but instead is a lackluster 2000 heal that might not even trigger given how short aegis duration is. Access to protection is notable, but it certainly is not on top of heals by a long shot.

Gotta beat this drum, Healing Breeze/Receive the light Is a 6525 damage (taking the numbers from wiki 1305×5 pulses) group heal. If you specc Honor, you get a heal (varies to gear but sitll on demand from dodge rolls, and even without virtues tree Virtue of resolve is a group heal on demand.

There’s really no question in a mobile fight beyond druid and guardian, at least as far as healing goes.

support is a different discussion somewhat, but we’re talking about heals here ><

Eponet.4829:

Something I do think might be worth mentioning is the target limit on the guardian’s passive sustained healing, whereas a warrior with 2 banners and 35% boon duration can provide 100% regeneration uptime for 10 people simultaneously via inspiring banners.

If regen had any meaningful value that’d be great. It’s pretty insignificant though

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Windsagio.1340:

problem I think is people going the wrong direction;

Realistically the only viable healers are Druid, Revenant, and Guardian/DH.

Nobody else remotely has the healing sustain to keep people going. Almost every variant has been tried.

In content where healing isn’t necessary at all, sure. Eles can output pretty strong healing as well.

Of course, healing is a duty that can be split over the party fairly well. I imagine a dedicated healer won’t be necessary, but without one the party will have to dedicate a few more skill slots/traits to make up for it.

My point would be that the longer the encounter the less vaible most of these options are. In much of the content neither spike nor sustain is an issue, but almost all of the options have no sustain. Ele is close, but the uptime on their heals is relatively low, so it puts a lot of extra pressure on all the other players (staff water 1 is okay, but much lower than healing symbols, for instance).

The healers that I can see working tend to have a lot of healing on their weapon skills and passives along with, in general, protective boon generation.

problem I think is people going the wrong direction;

Realistically the only viable healers are Druid, Revenant, and Guardian/DH.

Nobody else remotely has the healing sustain to keep people going. Almost every variant has been tried.

Holy guardian undersell batman!

Amongst the base classes, at a relatively minor dps loss guardians blow everyone else out of the water for healing. —especially if you go virtues.

The signet elite has a significant pulse (the cast is useless though, or just about).
So do symbols (if you’re doing trying to heal, you’re doing hammer/honor anyways),
whatever the healing breath is called is is one of few legitimately group-oriented heal skills

You can do some rediculous sustained group face tanks (ie level 49-50 mai trin, holding the whole group up) with guardians, stuff just not possible with any other kind of healing.

ODB.6891:

Windsagio.1340:

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

Don’t get me wrong, I think it was definitely a mistake for them to include gear that makes players think tanking and healing were supposed to be viable options in PvE, but I know the ship has sailed on this issue…especially with the announcement of an expansion supporting dedicated healing in PvE less than a month away. I’m just pointing out the real issue that caused all of this back peddling on the original game design advertisement. I’m definitely irritated on the back peddling part, but if they really want to go the route of semi trinity…GW2 style….then I’m warming up to it…so long as they provide the proper tools. If I’m going to play trinity style game play, I want meters, inspect, and role checks. Fractals are one thing….where you encounter so many terrible parties and you can just bail out and find a new group within minutes. Raiding, I imagine, will be a different story altogether. The logistics of getting enough people together…for what I assume are going to be much longer and much more demanding encounters…are not something I would want to fail from unprepared or unqualified raid members. A common thing I see people say on these forums about how they just lie to get into fractal groups, is something I think raiding should have a way of dealing with.

I guess my response would be is that there always has been room for ‘soft’ tanks and ‘soft’ healers in PVE, just in most cases it’s so much faster and safer to just kill the enemy quickly enough that defensive concerns don’t matter.

It does work, although not with 100% predictable efficiency.

For raiding, leaving aside my skepticism about how actually hard they’ll be beyond the logistical part, it’ll be quite a while before they’re puggable anyways, and by the time they are the encounters will be known enough that the grouping requirements will be about as necessary as they currently are in fractals.

PopeUrban.2578:

Pretty decent point really. I think back to GW1. Gear stats weren’t really a thing outside of skill runes. You basically chose between more HP or more points in a skill.

