Guild Wars 2

I’m among those who likes the new trait unlock system. I enjoy leveling and I like the idea of having to work for my traits. Alts and those who don’t want to work for on trait acquisition have the purchase option. Deferred gratification is more satisfying for me.

However, I agree some of the ways you unlock them seem unfortunate. For example, I’ll forgo a trait rather than set foot in Arah again. Did it once, on my first toon, and I will never go there again. Not even if you fill it with gold and scantily dressed hunks. Tying a trait to an event failure seems odd, as well.

By contrast, the trait point acquisition curve is just awful, IMO. No points until 30 and then one point every six levels feels terrible.

It isn’t so much a question of whether it makes a significant difference in game play, but that it is a huge hit to the perception of increasing character power. I enjoy leveling because I enjoy watching my character grow and expand her skill set. Now, a new level is a huge yawn. Instead of a fun journey to level cap, now it feels like a slog, with new shinies few and far between. You shouldn’t go more than 2-3 levels with nothing to show for it, IMO.

The other concern I have about the new point acquisition curve is that I have leveled a couple professions that didn’t come into their own until 40-60 because it wasn’t until then that you had enough points to reach some gameplay changing traits, like dodge-on-clone for my mesmer.

Now, that pivot point is pushed out even further, perhaps all the way to 80 in some cases. That is not a good way to encourage players to stick with a profession or the game.

Until now, I thought the daily system in this game was one of the best I’ve seen because it was very flexible. As a PvE player, I had plenty to choose from everyday. I even liked the zone-specific dailies (I know some did not) because they encouraged me to go back to areas I wouldn’t otherwise revisit.

Now, the daily feels like more of a grind because there’s virtually no choice. If it includes things I don’t like (Acquatic Slayer can just diaf), I either have to suck it up or blow off the daily. Likely the latter since, as a working adult on the wrong side of 50, I value my time more than that. Many days I only log on to do my daily lately, so this will probably translate into even less play time, too.

It’s not the end of the world, but I think its unfortunate this has gone from an enjoyable way to casually direct my own play to marching orders from ANet.

Better guild management tools, like last time online or last time representing.

A real cosmetic system so I can change my stats and my look independently.

An extra action bar for consumables, pets, etc.

A better way to swap weapon sets in and out so I’m not rummaging around in my bag for my offhand weapon after I swap my MH/OH set for a 2H.

The ability to send mail to my guildmates or party members without being bitten by anti-spam chokepoint after 2 or 3 messages.

I definitely miss it.

I have no complaint about GW2’s system. I think it’s fine, it’s as advertised, and it’s fun for roaming around the landscape. I miss dodging in every game I play now.

I just don’t enjoy the system as much in dungeons. Too much chaos, very few interesting mechanics. I hope over time they’ll figure out more interesting strats for boss fights.

My preferred role in MMO’s is healing and support in small group content, and that itch just isn’t scratched at all by GW2. I prefer feeling like I’m helping my teammates rather than just “Hulk smash!” I like CC. I like more nuanced fights.

So, I really enjoy this game and play way more than I should, but I cannot play it exclusively. And, ya know, that’s OK.

I have to say 6/10, at best.

• Too many bugs.
• I’m very tired of Yet Another Zerg.
• I’m very tired of bosses who are big bags of HP. Standing around doing the same thing for 15 min. is not fun.
• Since I didn’t like the back skin, I discarded all my blade shards. Only to find out when this installment dropped that it was a shortcut to the end cinematic. I wouldn’t care either way except that it now appears unlikely I will get a group that can successfully complete the fight.
• For the most part, this final installment felt just like the previous one, which I was already bored with very quickly.

For me, the best releases of the year were SAB, the Zephyr Sanctum (hands down, my favorite), the holiday JP’s, and the Marionette. Everything else was dominated by “Here a zerg, there a zerg, everywhere a zerg zerg!” If I want to do nothing bu zerg, I can follow the champ trains. I don’t need a new zerg backdrop every 2 weeks.

