Einlanzer.1627

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"TheThief.8475" said: > > I remember when I used to play my first beloved thief in 2013 and **I had already all 5 weapons skills at level 2**! : wasn't it so much more fun than now? > > No. Because when you got more weapons later on you have to "Grind" again to unlock their skills. With the current system once you unlock the skills, they are unlocked on every weapon you try ever after. There is nothing more annoying than getting a brand new weapon and having no skills to use. They made unlocking the skills of your first weapon slower, but they did speed up the unlock process for multiple weapons considerably. Hard disagree. Unlocking the skills on a per weapon basis was actually more fun. It didn't take very long, and it taught you how to use them properly.

> @"Danikat.8537" said: > Do you remember the part where you had to unlock each weapon skill individually by using that weapon? Not just each slot but each skill? So on a profession without many weapons/skills to choose from it could be quick, but unlocking everything on an elementalist took ages because you had to do each weapon 4 times over (once for each element). It wasn't directly tied to levels, but it's not like you started the game with all weapon skills unlocked. > > I think this system is simpler because you don't have to go out of your way to make sure you unlock skills. As soon as you level up enough to unlock a slot you have access to that skill on all weapons, and you get XP from everything so you'll unlock them all just by playing. But you still have to find or buy that weapon before you can use it's skills, and new players will still need to experiment with each weapon to find out which one they like best, so overall I think it's one of the more trivial changes and I'd be hesitant to say one way is better than the other. I do. And it was both more fun AND more engaging in terms of teaching weapons to players. The only problem is that there were so few of them that you could easily have it done by level 5. The truth is I agree with the OP - the original system was honestly a lot better than the NPE they moved to later on. To this day the skill/trait menus are a hot, confounding mess, it makes no sense to combine skills & traits into the same resource pool, etc.

> @"LSD.4673" said: > Vast majority of the voice acting is Pokemon-level. The girls are quivering cutesies bootsies, or fierce! independent! woah-mans!, while the men all sound like a 14 year old trying to deepen his voice by tucking in his chin. Rytlock, human and norn are the worst offenders. > > The weird guy sylvari aussie-ish voice is grating at first, but might well be the best because of how absurd it is. Rytlock is really bad. I find his "gruffness" to be so forced and exaggerated that it's distracting.

The only thing that bothers me is the line "oh that had to hurt" that you hear constantly and that's mostly because your avatar says it when **you** take damage. Super weird and 4th wall breaking.

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > The important thing to remember is that the META is largely about community enforcement. The community is focusing on speed clears and defined roles when they recommend builds. A strong case can be made for creating builds that don't do things quickly, but comfortably. Even for raids, you don't need to run the super-effective comps with pure glass builds to win. A community can have expectations where the players prefer not to wear glass cannon gear, because they don't want to spend their time dealing with losses from thin margins of error. > > The gear prefixes are there largely to help with preference in play. Factoring in overworld preferences and WvW builds of limitless specialization, there are far more uses for gear sets than you'd expect. I myself have a Marshall Weaver for WvW and particularly stubborn PVE overworld bosses. This is a good point. I hate to say it, but there's a lot of groupthink influencing hype around different sets. For example, the conventional wisdom that offensive stats always beat defensive stats in PvE is a bit of a flawed oversimplification. Power/condi damage is king, but Precision/Ferocity/Expertise vs Toughness/Vitality is a lot more nuanced. Swapping Soldier's in place of Berserkers to some extent can can assist your ability to control fights, become more strategic with dodging, etc. People tend to look at it in theory rather than in practice, which doesn't tell the full picture. Furthermore, if you assume you're doing a lot of casual group activity, TTL is arguably more important than TTK is. And that's just one straightforward example.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > > > @"ASP.8093" said: > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > > > > That's great - but, ultimately, it's not really relevant to this topic. POF being a tedious chorefest isn't simply a L2P issue - mobs are more numerous, more pathy, and have higher aggro range than in most of the game and there's no real justification for it as these zones don't retain large numbers of players to offset it. Even if you have no trouble killing the mobs, it's routinely tedious and annoying for no good reason. > > > > > > > > > > The justificiation is that it makes the maps livelier and more fun. > > > > > > > > > > Any map where enemies placidly stand around until you tag them is a dull map. > > > > > > > > Except all evidence available is that it does the opposite because there's nothing drawing large crowds to those maps. > > > All evidence you mean this thread where 90% of the posts disagree with you? > > > > > > > It's self-evident that this is not accurate. If you're finished with your hyperbole, maybe you can participate in an actual discussion. > This actual discussion is one big hyperbole. OP literally says that mobs are "bullying" him. Except that isn't actually what the discussion is about, so, once again, hyperbole.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > @"ASP.8093" said: > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > > That's great - but, ultimately, it's not really relevant to this topic. POF being a tedious chorefest isn't simply a L2P issue - mobs are more numerous, more pathy, and have higher aggro range than in most of the game and there's no real justification for it as these zones don't retain large numbers of players to offset it. Even if you have no trouble killing the mobs, it's routinely tedious and annoying for no good reason. > > > > > > The justificiation is that it makes the maps livelier and more fun. > > > > > > Any map where enemies placidly stand around until you tag them is a dull map. > > > > Except all evidence available is that it does the opposite because there's nothing drawing large crowds to those maps. > All evidence you mean this thread where 90% of the posts disagree with you? > It's self-evident that this is not accurate. If you're finished with your hyperbole, maybe you can participate in an actual discussion.

