Guild Wars 2

So, at the moment we know that there is something wrong with guard and engi.
When someone posts record using 5 guards (for example) people shout and cry “it’s not record,it’s just good use of broken things”: ok, that’s maybe true, BUT let’s look at the past now: our lovely FGS-rush “wasn’t broken at all, working as intended, only idiots call it broken and so on ©”. Players did RESTRICTED RECORD RUNS using FGS-rush (srsly???) and everyone was totaly ok with that (facepalm) and i don’t even say about fgs-guides (ultra-facepalm).
And people who used “working as intended” fgs NOW call other players who use broken traits “dirty exploiters/buggers/glitchers/ w/e”.
Another thing called “we are tired of damage nerfs”: now you can do insane amount of damage and you DON’T like it again (speechless here)…

Ps. this thread doesn’t really have point and I wanted to create it right after fgs nerf but had to collect more info about some people’s attutide…

FGS acted exactly as it was described to act in-game. Symbolic Avenger literally is functioning at about 10x what the description of the trait claims it should be doing in a five-man group and Grenadier based on its description should not be doing what it is doing to Grenade Barrage. The difference is clear in that FGS was working as intended and Symbolic Avenger and Grenade Barrage aren’t. Using these clearly bugged traits and skills in record runs is like trying to do record runs abusing this when it was a thing.

Rising Dusk.2408:

FGS acted exactly as it was described to act in-game. Symbolic Avenger literally is functioning at about 10x what the description of the trait claims it should be doing in a five-man group and Grenadier based on its description should not be doing what it is doing to Grenade Barrage. The difference is clear in that FGS was working as intended and Symbolic Avenger and Grenade Barrage aren’t. Using these clearly bugged traits and skills in record runs is like trying to do record runs abusing this when it was a thing.

You really think stacking up multiple puddles of damage was intended? I mean you’re right in that those traits are obviously working differently than described (though to be fair how often have tooltips been wrong? ) but, isn’t it pretty silly to still defend FGS after they spent the time to remove that type of effect from the game in all it’s forms? And the tooltip there says “Charge at your foe, leaving a line of fire behind you” unless that’s just the updated version and the old one said “continuously drops puddles of fire as you charge forward” but I don’t remember it saying that.

I don’t know, I honestly agree with the OP in that a lot of people are quite fickle when it comes to labeling things exploits. People like what they like, and if they don’t they want it nerfed so they don’t feel forced into using it. And, when they do have the self control not to if it ruins their fun, they often will start badmouthing anyone who does (i’ve done it myself with wallsploit) as if they’ve never been guilty of the same type of abuse with whatever other tool.

Arbitrary rules are arbitrary, that’s really all there is to it.

Jerus.4350:

You really think stacking up multiple puddles of damage was intended? I mean you’re right in that those traits are obviously working differently than described (though to be fair how often have tooltips been wrong? ) but, isn’t it pretty silly to still defend FGS after they spent the time to remove that type of effect from the game in all it’s forms?

I’m not defending old FGS, I am simply saying that nowhere did it behave inconsistently with how it was documented in-game to behave. We can only guess as to what was actually intended in such a case.

In the case of Symbolic Avenger and Grenadier, however, it is functioning explicitly contradictory to how it is documented in-game to behave, and also inconsistently with ANet’s explanations of what they should do in the Twitch previews. There is no guessing involved; these are bugs, and using them is the very definition of abusing an exploit. They won’t do anything to people using them, of course, but we shouldn’t allow them in record runs as a community.

These glitches are new, and it’s highly likely that they will be patched out soon, especially given the response to the ranger call of the wild exploit.

I’m not a fan of the old FGS rush, but it was around long enough to become commonplace. As of now these new glitches represent a waste of time for record validators if they could be patched at any moment.

BTW, OP has some valid points. These things are not consistently handled, and similar fuzziness around other exploits and the restricted ruleset has made me question the speedrun community before (it was the CoE vs. Arah p3 door skips for me). I’ll share the answer I got: “The community voted on what they wanted to allow, and felt it was more fun and competitive this way.”

AnariiUK.7409:

I’m not a fan of the old FGS rush, but it was around long enough to become commonplace.

Great point. FGS was as broken as it was for 2+ years and was widely (ab)used. ArenaNet never lifted a finger or uttered a word. If they didn’t care for so long, why would we? It wasn’t like we weren’t trying to get them to comment on it or do something about it.

It was cheesy, overpowered and needed a nerf. But they left it like that for years on end and never said a word (Ice Bow says hi, btw). What else are we to think besides “working as intended” when they had ample opportunity to fix it, or just admit it was broken and OP? If they had said anything to that effect, it would have been removed from the restricted ruleset immediately.

Rising Dusk.2408:

We can only guess as to what was actually intended in such a case.

