Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.

Thats something I dont know about. I like more difficulty but I make no assumptions that others do too.

It may teach better but that is under the assumption that most want to learn or want something more difficult. Dont confuse difficult with new

DonQuack.9025:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.

Thats something I dont know about. I like more difficulty but I make no assumptions that others do too.

It may teach better but that is under the assumption that most want to learn or want something more difficult. Dont confuse difficult with new

There most certainly is a dichotomy with regard to players who want greater difficulty and those who don’t. I used the word can rather than will for precisely that reason. Some people will react to difficulty by figuring out a better way to do things. Others post on forums about the game being “too hard.” Still others quit. Similarly, better conveyance of information about the game will not teach those who don’t want to learn, either.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.
…
There most certainly is a dichotomy with regard to players who want greater difficulty and those who don’t. I used the word can rather than will for precisely that reason. Some people will react to difficulty by figuring out a better way to do things. Others post on forums about the game being “too hard.” Still others quit. Similarly, better conveyance of information about the game will not teach those who don’t want to learn, either.

These conversations do repeatedly come back to “GW2 needs better encounter design.” Build diversity? Better encounter design. Zerg mentality? Better encounter design. And so on.

Part of that encounter design is making sure that players have information. To be effective, there need to be multiple channels that occur simultaneously, or nearly so; enough to establish cause and effect. So, better encounter design includes not just numerical balancing of abilities, but an element of transparency.

But that’s not even what the OP is talking about. Simplistic design is part of the problem, but it doesn’t address how the devs are dealing with information. It’s about a pedagogical philosophy that has evolved as MMOs have advanced.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DonQuack.9025:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.

Thats something I dont know about. I like more difficulty but I make no assumptions that others do too.

It may teach better but that is under the assumption that most want to learn or want something more difficult. Dont confuse difficult with new

There most certainly is a dichotomy with regard to players who want greater difficulty and those who don’t. I used the word can rather than will for precisely that reason. Some people will react to difficulty by figuring out a better way to do things. Others post on forums about the game being “too hard.” Still others quit. Similarly, better conveyance of information about the game will not teach those who don’t want to learn, either.

It is funny when I think about it. I didn’t really learn about combo field until I am at lv 80. And that is only when I look it up. Knowledge don’t drop out of nowhere. People like to point out how easy it is. However, I would think the causal PVE environment is a blessing rather than a curse. It’ll let people fumble around.

To most people, GW2 is just a game. They don’t consciously try to get better at the game, they learn things as they go along. If they do get better, that is great, if they don’t, they don’t think much of it. Making things harder only make thing worse, if they don’t have the knowledge, skills or practice to deal with the situation, it scare them into playing defensively or avoid it.

Thank you for the thread! Very eloquently written. I’m sure it took a long time!

I haven’t had time to read every comment in this thread yet but I wanted to just say I agree with the OP. It would be nice to see some sort of mini side-mission that takes you through different elements of game play (ex. “now drop an energy field and shoot through it to blast all the evil chickens! Quick, stop them from taking over Tyria!”). It would also be nice to have some sort of ingame tutorial that comes up with the ESC menu, something with definitions and things like that. I hate having to alt-tab out of a game to read up on basic stuff. I got lucky early on and had people willing to point stuff out to me but not everyone is that lucky.

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

kittening sticky this!

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

The fact so many people call clerics bad is not so much because the concept of healing is bad. Its that healing power just scales so horribly with the majority of heals in this game. Something that should be fixed but the balance issues brought about make that very difficult. That and they don’t want to create the “holy trinity”

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

We already have the above bolded section but it is not by the devs. the devs are trying to give us options. The elitists are telling others to go zerk or go home. You are trying to lay blame on the wrong guys. I for one am all for testing out build options and I know full well the mechanics of the game. I’ve learned these through testing IN THE GAME. (Engineer is great for understanding combo fields. Reading helps too.) Sure I’ve taken my time looking through the wiki (/wiki command ftw) as well for the finer points (Like wtf is cleansing bolt and wtf does it do?) but it really takes a bit to actually find out all the info in the game.

What the original topic of this thread was about was potentially helping people understand how to do things right and not smash your head into the wall and wonder what went wrong. Also this whole topic was originally about the mechanics and how they should be portrayed to new players so that they can understand how things work. If character creation involves the intelligence (or lack there of) of players then yeah I can see your argument having some merit… as it is intelligence is not a part of character creation. As it stands very little information is portrayed that is used in the meta game experience.

I’m not laying the blame on the devs. I’m replying to those that are asking the devs to make content that only zergs or whatever min/max flavor of the month can defeat to force players to “learn 2 play”. What the devs are doing is the correct course, by making the game more accessible to all types of build and not picking build winners.

I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.

Behellagh.1468:

I’m not laying the blame on the devs. I’m replying to those that are asking the devs to make content that only zergs or whatever min/max flavor of the month can defeat to force players to “learn 2 play”. What the devs are doing is the correct course, by making the game more accessible to all types of build and not picking build winners.

I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.

Needs more +1s.

Yeah, pretty much your oppinion, Blood Red Arachnid.

One BIG step would be to reduce these horrible fire animations on bosses. Those huge flames just make it impossible to see what he is doing. Even worse when the guardian’s blue flames are on him at the same time. It would absolutely be sufficient to let his feet burn for example ^^

Behellagh.1468:

I’m not laying the blame on the devs. I’m replying to those that are asking the devs to make content that only zergs or whatever min/max flavor of the month can defeat to force players to “learn 2 play”. What the devs are doing is the correct course, by making the game more accessible to all types of build and not picking build winners.

I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.

Actually this thread is not about meta builds, its about the design showing people the rules of the game. Transparency in what is happening and transparency in what can happen.

Point the game doesn’t train people very well or show them the rules/what’s happening very well, which leads them to having to make fairly simple fights

anonim.5932:

Yeah, pretty much your oppinion, Blood Red Arachnid.

One BIG step would be to reduce these horrible fire animations on bosses. Those huge flames just make it impossible to see what he is doing. Even worse when the guardian’s blue flames are on him at the same time. It would absolutely be sufficient to let his feet burn for example ^^

This would be so effective. A tweak to the effects system could make this doable easily. The main problem atm is that particle effects scale on the mob it is used on (See the grasping dead from necro or the birds from ranger)

What really would help especially in fights where there is shallow water present to actually have major boss mobs use the new tells system they have been adding to tweaked bosses and LS events they have been using. Those at least can be seen in the shallow waters. Red Rings can’t.

Another thing to take into account are bright flashes (mesmer has a few). These typically blind the enemy but in zergs they also tend to blind the zerg in a case of “Torch Blindness”. Where going from a bright light to pitch black makes the blacks even darker. While they are flashy and nice, it makes watching an enemies movements difficult and troublesome.

