Guild Wars 2

The game needs far more enemy movement. If enemies moved out of AoEs, kited you, and dashed around like players would do in PvP, then we’ll see more uses for control.

If we got boons you need to strip from mobs (e.g. 100% damage negation or 200% damage), then we’ll see uses for boon stripping.

If we got conditions you need to remove (15% current HP lost per second until removed, or death in 7 seconds unless purged), we’ll see more need for condition removal.

Those are basic things from other MMOs which are the common starting points to enable everything to be useful, yet GW2 doesn’t have it. It doesn’t make sense to me.

@Xae
Yes, basically that. Toxic Alliance mobs exemplify just how much can be added to the sheer class viability through diversity with how little in enemy behaviour.

Now imagine if there were more mob types. Some which stealth and only reappear at opportunistic moments (like the thingies in XCOM). Most dodge AE. Some don’t. Some have crucial boons. Others have crucial conditions. We already have the tags, everyone knows what the mobs do, so…

Carighan.6758:

@Xae
Yes, basically that. Toxic Alliance mobs exemplify just how much can be added to the sheer class viability through diversity with how little in enemy behaviour.

Now imagine if there were more mob types. Some which stealth and only reappear at opportunistic moments (like the thingies in XCOM). Most dodge AE. Some don’t. Some have crucial boons. Others have crucial conditions. We already have the tags, everyone knows what the mobs do, so…

We got this really cool combat system built around reactive combat and constant movement, yet enemy types encourage anything but that. It’s a waste of potential.

Auesis.7301:

Everything is viable. Everything is NOT optimal.

Key difference.

My preferred language is ‘competitive’, but yes, ‘viable’ gets thrown around way too much.

To me you achieve viability pretty much at “I can walk out of a city map and the game doesn’t crash”. I get the feeling it’s misused mostly to create false dichotomy – since the word actually indicates the difference between alive and dead, people using it are trying to force the impression that builds are binary in their effectiveness, when in reality there is a whole spectrum of performance levels and any cutoff point is pretty much arbitrarily chosen. “Competitive” promotes the idea that there is a range in levels of effectiveness that all have a reasonable shot at winning. Notice how we don’t generally use the word viable when discussing sports teams (unless they are really, really bad… ).

Actually the existence of a build that is ‘optimal’ (as in superior to all other choices) across a large range of encounters is pretty much a sign that it needs to get stepped on/nerfed because that’s the product of bad design .

Harper.4173:

Those that are here want GW2 for what it is.

If that were broadly true we wouldn’t need updates at all, because you know, the game would be finished/complete as is…

Everything is viable. Everything is NOT optimal.

…
Actually the existence of a build that is ‘optimal’ (as in superior to all other choices) across a large range of encounters is pretty much a sign that it needs to get stepped on/nerfed because that’s the product of bad design

/agree
By every design standard I’ve read; Optimal is just Imbalance with good PR.

Great points Nike.

Nike.2631:

Harper.4173:

Those that are here want GW2 for what it is.

If that were broadly true we wouldn’t need updates at all, because you know, the game would be finished/complete as is…

Updates that improve Quality of life and bring new content are one thing. Updates that completely change the game’s original design paradigm are a completely different thing.
And I think you realize this as well. Hopefully.

People want more stuff added in the game – weapons, armor, zones. They want better balance.
I doubt they want the game to be reinvented after 2 years of it being out. The crowd that has stuck with GW2 so far has done so because while GW2 is lacking in some regards the overall experience is that they are satisfied with the game. If they weren’t they would have left.

That’s why I find it highly implausible that people actually want this to become WoW 2.0.

Every class has support, but all that support can also be done in berserker gear. Simple really.

Nike.2631:

Actually the existence of a build that is ‘optimal’ (as in superior to all other choices) across a large range of encounters is pretty much a sign that it needs to get stepped on/nerfed because that’s the product of bad design .

Looking realistically at how game balance works, there is always going to be SOMETHING about a class/comp or encounter that is the optimal approach. I hope you’re not proposing a feedback loop where we continuously nerf whatever seems to be the best option in a given circumstance until we’re left with…well, pretty much nothing.

I think what he means is that we should seek to make several builds as possible optimal strategies, rather than having just one on a class that trumps all. There should be options. For example, as a necromancer I know that with my conditions I’ll quickly hit the condition cap, or hit immunities of bosses (not to mention bosses like Tequatl ignore them completely). And I know my minions have pretty terrible AI. So going full power is the optimum strategy, and that should never be the case. Both conditions and minions should work well enough.

The same can be said about for example the guardian. Are reflects and full DPS the optimum strategy? Or can full defense with massive armor also be a good strategy? Right now it is not.

As long as there is one objective (kill your enemy) things like going full defense will not work optimally. Change objective to something like hold few points simultaneously (like in pvp) while enemy offense isn’t threatening enough to overpower you with its offense and you’re set.

I’m really interested to hear ideas of encounters where tanking would be a better strategy than a full damage with reasonable difficulty and without gimmicks.

So no stat ignoring environmental weapons or boss killing itself if you tank its hits.

Tanking. GW2.

Pick one.

The game is specifically designed so that you don’t tank. Still some people have somewhat managed to do it. Why would you want to play an encounter based on getting hit and going ’ Thank you sir may I have another? ’

I can understand you can want an encounter where you have to outlast, or survive a vicious attack. But why tank it? How is that in any way fun?

It would be better if it was an encounter where you had to dodge and do it well, evade and use active defense to keep yourself alive.

Wethospu.6437:

I’m really interested to hear ideas of encounters where tanking would be a better strategy than a full damage with reasonable difficulty and without gimmicks.

So no stat ignoring environmental weapons or boss killing itself if you tank its hits.

