Guild Wars 2

Oh maplestory, i too had spend a royal time there, maplestory europe to be precise. Yup service quality there can only be described as cesspool of fecal, rancid mindfleying lobotomy.

Oh and the P2W was strong with this one. You forgot to mention that the meaningful way to grind was to buy exp boosters, basic being the 2x exp card. And let’s not forget free market – place where you had to purchase a shop stand from cash shop if you wanted to make a sale at decent price. And it didn’t end there. It had to be the best one with shortest duration if you really wanted to make those sales happen, because the cheap ones had your character standing there running the shop themselves, unable to play, and what’s worse constantly at risk of getting dc’d by hackers and taking your spot away. Something the “best shop” owners were much less prone too as their was run by npc and whole channel needed to be crushed for that.

Oh and the forums. The warmest place on this side of the globe. Little did make your heart warmer then the 50 meter tall flames from players at the stuff for this horrid experience. Well deserved flames might i add.

And let’s not forget the unremovable censorship which screwed over 33% of stuff you wanted to write, despite it not having a single curse word in it.

And that’s why i suggested my solution from the first post. It does not fix each every problem, but it’s a huge improvement in many areas.

Right now:
Two rotten apples can kick anyone they like as long as they are in sync to do their kicking fast, regardless of wheather they contributed to clearing the dungeon or not, or the fact they’re a minority.

Simple example. Two cheats want to kindnap a path and sell it. They join a late p1 Ac, get to boss kick everyone else, sell it for 2g. With 3 buyers they would get 6 gold divided by two people = 3 gold “reward” for their sleeze.

If my system goes live:
Wouldn’t happen at all, since the 3 party members they joined would have both the numbers and point advantage. Only kicking those two rotten apples could do is leaving the party themselves.

To scam successfully you would need 3 ppl, from the very start, all the way to the end. Now even if we had that (and scammers don’t like doing honest work which a fulll run is), they would only have 2 slots to sell and 3 ppl taking the money. So at same price as above – 4 gold income divided by 3 “businessman” = 1.33 gold each.
And that’s after they’re forced to do a full run from the start, rather then lazy abduction of someone else’s work.

Also do keep in mind that those 3 ppl can do the dungeon without extra help and make it an honest sale. It’s certainly easier then with just two.

As you can see it’s not perfect. Some more security would have to be put in place still. But it’s sure a lot less convinient for the rotten eggs of dungeon community and that’s a step forward, though not saying the last and final one.

I can’t belive I’m saying this….but this is actually a well designed boss fight in certain aspects. I won’t say those mass champ hp sponges that drop nothing are “well designed”. But the dragon fight itself…is.

I hated…no..HATED this fight with a passion and avoided it like the plague. Until i went there with an engi and read this topic.

This boss accually makes you think about group healing (constant frost blasts) and group play (condi clense, stability for those who don’t have a lot of it). Well i can’t say i was giving stability left and right (engi’s weakness), but i elixir infused bombs were huge fun, and A.E.D saved my rear quite a few times when getting near it, or making my escape away from it. I actually found normally unused trait and heal extremely useful here – well played A-net!:)

I use it a lot in PvE, and not for condi, just straight up killing. The point of mainhand axe is simple – hit the target. Sword is fine and dandy when you’re alone – you need not to worry about mobs’ attention being diverted from you. But when doing group content i often found my ranger was not the main focus of mobs and “sword fighting” in some cases turned into desperate sword chasing, not always sucessful. Also getting rooted by sword made me sitting duck for ranged enemies, while axe auto allows full movement and i need not to be too concerned with my positioning – axe bounces have greater reach then the sword and auto seek enemies, so i need not to manage mobs to pile them together for some cleaves.

So in short when it’s face-to-face – sword. But if it’s a situation when rooting is lethal, or it’s a bunch of mobs that’s on a move and i need to reliably hit few of them – then axe it is, for it’s awesome bounce.

Actually i believe endurance bar will be huge fun. Remember the reason why we love combat in GW2. Because it’s limited. The first anwer ofc is because it’s action packed and flexible, but those two are the result of limits. The limited amount of skills we can put on our skillbar forces us to make builds and think which skills to choose. The limited amount of healing forces us to think on our feet and use every defense possible before resorting to using that precious heal.

