Guild Wars 2

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/374653/page/1

Didn’t see an announcement for this one.

Thanks for posting this!

Thanks for the link, yet another thing Anet scatters throughout the interweb without informing us -_-

Sadly most of the interview will be
1) sorry we can’t talk about that yet
2) my co-workers are doing incredible work
3) we’ll talk more about <insert feature here> soon, when it’s closer to release
4) Information we already know from the blog post / previous twitch

The bad thing is if the people at mmorpg ask really probing questions or press on any one subject the marketing guys might not let the devs talk to them anymore…

Cynical… I know… but recent events have soured my perception I guess…

I’m going to watch it, but I feel it’s going to be the same old, same old.

I really wish they would just stop. Every time they say something all it does is cause a riot.
It is getting to the point that do they even play the game anymore? Cause what they see and what I see are 2 very different things.
As a dev I would be very interested in what my players feel and see about the game. I get the feeling they are a million miles away and I truly hope NCSOFT sends someone over to right the ship before just shutting down like they did with city of heroes even tho it was profitable.

They play quite a bit. I usually see a dev (marked as a dev) every couple weeks. And they often play unmarked as well. I think the company overall just has a mission statement that doesn’t mesh well with what the pve communitythinks. It seems their focus is on “esports” and spvp. If the players want that to change, then maybe instead of the 50 “My legendary is toooo hard” posts, they should post other things?

Xar.6185:

Sadly most of the interview will be
1) sorry we can’t talk about that yet
2) my co-workers are doing incredible work
3) we’ll talk more about <insert feature here> soon, when it’s closer to release
4) Information we already know from the blog post / previous twitch

The bad thing is if the people at mmorpg ask really probing questions or press on any one subject the marketing guys might not let the devs talk to them anymore…

Cynical… I know… but recent events have soured my perception I guess…

Eerily accurate, sadly enough.
Must be infuriating, his role. The guy clearly has such enthusiasm, but his hands are so very bound; and every word so restricted.

Well that was pretty cool actually. Thanks for letting us know.

Yes, finally some new questions. Still nothing on Guild Missions though.

Interview confirmed a few things of note:

• Crowns were renamed “laurels” due to “crown” translating badly in some languages.
• Possible culling update as early as this January.

I thought the Q&A was quite good. Colin answered clearly, if only talking high-level roadmap-level details for most of it. You could clearly tell where the studio is focused based on how much he could divulge on a given topic.

orr density changes confirmed

Etien.4601:

orr density changes confirmed

Praise Dwayna!

Notes from a Reddit poster Rytlock

*Guild Wars 2 has sold way past their expectations. They reached their core user base around a month back, and the population has been steadily growing each week.

*Crowns are renamed to laurels because crowns in certain languages mean bad things. Anyone have any idea what languages he’s possibly talking about?

*Different dailies coming in the future. Chauncey is coming in the January patch (I think?). The patchnotes will contain a story about Chauncey von Snuffles the Third.

*First step towards culling in January patch (source: Thanks LiveSpartan235)

*Progression in WvW is coming. You’ll be able to earn unique skills the more you WvW. Additionally, you’ll be recognized for your efforts in WvW (ex. the different skills you can earn, etc)

*Charr is the least played race. :‘( All the classes are relatively equally spread out. (I’m surprised by the class statement. I don’t see many engineers at all)

*Initial dailies will take you throughout the world. When they introduce dailies you can choose to complete later down the line (ie. 4 out of 6), they’ll introduce other dailies like Keg Brawl matches or Jumping Puzzles. They also want to add whole new content in different areas for dailies so when you go there, it won’t be totally the same.

*Guesting coming, paid server transfers, yadda yadda. Cost will vary based on server population. Very full = a lot more expensive. Lower servers will be relatively cheap.

*Guesting has been near done for a while now, but they always ran into last minute bugs before each major release, which is why it took so long to implement.

*They are looking to fix loot across the world so that going through the world is much more worthwhile. They want to keep low level drops too though, so it’s something they’re going to figure out.

THEY ARE THINNING OUT THE RISEN DENSITY IN ORR!!!!!!!! (In January) Adding new rewards in Orr, as well as new WAYPOINTS that are always active. They are also tweaking temple bosses so they are funner in large groups.
Player Question Liveupdating (I will update this as questions get asked) (The stream ended as of 6:59 PM PST)

1) Player Housing?: They will look into it in the future, but guild halls will be guaranteed. No date though.

