Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ArchonWing.9480:

Except exotics being the ceiling was not really a thing for long. Ascended was introduced within a few months of release. It was due to complaints that exotic was too easy

Astralporing.1957:

The complains were about lack of content, not about exotic gear being too easy. It’s just that Anet didn’t have any content to give, so they panicked and attempted to “do something quick”.

There were all sorts of complaints at launch, including that exotic was too easy to acquire. There were some people saying there wasn’t enough content, but not nearly as many and they were mostly people who raced through the personal story. (So it was less saying “lack of content” and more saying “not enough content for how they played” — legit complaint, but not shared by many.)

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

some gear progress and something to do for people who ran out of things to do are the same thing.
it didnt create a profit for crafting, unless you mean selling your daily ectoplasm craft, which doesnt really equate to profit for crafting.

And while it was definately used to sink materials, i doubt that was its reason for creation, so much as an opportunity. The same way i dont think halloween events were created primarily as a means for sinking materials, but probably more because they wanted to have fun halloween events.

Ascended was created, because they underestimated the games need for longer term goals. I will tell you this was already an internal consideration from the time the game was in beta. Some members of the staff believed you didnt need a big grind for best in slot, and some believed that it was the nature of the beast in an MMO, that you cant keep up with people’s content demands, and thus must set up long term and mid term goals.

The problem, IMO with their analysis, is it focused on a very simple mechanical answer to the problem, rather than an artful design. While you do need progress, it doesnt have to be gear progress.

It was a fast and relatively simple solution though, and they probably felt they needed one fast.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

No, he’s saying that the pvp requirements of the Ascension are on the level of only farming escort and never needing to do any other bosses. If that’s all what envoy armor required, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Oh, but we would. It would just be “why can we only get 1 LI per week, pls make it so we can farm <easy boss of choice> as much as we want”.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Fractals- legendary backpiece 1 very insignificant piece of armor minimal stats

PvP – legendary backpiece 1 very insignificant piece of armor minimal stats

Raids- full suit of legendary armor 6 significant pieces of armor significant stats that
can be changed on the fly

rewards seem a bit unbalanced

You can stat-change armor in the Mystic Forge. It ends up being a LOT cheaper. The functionality is widely perceived to be a big deal. But most players very rarely, if ever, stat-swap their legendaries. Same goes for rune swapping, really.

How can you know why people dont swap their builds. Its like you telling the inventor of the car most people dont travel more than 4 or so miles from their home, creating/selling a car isnt worth it.

maybe the reason people dont swap stats a lot, is because they dont have access to a quick way to change their stats?

Cyninja.2954:

Kingsdavid.3598:

So as I (not you angry guy/girl on the keybord preparing to write and angry comment) see it the Mastery system is a failure. I am talking about the system itself and not the masteries themself.

Not everyone who disagrees with you (and there are enough reasons to disagree) is mad or angry, they simply have a different opinion.

Kingsdavid.3598:

First, remove the experience bar and leveling system (Time Wall) from the Mastery system. Make the masteries only a point system. Make it a fix number for unlocking every new Mastery skill (not that the first cost 3 then the second cost 5 etc, all of them cost 3 Mastery points).

So that people can hit max mastery level 1 day after the content got added? Thanks pass. See all those threads from people complaining about lacking mastery points? Imagine how big the outcray were if all those threads came up at once? The internet would explode. A minor timegate in form of experience is fine, if only to not make people feel required to constantly grind mastery points.

If at all, they should globalize mastery points and not split them between content to give people more flexibility.

Kingsdavid.3598:

And most importantly, make it a character based system and not account bound system (no need for account based once you remove the Time Wall from the picture).

I have 22 characters, you do not. See how this could become a problem? The current system scales to an infinite amount (well 69 or 70 max since that’s the cap on characters per account) of characters, your idea does not. So again, you are asking for an inferior idea to get implemented.

Kingsdavid.3598:

After playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, a Role Playing Game with not level and expirance system, it open my eye.

Come back when you’ve spent 3, 5 or 10 thousand hours playing BotW, oh wait, it’s a single player game. Notice the difference?

Kingsdavid.3598:

If you think of it the more expansion GW2 will keep doing the more time it will take to all of them. If someone want to join the game in the next expansion or the one after that, you really think he will spend all this time to unlock all the new masteries and the old ones?.0 NO, He will say kitten IT I AM NOT DOING THIS kitten this will take me ages, and go play other game. And then Anet will sell a new expansion with all the previous masteries unlocked which ruin the game even more

First off, no one says HoT masteries will be required for the next expansion. Second you are completely exagerating how long it takes to complete masteries, especially with more and more experience rewards from story missions. Most people were mastery caped within 3-6 days after the expansion hit. If a hardcore gamer can hit max mastery in that time, a casual gamer can do so within a reasonable timeframe. This was before they started adding massive experience boosts left and right.

Kingsdavid.3598:

My reasoning for making it a the mastery system a charactrer base and not a account base is that the mastery system will keep feeling fresh even after you done them for the first time. Not making it a chore you must complete and never see or think of it again.

Flawed reasoning. It would make every character feel fresh (well the first 2-3 maybe) if there were choice or difference between characters. The way the system is implemented now all it does is take away something from future characters if it were changed to character based. I highly doubt this is “fun” to people who play multiple characters.

What you see as a chore, I found super fun since no matter which of my characters I played I could work towards my next mastery at my own pace.

most people were not capped 3-6 days after the expansion hit. Most people were not even in drgaon stand 3-6 days after the expansion hit.

this leads me to believe your idea of the average gamer, or most guild wars players is a bit skewed.

Talindra.4958:

YES I am ok with 300 li for second set and so on. 25 li for an insignia per piece. I am into my third piece of second set (due to provisional token time gated for further pieces). it has to be this way or raid will die in a few months time.

its still a death sentence, you are just pushing the date. I think you should ask for new interesting incentives instead of asking them to drag out the old one to double the time.

Amaimon.7823:

I guess the second set it so compensate for a lack of a collection for the precursor armor.
although double seems like a bit too much, I would’ve settled for 25LI+10LI7piece

they didnt need to compensate for the lack of a collection, It is in fact to stretch out the reward of the content. They basically realize people will stop playing, so they want to raise the bar.
I guess there is nothing they can come up with that will have universal appeal like legendary armor.

