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Posted by: Kite.2510

Kite.2510

Current problem:
The main reason nobody invests on defensive attributes in PVE is because the dodge and Rally mechanics are way to generous.

Solution:
If event bosses and generally enemies intended for groups of players in group events started stomping downed players, that would force them to rethink their survivability. The recent Executioner White Mantle boss prove that glassy builds can’t handle them, but those fights where always ending up being a chore and often failed as no player is going to change his gear just for one randomly appearing boss.

Result:
The ultra powerful downed state will loose some of it’s value. The currently useless defensive builds and attributes will increase in value. The solution to the downed state won’t be as drastic as being removed, and the game will become a bit more balanced.

…and don’t be toxic!

(edited by Kite.2510)

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

Your solution isn’t a solution.

Your solution is a symptom of a bigger problem.

The problem is not that any given boss is too loving since the odds of getting up from a boss with no adds is about zero if you go down in the first place. The problem is that “damage output” really is the summation of the game. You can almost read the coefficient of a skill and know whether it is worthwhile or not since longer fights with fewer enemies increase danger levels exponentially.

You want more skilled gameplay? You don’t change the stats of the players, don’t demand more dodges and don’t reduce rally mechanics; if you want more skilled gameplay you need to make the opposite rules true:

Battles need to be more “Wars of Attrition” where surviving them is actually a matter of withstanding inevitable strikes rather than racing to deal incredible amounts of damage and enemies should actually hit less hard but hit more frequently reducing emphasis on perfect active defense (blocks, evades) and focusing more on granting passive defense (toughness, healing power/regens) a more active role in survival.

Your solutions would actually only have the opposite effects of your intentions. And for the record your “suggestions” are actually already in the game. That was what HoT was on release basically. And every-casual-one hated it.

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Posted by: Kite.2510

Kite.2510

Your solution isn’t a solution.

Your solution is a symptom of a bigger problem.

The problem is not that any given boss is too loving since the odds of getting up from a boss with no adds is about zero if you go down in the first place. The problem is that “damage output” really is the summation of the game. You can almost read the coefficient of a skill and know whether it is worthwhile or not since longer fights with fewer enemies increase danger levels exponentially.

You want more skilled gameplay? You don’t change the stats of the players, don’t demand more dodges and don’t reduce rally mechanics; if you want more skilled gameplay you need to make the opposite rules true:

Battles need to be more “Wars of Attrition” where surviving them is actually a matter of withstanding inevitable strikes rather than racing to deal incredible amounts of damage and enemies should actually hit less hard but hit more frequently reducing emphasis on perfect active defense (blocks, evades) and focusing more on granting passive defense (toughness, healing power/regens) a more active role in survival.

Your solutions would actually only have the opposite effects of your intentions. And for the record your “suggestions” are actually already in the game. That was what HoT was on release basically. And every-casual-one hated it.

I’ve already made tons of suggestions to improve the unbalanced attributes many times now.
I also suggested in the past that trash mobs in large events should be classified as “minions” and have no rally potential.
This is just a new one that focus on a solution to the rally mechanic using existing tech, and it’s intended mostly for group or over-scaled events with many adds

The casual ones are the whole game’s main problem.
Most pro players have already left, and what remains is an empty, unbalanced button masher where the only build is the Dps build, no other mechanic scale with your attributes and no other build is useful. Only raids offer some hardcore pve experience, and even they are designed wrong, with strict timers that encourage yet more dps builds, and most classes being badly balanced (in favor of the pvp) that aren’t effective taking in taking roles they where supposed to be able to take, forging that way strict metas among the community.

The game has a lot of problems that are becoming more obvious the more you play it.
I could rant for hours, but I haven’t give up on it yet.

Instead of pleasing the existing casual community that has been left with, A-net should focus on making the game appeal to new gamers, and they’ve done little for that, besides turning the vanilla game into a free trial. One way to gather new players (among the many obvious ones like remaking the personal story) is making it easier for us to suggest it to them, and that is very hard to do when the attribute system and the class roles are so unbalanced.
Besides, making the game more interesting doesn’t necessary mean making the game harder. For example a new mechanic that makes use of the useless attributes and skills that don’t scale with anything could do the trick. I’ve made such suggestions in the past.

…and don’t be toxic!

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

But your solution is to make the game harder and less forgiving. I think what you consider “interesting” is one thing, and you are free to your opinion, but what makes something viable such as sustainability (which is what Vitality, Toughness & Healing Power are) is separate from personal goals and really just a question of algorithmic behavior.

If you want players to actually use passive defensive techniques you need to create a system where strikes aren’t “large” but strikes are “quick”. Sustainability is a counter to damage pressure not raw damage so having 3,000 armor and 30,000 health in a game where a massive strike can do upwards 10,000 damage to a fully decked character is pretty much not going to ever see a sustainability model succeed.

You can prove this by running Nomad’s. You will die. Which should be effectively impossible to conceive but you will die.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

Current problem:
The main reason nobody invests on defensive attributes in PVE is because the dodge and Rally mechanics are way to generous.

Solution:
If event bosses and generally enemies intended for groups of players in group events started stomping downed players, that would force them to rethink their survivability. The recent Executioner White Mantle boss prove that glassy builds can’t handle them, but those fights where always ending up being a chore and often failed as no player is going to change his gear just for one randomly appearing boss.

or maybe it is because it is an extremely boring fight with crap for reward. The only good part about the executioner fight is the music.

there is also the problem of people being seemingly incapable of using CC.

your suggestion would not fix any of the problems with it

oh and you have apparently never played any high tier fractals

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Posted by: Ghoststeel.6098

Ghoststeel.6098

I’m confused as to why pigeonholing (forcing) people into a defensive playstyle will be a good thing? I thought options were a selling point in this game. I thought “No holy trinity” was also a selling point of this game. I’m new, so I seriously do not understand why removing options will make this game better. Or I just might not know something sucks yet because I am too new.

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

I’m confused as to why pigeonholing (forcing) people into a defensive playstyle will be a good thing? I thought options were a selling point in this game. I thought “No holy trinity” was also a selling point of this game. I’m new, so I seriously do not understand why removing options will make this game better. Or I just might not know something sucks yet because I am too new.

I believe what they’re saying is that it’s a false choice. I’ll be the first to tell you that if you’re playing solo in open world you can find plenty of challenge to make more defensive stat sets useful (also true in PvP/WvW), albeit with no additional reward over following the zerg. However, in PvE content that matters (i.e. group content such as raids and fractals), organized groups want damage, damage, damage!

