Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[PACOX]

I desperately hope we get a DX11/12 update for End of Dragons. I'm seriously getting really annoyed with my FPS dipping or staying in the 40's despite having a solid computer (32GB DDR4, i5-10600, 3070) and changing graphics settings does little to nothing. And yes, I'm on the 64 bit client. The game desperately needs performance improvements so we can actually enjoy it a bit, and maybe a bit less visual clutter so that we can actually see something in a world boss fight.

Yeah the game does is CPU bound. Even then its to a single core. They game can actually run on machines with crap GPUs if they have enough RAM and a decent CPU, and of course can/will run graphic on monster PCs.

https://github.com/megai2/d912pxy

A DX12 wrapper for GW2. It boosts FPS in most cases. Not as good as Anet actually having a DX11/12 client but better than nothing for most people.

[Edge-]

Oh the fuck? You need to grind out garbage DRM defense tokens to unlock more masteries for Dragon Slayer?

I haven't even looked at most of the rewards but there are a ton of really cool skins in there. I'm sad they gated all this stuff behind god-awful DRM's and I don't think I have it in me to grind this shit out even if I want the rewards.

May just finish the bloody Waystation track and say fuck it with the rest of the Dragon Slayer masteries. Good lord, just when I'm "getting back into the game" I'm reminded of why I loathe the way Anet designs their grinds.

[Edge-]

bUt ThErE's No VeRtIcaL PrOgReSsIoN

Honestly, that whole line pisses me off a little. I could be back up and running at full speed in WoW at any time, ready to play any role of my class, ready to jump into any content.

GW2 technically doesn't have a gear grind and technically doesn't have traditional progression, but damn if there's not constantly grinds all up in your face in one form or another. I couldn't even loot the chests at Drakkar when I did it the other day, never got those masteries!

It's not vertical progression though, especially since it's for stuff that's only relevant to that story content. It's very much horizontal progression just...a shitty grind for it. It's all absolutely optional shit, and I'm going to treat it that way and probably never bother with it unless it's absolutely necessary for some achieves with good rewards or something.

Anet just sucks at consistently finding ways to add grinds without making the grinds awful. Some are good, but plenty are like this garbage where the only way to progress through it is by doing content literally nobody actually likes.

[PACOX]

If you you're talking about the weapons, my issue is the costs more than the grind. It takes too much gold to finish the sets. I know one person who bothered doing to whole thing and that's only because they are a completionist. Sad because some of the skins look great.

[Greyvax]

Anet just sucks at consistently finding ways to add grinds without making the grinds awful. Some are good, but plenty are like this garbage where the only way to progress through it is by doing content literally nobody actually likes.

it really sucked having to suffer through RvR for the legendary i did (astralaria). it wasn't the worst thing in the world but i'd never step foot into rvr after doing the bare minimum currency i needed.

[Edge-]

If you you're talking about the weapons, my issue is the costs more than the grind. It takes too much gold to finish the sets. I know one person who bothered doing to whole thing and that's only because they are a completionist. Sad because some of the skins look great.

No, but I saw those weapons and quite a few look great. Would love to have those skins.

It's more that the first 3 masteries are "free", but 4-6 require you to spend DRM tokens to unlock them...which you then have to still get the XP bar full and get the MP's to actually "acquire". I genuinely don't understand why they'd do this beyond realizing that they knew nobody would like the shitty DRM's, they knew they wouldn't keep folks occupied long, so they felt they had to get as much as they could behind farming content that nobody liked. And didn't bother adjusting their approach after finding out nobody liked DRM's after the first one.

- - - Updated - - -

I know, I know, it's technically not vertical and all that. It's just that I always feel more barriers between me and [thing I feel like doing] in GW2 than in other games. Even if it's just gold or stupid masteries, or agony resistance, or doing a living story chapter or other "technically not vertical" systems.

