Firebeard.1746

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > > > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > > Just adjust to the difficulty.

> > > >

> > > > For the MMORPG GW2 has the best combat system and that should be shown with the creature fight design.

> > > >

> > > > GW2 began to storm with flashy effects that make more harm than the bosses themselves, and now Boneskinner is pretty all about mechanics whicb reminds me of old, good times in which you had to use your mind to get the mechanics.

> > > >

> > > > Instanced content should be all about different tactics, different approach, abundance of mechanics.

> > > >

> > > > If you look at the WoW's Raid/Dungeon tabs which show all the bosses, you can also see so many mechanics to learn, so many things to know, and it's simply fun, especially on the higher level of difficulty.

> > > >

> > > > It's cool, because there is fun in tactics as well, I mean that what makes instanced content unforgettable.

> > > >

> > > > I could see that, after such a long time yesterday, when the Boneskinner was actually challenging, because it has tactics that you have to learn to notice, and all you must do is to adjust to them.

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > > Proplem is this old gw2 phrase "play how you want."

> > >

> > > Players think that it means that they can do any content how they want and success. Even tho that phrase has nothing to do with skill lvl of instanced content.

> >

> > It's more nuanced than that: Arenanet didn't create any sort of defined roles, and still refuses to teach them in game on any level. On the flip side, you have players who have done just that, to the point where if you have a coordinated group much of the previous "group content" is a joke. so now arenanet has 2 groups of people to satisfy: elite players and ones that just play the game as-is. Take a healer into any T1 fractal and you can almost AFK it. Take a group without a dedicated healer and some of them can actually be challenging. Arenanet's refusal to acknowledge and/or teach roles makes skill moot. Whose skill is being tested and how? What is every player actually bringing to the table? How do you balance anything in that scenario? That's why the open world is so fun for so many people. It's really the only thing that works in this role vacuum.

>

> People still don't understand that was the whole point of the "play how you want" mantra, ArenaNet wanted people to be able to do any content with any character and any build and be successful at it, that was the philosophy, the execution in that was the failing.

Well i honestly like that mantra, but the reality is the evolution of the game created roles for elite players and two classes of player.

> @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > Just adjust to the difficulty.

> >

> > For the MMORPG GW2 has the best combat system and that should be shown with the creature fight design.

> >

> > GW2 began to storm with flashy effects that make more harm than the bosses themselves, and now Boneskinner is pretty all about mechanics whicb reminds me of old, good times in which you had to use your mind to get the mechanics.

> >

> > Instanced content should be all about different tactics, different approach, abundance of mechanics.

> >

> > If you look at the WoW's Raid/Dungeon tabs which show all the bosses, you can also see so many mechanics to learn, so many things to know, and it's simply fun, especially on the higher level of difficulty.

> >

> > It's cool, because there is fun in tactics as well, I mean that what makes instanced content unforgettable.

> >

> > I could see that, after such a long time yesterday, when the Boneskinner was actually challenging, because it has tactics that you have to learn to notice, and all you must do is to adjust to them.

> >

> >

>

> Proplem is this old gw2 phrase "play how you want."

>

> Players think that it means that they can do any content how they want and success. Even tho that phrase has nothing to do with skill lvl of instanced content.

It's more nuanced than that: Arenanet didn't create any sort of defined roles, and still refuses to teach them in game on any level. On the flip side, you have players who have done just that, to the point where if you have a coordinated group much of the previous "group content" is a joke. so now arenanet has 2 groups of people to satisfy: elite players and ones that just play the game as-is. Take a healer into any T1 fractal and you can almost AFK it. Take a group without a dedicated healer and some of them can actually be challenging. Arenanet's refusal to acknowledge and/or teach roles makes skill moot. Whose skill is being tested and how? What is every player actually bringing to the table? How do you balance anything in that scenario? That's why the open world is so fun for so many people. It's really the only thing that works in this role vacuum.