However, they went the more traditional ‘stats that do stuff’ route for GW2, so it follows that, if you’re designing gear “for tanks” or gear “for healers” etc. then it follows that your content needs to encourage people, somehow, to actually play those roles.

I think anet has a pretty long histroy of being overly optimistic about player action in stead of taking the measured approach that players are the enemy of balance and will mercilessly exploit any weakness in your system

The current situation likely doesn’t align with anet’s intent for the combat systems, but until now they’re have higher priorities than creating challenging and meaningful PvE combat as the studio has been largely focused on esports and living story narrative, both of which have radically different balance concerns.

PvP actually uses stats that are wasted in PvE, and the LS releases, being largely solo endeavors favor self sufficient damage -wth-a-dash-of-sustain builds which are the overall “damage meta” in the first place.

only now do we see them sitting down and going “okay, maybe we should have more builds than damage with a little support in our game, and the only way to make that happen is to make it as efficient as what people run now”

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

First of all, to go back to an old point, let’s not humor it by raising it to a dignity of a ‘meta’. There’s no meaningful competitive drive behind these build optimizations, it’s a misappropriation of the term.

Second, the existence of preferred builds is really a construct of the player base. Efficiency varies, sure, but even ‘hard’ content is designed to be completed by a very wide variety of comps, there’s no (or barely any) game enforcement of it, it’s just a player preference for efficiency that’s been given this holy status.

~~~

The flip side of that is that there will always be a preference because the human mind is wired that way. It just won’t be super meaningful.

maddoctor.2738:

Windsagio.1340:

I’ve never ever ever heard an actual professional designer use cute card suite metaphors for player types.

Do you know many actual professional designers?

Richard Bartle wrote those “cute card suite metaphors” to describe player types. I think they fit well don’t you think?

He is kind of the grand daddy of MMORPGs

I do in fact, I’m a (yeah actually paid) technical designer myself, and I’ve been in the business long enough to know at least some people. (It might be because we’re scummy mobile devs though, different culture)

And yeah, I’ve heard a lot of descriptions of the types of players in work discussion, but at least in our culture we don’t refer to them in that way.

~~

I’m not of course disputing the characterization into types, but honestly the card suite thing hit me as some annoying ‘paid design school bs’ and I shot my mouth off unreasonably :p

I’ve never ever ever heard an actual professional designer use cute card suite metaphors for player types.

Supz, the problem is that "truly challenging’ is preobably a scam.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

The gameplay style doesn’t need to change, it just needs to grow and get harder.

And instead we get raids ><

That’s just growth and scale. We already had the large scale events which they’ve been slowly pushing towards smaller numbers, and we have fractals. I don’t really see much as far as a change in gameplay when I have 9 organized teammates instead of the 4 in fractals, or the ~10-15 disorganized ones in SW Breach bosses.

The gameplay will be determined by how the content works and how the enemies act.

I just want hard content. Not gimmicked content – This does apply to the OP too, trinity is gimmicked content in the place of execution skill.

Jerus.4350:

The gameplay style doesn’t need to change, it just needs to grow and get harder.

And instead we get raids ><

Also, I’m realizing (as much as I try to understand where they’re coming from), Ohoni is explicitly wrong in every direction in the case of the rewards.

Raids should have unique rewards at the same quality level as all other content. This is how GW2 has done all other rewards in their game, and it’s been quite successful (With a semi-exception of the pvp tracks, which get you about anything in the game with extremely poor efficiency)..

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Windsagio.1340:

SkiTz.4590:

Windsagio.1340:

SkiTz.4590:

thats a replica skin. There is already replica skin for legendary armor (its called ascended). You have access to that already.

Did I miss something that said legendary armors get ascended skins instead of new ones?

its essentially a replica in terms of stats….
You aren’t statisically any better with legendary than ascended…

There are no true replica skins in this game. most of the heavily sought after skins are unique and rightfully so. For something as prestigious as legendary equipment, there shouldn’t be true replicas…. either get the real thing or don’t…thats what makes it unique… anet isn’t making some cheap knockoff of legendary skins…

You shifted sideways a bit there, from saying ‘its a replica skin’ to ‘there are no replica skins nor should there be’.

there are 3 unique things about legendaries.
Modifiable stats
Unique Skins (I’m including the particle effects)
Pretty purple description text

~~~

The one absolute non-starter is that it’s not a prestige item in several ways.

