TamX.1870

I'm definitely not an experienced WvW roamer. I base my statements to my somewhat short experiences in GW2, and my experiences from my previous game which I played over 5 years.

> @"LetoII.3782" said:

> The games' more engaging with a team.

That is definitely true, but:

> @"kiranslee.4829" said:

> I know it is but , im not really social person (hard time to adjust to new ppl, social anxiety)

I am mainly solo roamer because then I can decide myself when I need a cup of coffee, or want to read some articles or watch some videos etc. I am that type of a player, that if I join to a team, I am fully committed to it, and if I know I can't commit fully, I won't team up. Occasionally we have some loose roaming duo/trio, where people come and go pretty randomly. Based on my former experience, this will most probably be the main way I will play WvW.

From your original post, I recognize that we most probably share lots of similarities in how we like to roam around. In my previous game, when being experienced enough, I left newcomers alone, and gave them opportunity to flee if the fight was too one-sided. Here I still have a luxury being a newcomer, so I can engage anything I see without worrying too much. I don't care much about winning or loosing, what I seek is good fights. My ultimate goal is not to be unkillable: I am fine if I can keep my death vs kill ratio somewhat balanced, e.g. trying to get one kill (or even get one downed) before dying if engaging a duo/trio.

That definitely sounds strange to many WvW players. Why not to play to win, why to have such obscure and limiting "internal fighting code"? It is because I don't feel that those kills and deaths in my regular roaming are wins and looses. I roam mainly to improve myself, get better and eventually good enough. One day I might see a reward in some tournament, and I feel that I desperately need that. That day I want to have chances to go for that.

- - -

Although we are at different levels at the moment, I share some of my experiences, in hope I get some good advices to get higher. My current problems are first the obvious lack of experience that will go away eventually, but also two other important things I try to work for: (1) chances to get enough somewhat controlled fights against players at all levels (newcomers, average players and experts), and (2) my mind set to GW2 roaming scene.

The first problem is simple. If I roam at crowded hours, I mostly meet smaller and larger groups and I am dead long before I have any chance to learn anything, and the solo roamers I meet are too experienced players who kill me before I can learn something. If I roam outside prime time, getting fights are more infrequent although those few fights serve much more to my progression.

The second problem is bit more complex. I generally tend to like more sustained fights than burst fights. In martial arts terms, I like more submission wrestling type fights where you try advance strategically by holding your position, than barehands kickboxing where you can cash out short weaknesses in your opponents defenses to smash her/him down to floor.

> @"kiranslee.4829" said:

> Ok, thats perspective of my beloved warrior, i feel slow , clunky, predictable and low dmg. Or just bad.

I used to roam mainly on my Druid, and I feel the same as you do with your Warrior :) Druid offered me most of the tools to keep the fight in my comfortable zone, to advance towards victory or loss step-by-step. But I feel that currently roaming builds are too sustained (heals, protection, condi clears) against that type of fighting, and your chances to knock one down is to make a successful burst. I feel that Druid fits to that scheme quite poorly at the moment. I still occasionally try some Druid builds, thought.

> @"kiranslee.4829" said:

> i end up switching to other class after 30m or so

Likewise :/ I have been looking for build to fit to my purposes. Soulbeast is of course obvious one to try out, but I have also cleared dust from my Warrior to try both Core and Spellbreaker. I have also thought to try out Dragonhunter (or core Guard), which I played frequently in sPvP before Scourge + FB combo came out. But I have also started to consider classes and playstyles I have not traditionally feel that comfortable. I am bit inclined to try some type of Thief builds for roaming, as well as some Mesmer builds. I am definitely not that kind of player who tries to land the initial burst and if it does not hit (hard enough), escapes for resetting the fight and comes back to try again when all cooldowns are available. But I am bit interested in certain builds on those two classes, giving wider spectrum of options for fights.

If I try to find positive side, it is that the current situation forces me to try out new things, learn out new classes and builds, and in longer run I think it will lead to better results. Of course I feel bad that I have not found a class/build that I can dedicate enough. That also slows down reaching my longer term objectives, because I have spent much less hours roaming than I used to do. I hope that this is only temporal for me, and I will find a new class which I enjoy roaming with. Hope you also find yours.

@"Gehenna.3625", many interesting points which I can agree at least partially! Yes, classes feel similar when you look them from bit distance - that is, don't delve too deep to class playing - and if you don't put your skills on those classes under test.

From your post, I pick few things:

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> So where do they get different? Well there we would have to look at skills and traits. That system is more in depth. Personally I feel that the depth is not the exciting kind so I find it a strange system that basically sets your traits which are passive or trigger-boosts or effects so once set you don't really look at it anymore.

Yes, when I started this game, traits looked like having just some small adjustments to a class. But that was just my ignorance. Traits pretty much define your gear sets and weapon choices. They really have very minimal effect to casual playing (landscape fights), which may in fact be fortunate for new players, but when the things get more heated, you start to see how tremendously they affect to your playing and draw the line between success and failure. Luckily we have metabattle and other such sites, so you can copy a build first, and start examining them later to fit builds better to your needs. Anyways, I fully agree that trait system and gears look pretty unimpressive when taking first look :D

On the other hand, the opposite is not necessarily any better:

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> I think it's an interesting choice to stay away from the MMO trinity of tank, dps and healer. However, it has come at a cost of class definition.

