Guild Wars 2

Without even having to look at the video, I can tell you right now that GW2 is visually noisy because the concept discretely opposes itself at different ends of the player count scales.

Skill effects are purposely loud, because the speed of this game requires easily spotted signs and projections for PvP. And we can all agree, having easily read attacks is critical to agency in any type of competitive game mode. However, when you scale this up to 15 or more players…. problems start. As the number of sources for effects increases, they start to drown each other out. But you can’t simply cull that information, because the visual indicators are supposed to be the main way to know the status of a target. On some levels, the use of the Target status icon on the top is actually counter intuitive, as it draws attention away from the target and its animations.

Splitting the animations between modes would actually make this mis-identification problem worse, because you’re breaking consistency on what is considered the strongest intuitive tool at your disposal.

There is no easy answer to this problem, since MMOs are notoriously reliant on large amounts of skills and effects to accomplish their mechanics. If anything, GW2 consolidating as much as it can into Boons and Conditions, is among some of the most visually and mechanically efficient implementations for an MMO of this type. But even then, having to decode upwards of 15 states with visual overlaps is hard…. most competitive games try to keep under 4, with a visual hierarchy for prominence. If visual clarity is a primary goal, you’d have to design the whole game around it. And if we were targeting a level of clarity as good as something like Team Fortress 2; well over half of the things this game is doing would have to be cut.

So for the question of “does it need better clarity?”, its an emphatic Yes. But as how to accomplish it without hindering the game play…… thats the million dollar question.

The only reason its in there is because people were kittening about not having anything to spend crystalline ore on, now that they have all the gear they need. While I agree Crystalline ore makes no thematic sense…. that is not the reason its used.

“balance” I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Panda.1967:

Stu Grockalot.2937:

There is no need to add a new profession, there is nothing a new profession can add to the game that can not be added through the Elite Specialisation system.

Completely false.

Despite what some may think, your elite specialization really doesn’t change much of anything about your profession. You are still playing the same profession, just with a few new abilities, a new weapon, and some modified class mechanics. Ultimately though it’s still the same profession. It’s like claiming that a Ranger who used Traps was a completely different class from a Ranger who used Shouts.

Adding new professions opens up all new options, completely different mechanics and everything. Even if a new profession might share some similarities in some aspects to another profession, they can be identified as definitely different. The same cannot be said of elite specs, no matter how hard you try, an elite spec is still the same profession as it’s core.

Which is basically why the won’t do it. Especs are hard enough to balance….. and prior to their use in HOT, entire professions were shunned due to lacking relevance in what little meta the game has.

Especs solves 2 problems a new profession can’t……
1. It recycles existing classes, and player time invested in them.
2. An Espec not fitting into a meta doesn’t invalidate a whole class.
At worst a class can be side lined due to lack of builds…. but there will always be at least one place in the game it can fit in.

New classes have a compounding balance problem if they continue trying to maintain distinction. Looking at MOBAs, this issue piles up rapidly as the number of interactions start to grow exponentially. Especs also have fewer vectors due to it being only 1 Trait line instead of 5+; which simplifies the issues a lot more then we give it credit for.

You also put too much weight into “minor similarities” not creating a hierarchy in bench marks….. because I assure you, even the Especs are heavily scrutinized as being better or worse compared to other classes. If you need Might Generation, do you bring a Herald, a PS Warrior, a cPS Warrior, or a Scepter/Dagger Ele? Their designs might be vastly different, but the job their being slotted for only has to do a few things… thus any extra utility or damage they bring allows them to outperform each other, leading to a ranking of best to worst for that role.

When Rev first came out, it made meta 3 builds completely redundant between its might stacking, projectile block and respectable damage in a single build. Its since been nerfed into marginal use, as those other builds began to outperform it, and still bring other things to the group. Rev was even a questionable addition to being with, as the existing 8 classes already covered all existing game mechanics, and were all fairly robust outside of the speed clear meta.

With all that in perspective- the philosophy of Especs is to expand their build options, by refocusing their design into a narrow specialization. If they did a new class, that class would have to have the ability to slot in nearly every role, avoid power creep, and prevent deprecation of previous classes. Thats almost not possible without updating all the old classes in response to new functions/abilities, which in turn reduces the “distinction” of each class as they run out of ideas to work with. MOBAs are prime a example of how fast this burn out can occur, and how much work it takes to upkeep balance when complexity growth is practically exponential.

If you think about it….. this is why many MMOs opt for Sub-classes or exclusive Trees later in their life cycle, since it allows them to focus a class’s power budget without having to raise it too high relative to the others. This tends to be inevitable due to the limited vectors of difficulty in encounter design; and ultimately a new class could make worse by trying to design a role for their “unique design” to fill.

no Adrenal mushrooms in the area?

KarmaKrash.5931:

You are all missing the point. I tried to tell a fellow guild member WHO to turn in the Teq tailpieces… and the GAME filtered the NPCs name.

We all understand perfectly…. and we all agree its dumb. So all thats left to do is talk about the idiosyncrasy of language that caused the problem in the first place.

Louis Fisticuffs Armstrong

Ahlen.7591:

starlinvf.1358:

So Berserker…. a damage boosting spec… does more damage then a control/suppression spec…. UNPOSSIBLE.

You don’t do more control or suppression as spellbreaker, as control/suppression comes from mace/shield/hammer anyway.

