voltaicbore.8012

I think this is the most elegant solution we could have, with the most minimal amount of change from existing systems. While one can argue that getting rid of ranked queue and transplanting the badges to ATs is roughly equivalent to getting rid of ATs and changing ranked to team-only, I believe the former is a much better solution. As things are right now, ATs are entirely defined by being a full-premade experience. On the other hand, ranked queue most certainly is not. I think keeping ATs and deleting ranked would require the least amount of adjustment from the playerbase. Clout chasers are already doing ATs as the true competitive mode, while the rest of us bads might be happy to farm byzantium chests in unranked.

Probably that the IBS achieves/mastery points are among both the grindiest yet unrewarding things we've ever seen in recent memory. Sure, other more intensive grinds exist elsewhere in the game, but masteries come much closer to feeling like 'mandatory' content than these other things, IMO. The other game I play alongside GW2 is BDO. BDO is infamous for demanding quite a bit of grind to advance almost everything a player can do in the game. For most PvE purposes, in comparison to BDO, GW2 has just about no grind whatsoever. I won't bore you with specific examples, but anyone who knows anything substantial about both BDO and GW2 will have to agree with me here, it's just objectively true. What surprised me over the past two years is how much worse the tiny bits of GW2 grind feels than what BDO throws at me. I'm sure a lot of this feeling comes from expectations, in that I know BDO is going to troll me with some horribly low drop rates and RNG gear upgrades, while GW2 mostly lived up to its promise of letting us get right to the fun without spending all our time preparing for the fun. However, I don't think that's the whole story. What I noticed BDO does quite well is (1) make the rewards of grinding proportionate to the effort, but more importantly,(2) give good 'consolation prizes' along the way if RNG is forcing you to grind longer than you'd like. For point (1), I think this is actually a bit moot. BDO does lock some absolutely game-changing rewards behind massive grinds, but it's not like GW2 grinds don't end in good rewards either. Sure, these most recent collections only give us mastery points for a largely useless Saga mastery line, but things like the roller beetle, griffon, and skyscale were absolutely superb rewards relative to the effort required to get them. Where things start to matter I think is with point (2). BDO has a large number of overlapping systems that players can use to make their grinds more rewarding. So let's say I'm grinding a certain type of mob in a specific area in BDO to go after a rare drop I need for a collection. While I'm there, I can pop a daily-refreshing buff to increase the sellable trash loot I get from mob kills, and several food/enhancements to increase both the xp and skill points I get from kills. Also, I can use pets to increase my account's knowledge levels regarding these enemies the more I kill them, which rewards my entire account with buffs to certain crafting activities. I can also use these free pets to buff xp and skill points as well. I can also equip an item that keeps track of how many kills I make, and after I hit 60,000 kills (sadly an all-too-attainable number when it comes to BDO grinding), that special item gives me a guaranteed very-high-quality trinket and resets itself so I can continue grinding again. The benefits of stuff like Karmic Retribution on some GW2 maps utterly pales in comparison to how useful the 'consolation prizes' for BDO grinds are. Thanks to these overlapping systems, even if RNG hates me and I keep failing to get the rare drop I was grinding for, I have so many ways of getting so many valuable things out of the grind even if the main goal eludes me for longer than I'd like. Of course, GW2 often has sub-rewards tucked into multi-part achievements as well. However, those sub-rewards seem universally far less useful than what BDO's "sub-rewards" for grinding are. In BDO, players tend to get things that directly improve QoL, directly progress your character, or help you buy your way past other RNG gates using the player market. Compare this with what you get partway through the Morale Breaker achievement. Some RNG boxes with a deeply unimpressive loot table, and Bear-themed skins. The Bear Skins do have decent market value and of course mean a lot to completionists and those who like the look, but their impact on your experience of the game is quite minimal. To boot, the value of the most expensive skin in those Bear boxes can be easily made somewhere between 1 and 2 hours of grinding in BDO. I like that GW2 for the most part doesn't really have intense grinds. However, whenever it does include grinding, the reward-effort balance seems off. Some of the most awesome and game-changing rewards aren't that hard to grind out, while others like the most recent weapon collection masteries can run you thousands of gold for a mastery point in a mastery line that is almost entirely useless. The result is that the few times we face grind in GW2, it just plain sucks.

This is the only solution. In a team game it feels like (and actually is) much more than just you, but the hard truth is that up to about mid plat 1 (so 1550 or so) there's a LOT you can personally change to improve the chances of a win. The first thing to do is multiclass, and do your best to relog at match start if your team has some obvious needs. Back when I cared about rating, that's what I did, and it helped immensely.

