Guild Wars 2

Farzo.8410:

It will hurt to see other races than humans wearing the Grenth hood.

I wouldn’t really see a problem with that. I mean, why should your character be strapped down by the tradtions of your race? He/she is her own person, and chooses his/her fate him/herself.

If you want to be a charr which abandoned charr traditions, why not?

Huck.1405:

[q]gotta get people to play the game somehow, right?[/q]

One does that by creating/maintaining a quality product. No amount of hype will change the product being hyped, it’s still as good/bad as it was when created.

I wouldn’t be too sure of that….

Just take a look at the supermarket. Kellog’s cornflakes is more expensive than Tescos cornflakes, it still sells. Are they different? Nope. If you put Tescos’ in a Kellog’s box, no one would notice.

Marketing can do wonders for your product.

Darkeus.2369:

It always amazes me that The Secret World solved this problem with their open build system but ANet can’t solve it in GW2….

As it is right now, there is no reason to experiment in GW2. In the end, the choice comes down to, “What shade of DPS do you want to be?” ANet needs to figure out how to balance their PvE content and create better group dynamics. It may not need the Trinity but it sure as heck needs something.

TSW didn’t solve the problem of the trinity. The game relies on a hard setup of healer/tank/DD in every dungeon, the only thing different is that the DD needs more skill to play compared to most other games and that there’s leech healing as well as the traditonal heal.

Its a darn good game (apart from the huge lack of visual character customization and having terrible animations and textures), but it wasn’t innovative in its combat.

angelpaladin.7921:

Ashen.2907:

angelpaladin.7921:

Maybe I am mistaken but Pay 2 Win to me means paying for what is essential endgame content. Two me the endgame in Guildwars2 would be the dressing up and looking fancy.

Pay to win is not, “paying for…endgame content,” its paying to win said content. If Pay to win was paying for endgame content then buying an expansion in a game like WoW would be pay to win.

Buying a expansion to unlock new content is extremely different then paying for that expansion then paying a little more for all the armor to be unlocked for you. When you play a game like World of Warcraft you do Heroic level raids for the gear. The gear makes you more powerful thus its the end game. In GW2 your grind gold for skin’s or now you pay real money for your end game item’s.

So…what can they sell in the gemstore then?

If they sell actual stated gear, then obviously that’s P2W.
According to this, if they sell cosmetics, then its P2W as well.

So what’s not P2W that they can sell in the gemstore then? Only useless stuff which no one would want? That’s a great business plan right there.

Scarlet actually went back in time to make herself a god and then created her present self, thus creating a paradox that threatens to implode reality. There, plot for the Abbadon fractal ruined.

You’re welcome.

sirflamesword.3896:

Treeline.3865:

To be fair you also get 4 chests, loot, fractal relics, some infusions probably, pristine relic and possibly a fractal skin or ascended weapon/ring.

And doing CoF p1 twice you get 6 chests, a little loot, and a few champ bags(ascended weapon chance)

Not saying that the gold reward in fractals is good enough, but the non-gold rewards from other dungeons are nothing like the chest rewards from FotM. You get champ bags from FotM as well, and the chests seem to have a much higher chance at rares/exotics than a dungeon chest + new sigils and runes at 31+.

I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it had better rewards than the JM (ie, gives Azurite) or if JM was buffed to be as hard as this.

You need to remember that FotM is supposed to be the endgame dungeon of GW2 and it was supposed to he very difficult.

You only get hit outside of the box once the lava pool forms it seems. I didn’t have any problems with getting hit on the initial contact.

They should reward things like a chance at a monocle/jetpack or Azurite.

Why? Because they are clearly miles harder than the Jade Maw, and thus it doesn’t make sense they should have the same rewards. That’s like a cleaner being paid the same as a physicist. Makes no sense.

PS: yes, I know that stuff like AC2 and AC3 having the same rewards also makes no sense, but thats in the past. This is a new update and surely from all the forum complaints and CDI they should’ve recognized this mistake for a new update.

We did it with a party of mostly light armors. It aint that hard, just needs a bit of co-ordination. You gotta remember FotM is supposed to be endgame content afterall.

