Guild Wars 2

Cyninja.2954:

So my question stands: What do you care? No matter what is done, mirage will remain viable for open world content. It already is just like most builds and classes which have an autoattack.

I understand (and appreciate) that you are passionate about the class you play. However, I must say, that lashing out in that fashion is hardly constructive or helpful. You are absolutely right that I am not competent in discussing current balance issues of Mesmer or Mirage. This is also why I am purposively abstaining from discussing balance in any shape or form. What I said was a) I disagree with the statement that base Mesmer has better damage evades (simply because it has less evade sources and b) that I consider the Mirage design to be fun the way I play the game. I don’t know how you read “Mirage is balanced, leave it as it is” into this. Sure, I would be disappointed if ANet chooses to change this design to something less fun for balance reasons, but that is completely orthogonal to this conversation. As to balance in general: I am as interested in having balanced classes as anyone else in the games, simply for symmetry considerations. If a particular class systematically underpefrorms/overperforms (or is seen as such), the community mood becomes toxic and unhealthy, which hardly makes an enjoyable environment.

Cyninja.2954:

Since no matter what they do to Mirage it will work in open world pve, who cares?

That’s aproximately what your statement comes down to.

Now since you obviously don’t care about the balance state of Mirage, what do you care if arenanet addresses some of the issues so the build actually works in enviroments where it matters? It won’t affect your gameplay in anyway and at best might make things a little more harmonious and easy.

Its strange what you read into my post. I certainly have nothing agains Mirage being viable in higher tiers of gameplay. I was merely commenting on the original post.

What I am saying is that mechanic-wise, at least from my perspective (melee power playstyle), Mirage is a lot of fun and makes sense. They should definitely improve the damage though, it is a bit lacklustre given the supposed role.

musu.9205:

only reliable mobility is sword ambush , but why you play power mirage in pve ?

Because its fun For condi melee, I prefer Firebrand, much more satisfying.

As to mobility: Jaunt is strictly superior to Blink (stunrbeak aside), at least for the way I play the game.

musu.9205:

IH does not work for power build .

Wouldn’t IH give you more clones with sword?

musu.9205:

and Shards of Glass
first it has 33% rng
20s icd if i remember ?
also it triggers on shatter skill usage not per illusion shattered

I didn’t notice anything about an internal cooldown (not saying that you are wrong). 33% is reasonable given that you can Mind Wrack every 10 seconds or so. The fact is that I always had a bunch of clones around without using any clone-generating utilities, simply by smashing auto-attack.

After playing a power Mirage in open world yesterday for a bit, I couldn’t disagree with the original post more. First of all, nobody is taking blurred frenzy away. Yes, the sword ambush attack is a bit lacklustre in terms of damage (they should buff it), but it provides steady clone generation and allows you to stick to your target like crazy. Clone generation means that you can basically shatter on cooldown, which gives you new mirrors, which equals more dodge and more clones. I have no idea how or if this would work in a high-end PVE environment (and frankly, I don’t care about it a bit), but as someone who plays base Mesmer for fun, Mirage with sword is a Mesmer on steroids.

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

green plum.7514:

I had a lot of fun in the open world PVE with a power Mirage, running berserker gear and sword/sword.

Can you post a build please?

I don’t remember exactly, I was just playing around a bit, no serious theorycraftign or anything. I believe it was Dueling (with Fencer’s Finesse and Superiority complex) and Illusions (1-1-2). With Mirage traits, I was using Shards of Glass and Infinite Horizon (all Adept traits are kind of pointless for a power build IMO). The idea was to use the sword ambush skill a lot and then shatter as much as you can, which would churn out new mirrors, which would give you new cloaks and clones (in combination with sword ambush).

