Guild Wars 2

Uh what is and is not an exploit/glitch is quite well defined. What you just described isn’t just ‘smart use of game mechanics’ but the acutal intended mechanic for the fight.

Bubi.7942:

And it’s great that You or Your team/guild don’t use them, and that in your personal experience, rarely encountered them. I have different experiences however. I have redone Arah recently (like 4 months ago) with PuGs, because I have totally forgot about them (I did them 2 years before that). Done all 4 paths once. All 4 times, someone glitched Lupi in above described manner. One time we even skipped half of the dungeon by jumping out of map somewhere.

Unlucky? Maybe, but I have my doubts.

Exactly, I optimize my game experience by playing with people I know or have fun with, aka guildies.

My expectations are a tad lower when playing with pugs and I try to be more relaxed. I’d assume the best fix to said bugs is to fix them, instead of arbitratily blaming gear.

Also your sample size is terrible. All 4 paths AND not having played the game in along time. I’d never make assumptions on that basis, or at least very careful ones.

no

Cyninja.2954:

Bubi.7942:

And it’s great that You or Your team/guild don’t use them, and that in your personal experience, rarely encountered them. I have different experiences however. I have redone Arah recently (like 4 months ago) with PuGs, because I have totally forgot about them (I did them 2 years before that). Done all 4 paths once. All 4 times, someone glitched Lupi in above described manner. One time we even skipped half of the dungeon by jumping out of map somewhere.

Unlucky? Maybe, but I have my doubts.

Exactly, I optimize my game experience by playing with people I know or have fun with, aka guildies.

My expectations are a tad lower when playing with pugs and I try to be more relaxed. I’d assume the best fix to said bugs is to fix them, instead of arbitratily blaming gear.

Also your sample size is terrible. All 4 paths AND not having played the game in along time. I’d never make assumptions on that basis, or at least very careful ones.

I see you fail to get my point. My sample size is exactly as terrible as yours, that was the intention. It is personal experience, that is why I bothered to write it down in the first place.

Also, I do not recall saying one word about gear (at least not in this thread), that is a different issue.

Edit:
@petyr:
I have yet to see the one true definiton of exploiting in gaming.

What I have described, is the game mechanic, yes. The exploiting part comes from our brave adventurers stacking up before the fight in a corner luring friendly NPC on top of themselves, then because of the dumb AI boss walks up and kills himself whitout ever being a threat to players.

I mean, if it’s intented to stay in the bubble all the time, why even have it? Why even have the boss area? I mean that big, plain arena surely wasn’t set up for a boss fight, no, it was that one square centimeter behind the corner, where you cant even see anything cause of your camera.

Further Edit:
Remember Mortal Kombat (the original)? I used to have it on SNES. If you got one of your opponents in the corner, and performed an uppercut, you could keep mashing low/highpunch and your opponent would always bounce up, never fall down and recover.

That thing has been in the game since release (since you know, cartridges were harder to update). It was clearly something not intended, an exploit. But no one gave a kitten and everyone used, and BAM, instant feature.

Going to weigh in as someone who isn’t a veteran of this game but has been around the MMORPG scene for many years now.

There is always a meta in every game. The developers can discourage it by attempting to equalize and often, sadly enough, homogenize gear, stats, traits, abilities or encounters. There will still be an optimal choice and the best case scenario is that the difference between optimal and non-optimal setup is less than five percent. Which, as I mentioned, is most often achieved through homogenization.

I’d rather have a meta that I can opt out of (the game itself does not restrict me from any content based on my gear) than balance achieved by forcefully evening out the playing field and in the process botching diversity.

I was riding the metro today and as everyone was leaving work I noticed that the meta was for most people standing on the escalators stood to the right and people who wanted to move quicker walked on the left. The are always individuals who believe it is thier right to stand on the left. Maybe they want diversity? But forcing others to put up with it seems pretty selfish. They could probably find another escalator, or perhaps the stairs?

Don’t play dungeons in PUGs .. problem solved.

All this zerker-meta complaints are really getting old. Its like you go each day in
a Hells Angels bar and complain that you don’t like bikers.

The real problem isnt the meta or exploits. The real problem is that it became a single player game. When the game came out everyone helped everyone, everyone was nice to each other, resurected one and another, if one saw someone struggle with, say, a skillpoint and passed by, there was always someone coming to help. but since the sales of the game (this is where i noticed it got worse and worse) nobody helps anyone anymore, lots of swearing in chat, ignoring other players, telling others they are “noobs and such” and just general toxic behaviour.

This on its turn has the effect on me that i am really thinking to stop help others as well and just do my thing on my own without bothering jumping in to help people that struggle a bit with their gameplay. Yet I still keep jumping in helping out with what ever, just because i like doing that. then i get answers like “i was doing fine” or " i didnt need your help".

It makes me sad to see this game gliding of into oblivion.

Bubi.7942:

I see you fail to get my point. My sample size is exactly as terrible as yours, that was the intention. It is personal experience, that is why I bothered to write it down in the first place.

Also, I do not recall saying one word about gear (at least not in this thread), that is a different issue.

True, but I wasn’t the one inducing that a lot of players are unknowingly exploiting and/or cheating.

I don’t have to prove that everyone else is playing legitimately. All I need to do to make your point invalid is point out that your basis for your assumption is flawed and that you have not provided ample evidence to support it.

Maybe I’m right, maybe you are, but I’m not the one making a claim here.

GreyWraith.8394:

Why blame zerk meta and lack of trinity? Bad dungeon design is bad.

I’m leaning towards this thought as of recently. Sometimes I get a bitter feeling that dungeon team didn’t work whatsoever with combat team, but that would be a major internal testing flaw! They need to be tightly integrated. If the dungeon was designed to offer proper difficulty, people would bring zerker all they want, they WOULDN’T succeed if they didn’t play the mechanics correctly. Simple like that. Wipe all night long until playing as intended.

There MUST be options when facing challenges, but if you faceroll them all with zerker, then I have to agree with you. Bad dungeon design.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If it was never perceived as a problem, then you wouldn’t have brought it up as a problem in the design of GW1. What you are describing is, in essence, that the players of GW1 gave up on having a fulfilling class system and had to dance around in the community in order to have fun. Maybe GW1 followed the same path that GW2 is headed down, where everyone who had the dreams of a balanced class system up and left the game for different ventures. This hardly sounds like an ideal system at all. Hell, this doesn’t even sound like a good system.

