Guild Wars 2

I was liking the patch so far until I realized how vast a list of consumables were banned from being used in dungeons —

Cannonball, Charzooka, Bandits Improvised Bomb, Cannon Ball, Jezza’s Flamethrower, Medical Kit, Molachev kittentail, Frost Gun, Healing Seed Pod, Charrzooka, Experimental Teleportation Gun (just a list of the ones I use that do not work) I am sure there are more.

Most of these are low damage toys and you ban them from dungeons? The healing seed was needed in many spots / fractals …. The Exp Telegun helped party members get out of places if they got stuck…. the rest allowed you to change your game play style… and they were so low dmg compared to your normal level 80 weapons, it was not worth using but more for fun…

I could understand the medical kit but the rest? Please, I want them reactivated.

ANet says Guildwars 2 is a game all about the players… well … you are removing my personal individuality of playing in dungeons by removing very minor consumables.

Why are you removing all the fun that you let us have initially? Prove to me they were SUCH a cheat in dungeons… I want a dev reply on this please…
Why remove the minor ones, Why ?!

They’re also all exploitation mechanics.

Tell me exact specifics and I might believe you…

They’re all very exploit capable. Just the teleport gun let everybody warp into dredge fractal cage, I cant imagine what ridiculous utility healing seed and molachevs brought.

I would much prefer they just delete these things however. It seems cruel to offer these cool things and then not have them work anywhere anymore. Not WvW, not dungeons, nowhere where people would benefit from them it seems.

Chickenshoes.6250:

They’re all very exploit capable. Just the teleport gun let everybody warp into dredge fractal cage, I cant imagine what ridiculous utility healing seed and molachevs brought.

I would much prefer they just delete these things however. It seems cruel to offer these cool things and then not have them work anywhere anymore. Not WvW, not dungeons, nowhere where people would benefit from them it seems.

How about in the main world which consists of around 80 percent of the total land area of the game, give or take?

You can mesmer warp into the cage just as easily… We going to ban the Mesmer portal now too? Healing seed was so minor… all it really did was conditional removal…. Molechevs kittentail… how is that an exploit? The fire ele can do the same thing… we going to ban that too? These items cost money or karma and had to be found … I know very few people that even used them… and when they did (myself) it was for fun and not exploit…

Chessrook.8643:

Chickenshoes.6250:

They’re all very exploit capable. Just the teleport gun let everybody warp into dredge fractal cage, I cant imagine what ridiculous utility healing seed and molachevs brought.

I would much prefer they just delete these things however. It seems cruel to offer these cool things and then not have them work anywhere anymore. Not WvW, not dungeons, nowhere where people would benefit from them it seems.

How about in the main world which consists of around 80 percent of the total land area of the game, give or take?

Yes and what are people mainly doing at end game. Its an utterly ridiculous change given they don’t hurt anyone and is just reducing the game down to the lowest common denominator with a lack of character.

And why now given they’ve been in the game all this time? What has prompted this?

Ugh, because their purpose is mainly SILLY FUN. OK?

I am sure there were more exploits that you don’t know of that they disabled them for. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t exploited. Chances are they had a good reason to do it.

I suppose the question is why the dungeons were designed in the first place. They were designed to be the challenging portion of the game. Every time someone finds ways to speed through them, and skip content, Anet nerfs something.

I use blink and portal to circumvent part of the dredge fractal and it is easier. I’m not sure why banning the gun in that case makes a difference, since a mesmer can portal people anyway.

However, I understand why people want to keep the dungeons “pure”. There’s always a run run run crowd that wants to do everything fast fast fast, because they’re farming and that’s what they care about. Then there are the people who want to preserve some form of challenge and want to beat content “honestly”. If stuff can get used as exploits, Anet has every right to ban them from dungeons.

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

The disabled the gun because you could use it even in places the mesmer couldn’t. I know in AC you can use it to get up onto a ledge on one of the last bosses where you cannot be hit.

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because speed, efficiency, and higher gold-per-second acquisition rate.

Don’t forget Ash and Whispers stealth kits which had no cool down and needed to last longer in a few circumstances in the dredge fractal. You are not exploiting the game merely trying to enjoy it in a different way using items that are readily available in game for very little karma or gold. These items make the game more fun and unique and people more creative, giving them incentive to play more times and perhaps in a different way.

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because they’re fun, they add character.

Chessrook.8643:

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because speed, efficiency, and higher gold-per-second acquisition rate.

Right, which Anet sees as an exploit, if you’re doing stuff you’re not “supposed to be able to do”.

Vayne.8563:

Chessrook.8643:

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because speed, efficiency, and higher gold-per-second acquisition rate.

Right, which Anet sees as an exploit, if you’re doing stuff you’re not “supposed to be able to do”.

Yes but what they should do is fix the specific exploiting action not remove the whole thing, its the same response they have to everything eg. removing the orbs from WvW. Except in this case it doesn’t even have the WvW excuse of orb hacking being cheating.

I still think 98% of them were banned for no reason…simply out of the sake they don’t like you using items outside your skill set….