Love the game, love the world, love the concept, but pretty much had it with zerg fests.

They are at Vigil Keep now.

I’m with OP. Lion’s Arch looks awesome, but the stuff going on inside feels like Yet Another Dogpile. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, and I enjoy a nice zerg now and then, but it’s been done to death in this game already.

I really thought the Marionette struck a nice balance in that it split everyone up. I felt more like I made a difference, I could have a somewhat different experience depending on which lane I picked, it had some strategy to it.

I hope we see more fights like Mari or LS chapters like the Zephyr Sanctum in future, rather than “same zerg, different day”. I appreciate that ANet tries to mix it up a bit, I just wish they’d mix it up more.

I have to agree: I find it quite tedious after the first round. Once you get enough siege set up, the whole rest of the encounter is trivialized, and it feels long, drawn out, and boring. It would be nice if it ramped up each round.

With that said, I must come clean and say that I have guildies who seem to enjoy it tremendously as-is.

FWIW, I bought an endless griffon tonic a couple days ago and got exactly what I expected, both in reading the recipe and making the item.

Of course, that’s not proof that they’re WAI in all cases.

It isn’t just you, OP. It has happened to me a few times. Twice tonight, in fact.

Once near the start – I didn’t even get to the waiting platform. Once when I took that long jump down. I didn’t miss a jump or get in the mist of doom either time. I just suddenly got the loading screen and was back in the lobby.

The second time tonight, I ended up in a permanent face plant, which at least was entertaining for all and sundry.

Possibly I’m just having an off night, but so far, this LS has a “been there, done that” feeling for me, so I haven’t been able to engage with it much. I think it is partly the timing: Taking out the sprouts feels a lot like closing doors, collecting spores = collecting candy corn, etc.

I get that it is difficult to impossible to come up with something innovative on the short LS schedule, but this chapter doesn’t feel very distinct from Halloween wrt the thing you’re doing.

I liked the story instance, though I wish it had been more story and less hulk-smash. Kessex certainly looks interesting. I’m curious to see if this chapter develops into something more interesting, but I’ve feeling this will be one of the LS segments that I focus in on leveling an alt.

I was looking forward to this item until I found out that it talks. No thank you. I don’t want my car telling me my left rear door is open, and I don’t want my salvage kits chatting me up.

I think it is too soon to judge how well the LS works.

Some LS releases work for me, some don’t. The Bazaar of the Four Winds was some of the best fun I’ve had in a game. The Queen’s Jubilee, not so much. I love JPs; whacking loot pinata’s is not my thing. However, many of my guildies are loving it. I play the bits I enjoy and ignore the rest. So far, there’s been an acceptable balance of fun and meh for me, but that’s not true for everyone. There are other issues, too, like cheev fatigue, perceived quality issues, and currency explosion.

However, I look at it like this:

ANet is trying something new with LS. It took them awhile to get their internal development processes reorganized to support it, and because of how time consuming content development is (yes, even “small” bites like the LS releases), it is going to take quite awhile for them to figure out what kinds of updates work well and what don’t. How best to pace the story. What the right cheev mix is. What the right blend of game elements is.

Look back after a year or more of LS (not just a year of GW2), and then judge. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be giving feedback, as is happening in this thread. It’s very important. I just think it is too soon to declare the concept either a success or a failure.

I love DE’s and wish there were more new ones, as some others have mentioned. It delights me no end when I occasionally trip over a DE I’ve never seen before when I’m rambling around doing my daily. However, how long does it take you to do most DE’s? 5 minutes? 10? Maybe 30-60 for a long chain. And how many times will you re-run it? It doesn’t feel sustainable to me.

The game needs a mix of content to stay fresh, and I think ANet is still trying to figure out both what that mix is and what they can manage with available resources. Personally, I’m willing to give them more time to do that, but I can understand why some don’t feel likewise.

