Guild Wars 2

Hello, I just wanted to suggest one small QoL improvement regarding the recent addition of “disable action camera” button (not the toggle). Please add an option in camera settings to always have action camera turned on (so I don’t have to toggle it every time I log in). Thanks!

Vayne.8563:

Redenaz.8631:

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

So a single thread. As compared with dozens of threads and random posts with screen shots, over the years since launch saying that that skill noise is a problem.

Did 100 disparate people in that thread actually complain (I don’t think so). Even if 100 people did actually complain (because 850 posts isn’t 850 people and some people posted that like the changes), then 100 people out of the million more or less playing makes this not a hot button topic.

You need a lot more people to show some sort of consensus. The old trait system, upwards of 90% of the people who posted in that thread disliked it immensely. That was an issue that Anet really did need to fix and it took a long time for that to happen.

The nerf to visuals is an improvment for some people. I don’t know one way or another about the slider, but if it’s not doable, or no doable in a time frame that makes sense, Anet should say so.

That’s one thread, yes, but made up of many merged threads. A cursory glance shows that while there are multiple posts by a few people, there are many more individual posts expressing dislike of those changes.

I don’t disagree that skill noise was, and is still a problem, and that more people have probably complained about it than about the visual nerfs. The point is that they nerfed the wrong effects. Fireball, Auras, Overload Air weren’t as problematic as on-hit visual effects that scale with the mob, which were untouched. Moreover, the changes to Auras arguably made them harder to differentiate in combat. Also, they disproportionately targeted Elementalists, when other classes’ effects are just as bad, if not worse (Mesmer Wells, Necro AoEs, Guardian flames.) This is also why I think even more people aren’t riled up…because their professions weren’t targeted, yet. They also forced this onto everybody, like it or not. If they didn’t have the tech to implement sliders or something similar, then they should have waited until such tech was ready to be rolled out. It’s not like the nerfs have actually improved combat visibility.

Another, anecdotal reason for why I’m annoyed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the one thing that persuaded me to buy HoT was how amazing the animations for Tempest looked. I truly enjoyed running around casting those skills. To have them stripped away without warning is a bit galling. All it has done is made me wary about buying anything from them again.

Good: Shatterer fight is fun again! My wife and I played it last night and we enjoyed every second of it. There was a lot going on and tons of ways to contribute. Really good stuff. My only complaint is that it might have been a bit too easy. We were never in danger of not beating it. Overall, very, very well done.

Gliding in Tyria is also amazing. Great job.

Bad: Mesmer is — I mean WAS — my main. This patch nerfed the bejeezus out of alacrity, which hurt really bad. This needs serious fixing. Wheoever thought the nerfs to Mesmer were a good idea should have their hands slapped — or be forced to play the new Mesmer in PVP for hours.

The other balance patches didn’t seem too bad. Mesmer stood out to me as really, really bad.

I would also recommend looking at all of the world boss fights again like you did Shatterer. Fire Elementalist is a sit in one spot and spam AA, too. So is Svanir, Jungle Wurm, and Mega Destroyer.

Finally, please give us back our skill animations. The ele’s skills used to be gorgeous. Now, they’re laughably bad.

Glenstorm.4059:

Vayne.8563:

Redenaz.8631:

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

So a single thread. As compared with dozens of threads and random posts with screen shots, over the years since launch saying that that skill noise is a problem.

Did 100 disparate people in that thread actually complain (I don’t think so). Even if 100 people did actually complain (because 850 posts isn’t 850 people and some people posted that like the changes), then 100 people out of the million more or less playing makes this not a hot button topic.

You need a lot more people to show some sort of consensus. The old trait system, upwards of 90% of the people who posted in that thread disliked it immensely. That was an issue that Anet really did need to fix and it took a long time for that to happen.

The nerf to visuals is an improvment for some people. I don’t know one way or another about the slider, but if it’s not doable, or no doable in a time frame that makes sense, Anet should say so.

That’s one thread, yes, but made up of many merged threads. A cursory glance shows that while there are multiple posts by a few people, there are many more individual posts expressing dislike of those changes.

I don’t disagree that skill noise was, and is still a problem, and that more people have probably complained about it than about the visual nerfs. The point is that they nerfed the wrong effects. Fireball, Auras, Overload Air weren’t as problematic as on-hit visual effects that scale with the mob, which were untouched. Moreover, the changes to Auras arguably made them harder to differentiate in combat. Also, they disproportionately targeted Elementalists, when other classes’ effects are just as bad, if not worse (Mesmer Wells, Necro AoEs, Guardian flames.) This is also why I think even more people aren’t riled up…because their professions weren’t targeted, yet. They also forced this onto everybody, like it or not. If they didn’t have the tech to implement sliders or something similar, then they should have waited until such tech was ready to be rolled out. It’s not like the nerfs have actually improved combat visibility.

Another, anecdotal reason for why I’m annoyed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the one thing that persuaded me to buy HoT was how amazing the animations for Tempest looked. I truly enjoyed running around casting those skills. To have them stripped away without warning is a bit galling. All it has done is made me wary about buying anything from them again.

Not only that, but when people typically complain about “skill noise”, the assumption is that they’re asking for something like what almost every other game has – a slider or option set that allows you to adjust the effects coming from other players, not just nerf the graphics of skills across they board so that they look dinky and inconsistent.

OK, so you do read. This means it is worth contributing to this game I really really enjoy. Some feedback.

The new Shatterer fight, despite being still easy, is much for fun. Initially my reaction wasn’t good because, like other posters said before me, we were never in danger. But then I realized it wasn’t your intention to make it much harder, just not so brainless stacking on a sweet spot anymore. So great job here!

About boss fights parenthesis. I love Triple Trouble. I love how challenging that fight can be even when a lot of players know what to do. Tarir is similar, but Tarir’s timer is much more elastic than TT’s, meaning the other lanes can wait (and even send players to) other lanes to finish their job. TT doesn’t. So here is my disappointment to the community and certainly not to ArenaNet: force yourselves to do an event that might fail. This community is full of whining and crying and finger pointing when an event might fail or does fail. It is almost as if players were entitled to their daily loot on that event and if they don’t get it, they think it is wrong. This forces ANet to create big and easy events and, therefore, make the game weaker. I miss the Marionette that we failed almost every time on the first days when it came out but players would still gather on the next spawn to try it again. I miss those players!!!

About skill and talent balancing. Please, please, please separate the game into PvP and PvE skills and traits. This is my 5th MMO with PvE and PvP and all of them, but one, failed to properly balance their skills. Guess which one didn’t? Guild Wars 1! When you separated the skills into PvE and PvP you made both modes better! I also played World of Warcraft for a long time and their PvP sucked big time. That’s probably because that game’s PvE was always bigger. But there is no denying it, PvP and PvE mechanics are different. Please, I beg you, balance your skills separately concerning each mode. Don’t try to find a one size fits all. I didn’t hate the balance on this latest patch, but I can’t say it was a good balance either. Alacrity was fine on PvE, maybe it wasn’t fine for PvP… See?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/42wokp/thief_after_126_balance_patch_d/

This speaks for itself, now in the coming months you’ll probably see people rolling their mouse on their forehead with a necro (been done before) destroying eles in pvp but hey, game is “balanced”.

