Guild Wars 2

Kordash.2197:

@Malafide

I challenge you to do any Dungeon/Fractal path with a full team hitting only your auto attack with any team comp. And please, post video here.

And what would that prove exactly?

Kordash.2197:

In the end, you don’t like the combat system, which is fine (thought I’m not sure why you are still here if you don’t like it) but stop saying it’s broken. It works as intended.

-which I suppose is why we are seeing massive changes to conditions, defiant, AI and the camera right now? Apparently it isn’t working as intended at all, and the devs realize that there are issues, which they are trying to address.

Look, I understand you like the game. That’s fine. But don’t pretend that everything is just perfect. It’s not. The game has many mechanics that don’t work very well, and could be improved on. It is healthy to be able to take a step back, and look objectively at the game as a whole.

We all know the countless complaint threads about stacking, zerker, etc. Those don’t just pop up out of nowhere. They have their origin in the game’s design. It would be lazy of any designer to discount those complaints as mere whining.

Draknar.5748:

I can’t speak for GW1 (I’ve heard it had a great system for builds), but in terms of every other MMO I’ve played, build diversity went by a meta. You are X class healer? You better be running this gear, these skills, should be using this rotation. You are X class DPS? You better be running this gear, these skills, using this rotation.

There’s a difference between meta, and actual diversity in builds. Meta is what the most popular builds are, and what people want other players to use. But build diversity in and of itself, is the ability to create vastly different variations on a class. In GW1 this lead to literally crazy interactions of skills, such as the 55 monk, or the 1 hp necro, Edge of Extinction bombs, etc. I’m talking functionally different builds, and not just statistically different. We don’t have this in GW2. The trait interactions aren’t free enough to allow for that sort of variety right now.

Draknar.5748:

I’m not sure why you think GW2 is less diverse than any other MMO, there are lots of potential builds, but if they aren’t meta then everyone scoffs.

Forget meta, this is purely about build diversity, not build popularity. It’s about being able to do things with skills and traits.

I can only compare GW2 to other MMO’s I’ve actually played, such as GW1 and DDO. And both have more build diversity. Not just because they have more skills (which would be an unfair comparison), but also due to the freedom to do really outrageous things by combining skills and traits.

Ansau.7326:

You are trying to convince myself your problems with the game are tremendous,

Not just MY problems, but problems many players have with the combat since release.

Ansau.7326:

pet AI issues are annoying, but defenitely not game breaking…

I’m not discussing things that are game breaking. I’m discussing things that break the combat system. JUST the combat system. The combat system. The combat system.

Just the combat system.

Ansau.7326:

You have a problem not being able to enjoy a thing cause of fuzzy details. And again, several threads with a few pages might seem it’s a big deal, but it isn’t.

Several threads that have been popping on these forums since the release of the game.

The thing that you seem to not understand, is that most bugs or class imbalances are temporary. A skill may be overpowered for a while, or not work correctly. But that is not really going to break the combat system as a whole.

No, what I’m discussing is core mechanics. You’re bringing up secondary mechanics.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

JonPeters

“There are no dedicated healers that do full healing. Every profession has some form of support to a greater or lesser extent, but none of them enough that they aren’t also fighters,”

If you expect to play a pure healer you should understand that the game isn’t built for that and your build and performance will suck. Don’t blame game balance for pure healers being bad when, as you can clearly read, the developers never intended them to be good. If the quote was, “healing will be huge in our game and pure healing characters will be a major cornerstone of combat” then you might have a point.

redcomyn.4651:

Apolo.5942:

PVE is meaningless and its about time people got it straight, its a grind to ascended gear and skins. The faster you do it the better.

In Spvp and WvW i have to agree damage is a tad high, having a fairly high armor 2600 armor and 17k hp, thiefs can burst you down in one implementation of stone with no chance to react.

I like pve. I think it is pvp and WvW that is meaningless. I also have no interest in getting ascended armor.

Then you are playing the wrong game.

Apolo.5942:

I like pve. I think it is pvp and WvW that is meaningless. I also have no interest in getting ascended armor.

Then you are playing the wrong game.[/quote]

He’s playing the wrong game because he like PvE and not PvP/WvW? For the first year of the game I only played PvE, was I playing the wrong game? What is this logic.

And your are too literal. He was pointing out that saying that PvE is meaningless is only an opinion and this opinion will vary depend on the person. Saying that PvE is meaningless have no value on itself.

Thaddeus.4891:

Apolo.5942:

I like pve. I think it is pvp and WvW that is meaningless. I also have no interest in getting ascended armor.

Then you are playing the wrong game.

He’s playing the wrong game because he like PvE and not PvP/WvW? For the first year of the game I only played PvE, was I playing the wrong game? What is this logic.

And your are too literal. He was pointing out that saying that PvE is meaningless is only an opinion and this opinion will vary depend on the person. Saying that PvE is meaningless have no value on itself.[/quote]

The correct one, wake up.

For the challenge, well, you said in this thread that the majority of the PvE encounters is just spam ‘111111111’. This argument is often used by “anti zerkers”, and is just plain wrong.

I like this game, true, but where did i say it was perfect ? Yup, the combat system work as intended. And yup, it has his little flaws, like condi being to weak compared to direct damages until the last patch.

All i see is that you want the game to catter to your system.
It will never happen, because it does NOT go with the core philosophy.

Almost all “anti zerkers” are wrong because they don’t understand the system well.

If i had to put it simple the combat system was intended to allow :
- Active defense over passive defense
- Experience > Gear stats (we all run zerker, because we know how to handle the content)
- No trinity (meaning no hard roles, see nike’s post above)
- Everything VIABLE (not optimal)

Actually, there is :
- No trinity
- You can complete everything with every build/gear combination
- Active defense is actually the meta
- Encounters does not rely on gear but on experience

So yeah, the system work completly as intended.

Combat speaking, condi stacking in small scale fights, condi cleansing in big scale fights and pvp dominated by a really small meta are much worse problems than your problem with some professions having more active defenses than others.

Seriously accept it, the game has been like this, it’s like this and it will be like this, because some professions having more active defenses than others is part of how gw2 is.

mauried.5608:

This type of complaint occurrs on many MMOs.
Im quitting the game because of < Insert here whatever your complaint is > and Im sorry to go , and Im sorry to see the game die .
The inference is that the game will die because this one person is quitting.
I used to play WOW (unfortunately) for many years, and it was fun to count the number of " Im quitting the game "posts that occurred on the forums.
Even funnier, was the number of people (the same people) continually posting that they were quitting the game , and were still quitting the game 6 months on.
There seems to be some kind of beleif that Im quitting the game posts, will somehow force the game developers to alter the game design to suit the wishes of the poster.

If you dont like the game , then just leave.
Theres no need to tell everyone why.

I completely disagree. For every person who posts personal complaints regarding the game like this in the forum, many others do just what you want and leave: Disgrunted, and with no hope for any change.

And you can guarantee that they will tell many more to stay away from the game.

What this kind of post is, is a customer service opportunity.

Do you see that large slice of pie? That’s you. You’re adding to the customer’s perception.

I’m going to add a few points specifically intended to give my views on a few things Malafide said.

1. Open World Enemies are bad because they’re put in the open world – GW2’s permanent “tutorial mode”.
Another issue with this is that the majority of GW2’s players spend most of their time in the open world. Couple this with the fact that the majority of GW2’s player base is very bad at the game and you can easily deduce why said enemies are bad. They’re bad because they want to not stomp most players into the ground.

2. Build diversity – a core aspect of traditional RPGs and MMOs but not very big in GW2. Why?
My belief is that they’re trying to create less “unique” and “interesting interactions” in order to create a more standardized PvP environment that they can try to push towards eSports.
I think we should cease looking at GW2 profession builds in the standard traditional role and look more at it more like MOBA champions – standardized heroes that do things but don’t have a lot of variation between the same champion.
That’s why your power necro feels just like any other power necro. Because it’s a power necro. It’s not a uniquely crafted personal hero that you built -it’s a standard “champion” that you can play.
Specializations are also pushing towards this idea by giving us more “standard” ways of playing our characters.
Look at the trait line changes -everything screams out “standardize everything” and make sure players play the builds that define a certian “champion-like entity”.

