Guild Wars 2

Xae Isareth.1364:

-stuff-

1)It has nothing to do with “elitism” – it has everything to do with not wanting to waste your time. I won’t do content that I can do in 10 minutes in 20 or 30 just because some players don’t feel like hurrying up. I’ll play with like minded players – that’s not elitism – it’s common sense.

2)WvW, PvP and most of all utility. I didn’t say anything about traits – traits are the core aspect of the game not gear.
Skills and Utility define your role and what you want to do – the gear you have defines how much damage you’ll trade off for survival. Good players will actively mitigate incoming damage and keep all their damage. Less experienced players won’t.

The other sets are there and have their roles – explore the game and you’ll find them.

3)Roles do exist. They just don’t overlap with your idea of roles. Support does exist in full zerker parties.
The issue here is that players coming from WoW and other standard MMOs expect support to be “super imba 1337 heals guys” – which it isn’t.

In GW2 support means boon stacking, it means reflecting, it means shutting down the boss with chill and cripple, it means stealthing or porting your party through and so on.
Roles in the traditional sense of healer and tank don’t exist. And should never exist in GW2. If those are the roles you and others want you’re looking at the wrong game.

Regarding roles and gear – I suggest you read : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Public-announcement-Gear-stats-and-roles/first#post4099236

4) There is a difference. If you were to ever want to introduce a new tier of gear(which I hope they never do) you’d have to add more critical damage flat on top of it to make it better than we already have.
With ferocity it’s easier to do that since you can add less ferocity that rounds up to another point of crit damage.
Also you can now add ferocity-oriented food and other buffs. Maybe a ferocity stacking sigil?

The bottom line is it’s easier to manage from a design point of view.

5)Full ascended gave you a pretty big advantage compared to full exotic. It was more than 5%.

6)I understand what they posted – it’s just that it doesn’t do that. They’ve posted a lot of things that haven’t held up. Wanting to do something and doing it are different.
Also I don’t see how this change allows “other builds to shine” since the nerf was flat and across the board.

I’m sorry that you choose to believe that quote, but I doubt it has anything to do with reality – that sounds very much like PR damage control to me.

7) News: PVE is a complete faceroll. With the exception of maybe 5% of content you can roll through the game with no knowledge of basic mechanics or understanding of your class and still win.

They balance the game so that it retains some form and structure and keeps most discrepancies to a minimum.
It isn’t 100% instawin because people like to feel like they actually fought something : hence huge HP bars on damage sponge bosses that pose little to no threat at all.

You like being challenged? So do I – but that gets old quick. It takes the challenge loving players a little time before they adapt and beat the content – then what?

Please don’t take forum complaints as the general trend of the GW2 community – very few read and post on here. For every player complaining that the game is too easy there are numerous others doing afk crown pavilion, semi-afk champion trains or karma training in EoTM.

People who want a challenge are the minority and even then after the first few times they’ll go look for something else.

You’re right about heroes and obstacles – but in GW2 90% of obstacles are just cardboard figures that stand there for you to knock them over and most players just imagine themselves the hero. The challenge is there but it’s very very small.

8)Anet doesn’t have to say anything. The state of the content says everything. 90% of the open world is complete faceroll. Ask anyone who’s been here since the beta weekends. Ask veteran players. Does anyone consider open world content a challenge these days?

Regarding Wurm and Teq – those are raids set in the open world and are most definitely not aimed at the casual players. They’re aimed at the organized groups that like this sort of stuff.
It’s there for everyone but it wasn’t created for everyone. The average player will only slay teq with an organized group from TTS or some other large community that’s actually doing things on a different level.

Teq and Wurm aren’t something you can just show up for 5 minutes before and fight through.

Also – even in those fights the most successful communities have managed a system : you have a few players ( 3-4 ) as commanders calling the shots while 80-90% of others only mash their #1 key when they’re told where they’re told.

It took TTS and other communities to break down Teq into bite sized things for each player to do in order for the average player to beat those fights. It’s as simple as " you do this when we tell you and it’ll all be good".

9) That bored state – most good players have become bored already. I’m also running out of things to do.
Not all content but MOST content in GW2 is supposed to be common denominator proof.

Dual.8953:

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.

What game’s meta has build “diversity” that does not consist of tank build, heals build and the one best DPS build for one’s class? That’s not diversity, it’s enforced roles.

I agree that there are several imbalances in PVE, and it’s past time they get fixed.

Groups in cleric gear can complete arah, one of the hardest dungeons in the game, with their dodge keys unbound. I’ve also seen videos of people soloing bosses in cleric gear without dodging. This is completely outrageous! By using this broken geartype people can complete any kind of content and even solo it while ignoring one of the game’s core mechanics.

DPS done with a condition DPS build is comparable to the DPS done by a direct damage DPS build in a solo environment. However, in group play condition DPS builds are inferior because of several limitations. In my opinion this is the most severe imbalance we currently have in PVE. There is no easy fix for it either, if they wanted to rectify this a huge amount of the code would have to be rewritten. Or so I’ve heard, I don’t know anything about programming or making a videogame.

FGS #4 is pretty broken, I love seeing bosses melt when I use it though.

These are in my opinion the most pressing issues in PVE at the moment. Overall I must say I’m quite happy with the current state of the game (PVE wise). I’ve played a lot of MMO’s but this is the first one that has been able to keep my attention for such a long time.

edit: I added some things

Harper.4173:

7) News: PVE is a complete faceroll. With the exception of maybe 5% of content you can roll through the game with no knowledge of basic mechanics or understanding of your class and still win.

They balance the game so that it retains some form and structure and keeps most discrepancies to a minimum.
It isn’t 100% instawin because people like to feel like they actually fought something : hence huge HP bars on damage sponge bosses that pose little to no threat at all.

You like being challenged? So do I – but that gets old quick. It takes the challenge loving players a little time before they adapt and beat the content – then what?

Please don’t take forum complaints as the general trend of the GW2 community – very few read and post on here. For every player complaining that the game is too easy there are numerous others doing afk crown pavilion, semi-afk champion trains or karma training in EoTM.

People who want a challenge are the minority and even then after the first few times they’ll go look for something else.

You’re right about heroes and obstacles – but in GW2 90% of obstacles are just cardboard figures that stand there for you to knock them over and most players just imagine themselves the hero. The challenge is there but it’s very very small.

8)Anet doesn’t have to say anything. The state of the content says everything. 90% of the open world is complete faceroll. Ask anyone who’s been here since the beta weekends. Ask veteran players. Does anyone consider open world content a challenge these days?

