Guild Wars 2

ThiBash.5634:

Not sure where the fun comes in with traits like these that shut down a certain playstyle. Instead of being the better player, it now comes down to what trait you happen to be using. I’d rather have the old cleansing wave back. That at least allowed us to make average builds, which we then had to play properly in order to win or not. Diamond Skin however turns it into a build vs. build game.

Is this the same fun as dying from low-effort condition spam? Maybe that comes down to what skills/traits someone else is using?

It’s always a build-vs-build game when players are on equal skill footing. That being said there is some skill to maintaining your HP above 90% with this trait so it’s not brainless.

Is that some kind of prose?

ANet: Please split RTL functionality so it’s 20 sec c/d outside of sPvP for all scenarios!

I use it purely to engage in WvW, but it only takes one dodge and now I’m out of my mobility for twice as long. The dodge was already rewarded by not taking damage from the RTL skill — why should it be double rewarded by 2x’ing my c/d?

Maybe you guys should actually try diamond skin because you pretty much sound like you haven’t.

I used it last night in zerg fights and it was awesome. I was immune to fear, immobilize, cripple. I just walked through various necro marks without issue. Pop a stability and barriers/stun become a non-threat as well.

Even in 5-on-many fights it was good. I felt rather epic on my D/D aura-share ele. It doesn’t make you invincible (that would be broken), however it definitely provides advantages that are worthy of a 30pt trait.

That being said, you still need condi removal after you drop below 90% as part of the response to get back above 90%. That why I still prefer ether renewal when I do see conditions appear.

Ether Renewal is too good. I tried the blast-heal but went back to ER after a couple hours.

I’m glad the quartz is dropping from the presents, but as someone who diligently logged on every day just to convert my quartz to charged quartz, I’m a bit disappointed.

Either change the time gating or leave it as it. I don’t need quartz welfare and I feel it just rewards people who didn’t plan ahead. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the time gating and I think it should NOT be there. I feel I wasted my time making 30 charged quartz crystals last month because I only needed to escort dolyaks for a few hours. That makes me sad.

I love it — using a 0/0/30/30/10 D/D build in 5-man WvW roaming. I just move thru fear, necro marks, doesn’t matter. It’s very cool.

Short answer: Offer a +10 level consumable in the TP. It follows the mantra of a “convenience” item. Buy eight and boom, done leveling. Funds the game (although I don’t like funding Living World over Expansion quality fare) and makes players like the OP happy. Win-Win.

Skills like kill shot probably need a special player animation (like a bull’s-eye floating above your head while the channel is occurring). This way you know you’re being targeted by something nasty. Although I’m sure this would spawn a “makes my skill useless” rant by the rifle warriors.

One-shot skills are quite lame imho — not fun and does not enhance the game in any way. It’s entertainment for an 8-year old maturity level.

Razor.6392:

It seems that they will actually move renewing stamina to a master tier trait in arcana, I’m honestly surprised that no one is saying anything.

A lot of people said all kinds of things in the overview thread. It’s rather large now, but if you sort through it you’ll find multiple pages on the renewing stamina.

I find more than 10 hits on “renewing stamina” in the first page alone:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/first

Behellagh.1468:

Then why did you repeat an incorrect number that could be verified easily by any of the trading sites? I did read page 1 and the first thing I did was look up the actual trading history and saw the OP “exaggerating” about the sell off. I know there are only a few items that the supply has gone over 1 million and I was sure quartz wasn’t one of them, not with a price of over a silver.

Because I’m not the forum police (I already have a job that I get paid well for).

Behellagh.1468:

juno.1840:

Would a buyout of 1.5 million quartz be considered market manipulation?

What are you talking about? The Supply drained from 250,000 on the 6th down to 15,000 on the 15th and now it’s bounced back up to 45,000 now. But since we actually don’t know the true volume added daily it’s a guess about overall volume purchased, if production increased, in those with quartz nodes are harvesting for profit or if they are hording because they think someone else is. The “Buy Now” price went for 1.4s to bouncing between 3.1-3.5s but that’s likely due to a combination of demand being twice supply or players without a quartz node trying to secure a supply.

Did you read the page 1?

I did, and that’s where the 1.5 million number originates.

Afya.5842:

juno.1840:

Afya.5842:

juno.1840:

With regards to sell orders, I recommended a LONG time ago to make sell orders expire after a certain amount of time. This encourages sell orders to be meaningful and also penalizes some obnoxious behaviors (although still allows them so the market is still free and open).

