Does anyone actually enjoy their Class?

[Fueki.4753]

There always are people who love their chosen profession(s) unconditionally.

Most of these players do not partake on the forums, because they are happy with the state of the game.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Zok.4956]

23 hours ago, JayMadIV.8721 said:

I just want to know, is there a class that is generally liked overall, and players feel like it is actually in a good, fun, effective place?

You can not have good, fun and effective. Pick only one or maybe two from the three options.😉

[Buran.3796]

   Depends. Albeit I have all professions and specs unlocked (in some cases more than one sample, currently I have 16 characters), I only play 3-4 classes and of those currently I only play 3-4 builds. So I enjoy less than half of the specs from my main and a couple from other class.

[eXruina.4956]

enjoy, not for years, but i love my main, and still found ways and reasons to play around it. 🙂

 

that said, the waiting is getting stale, and over the years, i've seen alot of people simply leave when they couldn't take the game state anymore. this is in competitive btw, pvp and wvw.

 

it was the right call since to this day the reasons why they left the game remains the same, nothing has changed. 😓

[cyberzombie.7348]

I like thief, elementalist, and engineer the most mainly because of how analog their mechanics feel. Relying on combo chains and a relatively high APM to be effective in both offense and defense. Analog defense is also why I enjoy playing rifle/gs warrior, relying on evasion for sustain, rather than the usual blocks and passive recovery.

[Kuma.1503]

I love catalyst, play it everywhere, and laugh at people who pretend it's unplayable. 

I do wish they'd scrap the energy mechanic though. 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

16 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

 You see, Warrior stands on the battlefield baring all. 

New warrior espec: The Exhibitionist

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

New warrior espec: The Exhibitionist

Chain mail bikini armor when?

.

.

.

.

For both genders.

[Labjax.2465]

I enjoy tempest quite a bit in open world. Have yet to learn it much for competitive PvE, or what's viable there, so idk if I'd still enjoy it in that.

[Chips.7968]

9 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

There always are people who love their chosen profession(s) unconditionally.

Most of these players do not partake on the forums, because they are happy with the state of the game.

I don't think a lack of participation on the forum indicates happiness with the state of the game. 

 

For the OP - I enjoy playing my class, I don't enjoy the game balance as it's ridiculous. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Chips.7968

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

I don't think a lack of participation on the forum indicates happiness with the state of the game. 

 

For the OP - I enjoy playing my class, I don't enjoy the game balance as it's ridiculous. 

Yeah if forum participation is correlated with anything, it would probably be with higher levels of loyalty stemming from higher feelings of personal investment in the game (I think this would make sense because to seek out forums, much less post in them, requires a level of engagement that goes beyond the game itself... and you could see where the higher feelings of personal investment also leads to higher intensity of feedback given). For every person who supposedly doesn't post because they're happy, there are going to be others who don't post and just leave, for any number of reasons.

As I understand it, a more accurate predictor in whether someone sticks around with an MMO in the long-term is whether they have connections in the game (friends/guild/etc.). Which would make sense based on my experience. For example, there's at least one game I played pretty much entirely to play with gaming buddies at the time. It wasn't the kind of game I would have sought out otherwise. You can be not that thrilled with how a game works in isolation, but enjoy it well enough with the right people, which is kinda weird when I think about it, flies in the face of thinking that making a "good game" is most important. Facilitating long-term connections and sense of camaraderie may be way more important for an MMO, and in that regard, I think GW2's original designers were on point with its open world.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Fueki.4753]

5 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

I don't think a lack of participation on the forum indicates happiness with the state of the game.

I didn't mean that one indicates the other.

But most people who are unconditionally happy with their professions have less reason to participate on the forums, since they'd rather spend ingame than waft through the mountains of complains and improvement ideas.

Humans are biologically more inclined to focus on the bad things than the good ones, which is one if the bigger reasons people come to the forums. So if one doesn't realize the bad things, that reason to come to the forums is also not present.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Mell.4873]

On 8/14/2022 at 5:17 PM, Fueki.4753 said:

I didn't mean that one indicates the other.