If we look at shortest possible completion times as the main goal, then there’s hardly any strategy better than full damage unless we use gimmicks or just make it unviable.
IMHO, full damage should always be the most efficient setup time wise. The current complaints (in my case at least :P) are probably more about risk-reward (sometimes, too many times I would say, the full damage approach is even among the safest ones you can use).
As an example of a more balanced fight, I present a Marionette fractalized version, which is obviously gimmicky as hell :P

After a BRIEF introduction, player might activate the event and be sent to one of the Marionette lanes.
While on the lane, waves of enemies spawn. The initial wave consists on 6 enemies, and another wave of 3 random enemies appears whenever there are less than 4 foes alive, so the group is facing 4-6 enemies at any time.
In order to prevent players from endlessly kiting a group of 4 enemies (which could be of 4 melees at some points due to RNG spawn, for example) and encourage killing, they receive a “charged” buff every few (lets say 10) seconds, which increases their damage output by 25% each and might provide additional strengths (1st one might provide a 50% increased speed, 2nd immunity to CC and 3rd immunity to conditons, for example)

In the meanwhile, there’s a priory NPC calibrating the portal (he will be attacked if all players go stealth for a long time or something like that, causing a wipe and reseting the whole event), which takes one minute.
Once the portal is active, any amount of players can go through it and face the warden in order to destroy the generator and sever one chain (enemies keep spawning on lanes though, so the group needs to split).
The portal remains open until a timer (1 minute too) expires or the generator is destroyed. If the timer expires with some players (dead or alive, the second ones instantly dying to a marionette massive attack) still on the platform, they will remain there and won’t be reachable for a res until the calibration rotation selects that platform again. On top of this, the failure progress bar would increase (the increase would depend on the fractal level).
Players that take part on a succesful platform fight are ported back to the lane and receive a 3 minute debuff that prevents them from using another portal. Then, the calibration stage starts again and the cycle repeats until the event fails and full resets (the failure progress bar fills or the priory guy dies) or all 5 chains are severed.

Platform fights are time sensitive, so the faster you can deal with wardens, the sooner the fractal will be finished. In this sense, full offense has the potential to deliver the best results (I can’t see a reason for this to not happen tbh :P), but there are several details that could encourage players to try something different.

- Since they keep respawning, it doesn’t matter how fast the players on the lane can deal with enemies. That’s a quite long attrition fight and likely to be harder on full damage specs.
We’ve already seen full damage groups succeeding on this kind of enviroments, like the CoF 2 gate event or the old dredge clown car (even if damage absolutely mattered there, it was still an attrition fight), so this would be doable too, just harder.

- The faster you kill wardens, the sooner the next platform fight will happen. In this situation, the platform debuff might cause no players being available to handle a warden, not only failing that fight and bringing the whole event closer to a failure, but also wasting 2 minutes (which is more than enough to make a full offensive setup useless).
If short platform fights are the goal, then no more than a single player should fight each warden (excepting, probably, the last ones). While a full offensive spec would achieve a faster kill, it would also be squishier (specially without team support) and just a single mistake could be disastrous if there’s no other player available as reinforcement (by sending a single player to each fight, there’s always another one, more likely two of them, available for this, but there could be none if failures are too common).
More balanced specs could do the same with arguably less risk of failure and without causing a huge increase on the completion time (maybe 1-2 minutes, for an event that’s likely to last about 6 minutes at least). Also, since there would be likely 2 players that would not need to fight at platforms, there’d be room for some kind of tank/healer spec in the group (this is also true for a full offensive group).
If shortest time is not the goal, duos would be totally viable at each fight for a much more safe approach (in this case, at the expense of a decent amount of time).

The time wise optimal approach is still full damage (as it should be), but the risk vs reward ratio could promote some kind of diversity for safety reasons (a failure means a HUGE waste of time).
In terms of gameplay (not necessarily gear stats), the lane fight could use of A LOT of control and even appreciate some healing support. Since they would be fought with 1-2 players, wardens could also be much more vulnerable to CC than usual champions and condition specs could be interesting instead of a burden for the group.

That’s not balanced at all since by prolonging fights you have it easier. What stops people from snaring and slowing down mobs and run around because you set pointless time barrier?

haviz.1340:

That’s not balanced at all since by prolonging fights you have it easier. What stops people from snaring and slowing down mobs and run around because you set pointless time barrier?

That’s why lane mobs get stronger over time.
After 30 seconds of snare they hit close to twice as hard, run faster than players and can not be controlled neither by CC nor conditions.
The lane itself is an attrition fight, so it’s prefectly OK to control mobs for a while in order to buy time, but you still want to kill them sooner than later, way before they start hitting like a truck and become immune to CC, blind or any other tool that could allow to dispatch them easy.

Doesn’t that favor damage? If they get stronger over time you want to kill them before they get strong enough. Kiting is really easy in PvE so damage specs could probably just range them down.

But yeah, time gated encounters kind of equalizes different builds.

Wethospu.6437:

Doesn’t that favor damage? If they get stronger over time you want to kill them before they get strong enough. Kiting is really easy in PvE so damage specs could probably just range them down.

But yeah, time gated encounters kind of equalizes different builds.

Doesn’t exactly FAVOR damage, but it requires SOME damage, both for the platforms and probably for the lane too. A staff #1 spamming full cleric guardian group would fail the event, and I totally support it :P
Also, even if a RNG spawn could eventually create a heavy melee wave (which would be the ideal situation for kiting a little bit), there would be still some ranged monster (the one you probably want to kill fast). Heavy ranged spawns (ideal situation for things like reflects) and mixed ones (where you probably want to focus on some type of enemies depending on what CDs are up) would be possible too.

In the current state, some time gated encounters here and there are absolutely a must if designers want to bring some build diversity.

If we look at some fight isolatedly, then high sustain setups have an easier time surviving and recovering from possible mistakes while high damage ones have to deal with a far lesser amount of moves, so lesser chances of making a mistake. Between them we have a whole spectrum of setups achieving different balances of these two advantages.
Despite obvious issues with both extremely survivable setups, laughing at enemy attacks, and extremely damaging ones, killing enemies before they have the chance to become a threat, the whole idea seems pretty balanced.

There’s a problem, however, when we stop isolating the encounter and start looking at the big picture. Any group will receive the same reward for a given content, but the damage oriented one will end it faster and, since the game doesn’t shut down your PC or put a cap on the gold/time ratio (which would be the most stupid design decisssion ever made), will be able to run more content for additional rewards, automatically bacoming a superior choice.
If a higher build diversity is desired by devs, then it’s mandatory to have a mix of:

- Some time gated (or no stat based and quite long) event here and there, effectively reducing the time gap between different setups.