And discourage long term investment.

J.Smith tossed out a similar argument (with the same level of explanation as yourself — i.e. none). Long term investments can still be made: (1) put the item in your vault, (2) sell when you are ready to liquidate. There’s no need to use the TP as your investment vault.

I thought it’s self explained.

Not all market move so fast that as soon as you put it up, it sells. It’s not uncommon for something to sit on the TP for quite a bit of time to sell. Something not selling this week doesn’t necessarily mean you overprised, it could be just no one buy it. Wait another week then it might sell. What you suggest only make it more ridiculous having to relist things everyweek.

Oh no!!!! You’d have to relist… every week… omg the agony!!!! (queue unnecessary jab regarding entitlement)

Seriously though, that’s your argument? You’d have to actually relist? Something similar to every other game and even RL?

An no, it’s not “self explained” with regards to investing, nor did you attempt to explain how that’s investing. You did succeed as explaining how it’s lazy though…

Wanze.8410:

Isengard bids 5.

I must be the only one who enjoyed this — nice Wanze!

I’d still be in that MMO if it has the coop friendly mechanics of GW2. It has GW2 beat in every other category.

So I may have found a possible reason that quartz is time gated: It makes it difficult for traders to manipulate it on the TP — if you can only use 25 quartz a day, buying up all the stock is not going to impact the market as much. Although I think this is true only if there’s sufficient supply to meet the 25 per day demand. Anyway, it’s a stretch and I can’t even claim it as my idea (it’s based upon a topic in the BLTC forums).

Afya.5842:

juno.1840:

With regards to sell orders, I recommended a LONG time ago to make sell orders expire after a certain amount of time. This encourages sell orders to be meaningful and also penalizes some obnoxious behaviors (although still allows them so the market is still free and open).

And discourage long term investment.

J.Smith tossed out a similar argument (with the same level of explanation as yourself — i.e. none). Long term investments can still be made: (1) put the item in your vault, (2) sell when you are ready to liquidate. There’s no need to use the TP as your investment vault.

There’s no penalty for undercutting a buy order. I find this frustrating as some players use tools to constantly adjust their buy order so it’s always first in line. The tools use the current web services to simply tell them (within a couple minutes of accuracy) that their buy order is no longer the highest.

With regards to sell orders, I recommended a LONG time ago to make sell orders expire after a certain amount of time. This encourages sell orders to be meaningful and also penalizes some obnoxious behaviors (although still allows them so the market is still free and open).

Consider if the TP was not a TP but an auction house with time limited posts — do some of these problems go away? What new problems are introduced?

@Wiz: Yes your answers were incredibly helpful, tyvm!

@Wanze: I know nobody that bought quartz (see how useless statements like that are?)

Bottom line is we don’t have all the necessary data to do anything other than “theorize” on how many players bought what. Regardless, it’s probably moot. Crafting using quartz is sooooo time gated that it doesn’t matter much how the supply is impacted on the TP.

Since quarts is limited to 3-15 per account per day, it looks like a portion of the player population now owns that market and can set the price for quartz (sounds like a RL mirror of the diamond industry lol). Questions from someone without an economics degree:

Would a buyout of 1.5 million quartz be considered market manipulation?

Does this indicate a bad design decision regarding crafting materials that are still in use but no longer “easily” obtainable in the game?

If players need an item for crafting, but cannot obtain it, does that make it easily manipulated on the TP?

Did the entire player base (minus a few individuals) underestimate the velocity of the quartz market?

The actual solution is to remove the time gating — not work around it for characters vs. accounts. Still waiting to hear why time gating is necessary from ANet (and something more than a cryptic J.Smith half-sentence “answer”).

Avelos.6798:

VidGhost.3215:

$30 to convert to gold ( 800Gems = 2.5g ) in the first few months of the game

WASTE OF MONEY!! now that $10 (800 Gems ) gets you 55g

That has turned me off buying gems and i will never again until they either fix this stupid inflation or release an expansion with good looking ARMOR! that this game is severely lacking.. just look at Dragon Age gameplay to see some awesome armor

There is no inflation. Gold is easier to make now. Every single price has gone up as well as how easy it is to make gold. It’s not broken so there’s no need for a fix.