Same for flying. I can imagine gliding being like a racing mini-game – getting to the spot before your endurance bar goes down to zero will enforce planning your path and doing your best to stay on optimal, least wasteful trajectory to the target. It’ll be challenging, and i like that idea.

When you say adventures i imagine….an adventure.

What is should be like in my opinion is a mix of real adventure and challenge.
Firstly you do the challenge to see if you’re ready for the adventure ahead. For example jumping puzzle on a timer, holding off waves of mobs for a while, or healing and protecting npcs at a given path.

Once you’ve proven yourself worthy the adventure part begins. For example the jumping puzzle adventure would end up in a hard to reach spot high in the canopy. But not hard enough for that furious mordrem champion that just noticed you barging in on his turf as result of the “challenge” part.

Now he’s chasing you down and it’s your job to run from him past an even harder jumping section filled with environmental traps, and vined death breathing down your neck.

If you succeed at the very end you jump for your life to safety, while the “ground” under champ gives in and he falls to his demise. As you pick yourself up after the hair raising experience, you also pick up an achievement, your time recorded (and if good on leader boards) and perhabs a title, based on your performance (top runners get additional titles).

Also you could even put up some unique skins as rewards for doing adventures. If you pass certain hard, but not impossible task (clear the jumping terror adventure in under 5 mins) you get access to piece of equipment themed after the boss, or themed with wings (praise for the jumping), something like that.

You could have also adventures be semi-tied with outpost system. For example puzzle jumpers could do an adventure that ends up in a sweet spot for defending nearby outpost.

The flamethrower adventure could result in npc deeming us worthy to take one out of his precious stock of few flamethrowers, to deal some massive damage to those vines attacing outpost on the inside.

Of course given instanced nature of adventures, vs open world nature of outposts some limits would have to be put on (so suddenly 300 ppl don’t get 1hko flamethrowers vs mordrem, because each did their adventure right). This part is ofc my suggestion ankitten ot saying is the best there is, but just sharing.

Here’s my solution to the 2 people kicking full party problem.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Troll-kicks-solution

It combines majority vote with ranking importance of each vote based on dungeon milestones achieved by a given person. So that middle/end joiners won’t be able to just freely kick people that worked their way there from the very start.

Simply put there was an imbalance. I wanted devs to throw us a bone about HoT. Well the dino trailer and two huge posts on website were’t just throwing a bone. More like they took a tyrannosaurus sized hip bone and clobbered me with it. Hard.
Well played, a-net! :>

Then at PoI we get…well one tiny map with flamethrower and talk….that was like chicken-sized wishbone. A small, unfed chicken mind you.

If you don’t buy expansion don’t panic. Just follow these steps for your HoT experience:

1. Make an engi.
2. Equip flametrower.
3. Go to brisban wildlands map near entrance to silverwastes.
4. burn vines with flamethrower. Don’t use skills #3-#5, just #1 and #2.
5. Profit.

There you go, you made your home-made HoT experience, and without waiting for x-pac:)

WabbaJaga – well firstly let’s both agree the issue was not grand – it was all nearly done without you in it. It would be much greater harm if you did it from scratch with them, every mob, every boss, only then to be booted.

That aside, even in your “joined at end” scenario they would need majority of points to boot you which is 3 outta 5 ppl if they were the same team from the very start. Better then today’s two ppl and you’re gone.

As for dc’ers they would keep their points until kicked from party. if they get booted obviously they lose them. But once again majority is needed for that, which would be 3 outta 4 players in this scenario.

The dungeon progression points are not a system for dealing with each and every rotten egg that’s running a dungeon, as those things are quite subjective.
What it is for is fixing the current situation that allows for merely two people to kick whole party and that’s regardless to achievements of each members in progressing the dungeon. That is ridicilous. My system places emphasis on your “workhours” inside the dungeon, and doesn’t let two outsiders immediately kick everyone on their arrival.

The point system is quite fair for normal parties. If all 5 people did full path up to the boss, then all have equal amount of points and as result need at least 3 ppl to kick someone from party. One friend is not enough, you will need a majority.

