Guild Wars 2

So far the ratio doesn’t seem game changing tbh.

Even if it’s less effective doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.

Too bad this will encourage other builds while the PVT-ranged-campers will keep the delusion that they are saving the team and not the reason the others are downed in the first place.

Guess it’s easier to mess with coeffitients and stats than it is to overhaul combat mechanics.

Still curious though.

Curious about why they did it?
PR.

Zerker is still the best option. Now its just even more important everyone is full zerk

deSade.9437:

Curious about why they did it?
PR.

It’s always about the PR

Carpboy.7145:

Zerker is still the best option. Now its just even more important everyone is full zerk

This is so true, because zerker damage was so high you could forgive 1 person not being pure zerker and still do very very well.

with this change I’m afraid we will see more gear and weapon checks than ever before.

Curious on it will stir things… although i didn’t even thought of that increase of scrutiny

Its not game changing but conditions are stronger now but still not worth using(in PvE).

Btw, why is there a cap on conditions? If there needs to be, why not make source based?

Ariete.6509:

Btw, why is there a cap on conditions? If there needs to be, why not make source based?

Because it would make Anet’s servers explode as conditions is apparently very stressful to their servers.

They made horrible decisions like making conditions check your cond damage stat all the time, rather than having a fixed amount of damage once applied. So, let’s say, you stack 25 bleed on something (and stop applying more cond) those cond you applied still check your char all the time and their damage will change accordingly to your cond damage stat (for eg if your might stacks drop or go up).
Their implementation is stressful to servers actually. Without the cap they’d really implode fast on open world events.

The way condition damage is implemented in this game is horribly broken and beyond a simple fix. Just like so many things.

Supremacy is a terrible gamemode, real players play deathmatch where at least you need some type of APM and strategy, no sorry we’re not playing farming simulator so why would managing Eco decide 70% of the game?

Cries Of Sorrow.5864:

Supremacy is a terrible gamemode, real players play deathmatch where at least you need some type of APM and strategy, no sorry we’re not playing farming simulator so why would managing Eco decide 70% of the game?

u wot m8

With zerker nerf people would probably gearcheck even more. It makes sense. Then the magi/pvt crowd will qq more. Then they’ll nerf zerker some more. After a while, when cof p1 will take 30min or so everybody will move to wvw.
This was their plan all along!!

Moving to PvD? Dunno, leaving the game actually sounds more probable to me.

/reminding you all that they claim a single dungeon run or a fractal should take about 30 minutes so apparently they’re working on it

deSade.9437:

/reminding you all that they claim a single dungeon run or a fractal should take about 30 minutes so apparently they’re working on it

It would be fine.. if dungeon bosses had any noteworthy mechanics, which isn’t really the case. Things like the Grawl and Archdiviner in fractals were a really good start in terms of introducing bosses that aren’t just a damage sponge and that are fun, long duration fights that aren’t one shotted even in solid groups. Making dungeon runs slower without taking a lesson from FOTM wouldn’t be good. I wouldn’t even think to pug a dungeon like HotW post nerf, doing HotW level of sponge in a non optimized group will feel like poking your own eyeballs out since that dungeon is the very incarnation of boredom in computer game form. Doing ginva in pugs already feels like a chore more than playing a video game.

AC is one of the dungeons that would actually benefit from slower kills though. Most of the pugs who stack on the column without avoiding his attacks at all (they stack there so that they don’t get knocked back when they get hit after all) will end up dying once the supportive abilities and heals are down and they will finally have to learn how to fight Rumblus properly in the open. And the fights in the revamped AC are decently fun.

Talking about fractals, thaumanova is such a shame. It had a nice concept but the execution is a fail. The end boss doesn’t have enough mechanics apart from the destruction of platform and his HP and defenses are low enough that he’s one shotted in solid damage parties. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy who made grawl and archy left anet before they made the new fractals.

dutchiez.7502:

Cries Of Sorrow.5864:

Supremacy is a terrible gamemode, real players play deathmatch where at least you need some type of APM and strategy, no sorry we’re not playing farming simulator so why would managing Eco decide 70% of the game?

u wot m8

all i’m saying is… hf playing low-hunt maps its boring as hell.

Ariete.6509:

Too bad this will encourage other builds while the PVT-ranged-campers will keep the delusion that they are saving the team and not the reason the others are downed in the first place..

that quote just makes you sound like an elitists

Latinkuro.9420:

Carpboy.7145:

Zerker is still the best option. Now its just even more important everyone is full zerk

This is so true, because zerker damage was so high you could forgive 1 person not being pure zerker and still do very very well.

with this change I’m afraid we will see more gear and weapon checks than ever before.