> @"maxan.7836" said:

> The most boring long winded game play to acquire a mount- No doubt you will need it in the future, it is the only reason I wast time getting it- Never been bored with the game- Played since Gw1- Playing another game atm - between had enough of this - Not so much fun-----------

Take it in babysteps. Progression is progression, you don't have to do it all at once.

I understand you, in fact i think i quit for a bit too, but it's also totally awesome and worth it. It's my favorite. It won't be required, it's too hard to get for them to do that, but imagine them making it really nice to have.

I initially supported build templates but can't any more: the issue, is that not having a separate build template system for PVP is too clunky (like it not automatically switching, and essentially not being its own set of templates entirely). It really sucks. And it makes new players' experience worse. This is too new user unfriendly in its current iteration. This won't be good for the long term health of the game. Heck if I was a new player and hadn't been reading feedback I wouldn't have known to even check that my PVP build is now my build when i phase out. Not only that, but this means I actually have to remember to switch my builds at the beginning of a match if I want to be effective. This game is so great, man you guys are just driving it off a cliff. I might have to start investing some time and/or money elsewhere in case this doesn't go down well in the long run, either for me or other people.

And the 3-6 slots, depending on when you get them are ACCOUNT WIDE? Kitten, you realize that anyone who had more than 3 characters lost functionality based on the PVP changes alone, right? Because each character basically already had 2 to begin with: open world and sPVP. Because sPVP basically acted like a separate build template that auto-activated. I thought this was going to be an improvement. smh. This needs to be reverted.

How about you revert build templates, sell gear templates (as they're essentially extra storage) and allow ArcDPS to do its normal templates, and before you decide to experiment with selling build templates again, you try to actually use dev time on a purchasable season pass with special rewards for participating in WvW, Fractals, Raids, and/or SPVP over the course of the next 6 months, and add some season-flavored mechanics to those experiences, free of charge, so everyone gets to try something new and people who like your game can earn something new in it for participating? This feels like a lazy cash grab.

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> Ectoplasm only drops from Rare items or better. Globs of Dark Matter only drop from Exotic or better.

>

> When you Salvage All greens and blues, if you would get a Rare or better item, it is placed in your inventory and not salvaged.

I've never noticed this. Is this with the salvage all option when you right click a salvage tool? I don't usually use that option but didn't notice this in that case either.

> @"Memoranda.9386" said:

> I'm assuming you don't identify the gear before salvaging? If that is the case, then the gear is treated as strictly "green" or "yellow", thus at no point do you "roll" for a higher tier.

>

> Green -> no Ecto

> Yellow -> no dark matter.

>

> You have to identify the gear beforehand if you want the chance at better mats.

Okay. That's disgustingly tedious, if true.

So when you identify a piece of gear there's a low chance it will roll to the higher tier. I just noticed the other day that i never get ectos from salvaging unidentified green gear and that doesn't make sense. I generally get one ecto per yellow on average. And i usually do a stack of 250 greens at once when i do, so i should normally be seeing at least a few if those greens roll yellows.

Also come to think of it i've never got a glob of dark matter from salvaging an unidentified yellow either.

How does salvaging work in the presence of the ability for a piece of gear to roll a higher tier?

I haven't bought it hoping for skyscale versions. Even if it's a separate pack, that's fine. It's my primary mount now so anything not including it feels meh.

> @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> Anecdotal observation: my 13-year-old daughter (our in-house jp specialist) just asked me to be allowed to play on my laptop, since her old potatoe of a pc lags too bad to reliably jump. She finished the jp on the laptop on third try, and pretty much any try after that.

>

> So yes, there are people that are able to farm this jp reliably. And there are people like me who never even got half way up the tower. I think rewards are fine the way they are, else it'll turn into a best-per-time bag farm for some while excluding the rest.

It's easy enough to cap it at x successful attempts per day to prevent this. I think not rewarding people for learning hard content is worse.

The clock tower is still pretty hard to pull off, even when you know the jp already. How come it's not more rewarding than lab farm? I guess i'm just sort of disappointed that one of the most technically challenging pieces of content in this holiday update isn't that rewarding outside of additional ap once you learn it.

