The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Val the Moofia Boss]

sadly, the game is being held back by majority of its mostly casual playerbase. just read map chat during metas or anet forums, these people are still crying about pocket raptors ffs, they dont want to improve and drag down others with them.

No, this is the game designer's fault. The vanilla GW2 content was so braindead easy that it trained players to expect that was the standard. When HoT launched, the playerbase was unprepared by what the game had taught them for the difficulty spike. The game never taught players that they had the pay attention to the unique movesets/pecularities of overworld mobs. The game had taught players that mobs were so non-threatening that the only gear set they ever needed was berserker gear, so people went into HoT content and melted. The game never taught players what the new break bar underneath world bosses was and how to break it.

Another issue is that at HoT's launch, overworld mobs had way, way too much health and took far too long to kill. Even if you were a good player in berserker gear with a good build who was able to dodge the incoming attacks, it still took too long to kill the mobs. It was better to play in a party with other people, but again up until this point the game had never taught players that they needed to be grouped up to tackle overworld mobs. People went into HoT blindsided, and that is the fault of the game designers for not properly setting up their expectations or teaching them how to deal with the content. And we just saw this issue again with Dragon's End, where suddenly everyone needs to be dealing at least 5k DPS, in a game with humongous performance disparity where its easy to make a bad build because the math is esoteric and the game doesn't give the player feedback as to whether or not they are doing well, and there were never tight DPS checks for overworld content like this before. (Also exacerbated by the overall poor design of EoD content, with map instances suddenly being capped at 60 players, but you have players being incentivized to hang out in Dragon's Stand and not contribute to the meta event since they need to fish or light lanterns to get their legendary mats or achievements, further increasing how much DPS the rest of the raid needs to do to make up for the shortage).

they are the ones spending 10 euros on fluffy mount skins, as they are unable to farm gold fast enough.

The best gold farms in the game, Drizzlewood Coast and Dragonfall, only give you 30-40 gold per hour. Last I checked, you needed at least 2,800 gold to buy a legendary off of the auction house, more gold if you're going to buy the mats and level up your professions to craft it yourself, or even more time if you're going to gather all those mats yourself. Wasting 70 hours of your life farming the same meta event over and over again is not a good use of your finite lifespan. Meanwhile, you can get 450 gold per hour working a minimum wage job.

 

[Drakortha]

so people went into HoT content and melted. People went into HoT blindsided

But that was the best part. My favorite memories of GW2 was the launch of HoT as well as when Southsun Cove came out with those OP Chak hordes that ate everyone alive. That was pure entertainment for me.

 

[luj1]

Gw2 died during the beta. Quickly old players have seen it is inferior to the original

 

[Humanophage]

I heard that PvP arenas are quite good in GW2. Is that true?

 

[Axel_am]

GW1 and GW2 both had top tier PvP. I doubt much has changed with GW2's PvP from Vanilla till now. The formula was solid back then and if they somehow managed to butcher it to the point that it's not fun, they've probably done the same with the rest of the game.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I heard that PvP arenas are quite good in GW2. Is that true?

Hm, mixed bag. I found it enjoyable enough to do ranked PvP for 9 months and hit gold rating. I Byzantium chested multiple seasons and acquired all of the timegated mats I needed to craft a set of PvP legendary armor. It's fun in small bursts. The game is snappy and responsive unlike FF14, and unlike WoW RBGs you don't have to play the waiting game trying to assemble an RBG group. Unfortunately there is only one game mode, which is capture and hold three points on a map. The HoT expansion introduced a MOBA-esque gamemode, but it was unpopular and blacklisted and eventually removed from the rotation. Another issue is that the maps are too small, so unlike WoW RBGs, picking where to send people isn't very important, since it only takes a few seconds to run from one point to another, or to return to battle from spawn. Also, GW2's ranked PvP is 5v5, so you don't feel like you're participating in a big battle. I overall found WoW's 10v10 RBGs with its larger maps and map variety (capture the flag, cart escort, and king of the hill) to have more longevity.

One problem with GW2's PvP is that the active playerbase is very small. Once you climb high enough, you start seeing the same names over and over again and eventually get clued into the fact that there is a win-trading mafia. Not only do you have win-trading going on where people will just AFK in base and throw if they see someone in the mafia on the opposite team (and reporting people for throwing a match by AFKing in base does nothing), but you also have players cheesing their way up the ladder by adding other good players to their friends list, watching their friends' list and waiting for the people on it to get into a match before queueing up for ranked so they don't get matched up against each other, and instead against weaker players.

