Guild Wars 2

My 7 things:
1. Remove ascended gear—put infusion slots on exotic gear.
2. Move away from Living Story and more toward traditional content releases
3. More personal story.
4. More reason for a level 80 to play in any zone that he/she wants and still be rewarded or working toward a goal.
5. More open world event scattered throughout the entire game, not just one or two zones.
6. Remove Champ Trains
7. Improve dungeons — No skipping mobs, make boss encounters more engaging, etc.

Draco.2806:

Although GW2 deserves praise for some great improvements over the standard MMO formula – like being able to freely change skills, reducing reliance on gear, introducing collections, freely accessible PvP, more dynamic combat, so on – underneath it’s still your generic WoW clone.

It’s no Terraria to your Minecraft or Everquest Next to your… well… Everquest.

It doesn’t introduce anything new to the standard MMO formula, but it does polish up some of the rough edges – which is basically what WoW did to Everquest/Ultima formula when it came out, too.

Ill agree with this. It improved the overall leveling experience, Ill say..

However again lol, this thread is about gear progression, at least it was initially

I hope you everyone involved has their big boy ascended panta crafted. The next cdi gonna be interesting. Finally a chance to get some real dialogue gong regarding the most controversial addition to the game, aside from living story

I was using wow as an example for my argument. Maybe i should have just said “any modern and traditional mmo”.

And someone changed the thread title ;p

Why do these threads continue to surface? Every week theres like 5 of them. Theres another one a few posts down I believe. This isnt a topic that is subject to debate, like exotic gear vs ascended gear. They have said they have NO plans for an expansion at this time.

They have said no expansion in 2013, no hints at an expansion in 2014. They have said that they currently have no plans for an expansion at all. They are focused on LS. Thats it.

So my thoughts: Will we ever see an expansion? Maybe when the walls of Living Story finally break down and they realize that the concept, as bold and risk taking as it is, does not work in an MMO. Timeframe? 1-2 years.

I’ll have to read danikat’s explanation of the story tonight(bathroom reading!). Thanks for it(sincere).

However, let me ask the question to people: Do you think its possible to tell a story in two week bits and have everyone understand it from start to finish? Along with that, even if it is possible, do you think its a good idea to do this?

I ask this because I wonder if waiting two weeks(or more sometimes it seems), before we progress in the story, the story pieces lose connection and you lose understanding of it.

Furthermore, if someone misses even one of these arcs, you are behind. I missed Dragonbash, apparently when Marjory was introduced. I came back, and see her as a main cog in the wheel…thinking to my self, who the heck is this person? Where does she come from? Why is she so important?

So between the two week cadence possibly losing connection between the pieces, and missing an event completely, one can fall behind rather quickly and need to revert to third party websites, or the forums. Thats not an ideal way to tell a story. Its pretty bad.

Comparing the LS to our personal stories…if I had to take a month off of the game for whatever reason, I can come back to the game and the story may lose connection with me, but I wouldnt have missed anything. I pick up from where I left off.

IMO, the living story should really be more personal, instanced, and playable at anytime. Something discussed in the CDI and something I hope they work toward. I also think that voice acting tells the story better than two sentences on my screen and a cut scene or two.

Danikat.8537:

Cesmode – to put it another way what I’m saying is that you’re using what Wikipedians call a strawman argument.

It’s a simple and sometimes effective tactic: You set up a point of view that at first glance looks like the one you want to disagree with but which is much easier to take down – in the same way that a strawman or scarecrow looks like a real person at first glance but is much easier to fight.

In this case ‘gear progression in GW2 is different to WoW’ in place of ‘GW2 is not like other MMOs’.

Then you take apart the strawman argument, (quickly and easily because how hard is it to fight straw?) and act as if you’ve also beaten your real opponent – the original point of view that you wanted to disagree with.

But you haven’t really, because all the other factors which you ignored when building your strawman are still there, in the same way that the real person would still be there after you’ve ‘killed’ their scarecrow copy.

Sure, call it the strawman argument if you wish. In reality, I could have just as easily re-titled the thread “GW2 gear progression/requirements is similar to WoW”, but I left the title open ended so that others may formulate their own opinions in the thread. Strawman? Maybe. To me, it was just a title. And the body of my argument is merely my own opinion.

Either way,however this debate is structured or set up, whether deliberately or not, does not take away from the fact that when you compare the two gear systems and ‘end game’ systems, they are similar.

