Guild Wars 2

Been experimenting with this whole “Piercing Arrows” Trait and I gotta say there’s a lot of Skill-index hiding in this mechanic. It’s really too bad it’s tied too heavily to some really poor-DPS “Skill Bars” though. …IE: too much of the class is based on the Auto-attack & #2 spam attack while the “skill shots” like the 10xVulnerability & Interrupt skill are on too long of a cool down. Or with the Shortbow… stacking Conditions that are underpowered or have no effect in PvE on many Dungeon targets….concussion shot being the only real “skill shot” in that category and on an even longer recharge that’s cut in half against everything that’s not a “minion”. Pfff…

Anyway, Piercing arrows is interesting b/c it’s actually a bit harder to “Aim” for maximum DPS output against multiple targets in some cases than just aiming an LMG in your average Pray&Spray FPS game is. It’s got some potential here. And “Quickdraw” is only a passive trait which means it’s supposed to suck. So what we really need here is something also equally skill-indexed involving the Pets that cuts these recharges by 40-66% … much like how quickness works: IOW, a big downside while you’re taking advantage of it…

Whatever it is, we need something that brings a big new level of skill to LOTS of Ranger builds (not just the 1 or 2 that can solo Lupi or w/e …we all know what Anet does when 1 single build is dubbed “too good”).

Nah

We need some automatic Server-Merges here. Anet needs to stop hiding behind the “Population” (ppl sitting in L.A. != Activity) and just merge a few of these servers so Dungeons can get rolling again and no one has to use out-of-game tools just to find groups.

That, or give ALL of us a free Transfer on the August anniversary and we’ll do it ourselves.

I cashed out too…. had made a whole pile of it 6 months ago when I took a break from the game (and forgot to sell it off back then or make other T6’s like I planned to originally.) Back then I think it took a little less than 2 gold to amass that much. …lol.

The problem with Crafting in this game…
…and this is something I discovered when it launched and my “guild” was so hyped up get a foot hold in the game through crafting….
…Is that there’s really no “multiplayer Test” to it. No interactivity on a personal social level between people other that Farming Zergs.

IE: There’s nothing that gets people to spread out in smaller groups and cooperate sorta kinda almost like the Nicholas daily Scavenger used to have us doing.

.

Now Lindsey did say they wanted to do a Scavenger type thing for Precursors and I’ll assume that b/c we haven’t heard from her in forever that she’s fallen back into that old pattern of all-work no-communication she fell into on GW1 before Stumme had to fill in. And don’t get me wrong, not putting her down for that. Hell I didn’t think Cooking was going to float at all in this game with the limitations that were put on it (only 1 food consumable at a time??? Were they MAD?) but I’m happy to say I was wrong and there’s LOTS of niches now in cooking that actually are profitable.

…but just being profitable isn’t what this thread is about. Day-Traders are a lot more profitable. And Long term investors can be even more profitable assuming they’re psychic and were hoarding stuff like Crystaline dust that we used to be able to make for a pittance 6 months ago…

No this is also about engaging means of casual PURPOSE I’m assuming.
For that, you really need interactivity on a personal level through shared goals.
…puzzles, clues, and the cumulative crafting specialties of your friends put to full use. NOT stuff that a single power-gamer or power-trader can do on their own 1000x a day. Something more like the dailies that brings people back every day that greatly narrows the scope of the RNG outputs based on where it happens.

We’ve never had a system that can do that in GW1. Zcoins Dailies were sort of in that spirit and they got people to PUG together… but they were limited in scope of activities. There’s Guild dailies & Laurels now too but those are pretty useless too when crafting itself is still at the mercy of both the Flippers and Anet’s own involvement in Shortages and GROSS price fluctuations.

It’s a really … really … really difficult conundrum. Even if they did something about the short-term flippers like soul-binding on a 3-day temporary span, every material that’s bought on the TP, it wouldn’t stop the long-term “Warehousing” hoarders have even more potential profit over the long term. And ultimately may not even be worth the wasted space on Anet’s Databases to accommodate a huge increase in “Hoarding-for-Profit”.

.

This thread is really starting in the right direction through. It’s identifying why this is a problem that can’t just be solved with all the options already in Anet’s arsenal. And even if we knew where to start, bringing it all together might be too difficult.

Sage definitely seems to have a wider level range. Maybe even ~27 & up…

Nike.2631:

If Irl is finding them in 40-50 PvE side, then the corresponding hunting ground is going to only exist in the eternal battlegrounds. The borderlands harvest nodes never get above tier 3 that I know of. Right around Stonemist is T5, so you probably want outlying areas of EB. Look for platinum, then look for plants near it.