- An overall hard game that gets easier the more sustain the group brings, so it’s each player skill what decides how much towards full damage can be built a character.
While the statement is true, the skill required to perform on a full damage group is still really low for most encounters (almost every exception being allocated on high level fractals), mainly thanks to a crappy AI (allowing the same tactics to work over and over in different scenarios), downed state (easy and fast mistake recovery for almost any setup) and low health pools (allowing to melt enemy champion in a few seconds, before they can become a real threat, specially if the group can use things like reflects or aegis).
The comination of those is specially nocive because encourages full damage specs to group together, not only in order to achieve a more efficient run (which sounds totally reasonable to me) but because some players (maybe a majority) rely on these fast killing tactics more than on their own skill in order to use a damage spec.

Can you define “some damage”? If tanks can’t kill them fast enough they lose their only advantage (tankiness) because the enemies get stronger. If they can kill them fast enough then damage specced players have plenty of free time which they can spend only on kiting (close to zero damage taken, depends on enemy skills and terrain).

Even if total damage taken would be equal (tanks tanking, damage specs kiting), damage dealers would have an advantage because they can burst down enemies easier (thus recover from mistakes). With tanks if you make mistakes you suddenly have buffed enemies and not much you can do about it.

In my opinion just having strong enemies which respawned after some delay would work fine (while being a simpler system). You could burst them, sustain them or kite them. With burst you would take lots of damage but have lots of time with reduced pressure. With sustain you would take some damage and have some time with reduced pressure. With kiting you would take least damage but no time with reduced pressure.

Wethospu.6437:

Can you define “some damage”? If tanks can’t kill them fast enough they lose their only advantage (tankiness) because the enemies get stronger. If they can kill them fast enough then damage specced players have plenty of free time which they can spend only on kiting (close to zero damage taken, depends on enemy skills and terrain).

Even if total damage taken would be equal (tanks tanking, damage specs kiting), damage dealers would have an advantage because they can burst down enemies easier (thus recover from mistakes). With tanks if you make mistakes you suddenly have buffed enemies and not much you can do about it.

SOME could be something allowing 4 man on a damage oriented setup to focus on the minor subset of mobs (lets say 2 ranged) during the first seconds (up to 10, probaly a lot less required) while the melee ones are soft controlled by things like cripple kiting or pushbacks, then weaken the major subset (4 melee in this case) for 10 seconds while aided by harder CC (wards, chills, …) with ranged attacks for another 10 seconds, and finally finish them at melee in a few seconds while protected by blind.
Tankier groups (or groups sending 2 people to the platforms for safety) would need more time for killing the ranged ones (receiving more damage from them, which they should be able to sustain) and engage in close combat (for higher damage output) with the melee ones sooner and for a longer time, relying much more on sustain (natural tankiness and healing, AoE weakness/protection, …) than on blinds.

Wethospu.6437:

In my opinion just having strong enemies which respawned after some delay would work fine (while being a simpler system). You could burst them, sustain them or kite them. With burst you would take lots of damage but have lots of time with reduced pressure. With sustain you would take some damage and have some time with reduced pressure. With kiting you would take least damage but no time with reduced pressure.

My only concern with this is the possibility of an OOC situation. If that’s somehow prevented, then I guess it could still work perfectly fine as an attrition encounter.

Wethospu.6437:

I’m really interested to hear ideas of encounters where tanking would be a better strategy than a full damage with reasonable difficulty and without gimmicks.

So no stat ignoring environmental weapons or boss killing itself if you tank its hits.

How about a low HP,long range boss? Or a boss with a long invulnerability fase? A boss that gets a significant temporary defense boost if a dps threshold is reached? A boss that receives more damage if you stand on a damaging area the longer you stand into it the more damage you do?

Tim.6450:

Wethospu.6437:

I’m really interested to hear ideas of encounters where tanking would be a better strategy than a full damage with reasonable difficulty and without gimmicks.

So no stat ignoring environmental weapons or boss killing itself if you tank its hits.

How about a low HP,long range boss? Or a boss with a long invulnerability fase? A boss that gets a significant temporary defense boost if a dps threshold is reached? A boss that receives more damage if you stand on a damaging area the longer you stand into it the more damage you do?

• Low HP long range boss
  I don’t get what is achieved with this. A Long range boss would probably rely on projectiles, making it easy to burst down in melee while protected by reflects.
  Even if those projectiles are made unblockable (which is a design I totally dislike), there are still high chances on AD mashing being effective.
  Then dodge out any possible AoE and the boss is probably down, easily.

• Long invulnerability phase
  This is just a time gated event, like the one I’ve proposed myself. Full damage is still potentially superior, just by a much lesser degree thanks to the time gating.

• Temporary defense boost if a certain DPS threshold is reached.
  If the defense boost is high enough, this would make groups right below the threshold the optimal ones. If not, full damage groups would still be prefered.
  It’s close to placing a DPS cap, which obviously works but feels terrible design wise (pretty mcuh like uncrittable foes :P).

• Damaging area that boost atack
  It’s an interesting mechanic for a boss but not something you could use over and over.
  It obviously depends on how powerful the received damage and the attack boost are and how much HP the boss has (It already exists in Arah, for example, and full damage setup are still prefered).
  It’s also extremely biased for different classes. Warriors, for example, would not only have an easier time due to highr HP and armor, but could probably use defiant stance too (maybe even Endure Pain depending on the coding) and get boosted and healed at the same time.

Vargamonth.2047:

• Low HP long range boss
  I don’t get what is achieved with this. A Long range boss would probably rely on projectiles, making it easy to burst down in melee while protected by reflects.
  Even if those projectiles are made unblockable (which is a design I totally dislike), there are still high chances on AD mashing being effective.
  Then dodge out any possible AoE and the boss is probably down, easily.

When I said this I had two ideas in mind:
- The first one was a long range sniper of sort but of reason posted above it would be easely countered.
- The second idea was a trap room/hallway with a boss doing nothing but snares until you get in his face and then you can easily kill it. The point would be that the traps would completely surcompass active defenses through numbers and variety. Like you have projectile traps ,spike traps, mines, flamethrowers,… . The respective defenses would still work but there would be so many that the player/team cannot take all of them for the entire fight, at most they could specialize in one or two but not all.