Forget meta, this is purely about build diversity, not build popularity. It’s about being able to do things with skills and traits.
I can only compare GW2 to other MMO’s I’ve actually played, such as GW1 and DDO. And both have more build diversity. Not just because they have more skills (which would be an unfair comparison), but also due to the freedom to do really outrageous things by combining skills and traits.

This is exactly the kind of thing they’re trying to avoid.
Through the eyes of sPvP and establishing eSports this is exactly what they are trying to achieve – too much variability and too many things.
Esports need a sort-of stable environment to grow – especially since GW2 is a skill-based not build-based game.

The overall DPS increased? Yes. Is it a problem? Not so sure.

But, before the game already wasn’t tankers or healers, so didn’t change much.

Well this post did accomplish part of what I wanted. To get people talking about the problems and create a thread with lots of post to get devs attention.

Now someone was angry because I have not responded yet. Sorry but like I said the game is not my life and I just now looked back at the post, it’s only been one night.
I didn’t say I was GOING to quit, I said I’m on the verge. I don’t play enough to be so angry as to up and quit for good and I’ve been dealing with MMO’s and patches since UO. But what anet did was put out a major patch to close to a major xpack. I mention that because every mmo company has limited resources. That is one of my complaints, having these problems this close to an xpack was a lack of foresight. I guarantee they are pulling devs off HoT to work on these bugs and problems.

Now the question is why are there so many problems? Did they not have multiple beta events to test for problems? Or were the beta test just used to hype the game, I’m not saying that is bad, as its smart business, as long as the actual bugs are being addressed somewhere.

It just seems like the DPS bugs are across the board. From PVP to PVE and including PVE mobs.

When I watched the updates about all the healing that was added especially the blast finishers for engi. It was made to sound as if they wanted more healing to help keep WvW battles going including small group skirmishes. I don’t believe that dodge is the games way of dealing with dmg and healing is an afterthought. If that were the case, there would be no reason to add so many traits and skills and items dealing with healing.

I voiced my opinion, not to QQ but to let a company that I support know that I’m unhappy and that I am looking at leaving if more information isn’t shared soon. I hope that somewhat clears up my post.

PS. This game is designed for the casual player not the hardcore. I know that angers some, but the pay to play ended because of the sheer number of casuals in mmos. Buying gems to speed up progress is absolutely designed for casuals. Hard cores don’t need to buy stuff when they can play massive amounts of time.

KhanKatir.4038:

I completely disagree. For every person who posts personal complaints regarding the game like this in the forum, many others do just what you want and leave: Disgrunted, and with no hope for any change.

And you can guarantee that they will tell many more to stay away from the game.

What this kind of post is, is a customer service opportunity.

Do you see that large slice of pie? That’s you. You’re adding to the customer’s perception.

Yes but forum isn’t representative of the player base. Most people go on the forum to complain, exchange idea or ask question. Usually, you have a surrepresentation of complain. Meaning that for every complain, some people that have that same issue or love the way it is don’t speak up. You can never know the ratio from the forum.

You could have 1% of the population complaining, 4% having the same issue but not complaining and 95% of the players loving how it is.

Or you could have 1% of the population complaining, 80% of the population having the same issue but not complaining and 9% of the population loving how it is.

You don’t know, noboby know. So maybe only a small portion of the players have the same issue and will leave. But maybe by accepting to change what they ask you gonna upset the vast majority of your player base.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

No, I have said this before, and I’ll say it again: The real problem is that the game has superior and inferior game mechanics. There are classes that are stuck with mostly inferior game mechanics. Guardian clearly has most of the superior game mechanics, which is why we see so many of them. It’s not a mystery, or a trend. There’s a perfectly valid game mechanical reason for why you see so many guardians in the game.

Cant said they are superior game mechanics, instead i will go to that they are easier to play and play properly.

One thing gw2 do relativly wrong its the reward-skill pay off. Thats not in terms of gold, items, but also in terms of builds performances.

Most of the viable builds have similar maxs performance but different low performance. That comes inter classes and betwen classes.

Playing guardian and warrior for example its generally easier and as much as rewarding for the same max level, meaning the reward/effort rate its significative higher (an optimal choice for a lot of people).

Without a doubt there are exception, for example in pvp, before the patch, the ranger pew pew had a very low skill requeriment but the performance wasnt as low as other classes and builds. You will have players complaining about it, but they were mostly the lower bottom of pvp in terms of skill (forget the last two broken pvp ranking).

However the same build and even the entire class has a minimal pressence in the tourney pvp escene, since it wasnt good enough for team compositions and was easy to crush for more skilled players, specially in a team context.

In fact, pew pew performance after a level of skill has a nearly insignificant progress, in contrast to other classes and builds.

If most class- builds worked like pew pew in terms of skill-performance the escene will be differrent, of course in a context that game will require it. In pvp this easier to do since the level of difficulty depends mostly on the players, however pve its different, the game lacks challenging content.

If both situations were fixed then you will have a more natural build distribution, without a doubt guardian and warrior will be the mayority, since the build class distribution will go more similar to the skill distribution in the game, having the easier builds go to the less skilled players.

In a sense people think this is what happens now, but thats on term of gear and the difficulty its extremly easy to differentiate skill levels, for example you will have a lot of people that are suposed good complain in pve of things like the old AC spider boss stack, since if it failed most “skilled” parties will die, since the inability or lack of concentration (the stack dumb down things) of this players to check the proyectiles, red circles and areas.

This means that generally even if you consider dungeon players or meta runners in pve, the skill level is low, but relativly higher than their open world counterparts, so it will be common for most of them to stick with easier build- class options if the difficulty will go up.

The other point to take in consideration its that if for example you are pugging, even considering the extremly ease dungeon content and how stacking have the ability to dumb down the game difficulty even more (shame to the game allowing the stacking), pugs are generally poorly skilled.

This make guardian a optimal choice since its class mechanics are more suport oriented, meaning you can carry a horrible group or make faster a non so skilled group (most of the pug elitists arent exactly top notch skilled).

Kordash.2197:

@Malafie

I challenge you to do any Dungeon/Fractal path with a full team hitting only your auto attack with any team comp. And please, post video here.

Pretty sure this has been done several times. I cannot verify at the moment, but I think this is one video example…

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Kordash.2197:

@Malafie

I challenge you to do any Dungeon/Fractal path with a full team hitting only your auto attack with any team comp. And please, post video here.

Pretty sure this has been done several times. I cannot verify at the moment, but I think this is one video example…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMH3aC_znJo

Well, okay, not bad !

Now, in Arah or fractal 50

They’re not using autoattack, but one key they chose before the run, so weapon/attunement swap can produce the effect they desired. That’s NOT the same as using only autoattack.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

guildwarstwentytwelve.5693:

Just want to say I am on the verge of quitting the game, because it is so broken with dps and bugs. I understand that you want to get HoT out, but you should have made these changes a year ago. Its naive to think you can make so many large changes this close to an xpack release and it go smooth.

Right now dps is sky high, even with a full healing build trying to keep team mates up, its useless. Engi shares 1k to group big deal the entire group is getting hit for 4k per tick burning and thats just one condi.

Its time to fix things, or start losing customers, just letting you know how I feel about the game. I’m not freaking out because the game is not my life, but I would think you would want to hear from customers, so here it is.

This game is supported by casuals imo and when you break it this bad you only have a short time before people walk. Casuals dont hang around forever like hard cores, thats why they are called casuals.

Good luck I hate to see this game die off, but right now, its just not fun.

Not really defending what is happening in the game right now, but they already have your money. By quitting, they don’t lose a customer. The game is supported by everyone’s initial purchase. Yes the gem store supports it financially after that, but going off your argument, I don’t think the casual player spends money on the game every week.

That being said, it will get fixed. Its probably not something that can be fixed quickly which explains why Symbolic Avenger was just flat out disabled today.

