[The Skyscale Epidemic in Open World]

1. Yes, people are THAT dumb. Ofc, a war can solo a bounty. The probability isnt good though, considering its not easy. But still, not one of those players up in the sky thought about dismounting and increasing the success probability. From the cast frequency, Id even say, most didnt even really care if the bounty succeeded - hence my comparison to vultures.

2. No, I didnt help. I watched that scene in total bafflement. It was just... so totally ridiculous - and heartbreaking. And it was a bit of a "aha" experience for me. I started watching the skys more... and yes, the skyscale "tagging" thing IS spreading like an epidemic. Sure, on big events like world bosses or rift hunting, theres still a lot more people really playing the game. But even there you will see a handful of lazy skyscale leechers.

3. Autoattacks do more dmg. But more bodies on the ground also mean, champ doesnt reset, which is just as important.

4. No, Im not in favor of removing all kinds of QoL additions made to the base game. GW2 evolved, just as games evolved in general. And its not bad. Progress is good.

 

That being said, Anet really should do something. Not so much because it annoys me, and Im seeing a lot of trouble in the future if more and more players start going the "easy" route on openworld content. No, skyscale fireballs are simply unbalanced on non-soto maps. Not because they do too much dmg. But because theres no drawback of nuking mobs from safety. And because participation requirements for full loot are so ridiculously low, that the low dmg from one or two fireballs is enough to then go afk and not contribute anything again until the event ends.

So in essence, its actually three problems colaesced into one issue:

1. Fireball Nuking from Safety (balance)

2. Barely any decay on event participation

3. Ridiculous low participation requirements

The last two have been a problem for years, but together with 1. we have a perfect storm.

[The Skyscale Epidemic in Open World]

As seen today:

One lonely warrior, valiantly fighting a bounty boss in Desolation. Above him, at least 10 Skyscales circling like vultures, shooting a fireball every now and then, waiting for the warrior to do the work.

Warrior dies. Skyscales move on to the next poor player, trying to get an event done.

 

Some time later in Silverwastes, two Vultu... eh.. Skyscale-Players in squad-chat:

A: I love that you can get participation with Skyscale fireballs

A: xD

B: ye haha

B: even in 3rd lane works

A: feels like cheating

A: but got me luminescent shoulders

 

 

Id never have thought this moment would ever arrive, but:

I actually prefer the afk-Engis and afk-Necros to this epidemic of skyscale-leechers. At least they were on the ground, providing a meatshield and more DPS.

 

Anet: Heres two easy ways to fix this:

1. Increase participation threshold.

2. No participation for skyscale fireball damage.

[Sept 26 rev nerf]

Those condi nerfs are just plain silly. Condi quickness herald was niche to begin with, same with condi alac ren. And only on really LONG fights, the builds rampedup to high dmg. And then nerfing burn damage? Wth? Also, as if we have ANY long fights left with the overall powercreep since PoF.

Now we are back to having only..... two condi quickness builds that are accepted. So stupid. Im soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sick of playing condi quickness firebrand because no kittening alternatives.

 

Also, not a single PvP or WvW nerf. Anet REALLY dropped the ball since SotO release. Fractal rush event during bugged fractals, wvw rush event during completely unhinged wvw balance. They really need to get their kitten sorted. Because if those kinds of miss-steps keep happening, people will just leave.

[Skyscale Target Practice in Wizards Tower - Locked]

Why is this even locked? Even the ingame "excuse" is lame, since the targets arent even balloons....

[New dailies/weeklies [Merged]]

Adding THE most reported mini-dungeon to the daily "must do" list is just.... did no QA look over that list of dailies/weeklies? Or even someone just idk, regularly playing the content on live servers?

[New dailies are different for everyone?]

5 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

In that case it probably works the same as guild missions.

Assuming two accounts have the same set of expansion and select the same categories then their dailies will be the same but different combinations of expansions and categories can result in completely different set of dailies.

Either that or its a pool of possible dailies/weeklies and when you pick several categories, you get randomized of each pool, while you get the same if only one category selected since you get all from the pool.

[New dailies/weeklies [Merged]]

2 minutes ago, Cernoch.8524 said:

But it is weekly right? Its really not that bad if you do wvw regularly or if you play with a guild. If you dont then its better to dont pick wvw I guess.

Let me put it like this:
In 10 years of playing several hours each week WvW, Ive only escorted 880 dolyaks.