…the rewards on the other hand is a whole different argument.

Ashen.2907:

Galtrix.7369:

If they were doing well, they would keep the game at 60 dollars and keep advertising. But nope, they drop it to 40% off and advertise to bring in more players so they will have more money.

If they have come to realize that on average the cash shop generates more income than box sales on a per account basis it would be foolish of them to NOT run a sale to draw in more people to be exposed to the cash shop.

Sometimes a price reduction can lead to increased revenue/profit.

Its a form of price differentiating, or whatever name by which you know the technique as. You sell it to the eager fans who would pay a higher price first to play the game earlier, than lower the prices to capture the not-so-eager potentials. Lets you milk every last penny out of sales.

The same with books. Do you really think the hardback version costs THAT much more to produce?

But, wow, that was cringe-worthy as crud. I’m gonna pretend that never existed. Not to sound offensive but can whoever makes this stuff actually look at their work and think ‘hmmm, what would an actual viewer think of it?’ before just jamming it out.

Yenn.9185:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I’m not quite sure what a DPS meter would achieve. DPS meters are there in other games as a tool to see if the DDs are actually doing their job, since in GW2 there isn’t the trinity and every class contributes differently to a fight, that tool would just tell you nothing of significance.

It would in fact probably encourage more elitism and promote things like not resing players or doing any support (ie, Guardians won#t switch to staff and use Empower because they’ll lose DPS).

Everyone is a DDs, healers, and CCs is this game. A (dps, support, etc) meter would tell us how each class is contributing to the party.

Elitism is already present in the game, and it is not impeding anyone on how they want to play.

In the situation of a character getting the lowest DPS in the party, what would that tell you? He sucks? He was going around resing players? He was positioning mobs? You won’t be able to explain why he has the lowest DPS and thus that data tells you nothing at all.

It works in traditional trinity-based games because the job of the DD is just to DPS, thats it. He doesn’t res, he doesn’t heal, he doesn’t support, he just churns out damage. So if he ends up with rubbish DPS, he did his job wrong. You can’t apply the same argument in GW2.

You can add a ‘support’ bar. But how would you implement it? How would you rate resing, buffing, healing, CCing? Especially as each of those have different significance in different encounters. Furthermore, how would you count each ‘support’ action performed. Resing someone who was dead already takes a lot longer than resing a downed player, would they count for the same number of ‘points’?

A meter system just wouldn’t make any sense in this game.

lordkrall.7241:

Xae Isareth.1364:

That’s a pretty cool idea. Instead of revamping the fight from GW1, we could have a fractal which relives his original banishment

Well they did make it quite clear during the election that the Fractal WOULD be about the original Fall. Not the battle in Nightfall.

Now you’re just making me even more annoyed at all the Kiel supporters :S

I’m not quite sure what a DPS meter would achieve. DPS meters are there in other games as a tool to see if the DDs are actually doing their job, since in GW2 there isn’t the trinity and every class contributes differently to a fight, that tool would just tell you nothing of significance.

It would in fact probably encourage more elitism and promote things like not resing players or doing any support (ie, Guardians won#t switch to staff and use Empower because they’ll lose DPS).

Spawne.3128:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Spawne.3128:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that everyone’s idea of fun is different.

I want raids and hardmode dungeons. I want the devs to make content which they’ll think ‘this is ridiculous…..’, then make it a bit harder, and on of that add a hardmode for it.

But, that’s also someone else’s idea of pure frustration.

I think the reason why its pure frustration is that you would go through all that trouble to defeat a raid or dungeon instance, and then get NOTHING as a reward except more stuff you have to buy in the gem store.

That’s up to them to place a worthy reward in the raid.

Besides, the first time I conquer a raid, the triumph of doing it is the reward in itself, it’s just the not-so-glorious wins afterwards that needs a reward.

Yes, the triumph is doing it I suppose, i guess if theres no reward, might as well move on to the next game to overcome bigger and better missions then too. No point in playing this one as theres no reason to repeat the dungeon again. lol

That’s why I said ’That’s up to them to place a worthy reward in the raid’.

