Guild Wars 2

I’m doing ok with a celestial d/d ele — but it seems my conditions work the best out of all my skill options (i.e. I do best by keeping burn + bleeds up on the target).

It’s not easy though, and I’m often forced into water for healz and some condi clear.

Overall I like it as it’s not face-roll easy. GW2 needs challenging content and this meets that criteria imho.

I hit this bug today — still broken. Rather frustrating.

you left off the one that bugs me the most…. UI windows have weird transparency at the top which makes it nearly impossible to grab the title bar for the window you want when multiple windows overlap.

kubetz.3058:

juno.1840:

Sounds fake to me — more of a wish list of things then actual changes.

Fake? ArenaNet employees said that on official Guild Wars 2 stream on Twitch.

Then it’s rather unprofessional. It reads like a poorly written troll post. “Rangers using longbow too much”… seriously? That’s going to generate a lot of angst since was just “tuned” via the very long and tedious CDI process. There are a few other examples in there like “want mesmers to shatter more”, etc.

How about just identifying underperforming skills rather that critiquing how people are playing the game they designed.

Malediktus.9250:

“Things are more expensive when they are new. Decreasing their cost over time is a business’ way of maximizing return.”
Except Anet earns nothing by reducing the price from 500 Gems to a miniscule amount of Candy Corn or plastic fangs. Only thing they achieved is making the people who bought this with gems last year angry.

Or they achieved making a larger number of people happy since the item is now within practical reach. I would wager that benefit was larger than keeping a small, few, exclusionists happy.

Malediktus.9250:

DeWolfe.2174:

This game needs exclusivity like it needs a server cluster made up of 286 IBM’s.

Stop feeling entitled to it. Events are boring if you cant earn exclusive items.

Careful… entitlement arguments can be used both ways. You are sounding entitled.

I’d love to get back into the instance to farm rats. Unfortunately, being once per account, I cannot.

Sounds fake to me — more of a wish list of things then actual changes.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

juno.1840:

By all means continue to defend — there’s good reason to defend the TP and economy.

However making a trolling post doesn’t do your argument justice — it just drives the wedge a little farther between your arguments and the players you’re trying to convince.

The OP is total snark — not even subtle. I’m not sure what I’m more disappointed about… the lack of forum policy enforcement or the players that defend this post as some champion argument against economic ignorance.

At least the players that post the “precursors are too expensive” aren’t doing it to troll — they genuinely believe there’s a problem. This topic is just junk.

Not sure why you have so much hate for cheap Precursors. Look, it’s your choice if you decide to want a highly demanded item like Dusk. I’m not stopping you from wanting it. I’m merely letting people know that there are currently Precursors that you can get pretty darn cheap, and that this is proof that there’s no problem with the Precursor system as a whole.

The real problem is the idea that some players feel Entitled to getting an item they want. And the fallacy here is that they believe there’s a problem, because they can’t get said item.

I don’t have hate for cheap precursors. I have hate for posts that are not really meant to be helpful. You post is demeaning and provides no value.

This is not a discussion on entitlement… it’s you making fun of players who are genuinely concerned with something they see as an issue.

Personally I have no issues with the price of precursors. I have no desire to grind out another legendary. However you don’t see me in these forums belittling those who are trying.

Conski Deshan.2057:

juno.1840:

It’s account bound — it has no value. You cannot gain or obtain any currency value for it.

That’s why everyone is giving the OP a hard time — because the argument is flawed.

It has value, the value is the work put in to obtain it which as the op points out has been significantly devalued.
Ascended armor is account bound, does that mean it has no value? are you telling me if it appeared on a vendor for 5g a pop there wouldn’t be an absolute riot?

Plus it was rarer last year as it was harder to get and rarity is a large part of value too.

No the value is in how much you enjoy it, because there is no monetary value otherwise.

If you don’t like the item, then you shouldn’t have invested the time to get it. If you find the mini awesome, then great.

The enjoyment value didn’t change. What changed is how many players can now share that enjoyment. In a way you are selfish for not wanting to share the joy of ownership.

