Guild Wars 2

Draknar.5748:

Things that people claimed weren’t casual friendly pre-HoT:

Fractals (3 mini dungeons plus a boss?! I don’t have time for that I play 20min a day, I’m casual!)
Dungeons (I can’t get into a group because I don’t have zerk gear and I don’t speedrun! I’m casual!)
World completion (why do we have to do WvW for world completion, I’m casual, I don’t like PvP!)
Story-mode finale (I need a group to finish the story?! what the heck Anet! I’m too casual for that!)
Living Story S1 (these LS events are timed?! You’re saying I can’t do all of the achievements within the 2 weeks if I only play 10min a day?! I’m casual, wtf ANET!
Living Story S2 (wtf Anet, I didn’t log in when these were released because I’m super casual, and now you want me to grind gold so I can trade for gems? I’m casual! I don’t have the time nor money to do this!)
Dailies (Whoa, Anet, look at how long it’s taking to do these dailies! And I have to do it to get laurels?! I’m only on for 2min a day! I can’t possibly get all of this AP that you are forcing me to get! Make it casual friendly!)

I think a lot of people think that casual friendly means everything needs to be able to be completed quickly or easily. A casual player does not imply a bad player, it implies someone that plays at their own, typically slow, pace. Being able to do things at your own pace: that’s the definition of being casual friendly.

In GW2 you can do literally everything at your own pace (minus holiday events, as those are time limited). That is casual friendly. Raids is the only area that I would say has the biggest obstacle to casual players, and that’s getting a 10man group together.

I’d love to hear what exactly in GW2 you couldn’t do at your own, casual, pace.

If something takes a long time, it doesn’t mean it isn’t casual friendly, it just means it will take longer to complete, but it can still be 100% casual.

People claimed crafting legendaries wasn’t casual, but I can assure you I crafted two from scratch, casually, over the course of 2 years. Some days I felt like working towards a requirement, some days I didn’t. I dictated the pace I completed things. THAT IS CASUAL.

/thread

Seriously I think I am going to copy this and paste it whenever someone brings up this “once upon a time in GW2” or “HoT too hardcorez” threads.

The core game people had tons of complaints about things not being casual enough for them. I have come to the conclusion since the release of HoT that many players of this game just wanted another Fallout or Skyrim where they can set the difficulty extremely low, mod anything challenging out, and just watch Netflix while they chase butterflies/radioactive butterflies and their numbers go up.

progressquest.com <- This is the ultimate game for those players. SO MUCH PROGRESS!

Soon.5240:

displacedTitan.6897:

Dark Souls is also “solo friendly” as its a single player game. I cannot just “press 1” while watching Netflix to beat it however.

There is a huge difference between being an MMO friendly to solo players and being braindead EZ ala Fallout and Skyrim. Maybe it is you who doesn’t understand the differences?

Or maybe you think the HoT content was hard, where as I don’t. I played most of it with my headphones on listening to and watching football. Is there anything more “press 1” then killing group after group of raptors?

Maybe you should L2P.

I think you just cut me with your edge.

What was your point in posting to this thread? I wanted to agree with Yellow in his assessment of the playerbase wanting more Skyrim and less EverQuest. No I didnt find HoT hard which just highlights how easy Core Tyria really is and how boring that makes the whole ordeal there.

I’ll also take your response as you do not understand that solo-friendliness and level of difficulty are in no way related.

Soon.5240:

displacedTitan.6897:

It took me a week or two after HoT to realize that a pretty solid demographic that plays this game WANTS it to be a single player EZ mode game like Fallout 4 or Skyrim.

The game was designed (and advertised) to be solo-friendly.

It took you 3 1/2 years to realize this? And you’re surprised that a game designed to be solo-friendly would attract players that enjoy —-— wait for it——- solo-friendly content?

Dark Souls is also “solo friendly” as its a single player game. I cannot just “press 1” while watching Netflix to beat it however.

There is a huge difference between being an MMO friendly to solo players and being braindead EZ ala Fallout and Skyrim. Maybe it is you who doesn’t understand the differences?

It works the same way in DOTA2 as well. If you party with someone and they disconnect you also get penalized.

Think of it like this, you brought the friend to the “party” when they “misbehave” it looks bad on you and you get socially punished, same thing here.

Well the mindless “we want Netflix content” people finally convinced ANet to tone it down. Sad because now its just as boring as DS and AB, press 1 to win woohoo!