Wait, what? Legendaries are totally prestige items. Or at least they’re meant to be. I’d agree that the implementation of legendaries right now is kinda bad, and I’d definitely argue that earning legendary armor pieces through challenging content (raids) is a huge step in the right direction, but still, you cannot really argue that legendaries are definitely designed to be prestige items.

Bad phrasing on my part. What I was trying (and failing) to say was approximately:

“Some people are trying to downplay the prestige value of the legendary armors, and that is a discussion that should be off the table. Any argument that the Legendary Armor isn’t supposed to be a very high level prestige item is a non-starter.

SkiTz.4590:

Windsagio.1340:

SkiTz.4590:

thats a replica skin. There is already replica skin for legendary armor (its called ascended). You have access to that already.

Did I miss something that said legendary armors get ascended skins instead of new ones?

its essentially a replica in terms of stats….
You aren’t statisically any better with legendary than ascended…

There are no true replica skins in this game. most of the heavily sought after skins are unique and rightfully so. For something as prestigious as legendary equipment, there shouldn’t be true replicas…. either get the real thing or don’t…thats what makes it unique… anet isn’t making some cheap knockoff of legendary skins…

You shifted sideways a bit there, from saying ‘its a replica skin’ to ‘there are no replica skins nor should there be’.

there are 3 unique things about legendaries.
Modifiable stats
Unique Skins (I’m including the particle effects)
Pretty purple description text

~~~

The one absolute non-starter is that it’s not a prestige item in several ways.

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni, GW2 is not a fashion simulator – once you come to terms with this fact I feel you will be happier. Right now you’re trying to warp the world to fit a view you hold, your view is not reality and no amount of squinting or arguing will make it so.

You are not owed the ability to try on all the dresses.

It actually totally is ><

SkiTz.4590:

thats a replica skin. There is already replica skin for legendary armor (its called ascended). You have access to that already.

Did I miss something that said legendary armors get ascended skins instead of new ones?

Setz.9675:

Windsagio.1340:

If that were the case, people raiding would be cool if it were reduced to just the skin right?

(Na, we all know that’s not actually the case)

And that is how I know you are an entitled skritt. If the armor had legendary looks and ascended armor level, I dont think any raider would care if its legendary armor or ascended armor.

But just because three quaggans are bawwing up in this thread doesn’t mean that rewards should be dumbed down to appeal to their salty levels.

Mentioned above; I’ll likely end up raiding, just to keep with my friends. I don’t particularly care about the reward either.

~~~

That being said, the attitude about it bugs me.

I don’t care about the ‘legendary prestige thing’ personally, but it’s definitely real, and something care about a lot. Putting it on a specific game mode is cheezy at best, and annoying. To that end I empathize with people Like Ohoni (even if I find them a little extreme).

They hate raiding and don’t want to do it but feel pressured to do so by Arenanet’s design decision — which was almost certainly the intent of putting legendary armor exclusively in raids. It’s reasonable to resent the pressure.

~~~

And again, empathy.

If that were the case, people raiding would be cool if it were reduced to just the skin right?

(Na, we all know that’s not actually the case)

“greater risk?” In what universe?

Let’s not mysticalize raids. They’re a different kind of content, and will likely never be the highest skill content in the game – not even of pve.

which is where Ohoni and I break;

Unique skins is fine, great even.

Adding implied value though the item quality system is problematic.

Still comparing to successful competitors. Is this whole thing about validation and self-image?

No, I do not think they’ll include significant execution skill as compared to the higher end existing content.

Anet is not accustomed to setting themselves up for failure, and if they made the raids execution-wise even as hard as a 50 fractal (which isn’t really that execution intensive), they’d be working themselves into a corner where an even tinier microfaction of the player base would be able to do them.

They’ve made it clear they want these to be a big part of the gameplay going forward, and one of the things that means (PR rhetoric aside) is that they’re simply not going to be that kitten a execution level. They certainly won’t be harder (or as hard) as the hardest extant single-group content, because so few would be able to get working 10mans for that content.

And again, they want this feature to succeed.