While it’s a “silly Internet thing” to be super nitpicky like this is, it was kind’ve the entire point: I never brought it up as a problem because it was never a problem, nor did I ever say it was a problem. It, however, was the easiest example of something extremely close to what is being discussed.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I have been out of the forums for awhile, so I may have to defer to your judgement on this, but has the beserker debate really declined so far that people aren’t arguing for diversity anymore? Because I can’t see how the idea of the game enforcing diversity in builds is somehow going to destroy someone’s fun, unless that other person’s fun is based solely on monopolizing gameplay and being intolerant of others. It all sounds selfish and hypocritical to me.

Though I have to disagree: The other roles are not fine. The problem with berserkers isn’t what the community wants. The problem with berserkers is that it is objectively better than every other gear set in nearly the entirety of the PVE game. It makes more money, does things faster, does things better, and with little tradeoff of “skill” needed to perform effectively, and there are no limitations placed upon one who uses berserker gear..

It’s not that no one is arguing for diversity, it’s that armor types aren’t the only case for diversity, nor are they what would need to be changed if there was ever going to be diversity in the first place. If there was going to be more diversity, then the roles in the game would have to be more pronounced. And no, I don’t mean the “healer, tank, and dps” roles that were never a part of this game, but the ones that they’ve stated are the roles from the get-go (though, I can’t find the link, and the one in the link I could find now gives a 404): http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1125142-GW2-Roles-An-explanation

As it stands, the roles are very much there, and there’s a ton of diversity in the meta for those roles, it’s just that most classes don’t fall under one specific one all that hard. Healing is a part of support, but there will never be a “healer” class from the design standpoint in the game, and the fact that it’s possible to do it is sheerly a coincidence from the fact that some skills can heal allies. The “Berserker meta” nonsense is strictly because people refuse to adapt to this game’s trinity, and refuse to understand why this meta came into existence. Back when the game first came out, there was no Berserker meta. There, however, was a clearly defined PvE meta for dungeons: Soldier’s. Back then, the fact that people weren’t good enough for the content so the stats acted exactly as they were supposed to: as difficulty settings. You have a hard time, you put more into defensive stats. You find everything too easy, you put things into offensive stats.

Over time, however, people complained about the difficulty of stuffs, and so stuffs got nerfed (see Ascalonian Catacombs for an example). That mixed with the fact that strategy started to form left content extremely easy. Thus it moved from Soldier’s over to Berserker (ignoring the part with Magic Find armor, though that technically also shows how the content wasn’t seen as too hard).

And yes, Berserker’s is the best. But that has nothing to do with any change ever proposed in one of these topics by any of the people that feel that the current meta has a problem because of Berkserker gear itself. Either they make the content hard enough that people actually start to need the difficulty reductions from the other armors, or there’s nothing more to say. The roles will never change from the armor (ignoring Runes), as they’re built into the class as a point in the entire system, and thus the only slider possible from armor is the difficulty one.

Gear is just a scapegoat. Think of it this way; if we remove all stats in gear and all stats in the traitline, will the most effective builds in pve change?

nexxe.7081:

Zaklex.6308:

First off, the players created the Zerker meta, not A.net…a development doesn’t create a meta, players do by choosing to play only one style. Second, if you’re looking at the number of views for HoT reveal on YouTube, that’s misleading because it doesn’t take into account the number of people that have viewed it on the official site, either the HoT site itself or the main GW2…that 443k is only one segment of the viewing public(and really, 3.5 million copies…have you forgotten China, it was sold there too).

Yes, but it’s the developers’ responsibility to counter unintentional game play, with more balanced game play that isn’t borderline exploiting.

Or maybe, you know, that was the design intention? It was never ArenaNet’s intention to not allow speed runs…it is after all a style of game play, just as is killing every single trash mob is a style of game play. The players themselves need to form their own groups that are willing to play which ever style they choose(which is one of the reasons I don’t do dungeons, besides the fact I don’t find them interesting, I prefer to kill everything).

Don’t want to participate in Zerker Meta?

Okay, don’t jpin speed run groups or groups that ask for Zerker Meta. I see LFG posts constantly that Do Not ask for Zerker Only.

Don’t want to exploit?

Okay, don’t. And don’t join speed run groups.

-

Not doing these things is super easy. Don’t.

You can play this game without doing either. I have a Phalanx Warrior that’s only got a few bits & bobs that’re Zerker, but I still tear the heck out of dungeons thanks to know-how, solid gear & a good build. Is my Elementalist Zerker? Kitten right! The Elementalist is a NUKE. Can’t think of a reason not to be Zerker with one… Am I made of glass? Kitten right! There’s flaws in Zerker. There’s flaws in every build. Everything has a weakness. Nothing is perfect.

Garth Thurgen.1380:

- snip -

Pretty much what Garth said, except that he didn’t refer to the condition damage — direct damage continuum also found on gear. Now, ANet is working on conditions. From what little I’ve heard, I expect them to be better than before in large group content, though they still may not be ideal. What I don’t know is whether the changes will address the ramp-up problem in small group play. I guess we’ll see.

As to the survival —- glass stat continuum, yeah, there are only two ways to make the two stats equivalent in terms of success:

1. Make content that requires a defensive role, such as point-holder in sPvP. The issue there is that if you make all PvE content require such, then you’ve created a designated role, something the game’s philosophy sought to avoid in PvE. You also run the risk of similar backlash to what you see about sPvP — that there is no variety in content.
2. Make the game objectively more difficult. Doing this, though, just shifts the meta gear choice towards a hybrid prefix like Knight’s. While making the game harder is not a bad goal, it doesn’t solve the “one prefix to rule them all” issue, it just changes the desired prefix. Do we really need to shift from, “LFG Zerk Only” to, “LFG: Knight’s Trinkets, rest Zerk only”?

Yeah, Conditions are in a bad spot now. And as you said, ANet has shown to be working on fixing them, so there’s not a great point in kicking up a bunch of dust about it.

And yeah, it’ll be interesting seeing how it’ll be in a small group vs. large group sort of thing. My guess is that, for speed runs anyway, Power/Precision/Ferocity will still be king in five man groups. Conditions can do more damage over time, but there’s the “ticking” aspect of them that will put a clock on when they’ll actually do more damage. On the flip side, it’s quite possible that Condi builds will be the new thing for three man dungeon groups.

