Ya know, just when I think I’ve seen the most entitled players can get…
A thread like this pops up and proves me wrong.
The problem isn’t so much beserker builds > all…
It’s that players are obsessed with the path of least resistance, and so they master these speed clears that really are just muscle memory and min-maxing.
For someone who doesn’t play the same dungeon over and over and over for months, trying to do a explorable path in full berserker with a full Power/Crit/X build likely isn’t going to end well, either for that player or for the party he/she is in.
As has been mentioned, when the living story was on a monthly basis, an entirely different group of players complained that it moved too slowly.
You can’t please everyone.
Why they are introducing precursor craft? to solve precursor price issue
To be honest, I think they’re introducing it not because of the price issue, but because there have been too many complaints about the absurdly low drop rate from the Mystic Toilet.
I got a Zap off the Mystic Forge today and effectively traded it for The Lover. So… no, I’m not going to do what you say.
I wouldn’t be opposed to joining such a group were they to form on Tarnished Coast. I’d be fun, I’m sure.
I think you would have found an entirely different group of people on these forums complaining.
It would seem there’s a segment of the player base that wants SOME from of vertical progression (the degree of which seems to vary). Arena.net clearly is throwing them a bone with the Ascended stuff. Will it keep their interest? Is it a good idea to upset your “legacy” players with the move?
Who knows? We’ll find out, though.
I was in the same boat… had gotten up to 200g for my precursor that was 300 or so.
Woke up the next morning and found it at 550g. Now it’s at like 600 something.
Oh well. Them’s the breaks. I’m not sweating it. I’ll get there eventually.
You would think… and you’d be wrong.
I mean, it is what it is. It’s not like this should be a surprise. I’d love precursors to be craftable too. Maybe they will be one day. But until then… that’s how it’s set up. Take it or leave it, really.
It’s not quite emo enough unless you write a bitter letter on the official forums to the game company that broke up with you.
Goodbye. We won’t miss you.
That was my first thought too.
My second thought was “Good. I hope it torques the whiners even more.”
I think I can see where they are trying to go with this. When the game was shiny and new, to get exotics you had to max a craft and make them, which was choked up by low T6 mat drop rates; buy with Karma in Orr; or do some heavy dungeon runs…
(remainder of post snipped for brevity)
But yah know, there were a lot of people who LIKED that, and they are the people who have flocked to the forum to voice their displeasure. Whether they are a majority, represent the overall sentiment of the player base, will leave in masse, etc., is irrelevant really.
They liked what was before, and don’t like that it’s changed. Period. It doesn’t matter how little the change is, or how significant or not the overall numbers will be. It’s a change they do not feel is needed, and feels like they are being pushed out of the game because of it.
I don’t see anything particularly wrong with that sentiment, even if some of the complaints come across very poorly, laced with spite and venom, and probably serve to have the exact OPPOSITE effect of what they want to see.
Condition damage has its place in PvP or WvW roaming.
PvE, it’s a waste of time because of bosses with between 500k and 1.5 million HP which direct damage can melt through but condi-damage won’t. Also, vulnerability doesn’t increase condition damage.
If you think I’m going too far, look at basically every strong dungeon build for any class – the base is berserker gear with scholar runes and then sigil of X slaying and night/force.
Well, as I mentioned to someone else on the other side of the ledger earlier, I find speed runs to be a TERRIBLE gauge of a class’s effectiveness. They rely on perfect compositions with perfect run-throughs honed over months of practice and muscle memory. It’s a sophisticated form of min-maxing, really.
For us more (dare I say) “casual” rangers (like me), a bit of toughness that synergizes well with condition damage is handy. That it lends itself to a condition build that is effective enough to get through any content available works for me just fine.
I am personally willing to sacrifice some damage for survivability… even if that means the “cool kids” don’t want anything to do with me.
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And any decent ranger will be using berserker no matter what weapon they have equipped.
Direct damage > condition damage.
Again, the ranger boils down entirely to how competent the player is. Any player which camps their bow and doesn’t bother melee is basically forever condemned to being bad on their ranger.
I wouldn’t go QUITE that far. The problem with condition damage isn’t so much the damage itself, but that there are “caps” to it that are shared among the group. In the group I normally run with for dungeon content, they really don’t focus on condition damage all that much, and leaves me with plenty of space to do my thing.