In the game I played previously, classes are more strictly divided to tanks, healers, ranged DPS, melee DPS and CC/debuff. Initially they were not able to blurr the line. Leveling up a tank, healer or CC/debuffer was/is just very painful and annoying job, because even trivial solo fights took that long. That put pressure to add sufficient DPS and self-sustain to all classes. That caused huge balancing problems: with their innate sustain tanks were able to became unkillable DPS machines being able to solo group content, certain classes lost their spot in groups and so on.

Even thought not all classes have decent role in all content here in GW2, not any class is so totally obsoleted from all game modes like it was in my previous game. Yes, I am not that happy that if I want to play several game modes and roles, I need to have several geared toons in my deck.

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> However, in GW2 I have a weapon that forces me to use a specific skill set which has a mixture of things. And this is also subject to your stats. So things like power, critical, condition damage are not themes that you can specifically and fully attune to. Sure, you can make a condi or power build. But not all of your skills will benefit from condition bonuses.

Yes. In the previous game I played, different weapons were mainly cosmetic. Skills were strictly class-based, no matter of your weapon of choice. Here, weapons are visual feedback to you to tell you the skillset your opponent is using, hinting you the possibilities your opponent has. If you remove that e.g. by giving players freedom to choose the weapon & utility skills as they wish, you then remove one aspect from competitive game play, and most probably open up much more balancing issues.

First things first:

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> I never felt emotionally attached.

I'm pretty sure this is number one reason for all the issues you are facing. I know your feelings. I am still missing the moments in my previous game, and I would like to repeat them, but GW2 is different game and that other game is in such sad state that I can't go back there. I just can't.

The solution is to either try to find this emotional attachment, or give up. In GW2, yeah, this attachment probably will not come from quests, if it comes it comes from players around you. Sadly, gaming in GW2 does not bring you together with players that much, because landscape group events do not require teaming up (just show yourself at right place at right time) and for ad hoc teaming like fractals and PvP you don't usually meet the same players over and over again.

Try to find active guild, it will help a lot. If players in your guild pull you to events that you first think that you don't even like them, you will eventually find people and groups doing fancy things all day long.

I comment few things generally.

GW2 combat system is IMO fine. Landscape is mainly meant for new and casual players and not for challenges, except if you start trying soloing champions and other group content (many of them are soloable). If you seek for PvE challenges, you need to climb up ladders to T4 fractals and raids. Even then, PvE can offer challenges only to certain limits, because most PvE fights are predictable (you know the mechanics beforehand, and you can prepare for those). PvP side is different story, and I think GW2 combat system generally fits that side very well, although there are certainly some issues at that side, too. PvP side fights really reveal the uniqueness of classes and their game play. They are anything but smashing two buttons - at least if you strive for winning.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> Fractals. I went there with my guardian because it was my first character and did a few of them. Mostly to finish my mastery points. Fractals are well designed, but the problem remains. Combat is boring. I put GS 4 on the ground, press GS 2 and spin to win. GS 3 to close the gap. Use trap (it's DH) on cd for extra burst. I know there is rotation and all, but at low lvl fractals doesn't matter anyway.

Low tier fractals are for practising, not for challenge. You can autoattack them through (and solo them), but that is really not their purpose. Gear up for (gear-gated) higher tiers, and you can't autoattack your way through anymore.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> The combat in GW2 is unintuitive. I am also bothered that you don't have to even target an ally to heal him. As someone who liked supporting when in group, I could target someone and literally save their life by doing the right thing at the right time.

Targetless heals are fine. They put pressure to the group to position themselves correctly for heals. Just like in other games, well-timed heals save people here, too, but this game is much more punishing if people needing heals play themselves out from the spots where heals come.

You find them in other MMOs, too, although WoW-clones usually define healer classes so that they have (outgoing) single target heal skills. In the previous game I was playing, healers had also group-wide heals, that is, they heal anyone in your group no matter of the position & distance, but don't heal friendly players near you if they are not in your group. But: they introduced a new class which have AoE heal skills hitting also non-grouped players & friendly NPCs very much similar we have here.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> I also had to manage mana. It felt rewarding. Not the case in this game. Every class can do everything. Indeed, some are simply better at this than others, especially when it comes to groups, but the lack of Holy Trinity makes every class much more generic regardless if it is tanking, healing or dps. That is, if we can even say these roles exist here.

You manage your resources in this game just like in other games. If you want mana management, try out Druid-Ranger and its Celestial Avatar form. Or necro with life force.

Even that I loved to play tank in my previous game, I really don't want GW2 to introduce such system in class level. Please, no classes that are specially dedicated to tanking: it will introduce huge problems everywhere outside of PvE instances. Tank role is entirely tied up to mob AI, and in such it fits really poorly anywhere else.

