[HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.]

@naiasonod.9265 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@naiasonod.9265 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@naiasonod.9265 said:HoT and PoF mobs have a lot of cheesy powers they can use far too often, and they're all HP sponges.

Don't compare this hackneyed farce to Dark Souls. Dark souls requires good timing and figuring out the choreography of a fight, which only the good fights here in GW2 also feature.

Overworked mobs and dramatic oversaturated Veteran/Elite mobs are just cheese factories that spam overpowered and utterly enormous AOE and Charge and hugely damaging multihits and knockdown and cripple/weakness conditions.

When you look at the design of something, the purpose of that design is often clear based on what the thing in question does.

The purpose of HoT and PoF mobs in terms of their design is clear - they're meant to bypass any and all defenses players have except dodges, blocks and evades, which many classes don't have in abundance and typically don't have in sufficient quantities in any builds that actual players will ever use, because those builds would be utter trash for anything else.

So what's the purpose of this? I phone that the purpose is to feign challenge, and in lieu of being creative, making mobs overpowered damage sponges that can often be counted on to have long and spamable evade/block phases during which time they're essentially invulnerable even if they're also attacking you.

This is the phoned in fake challenge route, and all it does is encourage zerg gameplay for HP's and events, and while there's nothing wrong with zerging up, it's a fairly stupid thing to drive people into doing if you wanted them to do anything else at all ever.

If you're at all concerned about efficiency of time use any time/reward factors, soloing is stupid and you shouldn't bother with it at all. Join an event/bounty train or HP train and get things done quickly and properly, then plink around exploring solo if you like.

HoT and PoF ironically trivialize themselves by making zerg tactics the only tactic worth bothering with if you're actually serious about getting things done. This means that all their pointlessly cheesy mobs get melted in five seconds no matter and they might as well not have bothered giving them ridiculously huge, hard hitting and boringly tedious powers that punish nobody but solo explorers at all.

HoT and PoF mobs are tedious and exasperating. They're not particularly fun and aren't rewarding whatsoever to deal with, and that annoyance factor is the only successful accomplishment achieved by their design.

I can solo low tier fractals more easily than I can sometimes deal with overworld mobs, and the hlarity of why is because fractal fights are structured.

Run around HoT or PoF and you're almost certainly going to have tons of adds wander into your fights, and a considerable number of those adds will be veterans that can frequently kill you in one big crit or spammed multihit roll/channel/shoot you forever powers even if you're kitten around in full Soldier gear.

HoT and PoF completely destroy the use of creative builds and functionally force players into a single playstyle that relies completely on dodging on desperate use of frequently sparing evade/block/distort powers to avoid being utterly annihilated by some tiny little rolling monster that can hit you five times a second for 3k per hit while almost never stopping it's rolling.

You miss one dodge and you're often dead. You miss one block when you're out of stamina and you're often dead. The best defense is often an overwhelming offense, and of you can't kill it before it one shots you, you're going to die a lot, and even if you manage to kill the five things you got the jump on just fine, there'll be a wandering patrol with a stealther and a veteran that will wander in while you're fighting

Fractals are fun because they reward strategy and good gameplay. Dungeons aren't generally fun because they're where the issue of grossly overpowered trash got featured firstly and they reward nothing except killing things asap and figuring out how to skip as much as possible.

Raids reward good gameplay and solid group synergy.

Overworld exploration is just as PITA that rewards asolo explorer with nonstop annoyance and the promise that every fight will be obnoxious and all you'll want to do while you're picking your way through the kitten you can't avoid fighting is never have to fight this stuff ever again, because it's pointless and annoying.

It isn't hard in any sense other than to put up with, and when your 'challenge' is a tolerance check for blinding tedium, you failed at coming up with a challenge worthy of the name.

So zerg up if you want to get things done quickly and efficiently. I promise you, of you had fun the first few times you had to deal with obnoxious mobs, in six years, you'll be so sick of having to deal with them that you'll be putting groups together for everything because there's just no salient point in soloing unless you're a masochist or perhaps not the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer.

I think it's pretty fun to utilize positioning and timing along with dodging and all of my skills to counter enemies that could otherwise be a real threat to me (and usually were, earlier in my GW2 career!).

That just looks cool, doesn't it? Check the part at about 0:44 where I backpedal toward the two pursuing bladedancers and then polaric leap back to the shadowleaper leaving them attacking nothing but air with their stun-and-kill maneuver! Cmon, that was pretty slick, right?

This just doesn't look like the same game you're describing. But I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

Did you seriously just try to counter my point that everything is funneled into dodging...by posting a video of you using mount attacks (didn't exist in HoT), on Weaver (didn't exist in HoT) and dodging a lot while lacing in some mobility attacks (which not all classes have in low CD abundance, now or back in HoT)?

You just did exactly that, didn't you. Cool. I don't think there's anything further to say. You couldn't have proven my point better if you'd deliberately set out to try.

Seriously. You made my whole argument for me. I rest my case; the defense shot itself in the face.

I'm sorry. What does this have to do with anything?

