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[AFollowerNotALeader]

I agree with your points, Hawkian, I'm just adding to them!

A green sword may be selling on the TP for 1 copper more than a vendor could pay for it, but someone who wants that sword for their character can't buy it from a vendor.

That sword is also (unless you are leveling), basically trash. Good thing that it's cheap!

The pre-endgame TP makes it completely trivial to gear up your characters as you level, which isn't a problem because gear honestly doesn't matter all that much in Guild Wars 2.

This is not only not a problem, it's a GLORIOUS STRENGTH! Being able to keep your gear cheaply up to date while leveling is really great.

 

[kaiju]

I just returned to the game after a 4 month hiatus. Gotta say the grind for a Legendary weapon really killed the appeal of the endgame for me, it's ridiculous. Part of my problem though was that I made several rare weapons that while not Legendary, still required quite the grind to make them. So this time I'm just going for a Twilight, although crafting Mjolnir is damned tempting...

This is my Guardian, crazy overpowered in PVE/Dungeons. Definitely my favorite class and I highly recommend them.

This time around I am leveling up a Sylvari Warrior with a Longbow build for some WvW fun.

 

[Chris R]

For some reason I could never really get into it :| The pvp stuff at level 80 wasn't bad, just hard to navigate. Didn't help that the leveling was so sloooooooow. Only put in like 15 hours, but I don't know if I'll ever fire it up again.

 

[Violet_0]

Any idea when the first expansion will be released? I used to be a top 5 guild contributer in the first month before I got bored
(I literally didn't do anything but play the game for 30 days straight and somehow a few people still managed to play more than me, heh)

 

[Hawkian]

That sword is also (unless you are leveling), basically trash. Good thing that it's cheap!
This is not only not a problem, it's a GLORIOUS STRENGTH! Being able to keep your gear cheaply up to date while leveling is really great.

That's the idea. If you want to sell green weapons to make a profit you are going to interpret the economy as being absolutely atrocious. If you want to buy green weapons because you're leveling, you'll be able to afford them every step of the way even on your first character.

They really maintained the ease of access to viable endgame gear from GW1 (and the fact that it's 100% meaningless from hour one in PvP).

 

[Lazy Jones]

Any idea when the first expansion will be released?

Most likely never.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

 

[Principate]

Most likely never.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

Eh most probably eventually, NCSoft wants those dollars and have even mentioned it in earnings calls.

 

[Violet_0]

Most likely never.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

Bummer, I was rather looking foward to another Cantha expansion with an entire new continent to discover, not just bit-sized content updates.

 

[Orayn]

Bummer, I was rather looking foward to another Cantha expansion with an entire new continent to discover, not just bit-sized content updates.

In an ideal world, they'd have one team working on bite-sized biweekly content updates and another working on a much larger expansion type update that could either be free or retail.

 

[Jira]

Any idea when the first expansion will be released? I used to be a top 5 guild contributer in the first month before I got bored
(I literally didn't do anything but play the game for 30 days straight and somehow a few people still managed to play more than me, heh)

They've forgone a traditional boxed expansion because they don't need the money that it brings in. Instead, they're going to deliver everything that you'd see in a boxed expansion through the two week Living Story updates. You will see things like new zones, regions, skills, weapons, traits, classes, etc. You just won't see them in one single box while they ask for more money, instead they'll release them as they're finished for free. The continued box sales and Gem Store revenue have been incredibly lucrative for them hence why there's no need to rely on expansion box sales for money. For example, new skills, traits,100 more crafting levels, a new set of crafting materials to go along with those and the ability to craft Ascended gear all within the next 4 months.

 

[Jira]

In an ideal world, they'd have one team working on bite-sized biweekly content updates and another working on a much larger expansion type update that could either be free or retail.

This IS what they're doing, they're just not waiting to release the expansion style features in one go. The Living Story team is 4 teams which as a whole is maybe 40-50 people. The other 250+ people are working on more long term features and content. As this stuff is finished, it's put in with the next two week update. This is far preferable to waiting 1.5-2 years for certain features and what not.

 

[Principate]

They've forgone a traditional boxed expansion because they don't need the money that it brings in. Instead, they're going to deliver everything that you'd see in a boxed expansion through the two week Living Story updates. You will see things like new zones, regions, skills, weapons, traits, classes, etc. You just won't see them in one single box while they ask for more money, instead they'll release them as they're finished for free. The continued box sales and Gem Store revenue have been incredibly lucrative for them hence why there's no need to rely on expansion box sales for money. For example, new skills and traits are coming this year as well as 100 more crafting levels.

Honestly the most likely situation is they'll eventually do it even if it takes a few years, the money they'll get from gems is good, but even if the expansions sells around 2 million like the gw1 did that'll most probably completely dwarf that revenue. NcSoft's financial position will likely be pushing them to do it anyway (which is likely why they mentioned they won't be doing expansions if they do it right as in bring in the revenue an expansion normally would).

Regardless they probably don't want to oversaturate the game with expansions like they did with gw1, hence their hesitance.

 

[badb0y]

I have:
i5 2500k, 7950, 8g and windows 7 and it runs just fine at max settings.