I completed the 2.5k dolyaks killed YEARS ago.

And Im not the only one... ask any wvw player, how many dolyaks they have escorted. This is horribly unbalanced.

[New dailies/weeklies [Merged]]

1 hour ago, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

I hope I wouldn't hate the new system, but holy hell, they've come up with some horrible ones.

Escorting 10 Dolyak's in WvW? Defending  10 objectives? I guess I'll be opting for PvE only going forward.

I just escorted 10 dolyaks... I usually like WvW... but JESUS CHRIST PLEASE... NO MORE... I cant take it, its so mindnumbing...

Im not even going to attempt getting 10 defend credits. I just cant take this.

And my one pve weekly: ident 100 unident gears... is this a joke? For the dolyaks and defending Ill need at least 30minutes or more (likely more on the defense because they changed it a while back to repairing not anymore counting, and neither do failed defends)

Identifying 100 unident? A few clicks and done.

[New dailies are different for everyone?]

PvE and WvW:

Log In

Loot 10 Defeated Enemies

Capture 1 Ruin or Shrine in WvW

Complete a Renown Heart

 

[Dear Balance DevTeam]

Hello,

Ill keep it succinct:

Please make boon builds compatible with each other. Dont just focus on quickness and alacrity. Establish some basic ruleset, like: healer builds bring prot and regen boons, dps boon builds might and fury. Or some such - idc tbh. Just SOMETHING.

Because: the current state is just plain chaotic and a HUGE headache for forming parties.

 

Thanks.

[November 29 Balance Update Preview]

Herald:

Burst of Strength cooldown still 15 seconds

Also, having the three utility facets on different cooldowns plays really badly. Even more spammy than before. Please drop the cooldown on the last facet active (Gaze of Darkness) to 12 seconds too. Its not as if that skill actually DOES anything in pve except do dmg and give quickness.

[Six More Minutes to Knightfall bugged for people who had the original achievement unlocked years ago]

No response at all or am I blind?

[Suggestion from a Raid/Strike-Only Player]

Hi,

 

dear Anet. My first thought on reading the reward changes to raids was:

"God, not even MORE inventory clean up after each reset. PLEASE."

 

Could you please, please, add an option to "salvage all exotics"? Add an extra warning dialogue if you worry about people accidentally clicking that option AND accidentally confirming that selection as well.

 

Thanks.

 

(Sorry its not a drama post.)

[To Salvage Or To Keep]

Hi,

is there a way to see if I need to store a weapon for future upgrades in not yet released recipes.... or not?

[So... about Renegade Skills..]

Are they fixed now? Can I log in my renegade again and... play it? Without having to play "guess which skill hides now behind this icon and skillslot"?

[Not really enjoying PvP anymore]

@"Zexanima.7851" said:TL;DR Going to be giving PvP a break until further changes. Not finding the current meta at all enjoyable.

This isn't a "Boohoo I'm quitting this dumb game" post but just trying to give a personal account around my experience in PvP lately and why I'm putting it on the back burner for now. Usually I spend about 95% of my time in the game doing PvP (or wvw) but as the changes are settling and a meta starts to form I'm not really having any fun in PvP now days. At first I was really excited for the big patch to shake things up. The first week or so was great. Lots of people trying wacky builds and having to adapt on the fly to what's being played. By now though people have started to narrow down what's strongest and a meta has started to form. Anet has not been moving as fast on the initial updates as I would have hoped either so it seems like things are going to be this way for a while.

So what have I been seeing?

1. Some of the professions that were the strongest picks before are still the strongest after the patch, even if the builds are different. Firebrand and revenant mainly are still top tier. There are a few that moved up and down though.
2. It looks like we're moving into a CC heavy meta which is probably the worst meta focus I could think of. CC takes away player agency and is about the most un-fun mechanic to deal with. Firebrands, revs, scrappers, tempest, and condi druids stacked together make for a ridiculous amount of CC. You can lock down a target(s) for more than enough time to get a kill and straight up prevent them from casting any skills.
3. Condi is more prevalent after the patch. While power may still technically be "better" it's much easier to get value out of condi now too. Not to mention condi allows you to build tanky while still doing respectable damage which leads me to my next point.
4. There are lots of builds surfacing that are much too tanky(cough core necro *cough). I think this one of the reasons people are building with large amounts of CC, to lock down these bunker builds so they can actually kill them.

