Showing Posts For projectcedric.6951:

Stephyy streaming Guild Wars 2! <3

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Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

I took a look and after like 5 seconds I saw Dan Dinh’s channel on the featured channels so I went there instead. Didn’t take so much for me to make that decision =/

GW2 content designer loves Greatswords

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Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

There is indeed some bias towards greatswords here, as much as most other fantasy-themed games I’ve played in my life. Its like most creators simply cannot control that child-like side of them when they are designing the content, that side that makes them fantasize about being that cool, fearsome alpha warrior, which in most people’s visualization wields a greatsword, thereby naturally marginalizing most other characters in the story that wields other weapons as secondary characters.

On the other hand, its actually kinda more challenging to design daggers than designing the other weapons, for one particular reason: they are small. Any effort that designers put in designing dagger details are just moot because from a third-person scale of PoV, all daggers are about the same shape.

Why zerk is better than most armor

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projectcedric.6951

It’s because the only way to be battle efficient currently is to just deal damage. Crowd control, condition damage, heals, buffs, de-buffs, damage elements/properties are simply either non-existent or just have a negligible effect in combat to be considered as efficient as simply dishing out damage.

The thing is though, there is no point talking about this now because this is a fundamental issue rooted in game mechanics. To improve this means overhauling the combat mechanics which also means that most content needs to be re-balanced or redesigned.

More updates than MMOs with Subs?

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projectcedric.6951

We’ve been playing around so far this year with a lot of different concepts to see what works for a living world game, and see what players liked and didn’t like. Based on all of your feedback, you’ll be seeing a greater degree of permanent content built into future living world releases in 2013. And of course, some things you’ve seen before may return again, in its current form but updated like SAB or holiday festivals, or in a new form entirely….

So to put this in another way, basically you were playing around with our gaming experience and now you’re saying that you’re planning to put in more permanent content now that you’ve pretty much arrived at what you think the game should be.

In other words, the whole of past year has been one big open beta, except there is no server-reset at the end of it all. In other words, no matter how beautiful the game was when it came out, it wasn’t finished to begin with because you haven’y made up your mind yet about what to put in permanently.

In other words, we are all guinea pigs to you.

How does this differ from every other MMO on planet? Do you not see this happen all the time (cause I do). This is how MMOs evolve and all the good ones do.

MMOs are an experiment, because they’re constantly changing. MMO developers test changes all the time to see the reaction.

So I’m not sure why you think this is different from any other MMO.

Listen to yourself, man. Do you actually really believe that kitten you wrote? Im referring to the phrase here:

“MMOs are an experiment”

What do you think is this? A science project?

You think players’ time are worth nothing to be experimented on?

And to answer your question: No, these hyper-rapid, whack-a-mole changes do not happen in MMO’s, only in Guild Wars 2. Usually, developers do tests in TEST SERVERS. Usually, there is a comprehensive and definitive closed and open beta to decide things. Usually, if something is faulty, its consistent with the game design right from the very start. Usually, updates mean new content or a bug fix – not a crazy-dramatic nerf of every farming area in the game. And most importantly, usually these things dont noticeably happen every kittening week in a poorly attempted stealth patch.

At the very least, if they don’t know what to do, the first step is usually to admit it and be open to things. Absolutely nothing -none of any of the good or bad suggestions, pro and against the game- that I have ever read in these forums have ever been implemented.

Absolutely none of the complaints -even if the complaints are contradictory to each other- has been resolved towards one way, despite how much we have been reassured that they are listening to their players. This game is a modern Third Reich. And to claim to us thakittens not so is downright insulting to my person and my intelligence.

Now, don’t even bother replying to this post, because I’m not arguing with you any further. Ive known you. Everybody here knows you. Talking to you is like talking to a wall. I’d have a better chance of a meaningful conversation talking to an ANet dev.

Cheers!

I’ll reply to any post I choose to, thanks. Particularly one that’s so blatantly incorrect. I certainly don’t think you should argue with me further, because nothing you’ve said has helped your argument in the first place.

Every MMO experiments. We see WoW do it all the time. Test server or no test server, they experiment. I’ve seen Rift make a drastic change to PvP and then reverse it four days later, because everyone hated it. Because this content is temporary, there’s no reason to reverse it, so it’s SMARTER than other MMOs.

Test servers aren’t often highly populated. I was an alpha tester for Rift before the game launched, and I was on the test server after. The number of people on that test server was miniscule. It was so small that nothing really could be tested properly anyway.

Anyone who says developers of MMOs don’t experiment on the people playing the game isn’t watching very carefully.

Another anecdotal proof to prove your point.

Doesn’t matter, man. Seriously. I was right. Talking to you is like talking to a wall. Good luck to every player in this game and in this forum.

What a waste of time of my few months time. I’m out. Ciao.

On inconsistent and paradoxical game design

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

I’ve played lots of games with more bugs. Warhammer, AoC, hell, were you at the WoW launch? That was godawful.

As for the rest of it, YOU need a carrot. I don’t need a carrot. In fact, I don’t even LIKE carrots. I’d rather just do what I want without having to be bribed. Games have trained you you need to be bribed. Ever play with blocks? What’s the reward? Ever have a catch? What’s the reward? Ever play solitaire? What’s the reward?

Games don’t require carrots IF you find them fun. I find the game fun, so I don’t need a carrot. The fact that you do means you dont’ find the game itself fun. If you’re only playing for the carrot, you’re definitely playing the wrong game.

Dude, do you even play this game?