Is the game not loading at all?

It loads but runs at like 20 FPS lol.

 

[Shambles]

Where is the past of the chart showing how there are 58 new currencies?

 

[joeblow]

Thanks for the responses to my Random Arena questions fellas.

One more - is it correct that I do not have to grind in PvE in order to access the skills and gear needed for the queue PvP you talked about? Can I access everything day one 100%? If so, I'm sold and may start trying out the game this weekend.

 

[Trey]

Thanks for the responses to my Random Arena questions fellas. One more - is it correct that I do not have to grind in PvE in order to access the skills and gear needed for the queue PvP you talked about? Can I access everything day one 100%? If so, I'm sold and may start experimenting this weekend.

You are leveled to 80 and given max gear and access to all the skill of your class while in the Mists (PvP zone). WvWvW uses your progress from PvE as a base, but you are leveled to 80.

 

[Jira]

Where is the past of the chart showing how there are 58 new currencies?

There's only been 5 new permanent currencies added since launch, more temporary ones than anything for holiday events.

 

[Proven]

With the system you are describing, you actually alienate the people who want to mainly heal or tank.
In GW2, there is no tanking because there is no aggro so that is just not a thing.
For healing, yes you can sort of be that support healer character but no one wants that's. You will actually be told to not do that because the group needs more dps than it needs you running around trying to heal on a system that wasn't ever meant to do that.

Working as a group doesn't just mean you get 5 good players together that know how to not die.
For me, it means strategy and assigning jobs to people who want to do those jobs. Each person is a single cog in a bigger machine and if you have any one person who isn't good at that job, the whole thing could come crumbling down. It's hard. It takes time to learn, but when it comes together just right ......there just isn't any comparison.

Nothing I've seen described or experienced in any of the MMOs that have gotten rid of roles/ jobs / trinity have even come close to providing the experience most of us have had when you down a hard boss for the first time after finally getting the strategy right. The cheering in vent. Grouping for screen shots. Whispers from people outside of the group giving their congrats.You feel like a real team. Anything that takes away from that just doesn't make sense to me.

There was some discussion opened up around the internet because of the EQN reveal not too long ago. And because of it I both agree with you and disagree with you.

The truth is, I enjoy healing. Out of the DPS/Tank/Heal trinity, I'd rate somewhere between Tank and Healer, with a higher ratio towards Healing. When GW1 came out I made my first three characters in rapid succession and they were a Mesmer/Monk, a Warrior/Monk, and a Monk/Warrior.

But after GW1 I branched out to a lot of other games. TF2 being the biggest one. I tried some other multiplayer RPGs from the Tales of Series and even played D&D for the first time. And I dug a bit into why I liked healing. It was simple. I wanted to protect people

Spoiler

MAMORU!

, and enable people to kick ass.

I mean, look at all the FPS games that keep coming up with cover, protect, and revive mechanics. Straight up healing spells aren't the only way to do it. In TF2 I buff people so they can flank, while using my secondary ability to keep people from dying or become a vanguard towards victory. Or I play Pyro who's both a dangerous flanking class and one that easily protects people by blocking people and rockets. In the Tales of RPG series, any healer that can't competently defend themselves means that you lose if a boss starts training after them. In D&D the classes that heal are also the classes that can take punch before shoving a boot up the monster's behind.

And GW2 does similar stuff. The Guardian can put up physical walls and bubbles to block enemy passage and projectiles. Thieves can blind enemies while using stealth abilities to both heal and revive allies. Warriors can stunlock enemies while providing constant party wide health regeneration. Elementalists and Rangers can easily put out water fields that heal anybody standing inside, and can be used for combos. Each combo in a field heals everyone nearby for up to one fifth of their health, and there's a reason why the max party size is 5.

I just recently watched a speed run of one of the harder bosses in the game, and while everyone was carrying DPS stats in their weapons and armor, their skill bars were all tuned to give constant, stacking, party wide buffs and enemy debuffs in order to make the kill possible.

GW2 works best when everyone can do a little bit of everything, with some specializations here and there, like a team of trained Marines.

Sorry, this turned more into a rant not really pointed at you, but as a general airing of thoughts from the past few weeks.

 

[Hawkian]

There's only been 5 new permanent currencies added since launch, more temporary ones than anything for holiday events.

Funny thing is the graphic has no way of quantifying the Account Wallet. As of last Tuesday I barely care how many currencies there are. Outside of temporary/holiday stuff it's seamless now.

 

[cripterion]

Awww man, such hard work poured into the game.

It kills me to say that but no matter what or how much they add to the game, it's just not fun to play, the core mechanics are messed up in my opinion.
I was so looking forward to this and found myself playing more the beta than the retail

 

[Coverly]

Just went through most of this thread so I'll comment on a few things

- Gaf guild is great. Really friendly, they group you just because you're nearby and that's great to break the ice if you're new like me.

- Playing with a controller is great. I agree that it might not be for all classes, but for my ranger it's good enough. It's also less stress overall on my fingers. My right hand usually hurts like crazy if I use a lot of repetitive clicking/mouse motions, so the less that i can minimize mouse usage the better. That's why i had to back out of things like dota 2, because they are really mouse intensive.

