HappyHubris.1096

As someone without a human "main," I didn't even think about this possibility.

The wiki isn't bad; we're just observing that GW2 is more convoluted and less internally-explained than other MMOs (exacerbated by horizontal progression).

But you're presenting this as a black-and-white choice between exploring and fighting. Every player will engage in a mix, and games are a blend of what is explained and what is discoverable. People can both enjoy exploration and feel that the in-game "hints" or explanations are on the average too light. It sounds like documenting in-game lore and possibilities is a hobby of yours (though you do mention referencing wikis), but not everyone shares the same passion to the same extent. As a game with horizontal level 80 progression, GW2 throws a LOT of information and possibilities at the player. It also is light on in-game organization, documentation, and the like. This combines to make it functionally a wiki game for people who have limited time and still want to experience the content. Especially if you haven't continuously played for the past 10 years and are digesting big chunks of content.

This depends on playtime and your skill at remembering virtual worlds. For example, "Dreams of a Thorn" would have been basically impossible for me to complete without outside assistance. Now the counter-argument is that not all content needs to be possible for all players, but I think GW2 falls on the "less intuitive" side of the curve. I play single-player games without wikis, but GW2 just throws mountains of information and possibilities at the player.

This is a positive spin on "in-game explanations are insufficient." People said the same thing before the game got a LFG widget to excuse away the gap.

I agree that GW2 really leans on out-of-game documentation instead of explaining things clearly in game. There's a ton of currencies, reward systems that are very difficult to stumble-upon, cryptic hints for many collections, etc. This is exacerbated by a horizontal progression model that makes so much of the content relevant at level 80. Instead of being funneled into a few "level cap" progression systems you have a proliferation of level 80 zones that all offer some sort of chance at advancement. While it's technically possible to do everything in the game sans wiki, the time investment for many collections or progressions would be vastly outside of what the average player can muster. I could have spent a year looking for my Knight of the Thorn collections, for example. Heck, ANet even monetized world boss timers instead of putting that information in the UI, so...to the wiki I go!

Ideally I would prefer to see a "standard character outfits" option in a drop-down with "standard character models." Nothing is more immersion-breaking than having one party member in a 20th Century t-shirt and shorts, another in lingerie, another with 50 particle effects, etc. But "standard character models" also hurts immersion by making everyone the same race. If you want a giant Norn with grizzled hair and a big scar for role-playing reasons, that's a great idea that I want to see. I don't want your model subbed out for GENERIC FANTASY HUMAN. But once you stick him in pajamas, I'm annoyed.

You should be playing if it's fun or not, not due to the sunk cost of time. And every game with online servers is a "service game." If the company goes under or pulls the plug, it's over.

Minstrel is a type of item stat prefix (controlling the 3-4 types of stats on your item) that specialized in healing, boon duration, and personal tankiness: healing power, concentration, toughness, and vitality. It sacrifices offense to be a survivable, specialized healer.

Courtesy Request: I have only played through PoF and would appreciate spoiler tags for later content. A friend and I have returned to the game after playing through the HoT storyline and recently finished PoF. The expansion - from a plot perspective - felt thin to me, with an undeveloped antagonist that didn't seem to have a huge presence on the world map. During the story you bump into a bunch of Elonian lore (pre-and-post-Joko) and aesthetics, but the story just flirts with those concepts. Now I am exploring Elona a bit and am floored by the worldbuilding around Joko. His unique nation - a tension between the living and the awakened - are really fleshed out, with everything from rebels to cadets given ample development. His conflict with the branded is robust enough for its own expansion, and his ability to shape the region extends outside of small war camps to the fabric of society itself. So why was Balthazar the antagonist of the expansion? His motivations (rawr fight dragons) and impact (rawr kill dragons; break stuff); were fairly generic and easily could have been transferred to a different big baddie (e.g. Joko trying to kill and raise a dragon as a tool). LW3 set up Balthazar as the next boss, but he seemed out of place where he landed and could have resurfaced in a future expansion or story chapter. I get that people have been immensely curious to hear about the fate of the human gods, but that could have been done entirely without Balthazar's involvement if the protagonists petitioned the gods. All in all, it just seems like a distraction from the rich zones and worldbuilding of PoF. If I wasn't going back to explore I would have missed 80% of the lore content of the expansion pack, since I was chasing generic branded henchmen.

It's also possible that people were just less experienced and proficient in the game's first year, allowing for a ton of diversity among the mediocrity. Over time more challenges were put in the game and people started discovering the absolute strongest builds. Also, elite specs sort of narrowed the population of "strong" permutations to a particular vision.

Remember when the big buff was might and stacking it required a ton of fields and blast finishers?

What stats would you use for a Scourge in T3/T4 fractals? Viper? Plague Doctor?

Ugh nothing is worse than a brain-dead playstyle. Did a dev sit down and map out how a person would optimally use the new staff or did they just add the desired buff to a random weapon skill and be done with it. Even worse, this effectively kills the axe mirage playstyle for instanced PvE.

Depends on the person. Some people's endgame is raids, some prefer fractals, others stop with world completion, and others just do random daily events for fun. There are ways to "cap" your character's gear, but it's not mandatory. WoW generally has a more defined progression path through tiers of gear. Neither approach is wrong.

Tempest is pretty close to core. I would see if you could look at a core Fresh Air Scepter build and go from there.

Feel free to flip through my posts and you'll see that I can be quite critical. In MMOs some things are insanely rare to keep people playing, and one just happens to be a cosmetic that you want. If this was easy to achieve there would be some other ultra-rare cosmetic item that would create the same post (e.g. Chak infusion). You're literally in a digital Skinner Box asking why you only get some rewards some of the time. Why so you'll continue to pull the lever for a long time (and continue to spend money in the cash shop), of course! At least these ultra-rare items can be traded!

What? That doesn't follow at all. If the current rendering system doesn't efficiently handle certain things, of course it could still be the problem when many of those things aren't on screen with you at once.

I'm pretty sure an expansion where the player doesn't face the Big Bad - because the developer ran out of time - would get heckled into oblivion.

This is a trash request, and I'm annoyed that you wasted my time. What we need is an option to pet the cats.

If Pristine Eye wasn't a super rare drop people wouldn't value it as much and would instead be making threads asking that the alternative hottest thing was easier to get...

Why would they try to poach the few people still playing GW2 that are very unlikely to move to a subscription MMO? It's way more likely that the new patch has players salty and creating an account to vent. If anything, you'd try and poach people from FFXIV that has a sub model and a low quality product.

This 100%. I can't even tell if an emoji is supposed to be negative or positive, so it's all good.

I would be far more worried about playstyle compatibility and general viability than being the "best." Doing 15% higher damage is less likely to keep you happy than thoroughly enjoying the mechanics and aesthetics of your class. Remember that players like to complain about T4 CM fractals and tough raids that a vanishingly small part of the playerbase ever even attempts. To do raids and high end fractals you will likely be expected to use a playstyle that fits your role (e.g. no ranged staff DPS in fractals), but player learning curves are likely to constrain players before class selection. Also, most GW2 content is tuned for absolutely terrible DPS, so it's not like you'll be wiping on T2 fractals or failing due to your class selection. Remember, every MMO class feels like it's being shortchanged (or misunderstood, if they're currently in the lead). I love the elementalist aesthetics and theme but found that the mechanics and performance weren't as smooth as other classes I tried. That said, it wouldn't hurt to try either weaver or tempest to see if they offer some secret sauce. You can do a few HoT HP chains in an hour and get the points to fill in an elite spec.

If you balanced by number of players ANet would ignore fractals, raids, WvW, and sPvP to focus exclusively on Open World balance.