However, i feel they are stretching it a bit thin now. Hard as it may be to come up with other incentives, its time to do it. Stretching a reward out too far diminishes its effectiveness as an incentive, and generally creates bad will.
300 LI, 13 a week, 24 weeks? or 6 months? thats a bit ridiculous.

Fragon.7043:

i’m pretty sure its gonna look like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apb_WGd0__c
its good for the game,hate it or love it.

eh, thats way too involved for this game. I’m not saying it would be bad, just saying they won’t go that deep with them.
they probably will not be that personal, just big tools.

Vayne.8563:

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone.

That’s factually untrue. It did make it better for me, on two separate occasions. First, I was forced into WvW because of the Gift of Battle change. And I ended up enjoying it. Second, I was forced into raiding, because I’m kind of completionist and want everything possible for my main. I ended up enjoying that, too.

The big negative of giving the same reward across multiple game modes is it doesn’t stimulate you to step out of your current comfort zone. People tend to stick with what they know. Giving them an incentive to try something new objectively does make the game better.

A valid middle ground would be to introduce a new set, with different means of acquisition. This way you’d still keep the incentive for people to try raiding, while giving another for something else. But ANet seem reluctant to do it for some reason.

P.S. It’s not a coincidence they added reward tracks as an alternative of content they chose to no longer support.

It is true. Because you ended up enjoying it. You were forced into an area of the game that you didn’t know if you’d like or not and ended up enjoying it. I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it. I’ve PvPed that much as well.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

you are wrong because you claim there is no benefit, and he claims there is some benefit.

also id say he is right, there are some benefits.
however, i’d say a dev should carefully weigh the benefits and the goal, each time they lock something.

as a general rule, id say cosmetics can be locked
if an item requires attaining mastery, it should only be locked if the item itselfs main use is heavily tied to the content. like agony infusion in fractals, even though agony itself was a boring mechanic.

if an item is primarily to get people to try X, they should probably not make it exclusive, but rather make it way more efficient than to do it in another way. that or require only a small investment.

but a game, imo definately needs to incentivize certain actions, and if everything you do could get you anything else, everything would be at war with each other in terms of effeciency.

which would lead to a game that wasnt very fullfilling.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ANet has actually been slowly nerfing NPCs for story instances — they want us to do the heavy lifting (although there are still plenty of times that I’ve let the NPCs do all the killing, just to test if it’s a work-around for friends who struggle).

So if you really want to see heroes, you’ll have to provide a compelling reason how this improves the game enough for the community that it’s worth the massive effort it would take to make it happen.

the main benefit would be making instances more accessible.
but this assumes they can make npcs good enough not to be trash in instanced content.

Kingsdavid.3598:

So as I (not you angry guy/girl on the keybord preparing to write and angry comment) see it the Mastery system is a failure. I am talking about the system itself and not the masteries themself.
I think the way to fix the Mastery system can be implement in 2 ways.
First, remove the experience bar and leveling system (Time Wall) from the Mastery system. Make the masteries only a point system. Make it a fix number for unlocking every new Mastery skill (not that the first cost 3 then the second cost 5 etc, all of them cost 3 Mastery points). Make it that after you unlock the first tier of in a mastery tree you are free to unlock any mastery you like from that tree (Not been force to do all of that mastery tree just to get one mastery you want like from that tree.)
And most importantly, make it a character based system and not account bound system (no need for account based once you remove the Time Wall from the picture).
Second, is a little bit more complicated , and I don’t think Anet will do it becuase it will take to long. Make it that every tier opener a story mission and make it have place in the world and a reason for been there. Think of a mission in HoT that you build a glider and Taimi helps you make it. And says that thats the only way you can maneuver through the jungle. And other one that a Itzel teaches you how to use the jummping mushrooms. And make the way you get new mastery points fun, like the Adventure system or the random mastery scatter in world. And not like boring achivment like guild under and brige.
My thoguts on why I think these changes need to happen are in the next commnet to keep you of me rambleing for an hour.

i like the basic concept you are talking about, not so much the story mission, unless its small for alts.
not so sure if alts should have to do it again, but yeah basic idea makes sense.

2 major problems though.
1) they needed way more mastery points than they have abilities, and not always related to the mastery.
2) and this is the most important, apparently some people prefer exp grind to the exploration/adventure focused growth. as evidenced by others above

flog.3485:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

This is only relevant in terms of stats not looks. Here is an example: I can’t get the legendary fractal backpiece if I don’t invest myself in playing fractals.

You can however get a legendary backpiece without investing yourself in fractals. Also, the level of investment is much lower than for raids.

I know all of that. However the person I was responding to didn’t seem to be interested in PvP achievement so…..No matter how low you think it is, you will not convince me. I for once in this game want to see a legendary item that is tied to skill and not only pure grind.

Well, legendary armor is not that item. It’s so exclusive only because it’s a grind in content that most players find extremely unpleasant.

Most players ? Source please. If you speak about the very vocal minority of players that has been spending their time creating multiple thread on forums and/or Reddit to complain for the last two years about leg armor, I am sorry but they are not these “most players”.

lets not be disingenous, i think its common wisdom that most players dont raid in this game.
“extremely distasteful” might be a stretch, but whatever the reason, most arent raiding.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I detest mastery points. It is a haphazard system of forcing you into content you might not like. There is really no logical reason for them. These mastery point activities usually don’t even correspond to the mastery you are achieving.

You character could spend the next 10 years in the HoT maps without learning the language, lore or skills needed to survive in the jungle, but do one idiotic adventure and now he or she suddenly might understand a language………

In my opinion, experience alone should be all that is needed to fill each mastery bar.

experience doesnt work, because it show you did anything specific. you could just grind one event, and then nothing else in the map serves a purpose.

however, i think they should be a lot more extra mastery points, because once you get the exploration, and event related ones, you are generally left with a lot of irksome ones, that probably dont really represent overall mastery.

or rather, there should be a lot less mastery points required to max masteries.

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

Astralporing.1957:

flog.3485:

This is only relevant in terms of stats not looks. Here is an example: I can’t get the legendary fractal backpiece if I don’t invest myself in playing fractals.

You can however get a legendary backpiece without investing yourself in fractals. Also, the level of investment is much lower than for raids.