I'm sure some troll will come in here and say they have 100% try to success ratios but given what I've seen in success rates against my peers it's obvious that even people who can complete it still struggle reliably completing it. I think i was actually beaten maybe once after i learned it in any session i was there the whole time for and i've done plenty.

Level cooking if you haven't already (just need 400). I think you'll need more than 1 treat. The domain of Vabbi group boss is a pain.

The marketing department could definitely do better and anet stinks at hype.

I think seasonal rewards and mechanics for various different game modes would keep the game more interesting. I've probably played this game on and off for 3-4 years and sPvP for example hasn't really changed at all. I realized i only play it for rewards and even then i can't always keep going. They don't need to make the story go away, but they could definitely make playing at particular times both more interesting and rewarding. And they're really bad at marketing.

I actually realized there's only one thing they've done well and that's metas and to an extent living story. No other part of the game has really had sustained innovation. (Barring new especs).

> @"Sir Arigius.6294" said:

> What is the point of making more characters and having more than one level 80?

>

> I have 3 level 80s and I've used 1 out of the 3 to beat all 3 main quest lines of the game. I always use my Necromancer. The base game and the 2 expansions. Not just that I've accomplished a huge of amount of things.

>

> So getting to my point. When I go to another one of my level 80's who hasn't accomplished what my main character has. I don't feel the purpose in redoing the story line or doing the same things over and over again. I can't even sum up the motivation to make a new character either because I know I'll just either be grinding, or using tombs of knowledge or a level 80 Auto item and doing the same roller coaster ride all over again when I could just go find a new experience with my main character.

>

> I'm having trouble seeing the point. Is it just for PVP purposes to make a specific level 80 for WVW and PVP maybe?

The cost of ascended gear vs. legendary gear. There isn't a lot of build freedom in this game, so it's actually easier to gear a single character for the role and make another for a different role and/or function. Also, there's the convenience factor too. Say that you want to daily things in certain zones -> you actually save a good chunk of change by stationing different characters in the different zones, especially as some port fees are going up to 5s!

On top of all this, there's also experimenting with different professions.

You're totally right you could do everything on one character, but there's plenty of legitimate reasons for alts.

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> I donno, try it and see if u like it, I found eso's pve 10× better than gw2 but cuz the combat mechanics if u like pvp gw2 is ok but coulda been great

Funny, eso's combat just felt strange for me once i learned it. Cast animation canceling was weird: things die, don't always see how. Though it's probably been about 2 years since i last touched the game.

@OP: there's lots to do, i like it. I just came back from WoW and am enjoying it now more than ever, but coming back with a little bit if gold already in store helped me with the gold gates on the starter mounts. The main focus is open world pve. The great thing is that there's lots of different areas you can do events in. But there's still plenty outside that too: raids and fractals. WvW is good if you can still pull a big enough group together. sPvP is okay but ranked is just pure poison(i would blame shortcomings in the matchmaker, but that takes too long to explain). I would say sPvP is great if they innovated more to keep it fresh. I've been playing this since 2014-2015 on and off, and to see conquest mode as the only thing and kind of wonky balance STILL is just "meh." Matchmaking in unranked is good enough it can still be fun, it just gets stale.

My recommendation would be to immediately start working on path of fire if you purchased it so you can get mounts, they make the game a lot funner. Also, do dailies, you'll need the gold for the other 3 base mounts after raptor. I just ragged on sPvP but it's usually an easy way to knock out at least 2 objectives of the 3 in 1 match and it's pretty fast, then you can do an easy open world one like mining/logging or gathering. Find a good open world build for your class and build the elite specialization for it from PoF hero points + gather good exotics for it. I say this because HoT areas will suck without a good handle on your class, a good build and the gear to back it up and mounts definitely help with navigation too. If the dailies are toxic/too time consuming then try fractals for gold, there's usually lots of people willing to help out in tier 1 through the lfg tool. There's a vendor in the fractal area that lets you buy more encryption keys and it's usually worth it because of the large amount of valuable vendor junk, and you can always sell exotics you don't need for $$.