That’s precisely what I thought too when he mentioned WvW…
(boy, borderlands really need some work… stinkin ghost towns)

Ah, thanks for the ProTips…

I didn’t say that what Anet added was actually going to work of course
…just that it was more or less an admission

Being an Herbal specialist in this game actually means something right now and the market is reflecting that a LOT harder than it originally did 8 months ago. I think it could really stand to be sped up greatly though. For instance if they gave us Functional mounts that actually broke 66% travel speed (instead or the useless e-kitten mounts that other MMO foist upon their players for needless grind)… Then they wouldn’t have to just go to the straight up Wellfare of making Herb nodes so common than they lost all value…

But in general: Those of us who need niche food, have a duty to “RP the Durmond Priory” by memorizing what herbs typically “grow” most in which zones. Rosemary for example I’ve found quite a few of in the more “rugged” ~40/50 zones… Lower Lornars, Blazeridge(Along with Dill!), Dredhaunt, Timberline, & Iron Marches. If you have multiple characters all parked in the same zone, you can hit every node in rapid succession on each one until it’s time to start over and then the nodes will all have respawned again within an hour…. (nike just said the same thing first, and better than I could). Needless to say, if one of those zones finds you on a hot-streak of the Herb you’re looking for then there’s no reason to go to any of the other ones, and VisaVersa for when you’re having bad luck…

I was like the first invitee… I’ll try to step out of my comfort zone and get something rolling in it every other night. Though I don’t know of any public TS servers to make the trickier paths any easier… and I haven’t had the chance to see the new AC after they did whatever “remodelling” they did to that one. (I’m guessing Detha was made a lot harder than was necessary?).

But I do know almost every path of every dungeon except COF, and used to carry a guild of casuals through quite a few of them… Hope to see some of you there!

The problem with Gems is… it’s not actually “Player Driven” when like 40% of the exchange is “Gold Sinked” and Double-Taxed or Triple-Taxed by the double & triple whammey of how much is taken back out by NCsoft first in the Exchange itself and then again by the 15% TradingPost sink. You can’t call any economy “player driven prices” when 2/3’s of the Price was artificially inflated by a huge Penalty Tax or Gold-Sink. Is it any wonder so many people go to Gold-Sellers instead??

Vayne.8563:

Why do you think “most” players do that?

“Most” players left either 2 weeks, or 2 months after the game came out.

Most of them b/c they raced to End-Game, crafted everything they could reasonably afford, and then burnt out instantly b/c the only thing they were good at was power-leveling but the Dungeons were too “hard” for them to understand what was happening b/c they came from WoW. …and then they immediately returned to WoW for Pandas & Pokemon just like everyone said they would.

Do the math 3 million sales in its first year… Hardly 300,000 still playing with any regularity at all. Yeah they got their $60 dollars worth b/c a Buck doesn’t go very far these days and “MOST” of them all got atleast 50 hours of playtime just like they’d get out of the next COD or Asn’s Creed or Bioshock or w/e. But the argument that a lot of people are leaving now, doesn’t hold any impact compared to how many left long ago.

Here’s the ugly truth that the other GW1 fangeezers won’t tell you…
GW1 started out HORRIBLY. (and not just b/c I was a “Melee Necro”).

I couldn’t even play it past Iron Horse mines…. and its cash-shop REALLY WAS PAY TO WIN at the time(the dirtiest little secret of all). I just gave up on it until Nightfall came out. Now as far as the spritual successor to my Melee Nec goes in this game, it’s already started out a LOT BETTER and surprisingly it even outdamages my Ranger & Guardian in a number of unexpected situations.

But I’m not kidding. GW1 when it came out was NOT a PvE game. The PvP’ers will try to tell you that’s what was so great about it. But guess what… I was a PvP’er myself, I PvP’d in every genre that allowed it…. RPG’s like Diablo, FPS’s since Doom1, even RTS’s since their earliest days on Kali. And I just found GW1’s PvP incredibly Dull, and unforgiving, and lacking appeal. Even when I PWN’d someone, I thought it was junk. About the only format I really enjoyed at all was Costume Brawl and FortAspenwood (what WvW’s was supposed to be).

The important thing is…. over the years, GW1 went from being a terribly un-intersting or frustrating game with everyone standing around outposts for 30 minutes tying to find a Monk before they could start (b/c all the monks were out 55-farming solo) …. into a modern marvel of Convenience and Depth.

