Lunacy Polish

I really want to go to the Meatoberfest in Diessa Plateau now and see if there are any weapons made from beef for sale.

That's So Pish
Thief - Jim Battlemaster http://intothemists....45;1G3G3G3G35Bp
Elementalist - Selthorn http://intothemists....LJ;4G3G3G3G33Bi
Mesmer - Zorbl The Mesmer http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25Bd
Ranger Moar One Spam http://intothemists....77;1Rk06Rk069cn
Guardian - Guardian Of Pish http://intothemists....k6;2Uwl6Uwl63Ni

Chieftain Ninjas
Elementalist - Wanabe Thief http://intothemists....AU;5Uwl6Uwl63NA
Thief - Jexster http://intothemists....V4;2KJG4KJG45BU
Guardian - Tage http://intothemists....0U;1ZF18ZF189RT
Warrior - R O M http://intothemists....0L;1KJG4KJG45Bi
Mesmer - Illusionary Purie http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25Bc
Engineer - Purie http://intothemists....-1;3Cok1A7W32VM (used on foe fire)

Team Paradigm
Elementalist - Phantaram http://intothemists....LJ;4sV2DsV2D4BD
Guardian - Azshene http://intothemists....64;1ZF18ZF183Ni
Engineer - Teldo http://intothemists....Tw;4hoHAhoHA2VN
Mesmer - Xeph http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25Bc
Ranger - Niah http://intothemists....78;1nBnBnBnB9cG

AKGL Phantom Team
Thief - Monkeycrafty http://intothemists....W4;2G3G3G3G35BI
Mesmer - Phantom Purple http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25Bc
Ranger - Thrul http://intothemists....6E;1nBnBnBnB9cO
Guardian - Phantom Xttra http://intothemists....64;1ZF18ZF183Nf
Ranger - Sir Battosal http://intothemists....17;2KJGAhoHA1Fn

Made in Meta
Mesmer - Azani http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25Ba
Guardian - MIM Sam http://intothemists....0U;1ZF18ZF183NV
Engineer - MIM Mouby http://intothemists....0o0-AgV3HJG42Vm
Elementalist - Ultima http://intothemists....N0;3nBnBnNYC9Rs
Thief - MIM Suldaris http://intothemists....V4;2KJG4KJG45BX

The Civilized Gentlemen
Mesmer - Lord Helseth http://intothemists....0U;1Ewk2Ewk25BM
Elementalist - Denshee http://intothemists....LJ;4Ewk2Ewk24BS
Guardian - Mr Danto http://intothemists....1U;1ZF18ZF183Nf
Elementalist - Hyxorcisten http://intothemists....UV;4Uwl6Uwl63NV
Thief - Ivanishyouwipe http://intothemists....V4;2G3G3G3G35Bk

Updating list of tournament builds HERE

lets not eh? I dont' want to see every tom dick and harry running around in CoF gear cos they farmed it in pve - you have to work harder for it in pvp. Similar for other popular skins.

PvP and PvE need to be as separate as possible.

Let's not. I'm all for being able to transmute the special skins to pvp skins, but anything more is a big nope. Keep pvp and pve rewards separate, if you want nice looking armor in pve, get the armor. If you want nice looking armor in pvp, get the armor.

I read the OP.  I know my opion won't help at all, but i have a feeling that WoW is as close to MMO perfection as anyone will ever get.  Now, thats not a bad thing, because all these other MMOs with "flaws" make for an interesting gaming experience.

You ever play FFXI?  Man, that game was HORRIBLE!  It was a pain to do anything and you always needed a group.  You had to have the holy trinity.  Needless to say, I didn't last more than 6 months in that game until WoW was released and i started playing WoW.

Now, off and on for the last few years, i can't believe it myself, but i MISS FFXI.  I miss the music, i miss the parties, i miss the weird Japanese inspired monsters that made no sense.  Every once in a great while, i fire it up, play for a day or two and realize the old glory and opportunity of FFXI is done and long dead.

The point is, flawed games can have this effect on people.  I don't want another WoW-experience.  I want something different.  Something that makes me fall in love with it like i did with FFXI and this game comes extremely, extremely close to that so i will definitely keep playing.