These are things I've been experiencing in both 2s and 5s and multiple different professions. When going against comps running heavy CC, heavy condi with bunker builds the best option is just to mirror it and try to outplay them. The disparity between what is best and everything else still feels pretty big and this really narrows the field in your options for 'adapting' to these situations. The best builds and comps showing up are not just a hands width better than everything else but leaps and bounds more effective. We can see Anet is working hard and rolling out patches faster than usual. I don't claim to have the solutions either but I just hope Anet will start more patches rolling soon and/ora) Constantly keep the meta in flux and changingb) Close the gap between what is best and everything else.

Until then I'll just be keep on eye on PvP from a distance hoping for more interesting stuff to happen. Right now it's just not enjoyable for me.

Same. After a long pause I gave pvp a try again, tried several builds... but its just too unfun. Gonna wait for further changes, the matches I played were so heavily bunker-cc-lockdown focused... felt like playing season1 over again shudder

[Beginner Experience Collection]

For every little shit one-time-unlock item we get a confirm dialogue before delete... and when its needed, theres nothing... Anet NotLikeThisAh yes, and here's some more positivity... so I wouldnt completly waste my time farming those shitty boxes with shitty gear in them, I went for animals that drop 500 cooking meat... got roughly 60 of those and 24 rares... so for whoever that still has to do it... have fun :+1:

[[Feedback] New Drakkar Fight]

@"Cameron Rich.3905" said:Hey there everyone, thanks for taking the time to post your feedback on yesterday's changes. Your thoughts are incredibly important to us, and help us work to make the game a better experience for everyone.

There's one thing I'd like to clarify about yesterday's patch notes: Specifically, the note "Drakkar has gained new abilities."

We should've been clearer with this patch note since "new abiltities" is pretty vague--so we wanted to give you some more information on them. These additions were focused on providing a clear incentive to participate in mechanics by punishing failure, as well as giving you reasons to engage with some of the previously arbitrary mechanics.

The Falling Ice Orbs, for example, have a larger and more damaging attack that fires if no one catches the orb--so when you're performing the mechanic correctly, you're not seeing that punishment skill (way to go, being responsible!)

Additionally, Jhavi's shield in the intermission phase now provides protection from the storm (which deals constant damage if you're outside it), and allows you to go out and attack adds - but that protection only lasts a short time once you leave the shield, so you have to balance grabbing the buff with going after incoming enemies, or pulling them into the shield and damaging them down.

Finally, as some of you have experienced, we introduced a unique flavor mechanic to the fight when the group fails, to make it clearer that Drakkar's influence has won out in the struggle.

With these changes, we specifically wanted players to feel punished for ignoring mechanics, while still allowing for a few people to be the "heroes" of the group and save their allies from certain death. Since this is an open world encounter, it's important to encourage coordination while maintaining accessibility, especially as we get further into this content's life span and more diverse player groups of varying skill levels tackle it.

Good changes :) Fun meta.The scaling on champ2+3 doesnt seem to not work though? Or it really is because so many run to first champ, the first champ always takes 3-4 times as long as champ2 or champ3.A slight criticism, the green fields give a dmg buff, but drakkar always despawns after the green fields. Maybe change the timing slightly to give a longer burst phase?

[new story chapter meta achievement only for raiders?]

@stormseeker.5361 said:I saw the 12%, I've also not completed the story because at the moment I don't have the time to do so with work crunch, so i'm not sure how indictative that actually is of how active gw2 efficiency is... However i've done a few of the map achievements when I get the time. With the stress from work, I don't feel particularly enthused to engage strike missions, but they will become harder to complete later due to those people who already finished acheivements ignoring them due to poor rewards. This is the main issue with living world content, you feel the need to complete this content asap, in order to not stress as much later down the line.

Its up to Anet to keep Strikemissions attractive for players to not just jump in a few times for one-time achievements. However, Im pretty sure, if you are in a guild that does things together (not just a guild to get access to guildfunctions), you will always find people to do strikemissions with.

@stormseeker.5361 said:If these are designed to ease players into raids, then they should be in that category, not story. I never said they should remove strikes, or the challenges, or the achievements. Just move them so people can play the story ones casually, and people who want to get the additional AP can do so without it blocking something as simple as a story journal meta achievement.