It obviously took a LOT OF WORK to get there. Anet could do it again with this game too, but they have to stop catering to the Cash-shop & Social-FAD flash-crowd mentality (all these stupid fill 1 single zone with a Farming Zerg “updates”) as much as they are and get back to doing what they did best: Making the best Quality-of-Life game they possibly can

Aeonblade.8709:

I do not think there is a way to keep both pieces of gear and swap the stats. That would invalidate the point of forcing people to buy transmutation crystals.

It’s usually the PRIMARY stats, not the Upgrade slot that most people Transmute for…

I think a better question is: Why don’t we get “Insignias” from salvaging Masterworks & Rares? We used to get insignias off of gear in GW1…. And you just KNOW Anet’s going to bring back “Perfect” salvage kits some day anyway. So they might as well just bring back Insignia salvaging as well.

All I want is the wings. (b/c FYIAD)

As long as those aren’t pure RNG, I’ll be happy enough

.
My Favorite GW1 bow I ever got, the Silverwing which is also very Draconic, was pure RNG… so I don’t totally hate all RNG. I got it quickly, on only the 3rd time I ran Frostmaws. I probably wouldn’t have been as grateful for it as I was if it something I had to “casually grind” 3 months for instead like my monk’s ZoMing mask was. (b/c then everytime I looked at it all I’d remember is the grind instead of the cool and laid back folks from my guild who took me through Frosts)

PS: This festival starts ON my birthday…. I really hope that’s a good sign (though it probably isn’t b/c I can’t remember the last time I got anything good for my birthday)

the uprising.6317:

…And even LoL is ruined quite a bit from the catering to casuals….

This is how you know someone’s only fishing for Reactions… when they invoke a game that was intended all along to be the Angry Birds of MOBAs. If he was serious he’d be invoking (no pun intended) HON or DOTA.

Upon doing so, all credibility is lost and not even parallels to GW1 can be invoked.
LOL is also only a “competitive E-sport” in the same way that Soccer is… mass following b/c everyone can understand it and most kids in the world were able to play by exactly the same “meta” that the “Pros” play by. IE: the complete OPPOSITE reality from what the OP’s main argument attempts to assert towards “Skill” and catering.

The game automatically uninstalls itself and tells you to go Outside for a while.

Aeranima.2853:

How is speed is treated in the game? Personally I think it is brutally mistreated. It is just one thing about it I do not like and it is the way how battle slows you down when engaging combat mode. Not only is the speed already bad in my opinion but is not the condition ’’Chilled’’ and ’’Crippled’’ enough slowdown that you have to implement a script\feature that slows you down even more dramatically?

I am very interested in what people have to say about this.

Best,
Fred

I already asked this in the Dungeon forums…. expecting a big lively discussion and dozens of reasons for it. But it seems like no one could argue against it there (when if you make the slightest comment that one of the most gimmickey bosses in any dungeon gives visual mis-queues, you’ll get MASSIVE BACKLASH from tons of self appointed experts on the topic).

For WvW?? Yeah, we obviously need this mechanic b/c there was too many split-runner teams in GW1’s more objective-oriented PvP that just had NO GENERAL COUNTERS until Anet nerfed them or their mana sources completely.

In some areas of PvE hoever, I haven’t seen any good arguments for it and I hate “Suppression” in ANY game regardless of the reasons for it. It completely ruined City of Heroes and I personally think that game wouldn’t have been shut down yet if they hadn’t gone overboard with it.

All tiers of Dust should be a Salvage item from certain weapons just like it was in GW1.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

…gotta love how Anet broke so many things for this game that used to be perfect and we get these HUGE THREADS that go on forever, every month about what should be done or what the speculators & fankids think shouldn’t be done…

GIMME A BREAK. And stop “fixing” things that weren’t broken in the first game

Am I the only one who doesn’t like too many updates too fast?
Among all the content that’s come out, I’ve probably only tried 10% of it and missed everything else b/c I wasn’t done replaying all the launch content yet….

Gw1 was the same way if you counted the PvP updates which TYPICALLY also affected PvE but usually in a bad way… And then there was other ppl who were mad b/c Nightfall came out “too soon” after Factions and so many ppl weren’t even done grinding up all their Faction points at that point (& then the Nightfall skills totally WRECKED the JQ/FA & AB metas which ticked them off even more).

Even later in its life, like just 2 years ago, I thought all those Mes & Ele changes were coming too fast and they really could have spread some of that effort back towards classes like the Paragon & Ranger who needed it a lot more.

