Guild Wars 2

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Clearly this doesn’t apply to level-capped players, but have you considered targeting content at a higher level than your character? I prefer difficult content, so personally I tend to look for content that’s 2 levels higher than my own.

I know I’m late to the party, but wow, I’ve rarely seen a post that missed the topic by as wide a margin as this one. I know, this sounds rude, but it’s just… the way I see it.

The original post raised the absolutely valid point of event “chains” being forever stuck in “final success” (or, for that matter, “final failure”). The proposed solution of events getting harder the more often they succeeded and easier the more often they’ve failed would resolve this beautifully, yet the ArenaNet employee completely failed to respond to this very good point.

So, no matter where you head to in the morning (where you work), read carefully first, reply then.

Jezath.7395:

As far as I know you get a small chance to get extra go’s on nodes, this chance go’s up with WvW bonuses

Ah, good to know. Thanks.

If you hit f twice in very, very fast succession when gathering herbs (or, to some extent metal or wood), the game actualy lets you gather that location twice. Not always, but quite often.

I happened upon this after creating a mouse-macro for looting. It does nothing but send “f” every 0.2 seconds while I hold that mousebutton down. This allows me to run over the battlefield holding down Button 10 of my Naga and quickly pick up all the loot. It’s my personal replacement for a missing area-loot or similar functionality.

The button is quite useless for talking to NPCs, though, as it will open / close vendor windows (for example) in fast succession. It’s nice for the lazy gatherer, though: Just run towards the herb holding the button down and as soon as you’re close enough, you pick it up.

Now, recently I noticed that sometimes, I’ll gather some herb and immediately gather again. At first I thought “Oh well, there’s rich ore, maybe there’s rich plants as well.” But then I gathered onions first and some other herb right after that. This ,akes me believe that it’s actually not “rich herbs” but a bug where hitting “f” very fast when starting to gather, you will actually gather twice.

Obviously this is unintended, so I stopped to gather using the macroed button but instead mapped a single “f”-press to a different button, using the macro for looting only.

I guess it’s a bug though and using it should be considered exploiting. I just hope I don’t gat banned for stumbling upon it accidentally and then reporting it with my main account.

EDIT: In case a repeated sending of one and the same key while physically holding a button down is considered “botting” – I don’t think it is since it’s not doing an automated sequence and I have to physically hold the button while the macro is running. I created a ticked asking for clarification, but noone ever answered that in a helpful manner, so I guess such a macro is not a bot, otherwise you guys would have told me so when I asked about it.

OK, so maybe the warrior is a tad overtuned himself. But what do I mean with the “defensive build” I used at lvl42?

I poured all the possible 20 points into toughness and the other 12 into vitality. Then I picked some major traits that seemed fitting. I slotted skills for support and damage reduction. How did I optimize my equipment? I swapped the greatsword for a green lvl 39 (or so) sword and a blue lvl41 shield. I’d never used any of those before. My lucky drop yellow lvl39 bow supplemented this.

While waiting at the entrance, I did the skillchallenge a few meters away 3 or 4 times to memorize the “new” abilities. That was my entire “preparation”. I knew that at least one of the group was in CM before, so I didn’t bother reading up on it. Had I not known that, I’d have googled it quickly to get a rough idea what to do. Yes, I’m willing to spend those 5 minutes while waiting at the gate anyway.

Luckily, it was a guild-group, so we had teamspeak. I’m sure that saved a lot of typing and thus time. The group consisted of me, trying to take point and soak damage as best as I could, some more DPSy types that did slot some of their support skills and an almost pure support elementalist. That was by no means a “trinity” setup. Neither could I hold aggro and take every hit, nor could the elementalist heal all incoming damage. But it was a decent setup.

I was trying to engage as many as I could in close combat, keeping them from the ranged if possible. By the power of defensive cooldowns and the “slightly” overpowered healing signet, I was able to stay in melee range almost all the time. When the defensive CDs were spent and damage kept coming in, I dodged backwards twice and swapped to the bow until my health was up again and my CDs were ready again. But being a defensive heavy armor class, this didn’t happen very often. Still, the bow is nice for AOE, too, so I used it accordingly.