And then when you look at the responses from people that are pro-ascended gear(in the form of "you dont need ascended gear to do anything else), you have to ask yourself “is GW2 any different than any other MMO in this regard?” I believe the answer is a firm no. In either game, WoW or GW2, you don’t need specific gear to roam in the world, to ‘quest’, to explore, to run dungeons. You do need specific gear to run raids and fractals, for WoW and GW2 respectively.

Thats my argument. Strawman or not. And I think its a pretty good one. I’d honestly love to have a back ’n forth with a dev about this in a CDI or something.

Danikat.8537:

cesmode.4257:

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

So in WoW you only need raid gear to do a hard-mode version of one dungeon? You can do everything else, including all other “end game” content without it? If that’s the case then yes I agree they’re the same and I don’t understand why so many people complain about gear grind in WoW because if they don’t like it they can just ignore it. Just like people in GW2 avoid the need for ascended armor by sticking to Fractals level 1 – 10.

(And on a related note has anyone really done Fractals, at the levels where you get hit with Agony, without ascended armor?)

cesmode.4257:

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

I understand that you’re just focusing on discussing gear. But you seem to also be implying that if the form of gear progression is similar then that means the games in general are also similar, or even identical, and therefore when Anet promoted this game as different to other MMO’s they were wrong.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing that they have similar gear progression (that depends on your answer to my question above). I’m disagreeing that gear progression was the thing Anet claimed made this game different, or even one of the main things.

As I remember it when GW2 was (and is) being promoted as something new for the MMO genre the focus was much more on things like the lack of a subscription fee, the fact that there was no tagging or kill stealing, no trinity and PvP was in separate areas.

You may be right that the gear progression is similar, but likewise I’m right that both games feature an online world shared with many other players. You can’t make a general conclusion based on that one factor whilst ignoring all the others.

Just to clarify, in WoW you only need raid gear for raiding, not hard mode (heroic) dungeons. You can run heroic dungeons in easily(and by easy I mean a week or two of dallies, which in regards to acquisition time is less than the time it takes to get an exotic in Gw2).

For example, I leveled my shaman in WoW to 90, ran maybe 5 regular dungeons, did maybe a week of dungeons. I have enough gear to enter heroics and be OK. At level 90, I spent maybe 5 hours total until I was good enough to enter heroic dungeons.

Likewise for GW2… you can complete all dungeons without issue in rares. When you hit 80, you’re in a mix of blues, greens, yellows. Id wager the same amount of time to get into more rares and maybe an exotic, if you don’t flat out buy your gear from the trading post.

And you are correct that I am implying that the gear progression/requirements between the two games are similar. I dont know who it was that started the mentality here for GW2 that “you dont need BiS gear to do anything in the game”…whether that mentality was created from arenanet or by us. But that is the general mentality. So when people say that, I always respond with my own rhetoric that “I can have access to the same amount of content in a game like WoW(known for its treadmill)..so whats your point”

Nike.2631:

Mustafa.7684:

fyi rangers are in the game

If you think that, you haven’t played one .

The reason the ranger is the only class I haven’t played is because it seems like every other hunter class from any other mmo. Ranged attacking, with a pet soaking dmg or doing dmg…a melee ranger would just seem funny to me.

Xenesis.6389:

I don’t like the idea of ascended in what this game was suppose to be, especially the ways they choose to provide them, where’s the wvw alternative? Five 80’s with multiple weapons needed for each? and soon armor sets? and maybe legendary armors after? yeah I’m not grinding the gold out for that. I also haven’t done Tequalt since like the first week of his revamp and likely never will again so that route is also out.

I dont many people have done Teq. I missed that update, was on a break. I came back a month or so after, and Teq just sits there flapping his wings. I haven’t done him yet. One poor design decision after another. Wasted and unused content.

About ascended armor: Not doing it. finishing up ascended weapons hopefully before the end of this month for my fractal toon. I just hope that in a year we dont have ascended sigils and runes that go on ascended armo only. I’ll probably make a quick exit of the game.

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

Lindbur.2537:

Intriguing… if they were to make this a reality, being able to ascend exotic upgrades would be nice, much like how ascended inscriptions and insignias require an exotic version first.

Well, if you like grinding, sure I guess its nice.

Honestly, thinking about it..if all we had to do was ascend the sigils or runes from exotics…that MIGHT be acceptable. What would be horrible is if we could only place those ascended upgrades in ascended armor. I might be able to stomach ascended upgrades in exotic armor. But if I had to craft, tailoring for example, to 500 and get prepped for ascended upgrades…thats something entirely different.