Now you mention this though, if you think about it, what are the ‘rewards’ you get for doing raids in other games? Gear to gear you up for the next raid. That basically breaks it down to you’re just doing the raid to do the next raid, which is pretty much the same thing as doing each raid once, except for that its more annoying because you gotta grind the first raid over and over.

Scrambles.2604:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Aeolus.3615:

Cooperal.8704:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Trinity = Forced routine

No Trinity = Skill-Based

Fixed.

Yet this game is far from being skill based…

Judging by how I (by which I mean the whole party) end up rage quitting in high leveled fractals in PUGs a lot, and how my guild clears fractal runs like skipping across grass fields, I’d say there is some skill involved.

The thing with a trinity-based system is that you end up being almost able to do encounters blindfolded because they’re basically a set of steps you work off a list. at least in GW2 there is more randomness which you have to adapt to.

Trinity games operate with rigid roles and more predictable encounters. Similar to how a musician gets good at playing a composition in an orchestra. It caters towards competence more than twitch reflexes (skill)

I might be nitpicking here but I think you’re using the word competence wrong. The very definition of competence is means the possession of adequate skill, and thus you can’t just call using another type of skill not catering to competence.

Anyways. Why can’t you have both? Why can’t you have sophisticated mechanics in a encounter but also bring in the element of chaos? Its perfectly possible and it does exist in plenty of games.

The thing I don’t quite like about scripted enounters is that they don’t feel realistic. The real world is chaotic, things don’t always happen in the same order and at the same time, you have to adapt to your situation and that makes things exciting: not fully knowing whats going to happen next. I don’t get an adrenaline rush from scripted encounters, I get the same feeling as going through accounts at work. Its not a bad thing because both are very interesting but I like to feel like I’m actually fighting.

I think zerker gear is fine as it is, its just that we don’t have enough rewarding content which makes zerking it take far more skill than in a defensive build.

I think optimally, you want everything to be doable in zerker gear, but it would be like doing Touhou on Lunatic difficulty or whatever they call it these days. On the really rewarding and highest-tier difficulty content, it should be one tiny little screwup and you’re dead in zerker gear, whilst other setups are more forgiving.

Aeolus.3615:

Cooperal.8704:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Trinity = Forced routine

No Trinity = Skill-Based

Fixed.

Yet this game is far from being skill based…

Judging by how I (by which I mean the whole party) end up rage quitting in high leveled fractals in PUGs a lot, and how my guild clears fractal runs like skipping across grass fields, I’d say there is some skill involved.

The thing with a trinity-based system is that you end up being almost able to do encounters blindfolded because they’re basically a set of steps you work off a list. at least in GW2 there is more randomness which you have to adapt to.

Sifu.6527:

Force.8632:

Hey Guys,

I Guild Wars 2 dying?

There is barely anyone playing PVE from what i am observing… Bosses, major events and other interactive mechanisms are basically empty, played GW2 for 3-4 hrs today, have only seen less than 10ppl around PVE. Is it because i am in a low lvl area? or is GW2 dying??

PS im lvl 24 in lvl 1-30 areas.

It has never been the same since i left GW2 a few months ago… So little ppl playing? There isn’t much fun now T_T where are all of the players???

The financial trend indicate so.

1Q 2013 sales were $13.2M
2Q 2013 sales were $10.2M
3Q 2013 sales were $8.8M

So roughly a 20% decrease quarter over quarter.

Remember, this report is sales not EBIT.

Not too surprised to be honest. The game came out a year ago, and that 20% decrease just says a natural trend of decreasing box sales because they’ve captured more and more of the audience that’s interested in the game.

The question now is that how are they going to generate more income? Usually this is done either by a subscription, an expansion or DLCs. GW2 has none of those and I’m still yet to be convinced you can run an AAA game on the cashshop alone.

Kain Francois.4328:

Pretty sure Steam Creatures are Scarlet’s creations because they use the same technology as the Twisted Clockwork.

Everyone, panic!!!