When we pulled, we pulled. That means, when we engaged a group, we tried not to fight them where they were standing but to pull them towards us a bit so that we’d not add other groups into the fight. Granted, the “champion of the friendzone” Logan thwarted those attempts from time to time by running at them like the stupid git he is, but all on his own, Logan doesn’t last all that long and we were mostly able to fight where we wanted to fight, not where the mobs wanted to fight – which is mostly somewhere from where they could not fear us into other groups.

Oh, and we used <ctrl>-T excessively.

Since we (mostly) fought well out of reach of other groups, most of the time we just took the fears and knockbacks as they came. If a cloth-clad was downed while feared, one of the better-protected would res them fast. No, it didn’t take teamspeak to see the blue “res me” icon.

And thusly, the “deadly” “unplayable” CM story mode went by with just two wipes when we weren’t cautious and three deaths in total for me. We all agreed that we’d had a lot of fun and that we’d do it again if another guildmate “needed” the storymode.

Yes, it was a guild-group. But most of the things we did did not require voice-chat, just common sense.

EDIT: Typos

I don’t want to patronise anyone, but…
…but yesterday, I had a lot of fun in a story mode dungeon (CM). We didn’t wipe all that often, I died only a few times and that was due to player stupidity.

I know AC story mode is very hard, but…
…even though it almost made me never set foot into any dungeon again, I’m glad I did. AC is overtuned, skip it if you can. Start with CM, CM is fine.

I said CM story mode is fine, but…
…but that does not mean you can jump in unprepared. I know it’s story mode and it’s for pickup groups. Still, do your part so the party succeeds. You’re elementalist? Consider respeccing to support. You’re a warrior? Consider a defensive setup. That might save you more in repairs than relearning traits twice costs in total.

I know it’s for PUGs, but…
…but PUG doesn’t mean you have to pick up the first person in chat. Ask them what their build is. What they bring to the party. Think about their role in the group, how well it fits the people in the group alrready. Do you really need the third support char to supplement the two full defensive build heavies? Who’ll do the damage then? Do you really need that five-signet greatsword warrior in your DPS-heavy group?

Yes, it’s story mode. Yes, it’s for pick up groups. But no, it’s not for every random combination of players, bringing any random combination of classes in builds least suited for dungeons.

And you know what? That’s fine by me.

@Deluxxe (quoting broken again, sorry)

I ran it yesterday, twice. Died a total of seven times, both runs combined. The entire group agreed it was a breeze. I don’t know about the skilled groups you know, but the skilled group I ran with had no problems. It felt challenging enough not to be boring but otherwise totally OK.

I did it twice yesterday and I thought I’d chime in.

First, let me say that yesterday was the first time I did CM. Before that, I’ve done a couple of AC story mode and that’s that. No other dungeons. I don’t know CM pre-patch.

So, how did it go? Pretty decently. On the first run, we were a bit cautious. Some of my guildmates I ran with were there the day before and whiped a lot, due to uncarefgul pulls by a random they had picked up.

So we pulled carefully. Also, because I’d read the horror stories about the buffed difficulty, I had respecced my lvl 42 warrior to toughness / vitality and donned sword and shield. Still, I fully expected a wipefest just like the AC runs I’d done on my light armor toons.

I died a full three (3) times, mostly because we added a group to an ongoing fight.

Second run, we were a bit careless, I died a full four (4) times.

CM story mode as it is now has some challenging parts but the difficulty seems just right. When I did everything right, I didn’t die. When we were sloppy, people bit the dust. That’s the way it should be. I was in melee almost all the time. Only when my defensive skills were all on cooldown and I was being thrashed did I dodge away and swap to my bow until my health was up again. Even at the first boss, the golem, I stayed in melee all the time. No problem, even when I didn’t block his flame-spouting whirlwind attack. If I hit block for it, I hadn’t taken any damage when he’d finished.

Also, if you spec defensively before you go in, it might just save you more in repairs than you pay for retraining twice. Just do it.

TL;DR: Chill out, CM storymode is just fine when you go in there at the level it’s designed for. Now, AC story mode, we need to talk about once more…

EDIT: I’m truly looking foreward to the next dungeon down the line. And should some guildmate ask for a CM-run, I’m in!

roqoco.4053:

@ “What gets me is the game was sold on “taking the grind out of MMO’s” then they put in Karma weapons that cost 64k karma, armour sets that cost 212k karma, cultural sets that cost 120 gold and dungeon sets that take 70+ runs to get the badges for, then destroy any ability to farm anything in order to reach these obscene token/karma/gold prices, and expect people not to argue back?”