Regarding Wurm and Teq – those are raids set in the open world and are most definitely not aimed at the casual players. They’re aimed at the organized groups that like this sort of stuff.
It’s there for everyone but it wasn’t created for everyone. The average player will only slay teq with an organized group from TTS or some other large community that’s actually doing things on a different level.

Teq and Wurm aren’t something you can just show up for 5 minutes before and fight through.

Also – even in those fights the most successful communities have managed a system : you have a few players ( 3-4 ) as commanders calling the shots while 80-90% of others only mash their #1 key when they’re told where they’re told.

It took TTS and other communities to break down Teq into bite sized things for each player to do in order for the average player to beat those fights. It’s as simple as " you do this when we tell you and it’ll all be good".

9) That bored state – most good players have become bored already. I’m also running out of things to do.
Not all content but MOST content in GW2 is supposed to be common denominator proof.

I’m just going to ask how do you know players that want challenge are a minority? Have you got statistics? If you do please share, otherwise all I see from your post is heavy assertion of your own views on everyone else. I’m sorry if that comes across as rude but that’s what Im seeing.

I don’t think people enjoy afk pav, or afk eotm. If I enjoy afk I’ll just stop playing the game.

Regarding Teq and Wurm: they’re in the open world. Mid level zones at that. You can’t exclude people, you can’t kick players out of the map, so I would think Anet had everyone in mind when they made it, because otherwise how do you exclude the people they weren’t made for?

Breaking things down into bite-sized bits is basically the essence of raiding. That’s why you got raid leaders in every game, and they don’t just go ‘right guys, strategy is we win, everyone clear?’

Your last point baffles me completely. So you’re bored, apparently according to you most good players are bored, but then also according to you, the current state of the game is perfect? What.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dual.8953:

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.

What game’s meta has build “diversity” that does not consist of tank build, heals build and the one best DPS build for one’s class? That’s not diversity, it’s enforced roles.

Well tell that do the meta guys saying “we have tons of diversity in the meta”.

Dual.8953:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dual.8953:

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.

What game’s meta has build “diversity” that does not consist of tank build, heals build and the one best DPS build for one’s class? That’s not diversity, it’s enforced roles.

Well tell that do the meta guys saying “we have tons of diversity in the meta”.

They can read, hopefully. That said, there is a lot more build diversity in the GW2 non-meta than you’ll find in those other games.

The whole Meta/Non-Meta discussion is a bit academic.

Although we tend to conflate viability with ‘not having bugs’ and ‘allowing progress’. Technically in order for something to qualify as Viable it has to be among the options in a choice you make – especially when you have a sincere desire to play well, with full understanding of the game’s mechanics, at the highest level of play.

For the purposes of forum discussion, regardless of what joe newbie and jane coffeebreak are doing; playstyles aren’t considered viable until the Meta starts arguing over them.

I know that sounds dazzling; but that’s only because this genre is notorious for presenting calculations as choices, not because optimal is a design inevitability that causes every game’s Meta to result in a single choice. Metas arguing is actually pretty commonplace in more skill-based and action-oriented genres, which is why they have Tier systems.

Which is ideally, the sort of a situation an RPG/Actiongame hybrid would like to find itself in. Getting to the point of balance where players started categorizing in Tiers would make this game amazing.

But before we even think of getting there, we have got to stop giving game mechanics a gold star just for showing up at work today with it’s pants on. Functioning and having that function do something Relevant is the least a game mechanic can do and still rightly call itself a game mechanic.

Note* this is not mine. but i have this hidden away in my files because i think it is something worth reading. Posted by a respected member of one of the Guild wars 2 communities. In another thread somewhere else. another time ago.

something to think about….

I’m still somewhat vexed by a few of the more bizarre notions circulating in this thread. Hopefully, I will be able to help some of the more misguided notions.
Character Building
Your “playstyle” is defined foremost by your weapon choices, skill choices and traits. If you choose utility skills of a support nature, along with melee weapons and use traits that give defensive benefits to your team, you are a support melee character. If you choose offensive boosting skills, ranged weapons and DPS boosting traits, you are a ranged DPS character. These things are true regardless of your gear prefix. Again, who you are is defined by your weapon choice, skill choice and trait choices.
The second component of character build, gearing, has nothing to do with playstyle. Gearing is a measure of the damage you expect to be unable to avoid in your chosen game mode. Additionally, gearing is primarily how you determine whether you will be direct damage or condition damage. But the primary function of gearing is an estimate the amount of damage you anticipate you will need to soak in your chosen content. If you feel you will be able to dodge every attack you would select a gearing that sacrifices passive defense for more offense. Alternatively, if you feel you will receive large amounts of unavoidable damage you would be well advised to bring gear with more passive defense. The only aspect of gearing that determines playstyle is direct vs condition damage.
What is a character in defensive (soldiers) gear with dps skills and dps traits? A dps character. What is a character in offensive gear (berserkers) with defensive support traits and defensive support skills? A defensive support character.
With that out of the way as an established fact, let’s debunk some of the weaker arguments in this thread…
“Build Diversity”: Since playstyle is determined by everything EXCEPT gear, the concept of changing a gear type to encourage different playstyles is literally an absurdism. If you want to actually make defensive support builds more viable, you have to change the things that actually affect the playstyle: traits and skills. Or change the content to make healing/boon duration more useful, but that runs the risk of creating a trinity system where teams require a specific profession using a specific build to complete content, which has a problem all its own.
“Stacking”: Nothing to do with gearing. Even if Apothecary gear became meta, stacking would still be done in places where stacking is done. This is not a gearing issue.
“Zerker trivializes content”: Depends. There are a few bosses who are killed very quickly with fiery greatswords and berserker gear in such a way that their mechanics are skipped. There are also other bosses that aren’t, or aren’t outside of a very organized group. This is partially a content issue, partially a downscaling issue, and partially a fiery greatsword issue. Very little of it has to do with berserker gear itself. In fact, I would argue that Fiery Greatsword is the biggest culprit. The damage it is capable of is so far beyond the scope of everything else that it allows even the least skilled players the ability to speed run certain dungeons. If fiery greatsword was nerfed, it is entirely likely that many people who are being carried by it would go back to complaining about dungeons being too difficult.
“The content is too easy”: No, the content is too old. I assure you, the first time you did Arah path 1 in September of 2012 was not as fast as it is done now, even if you are an elite dungeon runner now. Arah is very, very hard. Drop a new player into Arah with no experienced teammates and no video guides and suboptimal builds. He will fail very hard. In fact, drop the same player into any of the dungeons and they will likely struggle mightily. The content isn’’t too easy, it’s just too old. Even the more challenging raids in other games go on farm after two years of existence. The type of raid that took progression guilds two weeks to beat the first time around are facerolled by pugs after two years once the builds and strats are known. This is how MMO goes. If you want to decrease the berserker population, add brand new dungeons that don’t have established guides and community tactics yet and watch the casual berserker users put on defensive gear, or avoid the content altogether.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dual.8953:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dual.8953:

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.

