Guild Wars 2

Hello,
I’m a bit puzzled what is the big idea with feeding the player endless mass of items that are below the level in power of what the players commonly use? For example I use exotic level 80 longbow, which is the best-in-slot item in this game. Yet I receive quest rewards level 76 blue colored rifles. I don’t need these rifles. I’m just going to sell them to merchant for a bit of copper.

What’s more strange is that the developers seem really interested in this whole item-finding gameplay with all sorts of magic find buffs and boons. I already have the best items in the game, I don’t need any more item drops. These small glowing bundles litter the floor in World battles, where the player is expected to pick them up, causing more graphical stress on already graphically intensive environment.

OP had a point here:

Zepidel.5349:

This is the endgame in GW2… doing dailies. Who would of thought a company could take one of the worst things introduced in world of warcraft and build a game around it.

Are they ever going to make this game interesting past leveling up and exploring?

Maybe this Daily Wars would be a minor issue if it wasn’t showed down the players’ throats. Maybe if checklist of menial tasks wasn’t a permanent feature of user interface. This is clearly what developers want you to do. This is how you get the best items in the game.

I quit because I realized I was the rat in the Skinner’s box. Developers were feeding me with inane daily quests and new stats behind repetitive grinding for points. I felt boredom and existential angst: for what end am I playing this game? I realized that this game didn’t respect my human condition and didn’t put value on my time as individual. I realized there are wonderful things in the world to experience and that my life would be wasted hunting for achievement points.

Reading good books, being fit and healthy, having social relationships, experiencing nature and learning new things is so much better than being that guy with legendary weapon and commander title on some pc game.

Performance improvements are one type of game patch I’m really excited about. Conserving system resources and CPU / GPU time will mean better framerates and less stress on the machine.

Frotee.2634:

Remember GW1, Prophecies, where you only got 4 charslots, but had 6 professions?

4/6 > 5/8

Kaleban.9834:

You don’t seem to understand a basic point. If the defending team has a couple of elementalists, then the attacking team can tote along a few. Mutually Assured Destruction. The game would be much better if there WAS an arms race of sorts, where builds could counter other builds via intelligent skill use, rather than just out-DPSing and sheer numbers.

- But that’s what happens with current AoE too. It is both necessarily the best choice of skill to use against clumped enemies, and sufficient damage output to make them respond. Attackers like to take down pot of oil and cannons even if they are “just AoE”. If you’re hitting 5 enemies with any AoE spell, you’re doing a great deal of work against their attack.

killcannon.2576:

For those that enjoy the mindless zerg, aoe limits make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Hexs.8015:

@zinwrath. What mmo pvp did they leave GW for? Back to wow?

- I hope you realize there are games with nothing else but “PvP mode”. Games with tens of millions players worldwide. Games that are played so seriously there’s actually a market for strategy books about them. Games you could base your university degree on and make your career.

Oh but you ask does it have monsters in it. You want the progress of your character, a magical world. Like a real fairytale with flashing colors and so bloated with effects it makes your toaster scream. You want dear developers listen your multipage feedback. Spoon feed you the next achievement point and goal and title and badge and that’s what makes the game worth your time. Fully decked with swag you can feel like you’re a real PvP master. ****.

George Steel.1804:

Actually what the OP makes a lot of sense. I would prefer these AoE abilities to have an unlimited amount of targets in WvW (exclude PvE) to deter people from grouping and playing with a zerg.

- Where is the balance of couple of elementalists wiping several dozen melee attackers at the gate? Even hitting the maximum of 5 targets with AoE attacks makes them far more effective than single target options, and as such will deter greater force in numbers from pressing siege at full power.

I was just reading the Necromancer trait and skill lists on wiki since everybody is saying Necromancers are so bad along with Ranger and Engineer. It doesn’t look bad at all to be honest.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_necromancer_skills
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_necromancer_traits

Here’s how I would build Necro. Standard full damage / berserker gear, axe mainhand and focus offhand. These weapons benefit the party by stacking vulnerability on targets. Spinal Shivers is excellent boon removal tool to deal with those pesky protections and retaliations which would otherwise hamper team’s damage output. Only Mesmer has comparable boon removal. Let’s not forget that Spinal Shivers also chills, which is like premium version of crippled, and this chill is the second longest lasting (5s) chill in the game after Thief’s elementalist steal.

