Guild Wars 2

To the person asking ANet to explain in public EXACTLY what is happening, if they did that bot engineers could work around it.

I’m not asking for that, but I am asking that the DR bugs be looked into, and that what constitutes the play pattern of a normal, casual, living player be tweaked so real people don’t get punished.

EDIT: Clark, you got loot from the mobs? … even before the 11/15 patch I was getting pretty much nothing from those mobs.

Holding up wow as a benchmark to any mmo is a false equivalency these days.

After their first expansion wow made a very marked and rapid migration toward the “facebook gaming” demographic, and this was a calculated move by people who were shrewd enough to recognized the age and limitations of their gaming engine.

WoW long ago ceased being an mmorpg and became a very fancy chat client with (now-crude) interactive avatars and some shallow time-kill thrown in. (there are literally web-based flash games with better combat systems than wow).

facebook style games will generally have a large audience, but they’re apples and oranges.

agreeing with tubular.

The changes to boon duration on mesmer has made the playstyle feel much more engaging.

How about checking the other subsections of the forum.

The general section is a hotbed of baseless negativity peopled by those who self-selected and congregated here and are no longer representative of the rest of the community. These people spout conspiracy theories, and threaten the proverbial daughters of the devs just because the game wasn’t “_exactly what they personally wanted”

I’m having a blast in this game, with a few minor glitches as is always present in new software. I hardly call it a waste of my time.

tpriel.8517:

the silence of the dev’s is deafening…

They don’t want to look into it because it’s an annoying bug to track, but i’m already seeing the impact of this.

Half of my guild doesn’t want to go to dynamic events anymore because every.. single… time.. they get no substantive reward while they watch their buddies who are not affected by this DR bug salvage 3 ectos and add to the mounds of gold.

Half of us are being denied the full game experience at this point, and indeed, the dev silence is deafening.

I suspect a nerf coming for that.

It’s an exploit which causes a slight inflation of the economy.

morrolan.9608:

There will be no response because its deliberate. Look at what they’ve done to the jormag events there’s now virtually no loot apart from the chest.

If the reasons anet are doing it is not because of the cash shop then they are so misguided its not funny (heck even if its because of the cash shop they are misguided but its at least an understandable reason), we need a reasonable carrot to keep playing.

This, I stopped going to dragons.

I spend 30 minutes killing the thing, go to the chest, and invariably blues, blues, blues.

same with any world event, really.

Meanwhile select guildies CONSISTENTLY get 3 ectos out of the same events.

I’m hearing it’s MF that’s glitched and my first task when i get back on will be to replace my MF gear, and, just to be sure i’m rid of the glitch, fully salvage my existing MF gear rather than mut it.

Zeldain.5710:

Rannulf.9417:

This is the top game from xfire, i never uses it and prob never will and i can never see why it’s important to some people.

The fact that LoL only got 135k shows you how only a small amount of player uses it.

What are you people not understanding?

It’s not the amount of people, but rather the trends it shows.

OF THE PEOPLE USING IT, there’s a huge decline in GW2 activity since launch. But the sample size is more than large enough to predict overall trends.

You can’t base “overall trends” on the first 3 months.

There is always a massive surge at launch which drops off precipitously, reaches a steady state, then starts to reflect trends.

You have to wait a couple quarters minimum to see the trending even in a nascent state.

I happen to like at least half the gear models, but agree that the heavy and especially the medium armor could use a little work.

Again, more models will be introduced.

Confusion has to be traited specifically, it requires massive boosts to duration and is difficult to stack without the help of your ‘victim’.

If you’re fighting someone with confusion, it’s a good idea to avoid their glamor fields.

If you are not speccing condition removal, expect them to wreck you and don’t complain that your glass cannon build has a counter.

Nayru.3947:

plasmacutter.2709:

Nayru.3947:

plasmacutter.2709:

What happened to the cosmetics from GW1? THAT was what people went after. A new weapon skin, new armor skins, nothing.

subjective is subjective…

I see a vendor with all manner of skins, I see more on the gem store, and yet more attainable through other means.