I'm sorry you are having tons of problems, but man, if it ain't doing it for ya, you'll be happier just moving on to something else.  Theres tons of MMOs out now.  Plenty to invest time into.  You just gotta roll with what ends up being your FFXI and just be ignorant-stupid-happy with it.

I can't help but agree with most of what you're saying OP.  I guess at this point, though, I wonder what you're trying to do here.  These issues are not new, nor are you the first to post about them.  If you're really that unsatisfied with the game, why not just stop playing?  YOu could even try asking for a refund and including the text from your post as a reason for why you deserve one.  Pointing out these issues to other players, most of whom are already aware of them, will do very little to get Anet to change anything.

The unfortunate truth is that while GW2 is a still a good game, it really is a completely flawed game that abandoned much of its promise for mediocrity. At this point, there are so many things to fix that is really only a matter of time (I'm guessing a few years, tops) before Anet throws in the towel and announces they'll be working on designing GW3 for the next 6 years instead of maintaining GW2.  Anet is a great company that suffers from a fatal flaw in the long term: they refuse the remember the lessons they've learned in the past and keep making the same mistakes.  This was true in GW1 and its true in GW2.

Please let me preface this with:

If you are still enjoying GW2 and/or happy with ArenaNet, that's fine and I'm happy for you.

---

Some of you may recognize me (mainly for my math posts) if you frequent the same forums/sections as I do.

I used to be quick to defend ArenaNet on many points, but recently I can't help but think of the many things that have continued to aggravate me.

Lack of quality control

• Patch days turn into a patch for the patch for the patch for the patch for the patch ... followed the next day by another patch for the patch for the patch.
  
• The big WvW patch broken WvW ... you'd have thought someone would test that patch to see if it broke the thing it was designed for.
  
• There is quite a bit of evidence that their codebase is horrible
  
  • The patch days mentioned above
    
  • Targeted patches breaking their target (as mentioned above)
    
  • Patches one thing breaking other things completely unrelated to the patch ... like Mesmer spear having no working hitbox after a patch a few months ago ... when there were no patches to it
    
  • Illusionary Leap for Mesmer's being broken/"fixed" on an almost per patch basis (undocumented too).
    
  • Inconsistencies in their code such as Thief basilisk venom having an undocumented immobilize on top of the stun which the state of the game highlighted
    
  • Still haven't fixed (or can't) Mesmer clones' not having offhands
    
  • Still haven't fulfilled (or can't) their promise of allowing 2hand weapons to have 2 sigils so they can be on the same footing as weapon sets that use two 1hand weapons.
    
  • How long it has taken them to actually make NPCs invulnerable in WvW
    
  • Still bad AI plaguing several classes ... two of which AI plays a large part of their class mechanics.
    
  • Groups getting bugged because a player leaves the game without leaving their party
    
  • Ranged attacks that are still randomly obstructed when the attacker and target are both on equal ground with nothing but open field between the two of them

Broken/Unfulfilled Promises

• As previously stated, during BWEs, ArenaNet promised the community that they would make it so that 2hand weapons could have 2 sigils so that those weapon sets could have the same number of sigils as weapon sets using two 1hand weapons ... where is this fix?
  
• The WvW patch was promised to change the WvW meta a bit and give players a reason to still care about WvW when the matchup was an overwhelming win/loss.
  
  • There are no new activities in WvW
    
  • The meta is still Zerg v Zerg
    
  • Most servers (if not all) have been fighting the same other two servers for going on two months now
    
    • For me, personally, this means Ehmry Bay stomping both Borliss Pass and Anvil Rock has gotten very old ... a challenge would be nice ... perhaps a chance to actually lose other than "only if we don't show up"
  • Instead we got WvW XP and levels ... which only affect NPCs and siege
    
    • Siege is largely for taking/defending points ... which matter less when the matchup isn't close.
• There will be "no gear grind" ... except we added in ascended gear which has you grinding fractals and/or guild missions unless you want to be very patient with dailies ... and we were told there would eventually be ascended quality for other gear slots in the future ... "can't wait" to see what additional currency they add to get that ... *sigh*.