That is correct Xilllix. And to the point, I forgot to mention ANet shouldn’t be balancing the skills based on class popularity.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Andraus.3874:

My feedback is about how feedback actually works.

It’s great you guys ask for feedback. I really do appreciate that. However if you hang out in the forums long enough you start to feel that the feedback isn’t going anywhere. This needs to be more of an ongoing and reciprocal conversation. Out of our feedback I would expect a post addressed to the player base saying " We heard you on the following points, we will be looking into them as resources allow. [followed by a list of points]." Then perhaps later or with the same post: “Points 3,7,12, and 15 are going to be a higher priority for us. Points 5,8, and 9 may not be something that is possible. Again this information is tentative and subject to change.”

I understand the player base takes things literally so you have to be carful what you say. But it feels like we have all these threads about good feedback and very little comes out of them. I’m not sure what this disconnect is but it has become apparent to anyone that frequents the forums.

If you read this I genuinely thank you for your time and thank you for making a great game. I hope we can work together to keep it that way.

I understand your thoughts, and perhaps we will be able to do that for some topics in the future; I agree it would be great! But what’s important to note is that we all — as forum members — have a certain level of visibility into our how feedback is handled simply by our participation here on the forums and our involvement in the game.

Here’s what I mean: I’ve seen the request for “gliding in central Tyria” hundreds of times on the forums. I’ve heard it in the game a hundred times, too! So when I see it come to the game, as a player and a forum member I know that ArenaNet listened to player/forum member feedback. I don’t need someone to come and tell me that, I can actually see it in the update notes and in the game.

So while I’m not discounting — believe me, I would be absolutely the last person to discount the potential or the value of further communication; trust me on that! — I like to think of an old expression that my granny said, “The proof is in the pudding.” In this case, take that odd expression to mean that we, as players and forum members, can see through actual game development that the feedback that we give is being read, reviewed, analyzed, and often implemented!

Again I do love communication, and I positively adore when devs post, or when they ask me to post on their or their team’s behalf. But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes. And because of that, I like the idea of productive threads like this, which you should know will be shared with every single member of the ArenaNet team as highly-suggested reading.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. It’s just a personal opinion, but I like to think it has a certain logic.

no,

you are just dodging the real problem that many are trying to “communicate” to your team, is that the communication tends to be one way and inconsistent. You guys choose WHEN to post or reply, with no priority on how trivial or important the topic is. Mentioning the “gliding central Tyria” is just a cop out way of showing you guys tackled a “low hanging fruit” request, while there are many, more serious issues that should’ve allocate more resources to address. Look at all the Anet post replies since HOT, why is the WvW sub forum lack any serious communication? When something that had a reply from an ANet team, it never was the most important issues that the WvW community wanted. THis is just one example, I am sure there are many that other’s can pointed out for other game mode in GW2.

Now, for the last time, I will bite on this feedback request thread, hopefully it’s nothing more than just a cover up to be able to show “see, we did ask for feedbacks” but ends up with no much replies afterward from the team.

Here’s my 2 main issues, 2 classes that got over nerfed:

Mesmer – please read this thread by Lord Helseth, he’s a pro player and your balance team “should” know his name:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/LordHelseth-on-post-Mesmer-nerfs/first#post5957099

Thief was buffed because ANet’s vision for the class is about damage. WHat about Mesmer and the Chronomancer elite spec? What’s ANet’s vision. Alacrity was sold to as what makes Chrono unique, now with the nerf that Elite spec is rather weak and somewhat meaningless. The best suggestion I’ve seen is allow the original alacrity duration to be applied to Mesmer self, but outgoing alacrity to other can be the nerfed duration.

Revenant – I feel like the class was overnerfed, on top of the massive bugs this class still has. I feel like the class was used as a marketing tool to sell HOT, now that has been accomplished, it’s time to pull the plug on the class. Why all the nerfs when the class still have tons of bugs, more so than other classes? I urge you to communicate with the balance team to check out sub forum, there are plenty to read there.

Haven’t had a chance to read the whole thread, overall I’m very happy.

Just one suggestion/question. What happened to the 5 fractal key purchase and can we get it back, or can we at least get rid of the confirmation of buying one key at a time? It’s really annoying to have to click yes 20 times to get 20 keys. Thanks and keep up the good work!

Pros – Gliding, the UI improvements
Cons – I have been under the impression that the balance changes are going to be huge and addressing several issues, mostly the underperforming traits. Yet there were no such huge changes being made. I, as others also state, think that the lack of communication about what is going to be changed exactly ( e.g. patch notes before the patch goes live) is the main reason for so much of the bad reactions about the changes. It was said in the preview that the revenants are going to do less damage with auto-attack, which is good, and use more of their skills, yet the auto-attack nerf but the active skill has been buffed quite slightly. There are issues, but if once in while the devs come to these forum to address some of the issues and how they are planning to resolve them would be nice. The preview was nice, yet little more detail would be even nicer.

I want to give my feedback too, so let’s start with the positive things:
- The shatterer revamp have finally bring back the fun of fighting a Real elder dragon champion in open world
- Gliders in central tyria are now a good reason for everyone to explore again all the maps from a different point of view
- The improvements at Squad UI have finally give at the commanders a way to set and change tactics in real time with the help of lieutenants

And now the concern: the Ranger’s shout “Guard”.
The old one was the only skill able to move your pet in a specific spot for a surprise attack or an emergency retreat, while the actual one use your pet only as a scapegoat that give a marginal help at your allies.
So let’s make a more accurate comparison: the old “guard” was 15s cd groud targetting skill which gave 10 sec of stealth and protection at your pet (both vitals for saving your pet from melting in under of 5 sec at the first aoe pressures in pvp even when using beastmastery); the actual one instead it’s a 6s damage absorbtion from your allies only that sacrifice your pet for few personal stacks of might on a 30s cd (and this mean if you use it twice in a row you end up fighting without an active pet until it’s completly regenerate or the 60s of the swap are over).
Personally i think the old one was fine and finally usefull after Hot for a better control on the pet, and i hope that will return at least similar as it was

Gaile Gray.6029:

Andraus.3874:

My feedback is about how feedback actually works.

It’s great you guys ask for feedback. I really do appreciate that. However if you hang out in the forums long enough you start to feel that the feedback isn’t going anywhere. This needs to be more of an ongoing and reciprocal conversation. Out of our feedback I would expect a post addressed to the player base saying " We heard you on the following points, we will be looking into them as resources allow. [followed by a list of points]." Then perhaps later or with the same post: “Points 3,7,12, and 15 are going to be a higher priority for us. Points 5,8, and 9 may not be something that is possible. Again this information is tentative and subject to change.”

I understand the player base takes things literally so you have to be carful what you say. But it feels like we have all these threads about good feedback and very little comes out of them. I’m not sure what this disconnect is but it has become apparent to anyone that frequents the forums.

If you read this I genuinely thank you for your time and thank you for making a great game. I hope we can work together to keep it that way.

I understand your thoughts, and perhaps we will be able to do that for some topics in the future; I agree it would be great! But what’s important to note is that we all — as forum members — have a certain level of visibility into our how feedback is handled simply by our participation here on the forums and our involvement in the game.

Here’s what I mean: I’ve seen the request for “gliding in central Tyria” hundreds of times on the forums. I’ve heard it in the game a hundred times, too! So when I see it come to the game, as a player and a forum member I know that ArenaNet listened to player/forum member feedback. I don’t need someone to come and tell me that, I can actually see it in the update notes and in the game.

