marvalis

I've been against the fee on waypoints and respecs all along, for a couple of reasons:

The first is that they discourage things that I don't think should be discouraged. They discourage returning to distant parts of the map (Orr isn't the problem since there are portals to Fort Trinity, but some of northeastern Ascalon maps for instance). They discourage experimenting with new builds. They discourage making use of those features to help people, whether it's shifting out of your solo build to something more supportive for a dungeon, or popping over to a DE or the location of a friend in order to help out.

The second is that they don't actually do what their proponents say they do.

Consider, what is the reason we have goldsinks? Inflation per se isn't the problem - if every player's gold doubled tomorrow and the rate at which gold was introduced from then on was also doubled, the only practical effect on players is that the cost of fixed-price items would be halved. Sure, the number of virtual coins changing hands would be doubled, but since people have twice as many of them to begin with, the real cost of items hasn't actually changed.

The problem is that over time money pools in the hands of the rich, pushing up prices, while the rate at which new players entering the game remains the same, creating an ever-increasing barrier for new players to access the economy. It's not a problem of inflation. It's a problem of the gap between rich and poor.

Now, I ask people to consider... do respec and waypoint costs (or, for that matter armour repair costs, although I'm less against them) really do anything to address that gap?

I put it to you that they do not. In fact, I put it to you that they actually make it worse. In many games, and I haven't really seen an indication that GW2 is different, the most efficient way of making money is generally farming whatever run the player finds to be the most efficient conversion of playtime into virtual currency. So who's going to die more, the new player that's still inexperienced, or the experienced farmer that's perfected their means of fighting whatever it is they hit on their run? Who's going to respec more, the player new to a profession that's still trying out builds for that profession, or the farmer who's figured out the most efficient build for their run and sticks to it? Who's going to pay waypoint fees more - the new or casual player who's still exploring the world, or the farmer who has established their route and sticks to it?

In all cases, it's not going to be the serious money-makers who are being taxed. It's the players who aren't perpetually in the 'must make maximum cash' mode that are sinking the majority of the gold, while the super-rich can minimise them and just continue to get richer. Instead of controlling the gap between rich and poor, these sinks could well actually be exacerbating it.

In the real world, governments need taxes to function, but most understand this and at least try to minimise the burden on the poor and put as much of the load as they can on those who can bear it.

So all of you who are simply saying that gold sinks are good because they remove money from the economy, I implore you to think - is this gold sink actually removing money from where it should be removed? Or is it just a pointless inconvenience to the players or even serving to make the financial barrier for new players worse than it would be without them?

(Now, for each of the fees under discussion, I can think of non-macroeconomic reasons for them - not saying that I agree with them, but I understand that arguments such as "it's good to encourage people to actually walk places occasionally" (but see above) and "it's good for people to be distinguished by their build and for there to be a disincentive to changing willy-nilly" (but that's also a disincentive to trying something apart from proven cookie-cutter builds) exist and are valid arguments. However, I don't think the 'gold sinks are good because inflation is bad for new players' argument is valid for these cases, since the sinks in question hit new players as much if not more than the super-rich that are driving up prices to begin with.)

TL;DR: Waypoint costs, respec fees, and armour repair costs aren't good goldsinks because they burden newer and poorer players as much if not more than the established rich that are causing the inflation that gold sinks are intended to combat.

Trei, on 22 November 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:

Perhaps a compromise is to make it so that you don't break your armour when defeated by a player (similar to how you don't if you die through falling). It's easy to make the 'don't die' argument when talking about pure PvE, but when you're talking about PvP in any format there is the assumption that one player is going to be better (or luckier) than the other and someone's going to die, otherwise it would be rather unsatisfying. And in the current system, the prospect of steep repair costs is a significant disincentive to WvWvW.

resistentialist said:

After you've defended Fort Trinity, too, the gates in Fort Trinity become available (connecting to each of the order headquarters) so it's a fairly short run to go from LA to the Chantry of Secrets and gate from there.

I hope we all agree "threat tanking" is obsolete, unrealistic and bland.
I also hope we agree that having a boss or mob only attack one person and only that, is gimmicky and removes a lot of depth to the combat.
Finally, I hope you don't believe a person should be able to put himself between mobs and other team members for a whole dungeon, take baziollions of damage and live through it, because this would imply someone had to refill his life continuously and we'd be back at having mobs hit a dummy who's having his health refilled.

I seriously believe you've all come to the conclusion this is a retarded mechanic.

Still, the role of a full supporter is not unrealistic nor obsolete.
Refilling bars should be gone or at least left as a minor part of team protection and revival.
All forms of team defense that do not rely on bar-filling are welcome.
Thief can stealth-ress, Ranger's got spirits, Ele got rain and geyser and finishers, etc.

