Rasimir.6239

No, what you're saying is it's working in a different system that has rather strict rules on what class and build can fill what role. This game doesn't work that way. The restrictions people put in their lfg are player-made and far from necessary (and much less the only setup) to do that content. The way the GW2 classes are set up, there just is no way an automatic system can choose what players to group up beyond "here's five people, now talk to each other and decide who takes care of what job". Even for strikes there is a multitude of different setups you can play, and a multitude of classes with different builds that can do the jobs. Just because a lot of players can't be bothered to adapt to a non-meta group setup (or don't have the skill to do so) doesn't mean that (player-made) meta is the only way to play those instances.

The more I read about the bots, the more I question if "customizable" actually references skins, or if it really means you can customize its abilities with the different cores and modules.

If you read the article from massivelyop that somebody linked earlier in the thread, you'll find that the jade bot will have a set of charges (2 from the start, a max 6 when fully built as far as I understood), so it won't be able to carry anyone that doesn't pay attention. It's more like an "oh kitten" button really.

That's why I said "If you want to keep playing..." 😉 .

If you look at the gameplay mechanics trailer, the bot seems to only come out when you actually use it (e.g. when you launch that portable updraft ability thingy) and disappear again after it's done its thing. The graphic noise seems to be very well contained.

That's on purpose because we neither have nor need specific roles that are assigned to specific classes/trait choices. There's no way an automated system can decide which builds work together, but instead everyone has the ability to adjust their build to work with the people they play with. You were talking about an automatic group finder, and I still maintain that we have that for DRMs and strike missions. If what you are actually looking for is a system that has clearly defined roles that are restricted to specific class and trait choices, then this isn't the game you're looking for. The one thing we don't have is a random option that for example allows you to join any of the DRMs you have unlocked, instead of having to choose a specific one. I could get on board with that one if it worked similar to the random fractal option. I'm not sure if we need another carrot-on-a-stick daily to "incentivise" people into using it though.

Does anybody else get nervous when the trailer zooms in on that cute kitten with the jade bot's attention clearly on it? 😂

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that automatic group finder working just like public instances for strikes and DRMs? We already have that in game, and I'd love to see some metrics as to how many people use the automatic matching (public instances) compared to the manual party/squad forming through our lfg and private instances. Judging from what I see in my guilds and friends list, there actually are far less people using the automatic matching for public instances, while the majority prefers lfg/private instances. Of course this is only anecdotal, but if it were representative of the majority of players, extending this to dungeons, fractals, and raids could very well be not worth it, because most people in this game just don't care for automatic group matching.

I've been playing video games since the mid-80s, and I've spruced up lots of games by adding personal rules on top of what the game provided. The one constant in all of this "playing by personal rules" however was always that the baseline is set by the game itself. If for example a new expansion in any of the Sims iterations added any feature that didn't work with my self-made rules (and that happened a lot), then I'd have to adapt my rules to work around that and get back to the level of challenge I was trying to achieve with my rules. One thing I never considered was complaining to the developer to get them to change the features and rules they set out for the game. Games aren't (usually, unless I develop them myself) made to fit my personal specifications and the challenges I want to set myself, but rather games evolve in ways the developer thinks are healthy for the game and its players in general. If you want to enhance your gaming experience by setting additional rules for yourself, that's great. The first challenge however should be to adapt your rules to changes in the game. The game, and especially its major progression features like masteries, is the baseline, and that baseline will change with major updates. If you want to keep playing, you will find ways to adapt your personal rules to any changes that present themselves. Expecting a live-service game to offer ways for players to opt-out of any feature that inconveniences them and their self-made rules is imo unrealistic.

In ranked you don't have private rooms where people just stand in a circle and take turns killing each other. If I remember correctly, the reward differences between ranked and unranked came as a reaction to the rise of those reward-farming rooms.

Possibly because they are meant to be rewards for actually playing the game mode? Not just for standing around in a circle with 9 other people, taking turns killing each ohter without any sign of resistance? Btw, if you check the patch notes on wvw changes, you'll find the same tendency there, with activities that were used for no-play pip farming (e.g. repairing walls) recently being excluded from participation gain.

To be honest, I avoid both of those situations even on my main account, because the whole thing is just way too hectic for this old lady, even with a fully mastered skyscale 🤣.

Build templates are the ones that save your trait choices. Equipment templates are the ones that save your equipment. Personally I have a notepad with build template codes for trait builds I want to use on my characters, and copy the code if I feel the need to change the build beyond the basic three for a character. I am however somebody who prefers to react to different content by changing my gameplay (and possibly switch out a trait or utility skill on the fly) rather than changing builds for each encounter I come across. I guess the question is if you see the challenge in dealing with the content in the restrictions the game (and a slightly multi-purpose build) sets for you, or if you see the challenge in figuring out the theoretical maximum best setup for each piece of content and insist on using that everywhere. In the first case, the three build templates available by default are fine, since it allows you to quickly access basic builds for key roles (different elites, different roles, different gamemodes, etc.) that you can quickly tweak if you feel the need. In the second case we probably come into the territory of those players who used to have a hundred and more different templates saved in arc back in the day, tailor made to every single encounter and group composition they wanted to play.