Slot skills: Signet of Locust for the excellent 25% movement speed. See how fast your Mesmer runs. Blood is Power for the massive +350 to Power and Condition damage it provides. Nothing else in the game provides 10 stacks of might. That Warrior elite is 5 stacks of might. Last slot depends on circumstances, but Signet of Spite or one of the wells look like good options.

Traits: this one is a bit difficult, as Necro traits don’t look very appealing. I would focus Spite and Curses for their passive bonuses. +15% axe damage is very good. Most other professions get +5%.

What is so terrible about Necromancers?

clay.7849:

Well, the idea that you need new items to overcome new challenges is something that is largely in your head.

Think of it this way, let’s say your gear power is a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10 and the encounter difficulty on a scale from 1 to 10. That’s a 1:1 ratio of gear power to encounter difficulty. If you get new gear and it is a 4 and your next encounter is a 4, then you still have a 1:1 ratio. The only thing that gets bigger are the numbers that pop up for damage, and the hidden hit points of the mobs you are attacking.

- This is true for PvE. Creating actually challenging artificial intelligence is difficult. Much faster way is to create artificial difficulty by increasing monster health and damage. Circumventing artificial difficulty with upgraded gear in turn is a way to increase longevity of game. There’s a line between everything dying in a matter of seconds and tedious – not difficult – boss fights taking 10 minutes to finish because boss has several million hit points.

PvP is a place where gear grinding doesn’t belong. When I think of PvP game, I want it to be about player skill and outsmarting opponent. Not about arbitrary factors like one side having inherently more powerful character. Take a look at popular PvP game League of Legends. With over 100 champions to choose from, the design is superbly well balanced. You can become a dominating force in one game, but it all resets for the next match. Anet’s idea of character progression is quite different. Your character becomes permanently more powerful over long course of time. Someone who buys the game a year from now will never be as powerful as someone who has grinded their gear and WXP every day.

clay.7849:

Exactly. Someone needs to remind Zenith that companies work for us – the consumer – and not the other way around. We get to tell them whatever the hell we kitten well please because we paid for their game.

- It’s a quid pro quo situation. There are tons of products and services out there and I have no obligation to buy them. You would do well to actually read what is said in EULA that you agreed to when you started playing the game. Companies may respond to player posts for PR reasons, but they have no obligation to read anything we’re posting here, much less make changes based on them.

If you want to make a difference, the first step is to get hired to Anet. Your impact as forum poster is worth jack squat.

Rawkfist.8214:

The whole point of this post was that there should not be a slot machine. Cash shop micro transactions are fine but they should not be RNG based.

- Should not be? Who are you to tell a company how it should run its business? If you don’t like it, then don’t buy gems to burn to useless crap. Simple as that.

All the other traits stack, why not this one?

RyuDragnier.9476:

The best weakness I can think of for it is to actually lower the defense of everybody in it. You get the boost in damage, but it makes up for it for the loss of defense.

- That would lead to grief problem where some players would rather not have their team’s Mesmer use time warp. Duration reduction seems far more appropriate here. 10 seconds is a long time and the ultimate status comes from affecting party members, unlike every other instance of Quickness. Thieves got small buff with Haste not bringing endurance below zero (sensible change!) but this could easily be rebalanced by increasing other penalties of Haste.

Rangers really got hit hard by this patch, because great majority of their slot skills are very situational. Quickening Zephyr was used not the least for lack of better options. The other skills I have on my Ranger are signets for the passive benefits they provide.

a·chieve·ment noun
something accomplished, especially by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed: his remarkable achievements in art.

In this game slaying 100 defenseless critters is greater achievement than getting your hands on a legendary weapon.

The new world exp skills give players ability to carry 11, 13 or 15 supply. As far as I know supplies are always spent 2 at the time, so you’re left with that unspendable 1 supply when you’re using it. By they way did they fix the bug where repairing is stopped when 10 supplies are spent and not when player has no more left?

