Guild Wars 2

I agree with many of your concerns. The game is headed into very dark territory, similar to what was seen with Wild Star, and the clueless developers have a chance of alienating their core audience.

Consider this: Guild Wars 2, the game that became popular because of its minimal time investment requirement to participate in content, has a “new to max” grind that surpasses much of the traditional MMO competition, such as FFXIV. For a fresh 80 on a new account to acquire the gear required in raids (full ascended for any serious group) the grind is quite severe, and very much against the spirit of GW2.

The difficulty of raids is not the issue, but the price of entry, especially since ANet stands to make a huge profit from time-strapped customers, is.

How and when did this reversal occur? The scheming to force Gem sales is almost Nexon-esque.

Many groups who are clearing Gorseval are running it on an Ele because it’s a 3 second daze on a shorter cooldown than his break bar that is instant, so it won’t interrupt channels.

You didn’t think it was BiS for every class now, did you? “But Rev staff 5!” Lordy.

Either give it to everyone or disable it. Racial abilities should not be best in slot for raid encounters. Talk about an oversight.

You tried to give Elementalists something interesting, you really did. Unfortunately, the profession ended up with an uninspired, unpopular, and ultimately flawed Elite specialization that, despite hugely negative feedback and endless suggestions from players, was shipped without thoughtful modifications.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Since most people already have ascended, I seriously doubt there will be much in the way of exclusion. lol

Do you have a source for this claim? Are you referring to any piece of ascended gear, or full ascended? Fabricated statements, ending with a “lol” give the impression that you’re not contributing in good faith.

Obtena.7952:

If people aren’t using or are misinterpreting the definition of grind Anet uses to define the concept of their game, then what those people say isn’t really relevant.

Whoa there, that’s one big, ugly logical fallacy my friend. Please try to debate in a respectful manner, without dismissive rhetoric.

Wiella.8567:

@Etybagig Sad to hear about your bad experience there

Every time I see someone waiting for Ellen Kiel to die (to get the exploit running) or even spamming chat “LET HER DIE!!” I just charge ahead to save her and screw it up. Seriously, start playing – not exploiting the game. Luckily I play mostly with friends who support my point of view so we can actually force people to play instead of exploiting stuff and not get kicked for that.

Probably you need to join a guild to have folks with you on those runs as well – you will be amazed how aggressive random people start playing rabbits when they see 3 guildies in the same group. Suddenly they are fine with not skipping some trash and doing fractals/dungeons your way.

Talking about the Mai Trin fight itself – it actually has an easy pattern that can be remembered over 4-5 tries/kills. All you need is to watch over teleport and whirl attacks. Whirl can only be dodged, teleport can only be blocked – both can be blocked by any immune. Of course to solo her on any given class it will take more training, but for 5-man group it is more than enough to know.

Also you need is to take your survival skills (and traits/gear if skills aren’t enough) to get through cannon phases and avoid Mai Trin attacks – every single class in game has plenty available in one or another form.

If you are trying to do this encounter in full zerk with max damage output utilities – don’t blame the encounter that you die a lot. Don’t blame the encounter that you have to use an exploit to at least kill the boss – you just completely fail at understanding what is more important for this fight. And it is certainly not a “lightning storm”, “banner of discipline” or “feel my wraith”. If you take “mist form”, “endure pain” or “renewed focus” instead you will most probably be safe on the cannon phase, even if you hit a circle or two. Take a few more and you are bullet-proof. Add a knight set and you are totally unkillable there.

What? Don’t like non-zerk gear? Does it really matter that much on this fight if you spend an additional minute but will avoid a wipe and 10 minutes more for the next try? It is completely reasonable if you are not 100% sure your group can beat the boss in full zerk.

And yes, I’ve heard people having issues with circles, but never seen it myself on any PC I had, even slow ones. I tend to believe those people so I think there actually is a bug, even though I clearly see them failing at dodging or running away from circles – it is not their fault if those actually are not rendered on the screen for them or misplaced.

But this is just a minor bug that happens for a few people I know and only on Mai Trin encounter. And I never had more than two people saying they have this glitch on Mai Trin at once. Also people tend to fake their fails under a curtain of game bugs. And not just on this specific encounter. I am pretty sure similar “ghost bugs” will appear in raids and new fractals as well and people will just blame the game instead of actually trying to play better. This is what actually annoying.