Fine…. Shutdown build… or whatever you kids are calling now days… with your rock and roll and your slip and slides…..

Thief might get thrown out of the meta soon too. Holosmith is giving it a run for its money on raw damage.

Mikeskies.1536:

Choppy.4183:

Except the money isn’t in the gs auto, it’s in other skills.

Yes, but a buff to GS autos (and Dagger autos) would be an easy way to increase Power Warrior’s competitiveness in PvE.

“Chronotank needs more damage in its AA chain so its more competitive in PvE.”

Honestly, damage isn’t what makes Spellbreaker what it is….. and Chronotank doesn’t even use Defense stats other then to cheese the aggro mechanic. In short…. “competitiveness” doesn’t mean what you think it means. If anything, Condi PS shouldn’t function at the level it does; but damage isn’t the reason you slot it over a Reaper or a Tempest.

So Berserker…. a damage boosting spec… does more damage then a control/suppression spec…. UNPOSSIBLE.

Wargameur.6950:

I know the amount of discipline required would be too much for usual WvW squads, but wouldn’t it be possible to create a full Deadeye squad ?

I heard stories about people trying small teams of deadeyes. When they all focus on the same target, its just ridiculous how fast they can pick people off. That was until the other team got wise, and started sending their flankers after them.

What if it was trait option?

This reminds me of that scene from Clerks 2 about racial slurs. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused by the scene at the time… and in an uncharacteristic bit of insight in the youtube comments, someone pointed out that the reason no one was familiar with it was because no one bothered to perpetuate it.

While not exactly the same as this situation, it manages to highlight how language gets around. But at this point, everything is, sounds like, or is implied to mean something offensive in one or more languages…. and got that diverse in the first place because of censorship.

So our only solution is to start taking the non-entrenched ones back!!! And if people can’t move past that…. well… it just tells us who aren’t willing to let it die.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ayrilana.1396:

I doubt there are that many players who routinely delete and remake their characters.

You’d be surprised.

I don’t have a problem with the status quo (and it’s why I get new slots rather than re-roll).

I wonder if this implementation is because it’s the easiest, safest way for ANet to trigger the achievement. The game might not have any good way to measure its age outside of measuring the age of the oldest character. That’s a programming choice that might have made sense in 2012, before there was any reason to distinguish the two.

Or in other words, it might simply be a lot harder to change this than it sounds.

Its not….. its a tradition from Guildwars 1. The problem here is that the Birthday gifts served a different purpose in the first game.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Birthday_Present

Minis in the first game were prestige/fun items gotten mainly through birthday presents….. and were freely traded (as were the minis in GW2 before wardrobe). Common pets (one that lacked trade value) were often given away to newer players, so they can have their own to play with.

Because Guildwars 2 heavily drives a collection habit, on top of selling Minis for Gems, random minis must had been seen as a threat to the Gemstore. So instead, we got a bunch of fixed gifts so each character had their own set. (Keep in mind, this was back when everything was per character tracked)

However, that partly changed on Year 3, when they introduced “choosy” dye packs to combat the problem in the dye market started in the wake of the Wardrobe update. Including high end dyes seemed counter intuitive at first… but it actually does a good job of getting players to start exploring dye options (and thus interest in newer dye kits) to go hand in hand with the Outfit sales.

What they really need to do is make the experience scrolls stack, or the ability to trade them for some kind of wardrobe item.

That only benefits guilds, and would never yield enough on a personal level to make a dent in the requirement. Its only 3 hits each node….. you need 120 units of leather to make one Elonan square.

The only real partial solution is to bolster its passive gain from either drops or events, so the distributed collection rate goes up game wide. The reason I call this partial, is because Ascended and Legendary gear are Dead Stop sinks……. once players are saturated with enough gear, the demand falls off again, and the supply of materials goes back into surplus.

The bigger issue at hand is that our reoccurring costs (namely food/consumables) only matter in a hand full of game modes….. and are disproportionately expensive AND are undervalued compared to the One-Time investments of things like gear. This desperately needs to be inverted if they want to stabilize the economy, rather then force sharp swings of consumption and build up like they’ve been doing since the game launched. This only going to get worse, since their attempts to normalize food buffs against gear value hasn’t done enough to make them an acceptable running cost. (IE, they nerfed the bonus, but the price hasn’t gone down because they use the same limited/time-gated resources as the permanent gear)

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Honestly, adding more/proper boons to enemies aren’t going to make them “zomg the insta death” to lower level players. In fact it might make them consider their choice of skills a little more, or traits, etc that allow for boon strip and condi cleanse, etc. OP does have a point that once you reach a certain level, the mobs do become a little easy to faceroll without much thought to gear or even personal skill. Sure it could take a while but most times when doing a map open or something, or even a HP in core tyria I find myself literally running in a circle around an enemy with my 1 set to auto while I drink my coffee. I only ever use the other skills if I want to practice a combo or something like that, but usually its just a kiting game.

In reality, it actually makes a huge difference. Below level lvl 60, boons are disproportionately stronger because of how they scale compared to stats. However, mobs are scaled on the assumption power compounding from Traits… and its not until lvl 60 that players had access to Grandmaster traits (and points to use them) under the old 5 Trait system. For a LOT of builds, almost 1/3 of the damage potential comes from trait synergy, while another 1/3 comes from skill combinations.

