Guild Wars 2

Does anyone else feel like A-net is pressuring us to play dungeons a certain way?

For example: In Twilight Arbors on the first spider boss of path Up, mesmers and guardians used to be able to block Malrona’s attacks by placing feedback and Wall of Reflection, but now these skills are no longer usable on her aoe poison fields.

I understand that there were some players using these skills to their advantage and quickly able to slay her with her own attacks, but why go through all the trouble of taking the abilities away just because we found a quicker way to beat her?

I know there is a bit of controversy over this topic, but I do not get why a-net even gives us these skills if we are not allowed to use them.

It has been painful to watch how anet is handling the whole reflects issue. I don’t think anyone can give a good answer as for they feel those skills had to be changed, I have my theories though…

Anet likes to “fix” things which don’t need to be fixed while ignoring actual bugs.
As for Malrona… Guess they thought “oh hey, the poison amplifies damage… the reflect of her other skill pretty much kills her afterwards. We could give her more skills… Nah, lets just make the projectiles unreflectable without telling anyone.”

Yes, it should be obvious to anyone who’s played the game for a while that ANet wants us to do the dungeons in a certain way. They don’t like skips for instance, as evidenced by the fact that they fixed certain “jumping puzzle” paths in some dungeons. They just can’t be too draconian about it without driving off a lot of dungeon players, so you won’t see things like “locked gates that won’t open until all previous enemies are slain”.

I’m too very disappointed with the fact how my Wall of Reflection has so many exceptions, it has become unreliable, always have to test it on every single enemy type/attack to see if it actually works. There is no pattern, some AOE-based attacks can be reflected while most not, some bullets can be reflected, some not
“This skill reflects projectiles except projectiles that look like projectiles but don’t count as projectiles”

Making the projectiles “unreflectable” doesn’t pressure us to play dungeons in a certain way. It just disables one of the ways we had, which ANet judged to be bad for the game.
Whether that’s true or not is an entirely different discussion.

And by the way, the only thing pressuring us to play dungeons in a certain way is the meta, not ANet.

I doubt it affected gem purchases, so…shrugs

Vikkella brings up a point
It doesn’t help that plays abused the living crud out of these things to such a degree they had little choice. Personally I don’t think it;s possible for full reflection to be balanced without becoming unreliable.

However I also agree with Axel on this one. There’s a general problem in the game of severe elitism, to the point I don’t play anymore until it’s fixed. But heres a better example. Look at the spider queen in the AC dungeon which has become infamous. Because players really stupidly stacked in a corner in this very counter-productive way, then kicked/insulted/pushed everyone to follow suite, Anet had to add in using her poison field move to even melee attackers, which only further forced people back into the “DPS over all” garbage.

That’s the problem, instead of making a lot of balanced ideas that show how reflection isn’t some god form, now we have one strategy being sued so heavily that Anet is -forced- to act. If we have tons of different styles of play running around this wouldn’t be big enough for Anet to be pushed into fixing.

But thats just my take.

VideoGamermike.5813:

Vikkella brings up a point
It doesn’t help that plays abused the living crud out of these things to such a degree they had little choice. Personally I don’t think it;s possible for full reflection to be balanced without becoming unreliable.

However I also agree with Axel on this one. There’s a general problem in the game of severe elitism, to the point I don’t play anymore until it’s fixed. But heres a better example. Look at the spider queen in the AC dungeon which has become infamous. Because players really stupidly stacked in a corner in this very counter-productive way, then kicked/insulted/pushed everyone to follow suite, Anet had to add in using her poison field move to even melee attackers, which only further forced people back into the “DPS over all” garbage.

That’s the problem, instead of making a lot of balanced ideas that show how reflection isn’t some god form, now we have one strategy being sued so heavily that Anet is -forced- to act. If we have tons of different styles of play running around this wouldn’t be big enough for Anet to be pushed into fixing.

But thats just my take.