I know all of that. However the person I was responding to didn’t seem to be interested in PvP achievement so…..No matter how low you think it is, you will not convince me. I for once in this game want to see a legendary item that is tied to skill and not only pure grind.

Well, legendary armor is not that item. It’s so exclusive only because it’s a grind in content that most players find extremely unpleasant.

beating a raid does take skill, and practice.
i agree that its a bad idea that it requires a lot of time invested in something niche, isnt a good idea, but i see a lot of people saying there is no skill involved, its just memorization, which is nonsense.

can you play an instrument? is that skill or just memorization, or just cause you like it. Does singing take skill? playing sports? what exactly is skill if it is not learning how to do something well through repetition and practice.

the reality is raids require more skill than most other things in this game. Straight up, more skill required, quantifiably. You have to do more things, with less errors. This doesnt mean its impossible for most humans.

Just because one doesnt want to raid, or doesnt want one content to have access to a unique utility, doesnt mean you have to try to diminish the mode.

that said, raids are not purely a measurement of your skill at guild wars. I would say, the way legendary armor aquisition is designed, they mostly represent a dedication to 10 man group content.
its not so much, can you beat this content, so much as do you have the dedication to do this content, with a lot of others, like what, 12 times each, over the course of weeks?

if it was solely about skill, it would probably need less people, and you’d only need to beat them a few times.

but yeah, it is harder than other pve content.

PopeUrban.2578:

Shortage.5427:

Also it’s a MMORPG game. There is no MMORPG without some type of grinding or gear progression.

There was this game called Guild Wars where you were stat capped at the end of the tutorial and all of your progression was acquiring more build options. I heard it was successful enough to spawn a sequel!

Its almost like the same people that make this game made that one!

People’s tastes change over time. If you’re looking for a gear progression game, this isn’t that game. They do a lot of marketing to make sure to tell people that a lack of gear grind is something that differentiates this product from its competitors because the goal is to draw people in that want to play this game, not people that are already playing a different kind of game.

GW1 was extremely successful specifically because of how unlike it was in a crowded field of everquest clones. GW2 is following that same philosophy. While i don’t agree with everything they do here, I don’t think that endless vertical progression that makes you contantly throw out your “elite” gear every year because its now worse than common drops in the new expansion is something I would consider a Guild Wars game.

guild wars had the title grinds that gave you better skills and higher damage and more resistance the more you did in the expansion areas.
So yeah its a thing most developers always put in, in some way or another

Vayne.8563:

Labjax.2465:

Hmm. Well that’s disappointing. Don’t really understand how that’s supposed to work for map population, locking new zones completely behind story chapters. HoT maps are one thing; it’s a paid expansion, like when you pay for the base game. But the story chapters are something you get for free just for being logged in at the right time. It’s a different setup.

It seems to me that they are dooming said maps to being well and truly dead in six months to a year. With the way turnaround of players works, they’ll steadily lose some of the people who had access at all and some who do have access will, by then, have no desire to go back.

I realize you can unlock chapters you missed with gems, but if they’re going for forcing you to spend gems (or save up your gold for buying the gems), then they can expletive my expletive. I just won’t visit those maps and the people who would benefit from some extra players around, like myself, will suffer for it.

I still have a fond perception of Bitterfrost Frontier though.

But this system of map unlocking, well… different kind of Bitter going on there. Bad taste in my mouth.

It works because I play those zones often and there are plenty of people around. The fact that the core playerbase does log in every two months, which is all you have to do to unlock the story means most paid players probably have it.

And other people simply have the gold to convert to gems to not spend any real money. Others are used to downloading DLC and paying for it.

It’s not like all the zones dont’ have traffic, because they do.

yeah but they are recent right now, will people buy these things in 3 or 4 months? will old players still be trying to go there when expansion drops?

Labjax.2465:

Hmm. Well that’s disappointing. Don’t really understand how that’s supposed to work for map population, locking new zones completely behind story chapters. HoT maps are one thing; it’s a paid expansion, like when you pay for the base game. But the story chapters are something you get for free just for being logged in at the right time. It’s a different setup.

It seems to me that they are dooming said maps to being well and truly dead in six months to a year. With the way turnaround of players works, they’ll steadily lose some of the people who had access at all and some who do have access will, by then, have no desire to go back.

I realize you can unlock chapters you missed with gems, but if they’re going for forcing you to spend gems (or save up your gold for buying the gems), then they can expletive my expletive. I just won’t visit those maps and the people who would benefit from some extra players around, like myself, will suffer for it.

I still have a fond perception of Bitterfrost Frontier though.

But this system of map unlocking, well… different kind of Bitter going on there. Bad taste in my mouth.

i also was missing some chapters, but i just sold some stuff i had saved and bought them, currently the cost is about 55 gold, which isnt horrible, but if i didnt have old materials that were newly expensive, i dont know if id have done it.

that said, you are right about limiting the map buy in in the long term though. They should probably just include LS episodes in the associated expansion cost, the current system kind of works against people returning, and newbies. Since i returned, my primary purpose has been story, so id imagine not having access to that would essentially diminish my incentive to re invest in the game.

tldr, 55 gold for story and zone isnt crazy, but most people wont bother, so less and less people will experience this content.

Labjax.2465:

phys.7689:

Labjax.2465:

phys.7689:

the point is the same reason we have to unlock skills and traits by leveling in core. To have progression again. To give you a real reason and benefit for exploring the new maps.
Mastery also serves this purpose, but mastery is only for the area its in, while you can take elite specs anywhere.

I honestly didnt have much beef with the concept of hero points, once they reduced it to 250, it was kind of foolish at 400, by the time you could use the specialization, you had already finished all the zones.

Ok… and what purpose does progression serve?

Let me guess, something like, “So people have goals.”

But why do goals need to be tied to something so essential to learning and playing your class, like access to your specs?

hmm thats probably because its the thing people most want to do. If i have to choose one thing thats going to make me want to do content its probably going to be new skills/builds/ways to play the game.

the next best thing is a series of challenging content progression thats fairly easy to start (10 man is a hurdle to me)

skins dont impress me, increasing damage is mostly so that i can better do challenging content, its not a joy in and of itself.

Gw2 is a lot about the maps, so they need some carrots to make people explore.