As a result, high level players in low level areas are substantially stronger then low level players in matching levels, despite the fact that high levels are also underscaled to compensate for this. In fact…. they’re underscaled on all 3 vectors for raw statistics (base stats, item tier, and passive bonuses)… but the compounding power of % based traits, and baseline values of conditions and boons, they are still way stronger then level matched players.

This disparity means any bonus thats large enough to be noticeable by high level players is downright devastating to matched level. Consider Espec builds can reasonably solo Champs, while a player still leveling Core its a major struggle to not die from the collateral damage champs produce. Even standard mobs with access to boons make them twice as hard to deal with….. just look at the dredge, or other groups that boon share.

The real problem isn’t the scaling….. its the entire encounter design that lends to scaling being the only vector for difficulty. The evidence of this becomes apparent once you start looking at Mordrem. Silverwaste introduced a whole new vector of combat by giving every single one them access to CCs…. with the most dangerous being the ones that can stack it (ie Teragriffs). They actually don’t do that much more damage then other lvl 80 tyrian enemies…… but its the way they can layer an area with damage fields, and then trap players in them, that make them night and day more dangerous then anything the Risen had ever thrown at players. And Risen were considered borderline OP for a while, with their higher avg attack rate.

Looking at HOT further, Chak are the perfect example of the very primitive AI behavior being given the damage output scales of players. Aside from Chak Goop, they’re basically berskerer geared, dishing out 4-9k worth of damage per hit. They also can’t take hits either… with many falling to a single burst of damage. Thats effectively what giving boons to mobs is like, when the player doesn’t have ample access to skills that counter it. Boon strip is rare in Core…. with only Necro, Mesmer, and Rev having ready access to it at lower levels.

The irony here is that the only reason this is a problem, is the fact that Side kicking exists at all. Most games don’t even bother normalizing player stats, so that lower level content still poses a risk. And for good reason…. the encounter designs in these games are beyond basic. Even with an ounce of experience with the combat system, a vet player with just weapon skills and dodging can severely outclass a new player with access to a full range of skills. Thats why the difficulty spike of even the east most side of Verdant Brink sends players into mental shock, despite most of them being easily defeated with knowledge of simple counter tactics….. nothing in Tyria that isn’t a unique champ comes even the least bit close to behaving that way. Pocket raptors are the bane of most people’s existence….. but any moderately powerful AOE neutralizes them in short order. Stone heads are easy to manage if you time your dodges, or deploy hard CCs. But both of them together, and most player can’t handle the split in attention. Beating Mordrem is an exercise in selective targeting and field avoidance.

For this reason, HOT’s encounter design with the damage scales toned down would be the only way get a real challenge in Core Tyria. Because it exercises and rewards knowledge of mechanics, and can be relevant regardless of the stat scaling used. The closest we get to this in the current design, is the realization of how stupidly powerful dodge rolls are… to the point where we do it all the time without thinking.

timkunedo.4392:

It is my understanding, and someone plz correct me if I’m wrong, that if you don’t raid or do dungeons/fractals that you don’t have to worry about crafting high end gear. Just sell the mats and buy stuff from the TP. Unless you just wanna craft for fun and stuff.

Yes and No….. The cost efficiency of Ascended gear is inconsistent across the game. Fractals demand them mechanically, and were made specifically for that purpose. But when they added the stat bonus, it had this effect of becoming baseline without actually being baseline for all post-80 content.

The shift to Condi meta also complicated this situation further, since Vipers (a HOT only stat) became popular. Considering the cost of the (HOT) insignias can run between 10-30 gold (due to fine material cost), there is a point where the 50-ish gold cost per armor piece for “best in slot” option starts to make sense. Thats why its recommended HOT stats should be Ascended armor and Trinkets, since the stat itself is nearly half the gold/effort cost to obtain. They’re also very cheap to repurpose in response to changes in game meta, and can move them to another character if that class is more desirable.

If you WvW, Raid, Fractal, or even harder parts of open world, the difference that 5% makes can be notable on your off stats. And with the power compounding in Raid comps, a 5% increase stats can translate to a 10-15% increase in DPS in the right conditions.

The more involved you get with late game content, or just group play in general, Ascended gear is the inevitable conclusion you’ll find yourself in….. either through necessity, or accumulation of wealth.

On further thought…. there is added irony that “meta reaper” is just condi necro with Reaper being used for its boost to condi damage. Power reaper in open world is a beast though….. almost unkillable, and has respectable damage output if you build it right. Decimate defenses, and Valks gear….. should be able to put two and two together.

And full disclosure, I run Rev in WvW for Mayllax resistance, and bumming around in HOT maps.

Neither class is Meta in PvE, and Necro is merely interchangeable with Ele in WvW. PvP doesn’t matter, because its always a mess.

That aside, PvE “meta” is just code word for Raids…. because class choice makes no difference outside of that. For Openworld its really a question of minimum efficiency; which lends toward certain build concepts, but not demanding min/max performance.

As for long it’ll take to unlock Reaper…. how long does it take you to get 10 Hero points? Maxing it out, you’ll need 250 in total.

Rev is only capable of middling damage, and Herald Utilities are actually the strongest personal DPS boost due to its casual might generation. Assassin utilities add mobility, but that ultimately doesn’t matter in PvE, since very few enemies move around. Unless when you say “mobility” you mean swiftness…. in which case glint can stack permaswiftness.