So while I’m not discounting — believe me, I would be absolutely the last person to discount the potential or the value of further communication; trust me on that! — I like to think of an old expression that my granny said, “The proof is in the pudding.” In this case, take that odd expression to mean that we, as players and forum members, can see through actual game development that the feedback that we give is being read, reviewed, analyzed, and often implemented!

Again I do love communication, and I positively adore when devs post, or when they ask me to post on their or their team’s behalf. But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes. And because of that, I like the idea of productive threads like this, which you should know will be shared with every single member of the ArenaNet team as highly-suggested reading.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. It’s just a personal opinion, but I like to think it has a certain logic.

Gaile – The biggest point you missed here (and really made yourself) is there is no feedback from Anet back to the players UNTIL the updates have been pushed to the game or are road mapped via the ‘release preview’ blogs you guys do.

I cannot recall a time in the last 5 years were Anet had an open Dialog with ‘Feedback’ on the forums in between update phases to deal with ANY of the players feedback which was requested by Anet.

that is the point here.

The OP that you replied to is dead on the head of the nail with this. You guys need to have open communication back and forth with this ‘feedback’ you promise. It needs to stop being one way.

Also, why is there a lack of a PTR still? Many of the changes would have been debated between Anet and the player base between PTR and release. Such as the alacrity nerf.

And yet, you guy still couldn’t fix the bugs on the Basic collection for the Scholar’s pack, Crusader Pack and Agent’s pack.

Still stuck at 2/4 despite completing the story on multiple toons. No ‘golden buckle’ and no ‘Dragon vine strap’.

sigh….

Gaile Gray.6029:

Aragorn.5462:

Haven’t had a chance to read the whole thread, overall I’m very happy.

Just one suggestion/question. What happened to the 5 fractal key purchase and can we get it back, or can we at least get rid of the confirmation of buying one key at a time? It’s really annoying to have to click yes 20 times to get 20 keys. Thanks and keep up the good work!

I can answer that. It’s a bug and it will be fixed in a future build. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Thanks for the swift reply! Glad to know you guys are working on it

I’ll keep it brief this time.

Gliding in Tyria was tastefully done. You kept the original world intact while allowing us to explore it in new ways!

Shatterer is a remarkable departure from the norm, showing long-term vision and actual player feedback. It’s the absolute perfect level of difficulty. Stunningly well done and I applaud that. If there are future revamps, they should all follow THIS example.

However:

The “balance” patch failed to meet any of the mission statements you posted.

Let’s just look at Revenant for a specific example.

You promised reshuffling/redistribution of damage from autoattacks to the other two skills and to make the other legends fit their role better. instead, you gutted sword because of the excessively vocal minority. You gutted shield because of PvP. Hammer is also gutted in a way with the laziest “fix” I’ve ever seen.

Here’s some changes which NEED to be considered.

1) Add back at least 15% of the scaling for Crystal Hybernation OR make it so that with each pulse of heals, it removes a condition for a grand total of 4 conditions at maximum duration. Shield was the only viable defensive option before the nerf and now you’ve gone too far. Either keep the core heal strong or if you actually want to change and develop your classes, THIS is THE weapon which could fix alot of the condition issues.

2) Actually redistribute the damage from the old sword auto to the rest of the sword skills. Rebuff Unrelenting Assault with each strike hitting for 8-10% more damage. You took out far too much damage from Unrelenting Asssault. The overall change to the skill made it do 25% less damage, as another poster found out. If you want to be true to your word and actually redistrbute power to the other skills, bump up each strike by 8-10% more damage. That way, it retains its strength while having a slight reduction in the evade frames.

3) Undo that bandaid “fix” for Coalescence of Ruin. Completely. Because every other class can sync their skills with a friend of same class. For the love of god, you pride yourself in coop-based gameplay. EVERY other profession can sync up their attacks to focus the same skill on a single target. Why not us? And by extension, why not Warriors?

4) Actually do something about Jalis and Ventari. Just look at the respective forums for some brilliant examples of how to change it. If I copy and pasted, my comment would be 2 pages long, so go and actually read the profession board. There’s alot of good stuff there.

5) Fix the bloody targeting priority for Precision Strike. If I’m standing next to any objects, the projectiles completely ignore the enemy I’m aiming at and goes right for that inanimate object.

There’s a ton more, but that’s all for now from me.

I like gliding, I do not like to notice area’s unpassable though, I can understand safeguarding JP’s and other things but still having big walls (like in some orr maps) tends to make the travelling less interesting, I also have become stuck quite a few times in maps by just landing oon top of sructures as they have no roof/ cover. to safeguard you from falling into walls/holes and the like,

I do not like the huge mesmer alacrity nerf ,from 66 to 33 was over the top, 50 would have been better, I play mostly PvE and I do not care too much for quickness and slow on stomps, but I do like the fact my defensive skills stay up the correct time in quickness area’s.

I also think making an invulnerability well, and then removing it’s invulnerability is a bit…. well…. unthoughtfull, finally there was a skjill which could turn ppl immune for a while… to everything except ticking DoT dmg. And it gets removed instantly cause people use it. You ha ve more skills providing invulenrability though those are all self skills. Endure pain or the virtue recharge elite. Why didn’t you just remove the capping possibility, If a mesmer casts it on a point in PvP you will lose control of the point if an enemy person stands on it due to " loss of contribution"? on all affected also through blur/distort and make blur/distort(f4) also lose contibution.

you can be invulnerable but not while fighting on a cap area. just deal with it with 2 dodges

2 other things not adressed would be:
buffing condition builds for thief and
condition ranged weapons for revenant

The Greyhawk.9107:

Vayne.8563:

The visual nerfs thing was a request feature by a whole lot of people. Some people don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure I saw more people complain about noise than I ever did about the visual nerfs.

The so called “visual noise reduction” did absolutely NOTHING to clean up boss and zerg fights. Not. A. Single. kittening. THING. Fireball gets turned into a pebble, but the impact particles, which is WHAT WAS CAUSING THE PROBLEM, has not been changed at all. And how much did Chaos Shield and the Ele Auras actually add to the problem? Be honest.
No, the Visual Nerf only diminished the quality of the game, rather than improve it. And as far as there not being enough people being against the nerf as opposed to for it? Bullkitten. There’s an eighteen page thread that’s been on the front page fairly consistently that speaks against your claim.

gotta say i agree with this the attack visuals were fine its the explosions and impacts that blind us in combat

the only thing this visual nerf achieved was give those using 1998 computers 1 fps extra performance

I don’t have a lot to say about the changes.

I want to know why the mesmer’s Feedback skill was changed to an aoe I have to place, instead of it just auto placing on my current target… was this something people were asking for? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just want to know. I really don’t like it. I know I can have it snap my aoe skills to my current target but that’s not the same and I don’t want all of my aoe skills to be like that anyway. I just really don’t like this change to Feedback, it bothers me a lot and I know that’s gotta sound stupid, but it does.

Teennine.3901:

I don’t have a lot to say about the changes.