I have played a Guardian, Warrior and Thief so far, all of them got strong ways to safe and help the team.
More depth to this is welcome but new gimmicky mechanics are not.
Combat depth is probably the main reason I love GW2, if it was made worse I would shelf GW2.

Rickter, on 29 November 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

And GW2 players still are a niche crowd. The only difference was that GW1 catered to this niche crowd by offering it something that couldn't be found anywhere else on the market, while GW2 caters to its niche crowd by offering it things that can easily be found in other games out there. Not only that, other games actually do this better.

Or do we really think that a game, where designers spent years to bring it in line with the idea of horizontal progression will do vertical progression better than a game that is designed for it?

The Background:
So, I’ve been cheating on my engineer. The rumors, unfortunately, are true. Am I to blame? Is it the engineer’s fault? Those are questions for another day and time. I’m here to talk about how we can make this thing work.

I won’t get into how it came about, but I’ve been seeing an elementalist. She has been my everything: a staff-wielding, combo-field generating giant. Her boons last long and her heals are fierce. And I have enjoyed climbing to ever-higher fractal levels with her very much. I don’t mean to start a comparison of the two, and I certainly don’t mean for us to sit here and bicker about class balance. I just want to provide some context for the discussion that I want to have.

The Here and Now:
I have returned to my engineer mostly for the purposes of farming twice the amount of daily chests out of fractal tiers. It isn’t the best reason to play a particular class, but it is something that I want to do. I also am looking for every opportunity to fall back in love with the class. The only problem is that, after playing an elementalist, I’m not entirely sure I know how I want to play an engineer. At this point you’ll probably be getting ready to point me to the build thread, but this is different. I’m not looking for a run-of-the-mill PvE build; I’m looking for the build that you run and find to be effective at the agony-producing levels (10+) of fractals.

I used to play a cookie-cutter grenade/elixir gun build with power/toughness/vitality armors, and berserker jewelry. Doing what I did with that build, however, I won’t even be approaching the usefulness of my elementalist. So, I decided to shop around for builds and now I reworked myself to be a bomb/healing/blasting engineer using roughly this build:

http://www.guildhead...NoMa0xGaczkqmsM

I have a spreadsheet of intended gear that roughly include pistol/shield, AC precision/vit/healing armors and berserker jewelry, giving me the following rough stats: Attack: 2,892, Crit Chance: 44%, Armor: 2,280, Healing: 615, and 19,322 Health. I’m having second-thoughts concerning this build, however, for two very big reasons.

1) Agony and survivability. A good deal of time should be spent up in the fray dropping bombs. This is potentially going to make it very difficult for me to make sure I get out of the way of things quickly and will definitely end up in me being hit a whole lot with skill arcs and radii. I’ve taken the build into some explorables and I’ve even found myself getting knocked around a good bit there too. That doesn’t bode well for level 10+ fractal dungeons using this build. Granted, I wasn’t geared out with my intended gear for the test runs, but I don’t think the difference will be that vast. This is in stark contrast to my elementalist, with whom I can enjoy almost limitless amounts of freedom around the battlefield and can quickly get myself out of a tight situation most of the time with an insane amount of burst healing.

2) Clunkiness. I love a very active character, and it’s why I have loved playing on my elementalist. But it can’t feel clunky. Want to know what I mean by clunky? The following combo:

Switch into bomb kit, drop Big ol’ Bomb, use Fire Bomb (#2), drop a Healing Turret, destroy Healing Turret, switch to pistol/shield and hit #4 twice for Magnetic Inversion.

If you do this quickly enough and in proper time, it essentially creates a fire combo field (Fire Bomb), and allows you to blast it several times (Big ol’ Bomb, Destroy Healing Turret, Magnetic Inversion) for group might stacks. Sure, it’s a good number of might stacks (3 per blast), but it is torture in how clunky it is to pull off. And while you’re doing all that, you’re very likely completely oblivious to everything else going on in the battlefield. Potentially losing battlefield awareness is totally not cool and totally unacceptable for me.

Another example of clunkiness? Our healing turret creates a water field that is so fleeting that you could have easily reached 80 without even realizing it existed. Blast finishing water fields is such a great source of group healing though, and I absolutely love doing this on my elementalist. But trying to string together Big Ol’ bomb, Turret Destruction, and Magnetic Inversion in order to get repeated blasts on the momentary Healing Turret water field is a pain.

Your Turn:
I think I’ve provided enough context here. So the question is, what do you guys do in the high level fractals and what do you find effective? I’m specifically interested in builds, gear and skill uses/combos that you use for high level fractals, and not just PvE in general, or how you enjoy the engineer class. I’m not really looking for a “I find turrets fun” kind of response, basically.
I would be especially interested in checking out any blasting/healing/booning general support builds (similar to a combo-field/staff elementalist) that you guys might be running out there. Although I’m interested in pretty much all builds that can be very effective at the high fractal levels.
What say ye?