I want: (1) HoT-like encounters with the enemy: if you try to go toe-to-toe with these mobs without a solid handle on how you play your class and build, they can easily overwhelm you. At the same time, it's not hard to build against this, and just a modicum of practice solves most problems. Only a few mobs had noticeably difficult cc patterns to manage, and after a few rounds it wasn't hard to figure out what to do. (2) PoF-like density : sentient enemies often have outposts on the map that serve as operating bases, and outside of those areas you see them either trying to hold a strategic area in force, or have isolated patrol groups. The more open and barren areas with no camps or civilization generally features wildlife or monsters like the Branded. This would make sense to me as Cantha, like Elona, is a place where people have carved out safe places for noncombatants to live, so it's not a completely untamed area like Mordremoth's version of the Maguuma Jungle. (3) reasonable aggro patterns: like many have already mentioned in this thread, I dislike the aggro range on a lot of the PoF mobs. However, I do think it makes sense that if you aggro one member of a patrol group, the entire group is alerted. I just don't like having to deal with the group, then some random veteran sand shark tossing me skyward because the 2 patrolling hydras nearby also aggroed and ate through my stability stacks and dodges while the local sand lion family showed up to blind me. Nothing I can't manage, but the encounters just take 3x longer than they really should IMO. I'd like to see more instances of the sentient enemies fighting the wildlife when their paths cross, somewhat like the vinetooth enemies occasionally stomping on packs of pocket raptors as you run past both in HoT.

I think their point is not that there shouldn't be an option, but most likely there won't be an option. I've never once seen an infusion and though, "wow, now THAT isn't pure visual garbage." I haven't really seen the otter one people like so much, so I guess I should reserve judgment on that, but yeah. Not a fan of the "all flash, no substance" style that the game's aesthetic has taken.

100% agree. Many businesses find this out the hard way. Yes, businesses can run promotional giveaways (free stuff) or loss leaders (cheap stuff) to successfully increase sales of another profitable product, but that only works when (1) you have a good idea of what motivates purchases and (2) your free/cheap stuff properly plugs into those motivations. I have a hard time believing that making transmutes completely free will encourage greater gem store skin purchases. IMO if you like a skin enough to buy it, chances are you'll get it even if you only get one free application of it. But more importantly, transmutation charges are already essentially free. You don't have to be a no-lifer to rack up double digits of those things on a fairly regular basis. As for the barbershop idea, that would just be a pure loss, and nothing OP (and like minded people) have said here would replace that.

The only other one I can think of is from Honor of the Waves story mode, where the final boss' pet swallows you. That move is a pulsing 3s stun I think, and using stunbreaks doesn't end the stun early. I think you do get any effects attached to the stunbreak (so I think a ranger would get damage reduction for using Dolyak Stance or the barrier from Protect Me), but the stun will simply pulse to completion regardless. I also agree that to consider unbreakable cc a widespread issue (or at least widespread enough to be a source of meaningful design criticism) is just flawed.

I did read your first post, the rest of it is more stories of "I couldn't get out of these certain cc's". Stunbreaks do not go on cd when you're affected by the stuns listed on the wiki page. If they do, then that's either a UI bug for mesmer I didn't know about, or some UI bug on your end. as @Mungo Zen.9364 suggested above try using one of your stunbreaks anyways. Mesmer response to stuns is among the strongest in the game. Even in old PvE content like dungeons that adds unique ccs like crystallization, mirage's jaunt doesn't break the stun but still moves away into safety outside of the crystal. I'm certain if mesmer for some reason was the only class that couldn't recover from the full list of cc's via stunbreak, there would be a huge outcry. Out of curiosity and a desire to prove you utterly wrong, I volunteer to help you test stunbreaks against knockdowns. I'd have to reinstall though, so it'll be maybe 20 mins before I can log in if you take me up on the offer.

This is very, very wrong. Any stunbreak recovers from knockdown/stun/daze, basically any condition that is indicated bu the purple debuff icon and lays your character out on the ground. The whole list of things that stunbreak solves is at the wiki page here. I'm not sure at this point if we need to look at the game's design, or individual players, when it comes to figuring out how so many people can make it so far into the game without learning important information like this. For me, stun breaks are among the first abilities I make sure to hotkey on every class for every game I play, and I very quickly found out that abilities marked as stun breaks got rid of all hard cc's. This also taught me the utility of soft cc's like cripple, chill, and immobilize - I knew that I could throw those at targets in pvp who were using stability and stunbreaks, and find ways to pin them down regardless. EDIT: oops had this page open for too long, didn't see that someone basically made the same response already.