Now, in any other group setting… yeah, you’re right.
Condition damage HAS it’s place, in the right group and situation.
We MIGHT have a power creep on our hands. It’s very difficult (if not impossible) to gauge a trend based on a sample size of one.
I don’t want this game to be like GW1. I realize that this is a separate game. I also realize this is an mmorpg, and as such, feel obligated to suggest certain things to make the game better. However, since Anet has let down the majority of Thr gw2 population multiple times, the majority of the game has either left or is on the verge of leaving. I’m not trying to convince you or convince myself that this game is dying, because I’ve experienced some of its decay first hand.
And I’ve seen zones and worlds packed with people, guilds flourishing and adding people daily. Which one of us is right? Well, we both are, I suppose. Which one is more reflective of the overall experience? Who knows? But one thing I have learned is that you rarely can trust official forums to accurately reflect that overall sentiment.
My mistake. When I talk about Rangers sucking, I’m talking specifically about longbow rangers. Their dps is lacking a ton in that area. Dps with traps/Shortbow/greatsword are fine at the very least. Please, if you don’t believe me, compare the dps to other classes and see how suckish the ranger class really is.
Well, I agree with that to an extent.
The big problem with longbows and how they work in regards to the ranger class, is I’ve noted before, ranger is really by game mechanics a melee class, and longbow’s maximum effectiveness is at long ranges beyond what you can reasonably reach to and from melee range. On top of that, and especially in dungeons, the fighting areas really aren’t conductive to GETTING that range in the first place.
Longbow is at least serviceable in the open world PvE content, I suppose… and that’s pretty much the only place I’d recommend using it; and even then it’s just a personal choice. I could crank out more damage in melee, but I really don’t like getting lost in large scale zerg situations.
There are ranger builds that can really crank out damage (sword/axe/warhorn trapper is one that I ran with quite effectively), but lately I’ve been playing around with a sword/torch (shortbow secondary) condition and spirit build which has honestly worked better than I would have expected in a dungeon setting. I lose some damage out of the deal, but my groups tend to like Spirit of Frost and Earth. Still haven’t quite settled on the third utility skill yet though.
More like you’re desperately clinging to whatever you can to convince yourself its dying, in the misplaced hope Arena.net will come back to you crawling on their knees saying, “You win… here’s your GW1 clone with updated graphics. Please, love us again!”
I think if you were to ask ANY class, they’d provide you with a long laundry list of things that need to change.
And while I think speed clears are a TERRIBLE way to determine the overall value of a class, I can play that game. If ranger is so awful, why would they even have ONE in the group? There’s eight classes after all, and only five slots. I mean, why would any group willingly take a “bottom” tier class?
The answer? They wouldn’t.
Compare the dps and survivability to other classes yourself. Fanboys will tell you that the Ranger is fine as is, and people that have played the Ranger class since GW1 will tell you that it sucks. I can tell you from personal experience, because I’ve played GW1, that the Ranger class has sucked and will continue to suck for the rest of GW2’s career.
But you don’t have to take other people’s opinion on it. Just compare for yourself.
Funny, because I’ve played Ranger since GW1 and think it’s… I dunno if I’d say “fine”, as there are many mechanics that at least need some attention (like Pet AI), but I hang in there with the big damage dealers just fine, thank you very much.
tl;dr version: Your claim is incorrect, because Ranger certainly doesn’t suck.
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Anet expect 99.99% of their player base to have high end pcs…… or laptops….
That’s rather amusing, considering one of the biggest complaints from high-end PC users is that the game doesn’t utilize their full resources because of being optimized for low-end rigs.
Full glass mesmer here going full melee on champions and world bosses. Most of the time if you range in this game, it’s out of sheer laziness. Open world PvE is more excusable, but it’s unacceptable in dungeons.
I tend to range more in large zerg groups, simply because I like seeing what I’m doing. In small group/dungeon formats… get in there or go home, ranger.
If you ranked players on this forum from competent to has no idea what they’re talking about, you’d be at the latter end with almost everyone else on the forum.
Rangers are fine, it’s bow camping bads who are the problem.