Also, please explain your definition of a proper challenge? If not dodging, positioning, timing, etc. then what? You're complaining a lot, but it isn't clear what you think would be better. To me it just sounds like you want everything easier because you don't know what you're doing. Maybe if you did know what you were doing, you'd enjoy the combat more? I sure do!

And LoL@ complaining about weaver's high mobility. FYI sword weaver is hands down the least mobile build you can play! Learn. It helps.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't write an entire treatise about game design when I criticized comparing the hackneyed nonsense on here to Dark Souls. It seems that you want an entire library of self-written references to opinions contrary to your own, so you know what ? Here you go. Don't say you didn't ask for it.

Improved combat design on here would feature more counterplay options. As it is, there is a high expectation that players might/could/should be using interrupt attacks, yet a great many weapon sets and ideal class builds do not feature interrupt abilities. In order to have a good number of interrupts usable with the common frequency necessary in chained fights that are standard to basic overworld exploration, there should be interrupts available to all classes built into weapon sets that aren't niche.

As it currently stands, you typically have to make the choice between doing 100% of your DPS but having little to no interrupt capability, or severely less DPS while having one or two interrupts you can utilize, whether from utility skills or weapon sets and usually combined. As it stands, many builds on many classes do not work well when you're trying to work interrupts into an attack rotation.

There is nothing inherently wrong about making players make hard choices when it comes to builds, but you have to tune your fights and encounters with the understanding that you, by design, are preventing players from being able to do everything well.

You cannot build for DPS and Survivability and Vigor/Endurance and Mobility and Interrupts all at the same time. Not on pretty much anything. You cannot do this, and if you try to do this, you will be terrible at all of it and will fail because you weren't good enough in any one of those categories in order to function properly anyway.

Right now, to properly deal with overworld mobs in HoT and PoF zones, you need to be able to dodge/block/evade to supplement your dodging, because toughness/armor rating have been completely invalidated by mob design that features huge damage, huge aoe's and things you can't expect to always be able to avoid no matter how good you are, or think you are. You WILL be getting hit. You can only dodge so many times, but layered and spammed AOE's and ground patches and dots will outlast your endurance, will ignore your toughness/armor by design in the case of conditions and so there you sit, with it being an absolute requirement to build for dodging and mobility as much as you can by default.

What will you neglect in order to do this? Damage? Survivability? On some builds of some classes, you don't have to neglect either of these. This is not true on all classes and definitely isn't true for all builds of all classes. To an extent, that's fine; not all builds should somehow work equally well in all situations, or there wouldn't actually be point or functional purpose to there being different builds in the first place.

As it presently stands, there is no point to different builds in overworld content because if you have low HP, you're going to be dead a lot. Unavoidable damage is a significant reality even if you build for dodging, mobility and as much evasion as you can figure out, but you're still going to be getting hit, and you do 0 DPS when you're dead on the ground.

So, you need to be able to take at least one or two hits for those times when you're out of endurance and all your defensive/mobility skills are on CD but you're still getting fumigated and machine-gun shot by half of everything that's aggro'd into your ongoing fight. HoT and PoF maps have extremely high mob densities, lots of roaming mobs and pack patrols of things that will just keep aggroing into your business a fair amount of the time, and if you can't deal with that, you'll be dead on the ground dealing 0 DPS.

Because you cannot do anything about mob densities, wandering patrols and the fact that you will be taking damage no matter how good you are at dodging and staying mobile, you need to kill things before they kill you. So you can't neglect DPS either. You just absolutely cannot do that.

So, on the list of things mob design have dictated that we cannot neglec, we have mobility and DPS. You cannot neglect those. You neglect either of those and you're going to be dead on the ground doing 0 DPS no matter how clever you thought you were with whatever your build was.

But then you need survivability as well. You need HP in order to take that damage you will not avoid all of no matter how good you are. Ignore Toughness in this consideration; it has been completely invalidated as a stat by both high use of Condi damage from many mobs as well as huge amounts of high spike/crit damage from many of them, and Toughness doesn't help you avoid all the knockdown/knockback you will suffer from seemingly most mobs.

High Vitality will give you HP, will is the padding you need to survive stacks of Condi damage and what might keep you alive through a hit or four while you're knocked down or chain KD'd by various charging/tripping mobs. Again, mobility can help you here, but only if you avoid the knockdown attack in the first place, which will not always be possible. Ergo, you need to be able to take some hits sometimes.

Do you need high vitality? Not if you can get lots of damage shield, but rather few classes even have options for that, and since you absolutely cannot build for Healing stat without neglecting something you absolutely cannot neglect, most damage shield offerings will not be as useful as more HP.

So, we have three things you absolutely, positively, 100% of the time must include in your build for dealing effectively with overworld mobs in HoT and PoF, or you're going to be dead on the ground doing 0 DPS way more often than you're going to enjoy.

You need mobility. You need DPS. You need HP.

And that's a wrap. You can't neglect any of those, because overworld fights aren't structured and you have to be ready to deal with the unexpected patrols and respawns and unanticipated extra garbage that will be putting additional pressure on you at random intensities and at random times.

By comparison, raids and fractals are phone-it-in easy because those fights and situations are all structured and never change. You have no unexpected event mobs suddenly showing up and ganging up on you in those. You have no wandering patrols charging in from what sometimes feels like half the world away, with half of them standing 1200 units back and shooting you while you're trying to figure out for a second or two what the heck is killing you this time.