So, although my celestial earth/air/tempest elementalist is super fun to play and can do things that glass elementalists can’t (like solo the champion of balthazar or the mushroom queen), there’s really nobody who wants to bring my elementalist along to raids when they could instead bring an elementalist that deals more damage and still survives because the group is organized and healers help cover the more fragile builds so they can do what they do best: damage!

Then again, maybe this is a side-effect of the obsessive focus with the meta? I mean, how much time do players really spend raiding or running fractals vs. open world? How much time do they spend solo? I meet players all the time who didn’t think a <insert X class here> could do that because they only run the meta builds that focus on maximizing group efficiency. Are survival stats truly useless in that case?

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

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Posted by: Ghoststeel.6098

Ghoststeel.6098

I’m confused as to why pigeonholing (forcing) people into a defensive playstyle will be a good thing? I thought options were a selling point in this game. I thought “No holy trinity” was also a selling point of this game. I’m new, so I seriously do not understand why removing options will make this game better. Or I just might not know something sucks yet because I am too new.

I believe what they’re saying is that it’s a false choice. I’ll be the first to tell you that if you’re playing solo in open world you can find plenty of challenge to make more defensive stat sets useful (also true in PvP/WvW), albeit with no additional reward over following the zerg. However, in PvE content that matters (i.e. group content such as raids and fractals), organized groups want damage, damage, damage!

So, although my celestial earth/air/tempest elementalist is super fun to play and can do things that glass elementalists can’t (like solo the champion of balthazar or the mushroom queen), there’s really nobody who wants to bring my elementalist along to raids when they could instead bring an elementalist that deals more damage and still survives because the group is organized and healers help cover the more fragile builds so they can do what they do best: damage!

Then again, maybe this is a side-effect of the obsessive focus with the meta? I mean, how much time do players really spend raiding or running fractals vs. open world? How much time do they spend solo? I meet players all the time who didn’t think a <insert X class here> could do that because they only run the meta builds that focus on maximizing group efficiency. Are survival stats truly useless in that case?

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Thanks for the clarification by the way. thumbs up

So I chalk this up to a “community” issue then, or “the fun police.” People telling other people how to play, because some peer group dictates the rules of what is good and bad. No getting away from it either, it’s in every game. The moment you have rules, you have metas. The only way to change a meta is to change the rules. So I guess the “solution” to some people is to counter-brow-beat people into playing the way they want to play via game mechanics or whatever; Aka nerf this, buff that, change game mechanic X. Honestly I like this game for its flexibility, there are a lot of things to do and several “game modes” to do them in. Thats an awesome selling point to me. If it ever stops doing that that then I will look for other games that fit that niche. Until then if people don’t like my playstyle then I will either solo or make some friends who don’t care about such things. Then again, I’m not a Vet, I am still 1 month new to this game so i don’t know how “realistic” this mindset is. I will just say I haven’t enjoyed myself this much for a while.. Its a nice change from past disappointments.

(edited by Ghoststeel.6098)

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Posted by: Nate.8146

Nate.8146

Fractals have the Fractal Avenger that will appear in lvl 70+ fractals and finish off any downed ally that can’t CC or rally in time. It adds a nice bit of tension to the fight. However, I don’t think this sort of mechanic should be thrown into the world of Tyria for existing content. It would need to be something for Anet to think about (or something else to throw into the mix) when creating new content. Or bring back mob stomps like what we had when the Tower of Nightmares was released. That was a pretty fun addition.

As for the root of the issue with defensive stats, GW2 is a combat focused game compared to your typical D&D game. You are in control of your own destiny. You can dodge, jump, run away, or fight back. You can deck yourself out with full toughness and vitality, but the game isn’t designed to let you continuously soak. Gearing that way only helps you survive a few more blows, but you still need to play by the rules. And therein lies the core of the matter. You either learn to play by the rules, or your get trampled by them.

Kite

The casual ones are the whole game’s main problem.

I think you touched on the right subject here, but haven’t yet realized it’s impossible to fix. You will always have those people that trigger all their skills at once and feel like they’re contributing. You will always have groups of people that don’t know the breakbar, or how to use reflects, or that ranger pet running wild. Fights drag on or become hopeless because people haven’t learned the mechanics of their class or the game yet.

Does that merit a change to the stats system? Nope. Letting players be more tanky will still result in the same fundamental problem. You’ll have players standing around continuing to spam their skills until the fight is over, only now they don’t die.

The best way to fight ignorance is with education. Take the time to explain to the upcoming fight with your group. Give them time to respec and learn the ins and outs. That’s the only way to make this game better for everyone and will allow Anet to continue delivering more challenging content for us to learn and adapt to.

(edited by Nate.8146)

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Let’s just say that hasn’t happened yet, despite spending a year playing this game I don’t see players in berserker gear soloing any but the easier HoT champions (pet classes aside because AI is stupid). Of course you don’t have to, and that was rather my point. There are plenty of easy champs and communes you can choose instead to get you hero points, and just ask for help on those that aren’t worth the trouble. And perhaps that’s why despite spending so much time in solo play, most players don’t consider non-meta builds worthwhile.

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Posted by: ScottBroChill.3254

ScottBroChill.3254

I personally think having the downed mechanic is what does it. No matter how fast you go down, low or high defense, you can basically be resurrected instantaneously. If players actually were killed when they lost all their health points and needed a resurrection skill to be brought back up, going down in the first place would be a lot more detrimental to the team’s success. In this case the risk factor of having so many glass cannons would be too high and would warrant more investment in defense as a means to stay alive.

Now I’m sure this wouldn’t solve every problem but it would inhibit players ability to rebound once killed. As it is now when someone gets downed they basically get brought back up in a matter of seconds so it barely matters that they were knocked down in the first place.

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Let’s just say that hasn’t happened yet, despite spending a year playing this game I don’t see players in berserker gear soloing any but the easier HoT champions (pet classes aside because AI is stupid). Of course you don’t have to, and that was rather my point. There are plenty of easy champs and communes you can choose instead to get you hero points, and just ask for help on those that aren’t worth the trouble. And perhaps that’s why despite spending so much time in solo play, most players don’t consider non-meta builds worthwhile.

YouTube.