Mordule Standish.2371:

Could part of the solution be in the name Lemark? An anagram maybe?

LeMarc was the mysterious master thief from Ocean’s 12.

I was thinking the same thing but my feeble brain yielded no clues.

It’s account bound — it has no value. You cannot gain or obtain any currency value for it.

That’s why everyone is giving the OP a hard time — because the argument is flawed.

lordkrall.7241:

fellyn.5083:

It’s working as intended. There’s no way it’s a bug.

How is it no way it’s a bug? It is fully possible that it could be missing a part of the trading and so on.

I am not saying that it must be a bug, but it is quite silly that the forums explode every single time something is changed without even thinking about if it is actually working as intended or not.

Look this is a circular argument that lets you conveniently take whichever side of the argument you favor.

You have to assume it’s working as intended because it was released as such. Until ANet actually confirms it’s a bug, then it’s a feature.

Do you expect every forum poster to say “this sux unless it’s a bug” for every complaint?

If it was a teleport then you’d get stuck on a small rock or other tiny obstacle like the other teleports in game

LuXx.9354:

I’m now tired when I engage a group, to kil 2 or 3 guys, to have an add of a noob quickness ranger at 1500 range, and one shot.

Seriously?

To kill 2 or 3 guys?

You’re upset you died in a 1v3?

Sounds like you were OP before. Welcome to fair competition — you had it coming

Is PPK modified by the “outmanned” buff?

I can see PPK having a negative impact on participation if they are outmanned.

Rimmy.9217:

Berk.8561:

Rimmy.9217:

People who don’t read the instructions, don’t read the emails sent by ANet to indicate that their rewards are now available to be picked up and must be picked up before the end of the following week likely aren’t “customers” who can work out the complex task of purchasing gems with real money.

I’ve purchased lots of gems and I missed out on a one of the weeks because, quite frankly, the apex of my guild wars experience is not visiting the Battle Historian to get a reward. Assuming that they have a great reason to use that delivery mechanism, is there any reason why the battle historian couldn’t hold a player’s cumulative reward until they go an pick it up?

Certainly there is – because there’s no need for it to. It was clearly laid out for all to see in a variety of media both in game and out exactly how it worked. People spent ten minutes per week getting their achievements done, and then the following week received an email telling them they had received awards and where to get them again. It would take no more time than loading the screen and walking forward to receive their rewards, so the onus was on them. This wasn’t a change from a battle historian that kept their rewards from week to week, this is an attempt to address that not everybody who completed the achievements in seasons one and two got credit for them at the end, so this weekly system that required a miniscule effort from the players was tried to make sure as many people as possible got their rewards.

And so far, I haven’t seen anybody complaining about it not working except for user error.

Refer to my post above where I didn’t get the notification emails.

I’ll say it again to avoid confusion. I did not log in until the last half of week 2. So I do not have any mails in my log from week 1 nor the season start. I don’t recall getting said mails and I definitely didn’t fudge the email log in some vain attempt to make a point.

I’m not horribly upset by any stretch of the imagination. However I think you are overplaying how well it was laid out to the User. Otherwise this topic wouldn’t exist. It’s definitely User error, but in a game so well designed from a User Experience perspective, this reward system could have been done better.

Not having the rewards persist for more than a week is low-effort coding (compared to the alternative). Hopefully it’s better for the next season.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet it was made quite clear outside of the game as well. So even if you didn’t get your mails (the screenies doesn’t really prove anything) the information was fully available.

One thing to keep in mind is that if they had used the mail delivery for rewards as earlier, you wouldn’t even have gotten a chance to get them if you for some reason don’t receive the mails.

If by “quite clear” you mean that one paragraph in the news article, then maybe. Although good games don’t require you to read outside material to understand fundamental mechanics like rewards.

For a game that sets the benchmark in user experience (see every other reward system in the entire game), this was poorly executed.

Don’t get me wrong, GW2 does a lot of things really well. This is one of the few things that make me say “huh?”.

and there’s the second page of my mails… all the way back to my first bday present.

