Einlanzer.1627

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> If greataxes aren't used in the same way that hammers are used, wouldn't Anet then have to create all new visuals?

Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's the kind of thing should be doing for expansions.

It would be better to just have greataxes as a new weapon type because they _aren't used the same way hammers are_, so hammers can't really effectively approximate them. Same deal for spear and staff.

Anet can and should do this, and so that's what we should encourage. It should have happened 6 years ago.

Yeah, also resistance should reduce condi damage by 50%, not 100%, and condi damage should be nerfed.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> I'd rather have an actual Scythe weapon category and have it replace Greatsword on Reaper.

This. We're about 6 years overdue for more weapon variety.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> I don't believe any of those things are a necessity. GW2 doesn't need to do everything that < insert MMO > does.

I think you're wrong. I think lack of variety in environments has hurt GW2, and the type of indoor environments described by the OP are often what dungeons provide in other MMOs - they help foster a sense of immersion that the open world can't. This is glaringly missing in GW2 and it's to the game's detriment.

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> Flawed as it may be, I will trust Anet's marketing team to know economics than any posters on the forums who purport to know. Do I agree with their tactics? Not necessarily.

You shouldn't. 10+ years in the corporate world has shown me that pretty much nobody really knows what they're doing - executives least of all. It's all posturing.

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > > @"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

> > > > @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > >

> > > > > They would have generated a lot of good will, interest, and almost certainly increased their revenue through other gem store items by making it a free and simple feature like the wardrobe system was and like the addon was.

> > > >

> > > > Increase revenue by making it free? How does that work?

> > >

> > > The more free quality of life features that get added, the more people are willing to spend their money on fashion. Good will begets good will.

> >

> > I disagree. People will continue to ask for free things once a company goes that route. GW2 is free and look now how many things players want for free.

>

> This.

>

> Sorry, even if gear and build templates might be overpriced to some players (and by extension, maybe not hit the revenue mark that was hoped expected and designed with conceptual flaws like being of less value than alternatives like extra character slots), the short fuse reaction to always ask for free stuff is very strong in this community.

>

> There is this constant argument suggested that:

> more free stuff and free items will make players spend more, yet at the same time, when OPTIONAL not necessary items actually do get added (be it skins, mount skins or template slots), the outrage is always the same: WE WANT THIS FOR FREE. Literally every. single. time.

>

> Sorry I am not seeing it. There is a HUGE part of players not spending a dime on this game beyond what is absolutely necessary, while at the same time expecting triple A content on a regular basis, free of charge and ideally yesterday with even more free stuff while complaining constantly.

>

> **That's the price you pay as a developer for offering a non subscription, cosmetic and convenience item funded, completely free DLC content to your players. You attract a certain crowd of customers which overall is very price sensitive. Which is fine, but let's call a spade a spade and not beat around the bush here.**

>

> The main issues with equipment templates are:

> - functionality and not allowing for basic features as saving builds and being inferior to previous out of game options

> - inconsistencies with similar in game alternatives (extra characters)

> - inconsistencies with outside work around options (template codes with make account build templates obsolete)

> - poor scalability from a design choice (per character unlocks)

>

> That does not even touch on the issue of many players not even NEEDING these templates in the first place for the 1 build they play (which is fine, no one has to play multiple builds, but in this case, this feature was designed for the wrong crowd in mind).

You and kharmin are both missing the point. When you go overboard in putting focus on the gem store, you actually short-circuit player interest in utilizing it for anything either by driving them out of the game altogether or by making them comfortable with never buying anything. This isn't just an Anet or MMO thing, this is a basic economics thing. It's pretty much just a version of analysis paralysis similar to what you see with the over-abundance of tvshows and streaming services that exits now.

It's ironic, but players are likely to spend more money when you carefully manage what goes into the gem store instead of just indiscriminately trying to monetize everything. That is especially true in this game because you can buy gold with gems (which is what I always do because I tend to play casually and have more money than I do time.)

It's even worse in this case because they took a feature that was previously free, eliminated it, re/over-engineered it, then re-released a for-pay version of it that was technically inferior in most respects to the free version that existed before. And to top it off, they made it overpriced just like they did the "premium" mount skins. This just pisses people off because it feels like a minor form of exploitation.

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

>

> > They would have generated a lot of good will, interest, and almost certainly increased their revenue through other gem store items by making it a free and simple feature like the wardrobe system was and like the addon was.

>

> Increase revenue by making it free? How does that work?