But at the same moment I have to say, that GW2 could IMO do better job with instances (fractals). I have found them challenging enough at higher tiers, but the basic mechanics design are not usually that interesting: they mostly revolve around avoiding one-shot mechanics while keep spanking mobs as hard as you can. I have made a suggestion, that if ANet finds out that they can't create more interesting fights without having PvE-side Holy Trinity, they should implement Trinity as instance mechanism, not bake them inside classes. For example, you might have a prop which makes one group member "a tank", by overriding mobs' normal targeting algorithm.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> -The world. The creators of this game realized that making generic quests which people simply grind out is pointless. So, they replaced generic quests...with generic hearts. But you know what? In WoW there were some great quests. Quests that could take you exploring half a continent to complete them. Quests which involved interesting characters and subplots which you can slowly reveal. Many were tied to dungeons which also made exploring the dungeon more fun, because you knew why you went there beside gear.

Hearts are superior compared to generic quests. As a new player, you get easily pulled out from your planned track to discover fascinating things. As an example, as a very new player, I followed hearts and events and suddenly I was surrounded like 50-100 players and I was so, so excited: my first world boss fight is something I will probably remember rest of my life.

You have quests in story line (core + expansions + LWs). I think GW2 is in right track here, because lack of generic quests would allow them to create much more involving quests. But sadly, it seems that storytelling is not one of ANet's strengths, there are lots to improve at that side. GW2 really lacks is the existence of its lore in the game.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> In addition, support Firebrand with its pages plays very differently from the core guard. While this is good, the unintuitive combat of this game is a huge turn-off. I tried watching a video on how to play FB in WvW and you know what i learned? Make sure your team has stability and retaliation. Couldn't even find a proper guide, honestly.

Both sPvP and WvW needs some more dedication than just making gears to start, and yes, it can be long road with unnecessary rough start. I definitely agree that it could use some improvements from ANet and player base side. WvW zerg playing - I suppose you made FB for those - has its own strategies, tactics, pecularities and maneouvers. FB granting/timing stability and retaliation is nothing different to some class in some other game providing heals to allies. Let's say that it is even better here, because you have also other support roles than dishing out just plain old heals.

> @"EpicName.4523" said:

> ... never needed to use discord unless in a premade. Seems that if you want a proper multiplayer experience in GW2, you need to use voice chat.

This is true to all games which have non-trivial real time group content. Even in the game I played previously.

> @"Einsof.1457" said:

> Arena Net, you made a great game. Really. All the pieces are there, yet it seems the only enemy you have is yourself. You aren't just tweaking professions every few months, you are fundamentally altering them every few months.

I think one big reason behind this is those new - or now "new" - elite specs from PoF. They really stirred the inter-class and inter-spec balance. I understand that initially ANet wanted to make PoF elites tempting enough to give players (one more) reason to buy the expansion. But in longer run also HoT and core specs would be nice to have some sort of balance.

> @"Einsof.1457" said:

> It is very jarring to log in, and have such glaringly extreme changes to your profession that you are unable to get back into doing content in raids and fractals until you pour through the math and test what works.

Yeah. And many times this involves getting new stats, new runes, new sigils, new everything. Really annoying, but on the other hand it is great advantage to owners of legendary pieces.

Build templates: Please. I really hate that PvP & WvW thing, that well, remembers your traits, but not your gears / weapons. It is really useless. You still need to use ArcDPS build templates all the time switching between PvE and WvW. Why does ArcDPS not work in PvP? You want to switch your traits when you see what you have and what you have against, you really think you can manually do that in that time? Why does ArcDPS nor PvP nor WvW remember ranger pets?

Please. It is already hard to keep all the stuff in the inventory. It is really hard to manually go through every single piece and all the traits and switch the pets etc. You really could do better in this front.

PvP: Ranked PvP is IMO wrongly designed. When the game mode needs co-operation and communication, you should understand the frustration people have when they are teamed with random people. And not like in fractals, that you know that T4 people are T4 people, but in such way that you never know what ranks you are getting with you and against you. You really have no opportunity anywhere to even learn the conquest, except banging your head against the wall enough. In unranked, people are not necessarily even trying to win - which is perfectly OK because it serves other purposes - and in ranked you are mixed up with people at all ranks.

Please, change it. My suggestion is that ranked is replaced with premade tournaments, and we are given tools to create competitive groups. For example: make it a default for guilds with halls to be able to create custom arenas. Encourage guilds to have several teams, one of their all stars, and huge bunch of practising groups and "bubbling under" people. Make us real opportunities to impress guilds who practise for tournaments, some sort of show ups or so, 1vs1 matches to pick people.

Today, ranked PvP is horrible game mode to play, but it is the one that gives really needed rewards, so you are forced to go through the pain. Unlike e.g. fractals, you really can't go with builds that are reliant on team support, instead, you want to go with builds that are self sufficient enough, and hope for the best from RNG, I mean MMR to get a team you can play with. As a disclaimer, I am usually around lower gold in ranked seasons, but I'd really like to be better: I just can't figure out how I can team up with more experienced people and/or replay the match with same team & opponents to learn, unlike with WvW, raids and fractals.