That being said it’s not 100% scamproof and a guarantee of honest run. But it is world better then the current setup if you ask me.
If only on virtue that the scammer would have to do some serious soloing/duoing in dungeon to give himself position of power – work that most scammers want to avoid at all costs, given they scam exactly for the purpose of not having to honestly work for their money.

Conaywea.5062:

before you think “solutions” think about all the things that can happen in a dungeon ok?

I have. That’s why it’s called a solution and not “perfect solution”. Imho still a vast improvement in party kick policies.

Ok here’s my idea for solving the unfair kicks solution in dungeons. Dungeon sellers will love me for this (feel free to express that love ingame;)

The solution consists of three parts:
1. Dungeon progression points
2. Majority point kick.
3. Payment declaration.

Dungeon progression points – they are my answer to all those troll kick issues. What are they? They are points awarded to character for passing each milestole of the dungeon (usually a boss, though not always). For each important dungeon step cleared you get one dungeon point.

Majority point kick
When it’s time to vote a kick, the guy in question must have majority of party’s dugeon points against him to be kicked. Because it’s the amount of points that decides, those who did more get bigger say.

Payment declaration. Any runner can declare that a chosen amount of gold from his dungeon completion reward money will be awarded to another party member once the dungeon is finished. Once that promise is made it cannot be reversed by the one who made it. Still it can be undone by the one who received it, given mistakes happen. Kinda like bidding on TP, but without withdrawal option for the buyer.
That way seller gets money only if buyer got what he payed for – a completed dungeon path.

Example of how it all works
You’re in Ascalonian catacombs path 1, things didn’t go peachy at burrows. Your party left, but you’re not a quitter and get new party. Now the 4 new people arrive and when things go south again, want to boot you. Well they can’t. Because you have 3 dungeon points (one for being there from the start, one for spider queen, one for kholer), while the 4 of them so far hasn’t earned a single one.
4 * 0 is still zero and 3>0.

You get it done on the second try. you get your 4th point, they all get 1. If they all were to vote against you now, again fail. 4 vs 4 = tie, no majority. To kick any of them you need one more person to tip it over 4 which is half of team’s current total points (4 of yours plus 4x 1 of theirs = 8 ).

The closer to boss the more balanced the tips of power, but then again it’s probably already established who’s troll and who’s not. Even if not, it would still require all 4 to kick the maker before boss, as one more milestone (the scepter search) lands maker of dungeon 5th point, and everyone else their 2nd point. That’s total of 13 pts in party, 7pts required to kick. If the maker is subject to kick all 4 would have to vote yes.

Ofc that’s a scenario with people joining halfway. If they were to join right before boss, then story is simple. 4×0=0, nuff said.

Ok so the guy who broke his back pushing through dungeon is relatively safe from “join in at end, kick maker” trolls. But what about the other end of the bargain? the buyers? Well here’s where the payment declaration comes in. Once the buyer declares to the seller (if that’s the case) his reward for service, he can be sure that they guy is not getting a dime, until he gets what he payed for (dungeon completed with him inside). After that the system rewards seller his promised gold + his own dungeon reward, while buyer still gets his tokens, exp and ephemeryal fragments.

Someone who soloed the path won’t be able to be kicked. Buyer won’t be able to be scammed – he can be kicked, but then seller gets nothing out of him.
I’d say it’s a way better system then what we have now. If you agree, +1 this post and holler your support;)

Edited the post this morning cause it was written late at night and had some nonsense in it

I gotta agree that silverwastes and dry top are bit overkill. By that i mean no real downtime for the player to just go explore the map, check out some hidden spots etc if he’s not willing to pass up on the event cycle and it’s rewards.

I would love very much for these types of maps to have roughly 10 mins breather, without any map story events with big rewards, so one can go do some less combat oriented activities, do that jumping puzzle, hangglide without swarms of death below running after their airborn snack, or just sell off all that junk he got making full run of the map.

A few “safe” camps would be cool. Something like a hidden camp, that may close off during map events but opens up during break, and once the map story kicks off, it may close off to outside, but let the players already inside stay. You could leave it anytime, but return inside only during downtime, or decide to stay longer to finish your business or afk your char in it till you’re ready for action.