So you can't neglect any of those things because there is nobody else to rely on if you're solo exploring and you do indeed have to somehow figure out how to do it all.

The addition of mounts and utilizing mount attacks as openers is useful for getting an advantage at the start of a fight, but won't help you one bit when you're three chained aggro-adds into an ongoing overworld fight that's been dragging on for several minutes because you're either going to kill everything and then be able to get out of the area you were in or you're going to die trying to hobble away under a 30 second stack of Crippled.

By design, overworld mobs in HoT and PoF are fine...in a vaccuum. But when you have to often deal with random numbers of them in cramped environments wherein which sometimes even your positioning and mobility are negated, nevermind how your armor rating and utilities that block single attacks have already been negated by huge multi-hit attacks and spammable knockdowns that feel like they last for days and every single mob seeming to have stacking condition damage on top of its murderously high direct damage.

You don't get to pretend that build diversity exists for roaming and exploring the overworld, and I say that this is not good game design because it effectively punishes people for having builds that didn't sacrifice everything else for as much mobility, DPS and HP as they could get.

I'm not new to this game. I'm not just some bitter newbie that slapped some nonsense build together and keeps dying because I refuse to dodge, use my toolbox and match my gear to what I'm building for. I'm someone that's been playing this content ever since it was here to be played, and I'm not impressed by it.

The devs have really painted themselves into a corner on this one too, because in order to get to where I think the overworld combat should be, they'd have to rethink and retool pretty much everything about what utilities are available to all the classes to what interrupts/counters are available to all the classes, how toughness works period and so on.

I'm complaining because there's pretty much nothing else I can do about any of it, and I know they're never going to overhaul anything to feature overworld/general PVE fights that reward anything but tricked out mobility, DPS and HP. Toughness is pointless, invalidated by their own design. Its fine to put into a healer or support build running Minstrels or something because it still technically helps a take the edge off of damage, but its not worth building for and you really just don't understand this game if you are trying to build a tanky character with Toughness in it. Anything else is better than Toughness. Even more Heal rating on a non-healer is more useful than Toughness if you have any amount of sustain endemic to your build.

So, if you want to play a solo roamer that doesn't suck, there are some classes you should just avoid altogether because they either don't have the right amount of self-supplied mobility, DPS and HP availability you'll enjoy or they come by it in sub-optimal fashions that are just objectively inferior compared to other classes. This won't make the mobs less tedious to deal with, but you'll be dead on the ground doing 0 DPS a lot less often, and that's always nice.

Running around in a zerg is how all the pro kids get things done effectively and quickly though, and do I really need to somehow prove that? I think even the people not paying attention in the back know that. It's painfully obvious that zerging up and facerolling all the annoying trash mobs is how smart people deal with most of this, because you can get so much more done so much more quickly, and you didn't have to work super hard every single step of the way to do it like you would while trying to solo around on sometimes even builds spec'd out for ideal mobility/DPS/HP.

Game design that rewards you for skipping content and trivializing it through zerg tactics isn't good or engaging design.

May I invite you to take a long and serious look at Dragonfall and Auric Basin farming? Why does all of that happen in zergs, I wonder? Why ever could it possibly be that nobody in their right mind tries to run around solo in those areas doing events?

Because the game's fundamental design punishes you severely for soloing. You won't get much done. Even with an ideal build, you still have to bring the skill level to utilize it properly, and I'd speculate that probably less than 5% of the overall playerbase have the skill required to comfortably solo around HoT even now after its nerfs on their customary builds and deal with pretty much whatever lands on their heads at any given time.

I can do it, and in my expansive social group, I'm one of the relatively few that can. I've discussed this very thing with guildmates in several of the guilds I'm in, and at every turn, what I find is the same talking points.

HoT is great to farm for meta events, but nobody seems to want to solo their way around doing map exploration or getting HP's. Why would they? The mobs are insane and you're just wasting your time when you could put together a map exploration zerg or HP train zerg and waft through it all with ease.

I'm not at all against content that rewards grouping up, mind you. I'm totally fine with the point being to group up and get things done right and proper; it's an easy game to group in and it's just about effortless to find groups to join for lots of things. Not doing so is an issue no amount of game design could help someone with.

But can we really call it good game design when the HoT and PoF mobs are so widely regarded as obnoxious and annoying that just about nobody seems willing to do much outside of groups when they absolutely have to deal with it? How many people get excited when they think "I have to go to Maguuma to get this stuff done for this collection I want to finish"?

Who gets excited at the prospect of soloing the storyline content from HoT onwards? I know this is purely anecdotal, but in the guilds I'm in, all I hear when this comes up is vaguely traumatized relief that 'I did it once and I'll never have to do it again' and 'I'll never go to HoT areas again unless its to farm AB or TD metas' and 'PoF can die in a fire, I got my mounts and I'm never setting foot in that content ever again unless its on a meta train'.

I'm in one raid guild, one farming/TP guild and one WvW guild, and I hear nothing in any of them about how fun it is to play through HoT and PoF content.