Now hold on your say…? that’s still wanting the same quantity of changes?… Well think about it for a minute. When you change one class or one set of enemies too much at once, it can also change everything else that interacts with them. For instance when you change Orr too much in this game, it can potentially unbalance a lot of classes that WERE considered balanced before that. Or… just adding new content that changes things too much … like a Festival that introduce major powercreep or “market-force” … or possibly a new zone or dungeon that adds new tiers of gear or attributes.

So that’s why I think its a lot more important to spread out the changes to a wider spectrum but in smaller steps spaced out evenly so that everyone gets a chance to adapt. And if we could get more “Splitting” between PvP & PvE, that would really be terrific too :\

Khisanth.2948:

ilr.9675:

There’s a place for it. But I don’t think CM’s armor set was that place.
I’m having trouble coming up with a better design myself, but once I think the sketches feel “complete”, it’ll get fully Maya rendered and then hopefully Anet will one day follow Skyrim’s lead and let us “cotribute” such projects to their Art resources through Steam-Workshop…

That would be unlikely. Consider the fact that GW2 itself is not even available on steam.

They did have a (tentative) partnership with all 3 chapters of GW1 however and they could be launched and tracked that way too. And even if that never comes to fruition, well they used to have plenty of fan contests to submit designs, boss names, etc…

(bottom half is sketched, just need to find the right inspiration for Mantles & Gloves)

Chopps.5047:

It used to be hard but they nerfed it so everyone and their kid brother could get Dungeon Master and feel special.

umm it was only “HARD” b/c it was glitched+broken.
Nice memory there bub

SkyChef.5432:

ilr.9675:

Still haven’t seen an Invite. Who do we have to contact to get one directly?

Sorry. I though I’ve sent you one already. I will do it again when I get home unless other’ve sent first.

Ahh sorry disregard that, I just noticed your other Guild [KAT] and am more interested in that, plz! (I’ll try to catch you in game now that I know who to ask)

Peetee.9406:

Many of the dungeons in this game are simply too long, there are too many trash packs and mobs have too many hps.

Yep

Hate to glaze over all these more long-winded posts b/c they really are well-stated and do a great job of not-generalizing things, or in Erasculio’s case, generalize exactly the right culprit.

But this is a really a simple problem to state. Big dumb Hitpoint bars that 2-shot you, …just like the Titans at the end of Prophecies where everyone was running Winter gimmick…. instead of nukeable & engaging hordes of Enemies who spread out and kite/heal. So naturally you end up with a real slog that most of the “Fun people to hang out with” all avoid like the plague. Meaning there’s no one else doing it but the humorless elitist Grinders in a lot of cases. Where is the fun drrping around? Where is the casual weekly 2-hour FOW “clear”? …. we don’t even so much as have Daily Challenge missions (for Storage Runes & Zcoins).

It’s REALLY easy to fix too…. just replace ALL of these “Silver” mobs in the long spans of Dungeons that most people usually Glitch or run past… with big hordes of smarter Veteran and Underling mobs who actually work together like the AI of Paramilitary spawns in GW1 did. …Only keep the Silver mobs in certain bottlenecks where a required objective is. Don’t just leave the entire map coated with Silvers and Champions…. that’s the entire reason those mobs don’t feel unique, there’s just too darn many of them and they don’t die fast enough to be worth their drops. (nor do they overwhelm the players in a way that makes anything but Zerker gear the FOTY)

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

With Hrouda on the Living Story team

He got moved?? W T H
Does that mean there’s a job opening?? B/c I don’t see any.
Y’know some of us would do it for Minimum Wage (& maybe Dental).

Is redesigning these things hard? Yes.
Is it a thankless job guaranteeing non-stop complaints from the community? Yes.
…Is it some position they can just leave out for the meantime and hope no one notices?? HECK NO.

All it really comes down to, is just being a Good Listener. …instead of trying to be the Evil Dungeon master in a competitive game of D&D.

Merus.9475:

Why rares specifically? There’s already a demand for them. There’s far less demand for uncommons and masterworks.

OR, they could just take a lesson from themselves(GW1) and let some of the Weapon-Drops we get way too many of also, salvage into every tier of Dust…

Also: does anyone know what the AVERAGE outcome of 250 Incandescent —> Crystaline is supposed to produce?? B/c if it’s anything below 33, then we’re getting totally screwed here by the Forge… (same goes for Luminous, I got 50 Incandescent from it yesterday and just wanted to punch someone)

Astral Projections.7320:

At a guess, most of the farmers right now are in Southsun, which has only a few T6 mats, not Orr. Less people farming in Orr, less T6 mats supply in the TP.