No Season 2 email, nor a description of how to get my rewards. There was no mail for the weeks I completed (week 2 and week 4).

Except I didn’t get the emails. I keep all my system emails. You can see them in the pciture below. If I could expand the window you’d see my first birthday mail… I have them all.

I didn’t log in until the end of week two. I knew the season was taking place because I researched why LS2 stopped abruptly and found WvW Season 2 as the answer.

So while Season 1 delivery system had problems, Season 2’s delivery didn’t work for me. I don’t even know where this NPC is.

By all means continue to defend — there’s good reason to defend the TP and economy.

However making a trolling post doesn’t do your argument justice — it just drives the wedge a little farther between your arguments and the players you’re trying to convince.

The OP is total snark — not even subtle. I’m not sure what I’m more disappointed about… the lack of forum policy enforcement or the players that defend this post as some champion argument against economic ignorance.

At least the players that post the “precursors are too expensive” aren’t doing it to troll — they genuinely believe there’s a problem. This topic is just junk.

I started at the end of week 2. I didn’t dive into the original season email because it was already in progress. I don’t recall getting a week 1 mail (because I didn’t participate in week 1).

It was a poorly design reward delivery system. Especially in a game which delivers everything else automatically (and by good design). Let see… hearts, individual achievement rewards, dungeon tokens, achievement milestones, etc. Everything provided automatically. Why would anyone suspect you’d have to talk to a time limited NPC in a game so well designed otherwise.

Not sure what I lost ticket-wise, so I’m not going to lose any sleep. However it wasn’t a pleasant ending to an otherwise good event.

Sorry I guessed this topic was covered already by other posts. I didn’t see any on the first page (which was the extent of my search), but here’s a good one from page 2:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/WvW-Rewards-lost

I agree it was a poorly designed “delivery system”, especially if you arrived late as I did (started at the end of week 2). It was also a significant redesign over season 1 which was our “baseline” experience.

For a company that completely redesign the “new user experience”, some more thought should have been put into this user experience.

Ah ok — I hopped in at the end of week 2. I complete week 2 and week 4 but none of the others. I assumed the rewards would be delivered automatically similar to season 1.

Not sure why you’d have to talk to an NPC, let alone within a specific time frame. I can think of better User Experience design decisions. Now I know for season 3.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

I’m not sure I understand this line of thought. NCSoft owned ArenaNet during Guild Wars (One) as well. No changes as far as ownership goes. Why are they ‘running the show’ now, and were not then?

Yeah you are right — so I can’t blame NCSoft via correlation, bummer. That was a nice out. Point on money and communication still valid.

Ensign.2189:

Labjax.2465:

So… you’re saying it’s a troll thread.

No, this thread is more akin to satire.

Still falls into the category of trolling. I’ve had a short, off-line discussion with support on how the forum policy is not uniformly enforced. This topic is an example. It’s a mocking post at best, at worst a trolling post designed to inflame some players.

Everybody knows why those precursors are cheap. The precursor topics that are being “mocked” are talking about the high demand precursors.

Don’t call the OP a troll however, or you’ll get infracted.

John Smith.4610:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

John Smith.4610:

The idea is to discuss RNG as a concept inside of games and reward systems. I think more discussion will lead to better understanding of the problems current systems may have, and the pros and cons of other possible systems.

John, could you give us a bit direction here? I’m not quite sure what specifics we could/should discuss… it seems pretty one-sided that many think RNG is bad and tokens could work.

At the heart, there’s 3 basic options:
1. Mostly RNG
2. No RNG
3. Hyrbid RNG (where most games are)

starter concepts for cons of each system:

1. Many players can feel like they have “bad luck”, in fact players with standard to pretty good luck are still likely to feel bad because of how humans interpret data.

2. A completely predictable experience lacks moments when something fantastic happens.

3. You run the risk of getting the cons of both systems without very precise design

An important question may be to ask if a model is still a good concept and a great implementation just needs to be focused on or if the model doesn’t work fundamentally.

