Guild Wars 2

I agree that it shouldn’t stack, but honestly the alternative is worse. What I’ll do instead is wait until the immob wears off and hit you with it again.

Forget that immob is a condition and stacks duration; the real problem is that it is so easy to apply in the first place – there are an abundance of abilities that apply it (e.g. a P/D thief can perpetually re-apply immob – something I personally tend to do with that alt in zergs).

Also be careful you are not running into sigil conflicts due to the mechanics. Some of the mechanics are surprising to say the least.

A memory leak is not the same as using a lot of memory. Memory leaks mean that the software in question will continue to use more and more memory the longer it runs – having a usual/stable amount of memory use (2.2gb in your case) means that a memory leak is not present.

Chances are you have your texture settings higher than your guild members – textures are the some of the largest assets games use and can take up substantial amounts of memory. This means that your graphics settings are higher than your guild members’ – and experience on my server (never mind my guild) has shown that Guild Wars 2 becomes more unstable the higher your graphics settings are.

Lower your graphics settings. See if it improves.

zdenekborl.4816:

No im pretty 100% sure i have everyting on 100% and i accepted all chests. I would not be otherwise bothering to write ticket and forum post if it was this easy.

Take a screenshot with your world map open?

Purely in terms of keyboard I switch Q/E and A/D around (so A/D are strafe and Q/E are turn). My heal is Tab, target switching is ~. Slot abilities are ZXCV (I move my WvW key away from V so that I don’t hit it by mistake during combat). Turn off double tap to dodge and bind Left Shift to dodge.

I am considering switching Caps Lock to Right Shift and using that as my target switching instead.

BeoErgon.9107:

^^
One thing for sure : with the size of the Pale tree the roots should go for miles… They are maybe tickling some sleeping dragon ear underground.

Maybe this is why we haven’t seen Mordremoth, trying to untangle itself from PT’s roots .

In all seriousness I might actually like Scarlet a tad more if she introduced the Depths again. Imagine those jumping puzzles!

Supremelo.8437:

-There will be new unlockable skills and traits.

Yes.

Supremelo.8437:

-New legendary weapons.
-New types of legendary equipment (possibly a trinket).
-New precursor acquisition methods (I am aware that Arenanet later announced that this would be postponed)

Sort of. – ascended crafting seems like an acceptable suitable stop-gap until they can the legendary stuff in place.

Supremelo.8437:

-New map types.

In development. (another source: the live streams)

Supremelo.8437:

-It will be possible to gain legendary weapon skins in sPvP.
-Additional rewards and growth will be added to the major competitive sPvP tournaments.

Sort of, in development. – it will be possible to share skins between the two modes and sPvP will yield gold/xp. You won’t be able to acquire the weapon in sPvP though (at least officially).

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

Provide bonuses for visiting? E.g. Craftable foods that can only be used in housing that provide pretty decent bonuses (“Gold Tea: Visitor: 10% Gold Find for 8 Hours, Host: 5% Gold Find for 2 Hours” – that way the host has incentive to visit as well). You can’t consume it unless you are visiting someone or have a visitor.

Edit: Another idea, the mere act of interacting with a house will give you one of:

- Entertained (visited someone else) – +10% magic find for 2 hours
- Proud (hosted someone else) – +10% gold find for 2 hours
- Rested (spent 6 hours offline in your house) – +5% XP per character on your account for 1 hours

Additionally it could also be possible (gem store “Disco-Tron Party Contract”?) to host parties at your house (in some ways similar to the communal bonfire).

DarkWasp.7291:

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

I really enjoyed tribulation mode, so you can probably guess my opinion there. Players who do not do the Hard Mode should still have access to the same stuff that the players who do can get (except marginally lower drop rates or whatever). E.g. Hard mode dungeons could yield 20% more gold at the end and could have a 20% MF boost (while in the dungeon). Although I think hard mode is somewhat off-topic here?

DarkWasp.7291:

I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

Keep in mind GW2 was designed to be social. You may not get too much traction with ideas that exclude social interactions. In my opinion: at same time a lot of PUGs behave in an antisocial manner; so a small amount of soloable and challenging content might be nice for when you want to take a break from them.

Chrispy.5641:

you are performing miracles spending all your time writing all these summaries. Keep up the good work.

Indeed, at the very least I think that the [promised] NPC that explains previous living stories should be named Bezagron .

TurtleofPower.5641:

Fozzy the grawl’s ultimate dance party.

Sign me up!

