Guild Wars 2

When you have a dream of yourself doing the Metrica Province jumping puzzle in vivid detail.

When you have a dream of an entire sPvP match in vivid detail, including combat rotation, dodging, stability stomping, and capping points.

These things happened to me lol.

I’ve been playing alone for a couple weeks now. I tried forming my own guild at launch with RL friends, but of course they all quit the game. Then I tried looking around for other guilds to be in, but I always felt like a stray cat that hangs out on the front porch longing for food and attention, but only receiving scraps of mild neglect. I pretty much gave up on finding a guild where I could really make close friends and not just acquaintances.

If you read every sentence of this thread while hearing Jeff Foxworthy’s voice in your head, you might be a redneck.

xCrusadentx.2784:

Holy Kittenz (Charr Warrior)

I Can Spell Good (my asuran ele)

Im Too Short (my asuran engi)

Stop And Stack On Me (or something similar, someone’s asuran guardian)

Lol, I remember when you were Holy Penor. I miss that name. :P

Also that asura is named Follow Me And Stack. He’s awesome, I wish I would have thought of that. xD

I’ve recently renamed all my toons Xenon with a letter to note the class. However I left my warrior alone. Her name is Show Me Your Crits.

I really dislike the way they talk about living world being so great. It’s a bit like a car salesman or something. They only think it’s great because it promotes gem store sales which fills their pockets with money.

The original reason they said they wanted to go with no sub fee is because that way, the players can vote with their wallets on what types of stuff they like and don’t like. The idea is that it would force them to strive for excellence in order to please the customers. In some ways, this vision has been clouded. Rather than trying to find the very best quality of package they can sell us, they are looking for some ideal middle ground where they can earn a quick buck without breaking a sweat.

Now that I’ve heard about them having multiple teams working on different living story releases, I think what the problem might be is some of those teams just have more talent than others. I think whichever team did halloween and SAB has the most talent. I can’t wait for their releases. The dragon bash team… eh, not so much.

I’m sure if Anet is reading this they are laughing because they know who’s on each team, and it would be my foot in my mouth if it happened to be the same team, but just got lazy. Lol.

Here is the Players Helping Players forum where this thread belongs, and where it will undoubtedly be moved.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players

As always, if you liked the game before, you will like it now. If not, then nope. Simple math.

Einlanzer.1627:

Lancaeron.1524:

Race change is NOT a good idea. Why? It would and WILL screw up your personal storyline from levels 1 thru 30, and after 30 it’s based upon choices you make, regardless of race, but from there on, it depends on which Order you choose to be a part of. However, I can see changing Orders being easily implemented. For my side of things, if ANet chooses to implement an Order change facility, that’s great, just allow the player to use both the former level 80 Order armors/weapons, and the current Order’s weapons/armors.

The idea, in case you missed it, would be that it would reset your personal story. There would be separate service that would only reset your personal story so you could replay it and make different choices.

This is a good idea. The problem is that Anet probably didn’t build the games architecture to accommodate such a thing. Most likely some massive overhauls to the personal story system would be needed. It’s possible, but not probable. Anet has to weigh the cost of such an overhaul vs the projected profit of race change sales, and consider whether it’s more important than dozens of other (potentially more profitable) things they could work on.

I would love a race change, but I don’t think it’s likely anytime soon. Maybe in another year or so.

^

This. Devs have said before they have no plans to add race changing due to personal story and racial armor complications.

Devata.6589:

Why are you so exited about this Pixelpumpkin?

You basically want to ‘claim’ a house in the open world.. Well then you should be much more exited about the idea of open world housing in stead of instance based housing with a door you can place anywhere…

Like I showed in the other thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Housing-7/first#post2340982) you linked to this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWP-DudjDBU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529in9ycPg4

This would be fun.
Instance housing is kinda boring.. I agree if you would have instance based housing this idea is better then having one portal or one button to take you to your house but in the end it will still be instance based housing.

I can’t overstate how much I don’t want to be walking through Queensdale, or Plains of Ashford and seeing ramshackle huts, cabins, or other randomly-placed abodes. They might as well let Coka Cola go in and smear their advertisement feces all over the landscape. Seriously, could you imagine seeing some odd-looking building rammed into the side of a hill, awkwardly placed in the middle of a corn field, or right next to a centaur camp that has no purpose other than to stroke some idiot’s ego? The game would become a graveyard full of monuments to the vanity of the unwashed masses.

TL;DR

No, it would be ugly.

Mist Y.5214:

WvW already takes place in PvE zones. WvW maps are full of PvE stuff.