I want to know why the mesmer’s Feedback skill was changed to an aoe I have to place, instead of it just auto placing on my current target… was this something people were asking for? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just want to know. I really don’t like it. I know I can have it snap my aoe skills to my current target but that’s not the same and I don’t want all of my aoe skills to be like that anyway. I just really don’t like this change to Feedback, it bothers me a lot and I know that’s gotta sound stupid, but it does.

you can still do that

on yoour settings enable snap cast to target also enjoy the free pwnage as all your aoes will auto land on yoour targets now just be sure to deselect target whenever you wanna use a supporting skill

Rezzet.3614:

Teennine.3901:

I don’t have a lot to say about the changes.

I want to know why the mesmer’s Feedback skill was changed to an aoe I have to place, instead of it just auto placing on my current target… was this something people were asking for? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just want to know. I really don’t like it. I know I can have it snap my aoe skills to my current target but that’s not the same and I don’t want all of my aoe skills to be like that anyway. I just really don’t like this change to Feedback, it bothers me a lot and I know that’s gotta sound stupid, but it does.

you can still do that

on yoour settings enable snap cast to target also enjoy the free pwnage as all your aoes will auto land on yoour targets now just be sure to deselect target whenever you wanna use a supporting skill

It still doesn’t place automatically though, it just sets the aoe on the target and then I have to click again to cast it I mean. When before, I just target an enemy → use skill → bam skill is placed right on target

So, now that the week has ended, will we get a quick summary of what was the impression from the forums that was gathered and presented to the management or this is just meant to die off and go to oblivion?

As satisfied as I am (and I am. I’ve yet to pinpoint any class that is unable to power, condi, or tank. i’m waiting for others to catch on- spvp post btw), I’m wondering if posting here will get me answer over posting in two different thread zones- this is the third.

Will you bug fix Thief? Impairing Daggers is STILL not a Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile despite it saying so in the tooltip, quickness seems to shorten pistol whips stun duration (whereas slow has no effect. oddities), and Scorpion Wire is far less reliable than Magnet Pull or Spear of the Dragonhunter Guy.

Will you do a check through Runes and Sigils? Paralyzation Sigil and Mesmer runes do not in fact work. My stuns and dazes do not changes at all. Impact is selective on what kind of stun it wants- it no longer works on Basilisk, which kills my burst but it has the stun icon. Why is perplexity not in the game? Why do Dolyak and Fire runes exist when Ele spams fire auras and regeneration beats Dolyak definitively?

Just things like that, I’d love an answer even if its just a “Oh we don’t care, deal with it”. I just want to know if these problems are even known. I’d also be really appreciative of Collaborative Development threads being used to check where each classes community believes it is and where it should be.

Anywho, here’s hoping right?

Sorry, turned out longer than I thought, summary points are at the bottom and reasoning is above

Precog
Well of Precognition: Many people seem upset with the change to this skill. However, when I look at the other skills in the game, it was obviously overpowered. The reason it is overpowered is because they did not take alacrity into consideration when they decided on its initial cool down. I believe many mesmers would be happy if you made the skill grant blur and increased the cool down to 60 seconds. Ya, I know what a lot of you guys are thinking. A 33.33% increase to the cool down may seem pretty harsh still. However, when you look at the skills of the other classes, like endure pain, this would bring it more in line if the mesmer had alacrity.

endure pain = 4 sec invulnerability/60 sec = .06666666 sec invul/sec
.0666666 =3/x —> x = 3/.0666666 --> x = 45 seconds
See, before any changes were made, endure pain and precog both gave the same amount of invulnerability per second, and they both did not prevent point capture. They were balanced equally. However, the devs perhaps did not take alacrity into full consideration.

With alacrity (currently at 25% reduced cool downs with perma alacrity) the cool down should be:
.0666666 = 3/(x-(.25x)) —> .06666 = 3/.75x --> .066666(.75x) = 3 —> .04999999x = 3 -->
x = 3/.04999999 = 60 sec

Technically, if the chrono had perma alacrity, the well granted invulnerability, and the well did not prevent point capture, the wells would be equal in terms of invul/sec. Personally, I think blur is needed instead of invulnerability since chronos can have a better tank build. Basically, lets try to keep the skill between classes somewhat equal.
p.s. I believe prevent point capture is still up for debate with this skill.

Alacrity:
I don’t understand very much why some think that alacrity should be 66% on the chrono and 33% on everyone else. I believe people think this mainly because there is a rumor going around that mesmer skills are balanced around alacrity (which I only think is partially true). In fact, I think the problem with chrono is more that they did not take alacrity fully into consideration with some skills. One of the big problems with the previous 66% alacrity is that it could reduce the cool down of echo of memory to only 18 seconds. With the nerf to alacrity this number was increased to 22.5 seconds. To be honest, a 22.5 second cool down is much more in line with the other skills. However, it guts the whole class in the process because the chrono relies on alacrity for everything. 66% alacrity was also too high for pve. However (I don’t know if this is just a rumor or not), I heard that when the devs announced it, they said that the 66% alacrity increased the dps of a raid group by 66% ??? This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Alacrity only acts on 5 people, not ten
Even if alacrity can be permanent in theory, it usually not because people move out of your wells.
66% alacrity permanently on translates to 40% reduced cool downs
40% cool downs does not mean a 40% increase in dps
Additionally, a chronomancer is nearly giving up nearly all its dps to give as much alacrity as possible and anything left is so small compared to other classes that it is essentially nonexistant. What also must be taken into consideration is that other classes can provide more dps while at the same time buffing allies.

Summary
Therefore, my suggestion would be to give alacrity a value of 50% instead of 66% or 33% and then change the cool downs of well of precognition and eco of memory respectively

1. Make alacrity reduce cool downs by .5 seconds per second, 50% —>33.33% with perma alacrity.
2. Increase the cool down of well of precognition from 45 seconds to roughly 68 seconds (based on compensating for alacrity using the above equations). Make the well pulse blur. Allow point capture. All of these changes bring it it line with endure pain when taking alacrity into consideration.

3. Increase the cool down of eco of memory so that it gives a 25 second cool down with perma alacrity. This would make it so chronos would have the same amount of protection with the shield per second of cool down as the revenants Crystal Hibernation and Warriors shield stance.

25 sec = x-.333333x, 25 = .66666x, x = 25/.666666 = 37.5 second cool down. Lets just round it up to a 38 second cool down.

eh, now that I look at it, might as well buff warrior shield while your at it to. I don’t understand why Crystal Hibernation is just a better version of shield stance. Add an extra effect, the shield seems outdated.

I have been using warrior’s rifle ever since launch, I just love it. Especially when combined with piercing from Crack Shot trait. If I could, I would use only rifle, no secondary.

So, yeah, Crack Shot. It allowed me to attack more than one enemy and it was awesome. It requied me to position myself properly for the full effect instead of mindlessly spamming the skill numbers.

The rifle without all skills piercing is just not enough for my style of gameplay.

PLease, bring the piercing back. Or at least tell me what are your future intentions with warrior’s rifle because for me it feels like the rifle lost more than it gained. Surely there is more for it in the future.

I’d love to know what your report says about the WvW forums and our thoughts!!!

SO first thing first, when will you ditch the Deserted BLs and give us back the Alpine ones, whilst you develop maps we really want and asked for?

HoT raid is a pile of trash.

It needs mechanics over metaplay or people will discriminate by class and gear.

By mechanics over meta play I mean – You should not need class roles of tank, healer, dps – No other dungeon or world boss is like this.. Guild wars 2 has never needed gear checks. Those are WoW mechanics.