Uhm... because you generate interest in the game, which means you have more people jumping in to play and making gem store purchases? This is basic economics. Trying to directly monetize everything and overloading the gem store in the process is usually a losing gambit because it kills player interest rather than generating it and it also causes analysis paralysis even among active players who would otherwise be willing to spend money in the gem store.

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> Probably because players kept asking for templates for years, so someone at Anet thought they'd be willing to pay this much to get them.

>

> I use the 3 build slots in-game for the builds I use most often and then have a file on my computer with all my builds saved as chat codes (with notes to say what they are) so if I want a different one I can just load it from there, overwriting one of the 'defaults' then replace it afterwards. It's not quite as quick as saving them all in-game but it means I can have as many builds as I want saved for free.

>

> And so far none of my characters have more than 2 sets of equipment. Honestly I'm more inclined to work with what I've got than make or buy a whole new set for perfect stats for one part of the game. If I'd gotten rid of one of my duplicate elementalists or engineers and just used 1 for everything they'd need more equipment space, but I wouldn't want to do that even if it was free.

It was a tactical mistake to try to directly monetize this feature. Not only did it lead to them over-engineering it, costing them god only knows how much unnecessary time and money, but it also represents gem store overloading, which usually results in people losing interest and spending less money. It makes it worse when it's something that we had for free through addons beforehand.

They would have saved on cost, generated good will, spiked player interest, and almost certainly increased their revenue indirectly through other gem store items by making it a free and simple feature like the wardrobe system was and like the addon was.

New weapon types are long overdue, IMO. Hoping to see that.

> @"jinxykat.6519" said:

> I thought it was extremely fun (went with a public group) Honestly, players shouldn't be so turned off by group play, it IS an mmorpg, after all.

Yeah i kind of agree. In fact, I think in some ways GW2 has sabotaged itself by over-favoring solo and open world content. Open world content might as well be solo even if you are doing it with other people - and that's part of the problem. The game started undermining itself years ago by not prioritizing organized group content more.

> @"Makuragee.3058" said:

> Also the desert screen, no offense to the artists, is kind of bad the music is just ambient noise and the visual art well... its brown... too much brown...

Yeah I agree. It was cool for a little while, but both original and HoT screens were better.

It's long overdue.

Honestly, they should revert to the original character loading screen for a while if they don't want to put resources into developing one for Icebrood Saga.

Or let us choose :)

I've been complaining for years about how bad they messed up the balance of condi. Here's what seems to have happened:

- condi was designed as short duration damage ticks against high armor targets

- they forgot condi penetrated armor

- they buffed up condi to where its damage was competitive with power regardless of armor

- they added in cleanse and resistance effects because it became really powerful

- cleanse and resistance became too powerful so they buffed up condi damage and nonsensically made it longer duration even though the battle system is quick paced

- the cycle continued

They need to peel back literally all of this. Shorten durations, lower damage, nerf resistance to only prevent 50% instead of 100%, and gut the shit out of cleanse. Condi should be low-medium damage output but very hard to mitigate. Power should outperform it against low armor targets and it should outperform power on high armor targets.

Why they decided to nerf power so much and leave condi alone with the big patch is beyond me.

I really feel this is something that should have already happened. Not adding land spears with Elona was basically the biggest dropped ball ever.

Here's hoping they do it this time.

> @"Faline.8795" said:

> - No appreciable end game. Conquering the next raid or dungeon or working toward that cool looking weapon isn't enough of a draw. GW2's bread and butter is avoiding the power chase. Okay, fine. But what they do have doesn't work for enough people. Gamers want to chase _something_. What? I don't know. But what GW2 i

> - Not enough new content. Have to keep rolling it out. Updates are too far between. That, as well, bespeaks a game that isn't doing well, perception-wise. Reality doesn't matter. Only perception.

These are clearly the main two reasons GW2 struggles, objectively speaking. I don't love vertical progression but I agree on point 1 - fashion wars are doing this game in. Most MMO players need more than that to keep them engaged. They also need more than story, especially since the story is kinda mediocre. The Mastery system is underutilized and character customization is too simplistic and too railroaded for a horizontally-oriented game. GW1 didn't have this problem and that was part of the reason it kept its players engaged.

On two, I can't really can't fathom how they can produce content so slowly with a dev team of their size. Something is majorly wrong with either the way the studio is run, the way the engine is built, or both.

Something I've posted about in the past and _still_ don't understand -

Condi damage is generally superior to power damage (especially now) but is "balanced" by being much easier to mitigate through mechanics like Resistance and Cleanse. Wouldn't it make more sense the other way around, and wasn't that the original intended design of Condi?