Gonna be fun to see when they nerf the next piece of content for being “too hardcorez” for the scrubs who play this game.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Soa Cirri.6012:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Magicarp.5640:

I don’t know if its just me or this “expansion” is getting really boring.

Every day its the same routine:

Save Tarir , Kill Mordy the wooden Mushu , Try and do a TD and hope it doesn’t fail.

Yeah, I mean.. Vanilla GW2 had so much to do!

Like… the daily!

1 worth of LS progression every two weeks not counting holidays etc…

The same old boring dungeons that none was enjoying and everyone was doing only if they wanted to get money for something. At this point I would like to remind to everyone the definition of grinding : Repeating the same content over and over AND OVER again, the exact same and fastest way possible with your only goal being the reward

Aaand.. that’s it pretty much!

Sniff something something… HoT ruined GW2! … something something Sniff!

Vanilla leveling (which was much more satisfying)
Personal Story
World bosses
Map metas and dynamic events
Map completion
Vanilla WvW
Vanilla PvP
Legendary of every weapon type
Hundreds of armor and weapon skins to acquire for Fashion Wars 2

And vanilla dungeons didn’t reward gold, unless you farmed CoF1, but having 8 dungeons, each with 4 paths meant 32 different dungeon paths, which I and many others did for tokens, and fun.

Many people do not enjoy pressing #1 and reaching the top. That’s what all the open world PvE content was, that Vanilla GW2 had.

Also I’m gonna laugh if you compare meta “dynamic” events of Tyria Vs Magumma.

The only semi-serious event, was triple trouble that most pugs would just fail because people were used to #1111 their way to the top and pay to attention to any tactic, since that playstyle did not punish them anywhere else.

About WvW and PvP, you can’t put that as an argument since they are still here. None took them away. (Don’t make this a PvP meta issue, I know how things are, I hope they release a good balance patch, but this has nothing to do with actual HoT)

PS:
Thing is that everyone on the forum is so frustrated because 3 years in Tyria created the illusion that everything should come freely, and everything should be facerolling easy. I’m sorry but this is an MMO. If I wanted to play a brain-dead game, I would install a Single Player game, Lower the difficulty bar as much as possible and complete it half asleep.

PS2:
There’s so much negativity on forum (possible ONLY negative posts), because the majority of players do not bother reading or replying to the forums. They just play and enjoy the game. Therefore if you are here 24/7, you are left with the delusion that the game is falling apart and none enjoys it.

It took me a week or two after HoT to realize that a pretty solid demographic that plays this game WANTS it to be a single player EZ mode game like Fallout 4 or Skyrim.

On Reddit I made a couple posts to that effect and got huge upvotes for it. It turns out that when you feed people Netflix content (things you can play while watching movies) for three years you weed out many of the players who like more difficult games. I do not blame ANet for making HoT harder, I blame them for making GW2 Core so faceroll easy.

Personally, I never venture into any of the core Tyria maps if I can help it and even before HoT I never went to them. I completed world completion once and it was so grindy and boring, I did dungeons but there is only so many times I can stack and press 1 and I also did many of the Living Story events which were only fun for a couple hours and then got turned into press 1 events. PvP and WvW is what kept me interested in GW2 and its still what keeps me interested. Now they added Raids which are amazingly fun as well.

TL;DR – The playerbase for this game is bad at playing it because ANet spent three years reinforcing the notion that GW2 can be played like you play Fallout or Skyrim; watching Netflix and clicking around.

I really like Stronghold… WTF ANet?

Ario.8964:

Hammer vs rifle in usefulness depends on matchup. Vs rev and necro rifle is better without a doubt. Sometimes hammer is more helpful but it’s really not all it’s hyped up to be. Rifle builds can deal with hammer builds fairly easily as well in my experience. Rifle doesn’t need nades, egun and toolkit compliment it perfectly as it gains a ton of hard cc for decaps and damage combos (way more than hammer could give). Combined with mortar and your cleave is insane, I’d argue in most cases better than that of hammer. Cele rifle built right has insane damage, and better sustain than the meta hammer build plus in a point fight it will win every time provided the player knows how to combo and doesn’t waste skills.

Can I see your build? I would love to try something other than the meta Mara Hammer build. I fear its the only viable thing right now.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’m in Ruby now, and it’s about what I expected. Every team has at least two bunkers now—usually double ele, mesmer, or a mix of the two.

I’ve accepted that, as far as solo queuing is concerned, the only way to be successful is to fight fire with fire. I can 1v1 most players I come across with this build, and can even hold a decap for a pretty long time 1v2 so long as it’s not like two reapers or two revenants.

