Guild Wars 2

I’ve dropped into Queensdale twice in the past couple of days to charge some quartz crystals, and I’ve been disappointed by what I’ve seen. A zerg of players have been running a circuit of champions for exp/karma/loot/monthly achievements/whatever. That they’ve turned my favorite zone into an mindless assembly-line grind isn’t what bothers me, it’s how they’re treating other players who don’t know or don’t care to follow their champion-killing routine.

Both times I stopped in I saw members of the zerg shouting down, brow-beating, and being needlessly rude to those who did anything to interrupt their circuit. They’re acting as if they own the zone and anyone who doesn’t follow their rules isn’t welcome. It’s not something I expected from what has generally been a very friendly and helpful community.

Hopefully what I’ve seen has been an anomaly. If not…well, unfortunately there’s not much I can do about it other than voice my displeasure in-game and here on the forums.

I don’t think they’re ugly, but I don’t think any of them are suitable replacements for capes.

Nuka Cola.8520:

oh but i’ve spoke to a lot of people about these two when they were available, no one liked them. on this forum im not surprised to see so much positivity about these two mini dungeons because most people here are fanboys who go crazy even if they add something as minor as a ONE new mini pet… Both of these mini dungeons are far from ‘fun’ or great.

I liked them. Are you calling me a fanboy?

Raesin.2908:

I’m a Norn, and we’re not so judgmental.
Until they do something dreadful, they’re both alright in my book.

I’m a norn (sometimes), and we’re not so accepting. Until they do something extraordinarily impressive, they’re both chumps in my book.

I’d be happy if the screen simply displayed eight (instead of seven) characters without the scroll arrows being necessary. If I’m going to run one of each class, I don’t want one of my characters to be forced to sit at the kids’ table in the corner of the room.

I’ve got five characters. There are now two musical instruments available, and I suspect more will be added in due time. I’d like to give each of my five characters an instrument, but I’d like to avoid repeats. Thematically, which race do you think best fits each instrument? And which race would you hold in reserve for potential instruments added in the future?

Olba.5376:

Not necessary if you organize your bags properly. Which you should.

So in the heat of battle you can open your inventory and pop a Fire Bomb without missing a step?

Even if you can – you can’t – it’s a quality of living upgrade that many players want added to the game. And “not necessary” covers everything from area loot to new weapon and armor skins. Is that really the standard you want Anet to use when it comes to additions and upgrades for the game?

Phyrak.7260:

Thanks Darkace,

What would you like to see tweaked about those abilities?

As is, Chain Lightning is useless against one target and not as good as Fireball against packed targets. It’s okay for hitting scattered enemies while on the move, but that’s about it. I think I’d have it inflict Vulnerability on hit. As for Lightning Surge, I think a simple cast time reduction of 33-50% would be sufficient.

As a staff elementalist who views Air Attunement as little more than quicker mobility from Point A to Point B, I’d really like to see Chain Lightning and Lightning Surge tweaked.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I don’t know really how that punishes people with more characters. Doing the oposite would punish people with less characters.

One could argue a player with multiple characters he’d like to gear up in Celestial is being disproportionately hurt by the time gating. I don’t necessarily agree with that line of thinking, but I can understand why someone would feel that way.

You aren’t rewarded every day, you’re rewarded every time you accumulate a certain number of Achievement Points.

My norn warrior is impatiently awaiting the day he can finally wield a two-handed axe.

frostichigo.9751:

lol i was a bit over the top when i said that but nope im smarter then you. i created my first pc game when i was in 7th grade i skipped 6 and 11th grade so i don’t think im stupid

I never said you were stupid.

frostichigo.9751:

remove the stupid thing that lowers your level if you go into a lower level area i hate being level 70 and walking to lower level places and still feeling under powered and for dungeons to just lower exp or something dame -.-

A good player will never feel underpowered in a lower level zone. The problem isn’t with the sidekick system, it’s with you. The problem might be your skill level or it might be your mentality, but it is on your end.

