Guild Wars 2

The “lose target when it moves off screen” is likely a effect of unchecking the “promote skill target” option.

And yes, it favors center of screen. But this requires line of sight (something as simple as a tree can mess up your targeting), and there is a certain minimum proximity to the centerline.

But this is not helping in any way when you have a risen gnawing on your leg and the targeting system sends your high cooldown burst towards a distant (perhaps out of range) destructible object (or passive fauna), because your camera happened to be pointed in the wrong direction.

IMO, proximity over camera center is how it should be. Unless/until ANet implements a proper crosshair and camera aim toggle.

Groonz.7825:

Anet: “SCREW YOU NEW PLAYERS!”

otherwise I’m not sure what their attitude was towards new players.

Buying taffies for the wings (last time I checked taffies @ 25c) 250g
Mini from Moa racing, 24.8g min average.

More like screw everyone that is not COF1 farming or TP flipping.

Best i can tell, they will be in the gem store.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1g6odl/new_steampunk_armor_chat_codes/

There will be more coming in the following weeks. This weekend there is the fireworks display that will provide people with dragon helmets (some already have them thanks to a bug), and there are various achievements that has no yet been enabled.

The more i think about it, the more i suspect the problem with PVE right now is how massively critical hits can amplify damage.

This becomes a issue for balancing the challenge between crit and non-crit builds.

The easiest/cheapest way to balance against crit builds is to simply up the health of monsters. But this increases the difficulty for non-crit builds as the fights grow longer.

So instead, perhaps certain monsters should be resistant, if not down right immune, to critical damage? I say damage because critical hits in GW2 is double stacked as it also trigger various gear and trait effects.

Say for instance that you face a mixed group of several smaller and one big monster. If the big monster is resistant or immune, the crit heavy build can still be valuable for clearing out the smaller monsters but will not be overly effective vs the big one.

ANet’s problem is that they made crit too good a damage amplifier.

Certain classes can get their crit chance into the 90% range on a permanent basis, and their crit damage bonus somewhere around 150% (meaning that they do x2.5 damage by default).

I wonder if ANet could make certain mobs crit resistant or even immune, so that they would last longer without pumping their health pools into insanity. Problem is that crits also trigger various other effects that may not be damage but still beneficial.

I have found myself using turrets to deal with the hologram mobs.

But often i pick the turret up (flame and thumper turret specifically for the short range) rather than activate the hologram, because the color of the Activate and Pick Up are the same (orange).

Similarly, i often find myself grabbing a warriors banner while checking for loot because only the text is different between the two actions.

If these actions had a distinct color from the rest i would have avoided many a “oh snap!” moments.

After having a go with the fireworks consumable in the latest story episode, i found myself thinking.

Right now the biggest issue with the engineer’s mortar elite is that it is stuck in place. Meaning that whoever is using it also needs to stay in place. But the game is way too focused on mobile for that to be practical.

So how about this. Make the mortar a portable bundle, but give it limited ammo like the mentioned fireworks bundle.

Harbinger.8637:

You can also get a pair of wings from the Dragon Bash Experience achievement.

Different looks tho.

Seems like the spawn rate is borked. Was spinning around Diessa and didn’t see a single one.

Explains why my chat said “you received 1 —-—.” when i collected the doll from my mail.

Ah yes, consumables. A clear example of the left hand of ANet not knowing what the right hand is up to. I am surprised they have to hard banned PVE consumables from WVW already.

Hrmf, just played around with my engineer and a elementalist at the LA training dummies. And in all instances, moving just the camera or the character as well, flamethrower would track the targeted dummy just as well as any of the other skills with similar mechanics. but at the same time i have personally witnessed the issue OP mentions when fighting actual mobs, so…

The thing to keep in mind here is that a PVE mob is a massive bag of health compared to even a vitality tank build. This trivializes control attempts even before Defiant enters the picture. This because most controls are single target, short duration, and long cooldown. Meaning you can’t regulate incoming pressure by applying control to one or mob for any meaningful period of time.

But PVP makes for a whole different story. Because of the more balanced health pools between opponents, a well placed control (either to set up or break a burst) can be the turning point in a fight.