Vol.7601:

tldr: primordus

Konig corrected me on the same assumption. tldr; not primordus.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We’ve already got Scott mentioning months ago that Scarlet’s story isn’t tied to the dragons. Toss Primordial hopes out of your head.

the interview was with TowerTalk, I think this one. Edit2: Yes, that interview and it’s near the end (naturally). He basically says they have a dragon plot for every couple years, and between them we’ll experience the more ‘personal stories’ like Kasmeer, Marjory, and Scarlet as well as things linked to dragons but not them themselves like Dragon Bash (and I would imagine, Tequatl Rising – the interview being before TR).

Specifically Tequatl (or open-world revamps like it) – an NPC you can talk to that will spawn you an overflow with the buffed Tequatl. The underflow Tequatl will have all the same mechanics except attacks/HP/loot nerfed.
5-man content – as you suggested.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think this may have something to do with magic as a whole.

There’s a secret deep below to find

We know that in 2-dimensions that the ley lines criss-cross over Tyria; we don’t know where they lie in the vertical/3rd dimension. Maybe this is a hint: they are underground.

Thump, Thump. Time to jump.

In that case the thumpers may actually be mining toward the ley lines? Upsetting something that powerful underground is likely cause some upheaval (“time to jump”).

A fire is rising you cannot contain

Maybe the thumpers have already reached the ley lines and the problems are beginning down there – a chain reaction has been set off and we cannot do anything about it.

Maybe she’s either trying to do something against the EDs by quite literally burning the magic (unlikely as Konig pointed out the dragons aren’t going to be in the story for a long time); or trying to do something about the bloodstones (considering that the bloodstone lore was recently retconned, maybe they are trying to tell a story explaining how the bloodstones are no longer important in order to “retcon the retcon”).

cesmode.4257:

Like a consumable(infinite amount but on a CD) for a speed/swiftness increase(I know most classes have switfness at their disposal..just throwing a thought out) or unlockable skins(put points into the honeycomb to reach the weapon skins you want to unlock). Holy crud, I actually like my own idea there, I will post in its own response.

Something along these lines? . The ultimate slots in my system did have combat-viable passives, but there is no reason it would have to.

Either way, I agree. The WvW rank system (as well as my system) is horizontal but vertically acquired (a hybrid, if you will). I’m not entirely sure if a hybrid approach is off topic for this thread.

lordkrall.7241:

The main issue with measuring skill by reaction time is that it automatically makes people …

Completely valid point, but there is an easier counter-argument to reaction time (and other skill-based systems): elitism.

Edit: Removed a counterargument regarding fractals. This thread is not a fractal discussion.

Gulesave.5073:

Current state of the “subclass” discussion:

Those points are a summary of only your suggestion, suggestions (regarding subclasses) I found since Bezagron’s previous summary :

• Septemptus posted about schools
• Chuggs talks about mastery and some unlock options
• Lheimroo suggested using personality traits to derive some form of subclass
• Tobias suggested using the orders as a subclass
• Nike suggests having a switchable trait line
• Nike asks about alts
• Chuggs Grand Journey
• My tweaks to Chuggs ideas

Unlock options:

• Some of the above suggestions involve unlocking as well
• Mikuchan gives 4 ideas and 5 more ideas
• Shiren suggested reusing insignia quests
• DarkWasps housing system
• timmyf’s order missions
• DiogoSilva talks about a new currency
• DiogoSilva’s mini-scenarios (Diogo goes more in-depth )
• adubb suggests making better use of dailies/monthlies
• My synergistic/free-form missions

I might suggest guesting to other servers to get your dragonite farm. I would start by guesting on well-known PvE servers (NA Blackgate, EU Desolation) and if that doesn’t work, try guesting on the server with the highest population at the time you want to farm dragonite.

NightLight.5704:

open pvp

1. Press B
2. Click “Enter World vs. World”
3. Select a map
4. You are welcome

NightLight.5704:

For the newbies in MMOs thats mean that while you and your guld mates are waiting for another guild puzzle to start other guild can come and slay you all taking your guild mission and you left without or something else nasty.Anet must give the ppl hate they need because since dawn of MMOs hate is what makes the game really great.

1. Press B
2. Click “Enter World vs. World”
3. Select “Obsidian Sanctum”
4. Find some levers
5. You are welcome

I have a Toughness/Vitality/Healing ele

The only zerker items I have ever had in my inventory were dropped by mobs

Chrispy.5641:

Even that would come with downsides though because people in Dungeons and High End PvE content wouldn’t want to invite you unless you fully unlocked all the subclasses so they know you have all the bonuses.

