Guild Wars 2

Back when they were around 3g : 100 …. and people were complaining all over the place, I had said that they were actually UNDERVALUED and accused Anet of artificially suppressing their inflation.

Given the relative inflation of most things being like 5% or less M-o-M (which is actually a lot BETTER than our US dollar for instance), things like Ingots, Herbs, wood, even cotton surprisingly. ….all things I figured would have doubled by now but are actually looking a lot more stable than I predicted.

But Gems are no longer in that region. According to the inflation of most “Staples” (Silk & Linen excluded because there’s too much randomness in their Supply equation and no consistent means for players to focus on farming them yet). Gems should only be about 6g-6.5g at this point but they’re way higher than that.

One thing I’ve noticed while out harvesting, is just how many people all have BL harvesting items. If I had to guess where most of the Converted gold went that cause this “gemflation”, especially in the wake of them finally getting rid of the Transmuting disparity, it would be for things like that and not actual Aesthetics like outfits & hats. It stands to reason that people who spend a lot of time going Node to Node, will have Gold to burn also. So that’s my theory on why it’s now “out of hand”. (no I don’t believe mr. smith is actually implying that 9g:100 is the most ideal exchange rate given the remarkably low inflation level of most other commodities) ((All he said was that the mechanics of the player exchange itself is still “working”))

That said, I will implicate them in being too reluctant to do something about making Cloth supply more player-driven and less RNG driven b/c coincidentally; it’s one of the few things that might still be driving Disposable_$$-IRL players to exchange for gold because anyone with a full time job cannot possibly find all the Silk & Linen themselves over a few hours of play in trying to make Damask every day…. (and 1 hour of IRL work will buy them, what? 8gm * 9G{-30%} / 6.5g{per 300scrap} = a whole week’s worth of silk bolts )

Your primary Material is Ori Ingots.
…which are time gated basically by daily Node resets.

IE: no there really isn’t a “fast way”. There is only “Efficient” ways.
If you want a fast way, get a part time job and buy Gems instead
The exchange rate is now incredibly generous thanks to Gemflation

Scorpion Over Lord.9036:

Ok, heres my question as it was brought up that there is an endgame treadmill. Why do you NEED ascended armor??? Unless you are doing level 50 fractals the only thing you gain is a slight defence boost, if you are relying on that its not worth it. You can easily do fractals with trinkets and just weapons up level 49. If you are looking at just having the best its considered a goal, not something you get over night. So please explain why the need to have that ascended stuff, exotic gear will do as much good, weapons will be a 5% increase in DPS so those are worth it, and yes i know they are cheaper, but you will only ever gain from armor in fractals. Set goals, work towards them and achieve them.

Because it is Best in Slot and many of us are GW1 players who EXPECT BEST IN SLOT TO BE ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE. And before you assume: Is it NOT accessible to me? lolololol, I came back to 500 gold in assets b/c the stuff I was hording before I took a break exploded in value. So this is not, and never was a Whining “I want it now" thread. This is about Mathematics and the Economy and fairness to all classes.

It’s other people who I am most concerned about here. Perhaps that’s a puzzling insane stance to you. But to me, it’s where most of my thinking throughout the day dwells.

Heheh … Make game with really short max Projectile range (1200)
… give every melee build in the game ~1000unit gap closers

Yep, it’s pretty funny. Though I still feel a little safer in WvW than I did against Scavenger Skelk 1.0 in catas

Xhulifactor.2417:

I’ve been around but never posted. all the “fixes” I’ve seen were more involved, when all they really need to do is make dodge interrupt. my only problem is that.

Pretty much this …. I don’t have this issue on almost any other character. I really don’t even have it on Greatsword where I’m always dodging right in the middle of an attack animation. And I imagine they’ve GOTTEN bug reports about it by now. They had the opportunity to tell us WHY it hadn’t been fixed during the Dev-Community talks but they ignored it for some reason. What we really need here is someone who can just corner one them at the PAX convention and finally get a real answer.

Even without it turned on, I got downed 3 times in a row yesterday just against the stupid Fire Shama because using dodge after pressing 1 + 1 = still not fast enough for the stupid attack queue system to realize you don’t want to keep attacking but instead want to dodge. ….hurp durp…. programming issues that were completely solved back in 1994….

Enus.2781:

So i’m thinking of continueing my Ranger

Im gonna user LB + for WvW,
and I want power

LOL

I just need to know if the choice to make a ranger will be a bad one.

Sounds like you main Thief or War…… you should probably stick with that

Longbow’s strength was always IMHO in it’s Crowd Control utility.

I would be content enough for the rest of my days if it never had any Spiking potential. It doesn’t need it. What needs changes are how many stacks of CC a ranger can put out , ….and specific to PvE (which I know you didn’t make this topic about, but since I’m on that tangent….) would either errode “Unshakable” or just bypass it depending on when the skill was “timed”.