Or…… and try to stay with me on this……..

An alt gift recipe in PoF

Are you asking if you can disable the numbers completely, or are you asking about the condensed condi ticks?

If its the latter…. [Show Simple Condition Floater — Each stack of a condition generates its own floater instead of being combined into a single, periodic floater.]

not much use seeing its getting dropped at the gate way router.

I noticed that immediately as well. The server’s time window is off by 10-15 seconds behind the authenticators….. so you wanna wait until the timer is half way on the code generator’s timer before submitting.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

mintkola.3756:

I don’t even understand why it’s there to begin with you already have a very easely noticable buff on your bar to indicate you’re in beastmode (bright blue).

At this point all it does is make me not want to play soulbeast.

Every super form has a visual effect, this is no different.

Except that beastmode is not a form, your weapon skills do not change and you can stay in this mode indefinitely.

Neither does Berserker, but they light up like a christmas tree. If the Beast aura was Red, I bet most people couldn’t tell it from a Berserker or Rampage at a glance

Its there to remind you that you get Energon poisoning after 3 minutes.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations#Attribute_bonuses_at_level_80

3-stat 4-stat 7-stat
Grand total 3303 3612 4473

Its less directed then 3 or 4 stat, but the point total is higher. Hybrid support builds were using this for a LONG time, because it rounds out the defense stats well. Eles were also doing really well with it in PvP….. which is probably why the took it out of the sPvP stat list.

The issue with non-group PvE, is that they can’t favor non-damage builds, because non-damage builds don’t eliminate enemies. Group PvE, PvP, and even WvW always favors a build that has “just enough” defense to outlast an opening attack, and dish back as much damage as possible. The only exception to this rule is mandatory group comps, where job requirements can be safely shifted to another player, freeing you to build for a specific role.

HOT mobs were tuned to specifically punish Zerks meta. But with only a slight shift (as little as 5-10%) of your stats into defensive ones, you’re given enough wiggle room to avoid being 1 shotted or insta-downed. However, if you can’t dish damage back, HOT mobs can still overwhelm you. Mordrem in particular are rather fragile, but their attacks are designed to over take through CC and pressure. Now compare that to Chak, which are individually fragile, yet even a few together can beat by raw attrition. Chak are also tightly spaced (on purpose), so that the longer a fight goes on, the more Chak get pulled into the battle. Doesn’t matter how much tanky stats you’re taking….if you can’t neutralize them fast enough, they WILL overwhelm you in short order.

What PoF is looking to do is shift that difficulty away from attrition, and move it into effects management. While not spoken in any NDA breaking terms….. its heavily implied by people who had access to the press demo that some mobs have such unconventional defenses, that it would had been right at home in Guildwars 1. Its already been noted in the Demo that a lot of the new Especs have access to Boon strip, defense bypasses, a couple of new defense types…. all of which lends to an idea of Mobs finally using strategies similar to those used by players.

Blame the standard of excessive pointy bits set by other MMORPGs. The measure of how good a player you are (aka, how much time you wasted farming high end armor) is reflected in the amount and degree of “flourish” in the armor design.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Pifil.5193:

On the one hand you’re talking about putting standard NPCs and objects like crafting tables into a small area of an (generally speaking) pre-existing map that you sell access to on the gem store for convenience.
On the other hand you’re talking about adding a bunch of different events to a tiny map.

I don’t really see how they’re related to one another. Or indeed how it’s a one or the other trade-off.

I’m just talking about the resources put into making so many lounges could be put into doing a map instead. I just suggested Claw Island as a full expanded map because so much that could be added to it given the area it’s in. The area on the screen capture I outlined in red could be a map with the blue a vapor portal to LA. Or they could just make it part of Bloodtide Coast.

But Living story maps aren’t pay gated the same way Lounges are. Functionally Lounges are pointless beyond their convenience, but convenience sells more then base content….. and cosmetics sell 10 times that. So if you were looking at things you can sell, but doesn’t have a direct impact on the game….. a place of convenience with multiple cosmetic options is a no brainer, given the amount of high level crafting projects this game has.

More importantly, they can be built on less resources, and built into any other map using a minuscule amount of space. Just look at where all the lounges are…. up high, or off to the side. What would the space where the Lava Lounge be used for? Compared to how much dead space exists in Ember bay, the Lava Lounge is next to nothing in terms of real estate cost. Royal Pavilion is a tiny corner of DR, that shares a space with a whole Wintersday festival without ever getting in the way.

The biggest (in space cost) thus far is probably Mistlock Sanctuary…. and its no bigger, and even less complicated then the Observatory. It also plays with mechanics and minigames to kill time while you’re waiting on something or someone else.

But the main point being is this low cost experimental approach, allows them to offer an extremely diverse set of locations to suit various people’s tastes. Trying to do all that in a single location doesn’t work in practice, as one large “lounge” doesn’t cater enough to individual taste, and lots of small ones in the same physical space is distracting.
Theres also the understated benefit of “People watching” that some of the lounge locations offer, being in visual range of popular travel paths. Theres also the “BF Vantage Point” portal scroll from BL chests, which were an experiment in using scenery/gliding points to gauge community interest.