Afterwards I realized that the ranged idea would just be a gear/build check. So to solve that I thought of leaving ‘safe zones’ (a wall , a room not trapped,… ) so that the player/team can recover. People who are more tanky then can move on quicker through the fight while more glassy specs have to take a breather in the ‘safe zones’.

Vargamonth.2047:

• Temporary defense boost if a certain DPS threshold is reached.
  If the defense boost is high enough, this would make groups right below the threshold the optimal ones. If not, full damage groups would still be prefered.
  It’s close to placing a DPS cap, which obviously works but feels terrible design wise (pretty mcuh like uncrittable foes :P).

The idea was a bit more dynamic. Let’s say that every 2K damage the boss in total lost would result in the boss receiving a stackable buff that reduces damage. The buff would disapear after a second so you would have several degrees of damage reduction based on the current damage output. Gearing more dps would still do more damage just very little.

The idea behind it is to shift the risk/reward ratio in such way it would promote a bit more defensive playstyles. Full dps would still be optimal in the reward/time ratio but the risk would be so high it would not be worth it.

Vargamonth.2047:

• Damaging area that boost atack
  It’s an interesting mechanic for a boss but not something you could use over and over.
  It obviously depends on how powerful the received damage and the attack boost are and how much HP the boss has (It already exists in Arah, for example, and full damage setup are still prefered).

Yes I know of what you speak and I think that the full dps setups are still prefered not because that boss but due the other bosses.

It’s also extremely biased for different classes. Warriors, for example, would not only have an easier time due to highr HP and armor, but could probably use defiant stance too (maybe even Endure Pain depending on the coding) and get boosted and healed at the same time.

So? If we have several mechanics that bias different classes and we spread them out fairly without concentraiting them too much (like all arah bosses of a path devalue ranger for instance), would the game be fair?

Auesis.7301:

Nike.2631:

Actually the existence of a build that is ‘optimal’ (as in superior to all other choices) across a large range of encounters is pretty much a sign that it needs to get stepped on/nerfed because that’s the product of bad design .

Looking realistically at how game balance works, there is always going to be SOMETHING about a class/comp or encounter that is the optimal approach. I hope you’re not proposing a feedback loop where we continuously nerf whatever seems to be the best option in a given circumstance until we’re left with…well, pretty much nothing.

Two things damp down the feedback loop you’re describing…

1. I did say optimal across a large range of encounters. there’s nothing wrong with a build being good against thieves or perfect against a specific dungeon boss. Its when a build is good against 6 out of 8 professions or is perfect against 2-3 entire dungeons. Those are both flags for problems and while some of it can be corrected by boosting the other side of the equation, power creep is just as detrimental to a game’s health as circular nerfing.

2. The real question about optimal builds is how far behind is second place? How about third? You can probably ignore up to about 3% variance, but beyond that, out comes the nerf bat. Then nail sticking up gets a gentle tap. Which is why we all love good diversity – it keeps the nerf bat in its case . Really skillful diversity hides the deep dark secret of all player-determined build systems: The designer wants you to feel cool and powerful while being as absolutely AVERAGE as possible .

There is absolutely nothing wrong with builds being good in multiple dungeons. The core of damage builds in GW2 is maximising damage while providing as much party support as necessary (such as empower allies/phalanx strength warrior builds – the latter is an even heavier damage trade-off as you’re losing 28% in damage modifiers plus 300 power in favour of maintaining permanent 20+ might stacks on the party). These builds do not need to be dungeon-centric, and I don’t see why they should be.

You literally sound like you just want nerfs for the hell of it, there’s no actual justification for it whatsoever, and no amount of mocking emoticons is going to make your non-existent point any more convincing.

I think what Nike means is that if you have one build that is superior to all other builds across many dungeons, then there’s clearly a balance problem. Ideally all alternatives should at least be close or equally effective. If this isn’t the case, then either a nerf of severe buffs are needed, or massive changes to the dungeons.

For example, if all of the game’s dungeons favor maximizing damage, then that kind of means all the alternatives are just there for giggles. That’s not balance, and it’s not what you want. I would assume a competent designer would like to have a multitude of effective options amongst all classes.

@Nike

A game where average or sub-par players do just about 6, 9 or heck, even 12% worse than the absolute best players ( as per your example) has a serious issue.

There’s no room for improvement and no incentive for skilled play.

Your example is ridiculous – 3% variance is absurdly small. Why would anyone who’s any good at the game even bother trying to stay up there?
Why would anyone who’s at the bottom of the skill chain bother trying to learn to do better or spec according to the encounter if the gains are this small?

I don’t know if you were around in the days of GW1.
There was a place called Fissure of Woe – it took around 3 hours to clear with a “normal” party.
It took just a bit over 20 minutes to clear with a speed clear party doing the meta FOWSC.

So the difference between 1st best way to clear it ( speed clear ) versus the 2nd best way ( normal clear) was 89%.
That’s what provided incentive for people to do it. It was difficult, required specific gear and build also a good understanding of positioning and what you had to do.
It took effort to be able to participate in FOWSC but the effort was WORTH IT.

That’s why people play ultimately – to improve and get rewards faster. Why take that away?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

For example, if all of the game’s dungeons favor maximizing damage, then that kind of means all the alternatives are just there for giggles. That’s not balance, and it’s not what you want. I would assume a competent designer would like to have a multitude of effective options amongst all classes.

I tried to explain the problem with this a few posts above.
You can successfully design some encounter to be more suited for a different type of setup, like one built around sustain for example, but in the end, the damage oriented one, even if maybe having a harder time, still kill things faster.
Unless you completely abuse time gated events, non combat oriented puzzles and gimicky mechanics, you can hardly prevent a setup dealing way more damage from finishing the content in less time, and from a gold farming perspective (which is what most dungeons are nowadays about) this is just enough to make them superior.

This advantage is so natural that trying to achieve something different becomes impossible without breaking the core concepts of the game.
In this situation, the only way to bring diversity is to make the game overall harder and try to make the difficulty to ramp up as one gets closer to a full damage spec. This way, it’s the player skill level what decides how much survivability can be sacrificed and traded for damage and creates a whole spectrum of builds based on what each player can handle.
Unfortunately, as you probably have already noticed, this has nothing to do with gameplay preferences, and someone who might like the concept around sustain, no matter how skilled is, gets automatically placed at the bottom of the list. That’s probably a battle which will never be won.