Vol.5241:

I think a lot of people will be disappointed by the changes to quickness.

But people also should take a look at the buffs the warrior banners provide now.

- The quickness change was sensible. It was without a doubt the single most useful buff you could have and totally overpowered. Those warrior banner changes I don’t get. They seem to break the balance of PvE where Warrior is the most desired profession to dungeon parties already.

Cowrex.9564:

As for the patch notes, aren’t they always released after each update?

- Yes. I was wondering if there had been some sneak peek of upcoming changes that I missed.

Are the patch notes released? I’ve heard some players talking about changes to professions, but I haven’t seen them.

Stoneflesh.8634:

The only reason gw2 is losing players is because whatever they do, people are just never satisfied…

- I think this is quite negative outlook. Some changes are just controversial, but not every change has to be that way. For example, have you ever heard complaints about performance increases? Complaints about being clear what each skill and ability does? Complaints about fixing bugs and issues? Those are the updates that really improve software quality, and in the olden times these kind of updates were the main content of game patches.

Shonie.5297:

Player 1 levels a character to level 80 in 80 hours.

Player 2 levels 2 characters to level 40 each in 80 hours.

More like:
Player 1 levels a character to level 80
Player 2 levels a character to level 80
Player 1 grinds ascended gear
Player 2 levels second character to level 80
Player 1 grinds WvW exp
Players 2 levels third character to level 80

Result:
None of player 2’s characters are as powerful as player 1’s only character. As Arenanet adds more and more ways to make a single character more powerful, the gap is just getting wider. This is not an opinion how things should be, but a simple factual result of the current policy.

Olba.5376:

Well let me ask you this: Why do you want with that max gear? What will you do once you have it? What will it help you achieve, that you cannot do right now?

- People want max level gear because it increases their success at everything they do. You might as well ask why get a high-speed internet connection if slower connection can retrieve all the same info. Effectiveness is the reason.

Ursan.7846:

Calculations: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Shortbow-vs-Longbow-Damage-Calculations/first

- Crossfire has attack speed of 0.54 seconds per attack, so 1/0.54 = 1.852 attacks per second. Long Range Shot is correct at 0.8 attacks per second. Also you didn’t take into account that shortbow has no damage-increasing traits, but longbow has Eagle Eye, which give its skills +5% damage.

Ursan.7846:

Shortbow, by far. Also make sure you’re always flanking and keep your pet alive for maximum damage.

- “By far”? This is very debatable topic. Traited longbow has 1500 range, shortbow has 1200. Longbow skills deal more direct damage, while shortbow deals damage mainly through conditions. Wilderness Survival trait line for increasing condition damage is uninteresting for ranged gameplay. Finally the shortbow’s AoE ability is more effective on close range and lacks the free targeting utility of longbow’s Barrage.

Jski.6180:

Who we? Your just talking for your self. As things stand most classes can solo a camp this just make it so you can specialize in going after camps. This makes it so you NEED to def a camp and not just simply flip and run i think that adds a nice level of play to the game more then just running in and running out.

- Capturing supply camps is already many times more rewarding than defending them and that’s the problem. For example you get no camp defense credit if you deter attackers but don’t kill them in camp area. Imagine if someone spends their money to increase guard level, but the camp soloer has it countered by +% damage against camp guards? It doesn’t take much effort to kill dolyaks either, but it takes great deal of effort to protect them against attackers. What this change is doing is to further incentivize that gameplay of taking turns to flip camps.

Ugh, I just read the article
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-world-introducing-world-ranks-and-more/

World Ability Points can be spent on unique WvW abilities that improve your character in whatever roll you may find yourself in—anything from increasing the amount of supply you can hold to increasing defense from siege attacks to new siege weapon skills. You can train multiple times in the same ability, which increases the effectiveness of the ability, but also increases the cost. (emphasis mine)

Sure, as a player I’m really happy that I’m able to carry more supply. The obvious problem with this feature, as we start seeing players who can carry 20 supplies, is when huge zerg captures supply camp and it’s gone after 5 players have taken their fill.

