Guild Wars 2

Thank you. I guess it’s just my poor understanding of English language that got me to interpret the tool tip wrong.

P.S. It would help if “blinded” icon would disappear after first outgoing attack has been used.

What if I apply the blind that has 1,25 sec duration and my opponent activates an attack after 2 secs?
Will his attack (first outgoing) miss?

If blinded target’s next outgoing attack will miss, why is there a duration on such a skill? According to wiki, first outgoing attack will miss with 100% certainty, so why the need for duration?

I find pistol’s No. 5 skill to be very good for staying alive, so I use S/P.

rhelik.4876:

Consider dagger/dagger Death Blossom condition spam (use Signet of Malice along with Caltrops and Trickery III – Uncatchable for AoE bleed, tons of healing and lots of dodges) or using pistol offhand for Black Powder’s AoE blind.

Stealth is a good survivability mechanic but you’ll need to trait heavily into Shadow Arts before it pays off. At level 12 you don’t have those traits and stealth is simply only a way to execute backstab.

Thief starts more glass than cannon until they can build the cannon portion.

I played a bit over this weekend and found out that skills that blind my opponents are very good for prolonged survivability. I would never have imagined that a skill that prevents only one outgoing attack to miss, to be so effective. Especially when used against a group.
I’ve also been using Signet of Malice, but I must admit I haven’t been focusing on it’s effectiveness, so I can’t say if I find it more useful than other healing skills.

I can see there is a lot of work ahead of me as I am getting better at staying alive, but there are still some fights (vets and champs) where I get my health vacuumed away before I get to use my recently learned, “superior” tactics.

I haven’t played in a long time, so I decided to come back, make a new char and try how things have changed. First thing I noticed is that I’ve forgotten much about playing thief.
So … where is survivability for a Thief?
Is it in traits, skills or play stile?

My Thief is only lvl 12 but I am already feeling the effects of his low HP and my lack of understanding this class. I haven’t decided what kind of Thief I want. I only know I would like to learn how not to die so often and/or fast. I must also admit I am a terrible kiter, so melee is where I have to find my footing.

I’ve watched few videos and while I understand they were made by lvl 80 chars, there have to be some things I could implement in my play style that would help me in staying alive. According to those videos (and the limitations of my observation), stealth is one of the biggest factors in survivability with it’s health regen. Am I wright? Or am I missing something? Certain boons, traits, skill combos?

I imagine OP is talking about end-game Thief. 80 Thief.
I am in a process of leveling one (lvl 35 currently) and to me he is miles ahead of my warrior in PVE in survivability.
I have him specced for conditional damage and usually try to bring three of four enemies together for my AOE bleeds. Veterans don’t last as long also, so …

Is my guess right and OP is talking about end-game Thief, which means I am in for a nasty surprise or is this just the case of different opinions in leveling a Thief.

Urrid.4593:

It looks like my attached post might have been offensive somehow. I am just not sure. I have blurred out the only word in the post that could be considered offensive.

This is imo one of the main reasons they feel they can do this.
There are countless players that have put more real money in GW2 in past two months than they would in a whole year of sub game. It’s the ultimate “carrot”.
ANet got this “added” money and they’ve gotten a lot of it. They probably have enough of it to last them few months if not years of development. And they obviously think that few lost customers will not be so bad of a thing since they will still have a lot of other payers (not players) to give them their real money all the time. They actually make more money on sunglasses and stuff than they would with subscription. Go wonder.
They will also get additional gear oriented players and many of them will also buy, buy, buy. It’s F2P model with cash shop, we should all get used to it as it’s a future for MMOs.
And you still pay them!

gwawer.9805:

To the people who are saying “I didn’t buy this game to grind dungeons I just wanted to stroll about in the world and do my thing and enjoy dynamic events la la la”…

Are you actually doing that? Are you actually going back to zones and re-experiencing the events and the world? Or is this just an ideal that you wish you could do, but never actually could get yourself to do?

Maybe this is why Anet is being flexible now with their original philosophy, because they see that despite their own ideals of having players go out into the world and just “having fun” people simply don’t do that anymore.

It would mean they are adjusting GW2 to us which can only be congratulated. It’s the wright thing to do if this game is to keep this amount of players.
But … that also means they should be honest about it and tell us they are changing their philosophy.
No gear grind was/is one of the main selling points of this game. They even went so far to promise if would never happen. It looks like this promise is not valid any more, so the wright thing to do would be for them to inform us of these changes to the basic concepts of the game.
But in the end ANET is only a company which means that money they get from us will always be more important than us.

@ Effect:

And with those other games you had a choice. Choice of which skills you are going to use and when.
If you only used your “rotation” this means you used what others thought was best or you intentionally limited yourself. But you had an option to do it differently. You just didn’t use it.
Now this option or choice is almost non-existent. You are “told” how to play. And it appears we are all supposed to do it the same way. Best builds are already out there, best counter attacks are already out there. So this system simplifies combat on one hand and makes it more demanding on other. But not enough, imo.
I would like to choose these “vital” skills for myself. I would like to be defined by my playstyle and all other things I do ingame personally. Not by some predefined set of skills.