Gah, so many to pick from and so little time…

I think the confusing bit is the use of the word finale, as it can mean both the end of the overall celebration and the end of one fireworks cycle.

Cameirus.8407:

Electro.4173:

Mockingbird.5460:

Where in the world are you guys getting this number of 100k taffies? Unless the item stack limits have been completely changed for this one item, that would require 400 inventory slots to carry them all. (250/stack)

Watch the video that showcases the new content.

You trade 1000 pieces of Zhaitaffy for one Jorbreaker. 100 Jorbreakers gets you the backpack. 1000 × 100 = 100,000 total candies.

100,000?
They better drop all the sodding time then, or this is just another stupid grind.

Pinatas and hologram mobs both drop it.

Healix.5819:

Between 3PM and 7PM GMT.

(speculating based on api)

Seems like the time period they have always stated that they aim their patches for (Noon Seattle).

So people are starting to farm Steampipe now? Ugh…

And then come crashing like some sonic tidal wave…

Honestly, the game seems to have a serious issue with loading resources on the fly. This even tho they seem to already be in ram, as the HDD bare moves.

events mostly, or simply that often if i aggro one it will also call upon 2-3 nearby “friends”.

And i don’t do the whole button dance with med kit, unless i feel i can get way with it (never mind that 1 behaves as if it was the base attack of a weapon, meaning that any of the other skills of the kit can interrupt it). I just hit the toolbelt heal and get back to fighting (sometimes pop 4 if i find myself stuck in combat because of some annoyingly long condition, and 5 for that swiftness from time to time).

All in all i do not do keyboard tap dancing during play. I play engineer for the situational flexibility kits give me (melee = bomb/tool, ranged = genade/flamethrower/elixir gun).

Stuns in general are pointless in PVE as they do not last long enough to matter.

I do not run healing turret as i find the whole ordeal of drop, overcharge, blast times whatever overly cumbersome (much rather use med kit toolbelt or elixir while on the move).

the projectile reflect, while nice, is not worth the 30 second cooldown as it breaks if i move and stops me from attacking.

And lets not forget that the block drops on a single melee hit, so you can’t use it to escape having multiple mobs on your behind. I could perhaps use the blast to send them flying, but as i said it breaks on movement. Meaning i would have to remember to stop, blast and then continue on. Would much prefer if i could simply pop the shield up and go.

the experience may be different in PVP, where your opponents can usually be dropped via a stun&bust combo. PVE mobs however are big bags of health, making that approach futile (especially when they come in groups, and you can only stun one of them).

Yep, it also explains why the protection event fails if the karka ever start spawning on the inside (they are supposedly tunneling in, but the dust plume is a no-show thanks to culling).

This because as usual NPCs and such do not scale along with the mobs (Grenth, anyone?). Meaning that even a single supercharged karka or popper near the Steampipe center and we instantly go form a protect to a recapture.

Also, i suspect that once a event has scaled up it seems to not scale down again until finished or failed (and recapture events do not fail).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

biofrog.1568:

All that aside, there IS definitely a way to jump around, and I do it every kitten time. When running up the slope to the camp, head to the right-side. You will see a stack of logs, run past and up the slope to a second stack of logs. Jump up this stack, then onto the white pool ledge to the right. You have to make a tricky jump right into a ‘wedge’ that is slightly lower than the rest, the run around the back and make a daring open-fall jump onto the next white pool below then you are home free.

Some jumping advise from the Biofrog

Thanks, I will give this a try the next time I’m caught on the wrong side of the event.

I think it also possible to scale the cliff next to the bridge and wall, and slip between some trees into the pool of floaters.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

The last time we had 4 camps up, I barely had enough time to find the merchant, look at the menu, and fail to buy anything because a Drake showed up and pull/dazed me. By the time I recovered, one of the camps had fallen.

Ah, those drakes. The real killer seems to be their combo of DOT&confuse field and pull chain. This because the range of that pull is simply insane. I think maybe i can avoid getting pulled with a double dodge, but anything less seems to be futile as it i find myself on my back inside their field. Especially as the drakes seems capable of tracking while charging up the pull, so even if you dodge to the side you still get hit (only consolation is that you avoid landing in their field).