A frost gun? A flame thrower? How in the world can you exploit using those? You do less damage over all… Even if people want to run them ‘pure’ … these did no exploitation in my book or even my thought of how they worked or are designed… Hey Jack… let’s ban transform potions next… they are an exploit and you can be something you aren’t supposed to be… a small animal… Where does it stop? It stops the fun, that is what.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Chessrook.8643:

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because speed, efficiency, and higher gold-per-second acquisition rate.

Right, which Anet sees as an exploit, if you’re doing stuff you’re not “supposed to be able to do”.

Yes but what they should do is fix the specific exploiting action not remove the whole thing, its the same response they have to everything eg. removing the orbs from WvW. Except in this case it doesn’t even have the WvW excuse of orb hacking being cheating.

There’s a lot of assumptions here. I guess the question would be how many exploits we’re talking about and how long it will take to fix them all. It may be easy, it may not be easy.

I’ve run dungeons since day one and I only run with one guy who uses consumables to get throw them, other than maybe potions and food. Everyone else just plays the kitten game.

Obviously certain things were making it harder to balance dungeons, because Anet wanted the content to be difficult. That’s their goal for these areas. They’re doing this to try to make it difficult.

Some people are going to hate this, but I suspect that only a small population of the game used these kinds of consumables in dungeons and at least some of them exploited with them.

Maybe if 50% of all dungeon runners uesd them, Anet would be justified in spending time to fix every single possible exploit point. But programming is always going to be a matter of numbers.

I don’t know the numbers and neither does anyone else outside of Anet. So the assumptions we make about what would be easier or harder are just that…assumptions.

They had to take them out.

When designing a dungeon you have to know what toolbox the player has. If those items are allowed to stay; the designer has to account for them and design the content assuming every player in the group has them. Which then forces the player to use them.

Those items wouldn’t be optional anymore; they would be required.

Chessrook.8643:

Chickenshoes.6250:

They’re all very exploit capable. Just the teleport gun let everybody warp into dredge fractal cage, I cant imagine what ridiculous utility healing seed and molachevs brought.

I would much prefer they just delete these things however. It seems cruel to offer these cool things and then not have them work anywhere anymore. Not WvW, not dungeons, nowhere where people would benefit from them it seems.

How about in the main world which consists of around 80 percent of the total land area of the game, give or take?

I’m sure that’s where 80 percent of all playtime is going. For reals

If 80% of the playerbase was using them I garuntee it wasn’t for flavor or to look cool. It was to exploit some mechanic somewhere.

First of all, I believe the meaning of the word ‘exploit’ when referring to dungeons, game environment, or combat is to use an unfair advantage, or ‘mistake’ in the programming of the game to ‘cheat’ and make the event easier than intended.

In my opinion, these items were put in the game to add variety and cool/fun things, to get others to go, “hey, that’s really cool, how’d you do that and where do I get one?” Prowlinger is right. You’ve got to go find these items, purchase them (sometimes doing an event to make them available), then figure out how to utilize these unique items. You can’t sit there and spam them to make everything easier. If anything, it adds to the complication of different mechanics during encounters. (Concerning Jump Puzzles, I consider them just that, ‘puzzles’… If there is more than one way to solve them, all the more fun!)

If the idea is to boil down all encounters, so there is only one way to do them, we’ll get to a point that we’re just pushing “+” and “-” at the right time, or you fail. If we wanted that, we’d go play Tetris…

A-net, please allow variety in the game. Don’t spend time changing stuff that adds to the depth and variety of the game. Fix dumb stuff, like ‘invisible walls’ where they don’t make sense (easy example that comes to mind is Mount Maelstrom, "I’ve been able to go up and down terrain just like this everywhere else on the map, now for some reason, there is an invisible wall?!?!…. If you don’t want us going that way, put up a barrier!), Dragons that just stand there and allow 50 people to whack on them (I think they’d try to turn, make people avoid certain action, etc…), or like fighting a L80 Champion and getting 1 Blue item (or, if 20 people are there and everyone gets 1 thing vs 5 people there and everyone still only gets 1 thing??? If we’re looting his STASH after a kill, wouldn’t less people get more stuff?). I’m sure everyone has their own little quirky concerns, but my point is, several of us LOVE this game because its different. Please don’t boil it down to make it just like every other MMO!

Chessrook.8643:

Vayne.8563:

The question is why are people so attached to these short cuts?

Because speed, efficiency, and higher gold-per-second acquisition rate.

More gold? No, we cant have that… they will never buy gems with real world currency!
Better remove it.

heh. Molachev kittentail.

Yeah this is very silly, I actually enjoyed using portal gun as a leap over my own leap since my one sometimes screws up and targets a mob out of my control. As they say, if portal gun is a bug then mesmer port should be banned too i guess.

I’m surprised Anet didn’t make the bridge event in CoF P1 unskippable since they deemed all this other stuff as dungeon breaking.

Vayne.8563:

Obviously certain things were making it harder to balance dungeons, because Anet wanted the content to be difficult. That’s their goal for these areas. They’re doing this to try to make it difficult.

COF p1 disagrees with you.

Couldn’t most of these consumables be spammed resulting in effects that were not desired by ANet?