I grasped the concept of combo fields, but I had – and still have – a hard time seeing if they worked, what happened, etc. The particle issue is big for me. In the early levels, it was hard to know if you’d been successful & what happened because of it. If that information had been more clear, I think combo fields themselves would be more accessible. It’s not so much reading about them, what they do, what they’re supposed to do – it’s not seeing it happen. I hear my character say something about it, but generally, I don’t have the slightest idea what she did. (and this is true for the interrupt daily – which I seem to get all the time, without thinking about it at all. That doesn’t help.)

stobie.2134:

I grasped the concept of combo fields, but I had – and still have – a hard time seeing if they worked, what happened, etc. The particle issue is big for me. In the early levels, it was hard to know if you’d been successful & what happened because of it. If that information had been more clear, I think combo fields themselves would be more accessible. It’s not so much reading about them, what they do, what they’re supposed to do – it’s not seeing it happen. I hear my character say something about it, but generally, I don’t have the slightest idea what she did. (and this is true for the interrupt daily – which I seem to get all the time, without thinking about it at all. That doesn’t help.)

The interrupt thing is simply just interrupting an enemy attack, which so many are long and easy to stop, made even easier by a mesmer (which based on your sig I’m guessing you play). Mesmers have it so easy to get interrupt its almost a joke. As for the combo fields, they are a bit tricky. Its the little phrase pop ups you see. Most often its easy to tell what they do “Area [effect]” gives that effect in an area, “[Effect] Bolt/Whirl” shoots particles of that effect (In the case of cleanses it cleanses allies the bolts pass through. Odd bit but it is what it is) and most leaps tend to apply shield buffs, like fire shield (Or in your case retaliation if you use sword #3 to leap through focus #4? I think?). Looking close at your skills you can see the different combo finishers and fields in the tool tip. All it takes is a bit of playing around with em to figure them out. But ’When in doubt /wiki it out" is what I always say. =3

All things considered I think they’ve been tweaking with them as my ele seems to get intermittent amounts of might stacks despite the same combo string I use when I use it in a zerg. Could be player prioritization at work there or something. not sure.

guardian.6489:

I think part of the problem with teaching the basics is that I think even as the game was being developed many advanced techniques weren’t anticipated by the developers.

I mean we primarily use combo fields for might stacking with blast finishers, healing with water fields, stealth with smoke fields and swiftness with static fields. Otherwise other finishers and combo field are ignored. When was the last time you even payed attention to projectile finishers?

So really I think the seed of the problem is that Anet didn’t even anticipate what the high-end PvE metagame would even look like which meant they couldn’t really make a proper tutorial about it. That being said, they really need to go back and figure out ways to teach players about these especially if they want to continue to increase the difficulty of future content.

This… is utterly true. This is also similar to Anets stance on balance: make a few changes then let things settle for awhile. The whole thing is based around letting players find their own meta, and thus Anet balances via tapping with a 20 foot pole.

This is also one of the bigger flaws with having in-game tutorials beyond explaining the basics. While it is hard to find anyone who would argue about teaching dodge or combo fields, it is hard to find someone who would agree that it is O.K. to teach only specific DPS rotations and structured team roles for the current dungeon meta. This is because the meta changes, and what is relevant back then might not be relevant now.

It is a dangerous line to tread between teaching someone how things work vs. teaching someone a restricted playstyle on a soon dated meta. My biggest fear is that it will be crossed, then a year later I’ll have to make a 5 post topic about “Why the tutorials are outdated and do more harm than good”.

Harper.4173:

The OP mentions that Social Darwinism doesn’t work but if the game wiped the new players more often they would be forced to learn.
As it stands now you’re NOT forced to learn anything. You can complete dungeons even if you’re terrible at dodging and have a sloppy build.

The game should be more punishing.

This is a point that I will admit. One of my favorite games is Dark Souls, which as anyone who has ever played knows, just teaches you the basics of controls then drops you penniless onto a dangerous, apathetic world. The obstacles serve to make you tougher, and as you play through the game you learn from your repeated deaths.

Death is a better selective pressure than boredom. By far. Death inspires ingenuity, boredom inspires escape. But, while a harsher system would encourage more self discovery by the players, this has a pretty big drawback, too.

I know a lot of people who hated dark souls, and/or have no desire to play it. Not everyone turned left into the graveyard then yelled “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”. The unforgiving world is an inspiration to seasoned, hardcore gamers. But to casuals, it is a foul stench that serves as a preemptive warning.

So, while I do want the game to be harder, I also have to realize that just making the game harder will alienate a large portion of the GW2 customer base. While you can solve the lack of knowledge problem by driving away everyone who doesn’t know, this is not a profitable or desirable solution.

Besides, I think Dark Souls did a better job of teaching mechanics where it counted.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

This is a problem for another topic!

Woosh

This kind of ties in to that whole “don’t teach the meta” thing. If you want to talk about class/gear balance, then that is another two issues. Personally, my take on gear balance is as follows: change PVE so that different gear sets provide meaningful advantages to kill speed.

To do this, make PVE harder in such a way that it discriminates more against glass cannon gear than other, more defensive gear sets.

But, this has an implicit problem: It makes the game harder, and thus would require everyone (and not just GCs, since the changes would balance things out and not make things faceroll) to be more knowledgeable and proficient in the game’s mechanics. That, of course, happens to be the other problem that is restraining what is arguably the best solution to PVE gear and class balance..

To be honest as much as it would help to have a tutorial for things like combo fields/finishers I can’t help but feel that Anet’s “tutorials” always seemed a bit to “simple”. How many people recall the “Hero” tutorials from GW1? If you don’t they went a little like this→ “Send your heroes to point 1 with the flag button! Now send them to point 2! Notice the bars change. Now send them to point 3! Now kill the mobs that took points one and two!” While this did get the point across that controlling heroes was possible it was very very simple and kind of a slap in the face from my perspective. That said “simple” could be a good thing in this case.

If they just had tutorial NPCs around that gave players the potential to learn about things in game through say an instanced area but not have them be a requirement it might help. (like have the first scout say “Hey you should also go check out this guy as he might give you some pointers to help you out” since you kinda have to talk to him to start your personal story anyways.) If it was just an encyclopedia of texts on the game few would bother to read it. That’s from my experience at least.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Behellagh.1468:

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

This is a problem for another topic!

Woosh

This kind of ties in to that whole “don’t teach the meta” thing. If you want to talk about class/gear balance, then that is another two issues. Personally, my take on gear balance is as follows: change PVE so that different gear sets provide meaningful advantages to kill speed.

To do this, make PVE harder in such a way that it discriminates more against glass cannon gear than other, more defensive gear sets.

But, this has an implicit problem: It makes the game harder, and thus would require everyone (and not just GCs, since the changes would balance things out and not make things faceroll) to be more knowledgeable and proficient in the game’s mechanics. That, of course, happens to be the other problem that is restraining what is arguably the best solution to PVE gear and class balance..

A better solution might be to educate the player-base yet again. This time, teach them to let go of their bias towards thinking that gear sets = builds as they are used in other games.