> @"Urud.4925" said:

> Although warriors are _simple_ to use and understand, they are not so _easy_ as many suggest (I know ppl who struggle with a warrior in some chapter of the story/LW). But necro and rangers... totally. A bit boring on the long run maybe (if you only play them ranged), but definitely good to start.

Yes, for example my first toon was warrior, and I used to struggle with that. I made a ranger, which remained my "workhorse" for a long time, even thought I shifted to use necro as my workhorse to complete things. For me, guardian was easier to play than warrior at first. Ranger and/or necro I can hearthly suggest as first toon for new player.

> @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> Warrior is 'easy' but the fact that you generally play melee to be effective may be a bit more challenging since you have to face some heavy damaging hits.

Yes, it is easier to play later when you are bit more familiar with mechanics. For learning mechanics, both ranger and necro are more forgiving classes to play.

I wrote about the subject earlier a bit more for a player who asked for classes with option to have support builds (and I was not sure if s/he has HoT/PoF): https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/718122/#Comment_718122

> @"Megametzler.5729" said:

> > @"TamX.1870" said:

> > (...) Ah, yeah, lower ranked PvP is full of both wannabe-goddess/gods-of-PvP blaming all the others, and pure trolls making their dailies and wanting to ruin everyone else's game play. It makes it bit hard to anyone new to GW2 PvP to start climbing PvP ladders to make them better players.

>

> On a side note, do not worry - plenty of high tier players are awful as well. :smile:

Hahah :D :D :D Thanks for this, now I am really motivated to get higher ranks in sPvP :D :D :D

Just answering myself. At PvP side, including both unranked and ranked, I have ever received positive feedback from my enemies, never from my team mates so far. And that positive feedback from my enemies can be divided to two sections: (1) someone has really said after the battle, that "goosh, you was good, it was really difficult to fight against you", or (2) someone has said "fuck you on your ranger/necro/guard/mesmer/whatever, I know I would won you on different class, you little bastard!". From my "own" teams, I have never ever really heard anything positive. Not a single time, not ever, not even once. In best case they have been silent, at some point they have maybe told 'gg' at the end when winning, most of the time nothing.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> I had folks calling me pig and telling me to go die because I didn't storm into enemy base 2vs4. I had a person telling me how a human doesn't argue politely with a pig when I asked them to mind their manners.

Ah, yeah, lower ranked PvP is full of both wannabe-goddess/gods-of-PvP blaming all the others, and pure trolls making their dailies and wanting to ruin everyone else's game play. It makes it bit hard to anyone new to GW2 PvP to start climbing PvP ladders to make them better players.

First things first:

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> I recently started playing a game with my gf and sometimes she gets upset because she thinks she's bad at the game when we lose etc. but I always tell her "you're not bad, you're just new". keep that in mind.

I fully agree with this.

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> you are incredibly naive if you think teammate toxicity is something exclusive to gw2. any game where 1 players downfall is a detriment to the team will include toxicity among the team. it happens in MOBAs too.

Ah, I am not. Yes, in other games you will eventually start to get negative feedback from your allies, but as I said, or think I said in previous post, it is bit different to the situation in this game's ranked PvP. Just because how ranked PvP works. It is similar to game modes for example in WoT (World of Tanks), except in WoT (EDIT: solo queued) MMR matches are just for dailies - when you are ready to start to compete, you join a guild to start the real matches.

I told how in that one 24/7 PvP game, if you got kicked off from an ally, you became yourself as a private farm to your former allies (and in that game, it practically meant that you could stop playing and delete the account to save you from months of embarrasment). But if that happened, it happened after you were kicked out, after not playing your part in the team. Not when you were in your team.

You didnt answer to claims I thought are more important, but took some - lets say easy targets from my post. Would not mind to you to address those other things, too.

And:

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> just tell them you are new when you get into the match. most people will be ok with that. if some of them aren't, so be it.

In ranked? Honestly, are you serious? You say you are new, most often half of the team starts moaning right from the beginning how their possibility to win was taken off by MMR giving them a noobie. And then during the match, you will heard it all the time. If the match is win, they say that "whoosh, am I good, I won even with noobies in my team" and if you loose, they say "fuck, I knew right from the beginning you cant do anything, what a waste of time, go back to PvE or switch the game, you are worthless and dont know anything."(*)

(*) EDIT: I know you are an experienced PvPer. Try that at some point, make a new account, start it over, and say that you are noobie, and watch how people react. EDIT2: On the other hand, no, it would not affect to you even in new account. It affects to people who really are newbies and try to learn the game mode. You can ignore all the trash your team mates throw to you, even if not knowing your background, but new players can't because they have not yet any big accomplishmets to make them certain they do the right things, or even that they are in the right track of learning to be a good PvPer.

WvW is much more fair in that regard.

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> if you let strangers online who say bad things about your ability to play your character in a fictional game universe get to you and bring you down.. life is gonna be tough for you.

Hmmh, I think you are missing the point, at least my point.

If you want it short, my point is that WvW side is more healthy than ranked sPvP, and that unranked sPvP is more healthy than ranked sPvP.