What game’s meta has build “diversity” that does not consist of tank build, heals build and the one best DPS build for one’s class? That’s not diversity, it’s enforced roles.

Well tell that do the meta guys saying “we have tons of diversity in the meta”.

They can read, hopefully. That said, there is a lot more build diversity in the GW2 non-meta than you’ll find in those other games.

When you start talking about non-meta, balance just goes out of the window as you get lost in play-how-you-want land. I’d even say GW2 has less diversity even there because simply, our weapon skills are locked where as in most other games, they aren’t, allowing you to pull off more random combinations of non-meta builds.

Ropechef.6192:

Your “playstyle” is defined foremost by your weapon choices, skill choices and traits. If you choose utility skills of a support nature, along with melee weapons and use traits that give defensive benefits to your team, you are a support melee character. If you choose offensive boosting skills, ranged weapons and DPS boosting traits, you are a ranged DPS character. These things are true regardless of your gear prefix. Again, who you are is defined by your weapon choice, skill choice and trait choices.

Separating gear from playstyle is absurd. Gear improves the effectiveness of the choices made in traits, weapons for your playstyle. Let’s look at this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUp8q9ZxALseNSaBB6XkiMKqQ+5GcgAA-ThQFABA8AAS+CAAA-e
This build would be useless without precision. Also gear defines how you can use your skills. If you have a higher survivability, you can use your skills for protecting your allies instead of yourself.

Rhego.6590:

Hello Guild Wars 2 Community!

Let me begin by saying I don’t have a definitive idea of how to fix this issue… but I do know it is something that I haven’t seen talked about very much and it is something that needs to be addressed.

From my experience (I have the Dungeon Master title and have completed up to and including fractals level 40), the average PvE 5 main group in Guild Wars 2 consists of 5 full Berserker players or something very similar. Guild Wars 2 classes have three roles: Support, Control, and Damage. Berserker = damage. Where is the support and control? (Again.. this is only my opinion. Please don’t flame me haha). I come from World of Warcraft… I played a protection/holy paladin for 7 years since close to release date of WoW. I was a tank and a healer. I tanked server first kills for multiple raid bosses and my guild earned server first Deathwing kill. ALL I DID in WoW was tank. It was my heart and soul of the game; I don’t recall having a single dps character. Raid bosses were difficult and the tank and healers had to be on there game (arguably more so than the dps) to be able to clear the fight. PLEASE DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND… I am NOT asking for Guild Wars 2 to implement raids and a role trinity (tank healer dps). However, I do think it is more then necessary to develop a place in PvE content for those who have a support/control play style similar to mine. The logic which I have heard at this point is, “Bosses in high level fractals hit so hard they will 1-2 shot anyone, regardless of gear and traits, so everyone should just build Berserker for max dps.” Hopefully I’m not the only one that thinks this is outrageous. In addition, the counter argument, “Just build support anyway and bring support utilities” is also somewhat invalid as bring a support build (traits and utility skill) results in a kick because you aren’t pulling your weight in terms of damage output.
Possible solutions: Maybe decrease how hard the bosses hit just enough so a full support PVT guardian can eat some of this hits, taking aggro pressure off of his full berserker party…. do this just enough so that an individual who plays a support or control role is not only not kicked but somewhat desired in a fractal or dungeon group.
Again, I am not a game developer and I have no idea how this would be balanced or actually implemented into the game. However, I do feel that current PvE content excludes players who enjoy a Support or Control play style.

Please comment and let me know what you all think!
Who knows: maybe after enough players agreeing Arena Net will consider making some changes.

this doesn’t need any more statements.
i feel exactly the same so imho this is a perfect feedback.

Tim.6450:

Separating gear from playstyle is absurd. Gear improves the effectiveness of the choices made in traits, weapons for your playstyle. Let’s look at this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUp8q9ZxALseNSaBB6XkiMKqQ+5GcgAA-ThQFABA8AAS+CAAA-e
This build would be useless without precision. Also gear defines how you can use your skills. If you have a higher survivability, you can use your skills for protecting your allies instead of yourself.

First of all, 18% + possible fury + possible banner + possible food gives 50% chance to crit. Couple it with the fact that all, except one of all those critical procs, have 5 or 10 seconds cooldowns and the fact that engineer hits a lot of times per second thanks to all of the AoE and it doesn’t seem absurd.

Moreover, what about comparison between gear like Berserker’s, Valkyrie’s, Knight’s and Assassin’s? They only change precision/power ratio or increase your survivability.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I’m just going to ask how do you know players that want challenge are a minority? Have you got statistics? If you do please share, otherwise all I see from your post is heavy assertion of your own views on everyone else. I’m sorry if that comes across as rude but that’s what Im seeing.

I don’t think people enjoy afk pav, or afk eotm. If I enjoy afk I’ll just stop playing the game.

Regarding Teq and Wurm: they’re in the open world. Mid level zones at that. You can’t exclude people, you can’t kick players out of the map, so I would think Anet had everyone in mind when they made it, because otherwise how do you exclude the people they weren’t made for?

Breaking things down into bite-sized bits is basically the essence of raiding. That’s why you got raid leaders in every game, and they don’t just go ‘right guys, strategy is we win, everyone clear?’

Your last point baffles me completely. So you’re bored, apparently according to you most good players are bored, but then also according to you, the current state of the game is perfect? What.

How many people do you see doing high level FOTM? As a person that did them extensively ( even 3 runs/day if I had the time for about 9 months) I can tell you very few players are interested in hard and challenging content.

Look at the LFG – make a group for CoF P1, or some other easymode dungeon. See how fast it fills.
Then make a group for FOTM 49, see how fast that fills.

Look at the (longer) and somewhat more difficult unpopular dungeon paths – how many parties do you see for them? How many SE p2 or arah P4 parties do you see compared to the easy paths? (Arah p3, se p1).