This is ideation, ideas with downsides are still important because they could lead to other ideas – which is why I am throwing whatever comes to mind on the thread even if I am not entirely sure that it’s a good idea (exactly how your idea gave me an idea, which in turn may give someone else an idea and so forth). The likelyhood of anything one of us suggest actually being put into the game word-for-word is remote; what we are doing here is giving Colin and his team food for thought.

A few ideas go into having missions but don’t suggest much about what those missions would be. Here are some missions concepts that explore the idea of having synergistic or freeform missions, that is, missions that play into each other. You may be given an ultimate task of e.g. “Craft a training shortbow” but that would involve multiple missions that you can do in any order you like (and in cases like the crafting, you can choose where to do them).

Chrispy.5641:

• 1 New Weapon
• 3 New Skills (Utility, Healing, Elite, etc.)
• 2 New Traits
• 1 forced trait and 1 replacement for it
• 1 Addition to Class Mechanic (if not tied to weapons)
• No Level 80 requirement, forced Specialization, pigeonholing, shoehorning, or anything else.

I really like your idea, I have tweaked it a bit (bolded ones). Your sniper archetype got me thinking; if I were to switch my Ranger/Ranger to the Ranger/Sniper archetype it makes sense that I would always have Eagle Eye. So basically the act of switching to Ranger/Sniper would:

1. Remove Eagle Eye from my traits options and place it at the top of the traits window as a permanent/forced trait. Snipers will always have the range/damage bonus.
2. The trait that used to be Eagle Eye would be replaced with something that would make sense to a sniper (e.g. “X: Steady Shot – Attacking from out of combat does 50% more damage”) that the player can choose (if they choose to) in its stead.

The Ranger/Tamer (or whatever) would be forced into Master’s Bond and have some other appropriate trait choice for II instead.

Ayrilana.1396:

#8/9 doesn’t work at higher levels

There’s a better way than #11/12/13

Elaborate please?

Sarahfull.4930:

O///O thanks,

If your on a Na server we should fractal sometime!
Hehe

Unfortunately EU, but hey /salute to a fellow masochist .

Sarahfull.4930:

Invis is what works for me and my friends

You are using your brain to accomplish it. In terms of game design: mission accomplished. The other tactic is to have 4/5 on VOIP and synchronise your push. Most of the bombs will go off; hence the rinse and repeat, even if only one goes off you have still made progress.

J Eberle.9312:

What is the highest fractal level you have done dredge fractal on?

38-ish pre-Fractured (as I said, it’s been a while) – at the time ~15 AR. It’s far cry from 60 and I might have have a slightly different opinion at that level, but clearing is probably something I wouldn’t change my mind on.

Ropechef.6192:

…

Thanks mate. I really feel that this is where the fun is at. If all of us didn’t have WoW crap poisoning our mentality we would all see it as such.

J Eberle.9312:

What do you even mean by minmax. Because pretty sure if you spec to be efficient you are going to have a better experience.

You are assuming everyone else in the party is specced correctly. I am referring to LFG here (to be completely honest though, I am WvW specced).

What I mean by minmax is saving quite literally saving theoretically 2 minutes by [previously] using a glitch portal spot to skip the doors, or having one person going to the first pad and practically dying there alone, or basically I really don’t know how many other stupid tactics I have come across in the dungeon (using 2 lava spots on the last boss?) that nearly always end up making things take longer with more armour damage.

I am one that really enjoyed the original AC glitches (it’s how I levelled my first char up). I am extremely familiar with tactics designed to shorten the length of a dungeon. What I am saying is that in dredge they don’t really pay off that well – it’s much more fun and [quite literally due to drops] more rewarding to just do the kitten thing properly. Today I have come to admire that. Given all the patches ANet have done to dredge I would be really surprised to learn a cheap tactic that actually works. Are we supposed to be standing in one spot spamming abilities or are we supposed to be having a good fight?

Keep in mind I never had a problem finishing it, I am just saying, holy crap, doing it correctly is actually good fun and far less annoying/frustrating.

Stooperdale.3560:

- players don’t enjoy doing it
- closing one loophole just drives players to find more
- players will waste any amount of time on jumps and leaps than killing more dredge
- bug fixes are made to adhere to the design rather than creating content players enjoy

I can’t refute all your points. Honestly man, I felt the same as you: “stupid kitten dredge fractal.” Change your attitude toward it. Don’t try and get it done in 2 minutes flat (an exaggeration). Do it properly. Really, just try it once. Stop trying to find loopholes; let other players find them and waste their time. Stop minmaxing everything.