- I like that there are so many choices that you can literally do that you like. Before the Pavillion events I was running around doing map completions and just exploring areas and leveling up my crafting with the materials gathered. Last week or so I've spent every moment in the pavillion because it's a nice stress reliever to just relax and zerg the bosses. I'm in the middle of a home renovation in real life so all I want to do is turn off my brain and kill things when I have a moment or two free. I think I've gained close to 30 levels just doing this.

- Haven't tried any dungeons or pvp or thought about end game things like gear and builds. Looking forward to doing that after hitting 80 (lvl 70 now). I think I'll max crafting first, since I have so many mats now.

Overall it's great. But I wish there was some sort of housing or a more in-depth pet system. Those are my only two real gripes.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

With the system you are describing, you actually alienate the people who want to mainly heal or tank.
In GW2, there is no tanking because there is no aggro so that is just not a thing.
For healing, yes you can sort of be that support healer character but no one wants that's. You will actually be told to not do that because the group needs more dps than it needs you running around trying to heal on a system that wasn't ever meant to do that.

Working as a group doesn't just mean you get 5 good players together that know how to not die.
For me, it means strategy and assigning jobs to people who want to do those jobs. Each person is a single cog in a bigger machine and if you have any one person who isn't good at that job, the whole thing could come crumbling down. It's hard. It takes time to learn, but when it comes together just right ......there just isn't any comparison.

Nothing I've seen described or experienced in any of the MMOs that have gotten rid of roles/ jobs / trinity have even come close to providing the experience most of us have had when you down a hard boss for the first time after finally getting the strategy right. The cheering in vent. Grouping for screen shots. Whispers from people outside of the group giving their congrats.You feel like a real team. Anything that takes away from that just doesn't make sense to me.

That's true. There is no auto-heal button. There is no Taunt button. I am perfectly happy that these dumb archaic systems are gone. I never wanna see that ancient crap again, personally!
I have never heard of anyone being told not to give support, create bubbles, AOE healing or other things. Some enemies will kill you completely in 2-3 attacks, and you basically need to heal pretty constantly and be buffed with lots of mights and protections (25 stacks). this requires teamwork. And teamwork for me is the essence of being in a group.


Being in a group is not how WoW or Everquest did it. I never liked those systems. I never liked how elitistic and dumb founding the community became when you have buildin systems of people doing a boring rotation over and over endlessly.

Then I would rather be a support character who also deals damage, dodges for the life of me, heals, rezzes, deflects, heals, does damage, puts up wall, dodges, gets aggro off, rezzes. There is a lot more stages when you can do more. That doesn't mean you don't have unqiue tools or that you do it the same way.

The Necromancer can only debuff and get health that way. completely different from the guardian who has another way of getting health. or the ranger who makes spirits. and can be come a Komeda running spirit healer around him. Or a Warrior shout healing everyone for a significant amount. It does matter.



I really don't see it the way you do, that's for sure. I think non-instanced content is the future. Not instanced dungeons. These don't have much to do with what the spirit of a MMO is to me - a massively online world. I like that pvp is separated, but I think dungeons inside the open world is better. That just doesn't work, and it's too abusive. I haven't seen the answer to that.


My ideal world is that Anet should make more dungeons and events with extremely hard bosses (like Lyssa in Orr) that splits up a zerg group of players and forces them to fight on multiple fronts at the same time to reach a common objective. I think dividing the populous is the way to go about it.


I am not a fan of dungeons, but I think it's wrong to trash it because it goes a different way than the Everquest way of doing dungeons.

 

[witchedwiz]

That's true. There is no auto-heal button. There is no Taunt button. I am perfectly happy that these dumb archaic systems are gone. I never wanna see that ancient crap again, personally!
I have never heard of anyone being told not to give support, create bubbles, AOE healing or other things. Some enemies will kill you completely in 2-3 attacks, and you basically need to heal pretty constantly and be buffed with lots of mights and protections (25 stacks). this requires teamwork. And teamwork for me is the essence of being in a group.

lolololol so much fun!
run to world boss hoping for loot, drake turns toward you? oh well too bad, you don't die if you move away.. BUT considering the clusterfuck of people doing an event like drake you can't move.. you barely manage to use targeted spell.. after a while... so you stay there.. and take a second hit and die..
corpse run for the fun!
rinse and repeat hoping the boss doesn't target you or you don't swap too much or your spell manage to fire off..
then you get the loot! yess!
and then! it's www! so fun! zergfest like there's no tomorrow..

no offense, i tried gw2, heck i managed to hit 80 with necro and guardian..
waste of time..
you call trinity archaic but it helps keep stuff in place during pve..
most people call wow pvp shit and sure it's shit, but at least its controlled shit 2vs2,3vs3,5vs5 and not 12vs3 or 20vs6... because either you win or loose with such imbalaced number you're left with a sour taste in the mouth.. bile if you loose, lack of enjoyment if you loose... if there was some kind of method to make so that only crowds with comparable number would face off in www it would be perfect, but this way... it's just stupid..
plus unlike daoc for one, there's no sense of coehsion in your conquest, so you can win or loose a fort and who the fuck care

if you like gw2 good for you, but heralding it as one of the successful game of the genre is a bit too much
even wow was successful (has been successful for 7 years, last 2 years it's been declining over and over) and yet i for one while liking it, can easily pinpoint a lot of misstep.. gw2 tried something different and succeded only halfway...