Also, they did #1 in several locations, with CoF1 being the most blatant (having to stand in a small confined space without leaving while enemies spawn and rush at you). The thing is, being defensive just isn’t a part of armor, relevantly. GW2 does a great job at making everything extremely active, which means that the best defenses are all active. And thus a part of your class build. Unless they went extremely overboard, to the point where it would become a problem like you say, it just wouldn’t be an effective way to change anything.

Yknow what?

To all of those aggravated about the zerker meta, how should it be fixed?

Remove the gear prefix?

Make every armor do the same kind of damage?

Because if you do the former we will move to another prefix, and if you do the latter dungeons will start excluding classes.

I am curious as to how these people that cant be bothered to pick up 6 pieces of armor (so they can do a specific type of dungeon) want to fix the game to make it balanced. Please enlighten me.

if you dont like the game , dont play it!

Stop trying to change something that you dont like and go back to WoW

Zerker meta isn’t just about the 1 armor set. Half the weapons and traits in the game are considered trash because they don’t specialize in balls out crit based dps.

The downed state makes playing a glass cannon in pve very forgiving. Who cares if you get two shot you can be back up in a few seconds. Maybe lower the health regen from teamate revive in pve combat so it takes more effort or limit to one person. Or limit revives with a debuff after rally, or a stacking damage penalty on rally.

Or my favorite, make mobs try to stomp you! Force the team to interrupt and revive like in pvp. Make it risky for the party when someone goes down and the 0 defense meta might shift for a lot of people, but not kill speed runs for skilled players.

Tera as an example has what I would think of as a soft trinity. You have a tank and healer/support and some dps. The tank is there to keep aggro to position the mob and focus on active mitigation not necessarily just take all the damage. The healer can heal but the healing is less than the constant damage the mob is putting out, tanks and dps both need to use active defense and have enough health and armor, to mitigate enough damage for healing to keep them up. Healers also provide mana, essential buffs and debuffs for the party and marginal dps. There is in-combat rezzing but they take time and standing still can be very risky. When a tank goes down the party does not instantly wipe like wow, but the boss needs to be kited or off-tanked while he is rezzed and rebuffed. It is not impossible to do runs with no tank or healer but it is not optimal. Tera pve is not perfect but gw can look to it for some inspiration.

EcoRI.9273:

Gear is just a scapegoat. Think of it this way; if we remove all stats in gear and all stats in the traitline, will the most effective builds in pve change?

Food for thought.

Brokenangel.1389:

Don’t want to participate in Zerker Meta?

Okay, don’t jpin speed run groups or groups that ask for Zerker Meta. I see LFG posts constantly that Do Not ask for Zerker Only.

*Don’t want to exploit?

Okay, don’t. And don’t join speed run groups.*

-

Not doing these things is super easy. Don’t.

You can play this game without doing either. I have a Phalanx Warrior that’s only got a few bits & bobs that’re Zerker, but I still tear the heck out of dungeons thanks to know-how, solid gear & a good build. Is my Elementalist Zerker? Kitten right! The Elementalist is a NUKE. Can’t think of a reason not to be Zerker with one… Am I made of glass? Kitten right! There’s flaws in Zerker. There’s flaws in every build. Everything has a weakness. Nothing is perfect.

Yes, do not exploit, and report those who do exploit and submit a bug ticket. Let’s keep the game healthy.

If you want to play the game another way, the first thing to do is make an LFG that says precisely what you do want. If you see “zerker meta exp” in the LFG tool you know exactly what is expected of you. So if you want something else like asura guardian roleplay only? fake trinity nostalgia group (bring healing power)? You will find it, you just need to say thats what you want.

Beyond that you must rely on Anet to design trash that isn’t completely shut down and provide no incentive to skip (because they actually drop stuff you want). They need to design bosses that cannot be completely shut down by block/evade/reflect. You need to have bosses that reposition alot, have secondary aggro and make an effort to avoid damage. You need bosses to have a mix of damage sources, not just telegraphed burst which is easy to avoid and even if you screw up, aegis has got your back. You need to be running up against a mixture of unblockable attacks, rapid fire hits, big hits and pressure degen.

You need to fight things that can degen you hard through dodge/block/evade requiring efficient use and timing of healing skills. You need to get hit by an unblockable attack and then suddenly prot/damage reduction has a real purpose. You need to fight all of that at the same time so players must intelligently use a diverse set of skills/roles n the right situation at the right time to get through it.

If you want healing, prot, slows/snares to have a use in PvE then Anet has to make them necessary otherwise people will learn to beat a dungeon faster without them. 2-3 years is a long time to play what is fundamentally the same content with the same challenges. Many people figured it out a long time ago and the only reason they are still running fractals is because they still don’t have the dagger skin. Do you blame them for wanting to do it the fastest, safest, most painless way possible?

I did most dungeons and I do not like CM,

But yes most ppl prefer zerk. I do not care about zerk too much. I run all kinds of builds mostly with ppl I know… I run full sinister (= condition) in parties with mesmer ele(’s) and guards. mostly for fun, or zealots. Zealot necro, zealot guard, zealot ele…

I play also zerk, I’ve seen zerk. been there done that. Ran speedruns, not zerk -meta- but speedruns.

People shouting you must have zerk, then we enter dungeons, no food and util… okay that’s 10 % dmg waste, and 10% defence wasted… hey guy is using stacking sigil.,.. again 5% waste, hey seems lightning proc, or fire blast? now you done it, for those few things… + 35% dmg you could have had, you want two crit proccing sigils? Oh you do use food, nice +70 power, +30% magic find, very helpfull… you are such a team player…

Yes go zerk … and I on my zealot guard with zerk trinkets will outdamage you. and you’ll never know…

Most ppl do not know, most zerk parties are just a figment of imaginations…

The few which are good are the few expert speedrunners: they rock, with 5 ppl using decent food… you will know you run 6.67+ ppl instead of 5. you’ll know cause you will take -NO DAMAGE-. All just running scholar… all wannabees running strength, have fun. + 5% when might is nice, +10% with full stacks?

Speedruns require you to think and to switch setups, and weapons, to fit the engagement, not take a build and mindlessly spam your sequence and eat dmg, hoping to kill your enemy. You should not take any damage. getting hit on a ele costs 2 times a 10% buff… due to damage… that’s a waste of time. If 1 or 2 characters brings a reflect , or the ele’s use swirling winds or take time to cast sandstorm you do not have damage… and your damage will stay up. yes you lose a couple of seconds but you do not take damage, you do not need to res, no need to respawn no need to worry.