Focksbot.6798:

I would love a skill-based MMO. However, I feel GW2 falls short of this to an extent. The combat system is simultaneously too complicated (the rules governing when you miss and hit are opaque and seemingly arbitrary) and too simplistic (WvW matches always seem to come down to numbers and quickly descend into zergfests).

Or, to be more accurate, I feel it’s a skill-based MMO with a low skill ceiling. I’ll reconsider that position when I see youtube videos popping up of players demonstrating how they’re able to solo three competent enemy players at once in WvW using their superior skill! In any game with a decent skill ceiling, this calibre of player will emerge to inspire the rest of us.

Agree.
When I started playing I was glad there was something extra to do during battle than just hitting and kiting. I hate kiting so I thought this style will be more to my liking. Boy, was I wrong !
I very quickly realized that this “new” dynamic thingy is almost all there is to fighting. It almost feels like “1,2,3, roll,1,2,3 roll, …”. I know there is more to GW2 combat, but I feel they simply put too much emphasis on dodge roll. If there was block and/or parry as well, I would be able to say there is a real skill needed here.
Also auto-attack and auto-target (you don’t need to face your target) being a part of combat takes a lot of skill requirement out of this system.
What we have so far is more of an acrobatic and fast-fingered action with very few options and it looks like bunch of frogs jumping and breathing fire.

It’s been two months and it’s obvious we, players, have split into two groups.
One wants more gear, even gear grinding if necessary, but gear that helps them feel their character is growing. Gear that gives them something to work for besides changing how you look.
The other group wants gear to not be the decisive factor in combat. They don’t mind only cosmetic gear changes and don’t need such detailed character development. They don’t want gear grind and gear>skill.
What about the system where you get the top gear set if you choose so? Or you can work for it if you choose so?
sPVP gives you the gear set you then use for playing. Why not something similar in PVE as well?
All those that don’t mind gear grind and gear disparity would work on getting gear via grind, quests, dungeons or some other way.
All those that don’t like that can choose to get entire set for free and continue playing with new set without having to do something they don’t like. They would even have an option to change the looks of this new gear to be the same as it was before they opted for gear change (they don’t look any different with new gear if they don’t want to). Or they can choose to use the same gear they already have, but to change the stats on their current gear to be the same as stats on this new and better gear.

The amount of stat changes on this new gear would thus become meaningless to non-gear grinders, number of different gear set levels would become meaningless to them as well and both parties would be able to play the way they want.

I know there is more to be said about gear and leveling, but I think it would not be such a huge amount of work for them to do, since they already have the system to award you with full set of gear for free. I think it could work.

What do you think?

It’s been two months and it’s obvious we, players, have split into two groups.
One wants more gear, even gear grinding if necessary, but gear that helps them feel their character is growing. Gear that gives them something to work for besides changing how you look.
The other group wants gear to not be the decisive factor in combat. They don’t mind only cosmetic gear changes and don’t need such detailed character development. They don’t want gear grind and gear>skill.
What about the system where you get the top gear set if you choose so? Or you can work for it if you choose so?
sPVP gives you the gear set you then use for playing. Why not something similar in PVE as well?
All those that don’t mind gear grind and gear disparity would work on getting gear via grind, quests, dungeons or some other way.
All those that don’t like that can choose to get entire set for free and continue playing with new set without having to do something they don’t like. They would even have an option to change the looks of this new gear to be the same as it was before they opted for gear change (they don’t look any different with new gear if they don’t want to). Or they can choose to use the same gear they already have, but to change the stats on their current gear to be the same as stats on this new and better gear.

The amount of stat changes on this new gear would thus become meaningless to non-gear grinders, number of different gear set levels would become meaningless to them as well and both parties would be able to play the way they want.

I know there is more to be said about gear and leveling, but I think it would not be such a huge amount of work for them to do, since they already have the system to award you with full set of gear for free. I think it could work.

What do you think?

Obsidian.1328:

For the love of god, someone close this thread.

Why?
Isn’t a discussion what forums are about? This thread has also been quite civil so far. Let it continue. If people want to post their thoughts why would you or anyone else have anything against it?

39 and I play it less and less. It feels more of a “service” than a game, to me.

LanceHavenbay.2067:

To Symke,
Can you be a little more specific? Are you talking utility skills? Those are class specific. And, I am currently working on that.

I was thinking about skills which are not based on a weapon choice. Or are only based on a weapon type. Like certain skills work for with all melee weapons, others work with ranged weapons and the rest are generic.
Something like traits, yes, but on the “left” side of our skill bar.
Considering how Anet is concerned with players being able to identify the skill their opponent is about to unleash on them, they could even add some world generic skills. Something that every profession can use.
I know I am not very helpful with only a basic idea, but you or someone else can maybe use this idea and grow it into something more GW2 appropriate.