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Let’s just say that hasn’t happened yet, despite spending a year playing this game I don’t see players in berserker gear soloing any but the easier HoT champions (pet classes aside because AI is stupid). Of course you don’t have to, and that was rather my point. There are plenty of easy champs and communes you can choose instead to get you hero points, and just ask for help on those that aren’t worth the trouble. And perhaps that’s why despite spending so much time in solo play, most players don’t consider non-meta builds worthwhile.

YouTube.

I stand corrected on that count.

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

I don’t agree with the OP’s interpretation of the game. Some builds are always going to be popular for whatever reasons; I think that’s fine, as I don’t really care what other people are using in open world.

I can see where the OP is coming from in offering suggestions, but I wouldn’t like to play the sort of game they propose, whereas I do like to play the game we have.

tl;dr no, thanks

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

You’ve correctly identified a problem with the combat system (absolutely no need for defensive stats 99% of the time), but you’ve identified the wrong cause of the problem. The rally system isn’t why players don’t invest in defensive stats, its because of how enemies in this game are designed. The longer you take to kill something, the more dangerous it becomes to you as the chance of you making a mistake, or running out of condi clears/heals, or more enemies spawning around you goes up and up and up. Making fights as short as possible in general makes them as safe as possible, at least in PvE. Defensive stats by their very nature lower your offensive capabilities, so they make fights take longer, so they make fights more dangerous to you. Also, why would you even want to be a living tank if it took you 1-2 minutes to kill each mob? That wouldn’t be any fun at all. Sure, nothing could kill you (even though they still could), but you also wouldn’t be able to kill anything else.

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

Mesmer is actually really great at soloing HP, the biggest danger is that our damage output is so low outside of a few edge cases where torment/confusion really shine, that fights drag on long enough for us to screw up and go down. Which is exactly the problem you outlined earlier.

Still, definitely doable even though I wouldn’t want to do a lot of the HP in HoT solo on my mesmer. Run Sw/Shield, put WoP on your bar, run inspiration for that extra condi cleanse and heal. Doable, not really all that fun imo. And if you lag at all you’re pretty much dead.

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Posted by: Azure The Heartless.3261

Azure The Heartless.3261

I dont get it.

As long as a boss has a fair attack pattern, dps builds will become the meta as soon as we know how to fight the boss, because knowing what to expect from the boss minimizes damage taken from the boss.

Forcing people to take damage just so they wont spec glassy (which I believe was an argument proposed earlier) seems to be proposed for all the wrong reasons. It appears that those making this argument just want to stop people from using popular builds because they are popular without understanding why.

I said this before, and I’ll say it again. If a warrior is confident he will not be struck, he will not take a bulky shield with him. He would be better suited putting his effort into doing damage than lugging around defense he does not have use for. Whether or not he is a fool depends wholly on how talented he is as a warrior. Forcing someone who knows the gameplay to take defense for no other reason than “It’s what you’re supposed to do” is nothing more than an annoyance to them.

Resident Disgruntled, Coffee-drinking Charr.
Zarin Mistcloak(THF) Valkyrie Mistblade(WAR) Kossori Mistwalker(REV) Durendal Mistward(GRD)
I used to think (build op, pls nerf) like you, but then I took a nerf to the knee.

(edited by Azure The Heartless.3261)

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Not seeing the logic, here.

“The casual ones are the whole game’s main problem. Most pro players have already left…” “Instead of pleasing the existing casual community that has been left with (sic), A-net should focus on making the game appeal to new gamers…”

So, the OP assumes that non-pros (casuals) are all that’s left to the player-base, but ANet should ignore what they want in hopes of somehow attracting new players (who presumably want harder content) by making the game more interesting to the OP (who presumably thinks of himself as a pro).

That’s basically what ANet tried with HoT. Harder mobs. Raids. Roles in instanced content. I have little doubt that they did attract some new players to the game. I believe raids have been a success. However, the HoT sales results were not great, and the game’s store revenue, which had been pretty stable for nearly two years, has declined in the most recent two quarters. I’m not sure the game can afford another such initiative.

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Posted by: Henry.5713

Henry.5713

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

People seem to greatly overestimate the value of denfesive stats compared to the mastery of actual mechanics like dodging and kiting. There are also traits like Adrenal Health which can do way more for you than any stats. The value of surival stats is actually far below the value of utilities, traits, positioning, dodging and mastery of combat mechanics like finishers.

Finished a warrior and an elementalist solo recently. Both of them in full ascended berserker. Swapped a few traits and some utilities for the toughest / most annoying champions. That’s about it.
Not like we are that special to be able to do this. There are still people who far better at soloing than I am.

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Posted by: joneirikb.7506

joneirikb.7506

I personally think having the downed mechanic is what does it. No matter how fast you go down, low or high defense, you can basically be resurrected instantaneously. If players actually were killed when they lost all their health points and needed a resurrection skill to be brought back up, going down in the first place would be a lot more detrimental to the team’s success. In this case the risk factor of having so many glass cannons would be too high and would warrant more investment in defense as a means to stay alive.

Now I’m sure this wouldn’t solve every problem but it would inhibit players ability to rebound once killed. As it is now when someone gets downed they basically get brought back up in a matter of seconds so it barely matters that they were knocked down in the first place.

Just a thought on this.

How about having the defensive stats affect your downed state ?

  • Toughness making you take less damage when downed.
  • Viatlity giving you more health when downed.
  • Healing Power allows you to heal yourself faster when downed.

Obviously, cut the current health/armor/healing in half as base values. So there is a reason to pick some of these stats. At that stage being downed is much much closer to death, and in full zerk, you’re going to be in big trouble if someone attacks you, even downed. While that person in Clerics/Soldiers is going to take enough effort to kill that there is time enough to rez them. ?

Just an idea that could be interesting to discuss.

Elrik Noj (Norn Guardian, Kaineng [SIN][Owls])
“Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.”
“The objective is to win. The goal is to have fun.”

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Posted by: Drakz.7051

Drakz.7051

The reason that people could do everything in any armour with any stats is because the game was originally very casual and was meant to be a “play your way” kind of game, now they seem to be going towards more of a roles style like the average mmo (Mostly for raids or fractals)

A clear example is raids, you basically have to min/max with people as specific roles to win and with the amount of players lower than before it will seem like a bigger majority want this kind of style.

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Posted by: NumenorLord.6539

NumenorLord.6539

Message Body length must at least be 15.