Death to consumables!
Fix annoying clipping issues!

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Obviously certain things were making it harder to balance dungeons, because Anet wanted the content to be difficult. That’s their goal for these areas. They’re doing this to try to make it difficult.

COF p1 disagrees with you.

The nerf on that will come. They did it with AC, and now no one runs that for money..they used to. They’ll get to it.

You’ve been ANETED my friends.

Why bother fixing stuff if u can just delete,disable or nerf it?

Hint quickness Hint

portal gun was almost stronger than mesmer portal -.- i saw it coming since months…..

Lets be fair look at how it was used…..

Heh… as if anyone buys the bullkitten from posters who “lost fun” when their exploits get removed wholesale.

Well is Frost Gun an exploit? Well possibly u can spam chill but the damage is so low and there is significant risk in using it especially with AOE bosses if your weapon skills provide evades. Is it fun to use? Yes.

Is Healing Seed Pod/ Mortar Seed Turret/ MedKit an exploit? Not really there is a CD for the former and only one can be planted at one time for the latter. They are more like heal consumables with limited applications. Perhaps the water field on the Healing Seed Pod is OP.

Well its the devs’ prerogative to make changes in order for PVE Balance and to prevent exploits.

I liked my developer work around toys. Those were probably the best indication of what sucks in dungeons or fractals and shows what clearly needs to be redesigned. Taking open world stuff out of dungeons isn’t fun.

Prowlinger.4213:

Molachev kittentail

Hahaha, forum gave me a good laugh on this one.

But anyhow, you could see it coming for a couple of these. Made some things obsolete, I get ANet if they want people to actually do content that’s supposed to be done.

Look. The entire concept of nerfing skills or items because they might allow a skilled/clever player to solo a Dungeon is just absolutely absurd. I don’t care how clever, it’s still going to take that person a lot longer to complete a dungeon solo than to just complete it in group.

In other MMOs, soloing dungeons was bad, because you could essentially get a groups worth of loot for one person. In GW2, loot per person doesn’t change based on the number of people in the party. You get the same loot you would have gotten in a group, but it takes you longer, so you actually are earning less than you would with a good group.

Now, if someone is actually using a skill or consumable to run a dungeon in much less time than normal, that’s an issue, but it’s an issue you solve by modifying the dungeon, not by nerfing something that has legitimate use because someone was more clever than the devs who designed the dungeon!

I just don’t believe that any of those consumables did more than make runs somewhat more efficient.

I really hate when developers get bent out of shape over players “solving” their content is ways the developer didn’t anticipate. Far too often nerfs are more about wounded pride than a real unbalancing of the game. (The numerous invisible walls cutting off alternate paths to some Vistas in the game is a great example. It’s a lot more fun for players to try to identify the most efficient path among more than one available than to be barred from alternative solutions just because they weren’t deliberately meant to be alternative paths by a developer)!

FLFW.3105:

You’ve been ANETED my friends.

Why bother fixing stuff if u can just delete,disable or nerf it?

Hint quickness Hint

All possible “fixes” to Quickness are nerfs, so that’s a terrible, terrible example that proves the opposite of what you intend.

How is using stuffs like healing seed exploit is beyond me…..

Fiontar.4695:

Look. The entire concept of nerfing skills or items because they might allow a skilled/clever player to solo a Dungeon is just absolutely absurd. I don’t care how clever, it’s still going to take that person a lot longer to complete a dungeon solo than to just complete it in group.

In other MMOs, soloing dungeons was bad, because you could essentially get a groups worth of loot for one person. In GW2, loot per person doesn’t change based on the number of people in the party. You get the same loot you would have gotten in a group, but it takes you longer, so you actually are earning less than you would with a good group.

Now, if someone is actually using a skill or consumable to run a dungeon in much less time than normal, that’s an issue, but it’s an issue you solve by modifying the dungeon, not by nerfing something that has legitimate use because someone was more clever than the devs who designed the dungeon!

I just don’t believe that any of those consumables did more than make runs somewhat more efficient.

I really hate when developers get bent out of shape over players “solving” their content is ways the developer didn’t anticipate. Far too often nerfs are more about wounded pride than a real unbalancing of the game. (The numerous invisible walls cutting off alternate paths to some Vistas in the game is a great example. It’s a lot more fun for players to try to identify the most efficient path among more than one available than to be barred from alternative solutions just because they weren’t deliberately meant to be alternative paths by a developer)!

He says what we’re all thinking!

But seriously, I agree 100%.

BadHabitZz.1856:

How is using stuffs like healing seed exploit is beyond me…..

It’s taking something from one part of the game world into another part the game world where it’s use was not intended or foreseen.

Look at the corrupted blood plague in WoW – just because something CAN be done it doesn’t mean the devs INTENDED it to be done.

It sounds like there were one or two consumables that could potentially be used as exploits, but that coding-wise it was too hard/tedious to just remove only those items, so instead they coded it to remove an entire category. Since most of the other items were just for fun and not game-changers, the removal would have no notable effect on the dungeon run outcomes.

When you are a lab rat running a maze, you have to do what the scientists expect or they’ll redesign the maze until you run it as expected.