 

[luj1]

I heard that PvP arenas are quite good in GW2.

Nowhere close to GW1

 

[Kev Inkline]

Nothing tops high level (top50) gvg in gw1.

 

[luj1]

it's all twitch based so almost any PvP format from Gw1 (TA, AB, etc.) is super fun when played at a high level

 

[Kev Inkline]

Yeah it's all fun, but to be a part of a well-functioning team, everyone responding to the strategy callers commands (splitting, ganking etc) fluidly, and focusing on target callers commands almost instantaneously is quite something you cannot experience on other formats to the same degree.
Team arenas had that to some extent, but the small size and less people necessarily made it more of a place to practice working as a team.

Halls was just halls, chaotic fun and gimmicks of the day. No one took them or ABs seriously as a form of competition.

 

[Drakortha]

I heard that PvP arenas are quite good in GW2. Is that true?

It's good. But if you intend on trying it out you need to first figure out how to turn off all chat in your game preferences. Unless of course you enjoy being subjected to mentally ill people having mental breakdowns because they can't handle the concept of losing a game.

And you won't be missing out on anything. The community is trash. In 10+ years playing this game I never made a single friend, which isn't the case for me in other online games so I know something isn't right here. GW2 people are special. Take one look at the official forums to see what I mean. They are retards of the highest order, right up there with the BG3 fans. They worship Anet like they are the chosen developer God's who cannot possibly do wrong. If you criticize GW2 or Anet in any way, or even so much as make a suggestion for a harmless cosmetic be added to the game, a thousand hammers will fall down on you in response. You won't know why, but it is the way of the fanboys.

 

[Zewp]

1) level scaling defeats the point of leveling.

They should have done a level squish years ago. Leveling that progressively unlocks all your skill slots and the various game systems is a good way to onboard players new to MMOs, but you don't realistically need more than 10-20 levels for that.

But they probably don't have the manpower for those kinds of changes. Everything goes into expansions and cash shop crap.

 

[Drakortha]

I recently gave in and bought SotO and I decided on a new character slot because I'm positively sick and tired of playing Warrior and Ranger all the time, but I also dislike most of the other classes. Mesmer aesthetic is not my cup of tea, Elementalist sucks because you can't choose just one element to specialize in, Engineer is a meme, Thief is for fags, Guardian is for Noobs, and Necro is "good", but I've played against enough of them in sPvP that I've proclaimed Necro's my mortal enemies since a long time ago and I could never sink so low to join their ranks. That left me with only one option; my first Revenant.

I've been playing Revenant for about 70 hours now. To summarize in just a couple of words; It's.. better than I expected. At first I was pulling my hair out trying to get a build in sPvP that worked for me but I finally settled on Mace/Shield and Staff with Mallyx/Glint. The synergy is nice. I'm even winning 1v1's against seasoned Revenant's. It helps that I've played a lot of Warrior and Melee Ranger over the years so I'm not shy about brawling, and Revenant is an effective one.

As for my Impressions on SotO.. I've finished all the story instances available so far, and I've been working on getting some of the unique armor and weapons skins and I'm now doing the Skyscale, since I never got that in PoF. Shit is a grind though. I've been heavy on the caffeine this week because it's the only way for me to get through it in a timely manner. And this is coming from someone who never consumes caffeine normally. The grind is so fucking repetitive It's one of my biggest problems with the game and it's why I never made a Legendary Weapon and I won't entertain the idea of starting on Legendary Armor when it arrives. They can shove it right up their ass. Stick all the time-gated shit up there, too.

If they made the game 50% less grindy I could play for longer and relax more and not get burned out after a couple of weeks, which is what always happens. I take months off the game, come back and grind for a few weeks and get burned out. Anet always gets a little bit of my money though so I suppose it's working as intended for them.

 

[rubinstein]

bro, maybe you will change your mind about legendary gear if you check out legendary starter kit 2. some useful leges are still available like bolt or quip (i hate that stupid ass skin). for 1000 astral acclaims you will be able to cut around 30-40% of expenses of making it. some time investment will be still necessary though if you dont have shit like gift of exploration and mystic clovers.

 

[Drakortha]

bro, maybe you will change your mind about legendary gear if you check out legendary starter kit 2. some useful leges are still available like bolt or quip (i hate that stupid ass skin). for 1000 astral acclaims you will be able to cut around 30-40% of expenses of making it. some time investment will be still necessary though if you dont have shit like gift of exploration and mystic clovers.