2) Any plans to tweak precursors?: What they’d like to do in the long-run is a scavenger hunt. They want to make it right, and they are in the midst of designing it right now, and will start working on it when the design is where they want it. They want it to feel epic. They will also be adding new ways to get precursors before they do the scavenger hunt to ease the wait.

3) LFG tool?: Shoutout to GW2LFG from Colin! Even he uses it all the time. A team is actually working on this right now, but they are NOT working on a dungeon finder tool. Not something you’ll see for a few months, but it is coming.

4) Additional cosmetic features?: Yes, down the road.

5) New races?: On the list of things they could do, but it’s something they want to do with an expansion. Also, no guarantees.

What the hell is culling? Sorry, I looked it up and still I’m confused.

Vorch.2985:

What the hell is culling? Sorry, I looked it up and still I’m confused.

To cut back on resources model files are loaded selectively in situations and areas where there can be a lot of players, this is culling. It’s most prelevant in WvW, because of the large scale battles. It isn’t the problem per se, it’s actually a solution that helps lower-end computers play the game.

But it can be abused by players. Currently, if a person uses stealth in WvW, they can essentially be permanently invisible, because culling slows their model loading each time after leaving stealth. Additionally, giant zergs can hide their numbers by having too many models clustered together, and transformations that require a new model get stealth when it wasn’t intended.

Conncept.7638:

Vorch.2985:

What the hell is culling? Sorry, I looked it up and still I’m confused.

To cut back on resources models are loaded selectively in situations and areas where there can be a lot of players, this is culling. It’s most prelevant in WvW, because of the large scale battles. It isn’t the problem per se, it’s actually a solution that helps lower-end computers play the game.

But it can be abused by players. Currently, if a person uses stealth in WvW, they can essentially be permanently invisible, because culling slows their model loading after leaving stealth.

Thanks for the explanation So it’s basically character models not showing up due to loading and resource management? I can see how that could be abused.

Vorch.2985:

What the hell is culling? Sorry, I looked it up and still I’m confused.

It is the server not sending updates on where various distant objects and such are, and what they are doing. Problem is that at present it seems to favor nearby friendlies over distant hostiles, meaning that during the karka event you could not see that champion karka down the road because of the number of people around you. Or in WVW where you see a couple of hostiles, storm in and run into a huge zerg you didn’t see because there were too much going on near to you.

Here is the video for those who didn’t get to see.

Seriously, no talk about the AoE nerf? I was hoping to see some stammering and backpeddling…

Dresden.1736:

Seriously, no talk about the AoE nerf? I was hoping to see some stammering and backpeddling…

Yes there are actually some stuff on AoE nerf.

AoEs in WvW

• Guys working on skll balance are still trying to decide what to do. Some of it will be going through and evaluating all the AoEs in the game and trying to pick out a couple that are over the top and making some tweaks.
• We don’t want AoEs to be as strong or more powerful than a single target damage spell in the same amount of time when it has the capacity to hit 5 people instead of 1.
• There are some skills right now that you always use no matter what and they are not necessarily situational or you time them properly. We want there to be a lot of tactics and thought that goes into the things that you do. That will be part of the strategy when we look through the AoE skills.
• We don’t want to make them useless, we just want to make them working as intended and we noticed that there are a couple right now that are not.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/19/gw2-colin-johanson-mmorpg-livestream-transcript-jan-18/

Thanks for that post, Dulfy. I was looking for a better write up.

dulfy.1493:

Dresden.1736:

Seriously, no talk about the AoE nerf? I was hoping to see some stammering and backpeddling…

Yes there are actually some stuff on AoE nerf.

AoEs in WvW

• Guys working on skll balance are still trying to decide what to do. Some of it will be going through and evaluating all the AoEs in the game and trying to pick out a couple that are over the top and making some tweaks.
• We don’t want AoEs to be as strong or more powerful than a single target damage spell in the same amount of time when it has the capacity to hit 5 people instead of 1.
• There are some skills right now that you always use no matter what and they are not necessarily situational or you time them properly. We want there to be a lot of tactics and thought that goes into the things that you do. That will be part of the strategy when we look through the AoE skills.
• We don’t want to make them useless, we just want to make them working as intended and we noticed that there are a couple right now that are not.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/19/gw2-colin-johanson-mmorpg-livestream-transcript-jan-18/

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

digiowl.9620:

dulfy.1493:

Dresden.1736:

Seriously, no talk about the AoE nerf? I was hoping to see some stammering and backpeddling…

Yes there are actually some stuff on AoE nerf.