Hmmm, nope.. the intitial purchase covers their own intial outlaying costs to repay their investors, their staff, their facilities and hopefully some gravy over the top.
As time goes on those new purchases drop off and what’s left to fund the staffing, facilities, and the continuing development and maintenance of the game only comes from one revenue stream.. the gem store and yes the casual players are predominately going to be the main source of income as many hardcore players will not have enough to do to keep them interested for long enough. That is how this game was set out from day one. It’s a good model and in defence of ANET (which is a rarity for me these days ) they do a pretty good job of keeping the gemstore churning over new things to keep casual players and hardcore players salivating a little longer each week.

Sure every game has bugs, its the nature of the beast when it comes to MMO’s especially, and yes most of these will get fixed over time.. some maybe never will.. but imo I think the OP does has a point. Many of the bugs they have already allowed to fester in game should of been looked into by now but then to push through pretty far reaching changes to the game the way they have and then have to firefight those changes almost immediately suggests they really do need to put some consideration into running a better testing environment. Otherwise the more game becomes loaded with bugs, bad mechanics and brain dead shovel farms the easier it becomes for both casuals and hardcores to walk away from the game.

Kordash.2197:

For the challenge, well, you said in this thread that the majority of the PvE encounters is just spam ‘111111111’. This argument is often used by “anti zerkers”, and is just plain wrong.

If it’s wrong, then why does it work for so many of the PVE encounters? Have you actually tried it? Most of the PVE content does not demand any strategy, or clever positioning, or to change your build.

Kordash.2197:

I like this game, true, but where did i say it was perfect ? Yup, the combat system work as intended. And yup, it has his little flaws, like condi being to weak compared to direct damages until the last patch.

The flaws aren’t little. Defiant has been a big problem, and has rendered control skills against bosses pointless. This is finally being addressed with the break-bar system, so obviously the devs recognize it as a problem as well. Build variety is also an issue, and they are addressing this with the specializations.

You claim these things are little flaws, yet the devs apparently think they warrant a very large patch to the game. So there is a disconnect between what you and a developer would consider a major problem with the game. You just seem very accepting of the combat system, and don’t see the inherent flaws in the foundation.

Kordash.2197:

All i see is that you want the game to cater to your system. It will never happen, because it does NOT go with the core philosophy.

If you think that, then you have truly not understand a word I’ve said.

Kordash.2197:

Almost all “anti zerkers” are wrong because they don’t understand the system well.

I don’t think a game designer would ever agree with that statement, if they care for their audience. If there is a vocal majority complaining about a dominant meta in the game, then the game is to blame. You just dislike people who don’t share your opinion on the zerker meta. Me? I don’t care, I don’t side with anyone. I just look at the game, analyze it, and realize that indeed zerker IS dominant. And I can also see why its dominant: Defensive stats are rendered useless, because they don’t scale very well. At higher levels, there is very little difference between being hit in full armor, and being hit naked. You don’t want to get hit to begin with. Plus the game encourages DPS to be maximized, so zerker fits with that idea.This is an oversight of the developers. Something that they will be addresssing eventually.

Kordash.2197:

If i had to put it simple the combat system was intended to allow :
- Active defense over passive defense

But not at the expense of the viability of defensive gear and support. This is an oversight.

Kordash.2197:

- Experience > Gear stats (we all run zerker, because we know how to handle the content)

And because the game focuses only on maximizing DPS, and punishes players if they build defensively, or focus on support. This is an oversight.

Kordash.2197:

- No trinity (meaning no hard roles, see nike’s post above)

No trinity does not mean no roles. Currently the game feels dumbed down, and I know this is something the devs definitely want to fix.

Kordash.2197:

- Everything VIABLE (not optimal)

One meta should not overshadow everything else. Again, this can’t be what they intended. In the future we can expect to see more and more encounters that encourage players to not only invest in damage output. You may disagree with it, but expect HOT to have plenty of content that does just that.

Kordash.2197:

So yeah, the system work completly as intended.

If you don’t understand game design principles, I can understand why it may look like that way. But you’d be wrong. There are countless mechanics that don’t work well with each other, and some that outright contradict each other.

The dominance of dumb tactics, such as stacking in a corner, or zerking in wvw, are but symptoms of a larger underlying problem. They have a direct correlation to some of the flaws in the design of the combat system.

You enjoy the combat as is, and that’s fine. I can’t criticize that opinion. But you don’t see the inherent contradictions in the game design. You don’t see that a mechanic that makes enemies run away (Fear) directly contradicts with the goal of killing enemies, and that it also contradicts with the idea of static world bosses that can’t move. There are many mechanics in the game that have such contradictions, and that is a foundational problem. It is like they tossed in what ever idea sounded nice, without really thinking it through.

The combat system does not seem like a cohesive whole to me. It looks like a hotchpotch of ideas, that they are now trying to patch up.

You do realize you can support as full zerker ?
You do realize the game works MUCH better for any encounter if you support your party.
Again – support has nothing to do with your gear. You can support your team in any gear and support comes from traits and skills – stop misleading people into believing support does not exist.

You seem to believe that defensive stats not scaling as well is an oversight or problem – it is not.
If defensive stats scaled well what stops me from afk-farming everything in this game in full nomad’s?
Look at this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIqny2fRecI
Look at what the full defensive ele can do – do you really want full defense to get stronger?.
What impact would it have on the game if you made it that certain builds simply could not die – how would that fit into your “game design philosophy”?

The game clearly wants you to avoid being hit. Period.
In defensive gear you can survive 2-3 extra hits – anyone who’ saying you get 1 shot regardless of gear is lying. Something that will 1-shot you as zerker will almost certainly not 1-shot you as full PVT or even Knight’s.

PvE does not require strategy, positioning or build changing because it is designed with the “average player” in mind. In order not to strain said player too much the content is easy and fail proof.
GW2’s core idea is to give the illusion of challenge and difficulty where there actually is none. You can’t fail any of the instanced content in this game unless you give up on doing it.

And because the game focuses only on maximizing DPS, and punishes players if they build defensively, or focus on support. This is an oversight.

This is a trade-off not punishment.
If you intent to not get hit once you can build full damage and clear faster. If you want to have an easier time staying alive then you build for some defense and clear slower. It’s the cost that comes with a choice. Choosing to make the game easier for you means you’re also choosing to take a while longer.

One meta should not overshadow everything else.

You said you played GW1 – did people run any FoWSC builds other than the meta?
Did People UWSC with anything but meta builds?

Meta builds always overshadow everything else because if you have a meta build available why would you even run anything else?

If you don’t understand game design principles, I can understand why it may look like that way. But you’d be wrong.

And what makes you sure that you know what the developers intend for the game? Did you have a part in designing it?
I’m getting pretty tired of people “knowing exactly what the developers intended” in spite of the fact that they’re neither part of the dev team nor privy to Anet’s internal affairs.

serenke.4806:

They’re not using autoattack, but one key they chose before the run, so weapon/attunement swap can produce the effect they desired. That’s NOT the same as using only autoattack.

The point was that you don’t really need any tactics. The AI doesn’t pose any challenge, and can be killed with no strategy at all. And that was what this is about. The combat needs good ai to put up a real fight, where you are expected to pay attention, and react to what is happening.

If spamming your aoe heal skill occasionally, and spamming all your attacks in between, is enough to beat almost every PVE fight, then something is wrong.

This is what PVE combat looks like: I go through all my damage skills, rince and repeat. The enemies make no attempt to keep their distance, or stay out of an aoe effect. They don’t really use attacks that the players need to dodge. It’s as if this only happens during boss battles. It is as if only boss battles have the minimum effort put into them, to make them some what of a fight.

In GW1 enemies used to have builds, and unique skills, that made a difference. Silver Wastes is the first area where I’ve started seeing enemies that do something different. It is the first time I’ve seen enemies that have healers, or do charge attacks.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

serenke.4806:

They’re not using autoattack, but one key they chose before the run, so weapon/attunement swap can produce the effect they desired. That’s NOT the same as using only autoattack.

The point was that you don’t really need any tactics. The AI doesn’t pose any challenge, and can be killed with no strategy at all. And that was what this is about. The combat needs good ai to put up a real fight, where you are expected to pay attention, and react to what is happening.