Making good games is not just about what we players want. It’s about the ramifications to gameplay. What is the balance between increasing guard levels as camp upgrade to experienced players cutting through them like hot knife to butter? Clearly there exists a point where guard level upgrade is useful and when it’s useless, depending what the numbers are. If you never have to worry about taking on the entire camp full of guards as a lone player, something about the system is wrong. Very cheap and stupid solution is to give camp lord an arbitrary 5 minute invulnerability.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We want to make this a much bigger part of where Gw2 goes in the future, to give a sense that the world truly can change constantly as you’re playing and every time you login.

- I’m not quite sure what you mean here. The process isn’t autonomous – your teams have to manually design and add the interactions that happen for players. This reminds me of the old metaphor of throwing a bucket of water into dried up well and then rejoicing that there is water in the well.

I played through the currently available flame and frost content. Helped refugees, collected mementos and killed the invaders that spawned. It felt very similar to dynamic events, although this content will be gone as the next phase is here. Bandaging wounded refugee will make him disappear into nothingness and cause new wounded refugee to spawn in his place after a while. I didn’t feel like I made difference in the world.

This living content thing is much better represented in WvW battles, where the living element are players themselves. Helping Hylek and having them join you in battle felt my actions had an actual effect on the world. Those neutral camps will stay loyal as long as I can defend them from enemies. It also represents a decision for the player: should I help the Hyleks or capture this supply camp? It’s very different from straight-forward gameplay of collecting 25 mementos because it gives you achievement.

WvW is peeking into direction of empowering players. I’d like to see you continue on this route, making players play the game through robust autonomous engine rather than providing small finite piece of entertainment every couple of months. Utilize the human resource and game will last years to come.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Another video I feel that is related to this topic:

- I think the authors misunderstand the idea of operant conditioning. It’s not some dubious mind trick that you build into your game to hook players. It’s a fundamental mechanism how animals including humans work. I press keys on my keyboard because I’ve been conditioned to see it produce letters on the screen. Should the monitor turn black all of sudden, my behavior of typing letters would change, because the “reward” is gone. Reward must be seen as functional term. It need not be some actual glittering prize.

Operant conditioning is a sound theory how tools are integrated into behavior, but it’s too general to explain alone why humans do the things they do.

Vayne.8563:

People go for the easiest loot, period. So if you put more loot somewhere that’s better it will not longer be an unpopular event. This is what happened with the big world events. People didn’t camp them that much until they were guaranteed a gold. Suddenly there’s lag, there’s overflow servers, there’s all sorts of stuff.

- So in the ideal situation every event in the world follows this formula:
Effort to complete * Reward = Constant

It would no longer matter which one you wanted to complete, because they would all be equally rewarding for time spent. OP’s idea sounds really nice to me.

TwoBit.5903:

Personally, I see too much emphasis being put on extrinsic motivators in GW2. Things like dailies and the legendary grind are rewards to playing fairly static content; they can become extrinsic real quick, especially when you consider the most efficient methods of completing them. Even WvW can be extrinsic if all you’re doing is playing for the score system, without which there would be little purpose in many of its premises.

- Intrinsic is like child playing outside. He’s not told how he should play, he’s playing spontaneously because he finds it fun. So a good way to differentiate intrinsic and extrinsic content is to see how much you’re being asked to do it. By this definition daily achievements are extrinsic rewards. You’re literally told to go to some area and do certain activities there.

Most games are made to be intrinsically interesting. Think of chess for example. There’s nothing in rules that says you should capture pieces, or move pieces in order. The moves you play depend pretty much on your freedom of expression. Same thing goes for majority of sports that set a goal, but only a few rules how to achieve that goal.

I really hope the guys who are agonizing over not having +5 stat from infusions are using food and oils wherever they are playing. Orrian Truffle Steak grants 100 Power and 70 Precision. Superior Sharpening Stone grants a minimum of 916*0.10 = 92 Power.

No, but it does kinda make you a scumbag.

emikochan.8504:

Unique means unique.

- How can you have two exact same items if they are unique?

Full direct damage builds are best because of how the game is designed. e.g. condition damage is hard-capped and defense like dodging and effectiveness of debilitating conditions do not depend on armor.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Remember there are no melee and no ranged professions. Every class is fully capable of being fully melee, fully ranged or both.