Look at people going afk during the Crown Pavilion.

No I don’t have statistics but if you log in the game and actually keep your eyes open you’ll see that I’m not wrong.
I’m not saying that there are no players who don’t want challenge I’m saying that there are more people who don’t go looking for it. And even those who like a challenge will probably stop wanting to do the same content the hundredth time over.

People do enjoy afk pav and afk eotm because it gives them rewards. And rewards are the primary driving force in any MMO. Not challenge.

Why do you think pavilion rewards were buffed when the pavilion was a ghost town?

Getting an organized gold group for the pavilion is a challenge for those who organize. Before the reward buff there were very few organized groups that did it because it wasn’t worth the time to put in the effort and do it. Once the rewards were buffed the people started doing it.

Why? Because rewards.

Teq and Wurm are usually done by large communities – communities that exclude people via the following method.

1)Fill main map with members from said community.
2)Begin pushing more people in to spawn an overflow/megaflow.
3)Begin ferrying members (and usually members only) into new overflow/megaflow via party join.
4)Do the event.

I’ve seen cases where if too many “pugs” or “randoms” joined said community would relocate overflows to leave those players in the dust.

And if you think a regular band of players can just down Teq or Wurm without a large cohesive voice-chat using community you’re wrong.

I tried Teq dozens of times before I joined one such “mega community” that was oriented towards taking Teq down. Their runs were flawless and I did it 20-30-40 times with them without ONE fail.

On the other side of the coin I’ve never seen a “random” group succeed.

Also to go to Teq or Wurm as a mid-level player ( not 80) is just asking to be killed and called a liability.

The current state of the game is not perfect. But there are other ( better) ways to improve it.

Changing the whole game won’t work right now.
Adding more challenging content ( like FOTM) will appease the minority of good players while leaving the rest of the game the way it is – working well for the “casuals”.

Hard mode for dungeons would be another way to add more variety and challenge ( If proper rewards are added too) without making the dungeons unplayable for bad/new players.

Harper.4173:

snip

You think challenge isnt nessecary in a MMO? Go do this, make a MMO where you get everything by pressing a button that says ‘Win’, and see how popular it is.

Look at the market, look at what hype train everyone is on right now: Wildstar. What does Wildstar sell itself on? Raids, and bringing back the challenging environment of vanilla WoW.

The reason you don’t see anyone wanting challenge in this game is because Anet screwed it up. They failed the most basic thing in making a MMO: balancing rewards. No one would bother with challenge for no reason but like what I said before, if you make a MMO where there’s zero challenge, it’ll be a flop.

Go do this, make a MMO where you get everything by pressing a button that says ‘Win’, and see how popular it is.

It’s called GW2 and it’s pretty popular. You can go to the pavilion, tag a boss, afk and collect loot.

Look at the market, look at what hype train everyone is on right now: Wildstar. What does Wildstar sell itself on? Raids, and bringing back the challenging environment of vanilla WoW.

And once the hype train dies down you’ll just be left with the hardcores the game is intended to cater to, not the casuals.

if you make a MMO where there’s zero challenge, it’ll be a flop.

It’s called GW2 and it had an extremely successful launch in China.

Harper.4173:

How many people do you see doing high level FOTM? As a person that did them extensively ( even 3 runs/day if I had the time for about 9 months) I can tell you very few players are interested in hard and challenging content.

Look at the LFG – make a group for CoF P1, or some other easymode dungeon. See how fast it fills.
Then make a group for FOTM 49, see how fast that fills.

this is not about only a few players are interested in hard and challenging content.
this is because if you have done the same dungeon over and over again it is getting boring no matter how “hard” and “challenging” it gets. you can also try the normal dungeons with starter gear it would have the same effect. people who wants a hard and challenging content want it on a mechanic kind of way and not just dependant on more hp/more dmg etc.

a sencondary demotivation to do the high level FOTM is that the loot-design of GW2 is not really rewarding and way to random in terms of luck

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

snip

You think challenge isnt nessecary in a MMO? Go do this, make a MMO where you get everything by pressing a button that says ‘Win’, and see how popular it is.

Look at the market, look at what hype train everyone is on right now: Wildstar. What does Wildstar sell itself on? Raids, and bringing back the challenging environment of vanilla WoW.

The reason you don’t see anyone wanting challenge in this game is because Anet screwed it up. They failed the most basic thing in making a MMO: balancing rewards. No one would bother with challenge for no reason but like what I said before, if you make a MMO where there’s zero challenge, it’ll be a flop.

Fun fact – MMO games that use the " press here to win" method are already very successful – see Farmville and its spin-off.

Hell – no challenge content exist in GW2 like maha pointed out. It’s called afk tagging, zerging bosses in champ trains and doing EOTM. Why do you think players keep doing it?

I didn’t say challenge is not necessary – but I am trying to point out that the majority don’t want too much challenge in their game.
And while it might be challenge that brings players to the game or content it’s rewards that keep them playing.

Rarely do players keep doing the same thing or playing the same game for “the challenge”.

A challenge is a challenge for as long as it takes you to overcome it. After that it becomes trivial. So you need something to keep the player coming back. That something is rewards.

I didn’t say the game has or should have zero challenge, just that you can’t rework the entire game and make it super challenging.

Also there are tiers of players. Something I might find challenging other players might find impossible. Or something I feel is too easy might be just right for others.

How challenging the content is is determined by how the majority of the player base responds to it. That determination is done via in-game metrics not by a few players posting on the forums.

The players on the forums are a minority and not even a representative one for the whole player base of GW2.

Felices Bladewing.3914:

Harper.4173:

How many people do you see doing high level FOTM? As a person that did them extensively ( even 3 runs/day if I had the time for about 9 months) I can tell you very few players are interested in hard and challenging content.

Look at the LFG – make a group for CoF P1, or some other easymode dungeon. See how fast it fills.
Then make a group for FOTM 49, see how fast that fills.

this is not about only a few players are interested in hard and challenging content.
this is because if you have done the same dungeon over and over again it is getting boring no matter how “hard” and “challenging” it gets. you can also try the normal dungeons with starter gear it would have the same effect. people who wants a hard and challenging content want it on a mechanic kind of way and not just dependant on more hp/more dmg etc.

a sencondary demotivation to do the high level FOTM is that the loot-design of GW2 is not really rewarding and way to random in terms of luck

Agreed with the FOTM loot – it took me 9 months to get the Fractal Longbow I wanted.