None of those benefits are apparent if you just shove them all into a common “holding area”. Hidden Village/Convenience style areas have been around in MMOs for awhile…. but theres only a few vectors to give them value beyond simply putting merchants in a small area. Thats why having multiple locations to offer different types of scenery is really the only “value added” that makes any sense.
I honestly didn’t see the practical value of the lounges, given the satisfactory layout of Lion’s Arch; and didn’t assign much subjective value to the locations they’ve had thus far….. until Mistlock Sanctuary. The placement of everything is nice and all…. but low grav, room to glide, and various perches just perfectly scratched an itch for me, and my habit of wandering around the map when watching map chat or listening to Voice Comm while I’m waiting for a group to get together.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

dace.8019:

The only way to get a Gift of Battle (required for Legendary crafting) is via a WvW reward track.

Please change this, preferably by adding an additional method that can be done by playing exclusively PvE content; be that fractals, open world, dailies, achievements, crafting, dungeons, world bosses – whatever works.

Why would this be a good thing for the game? Why do you think ANet changed the requirements for the GoB more than once, each time making it less convenient for those who are strictly PvE?

Its the exact opposite. Badges are obtained fasted by invader loot (ie Killing other players), from rank chests (which is also fastest by killing invaders), and killing Tower Lords and Camp Supervisors (yielding a few per capture). At a cost of 500 badges, doing a couple hundred tower/camp captures is a painful prospect if you’re trying to avoid the zerg and/or roamers (who are purposely targeting other solo or small groups).

With the addition of Edge of the Mists, camp and tower captures became easier, but still required opposing teams to recapture it before you could recap yourself. A lot of areas are also blocked off by siege walls. This became friendly for K-trains, but still look a LOT of time gather the badges without a head on fight.

But with the switch to Reward track, it changed the process to a simple time sink of 7-10 hours; which you could easily bang out on a weekend. And with the squad system, you can volunteer to scout/camp assets owned by your team and get participation without even having to fight NPCs.

So tell me again how its “less convenient” then the old way? Or is interacting with a Commander suddenly become incredibly difficult?

The most efficient way to get leather outside of the Leather farms on Dorics/Sirens, is to collect champ and gear bags and open them mid level characters (left at a specific level for this exact purpose).

Champ bags and Gear Bags (unlike sacks) will give equipment of the character’s level range. This is part of Core’s drop system, which was designed to give mostly level appropriate drops, regardless of how it was obtained. By opening them on lower level characters, you can control the gear level that comes out of those bags- which will salvage into materials appropriate for that level of gear.

As a bonus, the layout of Champ bags drop tables mostly ignore player level, EXCEPT for gear drops and Bloodstone dust. Because of this, low levels still drop T5 and T6 mats directly, as well as lvl 80 named exotics (rare); but will NOT get bloodstone dust.

Important Caveat- Since leather and cloth are only reliably gained from Armor salvage of their types, only 15-20% (est) of gear drops will yield leather salvage items. Note that small armor pieces yield 1-2 raw materials, legs yield 1-3, and chest yields 2-5…. so the amount you get will vary slightly. However…. even with the low refinement cost of leather squares, you still need a LOT of mid tier leather to get one Elonan square.

Another Caveat- HOT bags DO NOT behave this way. “Recovered” Chests will always drop gear of lvl 78+, as will HOT specific “cache” bags; as these are designed to mimic “mob drops” that were mostly removed from HOT maps (to shift focus from mob farms to event metas).

Of your options….

Doric’s leather farm is the most direct way; but it requires a zerg to do safely. Supposedly theres also a farm in Siren’s landing, but I don’t know the details.

Collecting Champ bags and opening them on low level characters is the best way to leverage activities in Core Tyria to this effort. You can knock out 2 currencies at the same time with Karma trains, as most K-trains in Tyrian maps revolve around events with Champ/Boss spawns.

There is a 3rd option with Silverwastes. Chest trains are the fastest way to get Champ bags; but requires overhead because the Shovels. What most people do is run SW event/meta to collect shovels, and then either organize or join a Commander leading a Chest train. The train allows a large group of people to benefit from the limited number of shovels gained per meta cycle, and basically pool them to keep the train going for as long as possible. A single lap around SW will usually yield 30-35 chests, and take about 15 minutes. Its also mind numbingly boring.
Some commanders will purposely rotate between Map Meta and Chest train, just to keep things interesting, get champ bags on the side, and give an opportunity to use Nightmare keys from Vinewrath.

Yet despite all of this….. its still not enough leather to meet the demands of revised crafting recipes, when they added stupidly high leather requirements in the first place.

If you’re talking about ’best" as in “will take you”……

Raids:
- Healing Druid/Condi Druid
- ChronoTank

Fractals:
- Guardians speced for reflect and Stab
- Support Eles

PvP:
No best class…. its a dice throw based on your team comp vs enemy team comp.
So unless you’re going with a pre-formed or dual queue, play a build that works for game mode (conquest or stronghold) AND you know how to play with

WvW: Utilizes the most diverse set of builds in the game. You build for either Solo Roaming, Havoc squad, or Zerg meta; each with their set of tactics and buildcraft.
Depending on what you’re aiming to do, determines what builds you’ll want to run.

PUG raiding is difficult because too many people either don’t respect the team, or rely too much on being carried. The raid scene in general is split into 4 groups.

Elitists, Regulars, Randos, and Raid Sellers.