Who says they’re going BACK to Orr?? Everyone (but me) hates Orr. It’s part of the reason so many casual people quit this game right after release. People wanted an Epic End-game. What they got instead was an ugly rehash of the Realm of Anguish when what they really wanted was a F.O.W. or something that felt familiar to WOW

Starting next week is the new farm, the farm for Dragon Festivus. Even I’m going to be doing that one b/c I want those frikkin wings! …And I bet it won’t be Orr that has the quickest drops for that.

You don’t need a guide when it comes to food. You just to use your brain and this database:
http://www.gw2db.com/recipes/cook

…to know what to make at every tier. And you use the Trading-Post to know which ingredients to AVOID as much as possible (stuff like Chilis, Dill, Garlic, Rosemary, Yams, etc) …and follow a couple other simple rules like: Never make Dyes to level up, & Always make as many “snacks that are used in making meals” later as you can. Especially the ones that use really cheap ingredients like Account-Bound bulk stuff, and Taters, Berries, Shrooms, Scallions, Leeks, etc… Baked Desserts are usually the best route here except that Egg prices & Chocolate have been high lately.

So in most cases, you have to actually GET OUT THERE and complete those heart quests for Karma Vendors who give you the Account Bound bulk ingredients. but once you do the right ones, it’s really fast leveling… IE: make sure you have a good “Runner build”.

…

Hope you saved a few Gems off to the side for Bank Slot upgrades, you’re gonna need ’em

Nike.2631:

I get charged cores from fractal runs (lower tier is MUCH better for this -level 4, 6 and 8 seems to be the sweet spots). I’ve also piled up a few from CoE. They are chest drops so MF is not desirable or helpful.

Ah now we’re getting somewhere… That’s an instant Admission right there on Anet’s part that they already knew the drop rate was too low. The fact they included a Wine-Substitute on the Laurel vendor also indicated partly that they know there’s a problem here when it comes to certain Loadstones in general. … there’s a few glimmers (pun intended) of hope here…

My question is: Is there any place that could possibly farm Shards from to make into Cores?

shimmerless.4560:

He’s a bit like Lupi….

Stopped reading right there. You clearly don’t even know the exact physics of either.
Lupi’s “red circles” are wrong half the time and then ppl get 2-shotted by the wildly misdirected projectiles…some of which “home in” regardless. Alpha’s indicators have the same “mis-queue” problem. In order to avoid the biggest Spams, you have to stand INSIDE the pattern of red circles, not waste endurance trying to get completely out of it. That makes it a broken Visual. And certain builds can just gimmick their way around the entire issues while everyone else who does what the encounter instructs of them…. just gets worn out or dead too quickly.

Dempsey.8760:

If you are the 1% of the dungeon runners that believe coe is not an easy dungeon then maybe you should reconsider stepping outside of the comfort zone of cof

I don’t run COF. Infact it’s the last dungoen on my list with only 1 path completed so far. Every other dungeon in the game I’m 3/4’s on or 4/4’s on. No idea why you attacked a strawman here when the bulk of your post actually supported the evidence of “Gimmickery” and needlessly drawn our & recycled mechanics

Rama.6439:

if they don’t fix the loot tables for T6 mats within the next month or so, people will be gone to other games.

That’s hardly a threat though…
Most people who bought this game when the hype for it was big… already left.
That’s why all the servers report “population” (characters in database) instead of Activity.

And there’s also not been many other places for them to go. Keep in mind that TSW was also a hype train that fizzled. PS2’s numbers went straight into a ditch after launch b/c it had Big “broken Meta” problem just like WvW here, and MUCH bigger Optimization problems. StarWars might have gone F2P but if it wasn’t worth sticking around in when it had a more content-focused model, then it sure as heck couldn’t be expected to see big gains after everything revolves around Micros. FireFall has a more “honest” means of dealing with exactly this sort of problem… but human behavior dictates that it won’t work in a lot of cases, Google the “J.C.Penny” effect to understand why… And Everyone knows ahead of time that the Elderscrolls MMO will be a horrible joke.

So without getting too far off the rails here… This happened a few times in GW1 as well and they just introduced new event type things over the years to band-aid up the population issues. …Or in other cases like with UW, nerfed Ecto rates completely taking their prices from being even with Shards where they made the most sense, to costing more than twice that.

.