But most people who are unconditionally happy with their professions have less reason to participate on the forums, since they'd rather spend ingame than waft through the mountains of complains and improvement ideas.

Humans are biologically more inclined to focus on the bad things than the good ones, which is one if the bigger reasons people come to the forums. So if one doesn't realize the bad things, that reason to come to the forums is also not present.

Honestly the reason we don't see participation in the forums like other MMO's is due to how toxic this place is. It is getting better but probably because of the low participation rate.

When EoD launched it was bad, I think the biggest reason I left the forum is I got labeled as Arena Net suck up. That and any account that stuck up for the new Elites (especially Virtuoso) got labeled as my account. I'm fairly certain some of the prolific users did have multiple accounts just to spam people posts with negative faces.

Why? GW2 has a lot of history of changing entire mechanics of Classes. I mean take Chronomancer at launch vs now; They are almost a completely different Class. Taking anything at face value and trying to talk about it opens a whole can of worms about how it used to be.

[Labjax.2465]

6 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Honestly the reason we don't see participation in the forums like other MMO's is due to how toxic this place is. It is getting better but probably because of the low participation rate.

When EoD launched it was bad, I think the biggest reason I left the forum is I got labeled as Arena Net suck up. That and any account that stuck up for the new Elites (especially Virtuoso) got labeled as my account. I'm fairly certain some of the prolific users did have multiple accounts just to spam people posts with negative faces.

Why? GW2 has a lot of history of changing entire mechanics of Classes. I mean take Chronomancer at launch vs now; They are almost a completely different Class. Taking anything at face value and trying to talk about it opens a whole can of worms about how it used to be.

I don't know if I'd agree with you on the reasons why, but these are definitely one of the worst forum environments I've seen. I want to say worst by far, but I have changed some over the years, so I don't know if some of it is me being less tolerant of BS. The subreddit isn't much better.

To put it in perspective, on most forums over the years, I get into very few conflicts and almost never face any kind of moderation action for it. On here, I had to ignore a ton of people and block emojis to get close to a point where I could avoid the taunting because I'd defend myself after being taunted and then I'd get in trouble (same thing on the subreddit too). And even with many on ignore, some people will seem very reasonable in one post and then like they're trolling me in another post (or trolling another person, I watch it happening to other people on here too).

That said, I don't know if participation is lower overall, but if it is, you're almost certainly right that the environment has something to do with it. I recall one thread not that far back where someone came in citing their extensive experience with other MMOs and criticizing some (I thought pretty minor) aspects of GW2 and got taunted for it and then fell right into the trap and fought back, and the thread devolved quickly. I can't imagine they were thrilled at the idea of coming back here after that.

In my case, I seem to have trouble learning my lesson and staying away. If there was any other way to even pretend I could reach the developers with feedback, I'd prob never come back here. Like the virtual equivalent of a suggestion box or something. I really don't need to discuss or argue every thought I have about the game with some forum regulars.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Mell.4873]

10 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I don't know if I'd agree with you on the reasons why, but these are definitely one of the worst forum environments I've seen. I want to say worst by far, but I have changed some over the years, so I don't know if some of it is me being less tolerant of BS. The subreddit isn't much better.

I guess it is one of the reasons why the forum can be so toxic. I do see them moderating a lot better lately so they are trying, for example you cant call people out by name at all or you get your post removed.

10 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

And even with many on ignore, some people will seem very reasonable in one post and then like they're trolling me in another post (or trolling another person, I watch it happening to other people on here too).

That said, I don't know if participation is lower overall, but if it is, you're almost certainly right that the environment has something to do with it. I recall one thread not that far back where someone came in citing their extensive experience with other MMOs and criticizing some (I thought pretty minor) aspects of GW2 and got taunted for it and then fell right into the trap and fought back, and the thread devolved quickly. I can't imagine they were thrilled at the idea of coming back here after that.

I feel you, I wont name names but some people just want to counter any point I make and when I respond to them directly I get many confused faces as a response.