Calicea.3267:

I’m an expecting mother so the first thing I want is to be able to do things solo. I do also want to be desired and have my roles in groups. I’ve played all the classes for at least a few levels most to 10-20 and my highest a warrior to 45. Right now I’ve been bouncing between my necro, mesmer, and warrior. I love feeling like a kitten and wading into baddies in heavy armor, but something about the other two have my eye. I’d really like to pick one and push on to 80 and ejoy the end game. Wintersday looks fun I don’t want to get bored either just because I feel the need to get to end game. Thanks in advance for any insight into the manner.

You don’t have to play solo, you have a little farmer on the way!

Kidding aside, here are my thoughts about the three classes you have listed.

Warrior- One of the most desired in groups, most overplayed in the game, decent group utility, if you run with a greatsword you will have the most DPS in the game, easiest to play, most boring IMO. Too one dimensional, not enough dynamics to the game play.

Mesmer- Desired in groups for portals, timewarp, feedback. Decent DPS, not the greatest not the worst. Decent utility. Fun to play, difficult to learn. Most unique archetype. I love the dynamics of it(mesmer is one of my favorites).

Necro- One of the least desired classes, unless you are running a necro-condition stacking group in WvW. High HP and life stealing make it have decent survivability. Cool looking abilities and effects. Quasi difficult to play(depends on you and your build) and CAN get boring. Good class dynamics though.

Points all around. Well taken, but specifically about char / gear progression. I know its one aspect of the game, but it the one area that is compared most to other MMOs. People whine about ascended gear, other people say that GW2 doesn’t force you to craft it if you dont want to. Not needed unless you run fractals. So I feel the need to compare and contrast.

And vayne, take me off your buddy list for opposing me! just kidding.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

It’s already been confirmed that there is no more ascended items being released. This was the end of it.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/living-world-2013-the-year-in-review/

“The addition of the final pieces of Ascended gear: Ascended armor.”

Indeed, I read that too. Oh how I want to believe that but I can see it now…one year after ascended armor is released, arenanet announces plans for ascended sigils/runes. We come to the forums infuriated because we felt lied to(much like the november 2012 release). We spit off quotes from Colin’s blogpost and say “you liars!!” Arenanet comes to the forums and says “Oh, what we really meant was that ascended armor is the last piece of ascended gear. Now we have ITEMS to upgrade your GEAR.” —essentially playing word games with us, again.

THIS is what I fear.

Hi,
I guess I should have been clearer and I will update the OP, but I was speaking in terms of character progression..gear progression. Whenever the topic of ascended gear comes up, people(including myself at times)whine that they won’t be on even playing field as someone that has an ascended gearset whether it be in WvW or a dungeon. Then, the pro-ascended camp comes into the thread and says “you don’t need ascended gear to run any dungeon, or to queue into WvW. GW2 has no gear requirements in any aspect of the game aside from GW2”.

My response to that is, “so I don’t need raid gear to run a dungeon in WoW and I don’t need raid gear to do any of the daillies in WoW. Whats your point? Why is GW2 different?”

Youre not bullied, its just PvP. I agree that it shouldnt be part of the requirement, but it is. But no one is bullying you, no one is belittling you, no one is berating you, no one is harassing you (verbally). You might have a roamer from the other server that might try to gank you. But thats part of WvW.

And people dont beat up on eachother for no reason. They fight eachother because its fun, bragging rights, server bragging rights, and to provide you, the PVE player, with buffs(gathering buffs, crafting buffs, etc). All PVE-only players should really thank the hardcore WvW’ers for the bonuses they get out in the open world of Tyria. These WvW players spend loads of gold to make your server competitive so that you receive these bonuses. Trust me, theres ample reason why people play WvW.

Theres no bullying and I think in this day, bullying carries a slightly harsher meaning.

Hi, as the title reads, how is GW2 different than any MMO? Speaking specifically to progression.

Simply put, I don’t see much of a difference.

I’ll take WoW as an example since many people have played it.

WoW: GW2:
BiS gear through raids BiS gear through crafting
Required only in raids Required only in Fractals
New tier every 2-3 months New slot every 2-3 months

So, wheres the difference? Focus on the second line item…required only in raids / required only in fracta.s. True, currently ascended gear is only required in fractals similarly raid BiS gear in WoW is only required in raids(you can do any heroic content or daily quests with minimal gear.)