Honestly, it’s been a while since I did fractals and knowing what I knew I was all for genuine until the boss at the vehicle – at the point I recommended that we jump on the pipe (knowing the previous minmax crap). Unfortunately it had been patched. You know what? We had FUN. We had fun killing the boss; we didn’t wipe – we reacted (like players are supposed to be able to).

Try it before you trash it. Try the dungeon genuinely at least once.

J Eberle.9312:

What in the world…

No. No this isn’t real. It’s a trap I know it is.

Think about it. It really isn’t a trap. As I said we all hate the dredge, but really, in terms of fun, think about it.

Get your guildies to play it with you probably and come back with [a guaranteed different] opinion. If you don’t minmax it’s actually by absolutely far the easiest dungeon.

This is by far, in terms of playing the game correctly, one of the biggest successes of ANet’s game designers. We have very few min-max options (or none?) in order to complete it. No silly stacking in a corner or on the boss cheap brainless tactics – just proper gameplay. From my experience the following works the best (TLDR; play it properly):

1. Clear all the most on the way to the ramp. Clear? Yep, you heard me right.
2. Have 3 go to the first pad and fight the mobs while 2 get to the next door.
3. Once the 2 get in, get 2 of the 3 to head to that area to help out.
4. Have the final remaining person wait on the door (everyone waits for him/her to get there).
5. Head up to the next pad and open the door for the next remaining person.
6. Move back down to the door in order to not aggro the next mobs that spawn. Clear the ones that follow.
7. Have everyone stack on the door to the control panel room and have one person go to the panel to open it (only draw aggro when everyone is stacked on the door).
8. Get into the room and kill mobs until the pad person is ready at the door and then quickly let them in (stand on both pads). Getting off the pads while they acclimatise is fine.
9. Hey! Now you have 5 people in the control panel room! Wow! So DPS! Much easy! Kill crap and activate the pads.
10. Wipe the mobs at the top of the ramps and to the right near the bomb area.
11. Rush in, place bombs and GTFO as quickly as possible (back to the ramps).
12. Go back in and pull groups of mobs in until you have approximately the stairs cleared.
13. Rinse and repeat until the door is down.
14. Clear.
15. In the next room go to near where the pipe used to be (using the same path).
16. Wipe the ads then for the most part only the boss will be left (only a few ads will rush in which are kitten to deal with).
17. Once the boss is dead wait at the back of the vehicle and clear the mobs.
18. Clear all the ice elementals.
19. Use all 4 spots in the boss room. You have a high enough IQ to do that, I promise.

In other words, exactly the way it was designed to be played. I have played it countless times with minmax types and have had the party wipe just as many. Doing it properly is probably the fastest way to do it with the least amount of armor damage. Doing it properly meant we didn’t wipe once – nor did I really have to concentrate on the fights.

Well done ANet, I know we all kitten about the Dredge fractal; but it really comes across as a proper game. If people did it properly they would have less of a problem with it. No stupid tactics like stacking in a corner (hey hey, AC) or stacking on the boss (hey hey, CoF).

Make more dungeons like Dredge Fractal. Stacking in PvE is pathetic.

Make less dungeons like TA new path. Being unable to play with PUGs is pathetic.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

This shows that both devices to be sent out deal with time.

I completely forgot about the medium you freaking genius! I’m going to have to think about that for a bit.

Edit: Thanks Infamous, that is some food for thought.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

And warm her hands over Kryta’s flames!

That may have originally have been premature and subtle reference to Primordus, or, the flames in the new one could refer to Kryta instead.

I think the secret hidden in the mists is Abbadon’s Mouth and their zergs .

Edit 2:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m not going to get involved in the speculation, but for you intrepid souls who are, one more hint: the video in ANet’s story so far news post ends on a teaser shot: two inactive asura gates, one clearly damaged, against a smoky night sky, with a narration saying the worst is yet to come. Can’t make any guarantees, but it looks to me like the LA gate hub.

They look too close (although that might be artistic license to bring across a point). The ones in Coriolis Plaza look close enough and could fit the bill (plus they have been annoying me as non-functional gates).

Re: http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/arenanet.html

So my interpretation of the inscription:

Thump, Thump. Time to jump.

No idea. A guildie points out the Do Not Touch things are thumpers.

Wipe all resistance from your mind

Again, I am clueless. A guildie says “resistance against Scarlet, maybe?”

There’s a secret deep below to find

Primordus is coming!