Though that could also eventually apply to PvP too if they’d just add some real interesting mechanics to PvP itself instead of this Conquest mode crap. ….“Mann Mode” from Tf2 comes to mind which basically mimics L4D when one of the really good players gets the kitten ed Tank body. …they could even have a 25-player arena like that where 5 teams FFA moba-style with each captain being one of the 5 guild lords who always see through stealth & resist conditions too (for obvious reasons). Then there’d finally be a real role for Power Rangers and Engineers.

Honestly,

I don’t get everyone’s obsession with making Longbow higher damage. I made an Ascended Healer-Stat one myself and then also crafted Wings of Dwayna so I’d say I’m almost as invested in Longbows as someone who made Kudzu. IMHO, if we WANT an actual long distance Sniping Bow?…. or one with big DPA numbers? I think we should be asking Anet for a whole new Weapon like the Flat-Bow (for sniping …. which would require a lot more skill and literally put us in first person Reticle-View like a real shooter does) or the old Gw1 standard that only 33% I.A.S. builds used; the Hornbow which had inherent Armor penetration. Anyone remember trying to make a working build around that thing? Even on Warrior/R, I had a heck of a time of it :p (don’t laugh, I once got 20 kills with it in F.A. by exploiting Avenge)

In PvE it should be split …. still too exploitable in sPvP & WvW just b/c pet mechanics are still so weird, imbalanced, buggy, and inconsistent in general.

PS: It’s “Role”, not Roll

Shotzo.6209:

Is it really that bad for anything outside of pve content?

It’s bad for PvE too unless you “charge it up” with Might/Ferocity gimmicks first and then swap back to it. Either way, you’re going to be doing a LOT of repetitive weapon swapping if you don’t want to be a low DPS leecher.

I like it. I definitely agree that the biggest shortfall of Ranger’s design atleast in PvE is that it can’t stack boons without jumping literally through hoops. And also that the “Combo” system in general is just TERRIBLE or too short-lived for the Ranger. In general, not nearly enough of its weapons even support Boon stacking from Combos that most other classes can do all day long without sacrificing choice in weaponry.

I get why they did it…. because it would “break” Conquest Mode even worse than Beastmaster did before that was nerfed. But this is a case where a PvE split was desperately needed while the Community-Dev talks completely failed us b/c the community itself failed to recognize it. All they cared about was Hating-the-Pet dependency and all the bugs that came with it

PvE is all about Might Stacking.
Try it, the difference is night and day.
It even works if you’re NOT full Zerker geared

.

a couple combos that work for instance: drop a FireTrap right on a mob then use Warhorn & Jungle Stalker shout. Try leaping through Fire fields and then getting hit, that also stacks might and is the reason Risen Pirates also hit so darned hard

…there’s a few other ways also but they require signet gimmicks and REALLY limit your weapon choices b/c the class just wasn’t designed very intuitively there and has bad “Combo” persistence in general ….hence why MOST rangers you run into in PvE are the slowest Bear-Bowing DPS trash you’ll see in any game —-- NO guarantees however that you can do all these in Dungeons. Some bosses do very undesirable behavior if you move even inch from where the Group leader tells you to stand.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

In Abaddon’s case the vines were just large hairs not thorny vines….

+1.
While it was revealed that both the “Gods” and the Seers (who created the bloodstones before the gods used them) both channeled Magic that leaked from the Dragons, none of Abbadon’s involvements in the 3 Cataclysms he was behind (Lord Jaddoth, the Charr & the Searing Cauldron, or Vizier Kihlbron) matched in any way this “jungle dragon”. Shiro’s is even harder to pin down as that was a release of Dwayna’s power stored in the Emperor (right after it was transferred to him) AND it was basically on the other side of the hemisphere where many suspect the “Sea Dragon” is closer to

I think even saying someone in their art department is a big hentai fan would make more sense than this theory since most of Abbadon’s recorded history all took place around Orr and N.W. of Vabbi, ie: no where near Maguuma.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Doesn’t each of those items plainly state “Soubound on Aquire” in their description? That would make this a reading comprehension problem, not a game bug.

No I’m pretty sure I’ve bought other Exotic pieces that didn’t do that. Or if they did, atleast I was able to Forge them into something else

….the character instead of the Account

Every other Item in the game purchased from a vendor, especially those bought with special currencies, are account bound allowing bank transferring between characters. I bought some Light armor on a Medium class for an Alt while I was milling around in WvW and when I tried to move it over, it said it was Soulbound to that Medium armor class. At the very least, there needs to be some Warning Text placed on these Vendors.

Thank you.

Vespertilionidae.5018:

I crafted a set of light ascended armor early and would not be upset at all if they lowered it to 50. I’d be very happy for my alts and everyone else who didn’t have to deal with this issue.

THANK YOU!

Ensign.2189:

They’d raise the refine costs of the other materials to 100 before lowering this back to 50.