Appear to be "bad at math"

• If you read any articles by different game companies or blogs of individual developers, you'll often see that they create a sort of "Average Joe" test dummy to test things on as far as pacing, OP, UP, etc.. It is a standard operating procedure to establish a baseline
  
  • Despite this, ArenaNet has been having to devote time now to changing how classes work because they realized that they allowed people to be killed in 1-2s if a glass cannon hits a non-tanky target.
    
    • This has Thieves in a period of flux where they are having to be changed because "burst or die" isn't good gameplay
      
      • Please note that I'm well aware of very good non-glass tanky Thieves builds ... I'm actually a fan of Sword + Dagger
    • Warriors have been harmed further in PvP by some of these changes
  • If you do the math for the various cooldown changes, you'll notice that some of them give you more or less than the 20% described by the trait.
    
  • Notice we are still getting large sweeping changes to various things' damages? Arrow cart has received two 50% changes recently ... they were that far off, eh?
    
  • Remember when Thief's Dancing Dagger hit for 6k to 8k, was ranged, spammable, didn't require stealth, and hit up to 4 targets? Lol.

Failure w/ Implementation of "No Holy Trinity"

• What is bad about having a holy trinity?
  
  • It creates a higher demand for some classes over others for group play (tanks and healers > dps)
    
  • It can create non-interesting fights where you simply /assist tank + autoattack
• What do we have in Guild Wars 2?
  
  • The status of Guardians, Warriors, and Mesmers as "the top 3" ... due to what they can bring compared to others and how it weighs in relative to current content and what it demands
    
  • Several groups asking specifically for "Guardians" or "Heavies"
    
  • Several groups asking people to not play their Ranger, Engineer, Thief, etc. for dungeons
    
  • Ever seen someone say "we have too many Guardians/Warriors/Mesmers" ? Probably not ... but I bet you have for other classes.
    
  • What do we do in most boss fights? Stand at range and auto-attack supplemented by some other skills
    
    • Occasionally do a dodge roll.

E-Sport Quality Combat ... where?

• As has been stated by "the pros", there is too much use of random numbers in combat
  
  • Crit chance
    
  • on-crit sigils
    
  • on-crit traits
    
  • other procs
    
  • skills with random effects
• Imbalances in classes
  
  • Notice that there are a few classes that are used consistently by the top tier tPvP teams.
    
  • Notice that there are a few classes that are close to never used by the top tier tPvP teams.
• Still balancing the classes with how the Arenas work
  
  • Anyone here think that underwater combat has been balanced? My Mesmer and My Ranger are nightmares for people in the water ... I openly admit they are OP there.
    
  • People running the orbs ... just got a recent fix but there are still those with several more advantages than other classes ... and it isn't something that can be fixed with gear/spec changes.

Combat Being Dumbed Down

• Nerf to confusion ... because avoiding the application of confusion, using condition removal, or moving/dodging without attacking for a few seconds were somehow too hard.
  
  • ​Heavy forbid people have to pay attention to the color change of their screen, effect on their character, condition icon on their screen, and damage numbers popping up with a unique effect each time they mindlessly bash their skills and/or auto-attack.
• Nerf to Caltrop duration ... because people weren't smart enough to not stand in the red circle filled with sharp pointy objects that bled them to death the last 20 times?
  
• AOEs limited to 5 people ... caters to the mindless zerging
  
  • Excuse is "technical limitation" even though older MMOs didn't have this "technical limitation" despite working on older hardware.
    
  • We also have siege ignoring this "technical limitation"
    
  • We also have other effects that ignore this "technical limitation"
• Some skills do "way too much" for a player ... like heartseeker. With skilled players it's just an annoying thief they mock as they kill. At the lower skill-levels, it's a player being successful at turning to face, chasing, closing any gaps, and killing just by pressing one button repeatedly
  
• The current meta is largely "boon heavy builds". These builds have near (if not completely) 100% up-time on select boons and thus influence players to use skills "whenever off cooldown" instead of "in reaction to combat" ... this diminishes skilled play
  
• There are builds that fall completely into paper/scissor/rock ... giving us more "build wars"
  
  • I used to not believe this till I started dueling more, I would watch Alice kick the crud out of everyone (including me), then see Alice lose to Bob, who everyone (including me) kicked the crap out of.
    