I can dig this on many levels. Needing to keep zone wiki's open so I know when the event I need will pop in the 2 hour reset window, and camping other event locations just waiting for them so I can finish an achievement is like, boring. GW2 has a lot of pointless hurdles for the sake of grinding and waiting rather than for any real gameplay reason. I don't mind working for shit, I've got my gryphon, I've got my beetle, I've got my skyscale (haven't bothered with warcat yet). But fuckin hell is the pacing/amount of grind for a lot of the achieves/rewards WAY off, IMO.

[PACOX]

No, but I saw those weapons and quite a few look great. Would love to have those skins.

It's more that the first 3 masteries are "free", but 4-6 require you to spend DRM tokens to unlock them...which you then have to still get the XP bar full and get the MP's to actually "acquire". I genuinely don't understand why they'd do this beyond realizing that they knew nobody would like the shitty DRM's, they knew they wouldn't keep folks occupied long, so they felt they had to get as much as they could behind farming content that nobody liked. And didn't bother adjusting their approach after finding out nobody liked DRM's after the first one.

Ooooh yeah forgot about needing to buy a 'useless item from obscure vendor' for the masteries. When the masteries were 'fresh' you could trade resources for the tokens so I never noticed. I can see how the system is annoying. Well it is annoying. And its not like the actual masteries are great.

[Edge-]

And its not like the actual masteries are great.

Yeah, this is what I'm kinda resting on at this point. I might go for them eventually, but probably not.

For now I'm content to hang around in Grothmar and some of the other zones slowly working on completing those achieves. I guess the least I can do is wrap up the last few Drizzlewood masteries because why not.

[Svifnymr]

I've been trying to catch up, but it's just soooo tedious. Been doing one a day for the story, and looks like I'm still a while out from finishing them. I mostly gave up on actually hearing what the NPCs are saying. They always pick the worst times to talk and it's been a lot of dumb stuff anyway.

[Edge-]

I've been trying to catch up, but it's just soooo tedious. Been doing one a day for the story, and looks like I'm still a while out from finishing them. I mostly gave up on actually hearing what the NPCs are saying. They always pick the worst times to talk and it's been a lot of dumb stuff anyway.

Whereabouts are you at? Thankfully most of the updates are "short"...just the DRM missions can be annoying since a lot of the enemies are pretty spongey.

[PACOX]

Yeah, this is what I'm kinda resting on at this point. I might go for them eventually, but probably not.

For now I'm content to hang around in Grothmar and some of the other zones slowly working on completing those achieves. I guess the least I can do is wrap up the last few Drizzlewood masteries because why not.

The Drizzlewood masteries are actually useful if you like open world stuff. And this is after they nerfed some of them.

[Svifnymr]

Whereabouts are you at? Thankfully most of the updates are "short"...just the DRM missions can be annoying since a lot of the enemies are pretty spongey.

I just did the dwarf keep zone thing yesterday. Doing them alone on my Chronomancer is super tedious, especially with the useless NPCs that can't handle one little crab.

Just did Lake Doric, tomorrow will be Snowden, which I guess completes Chapter 2. Then however many are in Chapters 3 & 4.

[Svifnymr]

Mesmer is so frustrating.

It's interesting in so many ways, but just feels terrible for "everyday" play. I keep saying I'm going to play mine, but then I remember.

I like to have one character to use for story, and chose my mesmer and have mostly stuck with her. The main frustrating part is that sometimes in a section clones fool monsters, sometimes they don't, and if there is a pattern I haven't found it. So some of these mass battles, every enemy just runs at me, ignoring the NPCs and my clones and everything. I don't really use my mesmer for day to day stuff, since I like a dual pistol thief for running around.

It has always irritated me that they try to put these "challenge" encounters into the story missions, rather than having more optional elements if you wanted it more difficult. Yes, I can figure out the simplistic patterns, but it just gets tedious once you figure it out but still need to run though 15 cycles of them to move onto the next plot element that is probably stupid anyway...