If spamming your aoe heal skill occasionally, and spamming all your attacks in between, is enough to beat almost every PVE fight, then something is wrong.

This is what PVE combat looks like: I go through all my damage skills, rince and repeat. The enemies make no attempt to keep their distance, or stay out of an aoe effect. They don’t really use attacks that the players need to dodge. It’s as if this only happens during boss battles. It is as if only boss battles have the minimum effort put into them, to make them some what of a fight.

In GW1 enemies used to have builds, and unique skills, that made a difference. Silver Wastes is the first area where I’ve started seeing enemies that do something different. It is the first time I’ve seen enemies that have healers, or do charge attacks.

In theory I agree with you – I too would prefer more challenging opponents in both the open world and instanced content. That being said I’ve come to terms with the fact that it will never happen. Why?

Because this game’s difficulty is balanced against the “casual gamer average player guy” who is terrible at things.
If you make the game too hard and enemies very effective at combat what you’ll achieve is a very “no fun” experience for people that up till now felt really good about themselves because they were winning at the game everywhere and suddenly their face is in the mud and they don’t know what happened.

Do you really think the average PvE player wants to go in a dungeon/ open world event and be challenged on par with a PvP encounter?
Do you really think your average PvE player wants to feel challenged by every mob/boss?
Do you really think the average GW2 player goes “oh – that’s a pretty hard and dangerous boss that stomped me – better switch my build and step up my game” ?

Harper.4173:

You said you played GW1 – did people run any FoWSC builds other than the meta?
Did People UWSC with anything but meta builds?

No…. but the meta constantly changed. That’s because there was not one dominant strategy. New skill combinations were discovered, so new things became meta. At first Spiteful Spirit was dominant for the necromancer. Any party you joined for UW or FoW demanded Spiteful Spirit. Later on you started seeing other necromancer builds become meta, such as Mark of Pain, Spoil Victor, Icy Veins, Feast of Corruption. I’ve seen quite a number of them.

I suppose this was because the builds on other classes constantly changed as well. When you had a melee heavy group full of warriors with 100 blades, then mark of pain suddenly became a valuable ingredient. There were other elite areas where energy denial was a problem, and so Blood is Power became meta there.

55 monks were meta for the longest time in UW, because they were one of the few solo builds that allowed players to tank Aatxe and Smite Crawlers, and thus solo farm for ectos.

So GW1 had a constantly shifting meta. GW2 has a very static meta. It’s all about maximizing damage.

Harper.4173:

Meta builds always overshadow everything else because if you have a meta build available why would you even run anything else?

But in this case the game encourages DPS over everything else, and punishes people for building defensively. It does not have to be that way.

Harper.4173:

And what makes you sure that you know what the developers intend for the game? Did you have a part in designing it?

I can see what they are trying to do. Just pay attention to what they say on the forums, and what things they choose to address. They know these things are problems, which is why we are seeing so many of them being touched upon with HOT.

Harper.4173:

I’m getting pretty tired of people “knowing exactly what the developers intended” in spite of the fact that they’re neither part of the dev team nor privy to Anet’s internal affairs.

You don’t need to be a part of their development team to have an understanding of what they are trying to do, and whether it is working or not.

As i said before, do an Arah run in a decent time frame, full zerk, only pressing your auto attack and meleeing properly. Or a fractal 50. Or almost every dungeon path. Then i will agree that every content require no thinking. But you can’t (thought, if you prove me wrong i’ll admit it).

Passive defense is actually overpowered, not only viable, but completly strong. You can almost faceroll any content in clerics, without dodding. Heck, have a look at Ele clerics and spider queen just spamming auto attack on youtube. He don’t even dodge. Or the warriors in clerics soloing Lupi.

What you want is hard roles, like someone building full support, full control, full damage, full whatever. The game WAS NOT build around something like that. The main goal is “everyone bring a part of something”. Again refers to nike’s quote, the devs have stated it numerous time.

Chris has also stated in some forums posts that Experience > Skill > Gear was the main design. In short, if someone can’t get past a content, to clear that content he can go with defensive stats. The more you become experienced, and skilled, the more you can focus on getting higher DPS, since you’ll rely on active play and knowledge on what to avoid.

And actually, the game is easy for us veterans in Zerk because the content is old. We know every little encounters, how to deal with it. That’s not the system that is broken, just the content that need a refresh.

And no, i don’t “dislike people who don’t share the zerk meta view”. I’m running a casual guild for 8 years with a lot of people who don’t want to play zerk, because they think they are not enough skilled to do so. That’s fine, and they do perfectly well in the game, have decent clear times in dungeons, and i like running with them.

I don’t know what will be in HoT. But i’m almost certain that there won’t be ANY gear requirement to clear any content. That would be a shift in the design, and i wouldn’t like it.

And if you seriously think the meta is about DPS only, you didn’t understand it. And yeah, there will ALWAYS be one and ONLY one optimal way to do things. Though, everything in this game is viable.

Harper.4173:

In theory I agree with you – I too would prefer more challenging opponents in both the open world and instanced content. That being said I’ve come to terms with the fact that it will never happen. Why?

Because this game’s difficulty is balanced against the “casual gamer average player guy” who is terrible at things.

Well, I think that may change. With the upcoming expansion, they no longer have to provide low level content. So there is an opportunity here to raise the difficulty for high level players. Plenty of the core game already caters to the casual gamer. Hopefully HOT content will be not just max level, but also of a higher challenge.

Harper.4173:

Do you really think the average PvE player wants to go in a dungeon/ open world event and be challenged on par with a PvP encounter?
Do you really think your average PvE player wants to feel challenged by every mob/boss?

I think the average PVE player would like to see a balanced amount of very hard dungeon/open world content, and accessible dungeon/open world content.

It doesn’t all have to be super hard, but it doesn’t all have to be super easy either. Why not both?

Harper.4173:

Do you really think the average GW2 player goes “oh – that’s a pretty hard and dangerous boss that stomped me – better switch my build and step up my game” ?

Some players might, some players might not. When Domain of Anguish was released shortly after GW1 Nightfall, at first people yelled out on the forums how “this is impossible!”. Then players started figuring it out, until they reached Mallyx the Unyielding. “This is impossible!” -they yelled once again.

I was probably one of the first to be in a group that managed to kill Mallyx for the first time (and not in a way that became meta, we just did what ever we could think of). It was a great challenge. Once a lot of players started figuring it out, a meta was established, and more casual players started trying it as well.

Eventually the more fanatical player base will figure the really hard content out, and then once someone figures out a solution, the players who don’t want to go through that trial and error process will shortly follow.

So, even very challenging content can cater to casual and hardcore players.

No…. but the meta constantly changed. That’s because there was not one dominant strategy. New skill combinations were discovered, so new things became meta. At first Spiteful Spirit was dominant for the necromancer. Any party you joined for UW or FoW demanded Spiteful Spirit. Later on you started seeing other necromancer builds become meta, such as Mark of Pain, Spoil Victor, Icy Veins, Feast of Corruption. I’ve seen quite a number of them.

And GW2 meta has also changed – at the beginning of the game for example elementalists were considered a joke and weren’t really part of groups.
Right now eles are always wanted in groups.

Look at warrior’s role – initially most parties wanted to stack as many as possible – now more than one is considered a waste.

Composition aside builds have also changed – look at warrior transitioning from full damage to offensive support via banners and PS.

GW2’s meta shifts less often – I agree – but that I believe comes mostly from the “lol esports” desire the developers have.

They’re trying to “nail down the game” so it becomes a stable platform on which their esports thing can take off. If everything changes too fast that won’t happen.

But in this case the game encourages DPS over everything else, and punishes people for building defensively. It does not have to be that way.

I really don’t see how people are punished for playing defensively.

I ran FOTM high levels in Knight’s – I didn’t feel punished – it made the experience easier since I didn’t have to be on point all the time with my dodges.

They know these things are problems, which is why we are seeing so many of them being touched upon with HOT.