The point is that they are meant to take some time to get. If you can only get them quickly by farming particular areas, then that encourages people to play the game in a “gamey” way rather than as a virtual world. That would alienate the many of us who really don’t like farming and prefer to experience all the content that Arenanet have designed. That said, in return for nerfing farming, I reckon they do need to make it possible to get the mats and karma over much more of the content.

The point is that they promised us no grind in order to be ready for endgame. However, some of their endgame is so hard, you need full yellow at the very, very least to participate. In reality, full orange is recommended and you’ll still face tough challenges. The only way to full yellow or full orange is grind.

Don’t know when it starts as of today, but as of next patch, it starts when you buy the box.

Seriously, what do botters do? Log in all the time and expect gold, karma and XP. So, that has to be throttled. When you log in more than once a week, you don’t get any of the above anymore.

Now, I hear you complaining “but how shall we level without gold, karma or XP?” It’s a game, after all. You play it for fun not for gold, karma or XP. If you always need a reward to play, go away!

As always, you may keep and use any sarcasm you find at your convenience.

If the dungeons were any good, this forum would be full of strategy guides, of discussions about how various paths work, of stories about great experiences people had. I’ve seen that for other games.

Currently, this forum is full of complaints, intermingled with some apologists. Not one of the things I mentioned above is at the frontpage at the time of writing. The things that come closest are tales of people failing and complaining about it, but relaying their failed strategy none the less and one post of someone looking for others to start doing explorables with.

The rest is complaints.

This is a sign of deep, deep trouble for GW2’s endgame PvE content. You don’t even have to buy the game to know something’s kittened up, you just have to take a look at how the content is currently received by those that try to play it.

Anything that I have to do over and over so can can do what I want to do is a grind.

Currently, it seems that you have to farm gold over and over in order to have the exotic gear you more or less need in order to do dungeon runs that are fun and not a long string of unnnecessary deaths.

So yes, the game in its current state feels very, very grindy to me. This is completely subjective, of course.

Mungrul.9358:

Yeah ravinhood, you’re applying your experiences with other MMOs that focus on gear grind to Guild Wars 2.
That is never what the franchise has been about.
In the first Guild Wars, for all three major campaigns, I could guarantee that as soon as I hit 20 and got to where it was available, I could afford a full suit of top level gear with maximum stats.
ArenaNet led us to believe that GW2 would be the same; it’s not, especially as one type of armour, that with Power/Vitality/Toughness bonuses, isn’t even craftable and only available through intensive grind.

+1

No grind, my kitten! I feel lied to. I feel betrayed. I was so hoping for a game where I could be competetive statwise from day one and then do whatever I want, at whatever pace I want to farm my appearence gear.

Instead I have to find out that I can’t be competetive statwise from day one. Instead, I am facing ever higher thresholds of grind in order to be. Karma-prizes were raised enormously. Dungeon-runs were made longer and more difficult and (at the same time) less rewarding. Since sky-high karma prizes were not enough, karma grinding in DE was nerfed.

During beta, I was intending to just buy the stuff I need from the tradepost. I was even willing to trade cash for gold in order to do so. But earning gold has also been turned into an endless grind with diminishing returns on everything you do and there’s now goldsinks galore. Gold for cash is a pittance, I’m not spending 100 gems for 26 silver, period.

Unfortunately, I was never much of a crafter, but it seems you have to be in order to get gear.

I’m incredibly turned off at the moment.

- my kitten!

EDIT: For whatever reason, the youtube videos lose the time I link to, which is 1:36. “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. Noone enjoys that, noone finds it fun.”

Feranor.2053:

I just want my basic Exotic set of gear since Rabid gear isn’t craftable.

So basically, if the game was true to its promise of “max stats, no grind”, you would run dungeons when you like to, for fun, but since that promise has been broken, you feel compelled to, right?

Consequently, you want dungeons to be fast and painless. If you weren’t forced into the dungeon-grind-treadmill, you’d probably be looking for engaging fights with complicated bosses, I guess. Same as me.