That’s a lot of self-righteous text for someone who openly claims to actively ruin runs for people looking to do the fight the more accepted way.

Yikes, there are a lot of ignorant statements in this thread. I’m hoping that Karl doesn’t take suggestions from people who don’t understand the meta across all three major game modes.

XPilo.5862:

They do for me, I buyed this game mostly for the dungeons.

Oh and thank you for your support! But it’ll be another $50 if you want to keep enjoying the game. Please understand.

blazerzen.5294:

Did anyone think this through?

I have almost 4000 hours of playtime (no afk) in about a year and a half. I’ve played this same content A LOT. I have 100% map completion on multiple characters and most of achievements completed.

I do not enjoy PvP or WvW. So after you’re done with all of PvE content for so many times it becomes stale, repetetive and boring (attack, defend, escort. all over again, hundrets of times). I do not see how HoT will be any different. From what we’ve seen, WHOLE MAPS are just a massive attack and defend over and over again.

So in the end I’ve came down to mindlessly farm Cursed Shore, Frostgorge Sound, Silverwastes, daily dungeons and fractals and I have really enjoyed dungeons and to some extent fractals(too easy, too few and too short.) despite their pathetic rewards, because atleast it isn’t just mindless afkspam1 and now you’re taking away even this little reward we got away from us? I really enjoy this game but there isn’t much to do once you’ve completed all of the open world content so many times.

Dungeons have kept me entertained for many hours every day, what will I do now?

So did anyone think this through? What will we do AFTER we’ve “explored” the same repetative HoT content dozens or hundrets of times? Because one raid per week won’t cut it.

In this new age of MMOs, when the cash shop has replaced monthly subscriptions, you should assume that matters of the in-game economy, gold sales, etc. should take priority over player content.

Incentivizing HoT-exclusive content and encouraging gem purchases to acquire gold (as a means of circumventing increased grind requirements) are necessary measures to keep this product profitable.

Dungeons don’t sell for $50.

Just to clarify, John, the goal is to make people grind more? Because that’s the net effect here. Take away reliable sources of income and replace them with open world grind.

Here’s the system, simplified:
- remove sources of liquid reward from the game, because there’s no gold sink mechanic (TP sucks up gold)
- drive up demand for materials by “incentivizing” (forcing) acquisition of more expensive equipment in order to complete the newly focused PvE content (ie ascended gear for raids and fractals)
- emphasize content behind paywalls (HoT) by heavily discouraging existing forms of income

The economic side of things definitely fits the new grind philosophy of GW2. From a gameplay perspective, the Mastery system is built to force grind to reduce the rate of content consumption. How does that work?
- only 4 maps, if players can access the content immediately they will blow through the entire expansion in less than a month
- push a lock-out system that requires heavy grind to move to new parts of each map
- level cap remains fixed at 80, but access to the new zones is effectively blocked to people who do not grind out the “new” levels in HoT

Grind is the future for everything in this game.

So who’s ready to grind out their ascended armor to infuse it? It’s fairly obvious that one of the ways they’re going to allow for higher AR to bring the scale cap to 100 is by adding agony infusion slots to armor. Expect the infusion process to be similar to that for rings and backpieces.

Is anyone excited that they’ll finally be able to experience the challenging content of more grind and gold sinks in HoT? If you’re hurting for upgrade materials to infuse your armor, or simply want to bypass it by stuffing +14s and such in your rings, you can always buy gems!

Jerus.4350:

As i said in the other thread, IMO if you want to make a “nerf Engi” post, pull off the full condi rotation in a video.

But it’s too hard for most people, that means it’s balanced!

I agree with the overall theme of your post, ie that the Tempest is fundamentally flawed and needs a significant overhaul before release.

Do we expect Karl to do anything but tune numbers at this point? Absolutely not. I predict that he’ll improve some of the cooldowns and damage values, move a few traits around, but the flaws will remain untouched.

It’s a shame that someone more experienced with the Elementalist class was not in charge of its Elite Specialization. He’s not a bad developer, he just doesn’t understand the subtleties of the class particularly well, as demonstrated by past comments he’s made on Twitch, various design decisions with the Tempest, and lack of certain minimum experience metrics in-game.