Harper.4173:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

snip

You think challenge isnt nessecary in a MMO? Go do this, make a MMO where you get everything by pressing a button that says ‘Win’, and see how popular it is.

Look at the market, look at what hype train everyone is on right now: Wildstar. What does Wildstar sell itself on? Raids, and bringing back the challenging environment of vanilla WoW.

The reason you don’t see anyone wanting challenge in this game is because Anet screwed it up. They failed the most basic thing in making a MMO: balancing rewards. No one would bother with challenge for no reason but like what I said before, if you make a MMO where there’s zero challenge, it’ll be a flop.

Fun fact – MMO games that use the " press here to win" method are already very successful – see Farmville and its spin-off.

Hell – no challenge content exist in GW2 like maha pointed out. It’s called afk tagging, zerging bosses in champ trains and doing EOTM. Why do you think players keep doing it?

I didn’t say challenge is not necessary – but I am trying to point out that the majority don’t want too much challenge in their game.
And while it might be challenge that brings players to the game or content it’s rewards that keep them playing.

Rarely do players keep doing the same thing or playing the same game for “the challenge”.

A challenge is a challenge for as long as it takes you to overcome it. After that it becomes trivial. So you need something to keep the player coming back. That something is rewards.

I didn’t say the game has or should have zero challenge, just that you can’t rework the entire game and make it super challenging.

Also there are tiers of players. Something I might find challenging other players might find impossible. Or something I feel is too easy might be just right for others.

How challenging the content is is determined by how the majority of the player base responds to it. That determination is done via in-game metrics not by a few players posting on the forums.

The players on the forums are a minority and not even a representative one for the whole player base of GW2.

Then let me ask you, why has no AAA titles ever marketed themselves as ‘you get free loot, you always win!’?

Did you ever hear Colin going ‘yeah our philosophy for GW2 is you just afk and you get stuff.’ People keep playing that stuff because it gives you loot, more loot than almost anything else you can do. I very much doubt players like running the champ train ‘and go wow, this is truly a next gen MMO experience.’, and I don’t think Anet likes it either. The QD nerfs and the pavilion chamge can tell you as much.

When you first look at a MMO, do you look at ‘hey lets see how easy I can get loot here!’ or do you look at the game play? I look at the latter. If you don’t have engaging gameplay, you won’t have a good game.

Farmville exists. But for thats for a different target audience, and as a different type of entertainment. that formula won’t work here. I don’t think I need to explain why.

I never said anything about reworking the game. I just said the AI needs to be improved. That’s basically like a Spider Queen change across the broad. No mechanics are changed, the general format and structure of everything remains the same, I don’t call that reworking the entire game or even making it super challenging.

@ Ropechef: Thanks for that post. There’s a lot of truth in it.

@ Tim: Yes, there are certain builds that require certain stats (the more the better in some cases). However, why is precision necessary in the build you linked? Because critical procs are a choice made by selecting traits (crit yields blind/swiftness and swiftness yields vigor). Blinds and vigor yield defense, ergo you’re using an offensive stat (crit chance) to gain defense. A similar dependency exists between certain guaranteed crit skills and Ferocity. There are a lot more builds that can be used regardless of gear.

@ Everyone else: The way the human brain generates enjoyment out of challenge is related to the newness of the experience. Once there is no possibility of newness in the experience, the chemically generated feeling of enjoyment is no longer happening. There may be some association between earlier feelings and redoing that content, but you’re not strengthening that association and eventually even that fades. At some point, there’s no longer the edge-of-the-seat sense of, “I could miss this dodge.” because you’ve made it so many times muscle memory will likely get it right. This is why PvP content has a longer shelf life than PvE content, and why rewards are needed to keep MMO players playing, in PvP but especially in PvE.

Bottom line, when you’re asking for challenge, you are at least in part asking for new experiences. That’s not to say that more in-depth encounter mechanics would not be more challenging than new dungeons in GW2 featuring more of the same. However, even more complex mechanics get old.

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve put forward, Indigo.
But I do think you might accidentally be misrepresenting our options a bit.

You’re kind of giving the impression combat dynamism is this binary situation where ‘Human Opponent=Yes, AI Opponent=No’ . It’s more of spectrum depending on where the enemy behavior falls on Scripted vs. AI, how much the combat supports snap desicion-making vs. simple reflex checks, and how much of your ability to affect the playingfeild is Automated vs. Manual (and there’s probably others I’m not remembering).

Right now our enemies are Scripted, the combat pans out to mostly Reflex Checks and much of your impact on the battlefield is Automated. So, yeah, not exactly a great spot to be in. But you make an effort to change those, and things start looking much better.

Maybe not ‘never have to update the content ever again’ better. But a far sight better than we have now.

I think the point I want to make is that if your friend asks you ‘hey, hows the dungeons in GW2 like?’ and you answer ‘we stack in a corner and faceroll everything.’

Is that going to make him want to buy the game?

@ Vox

Nor do I disagree with your analysis. Unfortunately, opting for brevity in posts can mean not fully exploring every aspect of an issue. I didn’t meant to convey the idea that such a complex issue devolves to a binary choice.

Even PvP can get stale once you’ve played it enough. There’s probably a (very loose) ratio between PvP boredom and the number of options opponents consider worth using. That’s one reason for PvP devs to strive towards greater balance without sacrificing diversity. PvP can (obviously) also get stale if too much of what goes on is passive rather than active.

PvE is going to be scripted for the foreseeable future.. While we can (and should) ask for better mechanics and AI than we have, such things can only go so far. For instance, AI could recognize player tactics and use different options depending on what players do. Eventually, though, players will figure out the best option (for them) and ignore the other options. Also, PvE content that emphasizes decision making has to surprise the player. Randomizing mob rotations can do this to some degree if the mob abilities also require different counters.

Ideally, we’d see new dungeons (for newness) with better mechanics (increased challenge) and better AI (more challenge, plus extend the challenge-based shelf life of the dungeon). I doubt very much we’ll ever see a revamp of persistent world mobs that isn’t just adjusting numbers. I expect any new armies will continue to offer a bit more than the at-launch armies do.

PvE balance is out the window because every class is underpowered except warriors.

Everything in PvE is aimed at people playing ONE way. Making an entire game revolve around the dodge mechanic was a mistake.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think the point I want to make is that if your friend asks you ‘hey, hows the dungeons in GW2 like?’ and you answer ‘we stack in a corner and faceroll everything.’

Is that going to make him want to buy the game?

i have to say that’s pretty on point.

