Guild Wars 2

Kanebrake.6192:

2) Sure they can. But it often seems there’s a few very vocal posters who go after anyone who says anything even slightly bad about this game.

To be fair, that works both ways.

You guys don’t need ArenaNet to implement a Hardcore Mode for you. If you want to do this, delete your character when you die. There are no achievements, but you can handle everything else yourselves.

Dalanor.5387:

You can see bosses aren’t immune to them, you just need coordination instead of mindless CC spamming to effectively interrupt bosses when needed.

There was obviously a bit of hyperbole in my post. Hyperbole aside, how many slots on your skill bar have you dedicated to CC when fighting bosses? How many slots in your party are you looking to fill with someone spec’d for CC? Unless a boss mechanic specifically calls for CC (i.e. Three-Toed Tootsie), I’m guessing the answer for the typical pve player is “not many”.

Nerelith.7360:

Anet has a problem, it is trying to do too many things too fast , and there seems to be lack of communication between different parts of the Anet team. it spins out of control.

I disagree with you. I think it’s simply a matter of resource allocation. I can’t help but feel they’re putting the vast majority of their personnel on the Living Story and cash shop items and not nearly enough on things like new skills, class balance, bug fixes, new features, quality of life improvements, etc. I could be wrong, but that’s the impression I’m left with after almost two years of playing this game.

Yeah, for a game with a “new holy trinity” that consists of damage, support, and control they did a kitten ed fine job relegating the control aspect useless in pve. Trash mobs die to quick to warrant being controlled and bosses are immune to it. Ergo, it’s pointless.

To be honest with you, I’d trade the lot of DE 2.0 for Canach. I’ll take Batman over the Justice League any day of the week.

No fish. No fish filets. No fish tacos. No fish sandwiches. No fish soup. And certainly no sushi. Worst of all, no fishing.

/sad

Gaia Orunitia.5794:

That’s what you need for all the new recipes, if you manage to obtain the level 4 Zephyrite’s favor

Ouch. I’ve yet to see a map hit Tier 4.

Gaia Orunitia.5794:

But why are you still adding some farm features ? If I want to get all the new recipes, I have to gather 1850 geodes (in the best case). And the event gives me above 3~4 geodes, so it will take a long time to gather all of them :/ Or maybe there is another way, but I really don’t find it

I hadn’t done the math, but if that’s indeed how many geodes it’s going to take to get all the new recipes, I’m in for a LOT of grinding since I endeavor to learn every Cooking recipe on each of my five characters.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Lets hope this one will be bigger

No kidding. I’m going to be sorely disappointed if after all this time we finally get to explore a new region that turns out to be one normal-sized map split into several.

Vayne.8563:

Right so let’s look at the whole iterative thing. A company knows they change plans like all the time. It’s how they work. They’ve said it. We should all know it by now.

Then the fans say, but you’re not communicating. You don’t tell us your plans. So they tell us their plans even though they say plans may change, which is what happened.

Do you not recall people pushing them to give us more info, cause I do. They’re kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. They give us info too early and it changes and they’re liars, right? They give us no info and they don’t communicate. They give us info and say it’s subject to change and guess what? They’re liars again.

Do you think that’s reasonable…because I sure don’t.

Tell me, in your estimation, which should a creative, iterative company do, if they make plans but don’t always stick to that plan?

Reasonable people accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. It’s been my experience that unreasonable people are generally not worth fretting over, as they they’re apt be be unreasonable. So what’s to be gained by ArenaNet going dark? They’re punishing the reasonable for nature of the unreasonable, who are – as you already know – going to complain about something one way or the other.

At the risk of invoking yet another argument over semantics, how can it not be “fallen off the plan” when the developers say they’re going to do X by Y, then – for whatever reason – don’t? Yes, plans change. But the plan was for us to have A, B, and C and we still don’t. Is that not the very definition of being “fallen off the plan”?

Vayne.8563:

Okay, fallen off the plan for you. Not for everyone. There are people I guess who think owning a legendary weapon is everything. The whole game. But I don’t think that’s most people. Would I like to see precusor crafting? Sure I would. Is it game breaking not to see it? Not for me.

Vayne.8563:

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

Relots.6439:

Anyone who played the original Guild Wars probably remembers the Survivor title: 1,337,500 xp without dying. One slip-up, one moment of distraction, and your shot at the title was gone(later it merely reset).