AoEs in WvW

• Guys working on skll balance are still trying to decide what to do. Some of it will be going through and evaluating all the AoEs in the game and trying to pick out a couple that are over the top and making some tweaks.
• We don’t want AoEs to be as strong or more powerful than a single target damage spell in the same amount of time when it has the capacity to hit 5 people instead of 1.
• There are some skills right now that you always use no matter what and they are not necessarily situational or you time them properly. We want there to be a lot of tactics and thought that goes into the things that you do. That will be part of the strategy when we look through the AoE skills.
• We don’t want to make them useless, we just want to make them working as intended and we noticed that there are a couple right now that are not.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/19/gw2-colin-johanson-mmorpg-livestream-transcript-jan-18/

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

How is guardian greatsword going to work when “spinning” no longer leads “2 win”. It already has two slots dedicated to utility abilities (one pull, one leap).

digiowl.9620:

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

Well, yes. Forces the players to use them when they’re actually needed, instead of just spam spam spam. It punishes those who throw away skills mindlessly more. Why would shorter CDs be more tactical, in your view?

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

Well, yes. Forces the players to use them when they’re actually needed, instead of just spam spam spam. It punishes those who throw away skills mindlessly more. Why would shorter CDs be more tactical, in your view?

If you make CD’s too long on blocks or CC, there’s a point where people will not try to use them for fear of losing them when they’re “really needed” —- because they never know when they’re “really needed”. (this is why a lot of guardians say shield sucks and swear by any other offhand)

On AOE, it makes zero sense —- while many aoe hit close to single-target numbers, a longer cooldown will not make them more tactical because of insane mob health. As it is, if you can’t spam aoe when its needed, then there’s no real point to aoe, you may as well just ctrl+t and call out to mumble.

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

Well, yes. Forces the players to use them when they’re actually needed, instead of just spam spam spam. It punishes those who throw away skills mindlessly more. Why would shorter CDs be more tactical, in your view?

Thing is that the game is already so active on the defensive side that likely people will ignore the long cooldowns (already happening with elites) because it will be less of a workload to simply go autoattack on #1 and focus on staying out of harms way.

Heck, if you badly time a block (every easy to do) you can’t block again for some 30-40+ seconds. This even if the skill didn’t do a darned thing because the effect ran out because the skill windup was so long.

I have even found myself seeing a wurm wind up their throw, dodged, and still get stoned because the thing has so long a windup.

Simply put, information overload plus long cooldowns will lead to ignoring rather than “tactical” usage.

dulfy.1493:

Dresden.1736:

Seriously, no talk about the AoE nerf? I was hoping to see some stammering and backpeddling…

Yes there are actually some stuff on AoE nerf.

AoEs in WvW

• Guys working on skll balance are still trying to decide what to do. Some of it will be going through and evaluating all the AoEs in the game and trying to pick out a couple that are over the top and making some tweaks.
• We don’t want AoEs to be as strong or more powerful than a single target damage spell in the same amount of time when it has the capacity to hit 5 people instead of 1.
• There are some skills right now that you always use no matter what and they are not necessarily situational or you time them properly. We want there to be a lot of tactics and thought that goes into the things that you do. That will be part of the strategy when we look through the AoE skills.
• We don’t want to make them useless, we just want to make them working as intended and we noticed that there are a couple right now that are not.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/19/gw2-colin-johanson-mmorpg-livestream-transcript-jan-18/

I wonder how Engineers will be compensated since all of our damage dealing kits are AOE. Hoping for Pistol and Rifle buffs is out of the question because those are also entirely AOE. Granted this is Arenanet, proven to be the worst at class balancing in the MMO industry. I have no doubt the class will be even deeper in the crapper after the January patch.

plasmacutter.2709:

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

Well, yes. Forces the players to use them when they’re actually needed, instead of just spam spam spam. It punishes those who throw away skills mindlessly more. Why would shorter CDs be more tactical, in your view?