Just the other day I had an interesting downed state experience. I kill my opponent and 1 or 2 seconds after that I die due to his/her DOTs on me.
So there we are, sitting on our behinds, facing each other, 1 or 2 meters from each other hitting each other with rocks. Come on!!! What the f… is that?
I know there are several things you can do while being downed, but it’s really one of the most stupid ideas I have come across in gaming world. I like rezzing other people a lot. It gives me a good feeling. Of course I don’t know how many of those I’ve already rezzed were bots, but it’s still a good feeling.
But even others rezzing me, gives me a sour taste in my mouth. It just isn’t right. I died. At least take away the chance to still do damage while being downed. It’s ridiculous, sitting on the ground hitting others like some sort of joke to all the fighters out here.

Thank you Lance for your work on this. Great job, really.
How about adding profession skills? They don’t have to add new skills for each and every weapon, there are just 8 different professions, so they have less work to do. And it would add something new to the game.
In any case I hope they will make some changes to skill system. The way it is set now it can be tedious.

CelticWish.2314:

To the OP, the skills you list to me are like that because they make much more sense in small group PvP environment then vs PvE content. In GW1, the skills and PvE were there to prepare you for PvP (the first couple years anyway). This part of GW1 carried over to GW2, in small group PvP those small things actually matter. But I do agree for a pure PvE person, those aren’t all that exciting. Add to that, for a pure PvE player, not being a loot based game has to be very boring as well, looking the same when changing armor, boring, drops, boring etc.

I agree. It looks like skills were balanced in favor of PVP. Adding new skills (weapon or profession based) would give us, PVE players, an option to choose better ones. Even an option of choosing makes this much, much better, Even if it is just a feeling we have.

I remember when there were no video or computer games (yes I am at the age when I more and more frequently use words like “Back in my days”. I enjoyed reading fairy tales. Tales of heroes and damsels in distress, dragons living behind 7 hills, castles to conquer and beautiful worlds to emerge myself in. When I got older I started reading fantasy (still don’t know the true difference between them) and also discovered computer games.
Very early I found out that I enjoy FRP games the most. Games where my character was my extension, my avatar, fantasy “me”. That last is the most important.
FRP games, to me, are like living in a fairy tale or fantasy tale. Living, working, questing, communicating and all the rest. So I need many little or not so little reminders that this character I am in control of, is actually me. Not just some figure I use.
This is where GW2 disappoints me heavily. I understand they wanted to make a game that was low on immersion of character but big on immersion of world events but to me and probably many others, that is big minus for this game.
If I want something competitive I go and play basketball with my friends. Real one. Or something similar where I and not some computer code determines if I am to win or not.
That’s why I need carrots. You have chosen to make this “carrot on the stick” as an insult to those that want it. At least most people that use this term, use it as an intent to do that.
Little carrots. Like having an actual net on your basketball court basket. It does not improve your game, it doesn’t make you better, but it makes playing so much nicer when you hear the sound the ball makes when it goes through it.

Does anyone know if there was any official response regarding this? I mean are they aware of the fact it’s so distracting, are they doing anything on it or would that be to big of a change for them to do now.
I would also like to see an option to turn those effects down (not off).

I think that DEs are not much better than standard quests that we are all used to do. Their main attraction (imo) is their “new” status. They are something new and exciting and that means they automatically get more attention and love. Just think about that guy that thought he was holding an I phone 5 in his hands just because someone told him so and he was confident enough to state that this, new I phone 5 (which was actually I phone 4) is obviously so much better that his old I phone 4 which he was holding in his other hand at that time.
They “feel” more dynamic but after 2 or 3 repeats they lose all of their dynamic feel and become just another quest you already did.
The nice thing about them is an option for others to join. But that started to be an annoyance as well.
10 people waiting for start of a DE. Some already know where foes will be coming from. And while most of us wait inside the camp we are suppose to defend, few of us go out, to meet foes head on. We are waiting and watching those 2 entrances to see our enemy, but that group of 3 already dealt with them. Then another 3 decide to do the same and goes outside of the camp to stand in the other way of other waves of foes. So it becomes just a competition who best knows how DE will develop. Its ridiculous.
If they were dynamic in a way that what happens is slightly different every time they repeat, it would make a world of change.

Which sub-forum is used for discussions about this forum moderators?
I tried starting thread in “general” section, but it was closed, so I would like to know where on this forum we can discuss such things. Off-topic or something similar?

Thanks for your help

I am talking about discussion about the quality of their work. Discussion! Not “get the rope and let’s hang them” type of threads.
If mere discussion is not allowed than internet community does not deserve it’s freedom and transparency. “Freedom of speech” actually means something.
I know it’s “their” forum, but it’s not their space and they are expected to follow the basic rules of free and democratic society. And one of those is that opinions are ALWAYS allowed.

I wanted to post a reply on a https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Are-all-MMO-forums-like-this/page/2#post452290 but it was already closed.
Is expressing our opinion on forum usage and the work of forum moderators against some rule, or something?
I already had one of my posts deleted so I would only like to know if we are even alowed to talk about those things?