In fact, they should raise the refine costs of the others to 100, and I’m kind of curious why they haven’t already.

And what is your Reasoning for this? What do you say to long time Casuals and Critics of Ascended Gear treadmill who point out that the marginal increases in Stats aren’t worth 10x the work Exotics require? You want to make it 20x the effort? Why? Do infusion Slots increase your Gold-Farming 10x-20x? …Is there some secret to Fractals you’re not Sharing?

Do you just really really like Treadmills?
Are you a former WOW / Lineage / Ragnorak / FF11 player?

No it’s because Loot Drop rates of Leggings in general seem lower. Good/Useable Chest pieces seem to drop fairly often but not good pants. I ALWAYS make pants first for the Green/Yellow recipe stages when leveling up any Armor discipline. And they usually sell super quick and recoup most of the money I spent getting to that stage.

LordByron.8369:

There is only broken RNG everywhere.

Streaks everywhere..
Someday people will notice that despite we tend to notice only rare occurences, its becoming too obvious for occurencies that should be rare to be instead the norm.

I personally get almost no exotics from forge… like 50 attempts 1 random exotic.

There’s something in gaming called “Streak Breaker” code.
It can be used to stop unlucky people from Rage-Quitting games.
It’s very simple to program. And any company who doesn’t put that extra effort in, is inviting their players to “Suffer” or look on as someone much luckier than them makes threads like these. Not implying Anet doesn’t know how to program either, obviously with their “Anti-Farm” coding that penalizes us for getting good drops in the same area for too long, they obviously are already fans of programming this sort of thing in to stop “certain Streaks”. …..and no this wasn’t something they came up with to fight bots, it actually was added to Gw1 atleast a year or 2 before farming bots even existed.

If it ever was added, they’d probably have atleast a 2:1 output penalty when what most people would expect would be a 1:1 ratio. And if you look at the prices, 2:1 would basically break any and all “savings” (IE: advantage over just using the market instead as you already mentioned) that the 1:1 ratio would have guaranteed. Meaning we’d have to get into some really weird fractions like 3/4’s or 5/7th’s to make it worthwhile

Sariel V.7024:

Not without a vicious outcry.

This never made sense to me. There’s no direct way to use Gems to buy more Scraps so there’s no “legal tender” precedent here. Furthermore:

When the game first got rolling and Soft Wood supply was completely over-saturating to the point they added another log required for refining AND temporary forge recipe to eat up as much of the overstock as they could, they didn’t suddenly say “Okay you are all indebted to us 25% more logs (back-Logs… get it?) now for all the Crafting progression you’ve already made”. When courts change a precedent, statutes of limitation on damages apply automatically to all cases that came before the decision was overturned (unless it was a human rights violation which obviously this situation IS NOT). There has to be some direct pre-existing cause for that level of entitlement which assumes that the buyer couldn’t possibly have known all the risks and at the same time proves that the acting company was actively concealing all evidence of said risks. …..but enough legaleese, this is about trends. Supply is actually trending downwards and will continue in that direction if the Dry-Top geodes & whatever-else tiny-zone event farming is any indication of where Anet’s new story direction is.

.

Also, where is that Dev Digest on their plans to “Change/Expand” on the end game Treadmill? …. let me try and find the exact quote here where that was leaked out with other LS2 info…. ah yes, here: " http://i.imgur.com/o0v29zi.jpg " …..this isn’t just a material disparity, it creates a Class disparity too. So where is this “Team”? Do they understand how inter-connected all of this stuff actually is? Anet’s Transparency levels are at an all-time low over a 10 year history. If they WEREN’T, then I’d already have all the dataming evidence needed to prove that the market is definitely not “Bearing” this obscene disparity.

darkace.8925:

If you’re asking for a logical reason why the required amount of a material that cannot be harvested is twice that of an equivalent material that can be harvested , I’m afraid there isn’t one.

Okay so I didn’t miss anything then? They never came here and commented on it?

Alright

As for that other guy’s “Market Bearing it” stuff… mmmm I’m not too sure about that? Are you sure you’re doing your math right? It’s not 2.25 silver per bolt, It’s not 4.5 silv per bolt, it’s 6.75 per bolt and 100 bolts total. That’s almost 7 gold per day. Nothing else in the Ecto refinement resource pool comes anywhere CLOSE to that. Just because the initial cost looks smaller … 2.10 to 2.25, doesn’t mean it’s “bearing out”. Infact, I’d say it’s Bear-ing out of control and could use some Bulling instead (from Anet adding some Mystic forge Conversion).

I get sad every time I have to go craft for extended periods of time.

I have no problems farming monotonous little routes over and over again alone in the wilderness. It’s practically all I did in Gw1 and I stuck with that game for 7 years. I’m not an uncreative person either. I’ll spend weeks coloring a single Character + Background or moving vertices around and rigging some bone joints over and over again. I don’t mind that stuff. This crafting system however…. some days it feels more like “work” than actual work feels like work. ….if any of that makes any sense.