That's not really the case. You can load up on defense and have no issues or you can skimp and rely on active defense. The consequences of either choice depend on a variety of factors, the most important of which is game mode. Assuming we're talking solo open world you have plenty of freedom. If active defenses aren't working out you can sacrifice damage to add defenses. The timers on events, story, HP champs are mostly quite reasonable and will allow for success even for tanky healer builds. Another popular option for solo play is to run a condi build, which allows you to go tanky without giving up a ton of damage. Indeed, and you don't need anything expensive - Dire stats are probably one of the most beginner-friendly stat lines. Carrion is a little less so, since trading toughness for power feels like a waste on most condi builds. Of course, there are Hizen's "defensive stats turn into offensive stats" builds as well. With the addition of barrier mechanics to a number of classes, it's actually more possible now than ever before to actually tank significant hits from PvE mobs. Also, it sounds like @Troilet.9435 is in sPvP, or took an 80 boost to PoF and is getting ragdolled by some Awakened.

Hey, you're still here! I was wondering if you'd show up to bash HoT some more lol. I agree that the strategy is utterly stupid, but it's not the worst bit of writing. I think it accurately reflects what the first Tyrian organization with an air fleet would have done, especially if that fleet won its first major battle with an air strategy. I further think the story would sound a lot less dumb if they had us follow the Pact on a more sincere scouting effort prior to sending in the fleet, and Mordremoth deceived the Pact by hiding the power and range of his airship-killing vines. As for the original topic, I'm inclined to (1) agree that the assessment of core game pacing is accurate, but (2) disagree that changing it is the key to new player attraction and retention. Before we go any further: I 100% agree @"Milkshake.4370" that living world season 1 leaves one of the absolute worst story gaps I've ever experienced in any game. Currently the best solution I think ANet could offer is to direct people to Wooden Potatoes' LWS1 recap. The in-game "catch-up" is an absolute joke, and is almost worse than not attempting to patch the hole at all. I think the only kind of player who can stick around GW2 for an appreciable period of time is the player that excels at finding their own fun, rather than relying on directed content. Of course, "finding your own fun" is the key to longevity in any MMO, but it's just that much more important for GW2 since we lack vertical progression. Since every meaningful system in the game is easy to cap, you quickly run out of gameplay or character improvement reasons to keep playing. You have to have found something completely sidebar or optional to keep your attention. I would argue that the vast majority of players who can't find something deeply compelling about Tyria prior to reaching HoT will ultimately not find it in either expansion, and getting them to the expacs faster will only lead them to move onto another game faster.

You kind of lost when you insisted on continuing to refer to GW2 ranger as "hunter." It's especially weird since you refer to Archeage rangers as "rangers". As a ranger main, that was irritating to see. Your thread here essentially boils down to "I want this specific class to do these specific things" and you're getting mad that people are telling you that (1) your class (and the game as a whole) doesn't really work like that, and (2) are being nice enough to not leave it at that but suggest ways you can get some of what you want in other classes. I don't think anyone was telling you that DH longbow doesn't need any love or that the game in general is untouchable, as you accuse us of doing. I agree with you that GW2 isn't quite as unique as many of its staunchest defenders claim it is. If anything, I consider GW2 to be perhaps one of the greatest wastes of potential - it could be so much more than it is, but due to ANet's historic preference to just abandon instead of iterating on flawed but promising systems the game keeps accumulating dead content. In fact, that's why the responses in this thread have been the way they are - we know how ANet does things, and "fix longstanding problems instead of throwing new shinies at us" is not what they do. It would be misleading of us to talk to you like there was any real hope of change. If you want great longbow damage paired with support, the foreseeable reality is that you will moderately suck at both. You're not wrong to desire that combination, but we're just telling you that you can't really get it here and it's not wise to expect that to change. Sorry you didn't like the (politely presented) truth. Best of luck finding what you want elsewhere.