- Elitists tend to advertise stupidly high requirements to join, and typically expect you to ping a specific gear set or they’ll kick you. These groups don’t tolerate failure, and quickly fall apart due to bickering if anything goes wrong.

- Regulars make up the bulk of the Raiding population. Unfortunately for you, they normally run with a group they know can do well AND not be toxic… so they tend to run with a schedule, and may only advertise 1 or 2 slots to fill in missing members.

- Randos are the new raider nick name for Pugs. Considered inexperienced and uncoordinated, most can barely carry their weight, if at all. This inexperience also leads to a heavy reliance on other members being able to compensate or recover if mistakes are made, but are serviceable if they’re capable of following directions, and have a good idea of how the fight goes.

Raid Sellers are a risk. Theres been a rash of controversy lately with high LI groups secretly selling the raid on the side…. including kicking members mid fight so they can bring in a paying player for credit. Theres also a number of reports about taking gold and kicking or not finishing the run. While selling raids is not inherently rude or immoral; it is when the rest of the team doesn’t know its a sold raid, and having to carry a group while one person is pocketing all the money.

For suggestions I’d would recommend finding a guild that does Training Raids. TTS I know for sure does them on NA servers during the weekend. http://ttsgamers.com/event-calendar/ But most of those are on hold because of the Beta weekend
If you’re part of a guild, ask around. If any of them do raid regularly, they’ll know a group who either hold training, or may be willing to carry a new player to let you practice.

As an extra tip, I recommend gearing up at least 2 or 3 characters so you can slot in easy for existing raid teams. For easy DPS theres Daredevil thief. For Support roles gearing for Condi PS Warrior or Condi Druid as makes it relatively easy to slot in you a secondary role. Healing Druid is only slightly harder in terms of execution, but you can gear this role very cheaply with Ascended Trinkets and Exotic Armor/Weapons.

If you’re feeling adventurous and have the money, Quickness Chrono and working your way up to Chorno Tank can guaranty you a slot in pretty much any raid. Just go into it knowing this is the single most critical role in the current raid line up, takes a while to learn boss behavior and positioning. But because its so hard to find people willing to learn Chrono tank, groups are more likely to help train you to for their regular team.

I’m lazy and don’t know wiki protocols. Just suggest it since you seem to know more about how that works.

According to Wiki…. yes

https://www.youtube.com/user/MintyMike26/videos Mike has a decent “intro to classes” series to get an idea of the classes….. but I would like to point out that Especs require a dedicated discussion, because of the way they change class mechanics in this game. Like in a big way.

To investigate each Elite spec, I highly recommend taking the time to look for a proper break down video, as 90% of Espec videos tend to focus on meta builds.

From there its simply a question of your personality. It doesn’t work to use vague terms or concepts like “I like being a healer” or “I like to tank”, because every class is pretty broad spectrum when it comes to potential builds, and the game doesn’t like the tank/healer/DPS Trinity as a concept. Classes in this game extremely flexible; and even the narrow mindedness of the meta still manages to turn the idea of a Raid comp on its side. Like how the current meta has Mesmer as the top tier tank, despite Mesmers being a utility caster by design.

It begs to be pointed out that you’re not supposed to have mule characters, and instead buying gem to expand bank tabs. Now if only they’d expand the amount of bank space given the amount of stuff I’m compelled to hoard because of gear chests.

“I don’t like change” – Stewie

Unless the class is stupidly unbalanced in their favor, people will complain about it. And even then, they might still complain about. Just look at the Thief forum complaining about the Deadeye, despite the fact its hitting for 20k damage.

Randulf.7614:

With cross Guild chat and no real bonuses from repping anymore (outside of WvW), why does it really matter that players rep multi guild? The game is specifically designed to encourage it, so what makes it such a problem.

Whilst I’m sure the OP may be good intentioned, it feels a little…controlling to have Guild Leaders misuse their power to set whether a player can rep others or not.

I’m failing to see much benefit to the overall health and cooperative spirit of the game.

A guild leader who complains about “lack of loyalty” is a control freak…. and likely paranoid. If they attracted loyal followers, this would be a non-issue for them. But since they can’t, they feel the need to exercise draconian law, and hold their community hostage under thread of gkick.

I’ve been part of guilds so big, they used multiple guilds to roster everyone that wanted to join. Anyone being actively disruptive or malicious got kicked…. but the rest of the time it was never a problem. Once they got multi channel guild chat up, and since guild roster was slotted base on time zones, the regulars that straddled time zones could easily monitor them in case anyone needed help, or was starting a group.

Easy…. take more Stability.

its the spacing of _g_er….

Hey kids! Can you guess the word?

We here from the 21st century would like to you to join us in the present.

But in all seriousness…. given the rate and justification needed to make UI changes in this game….. the external profile solution is significantly faster.

The Rev is based on the Ritualist as a class, but the Spell Breaker is supposed to be the Dervish surrogate. But if you really want to argue it….. the Reaper is actually as close to the Dervish in a mechanical sense as this game allows.

Seiken.3176:

We know Anet can’t/don’t want to implement a build template like GW1.

I can understand this thing could be difficult, but, why don’t just add some duplicate Hero Panel Skills and Equipment + Hero Build ?

ALL PLAYERS would love to have, at least 3 to 5 different :
- Skills
- Hero – Equipment
- Hero – Build
with a shortcut to switch between them at any moment (out of combat of course).