ArchonWing.9480:

Limit supply = protect economy

It also has the side effect of making people miserable, but alas…

There is none – as in zero – direct impact these account-bound items can have on the economy.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Complaining about quartz conversions being limited to once a day is like complaining about Precursors being rare.

“Entitled” people are entitled to their opinions, I know I know.

Care to elaborate?

Krosslite.1950:

Hopefully this will silence some of the more vocal minority

A) To what statistical data can you claim one side or the other a majority?
B) Why do you want to silence those with whom you disagree?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Would it be wrong of the developers to encourage people to play their game every day?

Is compelling game play not enough incentive for people to play on a daily basis? Are Daily Achievements and Achievement Rewards not enough incentive for people to play on a daily basis? Even if you answer “no” to both of those questions, I refuse to believe the talented folks working at ArenaNet couldn’t come up with something better than this.

Jayw.1045:

so like you would want to extend the time that certain songs play? like repeat?

I like the music, but I also enjoy the ambient sounds (environmental sounds, idle NPC chatter, etc). I’d personally like the option to set the music to play for a very short span (30-45 seconds or so) separated by a span of four to five minutes of with no music. Of course those who wished to do so could set the songs to loop for longer periods of time.

Vol.5241:

You know, if this game had a monthly fee you’d have good reason to complain.

But it’s not enough.

I’m sorry, but you don’t determine for me what is and isn’t worth complaining about. I think it’s an foolish design decision. You’re well within your rights to tell me why it isn’t, but you’re wasting your time and mine when you tell me it shouldn’t bother me.

Have the devs given a reason for the time gating of charged quartz crystals? They are account bound. Everything made with them is account bound. So charged quartz crystals have literally no direct impact on the economy. The only reason for them to be limited to one per day per account that I can think of is to encourage players to play on a daily basis. I think it’s a senseless limitation and I’d love to hear explanations why it was implemented in the first place.

Currently we can adjust the length between music playing. I’d also like to be able to adjust the duration of the playing music.

We’ve already got bags that automatically sort our equipment, crafting materials, and junk. We’ve got bags that hide contents from vendors. We’ve even got access to bags that sort our equipment by rarity. Can you guys think of a reason we’d ever get to craft new types of bags (not new tiers of existing bags)?

wouw.5837:

Ascended gear (Weapons?)

I hope that day never comes.

Nick.6972:

darkace.8925:

A quick browse through your posting history leaves me wondering what your motives on these forums truly are. You’re either very disgruntled that this game didn’t turn out to be Guild Wars 1.5 and you want to share your misery or you’re simply here to troll.

Sorry, sorry.
Guild Wars 2 is the greatest game ever made, people please stop whining.
If you don’t like the game, quit.

There’s a big gap between “here’s what I don’t like about this game” and “NCSoft is too busy investing in Wildstar since GW2 isn;t doing that great.” Every indication is Guild Wars 2 is doing great, but you’re trying to paint a doom and gloom picture (and you’re doing so in a baseless manner). Like I said, your posting history paints a pretty clear picture what your intentions here really are.

Orpheal.8263:

Oh, there are alot of play styles missing in GW2…

Such as? Outside a dedicated tank capable of holding aggro or a dedicated healer – neither of which will ever be added to the game for obvious reasons – what style of play isn’t presently available to one or more of the existing professions?

Nick.6972:

Ah, well, who knows, maybe NCSoft is too busy investing in Wildstar since GW2 isn;t doing that great.
I’m not saying its true, just “What if”/“Maybe”.

A quick browse through your posting history leaves me wondering what your motives on these forums truly are. You’re either very disgruntled that this game didn’t turn out to be Guild Wars 1.5 and you want to share your misery or you’re simply here to troll.

Electro.4173:

There’s a happy medium between the two, where its not trying to stretch a weeks worth of content into a month but also not trying to cram a months worth of content into a couple weeks either.

Very well said.