No idea how “viable” it is, but to me it felt like a base Mesmer on steroids. I started playing Mesmer because I like the idea of a swordsmen who blinks around the battlefield like crazy , and I also like the purply blurry visuals, and Mirage definitely delivers on that

While I understand your point about movement on dodge, there is also a reverse side. Dodging in place also means that I don’t need to get back in position. Which is great when you are using melee attacks. Using sword, I could stay on point much more reliably. And the new elite provides more then enough mobility if a blink is called for.

I had a lot of fun in the open world PVE with a power Mirage, running berserker gear and sword/sword. Clone generation and mobility is amazing, allowing (and kind of forcing you) to shatter on cooldown. The amount of dodges is insane. The damage is okish, survivability on full glass cannon felt very good. Some numbers definitely need tweaking, mirrors should be up for longer. I also played a bit as a condition Mesmer with axe, and while axe skills are cute, I really prefer Firebrand as a axe wielding condition maniac

As far as skills go. The healing skill is very lacklustre. Jount is amazing for open world, much more useful than any other Mesmer elite and makes Blink redundant.

This all of course from a perspective of a casual. I have no idea about higher-level PVE or PVP nor do I care. So far, I will start playing PoF with a Mirage and a Firebrand.

Khrux.4958:

Firebrand just gives more short duration burn stacks and a tiny bit of bleed, at the cost of your weapon skills everytime you go into tome.

I am confused. Firebrand brings a lot of attacks that apply burn or other conditions. It also has the tome that allows you to apply burns like there is no tomorrow. Also, there is Quickfire, which is just lovely.

Khrux.4958:

There is no +condi dmg traits and no +condi duration traits either.

Look up the Imbued Haste minor.

Bottomline: what I really like about Firebrand is how the trait synergy works, shaping the offensive support theme. I am far from being an experienced GW2 player, but from what I’ve seen, FB is one of the best designs that ANet has ever produced.

Game design discussion aside, the OP doesn’t seem to know what “Ranger” means. Hint: it doesn’t come from “range” as in “distance”.

A bit of entomology lesson, straight from Wikipedia: "In medieval England, rangers were officials employed to “range” through the countryside providing law and order (often against poaching). Their duties were originally confined to seeing that the Forest Law was enforced in the outlands, or purlieus, of the royal forests. Their duties corresponded in some respects with that of a mounted Forester."

The best tool for balance is game-wide stats on how different classes and specs perform over different game modes. And I hope that Anet is collecting those. Player feedback is mostly useful in terms of quality of life improvements and bug fixing, hardly though for balancing. My rule of thumb is: if everyone complains, the game is probably balanced

I haven’t played in a while, trying to get back to the game for the new expansion. I am currently running macOS 10.13 beta, using the 2016 MacBook Pro (Radeon Pro 460). The performance using the native client is absolutely terrible (around 10 fps on medium settings, 1680×1050 resolution). This surprises me somehow, because I was getting around 40-50 fps on my old MBP with the M370X (thats about half as fast as the new GPU). Is there a known issue with the Polaris cards or High Sierra beta?

I have levelled 5 classes to full elite spekittenerally two weeks ago. I had zero problems finding people to help with hero points. Just a quick question in map chat was usually enough to get 2-3 players to help me out. Its an MMO, try to be social. You’d be surprised how helpful people are.

Even solo you can gather all HP needed to max out the elite specialization in no time. And there are always people to help out with champion challenges. I think that nerving them would take something every from these maps. I haven’t played the game basically since HoT was released (and back then I only played fro 2 days or so due to being extremely busy with work), but even with a fresh lvl 80 and general lack of any idea what I am doing, I quite enjoy the experience of exploring the maps and completing the challenges.

I just leveled my first necro to 80, I used dagger/warhorn with wells, focusing on berserker stats. It went very smooth. Don’t think I died a single to be honest actually. Was also really really quick, but i was using a birthday booster + XP boosters…

I think the value of HoT is ok. Sure, its not a massive content upgrade, but it sets a foundation for many things to come and it shows that GW2 — as far as conceptual development and design goes — is still miles ahead of anything on the market. You need to realise that GW2 is highly experimental. The team explores new ways of presenting content, new ways of navigating content and new ways of consuming content. I don’t play much due to work, and yes, the zones are ridiculously annoying for a solo casual player, but with some patience it really comes together and I start to enjoy the way how the zones live and work.