You’ve been in these forums way back since I can remember for the good part of each day. So unless you’re telling me you’re a vampire who doesn’t need to sleep, or write your superbly long posts at the same time you’re playing the game (thereby breaking a few laws of physics)… how much they paying you man? I could use that job too right now.

Me, I find that in-between genuinely playing for even four hours (as we good MMO players ought to do) and real life stuffs, its difficult to find the time to argue with people in each of every thread here – something a normal person without superpowers like me can only do ONCE WE STOP PLAYING THE GAME.

Last I checked I have well over 7000 achievement points. They go up daily but at least 10 points, usually quite a bit more. I must play at some point.

I have a lot of free time. I’m retired. I don’t play golf. I’m a bit homebound, not completely but completely enough. I suffer from insomnia and chronic pain. I’m lucky to get four hours sleep a night.

So yeah, the distraction of playing games is one of the few pleasures I have in life. And driving people nuts on the forum is pretty cool too. lol

So if you have a lot of free time, and you’re posting here instead of playing the game, you’re not playing enough to tell us what is what.

Play more, ok? Play more to the point that you have no time to post here every single day even if you’re not doing anything else. Otherwise, all this is just rhetoric.

More updates than MMOs with Subs?

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Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

We’ve been playing around so far this year with a lot of different concepts to see what works for a living world game, and see what players liked and didn’t like. Based on all of your feedback, you’ll be seeing a greater degree of permanent content built into future living world releases in 2013. And of course, some things you’ve seen before may return again, in its current form but updated like SAB or holiday festivals, or in a new form entirely….

So to put this in another way, basically you were playing around with our gaming experience and now you’re saying that you’re planning to put in more permanent content now that you’ve pretty much arrived at what you think the game should be.

In other words, the whole of past year has been one big open beta, except there is no server-reset at the end of it all. In other words, no matter how beautiful the game was when it came out, it wasn’t finished to begin with because you haven’y made up your mind yet about what to put in permanently.

In other words, we are all guinea pigs to you.

How does this differ from every other MMO on planet? Do you not see this happen all the time (cause I do). This is how MMOs evolve and all the good ones do.

MMOs are an experiment, because they’re constantly changing. MMO developers test changes all the time to see the reaction.

So I’m not sure why you think this is different from any other MMO.

Listen to yourself, man. Do you actually really believe that kitten you wrote? Im referring to the phrase here:

“MMOs are an experiment”

What do you think is this? A science project?

You think players’ time are worth nothing to be experimented on?

And to answer your question: No, these hyper-rapid, whack-a-mole changes do not happen in MMO’s, only in Guild Wars 2. Usually, developers do tests in TEST SERVERS. Usually, there is a comprehensive and definitive closed and open beta to decide things. Usually, if something is faulty, its consistent with the game design right from the very start. Usually, updates mean new content or a bug fix – not a crazy-dramatic nerf of every farming area in the game. And most importantly, usually these things dont noticeably happen every kittening week in a poorly attempted stealth patch.

At the very least, if they don’t know what to do, the first step is usually to admit it and be open to things. Absolutely nothing -none of any of the good or bad suggestions, pro and against the game- that I have ever read in these forums have ever been implemented.

Absolutely none of the complaints -even if the complaints are contradictory to each other- has been resolved towards one way, despite how much we have been reassured that they are listening to their players. This game is a modern Third Reich. And to claim to us thakittens not so is downright insulting to my person and my intelligence.

Now, don’t even bother replying to this post, because I’m not arguing with you any further. Ive known you. Everybody here knows you. Talking to you is like talking to a wall. I’d have a better chance of a meaningful conversation talking to an ANet dev.

Cheers!

On inconsistent and paradoxical game design

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

I’ve played lots of games with more bugs. Warhammer, AoC, hell, were you at the WoW launch? That was godawful.

As for the rest of it, YOU need a carrot. I don’t need a carrot. In fact, I don’t even LIKE carrots. I’d rather just do what I want without having to be bribed. Games have trained you you need to be bribed. Ever play with blocks? What’s the reward? Ever have a catch? What’s the reward? Ever play solitaire? What’s the reward?

Games don’t require carrots IF you find them fun. I find the game fun, so I don’t need a carrot. The fact that you do means you dont’ find the game itself fun. If you’re only playing for the carrot, you’re definitely playing the wrong game.

Dude, do you even play this game?

You’ve been in these forums way back since I can remember for the good part of each day. So unless you’re telling me you’re a vampire who doesn’t need to sleep, or write your superbly long posts at the same time you’re playing the game (thereby breaking a few laws of physics)… how much they paying you man? I could use that job too right now.

Me, I find that in-between genuinely playing for even four hours (as we good MMO players ought to do) and real life stuffs, its difficult to find the time to argue with people in each of every thread here – something a normal person without superpowers like me can only do ONCE WE STOP PLAYING THE GAME.

More updates than MMOs with Subs?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: projectcedric.6951

projectcedric.6951

We’ve been playing around so far this year with a lot of different concepts to see what works for a living world game, and see what players liked and didn’t like. Based on all of your feedback, you’ll be seeing a greater degree of permanent content built into future living world releases in 2013. And of course, some things you’ve seen before may return again, in its current form but updated like SAB or holiday festivals, or in a new form entirely….

So to put this in another way, basically you were playing around with our gaming experience and now you’re saying that you’re planning to put in more permanent content now that you’ve pretty much arrived at what you think the game should be.

In other words, the whole of past year has been one big open beta, except there is no server-reset at the end of it all. In other words, no matter how beautiful the game was when it came out, it wasn’t finished to begin with because you haven’y made up your mind yet about what to put in permanently.