What is your general purpose in doing new maps?

Hmm. Thanks for asking.

I guess for me, I like doing new maps for the satisfaction of completion. The map completion system in this game gives me a feeling of satisfaction when I’ve filled out everything it wants me to do.

This is one reason why HoT was such a disappointment for me, because I’d traditionally done such map completion solo, and I couldn’t do that very well, if at all, with the way the hero points were made for groups.

Edit: The transmutation charge is a nice icing on the cake for me as well, since I’m into skins and fashion.

i get what you re saying, but for me, though i get a bit of thrill out of map completion, i generally need a reason to do it, or i just ignore it. Doing only what i need to, or what i run across, until maybe i happen to be close enough to completion, that map complete is a big enough carrot.
after my first char, i only stay in a map long enough to get enough xp to hit the next map. I focus on dynamic events, cause they give big exp.

Hot map hero points are a better balance imo, yeah they are harder, but they are 10 points, which is worth it. Each one offers more signifigant char progress. you only need i think 25 for full spec.

whereas you could go to tyria to get a number of those extra points, it d take forever. On my newer chars, i think you need like 70 or 100 skill points more than you get for leveling now, i generally would rather get them in Hot than tyria.

like i said before i didnt really appreciate hot till i started to have to replay it a lot on alts and for farming hope and unlocking ascended elite weaps. The repetion and map goals there were more engaging than back when i had to do similar stuff in tyria.

this all of course subjective.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.

About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.

exotics dont give you an accurate comparison of relative power. if i feel like my power thief is under performing, and i want to try condition, bringing exotics is not going to be better than a full ascended zerker. If i use exotic marauder, the trade off probably wont be worthwhile.
etc.
exotics are fine for leveling, but when you want to see what your jobs are capable of they are pretty poor.

not sure if you are trolling or just chose the wrong words.

Regarding the first paragraph, thats exactly what i meant. If you want to min/max different builds, you are aiming for BiS gear and the most popular builds, so you gotta pay up. If you want to switch from a power build because you want to try out a condi build, there are plenty available for 10-20g.

The last sentence of your post cant be serious though, if you think that ascended gear is required to participate in end game content, once you hit 80 and done leveling in your exotics.

How did you manage to get all your toons from 1-60 before HoT, when exotic gear was only available after lvl 60?

60-80 still falls into the range of leveling. Of course this is based on now, back in the day when i first played, there was only exotics.

now the game is different though, your next goal once you hit 80 is Hot and specializations, fractals, wvw, raids. You are going to want the best gears, not impossible with exotics, but you will always feel your gear is effecting your performance, because it is.

as far as having to pay up for bis, that is not really an of course. While best in slot is ususally harder to get the relative difference is large. Also this game unlike others wants build diversity, it wasnt as much of an issue back when berserker was the only endgame gear of import, but now that they are balancing dif stat spreads, the high cost of investment is working against that.

essentially the current build design encourages experimentation, and adaptbility, but the design of items does the opposite, until legendary of course, which is an extremely large investment.

DeceiverX.8361:

Went full-generic-Asian RPG especially with all the overdone particle effects and silly weapons/armor and I’m honestly disappointed. It’s no longer got that great rustic feel.

people always say asian rpg, i dont think yall have played many of these. GW2 current style is a very american take on things.

Amaimon.7823:

phys.7689:

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

not quite, they weren’t meant to be technically better, they were designed to be different, to have a new or unique play-style.
it’s not about being strong or better, but being significantly different. It’s because we have access to both the core set and the new skills, that using the new skills means you can enhance the core skills.

oops i meant werent

Labjax.2465:

phys.7689:

the point is the same reason we have to unlock skills and traits by leveling in core. To have progression again. To give you a real reason and benefit for exploring the new maps.
Mastery also serves this purpose, but mastery is only for the area its in, while you can take elite specs anywhere.

I honestly didnt have much beef with the concept of hero points, once they reduced it to 250, it was kind of foolish at 400, by the time you could use the specialization, you had already finished all the zones.

Ok… and what purpose does progression serve?

Let me guess, something like, “So people have goals.”

But why do goals need to be tied to something so essential to learning and playing your class, like access to your specs?

hmm thats probably because its the thing people most want to do. If i have to choose one thing thats going to make me want to do content its probably going to be new skills/builds/ways to play the game.

the next best thing is a series of challenging content progression thats fairly easy to start (10 man is a hurdle to me)

skins dont impress me, increasing damage is mostly so that i can better do challenging content, its not a joy in and of itself.

Gw2 is a lot about the maps, so they need some carrots to make people explore.

What is your general purpose in doing new maps?

Wanze.8410:

Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.

About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.

exotics dont give you an accurate comparison of relative power. if i feel like my power thief is under performing, and i want to try condition, bringing exotics is not going to be better than a full ascended zerker. If i use exotic marauder, the trade off probably wont be worthwhile.
etc.
exotics are fine for leveling, but when you want to see what your jobs are capable of they are pretty poor.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

phys.7689:

hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.

And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.

there is no build in gw1 which takes as long as gearing 1 charachter in best in slot in gw2.
unless you are looking for specific skins

We must be using different definitions. There are several elements to what people mean when they discuss setting up their build:

• Weapons, which determine skills in GW2 but not in GW1
• Armor
• Prefixes and Suffixes, which affect the efficiency of the build.
• Character-selectable stats, such as attributes in GW1 & traits in GW2
• Character-selectable skills (all of them in GW1 & just utilities in GW2)

Best-in-slot gear for GW1 depends on several qualities: the stats on the gear (max for the weapon or not) and the relevant prefixes and suffixes. Some suffixes are really hard to obtain; they are as much part of “best-in-slot” as the weapon or armor.

In addition, not all weapons and armor can be upgraded, particularly off-hands.

---

On the other hand, if all that you want to compare is how easy it is to obtain L20 gear in GW1 (easy), then the comparable item is L80 gear. L80 gear independent of prefix/suffix is easily obtained.

And I’d agree, that’s not necessarily relevant — people want (or think they need) specific stats. That’s where we disagree: getting fully spec’d gear in GW1 was harder, in my opinion; I kept several storage toons just for the situation in which I needed to swap gear for a new build or a friend needed it (because it took hours in spamadan to obtain it otherwise).