@Indigo

Unfortunately, opting for brevity in posts can mean not fully exploring every aspect of an issue.

That’s True. Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.

You’re right in that AI ultimately boils down to ‘if x, do y’ (sans Utility AI and that self-learning stuff, which are the bees knees).

But that covers alot of ground.
We have ‘if x, do y’ now; in that being x distance away from the boss causes it to use a different skill. And that’s not very dynamic, it’s easy to just figure out if the melee or ranged option is ‘better’ and stick with that. But the AI in Shooter genres are ultimately just a whole bunch of ‘if x, do y’s too. And I can sometimes fight those plever cricks for days and not have a battle pan out the same way twice, much less standardize my actions against them.

Not to downplay straight-randomization as another option, because it totally is, and it’s a pretty cost-effective one. But, it’s kind of amazing the crazy stuff AI can get up to when it wants to.

Although I am devil’s advocating you a bit,
Ultimately I do agree with your ideal outline and the overall points you’re trying to make.

haviz.1340:

First of all, 18% + possible fury + possible banner + possible food gives 50% chance to crit.

This does say enough since you have to change your playstyle which now involves relying on allies (and staying near them to keep recieving buffs) to make it work without gear.

Couple it with the fact that all, except one of all those critical procs, have 5 or 10 seconds cooldowns

I counted three, 2 bleeds and one vulnerability.

haviz.1340:

and the fact that engineer hits a lot of times per second thanks to all of the AoE and it doesn’t seem absurd.

And what if you fight a single enemy?

haviz.1340:

Moreover, what about comparison between gear like Berserker’s, Valkyrie’s, Knight’s and Assassin’s? They only change precision/power ratio or increase your survivability.

Zerker = highest dps , good amount of crit-procs and good chances for your high burst moments to crit. No extra survivability.
Assassin = high dps, most crit-procs and best chances for your high burst moments to crit. No extra survivability.
Valkyrie= low~medium dps , low amount of crit-procs and low chances for your high burst moments to crit. Short term extra survivability against both physical and condition damage.
Knight = medium dps , good amount of crit-procs hit and good chances for your high burst moments to crit. Long term extra survivability against physical damage.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Yes, there are certain builds that require certain stats (the more the better in some cases). However, why is precision necessary in the build you linked? Because critical procs are a choice made by selecting traits (crit yields blind/swiftness and swiftness yields vigor). Blinds and vigor yield defense, ergo you’re using an offensive stat (crit chance) to gain defense. A similar dependency exists between certain guaranteed crit skills and Ferocity. There are a lot more builds that can be used regardless of gear.

I don’t get what you mean with all you’re saying. Precision is neccessairy to get all your procs of as soon as possible. I don’t get that because I choose those traits, I suddenly don’t need to proc them anymore?. How does the fact that I use an offensive stat for defense has to do with it?

Tim.6450:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Yes, there are certain builds that require certain stats (the more the better in some cases). However, why is precision necessary in the build you linked? Because critical procs are a choice made by selecting traits (crit yields blind/swiftness and swiftness yields vigor). Blinds and vigor yield defense, ergo you’re using an offensive stat (crit chance) to gain defense. A similar dependency exists between certain guaranteed crit skills and Ferocity. There are a lot more builds that can be used regardless of gear.

I don’t get what you mean with all you’re saying. Precision is neccessairy to get all your procs of as soon as possible. I don’t get that because I choose those traits, I suddenly don’t need to proc them anymore?. How does the fact that I use an offensive stat for defense has to do with it?

More precision allows you to obtain procs more often than lower precision would. The build runs with lower precision, though it may be less efficient. Without the traits, there is no build.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Tongku.5326:

The main problem here is poor quality development. Primarily the AI, but overall game mechanics as well.

The secondary problem is class / profession balance. For example, you can complete a dungeon in a group of 5 zerkers partially due to the fact that they can buff each other’s DPS even further.

the encounter AI is simply unable to reliably deal with the control and support roles, there are no game mechanics present on the boss mobs that would properly detect and deal with these, and there should be.

Just a thought though. This is only a rumour, I wasn’t there at the start and there’s no hard evidence of this. But…

From what I heard, during the first BWE, GW2’s AI had everything GW1’s AI at the end did. Mobs would run from AoEs, ranged mobs would kite you, all that good stuff. But there was two problems. One everything was AoE so mobs would just run away all the time. The second was more concerning, the playerbase complained to Anet that it was frustrating trying to land AoEs because mobs would just get the heck out.

I’m not sure if the second is true or not, and it would be nice if any BWErs can confirm, but if it is, that’s rather worrying and a bit shameful.

Yes, mobs would run away from AOEs all the time, doesn’t that qualify under the “need for control” ? Specifically, timing and coordination of player abilities that would prevent mobs from doing so ?

Also, instead of mobs running away all the time why did they not run away only some of the time ? Poor AI, poor balance, bad dev team.

Edit: add to that possibly bad infrastructure, poor server and networking performance, as mobs properly run away sometimes in many other games, MMORPGs included and have been doing so for a LONG LONG time. Just not in this one.

I certainly don’t want WoW-style raids or fights, or such limited roles, but every character I have now is in berserker gear, & that isn’t what I’d consider ideal. From what I’ve seen of the speed run mega-build guilds, they jam a boss in a corner & melee dps away – I think I’d rather do laundry. People can argue that a group consisting of 3 warriors, a guardian, & elementalist is somehow nuanced, but I’m not feeling it. Warriors have a lot of interesting abilities – sadly, with the vaunted mega build, you don’t get to use most of them. (this seems to be true in a lot of the much-mentioned mega builds I’ve seen here & on other sites) If ‘use your AA’ is the rotation, there’s something missing.

When I came back to GW, I looked up the new builds, watched some videos, etc, & I found it pretty discouraging. Not because it looked difficult, even for a casual gamer, but because it looked dull. So my warrior’s auto attack is best? So if I use GS, I shouldn’t bother to switch? Great… The mentality of speed runs is – ugh, I could just go mine ore & enjoy it more. So I feel like they need to rethink their instance set ups. (and I need to find something other than mega-guild guides, I guess – not much can drain interest in gaming faster than those…)

The game has all the options to create interesting encounter. Now, after trying to teach players some of them, try to teach the AI some of them.
Boon management, condition management, stunbreaks and positioning. Teach the AI to react to player input. We have seen a start of it with ressing downed. Nothing since then, expand it!