What if Scarlet actually based her creations off steam creatures? She did taunt the player about the Infinity Ball if you chose that path for your character, so its implied she’s seen your work and probably copied it.

Skan.5301:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Spawne.3128:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that everyone’s idea of fun is different.

I want raids and hardmode dungeons. I want the devs to make content which they’ll think ‘this is ridiculous…..’, then make it a bit harder, and on of that add a hardmode for it.

But, that’s also someone else’s idea of pure frustration.

I think the reason why its pure frustration is that you would go through all that trouble to defeat a raid or dungeon instance, and then get NOTHING as a reward except more stuff you have to buy in the gem store.

That’s up to them to place a worthy reward in the raid.

Besides, the first time I conquer a raid, the triumph of doing it is the reward in itself, it’s just the not-so-glorious wins afterwards that needs a reward.

And after the initial euphoria of triumph, when you double click that massive bag from the end raid boss, you would rage like a panda and table flip.

3 greens, 2 blues, 54 bloodstone dust, 2 small claws, 5 silver 13 copper, and 1 small bit of salvagable metal.

At least you had fun for 2 or 3 hours, right?

And….why can’t they give better stuff?

Is there some sort of an universal law which says raids can only give you junk?

We have nothing in GW2 at the moment which is actually raid difficulty.

The question then is why can you transfer to NA?

I very much think its not exactly a technical problem, but more so Anet not wanting to lose this profitable source of income.

Zaxares.5419:

I would still like to see the Abbadon fractal one day, if only because of this possibility:

5 players.
5 gods.
5 players becoming avatars of the 5 gods to personally battle Abbadon.

That’s a pretty cool idea. Instead of revamping the fight from GW1, we could have a fractal which relives his original banishment.

You play as the other 4 gods and fight Abbadon. I doubt he just hanged his hands up and went to his prison because the other 4 gods asked him.

A perhaps even better idea: just reward tokens you can exchange for Ascended mats of your choice (or even chests if you got a toooon load of them).

It seems that everyoen has either too many frags or too many ores, depending on their playstyle, so why not let people choose what they want?

Personally I have 5 stacks of spare frags which I have no use for at the moment though.

mikeew.8607:

Without the Holy Trinity, you run into communities like this one where people classify each profession based on usefulness so warrior,guardian etc typically with thief ending up on bottom.

Now spin it in to a holy trinity warrior would have been a tank/dps guard would have been a support/tank etc. there would have been a healer specific class or classes and thief would be a great dpser along with ranger thus making them more sought after in dungeons and such.

It still happens in trinity-based MMOs unless you only have 4 classes. There’s 3/4 roles you can have: a tank, a healer, a DD, and some sort of a support class which is often mixed into the healer role (hence why 3/4 roles). Anything beyond that and you’ll have ranks.

In fact, its even worse in a trinity-based MMO because theres only a very small number of roles in combat and thus you inevitably end up with those jack of all trades, master of none classes which no one wants in a party. Sure, you can tank, you can DD, and you can also heal, but if there’s always another class better than you at all those roles, why would anyone want you around?

I think the absence of strict combat roles and it’s replacement with each class doing something which is not absolutely nessecary and everyone fending for themsves was to try and avoid what makes traditional MMOs a nest of elitism.

If you’re a healer and messed up your heals, be prepared to get your kitten shouted off, if you’re a DD that got aggro by accident: boy you’re in for a session of insults. There’s a famous story from WoW about a guy who was basically bullied across the entire server simply because he wasn’t very good at the game. That’s the stuff that gives MMOs it’s antisocial stereotype, and often end up making people who just want to have fun leave.

It’s a delicate balance though.

^ my point was: read the title.

Spawne.3128:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that everyone’s idea of fun is different.

I want raids and hardmode dungeons. I want the devs to make content which they’ll think ‘this is ridiculous…..’, then make it a bit harder, and on of that add a hardmode for it.

But, that’s also someone else’s idea of pure frustration.

I think the reason why its pure frustration is that you would go through all that trouble to defeat a raid or dungeon instance, and then get NOTHING as a reward except more stuff you have to buy in the gem store.