Gear is only one tiny part of a build. More of one’s build is in traits, utilities and weapon choices. There are so many L80 gear prefixes, way more than their are possible roles in the game. Surely, all of them don’t have to be the core of a distinct, dedicated role. They’re in the game to provide options. Some are for different game modes. Some are for different types of player. Some are there in case someone wants to (gasp!) mix gear types to get a little more damage, survivability, etc.. Some of them may exist only to serve the same purpose the traits nobody uses serve, as filler.

Rather than have Anet spend developmental time on building a whole sequence of tutorials that may end up outdated as the meta moves, I’d humbly suggest that that one’s tendency to verbosity would be put to better use writing guides.

OP’s username reminds me of City of Heroes, so I’d make a reference to its forums, which had a gigantic list of guides written by players, for players. I recall when I first came in cold to the MMO genre, -that- was how I learned, perusing all the beginner guides I could get my hands on, applying that in-game, then going back and reading up on more advanced ones.

Let us not forget the role of player interaction in an MMO. Players can help each other and teach and support, both out-of-game and in-game. It’s lazy of us to assume that Anet should magically fix other players for us with better game design, when we could very well take some time to teach, or at least say something, hopefully in a non-accusatory, non-negative tone. (But even an angry one-liner from a dungeon player taught me how to take more care to not place banners underfoot, whereas I might have never learned if he said nothing.)

Yes, overlapping particle effects are confusing and conveyance and telegraphing could be better in some cases, though they’ve gotten better with the bright orange circles recently. It’s not all on Anet’s shoulders to fix or force, though.

Perhaps even teaching and learning the lesson that it is ok to search for outside help is a valuable one for players who think that everything should be done in-game. The /wiki command opens an outside browser after all – we have the wiki, forums and Reddit and other social media, Dulfy websites and GW2spidy and various build sites, all at a player’s disposal.

Also, GW2 is known to be a friendly and helpful community, and just as in education, maintaining a supportive environment makes it easier to ask questions and admit ignorance. That onus is on us to make sure it remains that way.

What this adds to is the social and multiplayer aspect of an MMO, rather than playing a singleplayer game. We learn gradually and organically, accruing bits of information at a time, from listening in on mapchat, from hearing other players over VOIP, whatever.

Nor would I underestimate the power of Google and a good guide, posted somewhere accessible – on these forums, Reddit, a blog, etc. (I run a very modest one and I see spikes in my stats every Living Story from people googling for help or basic guidance.)

Not everyone seeks out the information, but enough do, and these people are meme-spreaders, and can in turn teach others they encounter.

The top 5% must reach out to reach the other 95%. We are fortunate that in this community, enough from that lofty height do try. But it doesn’t stop there. The top 25% should reach out to the other 75% and so on.

And guess what, these may be different people good at different things. A great WvW zerger may not be an expert 1vs1 sPvPer. A great commander and teacher of many may himself not know something until he reads it from a guide or learn it from talking to someone, but he can convey it to a multitude of people in turn once he knows.

That is how we all learn and improve, through the works of those who theorycraft and post their findings, through those who make sites like GW2dungeons.net and post dungeon soloing videos online (which I personally would have thought unthinkable and undoable, until one watches what they do), on and on till it reaches the humble person standing next to another in-game who decides to ask “what is a combo and how do I do it?”

TL:DR: Complain less, teach more.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

The OP mentions that Social Darwinism doesn’t work but if the game wiped the new players more often they would be forced to learn.
As it stands now you’re NOT forced to learn anything. You can complete dungeons even if you’re terrible at dodging and have a sloppy build.

The game should be more punishing.

This is a point that I will admit. One of my favorite games is Dark Souls, which as anyone who has ever played knows, just teaches you the basics of controls then drops you penniless onto a dangerous, apathetic world. The obstacles serve to make you tougher, and as you play through the game you learn from your repeated deaths.

Death is a better selective pressure than boredom. By far. Death inspires ingenuity, boredom inspires escape. But, while a harsher system would encourage more self discovery by the players, this has a pretty big drawback, too.

I know a lot of people who hated dark souls, and/or have no desire to play it. Not everyone turned left into the graveyard then yelled “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”. The unforgiving world is an inspiration to seasoned, hardcore gamers. But to casuals, it is a foul stench that serves as a preemptive warning.

So, while I do want the game to be harder, I also have to realize that just making the game harder will alienate a large portion of the GW2 customer base. While you can solve the lack of knowledge problem by driving away everyone who doesn’t know, this is not a profitable or desirable solution.

Besides, I think Dark Souls did a better job of teaching mechanics where it counted.

I don’t think making the game harder necessarily teach people to play. Anet decision with the new trait rework is probably a typically example how making the game harder, doesn’t really teach people how to play. In fact I think it inhibit exploration of skills and traits. People need the relevant skills and traits to learn from them. New players generally have less skills and traits to work with. If you have irrelevant skills or less skills for the task, you don’t necessary learn much from them. Or worse you start to rely on skills that aren’t best for the job because certain skills aren’t available. When people are ignorance of which skills are best for the job, and you force them into the habit of using inferior skills. It only cause problem later, they will be reluctant to change, unable to evaluate which skill is better.

Death doesn’t necessary make you play better. In team play, the burden of death often fall on their teammates rather than themselves. It is their teammates that need to pick them up or finish the fight. Death trigger a fight-or-flight response, good player will raise to the challenge. The problem is with your mediocre or bad players, it destroy their self confidence, they run, they hide, they blame their teammates, they blame the boss for being OP. They wouldn’t improve or ended up playing worse than before.

the game needs strategy, not spamallot enemies, something GW1 has from release but GW2 has none of.
if enemies behave like they would in reality we would have a tougher time taking down enemies, now all they do is hit and wait till you hit…….as if they are made for turn-based games.

DiazKincade.2891:

Behellagh.1468:

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

We already have the above bolded section but it is not by the devs. the devs are trying to give us options. The elitists are telling others to go zerk or go home. You are trying to lay blame on the wrong guys. I for one am all for testing out build options and I know full well the mechanics of the game. I’ve learned these through testing IN THE GAME. (Engineer is great for understanding combo fields. Reading helps too.) Sure I’ve taken my time looking through the wiki (/wiki command ftw) as well for the finer points (Like wtf is cleansing bolt and wtf does it do?) but it really takes a bit to actually find out all the info in the game.

What the original topic of this thread was about was potentially helping people understand how to do things right and not smash your head into the wall and wonder what went wrong. Also this whole topic was originally about the mechanics and how they should be portrayed to new players so that they can understand how things work. If character creation involves the intelligence (or lack there of) of players then yeah I can see your argument having some merit… as it is intelligence is not a part of character creation. As it stands very little information is portrayed that is used in the meta game experience.