Players just made use of game mechanics through reflect damage. However casuals cried hard like : “OMG, why do thee people can do it so easily, so unfair, please nerf please :’(”. ANet thus had to give in and since casuals have no understanding of game mechanics, they just aked for no reflects instead of balanced reflect damage.

I’m sure sometimez ANet devs just look at the forum with a cup of coffee thinking : “oh, if I do what they want they are so gonna hate me for the results, but gotta do it so they see their mistakes”. Sadly, casuals are like you Scooby. When thy don’t like what’s happening, they just stop playing and we, the core playerbase suffer from their idiocy :/

And about the meta, nobody forces you to do anything. That’s but your impression which is really false. Have fun in your hours-long full nomad’s runs though

Talk about condescending. You just threw the “Casual” label to insult an entire group of people, all because they had an opinion that wasn’t your own. You made malicious and callous words designed to hurt the people you in an extreme and ridiculous manner.
Then you make a personal insult to me, when I have no idea who you are, with a nickname I clearly did not pass off on, and use me as a scapegoat for your malicious attacks.

Anyone who claims that the society is perfectly healthy, the fact I get THIS treatment on my mere existence, is proof enough we have a problem.

VideoGamermike.5813:

Talk about condescending. You just threw the “Casual” label to insult an entire group of people, all because they had an opinion that wasn’t your own. You made malicious and callous words designed to hurt the people you in an extreme and ridiculous manner.

Hmm….kinda like labeling an entire class of players as “elitist fools”? The dense is strong here….

Then you make a personal insult to me, when I have no idea who you are, with a nickname I clearly did not pass off on, and use me as a scapegoat for your malicious attacks.

That name came from the second result of googling “videogamermike”, in case you were wondering.

Anyone who claims that the society is perfectly healthy, the fact I get THIS treatment on my mere existence, is proof enough we have a problem.

Once again, maybe it’s not everyone else who is the problem here?

I called specific things elitist. Ok in admission me and a -lot- of people have abused that word as of late, but it still stands. As well, I use the word to it’s definition, not a straight insult designed to make another group feel bad. I feel for example that the expectation to follow one single set of instructions to win a dungeon and getting insulted when choosing to speak against it, is elitist. that isn’t to insult personally everyone who feels that it, its not just a blanket attack to hurt others.

Ok, that’s not a full justification, but keep in mind, a lot of people insult me quite heavily for those words, why should this guy get a pass?

I can’t anymore right now. This doesn’t even….wot.

Constantly complaining about other people doing the same things you do. Making up half-baked rationalization to say that “it’s ok when I do it”. Somehow feeling that the term “casual” is more offensive than “elitist fools”.

I see two possibilities here:

(1) Masterful trolling.
(2) A level of denial and misanthropy that is beyond the norm.

If 1, congrats, you have perfected your chosen art form!

If 2, well….I just feel kinda bad. Not going to throw any MI labels out there, but I seriously think you may not realize how the arguments you’re making sound, especially in the context of the full discussions and your past behavior/accusations.

In either case, I have to get back to work. Hope you find some peace in the latter case, or are still getting some kicks in the former.

You say “abused the crud” out of it.

Boss has a projectile based attack. Players have skills that reflect projectiles. Using said skills to reflect the projectiles is called, “playing the encounter as intended” as far as I am concerned. It’s highly troubling that you consider using projectile reflection skills against projectiles to be “abuse.” Perhaps you should spending some time reflecting on how your point of view is so skewed?

Tree.3916:

You say “abused the crud” out of it.

Boss has a projectile based attack. Players have skills that reflect projectiles. Using said skills to reflect the projectiles is called, “playing the encounter as intended” as far as I am concerned. It’s highly troubling that you consider using projectile reflection skills against projectiles to be “abuse.” Perhaps you should spending some time reflecting on how your point of view is so skewed?

Omg

J Eberle.9312:

I have said this before. I will say it again, because I am having some serious issues comprehending the reality of this.
How.
How
H
O
W.
Do posters on forums actually function IRL. Like.
How do they
feed themselves
And like.
Breathe.
W0t.