In other words, we are all guinea pigs to you.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

Well, its been a good few months. Time to hammer the last nails on the coffin for this game, lol.

ANet loves this game so much (its obvious as to how beautiful they had made it to be) but they hate their players just as much.

kittening supermega-hyper rate of changes. I log in one day, and next day it’s a different game I’m playing.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

I haven’t read past this post, but I’m willing to bet they did argue against it.

Edit: I agree with you, it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. But I’m willing to bet it will be lost on those who just want to complain.

Yeaah, its lost on me, man. I know you and Vayne are right though. I know people like me are just being whiney. I know that you got the right arguments. My brain knows it, but my heart feels differently.

Any of it doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather be here posting on these forums right now instead of being inside the game. You gotta acknowledge that.

What happened to semi-frequent AMA?

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projectcedric.6951

AMA is now The Forums tadaaaan!

Since they realized its pretty much the same. Its “Ask Me Anything”, not “Ask Me Anything And I Will Answer”.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

if the best way to get something is by buying it with gold, CoF p1 spam is always the answer and everything else including dungeons, fractals, meta events) come a far second.

According to this, it can only lead to two things. Either

a.) CoF p1 will get nerfed as well (its still farming, right? And I thought the whole point is to reduce farming)

or

b.) The majority who’s looking for an efficient way to farm gold after already reaching 80 and enjoying most of the content will be funneled to CoF p1. In the extreme, it will become GW2 = CoF p1

So, ok.

Everybody doggie. Every- everybody doggie.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

Anthony, why not… instead of working on all this dreamy “sweet spot”, nerfing stuffs, you go and find out for us why I can get more rare equipment from a chicken than a champion that drops nothing after I spent a good 15 minutes killing it?

Even Diablo 2 has a less ridiculous drop system than that.

another one bites the dust

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projectcedric.6951

I just logged out of the game after playing for an hour. I have never felt this empty about this game. Should I have continued farming after all that nerf? Maybe. Should I have done some other things in-game as Anet desire us to? Divided game time between open world/dungeons/wvwvw? Maybe.

I cannot explain it in words but I just decided to log out instead.

I feel like this is starting to be one of those endless races between developer and players. Developers intends something for their game, players play it a different way, and developers change the game. Players find another way to play it differently, developers change the game again. It’s almost as if they are FORCING people to play only one way, and the game play diversity is the diversity that the developers dictate players to have.

It’s a really beautiful game but the changes are starting to feel really dictatorial.

That’s how I felt after they nerfed grub farming. I felt lost. Then I heard malchor farming was available and hopped on that for 2-3 weeks.

With that gone, and southsun farming being nerfed, there is nothing I want to do in game.

Arenanet doesn’t want you to play how you want. They want you to play how THEY want.

Yea, man!

“How THEY want” was fun up to my 60 dollars worth. But now, anything more would be like robbing me of my time.

2-3 months to legendary, still reasonable. Maybe throw in some new content, I’d pay for those molten and consortium harvesting tools -they’re about the best content they’ve come up with for months.

But now they telling me the ship has sailed for people who can farm for a 600g precursor when I’m halfway there. And I’m like, “Sh!t, man, I’d be kitten ed if I spend anymore time playing this sh!t”

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

The fact it goes into the game then taken out later is just dumb as all hell

^THIS is the main issue. I hope they realize this more.

Of course nobody is gonna complain if devs change something that makes players lives easier, but no matter how much anyone can rationalize a change that was supposed to correct a long-running deviation from original intent, if it outright, overnight puts a heavy cross on the majority of the player-base, you can be sure that it’ll be normal that people feel demoralized.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

I didn’t care about the skelk fix, because I don’t like Southsun. I do like Orr, and my reaction to the tunnel fix was GOOD! I bug reported that event at least 5 times! It was obviously broken, and almost impossible to complete as it was. The fact that we exploited this broken event for material gain doesn’t matter.

I’m glad the skelk spot got fixed. Broken content is broken.

Just because a fix doesn’t help you make gold faster doesn’t mean it’s a “Nerf.”

The only problem with this is the timing.

When did we start complaining that event and respawn rates in Orr is ridiculously fast? 8 MONTHS AGO, man! But noooo, its supposed to be that challenging, “end-game” content.

And now supposedly the “fix” came 8 months later when the market is so hyper-inflated and most of us has done pretty much everything except legendary (karka shells for what??)?

If it was REALLY about the novelty of going against farming, they should have seen it at the first outcry.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

The events in cursed shore has been reduced in frequency from 1 in 10-15 mins to 1 in 30 mins (yes, I took note of this). So is the respawn rate of the risen mobs in the whole map.

Are you telling me that this is a bug too? As far as I’m concerned, this has been going on since all the way back to about 7 months ago and we were even complaining that respawn rate in orr is so frustratingly fast, and your team never did anything about it.

And now that people found a way to exploit it by farming the risen and the events, the team decides to reduce the intensity. It would have been much welcome 8 months ago when the game just started. But you’re doing it now when people have already farmed there for months and prices on TP are what they are now.

I appreciate your team’s hard work in most cases, but mercurial changes like these that happens too often are just kinda frustrating, man. Why don’t you leave these kind of things for a while and stop punishing your players?

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

This is a valid point… if this was the first month that the game came out. Its already more than a year, man! If they were to nerf it, they should have nerfed it early. Now the market is hyper-inflated, too many people have already amassed too much money from pre-nerf, and even more so from the pre-nerf Nov 2012.