That’s up to them to place a worthy reward in the raid.

Besides, the first time I conquer a raid, the triumph of doing it is the reward in itself, it’s just the not-so-glorious wins afterwards that needs a reward.

In all honesty it really doesn’t matter if everyone was DPS. Roles could be dictated per encounter: if a boss needs CCing, someone could bring a hammer and CC it, if there’s a specific mechanic of the boss that needs to be done, some one could do it. You don’t need specific class roles to create rolls.

Look at the early days of Vindictus, everyone was a DD, there’s no tanks or healers, but each player brought something special to the able. Whether you could aim a ballista well enough to hit a tiny break-off point in the boss needed to get a special drop, whether you got reflexes quick enough to counter a boss’s attacks and hold it down, or if there was just a mechanic like dropping boulders off a cliff on the boss to stun it, everyone had their own roles.

I’d rather the devs fix the current world before opening a whole new continent.

Half the maps are practically empty, no one cares about DEs, and there’s a whole bunch of existing mysteries like who or what is Isgarren and what’s he doing in his tower.

Always finish what you started, and Tyria is far from finished.

I think a lot of legendaries need a complete revamp altogether. The Quip, the Moot, and probably something else I forgot are not legendary. Well, ok, they are a legendary joke.

What great hero of anything wields a magical disco ball with music booming out of it and small figurines of John Travolta all over it?

The problem is that everyone’s idea of fun is different.

I want raids and hardmode dungeons. I want the devs to make content which they’ll think ‘this is ridiculous…..’, then make it a bit harder, and on of that add a hardmode for it.

But, that’s also someone else’s idea of pure frustration.

Well, compared to other MMOs, GW2’s leveling is formula 1 racing speeds.

As for why its level 80 instead of level 20 now. No idea. Maybe they wanted you to go explore the world. Maybe they wanted level 80 characters to feel like an asset rather than just another random character. It is kind of annoying though.

The thing is, GW2 is an experiment. Its not perfect at the moment but its a brave step away from the traditional trinity setup that has plagued MMOs all this time. I don’t know how long it would take Anet to perfect their new setup, but it’ll get there.

Everyone plays a DD because for a large portion of the game, you need to fight alone, and since fighting alone is balanced around the DD, tanks and healers have a massively frustrating time doing so because they don’t get to apply any of their class roles, and thus are basically kitten.

1. Character costumisation. A lot of possible builds, and every skill is actually uniquely useful for something. Its even better on the cosmetics side with a lot of unique-looking skins to choose from to make your character stand out in the crowd. Needs more skills to choose from though.

2. Dungeons. Well-structured, and a wonderful break from the usual kill trash, kill boss setup of traditional MMOs. The graveling massacre using traps in AC2 is brilliant.

3. Tyria. I don’t think I need to say anything more other than I can hang my screenshots on a wall and call them masterpieces.

4. The little details. From how the grass parts when you walk over it, how your cloak whirls as you run, to the chitchat of NPCs around towns and the easter eggs thrown around the game. It makes the world so much more interesting and alive. The Iron Forgeman’s Terminator 2 reference as he dies is my highlight.

5. No. Trinity. I don’t care even if they just leave everything to be a massive DPS fest, but thank goodness this abomination does rear its ugly head in this game. As much as I love waiting in a queue as a DD for hours on end then getting trashtalked at by the all-so-mighty healers and tanks, no thank you.

Sarabande.8260:

Stooperdale.3560:

If you like the thought of a trinity then stand around in Lion’s Arch for 30 minutes pretending to wait for a healer, because that’s what you have with a trinity. If you’re not convinced, wait around for 30 minutes in Lion’s Arch the day after waiting for a tank.

One problem is that in trinity systems DPS is a dime-a-dozen because it is often seen as the most fun and often carries the least amount responsibility. What developers need to do is spread the responsibility evenly across the three roles* while innovating on each head of the trinity, specifically tank and healer. With respect to healers, WoW’s fistweaver monk was a small step in the right direction in the evolution of the trinity. Perhaps anyone who has experience fistweaving understands what I mean. Once this is done, there will be less waiting around for everyone.