Ummm I think that’s called “inflation”

Just want to say thanks to all you guys funding the Living Story content. /endsarcasm

Unfortunately because you spend RL money, there’s little incentive for ANet to push out an expansion over fluffy 2-week content.

I have spent zero in the gem store, and will continue to spend zero until there’s content that deserves my purchase.

MastaNeenja.1537:

…You want to believe you’ll get something nice but it’s like opening a dumpster instead…

lmao — that visual too funny… it hurts because it’s so true

Nothing worth while. Everything you can craft you can find cheaper on the TP than the cost of the raw materials (yes folks crafting is not “free” even if you go and gather up the materials yourself).

Even consumables are cheaper to buy than the raw materials.

Vol.5241:

Latinkuro.9420:

Point is this: it’s already kitten account bound, I can’t sell it and so I cannot damage the market at all, this 1 per day BS is a blatantly punishing time wasting gate for anyone that plays multiple characters.

Yet another “I have alts yet I’m getting ’punished’’”

It was your decision to make multiple alts.

Why stop there? Why not complain that “I’m getting punished for multiple alts because I have to keep spending gold to gear every single toon?”

His complaint is not about spending gold — so you are being a little extreme in your criticism Vol. No where did he ask for something for “free” or even sound “entitled” so maybe you should stand down.

Filtering out “alt punishment”, the basic argument still stands which is the time gating makes little sense and serves no logical purpose that anyone in these forums can identify.

Maybe this would be a good spot for ANet to step in and provide an official statement with regards to:

1. Justification for the time gating on charged crystals
2. Long term plans for time gating on the charged crystals

Myself I’m trying to build a full celestial armor set for my ele (about the only toon where the armor makes sense). I’m about 20 crystals into the 30 I need for the set. What has me concerned is that ascended armor is coming up. Should I spend the 30 crystals now for the exo set, or wait so I don’t have another 30 day penalty for the ascended set?

Essence Snow.3194:

The ability to make gold to which this game relies on so heavily.

It is much like one profession being leaps and bound better than all the rest….unbalanced. Ofc there are always going to be some that are a bit better, but when one is far better then it causes issues.

What benefit does having such an imbalance provide as to keep it as such?

I might have to agree with Vol on this — I’m not sure how much of an imbalance it is, or how pervasive the imbalance is (queue diatribe about having an economy report from ANet/John, but that’s a different topic).

Also there is work involved in making money on the TP — it’s true that those Players use money to make money but it’s not brainless by any stretch of the imagination. I think the TP can be a game-within-a-game, but that’s ok right?

As long as measures are in place to prevent abuse, then it should be a viable aspect to GW2 for both pleasure and revenue. Now about those measures…

lol Penguin… I say 365 charged quartz… make it a full year!

You could try a fresh air build. Maybe something like 0/30/10/10/20 with the +dmg traits in Adept slots. Then switch in and out of air as often as possible to maximize your lightning cracks when entering air.

If you beat any Player that’s not up-leveled, please let us know

I see many people in my own guild who use sell at the highest “buy order” mostly because they don’t know any better (i.e. are confused by the GUI, or don’t understand the trade mechanics). In some ways the system is fueled by ignorance. Hell many don’t understand there are two fees (5% and 10%) which come off your total sale.

With a little effort, ANet could improve the GUI to help protect the financially challenged, although you can only do so much for those who chose not to learn what’s going on.

Vol.5241:

Essence Snow.3194:

… snip …

You do know that a very small portion of the game population are active traders, and even a very smaller portion actually make a ton of gold? If everyone were a sensibile trader there would be no profit.

You may think being a trader is all gold and roses but you can lose as much as you gain.

Again, it is not a concern because it’s an isolated, limited case and it’s not harmful to the game.

Without data it is impossible to say exactly what portion of the GW2 population are active traders. So it’s a bit presumptuous to call it an “isolated, limited case… not harmful to the game.”

Although I do love your “if everyone were a sensible trader” statement — the game needs bad traders to fuel any profits lol.

EDIT: I can’t believe there was no love for my spicy veggie chili market velocity crack.

IndigoSundown.5419:

juno.1840:

SHM.7628:

Artaz.3819:

Suggestion, there is a middle ground – implement diminishing returns on Champions.

Excessive and repeated killing of Champion-only mobs creates the reduced Champion loot. Killing “x” Champions in 30-minutes every 4-20 hours shouldn’t start DR.