Wheres the difference? Why has GW2 been put on a pedestal, first by arenanet and now by the community, as a game where gear doesnt matter and isnt required in any part of the game except fractals. WoW, the almighty gear treadmill of them all, is the same way if you look at it like this. So why is GW2, in your eyes, a unique snowflake here?

Edit: Speaking solely interms of character / gear progression. I know this topic can be applied to many other areas of the game.

Zoid.2568:

Congrats to you. Why is ascended crap though?
Everyone wanted something like Ascended at launch but exotics were to easy to aquire, so they gave us ascended.

Correction…maybe half of the population. Probably less than half. The people that wanted this came from the same mentality that is a WoW player.

The people that are upset with ascended gear, including myself, are people that came to GW2 for no gear grind, specifically for stats. We wanted aesthetic gear grind.

Not going to get into this age old debate, but Id say around half or less than half of the community wanted this. This is to please the people that MUST consume content as quickly as possible instead of enjoying it.

So no, not everyone wanted ascended gear.

Id actually really like a dev post to this…sort of. I know you cannot speculate on the future, but maybe try to put minds like mine to ease… I am worried that if I don’t craft my ascended armor set now, that one day in the future the game will have ascended sigils/runes, and I’ll really begin to notice that I am at a disadvantage.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that ascended armor is here. Fine. I simply dont have the time, gold or RL cash to spend on it. So I am letting it pass me by. I just don’t want this decision to back fire on me and put me at a disadvantage later down the road if/when Arenanet decides to put ascended sigils/runes in the game that require ascended armor.

ArchonWing.9480:

Scarlet is actually Traherne’s evil crossdressing alter ego. It all makes sense. He was sick of being the goody goody but was granted extreme powers due to the plot and the tree and whatever crap and went mad due to having absolutely no personality whatsoever and thus being rejected by pretty much everyone else, deciding that the world needed to be reimaged as something more diffrent.

Haha. I agree, and the poster below you…I hear what you’re saying. Two bad NPC characters that are sylvari.

I think arenanet has admitted to some of their faults in telling the story, but I don’t really think we will see any changes between now and the end of this arc. And how they tell and handle the next LS arc will probably determine whether or not GW2 has a quasi healthy future or not.

Is the poor story telling related to the cadence that, at the moment, they refuse to budge on?

Is it due to the fact that you just can’t have and tell a nice flowing cohesive story broken up in 2 week bits?

Or is the writing just plain bad. This one would strike me because I did like the personal story. Sure, it has its issues and you hardly make any difference at all (choose your own adventure, I laugh), but they actually voice acted the story and told it well, if nothing else.

Julie Yann.5379:

If they are easily accessible I am fine with ascended runes and sigils. If the are anything like acquiring weapons and armor then kitten NO!

I’d imagine they would probably follow a similar trend…maybe not AS grindy as weapons/armor, but judging from Arenanet’s track record with this sort of thing, its doubtful you would obtain na item in a day or two. Pure speculation though.

VidGhost.3215:

for o95% of the game content Green masterwork gear is more then enough.

Same can be said for any other MMO with a traditional gear treadmill and raiding. 95% of the game content is available in any gear, only raids are gear gated…

Why is GW2 different than other MMOs if we are going to be accepting this type of mentality HERE and shun & loathe games like WoW,

Hi,
The problem of switching between items and pre-reqs back and forth a hundred times has been really accented with the introduction of ascended gear crafting. There are many items to craft with pre requisites, and these pre-reqs have pre reqs.

Example: Crafting an ascended weapon.
Vision crystal
Material one
Material two
Inscription

Vision crystal has requirements. Those requirements were from dust or dragonite ore.
Material one has requirements as with material two
Inscription has pre reqs as well… exotic inscription + a few other things that I cant remember. The exotic inscription requires 5 dowels 5 globs and a T6 mat, the dowel requires preqs..etc etc. My god switching back and forth is a nightmare.

Is it possible to some how ‘favorite’ a few of thes items so they appear in the window, and underneath them the required materials are shown?

I guess I missed out on when and where they explained a few key parts. I have no clue other than scarlet is bad, and shes been causing problems.

Hi,
What does everyone think of ascended infusions/ascended sigisl/ascended runes? Am example would be an ascended bloodlust sigil where the bloodlust stacks could go to 30 or 35, or a Mighty Infusion increase from +4 power to +10. Compound that amongst all gear slots if you wish, and whether or not its considerable, I dont know. However, how do you feel about having ascended infusions in the future(probably 6 months to a year down the road?