Honestly the answer is moderation even if it potentially a freedom of speech sort of issue, it is better than alterative which is toxic trolling (Sounds like me and you do a little bit of that 😛). If your are restricted to only talking about the game I believe it creates a more friendly Environment 🙂

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

1 hour ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I don't know if I'd agree with you on the reasons why, but these are definitely one of the worst forum environments I've seen. I want to say worst by far, but I have changed some over the years, so I don't know if some of it is me being less tolerant of BS. The subreddit isn't much better.

To put it in perspective, on most forums over the years, I get into very few conflicts and almost never face any kind of moderation action for it. On here, I had to ignore a ton of people and block emojis to get close to a point where I could avoid the taunting because I'd defend myself after being taunted and then I'd get in trouble (same thing on the subreddit too). And even with many on ignore, some people will seem very reasonable in one post and then like they're trolling me in another post (or trolling another person, I watch it happening to other people on here too).

That said, I don't know if participation is lower overall, but if it is, you're almost certainly right that the environment has something to do with it. I recall one thread not that far back where someone came in citing their extensive experience with other MMOs and criticizing some (I thought pretty minor) aspects of GW2 and got taunted for it and then fell right into the trap and fought back, and the thread devolved quickly. I can't imagine they were thrilled at the idea of coming back here after that.

In my case, I seem to have trouble learning my lesson and staying away. If there was any other way to even pretend I could reach the developers with feedback, I'd prob never come back here. Like the virtual equivalent of a suggestion box or something. I really don't need to discuss or argue every thought I have about the game with some forum regulars.

I've been visiting forums myself for over two decades now.  I can say with great certainty that the GW2 forum... isn't that bad.  I've seen worse... FAR worse.  For one, I've been banned from two separate forums because my politics disagreed with the mods.  One of them had gotten so bad over the years that the only people who ever posted there was the moderators themselves.  But, when it comes down to the sheer spite and vile of the community, the worst one I ever went to was the Megaman Battle Network section of GameFAQs.  It was a bit like living in The Boys universe, where the most respected people around are such huge kittenholes that not even light can escape.  I won't go too far into details, but I angered some of the "top players" there over something trivial, and they were using my name as a synonym for stupid for years afterwards.  I became a figurative devil to those people, all because I wanted to find action replay codes for a single player game.

I've experienced something similar to that in other places, particularly the official capcom forums (of which I never signed up).  See, I didn't know what a company fanboy was.  I consider things by their individual merit, and if there's a good company I am well aware that this can be temporary and change at a moment's notice.  If Arenanet released a puzzle game or a WW2 tactical simulator, I wouldn't pick it up just because it has the Arenanet logo on it.  But company fanboys would, and they would defend this decision with criminal amounts of copium.  There's official forums for plenty of companies (Nintendo, Sega, etc), and they're usually cesspools because of these company fanboys.  And this... is just what I've seen from forums pertaining to specific games.  I've never checked it out myself, but I hear that the Sonic Fandom and their related forums are the worst.  However I digress...

 

----------------------------------------

 

I'm weird in a sense.  I tend to avoid the stronger professions while gravitating toward the weaker ones.  There's a basic reasoning to it, assuming that the rarer a class or profession is in this game the more valuable it is.  Though that isn't true for this game, it is one of those principles that holds steady in a lot of places, so it continues to influence my actions on a subconscious level.  This makes me one of those annoying players who shifts professions constantly, yet somehow I'm always unsatisfied with it.  Right now the two I play the most are ele and thief, which are next to warrior in regard for the worst professions in the game.  Though, as it happens, I actually like those two.  Ele, particularly weaver, is quite fun to play, and the Thief's toolbox lets me accomplish a lot of things very easily.  

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I've been visiting forums myself for over two decades now.  I can say with great certainty that the GW2 forum... isn't that bad.  I've seen worse... FAR worse.  For one, I've been banned from two separate forums because my politics disagreed with the mods.  One of them had gotten so bad over the years that the only people who ever posted there was the moderators themselves.  But, when it comes down to the sheer spite and vile of the community, the worst one I ever went to was the Megaman Battle Network section of GameFAQs.  It was a bit like living in The Boys universe, where the most respected people around are such huge kittenholes that not even light can escape.  I won't go too far into details, but I angered some of the "top players" there over something trivial, and they were using my name as a synonym for stupid for years afterwards.  I became a figurative devil to those people, all because I wanted to find action replay codes for a single player game.