This lines up with my own experiences. I hate having to go solo around HoT and PoF areas because it's tedious and obnoxious, not because I can't do it. Some people can't do it, and they've got either skill or build issues to resolve to correct that.

I can do it just fine, but I can also put sand in my oatmeal and eat it just fine. Doesn't mean I'd enjoy it or would find it to be anything short of obnoxious and really bloody tiresome.

TL;DR - Mob design is tedious and tiresome, which is negated pretty much completely if you zerg up and ignore all the mechanics they wasted so much time on anyway. This is not good design all around, and there's probably no way to fix it without restructuring how the mobs are designed and how combat mechanisms/powers are designed a lot, which is never gonna happen.

Instead of talking in nebulous generalities, how about just stating directly which specializations you think have problems in open world? Make a list.

[Perceived toxicity]

@"Hannelore.8153" said:There's alot to say about this subject, but I'll just say this.

I see this argument time and time again "new players are the problem", "newbies stop lying, stop deceiving, stop wasting time". Well, I ask you, how is a newer player supposed to know anything about the game, let alone all the unspoken rules and regulations of your LFG culture, which they have no way of finding out without playing the content, especially when they're not game rules and ArenaNet doesn't enforce them?

Here's the problem with veterans in this game: The game gives new players a key to their first car, a beat up old junker, and then when they drive up next to the other cars ready to start a race so they can gain experience, everyone asks "where's your Ferrari, and your awards?".

When new players can't present either of those things because they have no money, no experience and not prestige. they're told to just get lost. And then after a while they get tired of being told to get lost, so they start obfuscating details ("fake it until you make it") because they can't just magically make money, experience and prestige appear, like everyone wants, And then they're told that they're lying and deceiving.

You could just ignore it, race and win. I seriously doubt one player (even in 5man) is pulling down the whole group. This a myth brought on by the need to have someone to blame; shown by the ability of people to solo or 2man most content, heck you can even get through nearly all T3/T4 Fractals just by having 2-3 people with the right composition, a few deadweights doesn't ruin everything unless you're also deadweight.

You can run raids in Masterwork gear, but surely this one person is ruining /everything/ for you.

Let me try to translate the words coming out of your mouths: "I am completely dependant on a perfect team composition and near-perfect gameplay to clear content because I'm not able to adapt to weaknesses in myself or my team, or simply refuse to do so". Doesn't this sound alot like what you're accusing newer, "stubborn" players of, when in reality they're probably just struggling to understand?

This doesn't just affect raids btw. It affects all parts of the game, especially the competitive modes (PvP more than WvW, I guess).

The net result is that they can't get anywhere while vets complain their challenging content is dead. Whether you're right or wrong doesn't matter, but you're all partly to blame for where the game, and the community, have ended up.

There's no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt.

EDIT: Some edits for clarity.

Except a competitive race is not what a raid is. Raids are a cooperative experience where one member in the squad executing mechanics incorrectly can cause failure for the team. Its not akin to a newbie coming in a beater to race. Its akin to having a newbie be part of your pit stop crew filling your car with moonshine instead of proper fuel and then claiming the team is toxic when they kick them out. Conversely I would welcome newbies into raids if those that chronically failed mechanics or performed abysmally low dps in a dps slot had to give their race winnings to me when we successfully cleared. (Using your race analogy)

[Why bother designing something nobody will craft? Can anyone explain it to me?]

@Hypnowulf.7403 said:

@Shikaru.7618 said:It's not up to the game to teach basic finance management.Are you Bobby Kotick? I mean, I'm sorry, but it's not the place of a game to

require

finance management. It's a game. It's up to ArenaNet to know basic finance management though. I mean, like I said, it's up to them whether they want to alienate all of their cashcow casuals or not. I'll spend over $1,000 a month on the cash shop easily, but I am

not

spending $300~ on gold.

I expect better quid pro quo on my spending than that. I have some self-respect.

Then don't? No ones asking you to spend real money on the game. Just don't spend the gold you earn in game on things that don't bring you closer to your goals. Is that really something that needs to be explained to people?

[Make A Raid Matchmaking System For Solo Players]

@Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

@Shikaru.7618 said:

@Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:people saying this idea fails are not understanding 1 thing.It will give new people to taste new mechanics on their own time instead of scheduling and corresponding with 9 other people. Eventually, they will move on to joining group for better results.I have noticed ever since strike mission come out, there are quite many of new raiders popping out and people actually playing better on open world as well.But, raid being the way it is, they are getting turned off.matchmaking is definitely good idea to learn on your own pace.

And you people don't seem to understand that you can already do this. Go to lfg, open the raid tab, edit squad description, type in "w1 all welcome". The same people who would queue for raids are the same people who would join an all welcome group. If no one joins your group, a magical queue isn't going to make them join.

yeah, you can do alot of things different way but official matchmaking makes it easier for people who hesitate. Why people are against this?

Because we don't think it would make a meaningful difference to your situation. If you're sitting at 2/10 on lfg because no one is joining, a queue system that no one queues for isn't going to solve that. Sure the first few days people might give it a shot but much like public strikes people will eventually realize how bad it is and abandon it. If the system could magically appear out of thin air with 0 dev resources by all means have it, but it makes no sense to devote time to making something that has no longevity. If random players who don't want to play meta wanted to play with each other, they'd be doing so already.