There are no “elitists” telling people to “go zerk or go home”. What actually happens is you have PVT heroes all over this forum demanding ANet nerf or remove berserker gear, and all us berserker users can do is sit and hope that ANet doesn’t listen and nerf it again for no reason besides “wah why can’t my heal spec be good” – and then for it to still be no good after ANet nerf offensive gear.

maha.7902:

DiazKincade.2891:

Behellagh.1468:

The problem I’m having with some of the replies is that it entirely negates the notion of player customization. You’re focusing on the mechanics only and not the RPG nature of character creation.

You all are saying that the devs should make the higher level content only be done if players use a min/maxed build of traits, skills and weapons for that profession. If that’s the case then why bother providing all the other options, all the possible combinations if only those playing “the right way” have any chance? That’s like building a maze where every path that isn’t the way through is a death trap. That takes choice away from players. That’s the opposite you want to do in an open world MMO.

Here we have a game where you aren’t led from one quest giver to another, gives the players lots of ways to earn XP to level up. But you all are suggesting having content where only one set of choices will work. Not work better or faster, work at all. What you all are suggesting is a game where characters may look different but underneath are all identical. I’m sorry I’m from the school where there should be no way to make a broken character that can’t do all the content. That’s the whole point about balance, that you don’t have tiny Gods or fodder as possible configurations.

We already have the above bolded section but it is not by the devs. the devs are trying to give us options. The elitists are telling others to go zerk or go home. You are trying to lay blame on the wrong guys. I for one am all for testing out build options and I know full well the mechanics of the game. I’ve learned these through testing IN THE GAME. (Engineer is great for understanding combo fields. Reading helps too.) Sure I’ve taken my time looking through the wiki (/wiki command ftw) as well for the finer points (Like wtf is cleansing bolt and wtf does it do?) but it really takes a bit to actually find out all the info in the game.

What the original topic of this thread was about was potentially helping people understand how to do things right and not smash your head into the wall and wonder what went wrong. Also this whole topic was originally about the mechanics and how they should be portrayed to new players so that they can understand how things work. If character creation involves the intelligence (or lack there of) of players then yeah I can see your argument having some merit… as it is intelligence is not a part of character creation. As it stands very little information is portrayed that is used in the meta game experience.

There are no “elitists” telling people to “go zerk or go home”. What actually happens is you have PVT heroes all over this forum demanding ANet nerf or remove berserker gear, and all us berserker users can do is sit and hope that ANet doesn’t listen and nerf it again for no reason besides “wah why can’t my heal spec be good” – and then for it to still be no good after ANet nerf offensive gear.

You don’t see non zerkers booting people out of dungeons cus they don’t link zerker gear. These are elitists. This happens ONLY with zerker speed farmers. Also if you bring zerker to Teq or any other “Object” boss you are only hurting yourself. PVT is better there because you can’t crit on objects.

I run full zojja’s/zerker on my mesmer. Why? because I ran CoF p1 back when it was the thing to do for farming and I learned how to survive as a zerker there. The fast paced fights with zerker is what I’ve come to like. As it stands Zerker is the meta in most instances. (aside from the previously stated exception and potentially wvw/pvp) This is wrong on so many levels. You can’t possibly think that having only one stat type at the meta is "balanced’ when the game offers up so many alternatives to this. I’m not asking for a nerf to zerker gear. I’m asking for a buff to everything else to put it on par with zerker gear. But that brings up a whole host of balance issues. As to the “heal spec being no good” that is because healing power is broken. It scales so horribly with most skills its crazy, but again balancing that is a very slippery slope.

This is also not the main topic here. The main point is trying to get new players to understand the systems in the game they are playing. So please try to stay on topic and not try to derail the thread with petty bickering about known facts.

DiazKincade.2891:

You don’t see non zerkers booting people out of dungeons cus they don’t link zerker gear. These are elitists. This happens ONLY with zerker speed farmers. Also if you bring zerker to Teq or any other “Object” boss you are only hurting yourself. PVT is better there because you can’t crit on objects.

I run full zojja’s/zerker on my mesmer. Why? because I ran CoF p1 back when it was the thing to do for farming and I learned how to survive as a zerker there. The fast paced fights with zerker is what I’ve come to like. As it stands Zerker is the meta in most instances. (aside from the previously stated exception and potentially wvw/pvp) This is wrong on so many levels. You can’t possibly think that having only one stat type at the meta is "balanced’ when the game offers up so many alternatives to this. I’m not asking for a nerf to zerker gear. I’m asking for a buff to everything else to put it on par with zerker gear. But that brings up a whole host of balance issues. As to the “heal spec being no good” that is because healing power is broken. It scales so horribly with most skills its crazy, but again balancing that is a very slippery slope.

This is also not the main topic here. The main point is trying to get new players to understand the systems in the game they are playing. So please try to stay on topic and not try to derail the thread with petty bickering about known facts.

solution is to change the healing stat to a support stat, and have it somehow make them better with boons as well. This would actually make high end players possibly want support statted players.
for increased stats, and utility.

I might make it a lingering effect on certain types of support effects. For example new rule, any time, you give boons, heal or remove conditions, you get this effect which enhances boon effects that scales based on your support stat for a limited time (differs with whether its a heal/boon/or condition removed)

just as an example
aegis: a certain % of the next dmg is ignored
might: increased power from might
fury: increased crit dmg
protection: increased condition mitigation
regeneration: reduces condition duration
Stability: scaling quickness
swiftness: chance of glancing blows
vigor: reduces evasion costs

see the key here is that the healing stat isnt helping people support that well because healing is not meant to be a heavy means of support. Healing is generally not what most support builds are about. By having a support stat, and system which, when timed well, and managed improves every one in the parties ability to make use of their boons, you then make the support role/stat more interesting, and more desired, though not totally OP. After all while he is boosting your boons, they have to have boons, and its for limited time after they actively do some support action, not to mention they are generally having to give up some stats that are also extremely useful.

a bit off topic, but just had to throw it out there

IndigoSundown.5419:

A better solution might be to educate the player-base yet again. This time, teach them to let go of their bias towards thinking that gear sets = builds as they are used in other games.

Gear is only one tiny part of a build. More of one’s build is in traits, utilities and weapon choices. There are so many L80 gear prefixes, way more than their are possible roles in the game. Surely, all of them don’t have to be the core of a distinct, dedicated role. They’re in the game to provide options. Some are for different game modes. Some are for different types of player. Some are there in case someone wants to (gasp!) mix gear types to get a little more damage, survivability, etc.. Some of them may exist only to serve the same purpose the traits nobody uses serve, as filler.

Gear sets go a bit further than just requirements. Ultimately, they go toward preference in play, and also balance. For you see, if one gear set out-preforms or outrewards the others by a large margin, you end up with a conflict of developmental resources. Do you either build for the lower end of the spectrum and have unfulfilling, over-rewarding content, or do you build for the high end and have difficult, unrewarding content? Normally, if the divide is small, you can just middle-ground the whole thing. But, when the divide is wide, a compromise ends up just being a mixture of disappointments.

Also, it is profitable to reward preferences in play. Appeal to wider audiences and all that. While it is important that Anet make the distinction that no, this game isn’t about hard roles in play, they should be careful not to just tell players to gear up one way or the other.