- Except the Engineer…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You realize Prophecies was a cliche storm of epic proportions, and very much a “standard fantasy realm” until it got some legs to develop, right? Seriously, if it weren’t for the lack of orcs and elves it would have blended right in.

- I would really like to see where this game focuses. GW1 had the fantastic skill system that allowed teams to have strategy. Guild battles were enjoyable also with plethora of different guild halls that guilds could choose. Remember split-pushing, flag running, different midline strategies? How slow accumulation of death penalty was the thing that broke teams rather than being overwhelmed by swarm of invisible enemies?

It’s not that gear grinding or trivial skill system are inherently bad things. The kind of tactic where a company dabbles on a little bit of everything and doesn’t completely satisfy any segment of players is the bad thing. Some players like grind, but why play GW2 if this game X has more rewarding grind? Some players dislike grind and become upset that GW2 has any of it.

Some players came here for WvW only to discover there’s just two maps and the other one is painfully symmetric too. It’s possible to create balanced maps that don’t have symmetry lines at all. They are making the big WvW patch this month. It’s kind of hilarious that giving players grind for +5% vs. gate damage is what improves the game in their mind.

Murderin.8269:

Leveling tons of alts tends to kill my interest in a game after a few.

- You don’t have to level them to see the skills. Just go to Heart of the Mists and you can try out the abilities.

Well, you could try both and see if which one you like better. Strategywise it’s better to capture supply camps and harrass caravans with small groups, while bigger zergs clear objectives that are harder to accomplish with smaller group.

TwoBit.5903:

Sigh, just read through the topic again, this time not half asleep from work. Am I right in saying that no one thinks GW2 is immersive because they don’t think that MMOs can be? What’s the point of having lore then if you don’t expect the game to immerse you in it? I think it’s a truly sad day for gaming when everyone agrees that distilled mechanics and achievements are more important than aesthetics. I may as well go build myself a hamster wheel if I want to experience games then. At least that way I’d get some exercise.

- Being immersive is like telling a good story. Anyone can verbalize a sequence of events, but few of us can tell a story that is interesting and relevant. I felt I could momentarily connect to the personal story (thanks to great voice acting), but mostly it was like watching The Lord of the Rings with all the bloated pompousness and tropes.

You can’t have everything in a single game. Some games set out to be immersive at the expense of other features, like multiplayer. The fundamental decisions made during development decide how the game is going to be. A game that is built to maintain persistent battlefield of hundreds of players is very different from game that is built to have interesting dueling. You could say that MMO is like a supermarket of games – there’s broad range of different activities, but if you care about a particular feature you should look for specialized shops.

TwoBit.5903:

Aside from the presence of other players, I don’t see what’s so different about an MMO world and a single player world. I’m really talking about the player’s interaction with the world, which seems largely dead in Guild Wars 2. And besides why can’t an MMO have the same level of immersion as a single player game? Surely ANet’s decision of making players not be the hero had to do something with there being other players and the decision behind the living story must have had something to do with make the experience more endogenous.

- There’s a ton of differences between single-player RPGs and MMOs. I’ll give some examples:

Combat: killing a monster is only immersive if the monster you’ve slain stays dead. This is easy to do in single player, but in MMO you’d end up with a world where most of the players would run around without anything to kill. That’s why monsters have to respawn.

NPCs: NPCs can acknowledge your actions better in single player. NPC tells you to save the town from centaurs and after you’ve saved the town she thanks you. What if in MMO same NPC would say that town in under attack to one player and be thankful that the town is safe to another? There can be no real permanence in MMO and that’s why every NPC just says generic stuff that is true regardless of what happens around you. Even in single player games it can be a pain to have convincing NPCs who aren’t trying to teach you basic stuff when you revisit starting areas.

Kasama.8941:

The problem is created by players, for players. Because players play through content too fast, then complain that there’s not enough content to do. These time sinks are created in order to keep these players in the game.

If you don’t primarily play for the rewards, then you won’t feel these restrictions. I just log in, enjoy the game, and then I might finish my daily before I log out. I couldn’t care less if I get some dungeon armor part today or tomorrow, or if I miss a daily. What difference does it really make?