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Wait, you hit 80 on two characters and have no understanding of PVE mechanics, or the difference between WvW and structured PVP?

And you bash the game?

Why does that not surprise me in the least.

 

[BrettWeir]

Good god. Getting back into the game, I see all of these awesome new armor and weapon skins. Unfortunately, I will never be able to obtain them because I don't do a lot of the PvE stuff. Nobody's fault but my own.

And holy hell. Legendaries were considered a ludicrous price when I left, at around 350 - 400 gold. Now they are going for around 1400 gold?! LOL!

 

[Jira]

Good god. Getting back into the game, I see all of these awesome new armor and weapon skins. Unfortunately, I will never be able to obtain them because I don't do a lot of the PvE stuff. Nobody's fault but my own.

And holy hell. Legendaries were considered a ludicrous price when I left, at around 350 - 400 gold. Now they are going for around 1400 gold?! LOL!

New Legendary weapons and Legendary item types are coming in the next few months too.

 

[witchedwiz]

Wait, you hit 80 on two characters and have no understanding of PVE mechanics, or the difference between WvW and structured PVP?

And you bash the game?

Why does that not surprise me in the least.

dude pve mechanics? in gw2?
are you kidding me?
no evident threat or anything, no particular reason for mobs to change target from one target to another.. pve mechanics? you clearly are clueless... wow had a friendly-structured pve, ffxi had a not-particularly-friendly but well structured pve.. gw2.. no, just no.. and not only for boss events, even challenge dungeon or w/e they were called..
WwW and structured pvp are indeed different, but in gw2 where basically there is no "feel" for a resource to be kept (unlike daoc for one) they are just objective and that's that.. the most cohesive feel you'll get in gw2 WwW is a guild of 15-20 running as a group and either joining pre-existing zergfest around the map OR roaming and killing every small group they can get their hands onto..
if you're experience is different i won't confute it, but i've given 1 month straight, playing roughly 3 hours only doing pvp (after doing the same for pve, vomiting everything i ate at dinner during dungeon runs for tokens to get the cosmetic look i wanted for my necro) and for me is sucked balls big time...
it's about opinion, and in mine while having a lot of potential and while doing something right, the endgame felt empty for both pvp and pve..

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

lolololol so much fun!
run to world boss hoping for loot, drake turns toward you? oh well too bad, you don't die if you move away.. BUT considering the clusterfuck of people doing an event like drake you can't move.. you barely manage to use targeted spell.. after a while... so you stay there.. and take a second hit and die..
corpse run for the fun!
rinse and repeat hoping the boss doesn't target you or you don't swap too much or your spell manage to fire off..
then you get the loot! yess!
and then! it's www! so fun! zergfest like there's no tomorrow..

Well, I think you can deconstruct any gameplay scenario using this method of lololol. Thankfully, there are many different events and many play out differently.

Many times there are no zergs. In fact a lot of the replay value comes to from going through the same areas with lesser/more players to see how it feels and plays different.

What you are describing is a consequence of Guild Wars 2 supporting HUNDREDS of players simultaneously. I for one have not seen that in other games outside of the occassional Aion/Lineage 2 player raid.

Are you really going to argue that WoWs world bosses where more different? For one, positioning, is a key in GW2, and while it can be very chaotic, I personally think it's very fun too. It's complete mayham.

They have continued to improve the latency, the performance and the scaling. Nobody says the events are perfect, but they are really fun and bring a lot of fresh air into a genre that has been poisoned by static content. GW2 might not have truly dynamic events, as these are things that happen randomly on triggered situations. However, it certainly is more engaging.
And also, Zerging is such a little part of the game. The game is LOADED with content where you get small, medium or large(30-40) players fighting. Particularly now that they revamped all top tier monsters in the game.

no offense, i tried gw2, heck i managed to hit 80 with necro and guardian..
waste of time..
you call trinity archaic but it helps keep stuff in place during pve..

Nope I don't think so. These other MMOs have also just been limited about. 500 new creatures don't spawn to scale the event bigger if more people show up. You are just going on your rotation and smashing buttons looking at the UI with sammy combat.

if you like gw2 good for you, but heralding it as one of the successful game of the genre is a bit too much
even wow was successful (has been successful for 7 years, last 2 years it's been declining over and over) and yet i for one while liking it, can easily pinpoint a lot of misstep.. gw2 tried something different and succeded only halfway...

I too love WoW, but that's in the context of what it was. I played it for many years and I enjoyed it. But as I have played these themepark games I don't like the route. It was just a distraction for what was really going on.