*One way this can be done is through the use of game mechanics outside the trinity proper.

The thing is, once you start to innovate each role, it starts to move away from the trinity, and unto experimental grounds like gw2 is doing. You’ll make mistakes and have to try things that might not work, and you get these threads complaining about it. That’s the reason why the trinity is still to be cured from MMOs.

The huge flaw with healers is that as a class, you depend on being in a group. You’re very defining role is to support a group and thus if you’re not in a group, well, have fun trying to do anything.

On a side note though, a good innovation on the healer role can be found in TSW’s assault rifle leech healers, where you heal by life draining an enemy and channeling some of the HP drained to a friendly target. Too bad that game gets so little attention, it’s easily one of the best MMOs I’ve had the pleasure of playing.

Here’s my Mesmer, design based on a mixture between the Succubus from Vindictus and Lightning from FF13 (only a teeeeeny bit)~

The only problem with ESO is that I have a lot of concerns over how their servers will fare in WvW/RvR. I’m not a tech-savvy man so I’m not sure if GW2 has serious server problems or something but I can’t imagine the lag if you got every server WvWing in one map…

There was this time when I got bored, I put 4 GSs into the mystic toilet, it gave me Dawn. Then I stuffed 4 more in for the laughs, then out pops Dusk. Boy, I was so high I felt like I would never need to do weed ever.

….. then I woke up

To me, I looked over the list and most of them are Korean (or at least I think are Korean, judging by their nonsensical names, like BLESS), thus I pretty much automatically assume I won’t be interested, because I don’t like playing a second job.

Possibly apart from Black Desert. That game looks like Vindictus with an open world setting. Since Vindictus was the one Korean game I’ve ever slightly enjoyed (before Nexon typically came in with its usual cash shop antics and levels of grind which would make even Asians cry), I might give it a try.

Wildstar is basically WoW-in-space, with graphics that looks equally as dated (no, being cartoony doesn’t exclude it from looking bad). If I wanted to play WoW, I’d go play the original with years more of content.

I’m very interested in TESO and EQN, EQN especially due to what it promised to deliver. I’ve been disappointed slightly however as both games announced they’ll have the Unholy Trinity as basis for their combat.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Xae Isareth.1364:

That’s the problem, you don’t ever hear ’you’re a great DD’. If you play a DD character, be prepared to wait in line for hours, then get treated like expendable trash.

Also, the problem extends further. Since every class ends up being so entrenched into their group-play roles, you have severe problems playing them in a non-group setting, especially the healers.

It gets even worse. Invariably, there is a sub-set of a game’s classes which are only capable of DD. Game balance always shifts over time to make the DPS of those classes with alternate roles equal to those which are DD only, eventually making the classes which can only DD less valuable overall.

That really only happens once you get too many classes to balance right. Which is why I’m also against making more classes.

Pariah.8506:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Pariah.8506:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Sirendor.1394:

I’d like to add aswell: totally alt-unfriendly: if you have 5 level 80s (I know people with as much as 10):

• You need to max all armour and all weapon crafts:
  - 6×200g artificer, huntsman, weaponsmith, leathworker, armoursmith, tailor.
  - 6×60g for armour per character: 5×360g
  - 5×60g: lets take 5 weapons (I know that isn’t much) per character: 5×300g

In total you’d need
1200g (crafts) + 1800 (armour) + 1500 (weapons): 4500g

Do you get the picture?

The thing is, do you need to? If we split the playerbase into 2 types, the type that plays for progression and goals, and the type that just plays for fun.

Plays for fun: you don’t need ascended gear to do anything. Sure it would be nice to have it but nothing needs Ascended items in the game. Why would you NEED Ascended gear for alts?

Plays for progression: if you just make Ascended items equate to Exotics (ie, gets handed to you on a silver plate) then there’s nothing for a lot those people to achieve.

If it isn’t NEEDED then guess what, it shouldn’t have been introduced in the first place!
It’s not like this game is perfectly fine in every single aspect to warrant a time investment of the devs to create a new tier gear that ISN’T NEEDED.