True, there are pve elements in WvW, but it is primarily viewed as a PvP game space. I think that setting the GvG battles in some familiar PvE locations would make GvG look and feel unique, and not just a copy/paste of WvW. Not only would the setting be different, but the combat dynamic would be unique due to the more structured, instanced nature of it.

Imagine a battle in Kessex Hills where one guild spawns in the fishing village, one guild in the centaur stronghold to the east, and one guild in the caves to the north. There are several spots, like the building in the center, that are ideal as objective capture points. The village could spawn seraph guards, centaurs from the stronghold, and skritt from the caves. The battle lasts up to 15 minutes, or until a certain threshold of points are scored. The winning guild gains “control” of the map, their guild name is displayed as being the current “owners” of the area, and members of that guild get access to a few special NPCs and/or secret areas such as a jumping puzzle, or even special access to an “elite” guild puzzle. 3, 5, or however many hours later, any guild is allowed to initiate a GvG matchup for that area and attempt to take control.

I just realized a small problem here. Say guild [One] wins and takes control of Kessex Hills. 3 hours later [One] is busy doing something else, but [Two] wants to take over Kessex Hills. [One] isn’t prepared to enter a match or has no idea that [Two] wants to battle, so [One] doesn’t get matched into the GvG fight. There’s some obvious unfairness here. Suffice to say, I think logically should [One] not participate in the second battle, then the battle timer should exist as their surrogate defender. [Two] and [Three] have to reach the score threshold before the timer runs out. Say for example they need 500 points to win before 15 minutes are up, but the highest score is only 400. Neither [Two] nor [Three] gains control of the map, although the one with the higher score still gets credit for the battle victory (karma, tokens, whatever).

That was a lot more long-winded than I anticipated. I do so enjoy fleshing out ideas though.

Haha, I’m glad you enjoyed them.

Will Anet ever do this? Who knows? Only Anet. But they do look for our feedback, so it doesn’t hurt to pitch them ideas.

I’ve tried running two different guilds, and I’ve discussed this with successful guild leaders and I think the consensus is that it’s bad for guilds, but good for individuals. A guild, as an entity, dies when it’s members stop interacting with eachother. It’s very difficult for interaction to happen on a regular basis if people can’t see the same guild chat. Sure you can whisper, but you have to whisper each individual, which sucks, and at that point it’s not really a guild by definition. At that point it’s just a glorified, in-game version of gw2lfg.com.

I personally don’t feel right being in more than 1 guild, and I can’t stand the way it is currently set up. A guild is like a home to me. I either belong to one guild, or no guild.

darkace.8925:

Right you are. People don’t want to accept the fact that the enigneer is the spiritual successor to the ritualist. Thematically, they’re as different as night and day. Mechanically, they’re not that different. True, they’re not exactly the same, but none of the professions are exactly the same as they were in GW1.

Yeah… I miss the theme of the ritualist as much as the next guy. I miss my build where I would summon Destructive was Glaive ashes, dump some strong lightning spells, run in and drop the ashes for a cool looking aoe lighting bomb. The whole lightning thing was fun and cool looking, but mechanically it’s the same as using the Bomb Kit. I’m more in to the magical roleplay. It feels strange playing a thief, ranger, or warrior. I think it’s that feeling that people miss, and the sad part is they won’t get what they want because of a mechanics thing.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Although part of me pines over the loss of Ritualists and I know a lot of others feel the same about the Dervish.

People seem to always overlook the mechanics of the professions when talking about the lack of ritualist in GW2…

Ritualist mechanics:
1. weapon spells – add a unique special effect to normal attacks, e.i. a buff.
2. bundle spells – summoning unique ashes that yield special effects while held, and other effects when gained, or dropped. (swapping?)
3. spirits – stationary units that exert special effects in a wide area, such as attacks, buffs, or control mechanics.

Engineer mechanics:
1. Elixirs – abilities that grant special effects to normal attacks and/or passive temporary buffs.
2. Weapon kits – bundle items which grant unique attacks while held and other effects or buffs when gained. (again, swapping anyone?)
3. turrets – stationary units that exert special effects in a wide area, such as attacks, buffs, or control mechanics.

Any differences between ritualist and engineer are superficial at best. Considering this, the only way they would bring a class in to the game called “ritualist” is if it were completely different from the one we knew in GW1, because there’s already a class that functions that way.