My post on entropy with a secondary RNG effect could provide the pro’s of 1 and 2 without the cons. The devil is always in the details and there’s a lot of work in the construction of the unit equation for the entropy loops.

I don’t recall seeing this limitation in-game:

“To be eligible for rewards for any given matchup, you need only earn that match’s weekly World Contributor achievement. Then, all you have to do is talk with the Battle Historian NPC during the next week’s matchup to earn your rewards. It is important to note: You must claim your rewards in the week following the matchup in which they were earned. Rewards that are not claimed during the following week will be forfeited.”

For some reason I thought they’d be awarded automatically, or at the end of the tourney. Did I miss some sort of helper in-game? Like an in-game mail or something?

I guess if you didn’t visit the website you wouldn’t know?

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

Kasima.8143:

juno.1840:

• New buy orders cannot be cancelled for TBD minutes (anti-spam)
• Fee to cancel a buy order (no fees to place a buy order)

Wow. I cannot believe that you don’t see the wide gaping flaw in those ideas.

Sorry I don’t, otherwise I would have considered such flaws when posting the ideas. Maybe you can enlighten me with your vast knowledge.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

looking at the guild CDIs I’d assume they are working on more guild-content and content for larger groups (as they recently hired a raid designer).

You shouldn’t have to “assume”.

That’s the point.

Change from an RNG system to an entropy system. Such a system starts with a random seed but then operates in a deterministic fashion. In short the User experience is exactly the same, just occurring at different times based upon the random seed.

An entropy system would require each account to store the current entropy value(s), so it is never lost. This is required because some entropy loops will be very large for low drop rate items.

What this means is that every player will have a precursor drop within X-units. Some players will see that drop sooner rather than later, but all players will see it within X-units. The entropy loop repeats infinitely so after another X-units you’ll see a second drop.

The algorithm which computes and tracks “units” is proprietary so the system cannot be gamed. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean two players will receive drop in the same “time frame” because “units” will typically not include a time component (i.e. you can’t increment your entropy loop by sitting at the BLTP agent scrolling through buy orders).

There are multiple entropy loops. You have a loop for rares, another for exotics, another for precursors, individual loops for dungeons, etc.. Each loop has it’s own threshold and random seed.

Anyway, this is just the basic explanation of such a system. It appears random (i.e. pseudo-random) but eliminates the curve. The devil is in the unit algorithm for such a system.

EDIT: There can be an RNG system that works in parallel to the entropy system. This no longer guarantees an equal player experience, but does give some of that “I won the lottery” feel.

IMPORTANT: This system doesn’t punish players who get a drop. It just ensures a consistent experience that achieves a quality threshold. Anything above that threshold with a secondary RNG component is gravy. Keep in mind a secondary RNG component that trounces the entropy mechanic means you still have a primary RNG system. In other words, X-units for a precursor cannot be something that takes a dedicated player 10 years to complete (extreme example just to illustrate the point).

juno.1840:

My suggestion is one I made over a year ago — add a small listing fee to buy orders. This punishes abusive behavior while minimally impacting desired behaviors.

The list fee does not need to be a percentage… although the price of the item could dictate a “bracket” from which the fee is taken. Or the fee could be capped percentage to keep it reasonable for higher priced goods.

The list fee could be dynamic based upon how many times you’ve place a buy order on the same item in a short time frame — again something that would not impact desired behavior but punish abusive behavior.

You want a deterrent that only punishes abusive behaviors while leaving the market generally unaffected for normal players.

This is only limited by the creativity of the designers and the limitations of the software development process.

Other suggestions that came to mind:

• New buy orders cannot be cancelled for TBD minutes (anti-spam)
• New buy orders on the same item cannot be created until TBD minutes have elapsed (although we shouldn’t punish players who are trying to buy more than 250 of something)
• Fee to cancel a buy order (no fees to place a buy order)

lordkrall.7241:

But that is just the issue.

When they release a road-map and something is changed/delayed the amount of rage and hate here is extreme. Because people see a road-map as a set in stone absolute promise kind of thing.

