Guild Wars 2

It’s really disheartening to see how we’re assured that they’re investigating, working, and planning a solution to put in ASAP from posts dated “about a year ago” and there’s not a peep since. A year? I like the game, but sheesh.

As someone has already said, it’s not a design decision based on balance, it’s a compromise based on technical limitations.

There have been suggested many interesting solutions that would allow multiple condition sources to still be useful that would not make this any worse (or in some cases decrease server load) and ANet has either said, and done, nothing since they first admitted it was a technical problem that they would continue to work on.

I think given how long the game has been out, and how much of an impact this has (particularly in group instanced content, but also open world) on class dynamics and is completely opposed to a mantra ANet has that the more the merrier (in the case of condition builds, just one will do AND NO MORE K THX) you’d think it would have been settled to at least majority satisfaction by now.

Given they send shockwaves through the ground, have signets, can stomp the ground to send surrounding foes flying through the air – yes, their maneuvers alone suggest magical interaction.

It’s subjective, even comparable systems report varying performance. Yargesh’s advice is the best thing you can do to find out.

I’ve called my rangers jaguar Eddie Furphy.

I apologise for nothing!

I have no problem keeping my HP up (mostly PvE) so I run Healing Breeze, which I’ll often use (even at full HP) to restore a party. 5 ticks of 1,500 HP, keeps the pug alive.

If I wasn’t using that, I would be using Shelter. I only changed because I kept finding myself wishing I could sacrifice my heal for the group since I barely needed it and they did.

TurtleDragon.3108:

dace.8019:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Imagine trying to use Guardian hammer with that system lol.

Yeah, you might need to use #3 #5 more than once a day.

#$ has a 40s cd. #3 won’t hit every target unless they’re in a line.

The point is, it would be incredibly annoying to have to constantly chase enemies just because the AA has a light field on it. You’ll also lose a ton of symbol ticks from not being stationary. Like someone else said above, you shouldn’t need to bring extra utility skills just to make your weapon set work for 5-10 seconds.

That assumes a number of things. Think about how the AI would behave. Should it flee from all AoE all of the time? No. How will it hit anyone? 5 people can maintain permament AoEs, and in many cases, 1 person can. A mob that permament flees a party would be worse than we have now. I’m not even advocating for an AI that flees AoEs. It was just an observation.

An AI that occasionally flees AoEs (on a kind of threshold and a kind of cooldown, probably) would need to be a small part of a much deeper AI overhaul, if it should be a part of it at all.

I miss…

… full thread titles that aren’t semi-clickbait.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Imagine trying to use Guardian hammer with that system lol.

Yeah, you might need to use #3 #5 more than once a day.

It was a note left by a wealthy parent to a heroic protector of the city.

Haxwell.7398:

3 months for a single item is just plain dumb. And where are these underwater legendaries if they all exist, where’s the legendary spear and trident?

If you can type it into the forum, why not type it into google?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_weapon

Don’t worry, more have been promised for 2013, 2014, someday maybe.

Stacking is where a group of players do some Gods cosplay while they beat bosses and eat cheese.

Further to DreamyAbaddon’s post, here is another video highlighting telegraphs, AoE indicators, positioning, combo-fields, cleaves and dodges during the Modniir Ulgoth boss fight.

As you can see, everything is clearly telegraphed so that the players always have a variety of options in combat.

Equinox.4968:

Writers get details wrong all the time. Therefore, I won’t accept any statement that isn’t directly from an Anet dev, since their word is law around here.

Even something ANet state as their intention doesn’t mean it will happen. Here’s the thing: it’s information from an informal interview, the transcript of which has been summarised by the writer. Is that a great source? It’s not, no; but it is something to consider. Given they have, through a journalist, blog-site, or anything, never said anything to the contrary, it’s still the best information we have from a source who spoke directly to CJ at ANet about this.