That would be a huge plus in a silverwastes type map for me if i can get a say in it.

I would not be forgiving if they made jungle some small part of this expansion and “hey we got cool new ice maps, burned lands maps etc”. The jungle is a perfect hit. It’s wild, it’s lush, it has many opportunities for verticality and dangers unseen before. Jungle rocks and if they make whole x-pac based in jungle i will hate them for only 100% of it being jungle and not 110%!;)

Specializations. How will be obtain them ingame. Well duh i know “You but the x-pac, stupid” but once it’s purchased and installed.

Will they available from get go? Or will I be slowly unlocking access to my specialization, it’s profession mechanics, skills, traits etc?
And if so, then when does my quest to unlock my specialization begin? From level 1 pararell to the main profession? Max level only? And where? Anyplace? Only in expansion zones (i mean unlocking it’s compononents, not using it)?

Air raids!
/15 chars.

KazarSanaga.3125:

P.S. ArenaNet, Please… Juvenile Raptors (specifically the new HoT ones)… Please.

Any plan involving raptors is by design foolproof!

I just watched the dinosaur trailer, and noticed two things. Both flying. One is a player hanggliding (no idea if it’s gliding on rails or do we get control), and other is flying dragons. So obviously the question pops into my head – how will the two co-relate?

Will there be:
1. air combat – us vs dragons in the air! (though logically we’d be screwed with those paper looking gliders)
2. “no glide zones” cause dragons
3. Air jumping puzzles – avoid the big bad dragon or fall to your doom (unless you get eaten alive first)

The first option does make me wonder. We do have land and water combat so…

Dps aside engies are pretty sweet defenders too. Yesturday i did Honor of Waves story with my guildies, and since we’re not experts there wipes happened. However i could clearly see, that asides dodging most lethal attacks the mortality rate went waaay down the moment i used elixir infused bombs trait for aoe heals while i attack, combined with experimental turrets which made my healing turret throw vigor at them and thumber turret grant occasional protection.

Also when needed they do have reflections/projectile absorb with fortified turrets trait and throw elixir U tool belt skill.

After the dungeon i did claw of Jormag, and for the first time ever had actual fun, as i stood in stack of ppl to the right and by placing healing turret and spamming my bomb attack (for the heal) kept myself and ppl around me alive (normally the hp in that spot is sucked dry by constant damage and it’s a death zone with constant revives, thus the stacking).

So yeah, he’s an all around package. But be warned, this package is difficult to control and it takes time in most cases for a person to reliably control your engi and do things that you actually planned on doing.

Well my two sylvari aside, we already have some sylvari prejudice after scarlet’s rampage. Now that it turns out she awakened Mordremoth, and Sylvari have been confirmed as it’s minions from the very start i really don’t see nor hope things develop “politically correct”. The other 4 races already had some major beef over our engi lunatic (especially humans and asura), now most likely all hell will break loose.

Nice to hear from music’s creator himself, hat’s off to you sir for the this track, even if i heard just around half;)

Guess i’ll just have to cope with a-net torturing us with unknown, till it’s known.
But i can bet most of them had something like this on their contracts.

“Additional benefits (you may select one):
1. Additional 13th salary per year.
2. Keeping players in the dark, teasing them, enjoying every moment of their agonizing uncertainty and wait!”

A-net saved money on a loooot of paychecks that way;)

They would have to be suicidal to cut off LS till december, given LS was the only source of updates so far. HoT is coming way sooner then that. Just look at what A-net is doing – lotsa promotions in cash shop, sales of old skins, perma harvesting tools on perm sale…

They do this stuff right before realease, their last push to scrounge up more cash for the upcoming costs. I’m not saying that it won’t happen in december 100%, but what i’m saying that all tell signs are there, that this is not a-net’s plan and only way for HoT to lauch so late is a result of disastrous fail, like a mountain of newfound gamebreaking bugs.

HoT launching later then spring/early summer can be deemed as delayed at best, major fail at worst, since mmos live with stream of new content and we’re not getting any till HoT itself.