If you make CD’s too long on blocks or CC, there’s a point where people will not try to use them for fear of losing them when they’re “really needed” —- because they never know when they’re “really needed”. (this is why a lot of guardians say shield sucks and swear by any other offhand)

Same on Engineer. The only time i have really used it in a fight was facing the branded devourer outside ebonhawk. And then only because it kept throwing rocks my way with nobody else around.

At first it slipped my mind that one of them had a projectile reflect, and so i simply tried to use it when i ran out of endurance while yet again getting a red ring around me. But even then it had so long a cooldown vs the devourers fire rate that i usually had to dodge a rock or two between each time i could reflect one back.

And thanks to the shield only being up for some 3 seconds i could still experience that if i hit the button the moment i spotted a ring it would run out before the rock actually hit.

All in all it becomes very tempting to go “to heck with this!” and simply banzai charge.

This will go against the grain, but I thought Orr’s “density” was fine. It was my PvE build testing grounds. If Orr’s going to be too “easy”, whats the point or feeling of dread of being in such an ugly/evil/supposedly dangerous area?

I felt it was a nice change of pace, especially beause it encourages people to group together for a more fun experience. You can solo it with any profession, of course, but it’s more tedious for most to do everything solo rather than with even an additional player. I think the problem was that developers didn’t prepare players for that kind of experience, and most people were expecting to solo all PvE maps easily, without the need for grouping up save for dynamic events. However, you CAN still solo everything at Orr-it just takes time and can be a chore for less defensive characters. But I don’t really saw the enemy density as a problem. The skill points were usually mobbed, especially on two locations on the map, but apart from that, it feels “right” that there are so many risen around. It’s not a pretty area by any stretch of the imagination, but it filled its niche in the lore. I recently had a blast helping a total stranger travel through the map for no personal reward whatsoever (I was just farming whatever I saw, and helping out-grouping in Orr is fun.)

No true complaints from me-I guess this change makes the game easier for my other characters, but I just don’t feel the area was that difficult to begin with. I always loved to intercept mobs that were running after a fleeing player. :P Usually people hate that, but I found the challenge fun in it’s own way-even if the player that brought the zombie party with himself/herself fled and didn’t help me finish his/her mobs. My only hope is that they don’t make the mobs too thin, and just deal with this so-called density with moderation-either way, I don’t mind, and was just expressing myself.

There’s one particular place at Malchor’s Leap where I’ll admit the mob density is a bit overdone-that “Veteran Hill” (that’s what I call the place) on the Northwest part of the map, where there’s also a Skill Point. It is probably the hardest Skill Point to get to if you go about killing everything in sight, UNLESS you party/group up with someone (the more the merrier.) To this day, I still find it over-populated with both Risen and Elementals, many of the Veteran kind.

In truth, the areas ARE difficult to most beginners, but with experience they become little more than hassles, rather than places of unsurmounting difficulty. I still like Orr above Southsun Cove (which is a rather unfinished map, no offense intended.) Frostgorge Sound is WAY more beautiful, but also feels “empty” in comparison (save for those Troll caves, etc.) Orr provides that level of extra PvE map challenge that is fun to overcome.

Feel free to disagree, it’s not big deal for me.

This will go against the grain, but I thought Orr’s “density” was fine. It was my PvE build testing grounds. If Orr’s going to be too “easy”, whats the point or feeling of dread of being in such an ugly/evil/supposedly dangerous area?

Make the enemies smarter. Instead of ridiculous density, have them patrol in small packs of 2-3.

one attacks directly, one attempts to lock you down, one tries to flank you, etc.

I want to see more coordination in opposing units instead of just throwing lots and lots of them our way.

of course, they’d have to adjust drop rates up considerably to stop the economy from becoming insane and crafting from becoming utterly ludicrous.

plasmacutter.2709:

If you make CD’s too long on blocks or CC, there’s a point where people will not try to use them for fear of losing them when they’re “really needed” —- because they never know when they’re “really needed”. (this is why a lot of guardians say shield sucks and swear by any other offhand)

So you didn’t really answer my question. Why are shorter CDs more tactical? You’re talking about how CDs effect the usefulness of the skill, not how tactical it is.

Part of the “skill” in this game is knowing the best time to use these skills. Longer CDs makes it so that lack of said skill is punished harder. My question to you is why you think shorter CDs, in your viewpoint, would be more “tactical.”

plasmacutter.2709:

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Sounds like they will be upping the cooldown on a bunch of them to avoid spam.