---

tl;dr best-in-slot gear is more than just max gear — that’s trivially obtained in GW1 and easily obtained in GW2. I’m referring to fully spec’d gear, which is simply expensive in GW2 (for specific builds) and either easy or horribly difficult in GW1 depending.

by the time nightfall came out, suffixes could be seperated from gear. not sure if this is the first time, but definately after that
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_weapon_upgrades
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Inscription
so you get inscriptions and prefixes

so basically you just needed sword strength 9 or something, then one of the bazillion extra items you got doing endgame content or even while leveling up, probably has/had the inscription you needed. it didnt have to be your weapon type, just needed to have the inscription

you then got the prefix.
the runes you could buy from npc exchanger

gw1 was so easy to gear for, that people basically were able to constantly regear their heroes just to try new team builds.

its not even in the same world, what is record time for gw2 for best in slot? 2 months if you play every day?
you literally were talking about being in spammadan for an afternoon to regear, in gw2 making 1 new ascended piece would take you like a week

take a new level 80 in gw who just finished core time till best in slot, probably 2 months if they play 4 to 5 hours a day
take a new level 20 who just finished prophecies, probably 1 week? 2 weeks if they play 5 hours a day?

Labjax.2465:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ok now I’m confused. What exactly are you proposing? A single chain of events that you do once per toon? I’d be okay with that.

(Your original description sounded an awful lot like what people asked for and we had for nearly two years: doing one event per trait. That was awful.)

As it stands now, I can do whatever hero challenges I want, whether everything in Core + a few in HoT or lots of stuff in HoT. I can go to WvW and use proofs of heroics. I have a lot of options. It just happens that it’s efficient to choose certain challenges and so some people feel it’s repetitive.

I’m suggesting that unlocking specs is no longer a ‘goal’ at all. You just get them once you’re high enough level. Including elite specs. And then at that point, HPs are repurposed to be something else.

I don’t really understand the point of making us unlock specs to begin with.

the point is the same reason we have to unlock skills and traits by leveling in core. To have progression again. To give you a real reason and benefit for exploring the new maps.
Mastery also serves this purpose, but mastery is only for the area its in, while you can take elite specs anywhere.

I honestly didnt have much beef with the concept of hero points, once they reduced it to 250, it was kind of foolish at 400, by the time you could use the specialization, you had already finished all the zones.

AliamRationem.5172:

phys.7689:

AliamRationem.5172:

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

No. My opinion assumes good balance. It assumes that players will always (or nearly so) take as many elite specs as they are allowed in their builds. They would only do so if elite specs were clearly better, as intended. That’s why I said it’s a smart move to make them exclusive. If they are exclusive, players will have many more potential builds (18 vs. 5) available to them because they won’t be able to lock themselves into having both elite specs for every build and only 1 slot remaining for a core spec.

they said when talking about elite specs (back when hot was released) that they werent supposed to be better, or invalidate core builds, just be different, and for some classes this is true.
essentially its meant to be horizontal growth, not a power creep, and while some combos may not be powerful, they dont want two elites interacting to create some large power gaps.
Also, most likely they will literally replace some skills, to which point they could not exist at the same time.
like mesmer gets a new f5, what if the new mesmer also has an f5? which one is the dominant one? and so on and so forth.

Rauderi.8706:

phys.7689:

Hot was the beginning of the break bar, and most of them are breakable by one player with a few CC. I can only think of like two that seemed like they were designed for more than two players.

Gonna have to call foul there. With warrior hammer, I should have no problem breaking a bar designed for solo, possibly even 2-3 players. Many of these things aren’t worth the cooldowns because of how much their particular bars weigh or refresh.

i remember solo breaking at least two champions for hero points on my mesmer. maybe some are different. now if more people come it requires more cc, so weirdly more people tended to make some things more difficult. the wyvern is an example of this, with a small group, easy break, large group always fail the breaks.

and it did take two or three skills, but the classes who need cc breaks can usually spec a lot of them. also dif skills have dif break power.

Ashantara.8731:

I just started a Charr character to get the hero story achievements (not a fan of the Charr being a playable race, really) and was strolling the lands of Ascalon.

One mission leads to the Ruins of Rin area within the Black Citadel, and even though I have been there multiple times in the past, my heart sinks each and ever single time I wander the beautiful autumn trees, the cobblestone paved remains of Ascalon’s roads and the old walls. I miss those classic GW designs so much!

What is it with the increasing amount of sci-fi and high-tech designs the design team has been pushing down my throat as of late? Buildings, weapons, armor, utilities etc.

I am playing this game for its genre, which is fantasy not mecha-tech or sci-fi. Please, have a heart and return to the roots and very heart of GW. Don’t let it glide into modern age.

i think the setting of gw2, at least in tyria, is supposed to be magi/tech

that said, i think they have kind of shifted too far towards the fantastic recently. whether its the magic or the science, almost everything is radical and over the top. A bit of that is ok, but it seems out of balance now, to the point that they have lost a bit of the wow factor

Lunateric.3708:

Dashingsteel.3410:

@Lunateric….. I agree exclusive items are fine…… and just like you compared pvp and fractals I think raids deserve a backpiece ONLY as well.

A WHOLE suit of armor just for one niche of the game?????

That was their design choice and it’s fine, legendary armor doesn’t give you any stat advantage over ascended. The one thing you may not like is the free rune swapping and even then most if not all dedicated players have multiple ascended sets per character already.

They already stated they were adding ascended gear for WvW in the latest AMA and then each mode will be absolutely viable for gearing up.

the fact that they have multiple stat sets implies it had value.

AliamRationem.5172:

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites weren’t supposed to be technically better than core.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

phys.7689:

hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.

And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.

there is no build in gw1 which takes as long as gearing 1 charachter in best in slot in gw2.
unless you are looking for specific skins

Jski.6180:

A lot of ppl get legendary armor with in mins of the update what next for them? Are they realty going to keep raiding even though they have the best gear in the game? Are raids going to be HoT only and the next expansion going to bring the next thing maybe dungeon will make a come back.

Gw2 is not a game for raiding yes you can have it in the game but there nothing to keep ppl running them once they get the best gear in the game.

this is interesting
but there is still legendary accessories, though i doubt that would be raid tied.
most likely they will just make it earn a lot of money/items per time spent.
But yeah, that seems a bit hollow.