I’m pretty convinced the problem here is not that ppl need to be forced to support because many want to be it by default without being pushed into it. The problem is majority of ppl are being pushed into dps because if it dies before it manages to cause problems it’s the best defense, rather then having to properly defend from it.

Just not an axe! As much as i love my dual axe ranger, mesmer is not a profession that should be seen with those.

I agree with opener.

Would you remind me what i pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here!

Notice Logan holding Guild Tower Shield in point of no return opposed to his regular seraph shield. It’s just a skin, but might be a hint good old Logan is about to go kitten on us with some new tricks to not fall behind Rytlock.

The more i think about it the more i realize one thing. Bigger flexibility in making our builds does equal greater efficiency in battle. Just remind yourself how you had to enter a dungeon with one trait setup for better and for worse before free trait resets became a thing.

So that leads me to one conlcusion – the upcoming mobs will be brutal. So that “new power” will be needed badly. Unlike 98% of GW2, those will be programmed with flexible, versatile and dynamic players in mind..or teeth, if they’re not flexible enough. I’m looking forward to this carnage:>

Shot to the nuts, then a head whack with knockdown. I’d say Rytlock has is own approach to “casting magic with staff”. Looks quite effective;)

More seriously there’s this simple solution called “outline”. Just put a nice black outline around it and it’ll work. And no one is forcing anyone to pick green. If you feel you’ll turn ninja by selecting green, select anything else. But i as comm would want to have a green tag, it’s certainly not more exotic then pin…purple.

Since so many of are debating on x-pac, i’ll add a little find of my own (though probs many before me already did).

It’s not just sylvari that will get corrupted by mordry. In the finishing movie of Point of no Return we see scenes of a battle field where most battles are between sylvari and warriors of other races. However there is one of a human warrior fighting a massive charr, only upon closer inspection that charr has branches sticking out it’s back. So it’s either a hunting trip gone very wrong, or it’s not just sylvari that mordry will “invite” over to his side..

To know the professions better and make new unique and useful builds to get the job done the best way possible. Also making my characters look epic (to me!) while i’m at it, so i’m playing kick-kitten and look kitten:)

Not that related but i would like them restoring and deepening the personality system where i could choose some answers to match my personality role play (aggressive, noble, charming).

They should’ve deepened it instead of scrapping it:/

It might be a Sylvari specific issue, a bug you might say. I believe they call the complexion mordremosia, but more on it will be revealed soon;)

On the bright side i’m giving people work! (at least for one week to those 20 extra programmers struggling to add green

Don’t worry. You know it, they know it and I know it. You suck.
The game will be brutal, will chew you out and spit your massacred carcass to the nearest way point.
Then either you’ll run for dear life, or pick yourself up, accept the challenge and fight tooth and claw for your revenge!

i call it ‘adjusted to environment’;)

So yeah as commander i get to choose from yellow, red, blue and gre…eee..eeeww….pin..ekhum..purple.

Why no green? Since you’re releasing jungle themed x-pac, please please give us green commander tag!

Well it’s been a week since HoT Pax announcements and already we got super powered individuals here who already played it to 100% obviously, able to easily state it’s too small, revenant is op and breaks balance, that it’ll suck etc.

Well, thanks for the heads up guys! I almost hyped and decided to throw money at a-net but luckily you stopped me from making the biggest mistake in my life and wasting critically important 40$ or so for the expansion.
[/sarcasm]

For the less mentally gifted of us, how about we just wait till they reveal more, and some hands-on feedback from other players/known reviewers.

Ps. A-net. I got a nice hand grenade here chugged with money. I wanna throw it at you, but no preorders yet…

In my honest opinion – you got a ranger. Just stick to that.

Buf if you’re determined to make that choice, then engi. Thief requires reflexes and doging, also in silverwastes – thief sucks (asides the labirynth where it’s a blessing to have one). Silverwastes have a lot of fort defense play and holding a point and blasting things from afar, which is right up engi’s alley. You’ll also need a hefty dose of cripples, freezes and immobilizing, engi has those in decent amounts as well.

I’m wondering – what if they make ninja attack and make druid a pet class? I mean full on pet classes, with better control and more “pets”.