Maybe that's true, but in the context of this discussion I think it's forgivable. After all, the reason Mac client is being dropped like a poop-stained rock is because of ARM incompatibility, so for the purposes of discussing GW2 and ARM, we might as well be discussing GW2 and Mac. No, it's not, because it's not apple exclusive and if/when it becomes the norm, it won't be equivalent to "apple owning x% of the market", suddenly being "gaming friendly" or whatever you've tried to claim there. You're talking about two different things and claim one proves the other, but it doesn't, all while disregarding apple practices from the past and present. And yes, that is exactly what currently makes it "hypothetical hopes for the future". Maybe you're not an apple fanboy, sure, I don't know you so I shouldn't make this assumption. But that's pretty much how you behave in this thread imo, so I might have easly misjudged. :D That was the first time I've posted in this thread, I think you're confusing me with @"hobotnicax.7918". We do have the same avatar, I guess lol. Not sure you read the rest of my post, either. I personally have never, and will never, purchase a Mac. Ever. I can't stand the idea of paying that much for inferior hardware, and joining that group of users. I mean, just look at most of the threads. Mac users seem so conditioned into thinking that compatibility problems = "whaaaaaa I need to buy a new machine?!?!?!" Yeah, not me. I don't even particularly like ARM/RISC, and think we'd be looking at a much different situation if Intel actually iterated properly on Atom and found a market for it. I see the ARM/x86 battle as somewhat parallel to the old VHS/Betamax format war back in the day. The technically inferior - but non-exclusive, licensable, and cheaper - option eventually caught up to the technically superior rival. I sincerely agree. This is likely the best long-term solution for most current Mac users. Apple is not shy about straight bricking the several-thousand-dollar machines its users buy. In contrast, there are still people who can run Windows XP to this day and function.

Maybe that's true, but in the context of this discussion I think it's forgivable. After all, the reason Mac client is being dropped like a poop-stained rock is because of ARM incompatibility, so for the purposes of discussing GW2 and ARM, we might as well be discussing GW2 and Mac. As for the x86 vs ARM situation, I think x86 has been very, very slowly and incrementally losing out to ARM over the past decade or so. That slow defeat is probably why a lot of us currently think it's ridiculous to think of a major shift towards ARM in desktop-grade devices, but I can see it happening. There are a lot of reasons (both technological and corporate) as to why that slow defeat is happening, but arguably that's true for almost any technology shift. I think the battle will ultimately be determined by how many developers are willing to quickly retool (or write entirely new) applications to work natively on ARM, and if enough of the big players make the move to ARM I'm certain the software will simply follow. Again, I'm not claiming that ARM is actually "better" in all the ways that matter, or that hitching our wagon to RISC is a wiser long-term decision than figuring out how to better manage CISC development. All I'm saying is that the constellation of factors like licensing-but-not-fabrication model, price, power consumption, a general consumer shift to crappier yet somehow more expensive devices (thanks, Steve Jobs), and Qualcomm's successful lockout of Intel from the mobile market essentially put ARM in a place where it can (and IMO likely will) win a significant market share. Thankfully, I don't think GW2 will live long enough to regret not jumping on board ARM. That also means I think ANet 100% made the right call to keep GW2 out of ARM without hemming and hawing about it. I think by the time most GW2-capable devices are ARM instead of x86, the game might well be in maintenance mode and x86 emulation on ARM will hopefully be advanced enough to keep the game playable at a high level.

I don't care enough about MMR in GW2 or other games to know for sure, but from what I've heard it's fairly typical for ranked systems to penalize losses (as opposed to merely not rewarding losses). Also, I believe it's relevant to talk about any competitive game mode's ranking system, as the underlying game itself isn't what we're debating - it's about how that game treats losses in ranked. That being said, I agree that in the current state of affairs something should be done. The low population is further exacerbated by the fact that you lose 20+ points per loss while only gaining 3-4 points for a win. Even at low plat, it quickly becomes not worth queuing after playing if you're looking to keep your badge and rating. So on top of diminished population in general, those who still play ranked are greatly incentivized to queue less. As for titles... I've never seen it this bad lol. Last I saw this season I think gold 3 or even gold 2 was enough for top 250 in NA. I remember needing to push to stay above 1600 to get Merciless Legend back when I still queued ranked.

We do have an edit button, after you make your post look in the upper right for the gear icon. Click it, and the only option that appears is 'Edit'. I'm with @"Grand Marshal.4098" on the about-face we've seen with Elder Dragons. It's not that it's necessarily a bad idea to have multi-dimensional villains, or find out that they're not really villains at all. It's just that this "hey dragons aren't what we thought" has been executed quite poorly (by my narrative standards, at least) and Aurene has been thrust into the center of that shoddy execution. We have living, currently active characters (Destiny's Edge) who communicated directly with Glint. We have all 3 orders with varying approaches and exposures to the different dragons. There's an entire hidden city's worth of exalted whose existence is predicated on caring for Aurene, having inherited the task of the Forgotten (another group with quite intimate ties with dragons). There were so many opportunities to better build up to "hey dragons aren't what we thought" moment, but instead we just get off-screen Taimi talking in our earpieces about her deus ex reasearch revealing the fundamental role dragons play in Tyrian ecology, and a dragon baby that likes us because it came from one of the 'good' dragons and you played catch with it a few times. I guess our peek into the All, courtesy of Omadd's Machine, possibly revealed some of this, but likely only in retrospect and not in a way interpretable to the typical player running through the story for the first time. It just feels very artless.