LOCO.1785:

flyinpoons.6481:

Katostrophe.3274:

WHAT negative reviews??

You mean the reviews of those who don’t matter at all and are just complaining because they lack skill?

Almost every review given by credited sources have been fantastic. This game hasn’t gotten any bad reviews lol Not sure what people are complaining about..

LOL lack skill? this game is targeted to those that lack skill, and hate the idea of having to do any real work for gear upgrades.

I like the part where you backed up your claims with facts.

Oh wait…

I don’t agree with “flyinpoons” about this game being targeted to those that lack skill and I don’t want to “flame” you since you only asked a question but…
When I started playing GW2 I had an impression that his game requires more skill for a good combat. Now I know it doesn’t. It takes more skill in regards to positioning and especially in quick responses. The latter is even more important. This does add some new and exciting dimensions to the fight but (again)…
It takes huge amount of skill requirement out of the game when it comes to auto-targetting and auto attack. Both of those activities are automatic and this is so anti-skill.
So in a way, there is certain “lack of skill” feeling in GW2. It just doesn’t apply to whole game.

Yes. it has. It has a beautiful world and many hours of game play to achieve.
But not much more than that. It’s become tedious and the only reason I am still playing it is my “gamer heart”. And it’s beautifully designed world.
Repetition, lack of personal immersion and choices during PVE are just so overwhelming that to me, they are game brakers. And this is the reason I don’t see myself playing for a long time, like I did with other MMOs.
While on the topic of money: I would gladly pay 15 Eur / month if that would mean more choices or options, gear, some proper RP elements and some other things.
I will definitely not put even one single Eur into cash shop, if GW2’s economy stays in this absurd state that it is right now. It feels like ANet’s decisions are more and more in nature of “milking” the money from players than stabilising their market economy.

Well … this is what we get in a community where people are more interested in how they look than they are in who they are. Like we are all just some Kim Kardashian wannabes. “Oh look … I have a new set of kitten AND a matching cape”.
This game looks amazing, but sometimes what’s inside is more important than what you see. So far I am not convinced that GW2 is going in direction of content over design. And I would like that. I would like that a lot.

Edit: This censorship is getting beyond stupid. The “kitten” in my post is nothing else but “breasts”.

I am one of those that are very disappointed with GW2’s combat system. The lack of builds, weapon or class skills and customization is very big problem for me, personally.
But back to the OP … I think that physical combat suffers because they put so much emphasis on the positioning. Sometimes I think dodge is the foundation on which they built their entire combat. That brought an increased amount of skill required from the player when it comes to positioning. But then they added auto-attack and auto-targeting.

Let’s say that every fight consists of damage, positioning and control. They improved positioning. It’s probably the best there is on the MMO market. But … what about those other two factors?
We only have 1 or 2 weapon skills and maybe 1 or 2 utility skills for damage. The rest are more of a control or support type of skills. Maybe that’s enough to demand some skill from a player. But one of those skills is auto-attack.
And not only that. Auto attack sometimes does more than half of the damage you do in entire fight. You damage you foe without even really trying very hard. Where is the skill in that? They actually dumbed down the “art” of doing damage. One thing that many of us enjoy so much.

This game is also focused on control/support more than many other games. But control is many times so meaningless (in PVE especially) with .5 sec of something or 1 sec of something else that it just doesn’t add anything to the fight so we don’t use it. In those cases I remember all those that are against adding more skills as “we don’t want 30 skills and than use just 5 of them”. Well something similar is happening here as well. Add to that this plethora of graphical effects during the fight that only distracts you from knowing what is going on and those short durations are even more useless.

Auto-targeting. Many of our skills are AOE in a way. We don’t need to face our foe in order to fight it. We just have to be close to them and hit our skill and our auto-attack will damage 3 opponents that are standing around us.That also doesn’t take skill. Or arrow flying behind us. What the f…? Where is the skill in that?

In my opinion they dumbed down physical combat by focusing to heavily on positioning. Which they improved. How about having both parts of the fight demanding and something that requires skill? I don’t think they can improve something about that as It would require too much of a change of their basic concepts. But I could be wrong. At least I hope I am.

I agree. We have to get some sort of control or slider for visual effects. I even started avoiding events with too many players playing it just because of this problem. It’s just not fun nor enjoyable.
I am personally very disappointed with combat system in this game, but I am also willing to adapt and learn. Maybe I will grow to like it in time. But this visual effects abundance is too much. Entire combat system is based on quick response time and it’s almost impossible to actually be quick if you can’t see anything.

I can’t make a quote so … from Jon Peters:
“Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.”

Well you failed misserably on this one. Many things in this game stops us from “focusing on whatever best suits our tastes”, but this DR disaster which is entirely your fault, is the top one.
You actually equate freedom and limitations. Unbelievable. And to top this, we can expect solution in few weeks. Like this is just some minor bug.

Hurry up. This game started with almost fanatically worshiping community. But decisions like this DR, and especially the intentional lack of information on this issue is only draining customers and more significantly enjoyment and fun those that still play, have.