> @"ASP.8093" said: > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > That's great - but, ultimately, it's not really relevant to this topic. POF being a tedious chorefest isn't simply a L2P issue - mobs are more numerous, more pathy, and have higher aggro range than in most of the game and there's no real justification for it as these zones don't retain large numbers of players to offset it. Even if you have no trouble killing the mobs, it's routinely tedious and annoying for no good reason. > > The justificiation is that it makes the maps livelier and more fun. > > Any map where enemies placidly stand around until you tag them is a dull map. Except all evidence available is that it does the opposite because there's nothing drawing large crowds to those maps.

> @"LunarRXA.5062" said: > I apologize? I don't post on the official forums much. Generally, I consider these forums over-zealously moderated, but I can understand why such a rule exists. I'll keep that in mind for future reference. I try not to make a habit of posting too much, but I enjoy helping players improve their understanding of the game when possible. That's great - but, ultimately, it's not really relevant to this topic. POF being a tedious chorefest isn't simply a L2P issue - mobs are more numerous, more pathy, and have higher aggro range than in most of the game and there's no real justification for it as these zones don't retain large numbers of players to offset it. Even if you have no trouble killing the mobs, it's routinely tedious and annoying for no good reason.

The bottom line is that PoF mobs operate as if those zones are high density meta zones when they actually work better as exploration/casual zones, hence they need a nerf to aggro range and spawn times.

> @"kharmin.7683" said: > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said: > > > @"lokh.2695" said: > > > I'd rather have them spend their resources on something else. > > > > Like what, exactly? > > > > Bluntly - I think people with this opinion are wrong, just like how the anti-mount crowd was wrong. I think the long term health of the game is strongly tied to variety in character options. Today, the character customization is too simple and too on-rails considering there is no gear progression and the level is locked to 80. New weapon types and new weapon skills would take some work, but the bang-for-buck effect is much higher than with a lot of other possible things. > > There is a laundry list of things that need to be fixed. I, for one, would like to see more attention to those things than the incorporation of something new which, to me, won't add a lot of new "playability" for what I believe would be the majority of the player base. There will always be a laundry list of things to fix. This is identical to using "the game needs balancing" to naysay new classes or whatever. It's wrongheaded because it misses the fact fixing and balancing are ongoing efforts that you cannot pause system evolution and content development for.

> @"lokh.2695" said: > I'd rather have them spend their resources on something else. Like what, exactly? Bluntly - I think people with this opinion are wrong, just like how the anti-mount crowd was wrong. I think the long term health of the game is strongly tied to variety in character options. Today, the character customization is too simple and too on-rails considering there is no gear progression and the level is locked to 80. New weapon types and new weapon skills would take some work, but the bang-for-buck effect is much higher than it is with a lot of content they are actually developing now.