I feel really bad for people like OP. I’m actually jealous in a way. I got a Dusk back in March after about 30 total gold investment in the mystic toilet. I haven’t been able to summon the willpower or resourcefulness to gather the rest of the materials though. The lodestones and t6 are killing me. I can’t see myself running CoF p1 9001 times to finish this kitten Twilight… I feel sort of guilty for getting the hardest part done so easily, but I envy the intestinal fortitude others seem to have for grinding out the farming and gold required for the rest of the crap.

Efaicia.3672:

I don’t know about the best game ever, it is certainly good with exploration and puzzles, but it falls short after those things are finished.

I am currently standing all alone staring at group events that are impossible to solo. Which is fine with me, but ..there is no one around….

On one hand, you might want to consider if it’s your server’s prime time. It’s 9:44 AM here on the east coast US. I play on Dragonbrand and it usually gets hopping around 5PM my time.

On the other hand, Anet could definitely ramp up the rewards for doing events. Right now they give such mediocre silver and karma that people seem to only do them to complete a daily or if they happen to be leveling. There’s no incentive for any of my 6 level 80s to do any event besides Jormag, SB, Shatt, etc because of the rare item, and because those events are stupidly easy. They definitely could do some work on the dynamic event system. The challenging ones are unrewarding and the rewarding ones are unchallenging.

Vayne.8563:

Mackdose.6504:

Risingashes.8694:

Best MMO, but will quickly be replaced by MMOs that have learnt from GW2s mistakes if they continue to fail to improve core systems instead of focusing entirely on themepark sideshows.

Which MMOs are you referring to? Hypothetical MMO That Does Everything Better #1289?

LMAO! I think people don’t get the idea that MMOs at launch are either tiny and polished (aka Rift) are large and buggy (aka Vanguard, Warhammer, AoC).

No game launching today is going to be significantly better than an older game, including Guild Wars 2. Many features were (and some still are) lacking. But I don’t believe any other game will be in a much better position at launch.

People who think they will are the people that keep running from MMO to MMO.

I think that MMO players have an entirely different yard stick that they measure games with, and it’s a pretty crooked, yet overly critical yardstick. They expect an MMO to be a very very specific way, and if it’s not precisely that way, then something must be broken. People seem to look at other genres differently though. It’s okay for a different type of game to try to be different. To them, diversity is acceptable as long as it doesn’t have an “MMO sticker” on the box.

You know what would be cool is if they designed GvG to be similar to WvW, but take place in PvE zones. What I mean is a guild can start a GvG match-up the same way they start a mission. To start the GvG, the leader selects a map and everyone in the guild clicks on a thingy in that map (lets say Metrica Province for example) and they are teleported to an instanced version of Metrica Province where the buildings are set up as objectives just like towers and keeps in WvW. Guilds can then battle it out for control of Metrica Province.

They had a special finale event in the beta that took people to a pvp instance of Metrica Province, so I see no reason they couldn’t design it this way. Imagine fighting in a pvp instance of Divinity’s Reach. Maybe more than two guilds at a time can fight in order to make filling up the map easier. Let’s say 3 guilds get matched against each other at a time and each guild can bring a max of 15-20 people? Heck, they could even design a smaller version for smaller guild fights by designing it more like DOTA with a lot of NPCs moving around fighting.

Hell yeah, small GvG could be like the DOTA-esque pvp game they had on Halloween, only designed for 10 vs 10 and taking place in a smaller section of an instanced PvE zone.

And the guild that wins the battle in that zone would win “ownership” of some related PvE area in that zone, which would unlock some kind of unique benefit for that guild as long as they hold it. Maybe it can be access to a karma vendor selling unique armor/weapon skins. Or maybe access to a special jumping puzzle. Or it could be for a buff to all build member’s magic find, exp, gold find, PvE health/damage, etc. Battles for a particular objective can be held every few hours so that guilds either have to continue to fight for ownership, or give it up to the next guild. We could put a 1 objective per guild limit and keep the benefits cosmetic/optional so that we aren’t excluding people from required content.

Seems like a troll thread. Either that or OP just got roflstomped by a thief 5 hours ago and is having a knee-jerk reaction.

My advice, if you are willing to listen, is to try some confusion, retaliation, and/or some blocking cooldowns. The initiative mechanic is designed for bursting. Use other game mechanisms to counter and punish the thief’s burst.

Vayne.8563:

I talk a lot. Some people would hate it. My wife loves it. It’s not a flaw to her. I just have a niche audience.

Haha, I’m putting this in my sig. <3

Here is another image illustrating how different and similar components can combine to make two distinct weapons.

I’ve just had a moment of inspiration, and I’m hoping Anet reads this idea because I think they will like it.