But they tend to be scarce… very scarce.

And often the speedrunners run their personal flavour. Mostly zerk, but personalized…

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Most ppl do not know, most zerk parties are just a figment of imaginations…

So much this. A lot of people that post “exp zerk” LFGs have absolutely no idea what is food, stealth, combo fields, stability, or why Retreat is useful not only because of swiftness.

That is the nature of pugs for you and it comes with the territory. You play with 4 people you barely communicate with and will probably never see again after the run is over. Any mistakes that are made probably wont be corrected unless the individuals see it themselves.

Even so, fractal 50s in “zerk exp” pugs are typically faster and easier than fractal 19 daily pugs. Those can be so random…

If you need to communicate you are already one step down the ladder.

I ran AC a few days ago, met a group and thought well standard group, we all had expereince which showed, 1st spider was dead before the last moved in, all rush to the 3 npc’s static is procced and blasted… we came at spider, everything synergized. No wasted skills, gargoyle clear 3 heads down move to spiderspawn, both ele’s proc fire cast MS on head and spawn point, spider spawns, gets immo-ed, wallOR is put down instantly all 5 move into wallOR, and spider dies in seconds, 0 damage, 1 person is poisoned, we walk on and I catch a glimpse of the ranger in party cleaning (HS & warhorn blast) him outside the area where we are already proccing fire for the next few gravelings.. 20 seconds later we are at kohler.

Kohler dies very fast in a hail of MS’s Firestorms and sandstorm with 4 icebows…, blast static run to room ppl split up before anything is said, 1 ele left 1 right, 1st 4 mounds die due to MS’s and the last 4 due to Icebow which just came from recharge. 1 moves up, others WP, and wait, 5th returns, static blast, to room, when hodgingsarrives he gets speed buufed into position, 1 person runs the pieces, hidgins is staticked and blaster and jogs to the other side…we run to tunnels, statics, blasts, run through statics stone walls, guard staff walls stabilities, ranger took bear to remove cripples. warrior on warhorn. We enter the final room , run in place fire stack might and fury and kill. done. next…. Path one from a lazy ele.

from these 5 ppl : 3 ran superior gost slaying util (ele (staff), ele(staff), guard (S/F&GS), 2 used sharps (warrior (banner/empower allies (6/4/0/4)) DPS)/ranger( spotter, no ghost, dunno build)), all used truffle steak all used dedicated main ghostslaying/night weapons, and offset was mostly night/force.

It was very fast.

I had paths not finish.. no end of path bonus, proably due to the boss being killed before the NPC’s arrived (path 3 AC tends to do this -a lot- if you just run in and kill rumblus….) it happens.

And m ost will have had most pieces zerk, but I doubt it was 100% zerk. I even doubt it was 100% zerk/sin

I do not know fractals, I was 39 before , now I do not care for anything above 35 it seems, I’m still only 35…

Loved the video (and your accent!) and couldn’t agree more.

Refreshingly honest.

I’m not going to comment on the meta part, there are other threads about that and usually go around in circles repeating the same arguments over and over.

However, for the glitch / exploit part, yes I agree there, exploits take the fun out of games but have nothing to do with “meta”. It’s not “meta” to bug and glitch bosses. Yes, they should fix all exploits and glitches in dungeons but every time they fix some of them, more appear.

Newer dungeons have fewer glitches (like Aetherpath) or at least not as well known. Even Fractals, with the big exceptions of Swamp and Mai Trin. Dredge was “patched” numerous times to avoid glitches and abuses.

I think the best solution is to scrap the old dungeons completely and recreate them. Instead of adding new invisible walls all over the place, create the dungeon geometry from scratch.

Tea.7025:

Going to weigh in as someone who isn’t a veteran of this game but has been around the MMORPG scene for many years now.

There is always a meta in every game. The developers can discourage it by attempting to equalize and often, sadly enough, homogenize gear, stats, traits, abilities or encounters. There will still be an optimal choice and the best case scenario is that the difference between optimal and non-optimal setup is less than five percent. Which, as I mentioned, is most often achieved through homogenization.

I’d rather have a meta that I can opt out of (the game itself does not restrict me from any content based on my gear) than balance achieved by forcefully evening out the playing field and in the process botching diversity.

Well, I personally disagree.

On balance, I prefer what WoW did, in this area.

They try to maintain balance between classes and specs – so, they’re all pretty viable for PVE (as far as I’m aware), which is great.

No one should have to abandon a class, or spec, they love and relate to, just to maximise their DPS, or whatever.

Same with talent builds – they’re all very close in terms of effectiveness and the choices are mostly about flavour and/or are slightly more situational and that is how it should be.

You can still, in theory, improve DPS/HPS etc. by choosing one over the other.

But not to the extent that anyone in a PUG group will feel the need to try to force you to change, or kick you from a group of you don’t.

The only exception I ever heard of re. this, since the changes, was the hunter before me in a dungeon group being kicked for refusing to not use Barrage.

But, that was just because Barrage tends to pull random mobs; not because it does worse DPS.

In fact, it does (or did) slightly higher DPS than the other two options in that tier.

So, you still have decent choices and that is before you even add glyphs into the equation.

But, none of them throw anything dramatically out of proportion, or balance, that is the point.

False choice is no choice and just leads to animosity and upset amongst the playerbase.

I do understand that, when it first happened, some people missed certain things they had used, on certain classes/specs/builds.

For instance, some people enjoyed quirky builds with a little of every spec in them, even if they weren’t optimal.

But most people adapted well to it (because it was well done) and most people say they prefer a well balanced game, to one with lots of supposed choices, but no real balance between them.

Jay.1085:

Also dont use other MMOS as examples because they all have exploits that people use to clear things in a efficient manner.

No.

Generally speaking, Blizz do their best to keep WoW exploit-free and if players find an exploit, they will try to fix it, ASAP.

Also, if people knowingly use exploits (rather than reporting them), they risk getting banned.

Probably, normally, only temporarily, but still.

Blizz have some faults, but they take stuff like this seriously.

I know that is easy to just say, but even their lower level dungeons don’t let you cheese them (until you outlevel them).

For example, mobs don’t reset – you pull them, you fight them, or they will keep chasing you until you run out of the portal!

That may, or may not, be desirable for everyone, but still.

The players acknowledge this about WoW, as well.