I hope it did, ie: +1 to the OP

Ascended refinement… lookin’ at all of ‘em right here. …Leather, 50 Thicks = 150 scraps…. Mith, 50 = 100 ingots, 50 Eld Planks = 150 logs —- so why then, is each silk bolt made from 3 scraps and then we need 100 of thos? That’s 300 scraps per day to refine and they’re costing more than Goss. While the next most comparative resource, Thick Leathers, are ridiculously cheap still. I don’t recall anything justifying this before I took a break, Silk was fairly cheap but not too cheap. Lemme “Spidey” it real quick.

…oh god why… What were they thinking? Well the price hasn’t come down infact it’s still trending steadily upwards. Obviously I wasn’t around at the time it exploded so I didn’t hear their * cough cough * skritt reasoning so that’s why I’m asking. I just did a CM explore, we cleared nearly ALL the mobs. Y’know how much scrap I got? 7 scraps of silk. Awesome…. yeah I can totally see why we needed a sink this big …. * not *

Anyone remember why this was made this way?
They musta said something about it… assuming Smith still posts here?

Lace.9472:

I am absolutely dumbfounded.

As a long time ranger throughout GW1 and GW2’s lifetime I have the utmost confusion with which direction the Ranger is going in.

The best Rangers have ever had was an extremely specific teamcomp BM Barrage pet for FoW. And the ability to solo farm using traps in “some” areas, though this was always considered an exploit. That’s it. No place in UW HM, no place in DoA HM, and even when Rangers were invited into top tier content, it was using a specific build that revolved around another weaponset or second profession.

Coming into GW2..

I won’t even go into the changes that the ranger has gone through in GW2 – because it will remind me of when the short-bow was viable (quicker shots and longer reach) and that would just tear me up. We all know the current state of them:

- Weapon sets don’t mix (you have to go GS if you go LS e.g.)
- Traits need a revamp. Warrior has one trait that gives both 20% cooldown on rifle and piercing projectiles.. we have to separate traits for this….
- Our bows have little use in dungeons or fractals and therefore anyone wanting to use them have little use in comparison to another class.
- It still completely baffles me that to utilise the rangers mobility we need to… put bows away and get out the melee weapon. ?? You can legitimately kite better with a melee set up that a ranged one.
- Will pets ever be viable in top tier content

I mean the changes we want arent to improve things, to make the fun, more fun. And it’s not. There’s nothing fun about being kicked out of dungeon parties or searching for ages, there’s nothing fun about bringing nothing to zergs, there’s nothing fun about roaming with bows and getting your kitten handed to you. We want to be VIABLE. It’s not like we’ve ordered a medium-rare steak at a restaurant and been given a medium and are demanding our money back. We’ve been given a wet noodle on a plate and want a VIABLE meal. This isn’t an unfair request.

I want a viable build (where at least one weapon is a bow) for WvW, PvP and Dungeons/Frac. The reason I made this post is, looking at the history of the ranger I am extremely pessimistic they can deliver on what I consider to me a basic requirement. Can anyone else see things getting better?

An extraordinary post.

Mainly because it includes the reality that this wasn’t a 2-year problem…. it’s now going on a 10 year problem. Ranger was always considered “too pivotal” in very small structured PvP arenas primarily at the expense of it being viable anywhere else. No other class except Assassin ever had this problem to such a pronounced degree at launch and any class that got close, was given several “I Win” skills later on because the Devs just felt sorry for them. Why have they never once felt sorry for the Ranger? Getting them to admit that it was the most Voted on for CDI by a landslide margin, had the appearance of pulling teeth. I’ve never once in all my years of watching development teams, seen one that pulled the Red-headed Stepchild routine this thoroughly on a class they themselves fathered. It makes no sense.

The only possible explanation might actually come from them all previously being hardcore DAoC fans … which is where the word “Nerf” actually originated from BTW after “Archers” received a downgrade to their bows so egregious that they all compared it to the Nerf-Brand™ product that fired Styrofoam arrows.

kiwituatara.6053:

If you still don’t like the ranger, legendary and ascended gear are now account bound, you can easily switch to a warrior.

Well that’s a bit more encouraging…. thanks for the tip! Assuming we ever get some new zones to map, I’ll come back and give that a trying out.

Sorry to see that there hasn’t been any REAL improvements though. And I’m even more sorry to see there’s still people who think we need to “learn 2 play” just because some of us believe the class has been underperforming all this time. Same people saying the same things a year ago when I was running circles around them with triple-gapclosing pure Melee setups (and doing fractals/Arah without dying). I blame it on them never actually playing Guardian or Mesmer and having truly “Carried” a whole team by themselves. If they had, they’d know what a real class FEELS like and is really capable of.

/back-to-lurking-mode

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Those patchnotes are fake according to anet.

That said, this skill is clunky with the cast time. Get rid of it.