The “acceptable amount of profit per hour” is based on fixed content and the in-game economy. You cant tell people that it’s legitimate to decrease the gold-per-hour from content when that same farming before hand has increased the prices of things pre-nerf.

That’s why in-game economies are quite sensitive stuffs to handle. At the very least, they should decrease it very gradually over time, so that prices and new players have a chance to adapt. Not a dramatic change overnight – something like half of the original rate of gold acquisition or less. That’s kitten brutal, man.

damage output TOO HIGH!

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projectcedric.6951

Leave it as is. Having some events failing is part of the fun. What the hell is the point of these events if they don’t fail?

I want to see The Shatterer completely decimate a group, and then progress to take over the entire map unless people band together to stop him. I want to login one day and be told in guild chat that the entire map is lost and we should help try to take it back.

I think people wouldn’t mind dying IF it was like this AND there are lucrative rewards at the end of it all. But the problem is it’s not like that at all.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

I really don’t mind the farming nerfs. Keeps the economy balanced and discourages a playstyle that would severly shorten the lifespan of the game for many players. If we were all super rich with legendaries after playing for a couple months and farming then the population would drop like crazy. Anet know this, so don’t expect them to give you easy money/mats any time soon.

You’re right, man. I was planning to stop playing after maybe getting a legendary in about 2-3 months time. Now it will take more time than that. So I’m just gonna stop playing now.

Good thing they did it though. Knocked me to my senses about planning to waste all that time for a stupid skin when I have done everything else to do in-game.

another one bites the dust

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projectcedric.6951

I just logged out of the game after playing for an hour. I have never felt this empty about this game. Should I have continued farming after all that nerf? Maybe. Should I have done some other things in-game as Anet desire us to? Divided game time between open world/dungeons/wvwvw? Maybe.

I cannot explain it in words but I just decided to log out instead.

I feel like this is starting to be one of those endless races between developer and players. Developers intends something for their game, players play it a different way, and developers change the game. Players find another way to play it differently, developers change the game again. It’s almost as if they are FORCING people to play only one way, and the game play diversity is the diversity that the developers dictate players to have.

It’s a really beautiful game but the changes are starting to feel really dictatorial.

Our reactions to farming nerfs

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projectcedric.6951

I think its just unfair for people who just started farming lately or new to the game. They’re faced with the hyper-inflated prices of things and yet don’t have the opportunity to acquire gold as fast as the people who farmed before nerf.

Of course it can be said that the people who farmed earlier are entitled to their riches – early bird gets the worm. That’s a legit thing to say. But nobody can blame people for feeling bad and demoralized cause they won’t seem to be able to catch up. That’s just as legit a feeling. Things like that is what would make anyone just give up and not want to play anymore.

I’m for anti-farming and all. But if you change things drastically and too often like that, people who are used to having long term plans are just gonna be fed up.

Moorwatch Tower Vista Bug[Merged]

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projectcedric.6951

The “Defend Mad Mardines cows from harpies as he tests his inventions” event at Diessa Plateau is bugged.

Server: Crystal Dessert

It says:

Tests completed: 3/5
Cows needed: 2
Cows alive: 2

However, there are no more cows in the vicinity. The harpies attacking as well as Mad Mardine’s assistant Tigh Snatchkull (who is invulnerable) are running around in circles – the harpies are looking for the cows who arent there and Snatchkull chasing the harpies.

Thus, the event cannot be completed and as a consequence, the vista at Moorwatch Tower (which requires Mad Mardine’s catapult to access) cannot be reached.

Please fix!

Is it me or GW2 feel like a chore [merged]

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projectcedric.6951

This has to be one of the grindiest MMO’s I have played in a long time…its been promoted to “Eastern (I don’t want to offend anyone with the other word) MMO” in my opinion…

Contrary to what the rest of the world generally thinks, we are mostly lazy here in the “Orient”. Lazy – to get out of our comfort zones and do something different other than to kill the same things and run the same dungeons over and over everyday. Because it takes so much effort to diversify and have fun, so we would rather grind instead.

disappointing updated (30/04)

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projectcedric.6951

: what a joke. run the dungeon for what? fun?

No, man, you’re supposed to run the dungeon endlessly and repeatedly so that you can get the best gears or the best looking gears in game. Because that would absolutely make your life more meaningful.

(edited by projectcedric.6951)

I find it funny.....

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projectcedric.6951

I find it funny that rangers can shoot arrows without arrows.

I find it funny that spears can only be used under water.

I find it funny that you can dye armors but not weapons.

I find it funny that a chicken can drop a much better loot than a champion mob.

I find it funny that despite all that intensive concept designing of armors and costumes, everybody seems to look the same.

I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I ever had. I find it hard to tell you cuz I find it hard. When people run in circles, its a very…

The Tunnel Vision of the GW2 player base

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projectcedric.6951

Because so many end game equipment require dungeon tokens. Up to this point, it is safe to say that they are better than crafted ones. Noble rune set, for example, is arguably the best magic find rune set there currently is, and it can only be acquired through CM. This goes the same for back items – ALL ascended back items require at least one ingredient that can only be acquired through dungeons. In comparison, the open world available best back item is the personal story reward and Wayfarer can hardly compare to the ascended counterparts (not to mention better aesthetics)

Though its good that laurels now give another option for acquiring ascended items for amulets, rings and acc without doing dungeons, but a flat average rate of 1.33 laurels per day acquisition is downright limiting compared to dungeon tokens.

Gold farming in Curshed Shore DE’s is still the best farm rate at about 3-5 gold per hour, but what exactly can you get with gold? Most of the ‘coolest’ items in game are account/soulbound and cannot be traded in TP.