Alternatively something interesting happening underground that isn’t Primordus involving the ley lines and jumping puzzles. This is equally as good.

If you’d only seen the things I’ve seen

Scarlet? In reference to her hallucination it means we are all more ignorant than her.

You’d wake up screaming from The Dream

In other words are we finally going to see the end of stories with Sylvari as the most important race bar none? I hope.

This next part will sting, but it brings me joy

We are likely going to get wiped by the upcoming content. I guess we can expect more Tequatl-level content (bring it on!).

Sometimes to change you must destroy

If this is at all meta it means that some of the bad stories this year will be retconned. Another theory could be Scarlet is a communist (destroying to change is one of the concepts of communism).

Maybe Scarlet is the good guy in some way. I do remember thinking maybe she was somehow a “sheep in wolf’s skin”, I may have posted about it.

A fire is rising you cannot contain

Yeah, Primordus confirmed.

Tyria will burn, while I remain.

100% Primordus. Scarlet has something that is going to protect her from the problems he presents and will likely be laughing in our face about it?

Overall I am pretty excited.

Howell Qagan.9752:

It could work somewhat similar to how the Queen’s Gauntlet did?

In a more recent post he asked for a way that doesn’t lead to the current “press 1; get loot” outcome. I probably agree with you that the Queen’s Gauntlet was definitely a serious step in the correct direction but it did quickly devolve into a mindless “follow commander; press 1; get loot” scenario – I think Colin is looking for something more (in that regard even my latest post is a little crappy).

I like the idea of the various forms of missions, but it worries me that that the concept will devolve into the current personal story issue – by my 6th alt I can promise you that the personal story is an absolute chore and bore (all my alts are now at the pale tree vision and no further). ANet would need an incredible amount of variety in order to keep the missions interesting.

It somehow needs the best of both worlds, queens gauntlet and personal story (I have a mediocre idea along those lines too). Creating something fun, repeatable but not zergable is challenging to say the least.

My opinion, you know .

Malchior.5042:

• Something like… “50% bonus xp for completing events in Fireheart Rise.” – 60 min
• “50% bonus Karma from events in Mount Maelstrom.” – 60 min
• The Call to War! “50% bonus WvW experience!” – 60 min

A bit like “Zone Alerts” (as far as I remember, haven’t played the game for a while) in Planetside 2? Brilliant idea. Those really do get people active in Planetside (even though the rewards aren’t even nearly as lucrative as 50%).

It could also fit in quite nicely with the idea I had of another passives system. Instead of having to create an entirely new map you could have daily events in each map that grant you the rank points.

You could do something with the ley lines . This is a bit difficult to explain in text, but here we go:

• Participating in zone alerts gets you some form of rank XP similar to WXP. In the same way you would get ranks every say 5000 points. The ranks are account-wide (but can be selected per character) similar to the new WXP system.
• There is a passive skill tree that follows the shape of the ley lines. You would need to have a “completed path” to a slot in order to unlock it (similar to the Path of Exile skill tree – you need to join the dots). Unlocking a slot consumes, say, [distance in slots to the central slot] ^ 2 ranks.
• Each slot in the skill tree has a options of multiple passive abilities. Each of the abilities takes a fixed amount of ranks to unlock. The passive abilities can be freely switched outside of combat.
• Slots closer to Wayfarer would be mediocre Karma/XP/MF/GF bonuses, while slots nearer the dragons would have combat bonuses (as well as extremely powerful Karma/XP/MF/GF bonuses), the combat bonuses could be as useful as the current sigil effects.
• Each map would have a few slots on the ley lines.
• Ranks are map specific; meaning that once I had unlocked a path to Queensdale I would need to participate in the “zone alerts” on that map in order be able to progress through it (progress = unlock the slots or purchase abilities). In order to draw players back to map (in the event that it goes dead) you could add branches off the main ley lines and add additional slots – allowing you to infinitely give us more horizontal progression options as you decide to release them.
• There would be no way to tell how far another player is on the map.
• These passives would not carry over to WvW – the players would likely crucify you if you did that.

