I usually ignore posts like this but I just had to make a prediction. I predict that the Rev will become the new Warrior class and it will be able to solo everything.
Because that’s what we need is more achievements to lock the new precursors behind yet another wall. Sorry, don’t need one we already have the requirement for Map Completion that forces PVE players to do WvW.
Hi, Just a question here about the previous requirements to use legendary weapons.
Since you added EotM and you are changing the way people get precursors will that mean that PVEers won’t have to worry about doing WvW just to be able to use their PVE acquired precursor?
It hasn’t been said explicitly, however heavily implied that this is a feature of the classes, not of a particular game mode. I cannot see them making this PvE only, why would they? If they did, there would be riots and mass rage.
Not sure why they would do this either however! That being said, It would be an excellent option because that would mean that after the expansion launched those of us in PVE land wouldn’t have to worry about skill nerfs or complete trait disappearances because of PVP “balance” patches.
To those who claim that grind lowers the population, there’s evidence it works both ways. Not enough grind can lower the population as well.
Anet was losing people who ran out of stuff to work on and too many people have been brainwashed by other games to think that they can just have a skin end game.
That’s the problem Anet ran into when they made the choice to add ascended gear.
You’re making assumption that more people leave because of grind than stay because of it. We simply don’t know that’s true.
Name one game in America or even in the UK where the grind produced millions of players? One. There isn’t one so I know the answer already and trust me I read about every single one of them including indies on multiple news sites. In fact, those with major grinds say for example, Wildstar, have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that western audiences hate grind and that it always lowers the population. The population is directly affected also by how high the RNG is. Archeage anyone? Seriously, there are countless other examples out there.
Farmville. Thanks.
Let me rephrase that since you need clarification we are discussing MMOs and not microtransaction facebook games.
Name on MMO in America or EU that has a high population after adding an endless grind. You won’t find one.
When I started to play this game, I made an Engineer. I thought the class was fun to play, and I liked the whole steampunk vibe going on from it.
But as I reached max level, completed the map and finished the personal story, I found a disheartening trend in Dungeons and organized Fractal groups.
They wanted Warriors and Guardians. Sure the more friendly bunch accepted me in, but even though I found viable builds, these builds seemed like a desperate measure to make the Engineer “decent” in Dungeon settings rather than makig it “on-par” with the überclasses Warrior and Guardian, that was highly sought.
Finally I got sick of it. I was tired of feeling like deadweight and unable to participate in the meta-game because of my class. So I abandoned my favourite class, and rolled a Warrior. Just like everyone else.
This other day, I was in Fractals with 3 Warriors and 2 Guardians. The next one we were 2 Warriors and 3 Guardians.
I honestly think its a bit boring. Sure some people might not see the problem in this – but I for one feel like the way the game is balanced is forcing me to play a certain class if I want to be competitive in PvE.
If there is one thing I hope for whatever HoT is, among other things I hope it is a major overhaul of how Dungeons works, and a serious effort to put the other professions on par with Warrior and Guardian in terms of utility and damage.
Amen. Amen.
Don’t listen to the parrots either, not a single one of those parrots that keep repeating the meme that you can play anything you want or play how you want actually play engineers in PVE dungeons or they’d notice the same trend.
Five minutes on youtube reveals a plethora of videos about Warriors running 5 mans solo if that’s not imbalanced I’m Mary Poppins.
Well you can always go play games like AoC where stealth has been completely broken for years now.
Try hiding from a bunch of mobs 4 levels below you in the middle of the night in a completely closed cave with nothing but candles 40 feet away from you and when you sneak up behind them they somehow see you and aggro 100% of the time anyways. That’s how it works over there feel free to try it out. smh
Stealth is a necessary part of these fantasy games even STO has a cloaking device for ground missions. These threads are getting tiresome really. I find it funny that stealth is such a big deal when warriors can still do 5 mans solo. Because balance.
HEY ANET. I WANT TO BE HANDED EVERYTHING AND TO BE GEARED OUT IN TWO WEEKS. ME-ME-ME, NOW-NOW-NOW. I can’t bear to work for anything and have long term goals.
And I suppose you’ll tell us all next that this is somehow better than “ANET I WANT THE GAME TO BE JUST LIKE MY TABLETOP MMO AND I WANT EXACTLY 0 ADVANCEMENTS IN UI, NO BALANCE IN PVE BECAUSE PVP SHOULD RULE EVERYTHING, AND I WANT TO WHINE UNTIL YOU MAKE THE GAME ALL ABOUT MY TINY PORTION OF THE POPULATION!”