I’d like to see things first – I have a feeling not as many things will be changed as you would like.
The only change so far that’s decent is Break Bars.

Did you see the ele video? I would like to see what you have to say about it and how defensive stats “are underpowered”.
I would also like to hear your comments to my overall analysis on defensive stats and the trade-off you make when you use them.

All you’ve been doing is repeating “defensive stats are punishing you” without explaining WHY or HOW.

Kordash.2197:

As i said before, do an Arah run in a decent time frame, full zerk, only pressing your auto attack and meleeing properly. Or a fractal 50. Or almost every dungeon path. Then i will agree that every content require no thinking. But you can’t (thought, if you prove me wrong i’ll admit it).

WOW! You are unbelievable. Someone shows you a video, confirming what I said, and yet you still refuse to admit I was right. So now we have to show a run in the most difficult dungeon or the highest level fractal?

What is the exact difference between a level 50 fractal and a level 20 fractal? Do the enemies behave differently? Do they use more complex strategies, or respond to player behavior? Or they just do more damage?

Keep in mind, we were discussing the AI. You just picked the areas in the game that have the most outrageous damage, but they aren’t any different when it comes to the AI or the combat. It’s just less forgiving, so you have to dodge more attacks. But the combat itself is no different at level 50, or level 80, or level gazillion. All that changes are the numbers.

Harper.4173:

I don’t know what will be in HoT. But i’m almost certain that there won’t be ANY gear requirement to clear any content. That would be a shift in the design, and i wouldn’t like it.

I think we will see changes to the combat, where other gear combinations find a role in the meta, or at least, I hope so. I think we’ll see more enemies where pure zerker is not as effective as it is right now.

It doesn’t all have to be super hard, but it doesn’t all have to be super easy either. Why not both?

I ask this too – but they’ve given us next to NO difficult content but a LOT of faceroll easy content.
Open world was easy before but ever since mega servers were added it’s nothing short of a joke.

Well, I think that may change. With the upcoming expansion, they no longer have to provide low level content. So there is an opportunity here to raise the difficulty for high level players. Plenty of the core game already caters to the casual gamer. Hopefully HOT content will be not just max level, but also of a higher challenge.

I hope so too – the problem here is that higher challenge content has to be coupled with equivalent rewards or it will become a ghost town.
Look at it this way – if they add harder content but overall the rewards are bad ( or just as good as the core game) people will simply do the content a few times “for the challenge” and move back to the core game and repeat the content there for the rewards since it’s easier.

People do like challenge – but challenge for challenge’s sake only works 2-3 times. After that you know you’ve done it – you know you can handle it so why " waste time" when you could be farming something easier and faster for more loot.

Ultimately the main factor that influences an encounter’s “staying power” is loot. Without proper loot content is abandoned.

If they add very good loot to HoT there’ll be endless whining from the players that can’t do it and the players that didn’t buy HoT about how they’re being “left out” or “left behind” so sadly I don’t think they’ll go down this path.

Some players might, some players might not.

The question then becomes – how many of each? I’m pretty sure those who “might not” will constitute a majority – and sadly for us – a paying majority.
As a business it’s not really smart to tick off a lot of people especially if those people are people you get money from.

Ultimately this game is an empowerment fantasy – the moment you take a person’s “special hero unique snowflake” status away by having mobs beat him up plenty is the moment that person might want to stop playing.
Why would you risk that when you could simply keep telling him (metaphorically of course) “you’re the greatest ever hero to ever live ever ever – give us more of your hard earned money because you’re so good”.

Harper.4173:

Did you see the ele video? I would like to see what you have to say about it and how defensive stats “are underpowered”.

I run a defensive build as a necromancer, and can stay alive and kill things just fine. But my damage is not on par with your average zerker. If I pay attention to what is happening on the screen, and dodge everything, I don’t really need the defensive stats at all. But I dislike the pure damage builds, so I went with knights, just like you. I like to have the ability to slack off a bit every now and then

Harper.4173:

All you’ve been doing is repeating “defensive stats are punishing you” without explaining WHY or HOW.

Not so long ago I took my guild into a dungeon. All of the enemies ended up chasing me around the room, ignoring the warrior and the guardian, simply because I was wearing toughness gear. It was ridiculous. I realized that it is a bit pointless to be wearing heavy armor, if it is an aggro magnet. That defeats the point of a defensive build. So yes, the game does punish you for high toughness.

This also happens in the open world. Whenever I’m in a group, all the enemies focus on me. I’m not the one doing the most damage, but I apparently have the highest toughness out of anyone, and so the enemies focus on me. It’s like wearing a giant “kill me” sign around your neck.

Harper.4173:

I ask this too – but they’ve given us next to NO difficult content but a LOT of faceroll easy content. Open world was easy before but ever since mega servers were added it’s nothing short of a joke.

I totally agree.

Harper.4173:

I hope so too – the problem here is that higher challenge content has to be coupled with equivalent rewards or it will become a ghost town.

You are absolutely right. We need a good reason to try difficult content. Domain of Anguish had the Armbraces of Truth that you could get by collecting 4 different gems from the 4 areas. These were very valuable, and could be exchanged for exclusive Torment Weapons with a really cool skin. Mallyx himself also had great unique rewards from his chest, including weapons for each profession, and a Mallyx mini.

Harper.4173:

The question then becomes – how many of each? I’m pretty sure those who “might not” will constitute a majority – and sadly for us – a paying majority.
As a business it’s not really smart to tick off a lot of people especially if those people are people you get money from.

So, maybe they’ll raise the bar a little overall, like they did in Silver Wastes. Hopefully they’ll also include one dungeon/raid/group content that does have a very high difficulty.

Harper.4173:

Ultimately this game is an empowerment fantasy – the moment you take a person’s “special hero unique snowflake” status away by having mobs beat him up plenty is the moment that person might want to stop playing.
Why would you risk that when you could simply keep telling him (metaphorically of course) “you’re the greatest ever hero to ever live ever ever – give us more of your hard earned money because you’re so good”.

The majority of GW2’s PVE content kind of already does that. Eventually this empowerment fantasy turns sour, and players start to realize that they are not empowered, everything is just really easy.

I understand that you can’t raise the bar too much, or too fast. But I assume that they are trying to make HOT appeal to both new and old players. So maybe the difficulty won’t be raised too much, but they will add more dynamic to the fights.

On the other hand, you can only patch up the combat so much. You can tack a lot onto it to make it less boring, but I think some foundational changes also need to happen. I think they need to examine the way DPS, control and conditions work. To some extend they are already doing this, by finally raising the condi-cap, and changing a lot of conditions. And they’ve added the break-bar as well, to finally address the defiant problem.

My only criticism in regards to the break-bar, is that it still commits the same sin as Defiant did: It makes every control skill have the same effect, because we can’t have static bosses being pulled, knocked down, or feared away. It is a bit of a shame when you implement all these interesting mechanics in the game, and then ignore them for boss fights. I won’t deny that the break-bar looks like an improvement (I must see it in action first), but it is a bit of a shame that it is only half a fix.

You know that the video didn’t use any of the meta tactics ? Almost half the group is ranging, don’t do any LoSing situation … You know, i can say that the whole game is just 1111111 because we can do the Fire Elemental in Metrica province that way.

Yup, there is easy content in this game (and i would say, after so much time playing it, the whole game became easy, in PvE). But saying everything is doable by 111111 is plain wrong.

By the way, you complained about having no consistent aggro system and yet :
“It was ridiculous. I realized that it is a bit pointless to be wearing heavy armor, if it is an aggro magnet.”

I run a defensive build as a necromancer, and can stay alive and kill things just fine. But my damage is not on par with your average zerker. If I pay attention to what is happening on the screen, and dodge everything, I don’t really need the defensive stats at all. But I dislike the pure damage builds, so I went with knights, just like you. I like to have the ability to slack off a bit every now and then

Exactly – you have the defensive stats in order to compensate for you not being on-point. They are an in-built difficulty select that you pick for yourself. You can make encounters easier and longer or harder and shorter.