I’m gonna report you.

ok. It’s
Cool.

J Eberle.9312:

I have said this before. I will say it again, because I am having some serious issues comprehending the reality of this.
How.
How
H
O
W.
Do posters on forums actually function IRL. Like.
How do they
feed themselves
And like.
Breathe.
W0t.

I heard oxygen makes your body age.

Nah that’s just what the elitist lizard men that are in control are having the sheeple believe these days.

we need to learn the secrets of immortality

fast

like now, before the age elitists find us

VideoGamermike.5813:

I called specific things elitist [….] I use the word to it’s definition, not a straight insult designed to make another group feel bad.

Just to clarify, no one really take issue with “elitist”. We’re used to it, we’ve “taken the word back”, so to speak.

But here’s your quote, which is “not an insult”:

VideoGamermike.5813:

That is why I call those elitist fools, elitist fools. When you don’t want to put any effort at all into the game, and are instead throwing around the word efficiency, you have no right to be lecturing others.

Besides the obvious example that it does take a lot of effort to solo dungeons, which is all the rage with elitists these days, can you realize how it’s hard to take your stance of “casual is offensive” seriously, especially when the posts are made less than an hour apart?

Oh, and:

no, the pug environment is poisenous, full of people … I was told “F**** KILL YOURSELF”

I’ve done plenty of pugging, and I’ve been called a “f’ing idiot” exactly once. And I deserved it when it happened. Most of the time it’s worth taking a second to look at your own behavior, think about what’s coming out of your mouth, and think about what the problem really is.

Tree.3916:

You say “abused the crud” out of it.

Boss has a projectile based attack. Players have skills that reflect projectiles. Using said skills to reflect the projectiles is called, “playing the encounter as intended” as far as I am concerned. It’s highly troubling that you consider using projectile reflection skills against projectiles to be “abuse.” Perhaps you should spending some time reflecting on how your point of view is so skewed?

But reflection is an exploit.

Seriously. “Abused the Crud.” So is Videogamermike suggesting that players must not only take into account what skills work well for a situation (reflection skills against projectiles), but must also decide at what point using those said skills becomes abuse? Its not like I’m hacking the game. I’m pressing one key to activate a skill to use it as intended.

player 1 – hey why aren’t you using feedback? this boss has lots of projectiles.
Me – I don’t wanna abuse the crud out of reflections. I’ll use less damaging skills to make this a fair fight.

Tyger.7280:

Seriously. “Abused the Crud.” So is Videogamermike suggesting that players must not only take into account what skills work well for a situation (reflection skills against projectiles), but must also decide at what point using those said skills becomes abuse? Its not like I’m hacking the game. I’m pressing one key to activate a skill to use it as intended.

player 1 – hey why aren’t you using feedback? this boss has lots of projectiles.
Me – I don’t wanna abuse the crud out of reflections. I’ll use less damaging skills to make this a fair fight.

Hey hey hey

Mesmer is moar than just about reflects!!!!!!

there is also that utility that increases the health of your clones?

And there’s also this awesome feature that the mes gs auto attack does more damage from range — you can stay out of damage AND do killer deeps! How cool is that?

VideoGamermike.5813:

Vikkella brings up a point
It doesn’t help that plays abused the living crud out of these things to such a degree they had little choice. Personally I don’t think it;s possible for full reflection to be balanced without becoming unreliable.

However I also agree with Axel on this one. There’s a general problem in the game of severe elitism, to the point I don’t play anymore until it’s fixed. But heres a better example. Look at the spider queen in the AC dungeon which has become infamous. Because players really stupidly stacked in a corner in this very counter-productive way, then kicked/insulted/pushed everyone to follow suite, Anet had to add in using her poison field move to even melee attackers, which only further forced people back into the “DPS over all” garbage.

