Guild Wars 2

IMO the bizdev people at Anet are looking to monetise (read: extort) as much money as possible from players and that means lots of tedious grind and pay-to-win, because that’s what works in Korea. Hence the “NGE” expansion of last month.

Get used to it.

mavet.3047:

The plural of “math” is “math.” “Maths” is not a word. Just thought you should know

Actually every english-speaking country outside of NA says “maths”, not “math”. You know, since it’s “mathematic*s*” not “mathematic”.

Niptease.8971:

Removing downstate would destroy Gw2 PvP.

Actually I would contend that downed state is what’s killing GW2 PVP.

Note that every other PVP game in existence has managed fine without downed state.

Downed state:

• favours numbers over skill.
• detracts from the real combat.
• promotes glass cannon specs
• prevents proper balancing of time-to-kill/time-to-live.
• is farcical in that players can rally from striking a grey rabbit.
• is farcical in that players can channel rez while standing in fire and being unloaded upon
• introduces a variety of exploits/bugs/imbalances that detract time from fixes/balances to the real combat

Personally I will not touch sPVP/tPVP while downed state exists there. I routinely run into others who feel the same, and judging by the number of hate posts about it, it’s clear it’s having a damaging effect.

You forgot the biggest one:

Remove downed state from PVP zones

Downed state:

• favours numbers over skill.
• detracts from the real combat.
• promotes glass cannon specs
• prevents proper balancing of time-to-kill/time-to-live.
• is farcical in that players can rally from striking a grey rabbit.
• is farcical in that players can channel rez while standing in fire and being unloaded upon
• introduces a variety of exploits/bugs/imbalances that detract time from fixes/balances to the real combat

Bunzy.8674:

I feel the downed state is loved by players who feel they need a second chance when fighting.

This. It’s a great mechanic for PVE but it doesn’t belong in PVP zones. People rallying off killing a bunny rabbit is not skill it’s farcical.

denyitbattle.2609:

Downed state […] increases the team coordination and skill required by a large amount.

Actually it’s quite the opposite — downed heavily favours the side with the greater numbers, not the greater skill.

Actual GW2 combat already takes plenty of skill, there’s no need to dilute and distract from it with a silly 4-skill mini-game.

Karizee.8076:

According to Xfire, every single game in the top 10 is falling.
Every.
One.

http://beta.xfire.com/games

Except they’re not? Did you even look?

eg: http://beta.xfire.com/games/cod2

Creslin.1758:

All I’m asking for is to make vapor form so it can’t go through tower/keep portals. Nothing else.

People have already listed a bunch of valid counters, even if there were zero counters, it’s not remotely gamebreaking.

So what class do you really play? thief, right?

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

tkalamba.2541:

Or you know, you work with a WvW centric guild that has a pool of funds dedicated to upgrades? No one person should pay for an upgrade on their own…

Upgrades should be free and automatic.

I would dearly love for a DF-esque PVP/PVE dungeon to be added to WVW. PVE/PVP in the diamond loop was great and i loved sweeping through or defending DF when it changed hands.

Now if only my Ele could PBAE like my spiritmaster…

• Each downed increases downed penalty, which gives it an effective 60 sec CD.
• Downed does NOT clear conditions.
• You can be blocked while in mist.
• It is more effective to equip a staff and nuke from the walls anyway.
• Other downed #2’s are situationally better than Ele; this is the #1 situation when the Ele #2 is good.

Not seeing a problem.

Fellknight.4820:

Name one other MMO that a stealth class can teleport on to you while stealthing themselves and deal a player 50-75% of there total lifepool and re-stealth every 6 seconds. I’ll wait…

exactly. yes, it’s overpowered, and yes i have a thief.

personally i think the whole concept of treating stealth as invisibility in mainstream MMOs is a crutch for lazy developers.

Is that legal? AFAIK, when you buy something, you have certain rights to it under the law, and these rights supercede any purchasing agreement or TOS. This includes the right to re-sell a purchased good.

If this weren’t the case, companies would just declare all their products as un-re-sellable.

Dariya.9380:

Quite frankly I am frustrated with their lack of or vague communication and overly long periods between patches; “when it’s ready” philosophy doesn’t quite work when the game is already released. PvP has become bland and boring, and there are still tons of unfixed bugs.

Peace. ArenaNet needs to get their kitten together.