Well, it’s grind we get, so our expectations, what we want from dungeons is directed at painless grinding, not at fun. Good job, ArenaNet.

Xanthiel.9360:

I agree with OP. Also I must point out that people most were likely not “having fun” speed running CoF, they were getting a significant amount of money/exp/gear for an insignificant amount of time spent, and thus felt like they were “winning the game”.
Unless, you know, they enjoyed beating the exact same enemies in the exact same configurations once every 20 minutes ad infinitum. I could swear people used to call that a “grind”…

Funnily, it’s not up to you to descide what’s fun for others or if they may only do what is fun to them or – worse – considered by you to be fun.

CoF-grind was simply the fastest way to max-stat gear. A small grind, but a managable one, as promised by ArenaNet, for example in their FAQ: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/world/faq/

“While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent-world experience, it retains the unique characteristics of the original game, including strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.”

When it says that GW2 “retains” something, that refers to GW1. In GW1, anti-grind meant that you’d reach max level fast and could have max-stat gear a day later.

“Our goal is to avoid forcing players into the grind-based gameplay that too often accompanies a high level cap.”

This could be (and indeed was by many) interpreted as saying “just as in GW1, you can have max stats without grinding and the max-stat-cap won’t be a moving target”. While it seems that what max-stat is will remain fixed (but we don’t know for sure), it does require grind to reach it.

Those are the promises broken, as quoted directly from their homepage, from their FAQ.

Rainfall.4017:

Max stat gear is very easy to get and requires no grind. That’s a fact.

OK, I’ve rerolled too often so I’m still on my way to 80. Please point me to the max-stat geat with the lowest requirements for me to put in. I don’t care how god-awful ugly it is. I don’t even care if it’s not only an eyesore but also non-transmutable. Will five gold suffice for a full set incl. weapons? Or what will I have to do to get it?

Rainfall.4017:

You do not need to do dungeons to get max level gear. There was no promise broken. To get that ultra cool dungeon gear? Yep you’ll have to do multiple runs. You don’t need to do this in a week however, you also don’t need to do it if you don’t enjoy it. You have free will. Use it.

As I said, I never expected ultra cool gear to be easily available. It just so happened that the most easily acquired max-level gear was dungeon gear. That door to max-stat has been slammed shut. What’s the easiest max-stat gear now?

People complain because a main issue they promised was just compromised: no grind.

They said that obtaining max-level gear would not require grind. Well, it does, sorry. But, up until last patch, you could circumvent that grind by speedrunning a certain explorable mode dungeon got you that gear. Still a grind, but a reasonably short one. So you could get what you were promised by a means not intended to be used that way.

So ArenaNet jumped in and rather than fixing one of the many, numerous bugs in the game, descided to make breaking their no-grind-promise a first priority. And they fix the one loophole used by players to get what they were originally promised.

That’s the way the current patch is perceived by many. Maybe you now understand why they complain. They complain about the change to the dungeons but what they are really upset about is the original promise that was already broken at release (no grind) that they successfully circumvented so far.

Before BWE1, I even understood what had been comunicated as me being able to buy ugly max-stat gear for next-to-no gold at a vendor in any capital city – and I was happily looking foreward to grinding for looks while being competetive. I absolutely resent grinding to be competetive. As it stands, full exotic is a significant amount over anthing that’s level 80 and dirt cheap. I feel cheated, too.

When will it stop… good question.

Actually, if someone were to put the BWE1-build online somewhere, I’d be a happy camper, move there and stop complaining.

Rainfall.4017:

Regardless of anything else you say. You obviously don’t understand the concept of carrot on a stick. So stop talking about it like you do.

The stick’s too long, the carrot is smelly.

I got frustrated in AC on my clothies and descided to go with the flow. ArenaNet has completely, utterly kittened up class balance, so I rerolled a warrior. And in order to be as blatant with it as possible, of course it’s a five-signet-warrior. Stupid, no skill involved. My wife also rerolled warrior.

When she was 32 and I was 33, we accidentally ran into some 38 mobs and killed them before realizing what we’d just done. Mind you, I played necro and ele before, I’m not used to effotlessly killing mobs that are at my current level.