Thank you. It appears I did have wrong understanding of gear progression.

I came to the conclusion that maybe I don’t understand gear progression.
I always thought that it means the gear gets more powerful as I progress in my levels. And more importantly, that I have to use gear of proper level if I want to stay alive and do some proper damage.
ArenaNet stated this game has no gear progression (at least a lot of players say that) and there are a lot of topics about whether this is a good or bad thing, so I am a bit confused right now.
If there is no gear progression, why is gear level based and why are gear’s stats getting better by the level?
Or can I actually use my starting gear all the way to my level 80 and still be competitive as much as if I would use level 80 gear (let’s for a moment assume I don’t care about my looks – yes, we do exist)?

gurugeorge.9857:

FarFarAway.6579:

Its all about finding what motivates a large variety of players and then working that into the game, hopefully not at the cost of other players and what they enjoy. I just think GW2 has some gaps they need to fill.

I see your point now.

No doubt, and no doubt those gaps will be filled in time – after all that’s what MMOs do, they grow and evolve, the developers try and perfect the game and improve it.

However, I doubt the game will ever have gear stats progression through PvE. I think there will probably be other ways to show PvE achievement, but it seems the Anet philosophy is dead set against having gear progression be one of them.

GW2 like GW is still, at its core, built around PvP (it just has a decent amount of PvE, and this time round a charming persistent world, but combat, the thing you spend most of your time doing, seems to be fundamentally designed for PvP), so I do think that’s the main reason for the equal gear level.

But gear progression already is in GW2. Just try fighting level 80 zone in your starting gear.

Corian.4068:

I’m glad you brought this up. …

Well one of the differences between us is that I couldn’t care less how I look in-game. But I am no saying look is not important. There are a lot people that value it and thus it is important to be a part of the game. I admit, it can add some personal note when you are satisfied with your character. But looking good in GW2 means looking like so many others (for now), as there are so few choices. So I don’t know how satisfied you will be in few months when so many others around you will be wearing the same clothes as you will. I hope they will add many more.

And that brings me to second thing. Gear progression. There is gear progression in GW2. And we all follow it. It’s just wrapped in some “I am not really here” paper hoping that it will not be noticed. Before you say otherwise … not having gear progression means you fight with the same weapon at level 1 and at level 80. Something like PVP.
Gear does progress with buffed up stats and we do upgrade it. We all do. Even those that say you hate it. Because you have to if you want to finish PVE. I can understand your frustration with Rift and it’s gear demands. But the main problem in the example you provided is not gear progression it’s the amount of gear progression. If the change from one set of gear to another is 1-3% (official gear in GW2 has even bigger change), then those differences are not so great. You would not be dominant because of your gear if your armor has only 2% better toughness, right?
You already have to have certain gear if you want to move to higher level area, don’t you? Or do you actually still fight with your starting gear? I know starting gear looks like crap (even I admit that), but could you fight level 30 with your starting gear?

Like you said, I can understand equal gear beinkittenortant in PVP. But it’s not so important in PVE. I like SWTOR type of PVP (I know, I just became public enemy with this one, but it’s me so…). I like the fact that you have to work your kitten off to get on the same footing as those top ones. I don’t like it if (like you said) the differences are too big, but they don’t have to be. They could make gear differences very small in increment so no gear dominance.
One of the biggest demands in PVP community is more focus on skill rather than on gear. And I agree with that. Skill should be more important. But how much of a skill do you think you will need when you will have learned all combos, other classes and their weapons? It will become repetition of those few combinations public will determine are the best. There are already builds that are thought of as “the best” or “optimal”. So your choices for PVP combat are already smaller since your build might not be the best. And this happened 1 month after the release. I don’t think any other game managed that. Is this good or bad, I don’t know.
I do think that all those buffing and nerfing of classes, skills and other things that other games are doing constantly is one of the biggest reasons for their longevity. It’s this “let’s see how good I am now, with this change” that in my opinion makes people play month after month, year after year. One of them, not the only reason, off course.

To finish … if they didn’t want gear progression to be so important, why is then gear progression necessary for finishing PVE?

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

symke.3105:

What are you, then? A sheep for accepting whatever is put on your plate?

Many of us have been advocating literally for years for a game to break out of the skinner box gear-grind mindset and get back to, as ANET put it in their latest video, “a deeply customizable role-playing experience”. Many of us had literally stopped playing the genre years ago because of the skinner-box mentality design. I personally have been blogging about the genre and making game-design and content suggestions for years in my blog on MMORPG.com.

We’ve been clamoring for something like GW2 for years; now, we’re defending against those who would turn it into the same carrot-and-stick as any other MMOG out there. I hardly think calling us “sheep” is appropriate.

Do you really just buy anything that is handed to you as the best?

You say that as if many of us didn’t pass on AION, RIFT, SWTOR, TERA because those games did not serve our interests, and bought GW2 because its design was what we’d been looking for for years. Because we defend what we love about GW2 and advocate against fundamental design changes we know we do not enjoy from experience hardly means we just accept whatever is put in front of us as “the best”.