I was at the end boss of a dungeon once, as a newish player and I failed to grab a rope to swing off a ship, in time, as I had never done it before.

So, I panicked and jumped down, instead (so I didn’t get burned) and realising that I probably would get back to the deck of the ship in time, I hesitated, debating whether to try to run back, or not.

The other players started raging at me, thinking I was trying to cheat and said “This is WoW. It’s not like other games, you can’t exploit.”.

…and at that point I was killed by some AOE, which surrounded me, even though I was about 50 miles from the boss.

I may not have liked their attitude, as I wasn’t trying to do anything wrong, but it proves a point about not all games being created equal, in this way.

Before anyone says “Go back to WoW.”, to me – I may do at some point, but it does have some issues that I am less impressed by, especially lately.

It’s by no means perfect, either – it’s just that this doesn’t happen to be one of its problems, relatively speaking.

Reanne.5462:

I ’ve had people mock me, call me names and hurt my feelings, all because I used my kick kitten legendary axe in a dungeon run, instead of the only socially acceptable way to play this game – full out zerker!

So if anet is paying attention, they might want to take into consideration that people may be leaving this game for one that they can “Play the way they want”

I still cry myself to sleep every night since that day, Do you have any idea how hard it was to get that kitten Axe? and I’m not allowed to use it…

Hey, don’t let them bring you down. You go out there and swing your axe! Gimli would be proud!
Seriously tho, they might be jealus?

Tigaseye.2047:

-snip-

That’s an interesting story, actually. I wonder if their attitudes are representative of the general WoW player base, didn’t play that game long enough to get a feel for it. What I did gather was that WoW’s scope is infinitely larger and it’s designed with a completely different set of mechanics and reward system.

I would argue that GW2, on the other hand, is not only much smaller in scale but actually pushes players to try to earn as much gold as they can in the least possible time. There are very few items of worth in the loot tables, and RNG is heavily stacked against the player. Pretty much everything worth having needs to be bought, and this leads to a lot of the undesirable behaviours we’ve seen in game (intentionally failing events to farm, speeding through dungeons, exploits etc).

I’d also argue that these behaviours aren’t actually killing the game – most players gleefully take part in them – but there does seem to be a very vocal group of players who cannot stand this.

Jahroots.6791:

That’s an interesting story, actually. I wonder if their attitudes are representative of the general WoW player base, didn’t play that game long enough to get a feel for it.

I think so.

I played it for about three and a half years.

The only dungeon I think is a bit dodgy, is one of the ones in the new xpac.

It’s an outdoor one and people climb up the banks to avoid groups of mobs, which can be annoying and actually more time-consuming than just killing them.

But, other than that, they’re pretty well designed.

The issue people have with them, is that it is very easy to outgear and/or outlevel them (they don’t scale) and that can obviously make them seem pretty easy.

But, as far as mobile bosses, varied mechanics and lack of exploits go, they are pretty good.

Occasionally, you might stack for heals, but it’s unlikely you will find yourself perma-stacking, or skipping most of the mobs.

Obviously, they have a trinity there, though, so it isn’t a direct comparison in that way, to be fair.

What I did gather was that WoW’s scope is infinitely larger and it’s designed with a completely different set of mechanics and reward system.

I would argue that GW2, on the other hand, is not only much smaller in scale but actually pushes players to try to earn as much gold as they can in the least possible time. There are very few items of worth in the loot tables, and RNG is heavily stacked against the player. Pretty much everything worth having needs to be bought, and this leads to a lot of the undesirable behaviours we’ve seen in game (intentionally failing events to farm, speeding through dungeons, exploits etc).

I’d also argue that these behaviours aren’t actually killing the game – most players gleefully take part in them – but there does seem to be a very vocal group of players who cannot stand this.

Well, if you look at the votes for the video, most are upvotes.

So, it would seem like most of the people who watched it are, actually, quietly agreeing and that the people trying to defend the current situation, for whatever reason, are a vocal minority.

But, I would certainly agree that there are potential problems with a game that requires people to either farm gold, to convert to gems, or spend RL money on them.

I tend to prefer the sub model for that reason, personally.

The game has been out for almost 3 years, people have found the optimal method for PvE content in that time. Thats all.

Now you can ask for content updates and more content but you can’t blame people using Zerker for being efficient.

Tigaseye.2047:

Well, if you look at the votes for the video, most are upvotes.

So, it would seem like most of the people who watched it are, actually, quietly agreeing and that the people trying to defend the current situation, for whatever reason, are a vocal minority.

Oh come on.

We could use a way to switch stats in gear without having to carry it.

When you need lots of storage for multiple sets, you are less likely to bring multiple sets. With as many stat combinations as we have in GW2, that’ll be an insane amount of storage needed to have them all in just one character.

Since all of that is a hassle, and berserker stats work mostly everywhere for motly everything, people go berserker. And since berserker have little defense, people using them tends to fall into the cheesiest ‘stack and spam’ tactics that work mostly everywhere.

It’s an systemic problem that won’t change until the system itself changes.

First step: Insignia, inscriptions, runes, sigils, trinket stats and jewels being unlockable and interchangeable, so switching between stat combinations doesn’t take freaking 18-50 slots per stat.

Tigaseye.2047:

Well, if you look at the votes for the video, most are upvotes.

So, it would seem like most of the people who watched it are, actually, quietly agreeing and that the people trying to defend the current situation, for whatever reason, are a vocal minority.

Not sure if serious.

Tigaseye.2047:

Jay.1085:

Also dont use other MMOS as examples because they all have exploits that people use to clear things in a efficient manner.

No.

Generally speaking, Blizz do their best to keep WoW exploit-free and if players find an exploit, they will try to fix it, ASAP.

Also, if people knowingly use exploits (rather than reporting them), they risk getting banned.

Probably, normally, only temporarily, but still.

Blizz have some faults, but they take stuff like this seriously.

I know that is easy to just say, but even their lower level dungeons don’t let you cheese them (until you outlevel them).

For example, mobs don’t reset – you pull them, you fight them, or they will keep chasing you until you run out of the portal!

That may, or may not, be desirable for everyone, but still.

The players acknowledge this about WoW, as well.

I was at the end boss of a dungeon once, as a newish player and I failed to grab a rope to swing off a ship, in time, as I had never done it before.

So, I panicked and jumped down, instead (so I didn’t get burned) and realising that I probably would get back to the deck of the ship in time, I hesitated, debating whether to try to run back, or not.