There’s a difference between needing it in the game and the game needing it. By the same argument, Legendaries aren’t needed and cosmetics aren’t needed, heck, ..

Legendaries and cosmetics are skins, they don’t give any statistical advantage whatsoever and don’t contribute to the gameplay mechanics.

Depends on how you look at it. I’ve spent way more time dressing up my toons than getting Ascended gear, thus its an integral part of game mechanics to me. I’ve geared both my characters to full Ascended, and frankly speaking, I’m not noticing a difference between then and now at all, thus I feel the stats increase is rather cosmetic also. I get to see slightly higher numbers on my hero screen, but thats it.

Xae Isareth.1364:

what’s the point of the personal story? Lets scrap it all.

You mean.. no more Trahearne? By the five, yes! Count me in!

Not even going to reply to this…

Xae Isareth.1364:

A lot of people play MMOs to pursue goals or progression.

Completely agree, and that progression should be a horizontal one instead of a carrot-on-a-stick number crunch.

If people want to grind their nuts off for BiS gear there are a plethora of games that do grinding way better than GW2, just go play Korean MMO No. 324687513

How do you know the game will work without vertical progression of some sort? If you remember the biggest complaint everyone had about GW2 on release, it was that theres nothing to do after level 80. Given that there was plenty of cosmetics to case after back then, its clear that they meant vertical progression.

You can argue that it worked in GW1 but you gotta remember GW1 was a rather niche game which didn’t have the massive budget GW2 needs to run.

Farzo.8410:

Having defined roles make people feel useful in one way or the other.

Hearing someone saying “You’re an incredible healer” or “You’re an incredible tank” is fun to hear.

Also, encounters can work in interesting and different ways with the trinity.

While there’s nothing wrong or bad playing a game without the trinity, you can still see how the game has become with Berserker fixes almost everything better and faster compared to a group with more defensive characters.

ArenaNet can fix this, but they need to create encounters in special ways to make it sometimes hard for Berserkers, but easier for defensive characters, and vice versa.

That’s the problem, you don’t ever hear ’you’re a great DD’. If you play a DD character, be prepared to wait in line for hours, then get treated like expendable trash.

Also, the problem extends further. Since every class ends up being so entrenched into their group-play roles, you have severe problems playing them in a non-group setting, especially the healers.

The trinity is really a broken system which has be a disease of MMOs for a long, long time but thus far no one has come up with a good solution to fixing it. GW2 didn’t quite get it right, but its a good step forwards.

The question you gotta ask is how do you want them to be cut? If you meant something like just revamp the jellyfish fight because its 5mins of spamming 1, then yes, that’s just boring. But if you meant making them easier, then I very much disagree with you.

Clockwork Bard.3105:

Xae Isareth.1364:

TriggerSad.2597:

Pariah.8506:

Xillllix.3485:

For WvW it has become “Immobilize Wars 2”…

More like “Stack Wars 2”
I can’t fathom why they would cap AoE at 5 (random!!) targets yet leave buffs uncapped and applicable beyond the party members.

I’m pretty sure that buffs are capped at five, and prioritize party members…

Quite certain of that as well, otherwise guardians would have been basically invincible in a zerg.

Haha. Guardian gets out staff; presses #4. ~You Win! Perfect!~

It wouldn’t even be that lol. It would be every crit would heal me for stupid amounts and GS#4 is invul. for 4 seconds.

TriggerSad.2597:

Pariah.8506:

Xillllix.3485:

For WvW it has become “Immobilize Wars 2”…

More like “Stack Wars 2”
I can’t fathom why they would cap AoE at 5 (random!!) targets yet leave buffs uncapped and applicable beyond the party members.

I’m pretty sure that buffs are capped at five, and prioritize party members…

Quite certain of that as well, otherwise guardians would have been basically invincible in a zerg.

I think the problem with Memers goes beyond the downed mechanic. Their skills are often too random.

- The downed teleport seems to take you anywhere from a safe are to straight into a group of enemies, you have no control over it.
- Inspiration sigil applies random boons. How nice of it to give me aegis in the middle of an empty field.