Core tyria is fine. The initial story is pretty good once you get far enough, but the game felt like it was missing something for me before mounts were added. Actually if you want to start from the beginning, you can grab just the raptor and then do core tyria and go from there.

I'm like 90% certain that the spider functionality is baked into the skyscale and that's where the annoying auto-latch cliffs functionality comes from. Every time that happens i think "they really should make you press a button if you want that to happen."

> @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > > > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > > And yes, opting to pay is better than not, i was spending more than a sub fees' worth on cash shop in eso, which is why i was so angry about craft bags. Right now, i'm paying 20 a month at anet. I haven't even decided what i'm spending it on yet, but at least i get to choose instead of having what I get forced on me.

> > >

> > > I fail to see how your inability to control your personal spending is a valid criticism of a system

> > >

> > >

> >

> > How does a game demanding more money from me and me quitting as a result mean i'm a wild spender?

> >

> > For a troll i'll give you 10/10 for mental gymnastics.

> >

> > I spend an allotted monthly amount to support games i like because i still want them in business. Them randomly deciding to tank my qol for not spending the way they want me to is inviting me to leave. And horrible way of saying thank you for your support. But if you like that sort of abuse feel free to keep taking it. I'm sorry you're spending way too much on the cosmetics you do buy because you can't wait for a crown sale.

>

> You already admitted to happily spending more than $15 a month just to spend the money

>

> This is just you making up copes to argue emotion because you don't want to be wrong

Nope. You made assumptions this has always been my behavior and now you're making up more about me to justify being rude.

You gave me crap for complaining about sub fees:

"And seriously, get out of here with this "ew sub fees" kitten

Paying $15+ a month because you "choose to" isnt better than a compulsory $15 flat fee just because your favorite game does the former"

And now you're giving me crap about spending a little more than that? And the main point, that i don't like predatory practices just goes *WOOSH*

I'll spell it out for you: i bought dlcs and cosmetics. And that was my focus. I actually started before craft bags were a thing. I actually did consider, at the time, subbing. But i didn't. I did the math on how much dlcs were costing at the time, as i didn't want to lose them if I chose to lapse my sub the leftover crowns weren't enough to buy the cosmetics i wanted and the game had barely introduced gatcha style cosmetics. So wasn't getting very many crowns to buy cosmetics, thought the cosmetics in game were "meh" and just decided it wasn't worth it. My wakeup call came when i realized i was playing a ridiculous portion of my /played time in my inventory and that's when i realized zenimax/eso sucked. I was also noticing more and more crafting mats being added, in some cases the style components were even coming out with 2 pieces instead of 1 like everything else. I could just feel the bloat caving in on me. And that the problem would only get worse. And i tried lots of things, like being more picky about what i picked up but then it just took too long to loot something and wasn't really solving the problem.

I also started noticing lots of pay to win mechanics in terms of cp farming, both the xp bonus from subbing as well as the xp pots. For someone like me who plays on a limited schedule and hit plateaus easy, it was just more crap.

I do have eso to thank though for helping me get back into wow until the bfa dumpster fire. I'm really glad that happened in time for me to earn mage tower skins on my favorite classes. I'm not against sub fees in a box. But your game has to be be real slick and not screw up. Eso just didn't hit that bar for me of being worth it without the ability to buy the cosmetics i wanted on a budget.

O dear. The reason i wouldn't want a purchasable espec is that it incentivizes nerfing current especs to force people to buy new ones. Thinking about all the nerfs landing lately, that makes me feel uneasy. And without it being attached to an expansion, that pressure to imbalance them is WAY higher, as playing the new story doesn't have a price tag, so people may not want to naturally just buy it off the bat. I want the build systems to feel varied and colorful. New required fotm op especs get in the way of this.

In principle i'm not against this. But i know business well enough to know better. This, not build templates is 100x more likely to get me to quit.