I’m not saying you should accept it as gospel, and I’m not saying ANet are beholden to it in anyway, but it is what it is. Which is more than you can say for your, still, self generated opinion. So what am I saying? I’m saying that it is a likely insight into what ANet was experimenting/working with circa the time of the interview and remains the only insight (however second-hand) and is presented by a journalist who spoke directly to CJ about this topic, and he is reporting what he was told. This isn’t a court of law, we can consider journalistic hearsay.

Equinox.4968:

It’s not an opinion. They definitely stated that there will be MORE weapons.

It patently is. You have no credible source (eg. someone who is citing ANet staff or, in this case, one of the senior staff at the company) stating anything to back up your opinion. You are formulating an opinion based on personal speculation and providing an interpretation.

Equinox.4968:

You misquoted this. That’s a MMORPG.com writer making an assertion that was never alluded to in the source the article was based on.

If you had read it, you would see that it is a write up of a phonecall interview between the writer and Colin Johanson. They discussed the blog post but spoke about other items too. I shouldn’t need to hold your hand through this.

Equinox.4968:

The article writer’s assertion appears to be either misinformation or journalistic hyperbole, and it was most certainly not a direct quote by Colin about plans for expanding weapon choices. Even if it was a direct quote, we already know that things like the legendary precursor scavenger hunt have been indefinitely delayed and may never show up at all.

If you want an opinion (and that’s all you’ve offered, whereas this is at least a credible source, it’s more than you will find in terms of evidence for your self-generated opinion) I believe new access to weapons has been put way down the priority list along with, and even further below, Precursor scavenging.

It may not see light of day for some time, and possibly not to the suggested scale of everything for all. If it does get released, I’d expect it to coincide with a large release of expansion scope, be it new classes and/or large, permament content. ANet do alot of work that never ends up as content (or at least in the original way they may have thought it would) and this has a strong whiff of that about it, the best of what they did might get to us in a content/expansion addition.

FWIW, I’m somewhat against all classes having access to all weapons too. Thematically but also practically. Some classes roles are inherently derived from their weapons, and I can see some diluting overlap happening if every weapon is shoe-horned into every professions hands and that might not be for the better, also the state of weapon skill balance in the current weapons is still in need of some work.

Equinox.4968:

I don’t believe I have EVER seen them say “all classes will have all weapons.”

You have now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmorpg.com%2Fgamelist.cfm%2Fgame%2F473%2Ffeature%2F7597%2FGuild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

“What’s more is that the team is also working very hard finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons. Engineer plus Hammer? Check. Again, there’s no specific timeline for this, but a new progression system is coming. Finally those level 80s you’ve been hoarding will get some use, as they’ll be adding more and more skills and traits to the game for years to come and on a regular basis for players to obtain.”

Equinox.4968:

but you’re not going to see thieves with greatswords, or warriors dual-wielding foci.

Except ANet have said, multiple times, that they have been working on making it so that all classes can use all weapons.

You might be right on ever seeing it though. They keep saying they’re doing alot of stuff that we never see.

It’s been pointed out that ArenaNet are too slow to iterate on balance (partly because they tie Balance in with other updates) and they say that they have listened. But we’ve yet to see any indication that they have. Balance is difficult and must be carefully judged, but the timescales ANet relies on are the reason the game has lost almost all of its e-Sports respect and community/fan sites for PvP are dying/closing almost monthly.

I really hope they can deliver before it’s too late. The turnaround from CDI (exception I can think of is the Dredge fractal, in the Fractals CDI, which they were quick to react to) to in-game action is already looking stretched.

The absolute worst thing about these changes is that it is becoming less and less obvious when a projectile can be reflected (in PvE). If this trend continues, and ANet work very slowly and in trends when it comes to balancing, are we to:

• Stop playing
• Consult a chart of what can and cannot be reflected
• Use reflections when the chart designates that they are useful
• Bypass the above by learning the freakin’ “Projectiles that may be Reflected” chart

Any of the ideas in this thread are better than arbitrarily designating some projectiles vulnerable to Reflection and hoping you got the memo (and they don’t even patch note it).