So as a user story :

1. I open the game after the update and find that there is a new button at the top of the screen “Lines of Power”.
2. I click it and see a map of lines with slots placed on the lines (in the shape of the ley lines). The middle slot is already unlocked, so I click on it.
3. There is already a passive ready to select for that slot (with a range of locked abilities) – “5% additional power points”, so I select it.
4. I am currently on Queensdale and a Lines of Power event starts. The game warns me that I wont receive any power from the map because I don’t have a line connecting to it.
5. I waypoint to wayfarer and participate in the event on that map.
6. After a few events I have earned enough ranks to unlock the next ability on the unlocked slot, something like “5% additional magic find”. I unlock it.
7. Eventually I earn 2 ranks and decide to unlock a slot that leads me toward Hirathi Hinterlands.
8. The final slot to get to Hirathi Hinterlands costs me 4 ranks, I unlock it and can start earning Hirathi Hinterlands-specific power points (as I have the final slot before the map unlocked).
9. The first slot in in Hirathi Hinterlands costs me 8 ranks.
10. I decide to try and unlock another map so I start unlocking slots towards Frostgorge Sound.
11. The first slot toward that map in Wayfarer, once again, only costs me 2 ranks.
12. I find out that there are new challenges on the map, which once completed give a once-off rank bonus (in some cases more than one rank). I start completing them on different maps and find that they range from jumping puzzles to puzzles and combat challenges. I’m not a very good player but do eventually complete them after a few attempts.
13. I find that I am really enjoying the challenges and attempt to enter ones on a map that I have no connection to – the gates leading to them are deactivated.
14. I decide to roam in WvW with the intent of using my unfair advantage. I open the “Lines of Power” panel and notice that it is completely disabled indicating that the power does not extend into the mists.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

Wow good question. If I would have to combine everything you guys have ever done into one idea:

• WvW ranks – additional variability on builds. What we are really after is more switches to flip, not more positions for each switch – if you get the analogy. WvW ranks gives this to the WvWers (sadly PvErs are left out in the cold).
• Queens Gauntlet and Nightmare Tower – effectively open-world dungeons. You would have to be super careful with zerging requirements (which both needed) but the general concept of them was awesome – diamonds in the rough.
• Dynamic Events – look at the Queensdale champ farm, this is a starting area that is frequented by level 80s, it’s very easy champ bags. This is one aspect that was a mistake of Fractals in my honest opinion, that type of progression is way “too vertical.”

So here’s an idea, bring back The Hall of Heroes [or some more recent lore equivalent] and have it effectively a WvW arena against NPCs (which is probably completely impractical to do at this stage, but hey, ideation). Ranks in that arena (ascending?) could be spent on permanent passive bonuses for PvE (MF/GF/Karma) or once-off bonuses (Gold/Skins/Laurels and hey, hey, skills). Heck, maybe even allow a guild to “level up” in that area and earn traits to spend on their guild (that’s not to say it should be exclusively a guild thing like guild missions are).

Additional “useful” bonuses (ones that affect damage output etc.) are really tricky territory. Look at how the community has already abused achievement points as a barrier of entry to certain dungeons. At the same time I did indicate that more switches would be nice in terms of being able to have more unique builds. Maybe you could periodically release new soloable dungeons in that realm that will unlock a passive “useful” boost slot (each one having a few options that we can freely switch outside of combat?).

So there you have it, an open-world dungeon where we can earn ranks to spend on MF/GF/Karma/Gold/Skills/Skins/etc. with mini solo dungeons where we can earn new passive slots above-and-beyond our traits (and you can periodically release more of these if you want to further horizontal progression).

Ideas, impractical ones, but there you go .

Edit:

I just spotted your “pressing 1” and the Queens Gauntlet/Nightmare Tower are somewhat conducive to that type of gameplay. One idea could be have low-hanging fruit (champions and mobs) that yield extremely low rank XP (but are extremely reliable, maybe even intentionally plan out a train route for the players). Then have dynamic events that require a certain amount of players (activate then group up like breakouts in WvW) that are real challenges – stuff like a Skritt burglar on steroids (and maybe I will finally get my jackalope achievement ).

In regards to the mini solo instances you would have different forms of mastery. For example combat mastery would involve killing some stuff (hurrah), or mobility mastery some jumping puzzles. They would be challenging, but not the type of stuff that some players could never finish.

Cornellious.1435:

It feels like GW2 is in a race, and 10 meters from the finish line it sat down and started building sand castles. Some of the sand castles are pretty impressive, but the finish line is right there and the other racers are catching up. You can build more sand castles later.

Dat analogy… I am going to steal it.

Honestly PvE has completely run dry for me. I totally get what you mean by “uh, I guess we could run a dungeon,” and I haven’t even run all of them; it’s just sterile right now – all I know is there will be another Subject Alpha or Slick and Spark that we will ultimately defeat not with skill but some silly mechanic (most likely stacking on the boss or in a corner) that we googled.