I'm sorry, what's wrong about OP stating duo is garbage? Anet had already openly admitted they refuse to balance teams with duos because queue times. Yay sanctioned match manipulation!

In all seriousness in light of their queue time decisions duo was the worst compromise: people can't play with a full set of friends, but it still lends itself to match manipulation. They should allow zoning while in pvp queues and split the queues into soloq and full party queues in addition to other matchmaking improvements. Also reduce ranked pip requirements based on queue time increases.

> @"Fearless.3569" said:

> The only way to get rid of AFKers in Ranked. Is to bring back full pre made teams. Anything short of that invites AFKer trolls and wintraders

I would prefer ranked be split into solo q and full premade, and this duo queue garbage we have get flushed down the toilet. As anet has already openly admitted they don't care about balancing teams with duos any more in favor of queue times.

That being said i don't think that's the only way to deal with it. They could require more queue pops at once, making it harder to manipulate with only 1 other account, keep free to play players out of ranked (they must have purchased the most recent expansion to participate, adding more cost to smurf accounts) and not allowing any sort of communication between opposing teams (making coordination impossible). All of those make manipulation harder in some way. They should also perma ban accounts that are repeat offenders fron ranked pvp, further increasing cost on smurf accounts and cheating in general.

Also, allow zoning while in queue, that way it's not a big deal to have to wait longer.

I've been noticing players who will fight in like the first fight over mid (or even a little after) and then just /afk the rest of the match, it's really stupid and really annoying. The worst was we actually were winning once when this happened. I think that this is happening because Anet is getting smarter about how it deals with rank points, I'm not sure about the winning side, but i know the losing side isn't losing rank, so AFKers are being just active enough to throw off automated means of afk detection and it's a huge QoL impact.

> @"vesica tempestas.1563" said:

> > @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > And yes, opting to pay is better than not, i was spending more than a sub fees' worth on cash shop in eso, which is why i was so angry about craft bags. Right now, i'm paying 20 a month at anet. I haven't even decided what i'm spending it on yet, but at least i get to choose instead of having what I get forced on me.

> >

> > I fail to see how your inability to control your personal spending is a valid criticism of a system

> >

> >

>

> Exactly. If I went to a shop and they were selling a non essential something I really wanted, I would not get 'angry' about it, I would simply decide - is it worth it for me, may even motivate me to save for it.

How does a game demanding more money from me and me quitting as a result mean i'm a wild spender? The craft bags were a ridiculous qol hit. Basically they kept adding more and more crafting materials trying to force you to sub.

> @"Substance E.4852" said:

> > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > And yes, opting to pay is better than not, i was spending more than a sub fees' worth on cash shop in eso, which is why i was so angry about craft bags. Right now, i'm paying 20 a month at anet. I haven't even decided what i'm spending it on yet, but at least i get to choose instead of having what I get forced on me.

>

> I fail to see how your inability to control your personal spending is a valid criticism of a system

>

>

How does a game demanding more money from me and me quitting as a result mean i'm a wild spender?

For a troll i'll give you 10/10 for mental gymnastics.

I spend an allotted monthly amount to support games i like because i still want them in business. Them randomly deciding to tank my qol for not spending the way they want me to is inviting me to leave. And horrible way of saying thank you for your support. But if you like that sort of abuse feel free to keep taking it. I'm sorry you're spending way too much on the cosmetics you do buy because you can't wait for a crown sale.

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > If op is correct, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If it doesn't make enough money, ncsoft will step in and fire more people/throw the game into maintenance mode.

> This kind of drama-mongering serves no one. People don't buy mount skins to save the company they buy them because they like them.

> If you don't like a product or it's pricing, it's on you to not purchase it. You simply do not open your wallet.

> You don't buy a 20 dollar hamburger and say "if I don't pay 20 dollars for this hamburger, this place selling them will shut down." You either buy it because you feel the product is worth the price or you go across the street and buy a 5 dollar hamburger until the 20 dollar hamburger lowers it's price to a point you see it as value.

> It's called being a responsible consumer.