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> holy kitten. gw2 playerbase is SO casual that pvp players don't like pvp simply because people are mean to them on the internet. jesus christ.

It is not that. This toxicity problem plagues everything but maybe the high end of the PvP. So, when you come in as a new player, the first thing you meet in PvP is the toxicity from people in your team - not from the people you won. Lower ranks are filled with people who think that they are the goddess/gods of PvP, and the only reason they are loosing the first mid fight is that their team is trash. You need to be relatively high in rank to be able to avoid those people, or being able to ignore them.

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> turn off /map and teamchat.

In a game mode where coordination is the key to success?

> personally I don't spend much time in game anymore cus it's dead and nothing has changed for 6 years. but cmon man.

I understand that, and you know, sort of, it confirms what the OP said.

> literally any pvp game is gonna have toxicity. if you can't handle it, don't play.

Ah, yes. All PvP will have toxicity, but who gives that and how you react to that, that is all up to the game mode itself. Before my previous game, I played a full-PvP 24/7 game. Allies - guilds in this game's terms - were led like army units. No-one survived alone, if you were kicked off from your ally, you became a farm to your former allies: if you were in a weak ally, you were farmed anyways. In that game, the toxicity came from the opposite side(*). In the previous game, it has open world PvP. In that game, toxicity comes from your opponents. In this game, in WvW(**), toxicity comes, if it comes, from the opposite side, they think you are cheater or played unfair and thus you won them. In this game, toxicity in PvP comes from your own team, it comes without reason (you know you played right, and still you get blamed). That is a big difference.

(*) EDIT: In that 24/7 PvP game, I got used to IGMs that first threatened me ("I will call my friends to trash your account to ashes"), then when I continued farming them they got bit more personal ("I'm 2 meters tall, 120 kg UFC champion, lets meet in real life."), after that they were suggesting some kinds of trades ("I will send you half of my resources every day, if you leave me alone."), to the begging ("Please. Im just a meaningless player, I don't threat you in any ways, can you please leave me alone. Please? Please? ... Please..."). I could not do that, because to win our main opponents, I needed to crush down several other accounts. But still, all that came from the opposite side. Not from my team mates.

(**) EDIT2: At WvW side, my team mates instruct me to be a better player. At PvP side, I get teamed with people who can't even say why we lost, yet they think they are eligible to say others than themselves have no glue about PvP.

> do you really think anet has to cater to your kitten?? get real. or do like I said and create a pvp chat tab where /t, /m and /w is muted.

Does not resolve anything. It just prevents you to coordinate your teams efforts.

Better choice is to go to automated tournaments with premades, or WvW. There the shit comes from your opponents, not from your "team mates".

> @"shadowpass.4236" said:

> People want a gamemode similar to Battlerite BR. Battle Royale in GW2 would essentially be solo roaming without the chance of get zerged down by 20 members of the opposing faction. And, since roaming is fun in WvW, everyone who enjoys that aspect of the game would enjoy GW2BR as well.

Ah, in real situation, players would make ad hoc teams to bring down together players they think could win them in 1vs1, and trusting they can win their "team mate" in the following 1vs1 - which is basically fine :D

Deathmatch as PvP game mode:

> @"Bazsi.2734" said:

> A major case of whoosh. ... For anyone thinking this would be a good idea, here is a lengthy and detailed explanation: Shadow Arts Deadeyes.

You know that the problems related implementing all vs all style deathmatch are the same that are related to WvW roaming? Deathmatch would only bring them more visible to the player base, and in my dreams I hope that it would lead to issuing those problems. Also, of course, deathmatch would be dominated by WvW roaming build alikes and sPvP duelist builds, and in my dreams I could see that after few balancing passes there would be suitable builds for all classes, or even multiple options to go for all classes.

I know that there are many games with randomly (MM) chosen teams fighting against each other. In those games (with this kind of mechanism) which I have played, those game modes are usually closer to our unranked than our ranked - you go to random team matching for dailies and such, to gather resources and unlock things (to "level up"), but when you really start to play competitive, you want a premade, and there are guilds/alliances and such which you join / which invite you to go to real competitive battle. It is especially true in PvP games where the team success is mostly based on coordination and not so much in individual skills on certain class / build, and my feeling is that current GW2 ranked PvP is mostly about coordinating the efforts. EDIT: It really does not help in GW2 ranked PvP that we don't have in-game voice, in fact, it makes the experience much worse.

I would like to see a change, where the ranked PvP goes more about the direction of automated tournaments with premades, with changes to try to make players to make teams, establish guilds who practise for tournaments / seasons (for example, make it possible to guilds to have permanent custom arenas for people to practise PvP). More places and opportunities to bring PvPers together, make relationships through e.g. duels or 2vs2, to make guilds with their n:o one dream team and several practising teams and so on.

For soloers, it would really be the best, that you win and loose alone. For soloing you'd need a game mode where only your actions make the dividing line between win and loose, and a rank you can follow to know when you make it better, and when your new ideas made you worse - that is, you need to know if you lost against a good player, or if you lost against a player ranked below you. And vice versa, you really need to know if you won a player ranked above you, or someone who was already ranked below you.