At least in WvW (rather at the very least Aurora Glade WvW) skill becomes important, builds other than full zerker are viable (my biggest gold sink is theory crafting my build which is completely pointless in PvE).

The only time I spend in PvE these days is the Queensdale champion farm if/while I am queued for WvW; not because it’s particularly entertaining, but because I don’t want to be kicked from the WvW queue for being AFK. It’s crazy that the only part of the game that is now fun is one that very few employees at ANet care about (don’t get me wrong, I am a massive fan of Devon and all his efforts).

It’s a big pity, because ANet hit us with this massive amount of innovation and fun when they launched the game – and then as you said, they started building sand castles (most likely because we lashed back at them every time they released something). The living story is cool and marginally innovative (and to be honest the only episodic release that has ever worked to any degree); but it’s a far cry from what they did with eliminating backtracking, fixing questing, dynamic events and freeing us from the trinity.

Basically, I feel you OP. Maybe what comes out of this CDI will save us all from having to make do with other substandard MMOs – because GW2 at launch taught me to expect more.

I was actually wondering how much would break and how much would be fixed by having 80 trait points instead (levels 71-80 grant you two trait points per level). Without thinking about it too much:

• For obvious reasons the build diversity would be broadened quite substantially.
• Certain classes (Warrior and especially Thief) would become ridiculously powerful – this could obviously be re-balanced (this would likely be tricky, expensive and most definitely completely broken for the first few iterations).
• Other classes (Elementalists and most significantly Rangers) would have quite a few of their concerns addressed: although definitely not all of them.
• Having levelled 6 characters to 80 I can definitely say that 70 – 80 is actually quite boring (where the rest is quite enjoyable). Being rewarded with two traits per level might make this a tad more exciting.

I haven’t though about how it would break/fix things too much – just throwing it out there.

Please don’t. Abbadons Mouth drop so many loot bags against such inferior numbers. These casual zergers need to be encouraged, it’s the only lucrative farm we have left in the game now .

Khallis.5708:

make Crowd control more prominent, get rid of the down state in WvW and get rid of the limit on amount of people an AOE skill can hit.

All of these ideas would be an excellent way to buff the zergs.

Count your blessings.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

That +5 Power will surely make a difference.

Minmax is where it is at man!

I personally have no issues with it either – its another levelling system I can progress through after hitting level 80.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

PvE content will continue to make appearances in WvW. Learn to accept it and take advantage of it. Not to say I approve of it – it doesn’t belong in WvW and is a slap in the face.

Vayne.8563:

Would that make you like her more?

Technically yes, “more” is a relative term. I still wouldn’t appreciate her sticking around and ruining everything good about this game.

The only way to make us like her more is if she inadvertently deleted her existence somehow. Possibly even take the rest of the Mary Sue race with her.

Xae Isareth.1364:

This fractal has been discussed to death on the lore forums. The short of it is that, according to lore, the mists (and therefore fractals) don’t necessarily have anything to do with the past, reality or the future.

http://guildmag.com/gmblitz-lore-interview-with-jeff-grubb/ (emphasis mine)

Jeff Grub

The Mists are the building blocks of reality, the proto-reality that exists between the worlds. It is where we find afterlifes and the homes of the various gods and other powerful entities. The Mists also resonate from the worlds around them, such that they form bits of their own reality – islands of existence that reflect the histories of their worlds.

The mists can be real (the Charr fractal), they can be non-real (the Underworld) and they can be both at the same time (“tainted” version of some reality; possibly also the Charr fractal). They don’t necessarily have to be reflections of our own Tyrian reality (if they are reflections).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’ve never been able to make sense of this fractal.

It is a strange one. The krait are supposed to deal silly amounts of damage because that specific sequence is about evasion (and loads of luck). What also works is, as usual, sticking together – because you are all together you can just take turns using ability 5 when someone gets killed.

Also remember, only one person needs to make it.

Edit: Oh, and if you are having problems, get naked before going in (that includes your backpiece and aquabreather!) – that way you avoid the armor damage if you repeatedly fail.

Agony is just another levelling system.

You could say all of these exact arguments about the defense attribute on armor. A level 2 character venturing into a level 80 zone simply won’t have the defense (or vitality stat) to deal with the mobs that are there. In exactly the same way (with no reservations) AR prevents you from going into a level area which you have not progressed to.

It has absolutely and entirely nothing to do with being a silly character killing mechanic – if you have the correct level (which is called “agony resistance” in this case) agony does virtually no damage to you and you do not need to dodge it; or care that you are unable to dodge it.