Tim.6450:

This does say enough since you have to change your playstyle which now involves relying on allies (and staying near them to keep recieving buffs) to make it work without gear.

Untraited banner has 600 range, you can get 50% uptime of fury by yourself. Lastly, it’s a team game and meta builds were created with this in consideration.

I counted three, 2 bleeds and one vulnerability.

So your offensive procs will proc less frequent because you went into more defense. Sounds fair.

And what if you fight a single enemy?

AoE and multihitting skills then.

Zerker = highest dps , good amount of crit-procs and good chances for your high burst moments to crit. No extra survivability.
Assassin = high dps, most crit-procs and best chances for your high burst moments to crit. No extra survivability.
Valkyrie= low~medium dps , low amount of crit-procs and low chances for your high burst moments to crit. Short term extra survivability against both physical and condition damage.
Knight = medium dps , good amount of crit-procs hit and good chances for your high burst moments to crit. Long term extra survivability against physical damage.

My question was rhetorical but okay. Two things. First of all, valk has a higher dps than knight. As an example, if you trait with meta build for a guardian, full valk build has 75% dps of full zerker but has almost 200% of effective hp. Full knight gear gives about 63% of dps and 167% effective hp. Secondly, defensive on-hit procs have (probably) always ICD while offensive not. Going more defense means you have to abandon offense and that’s how you lessen the chance to proc. Doesn’t sound absurd for me. On the contrary.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Then let me ask you, why has no AAA titles ever marketed themselves as ‘you get free loot, you always win!’?

Did you ever hear Colin going ‘yeah our philosophy for GW2 is you just afk and you get stuff.’ People keep playing that stuff because it gives you loot, more loot than almost anything else you can do. I very much doubt players like running the champ train ‘and go wow, this is truly a next gen MMO experience.’, and I don’t think Anet likes it either. The QD nerfs and the pavilion chamge can tell you as much.

When you first look at a MMO, do you look at ‘hey lets see how easy I can get loot here!’ or do you look at the game play? I look at the latter. If you don’t have engaging gameplay, you won’t have a good game.

Farmville exists. But for thats for a different target audience, and as a different type of entertainment. that formula won’t work here. I don’t think I need to explain why.

I never said anything about reworking the game. I just said the AI needs to be improved. That’s basically like a Spider Queen change across the broad. No mechanics are changed, the general format and structure of everything remains the same, I don’t call that reworking the entire game or even making it super challenging.

No company markets their triple A game like that because it wants to make its players feel like they’re really good and hardcore. If you say your game is really easy and instant win the bubble is burst, the illusion is gone.

But rest assured, players do want the bubble – look at Call of Duty – it’s a very easy to pick up and play game with a very straight forward campaign that you can’t fail.

People feel happy and excited to play it and trick themselves into believing they’re really good when they really aren’t.

If players hate Champ trains and QP so much – why do they keep doing it?.

If people hated champ trains why did they complain when they were nerfed. Why do they do it in EoTM?

Engaging gameplay is only engaging for a while. After that it becomes less engaging and more of a routine. What keeps the players playing after that is the illusion that they’re awesome and the continuous quest for loot.

You can’t do AC for the 250th time and still call it “engaging”.
You can’t kill the same boss in the open world for the 500th time and call it “engaging”. You do it because you want the shiny at the end.

Farmville exists and works because it delivers on an experience.
People do well easily and with little investment and are tricked into thinking they’re special and good.

The same model applies here but in a different form. The thresholds for difficulty are a bit different, the time investment is a bit different but compared to MMOs past and other RPGs GW2 is rather similar to Farmville.

Where else do you get rewarded for simply logging on and doing some incredibly simple tasks every day?
Where else do you get rewards for just bashing the #1 key along with 80 other guys waiting for a health bar to go down?

I keep seeing " teach the AI this " and " make the AI do that" but is it really that simple?

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

I’m pretty sure people don’t want the trinity again. But right now, there is ‘zerk meta,’ & that’s it. There are a lot of interesting abilities, but they’re not entirely viable. The supposed best guides I’ve seen/read here & at guru, & on guild sites all suggest one thing, basically: Be a warrior. Get a guardian, & an elementalist, & you’re set. Put them all in zerker gear, shove the boss against the wall. (I can’t help noticing how many times mobs pushed against a wall stop fighting, so I guess that’s good strategy…) It seems to me that it all comes down to ‘just dps & keep everyone’s might up, & dodge if you must.’ (also, despite this not being a gear based game, get Ascended gear…)

There are a lot of interesting classes in this game, that can be played in a variety of ways. When I play my new necromancer, there’s quite a bit to do. When I play my warrior (who is dutifully geared as suggested), it’s – limited. (and I love my warrior, because he’s Asura, & I want to hear him speak as much as possible.) I’d love my engineer, but it’s not too hard to see that the warrior is faster & easier. So when people suggest some improvements, I think it’s asking that more builds & classes be viable, not a request to go to WoW-style tank/healer/dps.

When a person first starts this game, they have to be impressed with the variety. When they read one of those guides, they have to be disappointed with, ‘Oh, I should have made a warrior, & played it in the dullest way imaginable.’ (when I read the last bit of sage wisdom about GS warriors, which is, ’don’t switch because your numbers will be 0.025 higher,’ I thought, ‘Forget it. I’ll struggle by with my others…‘) If there’s something duller than the Guardian’s hammer, I’d – well, I don’t want to know about it. Worse, the strongest ability for too many classes is auto attack. I love the thief’s various leaps – but they’re not as strong as just ‘5-back to 1’ rotation. WHY? At that point, I wonder how this is more nuanced than the old trinity. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into those roles, either. But I would hope there’s something better than that.

Now, I get that there are gamers who just care about speed runs, who don’t care what class they play, as long as it’s the strongest, & who play for the numbers. Fine – have a great time with that. But it seems to me, reading/watching as I’ve done since restarting GW, that mentality is strangely dominant. Rangers are a good example – If a person loves a ranger type class – the current meta is sword/gs. I’m glad that’s an option – when I briefly played EQ, that was a great class (beastlord, I think) – really fun. But generally, if I pick a ranger, it’s because I want to be an archer, not a warrior. That option seems – gone for now. (because, as opposed to when I last played GW, everyone is supposed to be melee now, presumably so they can pin bosses against a wall.) I don’t like pet classes personally, but I tend to make them because I like the idea of a pet running along with me. Just not the mechanics. The current meta pet, I think, is a drake-thing. Well – if you love lizards, I guess that’s nice. If you pick your class for what appeals to you, however, I’d prefer the cuddly bear or ‘the first game wolf that I actually like, but oops, he’s dead!’ I understand that for a group, you want to go with what’s strongest, but I’m beginning to feel that GW is more limited than the trinity in this regard.