[Make A Raid Matchmaking System For Solo Players]

@"Yellow Rainbow.6142" said:people saying this idea fails are not understanding 1 thing.It will give new people to taste new mechanics on their own time instead of scheduling and corresponding with 9 other people. Eventually, they will move on to joining group for better results.I have noticed ever since strike mission come out, there are quite many of new raiders popping out and people actually playing better on open world as well.But, raid being the way it is, they are getting turned off.matchmaking is definitely good idea to learn on your own pace.

And you people don't seem to understand that you can already do this. Go to lfg, open the raid tab, edit squad description, type in "w1 all welcome". The same people who would queue for raids are the same people who would join an all welcome group. If no one joins your group, a magical queue isn't going to make them join.

[Make A Raid Matchmaking System For Solo Players]

With all of these "solutions" you're putting into this magical lfr of yours anet might as well give you automated rotations and auto dodge too. Mashing a bunch of solo players that are clueless about boss roles is already possible in the current system. The reason this will fail is the same reason public strikes fail. The players who join this queue are so BAD and no one wants to wait around for the inevitable train wreck of 10 open worlder's running around with their heads cut off. If you really want to see the content its not raiders that are stopping you. Your inability to type "w1 all welcome" in lfg is. Raiders aren't preventing you from making a squad.

[HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Croc.1978" said:some stuffThree thoughts:

1. Expecting a player to dodge is not the "Expert player's perspective". It is tutorialized in starter zones.
2. You math does not take into account the multiplicative impact of boons like Might.
3. We are derailing this thread and our discussion is off topic.

Might would not affect the damage ratio calculation between soldiers and berserker as full might would result in the same ending power stat in both calculations. Other damage modifiers from traits would also maintain the same ratio of 54% as they would be applied to both builds. The only thing that would affect this ratio is fury, and any sources of flat increases of +precision or + ferocity like from spotter, assassins presence, etc.

[Make A Raid Matchmaking System For Solo Players]

@SeikeNz.3526 said:

@Krzysztof.5973 said:

@SeikeNz.3526 said:

@"skarpak.8594" said:with that attitude the guilds are probably also glad that you are not trying to join.

no one likes egoistic people which demand that content gets changed so it fits their agenda.

also will kill the "raid sellers" on the lobby.kill the show proof players

who is the toxic one? "others not playing like i want to play? heh get rid of them!"toxic casuals are destroying the game tbh.

egoistic people are the ones who don't want to other people have a try on raids because my guild only and no matchmaking for u

You don't need a guild to do raids. You don't even need the commander tag. Just create LFG called "everyone welcome" and you will get the same LFR experience. And if you're on NA servers then my condolences...

the problem is lfg don't work as a matchmaking

And what exactly is this magical queue going to offer that you already couldn't do yourself? If you want to search for 3 healers, simply write LF 3 healers. If you don't care about roles simply put yourself on LFG and say wing 1 and wait for people to join. This experience is exactly the same as if you matchmade.

[Update Coming to Drizzlewood Coast Meta]

A stack of mystic coins says anet forgets they also littered jormag blood around the map and we still have to frantically run around looting that because they didnt put them next to the chests

[Why bother designing something nobody will craft? Can anyone explain it to me?]

@Danikat.8537 said:This topic reminded me that since I'm not planning to make the infusion yet I should sell my Shards of Crystalised Jormag Blood now, before they go the same way as Foxfire Clusters, which used to go for about 65s each but dropped steadily until they hit vendor price and now can't be sold on the TP unless you're willing to wait ages.

@"Shikaru.7618" said:Honestly if you think or actually are a player with 4000+hours with less than 100g to your name, you are doing something completely wrong. Assuming you played nonstop for 4000 hours 24/7 without sleeping or stopping, you would still have played 166 days which in dailies alone would mean you have 333 gold. If you can't control your impulse to buy things or simply do content that rewards decent gold, thats not a game problem.

There's a difference between the gold currently in your wallet (which is what was being discussed above) and the total value of your account. I've currently got 76g 50s and 63c in my wallet, but according to GW2 Efficency my total account value is 96,696g 92s 73c. For the two to match you'd have to never spend any gold at all, and I'd argue that's even more a case of "doing something wrong" than not saving whatever amount of gold other players expect you to have on hand at any given moment.

But your account value is irrelevant when talking about buying a new item because most of it is likely to be tied up in items you can't sell, so it's useless when trying to afford something new. This is why GW2 Efficency also displays a seperate "liquid gold" stat, which is the current value of everything you could sell if you wanted to. (For comparison on my account that's 1,507g 68s 77c but I wouldn't be willing to sell all of that in one go.)

Yes I know the difference between liquid vs account value. However, the OP made it sound like 5000g item was not obtainable because players with 4k hours dont have the means to get something that expensive. I'm not sure this needs explaining but if the OP finds that they're constantly under 100g liquid, maybe they should stop spending the gold they earn on things that don't bring them closer to the goal of getting an infusion? It's not up to the game to teach basic finance management.