Shh, they’re busy adding gear grinds.

Downed state detracts more from the game than it brings. It promotes a zerging mindset (numbers > skill), ruins 1vX’s, and s rife with bugs/exploits/edge cases.

And in the end, what does downed state truly bring to PVP? Nothing we didn’t already have – MMOs have had rezzing since forever.

GW2 takes everything you love about GW1…

…and abandon’s it for a dumbed-down WOW-based talent tree and gear stat-driven progression system.

Karizee.8076:

Anyone who played the finale event for the Lost Shores patch knows the game is exploding in popularity. So many people everywhere!!

Lots in LA, dead everywhere else.

Galen Grey.4709:

IonicBlaze.7948:

Sodapop.3715:

Face.7032:

Population dropped severely after the last event was over, that’s to be expected but I personally am going to take a break (after WvWing incessantly) until they alter how Ascendant gear is obtained.

when u say population dropped severely, how do you know?

http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

Wow so based on that data Gw2 got about 6m players now?

I mean what that show us is Gw2 has 4k players player 17k hours per day. we dont know how many players Gw2 has but we know how many players WoW has

according to that: http://beta.xfire.com/games/wow
WoW has 6k players playing 29k hours.

That makes Gw2 having 60% less then WoW, WoW has 10m players so gw2 must have 6 million players… amazing! wonder why they never announced reaching the 6m mark.

/sarcasm

Can we please stop with the meaningless xfire data ?

75% of WOW’s “10 mill” number are in Asia, xfire is a NA thing, 60% of 2.5mill = 1.3mill —- seems right in the ballpark to me and far from meaningless…

regardless, the trendline is clear. what’s more, it’s clear that LS expansion (whether due to reaction to the ascended gear-grind or something else) hasn’t made a material difference in player numbers.

Mirage.2597:

DAoC 8 man was all about who had the best/fastest sorc outfront

Only at the noob level. At mid to high levels, landing first mes makes no difference.

Conjures will continue to be bad until you can switch attunements and use other attunement skills as normal while holding the conjured weapon.

Blocking out 5 skills is bearable, blocking out 20 is just silly.

Not true, d/d eles can outrun thieves as well…

But yeah, thief continues to be pretty OP… Kill shot on warrior rifle is also OP as hell… Would love to know how a max-range no-setup unmissable single button press that hits for 12-15k can be deemed balanced.

If you have a decent grasp of tactics, mesmer is very powerful as well.

lordkrall.7241:

Azure Prower.8701:

Kromsin.6359:

Apparently this is what the majority wanted. A grindy gear game.

If the majority wanted it. Why is the majority complaining about it?

The majority is not complaining.
A majority would mean that about 1 million people would complain (based on pre-sales).
That is far from truth.

You’re assuming that 100% of purchasers use the forums, when clearly this is far from the case. All strands of evidence point to anti-ascended being in the majority:
1) the 12K+ post thread. this was > an order of magnitude more posts than any other post in the history of the game.
2) http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74916-ascended-items/ – a sample of 1300 players, 46% of almost 1300 votes are against ascended gear, 31% for.
3) http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 – a sample of 4K players – the expansion has barely touch playtimes, and aggregate playtime continues to decline.

Many people, myself included, bought the game and gems->gold based on the clearly advertised pretext (and the legacy of 7 years of grindless gameplay in GW1) that this was not going to be a gear treadmill game.

3 months in, the whole game philosophy has been flipped. I would not have bought gems if I had known that exotics would not be end-game game, nor would I have bought the game had I thought it would be just another WOW-clone gear-grinding model.

Are we overreacting? no – because real money has been spent based on a set of representations prior to release and then the product has been fundamentally changed since purchase. It’s a clear case of false advertising. If you purchase a bread-making machine which 3 months after purchase now expects you make the dough yourself or buy “dough packets” from the local store every month you would be rightly angry, would you not?

There was numerous ways they could have introduced PVE-based progression in a way that did not require additional gear levels, eg: agony resistance runes, or simply infusions as a new form of enchantment.