I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that I’ll never have an ascended armor set. Even though I am sitll vehemently opposed to ascended armor of any kind in the game, looking at the stat increase and the amount of resources needed, it seems like a large gold and time sink for very little reward. I’ll sit this one out. I am able to kit out my fractal character with enough AR to run lvl 40, maybe lvl 45 fractals. Thats good enough for me.

However, this will become a problem if they decide to implement ascended items for the upgrade slots. I think that would be the tipping point, for sure, between ‘being on par’ or not with everyone else.

I am forgoing ascended armor with the hope that this never happens in the game. If it doesn’t, despite my loathe for ascended’s presence in GW2, I will stomach it and play. If ascended upgrade slots seep into the game somehow…well.. :/

Thoughts on the subject?

The only hidden ‘tasls’ or quests that I can think of are the mini dungeons that you can find..(not sure of their proper names). For instance, and I wont give any clues to location, you can find a key off a random mob drop in some zone that unlocks some dwarven ruins site. You enter, it puts you in an instance and you have to complete some rather interesting and challenging obstacles before the final boss fight. It can be done solo I believe. Takes maybe 30-45 minutes if youre good.

Theres another where you need to collect some items, fight through some obsticles, unluck a big chest.

Very fun stuff and I wish they would do a whole lot more of this.

As the title says, do you understand what has happened during “season 1” of the living story? Were you able to comprehend the gist of it all without referencing GW2 wiki, dulfy, or any other 3rd party sites to read about what was happening in the story? Ive only missed a few LS updates, but have participated in most and I still haven’t a clue.

For myself, all I know is Scarlett was behind flame and frost, and shes been wreaking havoc across Tyria for months. There has been a myriad of NPC story characters scattered throughout the story such as Roxx and Broham, Marjory and the blonde chick, etc. Where does Marjory even come from? Why did the queen of DR need to have a jubilee? Where does Scarlett come from? Why is she doing this? If we find out these answers toward the end of the story, thats kind of bad. I need to know the back story of these characters before the last few chapters, otherwise its not worth reading.

So for me, if someone asked me to tell them the story of ..the Living Story, without referencing other sources, I cannot.

How about you?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

JohnnySupernova.9182:

lordkrall.7241:

Jakzor.4160:

so basicly, from 21th Jan we’ll have FOUR living story only release.

that means 2 freaking months(3 starting from 10th dec) without any feature update…

that makes me very sad…..

That is not what he is saying.
He is saying that there will be no MAJOR feature release during those 4 updates.

Which makes sense.
Major features are after all stuff like the WPX system, new maps types, new systems over all and so on.

The living story should not take precedent over actually improving the game, to be honest. If it has to be one or the other, features should come first, always.

Ever think that maybe some of the features might not be ready yet? So the living story buys time to complete them?

Perhaps some of the features are lead into by the living story, and thus the story needs to come first.

Several reason why they might do the story first. At least we know that they will be doing a large feature release in a few months. That’s at least positive news.

If the features, QoL improvements, overall improvements and polish are not ready yet, put more people on those projects and less on LS. This is what we have been saying alll along. Areas of the game go months upon months without attention but we continue to be fed breadcrumb LS. I hope with 2014, this way of doing things ends.

I want dungeon revamps, I want living world revamps(i.e. people in the open world in any zone playing), I want some more QoL, I want to see more bug squashing. There are bugs that are still in the game from release (Magg cof P2 magma fields comes to mind), there are failed temple events that are bugged out, failed regular dynamic events. Over one year after launch and these things aren’t fixed in favor of LS…

This should always take priority over living story.

deep breath..Okay. When I saw the post, I said to myself, “Oh no…here we go”.

So, my first question is, why involve scarlet in Wintersday at all? Just curious.

Second, I really look forward to finishing up Scarlet and this current version of LS. I hope that after the the scarlet arc, they revamp their thinking with Living Story as per our CDI discussion.

Thirdly, ‘shake Tyria to its core’…just my negative speculation, but what if this means that Agony seeps out of FoTM and into Tyria? Oh boy! Just speculation

I am happy to see that a large ‘features only’ release is slated for after the LS arc is done. I hope this brings much needed dungeon revamps, Living World revamps, Orr revamps, etc.

stale.9785:

I think that they should have had no levels at all, and thus, no level restrictions. Exit the tutorial with all your trait points available – otherwise leave as is.

You’d still have to unlock weapon skills, and earn skill points for your utility skills, but the only other “development” would have been through gear acquisition. This way, instead of having 90% of the world map empty continually (since it’s not “end-game”) we would maybe see a more even distribution of people.