Well, there’s a bit of dissonance (some of it that is deserved, and some that isn’t) that is at the heart of THAT particular problem.
Nearly every “fantasy” based MMO has an “archer-type” class that fights from range, and at first glance, it seems like the Ranger falls right into it. At the surface, it looks just like WoW’s Hunter class. Even the class description by Arena.net labeled rangers unparalleled masters of the bow.
But the actual class itself DOESN’T fit the archetype much at all. Rangers really are a melee class. Their best damage, much like all the other non-spellcasting classes, is done up close. In theory, they are a little bit versatile than the other physical damage classes when it comes to ranged options, but Rangers are still an inside/outside class rather than the reverse.
One of the concepts I initially liked about WoW was their legendary weapons were the result of long quest chains that frequently included difficult accomplishments to obtain.
I would have liked to have seen GW2 attempt something similar with their legendaries… but then I remember that Blizzard turned legendary weapons into RNG drops by Burning Crusade for a reason… and probably why GW2 went the same route.
One of the major reasons that Gw2 has only reached a 400k concurrency is due to not having tanks and healers. There are literally millions of mmo players who enjoy tanking and healing and will never buy this game because of that.
The legions of MMOs with groups begging for a tank and/or healer would suggest otherwise.
It might help if this suggestion was put in the Suggestions forum.
Just a tip.
The only reason for the time-gating is that Arena.net didn’t want people with a full glut of ascended weapons within 5 hours of the patch release. And want people WITHOUT 1000 gold in their bank or not able to farm mats for 8+ hours a day to be left in the dust.
I mean, it seems obvious to me.
Same here. Haven’t bought a Black Lion Key in my life, and I am never going to.
But for stuff that I can guarantee will be useful to me? Yeah… I’ll drop $10 here and there. Still winds up cheaper for me than most MMO subscriptions.
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And this is why Ascended Weapons are being time-gated.
I think a large problem with Arena.net’s approach is that they are falling into the trap of trying be something for everybody. A little bit of “hardcore” content that requires repeated regearing (Fractals), an e-sport for competitive PvPers, a casual environment, etc.
As I result, every time improvements or adjustments are made to one, the rest of the player base feels left out and ignored.
I am 100% certain that there are people who comb through these forums on an official capacity. I highly doubt they are the developers themselves, and I am also 100% certain they don’t interact because they know they would be kitten on and shouted down by the dissatisfied masses that swarm to official forums to voice their displeasure.
There is no 500,000 number. It’s 430,000 PEAK concurrency, which means it’s the highest ever… not the constant. That could have been just after the game came out, for example.
I know that the number wasn’t constant. I was saying even IF the number was constant, that really doesn’t translate into swarms of people everywhere as far as the eye can see. There are going to be swaths of territory uninhabited even WITH that high of a number.
Saying “the game isn’t growing” due to that experience may or may not be accurate.
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Well, there IS a new map that’s supposed to be coming that was tied to the entire Cutthroat Politics thing. Beyond that, I have no idea.
I reluctantly accepted the introduction of the Ascended bullcrap a while ago, but I’m not gonna accept another step in this direction once the armors & weapons are released. No levelcap increase and no stupid “stronger infusions” they mentioned back in november.
I guess that depends on what they mean by “stronger” infusions, really. If they just mean that infusions will have +10 AR instead of +5 AR so that groups can progress to even deeper levels… I really don’t see a problem with that.
Now if they mean +10 Power or Precision instead of +5… then maybe that could add up to be a problem.
In theory, Fractals can extend forever, it’s a matter of how deep you can go. Practically, your level of agony resist caps progress to a certain point.
More items that can be imbued with AR means the deeper you can go, even without new maps added.
Well, let’s break it down like this.
Say the 500,000 number is accurate, even as merely an average.
There are 51 worlds… now granted, some worlds are more populated than others, but that will average out to 9,804 players per world at any given time.
From there, we have 28 explorable zones, 6 cities, 17 different WvW groups with 4 maps each, and a sPvP area. Assuming an even distribution among all those areas (which again, despite being a logical fallacy is simply to prove a point), it averages out to roughly 96 players per map.
Now when you consider the reality (where most players gravitate to certain worlds and most hover about in cities), it’s easy to see that even when you have 500,000 concurrent players how some places can look really, really lonely.