[Why bother designing something nobody will craft? Can anyone explain it to me?]

Craftable means RNG is completely taken out of the equation and a much more obtainable goal than praying for a lucky drop. Right now you can farm Chak Gerant 1000 times and be no closer to getting that drop than when you started (other than the small amount of gold you get trying to save up 20K) which is a much longer road. Because all of the components are easily obtainable in the Frost Infusion, the market is completely controlled by the players. It is currently 5000 gold because people are willing to pay that much for the components. If people didn't want to pay 10 silver per Jormag blood, they simply wouldn't until the price lowers to a range where they would. Honestly if you think or actually are a player with 4000+hours with less than 100g to your name, you are doing something completely wrong. Assuming you played nonstop for 4000 hours 24/7 without sleeping or stopping, you would still have played 166 days which in dailies alone would mean you have 333 gold. If you can't control your impulse to buy things or simply do content that rewards decent gold, thats not a game problem.

[dps question...]

Without seeing exactly what you're doing its hard to say where you're losing damage. I sent you a dm in game if you want 1 on 1 help to figure out where things are going wrong.

[The biggest barrier to raids]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Cristalyan.5728" said:I don't tell you what is fun for you. This is NOT the point of my statement. I bet that for most of the players clearing a raid wing is fun. Clearing dungeon paths is fun etc. But not what is fun for you or others is the point. The point is the preparation needed for this fun.

Exactly and for some reason you separate the "preparation" needed for Raids from the preparation needed for anything else, as if preparation itself is a bad thing.

we don't want you to prepare to have fun

doesn't mean "we don't want our players to prepare". Preparation is part of the fun, it's about the journey and not the destination.

I guess getting from level 1 to level 80 and learning gradually how to play, how to dodge, how to play this game, how to earn loot, unlocking elite specializations, earning mastery points, training mastery abilities, was also not fun for you (as it was "preparing you"), which begs the question, why are you playing this game?

This last statement is brilliant - everything you named here is in fact playing the game. I made no preparations in order to do a map completion. I made no preparation in order to lvl up. I made no preparation to learn that not dodging means damage for me (or even deadh). I learned al this by playing.

You made no preparations (so you didn't get to level 80) before entering Heart of Thorns for the first time? I guess you wouldn't call unlocking mastery abilities "preparation" for map completion either, I wonder how you got those points that absolutely require some masteries to get to. You know, without preparing for them first.

With the raids the things are different. I will do the raids if I ..... prepare before (I forgot to mention the activity of watching films on YouTube to see how to beat the raid and visits to sites with builds for every profession).

@Shikaru.7618 really answered this part, but maybe it demands repeating, you do not need to watch films on youtube and you don't need to visit sites with builds to play Raids. You only absolutely need that if you want to run Raids with random strangers. If you DO have 9 other friends, you can run them together and adapt as you go. Adapt to the Raids by

playing the game

as you said. The rest of it is just a way to skip

playing the game

, same way you might search on the wiki for that last Point of Interest you are missing, or watch a youtube video of how to finish a hard jumping puzzle, or watch a youtube video on how to finish a specific story achievement. I guess those things that existed ON RELEASE are also against the manifesto and the design of the game.

Worth clarifying that the random strangers you refer to are only the random strangers who specifically state they want meta builds or LI count there are plenty of strangers in the game that dont meet or demand these requirements they can play with.

[The biggest barrier to raids]

@Cristalyan.5728 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

It's @Cristalyan.5728 own opinion that's what it is.

Let's explain: in order to raid we should first join a guild, adapt our schedule to the raid schedule of the guild, make trainings, and after all of this we can successfully raid. Did you see?

Maybe my Englysh is not good enough and you cannot understand - I'm not a native English - or maybe you refuse to understand. Look bellow what I quotted:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

is hardly an argument. Joining a raid guild and having fixed raid schedules or making out times with guild members is one of THE main ways to address the issue you are talking about. I know because that is literally how EVERY raid guild and casual raid guild does it.

I answered to this statement. I repeated it because I wanted to made it clear. Unfortunately it seems that you misplaced it. It is not mine. It is the way recommended by a raider as

the main

way used by

every

....

In order to Raid you do not need to join a -raid- guild. You do not need to adapt any schedule, you do not need to train before you can raid. You do not need any of that to successfully Raid, all you need is 9 other players to play with and have fun with.

I guess getting from level 1 to level 80 and learning gradually how to play, how to dodge, how to play this game, how to earn loot, unlocking elite specializations, earning mastery points, training mastery abilities, was also not fun for you (as it was "preparing you"), which begs the question, why are you playing this game?

This last statement is brilliant - everything you named here is in fact

playing the game

. I made no preparations in order to do a map completion. I made no preparation in order to lvl up. I made no preparation to learn that not dodging means damage for me (or even deadh). I learned al this by playing. With the raids the things are different. I will do the raids if I ..... prepare before (I forgot to mention the activity of watching films on YouTube to see how to beat the raid and visits to sites with builds for every profession).

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Cristalyan.5728 said:The raids, as concept, breaks one of the main points of this game (you can find it in the Manifesto): "

we don't want you to prepare to have fun

".