Because that’s already happened you see, Nov 2012. Asking the devs to make a 180 in their PVE designs to make it for a larger audience is neither selfish nor is it part of the crowd that rushes through things. All you’d have to do is spend five minutes searching the forums and google and you’d find that not only does the casual crowd NOT rush through anything, but that they go after the gear they like that looks good. Also, you’d find that the people who can’t wait are part of the elitist groups who are always in a rush through dungeons, who advocate for Zerker builds, and who are nostalgic for all games to return to the mess we had in 2004 when MMOs were in their infancy.
And this is all outside of the fact that their early interviews indicated that they didn’t want their game to be all about a gear grind.
Your myth is broken you can stop spreading it now thanks.
To those who claim that grind lowers the population, there’s evidence it works both ways. Not enough grind can lower the population as well.
Anet was losing people who ran out of stuff to work on and too many people have been brainwashed by other games to think that they can just have a skin end game.
That’s the problem Anet ran into when they made the choice to add ascended gear.
You’re making assumption that more people leave because of grind than stay because of it. We simply don’t know that’s true.
Name one game in America or even in the UK where the grind produced millions of players? One. There isn’t one so I know the answer already and trust me I read about every single one of them including indies on multiple news sites. In fact, those with major grinds say for example, Wildstar, have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that western audiences hate grind and that it always lowers the population. The population is directly affected also by how high the RNG is. Archeage anyone? Seriously, there are countless other examples out there.
How about instead they introduce a real Wardrobe system with multiple outfits much like what’s found in LOTRO right now. They could even monetize it by making outfits outside of the first three purchase-able to expand the number of outfits you could own.
No admittance of faults occurred no apology to the fans for making the mistake of adding two things to the game they claimed would never happen (gear treadmill/power creep – grind) nothing….in fact according to the show they are in full denial mode “we delivered what we set out to do” and “games change sometimes” are pretty much all we heard. There’s rose tinted glasses and then there are full on blinders.
Well fans asked for more stuff they can work on on their max-level chars, so ANet delivered. It’s always a bit surprising when later people figure out that “Wait, now we have to grind gear? WTF, I wanted a gear upgrade, not this!”.
Don’t ask for “more gear to obtain” when you don’t want Ascended. Because players complained like mad how there was nothing to do at 80 because you were immediately decked out in max gear. All through beta and early release. ANet delivered. Ofc it was a terrible idea and should have never happened but hey, player feedback.
(There’s a reason good devs don’t really listen to their players, players are a terrible source of input for your dev direction.)
Actually I didn’t even want stats on the gear but they made that change right at Beta and I had to deal with it, adding a whole other set of gear that no one wanted but the 1% most of which aren’t even playing this game anymore and who say things like GW2 what’s that whenever a news article comes out about it wasn’t a smart move because history has shown that the casuals are generally the ones that stay with games years after release and the rush to the end crowds have left for their next fix. That’s number one.
Number 2 they didn’t do what many of us were asking for, in fact they’ve made Karma complete useless really we asked for expanding the sets you could buy with Karma to make the Exotic sets from karma vendors more in line with what you could get from crafting, that never happened so where people are getting this idea that Ascended was wanted and welcome is beyond me.
You missed two other major issues with Condition damage, if you could update your post please to include them.
Not all classes have the same capabilities when it comes to condition damage, if you play an engineer even if you use grenades you’ll notice that unlike the Engineer the Necro will actually have a small burst of damage when their skills, say runes for example, are triggered. This has been a major problem for some time now for Engis and was never addressed by the balance team, in fact there are several people here who still think this doesn’t happen, all one has to do is record your character fighting something on both classes and you’ll notice a total difference side by side.
Second problem not mentioned on your list, is lack of crit bonus damage. They do have crits but they nerfed them in PVE when they started off the game because they felt they were too powerful on PVP before the balance team actually separated the figures between PVP/PVE so they wouldn’t overlap in their balance patches. The team never went back and fixed their previous nerf in PVE and it’s been like this ever since. When crits occur in PVE on conditions you’ll notice there’s hardly any burst to them, unlike other titles out there (and I do mean all of the other titles) that have DoT heavy classes, this balance team hasn’t balanced the crits properly. You see these other titles recognized that there was this problem with their DoT crits and adjusted the crit damage accordingly so that it would mean something when your DoT actually crit. Not on GW2 however, they employed the head in sand method of balancing this problem in PVE and here we sit.
can please bring back old items every week ? i miss the toxic parts
also you could add all the human gods mask or complete armor. they look great.
I would love for old items to return there were several weapon skins, backpacks, and tools I would love to have been able to buy that I was prevented from getting due to not having the funds for the short period they were out in the store!