The major problem a lot of players coming to GW2 have is that in GW2, the ranger is not particularly a ranged class. If you come in expecting to shoot your bow and rock damage, you AREN’T going to be successful.
Rangers are melee for the most part, that CAN retreat to range and deal decent (not awesome) damage when things get too hot in the kitchen.
I’d have a better idea about who failed what if I could understand more than half of what the OP is trying to say.
Did you type that with your forehead or something?
My intent is not to “lump” anyone. I speak to a general sentiment of official forums. It’s human nature to speak up when dissatisfied and be silent when content. Who specifically fits that description and who doesn’t is of little concern to me. I think that’s a little different than creating “groups” of people, and then labeling them to fit that group.
But we can agree to disagree on that if you don’t think there’s a distinction.
As for the rest:
1) I think Arena.net DOES do this, honestly, although I suspect you think they should do it more frequently. I personally disagree, because to be perfectly blunt, most fan ideas are terrible, and they should not be encouraged.
2) There’s a difference between what you PERCEIVE is overwhelming feedback, and what is REALLY overwhelming feedback. Again, the official forums are not always representative of the whole community.
3) This is something that Arena.net (and hell, most game developers) really need to do better. There seems to be this stigma within development communities that to simply admit something can’t be done would lead to people quitting the game entirely. I’m not sure where this stigma came from, but it’s remarkably prevalent by my experience.
4) Arena.net does this for the most part, and I would hope you agree. I’m not sure how feasible it is to “make it happen anyway”, though. If something can’t be done, it can’t be done, no matter how much wishing and hoping you do.
5) What if Arena.net doesn’t think they’re wrong though?
I personally think GW2 needs to get on with the main thrust of the supposed story right quick. When are we going to see another of these elder dragons that are supposed to be tearing the world a new one?
I would just like to point out that the irony of this paragraph is stifling.
I would like to know what I’m supposedly complaining about. It’s an observation, one that is largely true, regardless of game or how popular it is. It’s something I have come to accept as what it is.
I’m not telling you that you can’t or shouldn’t offer critique. I would recommend constructive criticism to be DIRELY needed, in fact. I would, personally, like to see developers engaged on their official forums more, and I think it would help dispel much of the toxicity that festers.
But I also know that there are only so many hours in the day, and thus the job of gathering feedback is done by others; who often don’t feel compelled to engage people because they know they’ll just be screamed at for things beyond their control, and where you get snark like the comment I relayed before from community managers.
I would like to see developers make fewer promises (because at the end of the day, that is at the core of most complaints when those promises are changed over time)… but I also know that a game without hype rarely ever gets out the gate.
How CAN a developer make their fans feel like they are being listened to, especially if you eventually decide to do something else repeatedly? How CAN you remain true to promises made if you start getting feedback that suggests to do so would be a bad move? How can you appeal to a wide swath of people and keep them appeased? Should you even try?
I don’t know if there IS an answer to these dilemmas, honestly.
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“is largely inhabited by people who just want to kitten.”
And you say I assume…
You are very likely one of the pillars of defense I mentioned earlier. Not sure which one, but I’m gonna go with apologist.
Call me whatever you wish. If labeling people and lumping them into groups makes you feel better, be my guest. But what I said is still very much true. The majority of people who visit official forums do so to complain about something, be it reasoned, rational, or neither.
A developer has to take tons of feedback from multiple sources (official forums being one of them, even if the developers themselves don’t often frequent it). Conventions like PAX are another… and interestingly enough, are near overwhelmingly positive.
Sometimes they’ll agree with you. Most of the time they won’t. And it doesn’t matter if you are a cheery convention goer or a bitter forum denizen.
GW2 is hardly unique in that regard. I have my things I like, I have my things I don’t. I really wish the story would “get on with it” for example, and I largely dislike RNG as a method of achieving prestige. But I’ve stated my case on those, and Arena.net clearly doesn’t agree. We still have more meandering Living Story coming up, and RNG still determines far too much for my personal taste… although the potential for crafted precursors would be a step in the right direction.