That said, I’d also have preferred it had Anet kept skill hunting as the main way to acquire skills.

Just my $0.02

SOE is doing this with everquest next sort of. You find classes out in the world(maybe in the form of cards or..something we dont know yet). But that is a large part of your character progression.

And there are currently something like 40 classes out there to find.

That is an interesting take on char progression

Valanga.5942:

Gallows.4318:

I have played most MMO’s since EQ and the last time I had this kind of fun was back in DAoC – although GW2 would win for me even if DAoC was technically up to date. This is the best MMO I have ever played and also the best game in general I have ever played. In daoc I got one toon to max level but it took me a while. Since then GW2 is the first game where I have reached max level before being bored silly. I have always wanted to enjoy MMO’s as the concept is amazing. In GW2 I have 2 lvl 80, two lvl 70+ and a few alts between 20 and 30. GW2 is the first MMO where I actually enjoy the game itself and not just play for the next little virtual reward until I can’t be kitten d.

You clearly never played DAOC… I mean, would really compare wuvwuv Player vs Door to Realm vs Realm?

I would say in terms of milestones, or games that have left a lasting print on the MMO genre…the following come to mind:

DAOC
EQ / EQ2
World of Warcraft

Id like to say GW2, but it just isnt there yet. I am comfortable saying this because in any game that I have played, for the most part people were pleased with changes. Im not talking about some nerf to your class, but large game design additions or subtractions.

I think the two things that stirred the hornets nest for this game has been the introduction of ascended gear, while many(if not everyone) expected exotic to be the last tier… and Living Story. They are the two hot topics that draw the most positives and negatives.

I myself have been having difficulty leveling my elementalist…
Ive tried d/d, staff, d/f.. I like staff but find the damage output to be a bit subpar. So I have to run with LH and use that when I can. D/D is good but only to blast fields and spamming through attunments…screw up and youre dead.

Maybe Im just doing it wrong, I dont know.

reikken.4961:

since you are past lv 50, you are high enough to take the blasting staff trait, so I can recommend staff. 20 in fire, mostly just for the power, and 20 in arcana for blasting staff and elemental attunement

easiest way to kill things is to lay down eruption (earth 2) under your target at max range, and then swap to fire and wait for a moment, and then drop a lava font under it and hit it with flame burst before the eruption.

if it’s something that is already attacking you, you can do the same thing, except without the waiting part, and immobilize the target with shockwave so that it doesn’t run out of the eruption area

or if your attackers are melee, you can fight in melee range, running around the edges of your lava font area and dodge rolling through it. and since you have three dodges (thank you, burning retreat), you can do this for a long time. Speaking of burning retreat, it’s very useful to get accustomed to turning around right before using it, so make sure you have the turn-around button bound to something you can reach easily.
Frozen ground (water 4) also helps immensely with kiting melee attackers inside your AoEs

ranged attackers are almost even easier to deal with than melees. just drop lava font+flame burst under them and they will just stand there in it, while you can turn on magnetic aura and go have a cup of tea

Fire and earth (mostly fire) are the main damage attunements, but I’ll make a pit stop in air and/or water when switching between them even if I don’t need the utility they offer because skill 2 in each of them does good damage.

oh and probably the most important thing is to make sure all your keys can be reached comfortably. I never touch the F-keys. My attunements are 1-4 (and 1 is also bound to middle mouse, since 1 is hard to reach, as I use ESDF to move). so yeah, find a key setup that works for you. I found the default to be unplayable.

This is helping a little bit. Thanks

Still could use some alternate playstyles.

last week i hoarded up on some mats…but after ripping my eyes out recently trying to get to 500 in huntsman and then trying to craft even just one of the 3 weapons i use for my thief…and burning through 80 gold…Im passing on ascended armor for now. Weapons only for my fractal character(thief) and if I have the fortitude to do so, my WvW character(mesmer).

I will, however, benefit from selling any cloth and leather I get. I need to make money back.

So..tomorrow is just winters day for me. No ascended armor. The day agony leaves FoTM and enters ANY other part of the game that I play, I leave the game.

So I am almost at the point where I can finalllly craft an ascended weapon. When i go to transmute it from the ugly skin that it is to the current skin that I have on my current exotic, will anything..negative happen? Will the ascended weapon lose its infusion slot?

Currently I have lyss and ilya transmuted onto some berserker pistols. I am looking to make ascended pistols and transmute the skin of lyss/ilya onto the ascended weapon.