One slip-up, one moment of distraction, one ill-timed server lag or crash, one unfortunate game bug, or one miscalculated boss strength and your shot at the title was gone.

ritz.9853:

Does anybody think anything completely new will be added to spice the game up a bit? Just wanting to know what others are thinking.

No, I don’t. I’ve got the distinct impression they’re not real concerned with expanding the classes they’ve already got in the game, and that’s got to be easier than adding a new class altogether. So no go on new classes.

With new races, they’re expensive to add. They’ve got to write Personal Story from level 1 to level 80 and they’ve got to play voice actors to voice them. Since most people have already finished the PS and AN as a whole has moved on to the LS, they’re probably viewing that as wasted money. I also can’t help but feel they don’t want to spend the resources creating a new city, getting voice actors for its citizens, ensuring armor doesn’t clip, etc. So no go on new races either.

CureForLiving.5360:

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!” (We’ve only had 1 healing skill added for each profession, and only 5 new traits for each profession.)

Actually I’m glad they didn’t do this. I understand how people can think this would be wonderful, but practically speaking it becomes a balance nightmare and it’s doubtful you’d actually gain much play-style variety in anycase. Most builds will still only come down to a handful of optimal skills and traits.

Striving for greater things often necessitates the overcoming of obstacles.

Prickly Pear Stuffed Nopale and Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Beans

They both give Power and Condition Duration. The former lasts 30 minutes and requires 20 of the rare drop from cacti (Prickly Pears), while the latter lasts an hour and requires only 10. So the version that lasts half as long requires twice as much of a rare drop. I can’t help but feel that’s a bug. If it – for whatever unknown reason – is as intended, please let us know. Thanks.

It’s terrible. If you were shown that art out of context (not knowing that it represented a specific area in a video game), you’d probably be hard pressed to even know what it was.

TheDaiBish.9735:

3. They could communicate every month with us telling us what they’re doing. However, just look at this thread. If they had to scrap something because it didn’t work out, or it was taking longer for some reason, do you think the people complaining about communication would suddenly become more understanding?

Some of them, yes. The unreasonable ones are going to complain no matter what. But reasonable people can accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. But reasonable people don’t like being treated like mushrooms, fed crap and kept in the dark.

Why are so many crafting items Account Bound? In what way do these restrictions on, say, food protect the economy? Take Prickly Pear Stuffed Nopale, for example. It gives a boost to Power and Condition Duration and it lasts 30 minute. That’s hardly game-breaking stuff. But it’s Account Bound. Why?

There are some people who hate crafting, and never will craft, who might be happy to pay someone else to make this for them. There other people who have no desire to use this food but will buy the recipe anyway because they’re completionists. So how would the latter selling to the former hurt the game’s economy in any way?

I mean, I can understand putting Account Bound limitations on certain powerful or exceptionally desired items that you want to use as long term goals. But putting those restrictions on such mundane things as run-of-the-mill consumables doesn’t make any sense to me. It seems to me you’d want people who enjoy crafting to make money selling items to those who don’t.

lordkrall.7241:

darkace.8925:

The difference between telling the player base they’re going to do a better job communicating with them and letting half a year come and go without so much as a word on missed deadlines is also miles apart.

You mean the “missed deadlines” that they said MONTHS BEFORE that they most likely would miss and as such they already more or less told us that those deadlines were trashed?

No, I mean the lack of communication in the nine months since then. Or are you going to argue that nine months of silence qualifies as “better communication”?

Vayne.8563:

The difference between a promise and an intended schedule is miles apart. What about all the stuff they never mentioned that they did give us?

The difference between telling the player base they’re going to do a better job communicating with them and letting half a year come and go without so much as a word on missed deadlines is also miles apart.

Vayne.8563:

WoW is eight years old, of course it has lots of content. There are also I quit threads about WoW. WoW has lost millions of players in the not so recent past. They didn’t leave because WoW has lots of content.

I have two sons that used to play WoW religiously. They played the new content, finished it, got bored and unsubbed until new stuff came out. Usually that was a period of months.

So if it has so much content, why did they always end up unsubscribing?

I’d think you’d be in a better position to speak for your own sons than we are, but since you asked I’m going to go with “short attention spans”.

Dakota.4591:

I’m wondering if it’s exactly that. I don’t know off the top of my head which recipes come from which vendor tiers. But it could very well be “This recipe comes from the tier 2 vendor. But if you manage to unlock the tier 4 vendor, it’s twice as long and half as crafty.”

Unless I’m mistaken, the only difference between Tiers 3 and 4 are prices. I think the list of offered items was exactly the same for both, but they were cheaper at T4.