The “sheep” comment was meant as a way to show that anyone can insult with a word. “Slaves” or “sheep”. It’s basically the same kitten.

You are talking about “deeply customizable role-playing experience”. Well there is no deep, rarely some customizable and very little RP elements in GW2. Combat is extremely focused and offers almost none personification. Progress is virtually no-existent. Simply a new level number and that’s it. Any many more…
But of course all of that is my personal opinion. Like you have yours.

I just cannot understand how anyone (I still play and enjoy the game) can say that something doesn’t need improvement. Is it perfect? Of course no. It’s just a game. What about some critical (positive critical) attitude? Because, constructive criticism is what develops new and improved games. GW2 is different because you, yourself, have been clamoring towards that. Now give us (those who would like to change it for the better) the same option. According to you, anything they do from now on is going to make it worse.
Even your partner in real life, which you love, isn’t perfect. And you daily, weekly or monthly find ways to make them understand that :P. If you do it in a nice or stupid way, it’s up to you.

What, imo, GW2 lacks in a big way is more ways of customization, more options.

I’ve seen so many “carrot and stick” comments, and they serve nothing else but to insult those others that don’t see it your way. There is a carrot and a stick in this game. Just wait for a few more months to see it.

To Vaerah: “For sure I am a “what” who have more fun than you do.”

Are you sure? You’ve obviously been sitting behind my back while I play, for you to know how much fun I have.
I do have fun, but I would have even more fun if the game was better (IMO).
You obviously have enough fun as it is. But is it impossible for you to even think of a situation where you could have even more fun with GW2? Do you really just buy anything that is handed to you as the best?

Vaerah.4907:

The game that shall not be named requires people to stick for years paying a sub. No surprise they subliminally brainwash a “worker” mentality and make grinding for the sake of grinding something good.
Luckily enough there are other games that don’t do that, players who come from other gaming venues don’t have the blinders, don’t feel like “working for a goal” (smells so much of American work class theories anyway) is an asset or a value.

GW2 has a smart business model, those who want to grind for goals can pay today, get the goals and return to wherever they came from (and ANet still keeps their already paid money). Those who want to play for fun just stay and have fun. All are happy, except the grind-grind-grind people who love to pay to be punished with more grinding. Those will find their happiness only back to their slaver previous games, let them go.

This is the mentality that destroys MMO community. Insted of accepting that someone might not have enough fun and would want some improvements to be made, you are call them slaves.
What are you, then? A sheep for accepting whatever is put on your plate?

And this is where ArenaNet’s philosophy “we will not force feed people with tutorials” fails. Combo fields are one of the biggest parts of a combat system. Combat system that is very limited and in a lot of ways, not fun or challenging.
Doing combos does help in making combat more interesting, but knowledge about them is so scarce (even wiki) that it feels like some added meta game you have to finish before you can enjoy GW2 combat.
And how to learn about them? Very difficult. It would be very helpful if ANet made more NPCs in starting areas that had same skills as our classes do. That way we could do combos with NPCs and learn in this way. There are some, but not enough of them.
And second biggest hurdle to learning about combos is graphical design of combat itself. Even 3 different players fighting the same enemy make the area around this enemy so visually full of different rings, sparkles, splashes and all other efects, its almost impossible to see combo starters. So even if you see you made a combo with someone, you don’t know who with. Or what they used as a combo starter. How do you learn like that?

Corian.4068:

Schurge.5194:

I think that these players who continue to say that “Guild Wars 2” is about fun are missing the fact that people don’t repeat dungeons for fun. For most people leveling is not fun after the first go ’round.

This is exactly the kind of thing I meant. If you aren’t having fun with the gameplay, why in the world are you playing to begin with? I’m not saying quit, but have you seriously evaluated why you’re spending time on something you consider to be “not fun after the first go’round”?

Which I mean, that’s fine. Not everyone’s going to like the gameplay, but why would you want incentive to keep playing a game you aren’t having fun with? This makes no sense to me.

Anyway, a couple of the more recent posts mentioned that progression is an RPG staple, to which yes, I agree. And it’s very enjoyable to see one’s character grow stronger. I said this. I make no attempt to claim otherwise. My thing with this thread is that lately MMO players seem to play only for progression and not because they enjoy the actual playing part.

Now, you PnP roleplayers didn’t gather over a table for loot written in different-colored pens. You gathered over that table with your friends because it was a fun way to spend an evening, whether things went right or wrong, whether you progressed or didn’t. Don’t even pretend otherwise; I will call you a liar to your face if you tell me you were into PnP RPGs solely for gear upgrades and wouldn’t play without them. So, what happened to that mindset where having a fun time with your friends was good enough, for those of you that want to evoke your PnP experience? Where’d that go, and why is it no longer acceptable?

Speaking more on subject to the game, I would challenge each of you to ask yourself and answer honestly whether or not you are enjoying the gameplay of Guild Wars 2? And if the answer’s no, I’m wondering why people who aren’t having fun would think gear progression fixes the problem. Why not suggest changes to the gameplay and combat to make it fun instead?