Desthin Sinkropht.4123:

• CC should be at least marginally useful when used: This one is pretty self-explanatory. Abilities have unique effects. That effect is not “remove a stack of arbitrary CC negation”

ANet: This^.

Necromancer? More like Necroprancer.

I wouldn’t mind the open world stuff so much if they had a game engine that could handle the players and their effects without going into meltdown.

There’s more problems (going mentally afk during 99% of it) sure, but the fact that just being there inflicts a painful, choppy experience on one and all is inexcusable.

I always loved how you’d be battling all these undead in epic battles where you’d be giving it your all just to stay on your feet and desperately trying to stay on top of the objective. When, finally, your HP down to its last pixel, your cooldowns ticking over, you’d slay the last of the monsters who almost killed you, the best hope for saving Tyria from the undead dragon and its horde. You’d be triumphant against the odds, your prowess the stuff of heroes.

And, unimpressed, bored Trahearne’s all like “Moving on.”

Peetee.9406:

I still do.

I’m just waiting for them to realize it’s in 15v15 GvG and not in 5v5 sPvP. There are already good 5v5 games out there, not going to get that audience. But the large group combat market is still available for the taking.

You’ve been waiting almost 2 years. We few who remain all have. More have left. It might be too late.

Yep, same problem. Game runs fine, then bang. Freezes or shuts down. My ArenaNet file isn’t being updated, though, even when the client knows it crashed and submits an error report to ArenaNet. Very rarely it gives me a memory BSOD but I’ve done enough tests to rule out my system as the cause, and this issue is restricted to GW2. It ran absolutely fine up until a couple of weeks ago when this issue started randomly occuring.

I’m getting the same problem. Game has been crashing at random. Some days not at all, others it starts maybe after an hour then starts happening every few minutes after the initial crash – usually it’s just the game that crashes but rarely the PC might. Didn’t start until a couple of weeks ago. No changes to my system really. Every other game runs fine (PlanetSide 2, TF2, Thief, Skyrim) that I run.

nVidia GTX 560 Ti
Intel i5 3570K
16GB RAM

I tried going back a driver version, thought it might have worked but the issue came back after a few days. Have just tried Repairing GW2 via the Repair shortcut. Going to test that for awhile.

Back off folks, it has only been a year.

Give me a good reason to.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Hmm, very well then.

That doesn’t detract, at all, from the concept that anyone can play however they choose.

That particular quote is really just expounding on the notion that you can progress towards end-game gear (such as it is) by various means. So, PvP, WvW, PvE, Open World, LS, etc,. and tying in with ANet’s pro-casual design direction.

Colin Johanson

To make playing in our open world worthwhile, we’ll make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

Belenwyn.8674:

There is no figure assigning sales in Europe to the GW2 sales. We cannot say what causes the drastic decrease in Europe.

Was going to say the same thing. Sales for GW2 by region are not given. Sales for NCSOFTs combined products by region are.

Belenwyn.8674:

Arenabet

This is how we should all be referring to them from now on.

It’s actually very low in fat, so you can have as much dust as you like.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a RNG stamping on your Main – forever.

Tarediiran.2840:

I need to AFK almost every 3 minutes. Each AFK “session” could vary from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, depending on the situation.

o.o

If you’re going AFK that much I’m amazed you get anything done.

Look at most of the fractal/aether releases, there’s an evident pattern of ANet trying to push players out of stacking. I’m sure Anet is conscious that their lack of foresight in players following the path of least resistance undermined alot of the thoughtful content they thought they had put together. I don’t blame the players, they outsmarted the content by cheesing it. It’s almost certainly not how Anet envisioned it, hence the focus on anti-stack mechanics in most of the new instanced content.