Yeah makes you wonder how other game companies do it… mind blowing.

While teaming in WvW I run “Arcane Wave” and “Arcane Brilliance”. Having two on-demand blasts is just too good.

I’ll jump on the pile and reiterate we have 4 fields because blasting the static is also useful.

We are blast-field combo machines. Nobody can do it like a staff ele.

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t get what the problem is. So what if someone outbid by 1 copper, just wait it out or cancel and rebid. If you want your stuff now and don’t want anyone to out bid you just buy it instantly and save your self the trouble of a few extra clicks and a dose of patience. If you want something at a cheaper you have to accept the risk that someone will bid higher, even if it is 1 copper.

Read the ANet posts in this topic. The issue is the system is easily bot’d and ANet (J.Smith) is open to suggestions.

We’ll chalk you up for “couldn’t think of any suggestions”.

I think they need to stick with the LS platform at this point and just ramp up the deliveries (in frequency and size).

If an expansion was introduced I’m not sure I would buy it at this point. I would have a year ago but my interest has waned. Popping in occasionally to see the latest LS episode or complete a monthly is about it for me now.

Kasima.8143:

Vayne.8563:

There are people who really don’t like map completing who would feel pressured to if you made the rewards so vast.

Please explain the psychology behind how people would feel “pressured” to do map completion if the reward was high, because that makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think Vayne’s point is that a significant portion of the player base performs the tasks that provide the greatest rewards. If you make world exploration too profitable in the gold-per-hour metric, then it will compete with other forms of reward farming.

That being said, I think good developers use rewards to encourage beneficial behaviors over less desirable behaviors.

Upping the rewards for map completion (not zone completion as I feel those rewards are already pretty high) would encourage more exploration completion on alts. That distributes the player base, reenergizes the various zones, etc. All good things.

So while rewarding more for world completion may put pressure on the player base, it’s a good pressure because the results are a more vibrant, diverse gaming experience.

The opposite is what you see in some of the farm-heavy areas of the game, which are debatably undesirable.

EDIT: Unrelated, I find it funny that some players say increasing the rewards will create pressure — while other players say “don’t like it, don’t do it, nobody is forcing you”. Those to positions are not compatible lol.

EDIT 2: Also unrelated, if you feel the rewards are sufficient as a player, then increasing the rewards certainly won’t ruin or demean your experience — at least in general this is true.

My suggestion is one I made over a year ago — add a small listing fee to buy orders. This punishes abusive behavior while minimally impacting desired behaviors.

The list fee does not need to be a percentage… although the price of the item could dictate a “bracket” from which the fee is taken. Or the fee could be capped percentage to keep it reasonable for higher priced goods.

The list fee could be dynamic based upon how many times you’ve place a buy order on the same item in a short time frame — again something that would not impact desired behavior but punish abusive behavior.

You want a deterrent that only punishes abusive behaviors while leaving the market generally unaffected for normal players.

This is only limited by the creativity of the designers and the limitations of the software development process.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Another thing is that there is no unique loot. Every area has the same kind of loot. There are no special areas with special skins like Urgoz or Deep in GW1 with Zodiac skins (yeah we got that as gem store CRAP).

There are also no bosses who drop unique named and cool looking weapons with special features. It’s so boring.

No unique loot is what allows the game to be “played your way”. You always have a chance at a precursor, or ascended box. It’s a beneficial feature but, as I mentioned earlier, it requires lower drop rates over unique loot encounters — which is why general play can feel less rewarding.

Olba.5376:

…The problem with adding new stuff is that you simply cannot create it at the pace the players can (and will!) exhaust it. No matter how hard to try, you’ll always have some people who will have done everything within a week or two.

Other than that, adding new professions would be quite unlikely, since there’s a lot that goes into a profession, such as having a unique subset of the weapon useable (no two professions can use all the same weapons) and balancing for PvP, WvW and PvE. And of course, as soon as you add a new profession, people will keep asking for you to repeat it, which just makes the situation worse by adding more skills to the pool to balance.