    • Bob only beat Alice because Bob's build hard counters Alice's so much that Bob would have to be horribad to lose ... and then it'd be close.

Foods, Oils, and Sharpening Stones

• Part of the draw to having no gear grind is that you don't have to farm/grind/etc. (treat a game like a job) in order to have the same total stat points as someone else.
  
• These consumable items remove that since now you need to be able to afford them constantly.
  
  • Slow day in WvW because everyone is bored? You lose some gold standing around with your bonuses
    
  • Want to spend your gold on something else? Well then I hope you farmed sometime recently or played the trading post because your money is tied up in consumables.
• These also allow stats to get to ridiculous amounts ... which enables for the very quick burst fights that ArenaNet says they are trying to scale back
  
• Ranger pets do not scale with the Ranger's stats, so as more Ascended items enter the game, the relative power of pets to players decreases in PvE and WvW. The consumables exacerbate this problem
  
  • This is part of why Ranger pets are seen as being much stronger in sPvP than they are in PvE and WvW.
• There is also the lemongrass poultry. -40% condition duration. Non-removable.
  
  • Conditions are already largely seen by the community as being "weaker" than direct damage in many parts of the game due to conditions stack caps, abundance of combo fields in WvW, condition removals, not affecting inanimate objects (siege, gates, etc.)
    
  • Now we have a food that lowers your condition duration (and thus damage) by 40% ... and because of the way condition damage works, this rounds up.
• The power of these foods can be see by how the meta changed for some classes when the lifesteal on food was given an internal cooldown on its proc.

ArenaNet's treatment of the community

• ArenaNet is very hush-hush about even their high-level designs for the game.
  
  • They ignore the wonderful things that have come from game companies having very free and open communication with their communities ... both for previous MMOs as well as upcoming ones.
    
  • If you want people to continue to invest in you, you could at least respect them enough to tell them what your ideas are ... even at a high-level.
    
  • Heck having test servers would shoot two birds with one stone as they could convey ideas to the community while getting some free-testing ... it could even help make patch days only need 1 patch ... instead of 5 and a few more the next day.
• If you go to any non-ArenaNet-controlled GW2 forum, you'll inevitably run into a post about someone complaining about the moderation on ArenaNet's forums
  
  • These threads often end up with some people replying that they actually take advantage of it to "troll better" as they try to bait people into saying things or simply click on "look at all posts by Bob" and then report all those posts they think they have even a small chance of nailing "Bob" on.
• Some of us (myself included) have tickets that are over a week old. Seeing as how the last time I had a ticket, it was answered in a matter of hours, measuring the current wait time in weeks is a bit ridiculous.
  
  • What's more aggravating for me personally is that I'm encountering the exact same issue two more times, something their community director, Eric "Dalmarus" Campbell, apologized to me for having happened before ... yet now I'm stuck dealing with it because they have yet to so much as acknowledge receiving it ... even though it is on my list of "My Stuff" at support.guildwars2.com.

Gameplay is boring the heck out of me

• PvE
  
  • Dungeons - we run them for skins (or CoF p1 for money) or badges for a legendary. It gets extremely boring running the same dungeon over and over again.
    
    • The content is quite boring. It's often cripple melee opponents, block/reflect projectiles, assist on the called target. Nothing really new there.
      
    • Most people that do dungeons, because they are so boring, constantly look for ways to circumvent as much content as possible ... and are successful
      
    • We still have dungeon content whose difficulty can be circumvented by hiding in a corner ... even with new content like with the Living Story's Molten Facility and the "machine boss" near the beginning.
  • Legendaries are simply "I have lots of money" or "I did the grind". There isn't anything legendary about them. You ran the same dungeon X number of times to get 500 tokens. You gathered/bought a large number of materials. You jumped/fought in WvW for "badges of jumping". Kudos.
    
  • Fractals are the same few fractals every time. The higher levels don't add anything really meaningful. They just make it more punishing to get hit.
    