This allows players to come across a Champion or three and find a rewarding experience for the time invested. Champion farming for the sake of reduced rarity rewards (as it it currently) could still happen as well to discourage the game economic issues.

Why would you say that? DR is never ok It’s really one of the worst parts of GW2.

DR is a valid mechanic to thwart unintended extremes in the player base. The game as a whole is fairly complex and with over a million players, someone will find the “lowest effort path” to get ahead. Chances are that path will be something the Developers didn’t foresee.

The DR is a simple measure to plug those unforeseen holes.

EDIT: Honestly do you think the Developers want players to run in a big loop through Frostgorge killing all the available champs, over and over and over, for many hours a day?

There is a constant struggle in MMO’s between developers — who want to keep players playing — and players — who want to reach their goals as fast as possible (after which they complain about nothing to do). DR is just a weapon developers use to hinder players from quickly reaching their goals. Whether it’s a valid mechanic or not depends on whether you’re using that weapon, or are its target.

I think it’s more that Developers have a vision on how they want Players to “play their game”. Ultimately some Players break that vision. Since it’s very difficult to predict the outcomes of every game design decision, safeguards need to be in place. Some examples are time gating and diminishing returns.

A company can error on the “heavy” or “light” side of how the safeguards are implemented. (Example of “heavy”: time gating on charged crystals, example of “light”: ? any ideas here?).

I can’t speak for the Developers, but I’m confident the “champ trains” were not part of their vision on how they want Players to play their game.

Nike.2631:

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

I did say “crafted” exotic armor.

Nike.2631:

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

That argument can be applied to everything — including putting any responses in these forums at all. So while it sounds good, it’s mostly a cop out.

Regardless, my response was directly aimed at John’s “^^” statement about not having enough time. Also I stand behind my “one man show” jab — everyone is fallible and teams with good process controls help catch problems before they leave your shop.

Everyone realizes that Diamond Skin would not block “stun” nor “daze” correct? Those are effects and not conditions.

susansmistake.7285:

juno.1840:

My main is a mesmer and I don’t have stun breaks outside my utilities.

Not entirely true: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swap

Although technically true, you do know how that skill works right? It’s a bit of a stretch to consider that an “on demand stun break”.

I’ll add that it wasn’t “market manipulation” Yamagawa…

They just “underestimated the velocity” of the spicy veggie chili market and lost a lot of gold as a result.

/end sarcasm

Yamagawa.5941:

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

Hum. I think, would that be the spicy veggie chili, was it? (My memory may be fuzzy)

I bought all that out some months ago as it was all under priced, listed one at 1 gold, so that spidy and other tools would list it as profitable to make, then used the rest. Result, supply went up significantly!

Success! I was able to manipulate the market into producing something I wanted in quantities I could use, at prices I was ok with.
//Portable Corpse

Wow that’s brilliant!

SHM.7628:

Artaz.3819:

Suggestion, there is a middle ground – implement diminishing returns on Champions.

Excessive and repeated killing of Champion-only mobs creates the reduced Champion loot. Killing “x” Champions in 30-minutes every 4-20 hours shouldn’t start DR.

This allows players to come across a Champion or three and find a rewarding experience for the time invested. Champion farming for the sake of reduced rarity rewards (as it it currently) could still happen as well to discourage the game economic issues.

Why would you say that? DR is never ok It’s really one of the worst parts of GW2.

DR is a valid mechanic to thwart unintended extremes in the player base. The game as a whole is fairly complex and with over a million players, someone will find the “lowest effort path” to get ahead. Chances are that path will be something the Developers didn’t foresee.

The DR is a simple measure to plug those unforeseen holes.

EDIT: Honestly do you think the Developers want players to run in a big loop through Frostgorge killing all the available champs, over and over and over, for many hours a day?

Assuming there’s more than one person at ANet, someone else could always package the data (as directed by John) into a nifty report.

If this is purely a one-man-show then the system will eventually fail.

In an attempt to keep in role, I’ve changed the subject to Wintersday!

The time gating on the charging of the crystals is a BAD mechanic. There’s NO good reason for the time gating to be on the exotic celestial armor.

FACTS:
- no other exotic crafted armor is time gated.
- it takes 30 charged quartz crystals to make a full set of armor.
- charged quartz crystals cannot be purchased so you must invest 30 days to get one set of armor.