Vargamonth.2047:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

For example, if all of the game’s dungeons favor maximizing damage, then that kind of means all the alternatives are just there for giggles. That’s not balance, and it’s not what you want. I would assume a competent designer would like to have a multitude of effective options amongst all classes.

I tried to explain the problem with this a few posts above.
You can successfully design some encounter to be more suited for a different type of setup, like one built around sustain for example, but in the end, the damage oriented one, even if maybe having a harder time, still kill things faster.
Unless you completely abuse time gated events, non combat oriented puzzles and gimicky mechanics, you can hardly prevent a setup dealing way more damage from finishing the content in less time, and from a gold farming perspective (which is what most dungeons are nowadays about) this is just enough to make them superior.

This advantage is so natural that trying to achieve something different becomes impossible without breaking the core concepts of the game.
In this situation, the only way to bring diversity is to make the game overall harder and try to make the difficulty to ramp up as one gets closer to a full damage spec. This way, it’s the player skill level what decides how much survivability can be sacrificed and traded for damage and creates a whole spectrum of builds based on what each player can handle.
Unfortunately, as you probably have already noticed, this has nothing to do with gameplay preferences, and someone who might like the concept around sustain, no matter how skilled is, gets automatically placed at the bottom of the list. That’s probably a battle which will never be won.

The balancing of content has always in any game been around constraints and restrictions. People don’t want a tank because they like having a guy with low damage but high aggro and sustain, but because the game forces you to have one. If one day Square Enix goes ‘right, we’re gonna go PHYW and scrap the trinity and any need for anything’, I can guarantee you that every single raid in FF14 will consist of just DPS, like in this game.

You should not just balance higher DPS with a higher skill ceiling and be done with it, because then everything apart from high DPS is just training wheels.

Play how you want can actually never exist in a game. Players will always optimise, so if you create content in which nothing apart from sheer killing power is nessecary, players will just aim to stack sheer killing power and be done with it.

You need that constraint, you need that restriction in order to create a place for certain playstyles. That’s why the trinity has never left MMOs, because no one has found a better way to enforce those restrictions.

Nike.2631:

Auesis.7301:

Nike.2631:

Actually the existence of a build that is ‘optimal’ (as in superior to all other choices) across a large range of encounters is pretty much a sign that it needs to get stepped on/nerfed because that’s the product of bad design .

Looking realistically at how game balance works, there is always going to be SOMETHING about a class/comp or encounter that is the optimal approach. I hope you’re not proposing a feedback loop where we continuously nerf whatever seems to be the best option in a given circumstance until we’re left with…well, pretty much nothing.

Two things damp down the feedback loop you’re describing…

1. I did say optimal across a large range of encounters. there’s nothing wrong with a build being good against thieves or perfect against a specific dungeon boss. Its when a build is good against 6 out of 8 professions or is perfect against 2-3 entire dungeons. Those are both flags for problems and while some of it can be corrected by boosting the other side of the equation, power creep is just as detrimental to a game’s health as circular nerfing.

2. The real question about optimal builds is how far behind is second place? How about third? You can probably ignore up to about 3% variance, but beyond that, out comes the nerf bat. Then nail sticking up gets a gentle tap. Which is why we all love good diversity – it keeps the nerf bat in its case . Really skillful diversity hides the deep dark secret of all player-determined build systems: The designer wants you to feel cool and powerful while being as absolutely AVERAGE as possible .

1. That’s the exact problem we got in PvE. Pure DPS builds are king in every encounter in PvE, and things like PVT are only used in Teq/Wurm/whatever because the game guts half the equation (ie, you can’t crit) from the fight.

Anet is not boosting the other side of the equation. They know the DPS-DPS-DPS meta is a problem, they want to reduce the zerker meta, so what do they do? Make more content that are DPS-races. I supported Anet, and I still support Anet, but I’m slowly losing faith.

2. That problem only exists because we got this extremely DPS-centric environment. when you only have 1 variable in the equation you will never have diversity. 2 is bigger than 1 in all cases and no balancing will nerf 2 to be equal to 1 without turning everything into stupid.

We don’t love diversity because it keeps the nerfbat in case, we love diversity because doing the same thing over and over gets boring, especially if its something like staff ele where you just spam 2 skills over and over with one extra when its on CD.

Xae Isareth.1364:

The balancing of content has always in any game been around constraints and restrictions. People don’t want a tank because they like having a guy with low damage but high aggro and sustain, but because the game forces you to have one. If one day Square Enix goes ‘right, we’re gonna go PHYW and scrap the trinity and any need for anything’, I can guarantee you that every single raid in FF14 will consist of just DPS, like in this game.

You should not just balance higher DPS with a higher skill ceiling and be done with it, because then everything apart from high DPS is just training wheels.

Play how you want can actually never exist in a game. Players will always optimise, so if you create content in which nothing apart from sheer killing power is nessecary, players will just aim to stack sheer killing power and be done with it.

You need that constraint, you need that restriction in order to create a place for certain playstyles. That’s why the trinity has never left MMOs, because no one has found a better way to enforce those restrictions.

You can always enforce diversity by design. Meta setups built around effectiveness will still exist but, at least, you can ensure some different gamestyle prefrences being covered by them.
This kind of constraints are, however, one of those things I meant by “breaking the core concepts of the game”.

If GW2 conceptually intended to not force any class/spec requeriment and wants to hold on that, then there’s no real way to prevent damage oriented setups from completing content faster and enjoying a higher reward/time ratio.
In this situation, the “training wheels” approach, even if flawed from a “play what you want” standpoint, is the best way to ensure that a single meta doesn’t completely dominate.

Tim.6450:

When I said this I had two ideas in mind:
- The first one was a long range sniper of sort but of reason posted above it would be easely countered.
- The second idea was a trap room/hallway with a boss doing nothing but snares until you get in his face and then you can easily kill it. The point would be that the traps would completely surcompass active defenses through numbers and variety. Like you have projectile traps ,spike traps, mines, flamethrowers,… . The respective defenses would still work but there would be so many that the player/team cannot take all of them for the entire fight, at most they could specialize in one or two but not all.

Afterwards I realized that the ranged idea would just be a gear/build check. So to solve that I thought of leaving ‘safe zones’ (a wall , a room not trapped,… ) so that the player/team can recover. People who are more tanky then can move on quicker through the fight while more glassy specs have to take a breather in the ‘safe zones’.