And if you are having fun, well… isn’t that what’s important?

To answer your challenge … yes, I am enjoying GW2. But not so much as I’ve hoped to. One of my biggest complains is combat system. And the other is lack of “growth”.
There is a gear progression in game. But to me it’s only cosmetic gear progression. Which to me means that ArenaNet thinks we value our looks most of all. Do you?

Now my challenge to you … What do you do to have fun in GW2? What do you do to enjoy it?
To put it differently … if this game had gear progression … how would that stop you from having fun? You simply choose not to follow that progression, do your own thing and enjoy the game in the way you want.

I really don’t want to insult anyone but it just boggles my mind that people see lack of added options as something better.

I agree with you. They follow their philosophy they have started and this game shows that. I, myself, don’t like it.

In my opinion they use word “fun” like you. Very egotistical and narrow.
Fun can be had in almost anything. Be it a completely mindless farming or thorough mathematical solution. It only depends on you.
And to have anyone, ANet or you, telling us, that something is more fun, just because it doesn’t allow certain behavior or support this and that, is hypocritical.

How could GW2 be less fun with gear progression? You are playing it. You don’t have to follow this philosophy of gear grind if you don’t want to, so you are still having fun, “doing whatever thing we’re doing and for whom rewards are just a secondary bonus for our activity”. Why would you grind for gear if fun, for you, is somewhere else. How can that kind of game make it less fun for you? You just don’t do it.
It easy to not do something that you have an option for, bit it’s impossible to do something you would want to if there is not way of doing it?

What does that mean for the gaming future? Games will support less and less player feedback (options, personal choices, playstyle) and will force feed us their philosophy. Are we individuals or drones?

Kouken.8604:

Gear progression based rewards being the only incentive to play is a community issue, not the developers,

Gaming should be about the journey, but a high % of gamers only care about the reward,
Been reading through complaint threads today and saw one person say,
“I like SPVP but because I already have the best gear I dont see a point doing it”

I dunno, fun? balanced skill based competition? skill development? fun?!

Just seems like a massive flaw in peoples mindset, why “grind” a system, most likely not enjoying yourself along the way, just to obtain a set you wont use anymore once youve completed it cause theres nothing else to “gain”?

Personally allowing easy(ish) access to full exotics to most players is a perfect system,
Allowing players to heavliy out stat each other would destroy WvW and the way mobs work in zones and discourage skilled players who simply dont have the time,

The grinds for cosmetic rewards is perfect, farming the 30g t3 chestpiece for sylvari atm and cant wait to get it!

The community mindset needs to change not the developers,

And seriously if you want gear based progression so bad, why not play every other mmo ever?

So contest reward is stupid and cosmetic reward is perfect?! Strange logic, but it’s yours, so …

What is fun? I always thought that fun was something extremely personal, but lately with the help of this forum, I started to think that fun was very generic and objective. So many people posting that if you don’t enjoy GW2 completely, if you have any complaints or similar, you are not having fun. I know most don’t think like that, but their message is clear “We, who like GW2, are having fun, and you, who doesn’t like GW2, are not!”.

Rewards! On of the most human things there is.
Need for it. Even more human.
Making some rewards have more priority than other people’s. Very widespread human personality issue . It’s called bigotry. Something like: “My kind of reward (cosmetic) is more important (even perfect) than others”.

It’s not the community, its entire human population. So who should change?
And seriously, comments like this are not helping.

To nerva:
Sorry, I can’t quote you, so I use this form.
I get what you are saying, and it was my mistake for not being more clear. I didn’t mean their development issues or their work on fixes. I meant their CS communication. Their attitude towards all of us on this forum.

A good game. There are lots of things I like a lot, but there are also lots of things I don’t like at all. And many will change with time. Will it be for better or worse I don’t know.

I can’t thank ANet for making it since it’s only a game and not something life changing. I can however give them commendation for making a good game that helps improve MMO genre. Of course I can also criticise their overzealous approach to those same improvements where they went overboard on some of them.

I hope they will keep improving GW2 like they’ve been doing since launch, but I also hope they will improve their attitude towards ALL of us. I have noticed that negative posts (with or without constructive attitude) are usually closed or ignored by GMs and developers, but those that give them praise are responded with thank you’s and gratitude. I understand that. Every single person likes to hear good comments. But they have a very difficult task to do. It’s called being objective and professional. To criticism and praise.
Please, devs and GMs: you are not based in Noth Korea. Don’t act like it.

Achilles.3128:

symke.3105:

I didn’t use words like “most” or “majority” for a reason. Because I don’t know what most players think. No one does. “So many” is simply because the amount of posts about this on several different GW2 forums is high enough to allow this phrase.
And for your to attack my use of this phrase and then use words “everyone knew” at the end of your post is a definite “LoL” moment. I guess you allow yourself more freedom with words than you do to others, ha. Furthermore, only those that were following the development of GW2 knew this “no Trinity” fact. But of course according to you, that means all players of GW2 at the moment. Unbelievable, really.