The other players started raging at me, thinking I was trying to cheat and said “This is WoW. It’s not like other games, you can’t exploit.”.

…and at that point I was killed by some AOE, which surrounded me, even though I was about 50 miles from the boss.

I may not have liked their attitude, as I wasn’t trying to do anything wrong, but it proves a point about not all games being created equal, in this way.

Before anyone says “Go back to WoW.”, to me – I may do at some point, but it does have some issues that I am less impressed by, especially lately.

It’s by no means perfect, either – it’s just that this doesn’t happen to be one of its problems, relatively speaking.

have you seen WoW’s dungeons? there are many exploits on defeating bosses, especially in WoD dungeons now, it’s so easy :/ blizzard could care less about the dungeon community

Tigaseye.2047:

On balance, I prefer what WoW did, in this area.

They try to maintain balance between classes and specs – so, they’re all pretty viable for PVE (as far as I’m aware), which is great.

No one should have to abandon a class, or spec, they love and relate to, just to maximise their DPS, or whatever.

Same with talent builds – they’re all very close in terms of effectiveness and the choices are mostly about flavour and/or are slightly more situational and that is how it should be.

You can still, in theory, improve DPS/HPS etc. by choosing one over the other.

But not to the extent that anyone in a PUG group will feel the need to try to force you to change, or kick you from a group of you don’t.

False choice is no choice and just leads to animosity and upset amongst the playerbase.

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/statspve-classesrepartition-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html

I actually do play WoW and have played it since Burning Crusade. The balance between classes, specializations and talent choices was worse back then but diversity was much greater than it is today. Blizzard initially designed encounters in a way that each one favored a certain setup but was doable by non-optimal teams as well, just with more effort. A protection paladin didn’t perform too well against single targets but was godsend in packed places like Arcatraz and Shattered Halls, for example.

It was Wrath of the Lich King when the homogenization began and it hasn’t stopped to this day. It makes the game incredibly boring to play. One caster functions more or less the same as the others. One tank is like any other as well, just with the usual tanking kit (taunt, AoE taunt, resource generation, defensive cooldowns) renamed. You can’t make a raid where you don’t have access to all the buffs, crowd controls and other utilities because each one is provided by at least three characters at any given time. It’s hard to put together even a dungeon group without covering all buffs!

The problem is that it was all for naught. Feel free to look at the link above. Certain class/spec combos dominate in certain situations and by quite a large margin. So class, skill and talent diversity was ruined for this. Somewhat better balance. Somewhat.

I agree with you that false choice isn’t choice but even in BC you had the choice to use a cookiecutter build and look for ways on thottbot to cheese dungeon mechanics OR experiment with your class and do encounters as they were intended. If you didn’t want to follow the meta then you played with friends and like-minded individuals.

You can do the same in the current WoW but you no longer have the same diversity. That is what I’d call a false choice. Giving the player a supposed choice to experiment but giving them nothing to experiment with since everything is streamlined and homogenized.

“Here, you can pick between three effects that are equally minor and contribute very little to how you play your character because we didn’t want this guy to accidentally perform worse than that other guy, even if the former one is just drunk and picks talents at random while equipping intellect plate on his warrior.”

The ability to choose is good but making every choice an optimal one is bad. It ultimately makes the decision and thus the options themselves more or less irrelevant.

I agree with the OP. It’s disappointing that many people in this thread don’t actually understand what the video is talking about.

Having a meta is not a problem, there will always be one. The problem is the TYPE of meta that exists is stale and boring. GW2 has such amazing mechanics and gameplay systems yet they are hardly used. A huge problem is the lacklustre instance design. I actually get excited when i do Uncat fractal because i get to use reflects on my guard and its important for clearing the harpies unless you want to take 20mins to do it.

But 99% of the content is me running the exact same build with the exact same utilities. It’d be great if content actually required me to spec for regen, then another for blocks etc. But utility and build requirements are incredibly scarce. And i’m playing a guardian, one of the most robust classes in the game. It gets even worse on other classes.

Stats are a huge problem too and some of them (healing power) really just don’t make much sense. I think i’d rather gear not give stats (flat stats, power whatever) but just stick to giving passive effects like run speed, life steal, block at 50% hp etc.

I still find the game fun though, even after almost 3 years. But it’s stagnated heavily and i hope HoT mixes things up cuz change is always a good thing.

Animosity.5968:

So I’ve played since launch and lately I cant even log in because the game is so boring to me. I PvE, mostly dungeon or fotm and this zerker meta is literally killing the game. Just recently a old gw2 member named Nemesis uploaded a video on this subject and he hit alot of points that I’ve noticed and even more than I didn’t notice. (GJ nemesis!)

So this meta is all about DPS, Corner stacking, Glitching and exploiting.. Some evidence…

-The meta is DPS because its all Zerker gear (out of the 23 stat prefix’s, guess anet just wanted to make different stat gear for giggles)

-Corner stacking doesn’t need evidence, everyone has done it but it’s common in MMO’s and isn’t a problem unless it’s mixed with the other 3 parts of the meta.

-Glitching is a serious problem but people do it and it’s literally accepted as part of the meta. A few examples are CM attacking people through walls, CM climbing wall by Frost in P1 to take 0 damage, CM P2 running the boss between 2 plateau’s to become completely stuck, etc. I only mentioned CM but there’s glitching in every dungeon, just youtube “gw2 Glitch (whatever dungeon)” and you’ll be met with video proof.

- Exploiting is just stupid and yet people still do it to Lupi with reflecting his attacks to down him in seconds. Obviously this isn’t challenging content for a boss in a dungeon yet now it’s accepted as ok? wtf man. There are more but I draw a fine line between glitching and exploiting so i’ll let you choose.

So as nemesis states in his video “Gw2 abondonded the holy trinity to become…just dps?” It’s literally gotten to a point where people are stating that certain classes are sub par and should not be taken for optimal dps. How is this better? I for one think it’s literally ludicious and now with HoT coming I’m sending the Dev’s a message…" You have the opportunity to fix what has been left to grow into such a big problem. The ball’s in your court, Please stay true to your word to make this MMO the be all end all MMO"

Just so you know (Nemesis says this as well), 3.5 million copies of the game has been sold since launch but only 443k views on the expansion reveal video. These number’s are fairly alarming as the majority of players still interested in the game would of watched the video already. New or returning players will be greeted by looking up videos of corner stacking, glitching, all dps numbers and most likely turn away from the game as it’s bad advertising.