And he admitted their fault.
Some people can’t seem to digest it still…
Where did he ever admit this about infusions?
Only statement he backed away from was “having best statistical gear by the time you hit 80” from the is it fun blog post.
No admittance of faults occurred no apology to the fans for making the mistake of adding two things to the game they claimed would never happen (gear treadmill/power creep – grind) nothing….in fact according to the show they are in full denial mode “we delivered what we set out to do” and “games change sometimes” are pretty much all we heard. There’s rose tinted glasses and then there are full on blinders.
I can’t think of anything I could not do in masterwork greens that I can in exotics. Fractals requiring agony resist are obviously their own animal, but I’d bet many nickels on that I could go clear dungeons in zerker greens just about as well as I do in my ascended zerker. Sure, there’d be an output reduction, but it wouldn’t have any impact what do ever on my traits, my sigils or my runes.
Challenge accepted. I’ve found my fun new thing to do for the evening – see what the difference feels like between greens and ascended.
You can run dungeons in WoW in all white twill doesn’t make it effective or the slightest bit rewarding nor does it invalid the fact that max level gear was supposed to stop at Exotic at launch.
like i said, this is just marketing speak. The reality is guild wars is just as grindy as any other game when it comes to best in slot, and way more grindy when it comes to cosmetics.
Thats ok, it really doesnt matter.
most of the people discussing here, have accepted the grind, or they ignore it. Also If guild wars does what they say they want to do, and makes more challenging content, you best believe people will want you in whatever is the best gear. Regardless of whether its possible to win, if it makes it less likely, they will want you in gear, and if it fails they will blame the people with low gear.
i know this will happen because it already happens in GW2.
and you will grind to get that gear, or those masteries, so you can access those extra areas.
The do hope they realize the game was actually grindy, because if whoever picks their numbers for things keep picking the numbers, you can look forward to ascended, halloween II, mistfire wolf mini, WvW achievement like numbers for your new progression.
Actually no some of us haven’t accepted that they did a 180 from their original design, that’s a dismissive move on your part to make it seem like our concerns aren’t warranted. There’s something to be said about honesty and it’s obvious that we’re not getting honesty here with the statements during the show.
Things like mobile apps, max level gear being achieved by level 80 to make it not a concern for players when they’ve spent time leveling, personal story being personal and not needing a 5 man to complete, dungeons being for everyone instead of being controlled by the Zerg crowd, combat balance which is still listed on the front page saying things like “it doesn’t matter which class you play”, play as you like (and still be balanced and rewarded properly), exploration being a serious thing (which has turned into a find the coin nonsense in most of the LS patches we’re seeing in LS2 in the only two zones we’re seeing it in), events being added to the older zones that make them more dynamic having more branches so to speak and therefore alot less repetition of the same old events from launch (ie. dynamic).
There’s alot missing that should have been that some of us were waiting for and have been and as my signature indicates, there’s still time with this Expansion coming out to make sure all ducks are in a row.
While I absolutely agree that they have 0 strategy in this game and everything is simply a zerg fest (see my posts on what’s wrong with the PVE gameplay balance and combat) a full on trinity would cause more trouble. In the other title I’m playing right now while waiting for the Xpansion details there’s a serious issue in the LFG tool when DPS because there are so many DPS waiting to get into Que.
I’d say that they’d need a system more like NWO I call it lovingly Trinity Lite because it doesn’t force the trinity on anyone but allows the game to be played that what which basically enhances the gameplay dramatically. Trinity lite actually allows the Devs to monitor the condition of the fights and they care about exploits like pushing bosses, so in those scenarios these exploitative Zerker maneuvers would instantly be illegal and the dynamic of the dungeoneer party system would change. If they actually did something about Zerker builds on gear and made them less effective like they did to CC and to Condition damage they’d have a completely new game dynamic overnight and I think it would be a major improvement because of the type of snake like people we have controlling the dungeon scene right now (you know the kind that are ugly to other players at the drop of a hat) that never helps the community when the devs let this kind of stuff go like that.
Grinding has a traditional meaning with regard to MMOs. People want to apply their own definition to grind.
For years, the only definition I EVER heard for grind was killing mobs to level. Everything else was farming.
Yes, people use the word grind every liberally, but then, Guild Wars 1 had plenty of grind too if you were talking optional grind. You just didn’t grind for levels.
Anet explained what they meant by grind many times in interviews and at conventions after the manifesto.
If you choose to try to apply a different definition, it’s probably not Anet’s fault.
Anet made it clear in the PAX announcement that THEY do not share the interpretation that you mention. The founder and current head of the company as well as the director of the game made statements indicating that grind was not specific or exclusive to leveling.