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Posted by: ThomasC.1056

ThomasC.1056

I’m confused as to why pigeonholing (forcing) people into a defensive playstyle will be a good thing? I thought options were a selling point in this game. I thought “No holy trinity” was also a selling point of this game. I’m new, so I seriously do not understand why removing options will make this game better. Or I just might not know something sucks yet because I am too new.

You’re right when you tell that options and “no trinity” were a selling point of this game. Issue is the very conception of most PvE content (fractals and raids not included) is mostly make bosses with insane HP and damage stats, and mechanics so that “just smash it” will work. As most players want to finish things quickly, they’ll favor DPS classes and builds. They won’t want fights to drag, because they rely on blokcs, evades and mechanics like traits or invulnerability to sustain.

But your solution is to make the game harder and less forgiving. I think what you consider “interesting” is one thing, and you are free to your opinion, but what makes something viable such as sustainability (which is what Vitality, Toughness & Healing Power are) is separate from personal goals and really just a question of algorithmic behavior.

If you want players to actually use passive defensive techniques you need to create a system where strikes aren’t “large” but strikes are “quick”. Sustainability is a counter to damage pressure not raw damage so having 3,000 armor and 30,000 health in a game where a massive strike can do upwards 10,000 damage to a fully decked character is pretty much not going to ever see a sustainability model succeed.

You can prove this by running Nomad’s. You will die. Which should be effectively impossible to conceive but you will die.

I totally agree with your point of view. The only way to provide more diversity in fights, and shed light on defensive builds and stats is to make fights last longer. I only see a big issue : as most players are more or less lazy, they will want to stick to their DPS meta and spam all their stats to finish the boss the faster.

On the overall balance, I totally agree that any class running full nomad shouldn’t die against any mob.

A fundamental misconception has been made by ANet, and it’ll be very hard to go back from it.

(edited by ThomasC.1056)

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Posted by: Khailyn.6248

Khailyn.6248

I personally think having the downed mechanic is what does it. No matter how fast you go down, low or high defense, you can basically be resurrected instantaneously. If players actually were killed when they lost all their health points and needed a resurrection skill to be brought back up, going down in the first place would be a lot more detrimental to the team’s success. In this case the risk factor of having so many glass cannons would be too high and would warrant more investment in defense as a means to stay alive.

Now I’m sure this wouldn’t solve every problem but it would inhibit players ability to rebound once killed. As it is now when someone gets downed they basically get brought back up in a matter of seconds so it barely matters that they were knocked down in the first place.

Just a thought on this.

How about having the defensive stats affect your downed state ?

  • Toughness making you take less damage when downed.
  • Viatlity giving you more health when downed.
  • Healing Power allows you to heal yourself faster when downed.

Obviously, cut the current health/armor/healing in half as base values. So there is a reason to pick some of these stats. At that stage being downed is much much closer to death, and in full zerk, you’re going to be in big trouble if someone attacks you, even downed. While that person in Clerics/Soldiers is going to take enough effort to kill that there is time enough to rez them. ?

Just an idea that could be interesting to discuss.

Interesting idea.

As others above have said, to incentivize toughness or healing power, regular, consistent damage would need to be added, not damage spikes. A single stack burn aoe effect, swirling blizzard wind etc. I think there is quite a bit of assumption that EVERYONE would need defensive stats, which i think is wrong. It could very well be a balance to where 5 players could have minor defensive stats in a party or 1 player could have a larger amount of defensive stats while the other 4 are damage oriented. Tempests, Druids, Guardians and even Engineers could support the other 4.

‘Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’

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Posted by: Orangensaft.7139

Orangensaft.7139

should maybe become a mechanic in next raids

It already exists in fractals sort of anyway

Arenanet could introduce new Boss-specific-Finishers and sell them in gemshop too
People will see them ingame used by the Boss as advertisement and it looks cool

We Glitched Out Of All [MAPS]
26x lvl 80 Characters
Most fabulous Character: http://i.imgur.com/5JtcBI1.jpg?1

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Posted by: aerial.7021

aerial.7021

The problem is;
Everyone wants max stats on everything even if it’s only +1 attribute, to get said attributes those stats are locked by behind time gates, material charges & gold and other miscellaneous items, which results by the time you’ve done all that after spending months getting there, your stats are what they are you cannot change them on the fly (armor stats etc), so if you want to ‘experiment’ you cannot do it easily and the only item(s) that do have changeable stats is a legendary and how affordable is that or even realistic for some players, it took me 3 years to get bifrost.

What I’d suggest need change if you want more build diversity is selectable stats on everything from rare armor up, or some sort of override functionality so you can make what you want, of course they aren’t going to do that because storage equals money you know for multitude of armors you’d need if you wanted to fool around with it, you’re gonna have to store them some place, unless of course you like making armor bits every time.

Server: Gate of Madness

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Posted by: joneirikb.7506

joneirikb.7506

The problem is;
Everyone wants max stats on everything even if it’s only +1 attribute, to get said attributes those stats are locked by behind time gates, material charges & gold and other miscellaneous items, which results by the time you’ve done all that after spending months getting there, your stats are what they are you cannot change them on the fly (armor stats etc), so if you want to ‘experiment’ you cannot do it easily and the only item(s) that do have changeable stats is a legendary and how affordable is that or even realistic for some players, it took me 3 years to get bifrost.

What I’d suggest need change if you want more build diversity is selectable stats on everything from rare armor up, or some sort of override functionality so you can make what you want, of course they aren’t going to do that because storage equals money you know for multitude of armors you’d need if you wanted to fool around with it, you’re gonna have to store them some place, unless of course you like making armor bits every time.

I’d love to see (and suggested somewhere before), that they remove stats from armor and weapons, and move all stats over to trinkets.

That way you keep armor for runes/look, weapons for sigils/look, and can adjust stats only by changing trinkets. This would make it much easier for people to change and adjust stats, without needing a own 20 bag for the entire stat set, without needing to change runes/sigils, transmutations etc.

Much easier to experiment with new things, test out changes ina build since it will only require a trinket or two.

This would completely replace the need for having adjustable stats etc, you still want exo/asc weapons/armor since they still give the best damage/armor you’ll get.

Elrik Noj (Norn Guardian, Kaineng [SIN][Owls])
“Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.”
“The objective is to win. The goal is to have fun.”

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Posted by: fluffdragon.1523

fluffdragon.1523

Your solution isn’t a solution.

Your solution is a symptom of a bigger problem.