However, what I really hate is the average player mentality. Its really the players that can destroy anything interesting the designers are trying to do. Mind-numbing farm trains all over the game world, elitism in dungeons, abuse of bugs and mechanics in dungeon and then whiling when these things get nerved — IMO, its the community that is responsible for the gaming becoming less ‘fun’. In the end, the reason why some of the new zones are a frustrating experience is because when you try to do some events and explore new corners — there is nobody there to back you up, because everyone is just running around in a train like a bot.

If you are looking for a quick way to level up and providing you are not a new player: experience scroll + some crafting + boosters and Mad Kind Labyrinth. I managed to get my engineer up to 80 in just a few hours of gameplay. With a killstreak booster, it is fairly easy to get 10-12 levels in an hour in the labyrinth. Just run around with the flamethrower and mark every mob

I kind agree with your point 4. (masteries should be content-based), strongly disagree with 1. (I am a casual player btw). Can’t really comment on anything else.

I am a casual player and I wholeheartedly agree with OP. Mordrem snipers and similar mobs make the gameplay much more fun then the usual mindless faceroll. Would hate to see it changed.

I agree with the OP! At first, I was disoriented and off-put by the mastery levelling mechanics, but now, after few days, I am really enjoying my way around the jungle. I still haven’t completely discovered the first map, probably did only few event lines (none of them completely), and yet I am on my 5th mastery level already and each unlock adds something of value to the game. The level design is simply fantastic, and so are the events. I do not feel like grinding anything, just exploring. Great job Anet!

Kobra X.6903:

When these guys (Anet) see a complaint, they delete it. I guess they figure if no one can see that many people are upset, they can get away with not acknowledging the short comings of this “full size expansion”. Im doing nothing wrong here. Im expressing my opinions.

When they see people ranting like little children, they delete it (which is absolutely correct). I have been closely following the forums for several days now and I never seen a single constructive thread or post deleted.

The weird thing is that although hardcore players represent hardly 1-5% of the entire game population, they are the most vocal group. They are usually the people that write on reddit, forums, blogs and whatever. This means that at least maintaining a status quo with hardcore players is important to game’s image. Its like with motorcycles: I’ve seen people shun a tyre because “it has some weaknesses when driven at lean angle”, even though 99.5% of all motorcycle riders will never ever touch the tarmac with their knees. Its the same here: if a game is known to have “too easy raids at legendary difficulty”, it sounds off-putting, even though 99% of all players will never ever experience that difficulty level.

I think ANet’s approach is a very reasonable compromise. They try to maintain the positive image of their game by offering some things that cater more to the hardcore players, while being in good contact with the majority of the player base. They had their PR difficulties in the past, but I think they have learned a lot over the last few years. Go Anet!

XxsdgxX.8109:

Those people should not be playing a game if they barely have time for anything
Personal life problems of some people should never have any kind of impact on things like this, and it’s a shame cause most of the people who are also enjoying the expansion are playing the game or using their time with other important things, instead of flooding the forums and reddit with whining.

Nice, having a job and a family is now considered a personal life problem You do a very good job showing Bryce’s point.

Ohoni.6057:

I have no problem with them gating story behind mastery POINTS, but I do have a huge problem with them gating them behind the XP grind. It’s just awful. We should be able to instantly unlock any abilities so long as we have the points to do so.

I agree completely. Spent more then two hours in the jungle, only got basic gliding and then 60% to the next level. This is starting to get very repetitive and not that much fun. I also think that locking the mastery behind fake levels is not in the spirit of GW2.

My game crashes every few minutes in HOT zones. This is literally unplayable. Can’t finish boss events like this.