Jeromai.8203:

Abridged to save space

I remember City of Heroes forums quite well. I was there. I also remember how small and involved that community was. I also happen to remember that CoH also had an education problem, which is why they released better tip and guidance systems to help newer players through the game.

It was one of the biggest complaints about the raid system in CoH, too. The trials introduced a system of mechanics and displays that players weren’t familiar with, and this disheartened a large portion of the community. I would frequently host Mother of Mayhem, and in the resting phase between each boss I had to spend 5 minutes explaining how everything worked for the next boss fight.

So, in response, I made a couple of video guides on youtube detailing how to go through each of the trials. You can still find them on youtube, what with their low presentation and somewhat clunky cuts between sections (I got better…). This encountered another problem: No one watched the videos. Sure, I got a few hundred views on each, but this was only a small portion of the population.

I imagine that I’ll have the same problem here: I can write a guide on how to do the basics, or I can make videos on how to do the basics, but there’s no way to convey that information to the players inside the game. The only people who will find those guides are the players who are already looking.

Putting in-game guides wouldn’t get rid of the organic information. It’ll just tell you the basics of the class and how things work. It won’t tell you the top strategies for particular game content, or how to coordinate well.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DonQuack.9025:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe both that increased difficulty can be a better teacher and that GW2 could do a better job of providing information about the game. This issue is not a dichotomy.

Thats something I dont know about. I like more difficulty but I make no assumptions that others do too.

It may teach better but that is under the assumption that most want to learn or want something more difficult. Dont confuse difficult with new

There most certainly is a dichotomy with regard to players who want greater difficulty and those who don’t. I used the word can rather than will for precisely that reason. Some people will react to difficulty by figuring out a better way to do things. Others post on forums about the game being “too hard.” Still others quit. Similarly, better conveyance of information about the game will not teach those who don’t want to learn, either.

And, others will realize that “difficulty” done right will meet the needs of the broad diversity of players in any modern MMO. If there are issues around “difficulty” it simply means the game has not been properly conceived.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Gear sets go a bit further than just requirements. Ultimately, they go toward preference in play, and also balance. For you see, if one gear set out-preforms or outrewards the others by a large margin, you end up with a conflict of developmental resources. Do you either build for the lower end of the spectrum and have unfulfilling, over-rewarding content, or do you build for the high end and have difficult, unrewarding content? Normally, if the divide is small, you can just middle-ground the whole thing. But, when the divide is wide, a compromise ends up just being a mixture of disappointments.

Also, it is profitable to reward preferences in play. Appeal to wider audiences and all that. While it is important that Anet make the distinction that no, this game isn’t about hard roles in play, they should be careful not to just tell players to gear up one way or the other.

GW2 has many massive compromises.

• ANet tried to meld action combat and MMO combat together. This added a greater twitch skill factor to effective play than you find in older MMO’s.
• ANet tried to make professions both homogenous (to promote “any combo of professions can do X”) and different (to promote a sense of diversity).
• ANet tried to eliminate dedicated roles while also preserving a sense that there should be diversity in play.
• ANet put stats on gear while trying to remove gear as a requirement for content.
• ANet created a massive number of stat combinations on gear. This last move guarantees that balancing the effectiveness of all gear sets would be impossible.
• ANet created game modes that are radically different as far as the challenges in each, yet they want to balance the game for all modes simultaneously.

All of these factors contribute to the differences in effectiveness in group play. Differences in player skill are a much bigger contributor than gear. Content is easy not just “because zerker” but because it has to be doable in blues or greens. Berserker gear is just a symptom of the issues which are actually causing the problem. However, those issues are not going to be addressed because they are fundamental design decisions.

While having an in game point of reference for the more complex aspects of the game would be nice, the fact that this game actually makes use of a /wiki command that so few people even know about could also be useful, if knowledge of its existence was given to the players early on. I only knew about it because it was available in gw1, and I abused that thing like mad trying to figure out which trophy bits were worth keeping and which were just vendor trash.

While ultimately it would be far more efficient to get the point across with an instanced optional training area with “tutor” npcs telling you what each combo field/effect did and potentially what each class’s strengths/weaknesses/special mechanics are, (akin to Elona’s training field for character classes and range indicators) having a required NPC (Like that very first scout) actually tell the player about something as simple as the /wiki command could prove very beneficial. Sure the /wiki leads them to an source outside of the game, but that source has everything GW2. Its a one stop shop for GW2 basics.

phys.7689:

solution is to change the healing stat to a support stat, and have it somehow make them better with boons as well. This would actually make high end players possibly want support statted players.
for increased stats, and utility.

I actually thought this was a nifty idea and might breathe some life into a stat few see the theoretical potential of. The aegis seemed off (as aegis just blocks an attack once) but the rest were interesting. Might also effects condi damage as well and I liked the idea for protection. The details would be far better suited to another thread though

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

I am all for people learning to play better, but learning to play well isn’t the same as forcing them to follow a meta. Thus while your first conclusion is appropriate for most players, the second isn’t, because not everybody will care to maximize their characters towards DPS if they have no need for it, and REGARDLESS of their own skill. Learning combo fields is great; learning that certain gear choices are “for bads”, isn’t.

Be mindful of all types of players playing this game-even some of the combo fields available as of now are not as useful to a speedrun, which obviously mean you can learn all game mechanics and be a great player without even following the meta (a concept hard to grasp for many-players are free to play whatever they like, speedrunner and “cleric hero” alike, and neither choice necessarily determines skill or lack thereof.)

(And while it’s obvious that Cleric’s gear isn’t very advantageous to a speedrun, not everybody does speedrun, making the matter a moot point for many, many players-calling good players “bads” for not following an efficiency meta is thus quite offensive. They may know the Professions well, know “how to dodge”, even know the encounters and what’s better for group DPS, but have simply made a choice for whatever reason that isn’t on par with the meta-that ALONE won’t make them bad players, “selfish”, etc.)

Some teachers should be mindful that they may be teaching to the wrong audience. Teach to those who want to learn, so you don’t waste your efforts. Calling someone “you are such a bad, bad student” because you are teaching them a subject they are “failing” at that they didn’t even ask to take in the first place is inappropriate-the meta most certainly isn’t this game’s final test of skill, but actually an optional playstyle for the few who do care, and which are also entitled to such playstyle (it requires skill, but doesn’t mean the other, “non meta” players aren’t skilled.)

On topic, the lack of appropriate tutorials has been a weakness IMHO from the beginning. I would have been a much better player sooner than during my first month if everything need not be “googled/wikied out.” While some things are rather obvious, combo fields are actually NOT obvious to newcomers, nor their mechanics easily explained in-game.

“Glancing”-explained on wiki, not in game. I had no idea what this meant during my first weeks (been here since 3 day headstart period)

“Healing Bolts” and the like-I had no idea why they were even there at the beginning.

