Guild Wars 2

so,
after a short break, I did want to solo my lovely easy dungeon (AC p3) once again…at the end I got suprised by Grast, this *.

His skill “bubble” is supposed to protect people from the cave-in when standing next to Grast. But after the latest(?) patch Grast became such a dumb kitten. I mean, he uses this special skill of him when not needed AND ALSO activates it too late once cave-in starts again. Even if you double dodge there is no guarantee his kitten bubble will be on after you dodged…

What do you guys think about it? Just a bad gone (unnecessary) change or a change in order to make the end harder? I hate it to rely on NPCs :P

EDIT: had to change the topic title

The problem with Grast is that he now use the new stability. When Grast use his protection bubble he only has one stability stack. Then the Colossus strip his stability and interrupt the bubble. At this point Grast keeps recasting the skill but only the animation is show.

A way to solve this is to give Grast more stability or use the old stability on him.

Looks like anet didn’t really think through these new stability changes and how they would affect existing content.

Thank you, Captain Hindsight! Thank you!

Lorgus.6148:

Looks like anet didn’t really think through these new stability changes and how they would affect existing content.

Since when have they thought about anything concerning old content whenever they made changes to the game? The balance changes the game went through turned most low level dungeons into cakewalks where even uncoordinated pugs can easily do things like burning AC p2’s end boss in a single trap. IMHO, low level dungeons are in a dire need of a balance pass at the moment. Which is probably never going to happen, as they’re all focused on the expac and don’t really have a dungeon team anymore.

Nikaido.3457:

Lorgus.6148:

Looks like anet didn’t really think through these new stability changes and how they would affect existing content.

Since when have they thought about anything concerning old content whenever they made changes to the game? The balance changes the game went through turned most low level dungeons into cakewalks where even uncoordinated pugs can easily do things like burning AC p2’s end boss in a single trap. IMHO, low level dungeons are in a dire need of a balance pass at the moment. Which is probably never going to happen, as they’re all focused on the expac and don’t really have a dungeon team anymore.

The funny thing is the downscaling “bug” unintentionally did a pretty good job at balancing low level dungeons, putting 80s on a more equal footing with non downscaled players.

Aaaaand its fixed now. So that’s that.

So this is why the bubble disappeared for me yesterday.

God save us. Is there even a reason to report this to them? Do they even look at their dungeons anymore?

Yep, confiming this. Grast does his bubble when he wishes regardless of what boss is doing. Sometimes the bubble shows up but doesn’t do anything.

Lorgus.6148:

The funny thing is the downscaling “bug” unintentionally did a pretty good job at balancing low level dungeons, putting 80s on a more equal footing with non downscaled players.

Aaaaand its fixed now. So that’s that.

I don’t think it was a bug, but a leaked future patch. Anet sucks at version control, and therefore accidently implemented updates that arent supposed to roll out yet.

so why in patch notes it is called a bug?

Tukaram.7920:

The problem with Grast is that he now use the new stability. When Grast use his protection bubble he only has one stability stack. Then the Colossus strip his stability and interrupt the bubble. At this point Grast keeps recasting the skill but only the animation is show.

A way to solve this is to give Grast more stability or use the old stability on him.

ha, that`s the problem I guess
the weird thing is that I thought bosses (ans also NPCs?) will have this “stabi bar” like I rerember the wyvern had. Colossus Rumblus didn`t have it (yet?)….

Wollowitz.9174:

Tukaram.7920:

The problem with Grast is that he now use the new stability. When Grast use his protection bubble he only has one stability stack. Then the Colossus strip his stability and interrupt the bubble. At this point Grast keeps recasting the skill but only the animation is show.

A way to solve this is to give Grast more stability or use the old stability on him.

ha, that`s the problem I guess
the weird thing is that I thought bosses (ans also NPCs?) will have this “stabi bar” like I rerember the wyvern had. Colossus Rumblus didn`t have it (yet?)….