The game is only 3 Months Old , it’s not going to have the same number of skins as one 6 years old.

Patience is something generation y needs to learn.

The population isn’t increasing for a reason. I didn’t buy gw2 to wait for over 3 months to find the real game. That’s what development is for and it clearly didn’t go to well.

Imagine if parenting were like this …. “i’m giving my child up for adoption, it wasn’t born at 22 years old with an undergrad degree”

What does parenting have to do with a video game feeling like a beta 3 months into release?

Same general thought process.

A game has to be brought into the user world some time, or it will never be relevant. MMO’s in particular need time for their content to mature, and for the impact of user-interaction to take hold and be adjusted-for.

Developing more content for a game which has not been subjected to live-fire is useless and will make any undiscovered bugs even more complex, systemic, and destabilizing.

Every AAA mmo starts out in the same “infantile” state, even GW did. Content is released and matures over time in MMOs. (MMOs are the “fine wine” to the FPS “beer”)

Nayru.3947:

plasmacutter.2709:

What happened to the cosmetics from GW1? THAT was what people went after. A new weapon skin, new armor skins, nothing.

subjective is subjective…

I see a vendor with all manner of skins, I see more on the gem store, and yet more attainable through other means.

The game is only 3 Months Old , it’s not going to have the same number of skins as one 6 years old.

Patience is something generation y needs to learn.

The population isn’t increasing for a reason. I didn’t buy gw2 to wait for over 3 months to find the real game. That’s what development is for and it clearly didn’t go to well.

Imagine if parenting were like this …. “i’m giving my child up for adoption, it wasn’t born at 22 years old with an undergrad degree”

What happened to the cosmetics from GW1? THAT was what people went after. A new weapon skin, new armor skins, nothing.

subjective is subjective…

I see a vendor with all manner of skins, I see more on the gem store, and yet more attainable through other means.

The game is only 3 Months Old , it’s not going to have the same number of skins as one 6 years old.

Patience is something generation y needs to learn.

Build variety is definitely there.. try confusion/glamor mesmer vs power mesmer vs conditoin mesmer vs mantra mesmer. the playstyles and flow are so radically different despite the “same 5 skills”

Truearrow.3527:

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

This is why I camped out until 5 am one weeknight and transferred my toons to a high-pop, low wvwvw server. The difference is night and day.

put might sigil on weapon, swap kits, profit.

Tolmos.8395:

plasmacutter.2709:

please explain to me how gw2 emulates wow at all.

I’m just not seeing it.

I’m seeing a game combat system and content that is focused on players’ overall skill rather than their ability to mash a dps rotation. I’m seeing pvp that’s competitive and not based around out-gearing your opponents.

I’m seeing a very well implemented game with more available content than WoW had 3 months after its launch, and more content coming out at a faster rate than Blizzard ever maintained.

People who bash this game as being “like wow” have some real blindfolds on.

Their only real balance failure thus far is the in-game economy, but I have enough patience to wait that out.

GW1: story driven, gear plateau based gameplay. Hit max level early, max stats early, play the rest of the game (the remaining 90%+) for looks, exploration, story and fun.

WoW/GW2: gear driven gameplay. Open world zones are bordering on ghost towns in both games, end game consists of everyone farming the same dungeons over and over for the newest tier of gear. Future enjoyment of the game revolves around getting bigger numbers for your character.

I make very little gold in this game, and have maybe two nights a week if i’m lucky where I can play it, but I have a toon at 80, an alt nearing 30, and can easily cap my 80 toon out on gear by simply visiting the TP and spending half of what I have (which, again, isn’t much).

I don’t feel compelled to cap it out, though. I’m able to do more damage and survive better than many exotic-geared players through skill .

Most PVP-ers say the same thing. A good pvp-er can take on 4-5 at once in this game, regardless of gear, while a bad one can’t take on one other no matter how geared.