It feels really gross and it’s kinda boring to play, but I guess whatever works, right?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlUUhqrY7WwzLQ7FLTGF9cX37d42lMhl4zUABAA-TJBGABA8AAQf/hDuAAMVGAA

Sad but that meta build is literally the only thing I can play right now that feels relevant in the meta.

Anything else I have tried has too many weaknesses. Condi P/P loses to Diamond Skin Eles and Condi Revs who are everywhere. Marauder Rifle doesnt have the defense/heal you need compared to Mara Hammer.

Really wish there was more play to good builds for Engi right now.

Kaijantoo.5796:

Ohoni is my new number 1 source of GW2 related comedy! Thank you, this is almost like trailer park boys-level idiocy but only a real person (hopefully)!

Please don’t stop making these posts, your BS plus the fact that people actually take the time to respond to you is hilarious!

Comedy gold!

Honestly, the fact that he isn’t banned yet is just astonishing. He puts people down, tells them they are useless and is just a genuine old fashioned troll yet this post is more likely to get an infraction than anything he posts.

Tinfoil Hat ON I am starting to wonder if its an ANet employee posting literally the dumbest and most trolliest they can to discredit the haters.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

dannyteo.5864:

Go look at the last Post Sunfish made and tell me that this is not pathetic? Even in Emerald I get an average 10-15 minute que. Anet refuses to let us que outside of the mists and refuses to add a solo que option, it amazes me how this expansion is progressively getting worse and worse as the days go by, at least for pvps
sake.

Say it with me.

They. Don’t. Care. About. PvP.

They are about marketing the PvP aspect of the game and working it as a “brand” in terms of getting it out there for ESL Pro play, etc… But they don’t care about the balance overall, etc.. Pick any PvP game played at ESL level and you will find the basics covered. Solo vs Team queue, ability to spectate past matches, balance that provides viable play options instead of a handful of meta builds resulting in the purposeful unbalance designed to make players buy the HoT

All good ESPORT games have soloQ – DOTA2, CSGO… oh no they dont… LoL does! Oh wait they are changing it there too.

Looks like your argument just imploded!

This game is lacking many of the spectator features like replays and in-game viewing of matches. Balance, however, is no worse than it is in MOBAs. The only reason people dont notice as much about the broken elements of MOBAs is that there is a ban phase for removing the most broken designs AND both teams cant use the same broken heroes so you HAVE to dig down into the fair ones to win.

Photinous.4628:

Maybe stop farming pugs up to diamond tier and you’ll be able to let some of them catch up.

ding ding ding, we have a winner!

OP complaining that he no-life farmed the system up to Diamond and now there is no one to play. Well, no kitten, you abused and exploited to be out in front. Enjoy being out in front now.

My Queue times are super short since leagues came out and since I dont no-life this game, I have been moving up in leagues at a reasonable rate and keeping with the majority of the population.

Many people are solo’ing through the system as well (I am) so it will take us much longer to get up to a high division. Maybe OP should go solo unranked until the population can put in the time he did already.

How in the hell is Ohani still allowed to spam post on the forums?

If it was only a couple of threads it would be OK but he literally spams every inch of this forum with his whining. Every single time a new item comes out that he wants he comes here to plaster the forums with his little kid opinions.

I will most likely get an infraction for this post but WOW the moderation here is really lacking sometimes.

If anyone didnt understand why Leagues is the strange cobbled together product we got, this thread OP is everything you need to know.

You have to please the reward grinders (same reason we have Match Flopping now) at the same time as the people who want to actually sPvP and get better. ANet is in a really hard spot because of the Ultra-Casual community they have built in the PvE side of this game.

Its endlessly amusing when a group of people proudly no-lifed the content then complain when they have it on “farm”.

Most of the community has not beaten the whole raid yet, I would like it if ANet released clear stats like FF14 does so people understand what a small % have beaten it yet. Also in FF14 you can see what overtuning a raid does to the games population, if you dont play on 2 specific servers currently you cannot complete the raids and it has nearly killed their raiding community.

Also, posting that doing mindless farm gets better gold/hr is totally pointless. If all you care about is gold/hr why not just do the super boring farms you all compare raids to? Oh thats right, they are boring and THATS why they have so much value. Farming trees is worth a lot because, WE THE PLAYERS, find it boring so the supply is low. ANet doesn’t set those TP prices, we set them with our decision to play fun content over boring farm.