Combat which involves RNG is not a good idea.

Pariah.8506:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Sirendor.1394:

I’d like to add aswell: totally alt-unfriendly: if you have 5 level 80s (I know people with as much as 10):

• You need to max all armour and all weapon crafts:
  - 6×200g artificer, huntsman, weaponsmith, leathworker, armoursmith, tailor.
  - 6×60g for armour per character: 5×360g
  - 5×60g: lets take 5 weapons (I know that isn’t much) per character: 5×300g

In total you’d need
1200g (crafts) + 1800 (armour) + 1500 (weapons): 4500g

Do you get the picture?

The thing is, do you need to? If we split the playerbase into 2 types, the type that plays for progression and goals, and the type that just plays for fun.

Plays for fun: you don’t need ascended gear to do anything. Sure it would be nice to have it but nothing needs Ascended items in the game. Why would you NEED Ascended gear for alts?

Plays for progression: if you just make Ascended items equate to Exotics (ie, gets handed to you on a silver plate) then there’s nothing for a lot those people to achieve.

If it isn’t NEEDED then guess what, it shouldn’t have been introduced in the first place!
It’s not like this game is perfectly fine in every single aspect to warrant a time investment of the devs to create a new tier gear that ISN’T NEEDED.

There’s a difference between needing it in the game and the game needing it. By the same argument, Legendaries aren’t needed and cosmetics aren’t needed, heck, what’s the point of the personal story? Lets scrap it all. But then you just end up with a game which has nothing to do in it.

A lot of people play MMOs to pursue goals or progression. Thats what Ascended gear is there for and why we got those absolutely pointless infusions that give you +5 power for a truckload of rare mats. It’s just there so satisfy people who want to be stronger.

Sirendor.1394:

I’d like to add aswell: totally alt-unfriendly: if you have 5 level 80s (I know people with as much as 10):

• You need to max all armour and all weapon crafts:
  - 6×200g artificer, huntsman, weaponsmith, leathworker, armoursmith, tailor.
  - 6×60g for armour per character: 5×360g
  - 5×60g: lets take 5 weapons (I know that isn’t much) per character: 5×300g

In total you’d need
1200g (crafts) + 1800 (armour) + 1500 (weapons): 4500g

Do you get the picture?

The thing is, do you need to? If we split the playerbase into 2 types, the type that plays for progression and goals, and the type that just plays for fun.

Plays for fun: you don’t need ascended gear to do anything. Sure it would be nice to have it but nothing needs Ascended items in the game. Why would you NEED Ascended gear for alts?

Plays for progression: if you just make Ascended items equate to Exotics (ie, gets handed to you on a silver plate) then there’s nothing for a lot those people to achieve.

Striker.9413:

I would be all for the removal of ascended gear. That’s with 4 back pieces (3 infused), 8 accessories, 7 weapons, and a bank tab of rings. AR should have been implemented by adding infusion slots to existing gear.

I also refused to spend cash for gems until either ascended is removed, or full ascended is available from all of the same sources as exotics. And each source needs to be similar in effort (40 laurels+50 ectos is nowhere close to 12 commendations+5g).

They could also implement asinine grind for cosmetics instead of stats.
Specific dungeon titles for 10/20/50k dungeon tokens.
The new TA skins were added with lame RNG. They could have been craftable using 10 Gift of Thorns+collecting corrupted branches from each end boss.
Have world bosses drop special account bound items to combine with other bosses’ special drops and other materials to create some skins.

Many ways to reward doing specific content without resorting to vertical progression, gold giveaways, or horrifically rare RNG.

It’s supposed to be better to use commendations, that encourages people to join guilds and do guild missions. The laurel alternative is like the laurel alternative for rings, still possible but it’ll take you longer than FotM.

I kind of like a bit of RNG in dungeons. There should both be fixed token rewards so you know you wot waste your time and RNG drops. The problem with current dungeons is that you don’t care what the boss drops you because you know it’s nothing desirable. One of the major things about MMO is the excitement of finding rare loot, which this game severely lacks.