Kichwas.7152:

darkace.8925:

Another thing about zones being added one at a time is they’re going to be jammed full of people, and all the other zones are going to be abandoned by all but the tumbleweeds. Too many people isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but…well, imagine trying to enjoy a scenic hike with your friends and while a marathon is being run on your hiking path. But that’s a personal hangup that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Like going to some national parks on a holiday. Your nature trail is so crowded you could tie a rope link between everyone from the parking lot to that ‘special scenic spot’ that has a few hundred folks standing around it taking pictures and trying to keep each other out of respective snapshots…
- Making you feel like you might as well have gone on vacation to the local mall.

lol, yeah kinda like that.

bribrim.9710:

Personally, id love to have a 4 item toggable UI bar that could be used just for food, oils, etc…

Two would be plenty for me, but I agree with the principle.

Mateking.9564:

mhmm I think this is very likely the dominion of winds. But this kind of makes it a little bit less likely that we will be able to play as tengu later on. I mean releasing it like this makes it a lot harder to release a new race living there wouldn’t you agree?

I sure hope not, as I got a character slot reserved specifically for a tengu thief I’d hate to see go to waste.

“What is it that you are aiming for that absolutely necessitates you turn this game on and force yourself through 3 or more hours of gameplay that you don’t enjoy?”

With the addition of achievement point rewards and the availability of some achievements linked to temporary Living Story content there are no doubt going to be some who force themselves to log in to get those achievements.

I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that one should not force him/herself to play a video game in a way they don’t enjoy, but there are far more then you and I who are driven for the need to obtain carrots.

My hopes that we’ll one day get to revisit Cantha lie somewhere at the bottom of that gaping sinkhole in Divinity’s Reach.

I forgot two:
– Don’t forget the Elder Dragons are still the main antagonists.
– When you open up new regions (Crystal Desert, etc), don’t do it one zone at a time.

Here’s mine in short bullet points:
– No limited availability on content.
– No limited availability on rewards.
– No limited availability on weapon and armor skins sold in the Gem Shop.
– More organic build up of story.
– Less “click F a bunch of times” busywork.
– Less “silent protagonist” player-characters.

I’m not a fan of temporary content (holiday events notwithstanding). It strikes me as a Zynga-type method of making players feel punished for not logging in to play.

Teulius.8752:

If arenanet sticks to this ‘’no expansion’’ bussiness model I think they will hurt themselves financially in the long run. Expansions aren’t just explosions of content (which we all love and enjoy) expansions are also awesome marketing material. If gw2 got an expansion that would be promoted on gaming sites and the game would bassically be saying ‘’Hey we’re still here and better than ever, come join in on the fun’’ and old players (who gave up on the game) would come back and get re introduced to it and maybe start loving it yet again.

I would love to see an expansion come out because i am crying to get those new zones and permanent dungeons in the game, a new race would be awesome aswell and btw; I have a bunch of friends that told me :‘’ No use playing now, I’ll come back when they shoot out an expansion’’. And they are not the only ones with this mentality.

That’s a very good point. I remember being intrigued by Guild Wars every time I saw the box on the shelves in Best Buy. Every time I noticed an expansion box for the game I stopped to check it out. I never picked it up, but I might have.

Vayne.8563:

…without being criticized?

I can understand why people wouldn’t like the nerf to ranger pets (particularly PvE’ers). But lately there’ve been some threads that are just amazing to me.

Content patches are coming too fast.

Do you not see why some would complain about this particular point? There are some who work more than 40 hours a week and have familial obligations that come before gaming. And even though they love GW2, their hectic schedules and the temporary nature of the LS updates means they’re missing out on a lot of content they’d very much like to experience.

Edit 1: Do keep in mind the difference between a criticisms and a complaint. Criticisms generally come from people who enjoy the game, but feel this or that about it could be better. Complaints generally come from people who think the game should be built specifically to satisfy them alone.

Edit 2: To answer your question, I don’t believe I saw any complaints when we were given the ability to choose the five of however many achievements we wanted to complete for our dailies.

rhodoc.2381:

So how they gonna make money without doing classical buy2play expansions?

rng boxes.

lordkrall.7241:

And funnily enough back when we had Flame and Frost people complained about the long time between updates.