Far from it. Aside from the oft-mentioned Bootcamp solution (which will require you to buy Windows), I suggest looking into dual-booting Linux on your mac (which will require you... to pay nothing lol. It's free). I haven't done it myself for GW2, but I hear people get pretty good results running GW2 on Linux.

You answered your own question - initially, you just talked about the Saga in general terms for both the first and second statements, without any real distinction. Now it's much clearer, and I still agree with you on both counts. The expansion-like content was destined to fail from the very beginning, while the story had decent potential (that ended up wasted). As for the original topic of the thread, I have to say I agree there too. Ryland isn't really demonstrating leadership as much as he simply capitalized (or rather, let Bangar, then Jormag exploit) his popularity with a certain sector of Charr. I don't find him compelling at all, and would welcome either his permanent exit from the story, or a Braham-like redemption. Ultimately pulling off the joint Charr/Norn story in one season was going to be a steep challenge to begin with. At best, we would have seen two pretty large storylines competing for space within one narrative arc. At worst, we have what we do now, which is just... something that feels like abandonment or a rush to get things to a point where we can transition to EoD. Now, if this was exactly the way they planned the narrative to work from the start, perhaps ANet really has some deeply embedded writing problems.

The easiest solution is just mega high dps. I've solo killed him before getting cat-ed on power builds and condi builds, and it might be a measure of RNG sometimes as to whether or not he cat-transforms you. I'm not sure it helps with stopping his regen, but perhaps condi would be safer to use if the ticks keep him in combat after he transforms you. The real issue is why it's taking you so long to drop transformation. You need to find the nearest Nightmare Pup and kill it to drop cat form. Every time I get cat-ed, I manage to get out of the transformation well before the regen fills Caderyn back to full. I solo TA on a daily basis, so I'd be glad to help you by way of observation - I can come watch you try, or you can watch me do it.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this thought seems inconsistent with this thought. I happen to agree with your first statement - I believed it was obvious from the start (as much as I loved Grothmar) that the Saga wouldn't match an expansion when it comes to new combat, new stories, and map quality. Whoever thought that could happen... yeah. I wouldn't hire them for any job that requires forwar-looking insights. But you also say that if ANet just "pulled through to the end" with the Saga, it might not have been garbage. As stated above I think the Saga was doomed to fail from the start, and while certain things like the story could have ended up less botched than they are now, I still think the overall result would be some form of garbage. What should they have "pulled through" on, precisely?

Good call on doing PoF masteries before hitting HoT. While the story ends up a bit out of order (this is assuming you skipped everything after getting the glider and went straight to PoF after that), having raptor with the long jump and the springer with the high jump is an amazing tool for being in the jungle. Let me know (via whisper or mail) anytime you want a hand reaching masteries or HPs. If I'm on and not in a pvp match, I'll gladly help you. In fact, you'll be helping me! I've been looking for ways to feel more excited about playing again, and I feel like being more helpful will go a long way with that.

I think this is the real point, and I find it quite reasonable to ask for. It's like ANet... doesn't care about guilds or WvW! What a surprise. Seriously though, I think this change would be a good thing. I don't even do Guild Siege manufacturing, but I can easily imagine what a pain it would be.

I think this is 100% exactly what will happen. There's just not enough of us playing to give the matchmaker opportunities, and announcing team queue is probably not going to magically pull in hundreds of previously absent players. At least the ATs, being at set times, prevent the queue dodge to an extent. Even there, teams entering pretty much know that if you're going in with friends, it's just for the entry (and maaayyyybe 1 win) reward. Team queue will likely be the exact same lifeless domination that ATs are.

I see that their tag is [WoH] and they have an emblem, but the only info I have comes from here.. I would concur with @Randulf.7614, it's entirely possible someone made the guild but it's now just languishing with no logins or activity. Best of luck finding someone.

I'd prefer this over the current sword setup, that's for sure. Not having the on-demand evade kind of sucks, although I've managed to learn to pre-emptively queue up the evade-on-flip so I have sword 2 and dagger 4 evades ready to chain. Needless to say, this sword/dagger build is horribly niche, and I run it for personal challenge.