What will be the carrot for raiders going forward? I know most raiders are goal oriented, what would be another effective carrot?

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

Is going 1 v 2, 3, 4, or 5 facing top tier sPvP players, or being a member of a roaming duo come face to face with a zerg of 20 less challenging than raids?

actually 1v2-5 , and a roaming duo face to face with 20 man zerg is less challenging than a raid.
facing top spvp players and winning? thats might be harder, but its pretty difficult to determine.
What you are doing is like comparing hitting 100 three pointers in a row with beating some good basketball players, if you are the same height build health and have the same skills.
To be honest most people are more likely to beat the good basketball players.

Interesting take.

I would think that learning a scripted fight well enough to perform one’s specific role would be less difficult than the PvP comparison. I’ve won 1 v 5 in WvW, but have no illusions that I could take ten or more at once. And I know those five werent top tier players.

I would imagine that my TTL vs 5 to 10 top tier players in a coordinated team, would be measured in very few seconds. I expect that would be the case for even pretty skilled players experienced and successful in the game mode.

I dont expect that a raid team, experienced and successful in the game mode, experiencing a common, expected, every day encounter in a raid, while doing everything right, would die in seconds.

In WvW, or PvP, while doing everything right, the outcome is all but a foregone conclusion…you lose.

In any form of scripted encounter, doing everything right also generates a foregone conclusion…you win.

but you are comparing people who have already achieved mastery to people who have never tried.

who is better, an nba player or concert pianist?
the music is presrcipted, doing everything right = win

i dont think the top pvp players have put in more time effort, or training than the top PVE players.
I dont think it would be any easier for a top pvp player team who never set foot in PVE to beat raids than it would be for a top pve player who never set foot in pvp to beat an opposing team.

they simply value different things.

also, your PVP goals generally represent smaller % of the population, for your comparison youd have to be talking about the raiders with the best times in a leaderboard, not just those that could beat the raid.
to which id say yeah i feel that its not going to be any easier to achieve one or the other.

regardless an spvp primary player has absolutely no need of a legendary item anyhow so its kinda moot point.

WvW should have legendaries, but unfortunately it would probably be just about grinding doors, not the truely spectacular things one might pull off in WvW.

Dashingsteel.3410:

hmmm….. since they are referred to as specializations I think that implies that they are meant to be separate…….. Perhaps these specializations are such intense disciplines that they can’t be maintained at the same time.

yeah you are meant to have only one elite slot, this makes it easier to design and balance. It sucks a little bit, because the more you love one elite, the less attractive the new ones will be.
However, as people have said you can use both, just not at the same time.
but yeah, some one who loves the style/idea of greatsword necro, probably wont be too in love with torch necro.

Ashen.2907:

Shockwave.1230:

phys.7689:

Shockwave.1230:

Hello Anet,

I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.

To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.

The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.

In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.

This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.

Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.

Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.

i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.

this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.

It’s definitely not a thing that can happen quickly. It will take a change to a core tenant of development. And I’m hoping they start to analyze how to make content replayable not for getting currency, but instead for getting pieces of new builds people can play to experience the game differently. Maybe the core problem I have is more along the lines of build diversity being so limited, but I also think build craft as it currently exists needs to be shifted.

I believe that phys is correct in assuming that it will never happen because I dont think that Anet wants more build crafting. They dont want to spend the resources on more frequent balance patches because more buildcrafting finds more efficient builds more frequently.

It saddens me. Buildcraft was one of my favorite aspects of gw1.

nah, I’d say its because build craft is the main carrot, and they dont want to invest time and energy reworking basic systems.
gear swaps, sigil swaps, unlocking instead of needing inventory space.
it would all probably require better UI, new data structures, and reworking inventories, AND it would basically diminish the economic benefits of pre existing items.

they literally did not make legendary weapons get sigil replacement that legendary armor currently has because they need to evaluate the effects on the economy.

Economy is the main design consideration when it comes to items in this game, not utility or game design.

Ashen.2907:

Is going 1 v 2, 3, 4, or 5 facing top tier sPvP players, or being a member of a roaming duo come face to face with a zerg of 20 less challenging than raids?

actually 1v2-5 , and a roaming duo face to face with 20 man zerg is less challenging than a raid.
facing top spvp players and winning? thats might be harder, but its pretty difficult to determine.
What you are doing is like comparing hitting 100 three pointers in a row with beating some good basketball players, if you are the same height build health and have the same skills.
To be honest most people are more likely to beat the good basketball players.

Cyninja.2954:

Astralporing.1957:

Cyninja.2954:

Ask youself, if legendary armor were available through other means than raids, would you still want to raid?

I’ve been told time and time again that legendary armor cannot be made available through other means, because this would significantly decrease raid population. In fact, some of the people that argue against me about raids and their accessibility said so about themselves. Does that mean they also have no right to speak up about raids and their balance (unlike Blaeys, who specifically is not interested in rewards at all)?

I have never seen that argument made. Not saying there won’t be some who will use it but it is one of the weaker arguments (I’d not even count it as an argument). Sure, those individuals should have no impact on balance disscussions.

Now with a straight face tell me that rewards are an equal issue on both sides? If I’d have to wager I’d say there is a way higher amount of people with reward envy from the non raiding crowd at the moment than people who would willingly have content kept away from others. It’s not about who is right, it’s about just being honest and pinpointing the issue instead of making up excuses.

I never said people who want legendary armor via different means than raids are wrong by the way, I’m just opposed dumbing down content due to reasons not related to said content.

I for one would love to see multiple ways of legendary armor introduced into the game. For example I’ve always been vocal about spvp and wvw needing more love. Then again, I play almost all game modes.

to be honest SPVP doesnt need legendaries, you dont even need gear in SPVP, it would solely be there as a carrot for people who play multiple modes. I’m not saying it shouldnt exist, but there is no logical reason that someone who wants legendary utility only plays spvp. If they play multiple modes, then they can just play the other mode.