They didn’t say the entire thing was Fake, only that some jokester had mixed in parts that were fake on top of the ones that were real. And given their history, it’s pretty clear that any additional Ranger nerfs are always REAL. Especially ones that nerf a “Perma uptime” on anything. (nevermind the fact that you had to give up Melandru runes in order to slap on enough +Buff duration runes to make the Swiftness Perma).

If you’re gonna go with that tangent, then why not just include the FULL PvE meta with it??
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Splinter_Weapon
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Poison_Tip_Signet
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Incendiary_Arrows

….that’s what WvW is afterall, PVE with zergs..
(infact the biggest thing holding Fort Aspenwood’s meta back was the PvP splits)

I support the OP’s conclusions, and would encourage him to take the next step once truly meaningful PvE/WvW changes fail to be delivered in the next 6 months — by finding a more rewarding hobby besides MMO’s. (I’m not naming mine, but I will say that more time away from MMO’s helped me discover I had a professional potential I didn’t think was there after so many failed attempts in the past). Take all that determination ya have, and actually turn into something that really inspires people.

It wasn’t flooded by unique poster Proposals though. It was flooded by the same exact people adding 10-20 proposals all saying the same basic things while accomplishing NOTHING as far as naming an actual direction/theme that the ranger needed to go in.

Every little proposal was based off some personal grudge or brainfart each person has in one little specific part of the game they do the most of … which if they’re STILL actually playing ranger, is either Conquest, pointless WvW regen Roaming, or soloing Long-Bear like a bot but with slower reaction time and only slightly better environmental awareness. There might have 2 or 3 other people who ran Fractals too but that’s also a niche.

I never even got a chance to make a single formal proposal myself because of it.
If the Devs are real professionals about this, they’ll start a second round of this instead and just narrow the entire discussion down to the things they were already planning to do themselves anyway and just focus the entire discussion around that instead. And again, some flood control would be nice so that the forum-illuminatti (who post more than they actually play games) don’t bogart the entire thing.

Once we got beyond the whole “Animal companion as an Aspect” discussion, the entire thing just got away from me too and I couldn’t even keep up with it.

This is where I think they really need to add Flood control so that certain threads like these only allow 3 posts per day from each contributor, forcing equal contribution from everyone instead of a handful of the most vocal people dominating every issue while making it more difficult for everyone else to “keep up with it”.

I’m giving up at this point. I really thought the “Semi-Stow” / Aspect idea Allie mentioned (B/c obviously they also had their own ideas going into this and weren’t as interested ours unless they were super low hanging fruit) — actually had some potential if done right. …but there’s no way it’ll be done right now with 30+ pages to have to read through and the nagging reality in the back of all of our minds that it will also be balanced around Conquest mode instead actual the PVE meta that everyone else clearly Voted for.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

*Instead of simply stowing your pet*, you could turn your pet into a ghost (or phase shift it, if you don’t like the ghost thingie),

I’m okay with this. And * they * have a lore framework for this that isn’t "Ghostie":
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Celestial ...which is shared by the Norn in a manner of speaking, as well as Glint’s Aspects within the great alchemy where both the forgotten and asura studies were concerned . Such presence could just as easily be shown manifesting in the pet’s physical bodies. In technical application, it simply requires reskinning the animal model with a different Alpha translucency layer that was carried over from the GW1 engine.

thefantasticg.3984:

Allie Murdock.8152:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?

If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?

Just musing!

Some? No. Many many people. Just have a gander at how many threads have been created in the subforum about replacing them with something. If perma-stowing during combat = aura buff I am so hard for it that if I was anymore I would explode with infinite unicorn rainbows from every orifice.

Yes, but as someone with actual Graphics/particle creation experience, I just cringe at the “Resource-Creep” attached to it. Yes there absolutely needs to be UI indicators associated with it. Yes I get that they have 40-80 artists on-hand to help. But….. the real timesink there is just usability testing & graphics driver nuances. It’s a technical mess TBH unless it just re-used assets that are already “polished”

Allie Murdock.8152:

mtpelion.4562:

snip

When Stowed, the ranger should gain the “Aspect of the [pet name]” effect, which provides unique buffs based on the pet family and specific pet.

mtpelion.4562, you have some really great ideas in your posts. I noticed your sentiments about Ranger pets right now are shared by a lot of the community here. The quote is an idea in particular struck me as interesting.

If we weren’t able to have an option to keep the pet permanently stowed, would having an option like you suggested make it feel better to toggle the pet? It seems like the kind of thing that you could develop a strategy around (pet could be out for one reason, then you switch it up to catch opponent off-guard).