My guild runs puzzles with about 50 people. We’ve had a few incidents of leaving people behind, but only the first attempt or two when we’re not familiar with the problem spots.

Our strategy is (a) make sure everyone knows not to release if they die, (b) have everyone on voice chat, and © stop periodically to herd cats – rez the fallen, portal up the jumping challenged, find the lost, etc. Mostly, you need good (but not despotic) comms discipline and some patience. And mesmers.

IDK if this is true with a smaller group, but we find with our large one that we have plenty of time to complete the puzzles, so there’s no need for a headlong rush that leaves people behind.

The biggest problem we’ve had with both puzzles and challenges is when multiple guilds are involved. I understand why they’re shareable, but things tend to go pear shaped with multiple guilds, between the loss of coordinated activity, culling, and bugs.

Not to be a wet blanket (my guild wants to make similar use of this data), but has ANet weighed in on whether or not scraping the leaderboards is a TOS violation? I haven’t been able to find anything from them, and my (confused) reading of the TOS is that it might be. I’m referring to this document, in the section labeled “Your Use of the Sites”, esp. the first paragraph:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/website-terms-of-use/

My legal language skills are very weak, though – by the time I get to about the 20th clause, I can’t figure out which end is up.

Edit: Legal language as a martial art = kittens. Fixt.

Take the time to do the daily achievement as often as you can and you should have plenty of karma while leveling to spend it freely, and still have plenty of leftovers at level cap for everything except perhaps legendaries – that’s a unicorn that I don’t chase.

I have recommended it to many and will continue to do so, despite my reservations about the Ascended gear. I have had (and continue to have) a ton of fun with the game. It has been well worth the box price.

As for the gear grind threat: Not only is it too soon to tell how gear progression will factor into the game in the long run, but I don’t assume that everyone else has the same negative reaction to it that I do. So, yes, I would recommend the game without reservation.

Another alternative that is available right now is to use the commendations from the donation packages introduced with the Karka event. It does cost some silver, but not much.

In LA, feed the forge 3 similar items plus “Donation Packaging” purchasable from Miyani (1s4c) and receive commendations. Then use the comms to buy gathering tools and salvage kits in stacks of 250 from Lionguard Lyns in the middle of LA where the lion statue used to be.

For example, I usually get 6-8 comms per combine. Stacks of 250 orichalcum picks or axes are 33 comms.

You can read more about this on the wiki:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lionguard_Lyns

Count me among the disappointed. No quitting, no raging, just…disappointed.

I am sick to death of repetitive gear grinds in MMOs and was hoping GW2 would avoid it. I didn’t think they’d be able to entirely avoid it in the long run, but it’s very depressing to see it happening so soon after launch. Even if it is a modest increase, from my perspective, it’s still the camel getting his nose into the tent.

I’ve enjoyed the game tremendously so far, but I would say if you’re not enjoying it now, you’re probably not going to enjoy it later. It doesn’t change significantly.

One exception I’d make to this is if the problem is the combat style/skills, then stick with it long enough to learn the skills for all the weapons of your chosen profession as different weapons can give combat a very different feel. You also might want to give pvp a try. You can jump in right away.

But, yeah, if exploring the world and dynamic events aren’t ringing your bells, you’re unlikely to change your mind later.

I agree, the sound is so subtle that I don’t notice it most of the time. I don’t want whispers to bang a gong, but it could be more prominent.

Alternatively, it would be nice if the chat tabs get a graphical indicator of new messages. In another game I play that has this feature, I create a tab that’s just whispers, so I know if I see the tab light up that I have a whisper.

I have to agree, even with a group of 5 doing an instance, the particle effects become too much. I frequently can’t tell where to drop my targeting reticle or if it worked once I did. In a large event, it’s that much more ridiculous.

The game’s painterly style is perhaps a disadvantage here. The particle effects have the same lush, soft-edged quality that world has, which tends to make them hard to see through and gives them a larger visual field.

urtv has it right. Use discoveries & potions up to 390ish, then it only takes a couple of the rare karma recipe items to close the gap.