The ~~only~~ other option(*), if current ranked PvP is wanted to be kept, is to provide relevant information about the match to the players, so that they know where they did right, and where they did bad. Some sorts of options to go through the entire game to see, that for example my in-game choice to go far led to situation where we lost at near, or that my in-game choice to go near was really good, because it prevented the other side to have free points.

EDIT: Ah, another option is to remove the need of coordination in PvP ranked matches with ~~randomly~~ MMR chosen teams , and base them entirely to the one's skills in their classes, like, make a small arena where two teams meet themselves, and that team wins whose member is standing last (even if drowned, even if bleeding to death).

> @"derd.6413" said:

> changing MMOs is difficult in general.

Definitely true. I wouldn't be here if I would not disappointed so much with the game I was playing previously, and I could even go back and give it another try if it would not include updates which broke the client on my Linux/Wine machine. Starting a new game is very demanding job, after years playing some other game: you'd need to build everything - game knowledge, relationships to players and such - from zero.

> @"Biff.5312" said:

> My experience has been that most MMOs start off great, but in an effort to continually grow their user base they have to make decisions that ruin the game for dedicated players. They realize that they're losing most casual players who get easily frustrated by the slightest difficulty in content and quit while still low level, so they eliminate the difficulty. Which means eliminating any possible fun for anyone who actually wants to be engaged by the content. Because the low level stuff is not interesting, it makes levelling an annoying obstacle to be by-passed if possible, rather than being an enjoyable progression. On the other end of their client base, they have to keep adding content for end-game players, which becomes a never-ending cycle of gearing up to play content that rewards you with gear, only to have it made obsolete in the next expansion.

Yeah. This is very two-edged sword for many companies. They understand that they need casual players, but they don't necessary understand that casual players do not dedicate, they don't bring in money that much, and they will easily leave to another game. If game company pleases casuals too much, it looses its dedicated players - loosing dedicated players would keep the game running only if the game can have constant incoming flow of new casual players, which is not usually the case, and the game dies.

I really got enough of that endless gear resets when launching new content and/or raising level cap. I lost entirely my motivation to restart gearing over and over again.

> @"Doctor Hide.6345" said:

> That is the problem with a lot of the new indie MMOs coming out which turns me off even if they have good concepts. They are all too open world PvP focused which has been proven not to work on the masses. They will all become niche games.

Open World PvP, or lets say PvP in general is very tempting to online indie games, as then they don't need to create huge amounts of content they would otherwise need to do. Just some maps and game mechanics with some graphics, and you can go.

> @"Zaraki.5784" said:

> It's how newbs like to call their non-meta/sub-optimal build.

Hahah :D :D :D Well, but seriously, some hybrid builds are meta. In fact, from PvE/raid perspective it can be so that most PvP and WvW roaming / small scale builds are hybrids? One that comes immediately in to my mind is sPvP bunker druid (still meta, although it is not that popular choice anymore). Also, it does not necessarily hurt to go PuGging to fractals with hybrid builds on certain classes & tiers, or at least have a build that gives you some variants depending on the team composition. Maybe not necessary anymore at high tiers, at least if you go with familiar group.

But yeah, hybrid = mixing, builds that try to make comphromises between two goals by (usually) sacrificing the maximum performance on one front. For example, hybrid between personal DPS and team support, hybrid between personal sustain and damage output, and so on.

If this is your first toon, I'd recommend not to use booster. You find it much more valuable for your later toons, which you want to take directly to some content you already know. I used my two boosters (one from HoT, one from PoF) to two of my later characters at level around 75 - yes, close at cap. Reasons to do this: (1) I didn't want to use booster before I had gathered enough Hero Points for the toons (as HP gathering levels toon pretty fast anyways, and you'd like to have HPs to immediately start unlocking HoT/PoF elites), (2) I didn't want to make/buy intermediate lvl 75 gear set just for few levels, (3) I wanted to free shared inventory slot instead of using ToKs.

Leveling in this game is very quick process compared to many other games, even for newcomers. If you boost a low level toon, you will anyways come back later to same areas, so the booster is sort of wasted in such way, that you could have done more things at lower levels when the gained XP would have mattered to that toon. There are reasons to boost low level toons, of course, but I think it is most suited to players who have already several toons and they know where they want the newly created toon.

EDIT: On the other hand, you don't harm yourself permanently when boosting. At some point you will want to get rid of the booster anyways. If you use booster to your first toon, you may miss it later in some cases, but when you have played enough, you can take your newly created toons to level cap with ToKs anyways (ToK = Tome of Knowledge). You can easily go back to areas you like or want to do with your boosted toon, too.

I have suggested this earlier, change PvP to premade group fights, and for soloers give deathmatch. It's much easier for MM to get you random opponents than trying to give you random teammates. In all vs all deathmatch you could only blame yourself if not winning.

Just for fun, and sometimes to complete some missing achievement. If I happen to be around for some reason, I usually take part to world boss fight, too.