What would happen if half were tanks and half glasses? Would tanks need to wait until glasses catch up? Or is the boss a pushover which can be quickly killed even by 1-2 tanks?

If tanks have to wait because they can’t take down boss on their own then mix of tanks and glasses would have the slowest kill time. And full glass might be still faster than full tank if boss has high enough health.

However, if the boss is really weak then it wouldn’t make much difference if it didn’t exist at all. So you would have an encounter entirely relying on defensive stats (puzzle). I’m personally fine with this but would this really solve anything? If the time difference is really significant then enough people would be required to have both armor sets.

The idea was a bit more dynamic. Let’s say that every 2K damage the boss in total lost would result in the boss receiving a stackable buff that reduces damage. The buff would disapear after a second so you would have several degrees of damage reduction based on the current damage output. Gearing more dps would still do more damage just very little.

The idea behind it is to shift the risk/reward ratio in such way it would promote a bit more defensive playstyles. Full dps would still be optimal in the reward/time ratio but the risk would be so high it would not be worth it.

I would label this as a gimmick as it’s very close to the encounter completely ignoring your offensive stats.

Also the risk might still be very small if you can easily kill the boss without any defensive stats.

Yes I know of what you speak and I think that the full dps setups are still prefered not because that boss but due the other bosses.

As long as the bonus damage doesn’t ignore your offensive stats then glassy players would have to stand there shorter (than tanks) as they can kill the boss faster.

Xae Isareth.1364:

You need that constraint, you need that restriction in order to create a place for certain playstyles. That’s why the trinity has never left MMOs, because no one has found a better way to enforce those restrictions.

The players who play GW2 don’t want constraint or restriction. At least the majority don’t.
If they did they’d be playing other MMOs that enforce the “roles” you’re mentioning.
If GW2 players wanted to be restricted they’d be playing WoW or some other trinity game. The fact that GW2’s fanbase applauded the decision to do away with the trinity and embraced the game because of it means that it is what they want.

Sure, there’s a minority who used to play tank or healer and can’t seem to fit in or find their place but the majority of players are playing and enjoying the game as it is – with no restrictions and no trinity.
If they weren’t enjoying it we would have seen them move to other MMOs that offer what they are looking for.

The only people I’ve seen disappointed by the current system are ex-WoW players that can’t find their long lost niche but who refuse to accept that maybe this isn’t the game for them.

Vargamonth.2047:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The balancing of content has always in any game been around constraints and restrictions. People don’t want a tank because they like having a guy with low damage but high aggro and sustain, but because the game forces you to have one. If one day Square Enix goes ‘right, we’re gonna go PHYW and scrap the trinity and any need for anything’, I can guarantee you that every single raid in FF14 will consist of just DPS, like in this game.

You should not just balance higher DPS with a higher skill ceiling and be done with it, because then everything apart from high DPS is just training wheels.

Play how you want can actually never exist in a game. Players will always optimise, so if you create content in which nothing apart from sheer killing power is nessecary, players will just aim to stack sheer killing power and be done with it.

You need that constraint, you need that restriction in order to create a place for certain playstyles. That’s why the trinity has never left MMOs, because no one has found a better way to enforce those restrictions.

You can always enforce diversity by design. Meta setups built around effectiveness will still exist but, at least, you can ensure some different gamestyle prefrences being covered by them.
This kind of constraints are, however, one of those things I meant by “breaking the core concepts of the game”.

If GW2 conceptually intended to not force any class/spec requeriment and wants to hold on that, then there’s no real way to prevent damage oriented setups from completing content faster and enjoying a higher reward/time ratio.
In this situation, the “training wheels” approach, even if flawed from a “play what you want” standpoint, is the best way to ensure that a single meta doesn’t completely dominate.

This person is right.

Harper.4173:

Xae Isareth.1364:

You need that constraint, you need that restriction in order to create a place for certain playstyles. That’s why the trinity has never left MMOs, because no one has found a better way to enforce those restrictions.

The players who play GW2 don’t want constraint or restriction. At least the majority don’t.
If they did they’d be playing other MMOs that enforce the “roles” you’re mentioning.
If GW2 players wanted to be restricted they’d be playing WoW or some other trinity game. The fact that GW2’s fanbase applauded the decision to do away with the trinity and embraced the game because of it means that it is what they want.

Sure, there’s a minority who used to play tank or healer and can’t seem to fit in or find their place but the majority of players are playing and enjoying the game as it is – with no restrictions and no trinity.
If they weren’t enjoying it we would have seen them move to other MMOs that offer what they are looking for.

The only people I’ve seen disappointed by the current system are ex-WoW players that can’t find their long lost niche but who refuse to accept that maybe this isn’t the game for them.

I never said we needed the hard tank-healer-DPS trinity, but if you read the whole post, I explained that unless you input other factors which are necessary into the content, all you’ll get is players piling on DPS.

People wanted to do away with the trinity, but I’m quite sure people didn’t want ‘zerker or screw off’ to replace it.

Even Anet isn’t happy about what we have now. If the system is working as intended, why would they go and nerf crit damage, and explained that it was specifically targeted at PvE?

If you want a solution, just look at how PvP works. Very few people run full zerker in WvW and even less in PvP. Why? You can’t dodge everything, and stuff like boonstrip and condition removal are a lot more useful.

Why can’t we copy that into PvE?

It’s not “zerker or screw off”, you are allowed to play exactly what build and gear you want.

ANet “nerfed” it like they did the spider queen because people continued to cry over and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

again about berserker for literally no reason than that their terrible builds aren’t accepted in to faster LFG groups.

maha.7902:

It’s not “zerker or screw off”, you are allowed to play exactly what build and gear you want.

ANet “nerfed” it like they did the spider queen because people continued to cry over and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

again about berserker for literally no reason than that their terrible builds aren’t accepted in to faster LFG groups.

Its zerker or screw off if you want to be optimal, a people want to play optimal. If you don’t bother with optimal or not optimal, then you don’t need any balancing to start with because you wouldn’t give a kitten about what’s overpowered or not overpowered.

You have people crying because their builds aren’t accepted, but you also have people complaining because build crafting isn’t very interesting with only 1 variable to consider.