What if you could create a weapon that is truly unique in appearance and reflects your character? What if you could make a custom skin out of different parts the same way you might select different armor pieces to make a unique outfit?

Introducing a new type of weapon that falls somewhere between exotic and legendary on the scale of difficulty to obtain: Player Character weapons, or PC weapons. Or perhaps simply “Unique” weapons. They have the same stats as exotic (or ascended, if those ever come out) and they are craftable in the mystic forge. The components themselves are also crafted in the forge.

The way this will work is through a 3 step process.

1. Decide what appearance you want to go for. There will be many options, the only limit is Anet’s time and imagination!
2. Gather the materials and use them to craft the 4 component pieces.
3. Put the 4 pieces in the forge, and presto!

Let me explain how the weapon will be customizable through these components. I’ll use a sword as an example. You need a grip, crossguard, pommel, and blade. These are the components you will be crafting first. There can be as many different looking blades, grips, etc as Anet feels like making. Say you want a jagged blade, a purple glowing grip, an extra fancy crossguard, and a spiked pommel. You craft those components and combine them. Say you want a straight blade instead, but you still want the glowing grip and such. You would craft the straight blade and combine them that way. Maybe you want the straight blade with a curved handle and a spiked knuckle guard instead of the fancy cross guard. Go for it!

The key here would be for Anet to design a collection of interchangeable parts. If they could somehow take a blade model and assign an attachment point to the bottom of it, and a corresponding point on the grip and cross guard models, they would essentially be loaded stuck together like glue. It would be up to the modelers to make sure they design the different pieces in such a way that they fit together without floating or clipping badly. Obviously its a bit more complicated than that under the hood, but I’m sure any modeler would know what I’m talking about. I’m a noob at modeling, but maybe some experts could figure out the fine details. I’m sure the programmers and animators would have to deal with some new issues in the way these weapons are handled in the game visually, but Anet have proven themselves an outstanding creative group. I think they could do this.

The cool part about this is Anet could take this system in a bunch of different directions and really make it a special thing for each individual player to craft their own weapon that symbolizes them. The finishing touch would be the name of the weapon. Wouldn’t it be cool to be wielding [(your name here)‘s Staff]? Anet could add some of these components as personal story, or living story quest rewards. The choices made by the player about which quest path to follow could determine which component you get, and ultimately your choices and actions would affect your weapon’s appearance. They could add special components during holiday and living story events. They could even sell some components in the gem store. Better yet, add a new gem store item similar to the transmutation stone that allows you to “unmake” your unique weapon and receive the components so that you can reforge it with a different combination.

You hear that Anet? Gem store ideas.

So here’s to hoping a dev reads this. Anyone feel free to critique or contribute.

I’ll even include some images to illustrate my meaning, if you don’t mind the crudeness of my drawing. :P

I’ve indicated the attachment points in red, and the components are obviously the black scribbley bits.

Without transparency you’re leaving people with the most logical suggestion- that the revenue from your game is supporting the development of Wildstar.

Quoted for truth. I’ll have to read the rest of the post when I get home, but so far I think you’re hitting all the nails on the head.

Syktek.7912:

How much you want to bet that the new armor will have tail clipping on the Charr?

Laying down 100 gold on the table right now.

No bet! Why would Anet do something logical like have consistent tail-hole armor designs?

I remember back during development when they were talking about armor design and how they were supposedly making sure charr horns, tails, and asura ears weren’t just clipping through lazily.

Anyone else think Anet has the most beautiful airship designs ever?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Xenon.4537:

Cost is not that high… Try to actually do something when you fast travel to a place. Kill 1 or 2 mobs… You will be able to cover the travel cost and then some.

I’m not going to complain about speed or WP’s, but the above is not often true.

Lion’s Arch to Orr WP cost: 3s+
Typical drops from two mobs: 1 porous bone: 16c
Lucky drop from 2 mobs: 1 porous bone + 1 Fine item: 16c + 96c = 1s12c.

Plains of Ashford from Orr wp cost: 3s+
Drops from 2 mobs: 2 gray items worth 3c each

Now, if you run around for a while doing events and killing mobs, you come out ahead, but not 2 mobs — at least not very often.

As you said in your closing comment, if you do more than pick your nose when you travel somewhere, you come out ahead. That’s all I was saying, albeit with a little hyperbole.

skullmount.1758:

1. Constant temporary content. Any LS dungeons should be permanent.
2. RNG for everything. I’m one of those that gets screwed by RNG, however they do it.
3. Temp content?