  • Guild Missions are made stupidly trivial given a large number of people
    
  • If the first person that entered the dungeon leaves group, etc., the entire group is dropped from the dungeon ... why?! ... this allows some people to be jerks and/or troll people and I don't see the benefit.
• WvW
  
  • Arrow Cart ... 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 (feel free to reverse 2 and 3).
    
  • Ballista ... 1 2 3 11 2 3 11 2 3 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 (feel free to reverse 2 and 3)
    
  • Catapult ... 1, hold, release, wait, repeat
    
  • Trebuchet ... 1, hold, release, wait, repeat
    
  • Zerg vs Zerg ... throw random AOE, tab target, and auto-attack random people in a horde of 30+ as a horde of 30+ do the same to your horde.
    
    • There are some zerg-busting groups, but I've found most of those I know of on my server are bored with the game ... so not nearly on as much any more ... so now there's much less zerg busting.
  • You're not on siege and you're not defending the walls? Good luck to you with some classes as you can't hit people on the wall who can hit you because your character only knows how to aim at genitals (or lower) ... we'll ignore that you can see 3/4 of the enemy's body.
    
  • Throw siege around like candy because you can get it from jumping puzzles that you didn't really do because Mesmers are portaling people in large droves to the end ... they also get more "Tokens of Jumping" from this.
• sPvP
  
  • Sadly, these little one-off matches are where the highest level of skill can be leveraged ... however
    
  • Even the "pros" have been complaining about how it quickly gets boring. There are mechanics in each one, but they are largely ignored in favor of simply capping and controlling the points. Lack of any real variation
    
  • Anyone who sPvP'd a large amount already has collected the large amount of skins available.
    
  • Pick-up matches are, again, mindless zergfests because all they have to do is <tab> - auto-attack because numbers is what really matters in most cases
    
  • It is still far from being esport-worthy ... randomness, imbalances, etc. ... claimed to be esport quality combat and here we are over half a year later. Heroes of Newerth, another Moba amongst a sea of Moba games, was picked up quicker than this.

When GW2 feels grindy to me, it's because there are limited ways to get the things I need.

For example, when I'm leveling a toon, the game doesn't feel grindy at all.  Pretty much anything I do will dump XP on my head, from WvW to completing zones, to gathering, to crafting.  I can play whatever I'm in the mood for on any given day, and I will advance my character.

Examples in the other direction are numerous.

If I'm currently trying to get enough gold together to buy something off the trading post, I need to either farm dragon events, run dungeons, or run around in Orr.  If I choose to WvW I will make a tiny trickle of money or break even depending on how well my server is doing.  If I run around a zone that is rated for less than level 70, I won't make significant money.

If I'm currently trying to finish out my gear with BiS trinkets, I can do my daily, run fractals, or do my guild missions for the week.  Anything else will not get me closer to that goal.

This is when it starts to feel like grind.  When I choose what to do with my play time based on the reward it will give me rather than on what seems to be the most fun, that is grind.

Lunacy Polish, on 06 May 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

It's funny because I can imagine the developers sitting in a room saying, how do we get rid of grind, and someone says, well, we can use tokens - so people know they they will be rewarded for their efforts and won't have to farm forever. Unfortunately, I think they just traded one system for another, which happens to, in practice, be worse in my opinion.

But, yes, I suppose this goes back to Trei's idea as well - if they game was better - as in I like playing it more - then perhaps I wouldn't feel that it was so grindy because I would actually be enjoying the game. This has happened to me before, I just can't make it work for GW2.

Perhaps I really should just let it go. Nothing I do is going to change anything. In reality I'm just bored as shit because I can't think of any current game that really wants to hold my attention. I guess it's a sad day when the most fun I have is sitting on the forums bitching about why this game disappointed me so much.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm not reading a book either. It might be linear, but the good ones take me to places games never have been able to.

MazingerZ, on 13 May 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

Yea, and in that case I would still disregard your opinion.

MazingerZ, on 13 May 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

You can form an opinion but that opinion is severely limited and will be undervalued due to the fact that you've only seen 20 minutes of the movie.

Regardless, I think the stream was alright for what it was trying to do. And hopefully, next time they can put a longer delay on the stream so that they can do more without getting zerged half the time.