Well if no one does buy that 20 dollar hamburger, that joint will shut down. The reality though is Guild wars 2 is a persistent service many of us use, and it would be irresponsible to believe the one time transaction will keep the lights on. I think that much of the player base doesn't realize this.

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > > @"DoRi Silvia.4159" said:

> > > Im sure ANET cannot and will not say anything about this as it is a very touchy subject but I just wanted to say i feel for these guys because I know how Koreans can be when it comes to money and knowing what NC is like over in the korean market I can speculate that they will be pressuring ANET at this time of hardship to squeeze out $$$ from players

> >

> > And thus, what could we do about it?

> >

> > The best we can do is speak as loudly as possible against this, so ArenaNet can show NC Soft how much of an outcry their decision has caused and how said outcry could hurt more than help the game on the long run.

> >

> > So those who are complaining about this are actually doing a favor to those who are just saying "everything is fine" and complaining about the "negativity".

>

> Really now... making a lot of noise will show them huh?

>

> Couple years ago Anet monetized Mount Skins in a way that made this community go full nuke.

> One week later you couldn't do a bounty train and see a single default mount skin.

>

> Sorry... making noise does exactly nothing. This community has a long proud history of pitching a fit and then letting it go.

> If you don't like it, vote with your wallet.

> That's the only thing NCSoft will listen to.

If op is correct, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If it doesn't make enough money, ncsoft will step in and fire more people/throw the game into maintenance mode. If ncsoft is really aiming to turn gw2 into a pay 2 win buy to play game like so many games in the market, throwing more money at them would just embolden them. That said, this isn't pay 2 win and doesn't even come close to the crap i've seen in other games.

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"vesica tempestas.1563" said:

> > > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > > > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > > > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > > > > > > > This is why they had to lay off 1/3rd of their staff.

> > > > > > > No. They had to lay off 1/3 of their staff because they decided to use the money GW2 earned for them, not to further improve the game and thus make sure people will continue playing (and paying), but on some unrelated stuff that didn't pay off.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > This isn't what the ncsoft ceo said. It falls in line with what i said:

> > > > > > https://www.google.com/amp/s/kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-developer-arenanet-plans-for-mass-layoffs-1832799804/amp

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Songyee Yoon, the CEO of Korean publisher NCSoft West, which owns ArenaNet, e-mailed employees this afternoon with the news. “Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased,” she wrote. “Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success.”

> > > > > I see nothing in this that conflicts with what i said. the problem is, as i said, that "delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects". For Arenanet, the delays in development (on PC and mobile) he mentions is about those undisclosed projects they were doing. The revenue against which this was a drain is GW2. So, exactly what i said earlier - they decided to develop other projects at a cost to gw2, and those other projects didn't pay off and ended up being only a revenue drain. Thus, layoffs.

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > Then by that logic what you're saying doesn't conflict with what i'm saying. They still needed money but didn't have it. If anyone enjoys their brand, they should be willing to support them.

> > >

> > > True, but i like less and less what my brand is becoming due to ever mkre agressive monetisation and ever less ingame support for modes i enjoy. Im supporting my brand by not supporting what they are trying to turn it into.

> >

> > Its funny the justifications people make for not buying a thing that they want to have.

> >

> > Game is free, server time is free, game gets regular updates for free, game is as slick as any other aaa mmorpg, game has support for free, games security is maintained for free. GW2 is by far the cheapest aaa to play for the amount of content. Anet can happily apply 'monetisation as far as I'm concerned, especially when the game by design has no pay to win.' The more people support by buying from the shop, the more content we get.

> >

> > Put it this way a good dev will cost 65-100k+ a year, then there's test, pm, design, analysts, marketing, devops, support etc. Who exactly is going to pay for this if there is no monetisation?

>

> Ok? Theres other games that give similar amounts of content for free and havent been nearly as agressively monetised as gw2, while also keeping up the pace of content release while anet has slowed down.

>

> They arent running charity but neither am i, the quality and content delivery of the game has dropped and like that my support has reduced.

Just curious, what games are you referring to?