Regular Quartz Crystals is not the problem here my fellow players. You can simply buy those off the TP if you must have them now. The real problem is the daily time gate on making Charged Quartz Crystals. You must invest 30 days into that process for armor alone (more if you want a weapon or three).

Imperatora.7654:

laokoko.7403:

When really the complaint is about “skins and gear take way too long to acquire for some people”.

It takes 45 seconds, buy gems, buy item.

Done.

Really, what is so hard about this? Now, if you are complaining about how long it takes you to get something for free that other people are paying for, THAT is entitlement.

Get off it Imperatora — nobody hears what you are saying because your delivery sucks.

FYI — time isn’t free so your argument is asinine.

wondo.2870:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It’s the only tier 1 AOE cleanse in the game is the main reason, other factors are that its also an on demand cleanse, and it can be used every 10 seconds.

^^ directly from JP’s mouth just now

It takes a 30 point investment in Arcane traitline for it to be “on demand” every 10 seconds or did you forget eles base attunement recharge is currently 16 seconds(13 with new patch) That’s a 40 traitpoint investment (including the 10 in water to get cleansing wave) for 1 condi aoe cleanse( or 2 condi cleanse if you count evasive arcana ) every 10 seconds.

EDIT: Nevermind — I read this wrong the first time.

I view the Gem market like the Options Exchange. When you sell options the transaction happens immediately, regardless of whether there was a buyer or not. This is the closest match to what ANet has set up ihmo.

Qaelyn.7612:

Grinding is self-imposed. That’s true in all MMOs and especially true in this one, from what I’ve been able to tell so far. I was actually shocked at how small the difference is in stats between super-expensive and very affordable items.

If this was GW1 the difference would be zero instead of small.

Short answer: No

DiogoSilva.7089:

Oniyui.8279:

Don’t forget stun breaks with all this talk about active defenses!

Oh yeah. Mesmers literally have stun breaks outside of their utility slots.

I don’t want to envy the Mesmer class, but there’s a reason why most mesmer’s builds are fine at surviving and over-lasting with zerker gear.

Classes should be unique, but I think swapping ele’s and mesmer’s health would retain their uniqueness, while giving more neutral active defenses to the ele would make it closer to the mesmer.

Anet has to rethink what they want for elementalist’s survival. Do they still have plans to make this profession revolve around “weak passive defenses but strong active defenses”? Well, then they need more active defenses that don’t depend heavily on vitality/ toughness/ healing power/ boon duration. Or are they willing to give that idea up and make the mesmer the official “low passive/ high active defense” class? Then they should swap each other’s health.

My main is a mesmer and I don’t have stun breaks outside my utilities. If you are thinking Staff 2, that’s not a stun break.

I don’t find ele lacking for stun breaks at all — although there are some skills with stun break that don’t make much sense (cough glyphs cough). A stun break should be on a skill that’s reactive, not proactive (that’s what stability is for). EDIT: I think this is temporary as the stun breaks were moved around a few patches ago so cantrips didn’t have a monopoly. I think it’s something ANet will correct with time.

I’ve been playing my ele a lot and I don’t think it’s as bad as players make it out to be. The mesmer is quite gimicky with stealth and clones. The thief is gimicky with stealth. Those two things along make it so you cannot really compare those classes with ele.

I wouldn’t mind having the ability to use the Elite slot for either Elite or Utility skills. Some professions have horrid elites compared to some good utility skills.

1. Don’t be in the back of the zerg (no profession will get tags if you are in the back).

2. Cast lava font before the zerg gets to the NPCs

You won’t get 100% tags in 100% of the fights — nobody does. However I find I get tags pretty easy on my ele compared to my other toons like mesmer. Guardian has it pretty easy with staff, but only if you are within 600 range AND you get a couple hits off.

It’s to ANet’s advantage to have a high gold-to-gem conversion because:

1. It suppresses gold farming by providing a better value to Players trying to buy gold
2. Reduces the ability to buy gems using in-game gold which results in more players buying gems with RL money.

I imagine there’s some ceiling where it starts to become disadvantageous. Example: If you get 1,000,000 gold for a 100 gems then nobody would need to continue to buy gems to get gold because you get so much gold in the conversion. However if such a ridiculous conversion was in place then the economy would probably be in a horrible state due to inflation.