[Svifnymr]

Well, I have successfully slain the dragons!
I am a great hero, shooting them in the face with a laser!

I didn't mind they kill each other" aspect so much as the lack of actual graphical battle, rather than a bobbing head on either side. The champion battle part was a good example of what I complain about constantly though. Do some CC to break a bar, zap someone over and over and over while avoiding AE effects, then repeat the entire process over and over again. Once you've gotten the pattern, failure isn't an option, so continuing the battle just gets tedious.

The Mouth of Mord final cinematic wasn't very long, but was a lot more dynamic at least.

My main issue with GW2 currently is that they seem to think everyone is invested in the NPCs, and they didn't really do enough with them to make me invested at all. Adding in that some of the decisions and dialogue are obviously stupid things to say or do, it's just not engaging.

[PACOX]

I think the Mouth of Mordremoth fight is pretty boring. BUT it has a cool lead up going to it. The instanced fight is fun though.


Kralk's meta is way too long. The open world fight is fun but pretty simple. I don't remember much of the instanced fight.

Primo/Jormag have no open world lead up to their fight or instance that takes place after the overworld fight. It's just the overworld...a big departure from the other dragons. In think comparatively it's the most fun out of the 3 'world boss' phases of killing the dragons, technically, mechanically, and visually it's really lacking its own map and post event to really sell it though. It's like you just got an entree when you waiting all day for a meal. No matter how good that entree is you're going to be hungry.

The dragons could have gone out like Zhaitan

[Svifnymr]

The Mouth fight on the islands is pretty boring, yeah. The instance was neat in some ways, but had it's irritating stuff. But I liked the final quick little cinematic where the defeated dragon-form spikes itself on the tree. It was not a complicated scene by any means, but compared to dragons breathing at each other, it's the bestest ever.

Kralk's meta is okay, the instances leading up to it (trapping in cave and flying Aurene-the-bomber) were so-so, but I did like the "mind of kralk" instance with the corruption.

The Jormag/Primordus finale felt more like Shatterer or Tequatl than a real lead up, though obviously it's different.

[Edge-]

My main issue with GW2 currently is that they seem to think everyone is invested in the NPCs, and they didn't really do enough with them to make me invested at all. Adding in that some of the decisions and dialogue are obviously stupid things to say or do, it's just not engaging.

IMO they planned out the supporting cast poorly. Half the OG cast are gone (Zojja is never coming back) or are brought back every once in a while for a hot second before they go back behind the curtain. The newer cast has been shifted around a bit (Brox/Brax? whatever the char hunter is has been MIA with the nature char, which is sad because I actually quite enjoyed the interactions she had with Bram) and it seems that who is involved with what and when is kinda arbitrary.

Like, I got where they were going with, "Hey, you liked Destiny's Edge even if you didn't read the book explaining how they came to be? Cool, we're gonna basically just remake it!" and I was kinda here for it, but it feels very haphazard when I look back at it.

I very much agree in that I don't think most players are invested in the supporting cast as much as Anet thinks we/they are. I know a lot of folks have a favorite character (Taimi is mine, <3 Taimi even if she's kinda ridiculous in the context of the story), but it hardly feels like much of a group anymore.

I don't remember much of the instanced fight.

IIRC there were a few parts - fighting him in the caves/underground structure where his head is poking through the walls. Fighting him flying through the air on Aurene. Fighting him in the dreamworld or whatever. I haven't played it since it came out, but I remember actually being pretty impressed with the buildup and way that fight played out overall. Felt proper like, epic and shit, like fighting a dragon should be.

And MoM may be piss easy now (especially with mounts and some of the new stat combos/specializations), but IMO it's a great way to play out a bigger fight like that to end the "main content" of an expansion. The whole buildup throughout the zone, a need to coordinate a bit without getting too crazy, and a pretty epic setting for the final fight (even if it's not difficult) where you end up literally climbing up part of the body of the Mouth to get to your loot.