The raid should have traditional feel to Guild Wars 2 where the group performs actions to complete the task.

I don’t mean like a Zhaitan press 2 to win fight either.

It should be like dungeons or world bosses where there are interesting mechanics to perform to win and not discriminatory to class or gear.

Glenstorm.4059:

Vayne.8563:

Redenaz.8631:

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

So a single thread. As compared with dozens of threads and random posts with screen shots, over the years since launch saying that that skill noise is a problem.

Did 100 disparate people in that thread actually complain (I don’t think so). Even if 100 people did actually complain (because 850 posts isn’t 850 people and some people posted that like the changes), then 100 people out of the million more or less playing makes this not a hot button topic.

You need a lot more people to show some sort of consensus. The old trait system, upwards of 90% of the people who posted in that thread disliked it immensely. That was an issue that Anet really did need to fix and it took a long time for that to happen.

The nerf to visuals is an improvment for some people. I don’t know one way or another about the slider, but if it’s not doable, or no doable in a time frame that makes sense, Anet should say so.

That’s one thread, yes, but made up of many merged threads. A cursory glance shows that while there are multiple posts by a few people, there are many more individual posts expressing dislike of those changes.

I don’t disagree that skill noise was, and is still a problem, and that more people have probably complained about it than about the visual nerfs. The point is that they nerfed the wrong effects. Fireball, Auras, Overload Air weren’t as problematic as on-hit visual effects that scale with the mob, which were untouched. Moreover, the changes to Auras arguably made them harder to differentiate in combat. Also, they disproportionately targeted Elementalists, when other classes’ effects are just as bad, if not worse (Mesmer Wells, Necro AoEs, Guardian flames.) This is also why I think even more people aren’t riled up…because their professions weren’t targeted, yet. They also forced this onto everybody, like it or not. If they didn’t have the tech to implement sliders or something similar, then they should have waited until such tech was ready to be rolled out. It’s not like the nerfs have actually improved combat visibility.

Another, anecdotal reason for why I’m annoyed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the one thing that persuaded me to buy HoT was how amazing the animations for Tempest looked. I truly enjoyed running around casting those skills. To have them stripped away without warning is a bit galling. All it has done is made me wary about buying anything from them again.

I’d be wary of buying any MMO ever then. You’re better off with single player games, because the MMO rule is change not the exception.

Buying a game because how a skill looks seems a bit odd to me. Different strokes for different folks, maybe, but I can’t see that, for most people as the reason they buy an expansion for $50.

Pointy.9308:

The rifle without all skills piercing is just not enough for my style of gameplay.

PLease, bring the piercing back.

What are you talking about? Warrior’s rifle skills pierce by default now, there is no need for Crack Shot.

Elementalist condi removal sustain and defense still too strong.
Many Guardian traits/skills still need a good look at and rework because they just aren’t functional.

I can tell just by looking at the patch notes that Scrappers are still to tanky.

Nice that quickness and slow no longer affect revival and stomp but that was an issue with the downed system being disbalanced in the first place, not with the boon and the condi.

New Shatter fights great, Not hard but very interactive and its easy to get killed so even if you don’t have to worry about the event failing you do have to worry about you personally dieing and I think that’s great.

I like how gliding was put in. Hopefully in future expansions there will be other things put into the main world as well

Thank you for letting support finally count towards event completion. I remember raising a stink about that back during the attack on LA event when I healed dolyaks to no end and didn’t get credit. Glad that’s changed

Ele too strong? Are you serious?

Silhouette.5631:

Elementalist condi removal sustain and defense still too strong.
Many Guardian traits/skills still need a good look at and rework because they just aren’t functional.

I can tell just by looking at the patch notes that Scrappers are still to tanky.

Nice that quickness and slow no longer affect revival and stomp but that was an issue with the downed system being disbalanced in the first place, not with the boon and the condi.

New Shatter fights great, Not hard but very interactive and its easy to get killed so even if you don’t have to worry about the event failing you do have to worry about you personally dieing and I think that’s great.

I like how gliding was put in. Hopefully in future expansions there will be other things put into the main world as well

Thank you for letting support finally count towards event completion. I remember raising a stink about that back during the attack on LA event when I healed dolyaks to no end and didn’t get credit. Glad that’s changed

+1
Spirit weapon rework please.
Bow of Truth is the worst skill in the game.

Theoretically, what if there were almost no boons or conditions available to the professions?

I feel like there is so much going on with status bars filled with flickering boons and conditions that it becomes valueless noise. A boon or condition should mean something significant, cost a lot to apply and remove, and never be easily ignored.

I appreciate the corruptions added to Necromancer as a method of boon spam control, though. Auto generation and sharing of multiple boons at low cost seems like it devalues the boon idea while the same is true of conditions.

I know feedback doesnt matter in the end and this thread is just pure rp but i can always repost what i wrote there (and in few days i will release much needed changes to rev traits/skills in rev section), it may be not nice, a bit rude or w/e but you wont find better feedback in these this/reddit forum about revenant. So here it is;

So now after taking a break from the game lets take a closer look at the “balance” patch and what it actually did to revenant. A “quick” review at the changes affecting rev directly and indirectly;

• Finish Them” Finishers: The stomping effect will no longer be time-scaled through effects like quickness and slow.
• Reviving: Reviving characters will no longer be affected by time-scaled effects like quickness and slow.
• Preparation Thrust: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 11%.
• Brutal Blade: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%.
• Rift Slash: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 10%.
• Unrelenting Assault: The number of attacks this skill makes has been reduced from 7 to 5. The damage of each strike has been increased by 10%. The strikes from this skill are no longer affected by animation time-scale, as quickness provided no benefit and slow would cause the attack to never hit.
• Precision Strike: This skill has been reworked and will now always fire three projectiles at up to three targets. If fewer than three targets are available, the remainder of the projectiles will be launched at the available targets. The chill duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
• Coalescence of Ruin: The recharge of this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds. Enemies are now able to be struck by this ability only once every 0.5 seconds.
• Unwavering Avoidance: This trait now has a 5-second internal cooldown.
• Crystal Hibernation: The base healing per level from this skill has been reduced by 36%. This affects Soothing Bastion as well.
• Facet of Light: Activating this facet is no longer instant and now has a casting time of 0.25 seconds.

Now what these changes mean? Lets take a closer look;

• Downed state

Not many people care or even think about this but our downstate got nerfed pretty hard. Our 1 doesnt hit hard, 2 is a single knockback, 3 does.. some more damage than 1 and doesnt help us survive at all. Downed state was balanced with slow in mind and by changes to slow/quickness it lost a lot of it value. It is probably the worst downed state atm.

• Impossible Odds

There are many things that affect this ability indirectly. First is obviously qucikness stomping as its no more possible. Second is quickness rezzing also not possible anymore. Third and main offender is nerf to sword autoattack that makes this ability much weaker as quickness is no longer that huge dps boost it used to be.

• Enchanted Daggers

Its not something i consider a healing skill, it something i consider as huge failure in desing. It feels more like a dps move that can be reflected rather than healing skill. By nerf to UA this ability also got nerfed futher as it lost completely it synergy ith said skill.

• Assassin Annihilator

Also due to lowered UA frame time this skill depending on the posiiton has a chance to proc only one per UA instead of 2 it used to do.