This way, we can switch build/trinkets very fast : I wan’t to play zerk in PVE, then condi in fractal/raid, then support/heal.
Switching gear/build took minutes each play session, hours each weeks, days each year … it could be done is seconds with multiple hero panels.

For the short version…. their UI system and datastorage doesn’t support it in its current form. A lot of the original code for the game was “for purpose” and made a LOT of assumptions pm how things were handled under the hood. Understand that GW2’s engine is a heavily modified version of the engine from GW1; but its selectively overhauled to support specific features needed for the game.

What that usually means is any feature or function that doesn’t require a lot of attention for project goals, tends to get kludge solutions that make it work in one specific case… but will immediately break the moment you try to change anything related to it. You can kludge another solution for short term results…. but eventually its better to overhaul it with a better design and a more robust set of standards, so you can more easily build on top of it without having to redo bandaid fixes every time.

The reason this rarely happens is due to the man hour and schedule cost needed to make it happen. It could literally take months, depending on how deep in the code the limitation is being created; and the deeper it is in the code, the more things it impacts as a collateral concern. As an example….. Super Adventure Box was built on multiple quirks in the old physics system. When they overhauled the physics for the Glider and Mushrooms, it essentially broke the methods used in the Super Adventure Box on a very fundamental level. To fix it, they have to redo, or even redesign parts of the map to utilize the new method of physics that came with the overhaul.

For the case of loadouts…. the equipment system has to move away from single defined values, and replace them with a reference to another system that can call/select from 2 or more tables containing the loadout data. They also have to go in and change how the game, and the UI, handle equip/unequip events, so the game doesn’t accidentally merge 2 values and corrupt the data. You could kludge it by making a load/unload macro… but the moment you rename one of those variables, or have to add a task concerning meta data, the perpetual maintenance starts to cost more time then it ever saved. Instead, you break apart the UI and character data elements, and build a framework with intent of being able to load and unload an entire table of data, as well as validating and altering meta data tags for equipment if warranted. That way if anything changes, you can change the UI portion and Character data table/structure portion to reflect the updates, but the load/unload process is completely agnostic, and would only need minimal maintenance beyond that. And because the behavior is now standardized, you can use it to build additional features that utilize it easier, and with lower risk of regression.

Of all the changes made to the game’s core features, its actually a little surprising to realize the Equipment panel has largely remained untouched since the beginning. The inventory system hasn’t really changed that much either, aside from a few layers of updates to support new sub-menu options. I believe the single biggest change to that window was the migration of the Wallet from the hero panel, and its ability to be context sensitive to map currency.

MachineManXX.9746:

What exactly is the point of this post? I’m really trying to understand. Why are you randomly listing similar attacks between two different professions that have exactly nothing to do with each other? All skills are balanced withing their own profession. Is that hard to understand or something?

He thinks because the Ranger is a Bow Class, it should have stronger bow attacks. But yes….. he hasn’t taken into account the 100 other things that determine damage in this game.

PaulytheB.9257:

I’d much rather they shut it down and get it done right once, rather than the constant patching.

Its just annoying.

You have no idea how issue/bug tracking and fix deployment works… do you? There is no “taking it down once, and fixing it in one go” when you’re dealing with game code. Sure they could roll up a bunch of fixes into a weekly patch, and only deploy a weekly patch…… but that also means any new bugs introduced, especially prominent ones, will have to be tolerated until the next scheduled update.

If the game was crashing every 5 minutes, you’d WANT them push out a hot fix as soon as possible. You know that one event achievement you’ve been trying to get all week, but can’t because that part of the event is bugged… and it took them 3 tries to fix it? Are you seriously ok with waiting 3 weeks for that to pan out? Or would you rather have 3 small patches in one day that lead to the same result?

Or just pretend they took the servers down, go to sleep and login tomorrow. As far as your stream of consciousnesses is concerned, its only one patch in the launcher. Again… net results are the same.

Armor weights already do have sound effects, but they’re purposely subdued so the don’t grab too much player focus, nor tie up too many audio resources. If you turn all the other sound channels down, you can a sound of chain mail shift while moving, and is even more noticeable when jumping.

…

So with all those mechanics available, and being the way they are….. there is very little incentive for an open world dueling system. And in pretty much every case were you’d want to request a duel with a player, all it would take is engaging in conversation. And that right there is where a Prompted Duel notice can be a nuance (can be unsolicited), on top of being difficult to find willing participants given the current play context.

There are a few more edge cases I didn’t cover… but those are either rare, or runs counter to the intended game design, and should be addressed directly; rather then have Dueling tacked on to either distract from it, or enable something that should be a fully realized game mechanic/encounter.

With all that said…. I would actually like to see public arena fights incorporated into full blown dynamic event or regional meta, if for no other reason then to present a more casual PvP situation in the spirit of friendly competition (and contribution toward group meta rewards). Theres no denying that sPvP is way too intense, and taken far too seriously for most people to enjoy.

But if you want an example of how this can work in the spirit of PvE mode.

Single or Dual tournament, with qualifying rounds against AI mobs. Its of critical importance that the early fights be against AI contenders, as it serves as a warm up and gives time to let a salty attitude calm down. Special attention also has to be paid to what types of rewards are given, since you don’t want players fixing fights to farm them. The ladder also has to be relatively short (~ 5 rounds for the PvP portion), and cycle fast enough so player aren’t invested more then hour for the bulk of the meta. Given the casual atmosphere, sloppy builds will be common, but does encourage playing with traits for better performance (which is a good thing).