I am a casual player, my first character hit 80 hours before HOT was released and my gear is mostly lvl 70+ greens with some yellow here and there. I don’t really find HOT content too challenging. Yes, its not solo-able (which is not an issue to be hones,t as there are always people around), and the jungle is a huge disorienting maze, but so far the gameplay is quite interesting. This is truly a massive online experience for me, where players need to cooperate in order to succeed.

I haven’t played GW2 in 2 years and I only got my first character to 80 literally the day before HOT was released. As a consequence, my gear is garbage and I don’t really remember how to play. However, i don’t understand OP’s quote about “5 hours” to unlock first mastery. I was able to unlock it after 40 minutes or so.

skowcia.8257:

I agree that graphic is outdated, anyone who says otherwise never played anything outside of f2p mmos. But its okay..graphic is not everything. Howered when it perform like a crap with outdated graphic and then you see another mmo with even more effects, really beautiful graphic with little nice details you know something is wrong. And that is a bit sad for AAA game.

The screenshots you have attached are just a very different art style. I do not know that game it is, but I don’t necessarily agree that GW2 looks worse. The thing is, GW2 never aimed for a photorealistic look in the first place, but rather a softer, more cartoony fairy-tale look (but not as cartoony as say, WoW).

All I want is to have an Apple Metal renderer backend

I like the specialisation system much more that what we had previously! It offers more interesting traits and trait combinations while also forcing to you make choices (due to competing trait slots). I know that some people just want to be able to configure the hell out of everything, but I don’t really see how that gives more value to the game or makes it more fun.

I agree that Anet marketing department didn’t really think that part though. They should have made a decision earlier and communicated it more clearly. It is also true that they seem to lack competence in the PR department, which did bit them in the past. Something for the management to learn from. Such mistakes can be costly.

That said, most of the folks here are behaving like pre-pubertary kids without an ounce of brain. Which they probably are. If you bought the base game recently, return it and get the HoT. Including the base game with HoT is a very customer-friendly move by Anet and something most other MMOs could learn from. All this ‘but I’m a veteran and all these noobs get it for free’ whine is childish and dumb. You all should be ashamed of yourself.

I bough GW2 before it was released and because I am busy with my work, I have only played it for several hundred hours, if at all. I am still very happy with my purchase. And I have pre-purchased HoT, because I think the new changes and content will improve the game tremendously. I am not even sure that I will play the thing because I just don’t have time. But this is a very good product and I want to support the company.

Dinks.2478:

There is zero negative drawback to adding more game options for people who want it. You don’t have to play every game mode the game offers. I know people who have never PvPed because PvP isn’t their thing. I know people who don’t PvE. I know people who don’t WvW. And just like that it is okay if you’re a person who doesn’t want to do Raids. But others do, and we have nothing else to do. There is nothing else for guilds to do.

But this is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. Raids, per definition, are only interesting to large, organised guilds that are interested in PvE and have dedicated players that are ready to organise their life around playing that content. But how much of the GW2 population do such players represent? 5%? 10%? Creating raid content is a major undertaking for the company. I simply do not understand why Anet should allocate substantial resources to create something that probably only a small minority will experience.

I was always under impression that designing raid content was allocating substantial development effort for very small minority of the player base (PVE oriented guilds that could organise raids). It makes sense for a game like WoW (that is based around the idea of vertical progression), but doesn’t really appear justifiable for a more casual-oriented game like GW2. Wasn’t that the original reason why GW2 didn’t have raids?

I have stopped playing GW2 around a year ago, mainly because of lack of time and also interest. But HoT might manage to get me playing again. I really like the changes. IMO, they fix a lot of issues with the game and with WvWvW

Ok, it makes sense. Thank you for your thoughts!

I am far from being an expert on Guardian, but I can hardly see a case where one wouldn’t want to take the Dragonhunter spec. Even if you hate bow and traps. It is amazing for offensive-style play with melee weapons (snares, damage boost, vuln, mobility).