They tried that with raids. Now granted, as my list above shows, raids had other problems as well. But not integrating them into expansion/living story achievements didnt help either. GW2 has no geargrind. That means, the incentive to try new content has to be something else. In this case Anet decided to fully integrate them into the living story episode release. Mind you, the meta achievement never was "just a story achievement". It always was about the whole living story episode. Beetle races, discovery, worldbosses... all part of past meta achievements, but not really part of the story per se.

@stormseeker.5361 said:I also see no reason why you would have an issue with moving the achievements into their own category, as nothing you do or like would be affected, yet more casual/busy players would be able to complete the meta with more ease and less stress leading to a happier playerbase and less of these kinds of threads on the forum.

I do. Because then people wouldnt even TRY strikemissions. No matter if they would actually like them or not. Just the thought of "ohhhh, instanced pve content" scares people in GW2. Anet found the perfect middle ground tbh. Easy strikemission achievements necessary for the meta-achievement. Those achievements are nothing to be scared about. Anyone can do them. Quite honestly, theres more difficult story achievements (whisper boxing for example, if you solo it) or openworld achievements than the ones in strikemissions.

People arent even TRYING them. Instead they instantly run to the forums and complain. If people had at least tried, they would have discovered that the Flickering Light achievement can be solo'ed, that avoiding the shockwaves is easily done when staying ranged / having blocks. That staying alive during a strikemission like the Fraenir one is quite easy when staying stacked.

The fact that those achievements are so low just shows how important it is for Anet to add them to the meta achievement. If they were somewhere in their own subcategory, the majority of players wouldnt do them. Never would even try strikemissions, because of some perceived notion and prejudice about them.

No. This is perfect. And tbh, you still can just not do it. Nobody forces you to get that shiver emote. Its not even a very big one. Its not an infusion or something rare. Its just an emote you might use maybe 10 times in your gw2 playtime.

[new story chapter meta achievement only for raiders?]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said:People complained that raids are too difficult, so anet took a knee and made easy mode raids called strikes. And still people are complaining about their accessibility.That's because they started to make strikes more like raids. It's obvious, then, that the same complains would crop up in such a situation. With the added caveat of raid achievements never being part of the LS meta.

The reason why they require you to do them for the meta is well to funnel people into doing them.They tried that before with legendary armor. We know the end result of that - they did find out that people do not want to be funneled into a content they strongly dislike. And it turns out that raids were a type of content that the majority of GW2 players did not, in the end, find appealing.I don't really see why they think in this case it will be somehow different.

1. Raids suffered at the start from a quite badly balanced gamemode, no dpsmeter and barely any knowledge about boons, buffs and builds in general. That forced players into playing only a handful of "acceptable" builds that were proven to work. Btw, that hasnt been the case since around W2, but its still in the heads of even veteran raiders to always adhere to "the meta", though absolutely not necessary outside of recordruns or speedclearing. Only arcdps and streamers like teapot are slowly ... very slowly ... doing away with that silly prejudice. To this day Im still seeing raidcommanders that say they prefer having 2 buffdruids over 1 healer+1buffdruid for example.
2. The raid population significantly dropped between W4 and W6 release, partly due to the huge disappointment that was legendary armor (really, you cant dye it black -.- ) and also because W5 was quite a lot more difficult - especially in the beginning - than any raidwing before. Many got frustrated, especially considering they were hyped about getting a new wing, they then couldnt even hope to get past the first boss anytime soon. They didnt leave because they were finished getting legendary armor. PvP legendary backpiece would have been the better analogy here.
3. No easymode, no hardmode in raids, meaning one-size-fits-all, which... surprisingly... doesnt work out so well. Neither for beginners, nor for veterans. Strikemissions are different, you have easymode (grothmar), normalmode (fraenir, kodan), hardmode (boneskinner, whisper). All while still having quite relaxed timers, so that getting the kill on "hardmode" strikemissions still is pretty easy, as long as you put in some effort (aka some organization and preparation). Raids were doomed from the beginning because of this, only those that really committed to raids, got down and put in the time to learn mechanics & skillrotations, were ever successful in raids. Raid rewards - including legendary armor - never were enough incentive for this. After all, you could get the same amount of gold farming silverwasts RIBA and who needs ascended armor anyway in openworld pve. Raids still are quite the commitment.
4. Quite a lot of veteran raiders have given up on gw2 or only come back for a new raidwing release. Because the release cadence of new raids is way too long to satisfy anyone thats really into raiding. So the problem of raid population shrinking isnt that people only raided for legendary armor, but rather that after the first three wings were put out quite fast, the release cadence went to 1 raid per year. Not enough to sustain raiders. Its like 1 living story episode per year and nothing else. Wouldnt keep you in the game either, now would it?
5. Just because the vocal minority of raid-haters is present on the forums, doesnt mean that raids are dead. Im pugging raids every week, and I rarely see the same people. Not so in PvP, where - when I was still actively playing ranked - Id get queued with and against the same roughly 30 people.