That 12K thread probably had more posts + views in it than the rest of that sub-forum since release combined. The players deserve an explanation and none has been forthcoming, which has only served to anger people more.

only 1 80:

Elementalist
Style: 8, nice animations and effects in general, ranged dps role is surprising weak.
Strength: 5, d/d is generally great, staff is too pidgeonholed into support role, sceptre has issues with consistently applying damage (dragon’s tooth, bugged RTL), focus has no mobility and some very weak skills.
Variability: 4, multiple PVE specs but realistically have to spec tanky in PVP if staff or sceptre or fall in a heap. Trait selection is underwhelming due to numerous weak/underperforming traits. 19/20 skills on staff for example are AOE (why?) and easily avoided.
Feels: Overly nerfed. D/D is superb but staff/sceptre/focus feel clunky and unrefined, with some skills being difficult to use for no good reason.

^ this.

A staff ele trying to do damage is not a threat, I leave them for last unless they are glass cannon in which case poof! they’re dead.

sPVP was dead at release, roaming small group WVW is the real PVP.

just remove downed state in PVP. or rezzing breaks and resets on any damage.

RTL is even more unreliable for me after the patch – it overshoots its target constantly, leaving my d/d else way out of position.

Evie.2794:

Just went into sPvP to get a nice clip for you with
0 points in water and
only 15 in arcane
0 in earth ….

No might stacking…
No Quickness…
No Elite…
No Roots…
No CC …

to burst someone down ( unlike Warri or Thief) , and all AOE!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

1 clip is kinda meaningless, don’t you think? Show us all the other footage where you get 2-shot by everyone and die in seconds. Now spec glass cannon on thief, mesmer, or warrior and kill people in seconds without being 2-shot consistently seconds after engagement.

I also really hate the downed state in PVP, and especially in WVW, where its zerg-promoting, numbers-over-skill effect is borderline game-breaking.

Downed is a great system for PVE but it really does not belong in PVP. It feels wrong as a player, looks wrong as a spectator, introduce a suite of balance issues & edge cases that the game simply doesn’t need more of, and overall detracts from the core combat.

I think the community would greatly benefit from, and appreciate, a summary of your game/class performance metrics, e.g. mean/std deviation of TTK, TTL, DPS.. something like what valve does with TF2 stats. It’s one thing to say “balance is fine”, but it’s quite another to see good evidence of it.

The other thing I think people would really like, is a class-by-class breakdown of how that class is performing, its strengths/weaknesses, how close/far it is from design goals, and role within current metagame.

Many Ele players for example have issues with the lack of viable builds in the game due to buggy or unbalanced traits, Ele’s low base defense and mobility (excepting d/d), and difficulty of applying damage (very high skill floor, pidgeon-holing of staff into support role, 5 target AOE cap, slow dragon’s tooth animation, lack of mobility and healing on focus).

I would say no, not worth it. Overall the weapons just aren’t very well designed.

D/d is excellent but it’s a niche play style that not all will like. Staff and sceptre both have annoying deficiencies – staff does crap for damage vs single targets, and the glacial speed odsceptre fire #2 is kitten irritating.

RTL is totally broken as well. It always overshoots the target now.

Since the patch I am now finding it almost always now over shoots the target, leaving my d/d ele way out of position for subsequent attacks. It’s so bad I can’t bear to play her.

No, staff is just terrible at single target.

Chantastic.3084:

In WvWvW, it’s absolutely amazing. When I run with my guild, we have two Elementalists always ready with Tornado to pop. The mass knockback and additional health you gain makes you tankier and can be absolutely instrumental in spearheading through a large enemy zerg in a narrow chokepoint. Seriously, when there’s ~50 or so people standing around and you can Lightning Flash in with Tornado, you’re going to seriously disrupt the zerg’s DPS and coordination, and a single Elementalist can be a game changer in breaking a siege

Every time i’ve seen an ele tornado they get melted down in seconds, achieving nothing. It’s a giant “kill it” sign. You’re far better off cycling your support, aoe and cc.

Tornado will continue to not be worth a kitten until the damage is unnerfed or it can reflect projectiles.

I’d still rather have another regular utility slot.

Mackdose.6504:

Why is this such a big deal, what exactly changed that the game is significantly worse this week than last? Better dungeon drops, better champion drops, better chest loot, more content, DA KARKA, and you guys want a “legacy” server?

NO ONE is forcing you to play a so called “numbers game.” You choose your play-style, not Anet, not “elitists,” but you.

It doesn’t work like that.

Noone gets to choose what their opponents in WVW are wearing. Why should time spent grinding PVE content matter more than skill in PVP?