Etc. etc. Those are things that should be taught, and tutorials just revised in case some of the mechanics change. They shouldn’t “teach meta”, but for sure can improve the way the game is presented to new comers (no offense to ANet-I know the wiki and google works, but it isn’t really new user friendly.)

you dont know the definition of the word glancing?

DonQuack.9025:

you dont know the definition of the word glancing?

No need for insults?

During my first week what I thought it was had nothing to do with weakness, doing half-damage, or 4 level+ differences. I thought they were “semi-hits” (glancing hits, so I do know what the word means). The word isn’t user friendly with it’s actual in-game definition at all.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glancing

Has nothing to do with GW2’s definition. The idea I had was more akin to the dictionary word, which you seem to claim I don’t know what it means.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Gear sets go a bit further than just requirements. Ultimately, they go toward preference in play, and also balance. For you see, if one gear set out-preforms or outrewards the others by a large margin, you end up with a conflict of developmental resources. Do you either build for the lower end of the spectrum and have unfulfilling, over-rewarding content, or do you build for the high end and have difficult, unrewarding content? Normally, if the divide is small, you can just middle-ground the whole thing. But, when the divide is wide, a compromise ends up just being a mixture of disappointments.

Also, it is profitable to reward preferences in play. Appeal to wider audiences and all that. While it is important that Anet make the distinction that no, this game isn’t about hard roles in play, they should be careful not to just tell players to gear up one way or the other.

GW2 has many massive compromises.

• ANet tried to meld action combat and MMO combat together. This added a greater twitch skill factor to effective play than you find in older MMO’s.
• ANet tried to make professions both homogenous (to promote “any combo of professions can do X”) and different (to promote a sense of diversity).
• ANet tried to eliminate dedicated roles while also preserving a sense that there should be diversity in play.
• ANet put stats on gear while trying to remove gear as a requirement for content.
• ANet created a massive number of stat combinations on gear. This last move guarantees that balancing the effectiveness of all gear sets would be impossible.
• ANet created game modes that are radically different as far as the challenges in each, yet they want to balance the game for all modes simultaneously.

All of these factors contribute to the differences in effectiveness in group play. Differences in player skill are a much bigger contributor than gear. Content is easy not just “because zerker” but because it has to be doable in blues or greens. Berserker gear is just a symptom of the issues which are actually causing the problem. However, those issues are not going to be addressed because they are fundamental design decisions.

If skill has a bigger contribution than gear, then improving player skill would mean closing the gap in performance. Your analysis is a bit flawed, though, since pretty much everything that a class has is designed around PVP. It is interesting, because in PVP (both WvW and sPVP, as well as dueling), we actually see and feel the diversity in how classes play, and more than just one type of gear is useful. In that perspective, not much of what you listed is a compromise at all.

If you run the numbers, particularly sustained damage through greater survival vs. greater survival via faster kill times, GC gear and defensive gear are nearly identical in performance. Or they were, before the ferocity nerf. No, the biggest flaw I can find about PVE is that they didn’t design the enemies for the game they made.

I would call the beta difficulty nerf a compromise, though. I remember back in beta (I was a bit late to the game, though) there were a whole bunch of “range is OP, melee is useless!” complaints, talking about how all the mobs were too hard to melee, so range was the only thing you could do without being killed instantly. These were exaggerations drawn from massively scaled champions, but a large portion of the playerbase found things way too difficult, so Anet severely nerfed enemy damage to the point that players could mindlessly facetank everything in greens.

DiazKincade.2891:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

The fact so many people call clerics bad is not so much because the concept of healing is bad. Its that healing power just scales so horribly with the majority of heals in this game. Something that should be fixed but the balance issues brought about make that very difficult. That and they don’t want to create the “holy trinity”

Name one instance in the entire game where clerics gear is to go to gear choice.
YOU CAN’T

For general purpose pve zerkers is the preferred choice.
For structure bosses soldiers.
For wvw purposes zerker, soldiers, and knights are generally run the majority of the time.

It’s not just healing power scaling is bad, it’s that active defense in this game (dodging, blocks, side stepping etc etc) is your main defense. Clerics gear never will be a “meta” set regardless of what you’re doing. Unless you want to run a tanky healer in wvw and drop water fields than it won’t be useful for anything other than that.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

DiazKincade.2891:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

The fact so many people call clerics bad is not so much because the concept of healing is bad. Its that healing power just scales so horribly with the majority of heals in this game. Something that should be fixed but the balance issues brought about make that very difficult. That and they don’t want to create the “holy trinity”

Name one instance in the entire game where clerics gear is to go to gear choice.
YOU CAN’T

For general purpose pve zerkers is the preferred choice.
For structure bosses soldiers.
For wvw purposes zerker, soldiers, and knights are generally run the majority of the time.

It’s not just healing power scaling is bad, it’s that active defense in this game (dodging, blocks, side stepping etc etc) is your main defense. Clerics gear never will be a “meta” set regardless of what you’re doing. Unless you want to run a tanky healer in wvw and drop water fields than it won’t be useful for anything other than that.

Tequatl Turret Operators. You asked for one, well there it is. However this is not the main topic of this thread. Stat differences and arguments are well suited to other threads.

DiazKincade.2891:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

DiazKincade.2891:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

The fact so many people call clerics bad is not so much because the concept of healing is bad. Its that healing power just scales so horribly with the majority of heals in this game. Something that should be fixed but the balance issues brought about make that very difficult. That and they don’t want to create the “holy trinity”

Name one instance in the entire game where clerics gear is to go to gear choice.
YOU CAN’T

For general purpose pve zerkers is the preferred choice.
For structure bosses soldiers.
For wvw purposes zerker, soldiers, and knights are generally run the majority of the time.

It’s not just healing power scaling is bad, it’s that active defense in this game (dodging, blocks, side stepping etc etc) is your main defense. Clerics gear never will be a “meta” set regardless of what you’re doing. Unless you want to run a tanky healer in wvw and drop water fields than it won’t be useful for anything other than that.

Tequatl Turret Operators. You asked for one, well there it is. However this is not the main topic of this thread. Stat differences and arguments are well suited to other threads.

Yet another instance where other gear would serve the same purpose and do it just as effectively or better. :P But still

People just need to learn to play is the real issue. I mean if I can party with 4 other people wearing gear combos like giver’s and magis and other stat sets that aren’t considered “good” and clear all the games content regardless does it really matter? No, but could that 15 minute dungeon run take less time in different gear? Probably

When I’m running dungeons I don’t ask the pugs to do anything special other than “don’t be bad”

Fractals is a bit different I want people who have the proper AR which really isn’t that much to ask and I’m sure everyone does this (guildie exemptions are made in the 10-19 bracket because the AR ticks won’t kill you but leave you low).