It is expensive to get the last 10 points, but it was dirt cheap to get the first 390, so I really had no complaints.

I don’t mind not being the star of the show in the personal story. It’s rather refreshing for a change. However, Trahearne doesn’t feel at all like a suitable replacement.

He’s never intense, passionate or excited about anything. His speech is universally blah.

He spends too much time in too many quests standing around admiring his nails instead of fighting, and half the time when he does engage, he ends up quickly dead. Some hero. I’ve also yet to see him do a single necromancerish thing.

It all comes together to make him feel like a bit of a poser, and so I feel neither like a hero myself nor a follower of a hero. It doesn’t ruin the story for me, but it certainly detracts from it.

I have been experiencing this lately, too, and here is the tip that fixes it for me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it has solved the problem for me multiple times. Sadly, I don’t remember where I saw it, so cannot give proper attribution.

1. Open the TP.
2. Open the game options.
3. In the options, change the language. For example from English to French.
You should notice the TP refresh behind the options window, in the new language.
4. Change the language back. TP refreshes again in the right language.

I’m about to complete the story on my Staff Ele. I’ve done about half of the quests solo, and about half in a duo or trio. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the challenge in the story quests. I like that they’re not a face roll, and I have several friends who have solo’d all theirs (mostly on Ranger, War, or Guardian). However, I also have some friends who struggle to complete them even in a duo, so I have to agree they probably need some balancing to up the fun factor and decrease the frustration.

I’ve had most trouble when there has been either a bug and/or a flawed game mechanic. For example, the first Claw Island was my toughest challenge. I can’t tell you how many times I died. Two things contributed to this:

(1) The means to the objective were unclear. I engaged mobs I didn’t need to, which brought even more down on me, dying ensued.

There was no way to distinguish between “you must kill the finite number of things in this area to progress” and “these mobs will keep spawning forever, noob” until I had killed quite a lot of them…and been killed. This is because, very often, in the first case, the finite number is large so they appear the same for awhile.

(2) As someone else noted, where Mira dies makes a HUGE difference to the difficulty.

In my case, she died right where the mobs spawn, so I could only rez her by running in, rezzing a bit, dying, running back, repeat. It was horrid, not fun, and costly. I subsequently helped friends with this quest, and she usually died where she could be easily rezzed without engaging the spawn pack.

A similar thing happened to my group doing Armor Guard last night. The key NPC needed to progress the quest died while we were defending during repairs. Only we had no way of knowing it wouldn’t progress without her – she didn’t seem important. Mobs just kept spawning forever. We ran ahead to the green circle, which appeared to progress the quest, only it didn’t really.

(Those circles should not appear when you’re not supposed to move forward, BTW).

By the time we figured out it was probably tied to the NPC, and rezzed her, the quest was bugged. We had to suicide and start over. This time, we made sure to keep an eye on her and not let her die. The quest progressed as it should have.

With vistas, I usually figure out I’m doin’ it wrong when it seems too hard to get to. I’ve come to apply the same rationale to the story quests, but it’s been a painful learning experience. That’s an OK mechanic for vistas. It is purely annoying (and expensive) in an infinite floodtide of mob spawns.

I noticed several items in my pack like that tonight. Restarted the game and it cleared up. Guildies have reported the same thing.

My friends and I do the following: Salvage all whites; sell unwanted blues and greens.

The reason for this is that, unless you have another income stream (such as selling crafting mats), you will need the money at 20/40/60 to buy your trait books.

Salvaging blues and greens does not actually net you much in the way of mats. For example, one piece of cloth/leather/wood/metal. Even you don’t plan to craft and don’t need the mats, what you get by vendoring the gear is more than the meager amount of mats you get from salvaging it.

If you’re going to take up tailoring or leather working, you might want to modify this behavior given that cloth and leather scrap drops are pathetic. e.g. salvage the light or medium armor pieces.