If you want precedence for that claim, just look at “CC” and shield skills. Short duration, long cooldowns. For ANet that is somehow “tactical”.

Well, yes. Forces the players to use them when they’re actually needed, instead of just spam spam spam. It punishes those who throw away skills mindlessly more. Why would shorter CDs be more tactical, in your view?

If you make CD’s too long on blocks or CC, there’s a point where people will not try to use them for fear of losing them when they’re “really needed” —- because they never know when they’re “really needed”. (this is why a lot of guardians say shield sucks and swear by any other offhand)

On AOE, it makes zero sense —- while many aoe hit close to single-target numbers, a longer cooldown will not make them more tactical because of insane mob health. As it is, if you can’t spam aoe when its needed, then there’s no real point to aoe, you may as well just ctrl+t and call out to mumble.

This is true-I use my shorter cooldown shouts WAY MORE than “Save Yourselves” on my Guardian, and similarly for the Consecrations; the shorter the cooldown, the easier they are to use without fear of “losing” the skill when you need it the most (ends up being rarely used, if at all.) I can see the same happening with all other skills, AoE or otherwise, if their cooldown is not reasonable (not that I am complaining about SY, since that shout would be overpowered if the cooldown was any shorter.)

On that subject, I still use my shield’s skills regualrly despite the relatively long cooldowns. Cooldowns that make me hesitant to use skills are those that are 60+ secs.

Those talking about the aoe nerf; I hope you know they aren’t going to “blanket nerf” all of the aoes, they are going professions by profession, weapon by weapon.

digiowl.9620:

Thing is that the game is already so active on the defensive side that likely people will ignore the long cooldowns (already happening with elites) because it will be less of a workload to simply go autoattack on #1 and focus on staying out of harms way.

Heck, if you badly time a block (every easy to do) you can’t block again for some 30-40+ seconds. This even if the skill didn’t do a darned thing because the effect ran out because the skill windup was so long.

I have even found myself seeing a wurm wind up their throw, dodged, and still get stoned because the thing has so long a windup.

Simply put, information overload plus long cooldowns will lead to ignoring rather than “tactical” usage.

What? So you’re saying a skill like Wall of Reflection and Feedback (both 40s) should be ignored because of their long cooldowns? That you shouldn’t bring stun breakers (many in hte 40-60s cd range) because of their “long cooldowns?”

Ursan.7846:

plasmacutter.2709:

If you make CD’s too long on blocks or CC, there’s a point where people will not try to use them for fear of losing them when they’re “really needed” —- because they never know when they’re “really needed”. (this is why a lot of guardians say shield sucks and swear by any other offhand)

So you didn’t really answer my question. Why are shorter CDs more tactical? You’re talking about how CDs effect the usefulness of the skill, not how tactical it is.

Part of the “skill” in this game is knowing the best time to use these skills. Longer CDs makes it so that lack of said skill is punished harder. My question to you is why you think shorter CDs, in your viewpoint, would be more “tactical.”

I believe you are confusing strategic with tactical.

Tactical implies regular use as a method of either initiating or countering attacks. Tactical can be and is often used regularly through the course of a single fight.

Strategic implies use either with careful calculation or when certain preconditions are met. For example, the US would use its nukes only when all else appeared lost. Strategies are generally implied only once per fight (and often once per war, because enemy commanders learn). Examples of obviously strategic spells: elementalist cantrips, every elite, save yourselves.

When you push a cooldown near the 40 second mark or further, you have crossed the boundary from tactical to strategic. The likelihood of a 40 second cooldown coming back up in a fight is pretty low, and cooldowns that high are generally rationed rather than used where the situation calls for it.

When beneficial durations are as short as they are with most weapon skill cooldowns (to the point you can mis-time them and still get hit with the wind-up you’re trying to block), you need the cooldown you’re using to be considerably lower to make it “tactical”.

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Thing is that the game is already so active on the defensive side that likely people will ignore the long cooldowns (already happening with elites) because it will be less of a workload to simply go autoattack on #1 and focus on staying out of harms way.

Heck, if you badly time a block (every easy to do) you can’t block again for some 30-40+ seconds. This even if the skill didn’t do a darned thing because the effect ran out because the skill windup was so long.

I have even found myself seeing a wurm wind up their throw, dodged, and still get stoned because the thing has so long a windup.