Bombsaway.7198:

Prickly pear pie will be good for a condition engineer if they make more pears available in the next few zones they add.

I wouldn’t worry about the recopies just yet. I suspect new real estate will increase the number of nodes. Boon duration could be quite good too.

Even if the rest of the Maguuma Wastes has more cactus nodes, that doesn’t change the fact that Version A of a food lasts half as long yet requires twice as much of a rare ingredient than Version B of the same food. That can’t be by design, can it?

Shardelyss.4807:

I think the reason most people find her voice annoying isn’t because of her voice per se, its because EVERY time you draw near her she says exactly the same thing. Perhaps it might have been less noticeable if she spoke those lines every 30 minutes, not every 1 minute or if she had a follow up dialogue that spoke of other things.

But hey, maybe there will be more voice text and it gets unlocked later.

I agree that her dialogue loops far too frequently. The same can be said for everyone in Prosperity.

Mosharn.8357:

TLDR: Drop that bomb of content everyone has been waiting on anet so people have something to come back to. Because people want to play gw2 but there is nothing to do at the moment.

It’s possible the bomb of content that we’re waiting for is actually a cluster bomb, something that’s designed to cover more ground by breaking into smaller pieces. Whether the payload adds up to the impact of a single, larger bomb is to be seen.

mrauls.6519:

I believe the same thing. They’ve survived so long off of what was initially created, and it did get them pretty far, but there has to be a major, and I mean major increase in content soon, not later. I really hope something gives them a wake up call soon

They’ve survived this long off of compulsive spenders and cash shop addicts.

As someone who loathed the original DE, I don’t mind this group. It is being built from the ground up, so it’s more organic than a group of super heroes (not to be confused with superheroes) that are the best ever because the author told us they’re the best ever.

That said, there’s certainly room for improvement. I could use MUCH less of the lovey-dovey kissy-face crap from Jory and Kasmeer. It’s already consumed Jory. No longer is she the intelligence detective, now she’s just Kasmeer’s sweetie. And Kasmeer has quickly degenerated into a love sick puppy. And now it’s consuming the atmosphere of the story. We’re investigating a heinous act of mass murder, and all the while they’re prattling on like a couple of high school sweethearts. That wasn’t the time and it wasn’t the place for the writers to remind us all that Jory and Kasmeer are in a relationship.

And before anyone tries to discredit my argument by calling me a homophobe sexist, I’d feel exactly the same if the relationship were a heterosexual one. I don’t like the Logan/Jennah melodrama anymore than I like the Jory/Kasmeer melodrama.

+1 to TC’s proposal. I don’t need carrots danged before me on my character select screen.

crazy.9083:

Has the whiniest voice ever – I hope she gets eaten by a rabid llama.

I agree. Every time I hear her whine I wish I could push her into that well. The foreman, on the other hand, he’s voiced quite well.

How did the citizens of Prosperity cross the quicksand river before the Zephyrite ship exploded, scattering it’s crystals in really convenient locations? The region is not without lumber, so you’d think someone would have thought to bridge such a deadly crossing.

The citizens of Prosperity allegedly owe their livelihood to copper mining, but I’ve yet to see a single copper node. I understand there’s more to this little mining town than meets the eye, but you’d think they’d go with a more convincing cover story.

Why did the asura bother to go so far into such a remote location to build a magi-matter-transportive device, but not bother to go the extra 300 feet to build it in the only vicinity’s only settlement?

Yujin in the Crafting sub-forum posted the following:

Prickly Pear Stuffed Nopale (30 min) and Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Beans – +40% Condition Duration +70 Power. I think there’s an error/bug in the prickly pear stuffed nopale recipe. For some strange reason, the Prickly pear stuffed nopale uses 5 nopales and 20 prickly pears. The 1 hour version only uses 10 prickly pears.

His observation reinforces my belief that his recipe is a bug/mistake. It doesn’t make sense that the 30 minute version of the food would require twice as much as the 60 minute version.

StinVec.3621:

thefinnster.7105:

prety sure there are extra recipes available at lvl 3

Ah. I didn’t notice. That is quite unfortunate for players for them to have designed it that way, especially considering the recipes are account bound and cannot be acquired from other content or other players/TP.

It’s really going to suck when new content rolls out and everyone moves away from Dry Top. There won’t be enough people left doing events to get it to Tier 3, and thus those missing the T3 recipes will forever be without them.

KarateKid.5648:

blink

We have NO bacon in this game!