Alex Dimitri, on 11 May 2013 - 12:31 AM, said:

Sadly, WvW could be so freaking awesome if they just tried. It has way more potential than sPvP and I would be happy to see them forget about the disgrace that is sPvP if it meant making WvW awesome.

AKGeo, on 08 May 2013 - 09:19 PM, said:

Or, maybe it's a valid point that giving the player the forced option to choose between increasing their overall performance or their own (and nobody else's) loot is questionable. Even if you don't agree, surely it's not difficult to see why there are those who see this as far less than optimal.

Craywulf, on 12 May 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

Well I believe most people who use the term 'zerg' to describe a large group DO NOT mean it in a derogatory fashion. Absolutely, having numbers is a good strategy because it increases the chances of winning. Being in a 'zerg' is also a nice, non-stressful means of getting an experience in WvW and can be exciting at times. It is also easier to play when in a zerg because for the most part because if we follow the tag, move as one and just auto-attack, we can get a buttload of tags, kills and hence loot bags. As Mazinger also stated, "the return on not rolling with a zerg is less than rolling with it".

This is why when you ask a few folk to stay to guard a location, people to act as scouts or sentries, or to run supp, the volunteers are few. In reality these jobs are extremely, extremely important. Trouble is that many people only think of their own loot. They are not using the correct mindset of doing something important to improve the performance of their server in WvW, even if less exciting.

The thing that most of us do not like is the limitations that lag imposes on us in some situations. As I alluded to earlier, when we have a small group and are trying to hold off a larger force, we cannot afford to allow our skills to degenerate to just an auto-attack. We need to play at the top of our game with AoE and CC skills. If lag is such that we cannot even activate these skills when they are called upon, then it's just pointless. The small group gets wiped just because of their inferior numbers. They stand little chance even if they have superior skill or tactics. For example, there's a hole in the wall and people start rushing in. I try to put down some CC and snares but it fails to activate. Next thing we know, the whole zerg is on me and I die in two seconds.

That's not fun. That's outrageously annoying. At the same time I embarrass myself for being a derp to stand still and get killed and contribute nothing.

Unless they find some means of allowing a large group of people in one area to function adequately, I would like to see Anet develop a new system where bandwidth is a fixed amount and allocated to each server in WvW. If you only have 10 people in that area, great, because that bandwidth is shared between 10 people and individual performance is improved. If however you have 30 people in that area, then the bandwidth is shared between 30 people and individual performance is reduced. At any rate, why should I experience lag and latency that is really a result of the presence of an opposing zerg? Each server should have to deal with the lag themselves.

Dasryn, on 10 May 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

You brought this up 3 months ago and pinned it on the players. You can't change player behavior without changing the game - so it is a developer problem. Sorry, but while you had the right idea that it is a problem, your insistence that the players need to change their behavior is not realistic or even the problem.

The problem is that this game is made largely for solo play. As such, every class must be able to survive on their own. Which means that in their limited skill bar, most of the skills are related to DPS and self healing. There isn't even enough space to add things that make teamwork and other interesting gameplay viable without nerfing the ability for each class to go through their personal story and open world solo.

Of course, it doesn't help that balance is so screwed up that things like conditions don't even work as well as straight up DPS.

If you step back and take a look at what ANet was trying to do, which is create a game without the negative effects of the trinity, they did a lousy job. Mostly because they fell into the same class stereotypes that are in trinity games, and kind of rely on the trinity. Why, for example, would you roll a class with a lower armor rating and DPS than a warrior for PvE except to take advantage of a couple of really great utility skills such as the mesmer has? There is no real reason as it relates to effectiveness in PvE.

Lunacy Polish, on 06 May 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

The problem with GW2 is that it was advertised as a game for non-MMO gamers. So you are going to have a bunch of folks that will not compare GW2 to the games of the MMO genre, we'll compare it to games such as Portal or any of the MOBA games because that's what we played before coming to GW2. And simply less grind that you're used to seeing in the MMO genre will still be a lot for us, because a lot of us have played games with actual zero grind.

EDIT:
It seems Dude beat me to it! *shakesfist*