No matter which way they go there will be people that don’t like it.

True enough, but those were the same people (or people cut from the same cloth) who played 10 hours a day every day after release and then complained just a few weeks later that there was nothing to do in the game. Now consider the players who work 40 to 60 hours a week and have familial obligations at home also want to enjoy the Living Story content.

The former group you can never please. You literally cannot release content fast enough to satisfy them. The latter you can please if you give them enough time to catch up when they do get the time to play.

Sure, you don’t want to wait forever for them. But I personally think two weeks to get a bunch of busywork achievements, run dungeons, catch up on story-related cut scenes is a bit too short. This is especially true if Achievement Points are going to be used for rewards.

I’m not crazy about the light armor headpieces. The masks and circlets and hoods just don’t do it for me. What I’d LOVE to get my hands on is a pve/combat version of the Wizard’kitten town clothes. The model is in the game, and it kills me that I can’t use it on my elementalist. I’d gladly pay for such an item if it were added to the Gem Shop.

GoldenTruth.2853:

You’re also not really giving Aetherblade stuff a chance, saying that since the premise is ridiculous you don’t want to do the content. Even though the dungeon is (arguably) very good as well as the jumping puzzle.

I don’t speak for anyone else, but I thought both the dungeon and the jumping puzzle were well made. The Sky Pirate slayer achievements, on the other hand, felt like exactly the kind of content you’d expect from a development team rushing to get content out the door. They required minimal effort to complete and felt like nothing short of filler to me. With the efforts Anet went through to craft such a rich and full world, the “light 150 effigies” and “kill 250 sky pirates” isn’t up to the level of quality I know the developers are capable of.

Terkov.4138:

I just made some tests (for myself, but why not share?). Used my build (coz, as I said, this test was for me), divinity runes, sigil of fire on both weapons, zerk ammy with soldier gem and kept flanking and endurance bonuses. 5 test per weapon. Pet on passive. Trairs on screenie. Target: stationary heavy golem.

weapon (skills used) times – avg.time

LB in melee range (1., 2., 3.) 14/13/12/15/11 – 13,0 s
LB 1000+ with 2. (1., 2., 3.) 10/10/11/12/12 – 11,0 s
LB 1000+ no 2. (1., 3.) 11/11/10/10/9 – 10,2 s
GS (1., 2.) 9/13/10/9/8 – 9,8 s

As I used 5% LB dmg, GS advantage would be slightly bigger. Also, stop saying LB needs "1200" or “max range”. For max dmg it needs 1000+ and it’s huge difference (especially considering why ppl say about SB nerf ).

So yeah, GS deals more dmg. It’s sad considering it’s more defensive weapon. On the other hand, the results leave LB in “meh, ok” place as a ranged weapon imho. It needs buff (asap! lol) but it’s not as tragic, as some ppl want others to belive.

And yeah, I’m going to continue running my LB/GS build, waiting for buffs. I’m used to being in such position (my luck to MMOs…)

Thanks for the results. I wonder what the disparity between GS and LB times would have been had you spec’d for greatsword instead of longbow.

So now I’m trolling? Then why don’t you report me? In the case the moderators don’t agree with your assessment then you’ll be well within your rights not to respond to what you consider a troll topic. Or, should the mood strike you, you can discuss things in a mature manner.

Post edited by moderator

mrstealth.6701:

I think that could have worked in GW1. It would have been a bit strange at the time, but the stories were rather linear, aside from a few split and rejoin points. Some zones would have to be released in pairs (like going into the Kurzick/Luxon parts of Cantha), but I think a release system like that could have worked out fine.

I can live with linear, it’s the peace meal I’m not crazy about. I don’t want to be artificially slowed when progressing through a story. It works well enough for the episodic Living Story stuff we’ve had so far (though I think there’s been far too much filler), but for big things like Elder Dragons or expansion into Cantha/Elona, I don’t want to explore new areas one section every two to four weeks.

mrstealth.6701:

With GW2, as Kichwas.7152 said, that could end up being way too linear in comparison to the GW2 world we already have. Releasing single zones would severely limit a branching storyline, trying to fit different arcs into a limited area.