I do think the game is an astounding succes and one of the best games of the generation! Absolutely! It packs top tier server vs server not seen since DaOC, it has the most friendly and intuitive deep crafting system since EQ2, and it boosts a great open world that is actually fun to traverse.
But the best thing? The good community! It succeded on multiple fronts. It has some of the best music and art, and they managed to make a great action Combat system, while still keeping tab targetting that focuses on both action twitch and tactial feedback.

Finally it fixed a lot of the alienating elements that made a lot of people dispise GW1. There was no doubt (since 07') that a lot of hardcore GW1 dudes wouldn't like the direction.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

dude pve mechanics? in gw2?
are you kidding me?
no evident threat or anything, no particular reason for mobs to change target from one target to another.. pve mechanics? you clearly are clueless... wow had a friendly-structured pve, ffxi had a not-particularly-friendly but well structured pve.. gw2.. no, just no.. and not only for boss events, even challenge dungeon or w/e they were called..

Stop, just stop.

Aggro in GW2: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

The game has plenty of great PvE mechanics and tools. There are classics like fear, snares, immobilizes and so on... What the hell are you talking about?

 

[Jest Chillin]

GW2 definitely has Aggro. It just doesn't have Taunt mechanics.

 

[witchedwiz]

sorry but i'm out..
@Vigilant Walrus: no offense, i hardly take my time to overheat with other gaffer as i feel a discussion over keyboard not worth getting frustrated, but pal take it however you feel like.. gw2 pve is shit
that page is a pile of shit clinging and plummetting on itself..


Internals
Every hostile NPC maintains an aggro table. Internally, aggro tables function on a simple priority-queue principle: the head of the queue is occupied by the player that has dealt the most threat and the tail of the queue is occupied by the player that has accumulated the least threat. Supposing that the top player has died, disconnected, or shaken off enough aggro to no longer be at the top, the AI chooses the next player or allied NPC on the queue that has generated the most threat, and attacks them.

and considering that threat is different from damage HOW MUCH THREAT attackX that generates additional threat generates compared to say attackY from a guynumber2 that is costantly spamming attacks? it's just vanilla wow all over again (vanilla raiding, speaking about world first mc without any addon of sort save decursive and a few stuff like that..) with ppl lacking any tool to measure aggro apart from mobs turning on the other side and RL saying "slow down on dps, slow down.. and now GO!"..
i need number, facts, not a generic "mobs save a table" yeah so i don't know that table so how can i know how much i can push the dps without aggroing?

and

Gaining Aggro
closest target to them
who is dealing damage
top damage dealers
who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor
others (see Tanking tactics below)

it's gotta be the best troll wiki i ever read
how much each factor is worth?
aggro list is something like a number so
player1 - 52k
player2 - 49k
player3 - 62k

but if you factor in a generic
"closest to target" without specifying say a 120% threat from first if you're ranged or 100% if you're melee will cause target aggro switch, that's just idle shit
but it goes further on!
has more overall armor! so if i, for whatever reason use a buff that covers say group near me and not the current top aggro, and that armor added to my dps threat bring me to supposedly first aggro target i get aggro? how the flying duck do i know what's his armor? how can i know the armor rate of the current aggro target!?!?!?
and that other factor... kiting.. well... again if i don't have number HOW IN THE FLYING DUCK DO I KNOW that i can still dps the target without having it turn around and oneshot me? am i a seer? a godforsaken toothsayer? nay..
and the funniest part?

Enemies value attacking a player character performing a revive on a downed ally, to the point of sometimes ignoring any other factor, while stopping the revive will then draw their attention back to the classical threat sources.
yes well, no hard factor, no hard number, it just gives a "sever bump to your threat number"

definitely this is structured proper pve..

as i said at the beginning of the post i hate ranting about a game, because nothing good ever comes out of it, a discussion worth nurturing hardly exist.. but with all its damn defect, with all the hate i now feel for blizzard turning a complex game into a happy garden for casual farming their epic gear thinking they've "beaten the game" or they've achieved something... heck wow pve is MILES ahead of gw2, and not just because wow pve is well thinked, rather because gw2 pve is a sham.. i won't even discuss the breaking the trinity system, i'm not fond of that choice, but i can deal with it..
but saying that gw2 pve is good.. heck you can say that just because you can get chainressed during world event.. you can say that hardmodes dungeon are fine because you have no idea what level of concentration an old encounter required..
heck, naxx@60 was a challenge that required people to have the right equipment AND know their class AND have some rng luck or you were screwed..
heck hard modes in wow (pre cata..) were SO FRIGGING HARD for the first say 2-3 week after content release because you couldn't outgear them and you had to plan every damn thing correctly.. i remember the fist time we downed the frigging anub'rekhan in icecrown tourney.. the raid was shit (no environment whatsoever, just chamber boss) but the bosses were great! so many different encounter... beating lich king hm for invincible was a blast when done at the right time.. although we weren't in competition for world first we broke in realm second in both 10 and 25 men format..
or hard bosses... VASHJ PRE-NERF! that was the shit, a damn godly boss that required ppl to play perfectly and still you could (would most likely wipe) because the game was expecting too much...

fuming over nothing anyway.. i won't enter dally furthermore in the pvp angle of the game, while i've always been more than decent in pvp my focus has always been pve after daoc.. i don't really want to offend anyone but gw2 pve being structured is borderline stupid as an outing... opinions are opinions, but

before talking about pve try to get a serious grasp of it and try to have several possible comparisons... imho anyone saying that gw2 pve is structured must NOT have played any pve-featuring mmo..... there's no other possible excuses..
of course when i speak of pve i mean mass pve, not 5 people pve.. because five people doing an instance over teamspeak it's not exactly my definition of structured pve, that's just doing an instance........