Will this be ok?

Just asking because Ive glazed over some threads of horror stories with transmutation and ascended or whatever.

SkyChef.5432:

Try this. I wholeheartedly recommend it. I even used his build 10/30/10/10/10 for WvW (armor & D/D changed only)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Zelyhn-s-Advanced-D-F-PvE-Guide/first

Ed: Zelyhn explains everything in his guide. Strength, weakness, rotations included.

This guide is mainly for lvl 80s though. He said the core of the playstyle is the trait ‘Fresh Air’ which is a grandmaster trait that I do not have access to for another 9 lvls. Im just trying to get there.

Lostwingman.5034:

For just leveling? At level 51?
Throw 20 into Fire and get conjurer, throw 20 into water and grab yourself from cleansing wave and vital striking. Then put at least 10 into Arcana for renewing stamina and the rest wherever you want. Maybe 10 into earth for stone splinters?
Then get yourself that Lightning Hammer on your utility bar. I’d throw in Arcane Shield for sure on your utility bar. From there you have one of the easiest leveling set ups in the game imo. So good. Just spam that auto attack because every third swing is an AoE blind. Combine that with your soothing mist from sitting in water and you have yourself some decent survivability. Seriously, taking down multiple vets above your level and undergeared becomes very possible with this build.

Ive tried this and had two issues with it:
1. If I wanted to melee, I’d just log onto my 80 thief or warrior or guardian.
2. After spending charges on the hammer to kill one pull of mobs, I need to grab the second hammer. And then its on cooldown.

About combo fields..it seems that I can either create a lot of fields, or blast a lot of fields. Never an even mixture of both

d/d you throw down some fire fields, then have to switch to earth to blast them. If you are in another fight 5-10 seconds later, your blasts from earth attunement are still on CD. So what do you do? You are very vulnerable at that point, kiting, just using other abilities. You feel very week then.

Same thing with staff really.

Hi,
So my ele is lvl 51, having difficulties staying alive and killing things quick enough. I have a lot of difficulty with more than one or two mobs.

Ive tried d/d and staff and maybe its just me but both have their pitfalls which make elementalist difficult to play.

Does anyone have any leveling suggestions? Gear/ stats / traits/ playstyle? How should I be going in and out of attunements for the different weapon sets?

Spockime.1364:

None. Today is my last day playing GW2. I’m sure they are happy so many people want to grind for stuff though. Seems opposite of what this game was supposed to be, and yet people here on the forums love it. I guess all the people like me left a long time ago.

No, we are still here. Im still here for another few months, maybe 3 or so..to see where this all goes. To see if the CDI discussions are visceral and have any real impact on the game in three months(because if you cannot change your direction in 3 months, thats bad…especially when its simple things like “reduce the amount of achievements to grind for the LS metas”(come on…).

So, another few months for me(I am having fun right now, aside from ascended grind). In three months or so, I’ll re-kitten and see how close Wildstar is to release.

Correction to my earlier posts. I may not gear any with ascended. This grind to ascended weapon is unnecessary and painful. Not fun, arenanet.

Galen Grey.4709:

cesmode.4257:

CihandaR.2395:

if i didnt care about this game.. a game that i’ve waited 2years for.. then i wouldnt be crying on the forum that anet should make gw2 better. BUT new games are comin n if anet doesnt make somthing from their crap.. byebye ciaociao dada

I definitely hear that. While I didnt wait 2 years for the game(probably around 6 months after I first heard about it), I did talk it up to my WoW guildees and buds. Initial leveling was fun, for me, and up until November 2012 the game was fantastic. Then, the development direction showed its true colors with ascended gear, then into Guild missions(they are just so bad…), and now with living story and more endless ascended grinding.

I am enjoying the game, I like it, it has fantastic potential if Arenanet makes some huge non-subtle changes. But I agree with you…2014 is going to be a big year for them. Either they repair the damage they have done with ascended gear and livinsg story, or people are going to be drifting to new titles such as Wildstar(me), The Elder Scrolls online, and Everquest Next(me).

Big year…

I like Wildstar and will probably give it a try myself but I honestly cant imagine how someone who finds issue with ascended gear (because its grindy to get) or not being able to stick to exotics because they’re just not best in slot could find wildstar to be a better game because as far as I can tell its going to be far worst in that department to the point that I’d say its impossible to have BiS there even if you play in an extremely hardcore fashion due to the randomize stats portion each gear has.

Easy.