The real joke is that nobody is calling for an Engineer nerf, even though we’re going to see 3-4 of them in a 10 man raid. They have the highest PvE DPS (yes, highest, Sinister Engineer beats out Elementalist), yet we don’t have developers dropping microphones telling us that they’re overtuned and need to be adjusted. Why? Because people don’t cry on the forums about them non-stop.

What we have here is proof that a) ANet takes forum balance crying too seriously, and b) the nerfs to the classes frequently whined about (Thief, Elementalist) over the years are now going to nudge them out of the meta for new content.

Eponet.4829:

Celestial elementalist is a jack of all trades. But it’s important to realise that you need to play to all your strengths in order for it to work.

With two castings of cleansing wave through Water dagger 5 and evasive arcana, they contribute somewhat to group healing and condition management.

It’s not difficult to maintain 10-20 stacks of might and permanent fury using your fire fields, 3 blast finisher weapon skills, and the blast finisher on earth attunement evasive arcana.

Dagger elementalists have high mobility, allowing them to disengage fights, as well as quickly reach objectives if things like having to reach distant switches mid fight are ever incorporated as mechanics.

Due to the design of their kit and stat selection, elementalists deal significant amounts of both direct and condition damage when stacked with might.

Celestial D/D in PvE does really, really poor damage.

Kodiak.3281:

From my previous raid experience in other games things usually come down to roles. For example Scrapper Engie filling a “Bruiser Utility” style role where he’s blasting Water Fields and the like. Is that something Elementalist can do? Is that something Tempest can do? That’s generally how it works. You need X roles filled and it’s up to players to fill those slots with various classes.

Sadly, ANet overlooked many things about the classes in designing the raid mechanics thus far. Elementalist damage is relatively weak in PvE against moving targets, and the class has no real means of compensating with alternative builds to deal with mobile bosses.

I’m wondering how much thought Crystal put into the consequences of the fight designs.

Purple Miku.7032:

That said, this is just speculation. Eles have been having everything taken away from them in the past year with nothing given to them, they’re in kind of a slump tbh. They’re not a terrible class, they never will be, but they aren’t nearly as valuable anymore.

Tempest was the one chance to give something back to the class; to offer something new and to break the poor design choices of the base class. Unfortunately, with Karl at the helm, we were guaranteed a stillborn elite specialization. Three beta weekends have passed and the fundamental, nonsensical flaws of Tempest remain untouched.

Is this post premature? Absolutely. However, given that the point of a beta test is to provide feedback on the available content, I am seriously concerned about Profession demands in the current raid, based on group comps for guilds that have cleared it.

So far, there is heavy demand for Engineer (4 Engies in the first clear group), Revenant (Herald), Warrior (base), Ranger (Druid), Mesmer (Chronomancer), Necromancer (Reaper). None of the groups who have cleared the raid thus far have included a Thief or an Elementalist. In fact, the fight seems to discourage bringing either Profession.

Raid mechanics that exclude an entire class are a terrible idea, ANet.

…obligatory inb4 “QQ Eles had their time to rule, I’m glad they’re gone” salt from the peanut gallery.

Giroro.4879:

I’m liking the thought of the change in meta. If there was a better way of controlling aggro then it might flow a little better, but a need for one or two dedicated healers is a good change in my opinion.

The issue isn’t the need for healers per se, it’s how they force that need. The combat system wasn’t designed with dedicated healers in mind, but I hope they get a bit more creative than constant raid-wide damage.

Making enemies constantly pulse damage in order to force groups to bring more dedicated healing is not an interesting, fun, or challenging mechanic. It’s a cheap way of forcing certain builds and squad compositions in order to appease players who dislike the current metagame.

You can do better, ANet.

So what I’m reading from the OP is, “I really wish I was playing WoW. I really like WoW.”

PopeUrban.2578:

Going above and beyond for omni infusions is a bit of a grind, but the payoff is minimal to the point I don’t even notice it (after swapping my offensive slots for omni toughness)

Compared to other purchases that increase your attributes in the game, gold per stat point Omni infusions are orders of magnitude less efficient, and on top of that the net gain for adding a full set of them vs. cheaper infusions is <0.1% to your overall DPS. Ouch.