As the pve meta isn’t gonna change at all and zerker will still dominate pve, this change will to nothing but backfire exactly like you already said.

Rather than moving away from zerker, this change will emphasize the superiority of those builds.

crosknight.3041:

Ariete.6509:

Too bad this will encourage other builds while the PVT-ranged-campers will keep the delusion that they are saving the team and not the reason the others are downed in the first place..

that quote just makes you sound like an elitists

There is nothing “elitist” to wanting to play the game as it is rather than how you want it to be. Making up fake rules of play that don’t actually translate to the actual mechanics of the game however do make one a “scrub”. Also PTV is a selfish playstyle because you give up things that could help the party (doing your share of damage) for the quality of life things such as not needing to dodge or clear conditions quickly.

crosknight.3041:

Ariete.6509:

Too bad this will encourage other builds while the PVT-ranged-campers will keep the delusion that they are saving the team and not the reason the others are downed in the first place..

that quote just makes you sound like an elitists

Actually it makes him sound like someone who understands the game and its players.

And we still don’t have the option to reliably inspect other players build and gear.

Dalanor.5387:

And we still don’t have the option to reliably inspect other players build and gear.

Whilst I already see the intoxicating effect of people kicking others because they are not in full ascended zerker gear for AC, I consider this to be an overall beneficial feature tbd.

Zerker will always be the most efficient way to play the game. The only way I can think of to make defensive stats viable is to bring back the holy trinity. Think about it. If tanking is not viable, what’s the point in building tank gear? Regardless, Condition damage will still be subpar because of the condition cap, which will never change because of the stress of servers.

Sundar.1735:

If tanking is not viable, what’s the point in building tank gear?

It’s like asking what’s the point of heavy armor and tower shields in dark souls. If you can’t handle what the game throws at you, then you can equip more sissy gear. There is absolutely no shortage of horrible zerker pugs that would actually benefit from running some knight or pvt gear.
If you think it doesn’t do anything and mention this “one shot everything so zerker is only viable” nonsense I often see on the forums I encourage you to go ahead and join a random play as you want pug with tankier gear and see if things actually one shot you if you don’t wear zerker (fact: most things won’t).

I used to run Knights on my thief before I switched to zerk…When I made the switch I still got hit for mostly the same amount (with knights I could survive 1.kittens, in full zerk I die in 1…not much of a change) I was also running 0/30/20/20/0 at the time instead of the 25/30/0/0/15 but with a thief if you build tanky you’re losing out on the one thing you can be, a catalyst for damage. Otherwise you’re just someone to deploys stealths and blinds. Which is useless regarding blinds against dredge and the stealth is useless unless the party is organized enough to use it. If the party doesn’t want to skip areas of mobs then the stealth is also worthless which would leave thieves as not being able to give much that is of use (from what I’ve heard anything thief support can be done far better with other classes and those classes don’t lose out on their damage). Just my two cents worth.

Around the time they were first talking about the change, they also mentioned that getting crit damage in line was a needed first step before continuing to tackle the problem.

Prettymuch everyone is on the same page about the expected impact of this change. Nobody on the dev side of things ever tried to sell Ferocity as a magic cureall solution to all that ails PvE building. So, hold off playing the ‘lazy dev’ card just yet.

Carpboy.7145:

Zerker is still the best option. Now its just even more important everyone is full zerk

I see the previews of the april patch has the next (currently locked) section about LFG. Crossing my fingers there will be some kind of indicator of gear type included in the LFG tool. Wishful thinking I know lol.

Ariete.6509:

So far the ratio doesn’t seem game changing tbh.

Even if it’s less effective doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.

Too bad this will encourage other builds while the PVT-ranged-campers will keep the delusion that they are saving the team and not the reason the others are downed in the first place.

Guess it’s easier to mess with coeffitients and stats than it is to overhaul combat mechanics.

Still curious though.

If you’re downed it your fault, or do you need a healing nanny?

And when all thats left is a ranged toon soloing 25% of a boss and he gets it (like I’ve done so many times) the only delusional useless player is the one dead on the ground.

Sundar.1735:

Regardless, Condition damage will still be subpar because of the condition cap, which will never change because of the stress of servers.

Not true. There is ways to make keep the cap, but make condition better in group.