Barely tickles, yeah right…

Auto aim? There is a auto targeting toggle, but i do not recall there being a auto aim toggle. If i select a target, be it mouse, tab or simply skill use, any skill use will attempt to aim towards what i am targeting. And i kinda like that as any target that gets behind me is a simple skill tap away from being in front again.

And as OP pointed out, flame jet seems to be the only skill in the whole game that has a issue like this. This even tho there are multiple skills that use a similar mechanic.

Combat mode do not fully bring what is asked for.

Tera and Neverwinter in a way bridges RPG and third person shooter.

RPG in that they have stats and builds, shooter in that your character’s skills land based on where you aim rather than what target you have selected (Tera more so than Neverwinter, as the latter still use “hot”-targeting).

I guess you can get close if you turn of “promote skill target” perhaps even go as far as turning of autotargeting altogether. The former still appears to lock a target, but drops it once it exists your forward cone of attack.

Honestly, why ANet has not put in a simple “lock/toggle mouse look” option is beyond me. Even DDO has this for crying out loud.

For PVE i would go pistols, as IMO the shield simply do not bring enough of a benefit in relation the cooldowns imposed. Honestly ANet should either up the duration of Controls by x10 or reduce the cooldowns on skills by 1/10 in PVE, so that we have an alternative to the kiting burst method of dealing with mob swarms. bosses can’t be control locked anyways, thanks to defiant.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There really isn’t that much healing in the game. Drop the trinity notion before proceeding further.

Makes one wonder why ANet even bothered putting in Toughness and Healing Power as stats…

Had a bit of luck the other day, and was able to study a “retake Steampipe” event up close while it was idle.

I was counting multiple groups of 6-7 L83-84 young karka, alongside a mix of hatchlings, poppers and the odd veteran young karka.

And i have seen a projectile burst of a single such karka eat through 19000-20000 health.

Meaning that getting the aggro of a single such group, could see damage in around 114000 or more. Yes, there is dodge. But as far as i can tell, dodge do not allow you to avoid the whole projectile burst. And with multiple karka firing at once, you are going to get hit no matter what.

Strang thing is that i have also seen the event barely sporting any karka at all, and at level 80 at that.

I wonder if culling is what is tripping us up here, in that both the area inside the camp and outside (perhaps as far as the veteran karka in by the waterfall) are taken into account for scaling.

Also, i have actually seen on more quiet repetitions a smoke/dust plume before karka appear inside the camp. So i suspect that the designers tried to put in a kind of “burrowing” element, but the culling (or what i wonder is some kind of inefficiency in loading game elements) causes the karka to appear as if they instantly spawn. And the warning that the plume is supposed to give before the karka attack do not happen, resulting in people being insta-downed form barely appearing mobs.

Meaning that the event designers seems unable to deal with the limitations of the game engine, or there is some kind of unknown issue with the loading of game elements (models, sounds, particle effects) that interact with culling to cause the game to be harder than it should during larger events.

It is almost as if the game should have a “ignore target” key more than a “lock target” key (Targeting: Hold Lock)…

Honestly i can’t quite figure out the targeting mechanics of flame jet. Sometimes it seems to get stuck on a corpse, but other times it moves freely with the camera even with a live target.

“I am an army of one!”

Meaning that at present it favors camping Camp Karka and Steampipe, and igoring Kiel and Point Pride.

Question is, learn during actual play or learn by studying hours and hours of other people playing?

Why to i get the impression that ANet tuned the AV clues for mobs around people playing with headphones and volume set to 11?

With speakers i care barely hear the endurance ping out of combat for instance. But i recall reading about someone that almost fell out of his chair, the first time he played with headphones and the ping happened mid combat.

Hmm, that reminds me of a potential issue with the game. It seems to rely too much on visual ques for everything. And the audio cues we have are either infrequent, or triggered by nonsensical events (necromancer minion dialogs on the automatic summoning of a jagged horror for instance). for a company that claims i should be playing the game rather than the UI i sure have to keep looking at the UI a lot.