Cheby Shev.4671:

I recently returned to this game after a year and a half break. When I last played, Ascended armor had just been released, but the ferocity change was incoming and many people were advocating patience to see what would be the right stats after that change. At that point in the game, all I was doing was repeating the same content every day in order to farm materials for Ascended gear.

The content wasn’t especially fun and it took all of the three hours I had available to play on any given day. It consisted of several world bosses for the Dragonite ore and Ectoplasm (i.e. salvaging rares), assorted P1 dungeon speed runs for the Empyreal Shards and Gold, some Champion farming for the Bloodstone Dust (used to be overabundant), and an awful lot of gathering. I could only produce about one Dragonite Ingot (100 ore) and one Empyreal Star (100 shards) per day, and it was breaking my bank to keep up with the daily time gate on making Lumps of Mithrillium and Globs of Elder Spirit Residue.

At this pace, I was able to create about one Ascended weapon per week. Ascended gear was soul bound back then. Well, it’s exactly the same routine now that I’ve returned, only now I’m grinding for three Ascended armor sets for my five level 80 characters to share. I really want to finish this gear grind (gear grind: the one I’m describing here, not the one found in any other game) someday, so I can focus more on using the gear than producing the gear. If additional non-zerker’s gear sets really are required for Raids, it’s going to be a lot longer before that time comes.

To paraphrase some of the other users in this thead, “You aren’t good enough for raids and this content wasn’t designed for people like you.”

SkiTz.4590:

Ascended will probably be needed because (this is just a guess) they are tied into masteries which BOOST/CHANGES how ascended gear will function in raids….

Now if that isn’t a cheap way of enforcing grind and gear tiers, I don’t know what is. Of course, that is exactly what they did with the AR system.

Serophous.9085:

I never knew ‘should’ = ‘must’

In the eyes of a raid leader, should = “you better have this gear when we do the gear check or you’re not coming.” Of course, we knew this would be the case prior to the Tweet, the issue is that if the content is tuned in such a way that only full ascended will cut it, a lot of people will be excluded (beyond the effects of elitist raid leaders).

Nokaru.7831:

JSmooth.7654:

But when Ascended gear was released, they stated that they had no plans to add another tier of gear. They never said that they would NEVER do it. They stated that Legendary gear will always be top tier.

There is no statistical difference between ascended and legendary, so they didn’t actually break any promises there.

You’re misinterpreting his statement. The devs have promised to make legendary top tier, regardless of what the current “top tier” is. In other words, the stats will always be increased to match the current top tier, which is what happened when ascended weapons were introduced.

Belzebu.3912:

So OP need to pay attention to:
“Last boss should be full asc” and one of his replies “Agony resistance is not required.”
So asc won’t be required, they are just really expected.
It is just like saying a dungeon/fractal requires a full party, then we see several videos of people soloing those.

It’s not what the statement says, but how people will react to the statement. If raid leaders and players think they’ll need it, they’re going to buy it, and the price is going to increase.

It is safe to assume that with things like GW2effiency, leaders will be requiring gear checks and forcing BiS, which means $$$ if you’re smart enough to pounce early.

Laggo.8973:

Should we give everybody that enters the raid an ascended chest for being brave enough to queue up too?

I guess that wouldn’t be fair to the level 40s that couldn’t get to that zone! Scrap that!

Ah yes, the old reductio ad absurdum, eh?

BaconofPigs.1683:

No, it’s not the primary stat difference that makes the difference. It’s the weapons strength and base defense from the armor both are 10% flat from exotic that makes the difference. So someone is full ascended will have ~12% damage increase and +~12% survival rating than someone who doesn’t.

When people argue “ascended vs. exotic” it really comes down to the least accessible part of the wardrobe, the ascended armor. In that regard, the difference is so small that no content could be tuned around it (except with the Agony mechanic, which bypasses the stat difference to actively kill players who lack the infusion slots).

Laggo.8973:

If it takes you 6 months you are doing things, terribly, terribly wrong. And he’s completely right in that players like you are pretty much the opposite of who Raids are designed for.