• Sword

The intention of sword to change it into “singling out enemies” is just a joke honestly. Precision strike and Unrelenting Assault works against this concept. Its just so wrong on many levels. But lets stop complain and take deeper look;

While i understand the intention to nerf auto and move damage somewhere as auto was “dealing too much damage” i dont understand why at same time thief autoattack was buffed to deal even more. From logical point it makes absolutely no sense and only show favorism over classes. Both revenant and thief uses resource system. Thief autoattack was buffed so that they can use initiation in defensive manner, but what about revenant? We also need energy to use our defensive abilities and not end up like a sitting duck. With a nerf like that basically forcing us to change playstyle energy needed to use skills should also be lowered as compensation.

Precision strike is a complete joke. A utility skill that is being forced into a dps role for no reason. Not only it scales terrible to do next to 0 damage when someone else show up, it also has to be used in target hitbox due to the amount of bugs it has and how slow projectiles are. This skill was never designed to be a dps move and should have been reworked to melee single target skill to work as intended in “singling out enemies”. Precision strike is not prepared to be our dps move in current state.

Unrelenting Assault nerf is uncalled for and it actually affect 2 mentioned things earlier. While i do understand why it was maker easier to dodge in 1v1 (despite the game claiming to balance around 5v5 not 1v1 but w/e) i am not getting why it was also nerfed damage wise given how easy it has become to avoid it completely. A daredevil or engi can block it every single time in current state due to reworked bandid defense and reduced cd on gear shield. Vs minion necros, rangers, mesmer or gyro scrappers this skill is also completely worthless

• Coalescence of Ruin

Now that one is really funny! Hammer as whole was already useless in spvp due to how terrible it is, in pve it was used to tag mobs and the place where it causes any issues was wvw due to it nature. Thing is its already unreliable skill that tend to bug out a lot and miss even on flat terrain. Certain aoe fields also block this skill by preventing it spread futher as field is kittened kitten man cap. Now also another revenant can nullify my damage bc i used the skill at the same time as him. Are you insane?!

Let me get it straight – instead of reworking skill to either make it a normal reflectable projectile (which also fix the problem with double hit) or ground projectile like tremor which is similiar in concept, also reflectable and doesnt bug due to uneven terrain developers just decided to overnerf the only skill hammer has in the most possible lazy way without compensation whatsoever /facepalm. We ended up that has 4 cd, cost energy, is unreliable, has range penalty (unlike true shot) and also deals lower damage at max range than trueshot? I dont even… like nope. Please delete this weapon and gve me an ranged option for revenant already, for me hammer is dead and revenant was released without ranged weapon.

• Unwavering Avoidance:

Hey man, gm trait in herald line causes rev to have nearly perma stability by dodging, what we will do? Tomorror we will rule the world nerf a trait that doesnt need a nerf, gut core rev some more while at same time force people into herald like never before. Hey mind, youre a mastermind!!! – Pinky

Am i supposed to add anything else here? Maybe i could throw something about logic but meh.. if you nerf such minor trait that causes no issues on it own and even agrees on it nerf then you wont understand at all the issue with that.

• Crystal Hibernation

Back in the beta weeks some people asked to make it a mobile skill but it was explained shorty – if we make it mobile then the healing will have to be drastically reduced. So the skill got nerfed one time already by increasing it cd, and this skill is butchered. Selfroot ability, 3sec channel, 2,5k healing. 0 compensation, nothing at all.

Who in the right mind will pick that up over terrible sword offhand? Was it supposed to force revenants into using sword offhand so the metrics will show “look how sword offhand improved, yeah i know it was always viable but shield was just too strong” kind of thing? There is no reason to pick up a shield, just like hammer it was deleted from revenant kitten nal.

As for the trait, it cd should have been raised up to 40sec long time ago.

• Facet of Light

Im not sure why it was nerfed for second time and what troubles it caused really. It was our only option to survive a focus. We do not have any other options to prevent damage from killing us. 0 condi cleanse, 0 invuls. Lets also not forget that this ability was predicable actually and i dont remember anyone complaining about it for a long time. With the nerf it duration should be reverted back to 4 seconds really.

__
I am personally tired of the “balance” in this game and the prices i have to pay up for the unnecesary weapon swap added due to crying back in the beta weekends. I hope developers will reconsider to remove our weapon swap and revert all the unnecesary nerfs that keep happening. Revenant is in a tight spot in balance as due to weapon swap we can chain more blocks than we intended to be. It most likely also prevent buffing our utility skills to be really stronger than they are now (lookng at rite becoming 100% reduction for rev). Also you should balance elite specs around core classes, not the other way around otherwise in future with more elite specs you will end up having a serious impossible to balance out huge mess. Something to keep in mind.

Vayne.8563:

Glenstorm.4059:

Vayne.8563:

Redenaz.8631:

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

So a single thread. As compared with dozens of threads and random posts with screen shots, over the years since launch saying that that skill noise is a problem.

Did 100 disparate people in that thread actually complain (I don’t think so). Even if 100 people did actually complain (because 850 posts isn’t 850 people and some people posted that like the changes), then 100 people out of the million more or less playing makes this not a hot button topic.

You need a lot more people to show some sort of consensus. The old trait system, upwards of 90% of the people who posted in that thread disliked it immensely. That was an issue that Anet really did need to fix and it took a long time for that to happen.

The nerf to visuals is an improvment for some people. I don’t know one way or another about the slider, but if it’s not doable, or no doable in a time frame that makes sense, Anet should say so.

That’s one thread, yes, but made up of many merged threads. A cursory glance shows that while there are multiple posts by a few people, there are many more individual posts expressing dislike of those changes.

I don’t disagree that skill noise was, and is still a problem, and that more people have probably complained about it than about the visual nerfs. The point is that they nerfed the wrong effects. Fireball, Auras, Overload Air weren’t as problematic as on-hit visual effects that scale with the mob, which were untouched. Moreover, the changes to Auras arguably made them harder to differentiate in combat. Also, they disproportionately targeted Elementalists, when other classes’ effects are just as bad, if not worse (Mesmer Wells, Necro AoEs, Guardian flames.) This is also why I think even more people aren’t riled up…because their professions weren’t targeted, yet. They also forced this onto everybody, like it or not. If they didn’t have the tech to implement sliders or something similar, then they should have waited until such tech was ready to be rolled out. It’s not like the nerfs have actually improved combat visibility.

Another, anecdotal reason for why I’m annoyed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the one thing that persuaded me to buy HoT was how amazing the animations for Tempest looked. I truly enjoyed running around casting those skills. To have them stripped away without warning is a bit galling. All it has done is made me wary about buying anything from them again.

I’d be wary of buying any MMO ever then. You’re better off with single player games, because the MMO rule is change not the exception.

Buying a game because how a skill looks seems a bit odd to me. Different strokes for different folks, maybe, but I can’t see that, for most people as the reason they buy an expansion for $50.

That’s why I said it was an anecdote; it was just to add further detail to why I personally am not in favor of those changes. My main point is that the (discriminate, forced) nerfs did very little, if anything, to solve the problem of combat visibility. I’d have been somewhat okay with them if they’d actually helped solve the problem, but I don’t see how one could argue with a straight face that they have.

Regardless, I’m going to stop veering this thread off-topic by further discussing the visual nerfs here.