We are not the ones applying a definition different than your own. Anet’s top people are.
No I’m using the definition in wikipedia, and I’d love to see those quotes, because I watched the whole thing and I didn’t see them. So where are they?
You didnt see the part, for example, where Colin referenced Anet’s no grind philosophy as regards to learning new abilities such as hang gliding, gaining access to otherwise unaccessible content by learning native languages, etc…all without any character leveling ?
To be fair they also claimed that the absolutely delivered on their original design plans, that didn’t happen so I wouldn’t put too much stock in what the top people were saying here consdering how this game was launched, how many plans were thrown into the mystic toilet after launch. I also use their definition of grind but for some reason they keep denying that what they put into the game is in fact a grind instead of seeing it as a progression. It’s an exceedingly lengthy process to achieve a goal, that’s a grind. That doesn’t include their leveling process but certainly to get top tier gear it is absolutely.
It’s also an absolute grind for most people to try to gather T6 materials of a particular type directly due to their DR and RNG programming and their RMTAH centric economy but I’m sure that if you spoke with one of them (who’s never played the game from day one without dev powers activated and the best gear ever) they’d all tell you that it’s perfectly balanced.
So really who are we going to believe here? Reality or something some guy is telling you that doesn’t experience that reality when they login day in and day out?
This seems like a perfect op to bring up the situation with loot just after they made changes to the number of dye drops we got in zones 30+ it’s another great example. Thousands of us were telling them there was something wrong, they didn’t listen they even went so far as to tell us all it was all in our heads, then after 9 months they discovered there was in fact an issue with loot only after it got so bad that whole chests were disappearing in dungeon runs. Remember that? But those who do will believe them when they say there’s no grind…
I agree with everything you said save one. Nerfing zerker is the only way to fix it really.
If they are going to work on the philosophy they’ve had this whole time where they want to eliminate what they would consider an unfair advantage (which is what basically happened to first heal scaling, then crowd control, then conditions, and finally reflects) then they need to follow through on what they started and nerf the effectiveness of zerker vs bosses and champs. Bosses and champs if everything were truly equal in this game in PVE would have a debuff that prevented crits from occurring when crits have hit just like the CC debuff works. It would diminish the effectiveness of Zerker above all else and it would force the community to become a more diverse group.
On top of this change, they need to fix condition damage stacking because that’s the key problem with conditions beyond the nerfs it’s suffered as a mechanic, conditions also have the added problem of being designed poorly.
There will always be grind. This discussion will continue to exist. People give different meanings to ‘grind’ and they all feel like what they do fits their definition.
If it bothers you that much, find another game (pref. not MMO).
People are already afraid for ‘mastery grind’. Lol…
Actually no there’s reasonable, and then there’s a grind. For example, STO recently did something similar to what GW2 has as far as a grind. They have specializations as well but they nerfed how you get xp in order to progress this portion of the game so much so that a single character with the three specializations available and the type of xp one can get in the game takes 3.5 years to complete. It’s similar here when it comes to ascended gear it takes entirely too long to complete these things, that’s why it’s a grind.
Games should never be designed around an exceedingly lengthy amount of time just for a single goal. That’s historically a terrible system of delay and it’s neither good for the game nor is it good for the developer. It means not enough was put in to support the game for that amount of time so the developers put in something cheap and quick to try to keep players “busy”.
Here we have a full transcript of yesterday’s presentation (thanks to the guy who wrote all that down).
Interestingly, twice Colin mentions “our no-grind philosophy for Guild Wars 2”.
It appears ArenaNet really believes their own Manifesto, when the same Colin said, “We don’t want players to grind”.
We just need to let them know that, between Ascended items and slow dungeon rewards and Legendaries and the new level-based unlocks and the new trait system unlock and etc etc, well… Their “no-grind philosophy” has been extremely grindy.
It has been it’s sortof like this philosophy of content additions when really the earliest were all temporary and they no longer exist in the game but they still consider them to be part of the content they released.
It’s amazing to me that people actually believe these things when these devs say them like they are speaking the gospel or something.
It’s definitely a grind and it’s definitely not good, let’s hope that with the expansion coming they won’t add new grinds and will realize despite what they said in this announcement that this isn’t acceptable.
I am certainly excited to finally see it yes and I am curious so I will be watching it closely but whether I buy it depends on several factors, including what items they’ll be addressing in the current progression model, the current economic model, the current state of PVE combat and a few other fixes that are necessary but that were never implemented due to time and cost.
So we’ll see it’s definitely worth following for more information.