That’s the thing. I thought that Anet would implement the whole system and release it in a single update (or in the expansion).

TBH, there are a lot champions and legendaries to convert to this new system and a lot of room to screw things up. Plus the fact that dungeons are not exactly hight priority in Anets bug-tracker (Alphard “surprise” bombing anyone?).

Many.8419:

so why in patch notes it is called a bug?

To avoid rumours?
Also, admitting mistakes is hard :p

Dungeons were actually better with the new downscaling in my opinion, made it harder to lvl 80’s. If this turned out to be way overpowered/underpowered or unplayable in any kind I would say its a bug, but right now I think this scaling was intended, just not for this patch.

Tukaram.7920:

Plus the fact that dungeons are not exactly hight priority in Anets bug-tracker (Alphard “surprise” bombing anyone?).

At least it made the encounter a bit more interesting. It was a positive bug and if anet had any sense, like other game developers (such as how strafe-jumping in FPS games started as a bug in Quake and ended up being seen as a positive feature to remain, influencing other games and being deliberately put into the physics of movements of these games), they would have kept the bug and turned it into the feature.

Bugs that really kitten me off like Detha breaking at the end of the run in AC p2 still haven’t been fixed since release.

Nikaido.3457:

they would have kept the bug and turned it into the feature.

This. Some bugs have the potential to become features, great ones, and improve your game experience. It’s up to Anet to make this changes.

What a I wanted to show with my example of Alphard is the inconsistency in dungeons. The first thing I think with each update is “Did they break something (else)?”.

The Detha example is spot on, because a huge percentage of the bugs that populate all the dungeons since release are related to a NPC. I think that we all know at least a couple of situations (outside of AC) where the path breaks with the death of a NPC (and the missing triggers of that NPC).

GW has a really weak trigger-check system. For example, a NPC needs to start a dialogue and then open a door to advance. Something like this:

• -> [1st dialog. trigger] -> NPC starts speaking -> [2nd dialog. trigger] -> NPC finish spaking -> [door trigger] -> Door open ->*

The problem here usually happens on the second trigger. Lets say that, between the first and second triggers, you and your party teleport to a new WP ahead of the second trigger. The NPC is also teleported with your party to the new location so he/she miss the second trigger. As a result, the instance’s script breaks and you have to restart the whole dungeon. A couple of examples of this behaviour are Tzarks dialogue, after the four borrows event in AC path 3, and Ferggs initial dialogue in SE path 1.

TL;DR. Revamp/fix the scripting system, reduce the interaction of NPCs in critical and/or game-blocking situations and don’t have fear about experimenting with new mechanics, even if they started as a mere bug.

Meryn.6875:

Many.8419:

so why in patch notes it is called a bug?

To avoid rumours?
Also, admitting mistakes is hard :p

Dungeons were actually better with the new downscaling in my opinion, made it harder to lvl 80’s. If this turned out to be way overpowered/underpowered or unplayable in any kind I would say its a bug, but right now I think this scaling was intended, just not for this patch.

no, that would be lie if week or month later they’ll do the same and call it a feature. They stated it’s a bug and this is how we should call it now.

Many.8419:

Meryn.6875:

Many.8419:

so why in patch notes it is called a bug?

To avoid rumours?
Also, admitting mistakes is hard :p

Dungeons were actually better with the new downscaling in my opinion, made it harder to lvl 80’s. If this turned out to be way overpowered/underpowered or unplayable in any kind I would say its a bug, but right now I think this scaling was intended, just not for this patch.

no, that would be lie if week or month later they’ll do the same and call it a feature. They stated it’s a bug and this is how we should call it now.

Sure, but I wont be surprised if this ‘bug’ makes a permanent comeback in a future patch

I would spam their CS for refund. Not because I agree or not with the change but because it would mean they lied to us in patch notes.

Many.8419:

I would spam their CS for refund. Not because I agree or not with the change but because it would mean they lied to us in patch notes.