Each of the skills has extensive description of what it does, from combo fields to combo finishers. If people aren’t going to learn them, then that’s their problem. Modern games holds your hand far too much and games lose the sense of exploration and discovery. GW2 is fine as it is.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

DiazKincade.2891:

Travis the Terrible.4739:

So basically you want people to learn basic game mechanics and that wearing clerics gear is bad?

imokaywiththis

The fact so many people call clerics bad is not so much because the concept of healing is bad. Its that healing power just scales so horribly with the majority of heals in this game. Something that should be fixed but the balance issues brought about make that very difficult. That and they don’t want to create the “holy trinity”

Name one instance in the entire game where clerics gear is to go to gear choice.
YOU CAN’T

For general purpose pve zerkers is the preferred choice.
For structure bosses soldiers.
For wvw purposes zerker, soldiers, and knights are generally run the majority of the time.

It’s not just healing power scaling is bad, it’s that active defense in this game (dodging, blocks, side stepping etc etc) is your main defense. Clerics gear never will be a “meta” set regardless of what you’re doing. Unless you want to run a tanky healer in wvw and drop water fields than it won’t be useful for anything other than that.

Look up healway guard build. It’s a WvW guardian build based around Clerics gear, obtaining around 1.2k healing power and basically invincible due to guardian mechanics (with sigil of energy and stamina). Shout heal warriors are encouraged to go Clerics too due to insane heals they give. Healing is actually quite OP but it’s hard to tell in PvE. It makes a massive difference in WvW and PvP though.

completely agree. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been downed as an Engineer (which other Engineers will tell you since we have the worst downed state options in the game is a death sentence for us) because I couldn’t tell when the Champ or boss suddenly directed his attention towards me. There was no indication except the sudden impending death, and they don’t stop when you’re downed either they just keep pounding on even tho you’re party members are unleashing elites.

The least they could have done in this non-trinity setup is allow people the ability to minimize other players fields of attack FX and have an actual threat system so we know if we have aggro. Seriously.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If skill has a bigger contribution than gear, then improving player skill would mean closing the gap in performance. Your analysis is a bit flawed, though, since pretty much everything that a class has is designed around PVP. It is interesting, because in PVP (both WvW and sPVP, as well as dueling), we actually see and feel the diversity in how classes play, and more than just one type of gear is useful. In that perspective, not much of what you listed is a compromise at all.

Wait… you paraphrase my last bullet point, then claim that this counters the other points? So, because professions are designed with PvP in mind:

• GW2 is suddenly not a hybrid or compromise between twitch and standard MMO play?
• GW2 professions are not a compromise between everyone can do everything and professions are different?
• ANet did not hype a “GW2 trinity,” presenting players with the idea that classic dedicated roles would be desirable, while designing a PvE game where such roles are — at best — not dedicated and not tied to gear?
• Content being designed for lower-tier gear does not impact difficulty and challenge when players are geared with exotics or Ascended?
• There aren’t a huge number of gear prefixes?

If you’re saying the other issues are not factors in the way the game plays, you’re going to have to be more convincing.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If you run the numbers, particularly sustained damage through greater survival vs. greater survival via faster kill times, GC gear and defensive gear are nearly identical in performance. Or they were, before the ferocity nerf. No, the biggest flaw I can find about PVE is that they didn’t design the enemies for the game they made.

Ergo gear diversity is not the major problem. I agree.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I would call the beta difficulty nerf a compromise, though. I remember back in beta (I was a bit late to the game, though) there were a whole bunch of “range is OP, melee is useless!” complaints, talking about how all the mobs were too hard to melee, so range was the only thing you could do without being killed instantly. These were exaggerations drawn from massively scaled champions, but a large portion of the playerbase found things way too difficult, so Anet severely nerfed enemy damage to the point that players could mindlessly facetank everything in greens.

I played BWE1 from the start. The game was more difficult, and even normal mobs hit significantly harder. Moving and using what the game gave you was much more important to survival and victory.

The mob nerf was also a compromise between appealing to fans of action games and fans of traditional MMO’s. People were/are face tanking because that’s what they did when solo in most other MMO’s — absent things like kiting on a DoT-applying class. That predilection is something that might have been ameliorated by an upfront tutorial saying that movement and active defense are meant to be used. ANet let people discover that for themselves.

As with every instance of greater difficulty in GW2, instead or adapting or learning, players rage or quit. I’d have been happier with the game if ANet had said, “This is how you’re supposed to deal with difficulty. If you’re not willing, then perhaps this game is not for you.” I guess we’ll see how that works out for Carbine.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If skill has a bigger contribution than gear, then improving player skill would mean closing the gap in performance. Your analysis is a bit flawed, though, since pretty much everything that a class has is designed around PVP. It is interesting, because in PVP (both WvW and sPVP, as well as dueling), we actually see and feel the diversity in how classes play, and more than just one type of gear is useful. In that perspective, not much of what you listed is a compromise at all.

Wait… you paraphrase my last bullet point, then claim that this counters the other points? So, because professions are designed with PvP in mind:

• GW2 is suddenly not a hybrid or compromise between twitch and standard MMO play?
• GW2 professions are not a compromise between everyone can do everything and professions are different?
• ANet did not hype a “GW2 trinity,” presenting players with the idea that classic dedicated roles would be desirable, while designing a PvE game where such roles are — at best — not dedicated and not tied to gear?
• Content being designed for lower-tier gear does not impact difficulty and challenge when players are geared with exotics or Ascended?
• There aren’t a huge number of gear prefixes?

If you’re saying the other issues are not factors in the way the game plays, you’re going to have to be more convincing.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If you run the numbers, particularly sustained damage through greater survival vs. greater survival via faster kill times, GC gear and defensive gear are nearly identical in performance. Or they were, before the ferocity nerf. No, the biggest flaw I can find about PVE is that they didn’t design the enemies for the game they made.

Ergo gear diversity is not the major problem. I agree.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I would call the beta difficulty nerf a compromise, though. I remember back in beta (I was a bit late to the game, though) there were a whole bunch of “range is OP, melee is useless!” complaints, talking about how all the mobs were too hard to melee, so range was the only thing you could do without being killed instantly. These were exaggerations drawn from massively scaled champions, but a large portion of the playerbase found things way too difficult, so Anet severely nerfed enemy damage to the point that players could mindlessly facetank everything in greens.

I played BWE1 from the start. The game was more difficult, and even normal mobs hit significantly harder. Moving and using what the game gave you was much more important to survival and victory.

The mob nerf was also a compromise between appealing to fans of action games and fans of traditional MMO’s. People were/are face tanking because that’s what they did when solo in most other MMO’s — absent things like kiting on a DoT-applying class. That predilection is something that might have been ameliorated by an upfront tutorial saying that movement and active defense are meant to be used. ANet let people discover that for themselves.

As with every instance of greater difficulty in GW2, instead or adapting or learning, players rage or quit. I’d have been happier with the game if ANet had said, “This is how you’re supposed to deal with difficulty. If you’re not willing, then perhaps this game is not for you.” I guess we’ll see how that works out for Carbine.

carbine spent a lot of resources making general game play rules clearer, They also gradually increase difficulty, in the beginning enemies use less skills with tells, with longer wind ups, and less CC, by the time you are about midlevel, there is less time between warning and execution, more variation in tells, and enemies start using specifc skill chains where dodging one may be more important than others.

point is its not just about being hard, its about making whats going on clearer to the player, as well as having difficulty increase as you play.