Mysticjedi.6053:

I’m seeing the opposite happen. It has been only one case and I’m not defending the system. Actually, it shows how flawed the system is. Faced a group yesterday that were all emerald rank, but clearly weren’t that great. They fought off point, chased people, and just respawned and ran into groups of 4 of us. My team won by over 200 points. Why does this matter. I got 2 pips for beating a group that was clearly awful. The only reason I can figure this happened is because they were Emerald ranked.

So, thank you, kind of, to mmr throwers you apparently are good for something.

Shhh let them keep throwing, I am really enjoying my two pip EZ wins.

Tia.9361:

Helseth lost 2 pips for WINNING. I don’t care what the system says, something like that is going to upset people, it doesn’t matter how much ‘sense’ it makes.

I feel for the OP. In my eyes hes been punished for trying when he should have been tanking.

He lost two because his teammate disconnected so the game counted it as a loss. Silly but thats the way it works.

Also using any Ultra High MMR player to base conclusions on is kind of stupid, Helseth and the other pros will have a VASTLY different experience in ranked matchmaking than the typical player. Longer Q times and skewed matches, thats the downside of being really good.

The same thing happens to really good players in LoL and DOTA2, watch a stream and you will see how long it takes them to find a match and how lopsided they can be when the system goes and grabs a lower MMR player to fit the averages.

Morwath.9817:

Zanther Deathbringer.4762:

Morwath.9817:

Dakarius.3284:

Morwath.9817:

Dirame.8521:

Morwath.9817:

Superior Condi Pressure with Physical Pressure in one Amulet is too much.
Its not that its OP or something, its just better than any -damage- amulet, also it hard counters Druid, which may lead to Ranger extinction for next year again.

I completely disagree. Burst can easily kill anyone running Viper if people actually bothered to focus them.

You disagree that Viper Rev hard counters Druid?

What’s wrong with hard counters? Thieves get hard countered by DH, Scrapper, Tempest, and druid.

Hard counters shouldn’t exist. Everything is wrong with them.
Games are supposed to be decided by skill, not random hard counters aka fail matchmaking.

Btw using Thief or Warrior as argument in any discussion is like a bad joke.

Hard counters absolutely should exist. This is a team game. Part of the skill involved is having a good group comp. Good group comps cover each others weaknesses.

Youre wrong. Majority of player base doesn’t run 5 man premades, which means its not premade game about good group comps.

Also, if you let hard counters exist, some classes will extinct and we will again be back in “cele meta” with only half of classes playing, because rest will be “hard countered”.

Diamond Skill is still in the game so hard counters are here to stay I am afraid.

Other classes can use Viper + Durability to great effect, you can make a really good engi p/p build with Vipers + Durability. It is by no means broken.

The actual broken part is the Rev class itself, that thing is totally overtuned in any incarnation. Herald traits/shield/skills are 100% broken compared to the base class options. Even in the base class Rev can do everything warrior can do but better with the mobility of old eles (who now move like thieves). Rev needed a serious balance pass before leagues started. Guess we get to look forward to 3 months of utter bullkitten two rev, two tempest teams.

What you are complaining about here happen with or without pips. You think DOTA2 cares how close your game was? If you lose a super close one or a total blowout you lose/gain the same MMR.

There are plenty of complaints about the league system that are valid but this isnt one of them.

Coyote.7031:

I think people are over estimating how long it takes to get gear in most MMOs. To get to raiding level can require, depending on the MMO, 1 day to 2 weeks worth of play, maybe 3 weeks. When I returned to WoW in WoD it took one day to get high enough item level to begin LFR raiding and some of the gear I got that day was the same item level as normal raid gear. In FFXIV it took me about two weeks to get enough gear to get into the raids before the expansion, and that was with the majority of my play time leveling crafting for kicks. I don’t think you can craft full ascended armor in 1 day, unless you are sitting on 1k gold right now. Which btw you could do in WoW and FFXIV, buy raid or crafting gear that’s raid level.

Is that gear you picked up in a week BIS? Because thats what ascended gear is in GW2.

I see people make your false argument all the time, comparing the Exotics of other MMOS to the Ascended here. Why not compare apples to apples, how long does it take in WoW or FF14 to get all BIS gear?

MONTHS and a boatload of good RNG both from boss drops and rolls, typically only a single place to get that gear. You have to do both the old and new definition of grind for that gear. In FF14 before 3.2, <1% of the playerbase had ilvl210 gear. Wanna take bets on if more people in GW2 had BIS gear?
I didnt even mention the fact that as soon as they patch a new raid you have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. Thats right, all that grind both new and old, you get the pleasure of praying to RNGesus once more to get gear. Hop on that treadmill boys!!!