Simply put, information overload plus long cooldowns will lead to ignoring rather than “tactical” usage.

What? So you’re saying a skill like Wall of Reflection and Feedback (both 40s) should be ignored because of their long cooldowns?

Not should be, will be. People will look at them, try them out some, and then put them aside and forget they even have them. They are very nice when you know what you will be facing. But when you do not, they end up taking up valuable space on the bar and so quickly becomes ignored in favor of something more general use. And then when there is a situation where they could be useful you find yourself already committed to the fight before you recall their existence.

plasmacutter.2709:

When you push a cooldown near the 40 second mark or further, you have crossed the boundary from tactical to strategic. The likelihood of a 40 second cooldown coming back up in a fight is pretty low, and cooldowns that high are generally rationed rather than used where the situation calls for it.

Right. Exactly. The chance that you’ll be able to use this skill is very limited. Hence you better choose the best time to use it.

Which is what I’m saying. Longer CDs means players learn to use a certain skill better, in the appropriate situations. Which is good. More “tactical”.

So Colin, and I quote, “We don’t want to force people to do jumping puzzles for the daily.”

So can we also please not force people to do fractals or dungeons for the daily / monthly?? A lot of us don’t like being forced to do them (and I freely use the word force because you did :p)

Ursan.7846:

plasmacutter.2709:

When you push a cooldown near the 40 second mark or further, you have crossed the boundary from tactical to strategic. The likelihood of a 40 second cooldown coming back up in a fight is pretty low, and cooldowns that high are generally rationed rather than used where the situation calls for it.

Right. Exactly. The chance that you’ll be able to use this skill is very limited. Hence you better choose the best time to use it.

Which is what I’m saying. Longer CDs means players learn to use a certain skill better, in the appropriate situations. Which is good. More “tactical”.

Or forget that the skill even exist because you use it so rarely it may well not be there.

Ursan.7846:

plasmacutter.2709:

When you push a cooldown near the 40 second mark or further, you have crossed the boundary from tactical to strategic. The likelihood of a 40 second cooldown coming back up in a fight is pretty low, and cooldowns that high are generally rationed rather than used where the situation calls for it.

Right. Exactly. The chance that you’ll be able to use this skill is very limited. Hence you better choose the best time to use it.

Which is what I’m saying. Longer CDs means players learn to use a certain skill better, in the appropriate situations. Which is good. More “tactical”.

You are twisting my words and I don’t appreciate it.

When you approach 40 seconds, that ability feels like “one time use”. You are no longer playing tactically, you’re either using it as an “oh kitten i’m going to die” button, or you’re simply guessing, and the latter is not a matter of skill, but luck.

plasmacutter.2709:

Ursan.7846:

plasmacutter.2709:

When you push a cooldown near the 40 second mark or further, you have crossed the boundary from tactical to strategic. The likelihood of a 40 second cooldown coming back up in a fight is pretty low, and cooldowns that high are generally rationed rather than used where the situation calls for it.

Right. Exactly. The chance that you’ll be able to use this skill is very limited. Hence you better choose the best time to use it.

Which is what I’m saying. Longer CDs means players learn to use a certain skill better, in the appropriate situations. Which is good. More “tactical”.

You are twisting my words and I don’t appreciate it.

When you approach 40 seconds, that ability feels like “one time use”. You are no longer playing tactically, you’re either using it as an “oh kitten i’m going to die” button, or you’re simply guessing, and the latter is not a matter of skill, but luck.

Or running the same exact mob for days on end until you can fight it blindfolded.

Seems that was what one player did before soloing a dungeon boss.

In nature that would be overspecializing. Like how the panda or koala can only survive on a very limited diet.

plasmacutter.2709:

You are twisting my words and I don’t appreciate it.

When you approach 40 seconds, that ability feels like “one time use”. You are no longer playing tactically, you’re either using it as an “oh kitten i’m going to die” button, or you’re simply guessing, and the latter is not a matter of skill, but luck.

Erm. Or you can use it in a “this is the best time to use this skill, lets use it!” Which is a matter of skill.

I think someone used a Guardian as an example, so I’m going to use as an example the skill Contemplation of Purity.

It’s got a 60s CD. It converts all conditions on you to boons. It’s a pretty powerful skill that can really swing a fight, especially against condition-heavy classes like Necro or Engi (and heck some thieves who love stacking poison/immobilize/weakness). The optimal time to use this skill is when the opponent just finishes stacking tons of conditions on you.