I agree that temp content sucks. It’s one thing for a holiday event to come and go; at least it will come back next year. But southsun and flame/frost felt hollow and meaningless.

Cassius.4831:

Xenon.4537:

Cassius.4831:

No.

I left the game when ascended rings arrived (although returned 2 months later with laurels) and I’ll do it again if I’m forced to change the gear of all my seven lvl 80 characters.

I’m just genuinely curious what you do on your seven level 80 toons if they are all fully geared out?

- WvW (ninja, although I usually finish defending something and joining a zerg)
- Living Stories (dungeons, puzzles, achievements)
- Achievements (I would like to finish dive master or dungeon master, for instance)
- Standard dungeons (sometimes for special rewards, sometimes for fun with guildies)
- Fractals (I need tokens and more ascended/infused rings – only some of my characters have them nowadays -)
- PvE events and farming (I have a legendary, but… well, I would like to have more )
- sPvP (a little, but if I’m bored of all the other things… I go there)

… and, finally, leveling my Warrior (lvl49 yet )

I usually play with my engineer, but since each character has diferrent gameplay styles, sometimes I switch to another to avoid get bored.

I love doing all those things too, but I’ve never had a problem doing them with just exotics, or even rares (sometimes I’m too lazy to buy exotic trinkets). Do you really find ascended gear necessary to do these things? And if not, why quit the game because of their existence?

My asura would probably dedicate his life’s work to finding some alchemagical way of conceiving a child between himself and a charr, cause charrs are cute and sexy.

Well according to the wiki, the human gods gave magic to everyone and split it up into different schools by splitting a giant stone apart (the bloodstones). So I would say that individuals are born with or without some affinity for magic. However, magic is also learned as a skill. In the book , Zojja mentions that she taught herself a few spells, so it must be a skill that can be taught and studied as well.

Sithaco.4673:

Fox Reeveheart.1890:

Yargesh.4965:

I think Tengu as well. They where planned but pulled at the last minute for technical reasons, or so I understand anyway. If the technical reasons have been fixed they will be a playable class. If they can’t be fixed then the areas might open up as NPC only and the races we have available now need to go in and help/stop the tengu.

Tengu class? sounds interesting

time to roll an Asura tengu

I think a Charr tengu would be pretty OP.

I want to be a Charr Asura.

One of the things that worries me about Anet’s answer to threads like this is “Oh don’t worry, we can add this to Fractals to make it permanent!” What about people who don’t like fractals? I don’t hate it, but it gets tiresome rather quickly. Even if they added new instances to the Fractals, we would still have to do old fractals if they popped up. I’m sure Anet has more imagination than that. I hope they give us new permanent content that isn’t just thumb-tacked on to old stuff.

SHM.7628:

Movement is an issue with this game. It’s like Anet specificly tries to hinder movement through a number of avenues.

Yep, they sure do lol. It’s called game design.

1) Normal movement is painfully slow.
2) Distances are overly large.

This is what swiftness is for.

3) The CC on enemies you mentioned.

This can be annoying, but avoidable if you pay attention, kite, dodge, use skills, etc.

4) Waypoints are often blocked

Ok, I agree this sucks.

5) Waypoint use is penalized with high cost.

Cost is not that high… Try to actually do something when you fast travel to a place. Kill 1 or 2 mobs… You will be able to cover the travel cost and then some. If you fast travel somewhere and aren’t earning any silver when you get there, one wonders why you traveled there in the first place?

Orr is just a mess. Too many risen with too much CC. Plus most of the areas on the map are devoid of players.

Agreed. I think this is why Anet never bothers to put living story stuff down there. Everyone hates it. I think even Anet hates it.

kishter.9578:

Sometimes I just want to pull my eyes out when I’m
Running to a dragon event on my mesmer and some useless trash just jacks pot hit me, Mesmer mobility sooo slow. Speed reduce in combat is a common Korean technique to time sink and prevent you to run contest. Rift use to have this mechanikittenill people start leaving, then they remove I think.

It’s not a time sink… it’s simply part of the combat system design. Combat has to flow a certain way at a certain pace. Movement speed is extremely important to the pace and feel of combat, especially to melee characters.

Kanexus.2648:

i mean you could have a huge WvW like area that is filled with houses only. would be cool actually. gives you something to do besides kill things

I would probably never visit such a place. To me it would be a graveyard full of monuments to the vanity of nameless players I don’t know or care about. Housing is just an underwhelming concept to me. It reminds me of Fable 2 and 3. They promoted the idea of bringing a friend in to your unique world to see it’s uniqueness, but who the hell really did that? Who really cared what their friend did in their Fable game world? Customizing your armor is one thing, dragging people to your own personal alternate reality is not only full of vanity, but is drenched in narcissism.