[Svifnymr]

IMO they planned out the supporting cast poorly. Half the OG cast are gone (Zojja is never coming back) or are brought back every once in a while for a hot second before they go back behind the curtain. The newer cast has been shifted around a bit (Brox/Brax? whatever the char hunter is has been MIA with the nature char, which is sad because I actually quite enjoyed the interactions she had with Bram) and it seems that who is involved with what and when is kinda arbitrary.

Rox was in the dragon mission in, er, Sparkfly I think. She probably reappeared in the finale too, but who really noticed non-mech characters in that. I never felt any real attachment to the OG cast either though. I liked Rytlock well enough, but I certainly don't care about his cub and that stuff. Explore more of his Revenant discovery maybe. I did like the charr zone though for the living story, so I dunno. Zojja, Eir, both non-characters to me. Caithe was okay and Logan at least had some impact.
The new team, I like Taimi, even if a lot of the early elements of her were sort of irksome when having an Asuran character since you're just ignored obviously. Kasmeer was fun in Southsun, then ever since has just been empty. Marjory is still likable.

Braham took Eir's blandness and made it even irritating, especially with the dialogue choices my character was forced to make when dealing with his stupidity. And that's ignoring his repeatedly using the dome push back!

Like, I got where they were going with, "Hey, you liked Destiny's Edge even if you didn't read the book explaining how they came to be? Cool, we're gonna basically just remake it!" and I was kinda here for it, but it feels very haphazard when I look back at it.

I very much agree in that I don't think most players are invested in the supporting cast as much as Anet thinks we/they are. I know a lot of folks have a favorite character (Taimi is mine, <3 Taimi even if she's kinda ridiculous in the context of the story), but it hardly feels like much of a group anymore.

It's like they took the question of "how do you do an individual hero movie once the Avengers are a thing. You need to justify why Thor doesn't show up in the Antman movie!" discussion and said "what if we just make all the characters mostly worthless and then we can just trickle in a couple here and there and no one will care".

There's a ton of tertiary characters that appeared throughout living story and original 1-80 quests that could have minor fleshed out roles and be used more situationally without trying to pretend they're important.

[Zmagoslav]

The character situation is doubly weird if you missed LS1.

Imagine leveling up and going through the story with one set of characters and the story around them and then BAM they're practically all gone and you have this new squad of people out of nowhere. Characters with no real history in the game or setting from your perspective.

Another "new player experience" bit of weirdness from the game.

Been there, done exactly that...
After 2 expansions the "new" members still feel very off.

[Edge-]

After 2 expansions the "new" members still feel very off.

I think that's because of how haphazardly they've been used. I need to replay through the base game again at some point, but IIRC Dragons Edge felt more cohesive. Like, characters that went away for a bit felt like they had a reason to and returned when they were done with whatever, and you're collectively gathered fairly frequently.

HoT and beyond it's been an inconsistent hodgepodge. I can't even remember where Marjorie and Belinda (I think?) are supposed to be nowadays, and I liked those two quite a bit so I'm sad they've basically disappeared.

Finally logged in to check out the big balance update and...I have no thoughts. Figured they'd sort issues yesterday, but went to my equipment tab to swap sets over to my FB stuff and insta-crashed. Poking around reddit/forums, apparently this is not exactly the best update. Mantra changes for mesmers kinda ruined them (but great for FB), they weirdly kept the "need to cast them" mantra icons for FB rather than the "ready to go" icons, CC is supposed to show as purple but shows as red, folks who could get swiftness/fury durations to insane lengths (upwards of a minute) still seeing those times on the skills despite the buffs being capped at 30s.

I gotta say, after the underwhelming second half of IBS I was hoping for a better/more polished balance pass than this. I can only hope that the same skeleton crew working on IBS also did this and the majority of the team is working on EoD because like, it still feels like there's a big quality dip and that Anet doesn't exactly know where they even want to take the game.