The problem is you “dislike” something and that most of your argument boils down to “i hate x type of play – make it less effective so I can be more effective with my favorite Y type of play in relation to X because I dislike X”.

You want to have your cake and eat it – which is unfair. You want good zerk damage but you also want to be able to slack if you feel like it. That’s not fair.

Why should you do the same damage as someone who has to be much more careful and on point when you just want to partially be slacking?

Also look at how game-breaking the Ele is – can you really say it’s not over the top?

Not so long ago I took my guild into a dungeon. All of the enemies ended up chasing me around the room, ignoring the warrior and the guardian, simply because I was wearing toughness gear. It was ridiculous. I realized that it is a bit pointless to be wearing heavy armor, if it is an aggro magnet. That defeats the point of a defensive build. So yes, the game does punish you for high toughness.

Aggro is one thing – gear is another.
Aggro mechanics in this game work in a very weird way but I wouldn’t say it’s punishing. In high levels of play this mechanic is turned into an advantage by having a dedicated individual take aggro from bosses while others slay it.

Also this does not require a “gear fix” – simply remove this behavior from the aggro component of the AI.

Mad Queen: From what i’ve read you’re a PvE player. And you seem to think that the balance is broken because tanky builds cannot compete with zerker builds in PvE.

As it happens, this game is balanced around pvp, not pve. And if you take a look at pvp in this game and in other games, it’s clear that this is one of those with the msot balance throughout the classes.
As a matter of fact, it is so balanced you cannot kill 2 or more people of you’re skill level at the same time.

As for PvE. The lack of a consisten aggro system has made people go for effficiency rather than diversity. It’s not a balance problem. Rather than asking for nerfed zerk damage, you should ask that your tanky builds get something else to be able to compete.

Thirdly, the camera system. I didn’t find any specifics on what makes it so bad (maybe I just missed it) But I Think it’s just as good as any other mmo’s, it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s not somethign super special, but not bad.

Pets: Yes the AI system sucks. Mesmers are an exceptions, their pets and the play style around the clones are completely different compared to other classes.
The AI may be the same, but then again, you make them explode…

The pet part wasn’t aimed to you Mad queen

So, maybe they’ll raise the bar a little overall, like they did in Silver Wastes. Hopefully they’ll also include one dungeon/raid/group content that does have a very high difficulty

I didn’t realize the bar was raised with SW. I didn’t find it more difficult then let’s say Orr or Southsun Cove. As far as I’m concerned SW is still faceroll easy.

The majority of GW2’s PVE content kind of already does that. Eventually this empowerment fantasy turns sour, and players start to realize that they are not empowered, everything is just really easy.

But you can get YEARS worth of money off them before they figure it out provided they come as complete newbies when they start the game.
By that time it doesn’t really matter. Plus you have a couple of fractals that they can do if they have mastered everything else.

My only criticism in regards to the break-bar, is that it still commits the same sin as Defiant did: It makes every control skill have the same effect, because we can’t have static bosses being pulled, knocked down, or feared away. It is a bit of a shame when you implement all these interesting mechanics in the game, and then ignore them for boss fights. I won’t deny that the break-bar looks like an improvement (I must see it in action first), but it is a bit of a shame that it is only half a fix.

The problem here is that they’ve added too much control in the game – unlike GW1 where there wasn’t really a lot of it in GW2 you can find it everywhere really.

This becomes a problem because players can abuse CC.
Think about it – even a non-static boss can be chained in CC pretty easily.
Off the top of my head – one warrior using a hammer has 3 CCs on his weapon. He can get additional CC on his utility bar. Let’s say he has 4 CCs total.
What happens when you get 3-4 warriors together? The boss has nothing to say whatsoever to what’s happening to him.

“Why should you do the same damage as someone who has to be much more careful and on point when you just want to partially be slacking?”

^ Quoted for truth.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

serenke.4806:

They’re not using autoattack, but one key they chose before the run, so weapon/attunement swap can produce the effect they desired. That’s NOT the same as using only autoattack.

The point was that you don’t really need any tactics. The AI doesn’t pose any challenge, and can be killed with no strategy at all. And that was what this is about. The combat needs good ai to put up a real fight, where you are expected to pay attention, and react to what is happening.

If spamming your aoe heal skill occasionally, and spamming all your attacks in between, is enough to beat almost every PVE fight, then something is wrong.

This is what PVE combat looks like: I go through all my damage skills, rince and repeat. The enemies make no attempt to keep their distance, or stay out of an aoe effect. They don’t really use attacks that the players need to dodge. It’s as if this only happens during boss battles. It is as if only boss battles have the minimum effort put into them, to make them some what of a fight.

In GW1 enemies used to have builds, and unique skills, that made a difference. Silver Wastes is the first area where I’ve started seeing enemies that do something different. It is the first time I’ve seen enemies that have healers, or do charge attacks.

If you look at this video and start to think, they basically made a 5-skill build for the dungeon. They knew what they will need most and picked those skills (the ele is using lava font all the time, i wonder why…). This proves that there are a few important things that the different classes bring to the table.
It also proves that you fail the gate controller if you only spam one skill.
And like others said, please do the same in fractals 50.

Ah of course GW1 was always so much better eh? Yes, the mobs use actual builds – just like they do in GW2. They have certain unique features there, some mobs spam 25-energy skills as if they were connected to some nuclear reactor for energy regen – just like “shoot” in GW2.

Look at the Underworld in GW1. People have been soloing that for how many years? Challenging content? I bet you can make an 8-man party in GW1, everyone with one single skill and you can beat content there too.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The point was that you don’t really need any tactics. The AI doesn’t pose any challenge, and can be killed with no strategy at all. And that was what this is about. The combat needs good ai to put up a real fight, where you are expected to pay attention, and react to what is happening.

If spamming your aoe heal skill occasionally, and spamming all your attacks in between, is enough to beat almost every PVE fight, then something is wrong.

This is what PVE combat looks like: I go through all my damage skills, rince and repeat. The enemies make no attempt to keep their distance, or stay out of an aoe effect. They don’t really use attacks that the players need to dodge. It’s as if this only happens during boss battles. It is as if only boss battles have the minimum effort put into them, to make them some what of a fight.

In GW1 enemies used to have builds, and unique skills, that made a difference. Silver Wastes is the first area where I’ve started seeing enemies that do something different. It is the first time I’ve seen enemies that have healers, or do charge attacks.

I thought the name was familiar…

Back when they introduced the AC revamp, I recall you singing a very different tune regarding how difficult the new PvE was…

Seems either you’ve gotten a lot better, or the more popular tactics and strategies have allowed you to experience things and think differently.

Suffice to say, Dungeons and Fractals are still quite challenging to players who haven’t had the benefit of being shown optimal, and more beneficial ways to handle encounters. Such things as might stacking, blinds, vulnerability, haste, interrupts and reflects, which are taken for granted in more experienced groups, are alien in many others. These are actually the skills that allow DPS to be as strong as it is. Anyone who guides and mentors groups can attest to this.

And fair, a few players may be able to beat all the content with a single key, this is far from the case for the majority of the player base and just silly to presume so.

For what it’s worth, your example about toughness stacking – while you accurately described one of its effects (pulling agro), you failed to mention that this is actually a very useful tactic for some encounters where you want to control the Agro. Just because it doesn’t work the way you think it should, doesn’t mean that’s the only way it has to work.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Mad Queen: From what i’ve read you’re a PvE player. And you seem to think that the balance is broken because tanky builds cannot compete with zerker builds in PvE.

Am I a PVE player? Yes, mostly. I occasionally do some WvW. Do I think balance is broken because tanky builds cannot compete with zerker? No. The discussion kind of went in the direction of zerkers, because I dared to mention it. But if you scroll up, my criticism on the combat system is much larger, and zerker is but a minor point among the criticism.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

As for PvE. The lack of a consisten aggro system has made people go for effficiency rather than diversity. It’s not a balance problem. Rather than asking for nerfed zerk damage, you should ask that your tanky builds get something else to be able to compete.

I never asked to nerf zerker damage. When did I state I was anti-zerker?