On more than one occasion I’ve called for bacon (and pork) to be added to the game. There are plenty of mobs that can drop the stuff, and it would make possible a TON of new dishes. Plus, what better material for crafting from 400 to 500 than bacon?

Also missing is honey, fish, and shellfish. The former could be used for everything from honey-glazed meats to pastries, and the latter could be cooked straight up, used to make soups, or coupled with the virtually useless seaweed to make sushi.

I posted about this in the Crafting sub-forum, but I’d actually like to ask if this recipe is what it is for a particular reason. The food gives a boost to power and condition duration and has a duration of 30 minutes. So it’s hardly game-breaking stuff. Yet the recipe is such that you’d think it was Tier 1 food. It requires 20 Prickly Pears (the rare yield from cacti). Is this recipe prohibitively high because of economic considerations that I’m not seeing. Or is it possible the required values of Nopale (5) and Prickly Pears (20) were accidentally swapped during input?

I’ve been waiting for some power/condition duration for my engineer since I hit 80 on him. And finally, in the form of Prickly Pear Stuffed Nopale, I’ve got it. Unfortunately, it’s an account bound food. No problem, though, since I’ve level Cooking on each of my characters.

So I grab the recipe from the vendor and learn it on my engineer and go to cook me up a dozen or so of these bad boys. And…each one takes 20 prickly pears? That’s…a lot. They also take 5 napole. So that’s 5 of the common cactus yield and 20 of the rare? I can’t help but feel whomever inputted these values for this patch got them mixed up. Either way, for a 30 minute food that doesn’t offer any statistical bonus over the other common level 80 foods, 20 prickly pears seems prohibitively high.

These are, after all, consumables…they’re designed to be used. But with a cost as high at that, I’m going to wind up locking them away in some guarded vault along with the rest of my most cherished possession.

Xenon.4537:

Actually in those “good ol’ sub based” games it’s always about grinding 9001 hours of something to earn the item.

That’s a false statement.

Xenon.4537:

Why? To make you pay for 9001 hours of subscription time. You want to earn a reward for beating a challenging boss?

I earned my Suppanomimi when I cleared Diving Might. I earned my Rajas Ring when I cleared Chains of Promathia. And I earned my Joyeuse when my Linkshell and I killed Charybdis. There was no grinding involved. I earned them. And I felt a great sense of accomplishment in doing so.

When they increased the crafting cap from 400 to 500 they should allowed us to raise just one craft per character above the 400 mark. This could have allowed us to craft higher level stuff and sell it (rather than it being account bound), with everyone benefiting. I could have made money selling you weapons. You could have made money selling me armor. The guy who doesn’t care about crafting could have bought the higher end stuff. And the guy with multiple characters could have supported himself entirely.

This topic isn’t about the chests in Dry Top specifically, but the idea behind them and why I think they’d work in every zone. If region specific chests, with associated keys, were used instead of the static chests we have now I think it would benefit everyone. It would provide explorers something to look for, the rewards could be upped since they’d appear randomly and thus be harder to find, and the keys could provide an ongoing gold sink. It worked well enough in Guild Wars, and it seems to be working well enough in Dry Top so far (though the chests are a bit ubiquitous for the rewards to be too good).

Overall, I think this was a good update. If they can maintain this level of quality throughout, I think the Living Story can work as intended. I’m not going to give an exhaustive breakdown, but off the top of my head, here’s where I think they went right and wrong. Some of these are minor quibbles, not kitten ing criticisms, so react accordingly.

The Good
– a new map, complete with vistas and some of the other trappings of traditional maps
– new crafting recipes, and new materials to harvest
– the writing seems to have improved, and the exposition was handled in-game
– the “story” aspect of the Living Story wasn’t contingent on zergs
– far less busy work, and the repetitive tasks seem more thought out
– far fewer bugs and a higher overall degree of polish
– the content is permanent
– the new achievements feel less like participation ribbons
– I like the chests and keys, and have always wished you’d have included them in every zone like you did in Guild Wars: the chests provide a reward for exploration and the keys provide an ongoing gold sink

The Bad
– the new map is about a quarter of the size of regular maps
– the new map doesn’t track our exploration process or award completion rewards
– the NPC dialogue in the new town loops far too frequently
– I’d have preferred the chest keys be added to our wallet rather than our inventories
– my character is still mute and is still little more than a voiceless lackey
– Jori and Kasmeer still prattle on about their love too much for my liking
– the new armor added to the cash shop could have been added as an in-game reward or craftable set

The Jury’s Still Out
– I’m hoping to see a new playable race soon
– I’m hoping to see half a dozen or so new skills per class soon

Overall, it was a good start to the second season of the Living Story. I hope, for the sake of everyone involved, that this level of quality is sustainable. If it regresses to Season 1 level stuff after such a promising start I’m going to be sorely disappointed.