Why should people who don’t have the time to grind PVE content be arbitrarily excluded from content when we all paid the same amount for the game?

These are not choices.

Infusions are an integral part of their gear treadmill. They have already explicitly said there will be more (read: increasingly better) versions of them.

Fortuna.7259:

Lande.5782:

Getting Lion’s Arch overflow all the time now. Honestly I may dislike the gear treadmill changes, but population seems to have gone up.

But, as Mulch said, “We can lose a lot of players and still have a lot of players.”

The people that were in Orr are now in Lion’s Arch. This doesn’t mean there is an increase in population.

I’ve also noticed a big influx of new botters in LA.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

There was no statistical gap between exotic and legendary — you invented one. Resistance to the Agony mechanic could have easily been introduced as a rune set, sigil or some other new kind of power-stat-free enchantment and still required the same amount of time investment as current Ascended gear.

The Ascended tier and Infusion mechanic was clearly and explicitly created as a gear treadmill, and continuing to feed players BS is only going to infuriate people more.

Waffler.1257:

A lot of people bought Guild Wars 2 expecting it would be similar to Guild Wars. It took about 6 hours to get a char to max lvl in Guild Wars and another 5 hours to get max gear. Ascended gear/endless dungeon grinding is about as far from that concept as you can get.

Moreover, Anet profusely and widely advertised that GW2 would not have a gear grind – it is in their manifesto and interviews on youtube, and it has also appeared in abundant written interviews as well. Many people, myself included, bought the game (and have spent money in the game) specifically because of this fact. I repeat: I would not have bought the game if I knew this was just going to be another gear-grind game.

Now, just 3 months after release, they’ve done a complete backflip and are now committed to gear-grinding as a core part of the game. Moreover, given the amount of time this content has been in development, they have probably planned this all along.

By any measure, this is false and deceptive advertising, and they deserve the hatestorm they are getting.

Ansultares.1567:

Namu.5712:

The half that didn’t just happen to be very vocal about it. Anet didn’t base this change on forum posting I garantee you that.

No, but I’m sure their main focus was determining why players were leaving, so of course they perceived an overestimated demand for vertical progression.

Of course they could have just, I don’t know, put all their resources on fixing the numerous bugs, exploits, and deficiencies in the game, balanced some of the more obscene class imbalances, added more build/skill customisation, etc. Leaving aside the whole deception/betrayal side of the argument, adding a gear treadmill should have been way down the list of priorities in the first place.

2 words: gear. treadmill.

It’s begun.

On population decline, I have found http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 to be a fairly decent indicator of a game’s health. GW2 has been on a steady, linear decline from #1 since launch, and the recent gear-treadmill patch appears to have only bumped the numbers up a few percent at best (weekends always tend to spike anyway).

Other info comes from guildwars2guru forums – a poll on ascended items (http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74916-ascended-items/ ) shows 45% against, 32% for.

Time will be the true judge though, but something tells me they have made a huge mistake turning the game into a gear treadmill.

Alicse.9854:

don’t know why the post was delated exactly, so hear is it again (without the word quit..)

You’re really better off reading/posting on the guildwars2guru forums now anyway. Their readership is larger and there’s no censorship of posts critical of Anet there.

eg: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74916-ascended-items/
^ poll on ascended items currently shows 31% for, 45% against

No, the obvious thing to do is:

• remove any/all stat differences between exotic and ascended gear – 8% better is not acceptable
• make agony resist into a set of runes, or make any armour infusable

Jestersmiles.4365:

WvW IS casual PvP , if you want hardcore pvp you are in the wrong place. In spvp people almost always just go back to the waypoint.

In your opinion…

In my opinion, WVW in general is more hardcore than sPVP. sPVP is gimmicky casual PVP for people who like BGs and PVE-like mechanics.

Roaming GvG/small group XvX in WVW is fairly hardcore by itself, and at least in tier1 WVW, the sheer amount of gold spent by each side easily also qualifies it as “hardcore PVP”.

In any case, Downed State is an obvious problem in WVW, and it needs a solution.

Arnath.2319:

The only thing that will change is Infusions, they will slowly get stronger, and Infusions are purely a PVE thing! So when the new Infusions come out all you have to do is put it into the slot on your gear.

They could have simply made rune sets with agony resistance.

But they didn’t do that, they deliberately decided to introduce a gear grind instead.