What does everyone else think about gw2 current state? Is all this ok?

Link to Nemesis video as it’s very informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

Originally the game was supposed to have a “soft” trinity. Optimal group was supposed to be DPS / Control / Support.

Unfortunately A-net ubber failed. CC is almost useless against bosses, except for few exceptions where the adds (extra spawns) are vulnreable to it, and the meta support has been reduced to Might stacks + fury + vulnreability, forget regen, various condition effects, etc.

To give you an example, ranged mobs in alpha / beta of the game, used to actually kite players making CC useful, but they could never get the scripts to work right, either bad programmers, or bad servers / hardware, or combination of whatever, they ended up completely removing such behaviors. Inability to create functioning, interesting PvE encounters is 100% A-nets fault, and it is what led to the current unfortunate zerker status quo, and what has vastly contributed to myself, as well as many others to leaving the game altogether.

And no, expansion is not going to bring me back. Things that would bring me back would include:

1. getting rid of zerker meta
2. balancing out WvW servers population, especially across timezones, or getting rid of a system which forces players to compete against those who are not in their timezones.
3. providing a meaningful, challenging opne world PvE that consists of more then primarily spamming 1 button on top of the zerker build.
4. more interesting dungeons / fractals
5. more character, stat affecting progression, need stuff to actually advance my toons in one for or another instead of being so stale.

Adding extra maps and more crap like jumping puzzles and whatnot does absolutely nothing. Note that the zerker meta is definitely one of the problems. While they shuffled it around a little bit by buffing other professions zerker builds to be more on par, some are still way behind (in particular necro, mes) and a zerker is a zerker is a zerker is a zerker no matter of which flavor. What I need is a SERIOUS reason to play the non-zerker builds.

I bet if people took the argument about why rangers are bad, and replaced all mentions of ranger with the word “meta,” it’d be easier to understand why people dont like the meta. I mean, simply put, it boils down to new players (and utterly kittenty players) get told to wear zerk because “it’s meta”and when they do do things such as dungeons and fractals, they’re going to be the ones always dying and gimping the rest of the party. IE bad meta users are roughly equivalent to those that are bad ranger players. Nobody wants them around.

Play the game for a day in full soldier’s gear and then play it another day in full berserkers. You’ll notice quite a large difference in the damage that you deal out. Berserker is the meta because it’s the most optimal gear stat combo due to many reasons likely described in this thread and the thousand others that keep popping up. If berserker was no longer the meta for whatever reason, then something likely took its place and then we’d still be having these threads but complaining about whichever took over as the meta instead.

I’ve also seen people complain about condition damage. The thing is that condition damage is damage over time rather than straight damage or however you want to call it. For trash mobs, conditions really are not effective compared to straight damage as these type of mobs tend to have low HP and die before the full condition duration has elapsed. If condition duration was reduced, with damage increased to the point it equals straight damage blow for blow, how’s this any different from abandoning condition damage now and going for straight damage?

Ranael.6423:

I watched this video and this is full of bitterness. He’s sad to not play the top rated profession of the game… at some point he should deal with it.
Now the part of glitch and exploit is a bit ridiculous. He’s talking about bugs that have disappeared or even make some game mechanics sound as bugs just because he doesn’t like them. For example he suggests that playing with opened inventory to swap weapons between fights is more or less a cheat… I personally don’t change traits and builds within a dungeon because I don’t want to go in that “super optimized” direction but if people do it and succeed I wouldn’t see myself blame them for MY laziness !!!!

The consequences of meta are ridiculous… toxic environment really????!!! Then I don’t understand why so many people on reddit keep on making posts about how the community is so great in that game…..

Now OP there are two possibilities for you. Either you have never played meta builds in meta comp (I’m not blaming you, I never did either) and I don’t think you can judge this gameplay as easy or you did it and succeed and in that case I would say " congrats you are a good player".

It has been said many many many times :
-AC/TA/SE are not representative of the game difficulty
-Zerker is a gear, the build coming with the meta has a lot of ACTIVE defence. If you are able to go through a fight only by dodging, preventing damage and healing efficiently then why take passive damage reduction instead of damage? If you are not sure of your skills then you take more HP or toughness to compensate for the mistakes you can do.

Bubi.7942:

For me squeezing 5 people in the corner at the end of AC3 (or 1?) so the NPC also stacks on you, thus you avoid the any damage that can be done by done falling ceiling falls under the category of exploiting. You could argue that it is just “smart play”, for me, it’s pretty clear it’s not intentional.

The NPC creates a bubble to make you resist the cave in ability, of course it is intended for players to go in the bubble. Now you can run everywhere and pack during animation in the bubble or everyone stay around the NPC so that you are sure to be in range of the bubble…. are suggesting that the NPC has been given an ability to help players unintentionally?

People still do this? I PUG every day because dungeons are my thing. I run meta, but never care if anyone else is as long as the y bring the proper skills (Ie: Guards bring their aegis, reflects etc), and on P3 of AC almost NO ONE tries to stack on the corner anymore because they changed the bosses AoE. You cannot mitigate its damage in the corner anymore. The ONLY thing the bubble prevents is giving a small area of reprieve from the falling rocks. The boss still hits you, knocks you back and all the things unless you bring skills to combat it. I love Hallowed Ground on that boss. By the time its duration is over the boss is dead.

Meleeing something is not the same as stacking in a corner. I haven’t seen stacking in months. I’m sure more people will come around. Stacking in a corner is NOT meta. its pug tactics. True Meta is Melee though. And I agree with it because you share boons better and most often its melee range weapons that have the best damage rotations.

After all the responses, Some good, some bad but all peoples opinions and valid I’ve pretty much decided to quit until HoT and then come back to see if HoT fixes any issues regarding the zerk meta. To clarify for some people i don’t mean to say this meta is the only bad meta option and push in a new one but i mean to bring to light the fact that there are many different types of armor and only 2 (zerk and assassin’s) that are used primarily in PvE. It’s a sad day when work to build over 20+ stat combinations worth of armor isn’t even used.