That’s the problem, instead of making a lot of balanced ideas that show how reflection isn’t some god form, now we have one strategy being sued so heavily that Anet is -forced- to act. If we have tons of different styles of play running around this wouldn’t be big enough for Anet to be pushed into fixing.

But thats just my take.

You bias is getting in the way of what actually happened here. The SQ always had a poison attack, but that was her “ranged attack”. Many encounters in this game have different mechanics based on whether you range or melee. The easiest example is the new Living Story Vines. If you range them you’ll never see the swipe attack. This makes sense as why should they? That’d be wasted time making it even easier to range as it’d delay their range attack for the bigger ones or their movement for the smaller ones. Another example is Lupi will kick if in melee, but won’t if at range, but also will bubble and teleport at range but won’t in melee.

Like this the Spider queen would not use her range attack when you were in melee, it was a bonus for getting in close and dealing with her web attack while toe to toe.

People claimed that getting her in the corner was preventing the attack, the “elitists” tried to point this out as being false information but these people continued to push their theory. “Elitists” warned that it wouldn’t actually change their strategies much as they could kill it before that attack could ever get off, or… they’d actually use CC (i know crazy a non DPS tool) to interrupt the attack. This didn’t deter these people and they still made these claims about their theory.

So in the what we have is a mechanic that punishes those who melee the spider queen but aren’t experienced enough to know how to kill her before she can get it off (whether you use a CC or not to extend that time). It doesn’t punish those who ranged her to begin with as they always dealt with it. It doesn’t punish these “elitists” as she dies so quickly it doens’t matter. But a lot of the people who were complaining are now feeling the pain.

It’s a shame but the issue was brought up so many times that the devs just gave in and made the change those people were requesting. I’m sure they knew the “elitists” were right in their claims that it wouldn’t hurt them, just those who attempted to melee but couldn’t deal with it. But they did it because these people simply wouldn’t accept the facts and let it rest.

Now you can accept this or not, but at least I can feel good in that I tried to give you the correct information.

The better solution to the problem would have been to just change how reflect damage works if they think it is doing too much damage. Either remove a reflection’s chance to crit or something similar and there would be no need to just make it not work for certain encounters.
From a design point I get it, reflects can sometimes kill a boss incredibly fast, possibly faster than they intended. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a big enough nerd that I ran tabletop DnD games for over 10 years, designing meaningful encounters isn’t easy, and no one who took it seriously would purposefully design a boss fight where all their mechanics could be bypassed with a few skills. This is why every game, digital or paper, needs min/maxers. These are the people who will find holes in your rules, find ways to use skills you may not have thought of, or will show you that something you thought was balanced is in fact broken. I also understand that fixing these things can be extremely difficult, and in the end may not be worth the effort. In the end though it is the responsibility of the game designer, not the player, to make the changes before it gets out of hand. Changing the Spider Queen and Malrona so late into the game to me says one of two things: they weren’t sure how to fix it (unlikely) or they didn’t feel that putting the time into fixing it was worth their time.
I do have to disagree with one thing though, I personally think Lupi not using the thunderdome on meleeing characters is an AI issue since if you move around at his feet he still will do it, its only when people don’t move that he doesn’t use it. That isn’t exactly the behavior of a ranged only attack.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

I do have to disagree with one thing though, I personally think Lupi not using the thunderdome on meleeing characters is an AI issue since if you move around at his feet he still will do it, its only when people don’t move that he doesn’t use it. That isn’t exactly the behavior of a ranged only attack.

He simply tries to catch players who try to move, be it towards him in order to melee him or away from him to get some distance. If you don’t move he has no reason to imprison you imo.

VideoGamermike.5813:

It doesn’t help that plays abused the living crud out of these things to such a degree they had little choice.

Using appropriate skills for appropriate purposes is abuse. Really?

Next up: Dev – OMG they are using HEALING skills to HEAL themselves. Quick, the nerf bat!

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Dramen Maidria.1034:

I do have to disagree with one thing though, I personally think Lupi not using the thunderdome on meleeing characters is an AI issue since if you move around at his feet he still will do it, its only when people don’t move that he doesn’t use it. That isn’t exactly the behavior of a ranged only attack.