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Thirdly, the camera system. I didn’t find any specifics on what makes it so bad (maybe I just missed it) But I Think it’s just as good as any other mmo’s, it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s not somethign super special, but not bad.

The camera system is by far the worst camera system I have ever encountered in any game. And that’s taking into account other terrible camera systems, such as the one in Gex3D on the PS1, or the terrible camera in The Wind Waker on the gamecube. GW2’s camera is the most horrible of them all. It’s definitely worse than the one in GW1. It is downright unpleasant to look at. It fails on multiple levels:

-It constantly bounces back and forth whenever the player travels behind any object, thus causing this motion-sickness inducing behavior where the camera just zooms in and out.
-It doesn’t have a proper first person mode.
-In tight spaces the camera zooms into your character, so you can’t see anything at all.
-The FOV actually limits what players can see, so you can’t see a whole lot of the beautiful environment. Plus the FOV is zoomed all the way in, which can make many players nauseous. It feels like constantly wearing glasses that are too strong.
-The camera bumps into terrain, as if it was a physical object.

Mourningcry.9428:

I thought the name was familiar…

Back when they introduced the AC revamp, I recall you singing a very different tune regarding how difficult the new PvE was…

Now you are taking things completely out of context. I criticized the fact that dungeons didn’t have a proper difficulty curve, since the first dungeon that players are introduced to, is very hard. AC is not a good starter dungeon. That criticism is still valid today.

People latch on too easily to easy answers. They see you criticize the difficulty of a dungeon (which is not unreasonable depending on the arguments) and they immediately yell out:

“See? You thought it was difficult! And now you think it is easy! You are inconsistent!”

Well yeah, if you don’t care to read the actual discussion.

Mourningcry.9428:

And fair, a few players may be able to beat all the content with a single key, this is far from the case for the majority of the player base and just silly to presume so.

That is NOT what my point was. It was regarding the AI being as dumb as a bag of rocks, which it is. If the AI doesn’t respond at all to what the players are doing, then the AI can be cheesed with the silliest of tactics (such as stacking).

Take DDO for example. In DDO if you fight an archer, the archer actually runs away once you get into melee range. They respond, and try to keep their distance. That is the bare minimum I think of what AI in an MMO should do.

Or they have mages that run away, and then cast Blade Barrier, and stand in the middle of it. This gives the players something to react to.

Or they have shamans that buff and heal their allies. So players have to focus on them first.

The bare bones of AI in an MMO.

Mourningcry.9428:

For what it’s worth, your example about toughness stacking – while you accurately described one of its effects (pulling agro), you failed to mention that this is actually a very useful tactic for some encounters where you want to control the Agro. Just because it doesn’t work the way you think it should, doesn’t mean that’s the only way it has to work.

Aggro management in this game is a mess. Which might be why they are now introducing a taunt mechanic.

serenke.4806:

Look at the Underworld in GW1. People have been soloing that for how many years? Challenging content? I bet you can make an 8-man party in GW1, everyone with one single skill and you can beat content there too.

Good luck. You will die at the very first enemy you encounter in UW. That very first Aatxe will steamroll your entire group if all you do is spam one skill. And see? That is the difference. You actually have to do something different in GW1.

Try it in FoW, you fail too (you get nuked by the shadow army, and Rastigan gets killed).
Try it in The Deep (your party is split up, and everyone dies)
Urgoz Warren (suicide vampires make short work of your party, as do the energy denial and health degen areas)
DOA (You will not survive any of the first enemies in any of the areas of DOA if you just spam one skill. You need good aggro management here).
Plenty of story missions also make more demands on strategy. Good luck spamming your way through Thunderhead Keep.

Why have people been soloing the Underworld? Because they figured out a clever skill combination that allows them to tank some of the enemies in the Underworld, but not all of them. UW is by no means an easy area. It is challenging, but you can overcome that challenge with a good build.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Mad Queen: From what i’ve read you’re a PvE player. And you seem to think that the balance is broken because tanky builds cannot compete with zerker builds in PvE.

As it happens, this game is balanced around pvp, not pve. And if you take a look at pvp in this game and in other games, it’s clear that this is one of those with the msot balance throughout the classes.
As a matter of fact, it is so balanced you cannot kill 2 or more people of you’re skill level at the same time.

As for PvE. The lack of a consisten aggro system has made people go for effficiency rather than diversity. It’s not a balance problem. Rather than asking for nerfed zerk damage, you should ask that your tanky builds get something else to be able to compete.

Thirdly, the camera system. I didn’t find any specifics on what makes it so bad (maybe I just missed it) But I Think it’s just as good as any other mmo’s, it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s not somethign super special, but not bad.

Pets: Yes the AI system sucks. Mesmers are an exceptions, their pets and the play style around the clones are completely different compared to other classes.
The AI may be the same, but then again, you make them explode…

The pet part wasn’t aimed to you Mad queen

The game isn’t balanced in PvP either, I’m not sure where you got that impression and it’s pretty clear from that statement you don’t play PvP or WvW. PvP has long been considered unbalanced with certain classes/builds being far superior. Take a look at the rosters for classes/builds for the tournaments sometime and you’ll see that certain ones are must haves. You’re not going to find Trap thiefs and Vampire necros there, because those builds are absolute rubbish due to not being balanced in the slightest. Sure you can cherry pick the top 10% of builds and say they are somewhat balanced, but that ignores the heaps of horrible traits and skills.

Next you cannot continually keep buffing things up. Damage in this game is stupidly high right now because of that exact philosophy. Let’s buff mitigation and healing though because it’s much easier to buff 2 things and completely rebalance PvE instead of nerf 1. Look up what power creep is and you’ll understand why things need nerfed, while you’re at it send that link to ArenaNet.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Now you are taking things completely out of context. I criticized the fact that dungeons didn’t have a proper difficulty curve, since the first dungeon that players are introduced to, is very hard. AC is not a good starter dungeon. That criticism is still valid today.

People latch on too easily to easy answers. They see you criticize the difficulty of a dungeon (which is not unreasonable depending on the arguments) and they immediately yell out:

“See? You thought it was difficult! And now you think it is easy! You are inconsistent!”

Well yeah, if you don’t care to read the actual discussion.

Well, maybe I’m just dense… if this whole thread is about how DPS, coupled with horrid AI resulting in brainless, harmless mobs has trivialized the game, well, how can things still be hard?

The answer lies in the tactics and strategy the player base has developed to handle what was once “hard and impossible”; the new AC, Teq, Triple-T, and on and on down the list of all the new encounters that got their own forum rage about how impossible they were, and are now all on farm status.

Unfamiliarity is the source of the difficulty, understanding makes it trivial.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is NOT what my point was. It was regarding the AI being as dumb as a bag of rocks, which it is. If the AI doesn’t respond at all to what the players are doing, then the AI can be cheesed with the silliest of tactics (such as stacking).
…

I never played DDO, but in GW2 the simple counter to the archer AI would be a stun, or an imbolize, or a blind, or a knockdown, or even a daze which would prevent the archer from running. Likewise for the mage – interrupt him before, or while, he’s casting the barrier.

This is just a simple example of how a player would respond to that AI. Again, the first time you see it, wow, unbeatable. The next time, it’s trivial because you know what’s going to happen and are prepared to prevent it.

Move, counter-move between player and AI won’t change, it’s just the depth of how far the programming can take it. And quite simply, this isn’t infinite because at some point, in order to maintain playability for most of the base, you want the player to be able to eventually gain the advantage. How long this should take to achieve is debatable.

Right now, the enthusiast player understands all the encounters and has worked out all the steps necessary to counter them. This was inevitable. The only difficulty lies in the execution.

To expect a game AI to evolve along with the playerbase is a sci-fi fantasy at this stage, at least in regards to commercial gaming like GW2.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Aggro management in this game is a mess. Which might be why they are now introducing a taunt mechanic.

Again, just because it doesn’t work the way you want it, doesn’t mean it can’t be made to work in some fashion. And from what we’ve been shown with the taunt mechanic, it’s yet to be seen if this is the silver bullet – which i highly doubt.