To answer this question Shortly and Succinctly (B/c I think we all GET why the pets aren’t stowed permanently even when we wish they were while doing Dungeon-Trap Puzzles). The “Aspect” doesn’t even need to be a separately programmed. IE: you don’t have to separately write a new skill table for the Brown bear, and then another one for Canines, and moas ect. There just needs to be 3 different tiers of longer-duration “Combos” coming from the pets while we’re either adjacent to them, or while they’re in passive/heel mode. (and it should probably stack with Spirits, there’s no reason to remove or redo sprits). And combos simply meaning applying all conditions or boons (but especially BOONS) that would make the most sense for each animal == effectively turning them into buff-bots that we actually have an incentive to keep alive

And I have to Emphasize the word “Combos” here because it’s the only niche in the game that other classes don’t need to monopolize (besides Elementalist perhaps). It’s also important to mention COMBOS again, because it’s one of the least “robust” aspects of the Ranger class and most of them honestly felt like an afterthought granting much shorter durations than all other classes gain from their Combos

Nike.2631:

Those Aren’t Holes… They’re Opportunities!
The above steps create several gaps in the Ranger trait array. These holes would need to be filled with new effects, hopefully enhancing the diversity and effectiveness of our weapons or utility skills. While this represents additional work before the process could be considered complete, its work that should bring the Ranger more in line with expected performance levels and increase competitive build diversity.

Some elaboration on this please? I get the concept… I think we all know that scattering “companion” buffs throughout all the other trait lines just confuses people. And frankly seems like an intentional hurdle put in place specifically to PREVENT us from specializing into the ‘old Turret rangers of yore’, or stealing Sword&Dagger thieves jobs from them like we did in the first game. This is even more apparent when attempting to make a working Spirit build for PvE for instance. (b/c it was still too good in structured??).

But how can this actually be manipulated in a way that avoids the return of Bunkering condition Beastmasters while giving our power archer/axers a real role in WvW & Dungeons? I think most people understand by now that a lot of those current functionalities, (especially conditions/CC used against Bosses/GuardianZergs) are useless to them because they are redundant from other classes and don’t really do much to begin with or fail as “boons” b/c they DONT STACK. And the don’t stack, b/c they weren’t built around PvE. They were built around 5v5.

Regeneration & Vigor for instance. In PvE, we don’t “feel” either of those, we just “feel” stuff like Stability & AEGIS b/c it actually does buy more time for us to focus on DPS’ing & stay alive until our #6 Heal pops again. We also want a lot more access to Might because it helps end the fights sooner which means less worrying about when our next Troll Unguent can be popped for the kind of regeneration we actually NEED. And we want more Quickness b/c … well, it’s QUICKNESS. It’s what our class should have been all about from the start in PVE.

What I’m saying is, there still seems to be a huge disconnect between what people expect, and what little gains can be made by only shifting TRAITS around. You mentioned filling in better traits after doing this compression and shifting. What kinds of effects are we talking about for these New traits then? I think that’s where the discussion really needs to trend if we expect to actually bargain for anything beyond Piecemeal here. IOW: You need to take the reigns on that and not just leave those holes up to them to fill

Allie Murdock.8152:

The bold is not necessarily true. In unique situations, we are willing to split skills. Regardless, that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode. Sometimes feedback is pertaining to very specific scenarios in different game modes. Sometimes there is a way to balance the class that doesn’t hurt the other game modes, but helps to bring it up in the areas where it’s felt to be weak.

Knowing a players primary game mode is very important for us to understand where they are coming from. We also want to make sure that all 3 game modes get the love they need when it comes to balance.

If that doesn’t make sense, then here is an example: Sometimes one skill can be particularly good in PvP. If a player that plays solely PvE feels that skill is weak, it would seem strange if they didn’t specify that it is in PvE when we know that it is already good in PvP.

Does that make sense?

It would make sense…. except that we were told this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/It-s-time-to-balance-PvP-apart-from-PvE-WvW/1801535

That month (April), only 4 skills were “split”. The following update month, June, only 2 skills and clone HP’s were “split”. The next split after that (excluding bug-fixes) wasn’t until December and only used on Necro->M.o.B. And I can’t find anything beyond that. (other users can replicate these results quickly by searching the phrase ‘in PvP’)

Adding to this confusion: the Ranger has already overwhelmingly been voted a “unique case” once the votes were tallied, having over 800 mentions in the voting thread. Was that “feedback” accepted at face value? In the past year, the vast majority of changes to ranger over that time period or rather since April, resulted in real reductions in WvW & PvE effectiveness that were confusing to most players, until some core Conquest players explained how those changes were aimed at structured PVP only.

Saying: “unique situations” only, and then “that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode.” just confuses me even more in trying to craft any solution that has chances of being implemented. It feels like a hurdle against PvE’ers, honestly, where only very subtle “buffs” that walk around PvP on egg-shells, will be the best possible proposals due to our area of experience being such a dividing factor, in your own words.