The bad players will use it as a “oh kitten I’m gonna die” when nearly dead or simply guess, and won’t use this skill in the most optimal condition.

Whereas the truly experienced/skillful players will use it once knows his opponent has just used all his conditions on him, convert it to boon, and will take full advantage of it.

And this is what separates skillful vs unskillful play. Which is good.

I apologize if I misunderstand you or it seems like I’m twisting your words. The impression I get from reading your posts is that you don’t like skills to be “one-time use” in a ~1 min fight due to long CDs. My opinion is that it’s good, and it forces people to learn when to use these powerful skills (most long cd skills are powerful!) instead of just using them willy nilly.

Allow me to use the same skill as an example ursan:

contemplation of purity. You put it up on your bars and charge into battle. Nobody ever focuses on loading you with conditions.

You have a useless skill on your bar.

This is what I mean by strategic vs tactical.

Tactical weapons in the military are versatile.
The MA2 can be used against troop formations, structures, or light armor, and will be a go-to for semi-mobile defense.

strategic weapons are not.
a nuke does one thing: destroy vast swaths of countryside. It will be the go-to only when you’ve lost everything else. contemplation of purity is like the nuke.. it’s useful in only one situation, use outside that situation gets you marginal results, to the point you simply don’t use it otherwise.

Now lets make another comparison:
shield block vs mesmer scepter block -

mesmer scepter block is still used tactically, and if you waste it you will be punished for it, but it will be used multiple times a fight.

you will not use shield block very often, and its deployment will not dovetail fluidly with a fight, because it will be down more often than not when you really want it. it’s strategic, not tactical.

Shield Useless? You need it or your dead in Karka land or in many ranged foe situations. You have a very good projectile block in there. I’m always sword shield or hammer (to get the jump on karka to stop their deadly long range) there. No exceptions, you’re dead with any other set up!

Not useless, overly situational to the point of being forgotten between said situations.

azurrei.5691:

So Colin, and I quote, “We don’t want to force people to do jumping puzzles for the daily.”

So can we also please not force people to do fractals or dungeons for the daily / monthly?? A lot of us don’t like being forced to do them (and I freely use the word force because you did :p)

IDK if this has been mentionned somewhere else but I did heard colin talking about how the randomly changing dailies are sort of temporary i guess since they wanted to work on some sort of feature where you would be able to choose the dailies you’d want to do in a big list ( I imagine the big list changes everyday hopefully) so for now we get random dailies everyday, hopefully it’ll put more life in neglected dungeons. (like Sorrow’s embrace, crucible of eternity.)

plasmacutter.2709:

Allow me to use the same skill as an example ursan:

contemplation of purity. You put it up on your bars and charge into battle. Nobody ever focuses on loading you with conditions.

You have a useless skill on your bar.

This is what I mean by strategic vs tactical.

Tactical weapons in the military are versatile.
The MA2 can be used against troop formations, structures, or light armor, and will be a go-to for semi-mobile defense.

strategic weapons are not.
a nuke does one thing: destroy vast swaths of countryside. It will be the go-to only when you’ve lost everything else. contemplation of purity is like the nuke.. it’s useful in only one situation, use outside that situation gets you marginal results, to the point you simply don’t use it otherwise.

Now lets make another comparison:
shield block vs mesmer scepter block -

mesmer scepter block is still used tactically, and if you waste it you will be punished for it, but it will be used multiple times a fight.

you will not use shield block very often, and its deployment will not dovetail fluidly with a fight, because it will be down more often than not when you really want it. it’s strategic, not tactical.

Wait wait.

So if a skill is strategic, it can’t be tactical? They’re not mutually exclusive, you know.

I’m not arguing with you the definitions of strategic vs tactical. What I’m saying is that longer CDs on skills causes it to be more tactical, because players can’t simply spam it.

If you bring a skill to a situation which don’t require it, it’s your own strategic mistake. But just because you made a strategic mistake doesn’t mean this skill is not tactical.

I’m just so so confused at your example. You outline a player making a strategic mistake (Not bringing the proper skills to the proper situation). This has to do with the CD of skills, how? Even if CoP was on a 20s CD the skill still won’t be useful in your example, because this is a strategic mistake (which is a whoooole different topic.)

I thought Plasma was very clear and gave an excellent example.