I agree that a developer can’t create content as fast as players consume it. While a valid point, it shouldn’t be a rationale for not ambitiously creating swaths of new content.

New classes are definitely a challenge because they can upset the balance in competitive play. However new classes are a really compelling and magnetic feature for the player community. It’s something you can genuinely call “entirely new” content. It freshens all your existing content as everyone will replay it with the new classes. So it doesn’t fragment your community, it brings them back together.

Two new professions (a la factions or nightfall) would generate sooooo much enthusiasm. Toss in a few new weps for those classes which also sprinkle into the existing classes is just more frosting on that awesome-cake.

Yes it’s hard, but not as hard as other development efforts (like massive new zones with hearts, vistas, dynamic events, etc). Also the payoff is enormous — so great RoI.

If players ask the devs to repeat it, then win-win… they did a great job.

I think we need one more elite. All our leets are pets or skill bar replacements.

I would like an elite that doesn’t fall under pet or skill replacement.

A signet would be awesome. I think a cantrip would be too much (cantrips are already super popular). An arcane elite would be interesting all well.

There are a few topics already (although some rather old now) that are “how would you design a new elite for ele”. Those are worth bumping.

The loot is there. My first thought was ascended weapon boxes. I can’t recall if there are ascended armor boxes, but I think they are.

This is an MMO issue — the loot must be throttled to protect the economy. One solution is “Bind on Acquire”. Diablo 3 switch to BoA and now the loot drops like rain in spring. It feels very rewarding.

Other solutions are to associate specific loot with specific content. We have this already with dungeon tokens but those are only useful at this point for skins and legendary weps. The downside to this approach is you may not enjoy the specific content required to get the drops you want.

So what we have now is loot you can get while doing any part of the game. None of the loot is BoA except the ascended stuff which gives players the freedom to sell it for gold. The trade for this flexibility is low drop rates since there are millions of drops a day and rare gear isn’t rare if everyone gets the drop with a few days of playing.

It’s a delicate balance and while I agree that loot feels scarce, it’s the nature of the beast.

Kurrilino.2706:

samo.1054:

I’m afraid that No-exp might be the choice that Anet went for. Why am I afraid? Because I like the game and I see myself playing it for quite some more time. This time, however, would be greatly expanded if Anet decided for an expansion. It would bring so much life into the game, so many returning and new players.

If Anet decided to go without an expansion, they’ve ultimately doomed their own game 5 years beforehand. Such a bad call and such a shame.

And a Quiz question here:

Why do you think WoW is still the strongest MMORPG on the market, even tho it’s 10 years old?

Geez, no idea, but I do know, that the game is having it’s fifth big expansion coming out in november!

Step it up Anet, for your own sake…

really no idea ??

Same reason why McDonalds is on top or Heinz or whatever leading brand you name.

They are not the best because they are the biggest…… they are the biggest because they are the best !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is why so many people and maybe the head of A-Net is wrong.
Using “we are not as big as Lizzrad” as excuse for the game contend is like suicide.

Do you really think Lizzard started as a world leading corporation ?
Of course not. They just presented something the people really wants and always tried to develop them self and their product.

And this is why A-Net isn’t as big as Lizzard.
They don’t care about developing. They are like Universitys.
They research more where to get the next funding is coming from instead to research something the human kind would benefit from.

But of course everyone is crying… why can’t we be Steven Hawkins ????
Easy… because he is putting effort and dedication into developing some new ground breaking theories and you guys research why people push the channel 12 button on their remote 4x more often than channel 18.

This post is like a word puzzle… I’m still trying to figure it out.

My 2-cents: There is too much investment in the LS delivery platform. All the eggs are in this basket. This is the future of GW2. There is potential here, even though the current LS deliveries seem a big light. Maybe those extra developers that are back will kick LS into high gear, making it the envy of MMOs everywhere.

So I was toying around with Rift for roughly 10 hours this weekend. GW2 has the best combat system hands down. It’s also promotes cooperation between player which is also industry leading. So GW2 has the best play experience, but here I was playing Rift. I even spent an hour in Rift just fishing (which is one of my favorite MMO mini-games).