- I agree with what you’re saying. There’s no reason to be cynical even if the community around you behaves that way. However, there’s a problem you may not have considered. A lot of design decisions have been made with cynical mind. Escorting dolyaks in WvW no longer gives reward, because it’s a simple task that bots would abuse. Drops are scaled back because bots would otherwise hurt the economy more. Token prices are ridiculous just so that players wouldn’t be done with new content so soon. Items are made soulbound for arbitrary reasons which do not speak in the language of logic. Why can I put this one item for sale in trading post but not this other item? Players are upset because these kind of compromizes ultimately lead to loss of immersion, and failing game. I’m sure nobody wants that.

You can have a character.
Level 80.
Wielding weapon.
That doesn’t give any power.

What is so difficult to understand?

CHOAM.7852:

Isn’t 916 the amount if you don’t have any weapon equipped? That doesn’t seem like a practical comparison.

- Weapon doesn’t necessarily give any Power. 916 is the amount every character has at level 80 from level ups, when there is no +Power from any equipment, traits, slot skills or boons.

105 power means 105/916 = 11% damage increase at the lowest possible Power amount. As you stack up power the increase is only additive, but Sigil of Force’s benefit is multiplicative. Also take into account that some traits grant extra benefits from boons.

Stat budget is determined by item level and rarity. Pearl and destroyer greatswords are both level 80 exotics, so they have equally powerful stats.

Now that I’ve played several professions and come back to Ranger, I find that a lot of the skills available are awkward to use. So basically there’s 5 lines of slot skills that can be used. Pet skills, Signets, Survival skills, Spirits and Traps.

Pet skills
For me these aren’t worth using at all, because my pet spends majority of any time during fight dead. Pets are good for one use of their special F2 ability at the start of the fight before they are knocked down.

Signets
Signets are the best Ranger slot skills in my opinion, but even then their effects are odd for the Ranger role. Signet of the Wild has permanent spot on my bar for the 25% movement speed bonus it provides. Condition removal, health regen and toughness are quite passive bonuses. I like to use longbow from 1500 distance, so survival is not an issue.

Survival skills
Quickening Zephyr is another permanent skill on my bar for the fantastic Quickness it provides. Rest of the abilities are too passive (save for maybe Muddy Terrain) for a profession that outranges everyone else in a fight. Sharpening stone is worth considering if you’re specced to condition damage (I’m not).

Spirits
Spirits are interesting idea for stationary combat, like DPS’ing down a boss that doesn’t move. Spirit of Frost improves expected damage output by 3.5%. I haven’t done the math to figure out how many Might stacks that equals. Sun spirit gives a chance for 3 second burning every 10 seconds. Nice if you’re specced to condition damage.

Traps
I don’t get traps. You can only have a single one and it is disabled when you move away from it. Trap effects are mostly light damage with conditions. If the effects were actually worthwhile (like 3-4 second knockdown) then using them would have strategic implications. Another passive skill type that is basically just hoping your enemies make a mistake.

When I think of Ranger archetype, I’m mostly looking forward to DPS from range. Ranger in GW2 has a lot of skills that are defensive. For the first time I’m actually starting to consider racial skills to fill the gap here. Seed Turret from Sylvari complement the idea of ranged damage dealing. Charr’s Battle Roar has no place in Warrior’s skillbar, but Rangers would be happy to have extra damage boost with no opportunity cost.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

People keep saying there wasn’t grind in Guild Wars but there really was. Really really. Am I the only person remembering “chest runs” for Wisdom? The sheer piles of lockpicks used up trying to raise Luck? The time devoted to turning Balthazar Faction into Zaishen Keys to get a crack at the chest?

- I make the difference between grind by design (e.g. you must repeatedly complete fractals to get relics) and grind as voluntary behavior, like choosing to run chests for money you could have by many other means. Important thing about Guild Wars was that there was no grind for power until very late at the game’s life cycle (skill power based on title). Adding new currencies for new activities and rewards effectively makes it so that power gain is exclusive to that content type. Scaling up numbers means that content has to be run repeatedly. There’s the thing that causes grind.