This trend will probably continue. Applying a strong emphasis on the design of a challenge, rather than leaving it up to tweaked mobs, seems to be Anets solution, it’s certainly more cost effective since they seem to have more staff working on new content than revitalising old content.

Maybe they will re-visit the Explorable dungeon paths and try to bring them up to speed, but it seems Anet’s focus is elsewhere, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

As someone has pointed out, ANet wanted this too, but couldn’t solve the performance impact. Given how poorly the game handles the scenarios in which Blocking would have the most positive impact, I think we’ll need to wait and see if some kind of engine/optimisation update down the line to open this avenue up. Otherwise it just isn’t going to happen for that reason alone.

Even then, ANet would probably be rather reluctant to rock the boat and upset the entire WvW playerbase by essentially undermining the blobs. People get rather accustomed to the stink of a cheese eaten daily.

Corian.4068:

dace.8019:

How about we not re-use disposable temporary content?

So you’re opposed to Wintersday and the Mad King as well, hm?

Yes, at least Wintersday, too much Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V from last time around.

How about we not re-use disposable temporary content?

Ele is a cool guy, he specs Arcane and doesn’t afraid of anything.

Dee Jay.2460:

Why are Guardians by far the most desirable class for Fractals?

I can tell you one thing, it’s not because they are “fair and balanced”.

You make it a point to distinguish solo-Guardian from party-Guardian. I’m glad you did so, because that’s key. I agree with the post above that they’re supremely well balanced and the crux of that balance lies in that distinction.

The issue really isn’t that they’re so powerful, it’s that they’re so well realised for their roles that they fulfil them appropriately. It’s some of the others that need a bit of a helping hand to fulfil their potential.

I remember when I saw the Canadian flag used to denote english on BioWare’s site. Didn’t expect that. Guess it seemed like a normal choice for them, like the USA flag seemed logical for ANet. I’m from the UK (and therefore EU) and I don’t see it as insulting or anything, but it certainly didn’t communicate Language to me in the instant I saw it. For the design aspect alone, perhaps just altering the EU server client to display a UK flag, as suggested, makes more sense.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Can you precise what should be done for it to spawn then? Would help anyone reading this thread and therefore promote knowledge regarding this boss in game.

As above, it’s really simple.

What you do is, you do the pre-event, and if the Boss’ event is due to start given the schedule, he will spawn. If he is on cooldown, he doesn’t spawn, despite the pre-event being done.

So before deciding if you want to do a Boss, follow this handy checklist:

• Stop playing.
• Consult the schedule.
• Work out, by the schedule, if the boss is due to be on cooldown. You’ll probably need a chart (seriously) from a 3rd Party website.
• If the boss is on cooldown, he is unavailable, and the pre-event is just a tantalising reminder of a system that, while flawed, worked better than this one.
• If the boss is not on cooldown, proceed with pre-event.
• Wonder why this ridiculous system exists.

The following low-level-zone world bosses will activate at 15 minutes and 45 minutes past the hour in this rotation:
Great Jungle Wurm (Caledon Forest)
Shadow Behemoth (Queensdale)
Svanir Shaman Chief (Wayfarer Foothills)
Fire Elemental (Metrica Province)

Svanir Shaman Chief
Once the boss is activated, a message will appear in the meta-event UI indicating that a powerful Sons of Svanir Shaman has been spotted in the Maw. If the event chain that involves protecting Scholar Brogun as he investigates the grawl tribe is not active at this time, it will begin immediately.
Scholar Brogun will only wait five minutes for player assistance, instead of forever.
If Scholar Brogun dies and is not resurrected by a player for a total of five minutes, the event chain will fail.
If the event to destroy the dragon totem has succeeded when the boss is not activated, Scholar Brogun will declare victory and return to Krennak’s homestead without fighting the shaman.

I love these RNG threads. It’s like watching the human condition fight a clown.

No, this was announced. Somewhere.

Changes in the patch meant that a whole Monthly Achievement wasn’t workable, so they split the month into two, one pre-patch and one post-patch.