Unless you mean that staring at your trait list and realising most of those traits are utterly pointless in PvE, and then looking at gear choices and realising you should only aim for one is a good thing.

A MMORPG lives and dies by its character customisation and build diversity, because that’s what makes the inevitable doing the same thing over and over less boring.

There’s always one thing that’s optimal, that’s by definition. Though I agree it’s too skewed on risk/reward ratio.

Xae Isareth.1364:

maha.7902:

It’s not “zerker or screw off”, you are allowed to play exactly what build and gear you want.

ANet “nerfed” it like they did the spider queen because people continued to cry over and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

again about berserker for literally no reason than that their terrible builds aren’t accepted in to faster LFG groups.

Its zerker or screw off if you want to be optimal, a people want to play optimal. If you don’t bother with optimal or not optimal, then you don’t need any balancing to start with because you wouldn’t give a kitten about what’s overpowered or not overpowered.

You have people crying because their builds aren’t accepted, but you also have people complaining because build crafting isn’t very interesting with only 1 variable to consider.

Unless you mean that staring at your trait list and realising most of those traits are utterly pointless in PvE, and then looking at gear choices and realising you should only aim for one is a good thing.

A MMORPG lives and dies by its character customisation and build diversity, because that’s what makes the inevitable doing the same thing over and over less boring.

I hear yah on this.
The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.
Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

The problem I feel is that the combat in the game was designed for an action-MMO but the content was designed like a traditional MMO.

The combat at its core is fast paced, with a lot of mobility, and dodging is plenty.

The fights in PvE are slow-paced, with little movement.

Its contradictory. they need to make PvE more like PvP, where attacks are faster, enemies have a lot more mobility, plus of course a bigger need for utilities other than DPS.

That would kill two birds with one stone. It would allow builds to be more diverse by having players consider more variables than just DPS, and also allow their balancing philosophy of unifying PvE and PvP be actually possible.

I don’t know the exact details as for why they don’t use it. but they seem to already have a base for that kind of AI, just looking at the training NPCs in the mists. Why can’t enemies be more like those?

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem I feel is that the combat in the game was designed for an action-MMO but the content was designed like a traditional MMO.

The combat at its core is fast paced, with a lot of mobility, and dodging is plenty.

The fights in PvE are slow-paced, with little movement.

Its contradictory. they need to make PvE more like PvP, where attacks are faster, enemies have a lot more mobility, plus of course a bigger need for utilities other than DPS.

That would kill two birds with one stone. It would allow builds to be more diverse by having players consider more variables than just DPS, and also allow their balancing philosophy of unifying PvE and PvP be actually possible.

I completely agree.
Achieving it, however, seems technicaly impossible. They can probably move a few steps in that direction, but no one should expect an MMO (all the processing done at servers) AI behave like a player, not even like a really bad one.

Dual.8953:

I hear yah on this.
The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.
Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

If only complaining achieved something. I see zero ideas in your post.

Wethospu.6437:

Dual.8953:

I hear yah on this.
The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.
Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

If only complaining achieved something. I see zero ideas in your post.

Well for one we could have more boon heavy mobs. Then S/D could come back.
Moving and healing Mobs would make venoms useful. Kiting snipers would bring use to Scorpion Wire.
Maybe some added damage pressure for Shadow Protector

Vargamonth.2047:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem I feel is that the combat in the game was designed for an action-MMO but the content was designed like a traditional MMO.

The combat at its core is fast paced, with a lot of mobility, and dodging is plenty.

The fights in PvE are slow-paced, with little movement.

Its contradictory. they need to make PvE more like PvP, where attacks are faster, enemies have a lot more mobility, plus of course a bigger need for utilities other than DPS.

That would kill two birds with one stone. It would allow builds to be more diverse by having players consider more variables than just DPS, and also allow their balancing philosophy of unifying PvE and PvP be actually possible.

I completely agree.
Achieving it, however, seems technicaly impossible. They can probably move a few steps in that direction, but no one should expect an MMO (all the processing done at servers) AI behave like a player, not even like a really bad one.

Well, look at the training NPCs, they seem to have a more advanced AI than your normal mobs, so at least some of good AI is possible. The AI we got now is the most basic of the basic: run into line of sight and use skills at random when off CD.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I never said we needed the hard tank-healer-DPS trinity, but if you read the whole post, I explained that unless you input other factors which are necessary into the content, all you’ll get is players piling on DPS.

People wanted to do away with the trinity, but I’m quite sure people didn’t want ‘zerker or screw off’ to replace it.

Even Anet isn’t happy about what we have now. If the system is working as intended, why would they go and nerf crit damage, and explained that it was specifically targeted at PvE?

If you want a solution, just look at how PvP works. Very few people run full zerker in WvW and even less in PvP. Why? You can’t dodge everything, and stuff like boonstrip and condition removal are a lot more useful.

Why can’t we copy that into PvE?

“Zerker or screw off” isn’t related to gear – it’s related to player mentality. You might as well replace it with meta or screw off and that’s exactly what it will be if you manage to replace the “zerker meta” with something else.

Currently the game rewards high skill with better clear times via berserker gear. Content is easy to complete in any other gear set ( sometimes mindnumbingly so) and with almost any classes.

This is the “play how you want” model at its best. This is the most freedom we’ll get in game.

If this is changed people will be forced into “roles” in the new meta.

You mention the critical damage changes – they were done for a few reasons :

To normalize critical damage across different item pieces.
To change the way critical damage scales by creating a number ( ferocity) it scales off.
To counter the power creep created with the introduction of full ascended gear.

It was not done to “nerf zerker” as ALL CRITICAL DAMAGE WAS CHANGED. Which means non zerker-builds lost nearly as much if not more dps than full zerker builds.

I like how you ( and others) are trying to prove to yourselves ( and others) that the critical damage update is a clear indication that things are changing the way you want them to. They are not.
It wasn’t a “fix zerker” solution, it was aimed at the things I posted above.

You can’t copy PvP in PVE because:

1) PVP has players – real players that have actual human-grade intelligence. You can’t code that into AI- it will always be worse or exploitable.