I write another post about fractals, so that these things are not lost inside previous ones. As you start with fractals, certain ones are mechanically easier than some others. Sadly, you can't learn the mechanics by reading or watching videos, you first need to go in and try, and when you read & watch videos after that, many things are much more clear.

One very important thing: when people say in chat 'gg', it does not mean 'great, gals/guys!' in sarcastic way and even if it means 'kill yourself', it is not meant an offensive. It means that they want you to type '/gg' command, which kills you, and when all are killed, you can respawn at checkpoint - mostly used to bypass certain puzzles, or reset boss fight if it didnt go well.

Here is my short descriptions about fractals and how easy they are when you go there at first time at T1:

Volcanic: This is mostly just spanking mobs, very friendly to newcomers. You mainly start to need to know anything about the mechanics at T3 or so.

Molten Boss: Straight-forward and mostly newcomer friendly.

Urban Battleground: This is pretty straight-forward fractal, quite friendly to newcomers. Very inexperienced groups kill themselves in the first gate, thought.

Snowblind: Snowblind is one of those newcomer friendly fractals. It has its own special mechanics, but yu don't need to worry about them until T3 or so.

Molten Furnace: Molten furnace is straight-forward at the beginning, but the last fight can be confusing when you are first time there. Still, you need like one or two bit more experienced players to beat it.

Underground Facility: First parts of this fractal are straight-forward, but the boss fight can be frustrating, if you lack DPS and don't know what to do.

Uncategorized: Uncategorized is quite straight-forward. It has some nasty jump puzzles and some mechanics, but nothing that overwhelming.

Swampland: One of the hardest parts in Swampland is the beginning. The boss fight is not that demanding.

Aquatic Ruins: Basically easy, but you want some experienced players to take the group to the boss.

Chaos Isles: Chaos has some jump puzzles, and bit nasty bonfire puzzle at the middle, but otherwise suitable to newbie groups.

Deepstone: Deepstone is easier than it feels at the beginning. The thing is to use that special skill (light) to prevent platform disappearing. Some puzzles, mostly just mob spanking.

Solid Ocean: Solid Ocean is all about its mechanics. You want to have experienced players with you in your first runs, but later when you know it, it will be one of your favorite fractals.

Cliffside: Cliffside has puzzle, and that hammer mechanics. It can be overwhelming without two experienced players working with hammer. If you have those, they can carry you through pretty easily.

Captain Mai Trin Boss: This is basically straight-forward. Basically: you'd need some experienced players with you for first runs, otherwise you are doomed.

Aetherblade: This fractal has some nasty mechanics, you probably want some experienced player with you. Otherwise, not that bad.

Nightmare: Nightmare is long and versatile fractal. It may be overwhelming if you don't know what is happening next.

Twilight Oasis: Make one mistake when jumping, and you are lost :D Also, boss fight has several phases that can be overwhelming at first.

Shattered Observatory: This is... Fancy. You want to have few experienced players to take you through mechanics.

Thaumanova Reactor: This one is, well, all about mechanics.

If you start with the fractals listed first, you probably get some smoothened learning curve to them. All fractals have their own mechanics, but some of those are more demanding than others. Also, note that your subjective feeling of the fractal difficulty changes tier to tier. For example, Solid Ocean which is close all about mechanics, feels difficult at first, but later it feels easier. Volcanic, which feels easy at the beginning, may start feel harder at higher tiers, when its "DPS gating" mechanics starts kicking in.

EDIT: You will anyways need to run certain fractal several times before you start to remember what happens next, and before you are ready to learn more about the mechanics in the encounters. Dont worry about that. Give yourself some time, and go running T1 even if they don't always end to success, and even if sometimes your group may be filled with a##holes - that is very rare in T1 runs, but sometimes that happens.

> @"Grampybone.3716" said:

> Does that mean T1 fractals are something I really should give a try?

Yes :) T1 fractals are for absolute noobies, you don't really need to know much, not about the fractal itself, and neither much of your class. They are for practising. Even a single more experienced person can carry groups through fractals, but usually groups are such that you have two experienced ones carrying their guildie, and they can easily take two more newcomers to be carried through. You are free to ask questions, and most will answer you, and in general your job in T1's is just to get used to fractals and their mechanics. Absolutely no worries.

> I love GW2 (and it's expansions), and been playing it since shortly after release (2012?). But the lack of a clear role (Tank/healer/3dps) refrained me from trying. I used to love healing in (heroic) dungeons in WoW.

I come from WoW-like game, and have played GW2 now about a year. In that WoW-like game, I liked tanking most, but sadly it was my healer that was most wanted to high challenge runs :/ Just because DPS was easy to find, and most of those experienced players liked to tank like me, and I mostly gave up and logged a healer :)

> But if ArenaNet gives me these items in the open world, is it an invitation to at least **try** a fractal?

I think it is :) There are many small things that try to lure you to try something outside your comfort zone.

> I talked about it in in-game chat and people say things like 'Just try T1, what bad could possibly happen'? 'Fights in HoT open world are sometimes tougher than T1 fractal'. I don't know...