If they do add multiple methods, it should be the last method to achieve it, spvp really just needs to offer gold and mats to be worthwhile for cross pve/pvp players.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Another elite spec just means you get another choice of playing styles for your class. You have to make a choice which one you want to play. This was always present even before HoT released.

i think what he wants, or means is closer to before where you could use any traitline you want.
essentially cant be daredevil/sniper/acrobatics theif.

not saying they should mind you, just saying i think thats what the OP would prefer.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Labjax.2465:

I think they should do away with HPs being a requirement for elite specs and instead have them be repeatable content that gives map-related rewards.

Please no. I don’t want to repeat identical events for every character I have, to get elite specs.

Incidental, hero challenges are already repeatable content that gives map-related rewards. The difference is that we can choose any challenge we like, on any map.

huh? dont we already repeat identical events for every charachter to get elite specs? i though he wanted to remove hero points from elite specs completely.

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

X+1 > X

We will not have fewer options.

i never said we would, just clarifying what i think he means

Aeolus.3615:

IndigoSundown.5419:

When asked in 2014 about gear tiers with stats above the Ascended/Legendary tier, then Game Director Colin Johanson said, “I hope not.” I echo that sentiment. Gear progression is a pointless exercise in busywork.

Stil the game lacks progression… besides buy the next traitline to keep competing more easilly.

Classes progress is in damage increase and more condis/boon spam.
They dont actually have a structured class progression trait*build sytem as well, all they have done is added skill that need to be grinded to preggress through maps.
Its controlled time gated gameplay with distractions

is it progress if the map simply scales up?
then you have to rebalance the level up and gear grind so new players can catch up.
truth is power grind is not that great, however, i do realize that many people lose interest if they cant see bigger numbers.

The only real advantage i would say of a power grind game, is they dont need to make you grind so much at one time. GW2 loads all the grind at the ascended and legendary teirs, where other games spread it out.
the other advantage is that its a lot easier to come up with incentives to play. New cosmetics, will only once in awhile be an effective carrot because its subjective.

really neither system is perfect, but they have chosen this path, they cant really give you what you want, without basically alienating 90%(my estimate) of their playerbase. I’m not saying 90% of people hate grind, but the amount of grind they made people do for ascended, i dont think people would ever be ok with doing again.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Yup that’s exactly right, finally getting that item you have been working for for ages because you really want it and its rare can give a burst of pleasure/prestige, its core to rpg and always has been. Everyone running about with the exact same hammer of godly powerlessness +500 is the other side of the coin. As for player looking bad, that’s the problem of the observer.

Nah, if you dress according to rarity, not aestethics, you are just far more likely to end up dressed in a bunch of completely mismatched gear that do not complement each other. I’ve seen it a lot in the games with no transmutation, where people cared only aboit having good stats. I’ve seen it in GW2 as well. The end result is, most of the time, ugly, simply because there was no care put into it looking good.

And it still carries no prestige. If i even notice people dressed like that, it’s generally only when they look so bad i feel the need to laugh and pity them.

flog.3485:

I really don’t think so. It is pretty much set in stone that they would never add gear progression and higher level than 80, just like they never considered in Guild Wars the possibility to raise the lvl higher than 20.

Well, to be completely honest, they did at some time (pre-launch) consider increasing level cap in the future, and just after the introduction of ascended they were talking about continuing on gear progression course. They’ve just abandoned both of those ideas due to backlash it generated then.

Also, i kind of remember, that the “no raids in gw2” approach was also at some time set in stone. Until it suddenly wasn’t.

So, it is possible they will someday change their mind on that one. It would be a complete betrayal of ideas GW2 was build upon, but it wouldn’t be exactly the first time they deviated from their original course.

I just think it’s not very likely to happen in the foreseeable future. But then, i haven’t foreseen raids either.

I honestly don’t ever remember the devs saying there’ll be no raids in Guild Wars 2. They may have said at some point they don’t have plans for it, but I don’t even think I remember seeing that.

And seeing as my feelings against raids are pretty strong, there’s a good chance I’d have remembered it being said.

they said they wouldnt do raids because they tested it, and 5 players was the perfect place for this games balance and to make it so you didnt have to wait around to get enough players etc.
Which is still the case, but they think players wanted raids, so they made some. Many mechanics actually fail to work in raids, like 5 man buff limits

Everything they say is not law, they are just rough concepts, if the concepts arent working the way they want, they will change them. Its scary for players, but it makes sense, because this is an MMO, its meant to evolve. If a whole lot of people start saying they need some type of vertical progression or they ll lose interest, and their metrics back it up, they will make changes.

Thats why i say never say never.

However, they added elite specs and masteries and new stat combos to try to create a progression goal they can reset periodically without getting impossibly high.

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

you arent getting less options, you still have the same amount of options. you have 3 specialization slots. 1 of those slots is elite.
more choices for the elite slot, not less choices.

do you get less skills every time they add a new skill?

LezardValeth.9453:

All those elite specializations that allowed you to bring an extra weapon to the table, as well as additional new skills and an elite skill?

Once the new expansion roles out, once we get those new elite specs, what was the point of even getting HoT’s? Granted, there’s no telling if the new new elite stuff will be better or worse and you still have the option to go back.

But what’s the point? You won’t be able to use both at the same time, so matter what you lose something. Necros can’t use greatswords and torches, reaper shroud and sand shroud. Mesmers can’t use shields and their newest weapon, or chrono specs. It goes on.

Unless Arenanet addresses this issue, it looks like we won’t go into the new expansion with benching one elite spec.

elite specs masteries and new stats are Anets answer to the player progression treadmill, but since theoretically, they are not increases in power, its not a vertical treadmill.
the point is that you arent getting more powerful overall, just getting more options. So you are right, you will be leaving behind old specs, IF you like the new specs more.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

If the OP would do some research of Arena net he/she would find out that gear progression is hated by them. It’s the typical MMO design. Make a game, set max level, grind to get to that level, get gear to do the best stuff in the game (because your skills suck, and you need that gear to make you able to do the content), Then you get an expansion raise the level 5 or 10 levels. Grind those levels get new gear to let you do the best content again.

The progression in GW2 is using the best armor u can get Ascended or Legendary Although Exotic works for most things anyway but lets say its Ascended for now.
Masteries and Elite specializations are your gear progression they give you different abilities that were never available before.