Good that you tell other players what they find fun. My greatest fun in this game has been clearing every single dungeon path with the same team, one by one, working together with very little prior experience. My greatest fun was going from level 1 to level 40 (was the max at that time) in fractals, again playing with the same people daily until we got there. The greatest fun was clearing the first Raid wing, Spirit Vale and especially killing Vale Guardian for the first time, with a group that never raided before and most started playing instanced content with Spirit Vale (yes half the members didn't even have dungeon or fractal experience) yet we succeeded and eventually cleared every single Heart of Thorns Raid from scratch and had great fun doing it.

I don't tell you what is fun for you. This is NOT the point of my statement. I bet that for most of the players clearing a raid wing is fun. Clearing dungeon paths is fun etc. But not what is fun for you or others is the point. The point is

the preparation

needed for this fun. This preparation exists in most of the MMO's. ANet's team stated that this is a different game, and you won't be forced to prepare before in order to have fun. You can have fun from the moment you start to play - this was the affirmation. This was the reason you had 5 man teams in the beginning. This was the reason you did not have the "trinity" - to not be forced to wait (to prepare) in order to start something fun.

Again - don't worry, I cannot afford to tell you what is fun. You decide this. I only brought into discussion the fracture between what the game should be according to the initial statement and intentions and what are in fact the raids. This fracture caused ... unfun.

Then let me clarify for you in more concise language. You dont need to prepare anything to attempt and play the raid other than finding 9 people. The comments that are telling you to join a guild and discord are giving you the easiest path to succeed at killing a boss. But it is not the only way. You can attempt and play with any build you have on and learn the encounter naturally just like you did with open world. People seem to conflate succeeding and attempt and playing a lot. Throw up an lfg stating all welcome and go at it. The requirements to attempt and play raids follows their manifesto quite well as the only requirement you need is to own the expansion and have the lions arch aerodrome discovered on your character.

[The biggest barrier to raids]

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:I disagree.

The biggest barrier IMHO is the unforgiving nature of the game type, combined with relatively complicated game mechanics and an unwillingness to group with like minded and like skilled players.

Fixed that for you.

[The biggest barrier to raids]

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:As someone outside looking in, the barriers stem from the amount of time you have to complete the raid. Due to a tight times in a lot of cases, theres specific classes and rotations that have to be nailed down and most people dont want to have to learn something like that. If the timers werent as strict, the raid metas would be a bit looser, thus more people would be intrigued to actually attempt as more build options and rotations would be a bit relaxed and not as hard to learn.

Since you're making the claim of raids having tight timers, that must mean you know the minimum performance required for bosses to beat said tight timer. Why else would you say the timer is tight unless you can quantify it. Can you tell us what the minimum squad dps needed to kill the easier bosses is? How about the average dps your average open worlder can pull?

[Li / Killproof for Strikes are a Problem]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@DKRathalos.9625 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@DKRathalos.9625 said:I might be too late but what is LI? like what is the abbreviation?

LI stands for Legendary Insight, which along with things like Legendary Divinations and Cosmic Essences has kind of become an umbrella term for and along with KP, meaning Kill Proofs, aka a unique currency you receive for beating difficult content (Raid Bosses, Fractal CM), which can then be used as proof of your capability to tackle endgame content.

Waooo... Ok now that is not making any sense, I mean.... Strike was meant to be introduction to raid, why you need people to clear raid first before strike O_O

That's the point. You don't need LI to do strikes.

It's not raiders saying that you NEED LI to do strikes. We just want you to have LI for me to want to do strikes with you. Can strikes be completed without LI? Absolutely. Do I want to be in said group through that relative struggle? Heck no. There are plenty of no LI people that you can play with in your own group. You dont need people like me making groups for casuals where they're not going to be welcome anyway.

Alternatively people in all welcome groups, would you find it toxic if I joined an all welcome group and declared " I'm going to match the dps of the lowest (non support) player in the party"

[Please stop asking LI for strike missions]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Shikaru.7618" said:I dont think the reason matters. It could be because they want to players that dont care about builds and/or make a fuss about dps. Whatever the reasoning may be, they have a right to make that group and remove people from it if joiners dont meet said conditions. No matter how silly it sounds they have a right to do it as it doesnt break tos.

Wait. You mean a person that has KP/LI cannot play without caring about builds and dps? News to me, is KP/LI a contagious virus that forces a player to play in a specific way? It's not like you can enforce it anyway, it takes only a bit of intelligence to simply not ping KP/LI if you join such a group, when the requirement is NOT to ping something it's by default filled. They have the right to make any group they want, it's just that the part of "don't have KP/LI" cannot be enforced

You're right it's near impossible to enforce. No arguments from me on the lack of logical soundness of this type of group. However it's still their right to make such a group and remove anyone that doesnt fit the conditions, assuming anyone is dumb enough to actually ping.

[Please stop asking LI for strike missions]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

• We start a LFG with "relaxed run, starters, no rush, no skip, NO RAIDERS OR FARMERS"
• Once the party/squad gets filled, ask for LI and other raid related KP and then kick those people who have it

Well those that will get kicked by that have more serious issues, like reading comprehension problems, if they join a team specifically asking for no raiders and then they ping their LI/KP it's their own fault for getting kicked. Other than that, it's as simple as joining and not pinging LI/KP even if you have it. Problem solved

Would you consider lying about the questions from the party/squad leader, to stay in the group? Just not linking any of your KP/LI although you stack it in your inventory?