Leaving the name aside for a second, I am a bit confused about the class concept here. The description says ‘back-line support’. And yet the spec is supposed to give guardians more mobility, more flexible and skill-based virtues and also access to other conditions then burn. Bow or not bow, it sounds like the Dragonhunter spec will be a great spec for a front-line character (e.g. sword/torch).

If it were up to me, I’d make the virtue/mobility changes baseline, scrap the Dragonhunter concept and start with something new entirely.

I have the same concern. I mean, ability to reduce cooldowns on yourself and allies? Just that alone most likely makes Chronomancer line a no-brainer for min-maxers.

As the trait system is pretty much being revamped, this could be an opportunity to look at what I call ‘quality of life’ traits. Of course, this is just my humble opinion, but I would be interested in some discussion and hopefully some thoughts from GW2 developers.

The traits I am talking about are ones that give a certain advantage outside of combat and make the gameplay (appear) easier or more convenient. Here are things like flat movement speed increases, perm-swiftness (aka. Speedy Kits), fall damage traits etc. Of course, these traits are all very useful in combat — but my main point is that they provide an advantage outside of combat as well. For instance, the ability to move quicker during a gaming session is psychologically very rewarding and makes classes that generally move slower appear less convenient or practical.

Thereofore, my suggestion would be to rethink this type of traits altogether. As a radical solution, one could remove them from the game entirely, giving all classes the same baseline moving speed. For instance, the movement speed should apply either in-combat or/and as an opener. The fall damage traits should be probably removed, because they offer a situational functionality which can be perceived as too advantageous in certain scenarios and force players to take a specialisation they wouldn’t take otherwise. Or as an alternative, these type of skills should be present in more then one specialisation, so that one could get that situational ability without having their playstyle penalised.

Overall, I feel that the new system (what we’ve seen so far) brings some very positive changes and I hope that the devs will continue to remove the boring “no-contest” traits in favour of more interesting, fun traits and abilities that promote skilful and strategic play. Especially looking forward to more subtle synergies and multi-functional traits (that could be utilised for offence/defence by making a judgement call — of course, with a significant cost!).

That is called ‘responsibility’ If you want a particular play style, you actually need to commit to it.

I think I can understand quite well the rationale behind the changes and I really agree with them. Ultimately, free build systems sound very enticing – in theory, but we all know how many issues they fundamentally bring to the table. By keeping conflicting interesting choices within the same specialisation, as well as forcing commitment, GW2 has a potential to become a better, more balanced game with (paradoxically) more viable builds.

Of course, another issue is about how meaningful the traits are in the first place. There is a class of traits I would call ‘quality of life traits’: these are abilities that serve a particular convenient purpose, that not necessarily has much to do with the game itself. Here are things like perma-switfness, fall damage traits etc, that is, traits that are very practical outside of combat. These traits are an issue IMO because they make some classes more convenient than others for a wide range of players. I would prefer if these traits were removed altogether or changed into a new independent category (such as a passive utility ability/equip). Speed increase abilities should be either in-combat only or serve as openers.

Quite honestly, I think that passive speed bonus as well as long-term AEO swiftness should be removed from the game. There should still be abilities and traits that allow you ‘bursts of speed’ — but those should be only useful in a combat situation. The big problem with all the speed bonuses is that they are a significant quality of life improvement in PvE and WWW and as such ‘pervert’ the original idea of combat mobility. I’d rather see more cool pursue/escape skills but leave the base traveling speed of all classes the same.

I have a dream of a game where PVE and PVP is played quite similarly; however, that would require a completely different game design. I think, there are two ways to go: either balance the game around tPvP and make PVE encounter mirror that game style in the way (such that a viable PvP spec can also dub as a viable PVE spec) or indeed balance them separately. Regarding everything else, I completely agree with Minion above.