The “gear curve” is so shallow you’d have to drop marbles on it to even notice it, it’s an illusion.

Let’s compare this to WoW, where you join pvp, even as a seasoned “raider”, and still get flattened because people stack gear to the rafters so you can’t do any damage to them, and may as well be fighting a champion with a human at the helm instead of ai.

Nayru.3947:

plasmacutter.2709:

please explain to me how gw2 emulates wow at all.

I’m just not seeing it.

I’m seeing a game combat system and content that is focused on players’ overall skill rather than their ability to mash a dps rotation. I’m seeing pvp that’s competitive and not based around out-gearing your opponents.

I’m seeing a very well implemented game with more available content than WoW had 3 months after its launch, and more content coming out at a faster rate than Blizzard ever maintained.

People who bash this game as being “like wow” have some real blindfolds on.

Their only real balance failure thus far is the in-game economy, but I have enough patience to wait that out.

Are you playing GW2? Or a different game

Indeed I am playing GW2, did you ever play WoW?

extra stats are not normal.

They are unique weapon skins that brag to anyone who sees them how B—A— you are, just like the arah gear did before.

You doing fractals is supposed to sate and demonstrate your requirement for skill-based combat.

If you are asking that fractals and only fractals provide you with a statistical advantage over your fellow player, you have a lot of self-examination to do.

please explain to me how gw2 emulates wow at all.

I’m just not seeing it.

I’m seeing a game combat system and content that is focused on players’ overall skill rather than their ability to mash a dps rotation. I’m seeing pvp that’s competitive and not based around out-gearing your opponents.

I’m seeing a very well implemented game with more available content than WoW had 3 months after its launch, and more content coming out at a faster rate than Blizzard ever maintained.

People who bash this game as being “like wow” have some real blindfolds on.

Their only real balance failure thus far is the in-game economy, but I have enough patience to wait that out.

huh?

The game had buffs for everyone, even engi. (with the sigil change, if you equip might sigil you can easily cap might at 25!)

They buffed the speed of every profession but elementalists.

the elementalist signet change is completely ineffectual at endgame because eles build for perm-swiftness for pvp (which is 8%faster than the signet).

I’m still waiting on what these signet changes will mean for ele, which will now be more subject to chasing-pressure than pre-patch. (though to be fair d/d was a little strong in the mobility department before, so fair enough)

Thieves and Eles were both toned down in the mobility department vs everyone else with this change (and leveling eles were given a speed option for the first 40 levels while they got the traits to do so through “normal” builds)

This will increase the risk vs reward on thief burst too.

I’m aware of this moan and thought it sounded a little salacious.

It was not audible prior to this patch.

Whenever I hear it I find it highly amusing.

Zeldain.5710:

As I’ve said before – if anyone has a better documented indicator of GW2 player engagement, please post it.

Until that time, this is what we have. And it’s 100% accurate in and of itself.

The operative word is “we”. They certainly have more information. Also, “I” am not in “we”, because my first-hand information says this game is insanely popular.

Zeldain.5710:

Medazolam.3058:

Honestly, anyone here use xfire?

Doesn’t matter.

What it shows is that of the people who DO user Xfire, it has dropped from 100,000 hours played to less than 9,000.

Decline with a capital D. If this was a sub game, it would be a failure of SW:TOR proportions.

I didn’t know what xfire was until I came to this forum.

Reminds me of that one poll from the 2012 election season that had 66% of its sample as old southern men.

The factors that contribute to someone using xfire could easily correlate to other propensities, such as being more or less informed, more or less patient, more prone to be playing multiple titles, etc.

garbage in, garbage out.

Ryuujin.8236:

Osicat.4139:

@Blundby, I think mesmers are so unused to get buffs they just cant handle it. Like ppl win the lottery and cry tears while they have hard handle the situation.
/Osicat

I concur – I was pondering about this earlier and realised it opens whole new playstyles. My Guardian doesn’t need to wear glass cannon gear because I get so many boons to help with damage.