Really Sorry, hope this isn’t seen as dragging anything off-topic. But would it be possible at all at this time to get a really rough estimate of how many “splits” your team would be willing to consider as opposed to last time? And if any of them would be directly related to how the pets function? Currently there’s a HUGE conflict here because the first couple pages of proposals I’ve read, would all be overpowering in PvP

The Lost Witch.7601:

This may very well be sarcasm, but in case it is not:

Censoring ideas is probably not the best way to summarize, since players will keep making the same posts then, as they assume that their ideas have not been mentioned before. On top of that, you’re putting a lot of trust in the summarizer to be aware of design-consistency. And most importantly, these threads have tremendous brainstorm potential, a process that is limited severely by sticking to design-consistency.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that….

It was intended as more of an “unwritten Guideline” for best anticipated chances of successfully having one’s idea “talked about” among the team. And they don’t HAVE TO know what those design patterns/philosophies are ahead of time, they just have to pay attention to and follow the lead of contributors who already know them; mainly Conquest mode veterans who are most familiar with why Ranger got changed so much in the first place. It’s very simple actually and has been a long-standing tradition since 2005

Lahmia.2193:

After successfully trying out a shout build on my ranger I kept wondering why the shout “Guard” has a cast time. Traditionally shouts have never had a cast time and no other shout in the game has a cast time. Rangers also have, arguably, the worst set of shouts of the 3 professions that use them (ranger, warrior, guardian). Perhaps someone can fill me in as to why this is the case?

B/c R/P’s were considered “too good” in GvG by people who only wanted to run WAR / Ele’s and couldn’t stand the idea of having to recruit decent counter Necros

(r/p = ranger/paragon)

does this really surprise ANYONE at this point??

I’m laughing my kitten off meanwhile. Yeah it would nerf my ONLY build and pretty much my only consistent source of Herbs/food in the game and my ranger would literally be starving to death soon if this was a more realistic game. (LOLZ, like minecraft?). But that’s not why I’m laughing. I’m laughing b/c it’s so far beyond cliche` at this point that it’s a hilarious run-on joke now. …Oh and also b/c I don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Detharos.3157:

Apparently Allie confirmed these notes were a fake, made by some usurper. Guard will thankfully remain as it should be.

No where in that post was it specified which specific changes were the “fakes”.
Given their history, all ranger nerfs are usually 100% dead on, like clockwork.

Laurelinde.4395:

… an illusion of interaction….

Heheh.

I really want the CDIs to be more than a paper exercise or a PR gimmick.

So you’re suggesting the entire thing be something other than a political fire drill?
Well that’s really going to come down to the capacities of the Ranger community at large, isn’t _it? For the most part, many forum-going members have shown capacity for rapid adaptation. Therefore the “format” doesn’t matter to them. Arbitrary limitations have never stopped them before, why would now be any different? And I’d argue this is what the Devs want. It’s the most expedient means of addressing this huge all-encompassing problem without actually addressing the format problems themselves and where the bulk of all Design considerations are ultimately always aligned according to Jonathan Sharp (due to efficiency concerns, which have just been re-confirmed once again here).

If you are already having doubts, I’d highly suggest checking out other non-affiliated forums to get a clearer sense of what this will really require of the community as a whole to break that format monopoly.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Following up on this: If we are to cut anything to make our summaries shorter, where would you suggest we cut these words?

Cut every single thing that is incongruent with their primary Skill-balancing team’s design philosophies over the past year. Starting with (for example): “Let me just stash the Pet and get a big fat base damage increase to my range attacks!”. This is only an example, but it’s an example none the less of a massive series of arguments that are NOT 100% compatible with all 3 game mode types simultaneously. Every single reasoning for it or thread related to it, is best left out of the discussion as well. It’s not for lack of effort or “quantity” either that those threads have been unanswered for more than a year. It’s for design-consistency.

Jocksy.3415:

Send bug reports when it happens – I’m still doing 1,5/2k maul with my hybrid build… don’t think they’d willingly nerf burst builds to lower damages than non-burst…

My “hybrid” used to do atleast 3.5k mauls. …usually more to lower armor glassies.
There isn’t any other class that’s ever gotten as many stealth nerfs as this one in Anet’s history so when someone suspects there’s more, there probably is

Bran.7425:

Wonder what keeps delaying them?

saying specifically what it is, might constitute a breach of their recent & more strict “allowable speech” terms of service towards forum access. It’s not because Ranger is largely seen as one of their biggest follies and they simply need more time to prepare…

Nike.2631:

Demanding that everyone have read and compared every post to their own position before making their proposal is simply not a reasonable expectation.

I fail to see what’s too “hardcore” about this. Infact I’m frankly getting very fed up with people who just burst into on-going discussions without even understanding the most basic principles of what’s being discussed, then expecting their words to carry more “weight” just because what they say is more redundant. I’ll be the first to admit I got a straight D- in reading comprehension in school but learning to ‘be respected’ on the internet changed that inattentiveness pretty fast. No, that’s not asking too much for people to at least skim each page to get a general sense of why certain overly-general proposals were already made obsolete by Iteration. Anet claims it loves iteration. Therefore so should all of its design participants….