I had different expectations for GW2. Different ‘assumptions’ if you want to call them that. I was put on a different hype train for GW2. Like the hordes of people that are upset about ascended gear, I thought this would be a game without any stat increases, with minimal grind, full of adventure and exploration with a living world where in any zone you would find a good amount of people in. Instead, we have a gear grind, however slight, that is tied to crafting. We have content development direction tied to a living story that has minimal story and fosters zerging instead of true teamwork. And 9/10 zones are emptied.

Even though I am able to find many positives with Gw2, this is not the game I thought it would be. Call it a misconception on my part, as well as many others. But this isn’t the game that I was hyped on.

With that said, I expected one thing in GW2 and got another(in my own little opinion). With Wildstar, I expect gear treadmill, and BiS available to raiders only. I am going into it expecting that. So its OK. I didn’t go into GW2 expecting this.

That is why I am able to play a treadmill game like Wildstar, because I expect it to be there. I expected GW2 to be something different.

CihandaR.2395:

if i didnt care about this game.. a game that i’ve waited 2years for.. then i wouldnt be crying on the forum that anet should make gw2 better. BUT new games are comin n if anet doesnt make somthing from their crap.. byebye ciaociao dada

I definitely hear that. While I didnt wait 2 years for the game(probably around 6 months after I first heard about it), I did talk it up to my WoW guildees and buds. Initial leveling was fun, for me, and up until November 2012 the game was fantastic. Then, the development direction showed its true colors with ascended gear, then into Guild missions(they are just so bad…), and now with living story and more endless ascended grinding.

I am enjoying the game, I like it, it has fantastic potential if Arenanet makes some huge non-subtle changes. But I agree with you…2014 is going to be a big year for them. Either they repair the damage they have done with ascended gear and livinsg story, or people are going to be drifting to new titles such as Wildstar(me), The Elder Scrolls online, and Everquest Next(me).

Big year…

Ive found leveling in this game was probably one of the strongpoints.

While I agree that more and more people are beginning to dislike or outright oppose leveling, it is going to be in any MMO. Gotta get used to it. No game is different.

With that said, it would be nice of a game did do away with the traditional level system in favor of character progression in terms of unlocked or discovered skills and abilities, or something of that nature.

One of the things GW2 got right was leveling experience. Its probably the best Ive ever had. I pull my hair out when I level in WoW, or any other game. GW2 is very fun.

Im not sure what youre missing out at level 51. You are able to do any of the Living story updates… You can join WvW at at lvl 2.

What are you missing?

I seriously had a hard time following the OP’s post. I really dont know where you stand with GW2, what your issue is because it was very incoherent and disjointed… but I am going try to guess.

First, regardless if you inferred this or not: GW2 is not pay to win. Yes, like any free game, it has a cash shop and sure you can turn real $$ into in game gold. A 35 year old professional with 2 hours per night to play, but a fat wallet can accomplish the same as the 19 yr old college student with no money and loads of time to grind things out. Not pay to win, though. You can’t buy power.

Second, I know you havent played many games or MMOs, but you cannot compare an MMO to Diablo 3 or 2. Those games are hackn slash, and while fun, are not the same as GW2. So, right there you need to be even more objective and stop that comparison.

Thirdly, something about..your name? If a name is taken, by someone else in game, yes you have to choose a different one. This is the same for any MMO and likely any game that offers character customization. This is nothing new and nothing unique to GW2. If you wanted the name ‘Bob’ and someone already has it, you need to choose a new one. Some variation or something completely different. If this is a deal breaker I suggest not trying any more MMOs.

Next, you mentioned something about being lvl 2 and the game sending you ‘2 lands away’. Not true. You finish the little story prologue, and zone into your first lvl 1-15 zone. Go and do whatever. You arent asked to go two zones away. Just not true. Re-read the story mission, its in the same zone, maybe a major city.

Lastly, the combat can be wierd to get a hold of. But with some time you can find that its can be really fun utilizing combo fields. The thing I love about GW2…classes are so unique from eachother.

Thanks.

/15char

Hi,
So at the start of season 1 I was on one server. I participated a little bit, and then midway through transferred to a new server.

From what I understand, you are rewarded for your original server’s performance and you had to have completed 15 achievements for the meta key or something. Okay, thats fine. I didnt complete 15 achievements, so I didn’t get the chest on reset night this past Friday. Okay, fine.

My question is…I still show World vs World Season 1 achievement tab, instead of season 2. Has season 2 started? Should I be seeing a World vs World Season 1 tab in the achievements window?