 

[Hawkian]

Mm. If you happen to be reading and any of that seemed like gibberish not necessarily translating to fun to you, consider picking up GW2 and joining GAFGuild. We have good times

 

[Retro]

Gaf guild is great. Really friendly, they group you just because you're nearby and that's great to break the ice if you're new like me.

Not only that, but it also generates additional Influence for the guild. And for what it's worth, even if we're not doing any kind of event, I always /salute at any GAFers I see.

Good god. Getting back into the game, I see all of these awesome new armor and weapon skins. Unfortunately, I will never be able to obtain them because I don't do a lot of the PvE stuff. Nobody's fault but my own.

The current rumor is that a lot of the limited time skins will be coming back during their 10 Day sale. There hasn't, to my knowledge, been any armor skins beyond back items that you can't get now though.

 

[Hawkian]

The current rumor is that a lot of the limited time skins will be coming back during their 10 Day sale. There hasn't, to my knowledge, been any armor skins beyond back items that you can't get now though.

Fused Gauntlets m'friend. That'd be the only one though, I believe.

Still haven't used mine. Perhaps my Mecronancer.

 

[xeris]

Been playing these games since EQ. We get it, you don't like the game. Doesn't help that you're objectively wrong about almost everything you said. Raids hard? Maybe in EQ days, but not since. All it's been since late Kunark was go watch and/or read the strats and try not to be too much of a mouth breather. And yes I've raided. Just because someone spends a lot of time doing something doesn't make it hard.

Similarly, just like there being an aggro system you don't like doesn't mean there isn't one. I get that some people like to know hard numbers and that's fine. Me personally I'd rather watch the combat that staring at mods that show exact numbers or, worse yet, light up big and say "stop now!" How is that difficult in the slightest?

GW2 isn't for everyone. Hard core raiders will hate it. DAoC types will miss the more involved WvW. It's not great at giving the whole ding-gratz treadmill of advancement if that's your thing. That's fine. Just stop with the whole "badwrongfun" schtick.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Megapost discussing number crunching and WoW

So then what you mean is you like to be able to look at skills and number crunch to high proficiency and GW2's formula's being hidden bothers you because it can't really be done in the game. That's fair enough. But not being able to measure threat doesn't mean threat doesn't exist.

 

[Retro]

Fused Gauntlets m'friend. That'd be the only one though, I believe.

Still haven't used mine. Perhaps my Mecronancer.

Same. Saving them for a Charr character, it seems the most fitting.

GW2 isn't for everyone. Hard core raiders will hate it. DAoC types will miss the more involved WvW. It's not great at giving the whole ding-gratz treadmill of advancement if that's your thing. That's fine. Just stop with the whole "badwrongfun" schtick.

This is a good post and you should feel good.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

sorry but i'm out..
@Vigilant Walrus: no offense, i hardly take my time to overheat with other gaffer as i feel a discussion over keyboard not worth getting frustrated, but pal take it however you feel like.. gw2 pve is shit
that page is a pile of shit clinging and plummetting on itself..


Internals
Every hostile NPC maintains an aggro table. Internally, aggro tables function on a simple priority-queue principle: the head of the queue is occupied by the player that has dealt the most threat and the tail of the queue is occupied by the player that has accumulated the least threat. Supposing that the top player has died, disconnected, or shaken off enough aggro to no longer be at the top, the AI chooses the next player or allied NPC on the queue that has generated the most threat, and attacks them.

and considering that threat is different from damage HOW MUCH THREAT attackX that generates additional threat generates compared to say attackY from a guynumber2 that is costantly spamming attacks? it's just vanilla wow all over again (vanilla raiding, speaking about world first mc without any addon of sort save decursive and a few stuff like that..) with ppl lacking any tool to measure aggro apart from mobs turning on the other side and RL saying "slow down on dps, slow down.. and now GO!"..
i need number, facts, not a generic "mobs save a table" yeah so i don't know that table so how can i know how much i can push the dps without aggroing?

and

Gaining Aggro
closest target to them
who is dealing damage
top damage dealers
who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor
others (see Tanking tactics below)

it's gotta be the best troll wiki i ever read
how much each factor is worth?
aggro list is something like a number so
player1 - 52k
player2 - 49k
player3 - 62k

but if you factor in a generic
"closest to target" without specifying say a 120% threat from first if you're ranged or 100% if you're melee will cause target aggro switch, that's just idle shit
but it goes further on!
has more overall armor! so if i, for whatever reason use a buff that covers say group near me and not the current top aggro, and that armor added to my dps threat bring me to supposedly first aggro target i get aggro? how the flying duck do i know what's his armor? how can i know the armor rate of the current aggro target!?!?!?
and that other factor... kiting.. well... again if i don't have number HOW IN THE FLYING DUCK DO I KNOW that i can still dps the target without having it turn around and oneshot me? am i a seer? a godforsaken toothsayer? nay..
and the funniest part?