He simply tries to catch players who try to move, be it towards him in order to melee him or away from him to get some distance. If you don’t move he has no reason to imprison you imo.

Besides, he has been like this for about two years now. ANET wouldn’t let such an obvious, glaring, gamebreaking bug remain for such a long time... oh wait.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly decided it’s a bug, much like when they decided that Mesmer #3 Sword ability letting you Swap after your illusion had died was a bug.

ANET, stop hurting my faith in you. >:
Pls.

We will likely never know, lol.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

I do have to disagree with one thing though, I personally think Lupi not using the thunderdome on meleeing characters is an AI issue since if you move around at his feet he still will do it, its only when people don’t move that he doesn’t use it. That isn’t exactly the behavior of a ranged only attack.

You’re wrong with your assumptions. Even if you don’t move lupi can still dome you.
The attack has a minimum range, just like the spider queens poison spit once was. It is not triggered by movement, but only by range.
Granted the range window is a bit short considering lupis large hitbox and the general enemy AI which will try to always stay out of 1-2 players hitboxes (chosen at random) can lead to your assumption.

On a general note, before some kitten makes a point for “domes should hit melee to fix zerker problemerino”. Having mechanics that only “hate” on certain playstyles is a good thing to have, change them to “hate” on every playstyle are likely to make that playstyle unviable from the start (see meleeing spider queen in low damage groups), which is a bad thing.
One of the biggest problem gw2 has is that it’s bosses are extremely lacking in terms of abilities. A trashpack consisting of 4 mobs with 2 major abilities each will pack a larger threat to a group than most bosses. Look at bosses like the slave driver in cof1. How many skills does he have? Even if you factor in the effigy you can count the amount of mechanics of this fight with one hand, after you stuck it in a sawmill. The same goes for the final boss. For a game which combat style was supposed to be all around “action” and “activeness” having 4 “skills” are a joke.
Solving this “zerker issue” as people call it wont take adding more melee hate, that will just hurt player who want to melee, or updates to the movement AI, which would be broken within less than a week, that I can predict.
It would take massive improvements in terms of boss design (way beyond marionette, aetherpath or anything so far in the living story, updates to the “margin” melee detection works in, after all the reason why you “had” to stack in a corner for the spider queen was the fact that even a slight “error”, wether it’s due to a movement ability or the “don’t stay in my box AI” would let her spit poison. It would aslo take a lot of updates in terms of how stats work and trait/buff design (300 range for most buffs is just too small to make rangeing effective, also a lot of “unique buffs” are just too lacking in terms of their overall impact).

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Besides, he has been like this for about two years now. ANET wouldn’t let such an obvious, glaring, gamebreaking bug remain for such a long time... oh wait.

Exactly. And it’s not like you can still completely shut down and AFK pretty much every boss in P4 by simply attacking them before they start their dialog two years after release. These people are professionals!

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly decided it’s a bug, much like when they decided that Mesmer #3 Sword ability letting you Swap after your illusion had died was a bug.

That post makes me sad. It’s obvious how much effort Frifox and others put into it, and it’s very clear, well documented, and respectful. Even that won’t get acknowledged. And most of those bugs are oooooooooooolllllllllllllllllddddddddddddd.

ANET, stop hurting my faith in you.

Awwww, I hope you’re joking. You’ve been here long enough that any faith should have completely evaporated by now.

dlonie.6547:

ANET, stop hurting my faith in you.

Awwww, I hope you’re joking. You’ve been here long enough that any faith should have completely evaporated by now.

I want to believe.

why do people always complain about something being too hard or if people have found a way to do it easily they call it an expoit (which in 99% of cases on these forums is not an exploit, but proper use of game mechanics). It was designed the way it was for a reason. If you think otherwise learn how to become a game designer and design your own game with how you think the dungeons should be.

/rant over

AND I DO, I DO, I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES!!!