> @"Valfar.3761" said: > I personally like not having to worry about gear in GW2. I'm fine with my exotics. Don't feel like grinding for ascended/legendaries/whatever. I just want to play the game. > > One of the reasons why I ditched WoW for FFXIV was I didn't really have to worry about gear treadmill all that much in FFXIV. > > In WoW, you have to play for at least 2 hours every day to remain competitive. You have to do your half hour of world quests, then your mythic + run, and then your raids... and you have to gem your gear, and enchant your gear, and then reroll for the right azerite bonuses and affixes, and you have to consult an out of game bot that calculates what's the best build for you... it's just not fun at all. > > Whereas in FFXIV, all I have to do is just show up on raid night with raid food and potions and I'm good to go. My ilevel doesn't really matter that much, good gear is easy to obtain very quickly. No stat nonsense like in WoW. > > I like HoT's verticality. Not a fan of the high mob density on the flat maps that were added later on. > > Regarding raids in GW2, I did a pug for the first tier of the HoT raid when it came out. Played as a healer. I found the experience to be extremely confusing and it wasn't clear what was happening and why. I think FFXIV does a stellar job at teaching you the mechanics of the fight without having to consult an out of game walkthrough. I think GW2 is hamstrung by too many different problems (onscreen clutter/text font/thin aoe lines is a big problem). > > As for skills, GW2 and FFXIV/WoW are rather different. In GW2, you can buy any skill you want so long as you have the points. Whereas in FFXIV and WoW, you have to wait until you reach a certain level to unlock an ability. This works against those games because the longer the leveling process is, the worse the class design becomes because you're playing most of the game without your core class abilities. > > As for the story, yes FFXIV wins hands down no contest. That being said, I did enjoy HoT's campaign. Trying to escape Scarlet with the egg was pretty fun, and there was a climatic sense of urgency in the last mission where you're hopping across islands over deadly fog and you're going up that revolving tree and that final battle against Mordremoth and meeting the ghosts of your dead friends, yeah that was fun. But otherwise, besides those set pieces, I never really cared about GW2's story. I don't like anyone aside from Rytlock and I think that the story is very bland. I don't care about dragons or some fire god. GW2's writing is really lacking - both in actual dialogue and making a compelling story - and it doesn't help that the presentation of the story is lackluster (cutscenes, animations, etc). GW2 is pretty much always going to be way behind in that regard. > > GW2's strength is in jumping puzzles, the climatic meta events like Silverwastes/Dragon's Stand, and the spectacle/set pieces in the campaign. I also loved the vertical maps of HoT. A lot of people like not having to worry about gear; that's probably what draws people in more than anything else. However, end game can't just be about fashion wars. The fundamental problem as I see it is the game was designed in too on-rails a way to not end with something like gear progression. What I would prefer to see is them fixing the on-rails part, making the game a little more sandboxy, instead of adding gear progression. Skills and traits are too straightforward, masteries lack sufficient impact to the overall gameplay, and character build/roles in small group content are _still_ not fleshed out well enough. There is nothing to chase in the end game really except for cosmetics, and that is not enough for serious MMO players. Meanwhile, the difficulty of raids, dungeons, and even story instances is off-putting to casual players. It's a paradox that ultimately means GW2 struggles to retain players, and it needs to be aggressively addressed leading up to and going into the Cantha campaign. We are _massively_ overdue for a systems update as opposed to a content update. Stat/trait/skill overhauls, etc. I would even advocate moving away from the elite spec system into something more free-form, integrating elite spec skills and traits into the core classes, adjusting stats, and adding new weapon types with flexible weapon skills, skills and traits you can chase in the end game, etc. I would also favor a level & stat squish down to 40 or 50.

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said: > PoF mob density is no worse than HoT. However, the aggro range on many PoF/LS4 mobs is far longer. The overall effect is that moving around without being harassed by every mob within a square mile of your position is significantly more difficult in these later maps. Personally, I can't stand it. I find it really irritating and wish they'd reduce the aggro range to the way it was in HoT. Yes, it needs a nerf. Those zones don't get enough mass traction through meta events for mobs to operate that way & they need to be made more solo friendly.

GW2 might no be doing amazingly well, but it does do well enough that I would expect it to continue receiving support for a while. They've dropped the ball in a lot of areas by over-focusing on story and new zerg/meta maps, but I still think it has potential to really take off with some changes. It's long past time for new weapons, classes, and/or races, and it's long-past time they started focusing a little more on small group content. They need to deepen the mastery and skill trait systems to make end game more than just fashion wars, and they need to create better dungeon and raid dynamics for parties. They did away with the holy trinity, but the fact is some type of role system is needed to make people feel like they're actually playing an RPG with other people. You simply won't get the same level of investment otherwise.