~~~

So, they have to sell the ‘hard new content’ while at the same time making it so that there’s not the specific skill limitaiton to keep too many players out.

Adding the organizational and timing barriers is a good way to get faux-exclusivity that will fade over time (as the encounters become very well known it’ll be easier to pug out the organizational aspect).

The other element where the ‘medal’ parallel breaks down is the get something for being the best.

Raids are not competitive, at least so far as rewards. They have little skill-reward element to them, as compared to a practice/grind – reward thing.

We get into some dark old times if we think of these rewards as a ‘mark of the elite’, when they’re (like the glorious armor set) a ‘mark of being willing to play a game mode’.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Windsagio.1340:

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

No, the quality fo the reward should be on par with the amount of skill and/or dedication needed to get them.

But if you’re saying that other game modes should also get their own way of obtaining their own unique exclusive legendary armors then I agree.

“Skill” doesn’t have much to do it, I’ll grant dedication though.

As I said, I think if they’re going to do legendary armor, I wish they’d done it the way they’re doing the new weapons, and made really over-the-top skins instead – it serves a similar purpose, but in my opinion better.

Of course, I’m in a weird place – I’ll likely do some raiding (time permitting, my career eats into game time a lot), but I’m not likely to grind out all the other crap you’ll need to make the outfit even if I have the tokens.

~~~

In all honesty I don’t feel that raiding is something that is well served by special rewards. People love them of course, but it ends up being part and parcel of the whole negative culture that seems to develop around raiding systems (although the GW2 case seems like it’ll be better for that for a few reasons)..

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Windsagio.1340:

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

Why is logistical difficulty not a valid form of difficulty in your example? In the same way the Liandri aspect of the fight is a combination of reflexes,learning the positioning and dps. Co-coordinating a group of 10 players in a highly organized fashion is a form of challenge and difficulty by itself.

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

I’m going to preempt that you’ll take issue with the previous statement and go on to my next point from it:
In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?
More of the same currency? that’s not rewarding to them, they can gain as much of it as they wanted already, A lone title? probobly not going to be enough of a driving factor.

First point: It takes organizational skill for 1-2 players, order-following skill for 8-9. It’s invalid as a skill-check, if that’s the intent.

Second point: I’d put legendaries under the mastery gate they’re doing for legendary weapons 2.0. Raids can use the pattern established for all other game modes.

Third point: I think unless you’re doing Pvp (which is actually meaningfully competitive) there shouldn’t be any kind of ’you’re good’ reward beyond the most basic (titles, possibly skins). Difficulty in this game is a joke.

If the game mode can stand on its own, leaderboard it and throw out titles based on reaching certain rankings. Assign skins to certain ranks with special versions (as in the Glorious Pvp armor, which you can get straight progress on with special effects for champions). Shoehorning legendary quality in still strikes me as an attempt to prime the pump for raids.

Ohoni.6057:

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

Quotas should be based on time and effort spent, not on personal ability. They should not go to the “best” players, they should go to those who put in the time and dedication needed, to their best of their own abilities.

In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?

With exactly the same rewards, because it doesn’t matter whether you are in the top 100 or the bottom 100.

Raids are predicated on time and effort sent, as compared to ability, that’s my personal annoyance.

Seera.5916:

Windsagio.1340:

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

So you know what all is going to go into legendary armor? You know how time consuming and hard raids are going to be exactly and just how nit picky the players are going to be?

No one can claim which will be easier or harder to get between legendary armors and the current legendary weapons or the new legendary weapons because we don’t know the exact specifics and likely won’t until HoT launches.

Sure we do.

We know raids are meant to be exclusive.

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

This annoys me to no end, and I don’t give a kitten about actually getting the loot.

I dunno man, I find the focus on power level to be a little iffy.

everyone at this point knows the stats aren’t better. That’s not what it’s about, and it hasn’t been for some time.

It is a prestige item of higher (game-defined) quality. Of course many people are going to feel that they’re losing out for not doing the associated content.

~~~~

Ohoni aside, this would be a much smaller issue if the rewards were unique skins as in fractals and pvp.