[new story chapter meta achievement only for raiders?]

@Raknar.4735 said:

@"Tulki.1458" said:ArenaNet said strikes are meant to be a ramp to raid content. Which means their intended purpose is to improve the average skill of the playerbase. Putting them front and center in LW achievements is how they will do this. They don't want them to be ignored.

You have to rise to the occasion to acquire achievements for this episode. That actually sounds fine. They're achievements. Get out of your comfort zone and enjoy improving your personal skill.

It's really sad to me that the game is in such a state that players are demanding a moderate challenge be lowered to their level rather than putting in the effort to improve at the game. If you want limited engagement and for everything to bow before you, there are other genres like visual novels and walking simulators that can do that for you.

I mean, you could also do the same, instead of trying to get "high-engagement" modes in this game, why not try out other games that already have that mode? I don't like telling people to play other games, but it seems you're a good candidate, since you're doing the same.

Eh what? So because Anet offers content we enjoy, but you dont, we should go play another game so anet stops making content we enjoy but you dont? Theres absolutely no logic in your statement.

[new story chapter meta achievement only for raiders?]

@"stormseeker.5361" said:

Not all gw2 players are on gw2efficiency but, it tends to be used by the more serious achievement hunters and traders etc in the game. Seems a bit overtuned when less than a quarter of 1% have unlocked the meta achievement. Strike missions really deserve their own category as training raids.

1. Lots of alt accounts on gw2efficiency, for example of my 7 alt accounts, 3 finished the story, 1 got the strikemission achievements - cause why play strikemissions on altaccounts, loot really isnt worth it even logging into them xD
2. Lots of inactive accounts, as you could have easily spotted by the fact that only 12% even finished last story step.
3. Boneskinner strikemission is bugged
4. Kodan mission was only there for an hour or so on release, got patched really fast
5. People are busy farming other achievements first, as you can see by the achievement "Flickering Light" which can be absolutely easily done solo, before tackling the strikemission ones.
6. People dont really know what to do for the achievements yet, for example the jumping shockwaves one last week was quite simple because less than 5 attacks counted as shockwaves, and those you could easily block, so not even any jumping shenanigans needed. Still only a handful of players have that. Im calling that the "dulfy-has-left-effect". No one posted a "how-to" on reddit yet, and the big majority of so-called "achievement hunters" are only capable of following a detailed guide.
7. Take a look at former story releases, the completion rate in general is quite a bit lower than it was for season3 for example.

[Boneskinner strike damage[fixed]]

@stormseeker.5361 said:It's a good job none of those achievements were tied to the story meta achievement, based on those unlock %'s

Guess what, of my 7 accounts, only 1 has the achievement :oYou have to take gw2efficiency percentages with a grain of salt. Lots of altaccounts (after all, especially for those its really comfy... not having to log in to check something) and inactive ones.

[Fractal elitism on the rise in LFG]

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@"pfc.9430" said:A good thief will also smooth your run.

The problem is for one good dd out there there are dozens of thiefs that are incompetent.

Undoubtedly true, but how do you know the thief that joined isnt just such a nugget? I like having daredevils, holosmiths or powerchronos - and yes, even condi fire/quickbrands - in my daily t4+cms fractals runs.Because lets be absolutely honest here:Theres only a handful of "pugs" that actually can burst down the bosses in cms fast enough to not make good use of the extra utility those professions provide.And for normal t4 fractals, that extra utility enables most groups to play without that stupid healbrand and get more dps out of it.

Ofc, if you get a rotten tomato that just plays daredevil because of the perceived easy rotation but doesnt know any of its utilities, then you have to kick him. Easy enough, even if you arent with friends, because most fractal players are already quite intolerant towards those professions.

[Introduction to Raiding 102: Boneskinner Strike Mission]

Pretty sure its (still) simply bugged, half the time the mechanics arent in sync - we tried lighting all torches (and succeeded) but the dmg kept ticking for example.