I believe in Hybrid conditionmancers.

I also believe in full nomads altruistic healing as the only viable guard build in pve

simple answer: Anet uses a sledge hammer to “fix” everything.

Vikkela.7261:

I’m too very disappointed with the fact how my Wall of Reflection has so many exceptions, it has become unreliable, always have to test it on every single enemy type/attack to see if it actually works. There is no pattern, some AOE-based attacks can be reflected while most not, some bullets can be reflected, some not
“This skill reflects projectiles except projectiles that look like projectiles but don’t count as projectiles”

Agreed. Feel free to bump my bug report. :-D

They are just trying to make dungeons slightly more difficult I think, which is unsuccessful at the moment, e.g you can use un-traited wardens to block the aoes and you can just fear/push to a corner and get hit by the poison then 1 fgs rush kills her.
Feedback and wall are already two of the most powerful utility skills in the game so it’s really nothing to complain about. Nobody is forcing you to fight a boss a certain way

The point is that removing mechanics instead of fixing them is a kitten move. What’s the point of having them if WoR & feedback don’t work reliably? Malrona’s skill list doesn’t mention unblockable projectiles for kitten’s sake.

why does it bother you so much, just do the path once find out it doesn’t work and don’t do it next time? removing it didn’t cause an issue, just an attempt to stop another boss being killed in an unnecessarily quick time

It’s not about that the boss can’t be instagibbed anymore, that’s fine. It’s about making skills useless in situations where they shouldn’t be, that is a really bad thing.

Should a boss really be able to be 1 shot if people are poisoned? seems a bit easy which is why they made them useless

Why it bothers people? Because they (rightfully IMO) think that consistency is important in a game.
If you want your game to have a comprehensible combat design, having to check wether certain skills do or do not work, or even worse only sometimes work is bad, something to not-have, something to avoid as much as you can.
Would you like to use renewed focus and have a bosses say “don’t care, die” half of the time?
Would you like to explore wether you can dodge a certain attack or harm an oponent with a certain attack all the time?
I think not.
Also what often times looks like an “easy or unnecessarily fast kill” often times requires a lot of setup or RNG in order to be “faster” than just spiking it down with whatever conjure you want.

Painbow.6059:

Should a boss really be able to be 1 shot if people are poisoned? seems a bit easy which is why they made them useless

So if I’m reading correctly, you’re for a nerf to FGS as well yes?

Painbow.6059:

Should a boss really be able to be 1 shot if people are poisoned? seems a bit easy which is why they made them useless

It seems you don’t quite understand the point. Bosses should not be oneshotted, that is right.
However it isn’t right to make skills useless either because ANet is too lazy to find a real solution. Don’t make Malrona’s poison trigger on reflects, gg. Limit reflect damage, gg. Hell, even just blocking the projectiles would’ve been good enough instead of the completely unblockable ones we have now.

I also still think they should add a note on Malrona for that poison because it slows you down, amplifies your damage and doesn’t count as regular poison when using condition cleanse (iirc). It doesn’t even have to be straight up telling you “poison amplifies damage”, but a hint would be enough.

Yeah I see where you are coming from but surely there is bigger issues in the game at the moment than just Malrona’s description, at the same time it wouldn’t need a lot of effort just to make it clear in the description. And regarding fgs yeah I do think it needs a nerf, but if they are going to make skills useless they could tell us which I agree with

Painbow.6059:

Should a boss really be able to be 1 shot if people are poisoned? seems a bit easy which is why they made them useless

Of course not. But they could improve reflect damage to be more reasonable in such situations, or at the very least make the projectiles unreflectable, but still blockable.

Throwing up my wall/fb at an enemy’s projectiles and still getting having my party get one shot is a let down. Yes, it will only happen once before we figure it out, it’s still bullkitten.

I think projectiles that can’t be reflected should be blocked instead by reflection skills. However, I don’t WANT it to happen, because that would reduce the Mesmer’s usefulness even more :P