I get that you all want to hate this and call it grind wars or whatever but your arguments are just awful. You make these comparisons but dont actually think about them at all.

dank.3680:

My experience has been anytime I’m on a full solo team we do ok. If 3+ guild members on my team I expect a loss because all of the ones I’ve been with or against were clueless.

Ya I second this sentiment for sure. If I dont recognize the guild name as one of the real top tier pvp guilds then I know I am in for an easy match if they are opponents or nightmare if they are on my team.

Beast Sos.1457:

kuritsutian.2987:

Beast Sos.1457:

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

Except newer ascended combinations such as viper are much better than older combinations like sinister. Which is still a creep.

I had a engi in my party solo the red guard because he was in full asc viper. Thats min of 40K ticks on his burns…Thats some serious power creep.

40K Ticks on burn? are you sure it was not the sum of all damage done so far updating on Ticks? it has happened to me as I do the skill 1 with air scepter while on ele ….

He solo’d the red guard. He was doing 40k ticks for fun.

If he had time to solo the red boss you guys were going super super slow.

Please take a picture of this 40k dmg burn tick as well, I play viper engi in BIS gear and I can tell you it never gets to 40k even if you hit BT/FB/IP/IA/Napalm at the same time. If you add all those together you can get a max of 20 stacks of burning (maybe).

Each stack would have to hit for 2000/tick to get 40,000.

If you are going to exaggerate to prove a point that is already untrue at least make it believable.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

meow one twenty.4376:

I’ll mention something that I haven’t seen mentioned so I don’t know how others feel.

So often with a 1v1 on a point you don’t see a finish to it. Someone gets low and they run away. There is obviously a huge significance to this fight, but there’s no climax, no real resolution to the conflict. Yes, the point is what matters since it is conquest, but that doesn’t make me more entertained. In situations where a Mesmer is losing, and then ports out while their team goes through the port and destroys the guy, that is entertaining. A close 1v1 that instantly ends when a +1 comes, less entertaining but it has a resolution.

Basically, I feel like we most often have big fights with off-putting animations covering the screen or 1v1, 2v2’s with almost no resolution. Or we don’t see them because the camera switches from fight to fight before things are finished (not the announcers casters faults, really).

To add to that!

Yesterday the camera was showing Toker fighting a Rev 1v1 at Mine point. It looked like toker had the upper hand to kill the Rev sitting on his own point. THEN they cut to mid point for a fight that clearly wasn’t going to end quick, forcing me to look at health bars to see Toker finish off that Rev in a great 1v1 upset for a thief…

That was lame…

The camera people and shoutcasters need a ton more practice. They look and sound super unprofessional right now and it really hurts the spectator environment. I mute the sound on every stream because I dont need John Madden to tell me that one team is passing the ball while the other team tries to stop them from passing the ball. I can SEE that, what I NEED from casters is in depth meta analysis or gameplay predictions based on experience. Get a couple pros in the booth to do the analysis and play-by-play.

If anyone watches MTG regularly on twitch I feel like its the difference right now between SCG’s amazing commentary and Wizards kitten commentary.

Wow someone holding up TOR as good pvp, I can see why these forums are a mess now.

The resistance bar to CC did exactly what choovanski alluded to, it let you eat a couple CC’s then be immune to the rest. At one point it was beneficial to eat blinds used by noobs because you would max resistance just as fast as a stun but with none of the effects. Hell because of that kitten system almost ALL CC is totally worthless to use and is actively discouraged if you are trying to win. Nothing more fun than a kitten teammate triggering their immunity with snares while you try to stun them.

TOR pvp is fun for one thing and one thing only, Huttball.

Umm I hate to be that guy but this thread is a lot of learn to play type issues.

You can do an almost perfect condi rotation on 4 kit engi while running green lightning. When no circle is up run close and use Blowtorch/Firebomb and nade/mortar as you run to the circle. As a p/p condi engi you should 100% be doing lightning since the other condi classes do far less ranged damage than a condi engi does.

Every successful group I have seen uses 2 p/p engis on VG and they always run green circles.

Also to make hitting with nades/mortar/napalm MUCH MUCH easier make sure you select “Lock ground target to target” option in the menu. This allows you to run any direction and still hit with nades/mortar if you are within range.

Comparing PvE and PvP is never possible directly. You cannot design AI that is as good as a human player. Period.