The problem is not that any given boss is too loving since the odds of getting up from a boss with no adds is about zero if you go down in the first place. The problem is that “damage output” really is the summation of the game. You can almost read the coefficient of a skill and know whether it is worthwhile or not since longer fights with fewer enemies increase danger levels exponentially.

You want more skilled gameplay? You don’t change the stats of the players, don’t demand more dodges and don’t reduce rally mechanics; if you want more skilled gameplay you need to make the opposite rules true:

Battles need to be more “Wars of Attrition” where surviving them is actually a matter of withstanding inevitable strikes rather than racing to deal incredible amounts of damage and enemies should actually hit less hard but hit more frequently reducing emphasis on perfect active defense (blocks, evades) and focusing more on granting passive defense (toughness, healing power/regens) a more active role in survival.

Your solutions would actually only have the opposite effects of your intentions. And for the record your “suggestions” are actually already in the game. That was what HoT was on release basically. And every-casual-one hated it.

GIVE THIS MAN A KITTENED MEDAL.

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Posted by: fluffdragon.1523

fluffdragon.1523

You tell me. Would you run a weird survival build like celestial ele or marauder thief for solo open world? Or is just not worth your time when you could get the job done faster by bringing friends or running with the zerg? Because somehow I doubt glass builds are soloing a lot of the champions in HoT (okay, maybe necro or ranger can but the so-called squishy classes?). Am I wrong here? Or is it just that it straight doesn’t matter enough to people to register the value of survival stats in these scenarios?

Unfortunately you are. A lot of individuals who solo content can do so in just about any gear and typically don’t run any form of tanky gear. It’s just far more unforgiving but by no means impossible.

I myself have done it getting most of my HoT skill points by myself for a few classes. ;_; Suck at Mesmer though, I do.

Having played a survival thief for the latter half of my thief career (read: marauder’s before we had a prefix), I can say I definitely have been there and done that and solo’d most of the content. As for champs? Nope, never could manage it, because even with near-constant heals, I just don’t have the Armor or HP pool to back up being a self-repairing glass cannon. I’m much more adept at picking off foes in ones or twos and clearing group events than going face to face with a big nasty monster.

But that’s also because playing solo-thief with a critical focus is basically the equivalent of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario. Fun times.

Thus to comment on the OP: let me put this all into real-gameplay context.

A few nights back I was doing the Jade Armor event in Bloodstone Fen. Nice big zerg that day, so the screen-lag was amazing. Also meant I could circle the fringes of the fight avoiding the AOEs and pot-shotting the Jade Armors from range, generally floating between 60% and 100% HP depending on how poorly I was judging the floor. However, if I lost track of it during the duo fights (because I was sitting on a Jade Bow in melee), I’d go down near-instantly. Not just because I can’t survive a hit from those guys, but because my HP is constantly all over the map from Regeneration, Life Leech, Heal, Health Gain, and a dozen other effects — and even if you take the Legendary out of the prefix and pit me against the Champion bloodstone elemental that spawns, he can effectively one-shot me because explosions deal 7k damage and his leap does a bit more than that.

So if “bosses” could stomp players who fell, we’d see a far worse outcome to battles because, and I’m putting this in bold here, prioritizing other players and resurrecting them in battle is far slower than when out of combat and leaves you vulnerable while simultaneously decreasing the pressure on the foe(s).

Not many will choose to do that for those very reasons. Picking up a downed ally is an entirely different matter, and while it takes a few out of the fight, it’s not pinning you to one spot hoping that bringing someone back at half health will be enough to swing the fight.

Let’s go back to that Jade Armor event. I probably help pick up a good 20-30 players in that sequence, across … what is it, 6 fights? That’s of the ones that I can reach. There are scores more. Now imagine how poorly this world-event would turn out if each of those players we didn’t reach was instantly stomped.

No one would be happy, least of all the players.

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Posted by: SlippyCheeze.5483

SlippyCheeze.5483

The reason that people could do everything in any armour with any stats is because the game was originally very casual and was meant to be a “play your way” kind of game, now they seem to be going towards more of a roles style like the average mmo (Mostly for raids or fractals)

A clear example is raids, you basically have to min/max with people as specific roles to win and with the amount of players lower than before it will seem like a bigger majority want this kind of style.

No, you don’t. It helps, but it’s entirely possible to complete all content in the game – including the raids – without following the “meta” to the letter, despite what pug leaders would have you believe.

Look at how many class-stacking and low-member groups are clearing the content now.

PS: not to you, Draks, but to the earlier claims of wanting more “hardcore” content… Wildstar is ===> over there, and did exactly what you asked. Then tanked exactly as hard as everyone else said it would, because nobody really wants that “hardcore” content you describe, not even you. You are mistaken thanks to the rosy haze of memory.

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Posted by: Palador.2170

Palador.2170

I’ll agree with just about everyone that there is a problem, and with most of the posters in this thread when they say that stomping isn’t the answer.

I think there needs to be a massive stats rework to make the more defensive stats more important. And yes, that would totally mess up a lot of the balance currently in the game. It’s up to ANet to decide if they want to make that kind of mess, or continue on with the problems at hand.

I expect them to continue on with the problems.

Sarcasm, delivered with a
delicate, brick-like subtlety.

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Posted by: Haishao.6851

Haishao.6851

The reason people don’t invest on passive defense is because GW2 is an Action RPG and passive is an antonym to active.

Passive defense is there because they allows people who aren’t good at the game to also be able to complete every content.

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Posted by: Stand The Wall.6987

Stand The Wall.6987

this is best. it would lock bosses into an endless stomping loop against players with peasant ping and/or brain lag, leaving ample wiggle room for t3h 1337 players. if anyone knows of any additional troll fuel, please do feel free to add.

Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

The reason people don’t invest on passive defense is because GW2 is an Action RPG and passive is an antonym to active.

*Passive defense is there because they allows people who aren’t good at the game to also be able to complete every content. *

That isn’t true. There is plenty of content you cannot survive without a solid skill level. Passive defense in this game does not even guarantee you one more hit.

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

The reason people don’t invest on passive defense is because GW2 is an Action RPG and passive is an antonym to active.

*Passive defense is there because they allows people who aren’t good at the game to also be able to complete every content. *

That isn’t true. There is plenty of content you cannot survive without a solid skill level. Passive defense in this game does not even guarantee you one more hit.