But whatever, I don’t have to see your house so it wouldn’t really bother me if they added housing or not. It’s just not for me.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Polymock in GW1 was an original concept, but flawed in its execution. I don’t think a lot of players found it a lot of fun. So I’m not that excited to see it again. I suppose they’ll eventually get around to implementing it. But currently the game does lack an end game, so there are more pressing issues.

Original you say?

I thought it was fun though. I wish they would bring it into GW2 as a permanent mini game. Please not a temporary gimmick!

Cassius.4831:

No.

I left the game when ascended rings arrived (although returned 2 months later with laurels) and I’ll do it again if I’m forced to change the gear of all my seven lvl 80 characters.

I’m just genuinely curious what you do on your seven level 80 toons if they are all fully geared out?

Morrigan.2809:

Xenon.4537:

Korrigan.4837:

uberkingkong.8041:

If you had some friends that quit the game, if you think of it like this you’ll know why.

you goto a restaurant and order food. Food hasn’t come out in over 1 hour, what do you do?

Now think of it like this, you buy a game and they promise something, but they kept you waiting for a whole year not telling you a thing, what do you do?

ANet never promised vertical progression in GW2. They always said rewards would be cosmetic. So maybe you misread something that was talking about another game and thought is was about GW2…

Lol… vertical progression… Yes, because it’s so hard to spend 2 hours a day knocking out Fractal 10 and 20 for rings, and then participating in a couple of guild activities once a week for earings, and saving up laurels from the 5 minute daily quests for an amulet…

yes lol indeed..

Some people do not have two hours a day to knock out some fractals, some people do not even do fractals.
Some people belong to small guilds- so no commendations.
We get dailies so that must be ok for you?

Newsflash some people bought this game because it was supposed to have horizontal progression.

if you find my tone less than friendly- I was only trying to match yours :P

It’s hard to stay 100% friendly around here. After that 9001st post you see about how “I don’t have time to spend more than an hour on this game per week, but I still want the devs to cater to me.” There’s a snapping point for everyone, but I apologize if I sounded mean. I’m willing to spend the time with this game because I love it, and I just don’t like the idea of nerfing designs down to a point where I run out of things to due because Anet is catering to the lowest common denominator. I would rather encourage people to step up to the plate and put a little more passion in to their own play, rather than distill the experience for everyone.

And again, to your newsflash comment. It’s easy to get the gear if you spend the time. It’s not even that much time. You don’t have to stay in one guild. Join a bigger one if you want commendations. There’s a problem with the mindset of “I want the reward without doing the requirement” or “I want there to be no reward because I’m unwilling to do the requirement.”

It’s like… either… Give me the gold medal for the Olympics, but don’t make me compete. Or… get rid of the Olympics all together because rewarding the people that compete is unfair to the people who don’t want to compete… These are the types of mindsets I’m perceiving, and it bugs the hell out of me.

I’m not sure what bugs me more; that, or the fact that people consider this “vertical” progression in the first place. For one thing it’s not required for 99% of the game, and again it’s easy compared to other MMOs.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Xenon.4537:

Not everyone is satisfied getting just a skin. A lot of us enjoy the effort of making our character stronger through gear.

That’s fantastic! I completely respect your desire for this type of game. Lucky for you, there are a lot of MMOs that offer this already. GW2 was supposed to be the one MMO for those of us that don’t want to grind gear for better stats and want to play for fun and aesthetical rewards. But instead of enjoying the 20 or so McDonalds that are already in town, people had to walk into the one Burger King in the area and start demanding Big Macs…completely ruining it for those of us who enjoy Whoppers. Now we have 21 McDonalds and those of us that like Whoppers are being told we’re wrong to complain because “some people like Big Macs”.

I understand where you are coming from, but my response within this analogy would be that I don’t want a big mac OR a whopper. I want a steak, and there aren’t any steakhouses yet.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the customers giving feedback on the quality and variety of the food in the restaurant in the hopes that things continue to improve overall. I think it’s totally possible for them to serve me a lobster which takes longer for me to eat, but gives me a great experience, vs some one else ordering the quick and easy chicken nuggets. There’s no reason we can’t both eat at the same Red Lobster, is all I’m saying.

Korrigan.4837:

uberkingkong.8041:

If you had some friends that quit the game, if you think of it like this you’ll know why.

you goto a restaurant and order food. Food hasn’t come out in over 1 hour, what do you do?