So, I thought “Alrighty, I’m playing the unbalanced flavour of the month class, I’m skipping AC (Ascalonian Catastrophy), I’ll be 40 soon, time to head into a dungeon again!” Seems that the next dungeon has been “fixed” into unplayability just in time for me to never go into any dungeon again, ever. sigh

Something can be hard and grindy but fun because it’s very well designed. We will enjoy it.

Something can be hard and not especially fun to do and we might still do it and enjoy it, if only for the reward, if only to be able to say we did it.

Something can be easy (not challenging) and grindy, but we’ll still do it over and over if it’s fun. Funny NPCs, interesting mechanics, whatever.

However, you may only pick two. You may never pick three. At the moment, the dungeons are leaning towards “you picked all three: hard, grindy and not that much fun to to”.

‘tis actually true. I love playing with a few others but as soon as there’s half a dozend, I don’t fight the world anymore. Everything and anything dies in a glaring white energy field of overlapping AOE. I fight to reach mobs first so I can hit as much as possible at least once.

Yes, extremely annoying. Stopped me from participating in the forums before.

Seems to be rocket-science, such a “forum”. Maybe if they ask around in the newsgroups of usenet, they find a kid who knows about this newfangled nonsense.

@Sartori

No one is trying to take away the fun that difficult explorable dungeons provide. What I have a problem with and what Lokai seems to have a problem with and what seems too much of a concept to grasp for some is this:

1) We’re talking about story mode only.
2) We’d like the difficulty in story mode dungeons to increase with every new dungeon you gain access to while leveling.
3) We feel that of all the story mode dungeons out there, the first you’re gaining access to, Ascalonian Catacombs, is (one of) the hardest of them all, which goes against (2).

I’ve given reasons why I think (2) is justified. (a) It teaches you what you need to know rather than expecting you to know everything right from the start. (b) It keeps every dungeon challenging rather than thrashing you in the first and then boring you in the latter dungeons.

Now, one counter argument seems to be that AC isn’t that hard after all. Well, if it isn’t, then what are the others? The ones you gain access to after AC? They’re undeniably easier. So why give us the harder one, first. Note that I wrote harder not hard. It’s about relative difficulty, not absolute difficulty. So even if we disagree about the challenge AC presents, maybe we can agree that in later dungeons, there’s less of a challenge than in AC. And that’s what’s being criticized.

EDIT: And yes, asking for a specific equipment or build for the first dungeon you step in seems a bit unbalanced if you ask me. Dungeons should gradually present you everything you need to learn. I don’t think “have a special build and equipment” needs to be the first lesson. I can only refer you to my yesterday’s post above.

JonPeters.5630:

No we arent ignoring Necro, but once people start mastering DS, I’m afraid of how strong Necro will be.

Well, if that’s true I’m glad I shelved my necro at 72. Couldn’t be bothered to spend another day on it before I was 80. Kitten class to level out in the world.

DS is what makes the profession? A state with just four (4) buttons to press and no customization at all? Well, jolly me, too good the warrior is 31 already. At least that class is good while played in a mode with eleven (11) buttons to press that can be customized, too.

Mitlandir.8306:

The way you just portrayed it it sounds like AC story was insanely difficult… and it was not. It was easy/medium at max.

Oh I forgot – you or someone else might be able do it alone, without a group, with no gear except an off-hand warhorn, playing with one hand on your laptop, using the other to drive your car on the way to work. But exactly half the playerbase has a skill that’s below the median. And we’re talking about storymode.

As I said, I didn’t like it much. In fact, I disliked it enough to not even try any other dungeon, so I’m not speaking from personal experience. However, my guild agrees that AC is the hardest or one of the hardest storymode dungeons and it’s too hard for a first dungeon. Many here on the forum seem to share this view.

Mitlandir.8306:

Not used to a challenge? Well you’re right, it is your fault. I simply don’t understand how people can fail/get a bad group in one dungeon and then say they never wanna try dungeons again when there are so many other amazing and super-fun dungeons in the game…

AC story, in case you’ve forgotten, is the first dungeon you enter in GW2. I did so during headstart. I was not prepared. I did so again, I thought I was prepared (necro in fully defensive build). It still wasn’t much fun. That’s it for me.