As I see, these are the main reasons why people would rather do dungeons. Or rather, “feel forced” to do dungeons.

My main lament with dungeons, however, is that difficulty do not scale, and almost always require a party to complete efficiently. Forcing people to play with others make sense in WvW, but why should I not have the option of going through a dungeon by myself?

Melandru Temple Event never starting

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projectcedric.6951

Ive stayed in Cursed Shore the whole day waiting for the event chain to clear Verdance, it never starts, Magister Izzek never moves from the camp.

Server: Crystal Dessert

Support has lost its meaning ; too broad

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projectcedric.6951

There shouldn’t be any “support” other than players’ own intention to support. If there are specialized support classes, that means one more step towards trinity.

Balancing the game.

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projectcedric.6951

Fair enough point. I think it depends on your play style. I have some characters that use CC to an advantage, some that don’t need at at all.

If you don’t have the kill things fast play style, and not everyone does, it can come in quite handy, perhaps more often than one would think. Then again, it really does depend on knowing the skills of what you’re fighting.

Sometimes I end up using CC just to get guys away from me for the extra two seconds my self-heal needs to recharge.

I tried that other extreme end of things with my necro. Just pure condition damage and CC build, I don’t even rely on shroud. It can kill but it is frustrating. The amount of time that CC buys you to heal yourself plus the amount of heal combined, relative to your squishiness is just pathetic.

Yes, I know there is be a better way to play that profession that optimizes it, I’ve read the other builds. But my build, I believe, is already one of the most-straightforward way to play a Necro.

Basically, my point is that for professions and builds that do not rely on direct damage as their combat aspect, it is -probably- possible to reach the same effectiveness as those that do, but it requires much, much more effort, refinement and difficulty.

To me, this is not balance. Balance means that if certain professions require more difficulty and not-so-straightforward game play, that means that they must be able to outperform those professions that are easier to handle.

Balancing the game.

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projectcedric.6951

But usually, most mobs that have powerful skills can only use them maybe once every 20-30 seconds anyway. They can’t use them every 5 seconds, with some exceptions. Again, it depends on who you’re fighting.

You’re not supposed to use knockdown to interupt a random skill. You’re supposed to use it to interupt a skill that means something, which is usually on a much longer cooldown…even for AI.

Then again, how much do these situations come by? The question here is the relative effectiveness and utility of CC and other stuffs compared to damage output alone, because that’s where the line between balance and variety is.

I honestly have never found myself in a situation where a CC skill could have made a difference. If I couldn’t sustain against a Champion, interrupting any of his skills didn’t change that. If I could, it definitely wasn’t because of a CC skill rather than a diversion for him to attack or I just had more damage and toughness than him.

It is much less of significance against regular and veteran mobs. I certainly don’t need to interrupt skills. It’s just a matter of killing things faster (as in farming).

pressure reduction in PVE, how?

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projectcedric.6951

CC is generally only used to interrupt key enemy skills. Two good examples are the Dredge Mining Suits and the Krait Hypnoss. Both mobs have a skill that, if you let them use it, will summon 3 – 4 additional mobs, which can easily end up overwhelming you. Using Daze/Stun/Push/Pull/Launch/Fear at those times will stop them from doing so. Note that the recharge time of interrupted skills is much shorter than their cooldown, so you typically need to have two CC skills that you can alternate between to keep them from getting the skill off).

It’s a different story in WvW or PvP, of course, where those skills can be used to knock enemy players off cliffs and other high places to get an instant kill.

It sounds so simplistically ideal when you put it like that. I’ll give you an example to explain. In all of my characters, I only mostly use the stun skill in two: shortbow ranger and hammer warrior.

For the case of the hammer warrior, it has no problem dealing with 4-5 enemies more. In fact, that’s what it excels at because, well, that’s what it’s design for: to control crowd and to be a little bit tanky. So it doesn’t really need to stun that mobile suit as much as it needs more ways to weaken it, make it vulnerable or simply kill it faster.

Now for the ranger, a naturally squishy class, it does need to prevent it for summoning more minions because that would be a real problem. But as you said, it will recharge faster than the 25s cooldown anyway, and there is no other interrupting CC that is easily available for this profession.

Even if it’s true/ideal, CC is still very situational. How many times will you be facing a dredge mining suit, in which that CC is incredibly essential for your survival against 4-5 more enemies? Even in that case, a higher damage output can take care of that situation just as well -just kill them faster. Or how many times will you find yourself fighting an opponent by the cliff, in which you are just in the right position to push him off it to kill him? Compare to the number of time you can just kill people with direct damage.

But I mean, it’s not completely ugly to that point that there is any one profession forced to rely on CC alone. Every profession has direct damage skills and CC skills. I’m just saying that builds that tends to focus on CC rather than damage are just not effective generally.

Balancing the game.

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projectcedric.6951

What you can do with a hammer is interrupt. That’s one of the big uses of knockdown. You’re not just knocking a guy down but you’re interrupting his skill. If you are familiar with the enemy and you can knock them down before they use their heal skill or before they use a particularly powerful attack, it’s actually pretty powerful.

As Ive posted in another post, the knockdown/stun/daze to interrupt mechanics is nearly useless.

In Hammer warrior, for example, the knockdown is the fifth-slot skill. It has, if I remember correctly, a 30s cooldown. Attack skills usually have 8-20s cooldown. Even utility attack skills have 20s cooldowns. That means that had I even succeeded in interrupting him, he can cast the skill again and my knockdown will wont be ready. And that is if he is only using one skill. If it is a mob, by the time the skill is ready, it would be dead. If it isn’t, then I might as well have more damage.