Now think of it like this, you buy a game and they promise something, but they kept you waiting for a whole year not telling you a thing, what do you do?

ANet never promised vertical progression in GW2. They always said rewards would be cosmetic. So maybe you misread something that was talking about another game and thought is was about GW2…

Lol… vertical progression… Yes, because it’s so hard to spend 2 hours a day knocking out Fractal 10 and 20 for rings, and then participating in a couple of guild activities once a week for earings, and saving up laurels from the 5 minute daily quests for an amulet…

HawkMeister.4758:

nehezbegar.1065:

It gives the world the sense of living, thats what ArenaNet claimed before they released the game, they want to make this game world living and breathing. Thats why They introduced the living story feature. .

Sorry to break it to you, but you bought that hype hook line and sinker.

Temporary content is a phenomenally bad idea in a MMO that´s supposedly taking itself seriously.
It works great in casual games, but GW2 is everything but.
It placates the bean-counters as they see numbers rise on introduction. And the quick buck these player numbers promise is all these types care about.

The ONLY thing that´s making a MMO live & breathe are the players, not some temporary ride in the Themepark.

Agree with everything but the bolded part. GW2 is very casual on the MMO spectrum. Almost everything in the game is easily accessible, you don’t have to grind to get to the fun parts of the game. At the same time there are some challenging bits of content to tackle and skins to grind/gamble for, but again you don’t need to do 200+ hours of preliminary work to do it.

But yeah, a game’s life is in it’s players, not these “theme park rides” as you put it (love that analogy). I believe the temporary living story content is mostly advertisement/promotion to sell more junk in the gem store. It’s like “Hey! come on down Bob’s used GW2 lot! We’ve got new deals for a limited time only! Zero down payments and low APR! There’s even free pizza and a jungle gym for your kids!”

Vayne.8563:

Stop guessing. Unless you guest to every single server in both the EU an the US you have no idea. No one does. Only Anet can answer this.

This is true, but I think he’s still right about RNG being a huge flaw in the PvE experience. We should be able to get cool stuff directly from the content, not from gambling the trash loot of the content. Like, I know that there is a tiny chance of getting any exotic (including precursors) from any champion/world boss, but the chance is extremely remote and the fact that none of the items are linked to a specific event/boss makes them less “unique” and feels like there is no reason to do one thing vs the other.

I got Eir’s longbow from a random minotaur in Frostgorge Sound (thanks only to +175% magic find btw). How does that make sense? Eir’s longbow should drop from a specific dynamic event boss that involves you helping Eir somehow.

For example in GW1 you had to do Urgoz or Deep to get a zodiac weapon. Shadow blades only drop from shadow enemies in the realm of torment or FoW. Many bosses in the game dropped their own unique green weapon.

I think the main fear in that design is that people might overwhelmingly farm a few things and ignore other content, but it seemed to work before. At the very least it would force Anet as designers to make sure the aesthetic quality of every drop be up to snuff, which is a good thing for us. Right now I think the game feels unrewarding because you don’t get cool stuff from clearing content (other than tokens), you get cool stuff from gambling after clearing content.

SHM.7628:

Gear grind has to go. The highest stat tier should be exotic. Everything else (like ascended) should be for skins only.

I disagree with this. The only real grind I see is for skins. Exotics are very easy to get if you simply play the game and apply yourself. Ascended gear is a negligible stat increase and is mostly optional IMO. Player skill should easily compensate for the minor difference. This means that ascended gear is for those who want a longer term goal to strive for that also has more substance than a skin.

Thus ascended gear simply takes more time to get. Ascended rings come aplenty from Fractal 10 and 20 daily. Amulets from easy-peasy daily quests. Accessories from quick little guild mission weeklies. As you can see that’s all time-based. I guess you could see it as a grind, but I guess what I’m getting at is it’s optional for 99% of the game, and doesn’t really take all that much time compared to a lot of other games.

I will agree that it would be nice to have more varied ways to get ascended items. You can get them all from dailies, but it’s obviously far easier and more efficient to do Fractals for rings, than to use laurels. I would like to be able to have a small chance of rings from events like Priest of Balthazar, or perhaps from harder versions of dungeons.

aocypher.9172:

They could, however, still fix the problem by rolling ascended gear back down to exotic stats.

That would be an even bigger disaster to the community than when they first announced ascended gear. All that time and energy spent doing fractals, getting laurels, earning each piece… They can’t just remove an entire tier of equipment. Besides, I think it’s been well established that ascended gear is not all that hard to get, nor is it so powerful as to make exotics worthless.