In any case, the DPS-centric PVE gameplay needs to be changed. I have no idea how it can be done though (one way that comes to my mind is ensuring that EVERY – and I mean EVERY – spec has virtually the same DPS; what changes is type of support/control abilities and burst/sustain damage type).

I am very happy that you are moving away from the personal-story type cutscenes. I always though they were really disruptive and unnecessary. It was a feature that took a significant time and effort for artists/animators/voice actors to implement and yet added so little to the game (and actually, took a lot from the personal story experience – at least for me. Made me really hat some characters, including my own).

NathanH.1465:

Keep in mind that doing that also means that it will be almost impossible to play with your friends. If you go to the EOTM and your friend comes online 20min. later he will not be able to join you as the instance of the map you are on is full… so if you have a guild mission/raid you’ll run into problems as everyone has to join the map at the exact same time.
So for those reasons I kind of hope they will not do that.

This can be solved the same way as overflow servers do it – you could request the game to move your group/guild whatever to the same server.

This would actually make a lot of sense and I think it would be also very beneficial to the game. They already have the technology to do this – overflow servers. So it would probably be quite easy to implement on their side.

Well, Sword is supposed to be a mobile melee weapon. Thus, it would be interesting to have a trait which gives you a 25% speed bonus when using a sword (in addition to the damage boost). I think that making #3 a full block would be a bit too much… for blocks, Guardians can already use the Focus. Now, the #3 could use a rework, I find this skill to be fairly lacklustre (not very good for burst, narrow attack, root). How about making the attack a bit wider + adding chill or cripple? Then it could be an interesting tactical skill. Oh, and #2 should work without a target pretty please

Icarus.3689:

@ A-net

pay 5 point on trait to dodge per 6.66 s as ranger -> nerf

pay 5 point on trait to dodge per 5s as mesmer/guard -> fine (as vigor build)

Why?

Because Mesmer/guard must actually be in combat and land critical hits to get Vigor. Ranger’s Natural Vigor is an additional permanent dodge boost.

Communication, feedback and organisation (such as quality control, bug tracking etc.) have always been the weakest points of GW2 and Anet. I think this is really amazing that they have realised this and obviously work to improve these aspects. The development process has been a bit lack-lusted and chaotic for the last half a year, but I see it rapidly changing now.

Bravo ANet! Keep it going And don’t get upset about those few vocal aggressive comments – there are always some rude jerks which try to abuse the situation.

Dunno, personally, I think that levelling a Mesmer (I’m currently level 38) is much easier than levelling a Engi . Its quite difficult to die as a Mesmer and while the damage output is not great, I can easily take huge packs of mobs. Mesmers are amazing in avoiding damage. I am using GS + SW/X, where X is focus/sword/pistol depending on the mood.

Yep, I wrote here some time ago that GW2 is pretty much playable on my rMBP now with the Mavericks GM on high settings (resolution set to 1680×1050). Areas with lots of players are still quite laggy though.

I haven’t touched the rMBP for gaming in some time now, as I’ve got the new iMac with the 780M at home now and play GW2 under Windows – and it has no problems with the game at max settings and native 2560×1440 resolution. IQ is quite much better under Windows anyway.

marnick.4305:

Compare to Linux, which is at the whim of the community. That’s a real problem, for example openGL can never, ever, gain the support of directX, simply because it’s impossible to control the community and yet that’s a requirement demanded by companies like nVidia, AMD, Intel and … Arena.net. You simply don’t know what OpenGL is going to look like in 5 years, and that’s a huge problem.

This does not make any sense at all. OpenGL is not a ‘community whim’, its an industry standard developed by companies like Nvidia, AMD, ARM, Intel, Apple and many others. Microsoft used to be part of the group but they left it at some point. The reason why DirectX is more popular because a) Windows is a most popular OS and b) it has a easy to use SDK.

Actually, OpenGL is a more ‘reliable API’, at least in theory, because its an open standard. In contrast, DirectX is not a standard.