Durzlla.6295:

Oh look, another thread talking about all the problems we already know are there…. Would you mind coming up with suggestions on how to fix this

Yeah. I got the only one that’s actually going to work:
STOP PLAYING. (like I did). Stop giving them any more money.

They’re playing nothing but PR musical-chairs now days, even their response to latest quarterly earnings: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/89901-ncsoft-4th-quarter-earnings-report/
…was all spin no-real-hope. (in a year when not only the DOW is doing way better than it actually should be, so is the Nasdaq!). And most of all, stop generating positive Datamining sets for their convenience and pre-biased expectations.

Even most ‘indy’ games have better PvE balance than this one does. STOP being one of those statistics of players who keeps on playing a game long after they no longer found it really enjoyable. Stop making excuses. As soon as everyone stops making excuses to keep logging in, they’ll have no choice but to stop making their own excuses.

I’ve said this for a long time as well…. the largest failing for Ranger utility, is in its Combo system. The duration of combos it creates, are both much more limited in Duration, and Accessibility: than either Elementalist or Guardian. And none of it results in active condition removal or buffs like the Mesmer’s. In this regard, Ranger was setup to fail completely in PvE b/c what access it does have here, was already considered too strong in Conquest-PVP on top of all the other bunkering/sustain it could achieve.

The area however that they never actually considered and were most short-sighted on here, was Pet initiated combos. There needed to be 3 levels of combos related to every pet type. A mostly autonomous base level 1 combo that the pets are scripted to share with the ranger on a regular basis or with c/d. A position based one that can occur every time the pet is in close proximity to the Ranger. And the 3rd level which we already have, but is currently still way too weak in its effects to be considered “good” in PvE. That 3rd voluntary level would need the highest boost. In some cases with certain pets, effectively restoring the Zypher meta by regularly granting the Ranger quickness. (or more stacks of Might or even STABILITY in some cases)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Associated Risks
<What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI>

This portion is mostly useless without Peer-Review. I’d request 1-post response allowances for Peer review, otherwise there’s no real discussion taking place. Just a popularity contest for bad ideas from WoW/EQ that don’t fit EITHER of the main themes of Guildwars2 or Guildwars1. In nearly all cases back in the Wiki/Guru days, the community self-moderated itself in this regard and prevented discussion with Gw1 developers from being an endless war. The community should continue to be trusted to maintain that status quo until proven it cannot.

It’s still not until Wednesday.

…still amazed here by how many people don’t understand that. It’s no wonder this class does so abysmally with so many clueless “patrons” in its ranks. Atleast Warriors can follow simple guidelines and copy information over despite being dumb as posts/rocks/ourPets.

Nike.2631:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

So where are those new CDI topics?

Starts Wednesday.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-New-CDI-Topics/page/3#post3648144

This thread slipped through and didn’t get shut down with the other three.

Quoting this just to contrast it against how many people will completely miss it and keep posting bad ideas that will never be considered b/c they can’t follow simple instructions

Jocksy.3415:

and you will have no problems.

Clarification on this:
you will not have problems getting on the couple of teams per week that do form up.
You WILL however have lots and lots of problems actually completing the “Content”

Good luck!

Nike.2631:

The reason is this round of threads is supposed to actually come with a primer and some readiness to participate on the part of the Devs… and they’re clearly distracted by something. I’d rather wait 48 hours for clear weather and a clean lift off than to flub the launch.

You think that’s really going to make a difference here? All that really does is buy time for more talking points to be made around how they’ve already made up their minds they’re going to “balance it”. They may not even tell you ahead of time what the plan will involve. But do you even really need to hear that part directly from them? When you already know that it will be a continuation of the same exact approach they’ve been using all this time.

Here’s how it will go:
Lots of fancy words for highly situational (read: Conquest only) mechanics, IE: sustain, underutulize, compress, and some really obscure word for nerfing recharge overall or “equalizing” it between skills to make you think you’re getting a better deal when really the only point of it was to nerf PvP performance some more.

All of which is completely unrelated to PvE & WvW performance and has no bearing at all on the primary drive that the vast majority of their player base feels towards trying to have a viable “Ranger” class. And whether they actually realize it or not, every single thing that every Ranger in this thread keeps begging for, is a NEW CLASS that is separated completely from the “Conquest mode” ranger that currently exists. And they’re just not going to get that because it would require a PvE(which includes WvW) variant of atleast half of the Ranger’s current skills and major pet buffs as well. (or pets becoming buff bots instead)

And that won’t happen because it cuts into their Living Story focus too much.
There’s no room for compromise here. They just won’t do it. They already told us that.
The saddest part, is that this was actually OUR FAULT, not theirs.

“RACE” …. which race

Pretty much the only Race that does benefit Ranger in any fashion, is human b/c it’s the only one with real active condition removal that the Ranger was never properly given despite being the 2nd or 3rd best class in the first guildwars at dealing with conditions.