I love the new Shatterer fight, much more to do and much more opportunity to make it harder for yourselves in trying to get the achievements, while still making it easy enough for on levels to do. I feel like the Alacrity Nerf was needed but a bit much, though otherwise have nothing constructive to add other than to thank you for posting this thread, thank you for reading our feedback, and thank you for the work that you have done and continue to do for the game we all play and love!

feedback:

pros
love the arena achievement changes, shatterer ones are very reasonable

love the gliding, look forward to the possibilities going forward

cons
it’s been since october since anything was released that was new content, and that content was very rushed even so.So much so that many question if just continuing Living Story wouldn’t have been better, and we wouldn’t have had to wait a year for an expansion/pay for an expansion that left a lot lacking.

still no point on staying on losing side in dragon arena

volunteering dragon arena still gives no win credit, despite this issue being well-reported on during wintersday

Khisanth.2948:

Kerithlan.1659:

Irukandji.4521:

Some buddies and I were doing jump puzzles in Tyria and I was frustrated because my glider kept popping out if I held the spacebar for too long and it made me miss some tight jumps. I would appreciate if the glider was changed to double-tapping the glide key and not just holding it down, since some jumps the game requires you to make are sensitive to how long you hold down the spacebar.

Gliding is activated by tapping not holding space. You hit space a second time to release it and stop gliding.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glider_Basics

“To glide, jump from a high place, and then press the jump key again while falling.”
— In game description

Currently both work. Holding is a bit better for things like deploying at maximum height from a launch pad.

On the other hand jumping cares about the movement keys rather than how long space is held.

Well yeah they both work, in exactly the same way that holding down the V key to dodge works when really you just need to tap it. Holding V longer doesn’t make you dodge longer, it just registers it as one long key stroke inputting one command.

People holding down the space bar to glide are doing themselves a disservice as the amount of pressure applied to the bar (due to the sheer size of it) fluctuates as you tap other keys and your hand moves around.

A space bar still has one input like other buttons, it’s just that the button is supported by a long single or double bar to distribute the pressure from, say, the side of the button towards the middle, where the actual input lies.

If you hold down the space bar off center to the left with your thumb while controlling with WASD, you will invariably change the pressure on the bar, and as the lever is so long, that will occasionally cause a second input to occur as pressure is lost and regained.

I mean you’re not wrong, but you’re not helping. Holding it down to “help” at maximum launch pad height only helps because you’re able to fudge the timing window the game requires. That’s a bandage on the server/client latency issue, not an actual feature of the game.

Rezzet.3614:

The Greyhawk.9107:

Vayne.8563:

The visual nerfs thing was a request feature by a whole lot of people. Some people don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure I saw more people complain about noise than I ever did about the visual nerfs.

The so called “visual noise reduction” did absolutely NOTHING to clean up boss and zerg fights. Not. A. Single. kittening. THING. Fireball gets turned into a pebble, but the impact particles, which is WHAT WAS CAUSING THE PROBLEM, has not been changed at all. And how much did Chaos Shield and the Ele Auras actually add to the problem? Be honest.
No, the Visual Nerf only diminished the quality of the game, rather than improve it. And as far as there not being enough people being against the nerf as opposed to for it? Bullkitten. There’s an eighteen page thread that’s been on the front page fairly consistently that speaks against your claim.

gotta say i agree with this the attack visuals were fine its the explosions and impacts that blind us in combat

the only thing this visual nerf achieved was give those using 1998 computers 1 fps extra performance

I agree with everything quoted. It’s really shameful this is being avoided the way it is.

sirsquishy.8531:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I understand your thoughts, and perhaps we will be able to do that for some topics in the future; I agree it would be great! But what’s important to note is that we all — as forum members — have a certain level of visibility into our how feedback is handled simply by our participation here on the forums and our involvement in the game.

Here’s what I mean: I’ve seen the request for “gliding in central Tyria” hundreds of times on the forums. I’ve heard it in the game a hundred times, too! So when I see it come to the game, as a player and a forum member I know that ArenaNet listened to player/forum member feedback. I don’t need someone to come and tell me that, I can actually see it in the update notes and in the game.

So while I’m not discounting — believe me, I would be absolutely the last person to discount the potential or the value of further communication; trust me on that! — I like to think of an old expression that my granny said, “The proof is in the pudding.” In this case, take that odd expression to mean that we, as players and forum members, can see through actual game development that the feedback that we give is being read, reviewed, analyzed, and often implemented!

Again I do love communication, and I positively adore when devs post, or when they ask me to post on their or their team’s behalf. But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes. And because of that, I like the idea of productive threads like this, which you should know will be shared with every single member of the ArenaNet team as highly-suggested reading.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. It’s just a personal opinion, but I like to think it has a certain logic.

Gaile – The biggest point you missed here (and really made yourself) is there is no feedback from Anet back to the players UNTIL the updates have been pushed to the game or are road mapped via the ‘release preview’ blogs you guys do.

This subject is more or less restricted to gameplay and class balance, but it carries substantial weight. There are absolutely aspects of HoT that are/were relevant here (hero point costs on elite specs, the mastery system, hero point bosses/encounters, etc.), but new shinies are supposed to be just that, and revealing too much without a surprise will cause new content to lose its luster quite quickly; a test server potentially hurts game marketability and success of new content for this reason.

This is really where most of the harshness and frustration seems to be coming from, and frankly, it doesn’t quite seem economical from a business perspective to follow the mentality of withholding information until shipment of changes or immediately prior to it. The content is already there and really only discussion of making the game play better is going to make that older content enjoyable into the future and the game better overall.

Simply, there are a lot of ideas and design philosophies out there, not only between players, but within the ANet dev staff. Obviously, only one set of changes is allowed to go through, so the change made need to be pretty much spot-on. Metric data can only go so far, and in-house QA doesn’t encompass everything, either. Balance adjustments require a lot of analysis work and reworks take a lot of development effort across multiple teams or individuals which could be spent on other projects. That said, the current strategy employed is proving ineffective, as in many instances, new mechanics, features, and balance tweaks, often need to be re-visted several times after release. This wastes a lot of development time and resources, and like in any software engineering project, documentation and working with the client’s specs is critical for success and not wasting huge amounts of time and money.

Outsourcing the analysis, or even part of the analysis through two-way discussion can rapidly cut down on development resources expended. The ranger CDI was wildly successful in making the class perform better at what it needed to do by fixing an array of essential issues with the class at the time, and even now, some of those issues are beginning to return with the elite specializations. Obviously we can’t expect dev involvement on that level on a day-to-day basis, as that would be insane, but the interaction of simply getting into designers’/developers’ heads can be massive in shaping suggestions or getting big-names in mathematics and game analysis on board to facilitate the process. Players being able to support or refute a new idea before any implementation work could allow parallel development of other areas of the game while things get figured out if there’s huge uncertainty, or get the kinks nailed out once a good idea is decided upon. It’s silly to design new changes in private, release them, redact them, change them again, release those, redact them again due to another thing, and then new feature X comes out which completely turns the tables on the whole notion of balance or the approach to the competitive modes, requiring now finishing work in the first concern and adjusting the second, whereas in the process of conceptualizing the second idea, resources could have been moved elsewhere if the community reaction to the concept was negative or very different than expected.