So to make up for this fact you create challenging encounters in PvE through other methods, by making the smart humans jump through execution challenges as a group. Think of PvE like a dance, everyone needs to know their steps and execute those steps correctly and in sync or you all fail.

Serophous.9085:

sanctuary.1068:

Im not happy with this goldsink. Im not happy with anything atm in this game. Only thing i look forward to right now is living world 3. Oh and let me just mention that the gems dont drop in price fast enough equal to our gold income.

remember the gem market is based on people buying gems with real money and converting it to gold, thus adding it to a “pool” of gems that people can spend gold on to buy.

In other words, for the price to go down, there has to be more supply (people buy and convert gems to gold) GREATER THAN the influx of people buying gems with gold.

Don’t bother trying to explain this to the people who bring it up. Most of them put the tin foil hat on that this XPack is all about gem store conversions that they cant be bothered to understand the system in the slightest.

If they understood it they would realize that a rising Gem->Gold conversion rate means that people are using it in THE EXACT OPPOSITE WAY THEIR CONSPIRACY CLAIMS!

Airship Parts and Crowbars are so simple to get that I dont even.

Seriously a day/night cycle provides you with a few hundred airship parts and a bunch more crowbars, so many in fact that I have never run out of them and have 1.5k Airship Parts and VB is my least run map. The currency here practically falls into my lap so I have no idea what OP is doing.

vlad.4871:

Keep going with this 5 man premade against 5 random.

This post right here shows the lack of understanding in these soloq threads.

THIS IS NOT A 5 MAN PREMADE JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE A GUILD NAME.

You get a guild name if there are 3 people together and they select as a guild team. Your team could actually be a 5 stack but not a guild squad and they are against a 3 man and two solos.

The game needs to give you a clear picture of who is in party at the start because people are clearly not understanding what a premade is and what is a duo or trio together. Nor do they understand their team could be together as well.

Very funny.

Could be worse, Valve makes you win 3 games with the most toxic players in existence for a disconnect. People have taken up to 10 hours of play to get out of that.

The LFG tool needs a bunch more slots for groups. Each maps Meta event needs a slot and kitten RAIDS RAIDS RAIDS need their own slot, preferably with the ability to see more than 4 people before the LFG closes.

VaLee.5102:

@displacedTitan
The issue players have is that GW2 was advertised and designed as a casual game for over 3 years, that’s why a lot of the players started playing it. Changing the direction of where the game goes or changing the target audience would upset such players ofc.

Imagine if you bought a car advertised as a family car, you buy it to casually drive it to work, vacations, etc. Then after 3 years the manufacturer recalls your car and modifies it into a truck. You wouldn’t really like that, if you wanted a truck you would’ve bought a truck from the beginning, you just want a family car.

Thats a poor analogy, nothing you had before was taken away they only gave you new options to play with. I get that people wanted the game to remain super casual and, honestly, it has. You can still play mindless farm EZ mode on the new maps, you just arent as fast since you wont be there for the whole meta. No one is making you play Raids or finish the Meta Events and maps from start to finish.

The unspoken complaint in all of these threads is that other people are now getting loot faster than you can from just pressing 1 for hours as you watch Netflix. You can still get everything by running the new maps and pressing 1, its just not as fast as people playing better than you who are willing to do the whole event.

If people on these forums were capable of self-reflection they would realize the issue is with them and not with the game.

I am going to just copy what I have said in other threads of exactly the same theme:

I never realized how much of the PvE playerbase in this game wants it to be Skyrim instead of an MMO. Everyone here says “exploration/casual/at your own pace” as if that means anything more than pressing 1 as you watch Netflix and your map % goes up.

Everyone has that first game in a genre that they slowly realize isnt the genre for them. Fallout4 just came out for the people who want to wander around a world on EZ mode just to see some sights. Personally I love those games and put 60ish hours into Skyrim and the second Fallout4 goes on sale I will buy it and put 60ish hours into that game as well.
What those games do NOT have, however, is any reason to play them after you have seen the story. There is zero challenge, even on the highest difficulty, and once you have done some number of “oh look a cave.. oh wait its procedurally generated with 3 mobs and nothing here of value” you realize how shallow THOSE games are and quit.
I like that GW2 is semi-casual PvE, good sPvP and has a third game mode of WvW for when I get bored of the first two.

Grim.3487:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Upon public release of our first raid wing today, DnT decided to go against the spirit of our relationship by promoting the speed with which they completed the raid wing without ensuring that those reading their comments were fully aware of the fact that they had been given early access.

I’m sorry, but did I just read that arena net is salty, because DnT showed the community that they could finish the raid quickly?