I've experienced something similar to that in other places, particularly the official capcom forums (of which I never signed up).  See, I didn't know what a company fanboy was.  I consider things by their individual merit, and if there's a good company I am well aware that this can be temporary and change at a moment's notice.  If Arenanet released a puzzle game or a WW2 tactical simulator, I wouldn't pick it up just because it has the Arenanet logo on it.  But company fanboys would, and they would defend this decision with criminal amounts of copium.  There's official forums for plenty of companies (Nintendo, Sega, etc), and they're usually cesspools because of these company fanboys.  And this... is just what I've seen from forums pertaining to specific games.  I've never checked it out myself, but I hear that the Sonic Fandom and their related forums are the worst.  However I digress...

 

----------------------------------------

 

I'm weird in a sense.  I tend to avoid the stronger professions while gravitating toward the weaker ones.  There's a basic reasoning to it, assuming that the rarer a class or profession is in this game the more valuable it is.  Though that isn't true for this game, it is one of those principles that holds steady in a lot of places, so it continues to influence my actions on a subconscious level.  This makes me one of those annoying players who shifts professions constantly, yet somehow I'm always unsatisfied with it.  Right now the two I play the most are ele and thief, which are next to warrior in regard for the worst professions in the game.  Though, as it happens, I actually like those two.  Ele, particularly weaver, is quite fun to play, and the Thief's toolbox lets me accomplish a lot of things very easily.  

Well that sounds pretty awful, you've got any forum experience I've had for worst beat (not that it's a competition). I did have someone harassing me one time on and off for a while on one forum, but that wasn't really the fault of the forum itself, more just that person being a few hinges short of a functioning door. At the time anyway, can't say if they still are or if they got to a healthier state of mind later.

I will say, game forums being noticeably worse than other kinds def tracks with my experience.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Voyant.1327]

Most of the people I've introduced to the game quit for three reasons: Classes, Story, Collections.

Most would be they can't find a class they enjoy playing or if they enjoy it its ineffective number wise.

I myself only like one spec in current version & am worried they'll nerf that too. 

But yes this is a very real issue, the balance is so off that a lot of things just don't feel fun for a lot of people. Then they release patches like the upcoming one when people still have traits that don't work or entire traitlines need gone through. 

So right now if you work hard enough, get good enough gear, you might be able to make your class enjoyable in spite of the current balance is the vibe OR you can be good if you have at least 2 friends to follow you around with buffs OR play Firebrand/Mechanist/Whatever was overpowered the last patch til they nerf it. 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Yeh. I like the design of Warrior and Thief particularly, but I also like every other class. I play at least one denomination of every class that exists.

 

I just have a slowly festering hangup with warrior specs largely being significantly more difficult to play in competitive environments than other classes for years on end (with Anet shipping Bladesworn instead of which is comparatively too easy and less interactive), so I'm here to be sarcastic and toxic about it until they ban me for whining too much. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Voyant.1327 said:

Most of the people I've introduced to the game quit for three reasons: Classes, Story, Collections.

Most would be they can't find a class they enjoy playing or if they enjoy it its ineffective number wise.

I myself only like one spec in current version & am worried they'll nerf that too. 

But yes this is a very real issue, the balance is so off that a lot of things just don't feel fun for a lot of people. Then they release patches like the upcoming one when people still have traits that don't work or entire traitlines need gone through. 

So right now if you work hard enough, get good enough gear, you might be able to make your class enjoyable in spite of the current balance is the vibe OR you can be good if you have at least 2 friends to follow you around with buffs OR play Firebrand/Mechanist/Whatever was overpowered the last patch til they nerf it. 

I believe most people leave due to new player experience which doesn't quite feel like a good MMO standard. I mean ESO starts you off an isolated island with lots of story interactions. Even if the content does turn into dull boring quests with almost no difficulty it has a much better new player experience.