Developers and designers are likely always going to be behind the curve of people with profound ideas or the state of the game to balance. Profession adjustment to a stale meta may not be able to change until a year later due to scheduling/resource allocation and just sheer design and implementation time needed. It’s important to make sure on some level the efforts are relevant throughout the process, though, and that such ideas and implementation isn’t wasted due to something else changing.

I don’t see any dev posting here, especialy about much concerns in profession balance.
Ofc they still don’t going to say even one word in theirs sub-forums.

That topic is a trap. Stence that you’re communicaiting just makes awkward atmosphere.

Any game mode and game as whole won’t survive if professions won’t get constant support. Waiting 3 months for next balance patch will destroy rest of sanity within us.

johnnyg.3186:

Dear Development and Balance teams,

I only main a Mesmer and mostly play World vs World, I feel the very heavy negative adjustments dealt our class have rendered the Mesmer class in the World vs World game type all but redundant.

I feel I will be spending significantly less time in game, as a result I won’t spend any more money in game.

For your consideration.

Johnny and Veles.

Same here. I’ve been tempted to log in this week to enjoy the new Shatterer and gliding in central Tyria, but can’t bring myself to see my main character gutted so severely.

I’ve put a lot of work into my Mesmer, and as of now, the following accomplishments feel like an absolute waste of time:

Full Ascended Armor/Weapons/Trinkets
150 AR
160 bag slots
500 Weaponsmithing and Tailoring
Full HoT and Core completion
The Flameseeker Prophecies (I knew deep down this was a bad idea since Mesmer has been Anet’s whipping boy from day one, but somehow thought their attitude changed thanks to Chronomancer – fool me once and such.)
Also plenty of real money spent on makeover kits, various skins and outfits, dyes, and other assorted items.

Unless the profession sees real positive changes I feel no reason to continue this game.

First of, let my start by describing the “perfect specialization scenario” from my point of view:
Everytime you pick a trait you are left pondering if you should have chosen another in its place because they are all good picks.
I think it should be a goal to make all traits worth picking but that’s not the case at the moment.

In regard of the engineer changes let me say that the Power Wrench buff was right in place and the same goes for the scrapper changes. However, I feel disappointed about the rest of the Tool Specialization changes as they are not really a big deal. Thermobaric Detonation from the Explosives Specialization was also left out for some reason which is beyond my comprehension.

Thermobaric Detonation is laughable, the 10 seconds cooldown makes this, supposedly grandmaster worthy trait, completely useless. Let’s compare it to thief’s Bounding Dodger just to illustrate how ridiculously bad this skill. Damage numbers taken from http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Evasive Powder Keg traited with Thermobaric Detonation and Explosive Powder
- 449 base damage (the 35% bonus included)
- 10 Seconds Cooldown
- Blastfinisher
- 5 Targets 240 range
- 1 Stack of Vulnerability

Bounding Dodger
- 465 base damage
- No Cooldown
- Blastfinisher
- 5 Targets 180 range
- 10% Damage Increase for 4 seconds

I think Evasive Powder Keg is fine as an Adept Minor BUT when looking at this comparison i think it’s obvious that combined with Thermobaric Detonation it is too weak.
I don’t mind an elite grandmaster being stronger but at least make the trait a viable pick, as of now i see it as a pure filler trait which purpose is ranging from minimal to none.
By reducing the internal cooldown of Thermobaric Detonation to 1 or 2 seconds i think it would be good enough to pick as a grandmaster without outshining Bounding Dodger which should be the stronger trait.

I will still never use Takedown Round as the additional damage is minor when it’s blocked by a 10 second cooldown which is way too long for a skill like that to make any impact. Reduce the cooldown to 5 seconds i would consider it.

Adrenal Implant doesn’t feel very “Grandmastery” as it’s the same as constant vigor without the pros and cons coming with a boon. Sure it stacks with vigor but i don’t think a grandmaster is worth rolling around all the time with no additional effect. I was hoping something additional would be added to this trait. Since you didn’t come up with anything I suggest some reward for staying at full endurance which could be:

- Swiftness, 5 seconds at a 5 second interval when at full endurance (which would be a great life quality improvement compared to the current equip/unequip kit every 20 seconds to have constant swiftness from streamlined kits. This would also compliment Takedown Rounds if Streamlined kits were not a must have to get the swiftness).

- Condition removal at a set interval when at full endurance (1 every 10 second like the other classes).

I hope you will take this into consideration for upcoming balance changes.

Rash.6514:

Pointy.9308:

The rifle without all skills piercing is just not enough for my style of gameplay.

PLease, bring the piercing back.

What are you talking about? Warrior’s rifle skills pierce by default now, there is no need for Crack Shot.

Just Volley and Kill Shot pierces by default now. That is what I am talking about.

Vayne.8563:

I’d be wary of buying any MMO ever then. You’re better off with single player games, because the MMO rule is change not the exception.

Buying a game because how a skill looks seems a bit odd to me. Different strokes for different folks, maybe, but I can’t see that, for most people as the reason they buy an expansion for $50.

How is this helpful at all? Play the game if you like it and quit stomping on people that have issues. You will only drive them away from GW2.

How about you go play a different game if you don’t want GW2 to appeal to the people that are posting here (since they also paid for it.)

Hey. Hmm, from a perspective of a spvp player, the balance changes to skills were great along with the much needed amulet replacement update. Very satisfied with the depth you are bringing to the Engineer class by the way.

From the perspective of a pve player, the update on gliding and shaterer was good.

From the perspective of a wvw player (to where i would “take my glory to” from pve and spvp) it was a positive step forward…but the game mode is dead…
Actually went to pve to get that new Trailblazer stat set for wvw…but there is no wvw. Soooo…yeah.

In conclusion: Currently demoralized

I love the updated “Search and Rescue” for Ranger. It’s actually useful now! I can res people without my pet getting lost, or putting myself in the path of danger. Combined with Druid abilities and having healing count towards participation, I’m happy with the update

I’d really like to see Festival rewards implemented that just reward the players. The money from selling the gambling envelopes doesn’t feel like a reward in the classic sense. I’d like to see “Win 5 matches and get a tier 1 backpiece”, “10 wins, Tier 2” and so on and so forth. The way it’s set up now makes it feel like the festivals are more in service of your own economy than they are for players enjoyment.

The Festivals need to return to having more to do as well. The absence of Liadri and the Pavilion are a bummer or something new. Halloween was great, and had some cool rewards, but again it mostly felt like a gold sink in service of your own economy. I feel like this type of reward system would never have happened in GW1 where your real world economy wasn’t tied to the game’s. Food for thought for future titles.

Awesomeness!
Gliding in Tyria
New Shatterer
Squad UI improvements ~ especialy LT feature
World Boss Decorations
Show all usable object option

Could use some awesomeness
Commander LFG ability
Balance killing favorite builds

Can’t wait for
Scribe rework
Living World Season 3
5 more Shared inventory slots (10 Total)

I like many of the changes, although I have yet to experience all of them.

One thing that needs addressing: the release notes say that you now get credit in events for “reviving” allies. Are you using “revive” generally, or specifically as separate from rallying allies?

There are also two major problems that I see in the game that aren’t addressed:

• XP for HoT masteries could be extended at least into the Silverwastes.
• Need a lobby in Verdant Brink for raiders. Right now, it skews the player counts for nearby events.