Why would the leader care if someone has LI/KP?

I dont think the reason matters. It could be because they want to players that dont care about builds and/or make a fuss about dps. Whatever the reasoning may be, they have a right to make that group and remove people from it if joiners dont meet said conditions. No matter how silly it sounds they have a right to do it as it doesnt break tos.

[Have the pro's tested P/D Sinister Thief?]

Do you have a dps log to show the build in action?

[Please stop asking LI for strike missions]

@"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:We always look at this problem from one perspective. Let us switch the roles for once:

• We start a LFG with "relaxed run, starters, no rush, no skip, NO RAIDERS OR FARMERS"
• Once the party/squad gets filled, ask for LI and other raid related KP and then kick those people who have it

Would you consider that a toxic behavior and unfair treatment?Would you rather be judged by your skill, experience and behavior than just kicked due to some prejudices?Would you consider reporting a person who does this?Would you consider lying about the questions from the party/squad leader, to stay in the group? Just not linking any of your KP/LI although you stack it in your inventory?Would you start an argument with the leader of the group after getting kicked? Telling your KP/LI say nothing about your behavior in the group?Would you complain about such an experience in your guild/discord or even on the forums?

No arguments from me. You clearly state the group requirements and as someone who does not fit those requirements, it would be my bad if I tried to force my way in. I would simply make an LI only group to play with like minded players.

[Legendary Wyvern Matriarch dies way too fast]

Having the helicopters spawn earlier so that you can get up to matriarch before she spawns seems like a pretty fair request. Everything else would likely screw with world meta timing.

[LFG joiners not bringing requested classes]

@frareanselm.1925 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@frareanselm.1925 said:People join whith the class they know better. Do you want them to come with a class they have no clue just to fit in the group and die constantly?It doesn't matter.If someone's LFG says they want their DPS to be a Dire full Turret Holosmith or a Sentinel's Scourge and you are neither of these things then you don't join, even if you are well versed in a different and more effective DPS.

The End.But again, we have the tools to deal with this already.Kick. Block if desired and move on.Report if they react in a manner that violates the ToS.

I dont think fractals are so meta to ask for specific class combos and being so elitist. because i've seen pro people soloing most stuff or in duos.

Start your own group labeled all classes welcome if you really feel that way for daily cms and t4s. I'd love to see the no elitist run where it takes 10 break bars to phase ensolyss

[STORY MODE FOR RAIDS]

@HotDelirium.7984 said:

@"Aizza.4950" said:Here we go again. Every month some casual player comes storming in demanding easy mode raids. Gw2 raids aren’t even that hard. You can grab a build off Snowcrows, watch a video of the fight, practice your rotation for 30 minutes and go roll through every boss except wing 5 most likely.

Put some effort towards learning your classes and improving yourself. Not everything should be handed to people for little effort. Raids are supposed to be harder and the rewards belong in the hands of players who put forth the time to beating raids.

I think the general point is important story elements (the backbone for GW2) should not be locked behind the intense commitment of raids. I think ATM they have it backward with the current Strike Missions vs Raids. The Strikes should be what the raid bosses are and each raid itself could have been instead a LW episode. My rationale is the stories within each raid are actually pretty significant and non-raiders are missing what I gather is the equivalent of the loss of an episode per raid. The inner workings of the white mantle and those they killed, the inner workings of the Mystic Forge, the true nature of Djinn, and the new developments in the underworld are not plot points to shrug off.

The second we say "sTorYmOdE RaiDs" all raiders bristle up because they think we want to force all content to be super easy and boring and that assumption is false. I want hard/challenging content for you if that's what YOU want. What we actually mean is the equivalent of what fractals do (the 4 tiers) when it came to these raids.

I honestly have no idea why they jumped from fractals to raids with a completely different model when this game has had this air and energy for "casual gaming."

SO to summarize IMO:-Raids should be what fractals are in their 4 leveled difficulty (tier 1 being the equivalent to a storymode)-Strikes should be what raids are in their difficulty and they're easy of access. Quick difficult content, hardly any story to trudge through. Win-Win.

Theres some nuance you're missing here. Raiders are fine with easy mode raids with the following stipulations:

1. It doesnt grant LI to keep a legendary armor "mostly" skill gated. Raid sellers are an option to bypass this but most people dont have the gold to pay for 150 boss kills hence "mostly".
2. The development of story/training mode raids doesnt take away resources from the development of real raids. Ie. Living world developers should develop ez raids not the once existing raid team.

These 2 points are what both sides cant see eye to eye on.

[Add anti-leeching mechanic to Forging Steel to prevent afking in tank]

Dont hold your breath on this one. Many rewards in the game are designed to be afked while carried by the few or simply designed to be completable for afkers. The proper way to address this is to make a participation bar for the mini events leading to the final boss. Getting participation from the boss fight itself cashes in your progress for full rewards.

Until they implement something like this I see no reason to not afk.