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

Kjell.8379:

Legendary items are not sufficiently more powerful than exotics to really be a concern. You yourself even call it a “prestige tier”. If someone needs ascended gear then there is already a way to get that without needing to raid, anyway.

Perception is everything, that’s a basic concept of loot & rewards in GW2.

It is the only way to get the highest rarity tier, gameplay differences or not. Isn’t there an implied ‘doing this is better’ element as compared to granting unique skin sets (as fractals or other pve content or for that matter Pvp do?)

Kjell, how do you feel about the conception that they are explicitly making it ‘not equal’ by putting a prestige tier of a gear type only on one game segment?

Interesting experiment for the loot discussion: Try describing the current system without using ‘earn’ or ‘should’.

Me First:
They want to encourage the players to use the gametype, unique loot is a strong tool for that
There’s a tradition of doing it that way.

The whole argument of ‘well many other games did it that way!’ isn’t terribly strong.

In the old old days, the logic was ‘well what would that person have on them?’ So you kill Scar to get Scar’s Sword.

In MMO’s, except for a few specific prestige items, that metaphor is pretty collapsed, and we just have the remains floatingi t along.

Random.4691:

Knighthonor.4061:

Azure.8670:

First off, anet has nothing against the trinity. What they have always said is they want every class to be able to play multiple roles. You can have dps tank and support, just each class can do it and differently. That’s how they set it up and how it’s always been

Thats not how its alwayd been. Thats PR talk.
a thief cant tank no matter how they spec. They cant provide good healing no matter what they do.
same with mesmers in terms of support.

The list goes on.

Actually a thief could tank just fine with the right stat choices and an evade heavy build. This is compounded by the way gw2 works, instead of facetanking and soaking up damage you are suppose to avoid damage.

Also they can blind-tank any number of non-champion enemies.

Seera.5916:

Torolan.5816:

Seera.5916:

You can’t claim in one instance that a meal can be analogous to a game and then tell someone else that it can’t be. You said food a child hates. 9 times out of 10, that food is a vegetable. Can you come up with a food that a parent may serve at dinner that has no nutritional value? If not, then you can’t claim raids are a nutrient free food. Not in your analogy of a dinner with a food a child hates.

A raw cucumber has 56 kcal per 100 g. A healthy man needs 8000 kcal(2000 kj) to hold his weight or 4800 kcal to avoid malnourishment. So a cucumber is basically just solid, dirty water. Best of luck with eating so much cucumber that you don´t starve or are at least not malnourished. And I know forst hand that many children hate cucumber.
A melon has 72 kcal per 100 g. Although love them, they are also solid, dirty water from a nutrition point of view.
So either if you hate cucumber or love melons, their nutrition value alone is not enough to keep a man alive.

And for those of you that think something dirty with cucumber and melons: Tsk tsk, naughty! ^^

But it still has nutritional value. It does offer calories, which children need.

It’s more like, I dont know, a turduckin. It provides protein and calories (oh so many calories) but it’s still bad for you.

Things can be technically nutritive but still really really bad ><

Coulter.2315:

Windsagio.1340:

And let’s not fool ourselves. If there were no special rewards for Raids, it would be an empty wasteland. A tiny minority of players would do it. I question whether people would raid for even silverwastes-level rewards.

You genuinely don’t think that anet have designed something they think is challenging and want to reward appropriately?

No, I don’t think rewarding the challenge is part of their consideration.

I think incentivizing the gameplay is part of the consideration
I think giving players a new way to stand out that is part of the consideration
I think getting people into a long, expensive crafting process is part of the consideration.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Also, it’s not only about the trinity. It’s about challenging content. Think is that GW2 showed us the past 3 years that without a sign of trinity or at least more dedicated roles, there can not be any challenging content.

I (and I bet everyone else who supports the “trinity” idea) would not mind having really challenging content without trinity, but if they tried something like that my bet would be that it would result to the typical zerker zerg the instance and go to semi retired in 1 week because of boredom… You know.. typical GW2 stuff…

Trinity is like Raids. It’s replacing limited role difficulty for active/reactive difficulty. If Anet cant’ do better than role difficulty, I’d rather pass and play another mmo (but I don’t, which implies they can)..