You don’t need to remove the cap, you just need to change the numbers. Right now a good condition damage build can maintain between 15-20 or almost constant of most of the condition. That mean that 1 condition damage with some direct dmg player = a lit lost in DPS because of the cap. 2 condition dmage with some direct dmg player = 1 of the condition dmg player do almost no damage.

They just need to rebalance the dmg of each condition vs their duration. You could for exemple, make all condition do twice more dmg, but last half their current duration. That ways, all condition do EXACTLY the same overall dmg. But now you can be 2 condition damage in a party and only have a small lost in DPS. If your condition damage hits for 4 times the damage, but last 75% less times, then you could have 3 condition damage with no lost in dps. 4 Condition damage and a small lost in DPS. 5 condition damage in a party and you get a big lost in dps.

But that not only make condition damage in a group more viable, it also make place for more group play and synergy between each other build. For exemple a warrior full DPS. He usually gonna have near 100% crit chance and with the trait precise stikes he gonna be able to keep at least 1 constant stack of bleeds in order to activate the 10% dmg against foes that bleed. If you decrease the condition duration, then the warrior will have a hard time to put keep bleed 25-33% of the time. Same thing with vulnerability. Right now most vulnerability come from direct damage build. Warrior, Thief, Ele, etc. These are all in direct damage build. That should be a great place for condition damage to shine. Not only do they do damage, but they help direct damage player to keep up some of their damage modifier and make a big part of the job to keep Vulnerability up.

And all that work without removing the cap on condition and without any additional stress on the server.

The cap really should be per-player. I know the current rumor is that there are some algorithmic issues with how conditions are updated continuously, but that’s not an insurmountable problem — at least for instanced content. Open world might cause issues, but since every godkitten thing in openworld is zerged anyway, it doesn’t really matter if some builds are less viable there. But currently, having more than one condition build in a dungeon is a waste of a player slot since the caps get hit so quickly.

I’m not even sure that the server-stress rumors are true. In a well-designed system, tracking conditions and current player stats shouldn’t be more expensive than calculating hit boxes, spatial collisions, and damage for each direct damage hit.

Store the conditions on a monster grouped by the player that applied them, and do a single player-stat lookup each tick. Then just sum all of the contributions using the player stats returned by the single lookup. There’re really not a lot of memory lookups in this very simple design. Far less expensive than detecting/calculating direct damage hits.

The developers should be able to implement something like this (or something smarter/better) without too much trouble, and I’d honestly be very surprised if they weren’t doing this already. It makes me think the caps are more of a design decision, not a technical limitation, since these people have built an MMO — efficient structures and algorithms should be second nature to them.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they opened up a bit and talked with their players? We could actually understand their difficulties/designs, rather than being stuck speculating as to what is what.

the optimization of this game wants a word with you.
Second nature my kitten.

Consider this:
The overhead to determine if a hit is successful or not is the same for both a condition backloaded attack and a direct damage hit. They both still have to go through the process of checking range/LOS/hitboxes/etc.

With direct damage, it does a lookup of your character’s stats, calculates damage once, then it’s done.

With condition damage, it looks up your character’s stats each time a damage tick goes off. This is the “extra processing” that they’re talking about. To me, it would make sense to calculate the damage per tick once (at the instant of successful hit determination) and store that in the condition’s struct. It doesn’t make sense to me if you fire your bow and put a stack of bleed on something, then gain 3 might and all of a sudden your bleed starts doing more damage.

Absolutely, I’ve often thought the same thing. I guess they just really want that dynamic stat effect. Storing stats on-hit would be another simple solution that would go a long way towards make conditions viable — if server-stress really is the problem.

While the number of lookups can easily add up in open world, in instanced content there’s no reason to have the shared caps. Even in open world, rethinking their implementation should be able to make conditions more viable.

Can anyone point to where they actually said this was the case though? The server-stress reasoning sounds suspiciously like just the sort of speculation that pops up in the information vacuum that is the GW2 company/player relationship. There are so many ways to address any technical issues that it makes me think the caps are just part of the intended mechanics.

http://dulfy.net/2013/02/25/gw2-arenanet-looking-into-condition-caps/

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1037-qa-with-colin-johanson-part-iv/

Thanks for sharing that, I was really hoping this was all speculation.

So yep. Another “we’ve been looking at it” from a year ago. sigh. I wonder if the team that was working on it got Hrouda’d or Scarlet’d.