Go on with the personal attacks, I’m loving it. Pray tell, what makes me the “opposite” kind of person? I have the gear, I run “meta” with VOIP groups, I take the game very seriously. Is it because I’m more compassionate regarding newer players or people with less interest in grinding that I’m not suited for the content?

The fangs are really out today.

I love all of the rude comments in the vein of, “if you don’t have full ascended yet, or can’t get it in whatever timeframe I think is acceptable, you’re bad at the game and shouldn’t raid.” Since when is time spent grinding related to skill? Is this the sort of vitriol, elitism, and selfishness that will be the future of our community?

For reference, I have full ascended gear. I am simply more open-minded to the idea of not excluding newer players from exciting content, which was one of the founding ideas of this game.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If it takes you 6 months to get ascended gear then you aren’t good enough to be doing raids. Maybe focus on improving your ingame efficiency before thinking about raiding.

Ouch, talk about an unapologetic elitist.

Not everyone plays for 40+ hours a week, friend. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so condescending to your hard-working, productive allies in society.

laokoko.7403:

Dont’ even make sense, exotic and ascended stats difference is so minor.

If it require ascended. It’ll really require meta group composition.

Well the difference in DPS is up to about 12.5% between full exotic and full ascended.

However, as others have stated, there is no way for them to enforce “full” ascended over ascended weapon + trinkets, given that the DPS difference is <2%. Which means, a) they’re out of touch on the #s, or b) they have some new mechanic that will require full ascended gear that isn’t Agony.

For reference, the sustained DPS difference between certain classes is >10%. If it’s a matter of enrage timers or the like, and they’re keeping it so tight that a 1% increase in DPS is critical, expect class restrictions in groups to be extremely strict.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Honestly if you couldn’t be bothered to get ascended gear then you have no buisness being in a raid as you clearly aren’t serious about the game.

You aren’t serious about the game unless you spend 6 months gearing up! :^)

Hello there friends and market manipulators,

With the announcement that raids will require full ascended armor to complete, I would expect the price of silk to increase dramatically as people scramble to make their gear. With the price already on the rise due to Guild Hall upgrade concerns, I’d suggest you buy and/or hoard silk now.

I forsee great profits in the coming months.

So when can we expect Silk to become >4s? The price has already been shooting up thanks to people hoarding it for Guild Hall upgrades.

Nokaru.7831:

How do you not have ascended trinkets and weapon by now? The game has been out for three years. The armor is pretty pointless unless you wanted you fractals.

There’s no way they could tune anything to require the armor because damage differences in the classes are much bigger than the damage differences in the armor.

The tweet made it pretty clear that they intend to require “full” ascended. While you’re right that the DPS difference is <2% to add ascended armor to someone with otherwise fully ascended gear, if they say “full” they must have a means of enforcing that without the agony mechanic.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

By playing wvw/pvp/silverwastes we all should be able to craft a piece of ascended armor or weapon every 10-14 days. What’s the problem?

1 piece every 14 days for 8 pieces (6 armor pieces, 2-4 weapons; the player will acquire laurels for trinkets during that time) is 112-140 days. That’s assuming someone is a very active player.

4-5 months of gear grind is now a reasonable thing, in this game? In EQ/WoW/FFXI that’s par for the course, but in Guild Wars 2 you think it’s reasonable that people need to grind SW for at least 4 months to do raids?

Yikes.

Zeppelin.6832:

Is something with only 2 steps really a gear treadmill?

Consider the following:
50 steps that take 1 day each
2 steps that take 1 month each

Which is shorter?

Brimstar.9036:

As if veterans haven’t had 3 years to get ascended armor with how easy it is and especially with the ability to change the stats on ascended now to what you need, no one should be crying over ascended having to be slotted AT LEAST for the last wing raid. She explains you don’t need full ascended for the first 2 wings, how is this even something to complain about? Rings, Trinkets, and Amulets are extremely simple to get in this game. There is no treadmill, its been this way for almost 2 1/2 years, stop complaining. If you’re new to the game, then there is some relevance to this otherwise, they couldn’t of made it any easier to get ascended gear, especially with the billion options to get trinkets now.

3 years, not a treadmill? How about the thousands of players who haven’t had “3 years” to get gear? Should we make sure they have to wait 2 months, 6 months, 1 year, or whatever arbitrary time value to grind out the gear needed to be able to play in your sandbox too?