Roles in GW2 are (imo) blurred and not that well defined, not non existent. It’s also my opinion that with time, you will be expected to use certain weapons and skills for combo effects and similar. Which is not very different than expecting to use certain build.
It’s the samekitten It just smells and looks differently (a joke).

And I am not demanding anything, just expressing my opinion.

Ugh, I can’t believe I trolled myself like that -_- Touche, my choice of words were indeed hypocritical and poor. What I should have said is removal of the Holy Trinity was the Guild Wars 2 initiative from the start, not everyone knew.

As to the rest of your post given; that it is your opinion. My previous most should have made it clear that mine differs from yours and exactly why. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this matter.

Agree. In the end it is just a difference of opinions. Have a nice day .

Achilles.3128:

symke.3105:

Good intentions on your part, but why then did you make a combat where I can see almost nothing that is happening around me, if I am in melee range? Or are you trying to tell us that GW2 actually favors range over melee?
Roles in a fight are natural, they are part of us, humans. Maybe that is the reason so many players don’t like this “we are all the same” mantra, that GW2 promotes so heavily.
In my opinion not having trinity is more liked by people that see themselves primarily as part of a group, while having some sort of trinity is more liked by those that want more personal satisfactions and accomplishments.

I’d like to see your statistics on the notion that “so many players” dislike the trinity removal. My main problem with what you said is that you claim there are no roles when this has repeatedly been said to not be the case. As far as I know just about every class has a support, damage and control trait line. The only difference is that in GW2 these roles are mobile and proactive rather than stationary and reactive.

And also that you’re not required to take a specific amount of roles into battle with you which, in my opinion, makes those specific roles all the more immersive and worthwhile. In WoW when you play a specific role players expect you to do specific things. I’m sure there’s not a single tank or healer that has played WoW that is unfamiliar with both barks of orders and yells of disappointment. Here you’re not required to take a specific role for any specified reason other than your own prerogative. Here if someone were to actually chose to take up a support or control role in a fight; players are actually more inclined to be grateful for that person’s role rather demanding they perform in a specific way.

But above all; everyone knew from the start that Guild Wars 2’s initiative was to break the Holy Trinity. You bought the game knowing this so don’t expect the developers to rework their concept just because you paid for it. You won’t go walking into a lemonade stall, pay for a glass of lemonade and then demand that they give you orange juice so don’t do the same thing here.

I didn’t use words like “most” or “majority” for a reason. Because I don’t know what most players think. No one does. “So many” is simply because the amount of posts about this on several different GW2 forums is high enough to allow this phrase.
And for your to attack my use of this phrase and then use words “everyone knew” at the end of your post is a definite “LoL” moment. I guess you allow yourself more freedom with words than you do to others, ha. Furthermore, only those that were following the development of GW2 knew this “no Trinity” fact. But of course according to you, that means all players of GW2 at the moment. Unbelievable, really.

Roles in GW2 are (imo) blurred and not that well defined, not non existent. It’s also my opinion that with time, you will be expected to use certain weapons and skills for combo effects and similar. Which is not very different than expecting to use certain build.
It’s the samekitten It just smells and looks differently (a joke).

And I am not demanding anything, just expressing my opinion.

I am currently level 38 with my warrior and while I had enough materials to craft lvl 35 weapons, I couldn’t craft any armor due to shortage of fine crafting materials which I already spent doing my weapons.
So I thought that maybe doing both of them is not the best way.
What is your opinion?
Does getting fine crafting materials get any better at higher levels?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Waypoc.6125:

That being said, what about the role of a Guardian as defined by it’s very name? Who is he guarding if not the group? Which brings me back to one of my suggestions above; having just a touch of aggro generation added so that when the group is going down, the guardian can draw aggro and and then plop down the wall of reflection you mentioned thereby allowing the group to recover a bit.

That’s why position is actually important in Guild Wars 2. Most of the guardian’s absorption/reflection abilities are sphere or lines. Wall of Reflection is an actual wall about 10 times the width of your character; plenty of room to protect your party. Then there’s abilities like Virtue of Courage (F3), which is not exactly a sphere of blocking but it applies a free block to every ally within range.

The main idea is that the combat and skills should keep you paying more attention to the game world than the various arbitrary numbers, bars, and meters typically associated with MMORPGs.

Good intentions on your part, but why then did you make a combat where I can see almost nothing that is happening around me, if I am in melee range? Or are you trying to tell us that GW2 actually favors range over melee?
Roles in a fight are natural, they are part of us, humans. Maybe that is the reason so many players don’t like this “we are all the same” mantra, that GW2 promotes so heavily.
In my opinion not having trinity is more liked by people that see themselves primarily as part of a group, while having some sort of trinity is more liked by those that want more personal satisfactions and accomplishments.

Well they didn’t actually remove it. They just blurred the picture a little and made classes more similar. Some people like it, I personally don’t.

Yes I could and will. I am waiting for next new MMO with anticipation. And main reason for that is my dissatisfaction with leveling and skill system in GW2.