This is hilarious, both the fact that this is a problem at all, and specifically if you did not want someone to finish the raid quickly, why would you not change the design, to make that harder or impossible?

I’m not sure what I will make of this official statement, but truth be told it makes it seem like the issue here is arena nets design process and not a fault of DnT.

I am not sure you can read properly. ANet is mad because of the #First nonsense and DnT pretending the content was so easy for them WITHOUT mentioning that they had a month of play on it. That’s like a Dev posting #First and pretending it was super simple even though they programmed it.

DnT probably wishes they didnt give out all that salt, they sure are rolling in it now.

Ya I agree with basically everyone in this thread. Spectating in client is a MUST for real eSports. Additionally the camera crew for this game need to get much much better at figuring out where the good action is and sticking to it.

I feel like I am watching DOTA1 again with the horrible camera and awful sparkle light show for the skill effects.

If ANet wants this game to take off as an eSport they need to cut back on the particles by something like 95%. Do what DOTA2 did before Valve lost their mind with new flashy sparkles from their gemstore, have every skill basically look like colored poop with only a hint of an effect. Let the character model ACTUALLY SHOW for every skill used. Why does Burning cover your entire character in fire? Why the hell do Mesmer wells make it impossible to see anything? HOLY kitten TEMPEST OVERLOADS WHAT IS GOING ON!?!

Bryzy.2719:

displacedTitan.6897:

Lots of evidence says that this isn’t the case. Abundantly clear my previous comment about people wanting super casual Skyrim/Fallout type content is spot on.

What evidence? Sources please.

The Druid is the only Espec whereby the developer(s) has openly admitted that he’s shoe-horned it into the role of a healer. Sure, I won’t be so ignorant to say the Druid line can’t be worked into other builds. But by God as poor as they were the existing Ranger builds function better without the Druid line at all.

What evidence do you want that you have not already ignored?

Druids are being used in high level sPvP by good teams. They are being used in Unranked pretty often and doing well. In PvE there are tons of people playing zerker druids and doing very well.

Tell me how many Berserker Warriors you have seen? They are the true worst elite spec and its not particularly close.

Also please where is your evidence for “worst spec?” A quick look around tells you that you are incorrect about Druid being worst but thats not as easy as crying on the forums I guess.

Shen Slayer.3058:

I would think Druid is definitely the worst out of all those. The ranger class has been screwed left and right and now Anet made them a dedicated healing, actually it’s pretty comical.

Lots of evidence says that this isn’t the case. Abundantly clear my previous comment about people wanting super casual Skyrim/Fallout type content is spot on.

Vieteriukko.6075:

There is zero reason not to fix HJ. It is part of the game and first experience in PvP. If not fixed it should be removed.

There is nothing to fix. Hot Join is serving the purpose it was intended to serve, you can test builds and PRACTICE.

The minute you demand it become a real mode with balance you turn it into Unranked, which already exists.

Honestly what do you think they should do to balance Hot Join that doesn’t lead inevitably to a matchmaking queue style system like Unranked/Ranked currently uses?

EsarioOne.9840:

I’m seeing alot of discussion about how mastery relates to burn out, that’s not the case.
Mastery = Millions of experience
Millions of experience = time buffer so people don’t realize the mastery system is non-beneficial and shallow character progression.
At its core, mastery is just something to keep consumers occupied. You aren’t doing anything original or unique. It’d be a different story if the player actually learned the itzel language (etc.) by doing related activities.

So of course you’re burnt out, anyone with a pulse should be burnt out. The content presented in HoT is nothing more than four maps and a new system that displays a yellow bar that fills up slowly. Bottom line, it’s a glorified feature pack. Unless you find that watching bars fill up excites you, it’s normal to be burnt out.

Congrats on discovering that all video games are basically pointless time wastes of slowly making imaginary numbers larger. If this is actually news to you, maybe you need to graduate from the 5th grade first before coming back to the forums.

Honestly its becoming very clear that people complaining on the forums really want a single player game like Skyrim or Fallout and NOT an MMO. The essence of the MMO is grind and repetition, something many people enjoy. If you do not enjoy the repetition go play a different genre, also if you think GW2 is bad for grind PLEASE PLEASE do not go and ruin someone elses MMO like FF14 or WoW since you will discover they are in an entirely different league of true grind. FF14 in HW requires you to run the SAME dungeon ten times for about an hour each time (if skilled) to get a single level, of ten. Then you do the same thing over and over through a couple different dungeons until you hit max level at which point you graduate to grinding Raids or mini-Raids to get items so that you CAN DO IT AGAIN for the next content patch.