Not only in the first part of the expansion, but constantly added content like the living story. In Lake Doric the mastery had to do with your downed state. giving you the ability to do damage to any foe in the area you use it in and interrupting them at the same time. In the newest story line you have the ability to use oakheart essence. That lets you move around like a spider web slinging person to get to places, even while gliding. Those are just examples of what GW2 gear progression is. It is your skill not gear that makes the difference.

All gear progression will do is make GW2 another WoW clone and Anet does not want that ever

ehhh, i wouldnt say never. I would say they didnt want to do that before. But they still havent ruled out the possibility, and it becomes more likely the longer the game lives. For now i think they are satisfied with masteries and new stat combos though, in terms of new progression mechanics after 80

Rauderi.8706:

TorsoReaper.8530:

Khisanth.2948:

Points gained from the core maps still works as well. In fact you can fully unlock the elite spec without touching any HoT HP.

There are 200 central tyria points and it takes 250 points to max your elite…

To be fair, someone could grind the crap out of wvw if they wanted but that would be a nightmare

If you do have all the central Tyria ones, it’s not hard to find a few Commune points or non-group hero challenges. There’s at least 3 in Verdant Brink that are Commune, one that isn’t too challenging in the lower biome. Then do the one in Tarir from the north gate, boom-done.
But that involves getting the rest of the HPs from central Tyria. I’m not quite that patient. :P

Hot was the beginning of the break bar, and most of them are breakable by one player with a few CC. I can only think of like two that seemed like they were designed for more than two players.

It is intimidating, but most of them were doable solo, and fairly easy with a small number ofpeople.

AliamRationem.5172:

Djinn.9245:

Starting in VB was a terrible idea. You start with basic gliding and when you run out of steam so much of the map has the vine floor that eats you. Or you might be up in the canopy when you run out. Its very disheartening that you often find nowhere to land that isn’t instant death. AB should be the intro map.

I disagree. I think VB was the perfect map to start with. When you first enter VB you’re following the storyline where you just witnessed the fate of the pact. And then, there it is. Right in front of you in the open world. I thought that was really cool.

I also think VB is a great map for putting those early masteries to use. You definitely feel like you’re getting something out of your mastery points when you unlock those first few masteries. Not so much later on, where I feel there is too much filler in the mastery tree. It’s a playground for those masteries in the same way Draconis Mons gives you plenty of opportunities to put its unique mastery to use.

Clearly, you don’t enjoy this sort of gameplay so I suppose there was no such appeal to you. That’s too bad.

it made sense storywise, but they made up the story.

and yes the first few are more impactful, but getting experience to unlock them in a map where dynamic events are all over the place with long winding paths (that you could get around if you had masteries) makes it suck.

it would be fine if masteries didnt require exp, then the progression would probably have been much more natural.

in fact i think that the descion to tie mastery to exp was much later in the process, and not properly accounted for in the design.

Djinn.9245:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Labjax, it may be because you took a break from the game but I can assure you that people that play higher end content can survive the jungle in zerker gear. The people who follow the meta tend to get zerker gear, but I have plenty of people in my guild who use other options, because it’s a casual guild. They didn’t have to change their armor at all.

A lot of it really is just knowing the enemy to survive.

I’ll also say he is right about the masteries, its way easier to navigate with better gliding, access to mushrooms, and wallows. Early on its most difficult to navigate, at the same time you need the dynamic events that you dont know how to get to easily. When you have masteries, you can hop on a shroom, glide to an updraft, etc, but early on you have to take a longer roundabout path that is not nearly so obvious.

Starting in VB was a terrible idea. You start with basic gliding and when you run out of steam so much of the map has the vine floor that eats you. Or you might be up in the canopy when you run out. Its very disheartening that you often find nowhere to land that isn’t instant death. AB should be the intro map.

yea, ab makes a lot more sense as a starter, i actually told my friends to skip to AB early, and come back to vb later

vesica tempestas.1563:

Astralporing.1957:

vesica tempestas.1563:

If a skin is easy to get it does not feel epic and rewarding.

If a skin is hard to get, it doesn’t feel any more epic. It’s just harder to get. I guess that there are some people that dress not according to aestethic reasons, but to showcase their more rare gear, but in the end, instead of prestigious, they just usually look bad.

Yup that’s exactly right, finally getting that item you have been working for for ages because you really want it and its rare can give a burst of pleasure/prestige, its core to rpg and always has been. Everyone running about with the exact same hammer of godly powerlessness +500 is the other side of the coin. As for player looking bad, that’s the problem of the observer.

there is diminishing return on this though. legendaries in this game tend to surpass that for many
even ascended surpass it, except the rare drop ones.

for me, the feeling you are talking about usually works best when tied to doing something epic, rather than strictly how many hours it took.

but everyone is different is the problem with big mmos.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Rauderi.8706:

OnizukaBR.8537:

If you have time to play the game you have time to raid, stop blaming your job/family as the reason you cant raid.

I feel sorry for those neglected children then…

But seriously, it takes an hour just to get a functional raid group together, after all the job-jockeying, gear checking, LI-confirming, raid strat breakdowns, bio breaks…
And then there’s actually doing the raid.

Sorry not sorry, but time limitations are a thing. Stop being rude about it.

You dont need to wait 1 hour, you log you look at lfg see if some group fits you, you join, you raid. There done. Yes not everyday at everytime you find a group that suits you so you move on to other things. I find funny that if you look at these people time played that say they dont have time you would see a lot of time.
If you can play you can raid period.

i havent searched for raid in this game, but i doubt hevs wrong. most of the time hes including in that hour isnt the searching part, its the organization once you have the people.
like this
hmm, anybody have an alt chrono?
i do, but i have to get the gear from my alts
ok brb
since he is chrono, maybe i shouldnswitch to my engineer, brb
bio break while they switch
ok im back, still waiting on engi
ok im back. bio break guy is missing.
ok are we gonna use beta strat or gamma strat
im not good at beta strat
im not good at gamma strat
ok we ll do gamma, let me check the gamma strat vid quick

etc, it adds up. the encounter may literally be 10 minutes, but the prep time, especially without a guild or static usually takes time to organize. Its possible its less so in this game, but i doubt it, especially in the beginning.

probably fast when everyone is experienced, but thats not going to be most peoples starting point

Shockwave.1230:

Hello Anet,

I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.

To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.

The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.

In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.

This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.

Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.

Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.

i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.

this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.