Honestly I think the Skyscale is overrated. Out of 6 active GW2 accounts in our household, only two have the Skyscale unlocked, and the other accounts get along fine without. Personally I have max mastery (including Skyscale) on my main account, but can play just as well on the alt account with neither Skyscale nor Griffon. Occasionally I find myself thinking that one of those would be convenient, but usually I can handle the situation just as well with other mounts and gliding. I have yet to find a situation where I would actually need one of the flying mounts.

Max shared bag slots (as well as max character slots) in this game are in a weird slot in that a few of those are tied to specific expansion versions and not available by other means. If you worry about shared bag slots, there actually is a viable (if not better, because it gives you a multitude of "shared" slots) alternative: the permanent bank access express. It is (very) expensive (around 5k ingame gold at the moment), but if you put it in a shared bag slot, all of your characters will have access to your full account bank from anywhere in the game. That is a quality of life improvement no amount of shared bag slots (and especially not a 24th or 25th one) can ever give.

What you're looking for seems to be vertical progression. There have always been people asking for it, not just since HoT, but since the release of the game, but that's not what this game set out to do. The idea has always been that "meaningful" progression (as in the kind of progression that changes your character's power and the things you can do/access/accomplish in game) is relatively short. Once you reach the plateau, you are then able to progress horizontally in any direction you enjoy, without needing to jump through other hoops first to prepare for the content you want to play.

Hard no from me on this. I love that races in this game are cosmetic and have no impact on meta at all. If you want to roleplay a golemancer, feel free to equip golem racials, golemancer runes, golem backpack and tool skins, and get yourself a couple of stacks of golem bomb consumables. I've actually played different golemancer builds on several classes, and they're more than decent if you put some thought into them. For open world and story you don't need the theoretical best build, and in the hands of an experienced player, novelty builds aren't even that far behind. In fact, they're totally ok even for most if not all instanced group content, as long as you aren't chasing speed records (although a friend of mine refuses to play CoE or SE with one of my golemancers 🤣). Right now each of us can choose a race that appeals to them, without gimping their character or their acceptance in pug groups. I see no valid reason to change that. That's all nice and good if the "proper golemancer" outshines the alternatives. But what if the class/role actually suits another race's skills and utilities much better? Every time there is a (perceived) best build for one race/class/role combination, there are four more races left in the dust.

I actually think the logical place to sell those would be the laurel merchant, right next to the birthday enrichment and various other duplicates of unique rewards.

As far as I'm aware, this game has only had one rollback in 9 years, and that was nowhere related to any expansion release.

Who says it's an auto-res?

I wonder how many of the people interested in playing EoD on release are actually interested in any of the other new releases this month? I had to honestly look up most of the titles that have been thrown around as "competition", and found that none of them appeal to me in any way. I'm just one person, and this is only anecdotal evidence of course, but I wonder how many other gamers don't follow and try each and every game out there, but rather stick with a smaller number. We'll see at the end of the month, but I for one wouldn't be surprised if we have a healthy playerbase for EoD release despite all the supposed "competition" releasing this month.

Are you aware of the many many many (did I mention many?) posts we've seen over the years with people asking for story and lore not to be locked behind 10-man instanced content? Seeing how the new strikes are promoted as a major feature of the expansion, I doubt they're "recycled story bosses". More likely they have explicitely developed these as 10-man encounters, then toned them down (and added the fluff/voice/explanations) for the single player story experience.

Honestly, the story journal in your hero panel makes it pretty obvious that living world seasons are just as much a part of the story as the expansions. So what do you propose? Stop offering living world as episodes on the gem store and instead sell the seasons as expansions, too? Somehow I can't imagine that that would go over well. Let's face it, selling dlc that include story parts isn't exactly new in mmorpgs. ESO does it (and even goes so far as to put parts of the ongoing story into dungeon-only dlc twice each year), LotRO does it, it's just nothing out of the ordinary these days. If you want a game that gives you the full story with a single purchase, your best bet would be single player games, not live service games that expand continuously. Expanding the world and story exclusively through expansions is unrealistic in today's fast-paced world, where people expect bite-sized content drops regularly.

So much this!

Honestly, one of the major downsides of most older MMOs is that you have to trudge through hundreds of hours of old content before you even reach the place where everybody has fun. GW2 is great in that it allows you the freedom to choose where, what, and how you play, in a way that none of the similar games I have played over several decades does. It makes it a lot easier for people to mingle, regardless of how much or how little of the game they have played so far, and to have fun together. Designing content with the fact that it will be played by both veteran and new players alike is a big plus in my book. The game isn't built to force anyone into some kind of perceived "correct" timeline in which to play the content, and acknowledging that in the content design can only improve the game for everyone.