Enemies value attacking a player character performing a revive on a downed ally, to the point of sometimes ignoring any other factor, while stopping the revive will then draw their attention back to the classical threat sources.
yes well, no hard factor, no hard number, it just gives a "sever bump to your threat number"

definitely this is structured proper pve..

as i said at the beginning of the post i hate ranting about a game, because nothing good ever comes out of it, a discussion worth nurturing hardly exist.. but with all its damn defect, with all the hate i now feel for blizzard turning a complex game into a happy garden for casual farming their epic gear thinking they've "beaten the game" or they've achieved something... heck wow pve is MILES ahead of gw2, and not just because wow pve is well thinked, rather because gw2 pve is a sham.. i won't even discuss the breaking the trinity system, i'm not fond of that choice, but i can deal with it..
but saying that gw2 pve is good.. heck you can say that just because you can get chainressed during world event.. you can say that hardmodes dungeon are fine because you have no idea what level of concentration an old encounter required..
heck, naxx@60 was a challenge that required people to have the right equipment AND know their class AND have some rng luck or you were screwed..
heck hard modes in wow (pre cata..) were SO FRIGGING HARD for the first say 2-3 week after content release because you couldn't outgear them and you had to plan every damn thing correctly.. i remember the fist time we downed the frigging anub'rekhan in icecrown tourney.. the raid was shit (no environment whatsoever, just chamber boss) but the bosses were great! so many different encounter... beating lich king hm for invincible was a blast when done at the right time.. although we weren't in competition for world first we broke in realm second in both 10 and 25 men format..
or hard bosses... VASHJ PRE-NERF! that was the shit, a damn godly boss that required ppl to play perfectly and still you could (would most likely wipe) because the game was expecting too much...

fuming over nothing anyway.. i won't enter dally furthermore in the pvp angle of the game, while i've always been more than decent in pvp my focus has always been pve after daoc.. i don't really want to offend anyone but gw2 pve being structured is borderline stupid as an outing... opinions are opinions, but

before talking about pve try to get a serious grasp of it and try to have several possible comparisons... imho anyone saying that gw2 pve is structured must NOT have played any pve-featuring mmo..... there's no other possible excuses..
of course when i speak of pve i mean mass pve, not 5 people pve.. because five people doing an instance over teamspeak it's not exactly my definition of structured pve, that's just doing an instance........

""closest to target" without specifying say a 120% threat from first if you're ranged or 100% if you're melee will cause target aggro switch, that's just idle shit "


Like it says in the article, many mobs react differently. Some are very aggressive towards light armors, making it more difficult. Some are more inclined to attack people with a lot of toughness on their armors (and every class can get gear with a lot of toughness.. even the light armor classes).


You say that it's idle shit. But I love it. It means that classes that can't traditionally can keep mobs occupied can come in, and keep the mob occupied for a little while before dodging out of the way and letting another member of the group come in and occupy for a 3-10 seconds while the others are buffing, healing, removing conditions, and applying debuffs, bleeds and stuns and so on.

That's skill and that's coordination, and I think that is fun. I don't think it's fun having someone having to keep aggro up by spamming taunt and abillities that generate threat. That has nothing to do with positional awareness, it's robotic and not intelligent design that all enemies follow this pattern.


Frankly, to me it sounds like you think the old way is the right way, because you haven't been able to adjust to the way it works in GW2. That's fine. Lots of people hate and dislike things they don't understand. it's easier to adopt a previously existed pattern and follow that as it requires no effort.

But don't make excuses and make up lies because it doesn't work the way you want it to. Have some consideration for how it works for god sakes.

 

[BrettWeir]

GW2 isn't for everyone. Hard core raiders will hate it. DAoC types will miss the more involved WvW. It's not great at giving the whole ding-gratz treadmill of advancement if that's your thing. That's fine. Just stop with the whole "badwrongfun" schtick.

Nailed it. If you don't like it, you don't like it.

 

[Hedge]

I just.. I just miss my Dervish. :c
Shapeshifting and AoE goodness in a skirt.

 

[patchday]

GW2 is still my biggest gaming disappointment ever. I spend thousands of hours in GW1, but GW2 seens to have removed everything that made the first game interesting (mission-based storyline, thousands of skills to select, dual-classing, energy system, class-specific armor, etc.).

I really miss the wonderful dual classing system GW1 had. Really bad idea to get rid of that. Feels too much like every other MMO now. Granted, the world pve system is quite brilliant.

Hoping Elder Scrolls Online will be great since it will hopefully lack Classes altogether and maintain the wonderful advancement system established in the single player rpgs.

In the meanwhile I've been playing Dark Souls. Only online rpg system with a deep advancement system (besides Champions Online)

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Honestly the most likely situation is they'll eventually do it even if it takes a few years, the money they'll get from gems is good, but even if the expansions sells around 2 million like the gw1 did that'll most probably completely dwarf that revenue. NcSoft's financial position will likely be pushing them to do it anyway (which is likely why they mentioned they won't be doing expansions if they do it right as in bring in the revenue an expansion normally would).