AC story (which is what I’m talking about) is the first dungeon of them all you naturally enter. You’re even getting an invitation by mail. Now, let me tell you how this should work if designed well:

The first dungeon is rather easy. It introduces you to certain abilities that bosses have. It introduces you to the fact that you will need certain builds for dungeons. That you might better gear for them unless you like the taste of the floor. But it should not be frustrating you. Boss mechanics should be fairly simple, like AOE-circles that give you 1.5 seconds to evade.

From there, you gradually ramp up the difficulty. You might be introducing new sorts of boss-mechanics. Telegraphing-times might go down significantly. Non-AoE 1-shots with huge, long telegraphs are added to the fight so you learn to keep one eye on the floor and one on the boss.

In subsequent dungeons, you keep adding mechanics like adds, the need not just to kill but to control adds, having to use items like levers at certain times and so on. You add these elements to the fights to your storymode dungeons.

Finally, in the explorables, you bring all the mechanics you’ve taught your players together. The fights can be as hard as you want them to be. You can ask your players to stand on pressure-plates while evading AoE-damage by adds they have to keep controlled. Or whatever.

But: By teaching your players new mechanics gradually, you introduce a learning curve which keeps all content engaging at the level it’s designed to be played at for the first time.

GW2 does everything wrong in this regard. It opens with the hardest storymode, thereby frustrating newcomers. It then fails to gradually ramp up difficulty to keep content engaging. It fails to teach you the mechanics it plans to use and combine in later content. It’s just plain bad design.

Lokai.7850:

Bigger problem is by time you realize this you have sunk hours and lots of cash into your gear…and now have to switch it out JUST for that dungeon… that just seems silly i hated it in other mmos and i hope so to.

Especially in storymode, this is failed design.

Storymode dungeons are supposed to be run at appropriate levels, because the story they’re about ties in with your personal story if you do. However, while out there in PvE leveling, I’m not in a dungeon build and I’m not in dungeon armor. I’m dressed and specced for open world leveling. Therefore, I’m doomed to suck in dungeons (while leveling) and to generally have a very bad, no-fun experience. As I said above, I did AC storymode a few times, I’m not doing any any dungeons again anytime soon.

Madrox.9573:

AC story seems harder than some of the lvl 75+ explorables imo. This is from the perspective of someone who did AC story at lvl 33 and is running other dungeons at lvl 80. However, I think they should tone down AC story more to make it a fun experience for lower levels. It’s the first dungeon new players experience after all.

AC story. frustrated me on day #3 or so with my glass-cannon ele. Frustrated me with my defensive necro. I’m not going there again. And for that matter, I’m not going into any dungeon in GW2 again, ever.

I heard that AC story is an overtuned SOB designed to keep you from ever even trying the other dungeons. Well, it succeeded on me. It just wasn’t fun. Having said that, in ever MMO so far, 5-man-content was what I had most fun in. I was so looking foreward to the dungeons in GW2. Well, kitten that, not going there again.

Now, of course this is my loss, not ArenaNets loss. However, the risk is that if another MMO comes around that mimics many aspects of GW2 but makes dungeons fun, I might just be gone.

Jakeshipton.6520:

@ Gryz your problem is “I had a “glass cannon” build on my Thief.”

By having less survivability presumably that means you have a higher damage. That means that mobs are A more inclined to attack you and B you can take less hits. Simply put glass cannon builds in dungeons don’t work (speaking about pug groups here, I’m sure there are ways to make them work in organised groups).

You have to remember unlike many other MMOs there is not a single ability to make a mob focus onto you at all times so you cannot expect someone else to take all the hits while you wail on it with really high damage, it simply won’t work.

People need to be responsible for their own survivability, I’ve seen far too many people moaning about how their paper thin build gets one shotted and that means the dungeon is too hard. No, just because normal PvE is easy as heck does not mean you can just faceroll into mobs with no armour and expect to live in dungeons.

End rant.

Remember, we’re talking about storymode here. Glass Cannon is totally viable for normal levelling at mid 30. It’s a possible build. It’s an otherwise viable build. Then along comes AC and just frustrates the hell out of you.

And it’s not only the glass cannons who die. I had a res-fest on my necro when specced into toughness / vitality. Anything but staying as far out as possible would get me killed fast. Yes I can dodge, but when there’s three mobs chasing you, two dodges are only gonna help for so long.