I had planned on getting the starter kit tomorrow, I'm only 100 astral short. It will probably go straight into my bank to gather dust with the rest of the legendary related shit.

 

[Average Manatee]

I can't understand caring about fashion in a game where 99% of the playerbase has to have their settings set so that characters aren't visible beyond 20 feet and always wear default clothing to minimize performance loss during events.

 

[Drakortha]

I can't understand caring about fashion in a game where 99% of the playerbase has to have their settings set so that characters aren't visible beyond 20 feet and always wear default clothing to minimize performance loss during events.

Did you never play an RPG? Half of your character progression is about getting cool looking armor and weapons earned through quests and loot. I couldn't care less if the rest of the playerbase don't see it. It's not for them, it's for me. I only do open world events alongside them when if I have to, then I move on as soon as it's over.

If I was forced to engage with other players more than that I probably wouldn't bother with the game, but GW2's design is fair to solo players.

 

[Drakortha]

So being done with the story for now and have done most of the masteries I was exploring some areas that were not utilized at all in the story or in the main meta events. In particular The Bastion of Knowledge and Museum Curiosities. Looking through these areas really got me thinking about the potential of Secrets of the Obscure and how they missed a huge opportunity here.

There should have been a lot more story involving different factions and the deeply rooted politics of each of the different areas of study. A little cliche, but it would be 100x better than the garbage Avengers style "Let's get the ol' cast of characters together to kick villains butt!" Bullshit, which is what the story is from beginning to end. It's total fucking shit..

All these environments are nothing but set dressing. All of this grand scenery and architecture and potential for many stories, not just main story but also side quests. They could have come up with dozens of side quests for this place to fully flesh it all out. Instead, once you're done with the crap story you are left with repetitive Rifts to grind. Sure, there's some other events around but most of them are basically "kill this, kill that, collect that magic essence, or bring this thing over here"..

It's been a while since I did Path of Fire, but I'm pretty sure there was a ton more content there to do that didn't involve just mindlessly killing shit. And I distinctly remember the story having a lot more to do with the factions and cultures of that region. There's almost none of that in Secrets of the Obscure.

I understand that this expansion was mean't to be on a smaller scale, but then why create these massive environments in the first place if it means everything else is subpar as a result? Dial it back or something. I'd rather smaller or even less maps if it mean't for more engaging story and quests. But I'm probably not the target audience here, their target is probably the content pigs. You know, those people you see in-game who do nothing but grind grind grind all day and are happy to chase that carrot forever.

 

[Drakortha]

WvW is popping tonight. 3 way fight for the castle on Eternal Battlegrounds. Easily over 300 players in this one fight.
You can't see most of the character models because I had my graphics set to VERY LOW, but you can see from the nameplates how many there were.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

WvW is popping tonight. 3 way fight for the castle on Eternal Battlegrounds. Easily over 300 players in this one fight.
You can't see most of the character models because I had my graphics set to VERY LOW, but you can see from the nameplates how many there were.

Sadly Ranger pets are useless in big WvW zergs. They die instantly. Probably best to play as Soulbeast and cannibalize the pet for a stat boost, or Druid to heal the group.

 

[Drakortha]

WvW is popping tonight. 3 way fight for the castle on Eternal Battlegrounds. Easily over 300 players in this one fight.
You can't see most of the character models because I had my graphics set to VERY LOW, but you can see from the nameplates how many there were.

Sadly Ranger pets are useless in big WvW zergs. They die instantly. Probably best to play as Soulbeast and cannibalize the pet for a stat boost, or Druid to heal the group.

Normally I play Druid but I'm being lazy. I still get reward track progress regardless of my performance.

 

[Humanophage]

I recently gave in and bought SotO and I decided on a new character slot because I'm positively sick and tired of playing Warrior and Ranger all the time, but I also dislike most of the other classes. Mesmer aesthetic is not my cup of tea, Elementalist sucks because you can't choose just one element to specialize in, Engineer is a meme, Thief is for fags, Guardian is for Noobs, and Necro is "good", but I've played against enough of them in sPvP that I've proclaimed Necro's my mortal enemies since a long time ago and I could never sink so low to join their ranks. That left me with only one option; my first Revenant.

I've been playing Revenant for about 70 hours now. To summarize in just a couple of words; It's.. better than I expected. At first I was pulling my hair out trying to get a build in sPvP that worked for me but I finally settled on Mace/Shield and Staff with Mallyx/Glint. The synergy is nice. I'm even winning 1v1's against seasoned Revenant's. It helps that I've played a lot of Warrior and Melee Ranger over the years so I'm not shy about brawling, and Revenant is an effective one.