That’s true. Many bosses have attacks that you’re expected to dodge and toughness/vitality aren’t always enough to ignore that (and even if they are, it isn’t a good idea!). I think where survival stats come into play is when there are so many sources of damage that you can’t just dodge it.

For example, mushroom queen. You’re stuck in a small area and she’s crippling and throwing projectiles and area effects. You can’t avoid it all. It simply isn’t designed in such a way that you can dodge frequently enough even if you had room to do so. In that scenario, I find toughness/vitality are useful because they allow you to sustain where your active defenses are inadequate.

I’m not in the “Zerker or you’re bad” camp (because I’m not a kitten), but I think the basic premise is spot on: If you’re having trouble with sustaining and not necessarily avoiding the pass/fail attacks you’re expected to dodge, then vitality/toughness might not be such a bad idea. Call me bad, but I can solo mushroom queen on my celestial ele where I can’t manage it in zerker gear. Does that make this gear relevant enough? Probably not. But there’s at least some purpose for it outside of organized group content.

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

The problem is;
Everyone wants max stats on everything even if it’s only +1 attribute, to get said attributes those stats are locked by behind time gates, material charges & gold and other miscellaneous items, which results by the time you’ve done all that after spending months getting there, your stats are what they are you cannot change them on the fly (armor stats etc), so if you want to ‘experiment’ you cannot do it easily and the only item(s) that do have changeable stats is a legendary and how affordable is that or even realistic for some players, it took me 3 years to get bifrost.

What I’d suggest need change if you want more build diversity is selectable stats on everything from rare armor up, or some sort of override functionality so you can make what you want, of course they aren’t going to do that because storage equals money you know for multitude of armors you’d need if you wanted to fool around with it, you’re gonna have to store them some place, unless of course you like making armor bits every time.

I’d love to see (and suggested somewhere before), that they remove stats from armor and weapons, and move all stats over to trinkets.

That way you keep armor for runes/look, weapons for sigils/look, and can adjust stats only by changing trinkets. This would make it much easier for people to change and adjust stats, without needing a own 20 bag for the entire stat set, without needing to change runes/sigils, transmutations etc.

Much easier to experiment with new things, test out changes ina build since it will only require a trinket or two.

This would completely replace the need for having adjustable stats etc, you still want exo/asc weapons/armor since they still give the best damage/armor you’ll get.

While simplifying the stat system does come with advantages, I don’t think this would be an improvement to the game. Restricting stats down from 13/14 pieces of gear (depending on whether you are dual wielding or not) to 6 (or even 5 depending on whether you consider the backpack a trinket) drastically reduces the amount of variability you can have. Right now, if you really wanted to, you could mix and swap from 10+ different stat sets to get what you consider the absolute perfect ratio of stats on your character. If you were to reduce the number of pieces that give stats to so few you lose a lot of granularity with stat options.

This would most likely backfire and force people to go all out either defensive or offensive, because its highly likely that the available options just wouldn’t be sufficient to get the right mix if you wanted a hybrid build. You would be wasting stats either offensively, defensively, or both.

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

The reason people don’t invest on passive defense is because GW2 is an Action RPG and passive is an antonym to active.

*Passive defense is there because they allows people who aren’t good at the game to also be able to complete every content. *

That isn’t true. There is plenty of content you cannot survive without a solid skill level. Passive defense in this game does not even guarantee you one more hit.

That’s true. Many bosses have attacks that you’re expected to dodge and toughness/vitality aren’t always enough to ignore that (and even if they are, it isn’t a good idea!). I think where survival stats come into play is when there are so many sources of damage that you can’t just dodge it.

For example, mushroom queen. You’re stuck in a small area and she’s crippling and throwing projectiles and area effects. You can’t avoid it all. It simply isn’t designed in such a way that you can dodge frequently enough even if you had room to do so. In that scenario, I find toughness/vitality are useful because they allow you to sustain where your active defenses are inadequate.

I’m not in the “Zerker or you’re bad” camp (because I’m not a kitten), but I think the basic premise is spot on: If you’re having trouble with sustaining and not necessarily avoiding the pass/fail attacks you’re expected to dodge, then vitality/toughness might not be such a bad idea. Call me bad, but I can solo mushroom queen on my celestial ele where I can’t manage it in zerker gear. Does that make this gear relevant enough? Probably not. But there’s at least some purpose for it outside of organized group content.

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% more damage.

That’s insane.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% more damage.

That’s insane.

That’s not quite how it works. To get 24%, you’ve divided the 304 point difference by the heavy armor’s defense stat. However, the Armor Stat is the divisor, not the defense stat. Armor is the sum of Defense + Toughness.

A level 80 character in all glass has 1000 Toughness, so a glass warrior in Ascended heavy has 1000 + 1271 – 2271 Armor. The glass Ele in Asc. has 1000 + 967 – 1967.

304/2271 = ~13.4%. However, to see the true difference we should divide by the light Armor stat of 1967. 304/1967 = ~15.5%

Apply the Armor stat to damage to check. I’ll use a base hit of 1,000,000 for simplicity.

1,000,000 / 1967 = 508.39
1,000,000 / 2271 = 440.33

508.4 – 440.3 = 68.1

68.1/440.3 = .15467, ~15.5%

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

Even 15% more damage per hit is pretty significant imo. I understand why heavy armor classes take less damage thematically, but I still don’t understand why warrior, a class already taking significantly less damage than light armor classes, also gets quite possibly the best defensive traitline in the game. Its just strange to me. Though this isn’t really all that relevant.

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Posted by: fluffdragon.1523

fluffdragon.1523

Even 15% more damage per hit is pretty significant imo. I understand why heavy armor classes take less damage thematically, but I still don’t understand why warrior, a class already taking significantly less damage than light armor classes, also gets quite possibly the best defensive traitline in the game. Its just strange to me. Though this isn’t really all that relevant.

What if they started by going back to GW1 where everyone had the same HP pool and balanced around that? Right now while it’s possible for many classes to exceed the 2600 armor mark, doing so typically means low HP or low Attack.

If can start bringing things down to a similar baseline, we might be able to cause stats to be more effective and meaningful.

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Posted by: SlippyCheeze.5483

SlippyCheeze.5483

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% 15% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% 15% more damage.

That’s insane.

No, that’s a design decision, compensated for by way of the design team making deliberate choices elsewhere to balance that increased risk of damage by way of something else.

For example, necro has a larger effective health pool, mesmer has clones that taunt and distract enemies, ele has significant defensive and healing tools available on zero notice, etc.