Take DDO for example. In DDO if you fight an archer, the archer actually runs away once you get into melee range. They respond, and try to keep their distance. That is the bare minimum I think of what AI in an MMO should do.
Or they have mages that run away, and then cast Blade Barrier, and stand in the middle of it. This gives the players something to react to.
Or they have shamans that buff and heal their allies. So players have to focus on them first.

There are mobs in GW2 that work like this – Ascalonian Archers in AC will kick you if you get in melee range.

The Grawl Shaman in the Volcanic Fractal will kick you if you’re on top of him in melee. He will also do a hugely damaging aoe around him if you’re in melee ( attempting to push you towards a ranged encounter where he is stronger).

There are signs that “smarter” mobs were in the works or were considered at one point but ultimately the idea was scrapped for some reason.

Aggro management in this game is a mess. Which might be why they are now introducing a taunt mechanic.

I feel you and many other players are confused about this new mechanic since it is named after something that works completely different in other MMOs.

Let me explain – Taunt is not aggro management – it is a CC similar to stun or daze but is most similar to fear -only that instead of the foe running away it will run towards and attack you.

Why doesn’t this make it the same as taunt in other games? Because it works just like any other CC with a break bar. It takes some of the bar away but won’t allow you to make the boss attack one person for any significant amount of time if at all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Aggro management in this game is a mess. Which might be why they are now introducing a taunt mechanic.

You mean aggro management in this game is one of the best out there. No aggro management = best experience. There is nothing more idiotic than mobs preferring people with ultra heavy armor over the healer with cloth behind them, or preferring to attack those that throw insults (taunts) instead of those that are doing the actual damage and/or healing.

Good luck. You will die at the very first enemy you encounter in UW. That very first Aatxe will steamroll your entire group if all you do is spam one skill. And see? That is the difference. You actually have to do something different in GW1.

It’s not the same, because those using just one skill in GW2 don’t just use 1 skill. They DODGE (you can’t dodge in GW1), they use TRAITS (there are no traits in GW1) and of course they rez. Traits can be the same (if not more powerful) than skills in GW2, rezzing can be done by anyone etc. You cannot compare ONE skill of GW2 with ONE skill of GW1, GW2 has way more than skills to account for.

Why have people been soloing the Underworld? Because they figured out a clever skill combination that allows them to tank some of the enemies in the Underworld, but not all of them. UW is by no means an easy area. It is challenging, but you can overcome that challenge with a good build.

UW isn’t by any means challenging, aside from 2 quests (That involve protecting npcs) everything else isn’t hard at all.
Unlike UW, DoA is actually hard, especially the Foundry, hardest area of GW1 imo. The final boss (Mallyx) is an exploitable boss (even after all this time) hardly a challenge once you reach him.
The Deep is very hard at the start, you need some more specific builds to play because of the split. Even so, not all split groups need to win, so a powerful group can defeat all foes. Exploiting with Recall (still doable after all these years) makes the last boss and certain other areas silly easy.
Urgoz has more challenging areas, I guess it’s my favorite GW1 dungeon.

UW and FoW are both easy modes, I’d wish people would stop calling those two “hard” or “challenging”, they are CoF difficulty if not less.

Kadsik.9281:

Im still having a hard time as thief in pve, i tried getting some vital stat increase with armor and getting survivalbility in my traits, but my damage seemed reallly low, so i tired going glasscannon again, and not only do i watch other people outdo my backstabs, but of course i started dying easily again. This is for pve only pvp is ok becuase of amulets.
Is there something crucial im missing, and what is the average damage for a glasscannon these days, or am i just a perfectionist.

I play dire thief. Full condi.
I can solo camps
I can solo towers
I can solo keeps
I can solo Stone Mist
I can solo the eye of zhaitan. It’s insanely hard but doable.
I see no issue with damage. Analyze and adapt. Only way to survive.

Im very sad. I came to this game late (3 months ago) so my opinion might not be well informed but here is what i noticed.
Before the update things were rather balanced for certain classes. It was limited on what class or build would work. But if you fit into that box you had a fun experience. I see the need to make all classes viable with many build options for each. I understand its what Anet was trying to do or at least i think so. I know they will be working on fixing what seems broken atm.
Problem here is why im sad. Games been out for what? Um over 2 years? No idea, but a long time. When joined there were many patches to fix balance issues and many classes that were nerfed or buffed. Meaning after 2 years they were still working on balance til they finally just scrapped what they had and redid it for the most part. So what now? We deal with broken mechanics for how long? Another 2 years until what? They say oopsies nevermind lets just go back to what we had that was working. Or maybe a new reworking of how its done again. Or maybe GW3….. ugh.
I am taking a break to do other games while i still play gw2 now and then. Its just no longer fun. I hope they fix things soon and bring back the joy of spvp. Wvw btw was never fun for me. The zerging is the lamest thing ive ever seen. I dont give a crap about that part of the game :P Play ESO if you wanna see wvw done right. It actually feels like you are conquering a countryside for your king. Epic seiges and road battles. Just next level compared to gw2 kindergarten approach to wvw. To bad ESO just sorta sucks all around and the vet level wvw is soooo unbalanced.. anyhoo… off point.
So ya i hope they address the exploits being found by the players and drop this ridiculous dps going on. The game should not be so about the builds but rather skillful gameplay and enjoyable matches. I feel in their attempt to make all classes viable and more builds playable they created something on accident. Build exploits.
Good luck to those struggling. Happy gaming to those still having fun. Ill see you all on the other side.

Who’s ‘we?’
/15charrs

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Kordash.2197:

For the challenge, well, you said in this thread that the majority of the PvE encounters is just spam ‘111111111’. This argument is often used by “anti zerkers”, and is just plain wrong.

If it’s wrong, then why does it work for so many of the PVE encounters? Have you actually tried it? Most of the PVE content does not demand any strategy, or clever positioning, or to change your build.

GW2 #1 attacks can be the best damage option available on a weapon. Ranger longbow, Necromancer dagger and Warrior ax come to mind. Many weapon and utility skills are contingency/situational skills. Why waste a condition cleanse, stun, immobilize, etc. if the encounter does not require it?

So GW2 encounters are too easy? The vast majority of encounters in most MMO’s can be handled using a tiny fraction of what a character is capable of doing. What’s true about GW2, though, is that there are not that many encounters which do require a player to use all that his character is capable of. I certainly never felt that I could get away with one skill in dungeons, though others may do so.

What I used to do to generate challenge in GW2 is to find events, especially group events, that I can solo. I once had a great time, stretched my characters and developed better skills by doing so. The more mobs, the better. However, this practice has seen diminishing returns since mega-server.

Vrita.7846:

If you quit, can I have your stuff?

I hear that! But looks like you have dibz

ChoChoBo.6503:

I’ve quit and comeback 3 times now.
There really isn’t any other MMORPG that can compete with GW2.
Take a break.
You’ll be back.

Heya ChoChoBo long time no see we miss you

guildwarstwentytwelve.5693:

Well this post did accomplish part of what I wanted. To get people talking about the problems and create a thread with lots of post to get devs attention.

I wouldn’t expect too much dev response. Devs are paid to not talk on the forums all day; the chance that any individual thread gets a dev to post in it is very low.

In addition, we have a good 3 years of experience to know Anet deals with bugs, etc.. the issue you have brought up. There isn’t really anything to discuss other than the fact that you need to be patient if the things you think are broken are on Anet’s list to fix. Tehy do address these things and they are pretty transparent about doing it.

Obtena.7952:

guildwarstwentytwelve.5693:

Well this post did accomplish part of what I wanted. To get people talking about the problems and create a thread with lots of post to get devs attention.

I wouldn’t expect too much dev response. Devs are paid to not talk on the forums all day; the chance that any individual thread gets a dev to post in it is very low.

In addition, we have a good 3 years of experience to know Anet deals with bugs, etc.. the issue you have brought up. There isn’t really anything to discuss other than the fact that you need to be patient if the things you think are broken are on Anet’s list to fix. Tehy do address these things and they are pretty transparent about doing it.

For GW2 you probably want to go to Facebook … or maybe Twitter anyway. :P