As for my Impressions on SotO.. I've finished all the story instances available so far, and I've been working on getting some of the unique armor and weapons skins and I'm now doing the Skyscale, since I never got that in PoF. Shit is a grind though. I've been heavy on the caffeine this week because it's the only way for me to get through it in a timely manner. And this is coming from someone who never consumes caffeine normally. The grind is so fucking repetitive It's one of my biggest problems with the game and it's why I never made a Legendary Weapon and I won't entertain the idea of starting on Legendary Armor when it arrives. They can shove it right up their ass. Stick all the time-gated shit up there, too.

If they made the game 50% less grindy I could play for longer and relax more and not get burned out after a couple of weeks, which is what always happens. I take months off the game, come back and grind for a few weeks and get burned out. Anet always gets a little bit of my money though so I suppose it's working as intended for them.

Why is Engineer a meme? I am trying sPvP and I enjoyed the Engineer the most so far because there are more buttons. Lately been winning pretty much all battles, although it doesn't work as well on a smaller scale (3vs3).

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I recently gave in and bought SotO and I decided on a new character slot because I'm positively sick and tired of playing Warrior and Ranger all the time, but I also dislike most of the other classes. Mesmer aesthetic is not my cup of tea, Elementalist sucks because you can't choose just one element to specialize in, Engineer is a meme, Thief is for fags, Guardian is for Noobs, and Necro is "good", but I've played against enough of them in sPvP that I've proclaimed Necro's my mortal enemies since a long time ago and I could never sink so low to join their ranks. That left me with only one option; my first Revenant.

I've been playing Revenant for about 70 hours now. To summarize in just a couple of words; It's.. better than I expected. At first I was pulling my hair out trying to get a build in sPvP that worked for me but I finally settled on Mace/Shield and Staff with Mallyx/Glint. The synergy is nice. I'm even winning 1v1's against seasoned Revenant's. It helps that I've played a lot of Warrior and Melee Ranger over the years so I'm not shy about brawling, and Revenant is an effective one.

As for my Impressions on SotO.. I've finished all the story instances available so far, and I've been working on getting some of the unique armor and weapons skins and I'm now doing the Skyscale, since I never got that in PoF. Shit is a grind though. I've been heavy on the caffeine this week because it's the only way for me to get through it in a timely manner. And this is coming from someone who never consumes caffeine normally. The grind is so fucking repetitive It's one of my biggest problems with the game and it's why I never made a Legendary Weapon and I won't entertain the idea of starting on Legendary Armor when it arrives. They can shove it right up their ass. Stick all the time-gated shit up there, too.

If they made the game 50% less grindy I could play for longer and relax more and not get burned out after a couple of weeks, which is what always happens. I take months off the game, come back and grind for a few weeks and get burned out. Anet always gets a little bit of my money though so I suppose it's working as intended for them.

Why is Engineer a meme? I am trying sPvP and I enjoyed the Engineer the most so far because there are more buttons. Lately been winning pretty much all battles, although it doesn't work as well on a smaller scale (3vs3).

EoD introduced the Mechanist elite specialization. There was a build where you could just take passives for your 5-10 slots and just rely on the sheer autoattack damage of your gun and your mech to effortlessly top the DPS charts and get kill after kill. I found that build to be useful when I played on a high latency laptop for a couple weeks while I was waiting for my desktop GPU replacement to arrive. That build might have been nerfed since then, I main ranger so I don't really pay attention to engineer patch notes.

The 2v2 and 3v3 deathmatch offseasons are always a crapshoot. Your traditional SPvP build is meant for 5v5 king of the hill matches, where you have people buffing up the team or trying to stall so reinforcements can arrive, high mobility builds trying to cross the map to hijack points, etc. In the offseason it's just a deathmatch on a very small map, and the match is almost always over once someone goes into down state. A good player can really carry their team by psyching and baiting out the enemy team's cooldowns so they are caught with their pants down and have no answer to yours.

Always try to play ranked if you can. You get more rewards and gold.

 

[Drakortha]

Engineer is a meme thematically. When you install the game for the first time expecting a fantasy setting and you see a class that gives you rocket boots and a belt that punches enemies, you giggle and laugh and choose it because it breaks the 4th wall. You can't take it seriously. Of my 13 characters only one of them is an engineer and he is the only one with a stupid character name.

 

[Caim]

Wasn't Mechanist the only specialization that people picked because of the robot buddy it gives you?