For reward structure, I would say rewards would have to be normalized to purposely favor rounds played for those who want to “farm” rewards, but offer minor bonus for winning the round (either bonus coin, or +1 to the normal item reward). For Tournament winners, that bonus is doubled at the last round.

Now if they really wanted to go all out, you design a World Boss event to attach to the end of the meta. A 3-lane gauntlet supported by siege elements. Now for the gimmick…. players who advanced to the last 2 rounds of the Tournament are given a buff that activates during the Boss event. 2nd Rank gain Veteran status, increasing HP and Damage scaling. Finals runner up Rank gains Elite status, increasing HP and damage scaling plus access to a targeted heavy CC action skill. Finals Winners gain Champ status, increasing HP and damage scaling, a defiance bar, and an AOE action skill that revives downed allies and taunts nearby enemies.
While the siege elements are there to mechanically normalize the event for Commanders to organize, the Tournament buff is a Power Play advantage (basically light siege) for the lanes those players join in. In PUG situations, this improves the overall odds of success (added DPS, and more durable)…. but in an organized map, those players can be leveraged for speed runs or making boss meta achievements easier for the group.
If you think about it…. its not too far off the Armor challenges in the Octovine meta. The lack of Golden armor doesn’t prevent the meta from succeeding, but it does make things a little easier.

zengara.8301:

ok, never thought people actually was deliberately against it, just thought it was one of those arguments like the mounts…..“devs havent done it, so dont ask for it” kind of mentality. I have not seen any spam messages in any other game having a open world duel system.

But is people asking you for a duel, an actual concern for people?

Guildwars is a very different game, with a much different set of design philosophies that guide. Most MMOs design based on “tropes” popularized by either EQ, WoW, or UO, thinking mass market appeal will make up for otherwise lazy, or unimaginative design. Guildwars on the other hand has a tradition of subverting those tropes, or at least distilling the most useful elements out of a design, and putting it to better use.

This experimental approach leads to the game’s very non-traditional approach to nearly everything, and puts purpose over “trends”. You ask the question “why we don’t have it”, but fail to answer the question of “what would we even need it for?”. I’ve played a number of typical MMOs with the Dueling requests, and they honestly fail to make sense since both sides have to agree to a fight, and 99 out of 100 times you’d either set boundaries for the fight, or go to an actual Arena already set up in a nearby town to have that battle. On the flip side, you don’t really wanna fight with someone who will put down what they were doing, and accept random challenges out of the blue. (Because everything from TV, Books, movies and even other games, suggests they’re confidant they’ll beat you, and this is the fastest way to get back to what they were doing).

Now compare that to Open world PVP or Hostility flags. Hostility flags in particular have a useful dynamic, because doing so exposes the player to collateral damage and draws attention from other nearby players. This is usually meant to be a self-policing system to allow PvP actions in an otherwise purely PvE environment, and help settle disputes or tackle disruptive behavior. However, some players leverage it for harassment; which is why most design them in a way to force commitment to Hostile actions. IE: Don’t activate it unless you really intend to follow through with something. While hostile, you become a free target to all non-hostile players. If going hostile to protect other players, most will not interfere if they’re aware of the circumstances. If a hostile player is in that state to be disruptive, then non-hostiles with enough bite can step in to deal with the problem. In some rare cases, hostile flagging is used to setup unconventional arenas using high level mobs as obstacles in the fight (often with a supervisor to warn/explain to other players that might accidentally wander into the arena boundaries).

Open PvP creates a certain type of player Ecosystem, while Hostile tagging creates yet another type of Ecosystem. But in a purely PvE game mode, Dueling doesn’t make any type of practical sense, or get turned down in 99% of all situations where it isn’t organized ahead of time.

Now if you add in the quirks of GW2’s tagging system, theres near zero need for self-policing tools. With this game’s design, loot is rolled on a per character basis, rather then a single “on kill” drop. As a result, there is no competition for drops so long as players can tag a mob with damage. Combine that fact with the dynamic level scaling of characters, and there is very few situations where a player can deny tags to other players by wiping an area too fast.

This tagging system immediately segues into the nature of Dynamic events. Because players have fair odds for a drop, regardless of how many people are present, this fosters a highly cooperative situation, where you can substantially increase the amount of Loot “everyone” gets by simply working together. Prior to this game… I have NEVER seen that seen that concept used outside of an open world boss, and never to this level of effectiveness in shaping player behavior. The ONLY time this ever became an issue is a hand full of events where there is an ulterior motive for a fail condition; even then, its always in the interest of getting better loot from the event that follows the failure.

Which leaves the last remaining fringe case…. Organized Dueling. This is where Heart of the Mists (PvP lobby) steps in, and does a much better job in all but one aspect. It offers areas where players are automatically hostile to each other (facilitating duels with no additional overhead), and gives all players access to sigils, runes, traits, and stat combinations they could ever want, plus gear tiers are normalized (so an incomplete gear set doesn’t prevent you from having a fair duel). The ONLY down side is the lack of granular control over stat distributions; and has been something the player base has been trying to get the Devs to address. Its not a show stopper…. but it does limit build optimization when you only need a small amount of a particular stat.

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