Furthermore, the cast time is somewhere around 1s (i think, but i’m sure it’s not instant). The activation time for most skills is around 1/2 – 3/4s. That means the knockdown will never make it in time against most skills. Even for those few skills that have 11/2s activation time or so, that means between me seeing the onset of animation of the opponent casting, reacting and pressing the 5-key, I have 0.5 seconds. Human reaction time is scientifically averaged at 0.39 seconds. That is like a knee-jerk reaction. That is the level of machine that I must be to make this skill intentionally useful in those few cases.

True enough, the only times that I ever successful interrupted an opponent with Backbreak are 1.) by accident – I never intended to interrupt, I was just skill spamming, just so happens that enemy cast a skill AFTER I pressed 5; and 2.) I intentionally interrupted a casting which took more than 2 seconds…of an AoE skill that I could have just dodged anyway.

Its not all that powerful, really. I rarely use it. The only really powerful aspect of the hammer is the low-cooldown weakening Fierce Blow. Cripple, Push Back, Stun only delay the inevitable by a second or so. Cripple and Push Back is nearly useless even in the “protect” events (where you would expect them to be most useful) if I can’t kill the mobs fast enough before they kill the protected. Hence, goes back to damage.

Balancing the game.

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projectcedric.6951

However, there is a widely-held perception that damage is more important than anything else. Whether this is actually the case or not…

I believe this is true. The problem is that CC skills don’t do much of equal usefulness to their damage counterparts. Take Dim Vision by Necro in Diablo 2 for example (only one I can think of right now) – whole group of mobs literally cannot move because they cannot see you unless you are in melee range! Its a bit extreme, but that’s what I would call a real, useful CC skill on par with damage skills.

Furthermore, alternative weapon skills do not offer anything to counter weigh the lack of damage. So its not exactly that damage is more important than anything else, but because the alternative doesn’t weigh as much.

For example, I have two Warriors (I really do). One of them weilds a Hammer and Long Bow, and the other is the typical burst zerk-geared 2H and rifle. The 2H and its skills offers a lot of burst damage, while the Hammer (which is obviously designed for Guardians) offers CC in lieu of the burst damage.

But CC is near useless. What am I gonna do with a knock down skill? I cant hit the guy when he’s on the floor, which only lasts a couple of seconds btw. And I don’t have that great of a damage with the weapon either. So it’s like saying “you can use it, but you’ll suck”

However, IMAGINE… if the hammer gives bonus toughness, or a passive chance to stun enemies every now and then for a really long duration. Like 5 seconds. Even on champions. Or break people’s armor in PvP. Or imagine if at the cost of all that burst damage by 2H warriors, they receive more damage or their armor is reduced when and after using 100B (cost is long channeling wuttt). Then people will start to seriously consider between damage and alternative weapons/professions that offer other things.

pressure reduction in PVE, how?

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projectcedric.6951

It seems to me that CC is not designed to alleviate anything in GW2. In fact, I’m not sure what they are really meant for since aside from cripple, every other CC seems to be pretty much useless. Or maybe I just don’t know how to use them.

But here’s why:

If you use bleed, burning or poison as a main source of damage, they can never do as much damage as direct damage within the same amount of time. Aside from that they don’t have any other use given that bleed can only stack 25 times. Furthermore -and I’ve tried it with my necro on full condition damage exotic gears- condition damage doesn’t scale as much as direct damage. Worse, it doesn’t crit.

The most effective way to slow enemies down is cripple, I find. This is the only true “crowd control” condition in this game, because compared to Freeze and Immobilize, skills that apply cripple usually have shorter cooldowns and there are sigils that apply them. So its easier to inflict cripple. Since both cripple and freeze only stacks in duration, this means that more players can inflict cripple on the same target than freeze, making cripple last longer and your freeze only momentarily. Most skills that apply Immobilize are either single target or that the Immobilize only lasts a very short period of time compared to cool down.

Daze and Stun are useless. All stun skills I know have 1/2-3/4 seconds cast time, have long cooldowns, and only stuns for about 1 second. It seems like the only utility for something like this is clearly as to interrupt enemies casting some nasty skill, which sure enough can be seen with some animations… but said casting time is usually also 1/2-3/4 seconds only. So imagine, between you seeing the onset of the casting animation, your reaction time and the time for you to cast your stun skill, you only have at best .25 of a second. Human reaction time, btw, is scientifically averaged at .39 seconds. Also, mob skills that take longer to cast (like Drake’s fire breath) can just be dodged anyway. It doesn’t help that some skills, like Ranger’s, need you to be at flanking position. Furthermore, cooldown is usually at least 25s or 40s. But attack skills usually have shorter cooldowns, in the range of 8-20s, so that means either you have to kill somebody before then or he/she/it could just cast another skill anyway and you’re left with nothing to interrupt it.

Fear -situationally useful, if you need one more second to cast a heal spell. One second later, the mobs will be rubber banding back towards you.

Knockdown – completely useless, as you cant attack them anyway when they are on the ground, which only gonna be for a second or two as well. If you cast an area knock down, like Warrior’s, while you’re in the middle of a gazillion mob, that only gives you time to cast heal as well. Even if you roll out, they can still chase you because you will still be in combat speed.

Immobilize – also long cast time compared to its duration. Furthermore, I only ever encounter this in Elite skills, which, as you know usually have at least around 180 seconds cooldown.