Now mesmer have good access to boons, I can mix more condition damage into my shatter build since it gets buffed by might, that in turn led me to realise that if I went all-out boon duration buffs on my runes and took some ranks in chaos I can become a buff-bot for my team, and still do decent damage all round with shatters, staff and sword.

Such a small change opened up so many possibilities, there’s now multiple ways to spec shatter

BINGO.

combine with signet of inspiration, shatter up as high a stack of might as you can, use signet, pop time warp, MELT WORLD BOSS

chapichapo.6354:

don’t waste your time , all negative posts are now removed by mods

Really? They’d have to remove the whole general section! (the rest seems to be fine, and the normal stuff from “general” has now moved to “players helping players”)

Has anyone complaining about the grenade nerfs tried the might sigil?

With each kit treated as a weapon set, you’re looking at massive stacks.

Remove DR for materials (it punishes legitimate players by denying them the ability to get mats for themselves, and rewards botters by driving legitimate players to overpriced mats on the TP), increase precursor drop rates, or better yet, make precursors crafted.

Agreed, overflows should be default. Given that every map is separated by a portal, and overflows already exist, I don’t see any serious technical hurdles here.

Why not just invert the weights used for overflow vs normal server zone? it would work perfectly.

If you bought GW2 to grind, you have the wrong game.

in all fairness, precursors and t6 mats are both so rare they cost your first born child. I hope they tune these numbers soon, because if you were to part out and sell the components of foefire’s essence you could buy a precursor for every equippable slot. Is it enough to make me fed up and leave,? no; Is it annoying to me? yes.

According to the AMA, they want to distribute the loot from fractals to the rest of the world.

Now, i’m right there with you saying “where are they now that we’ve had a major content patch”, but they said it was their intent, and I believe it will happen.

When it does, you’ll see people leaving their “basements of the mysts” to return to the rest of the game world.

In the mean time, the servers marked “full” actually “un-fill” as it gets later. If you try it on a monday night after the event ends (say 2:30 am PST, 5:30 am EST), you can probably get into sea of sorrows or Tarnished Coast.

it’s been 3 months!

I was falling through the map and dying of the fall damage a full 3 YEARS into wow.

Give em a break! They’re working on it!

The sad thing is the “nerf” to engineers was a massive buff.

If they switch kits with the might sigil they can stack it sky-high like D/D eles and get all the damage back and MORE.

I saw the patch notes to eng and said “my god that’s a huge buff”

ORR is still very much alive on sea of sorrows.

Rustypipes,

Not only do they have to deal with the actual technical aspects of the game, but they have to do it under the most inane, and impatient verbal abuse. (well, textual abuse).

I understand posts which raise concerns or point out bugs. They’re necessary feedback. The vitriol in posts like OP is just beyond the pale though.

At least it reflects one thing: OP cares about this game enough to get MAD. That says something about the power of this title, and should be warming to the devs as they read such things.

The game isn’t dead, it’s just that the MMO playerbase are fickle, whiny, and stubborn.

This is the same garbage that causes post-nerf-patch fluctuations of 1 million users in wow.

even the noted “post-ascended-gear cliff” on this graph is only a month old.

If the old MMO pattern holds true, these people are going to come right back to the game when they realize it’s the best they’ll get to their “perfect fit”, despite the fact that they don’t agree with some of ANet’s actions.

In the mean time, at least where I am, and to the contrary of those who think this game is “dying”, I have to worry about the CPU temps as the sheer number of people playing around me tax my system that much.

Deadcell.9052:

Ran pent/shelt and the grenth events last night for about 2 hours with a friend, me lvl 80 full mf gear, banner, food, my friend lvl 76 and a xp booster no mf at all, needless to say my buddy received about 9 rares and a ton of t6 mats, me in my MF gear 1 rare 4 vicious claws and a ridiculous amount of porus, and large bones.

So I log in this morning and do a few more events no MF gear at all, no boosters of any kind in the first 5 minutes 5 rares and a ton of t6 mats.