It’s entirely reasonable to argue that those are not sufficient, but it’s not enough to look at a single aspect of the game, see a difference, and then declare the whole thing broken.

I’d argue, in fact, that if you put heavy armor on a necro without any other changes, you would find the overall effect to be a little … unbalancing.

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% more damage.

That’s insane.

That’s not quite how it works. To get 24%, you’ve divided the 304 point difference by the heavy armor’s defense stat. However, the Armor Stat is the divisor, not the defense stat. Armor is the sum of Defense + Toughness.

A level 80 character in all glass has 1000 Toughness, so a glass warrior in Ascended heavy has 1000 + 1271 – 2271 Armor. The glass Ele in Asc. has 1000 + 967 – 1967.

304/2271 = ~13.4%. However, to see the true difference we should divide by the light Armor stat of 1967. 304/1967 = ~15.5%

Apply the Armor stat to damage to check. I’ll use a base hit of 1,000,000 for simplicity.

1,000,000 / 1967 = 508.39
1,000,000 / 2271 = 440.33

508.4 – 440.3 = 68.1

68.1/440.3 = .15467, ~15.5%

This is a statistical error known as the “aggregation problem”. It’s when you take distinct subsets of data and apply them to global systems. I’ll call “defense” or the armor value set A and character value set B.

A: Light is 967. Heavy is 1271. 1271 – 967 = 304.

B: Character A is 1,000. Character B is 1,000. 1,000 – ,1000 is 0.

What this means is that before aggregation we can note where the actual difference is by calculating A and B separately. Afterward we would aggregate them to see the total effect. So you really are open to 24% more damage by choosing a light armor class.

Post aggregation is going to give a lot of difference specifically because it the differences are inherently non-linear. To show that let’s take the same 1,000,000 but let’s add exotic max toughness of 1289 to both.

1,000,000 / (967 + 1000 + 1289) = 307.13

1,000,000 / (1271 + 1000 + 1289) = 280.9

307.13 – 280.9 = 26.23

26.23 / 280.9 = 9.34%

Okay, so why isn’t it still 15.5%?

It’s because it’s a division problem. As you compress the input you’re going to get smaller and smaller numbers. If you added 275 to both totals assuming food and sigils it becomes 8.61% and so forth and so on.

So ultimately we can only take one set at a time and compare it so yes you are in fact open to 24% more damage by armor defense alone which is the only variable that necessarily must differ.

In economics this is called “Ceteris paribus”.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% more damage.

That’s insane.

That’s not quite how it works. To get 24%, you’ve divided the 304 point difference by the heavy armor’s defense stat. However, the Armor Stat is the divisor, not the defense stat. Armor is the sum of Defense + Toughness.

A level 80 character in all glass has 1000 Toughness, so a glass warrior in Ascended heavy has 1000 + 1271 – 2271 Armor. The glass Ele in Asc. has 1000 + 967 – 1967.

304/2271 = ~13.4%. However, to see the true difference we should divide by the light Armor stat of 1967. 304/1967 = ~15.5%

Apply the Armor stat to damage to check. I’ll use a base hit of 1,000,000 for simplicity.

1,000,000 / 1967 = 508.39
1,000,000 / 2271 = 440.33

508.4 – 440.3 = 68.1

68.1/440.3 = .15467, ~15.5%

This is a statistical error known as the “aggregation problem”. It’s when you take distinct subsets of data and apply them to global systems. I’ll call “defense” or the armor value set A and character value set B.

A: Light is 967. Heavy is 1271. 1271 – 967 = 304.

B: Character A is 1,000. Character B is 1,000. 1,000 – ,1000 is 0.

What this means is that before aggregation we can note where the actual difference is by calculating A and B separately. Afterward we would aggregate them to see the total effect. So you really are open to 24% more damage by choosing a light armor class.

Post aggregation is going to give a lot of difference specifically because it the differences are inherently non-linear. To show that let’s take the same 1,000,000 but let’s add exotic max toughness of 1289 to both.

1,000,000 / (967 + 1000 + 1289) = 307.13

1,000,000 / (1271 + 1000 + 1289) = 280.9

307.13 – 280.9 = 26.23

26.23 / 280.9 = 9.34%

Okay, so why isn’t it still 15.5%?

It’s because it’s a division problem. As you compress the input you’re going to get smaller and smaller numbers. If you added 275 to both totals assuming food and sigils it becomes 8.61% and so forth and so on.

So ultimately we can only take one set at a time and compare it so yes you are in fact open to 24% more damage by armor defense alone which is the only variable that necessarily must differ.

In economics this is called “Ceteris paribus”.

As you so ably point out, adding a constant to the comparison compresses the percentage of damage taken. Intellectual exercises are all well and good, but for practical discussion we should be starting with the numbers which are actually relevant to game play. Since the game never divides damage by the Defense stat alone, the Armor Stat is the correct number to calculate from. So, no, light armor wearers are not open to 24% more damage than heavy armor wearers.

(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

The problem is they aren’t open to 15% either.

As we’ve noticed the base is a constant but the defense value is not. The above actually isn’t going to be a stable ratio. Easily proven. Just change the numerator:

2,000,000 / (967 + 1000) = 1016.777
2,000,000 / (1271 + 1000) = 880.6693

Method A: 1 – 880.6693 / 1016.777 = 13.39%

Method B: 1016.777 – 880.6693 = 136.1075

136.1075 / 1016.777 = 13.39%

Whichever method you use (you used you can see that the ratio shifts based solely on the incoming damage as well.

To answer this question you actually need a different math problem altogether. You want to solve for equivalent damage and absolute loss.

So let’s create a reversible.

Original: 1,000,000 / 967 = 1034.126

Reversed solving for power: 1034.126 * 967 = 1,000,000

So then let’s set a damage benchmark of 500 and solve for “incoming attack”. Then follow up with the heavy armor and absolute difference.

X / 967 = 500.

500 * 967 = 483,500 attack.

500 * 1271 = 635,500 attack

500 * -304 = -152,000 attack.

So no matter what you add to both sides you’ll always lose, in light armor, defense against 152,000 damage if the equivalent is 500 in heavy armor.

This is useful because this means that we can find the finding the slope of the graph now that we have stable numbers. This means you’ll always lose the absolute defense of 304 * damage taken no matter what your total armor, boons, or toughness and traits.