I have only had a chance to check out the changes to my necromancer. I absolutely love what they did with it. The class is amazing now. I just hope this isn’t a thread for the purpose of starting some kind of protest or something silly like that. People should at least try to adapt to the changes. Wait a couple weeks to see how the new meta works out. We don’t need knee-jerk reactions.

Dedlaw.9130:

Release a solid, full expansion with more than 1 day’s worth of content

Unfortunately I doubt this will happen any time soon. The devs responses in the Cantha thread make it sound like they have zero plans to do anything bigger than these living stories. The main reason, I think, is that NC$oft is publishing Wildstar.

For those who don’t know, Anet is a studio that makes the game. NC$oft is a separate company that sits on a mountain of cash and pays studios like Anet to make games. Since NC$oft is busy giving money to a different studio to make Wildstar, my guess is they are reluctant to give any money to Anet. Anet is then forced to use what limited resources they have left to simply keep GW2 afloat, which is why every content release is essentially a small festival to promote the sale of something in the cash shop.

Games work through scripted events and triggers. Whether the script is essentially

“If event successful → then NPC walks to door and door opens”

or is

“If event successful → then grant access to door button”

doesn’t really make a difference. Code is code and can be bugged just as easily either way. In fact, in your version there would also be a

“If button clicked → then open door”

Which could be bugged in itself somehow. It’s like you’re adding an extra step in the logic and the more steps means more places for problems to come up.

LyricDawnhagen.7803:

The only people that know for certain how the aggro works in this game is ArenaNet and they are not talking specifics. But, players have compiled quite a bit of information based on millions of hours of game play.

For simplicity sake, here is a link to the official Wiki and the page that explains what we have learned about mob aggro (and its control).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

What he said.

You can pretty much assume a mob will aggro to you if you are attacking it and you are closer to it than other players. There are a few exceptions, usually bosses (like lupicus), who are scripted to fixate on a single random person and follow them throughout the fight. In any case, your best bet is you use some form of gap-creator (teleport, leap, CC) and get as much distance as possible while other players pick up aggro.

I suggest you roll elementalist. It has builds that do pretty good damage, and if you use staff you can support groups and be versatile. Not only that, but you could get Bifrost and since the elementalist uses attunements, you would be using it the whole time and looking gorgeous. My ele is in full berserker gear with 110% crit damage, 55% crit chance, and 2.5k power. I run staff in wvw and hide out in the zerg while dropping heavy aoe dps pressure and raking in tons of bags. It’s squishy as hell, but I use the zerg as a meat shield.

Keep doing those heart quests to level up. Also be sure to look for vistas (the red double triangle icons), do the skill point challenges (blue arrow), and get yourself some harvesting equipment from a merchant. Gathering wood, ore, and plants adds to your exp. You can deposit the materials you collect by clicking the little cog wheel icon in the top right corner of your bag window.

Try to complete everything in the map before moving to the next area. You can see your progress on the big map by pressing M.

Your friend was probably referring to dungeons when he said wait till level 30. The first dungeon is meant for level 30 (story mode) and 35 (explorable/hard mode). Dungeons are much more difficult for new players than normal questing, so try to be very familiar with your class and have good gear (preferably rare/yellow quality) before attempting them.

You will probably want to update your gear every 5-10 levels to make it easier to kill enemies and stay alive. You may get lucky and find some good gear while leveling, or you can press O to visit the trading post and buy gear. Stick with green quality items for general leveling to save money, but if you want to attempt a dungeon, I suggest getting some yellows.

You can do the Shadow Behemoth, Frost Maw, and Giant Wurm events almost right away. The Behemoth spawns in Queensdale (outside Divinity’s Reach), Frost Maw is in Wayfarer Foothills (outside Hoelbrak), and the wurm is in Caladon Forest (north of The Grove). Ask in map chat for a specific location. There is a website that lists the timers for all the major world bosses so you can go fight them when they are up.

http://guildwarstemple.com/dragontimer/

Just select your server from the list.

You should definitely join a guild. Try to find a large/active PvE guild. People are usually friendly and helpful to guildmates.

Check out the Guardian forum and wiki page for more information on builds and stuff. Greatswords and Knights gear are popular, but there are many different viable ways to play.

GW2 Wiki – Guardian:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guardian

Guardian Forum:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian

GW2 wiki armor types:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

You can also type “/wiki [name of item here]” in game to go straight to the relevant wiki page.