For a company that’s talked as much as it has about “Iteration” …they sure don’t seem interested in revising small easy to fix things unless it’s to make them harder to get. And it’s never threatened to put them out of business before so it probably won’t change anytime soon. (I just wish they’d explain WHY more often like they always do with PvP changes…) …So don’t expect a real fix until the new Expansion or whatever :\

It’s always been flawed. It’s supposed to be a staple Material like Wood, Metals, & Leather. Yet it only drops like scales/blood. It never should have been as common as it was from Orr farming. Now Anet has to fix it the right way. They were going to have to fix it anyway once they started adding new Expansions and Storylines that didn’t take place in Orr…

ProTip: The people who say he’s not so bad…. are using the Exploit that gets him stuck & stunned on the Geometry. Don’t do that. Lest you forget what happened to all the people who were exploitnig COF.

Whelm.9072:

So, listing under that only serves to drives the price down.

I’m an Altruist.
…trying to lead by example…
won’t bother pointing the moral pitfalls in your approach b/c that wouldn’t be very altruistic, would it? Instead I’ll say: I’m sure you can figure it out on your own.

SkyChef.5432:

And yes she is so powerful in Open World that all bots using rangers for gathering materials.

Pretty much says it all….

Low skill index.
Low potential. …hudda hudda…

LoneWolfie.1852:

Any devs want to respond. At all?

We know what the problem is…. We don’t need them to tell us what they think.

IoW: All other T5’s that are forged into T6’s…. use the same 250 at a time pattern.
But all those Mats can be salvaged from Gear-Drops

Dust can’t. Dust is found like Fine Materials which are nomrally: non salvagable, & only requiring 50 per up-tier Forge recipe… But you need 250 Dust to uptier for T6. And the last time I tried that, I got 15 Cry-Dusts out of 250 Incandescents. It’s basic Math. And Anet is really really good at misplacing Decimal points…. (IE: never attrbitue to malice what can be explained by clumsiness)

This is why so many Focus & other weapons in GW1 salvaged into Dust (& even Granite). It kept Dust demand in Check even when players weren’t spending half their time farming Fog Nightmares like I did….

…

IOW: Orr being overfarmed was a Fluke. Don’t listen to these people who say it’s just supply and Demand. they’re all wrong. Dust has ALWAYS been flawed from the very beginning. Its sources in Orr NEEDED to be nerfed b/c it was too common there. But as a Staple crafting material…. Incandescent fails the basic math test that Silk, Wood, and Leather set the gold-standard for.

I still can’t quite put my finger on what’s “Fun” about other games (what most people typically call their compulsive reasons for playing them) … versus how Unfun GW2 generally is when played in longer time “spats” than a couple weeks.

I was playing Planetside2 for months at a time for example even through it’s a Horrible, Horrible game in every way. The only thing that got me off playing it, was when my Doctor told me I was getting signs of an ULCER. GW2 does a nice job relaxing us for a week or two when it comes to leveling up an Alt but the continued entertainment value just goes into a ditch fast. GW1 was a lot more sustainable without ever giving me an Ulcer once Nightfall and all the other things got added to it that got us out of the whole “LF MONK” meta.

“LF MONK” was GW1 biggest un-fun problem. And it was obvious from the Start.
GW2 biggest un-fun problems are a lot more … tricky. I see so many people whining about the whole Legendary & Ascended gear and farming and stuff. But I don’t think that’s why it’s just “not fun”. If it was really fun on a total Aesthetic-level of Mechanics:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/aesthetics-of-play
,,,,people wouldn’t even notice all the farming required…

Heh… gotta agree with the OP…

I don’t spend all my time in the Lore sections, but I couldn’t help but notice that GW2 feels like “Bleach” waiting for the rest of the Fights against the real Arrancars. Gw1’s storylines after Nightfall didn’t exactly hit it out of the park everytime either… but atleast they made us feel like we were still moving forward in time towards some stuff that was epic b/c it was epic (not epic b/c they changed the top tier of our gear treadmills).

I think I’d rather sit through 8 more Zinn Trials than do some of the stuff I’ve seen on the docket here…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

Why’s there no room for Salvaging to be a bigger part of this “Sweet Spot”?
Salvaging was Viable in GW1. Most gear drops however aren’t worth salvaging here.
Why is it this way? Simplfication? ….well it’s borking up the Supply either way.

You guys really need to get a handle on this. FireFall’s coming out and even if it’s not any better, tons of your customers will swear it is b/c of the differences in Salvaging…. a salvaging mentality by the way that they practically stole from Gw1….