They have been for ages.

No Fractal Leaderboard, which was the supposed reason to reset everyone to 30.
Thief shadowstep “fixed”
Lots of undocumented changes

^these are only the ones that popped into my mind, there are definately more cases

I cringe everytime I see theres a new update, not because of what has been nerfed/buffed, but what bugs/undocumented stuff have been introduced.

AC 2, the first group of spawns at the traps... Detha only has 1 stack stabi now, too and the rangers LB 4’d her across the room xD

Meryn.6875:

No Fractal Leaderboard, which was the supposed reason to reset everyone to 30.

I still don’t understand what happened there. Why announce something and not even go through with it… They even said they had all the data, why not post it? And there wasn’t a huge uproar on the forums over it or anything either. I’m still peeved about that.

Lorgus.6148:

Meryn.6875:

No Fractal Leaderboard, which was the supposed reason to reset everyone to 30.

I still don’t understand what happened there. Why announce something and not even go through with it… They even said they had all the data, why not post it? And there wasn’t a huge uproar on the forums over it or anything either. I’m still peeved about that.

Because the fractal leaderboard was a massively bad idea. Who cares who finishes a particular fractal first? Plus, that’s kind of useless. Once it’s done, the leaderboard’s finished. There’s no way you can do better than being first, so it’s pointless. Who finishes fastest? Does it include the group who gets swamp, ice elemental, thaumanova, and molten, or the group that gets harpy jumper, Cliffside, dredge, and mai trin?

Becka Williams.4978:

Lorgus.6148:

Meryn.6875:

No Fractal Leaderboard, which was the supposed reason to reset everyone to 30.

I still don’t understand what happened there. Why announce something and not even go through with it… They even said they had all the data, why not post it? And there wasn’t a huge uproar on the forums over it or anything either. I’m still peeved about that.

Because the fractal leaderboard was a massively bad idea. Who cares who finishes a particular fractal first? Plus, that’s kind of useless. Once it’s done, the leaderboard’s finished. There’s no way you can do better than being first, so it’s pointless. Who finishes fastest? Does it include the group who gets swamp, ice elemental, thaumanova, and molten, or the group that gets harpy jumper, Cliffside, dredge, and mai trin?

While I agree that a static, non-changing leaderboard may have been a subotimal idea, it’s better than no leaderboard at all, especially when the entirety of the gw2 population had their fotm level reset because of it.

As for your qualms about fractal rng, the fact that one has to do at least 20 sets of fractals to reach 50 from 20 reduces the significance of luck. Though I must admit that there were some luck-based bugs that meant losing all your progress (Mai trin on 37 comes to mind), but those were the fault of inadequate testing, and really shouldn’t have been in the game to begin with.

Lorgus.6148:

Becka Williams.4978:

Lorgus.6148:

Meryn.6875:

No Fractal Leaderboard, which was the supposed reason to reset everyone to 30.

I still don’t understand what happened there. Why announce something and not even go through with it… They even said they had all the data, why not post it? And there wasn’t a huge uproar on the forums over it or anything either. I’m still peeved about that.

Because the fractal leaderboard was a massively bad idea. Who cares who finishes a particular fractal first? Plus, that’s kind of useless. Once it’s done, the leaderboard’s finished. There’s no way you can do better than being first, so it’s pointless. Who finishes fastest? Does it include the group who gets swamp, ice elemental, thaumanova, and molten, or the group that gets harpy jumper, Cliffside, dredge, and mai trin?

While I agree that a static, non-changing leaderboard may have been a subotimal idea, it’s better than no leaderboard at all, especially when the entirety of the gw2 population had their fotm level reset because of it.

They might have used it as an excuse as well. Instabilities start at 30, we got reset to 30. Why would the leaderboard need a specific reset to lvl 30? Why not reset everything back to 1?

I think they wanted us to play with all the instabilities, and the leaderboard was a good excuse to reset us ^^