Could you imagine if he was actually hard? The QQ on these forums is large enough about how “hard” the HoT maps are (they aren’t) if they gated another event behind some semblance of skill like TD I think peoples heads would explode.

My thinking is that if the Ghost thing is an “infusion” rather than a “gemstone/upgrade slot” item they will go back and make the Poly-luminescent items into infusions as well as the Queen Bee from SilverWastes.

I would pick the colors up you want now before they change them since they look to be at their cheapest, at least according to gw2spidy.

On the flip side, if they dont update the poly items and the queen bee then no one is going to want to use them since the ghostly one sounds like it goes into ascended gear while they only slot into exotic.

I never realized how much of the PvE playerbase in this game wants it to be Skyrim instead of an MMO. Everyone here says “exploration exploration exploration” as if that means anything more than pressing 1 as you watch Netflix and your map % goes up.

Everyone has that first game in a genre that they slowly realize isnt the genre for them. Fallout4 just came out for the people who want to wander around a world on EZ mode just to see some sights. Personally I love those games and put 60ish hours into Skyrim and the second Fallout4 goes on sale I will buy it and put 60ish hours into that game as well.

What those games do NOT have, however, is any reason to play them after you have seen the story. There is zero challenge, even on the highest difficulty, and once you have done some number of “oh look a cave.. oh wait its procedurally generated with 3 mobs and nothing here of value” you realize how shallow THOSE games are and quit.

I like that GW2 is semi-casual PvE, good sPvP and has a third game mode of WvW for when I get bored of the first two.

Every time I see a thread demanding solo q come back because of premades all I can think about is how the REAL esport games DO NOT have a solo q in them.

Solo Q demands are exactly the effect of what OP is talking about. People need to realize that the matching algorithm will match you against tougher and tougher opponents if you keep winning to try and force a 50% win rate LIKE ALL REAL ESPORT TITLES DO AS WELL.

Not sure what it is about GW2 that people think they are special snowflakes in everything but it really needs to stop.

Covis.6037:

PvP’ers got nothing but completely broken meta game this expansion. Can we atleast stop facing premades when queueing solo? Plz… Its getting ridicilous facing the same premade (5man) 3 times in a row when im solo.

Can we get a screenshot of this 3 times in a row vs the same 5 man pls? Otherwise this is more Dunning-Kruger effect of you pretending your opponents are premade-5-man-super-guild-TS-Pro-League-style-coordination-monsters when they are in fact a duo or maybe a trio casually beating you.

Shap.7562:

Salamander.2504:

Out of curiosity, why not just que unranked?

because then you get paired with 4 strangers usually vs a full team of guildmates on teamspeak

Not only is that patently untrue, you rarely get matched vs a full 5 premade BUT you then play hotjoin (practice) and cry that its unfair?

OP are you trolling or really this silly?

Most of the crying is people who cannot handle the fact that it isnt premades beating them now that they can see who is actually teamed. They have moved to the next thing, calling classes op and blaming matchmaking for giving them bad teammates.

Honestly it sounds like the DOTA2 forums.

People either dont understand that good matchmaking algos ensure a 50% longterm win rate or they cannot handle the fact that they are not as good as they thought they were.

I play the same as always. SoloQ is all I have ever really played and nothing has changed since HoT came out. Some OP professions exist but being in a group or against a group dosent change that fact.

Tom Gore.4035:

Hey when you release a full-priced expansion with just 4 new maps, 1 new class and some other minor stuff you need to have some grind in the mix, right?

If you think this is bad take a look at Heavensward. $40 and $15 a month and the only content addition is a new Raid for 1% of the population. You got to grind a linear path for levels so that you can grind that new raid for gear. No deviation, no exploring, grind grind grind. I actually enjoy the PvE in that game and for me it was still a mindless grind to gain those levels.

Masteries are a much better system in that you can do a number of things to gain XP rather than grind the same dungeon path 10 or so times for a level before going to the next linear dungeon path map for 10 more runs and another level.

So much misinformation in this thread. I suggest everyone take a quick look at what your actual traits/skills do.

I must play a different game than the people here. Rarely am I against a full premade as a team of solo q. Duo’s and the occasional triple but there is usually one on my team to balance. I wish ANet would just show a log of how often this full premade kitten actually happens and shut the cry babies on this forum up about it.

Its really just a crutch excuse for losing and its so tiring to listen too.