Intuitively, it seems that they let cleanse/resistance over-dominate and therefore cranked up Condi damage to compensate and that led to a bad overall design. In reality, I think the game would feel more stable and enjoyable if Condi damage was lower and resistance and cleanse got majorly nerfed, allowing power to be the "conditional" spike-spec that performs better mostly against lower armor targets while condi is more reliable/less clutch and specializes vs higher armor.

If anything, power damage should be very high but allow for some stronger invulnerability/block/parry effects more like what condi has now.

Am I missing something?

I don't know why they don't nerf condi and cleanse both. Condi damage should generally be lower than power damage, but it should be harder to mitigate. That was the original purpose that they for some reason felt the reason to flip on its head.

Sigh... i've been complaining about the way condi is positioned in the game for years and nobody ever takes me seriously.

Condi was designed with the benefit of ignoring armor. It's as if if the devs forgot this was even a thing and just tried to conceptually make them like EQ dots by doing significantly more damage than direct damage over time regardless of target armor, which doens't work in GW2's fast-paced combat system. Long durations with high damage delivery doesn't work in GW2's fast paced combat system.

In many cases condi needs **both** a damage nerf _and_ a duration nerf.

It kind of amazed me that they executed all of these nerfs to direct damage with apparently no recognition that condi would become a problem. I honestly don't know why they didn't handle this damage reduction in a different way altogether, such as just reducing damage by 1/3 across the board.

I honestly can't believe they haven't fixed this yet. The aggro range is probably the main reason people avoid PoF content and there's no good reason for it because that content is otherwise gold.

> @"Alyster.9470" said:

> Well, I blame to the overhyped icebrood saga announcement which made some people quit if they were not even going to. Continuous letdown releases such as build templates and no mention of elite specs also made it worse. Abandoning most content and not communicating with the community in time to give people something look forward to is just another thing that makes most people lose their faith thus they dont want to spend more on the game as they think its death is coming. Some good communication were made in the last few weeks but I guess that was a bit late considering all the backlash and drama already hit the point of no return for some players.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. The misguided PAX event combined with the terrible rollout of build templates after a long time with very insufficient updates were a nail in the coffin.

It's really quite unreal how challenging it seems to be for Anet to develop the game. They don't have a small dev team... it seems obvious that something is extremely wrong with the way they're structured.

> @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> Scythes and spears as distinct weapon types really don't have any place in GW2, their niches have been filled by other weapons (greatsword/melee staff and a variety of short-range ranged weapons, respectively).

>

> Also paragons already exist in GW2, they just learned how to wear pants and call themselves "guardians" now.

Fail logic for an MMO. The lore was crafted to match the mechanics - not the other way around. This is what Anet wants you to think so you won't harass them about it, not what's best for the game and its players. In truth, more weapon types would have been one of the best ways to expand character options pretty much right out of the gate and it's something they should have been doing for the last 6 years.

Not introducing spears with Elona & instead crafting some lame lore around former spear-masters using daggers was one of the biggest dropped balls in the history of MMO gaming and it's a perfect example to illustrate why GW2 struggles more than it should.

> @"Alga.6498" said:

> The most requested ''weapon'' to become a land-weapon is the Spear, from the lastest patch ANet updated 2 additional Sunspear weapons along with 2 _''dark''_ versions of spear and scythe. **We will never get these weapons as new weapon mechanism ** as ANet would've got the biggest chance to add additional weapons to our wep category at this very moment as we're in Elona, which would be Paragon and Dervish's weapons.

>

> Sunspear, Sunscythe, Darkspear and Oblivion are **staff** skins.

>

> I just... have no words how ANet decided to do something like this... :disappointed:

> As a veteran/GW1 player who wished and kept hoping for years for land-spears and scythe to be available to players has simply been crushed and stomped on. This honestly hurts so much seeing NPCs Dervish and Paragons yet unable for us players. :cry:

I agree. It's pretty stupid - expanding weapons should have been one of the first things they started doing after the game's launch. It's really unfortunate how much wasted potential this game has.

I just don't really understand why they're directly modifying all the power coefficients instead of reworking things like boon stacking and how base damage algorithms work. That would be a lot more sensible, and it could help them improve the balance between PvE and PvP without relying so much on skill forking.

That said, in terms of breadth and scope of change - this is what's been needed for years. I hope it helps breathe new life into the game.

Yeah it's really disheartening to see this over and over and over.