There’s a place for it. But I don’t think CM’s armor set was that place.
I’m having trouble coming up with a better design myself, but once I think the sketches feel “complete”, it’ll get fully Maya rendered and then hopefully Anet will one day follow Skyrim’s lead and let us “cotribute” such projects to their Art resources through Steam-Workshop…

Hamartia.3421:

It should be reduced slightly in PVE. I hate missing jumps because of that kitten.

Ohh… yeah that’s a good point. I didn’t even think about that. That really hamstrings their potential in making some fun Jump-Puzzle /slash/ Dungeon hybrid encounters in the future, don’t it? (try doing the WvW jump puzzles sometime when they’re camped by mesmers or some other jerkbags… it’s break-your own-monitor levels of ragedumping)

Bright.9160:

And I thought Necro’s would be OP both in PvP and PvE

This one got me too… don’t feel bad, I think it took all of us by surprise. …especially those of us who used to Nec in Aspenwood. I never Discorded but I’m sure it shocked the hell out of those people as well.

(sure I’m having fun stacking Fury & BiP’ing myself & then tearing through stuff like a DeathKnight in lower levels… but it’s not close to the OP’ness of Gw1 Sabway, much less the general luzly facerolling of MM’s and Cult/Soul speccers).

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

They aren’t going any higher then they have been before.. this is just response to farming nerf on that “exploited” broken quest in orr

Dust was never this expensive last winter so don’t even go there…

Demand has clearly snowballed, and price is already breaching super-saturation. I just unloaded all the ones I have because once it stays over 45s, many ppl will just give up or start making their own by farming Incandescent until that gets nerfed too. Point is, Anet’s going about this all wrong. …just like they’ve been going about crafting all wrong from the get-go. (& most of it’s in how they handle Salvaging). So unless they’ve got a brand new FOW “dungeon” hidden up their sleeves here, (which was basically the only thing keeping the price of Glittering dust down in GW1)… then we’ve got a genuine problem here.

Well you guys do. I don’t b/c I don’t need dust for any of the things I’m doing.

The sheer volume of Bronies on the internet instantly invalidates the OP’s somewhat sexist attention-getting Subject line.

Not a single specific? Pretty sure that’s what the OP asked for… details, a list…

More proof that a lot of the people who are doing the most profitable flipping…
…aren’t actually wasting their time on these forums

HAHAHA…. No CoE is NOT fun. And it’s b/c you have to fight Subject Alpha 3 times in every path, and he’s one of the worst designed fights in this game. Glitchy, Gimmicky, and Tedious as hell. 6 months ago We told them (the Devs) directly 1,000 times that they HAVE to overhaul this dungeon or atleast every fight against Alpha. And they still haven’t done jack about it.

So do the wise thing here Engel…. Take a vacation from this “Endeavor” until Anet finally feels generous enough to make Charge Cores & frags & stuff drop from more Mobs and more events and more chests all around the world in general. There’s no excuse for their Laziness in the Drop-Tables. And the more Legendaries involving Gift of Light that get crafted in spite of it, the less likely Anet is to quit screwing around with Tounaments & Holiday crap to fix these obviously broken oversights in the main sections of their game.

IE: don’t be an “Enabler”… and don’t validate any other deluded ppl who claim it’s a “Reasonable” grind

^Best answer right there.
Reasons:

The people who actually gather those “Fine” (blue) Mats fast enough that they wouldn’t simply out-level it by 5/10 levels in the same amount of time, are specialized for it with Level-80 gear generally that has up to 4 Bonuses on it all at once (partially gained through level 80 food as well). Their Damage is also vastly superior due to the same overwhelming quantity of Stats that don’t take as much of a penalty as you might expect when they’re “sidekicked DOWN” by 50 levels… And of course there’s also farming spots. The best ones in your particular level range are not going to be on Youtube…. sorry. For instance one of the most expensive mid-tier scales, I can get 1 or 2 every minute but it’s literally in a place no one would ever think to look for Aquatic mobs… Or in other cases like in GW1, the quickest mat farms typically involved some kind of Exploit or abuse of the A.I. And once that stuff gets too public here in GW2, it just gets closed down.

Another thing to consider… which I did just last night. I didn’t have all the mats for my Ranger’s 50 gear, and she’s completely Mastered leatherworking. A quick use of the calculator would show the Mats for just her Green Gear would cost between 12 & 16 silver a piece. Instead of wasting time farming the pieces I’d need, and then waste even more money on Thread, I just Bought a full set of “Strong” RARES off the TP instead for half the price. (you can’t do that with 65+ rares b/c they get gobbled up for Ecto salvage… but anything below that, that’s generally the way the market’s going to work).