Its probably too late for GW2, to do this, i dont think its even in the game design possibilities right now, i think a wolf type is a wolf type, and has the same basic routines no matter what level it is.
Sooo probably the best way they can deal with this is to have content that may be described as harder content at max level, then create a series of missions/quests/or maybe events that better scales the mob difficulty/patterns so that as people play they get better instead of hitting a wall.

Short version carbine has probably already succeeded at raising the level of the average player. A cursory glance has very few complaints of difficulty, whereas GW2 had many back in beta days.
Then again maybe thats because GW2 there is no one to blame but yourself. eh well whatevs

DiazKincade.2891:

stobie.2134:

I grasped the concept of combo fields, but I had – and still have – a hard time seeing if they worked, what happened, etc. The particle issue is big for me. In the early levels, it was hard to know if you’d been successful & what happened because of it. If that information had been more clear, I think combo fields themselves would be more accessible. It’s not so much reading about them, what they do, what they’re supposed to do – it’s not seeing it happen. I hear my character say something about it, but generally, I don’t have the slightest idea what she did. (and this is true for the interrupt daily – which I seem to get all the time, without thinking about it at all. That doesn’t help.)

The interrupt thing is simply just interrupting an enemy attack, which so many are long and easy to stop, made even easier by a mesmer (which based on your sig I’m guessing you play). Mesmers have it so easy to get interrupt its almost a joke. As for the combo fields, they are a bit tricky. Its the little phrase pop ups you see. Most often its easy to tell what they do “Area [effect]” gives that effect in an area, “[Effect] Bolt/Whirl” shoots particles of that effect (In the case of cleanses it cleanses allies the bolts pass through. Odd bit but it is what it is) and most leaps tend to apply shield buffs, like fire shield (Or in your case retaliation if you use sword #3 to leap through focus #4? I think?). Looking close at your skills you can see the different combo finishers and fields in the tool tip. All it takes is a bit of playing around with em to figure them out. But ’When in doubt /wiki it out" is what I always say. =3

All things considered I think they’ve been tweaking with them as my ele seems to get intermittent amounts of might stacks despite the same combo string I use when I use it in a zerg. Could be player prioritization at work there or something. not sure.

I finally did figure out combo fields, but I can certainly understand how someone might miss it entirely. I think I said, “What are combo fields?” to my son well after I’d reached 80, too. I guess it would be too much particle nightmare to have something pop up & tell me, “You did it! Yay!” But I see how a person can miss them, anyway.

I assume I got my interrupts on the mesmer – actually, I was playing my thief mostly, but just so long as I got it!

IndigoSundown.5419:

Abridged to save space.

To be blunt, I am saying that these are not compromises. The core design decisions that anet made make sense for their original focus on PVP.

*I wouldn’t call a hybrid model a compromise. Action RPGs are a thriving market, and making one big and online doesn’t really take anything away.
*This isn’t a compromise. Compared to the trinity, all the classes are “samey” because trinity games will have stringent restraints binding players to hard roles, and PVE’s simpler playstyle doesn’t help this. But, in a PVP perspective, the classes feel and play very different, and have different utility and advantages. The confusion here is that most MMOs operate on a system of negatives, whereas GW2 works by a system of positives. AKA classes aren’t defined by their inadequacies in GW2.
*From the moment I came in during the beta, I readily understood that the new “trinity” was never about hard roles, and it was never about the classic trinity. It was aspects of performance, not job titles.
*Exotic Gear was made easily attainable as to prevent the need for a lengthy gear grind. To that end, content being possible in level appropriate blues and greens is only a factor in areas where blues and greens are expected, such as low level dungeons. Trust me, take a team full of uncommon wearing PUGs into Arah and you’ll pull your hair out.
*A large number of gear prefixes aren’t a compromise. Likewise, they aren’t nearly as hard to balance as you’d think, since damage and durability can be considered factors of each other, and malice/healing can be considered different kinds of damage and durability.

A compromise is a settlement, where two parties want something different, and to get things done they go through a middle road. Even if you say that making something other than a standard MMORPG is somehow compromising the integrity of what it means to be an MMORPG, I’m going to call the burden of proof card. Until then I will continue to assert that these design decisions are not flaws, and the only mistake on their part is making the PVE monsters too generic for the specific game they were designing. I cite the greater versatility of gear and classes in PVP and WvW as evidence for this.

Likewise, this is why I call the beta damage nerf a compromise. Anet wanted to make an action game where players used utilities to avoid damage. Players wanted to lolfacetank like they did in non-action games. Anet caved first.

Think about it from the PVP perspective: Why would you make a game with rooted attacks and unavoidable projectiles if you wanted to encourage skill? Why would you make a game where classes are wholly ineffective by themselves if you wanted to encourage personal performance and action? Why would you make a game where gear choices are so polarizing that they lock players out of options, killing the dynamic flow of combat on the field? Why would you make a game with hard builds/stats, killing interpersonal diversity and personal customization of classes? The answer is that you don’t. You make a game where player agency is factor, players aren’t dependent on everyone else for success, players aren’t locked out of actions due to gear, and players get to customize their character to encourage specialization but not so much that they kitten performance, but not so little customization that there is still the element of unpredictability.

com·pro·mise; [kom-pruh-mahyz]; noun
1. a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2. the result of such a settlement.
3. something intermediate between different things: The split-level is a compromise between a ranch house and a multistoried house.
4. an endangering, especially of reputation; exposure to danger, suspicion, etc.: a compromise of one’s integrity.

Semantics now, but you’re thinking definition 1, I’m thinking definition 3.

For the record, I’m not saying the things I listed are flaws. They are what they are, and some of what they are is contributory factors.

If ANet caved into the desire to “lolfacetank,” that’s not really a meet-in-the-middle compromise, is it? It’s a concession on one side only. Or perhaps you meant definition 4?

Still, we’ve gone on a massive tangent here. I’m thinking we’re on the same page as far as the education issue, and also on the main issue being that PvE combat and PvP design do not play well together. As for anything else, I’m not sure it really matters all that much. So, back to the topic?

There’s no reason to become better at this game.
Content is equally rewarded whether you’re good or bad, whether you’re using all your skills to kill the boss quickly or just spamming the auto attack while checking facebook.

And then there are people who complain about Bererker meta, they want more viable play styles, but once making tanking and healing viable is suggested, they don’t want it either.

Nick.6972:

There’s no reason to become better at this game.
Content is equally rewarded whether you’re good or bad, whether you’re using all your skills to kill the boss quickly or just spamming the auto attack while checking facebook.

And then there are people who complain about Bererker meta, they want more viable play styles, but once making tanking and healing viable is suggested, they don’t want it either.

there is more styles of play than berserker healing or tank.