This also means that the “opening” for damage is going to linearly change stably as we merge the two based entirely on the defense values (because they’re the only inherent differences ignoring traits) but there’s a limit (math limit) where the two will never cross so while it may seem that the ratios change over time they actually don’t.

You’ll find a stable rate of change if you do all the math of 7.5% in ascended defense along the length of the line per X points change (you can shift the scale however you wish since its a ratio) based off of taking the absolute loss over the lower bounds subtracted from the absolute loss over the upper bounds.

Blah blah this is my day job. ????

Basically math isn’t magic and you don’t just take a flat damage reduction based solely on random numerators.that doesn’t solve the problem. A slope does.

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Posted by: ThomasC.1056

ThomasC.1056

And you actually bring up another “silent” issue. The armor classes themselves. Soloing an enemy on a Warrior isn’t just easier because it’s a Warrior but because Warriors naturally have the most defense. Since defense is a divider every point of it counts so the 304 point difference in ascended armor is huge. That’s literally 24% 15% of the heavy armor. So just choosing an elementalist opens you to 24% 15% more damage.

That’s insane.

No, that’s a design decision, compensated for by way of the design team making deliberate choices elsewhere to balance that increased risk of damage by way of something else.

For example, necro has a larger effective health pool, mesmer has clones that taunt and distract enemies, ele has significant defensive and healing tools available on zero notice, etc.

It’s entirely reasonable to argue that those are not sufficient, but it’s not enough to look at a single aspect of the game, see a difference, and then declare the whole thing broken.

I’d argue, in fact, that if you put heavy armor on a necro without any other changes, you would find the overall effect to be a little … unbalancing.

In a perfect world, what you say would make sense. Yet, and I think that’s what the OP was underlining, those profession mechanics (which are supposed to allow any class to endure a long fight) are mostly dismissed and underrated. Only some gimmicks like boonshare or strong healers like water ele or druid can play that.

The thing is fights are too quick. The trend is “just smash it”, and I agree on the fact a character’s defense isn’t correctly balanced with big foes damage capabilities. So, players want to end the fight as fast as possible, and thus favor raw damage builds.

I totally agree on the fact we should see more profession mechanics working in the open field. We also should be able to see more difference when fighting one or another profession, especially in WvW. For now, it’s mostly bunks, insane damage, stunlocks, without very much difference between classes.

And that’s a pity.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The problem is they aren’t open to 15% either.

- snip -

OK, I see my error in the percentage change calculation.

With Asc. Light Armor Stat of 1967 and Asc. Heavy of 2271 as constants in the damage taken calculation, I get values of ~13.39% for percentage change or ~14.35 for percentage difference across a spectrum of varying raw damage numbers. Of course, those percentages would change if we added more Toughness to the constant.

As to equivalent damage and absolute loss problem, it seems we can make the statement that for every 500 damage the Asc. Heavy takes, the Asc. Light would take ~577. That seems to hold true across varying raw damage numbers also and would be true regardless of Toughness.

So, where did you get the 24% number?

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

24% is where you start. You take the measure of the initial difference and then as you see when you add to the bases in any amount you work away from the initial start towards an upper limit which, depending on how the game rounds and the maximum value to begin with, may or may not ever be equivalent. Basically you need that data in order to solve the rest of the problem and find the slopes and so forth and so on because now you can take the two data points, initials, compare them to any given data points which you can call “base + initials” for the values you are using and then from there create a slope and find out how inefficient light armor is in respect to heavy armor.

As for the 577/500-1 that is going to, or should, produce 15.45five% which is the original numbers from the above problem:

1,000,000 / 1967 = 508.39
1,000,000 / 2271 = 440.33

508.39-440.33 = 68.05

68.05 / 440.33 = .1545five

In short it’s the same error. It’s extremely subject to change based on damage incoming or “taken” (just change 500 to 600 and it shifts) as a result. This is because it’s a comparative slope problem that deals with a triangle.

It’s trigonometry.

The “base” of the trianble is the 24% difference, the lines that rise will run towards as though they would cross indefinitely but never actually cross numerically are the sides of the triangle. Though they probably would if the data were treated as integers though they should meet and never surpass one another.

It’s just not important. If 15.5% satisfies you I’m plenty satisfied as well.

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

One more thing.

The 304 difference is really important.

The reason for this is that, as you’ve shown, the more toughness you add the smaller the different in effect. This is specifically because of that 304 difference. As you add to both bases the difference, and it’s impact, is reduced. This is obvious when you think about it:

304 / 3,040 is 1 / 10 right? 10%.

304 / 6,080 is 1 / 20 right? 5%.

It turns out that you actually rewrite this where you keep 304 as the denominator and show the difference as the numerator:

30.4 / 304 is 10%

15.1 / 304 is 5%.

And as you go you’ll also find that these are representative of the actual differences in damage taken. You’re just tracing this “base” as the two sides rise. So those should be the real different damage values when applied so long as you find the points where it is true for the two when combined.

Now combining them can be a tad difficult. I’m not a math teacher (sadly) so I can’t really explain it well.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

24% is where you start. You take the measure of the initial difference and then as you see when you add to the bases in any amount you work away from the initial start towards an upper limit which, depending on how the game rounds and the maximum value to begin with, may or may not ever be equivalent. Basically you need that data in order to solve the rest of the problem and find the slopes and so forth and so on because now you can take the two data points, initials, compare them to any given data points which you can call “base + initials” for the values you are using and then from there create a slope and find out how inefficient light armor is in respect to heavy armor.

As for the 577/500-1 that is going to, or should, produce 15.45five% which is the original numbers from the above problem:

1,000,000 / 1967 = 508.39
1,000,000 / 2271 = 440.33

508.39-440.33 = 68.05

68.05 / 440.33 = .1545five

In short it’s the same error. It’s extremely subject to change based on damage incoming or “taken” (just change 500 to 600 and it shifts) as a result. This is because it’s a comparative slope problem that deals with a triangle.

It’s trigonometry.

The “base” of the trianble is the 24% difference, the lines that rise will run towards as though they would cross indefinitely but never actually cross numerically are the sides of the triangle. Though they probably would if the data were treated as integers though they should meet and never surpass one another.

It’s just not important. If 15.5% satisfies you I’m plenty satisfied as well.

OK, I’m fine with 15.5% as the percentage change for a comparison between glass Asc. Light and glass Asc. Heavy also. Thanks for the discussion.