I was enjoying myself but I took a step back afterwards and asked myself “why was I playing this over GW2?” It was a combination of a few things…

1. The world was new and unexplored
2. I was leveling a character with new skills and build mechanics
3. I was completing achievements

These can all be lumped into a singular, broad category which is “progress”. They are all forms of progress. When I’m playing I feel like I’m accomplishing things (leveling, exploring, completing achievements). I’m not a “play just to play” kind of player. I want to progress through goals. Most of my goals fall into those three categories above.

Coming back to GW2:

I cannot explore any more of the world. The only way this is going to become viable is through introduction of lots of new zones. This type of content is very labor intensive though and definitely wouldn’t be on the radar anytime soon.

I can level more characters, but I have done this multiple times, all the way to 80. Replay of leveling doesn’t present anything new. A new level cap would open up more progression options – however that invalidates gear and that would be a horrible experience imho.

New classes present progression options because they are new. This is immediately appealing. This is less developer effort than creating a plethora of new zones, but still significant work load. I think this would be very well received by the player base (all types of players)

Lastly is achievements. I’ve come to appreciate achievements more and more. They provide something to do, provide rewards upon completion, and are satisfying (as in “I accomplished something tonight” satisfying). Case in point: the new collector achievements. These are great because they are something to do and provide progress. Achievements can vary in complexity and thus different levels of development effort.

Anyway, this rambling is my thoughts after playing another MMO which is not as good as GW2, but I was playing it anyway and wondering afterwards why I was doing it. Don’t like any of my ideas? That’s fine. Feel free to post your own.

TLDR: I want to play GW2 but I’m out of enjoyable, goal driven tasks to complete. I’ve posted a few ideas although rather broad in nature. Post your ideas for goal driven content.

Other games with elements of Guild Wars include Archeage and Rift. You can find some interesting build mechanics in both. While not a fluid as GW2 with regards to combat, they offer more satisfying talent/skill/class systems.

Nothing tops GW2 combat — it should be the benchmark adopted by other MMOs. However GW2 doesn’t have the build complexity and sophistication that existed in GW1. You can find that in Rift and Archeage.

The first MMO to get the two together will probably dominate.

cheese.4739:

juno.1840:

I like it but only with a scepter. It’s a bit of a finger workout though. My friend on the other hand thinks it is a cheese build… in some ways I agree as it promotes mindless attunement switching. I still find it fun.

It… sort of does, but a FAir ele who swaps mindlessly will tend to end up with 0 defensive options pretty fast.

Zero defense options from being locked out of attunement correct? If yes, then I agree.

However that’s the only way to maximize dps with FA builds.

As someone mentioned, scepter is awesome for this since the air-auto-attack crits often and will persist into the other attunements allowing air to reactivate almost immediately.

arcane brilliance had previously blasted right away, at the start of the cast. In one of the previous patches the skill was changed to blast at the end. I think that patch went half way by moving the blast text to the end of the cast, but keeping the actual blast calculation at the beginning. I agree it’s not consistent.

I prefer the blasts be at the beginning of the skills — at least for the skill you can use while moving. Otherwise it’s hard to blast the fields on the move (simple use-case: blast static field for swiftness — this is an operation performed on the move and it’s quite a bit harder to cast the field ahead and time the arcane brilliance to land the actual blast).

Apparently you can’t call this thread what it is without being infracted… so done “communicating” on these forums.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thank you for finding those links, Robert. It’s helpful for everyone to see real resources, and those who missed them (or forgot about them) may enjoy reading them.

To be blunt, why let the player community waffle around and provide this information, while community reps comment on the quality of the posts in this thread?

EDIT: check out Blizzard’s D3 forums which are arguably as toxic as these forums. Yet they have multiple community reps responding with real information (not fluff) almost daily (no less than weekly). Their PTR forums were a remarkable collaboration between devs and players resulting in many player driven changes within weeks that ultimately ended up in patch 2.1. Night and day…