Weakness and Vulnerability, when stacked, are extremely useful though. But I don’t ever see them as CC skills, given that the “crowd” can still attack you and you will still be attacking them. When you are fighting a champion with a few hundred thousand HP alone, this hardly matters – only whether you can sustain or not matters. When you are fighting said champion with others, it hardly matters too, as numbers will make up for your lack of anything.

All this being said, CC in this game right now is something close to an accessory. Its good when you have them, they usually don’t cost anything anyway cause they’re part of EVERY profession’s skill set (another thing which I find rather ridiculous), but they aren’t essential or game changing in anyway.

No one should ever rely on CC for their life. I can assure you, no amount of cripple can save you from a horde of risen if you don’t run away. Sadly, in this game, the best defense is offense, or -in the case of the Guardian- defense that is also an offense. I learned, with my necro at least, not to waste anything on improving CC, or even to put it in my strategy. Just pure damage.

ALB creates competition/community spirit?

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projectcedric.6951

It’s ok, man. Don’t worry, most of us dislike this kind of competition as much as you do. In fact I can say that with almost every mmorpg I play – the leader board is made for just a percentage of the players who want to be in it. And so, that also means that majority of the players don’t give a kitten.

why centaurs?

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projectcedric.6951

We all know that horses are well known for their really huge… you know.

Balancing the game.

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projectcedric.6951

I love this game, ok. But I’m telling you, man, the balance is kitten. And that’s a good thing. Because that tells me that the developers are still human, since I haven’t come across a game that has a perfect balance between all the characters yet.

But GW2 balance is more kitten than the regular kitten, if you are only looking at it at the “combat prowess” point of view.

For Engineers and Necros, life is just sad. Don’t argue with me on this, Ive tried it. Equipped with exotic gears and tried whatever build, the amount of damage done in the amount of time can not compare with the other classes. Not to mention survivability.

The other classes – I’ve seen it, they all can be stretched to the same maximum potential BUT the difference is in the amount of effort required to do so, with the Warriors and Guardians having the least difficulty.

The difference between Need and Want

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projectcedric.6951

You know what i’m grinding right now? Gold and some other whatever currencies just to buy the armor and weapons that LOOKS COOL! Its not like they have the best stats or anything. In fact, I’m just gonna transmute them over to my currently fugly-looking crafted exotic set.

Crafted exotic sets, I shall tell you if you haven’t known by now, are the best value-for-effort end game items available right now.

Some people say its essential that you acquire ascended gears, with have what -around 100 stats difference from crafted exotic- and I say, good luck feeling that difference against Claw of Jormag with like a gazillion HP.

In fact -and this I have proven to be true time and time again on all my level 80 characters- the difference between Tier 6 Rare crafted equipment and Exotic crafted equipment is so frustratingly negligible even against normal mobs (means you can barely feel it), but the only reason I’d still make the transition is because it doesn’t take that much effort.

In other words, it all comes down to… you have to weight the marginal benefits of the next best equipment against the amount of effort you have to put in to acquire it, then decide whether its a want or a need.

If you have all the time in the world and can play the game 24/7, or spare cash to be converted to gem and then to gold, then sure, go ahead, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice to your Real Life 1.0 to try and aim for that additional 100 healing.

Glad to see warriors finally getting a buff

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Ok now i can sit back knowing each patch my soon to be 80 warrior becomes a little more god like rather than worry god whats being nerfed into oblivion this time.

It’s not gonna be godlike, man. If you’ve been updating your gears all the way, with area level scaling, when you reach 80 it’s just gonna be the same as how you’ve been doing all this while. In fact, it is almost as if… there is no difference between being Level 1 and Level 80 in this game. I don’t know why a leveling system is even necessary.

Who is responsible ofr this abomination?

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Assassin Creed much? lol.

Bring back Kekai please.

Thoughts on the March 26th Patch

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projectcedric.6951

A lot of pretty cool stuffs, minor changes, bug fixes – I think generally in line with the company intention of not implementing big sudden changes.

And while most people complain about the drastic changes of these new patches to their game play, I actually complain about the opposite. I played the past few hours, and upon closer inspection, the changes listed are indeed there, but overall I do not feel any change at all. And I feel the same way about past patches as well.

For one, never really relied on quickness for anything, not even on my ranger, but that’s just me.

More importantly though, most changes just seems to be… “not up to scale” with the grand scheme of things. I mean like, Claw of Jormag has what… a few million hp maybe. And I’m doing less than 1k per hit. What the hell does one more second of quickness matter? Nor even reducing its speed bonus to half?

Even in WvWvW. Zerg matters, that’s all. When you’re drowned inside that tidal wave of overhead names, like the hell it matters whether your banner gives 90 or 170 toughness.

Glad to see warriors finally getting a buff

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projectcedric.6951

My warriors are so boring now. Both of them. I cant even click on that level 80 almost-fully-geared piece of banality during the character selection page. There is something liberating about playing an underdog class somehow, because you know you’re not expecting yourself to perform in a certain way.

IMO, GW2 is the best game ever played

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projectcedric.6951

Ragnarok is still the best mmo I’ve ever played, and I’ve played quite a lot the past decade. But GW2 is definitely one of the best.

Its hard to compare, everybody have their own theories as to why the game is a success/failure, and I do too, but sometimes there are things that are just hard to explain, and bottom line is you enjoy some games more than others. And some games leave a mark in your head more than others.

All these talk about TESO and kittens – I’m looking forward to TESO too, but it hasn’t even come out yet. Nobody can tell whether it will be better or worse than GW2.

A change in mentality

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projectcedric.6951

Lol didn’t even know about the QZ + Longbow Berserk build strategy until I started reading the reactions to the recent patch here.