Edit: I forgot to praise the addition of new food types. I’ve long wanted a Power/Condition Duration food, and it’s finally been added. So kudos for that.

So there’s a new Shadow Assassin Outfit available in the cash shop. They could have made it craftable, giving leather workers a chance to make some money. They could have added it in a dungeon, giving dungeon runners something to shoot for. They could have added it in a chest spawning randomly throughout the open world, giving explorers something to look for. But instead, they simply dropped it in the cash shop.

The Shadow Assassin Outfit, as with so many new weapon and armor skins, could have been an actual in-game reward. But instead of the sense of accomplishment earning this new armor set would have given us, we’re asked to simply plop down our credit card and buy it. Where’s the fun in that?

Palador.2170:

Personally, I think ANet is too big for their own good.

Anyone else ever have a boss that assigns people and teams to get things done, but then starts to shuffle things around as new things pop up? Eventually, nobody’s working on any of the long term stuff, and when it’s due the boss gets all upset that SOMEONE ELSE must have been slacking off, because he knows he assigned someone to that!

I think that’s what’s happening with ANet right now. Their large size may give them the manpower to do a lot, but it also makes it easy to do nothing. And so, the long term projects stay long term, unless someone can hold their feet to the fire and force them to focus.

Personally, I think it’s simply a case of the Living Story + Cash Shop being so financially successful for them they’re not really concerned with much else. They ask themselves, “why bother with X when Y is already working so well for us?” And because there isn’t a great answer to that question, most of their resources are allocated accordingly.

and we still haven’t had any word on the stuff we were supposed to get in 2013. (craftable precursors, etc.). Now I’m not the kind of person who gets upset when deadlines are missed or plans are changed; but I do hate being left to twist in the wind when half a year comes and goes without a peep as to why such an important feature was pushed back (or scrapped altogether). When can we expect to hear from the developers on this subject (or any other, for that matter)?

onemantankwall.3641:

Brisban wilds …. hash tag so i guess its a anticlimatic announcement that s2 beginning will just be brisban with giant thorns copy and pasted into the map everywhere instead of brand new maguuma waste being unvailed it’ll probably be a map revamp like LA was… A new map without a new map

Now, now… it won’t just be Brisban with giant throns copy and pasted everywhere…it will be Brisban with giant thorns copy and pasted everywhere and lots of zerg events.

To be fair, the story would probably suffer if they opened Maguuma right away. Letting us get a sense of what’s going on in familiar territory is the better way to go.

What I’m betting we won’t get:
– Hearts
– Vistas
– voiced PC dialogue

What I’m betting we will get:
– lots of zerg content in the new zone
– lots of grindy achievements designed to keep us busy in the new zone
– lots of NPCs yammering back and forth while our PCs stand there like mute halfwits

Ideally:
– player housing would offer a ton of customization based on race, etc
– furnishings would be crafted using existing metal, wood, leather, and cloth
– said furniture making craft would be able to make a bag that auto-sorted consumables
– trophies would be earned through in-game accomplishments
– gem shop items would be minimal, we’d craft or earn our stuff rather than buying it

silvermember.8941:

It is typical of him. With the amount of complaining he does, sometimes valid most of the times not, it is best to let him get it out of the system and not engage him.

I challenge you to show me one instance wherein I criticized this game or its makers in a way that was unfair, unfounded, or otherwise off base. My post history is but a mouse click away, so it shouldn’t take you long. So, have at it.

Scarlet.

/15 characters

Celestina.2894:

darkace.8925:

Celestina.2894:

darkace.8925:

- DE 2.0 sucking all of the air out of the room
– “Collect 150 drill fragments from the rubble in Lion’s Arch” achievement
– a whole lot of bugs
– “new items in the cash shop!”.

^Lots of posts like this no matter what

I tell you what, if you can find anything in the track record ArenaNet has established for themselves that shows my expectations to be unreasonable I’ll sincerely apologize for upsetting your sensibilities.

Now now, no need for your jimmies to be rustled. I just pointed it out.

So you’ve got nothing to show my expectations to be unfounded? I didn’t think so.