Also, this is the first dungeon you enter. It has to be balanced not only for long-term “raidpros” who insist they killed Zaithan naked with one hand on the keyboard only while playing with the cat during BWE1. Its job is to introduce 5-man-content to everyone. That includes below average players. Let’s face it, “below average” that’s half the playerbase (actually that’s “below median”, but the difference should be unimportant).

AC storymode for a slightly sub-par PUG – that should be doable. It should be possible for them without special builds. It should be possible without researching the ‘net first, only using in-game ressources. Currently, it’s not. At least the lovers will be too tough for a group of mildly unprepared noobs, which should be the target-audience for the lowest level dungeon in storymode.

Ironically, the later dungeons are easier. That’s a balancing-issue and it’s not done correctly, ATM.

Just dropped in to say…
…those are the worst in the game. Our beloved Mary Sue is not only taking over everyone’s “personal” storyline, no, he does so talking in the most uninspired way imaginable.

Can’t reroll at the moment, due to social issues. Will as soon as I can (at 80, maybe). I’m sick and tired of not dealing any damage. If I played this game in order not to deal damage, I’d stay at the cooking station all the time.

Wasselin.1235:

I think their is a pretty even balance of classes. The only one I don’t notice a lot is the necromancer, but I still see a good amount of them.

As a Necro, I may shed some insight on why you see so few of them.

No, it’s not that they could stealth. The profession is simply broken beyond redemption. I’ll play mine to play with the wife and am longing to level an alt that taks less than half a minute to kill a single normal mob of the same level.

Hey, I’m only level 70 and I can already remember two instances of the little guy grabbing a mob’s attention for a second or so before it died!

Don’t say the death-bunnies are useless! They are, but you don’t wanna hurt their feelings.

aznricepuff.5086:

Now I don’t even try anymore

That’s about the worst thing a designer responsible for a profession can get to read. It’s true, though.

My suggestion?

Take the class, toss it, make a new one, roll it out. The new one should look and feel similar. It might retain some skills or names of skills. But basically, toss it, make a new one. This attempt failed.

If you make a new one, keep the following goals in your mind:

- There should be more than one viable spec.
- A damage-spec should deliver damage on par with other classes.
- All weapon combinations should be viable, although each weapon combination may only be viable for one spec / role.
- Minions can be used for all three roles (damage / support / control), see (gasp!) WoW warloks. Ideally, all of the roles should be viable with minions and without (minion / condition could be the pair of alternatives)

Toss the profession, (re)build it from scratch.

Karther.7481:

@Phooka:
You can do fine with daggers, especially at that level. […]

Thanks, will try that.

Elethor.2430:

I agree, I don’t know what it is but I can have over 1k power and I may crit for 600 dmg with my daggers.

But my ranger friend with only 700 power was critting for that 10 levels ago with a subpar bow. I dunno what it is.

Yes, so much yes.

When I chose Necro, it was on day 1. I didn’t know much about its strengths and weaknesses in endgame then – and how should I?

I had a ton of fun in early levels with dual dagger. That fun diminished over time. In my 40s and 50s, levelling in PvP felt like trudging through molasses. At 60 I poured everything in power and the rest in crit, bought new daggers and for a brief period, I felt like I was doing damage.

Now I’m 70. I just went to that shore area with fort trinity. I bought new daggers and armor. I feel like I don’t do any damage at all. My wife plays a ranger. When we’re in an area together and I look over to her screen, I see numbers twice as big as mine. She kills stuff way faster than me. She’s 68.

I honestly feel I made a mistake. I would so love to reroll, but I also want to play with my wife and understandably, she wants to see Orr. Rolling Necro was the bigest mistake I ever made in this game, even beats accidentally spending 2g for a 18-slot-bag-signet.

Yes, I know – double dagger. But that’s actually what I liked from the start. I was so stupid, I thought all weapons should be equally viable. For the necro, though, that doesn’t seem to be true.

I heared that conditions and epidemic seem to be the only thing viable. Only that in PvE, epidemic tends to pull every stag, cow and moa in the vincinity into the fight as well.