80 Ranger, just doing normal attack with short bow skill 1 on PvE, I don’t see a problem with rolling a ranger so far at all, can solo champions just fine. Indeed, the damage by numbers is so much less than my warrior, but I find it also less stressful to play. Just run around kite mobs while pet do the tanking. Shouldn’t even need toughness or high burst/dps. Only downside is it takes a bit longer to kill mobs. But never had a problem with any one situation so far, where some I had with my warrior before.

I like ranger. It’s great for farming.

Cutting the lawn

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projectcedric.6951

Wuuuuut is this??

I’m sorry, man. This is a socialist cyber reality, because unlike real economics, ‘resources’ aren’t necessarily limited here.

So don’t work so hard, okie?

This game is lacking social "glue"

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projectcedric.6951

The community lacks social glue, not the game. You cant attribute social dysfunction to bad design. This happens in real life too, people blaming their government for what is essentially a problem with their mentalities. There is nothing that any developer can do will ever force people to play together a game that gives them the capability to play it individually too.

This game is full of skritt.

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projectcedric.6951

You ran from skritt!

I find myself saying What what WHAAAT? to my kids. And my cats.

I love this too =)

What what whaaatt!?

PvE Build Archetypes

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projectcedric.6951

Ranger

30/10/30/0/0
SB/LB

Seems to be easier to manage in PvE(only) than all my other chars. The damage is crap: you can never get as high-damage with bows than you can get with say LS on warriors. The skills modifiers are just really low. Rely on 1/2 power 1/2 condition damage – crit is used to just put more condition.

Switch between SB and LB all the time – use skill sequence on LB for crowd control/semi-burst on one target, then shift back to SB, count timer on LB skills, shift back again, etc..

Pet is key. Can generally solo all mobs and lesser champions by juggling bears, and positioning right. Pierce is necessary.

Very common, I suppose.

In my view, the Trinity Needs to Come Back

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projectcedric.6951

This topic has an important lesson, for both ArenaNet and the community.

Classic MMOs create a Stockholm syndrome with grinders. Those games demand people to waste hours and hours and hours playing through content they do not really enjoy, only to get a shiny reward in the end… But sooner or later said reward is shown to be irrelevant, and so all that time spent has been a waste, considering how it was not actually enjoyed. This becomes worse when a MMO shuts down – people are then forced to see the futility in spending all that time doing something they didn’t like doing, in order to get a meaningless reward, effectively being deceived by a MMO developer into waste their lives.

Now, I believe that, deep inside, even grinders realize this. I believe they understand it and keep that anger within themselves, not throwing it against the game that motivated it, but throwing it instead against a surrogate target. We have, thus, the birth of a very interesting creature:

The hater.

Some people are not only displeased with a game – no, they actively want that game to fail. While someone who does not like an aspect of the game would provide feedback, which would be even slightly constructive, all a hater wants is destructive feedback in order to try to hurt the game as much as possible. All this anger is probably a way to unconsciously manifest the anger of being used and effectively deceived by other MMOs; still, all MMOs have haters, and they are rather easy to spot.

The main trait of a hater is that they are hoping the game will fail. A few will say it themselves. Example:

Sadly a post by CC Eva overrides your anecdotal evidence. As for your claim that the game has “no subscribers” since it’s buy to play? Well here’s the hard truth. Fewer players mean fewer cash shop purchases, which means less money for NCsoft, which means unhappy corporate bigwigs. That will equal the death of GW2, and soon.

There are other signs of a hater. They are extremely fond of hyperbole, usually trying to describe their (derogatory) opinion as fact. Example:

It’s a well known fact that GW2’s PVE is horrible.

They lie. Often. Example:

GW2 is pretty much a single player RPG with a multiplayer lobby. It’s not really an MMO, the devs even said so.

They claim to have stopped playing the game and that it’s dying, despite still trying to talk about recent game updates. Example:

Decided to get a refund and go back to WoW. Never thought it would come to this, but honestly it’s better than the alternative of giving Arenanet my time and letting them keep my money. Any smart person would also drop this dyeing game.

They claim that everyone with counter arguments to their claims is a fanboy/white knight/whatever, usually as a way to hide their own lack of counter arguments. Example:

Opinion invalidated due to tired, canned zealot response.

They also have 100% posts complaining about the game, and are frequent posters in topics about some kind of criticism (as well as in any kind of topic praising the game, telling others they are wrong). It’s not a surprise that the two other major haters of this forum have already made a few posts in this topic.

Now, the issue here is how those haters are not trying to help the game. They are not offering constructive criticism. Quite the opposite – they would destroy the game if they could (repressed anger is something rather ugly, isn’t it?), so the best they can do is offer destructive criticism and try to poison the community.

There is a lesson here for ArenaNet: not all feedback is good. Not everyone should be listened to. Most of the main issues of Guild Wars 1 rose because ArenaNet listened to what players asked and implemented it without thinking of the long term impact of those ideas. The same issue has already appeared in Guild Wars 2 with the addition of Ascended gear, due to how a vocal minority asked for more things to grind. ArenaNet has to learn that not all feedback is useful.

There is also a lesson here for the community. Haters love attention. The best help other players can give them is by replying to them and giving them an excuse to post more. Whenever you see a hater, just report him and ignore. Wasting time with arguments is the same as trying to have a conversation with a wall.

(For the records, about the Trinity: it says wonders that someone who wants GW2 to fail wants to add the holy trinity to the game.)

You’re wise, man. No sarcasm here. I’m gonna shut up now.