And that, my friends, is the real problem here…

Ideally there would be healthy discussion and devs willing able to talk about these things. But they don’t want to spoil living story plotlines, so we’ll never know if traits/skills/bosses are broken.

To be fair how long of those 2+ years was it a prominent tactic? It was fixed pretty soon after that tournament where people went hog wild with it.

And don’t get me wrong Dusk, not saying it should be allowed, just can’t help but agree with the OP when he points out the contradictions we make on these types of things. And if I felt like being a kitten I’m pretty sure I could play devil’s advocate and point out that there were other changes from the twitch streams/notes to what came out live, or misinterpret/twist the wording of tooltips, but yeah, that’s stupid

Jerus.4350:

To be fair how long of those 2+ years was it a prominent tactic? It was fixed pretty soon after that tournament where people went hog wild with it.

A long, long time. I’m not sure exactly, as I didn’t really get into dungeons until about 6-8 months after launch, and by then it was common knowledge.

It was only publicized in that tournament because that was the first time there ever was a tournament — it’d been reported, questioned, and discussed countless times by then.

Jerus.4350:

To be fair how long of those 2+ years was it a prominent tactic? It was fixed pretty soon after that tournament where people went hog wild with it.

If you believe that for a second ArenaNet ever gives PvE a second thought you’re fooling yourself. The extra exposure of the situation because of a community organized event had nothing to do with FGS finally catching ArenaNet’s attention, however it was starting to also gain a fair bit of popularity in PvP as it was being used to melt Trebuchets in Battle of Kyhlo and Lords in Legacy of the Foefire. And at the end of the day, their precious would-be eSports scene is all they care about and will ever care about. If PvE was ever one of their priorities we wouldn’t experience such droughts between instanced content being released (when it actually has replayability value, RIP aetherpath) and bug fixes that only directly affect PvE. Moreover, since announcing Heart of Thorns back in January we have had no concrete information that instanced PvE will be included in the expansion, all we’ve gotten is their nearly trademarked “challenging group content” statement.

I personally am an enormous fan of Guild Wars 2’s game engine and combat system but seeing what could be considered ‘endgame PvE’ constantly being neglected, not only in development but also in maintenance, has led me to a point where I don’t even expect anything for the future anymore.

more of this.

You guys have got to get over this persecution complex. They care about PvE to a degree that is totally independent of how much they care about dungeon speedrunners.

You guys have it better than the GvG’ers do, by a long shot.

Windsagio.1340:

more of this.

You guys have got to get over this persecution complex. They care about PvE to a degree that is totally independent of how much they care about dungeon speedrunners.

You guys have it better than the GvG’ers do, by a long shot.

It isn’t just speedrunners or even just dungeons. It’s simply a lack of challenging content. Their systems can do so much more.

And, as far as GvG, well I don’t think I’d be here if they simply never put in content that was aimed at being more than a pushover zergfest, so I don’t know. Completely ignored such that I would have never bought the game doesn’t sound all that bad :b

And Veckna I was honestly curious on that question, as personally it wasn’t all that long after I started playing that FGS got the nerf, i mean still months but yeah… was curious how long FGS rush meta was a thing after reading about all the 4war+mesmer stuff that was the rage originally, it was all before my time.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

more of this.

You guys have got to get over this persecution complex. They care about PvE to a degree that is totally independent of how much they care about dungeon speedrunners.

You guys have it better than the GvG’ers do, by a long shot.

It isn’t just speedrunners or even just dungeons. It’s simply a lack of challenging content. Their systems can do so much more.

And, as far as GvG, well I don’t think I’d be here if they simply never put in content that was aimed at being more than a pushover zergfest, so I don’t know. Completely ignored such that I would have never bought the game doesn’t sound all that bad :b

And Veckna I was honestly curious on that question, as personally it wasn’t all that long after I started playing that FGS got the nerf, i mean still months but yeah… was curious how long FGS rush meta was a thing after reading about all the 4war+mesmer stuff that was the rage originally, it was all before my time.

Believe me man, I get you. Especially with the state of the game now, I’m desperartely praying for harder content.

It’s just that the “OMG THEY DONT CARE ABOUT PVE!” stuff is tiring… and honestly it’s evocative of a tone we’ve seen all too much of on the GW2 forums over the last month or so. I want to expect better of the community ><

The balance team does not care about PvE. Balancing PvE is not their priority. Because lets be honest. What does it matter if a bunch of AI is facerolled by various mechanics. On the other hand it is a big issue for PvP. Because thats creating an unfair playground where some players the are victims of such abuse. There are no victims in PvE other than NPC’s.

Its fairly obvious why they hotfix PvP stuff quickly and leave the PvE stuff for months. Because it doesnt matter. Also the balance team are PvP focused players because they have to be. They wouldnt be on the balance team if they were PvE only. Its sad that it ends up with such neglect in the larger gametype. But i can see clearly why it happens.