Do you understand how long it takes for a fresh account to get full ascended, to even be considered worthy of an invite to attempt this content?

But hey, MMO fans can’t fathom a game without grind. If they could go back and re-design Super Mario Bros. to require you to stomp 1000 Goombas on 1-1 before having enough strength to jump on the axe to kill Bowser at each castle, they would.

Wetpaw.3487:

API key gear checks are already/been in the works.

And I’m sure you’re thrilled about it. I hope the mastery grind to be able to attempt raids without wiping is at least 400 hours.

Blaeys.3102:

Regardless, we definitely want this game to stay away from the “gear = ability to raid” issue we see in other games. The focus should be on player skill – not how long they’ve spent grinding mats to build multiple ascended gear sets.

See some of the posts above to recognize that the player population has been infiltrated by people who want grind to matter more than skill in PvE encounters. What used to be, “Play your way” and “Never worry about grinding” is now, “New players won’t be able to raid until they’ve spent months grinding out a full set of ascended gear.” Yes, months. Ascended armor has a MASSIVE price of entry in terms of raw cost, crafting requirements, time gates, etc.

Wetpaw.3487:

Change is hard, and nobody is forced to raid in HoT. My perspective GW2 is going in the right direction with specializations, healing, and raids.

If you want a WoW clone, go play FFXIV. Stop pushing the devs to make this game into your amusement park. The original vision for this game is eroding so rapidly, much of it thanks to people begging for more of the same MMO tropes.

I worry that elitists will demand FULL ASCENDED ARMOR when in reality the benefit of adding ascended armor (to someone with ascended weapon and trinkets) is <2% damage output.

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159ml1oahEyM6zWQ-oD4XQcHsk1mI5G6tVnjk_FOeinA/edit?pli=1#gid=348011649

Full ascended Celestial with Omni-infusions required for all raids, right?

This is the BIGGEST bait and switch I’ve fallen for, sadly. Colin with the whole, “IT ISN’T ABOUT GRIND PEOPLE, BUY OUR GAME! WE LOVE YOU!” con job when he introduced HoT, followed by the disaster of the Elite specializations has led me to lose all faith in this game.

RIP in peace drops mic

Love,
Roy, Irenio, and everyone else who loves your continued support as a customer

Tomiyou.3790:

irrumatio.4893:

I’m okay with auras getting nerfed if that means people stop asking Karl to make Auramancer Tempest into a viable build. Auras are not good, stop fetishizing them, forum Eles.

That’s the most stupid thing you could say. Scepter sucks and is not competitive with Dagger. Lets just nerf to the ground, right? (sarcasm)

My argument is “stupid,” you say? Well, we can’t have much of a debate if that’s your counter.

My point is that people need to stop asking for Tempest Auramancer, because if Karl listens to you and changes traits to suit that role, we’ll be left with another useless spec, because auras are bad. The worse auras are, the less likely people will keep begging for an Auramancer role. Auras, as they are currently designed, cannot be appropriately balanced (see my post above).

Short of a complete redesign of the aura mechanism, which will not happen in 2015, people need to stop asking for an Auramancer Ele, because you are going to seriously damage the potential of the class by focusing on a bad mechanic.

Diovid.9506:

irrumatio.4893:

I’m okay with auras getting nerfed if that means people stop asking Karl to make Auramancer Tempest into a viable build. Auras are not good, stop fetishizing them, forum Eles.

So because auras are bad, people should not ask if auras can stop being bad?

The premise of auras is such that they can never be properly balanced. They are skills the require you to get hit, in a game where active defense is king, and your goal is to avoid taking hits as much as possible. In addition, auras are relatively passive in nature. Magnetic Aura is arguably the only meaningful active effect, although Frost Aura’s Protection Jr. effect is something, I suppose.

Make Auras good, and they’re too good. Pop them and nobody will touch you, because the payout if too strong, which means you never see the resulting effects (such as condition or boon application) from the effects. Because they’re relatively mindless skills, making them good provides the dread “easy button” to the class. Spamming auras to avoid damage and/or punish foes would take a lot of the skill out of the class.

They are conceptually very flawed, and should be completely redesigned.