I mean what are players told in GW2 to do(via the content):

1. Get games expansions
2. Level 80 boost a character
3. Get Raptor mount
4. Play content that can net you Exotic gear
   1. Dungeons
   2. HoT maps
   3. Crafting
   4. Gold -> Trading post

I mean no one explicitly tells you to do this but is the most effective way to play.

[Doggie.3184]

I used to but Thief has gone through the meat grinder over and over too much and is way too overshadowed by everything now.

Necromancer and Ranger have always been great back up classes for me though, and now Engineer is just much wow. 

Kinda funny/sad, ever since I saw the Thief trailer for GW2 10~ years ago I always wanted to be a Pistol/Dagger Thief because of how cool it looked, but thanks to the bad AA, annoying teleport backwards, bad AoE pre/post ricochet, and low damage for ages I could never really enjoy it. After the old rework it's even more annoying having to spam a skill after the teleport as fast as possible without accidentally using shadow strike again and relying on an animation cancel glitch.

It was only ever useable at all in WvW at most during early days, especially when Obsidian Sanctum was active and fulla enclosed spaces during a time when damage scaling didnt kill Thief in 1 hit. But they literally slapped the P/D from my dreams onto Necromancer instead along with the deleted Thief trait Ricochet being their baseline AA. Like how can I be happy for Thief? XD Their signature themes are just better on others.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I used to but Thief has gone through the meat grinder over and over too much and is way too overshadowed by everything now.

Necromancer and Ranger have always been great back up classes for me though, and now Engineer is just much wow. 

Kinda funny/sad, ever since I saw the Thief trailer for GW2 10~ years ago I always wanted to be a Pistol/Dagger Thief because of how cool it looked, but thanks to the bad AA, annoying teleport backwards, bad AoE pre/post ricochet, and low damage for ages I could never really enjoy it. After the old rework it's even more annoying having to spam a skill after the teleport as fast as possible without accidentally using shadow strike again and relying on an animation cancel glitch.

It was only ever useable at all in WvW at most during early days, especially when Obsidian Sanctum was active and fulla enclosed spaces during a time when damage scaling didnt kill Thief in 1 hit. But they literally slapped the P/D from my dreams onto Necromancer instead along with the deleted Thief trait Ricochet being their baseline AA. Like how can I be happy for Thief? XD Their signature themes are just better on others.

Thief is so wierd as a class. 

For PvE it is so one dimensional that you end uo spaming the most effective skill for your resources. At the high level of play I guess you can adapt your skill rotation to anticipate enemy reactions but this is very hard to do. I.E. Staff vualt over attacks. 

For PVP it get over nerfed simple due to the fact that stealth can be so OP (basicly zero counter play for someone who uses stealth.) 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mell.4873

[kiri.1467]

I like playing the game.

[DeanBB.4268]

On 8/13/2022 at 7:03 PM, Labjax.2465 said:

As I understand it, a more accurate predictor in whether someone sticks around with an MMO in the long-term is whether they have connections in the game (friends/guild/etc.). 

This is true. I installed Tower of Fantasy, since my son is interested in playing it. Still waiting to see if he enjoys it. If so, I'll invest time in it so we can play together, and invite other family members. We'll see.

In GW2, I have a bunch of characters. I'll play one until I tire of it, then move on to another. So it's never about a "main" but more of a "main for the moment" if that makes sense. That said, I'm enjoying rifle Mechanist right now, but also include on the list: dual staff mirage (still playing through the entire story with this character), dual pistol thief (including various elites), dual axe warrior, dragonhunter, greatsword chronomancer, axe/axe/warhorn ranger (various elites), flamethrower scrapper. I have an off and on relationship with various forms of necromancer.

So really the only professions that I really haven't bonded with are elementalist and revenant. I've sure tried, though.

[Ryou.2398]

On 8/12/2022 at 10:18 AM, Diak Atoli.2085 said:

No.

Welcome to the internet, and the GW2 forums.

So mmos are not known from balance issues constantly? I guess ive been mandala effected again.