It’s additional type of levelling for players who want to progress past 80 levels (the concept of levels above your level cap is called “end-game”). Granted, it’s a very strange levelling system (with the crafting etc.).

Hsin.5294:

i am not farmer, seriously. the mechanic of trading post is where my money is generated.

I personally find working the TP incredibly boring, but I am not running around saying that it should be removed from the game and is dumb because I get that some people (like you) enjoy that sort of thing.

Hsin.5294:

the agony’s damage can still exist but i want it to represented in another form.
such as fire ball from sky, traps that placed by boss..

Apart from Jade Maw (and, er, I guess the other new bonus bosses) ALL agony WITHOUT exception can be dodged. If you want to avoid the bonus bosses play odd-numbered fractal levels.

• “Fire ball from sky” – lava shaman’s agony attack is fire arrows. Close enough.
• “Traps that placed by boss” – the first cliffside (“Collosus fractal”) boss is a necromancer and places marks. Close enough.

Agony resist is not a “silly mechanic that reduces health,” it’s a progression system. Just like a level 2 character has no place in a level 80 zone, a 2AR character has no place in a level 30 fractal. When you have enough AR, agony does virtually no damage to you (1% of your HP pool if you have at least the “correct” amount of AR).

klesk.1790:

How many players play level 30~50 fractals? probably 0.0005% of all gw2 community.

When will Anet realize ppl dont like fractals…….

Fractals are well designed high-end content – high end content is not for everyone; is another reason why not many players do it (I am not sure where you get those statistics from though). Some players prefer casual content and the fractals are so well designed so that even these people can get decent rewards from 10 – 28.

If you don’t like them, don’t do them. There are vast amounts of other things to do in the game. The tower is still there; nothing is stopping you from ignoring the fractals.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Also, fractals are ….. strange. Look at the collosus fractal. You weren’t there when it actually happened so in reality, what happened to that collosus? You’re playing around with memories in the Mist, creating alternate versions of history. What’s going to come out of that?

This fractal has been discussed to death on the lore forums. The short of it is that, according to lore, the mists (and therefore fractals) don’t necessarily have anything to do with the past, reality or the future. Some things exist only within the mists (a good example here is the collosus – for what we know they have never existed in reality). The way I like to look at the mists is that they are like a soup of metaphors, if you want to figure out how the collosus relates to Tyrian reality figure out what is represents – not what it looks like.

This also means that the events we see in Thaumanova may have no bearing on what actually happened in our reality – or they might (e.g. the Charr fractal is probably historical reality); or they could be a representation or metaphor of it.

Edit:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The question is how did Dessa know that she’s not real? No one from the other fractals thought anything different, so…..what is she exactly? How did a memory become self-aware?

I made the similar conjecture a while back and was corrected. Turns out she really is from our reality.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

2. Dessa is from the past, we know that. She never heard of Sylvari and Lion’s Arch wasn’t as respected back then (spoiler for SoS: probably because Marriner stole Rata Sum’s money). The Grand High Sovereign is from the future. Dessa could still possibly be from the same timeline, but since she was already in the mist before the infinity ball is presumably invented, that doesn’t even matter. (also depends on when the timeline splits)

And someone indicated she had memories of someone in LA – I can’t find the post though.

PVStar.3658:

So I’m pretty thankful they let Scarlet ruin the Reactor instead.

So after applauding the vastly improved situation in WvW I have to admit that things have gotten marginally worse in PvE. I’ll hit a 30 second “nothing happens lag spike” every hour or so (definitely GW2 as TS and everything else continues to behave).

It’s still far better than what it used to be.

sirjosh.9561:

asleep on my home world Gandara (Europe).

Gandara has a semi-decent night presence; I am surprised you are having this problem. Try being a little social in map chat while in WvW and indicate you would like to join a night-capping guild.

There are multiple ways that the servers make the most out of the limited amount of players during the night (at least in the silver league, I hear gold doesn’t have this problem) – but it usually boils down to a single large zerg jumping between maps doing as much damage as possible (or defending where needed); you may just be on the wrong map. Watch the WvW map and see if you have a group flipping positions to your color, move to that map and introduce yourself.

Or you could move to a gold league server; but you will have queues there and zergy zergs.

Not sure if serious or if trolling. Pay to win a fashion contest?

The very definition of the opposite of P2W is cosmetics – at least in the F2P model.

Now excuse my while I go and buy a flamekissed armor skin and go use my unfair advantage against Tequatl, people in PvP and solo a Abbandon’s zerg – with my level 2 alt longbow bear ranger.