As for tanks, I like the trade off of ‘surviving more, damaging less,’ but not the ‘one guy stands there holding threat while another heals, & the others just shoot arrows/fireballs.’ I love the concept of GW, where people are expected to do more than shoot fireballs. (I’m not wild about dodge mechanics, what with it being a stamina-based spell, in essence. I think they should remove that entirely, & make it an ability apart from spells – and I’m not sure why it has to be limited at all. If I want to dodge everywhere, that might be annoying, true – but so is casting spells in front of the bank…)

I’ve heard that ANet is trying to move us away from the berserker mindset. I hope that’s true, and I hope they do it carefully, because I have all berserker gear, & I’d be pulling out my hair if I had to change it at once. (this is my formal request to change it, and to give us the option of resetting our item stats once you do!)

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

Human minds tend to associate one aspect of experiences with other aspects. They’ve seen “more interesting” fights in trinity games and associate the two. What they’re (hopefully) really after is encounters with more engaging mechanics. Engaging mechanics can of course also occur in GW2, but would have to play out based on player actions that are within the scope of what the game allows.

Trinity play and at least some of the more engaging mechanics allow certain players to feel like their contribution stood out. “We succeeded because I held aggro.” or, “We need a player who can kite and has snares to train the adds until the encounter mechanic says its time to burn them down.” Simple mechanics (tank n’ spank or stack/buff/burn) minimize the opportunity for players to stroke their egos. Lack of dedicated roles limits ego stroking, also.

I keep seeing " teach the AI this " and " make the AI do that" but is it really that simple?

It just kind of depends on the AI and what you’re adding?
This is technically not my field, but as far as I understand the broad strokes of it:
What they have now might possibly be some simple Scripted Rules without an architecture. Things are sort of independent of eachother; which means it’s super easy for them to add stuff and take stuff away, but the behavior can’t get too complex.

Like;
if player > 500 range do anti-range skill

The pseudo-standard AI architecture for games is Behavior Trees. Things are more connected; which makes adding and taking things away harder, but you can also get more complexity.

Like;
If player > 500 range then 50% chance to transition to ‘anti-range state’ or 50% chance to transition to ‘movement state’. Unless the higher priority of; player = downed then stop what you’re doing and transition to ‘stomp state’.

So adding things like mobs raising other mobs once they’re downed 100% of time with no pause to reconsider as you slay them is pretty easy. But any emulation of the mob having a sense of decision-making or priorities would be harder because as far as I know that requires architecture. That said, generally speaking, smarter AI is so obtainable even Blizzard admitted to dumbing-down the AI on purpose almost a decade ago. So I’m not saying this stuff is objectively hard, I’m just saying it’s harder comparative to what we have now.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

Just gonna leave this here.

And, I don think most of our dungeons, which mostly consists of stacking against a wall and facerolling, is much better then even the beginner FF14 dungeons. because its bascially what you just described, minus the healer and tank part: 5 players refreshing DPS rotations every 30 seconds.

Harper.4173:

I keep seeing " teach the AI this " and " make the AI do that" but is it really that simple?

It’s not simple. Making a good MMO isn’t simple. If it’s simple, everyone would have done it.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT4czU31lAc

Just gonna leave this here.

And, I don think most of our dungeons, which mostly consists of stacking against a wall and facerolling, is much better then even the beginner FF14 dungeons. because its bascially what you just described, minus the healer and tank part: 5 players refreshing DPS rotations every 30 seconds.

But at least those players have to be awake and decent in order to stay alive. You can bot your rotations in trinity games and it’ll be fine.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT4czU31lAc

Just gonna leave this here.

And, I don think most of our dungeons, which mostly consists of stacking against a wall and facerolling, is much better then even the beginner FF14 dungeons. because its bascially what you just described, minus the healer and tank part: 5 players refreshing DPS rotations every 30 seconds.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m watching, but it doesn’t look much better than any other GW2 boss encounter except that this boss is focusing on a tank 90% of the time, and there’s a healer keeping the tank alive while everyone else AFK-DPSes and occasionally moves out of AOE.

It took me a while, but I think I get it now.

FFXIV is an RPG purebreed, and it has a decent amount more going on in the movement department than our Action/RPG hybrid. Resource management is the core gameplay of a purebreed, they have movement just for kicks.

When you think about it, it’s kind of embarrassing.

Harper.4173:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT4czU31lAc

Just gonna leave this here.

And, I don think most of our dungeons, which mostly consists of stacking against a wall and facerolling, is much better then even the beginner FF14 dungeons. because its bascially what you just described, minus the healer and tank part: 5 players refreshing DPS rotations every 30 seconds.

But at least those players have to be awake and decent in order to stay alive. You can bot your rotations in trinity games and it’ll be fine.

Have you ever played a trinity game? Tank and spank is only valid for the most easy of fights, and most of GW2’s bosses. Well, minus the tank part.

Last time I ran CoE, the only skill you needed is to to be able to count to 3 to beat the dungeon.

@ Guang I specifically picked a video by a good commentator that explains all the mechanics. Turn your volume up

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I picked up FFXIV the other day and the dungeons are, like, super boring. Healer stands at range clicking on bars, tank sits in melee tabbing through targets to make sure everything is on him, everyone else stands on the other side and refreshes their DPS macros every 20 seconds of so.

Is that what people actually want? Replacing the zerk meta with a trinity is just going to make everything 10x more boring and take 10x as long. That’s 100x the headache.

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

Felices Bladewing.3914:

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

How so?
The component trinity-based combat enables is tank&spank. That’s what it contributes.
On top of that, you run into the issue of XYZ-fights. Most common type is the “healer fight”, but only because every fight is a “dps fight” but we never notice that.

Meaning that one role has the outcome of a battle on their shoulders, depending on encounter. The rest stand there and mechanically push their buttons while looking pretty, because the most important combat mechanic around which the boss is built doesn’t concern them much.

Yes, you can avoid that pitfall. But, every time you do, you design a fight so it doesn’t care for the trinity in the first place. Alas, why have it then?

Felices Bladewing.3914:

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

please read more carefully next time.
i just said it is way easier with the trinity than without

Are you a game designer, that you know this? If not, on what do you base this assumption?