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Sounds like an awful way to view and treat a community. It’s saying that anyone that doesn’t nod and agree with all changes is “whiny” and should be ignored. Not only is that a sure-fire way to make people develop a distaste for you as a company, but it’s a great way for people not believe anything you say if you ever bring up the “listening to the community” bit.
The only people that think that anyone that dissents an opinion of a particular company or product is a whiner is themselves either an apologist, white-knight, or shill. All of which are far worse that what they claim of others.
Not all negative opinions are right, but not even close to all of them are wrong.
Again, you are making the assumption that “Official Forums” = “The Community”. That isn’t true. They are a PART of the community, and one that regardless of game, is largely inhabited by people who just want to kitten.
I think one thing to note is that the actual developers to the game rarely actually visit official forums. The people who slog through the mire pretty much have no control over the game whatsoever. Their job is to find the pieces of corn within the steaming pile of kitten that most official forums are… and having to read through that abuse is trying.
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But that’s assuming that people on the forums always have different views than those that don’t go on the forums.
Either way, when they say they are listening to the community, what do they mean if they are referring to public forums?
I, in honesty, was not making an assumption whatsoever. The forum MIGHT represent the larger player base. On the other hand it might not; and there’s evidence to suggest that at least in some cases, forum sentiment and overall sentiment don’t always mesh.
And another thing to keep in mind: Listening =/= do everything that is demanded on the official forums. You can listen to someone else perfect well and decide at the end of the day, “Nope. I don’t agree.”
Arena.net clearly does not agree with many of the complaints voiced on their official forums. Whether that’s because they have other sources of feedback or simple design differences… I don’t know. I will say (in my limited experience in game development) that the opinions on official forums are not particularly sought by the developers of said game. It’s but one avenue for feedback, and one that developers know is going to be fairly negative (if not outright toxic).
As I heard it said; “Official forums exist so that whiny players can be gathered into one place and summarily ignored.”
I suspect one of the major hangups with GvG is the entire “multiple guilds” thing. Match fixing was more than doable in GW1, in GW2 with one player potentially belonging to up to four prospective opponents, it might be an even bigger concern.
We have no other evidence to go by but requests made on public forums such as this one, reddit, and guru. So I am arguing based off evidence, where as others are arguing based off of???
Well, there IS other evidence. One thing that is fairly consistent regardless of game that it is only a VERY small percentage of customers that represent themselves in forums or message boards. It doesn’t ALWAYS follow that such forums provide an accurate sample size of the overall sentiment (a reasonably good example was this recent Cutthroat Politics event… had you gone by the official forum sentiment, Gnashblade should have won handily).
On top of that, as a general rule, people don’t come to official forums to say “Good job!” They come to complain about something (whether the complaints tend to be reasonable or not is another argument entirely). As a result, official forums of ANY game tend to slant negatively by default.
When Arena.net announced the Living Story:
Official Forum Response: FIX THE CURRENT STUFF BEFORE YOU ADD NEW CONTENT!
Arena.net announces a revamped world boss fight:
Official Forum Response: WE DON’T CARE ABOUT FIXES! WE WANT NEW CONTENT!
Never satisfied, always complaining.
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Erm,the post is about how’s the game now.I just merely answered it and did not whine though :/.I don’t think your post is very constructive on whining about whiners….
I was speaking in terms of generalities rather than at any one specific person. I am sorry if you thought I was leveling any criticism at you specifically.
As for whining about whiners, if that what you want to call it… so be it. I don’t agree; I feel it’s more an observation more than anything else.
I think the real problem is that people are really narrow minded and judge a game based on very specific factors that they consider to be important. They refuse to look at the game as a whole.
(I’m going to walk away from the whole ME3 thing. No offense, but this isn’t the BSN..)
Presuming what you say is true, I’m not sure how that in and of itself is the problem. If you have things that you like, and those elements aren’t met, well… that’s that. There’s really no “whole” to consider.
Granted, when people CONSTANTLY whine about it, day after day after day, yeah, it gets annoying, and it makes you wonder why they keep logging in when they KNOW they aren’t going to like what’s waiting for them… but meh, maybe they like their own misery, I guess.
It would seem like the best course of action would be to walk away… but emotional investment is a hard thing to break; and that’s true for any medium really, be they books, TV, movies, or video games.
Entertainment is srs bizness, it would seem.