Yeah loot and magic find work great! Something is definetly goofed.

Thanks for confirming this.

I bought MF as my first “starter gear” when hitting 80.

I will now divest myself of as much of it as possible at whatever cost is necessary.

I don’t have much gold for obvious reasons, but it seems I’ll be unable to make any at all if I don’t replace my existing MF gear immediately.

My only guess would be that when you equip MF, the MF% completely replaces your base MF% (for example, if your initial odds were 1.0:X, and you then equip 40% mf, instead of your odds becoming 1.4:X, it becomes 0.4:X)

Zatria.5783:

How is the DR determined? 20 minutes farming, 30?

As of late I have been working on karma gear. So, been pretty heavily farming Penitent and shelter’s events.

After a bit, are we supposed to change maps then come back? How’s this work?

That’s what i’d like to know.

my latest playing habit seems to trigger it heavily:

1 – log into alt and level it

2 – see dragon alerts flash on guild chat

3 – relog to main, waypoint to and complete said events

4 – get horrible loot to the point i’m cursing even bothering to relog

5 – rinse and repeat steps 1 through 4

I had higher drop rates for everything before equipping my first MF piece (just after turning 80).

At the same time, there are others with just +40% MF who rake in an easy 10g a day from the extra drops.

Again, from the pattern i’m seeing, I think 50% of the playerbase has glitched DR that’s always-on, while the other half is just fine, and that half gets rich and has fun while we barely make waypoint costs.

Two things which are making the GW2 economy painful for only one-half of the population….

First:

The DR glitching seems to be killing the economic experience for half of the community.

Just down any of the dragons and you’ll see what I mean:
- Half the group links their list of several rares (consistently the SAME half).
- The other half wonders what cheat codes the first half is using.

The first half rakes it in and drives the cost of precursors rapidly toward 500g, while the second half barely covers waypoint costs with their takings.

ANet still does not acknowledge this, but I’ve seen it first-hand. DR seems to be bugged, by basic census, to be permanently on for about 60% of my active guildies (and myself). A full week now with not a single rare weapon or armor item (with +40% magic find), let alone an exotic, and with greens dipping to the rarity of rares… drops are bad enough to barely cover the waypoint costs.

Second:

They just seriously nerfed charged lodestone supply with the sparks in malchor’s leap with no announcement of a general correction to the drop rate to compensate. (yes, it was 3.5g before, but darn-it, ANet wants the playerbase to REALLY SUFFER)

So there you have it…

Half the playerbase will become increasingly fed-up ,not want to do much outside of explorable token grinds, and never have a chance in frozen hell at a legendary.

The other half gets to eat higher lodestone costs as well, and wonder where half their friends went.

Vary the phrasing and it gets you buy the anti-spam AI.

It’s rare I get suppressed these days.

Zeldain.5710:

Knowing that it’s the developer’s primary goal to make the classes all equal, I suggest you simply find one you like, not one someone tells you is “better” because they’re lying.

Better is indeed subjective.

Every class plays very differently, and has a completely different flow depending upon traits.

Don’t just rely on descriptions either. Try reading about and actually playing a couple levels on each toon.

I thought “oh god mesmer sounds unwieldy and fundamentally weak”, then I tried one and LOVED it.

Vayra.3290:

Simon.3106:

How the hell can anyone die by that? My warrior took it out in 2 seconds…

There are a few that spawn lvl 30 enemies in a lvl 12 areas But yeah, when they are equal level you have a serious case of l2p disorder if you can’t kill them.

The ones with the toys in them are actually rather tough if you are not a leveled-down 40+

They spam chill aoe and are all ranged.

I happened to be way out in the lvl 33 area of gendarran fields with my 28 D/D ele. I was able to handle the pirates out there (though they were hitting me like trucks when they connected), but I opened one of these surprises and ended up with a face full of ranged I wasn’t traited to deal with (because I don’t even have master line open). The thing is, they’re stronger than they look:

Because I opened the box, they spawned as lvl 28, but after the zerged me down, they demolished half the pirate camp too, and those pirates have 5 levels on em!