Or balancing for the speedrun crowd is not their priority.

The speedrun crowd is not the end-all and be-all of pve.

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Windsagio.1340:

Or balancing for the speedrun crowd is not their priority.

The speedrun crowd is not the end-all and be-all of pve.

Whatever affects the speedclearing community usually ends up affecting the game as a whole, especially the issues being debated in this thread. It almost sounds as though you feel like we demand for changes that would impact only us when instanced PvE is in truth available to anyone in the game.
If anything the speedclearing community seems to first and foremost attempt to push for bug fixes and tweaks to things that are clearly overperforming and these have a negative impact not only on speedclearers but also on anyone who does instanced PvE or even any kind of PvE in some cases, just look at how upset the tryhard world boss crowd is at this Symbolic Avenger situation.

While it’s granted that most speedclearers in these forums have grown a tad bitter due to what we’ve had to endure for so long, seeing world bosses being tweaked on a weekly basis because of minor details while gamebreaking bugs persist in our environment of choice for instance is very disheartening, it’s not like we don’t make a valid point.

Windsagio.1340:

Or balancing for the speedrun crowd is not their priority.

The speedrun crowd is not the end-all and be-all of pve.

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

The tooltip for symbolic avenger is wrong. The trait is working as intended.

source: me.

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

Well then you have a serious problem with reading comprehension.

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

Pretty sure everyone here would be happy if the put a fun boss in an isolated room where no speedrunning tactics could take place just a fun fight.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Did i say anything about speedrunning? Nope.

Not explicitly, no, but the tone and focus are pretty blindingly clear.

Pretty sure everyone here would be happy if the put a fun boss in an isolated room where no speedrunning tactics could take place just a fun fight.

Sure, but the point holds. If I leave hte reference to ‘speed running’ out of it (don’t have a good term for the community in question, it’s not actually the broader dungeon community), we have people complaining that Anet doesn’t balance to match their issues and treat it as if anet doesn’t balance the game mode at all.

This is false and myopic.

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

So PvE balance is only about speedclearing? Explain that to the people abusing the guard symbol stuff on tequatl. If theres imbalances in PvE they should be addressed. They are often ignored for long periods of time because PvP is more important for them to balance (apparently). This has nothing to do with speedclearing. And if you honestly believe they balance all gamemodes fairly and equally you are seriously delusional.

The only reason you can possibly have for bringing speedclearing into it is that speedclearing is often the cause of discovery of most broken things. Along with the place where players are most likely to fully abuse said broken mechanics without restraint. It also involves a controlled instanced environment which makes it much easier to identify imbalances such as which class is good and which is bad. But dont make the mistake that it has anything to do with speedclearing. It doesnt.

Look at this way. Anet probably balances PvP with higher regard to tournament feedback and data. But they arent balancing tournaments. They are balancing PvP as a whole. Tournaments just happen to be the high end and the extreme where its easy to identify the problems. This is Just like speedclearing is to the whole of PvE.

Windsagio.1340:

Or balancing for the speedrun crowd is not their priority.

The speedrun crowd is not the end-all and be-all of pve.

I think you may want to reread his original post. He was originally commenting that pvp requires more balancing than pve, not that anet doesn’t care about pve. That seems smart. PVE is cooperative, so overpowered skills help everyone. PVP is competitive so overpowered skills benefit only the players on the side using them, and hurt the other players. So PVP deserves more balance. The flip side is that pve content gets dull and predictable. So pve needs less balancing but more new content. I would say anet does a decent job of adhering to that. It’s just unfortunate all that new content is never instanced.

However I think we can all agree, the people who get the most from anet in terms of developer hours are the people who just love buying gem shop cosmetic skins lol.

As for the OP, the rules for the speed run records are just agreed upon by the community. It’s arbitrary. A lot of people are convinced that these abilities will get nerfed within the month. What’s the point of accepting them as speed run records if the records must be reset in only a month?

maha.7902:

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

Yeah, I know the circle-kitten is much more fun than actually having to consider your assumptions.

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

I don’t actually want to be the bad guy, but seriously somebody’s gotta try to break the cycle.

FGS worked like all the skill of the same type, but it had unintended consequence. It was in the game for more than a year.

Symbol Avenger is a trait that just don’t work like it suppose too and it was remove less than 2 weeks after it was put in the game.

Some huge difference.

Windsagio.1340:

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

Right…. Falsely claiming we have a hidden agenda and completely failing at reading comprehension would be a more accurate description of what you are doing.

Windsagio.1340:

maha.7902:

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

Yeah, I know the circle-kitten is much more fun than actually having to consider your assumptions.