Currently, I don’t like my toon very much. Not at all, actually. I was hoping for the necro to be viable at 80 again but from what I read, that’s not the case, either. Or has anyone found some setup that’s decent for:

- PvE as a duo
- Eventually WvW
- Occasional dungeons

Please help.

This seems to be some foirm of optimization intoduced lately. Supposedly, this is to ensure that you don’t experience low FPS or FPS-drops while you die at the hands of enemies you didn’t see. Also happens in PvE if lots of players are around.

SirMoogie.9263:

But is it 95% unambiguous? That it isn’t perfectly unambiguous doesn’t mean it isn’t a good warning. What parts do you find unclear? It would help your case more if you presented those concepts in the document you can’t understand, rather than just saying it isn’t 100% clear. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

I have an issue with the unclear definition of botting, as described here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Rules-of-Conduct-related-So-I-wrote-a-hotkey-macro/16162

Also, while I’ve never been accused of rude behaviour online (and being generally polite, don’t expect to ever be), I still think that the phrasing for this is not 100% clear.

EDIT: Yes, I actually read the terms of service, from top to bottom. In doing so, I did come across some points that seemed overly vague to me.

GaileGray.9587:

Right. We have a lot of people who need help, but we should dedicate people to hand-holding with giving warnings? Really? The warning comes through the User Agreement, the Rules of Conduct, and the Conduct Breaches and Outcomes. Become familiar with them and the problem is solved.

Hello Gaile,

Unfortunately, the user agreement is not 100% unambigous and questions to clarify ambigous parts are also not being answered in a timely manner. Furthermore, the fact that you don’t have the manpower at the moment to cater to all of your customers’ requests should not result in players being banned or suspended more than appropriate for what they did.

Again, please do not take this as personal criticism. If there’s anything I’d like to criticise, it’s general policies that you’re probably not responsible for.

GaileGray.9587:

I believe you misunderstood. The first mark is 3 days. The second mark can be 14 days. If you have the first mark and get another in a relatively short period of time, the system automatically increases the suspension to 14 days.

I know it’s your policy that a 3 day ban is a slap on the wrist. I also know that you’re probably not in a position to alter such a policy. However, please be informed that a three day suspension is anything but a “warning”. In most videogames, that’s not even a light, but a harsh punishment.

By issuing three day suspensions as warnings or minimum punishments, you’re creating an environment that may be dominated by fear. Fear that something you do might get you a “warning” of three days not being able to take part in the social activities of your friends and family.

Therefore, while I know that you can’t comment on internal policies and that it’s not up to you to change them, please consider communicating my dissent to the harshness of what you consider to be a “warning”.

Also, I don’t expect you to respond to this as I am aware that it’s neither your job nor are you presumably in a position to comment on internal policies.

Lyralei.5920:

You may be interested in this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z5pq4/guild_wars_2_status_friday_august_31/c61oion?context=3

More specifically, this:

[–]Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet 30 points 5 days ago
If it’s just translating a key-click to a mouse-click, that’s fine. If it’s looping or automating gameplay, that’s not fine.
~ MO

Good to know, but still too vague.

What about a “looping” macro that consists of a single keypress being fired over and over while a physical mousebutton is being held down? Specifically the completely overloaded “F”-key? Looping? After all, it’s always the same key and it’s only fired as long as a physical key is held down.

Yes, I even opened a support ticket asking about this. No response, of course. Actually, I’d prefer them to unban hacked players before they answer to me.

If this was done to increase performance, please introduce a slider in the preferences were we can set to higher values if we so desire. Many have high-end machines that are well capaple of handling huge amount of players.

While I, too, hope that these bugs will be resolved soo, I still love the necro so much, I stopped leveling my elementalist main to switch to necro…

…playing double dagger, though, no minions most of the time; switching to staff only for long range (bossfights) or pulls.

I’ve totally given up on any guild-activity. I’m glad and happy if guild-chat works without a minute-long delay for everything I post.

I’m levelling with my wife and trying to get onto the same map as her is a pain already. But then, some activities just don’t work. Sometimes, one of us gets the invitation to the other’s personal story quest, sometimes it just doesn’t work and no amount of relogging, rezoning, waiting until we’re on the main map helps.

I hate to say it but until they fix this bug (hopefully soon), this is the least social MMO out there.