Like i said i’m quitting for the time being and waiting for HoT to see if it changes anything at all, which I hope it does. TBH it’s a sad day for me..Guild wars has been a big part of my life. I know alot of people thought i was trolling but i’m just passionate about the game because it’s done so much for me. Let me explain quickly…At the age of 14 I bought guild wars 1 without a pc and got a paper route to save for my own computer. I used to look at the art work on the disc box and read the manual while i waited (kinda pathetic looking back at it, I know). This taught me to save for what I wanted ( a great life lesson) and eventually i got a new pc with money I saved and my parents chipping in the last 150$. I started to play and played though all expansions until Eye of north in 2007 where I actually met my wife. Being only 16 at the time I found a girl at school that played guild wars and we began dating which in turn after a while ended up with us being married at 23 (2015). So i’m a bit defensive over the game but it’s because in a weird way it’s given alot back to me. Anyways i guess it’s time to move on for a bit and return when HoT comes out in hopes of greener pastures. GL everyone else in their endeavors.

Tea.7025:

“Here, you can pick between three effects that are equally minor and contribute very little to how you play your character because we didn’t want this guy to accidentally perform worse than that other guy, even if the former one is just drunk and picks talents at random while equipping intellect plate on his warrior.”

The ability to choose is good but making every choice an optimal one is bad. It ultimately makes the decision and thus the options themselves more or less irrelevant.

Well, I disagree.

I think the skill in a game should be in the way you, physically, play it.

Which will, obviously, gradually improve over time.

Not in the “skill” of googling optimal builds.

…and intellect plate will, obviously, seriously nerf warrior, whatever build they choose.

So, I have no idea what you’re even try to saying with that.

Other than to try to describe a new player and your, apparent, desire to make them perform even worse than they would already do, in that new situation, by providing them with red herrings.

I know you said “drunk”, but it doesn’t matter how drunk someone is; unless they’re a very new player, they won’t gear a warrior in intellect plate.

Just to reiterate – I think there should be choices, just that none of them should be considered bad/unusable.

Paradox.1380:

Meleeing something is not the same as stacking in a corner. I haven’t seen stacking in months. I’m sure more people will come around. Stacking in a corner is NOT meta. its pug tactics. True Meta is Melee though. And I agree with it because you share boons better and most often its melee range weapons that have the best damage rotations.

This could well be true.

But, there’s not really any argument over what is true, or not.

Truth just is.

The argument is over whether it should be true, or not.

In other words, should it be the case that meleeing is better than ranged, for example?

…and yes, I get why it was made that way – as a lazy attempt to make it worthwhile to melee, by giving it more damage.

But, that doesn’t mean it’s right (from a good design/fulfilling gameplay POV) that you can’t use ranged weaps, if you prefer; unless you make/join a special “do what you like” type group.

Animosity.5968:

To clarify for some people i don’t mean to say this meta is the only bad meta option and push in a new one but i mean to bring to light the fact that there are many different types of armor and only 2 (zerk and assassin’s) that are used primarily in PvE. It’s a sad day when work to build over 20+ stat combinations worth of armor isn’t even used.

That’s actually a bit myopic. If an armor set has a use in one game mode, then the effort to make it was justified. If it’s used by a subset of the population, even if that subset is not the PuG meta, then the effort was justified. Dislike the emphasis on glass by a subset of the entire population all you like, but kindly don’t disdain the people in different modes using different prefixes or those in PvE who use what they like. Their money is as good as anyone else’s.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve also seen people complain about condition damage. The thing is that condition damage is damage over time rather than straight damage or however you want to call it. For trash mobs, conditions really are not effective compared to straight damage as these type of mobs tend to have low HP and die before the full condition duration has elapsed. If condition duration was reduced, with damage increased to the point it equals straight damage blow for blow, how’s this any different from abandoning condition damage now and going for straight damage?

This is a good example of why the whole “Make 7 Zillion types of gear.” thing was probably a bad idea, in the first place.

Tigaseye.2047:

Tea.7025:

“Here, you can pick between three effects that are equally minor and contribute very little to how you play your character because we didn’t want this guy to accidentally perform worse than that other guy, even if the former one is just drunk and picks talents at random while equipping intellect plate on his warrior.”

The ability to choose is good but making every choice an optimal one is bad. It ultimately makes the decision and thus the options themselves more or less irrelevant.

Well, I disagree.

I think the skill in a game should be in the way you, physically, play it.

Which will, obviously, gradually improve over time.

Not in the “skill” of googling optimal builds.

…and intellect plate will, obviously, seriously nerf warrior, whatever build they choose.

So, I have no idea what you’re even try to saying with that.

Other than to try to describe a new player and your, apparent, desire to make them perform even worse than they would already do, in that new situation, by providing them with red herrings.

I know you said “drunk”, but it doesn’t matter how drunk someone is; unless they’re a very new player, they won’t gear a warrior in intellect plate.

Just to reiterate – I think there should be choices, just that none of them should be considered bad/unusable.

Paradox.1380:

Meleeing something is not the same as stacking in a corner. I haven’t seen stacking in months. I’m sure more people will come around. Stacking in a corner is NOT meta. its pug tactics. True Meta is Melee though. And I agree with it because you share boons better and most often its melee range weapons that have the best damage rotations.

This could well be true.

But, there’s not really any argument over what is true, or not.

Truth just is.

The argument is over whether it should be true, or not.

In other words, should it be the case that meleeing is better than ranged, for example?

…and yes, I get why it was made that way – as a lazy attempt to make it worthwhile to melee, by giving it more damage.

But, that doesn’t mean it’s right (from a good design/fulfilling gameplay POV) that you can’t use ranged weaps, if you prefer; unless you make/join a special “do what you like” type group.

If you range you’ll be much safer compared to when you play in meelee range. The drawback is dealing less damage. Seems balanced to me. Please provide one argument in favour of making ranged damage equal to/better than meelee damage.

PS: Staff ele has the higest dps in the game, which is complete bullkitten. D/F master race!

Re melee v. range: the damage dichotomy is based around the idea that when fighting players who move constantly, ranged attacks will have a greater chance to hit. Lower chance to hit x greater damage vs. higher chance to hit x lesser damage. Try using Bomb Kit on a kiting LB or SB ranger in WvW if you don’t believe me, and that’s an AoE. My guess is the balance devs have a spreadsheet with damage calculations that allows them to estimate the relative effectiveness.

In PvE, melee does involve greater risk. However, mobs don’t kite much, so the only deterrent to landing as many hits is down time while needing to dodge. Also, buffs occur in smaller areas, so even with ranged weapons, the ideal would be to be close enough to share buffs even if ranged/melee did similar damage. This is especially true in dungeons or other content where high damage and survival buffs matter more than in champ trains or general PvE.