They are right. T1 fractals are easy, and if you join a group, most times they have few experienced players carrying the group through, so you dont need to know anything. You will learn, and before you even realize, you are carrying first-timers through T1 :)

> In GW2 I feel empty handed when it's about dungeons or T1 fractal. I have my gear, my profession skills, but no role, and I'm very worried that because of my inexperience people will think 'Sheesh there's another lazy/troll player who doesn't care about being usefull in the group'.

That comes at higher levels, but usually not in T1s. If you want to be absolutely sure about the success, try groups running daily T1 recommended one - those groups are usually filled with players from all tiers, T1 to T4. But I'd say you can easily start doing T1 dailies right away. Time to time you might get a group where all are newcomers, but that's just fun. Except that many times in such groups people start giving up very easily.

> Thank you for all the replies! :) I'll start working on a healer set for a Druid build this week so I can switch to DPS/Heal, whatever the group prefers. First I'll join open world bosses to feel a bit more familiar with Druid en hopefully in a week or 2 I'll try a fractal.

You don't need geared druid for T1 support. Any gears will be sufficient. If your group can't make it when you are Druid in Berserker gears, it will not make it if your Druid has all ascended Harrier gears. You can of course practise Druid playing in fractals, but for lower level fractals I suggest you to take your scourge-necro, if you happen to have one. If people are dying like flies, full-healer druid really can't make a difference in lower level fractals, but hybrid-support scourge can.

Hope this gives you needed courage boost to go and start with fractals! :)

> @"Grampybone.3716" said:

> I like the idea of being a Druid with (Minstrel) gear that might protect me just that little extra few seconds to cast that one spell that avoids a wipe. Having defense gives me a feeling there's some surviving flexibility in case I mess up.

As others have pointed out, extra toughness can have nasty side effects at PvE side(*). Minstrel armor is mostly used by (1) PvE tanks (e.g. Chrono tank), and (2) WvW support (e.g. Firebrand). PvE support most probably aim towards harrier. I have played lower tier fractals in my druid's old WvW roaming setup (commander pieces and such), but I noticed that blood sage necro is more suitable for lower tier (hybrid) support. Druid playing is more about entering and exiting CA. Heals are mostly just nice-to-have side effects when keeping buffs up. You don't need to worry too much about your lower tier gears: if lower tier group can't make it with support Druid in berserker gears, it most probably can't make it with support Druid in harrier gears: at lower tiers you mostly help your group best by dishing out enough DPS.

(*) I have criticized earlier this toughness tanking mechanism this game has. It artificially divides support gears between PvE and WvW, as at WvW side you usually need some toughness + vitality, because you can't decide if the enemy concentrates its fire to you or not.

> @"Ralistu.1965" said:

> which is how GW2 runs when you stay "meta". like almost all other games.

Well, not exactly, or at least not like in many other games. If you happened to work for legendaries already, there is no gear treadmill left anymore. Ascended pieces are anyways account-bound and their (armor & weapon) stats can be changed. Exotic pieces are character-bound, but they are (usually) not that hard to get. I admit that new things involve new work, and that meta changes cause regearing in a way or another, but I like also point out that this is different than in many other MMOs, where you need to get all the same gears again.

Imagine, that when a new map is launched, your current Berserker set stats get inflated, and you need to start gather new materials, new currencies, new recipes, new achievements to get new Berserker set for raids & WvW. Or that AR infusions get inflated, and you need to start to work for higher infusions (switch from +9 to +13 or so), or you need to start work for new ascended gears (with same stats than your previous pieces) which have extra infusion slot, so that you can again enter to T4 fractals.

Yes, new things introduce new work, but not that many times you are forced to do new work to keep your old things running.

> @"Ralistu.1965" said:

> (of a state) oppressive, tedious, and **seemingly without end**.

Which is very different here than in so many other games. Here, when you work towards some harder-to-reach goals (like full ascended set, legendaries, masteries, mounts), the work stops when you reach the goal. In so very many WoW-like games, you restart all the work once a new map/instance cluster/level cap raise comes - everything you got earlier is obsoleted, and you need to start all the work again to get you back to position (e.g. raid spot, challenge runs) where you were already. That is what I call grinding, truly never ending tedious farming to stay in the bandwagon, to keep you able to do the content.

> @"Annihilator.2617" said:

> Do I need all ascended or not? If not which is the minimal equipment requirement for doing any level of fractals?

You definitely do not need all ascended for long time. As said above, lower tiers can be done in almost any gears: at least exotic is more than enough, maybe rares work, too. When Agony starts getting up, you need to slot agony resistance, and to slot them, you start need ascended pieces gradually. You will get those from many sources, if you keep running fractals.

> @"Karaash.1037" said:

> I decided to try those 3 and warior too

Yeah, I excluded warrior only because it has no support builds :) My first toon was warrior, but it didn't fit to my hands at those times. When I was creating first toon, I falsely thought that Ranger is ranged DPS. When I later started to play it, I was surprised to have a pretty sturdy melee fighter in my hands :) Nowadays I play warrior again, not to that extent it deserves, but anyways. I have learned that my struggling when I started was not because of the class, but just my inexperience and my wrong ideas about the warrior and fights (learned from previous game).