You have to basically be a financial genius in this game to find any niche in crafting that’s actually profitable for the time invested. In every other case, it’s always just easier to sell your mats 1 copper below the lowest seller. (lowest seller, not “highest buyer”).

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We’re aware that people want new armor skins. I want new ones as well, and we’re working on things. Armor skins are much more time/resource consuming and difficult as opposed to weapons.

Plz plz plz don’t rush your Artists on this!

I’d hate to see another instance like with CM’s Armor sets where the Light and Medium sets are just regal and beautiful, yet the Heavy set looks like salvage from some Sewer Pipes thrown together by a drunk Dredge…

….or Worse? …when it comes to an interesting and exciting instanced experience?

This is a serious question about whether travel suppression (as it’s typically called…. IE: you instantly slow down to a “catchable running speed” for the sake of PvP usually).

Really think about this for a minute….
Yes it’s necessary for WvW. We know that. It’s even somewhat necessary for general PvE zone-clearing where you’ve basically still got random players competing against eachother for Mob kills.

But what about the Dungeons where it’s just you and your most trusted allies?
Think back to the good old GW1 FOW & the Deep? … or just any speed-run elite areas or even the relaxed/silly ones where we didn’t have this mechanic … then compare those to the 2nd Aspect of Glint where everyone feels like they’re wading through pudding instead of actually moving about freely.

Then there’s also the issue of super slow rezzing while “in-combat” which is the main reason you see so much respawn-facerolling to begin with.

I don’t care about the Artificial Difficulty it adds to Dungeons. There’s a million other ways Anet does that ANYWAY with other dungeon-exclusive mechanics. Just think about it on it’s own…. does being slowed down like you’re in Pudding, and rezzing super slow, actually make Dungeons more Exciting??

….Or does it feel like other nerfs where PvE suffers for the sake of PvP uniformity? Was this a good decision by Anet? Or does it feel like one they just didn’t have the technical resources to “separate out”?

Wolfey.3407:

The biggest problems that newbie rangers have…
…
-Not knowing how to kite
…
-Not knowing how to kite

….

and yeah I know “they” exist. I’ve seen them.
And every single time, I die a little more inside

Broadicea.8294:

Stop dying, then the changes to rez mechanics aren’t an issue.

Dying is supposed to be part of the game. And that’s not a friendly or helpful response either way…

Solo dungeons are just a bad idea in general b/c all the really hard solo Quests in GW1 were also broken b/c some of them were too easy for one class (Spirit Spammers VS. Magni) while feeling almost impossible for anyone else who didn’t own that Class or Expansion. Or in other cases, broken by lag or cheating AI itself like Polymock usually was.

DeathPanel.8362:

aophts.9862:

I want to start a new char, but last time with my lvl 50 RANGER i had a hard time with groups for dungeons. Do i still need to choose between WARRIOR or GUARDIAN to not be kicked from a party?

You should probably hold off until 80 to do dungeons. A lvl 50 is not going to do well in any dungeons that you can join. It’s more your level than your class.

My own guildmates swore up and down that the reason we were failing explorables when I was on my GUARDIAN (level 40, & then again at 65 @ the time) was because he wasn’t 80. Guess what happened the instant I started pugging with people who actually played the first game and understood Anet’s Gimmicky nature…. We passed with flying colors. I can do the same thing on my Ranger. Unfortunately most people can’t b/c they don’t have those rote reflexes ingrained by GW1 or other action/arcade style gaming . …. or the other big factor that’s also a learned response: DONT PANIC, just focus fire and keep your skill rotations in order. The reason most groups fail is not Team composition, or Gear and it’s not always skill either. It just getting ahead of themselves & panicking instead of falling back / regrouping and actually getting eachother back up.

There’s never ANY case where something can’t be beaten by sub-par builds so long a people focus and work together. Anyone who says “this is the only way”, “that’s useless here, do it my way only”, or just calls everything and everyone stupid —- Should just instantly be put on ignore and avoided completely for the sake of your own health. It’s a wide world out there, and there’s a lot more to “success” than just number-crunching.

Dub.1273:

Gaki has been extremely stupid in terms of fighting. The only uses it ever had were keeping plains reaper alive or to break aggro in various speedclears.

Anyone know how to ignore through the Forums plz?? I just got a really good reason to…