2)PVP is for PVP players, PVE is for everyone. That’s right – PVE is the place where even the slowest, most unknowledgeable player can go and feel like " the hero " – that’s why we have PVE – to feel like heroes in a fantasy world.
How would the majority of the player base like it if they were now being stomped in dungeons by PVP-grade NPCs?

3)Because of point 2 PVE is stuck in a situation where there have to be not a lot of things to dodge so the average Wannabe hero Joe manages to dodge them all, or at least some and not die. That means that the much better at dodging player will breeze right on through content that was created for the common denominator.
There’s harder content in the game – where you can’t dodge it all – see high level fractals.

Harper.4173:

“Zerker or screw off” isn’t related to gear – it’s related to player mentality. You might as well replace it with meta or screw off and that’s exactly what it will be if you manage to replace the “zerker meta” with something else.

You can’t change the elitist mentality. That always exists in MMOs no matter what you do. So the only thing you can do is play along with it and make the meta include a lot more variables than just DPS.

Currently the game rewards high skill with better clear times via berserker gear. Content is easy to complete in any other gear set ( sometimes mindnumbingly so) and with almost any classes.

If the ultimate aim for every player is to complete everything with full zerker, and traited for pure DPS, what’s the point of the other gear types and the other 70% of our traits then?

This is the “play how you want” model at its best. This is the most freedom we’ll get in game.

If this is changed people will be forced into “roles” in the new meta.

How else are you supposed to create roles then? Players want roles. Anet clearly wants roles because we got classes that they gave roles to and balances around those roles. If you then just go ‘well, nothing apart from DPS is really needed’, that just goes out of the window and roles won’t exist.

You mention the critical damage changes – they were done for a few reasons :

To normalize critical damage across different item pieces.

Admittedly, yes.

To change the way critical damage scales by creating a number ( ferocity) it scales off.

15 ferocity =1% crit damage. Having gear which has say, 30 ferocity basically equates to it having 3% crit damage under the old system. I don’t see the difference.

To counter the power creep created with the introduction of full ascended gear.

Ascended gear gave basically next to no difference in stats apart from the weapons, and even then it was 5%

It was not done to “nerf zerker” as ALL CRITICAL DAMAGE WAS CHANGED. Which means non zerker-builds lost nearly as much if not more dps than full zerker builds.

‘As we work to increase support and teamwork between players throughout the game, we examined how we could change critical damage to retain it as a fun and viable approach to build-making while also allowing other builds to shine.’

allowing other builds to shine

I like how you ( and others) are trying to prove to yourselves ( and others) that the critical damage update is a clear indication that things are changing the way you want them to. They are not.
It wasn’t a “fix zerker” solution, it was aimed at the things I posted above.

You can’t copy PvP in PVE because:

1) PVP has players – real players that have actual human-grade intelligence. You can’t code that into AI- it will always be worse or exploitable.

It won’t be as good as the best PvPers, but it certainly isn’t restricted to ‘get in line of sight and use random skills’ like our AI now.

2)PVP is for PVP players, PVE is for everyone. That’s right – PVE is the place where even the slowest, most unknowledgeable player can go and feel like " the hero " – that’s why we have PVE – to feel like heroes in a fantasy world.
How would the majority of the player base like it if they were now being stomped in dungeons by PVP-grade NPCs?

If they wanted to make PvE a complete faceroll, why have balance at all? Why not just make every skill do so much damage the player is like a human nuclear warhead?

Also, that’s completely your view. PvE isn’t supposed to be complete faceroll, and many of us want to be challenged. The fact that people complain things are too easy tells you that.

Heck, you won’t even feel like a hero without challenge. Name one hero who hasn’t gone through trials. who hasn’t struggled with the odds against him. It’s the process of overcoming obstacles that makes you a hero.

3)Because of point 2 PVE is stuck in a situation where there have to be not a lot of things to dodge so the average Wannabe hero Joe manages to dodge them all, or at least some and not die. That means that the much better at dodging player will breeze right on through content that was created for the common denominator.
There’s harder content in the game – where you can’t dodge it all – see high level fractals.

Is this your view or did Anet actually say ‘we create our PvE content to be complete faceroll’? Looking at Teq/Wurm, that’s not created for the lowest denominator, otherwise we wouldn’t fail them so much. They’re in fact open world content, so its created for everyone.

No one in MMO development creates content for the lowest denominator, not even the F2Ps with their 2-year life cycles. that’s bound to create a commercial screw-up for you because people will easily get bored.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Well, look at the training NPCs, they seem to have a more advanced AI than your normal mobs, so at least some of good AI is possible. The AI we got now is the most basic of the basic: run into line of sight and use skills at random when off CD.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more (a lot more) mobs that work like that in PvE. Well, like the warrior and engineer, at least; I think those are the most fun of the lot. I don’t think it would make PvP reward other “playstyles” more, necessarily, but it would make some of the random open-world stuff more fun.

There are some good examples already, actually, but they kinda get lost in the crowd of really one-note monsters.

Wethospu.6437:

What would happen if half were tanks and half glasses? Would tanks need to wait until glasses catch up? Or is the boss a pushover which can be quickly killed even by 1-2 tanks?

If tanks have to wait because they can’t take down boss on their own then mix of tanks and glasses would have the slowest kill time. And full glass might be still faster than full tank if boss has high enough health.

However, if the boss is really weak then it wouldn’t make much difference if it didn’t exist at all. So you would have an encounter entirely relying on defensive stats (puzzle). I’m personally fine with this but would this really solve anything? If the time difference is really significant then enough people would be required to have both armor sets.

I thought that if you have 3 players you can defeat the boss in reasonable time. Even if you are alone you can contribute by distracting the boss since it can’t snare your allies anymore.

Wethospu.6437:

As long as the bonus damage doesn’t ignore your offensive stats then glassy players would have to stand there shorter (than tanks) as they can kill the boss faster.

Depends on the scaling. example:
Player A has a dps of 1000 while player B has 2000. Player B can stand in the area for 5 seconds while player A for 7 seconds. Now let’s say that dps is doubled with every second in the area. Player B will after 8 second have done 2000+4000+8000+16000+32000 = 62 000 damage in 5 seconds which is a dps of 12400.
Player A will after 7 seconds have done 1000+2000+4000+8000+16000+32000+64000 = 127 000 damage in 7 seconds which is a dps of 18 143.
So yeah shows enough right?