Another thing about zones being added one at a time is they’re going to be jammed full of people, and all the other zones are going to be abandoned by all but the tumbleweeds. Too many people isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but…well, imagine trying to enjoy a scenic hike with your friends and while a marathon is being run on your hiking path. But that’s a personal hangup that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

TheDaiBish.9735:

bartrentenaar.8674:

How are they going to implement huge changes like new professions and races? Cause if those will never come, I’m sure the life of gw 2 won’t be as long as it’s predecessor and I’ll be bored way earlier.

> Living Story leads into the Dominion of Four Winds

> Tengu decide to join up in the fight to go back to their homeland.

> Land on Cantha which is currently under attack / locked down by the Ministry of Purity.

> Living Story for the next few months / half a year / [insert timeframe here] focuses on freeing Cantha, with other smaller stories back on Kryta.

> After Cantha is freed, the Tengu are eternally grateful, everyone hugs each other and cries tears of joy, and the Tengu and a profession specific to their race is unlocked for everyone (not just those who took part).

---

I think people have a problem with it for two reasons:

• They have in their mind what is traditionally in an expansion, and are thinking that no expansion = no new races, professions, lands ect.
• Most of the LS content so far has been temporary, and so on hearing that Anet are going to be keeping up with the LS, that most content will be temporary as well.

However, this may not be the case. It would be entirely possible for Anet to introduce new races, professions, lands, dungeons ect through the LS. Most of these have already been evidenced in the LS so far (Race = Karka, land = Southsun, Dungeons = Most LS content) and regardless of the execution of it, it was shown it can be done.

Improve on the execution of it, add meatier updates with permanent additions, and I’d actually say that adding content using these events as opposed to just ‘load the disc and it’s all available’ would actually be much, much more immersive.

There’s a third problem some might have with it. So far we’ve seen a lot of filler content: eat 150 of x, kill 250 of y, click f 100 times in front of z. That’s not the kind of quality content most of us would expect from a full-fledged Guild Wars 2 expansion (one carrying a $40-$60 price tag).

But that’s much of what we’ve got so far through free Living Story content updates. And if that’s indicative of what we can expect every two weeks, then I’m sure many of us would rather wait and pay for a boxed expansion.

I don’t read manga or watch anime, but I have friends who do. And one thing they frequently complain about is the lack of quality in the filler arcs. And there’s the very real possibility that most of the Living Story content will be nothing more than filler arc.

For GW vets, imagine if Cantha or Elona was only explorable a section at a time with two weeks between new sections being added. I don’t know that that’s how new regions/zones are going to be added in GW2, but it’s certainly a realistic possibility. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume it is. In that context, would you rather new regions/zones be opened all at once in an expansion or one section at a time through Living Story updates?

While a “catch your breath” period of a week or two between bouts of running around trying to get all the temporarily available achievements you can wouldn’t hurt, it looks like it’s not going to happen. Anet seems to be all-in on new content every two weeks.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Ordin.9047:

I think that they need to slow down a tad and release some quality content.

Please wait until the content is out before you malign it.

We can only judge based on what we’ve be given, and we’ve been given enough for someone to reasonably make their mind up one way or the other.

Knox.3748:

No it wont, because the majority of people who left he game didnt do it because of the pve. Who cares if they put a new race or not ? This game can be improved in another aspects and not on adding new races and kitten like that.

I don’t think you understand the average MMOer nearly as well as you think you do.

Esplen.3940:

Not only are they event-driven (similar to this), but they are also less buy-to-win (when they are free-to-play, of course there are still ways to be buy-to-win but you can say the same with GW2).

In what way could you possibly consider Guild Wars 2 a buy-to-win game? It’s REALLY hard to take anything you said seriously when you say such things.