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

I don’t actually want to be the bad guy, but seriously somebody’s gotta try to break the cycle.

well you are looking for a fight because when spoj stated the blatantly obvious (anet balance for pvp rather than pve) you decided to try and make out that we want them to balance the game for us (as in, speed runners, not pve in general) which is incorrect. we simply want pve to be given even the slightest consideration in terms of balance changes. a basic example would be something like the damage reduction on hb/ww or the damage increase on whirling axe. what need was there for hb/ww to be reduced in pve when warrior is an average dps class, and why did whirling axe have to get its damage buff split between the two modes? it’s not like off-hand axe is particularly good in either pvp or pve so why not let pve get the buff as well?

it’s flagrantly obvious to anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to this game that pvp is basically what 99.5% of the game is balanced around, since catering to the almost zero people who play it is of the utmost importance.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

Right…. Falsely claiming we have a hidden agenda and completely failing at reading comprehension would be a more accurate description of what you are doing.

You don’t have a hidden agenda, you have an explicit agenda, and not even one I disagree with that much:

Your agenda, simply, is that you want more time and effort and resources spent on difficult group content.

The thing is, you’re not helping that agenda with persecution myths.

maha.7902:

Windsagio.1340:

maha.7902:

oh look it’s this guy again looking for fights

well how about you go somewhere else because literally nobody here is interested in reading your posts

Yeah, I know the circle-kitten is much more fun than actually having to consider your assumptions.

I’m not looking for a fight, I’m trying to promote considered thought on the subject as compared to the destructive cycle of outrage folks like to engage in.

I don’t actually want to be the bad guy, but seriously somebody’s gotta try to break the cycle.

well you are looking for a fight because when spoj stated the blatantly obvious (anet balance for pvp rather than pve) you decided to try and make out that we want them to balance the game for us (as in, speed runners, not pve in general) which is incorrect. we simply want pve to be given even the slightest consideration in terms of balance changes. a basic example would be something like the damage reduction on hb/ww or the damage increase on whirling axe. what need was there for hb/ww to be reduced in pve when warrior is an average dps class, and why did whirling axe have to get its damage buff split between the two modes? it’s not like off-hand axe is particularly good in either pvp or pve so why not let pve get the buff as well?

it’s flagrantly obvious to anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to this game that pvp is basically what 99.5% of the game is balanced around, since catering to the almost zero people who play it is of the utmost importance.

This is what I mean by myopia.

Spoj’s statement is incorrect because he thinks they’re balancing for PvP instead of PvE.

In fact, it only seems that way to him because he moves in a very small circle that reinforces a fairly closed conception of the needs of PvE balance and can’t/isn’t looking at the game holistically.

~~~~

And, I don’t want to get into the whole concept of holistic design, but in short, balance for different game modes don’t need to be, and shouldn’t be treated exclusively, and they have to consider the effects of a change on the player base as a whole, all play styles and skill levels.

~~~~

If you get out of your own subculture the needs you see aren’t remotely so self-evident. Someone coming from a different place and arguing to a different conclusion isn’t ‘just looking for an argument’.

Reject generalizing from your own needs. It will almost always lead you wrong.

You are clearly still failing at reading comprehension.

Spoj’s statement is incorrect because he thinks they’re balancing for PvP instead of PvE.

No where in my post did i say this. I said they balance with a priority towards PvP over PvE. And I gave good reasons for why they do it. If i was on the balance team i would probably do the same even if i preferred to do the opposite. Because logically it is the right decision.

There is plenty of evidence to support this.

I also dont appreciate the insinuation that i can only think within the one gametype im most involved in. That is simply untrue. I dont play much PvP or WvW. But i do understand the balance behind it and follow the balance decisions quite closely. This is one of the reasons i can confidently say they prioritise PvP balance over PvE. Being a regular on the dungeon subforum doesnt mean i dont read and post on other subforums. I do get out of my own subculture. Thank you for the false assumptions once again.

This has nothing to do with my own needs. Im looking at things objectively. I stopped caring about PvE balance a long time ago due to their lack of ability to address the necro. I no longer care what decisions they make because i have accepted they will probably never satisfy my personal desires for balance. This is why i can look at things objectively.

Little advice for you. Dont assume. They say it makes an a** out of u and me.

spoj.9672:

I no longer care what decisions they make because i have accepted they will probably never satisfy my personal desires for balance. This is why i can look at things objectively.

The Tao of spoj?

Spoj, alternative to me lacking comprehension, I’m just interpreting what you say in a way you might not like.

And no you’re not. You think you are, of course you think you are, but you’re not looking at things objectively.

But, I’ll let you be, this is down to petty wrangling at this point.

I like how you think you know what i mean better than i do. Id really love to know what goes on in that warped noggin of yours.

If you can prove to me PvE and PvP is balanced equally, with examples. I will admit i was not as objective as i could have been. I wont claim im not biased towards PvE balance. That doesnt mean i cant be objective about it.