Outside of the expectations of the new specializations, will the balance team be revisiting and repairing many aspects of PVE combat that are currently broken? (i.e. crowd control, condition stacking)
Well aside from fixing conditions (my last post on this thread prior to the PAX) I would have to say that there is a small list for me.
~ More melee options other than just a 2 handed mace (one handers with a shield would be good)
~ They’ve already hinted in their video for mobile turrets, so I’d have to ask for racial designs on turrets, kits and devices for Engineers.
~ Dye-able gear including kit, turrets, backpacks (if they become optional) and weapons.
~ Complete re-evaluation of the explosives line of weaponry to make them more modern (modern as in the design found in game already on NPCs not more modern from Real Life expectations) more like the NPCs we’ve encountered, the same for chemical warfare options.
~ Gliders that fit the class/race.
Looking at the list of features I don’t really see anything to be excited about but the trailer was great. Much better than the previous trailers/ads.
The list of features are very sparse right now because it’s way too early. And this is coming from someone who is absolutely not a fan of the silence clause and I’m definitely not one of those hypetrain people I got off of that years ago, but I have to say that if they are heading in this direction they definitely deserve my attention at the very least. I’ll be watching their updates and if I like what I see I’ll give it a go when it launches. Simple.
I am excited (rather than hyped) for the possibility of a 2 hander or more melee options for engineers and mobile turrets. That’s pressworthy imo.
and Aion had this mechanic for years, air currents and all.
Uhm those are wings, very different things. You can actually flap those there is a difference.
Someone didn’t play Aion. :P
You could barely fly in most zones. (in the beginning of the game’s life). All leveling zones were 95% gliding 5% flying (in the main quest hub town)
Gliders aren’t flying mounts because they have no way to maintain or gain altitude without relying on outside forces. :]
They’re more falling-with-style mounts.
Well… even then, the gliders are on your back.
You aren’t mounting them
They’re mounting you.
YOU’RE the falling mount!!
Oh I played Aion my friend I was there for many a year from beta, I know the mechanics and they were wings. You can flap them you can hover, they are wings. Please stop trying to make them something they are not.
and Aion had this mechanic for years, air currents and all.
Yeah and where’s Aion now?
ArcheAge is GW2’s current competitor.
I wouldn’t go that far honestly, AA has had a terrible year with all of the fiascos going on. They have a new guy who’s decided that none of that has happened so we’ll see where it goes from here.
The level gap is a long past dead concept. it really is and I’m thankful they didn’t include it. Even now with games that are old enough to have a level cap of 100 it’s an annoyance really that doesn’t do anything but delay progression. It’s one of the better decisions not to have it in this title I think especially if they want to tout that they are doing things differently than other mmo’s out there.
Leveling itself is actually an outdated concept that should be reserved for tabletop games. Seriously, it’s dead let it die completely so that new better mmos in the future after GW2 has become archaic (8 years from now I mean) will finally at long last never include leveling in their system ever again. It really needs to completely die off already honestly.
Where are all those naysayers now? I just logged in to see how wrong those people were.
Actually what I said was I’ll believe it when I see it and I stand by that statement even now. The glimpse of the two handed hammer wielding engineer with mobile turrets has me excited but I’m smart enough to know that it might not make it into the game considering the launch.
What I saw again on the trailer was what looked like an Engineer with flying turrets and a two handed mace I’m hoping that this will be true in the final product! Mobile turrets have been needed for a long long time now!
YAY account wide progression! Hmm gliders. Apparently Precursors are now going to be available with the mastery system. Brandnew legendaries I hope they will be fixing Engineers to allow for the use of said weapons even when we use the kits. uh oh specializations! Sounds good so far!
I’m laughing at this post the first thing I thought of when logging in and seeing the live stream with everyone going nuts at the hype train, they keep delaying the announcement too anyone else notice that? LOL
“But wait there’s more!…..”
I guess they are waiting for someone to get out of the bathroom before doing the announcement because now all we are seeing is the screen with the music for whatever it is.
On a related note, I always thought Anet said the game would be free to play after initial purchase, so if this is still the case, then any big update should be free (as the others have been before it).
I’d have to see the exact wording to be sure you haven’t seen something that I was unaware of, but everything I’ve seen indicates that by that they’re ruling out any form of subscription-based system, not any possibility of paid-for expansions.
Agreed. They also promised that we could play the way we wanted and that there would be no grind. We all know those turned out to be lies hype, so I wouldn’t hold them to a free whatever-PAX-turns-out-to-be.
Oh and my personal favorite, that they’d be adding to the open world events in every zone monthly to increase dramatically the activity in the world to make it seem more alive.