The ranged toys could use a tone-down, but I just went about my merry way. I’m not ticked that I can’t take on 5-6 ranged at once with a 1/6th-built elementalist, but it is true that this particular set of mobs is stronger than others.

there are a lot of novel builds which really break the RPG mold in this game. If you want novel, search the subforums for specific builds you might want to target.

Really?

I’ve only seen one charged lodestone my entire time playing, and it sold promptly for over 3g. ANet has some serious departmental communication issues to be constricting the supply further on something already insanely expensive.

Just did 5 more of the various chest DWE’s and received zero green items, let alone yellow. it’s been two weeks since i’ve seen a yellow. outrageous

I do believe the lunge attacks should have more warning. I’ve seen quite a few of those (champion bandit in kessex for instance), and it IS very annoying.

For the record, though, my D/D ele (now lvl 28) is outfitted in all toughness gear. Even at quite a few levels below it makes it durable enough to take such lunges, at least once.

maximus.8635:

There were plenty of other people ther being one-hit dropped. It wasn’t just me. I maintain though that regardless of point allocation it is silly to have mobs that can one hit us and not give a chance to evade/withdraw after that one hit.

fair enough, but lets look at this objectively:
let’s say it’s nerfed to take only 3/4 of the hp of the lowest HP toons (eles and thieves iirc)

At that level, the difference in hp, toughness, and healing from someone speccing into their “tanky” lines vs someone not is enough to make the same “nerfed” mob absolutely zero challenge for a fully tank specced anything, all to allow someone to solo-engage a group mob?

I think they’ve tuned it just right. Glass cannon builds are a throw-back to the holy trinity days in which there was a “tank” and 4 “dps” in a group, but most fights in this game are about outlasting and out-maneuvering your enemies.

I think it’s a good idea to explore the vitality and toughness trees. it’s my understanding those trees for thief produce pretty unique playstyles.

I’ve now played the past two weeks without receiving a single rare.

I’ll play on my ele alt leveling her, then when called by the guild will come running to various chest DE’s around the world.

With each successive one, the loot gets worse. At this point i’m lucky if i see even a GREEN . Meanwhile, the people who are NOT on bugged DR are getting 2-3 ectos per major event, while, again, i’m lucky to recover even my waypoint costs.

I will no longer be bothering to respond to guild calls for DE’s. No rewards, barely covering costs, and meanwhile thanks to this DR bug only affecting half the population, the other half is getting filthy rich on ectos and driving the price of precursors even FURTHER out of reach (some are reaching 500g now when I’m seeing maybe 1g/day in total revenue)

if that’s happening, it means you are not specced or geared for enough vitality or toughness to survive a single hit.

happened a lot at that level on my mesmer until I put significant points into the vitality line (and kept them there until 80)

This game is not kind to glass cannon builds in pve, and thieves are more glass than usual when a hit connects (they have similar squishiness to eles, and melee ele specs stack vit/toughness to compensate this)

saw someone wearing a light armor piece that looked like a blindfold.

anyone have any idea what this is and where obtained?

EDIT:

Found it, exotic version of acolyte mask.

Araushnee.1852:

I got to say I think it is bugged too. I was getting exotic drops at least every other night for a while after the patch on the November (if I farmed in Orr). I got 3 exotic drops one night. I was also getting plenty of rares. Then the patch at the beginning of this month seemed to cause my drops to be mostly bad. No more exotics and very few rares. I talked to some people in a farming party and some agreed the drops seemed nerfed while others said they had gotten 15+ rares and an exotic. I had gotten maybe 2 or 3 rares. Crafting materials were also dropping less. I haven’t farmed much yet since the resent patch, so I have no idea if it is still bad for me.

I am wondering if something is buggy with the DR system.

I would really like to see a dev response on this.

There have been at least 3 threads on this that reached something along the lines of 22k views each since the middle of last month.