For example those vines he shot might be a form of a pet/minion, that will remain there for a while attacking enemies nearby and generally guarding their turf?

Or summon vines that will entangle and damage their foes, but unlike those joke roots from entangle or sylvari racials, these ones would be real tenacious pieces of work, with pet like abilities, hp, and possibility of being healed/buffed by the ranger?

In short i wonder if we won’t have a “thorny pet based zone control/support profession”.

anemoneko.8345:

Charr engi without trenchcoat

Totally busted posting at forums:3 Welcome to the fashion victims gathering ground, we knew you’d be here;)

Spirit of Stone is pretty kitten good – protection doesn’t just walk anyday on the sidewalk…unless you’re a ranger with stone spirit.

But then again irl if your pro zerker stack died standing flat in three aoe damage circles that’s probs that noob ranger damage being too low;)

10% is way too little, most of ai controlled sidekicks to little to no damage with few exceptions such as ranger’s pet. But once again why would i slot to have 10% more damage on something that in general is 30% of my total damage, so in the end getting 3% damage boost, and that’s given it’s not dead nor on cooldown.

With rune of the soldier (or is it trooper now?) we cannot say that something’s unfair cause a profession or two derive no benefit from them. But that damage % has got to go up, to be on pair with character damage boosting sigils.

I propose something like this:
your companions do 33% more damage. That means anything ai controlled you summoned that is not a structure and can be critted and conditioned.

The end result in better cases being 10% dps boost total, under the condition it still lives and breathes …or at least moves in necro’s case.

I think the best way to sum it all up is by saying that engi can do almost anything and everything, many of things that ranger can’t. But almost everything he does requires setup, that includes in-combat situations. A good engi has to be 2 steps ahead of events if he wants to achieve his desired results.

Ranger is the simpler, out of the box, immediate reaction to situation profession. What he does, he does well or great, what he doesn’t, he just doesn’t.

Novuake.2691:

I plus+’d your post for the thief part, HOWEVER…

Ranger has more condi? Not even a REMOTE chance. Better ranged combat? Not if you are good with grenades. Better PvE solo survivor than the Engi sure, thats likely true.

Well here are my reasons for my statement.

1. Ranger – longbow arrows fly way faster then grenades and it’s aimed at target, not ground. Arrows too slow? Read the wind. Problem gone.

Engi? Nothing makes his ‘nades fly faster. Yeah you have to be reaaaaaally good to hit a moving target with them if it’s not already immobilized/frozen or pinned in place by something else.

Condi damage – engi has tons of them, but just like profession itself, he’s jack of all trades, master of none. Getting 25 bleeds on engi will probably require doing 3 backflips in air and landing with a telemark. Ranger can pull off 25 fast rather easily if he wants and also has reasonable access to poison and burning. Only confusion is missing – that’s engi’s ace in the hole. But i wouldn’t say engi is far better at condis then ranger.

Bottom line is that engi is far more versatile and can do more – but he’ll have to work for it. Ranger on the other hand has simple, tried and fast ways to get the job done, given he’s able to do it at all.

Long story short – cross thief off the list. With that done,

Engineer – better team play and versatility then the ranger.
Ranger – better ranged combat and stronger condition damage then Engi, better survivor when solo.

Well can’t argue with that, save one point. New borderland should’ve been there from day 0, cause kitten that map is fugly and generic, blergh.

I would very much like to know if we’ll be able to customize and decorate our guildhalls, much like housing in Wildstar, or is everyone gonna be stuck with same generic looking hall?

It would totally rock if it was the first case and each guild could make it’s own, original themed hall.

If content oriented for new players is to look anything like NPE then i will start a kickstarter fundraising to buy a huge pirate ship, for the sole purpose of keelhauling any A-net employee that gets those bright ideas.

As for Angry Joe it’s good that he’s being reserved. If the expansion is half as good as i suspect he’ll be positively shocked and satisfied, though remember people – this is angry joe. For him the announcement was prolly something like this:

“Blah Blah, blah, yappidy…New pvp mode and new WvW map!!..blah, blappidy-blah, blah blah…”