Hmm, Syndicate…

Note tho that most ranged attackers can likely drop that thing in a hurry.

Tried to be clever with it at Steampipe (Southsun central camp), and the nearby karka trashed the turret in a single burst. 900 range feels kinda limited after being used to throwing grenade 1500…

Err i would consider transmutation crystals a gem store item, and you need them if you want to transmute level 80 stats onto anything.

Honestly, either Steampipe scaling is broken or someone went overboard on the default settings. Came across it today, all the karka were 83-84 and i counted multiple groups of 6-7. And it seemed to have been this way for quite some time.

One at that level is enough to drop anything short of a vitality tank in a single burst, so 6 of them can really lay on the pain.

Honestly it seems that everything boils down to ANet making a gimmick (dodge), into the be all end all of PVE combat. I guess it is supposed to be their solution to the “i swing a sword” issue they jabbered about in that video…

Just watched the numbers while i reflected a karka burst using my engineer’s shield today, and each of the projectiles hit harder than my bombs! If you get 2-3 or these firing at you at once and you’re not expecting it, it is game over no matter what. And you can easily go beyond 3 during the Steampipe events.

Mentalhead.5721:

Didn’t know that, that’s great. Sadly, you need a zerg in order to do it properly, cause there are so many Karka.

Depends. The numbers are based on how characters were present when the event triggered, apparently. Managed to finish it on my own today thanks to being engineer and slipping around the karka via the various walkways (the center nest can be burned from there). This likely because the event had spawned without any players present, and so had the minimum number of mobs around (and most of them level 80 poppers or hatchlings).

I first noticed the issue when the rocket turret was blasting a bridge in Maelstrom to bits. Checked, and sure enough a risen was hiding under it.

Later the rifle turret started plonking at a ruined wall when i placed it and planned to attack a flame legion in Iron Marches. And waddayknow, behind said wall was another flame legion…

Between that and their paper based armor, i have written turrets off as pointless outside of SPVP point bunkering (no way to pick the wrong target then).

Turrets have this annoying habit of picking the closest available target, ignoring line of sight completely. Meaning that they will happily blast walls and such if there is a enemy behind it, that are considered closer than one in clear line of sight.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Bright.9160:

You mean like Half-baked Komali or Sotzz the Scallywag ? Real original ideas you got there.

Still better than having no ideas.

digiowl.9620:

Notice that nothing else that punishes actions (retaliation, confusion) use attacker power against himself. Only refect does that, and that in essence makes it unbalanced vs alternatives. Especially as ANet’s idea of a PVE challenge is dodge-or-die attack spam.

Yes, this dodge-or-die idea really bothers me. It all kind of falls apart if the things that you must dodge aren’t clearly communicated, and the things that are less dangerous pretty much look exactly the same.

I’m not against the idea of a boss in a high end area having some attacks that must be avoided at all costs. But with the limited amount of dodges that we have, properly telegraphing each move becomes infinitely more important.

I think the problem there is the “play the game, not the UI” mantra that ANet is applying.

Cryptic opted for a different approach with Neverwinter. There every big attack with some kind of area shape put a big loud marker on the floor in the shape of the attack area. Frontal cone or charge = a red line/cone, AOE = circle and so on.

Sure, it may lead to people looking at the floor more than the boss. But thanks to the aiming system being more shooter like you need to make sure you keep the crosshair on the boss rather than just lock and forget.

Never mind that said game do not have hidden cooldowns (weapon, kit, attunement swaps) and so you are glacing around constantly to maintain aim, check cooldowns and spot AOE markers.

The combat can get furious, but i always feel more in control than i do in GW2 for some reason.

youlostthegame.8102:

I also find when I make the UI scale the smallest, The Lion Arch Trading Post text doesn’t scale down with it.

The problem there is that the trading post is basically a embedded web site. Meaning that the game engine treats it as single large image/texture that is zoomed in or out with interface scale.

In most other games, if you want to do a mass of DOT you line up multiple skills in a row and apply them all. If you then apply the same skill again before the old is out you refresh the timer, rather than extend it. This means that in smaller fights the number of timers needed will be low and fixed. Only in larger fights will the number of timers active potentially cause a problem.