Regardless they probably don't want to oversaturate the game with expansions like they did with gw1, hence their hesitance.

Yeah expansions will segment the players.

 

[Retro]

Hoping Elder Scrolls Online will be great since it will hopefully lack Classes altogether and maintain the wonderful advancement system established in the single player rpgs.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but TESO is apparently class-based. Armor and weapons aren't restricted, though, so you can have a heavy-armored Sorcerer or what-have-you. But supposedly your class choice determines the 'flavor' of your experience, so that a DragonKnight's progression with swords will be different from a Templars, and so on. Not a lot of details, but they have revealed it's class-based.

Yeah expansions will segment the players.

Yep. GW2 is all about tearing down the walls that keep players from playing together (which you'd think would be essential to the genre...), be it guesting between servers, scaling levels up (for new content) or down (to the appropriate level for content) or just removing the little obnoxious things that make players compete with each other for advancement (no mob tagging, no resource stealing, no quest mobs to speak of, etc.).

I don't think they'd work so hard to do all that and then release an expansion that divides the community in two.

 

[Durante]

GW2 isn't for everyone. Hard core raiders will hate it. DAoC types will miss the more involved WvW. It's not great at giving the whole ding-gratz treadmill of advancement if that's your thing. That's fine. Just stop with the whole "badwrongfun" schtick.

I'm a "DAoC type" and the more I play WvWvW (600 hours and counting) the more I realize just how well designed WvW actually is, and how the GW2 mechanics make battles way more engaging than they ever could be in DAoC (which was great for its time).

It could be even deeper of course, and I'd love that, but the basic design is fantastic.

 

[Retro]

It could be even deeper of course, and I'd love that, but the basic design is fantastic.

Devon Carter just recently responded to some comments on the official forums about the Orbs of Power:

Are the orbs coming back? No. Are we bringing back the buff? Yes, although the way you get it and hold it is going to be drastically different. Are you going to see a major map change in concert with this? Yes. Is it coming soon? Most definitely.

Q: If this orb replacement gives a stat bonus to the zergiest server, I feel like a lot of guilds will quit.

A:Here’s the thing to remember, it may buff the better servers for a time, but if it is relatively easy to take from a better server, it isn’t going to cause nearly the same problems that the original buff did. I will say that when this goes back into the game, we’ll continue to monitor the effects and make changes as necessary.

So there's going to be some changes to WvW in the near future, another element to consider and fight for, with a major map change involved. I can't find it, but there were some comments about the krait and quaggan in the lake going away too.

 

[Durante]

Yeah, I read about the Orb replacement. curious what they're going to do with it.

I can't find it, but there were some comments about the krait and quaggan in the lake going away too.

Not my Quaggans! But seriously, those were really just a very minor distraction.

 

[Sarcasm]

So I come back to try out GW2 again..got a birthday gift! Character is now 20 (effective 13 dunno what that means) and I don't know what everything is...

Supposedly I got an extra utility slot..but I don't know what to get.

Any way to get my self back up to speed..very quickly?

 

[Retro]

So I come back to try out GW2 again..got a birthday gift! Character is now 20 (effective 13 dunno what that means) and I don't know what everything is...

Supposedly I got an extra utility slot..but I don't know what to get.

Any way to get my self back up to speed..very quickly?

First, maybe mosey on over to the Community thread, since this thread hasn't been active since August.

But to answer your questions;

Effective Level means that you're in an area meant for level 13 players and your stats and gear have down-leveled accordingly. That's to keep content you've out-leveled still relevant and enjoyable and to prevent high level players from just steamrolling content.

You unlock your utility slots (that's 7, 8 and 9 on your hotbar) at levels 5, 10, 20 respectively. You can click an empty slot and it will bring up the skills menu where you can unlock more.

The best way to get up to speed is to play; explore whatever zone you happen to be in until you find an event or renown heart. Maybe look into buying some new equipment, as you've probably outleveled whatever gear you had (the trading post might be too pricy for you, so check out weapon and armor vendors, with the sword / helm icons). Beyond that, here's some beginner's tips (I don't know how much you played previously) and, as I said, check out the community thread.

You may also want to join the GAF Guild, where we can answer questions directly in-game and even guest over to whichever server you're on to lend a hand.

Edit: You can add Retro.6831 to your friends list and I can help you out directly as well.

 

[Murder. She Wrote]

Man I was so disappointed with this game. Best time I had with it was during the open beta, it was all down hill from there. What a shame I really wanted to like it (still do) but the problems I have with it are so deeply ingrained into its game design...

 

[Retro]

Man I was so disappointed with this game. Best time I had with it was during the open beta, it was all down hill from there. What a shame I really wanted to like it (still do) but the problems I have with it are so deeply ingrained into its game design...

Such as? It's been more than a year since launch and there's been a lot of updates (26, in fact), maybe whatever was keeping you from enjoying it has been fixed, or something new has been added that you might like?