Guild Wars 2

TheDaiBish.9735:

haviz.1340:

Just tell people Aragorn was a ranger.

Or that the ranger archetype is based around knowledge of nature, and not fighting exclusively at range.

Or that ANet mashed that so called “ranger” with the archer and created a crippled being.

Dear Arachnid, I forbid you from making threads and posts of this calibre in both near and far future as far as GW2 is concerned.
No single instance of boredom should ever warrant making threads as constructive for games as undeserving.
Having said that, I welcome the information you are no longer playing the game, and sincerely hope that your decision is final, come what may.
On a side note, I cannot help but chuckle when I think what happens when you ball on GW1, be it in a hard-mode dungeon/zone or in pvp. harhar

KarlaGrey.5903:

On a side note, I cannot help but chuckle when I think what happens when you ball on GW1, be it in a hard-mode dungeon/zone or in pvp. harhar

I also had to chuckle when this reminded me of Ele-ball.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Dear Arachnid, I forbid you from making threads and posts of this calibre in both near and far future as far as GW2 is concerned.
No single instance of boredom should ever warrant making threads as constructive for games as undeserving.

I suppose it is a weird way to pass the time, but I’m different. Maybe it’s the aspergers, but sometimes when my mind goes racing, it enters into this strange dialectic reasoning debate over a topic, in which it constantly tries to pit options and counterarguments against itself to come to a conclusion. It can actually be quite maddening sometimes, since there is no off switch for my special kind of nonsense. Trust me, the whole self-academic debate thing is less interesting when it gives you an 8 hour bout of insomnia because your brain can’t resolve whether cheese is evil.

Channeling this 7th level insanity into writing shortens and helps focus the mind. Without a record to go by, my bad memory will drop and recover different things in an endless cycle. By writing things down, it somehow resolves my daily madness.

Harper.4173:

I can see how you might think the majority of players want this but you might be surprised at the actual reality.

To think that the challenge loving, dynamic boss dueling people that post stuff like this on the forums are the majority of the player base is really not a wise idea.

I don’t think the majority of players want this. I mentioned this in the dredge defense post, that most people have come to have a rather lazy expectation of the game. Particularly because the game validates this expectation around every curve. The mentality of complacency is a kittene to shake.

But I stand as the minority in many ways. Instead of an end to stacking, a lot of people want the following:

A)Anti-melee mechanics
B)Anti-zerker mechanics
C)Anti meta mechanics
D) Anti n00b mechanics
E)No change at all
F) Substantial increases in difficulty
G) Substantial increase in ranged effectiveness

So I ask not to judge the volume of my voice, but the quality.

maha.7902:

You do poor damage, pull aggro from melee-ers and don’t support your team. No, they shouldn’t be rewarded for being a complete detriment to the party. Bad play should never be rewarded.

In that case, the question that needs to be addressed is “why is ranged play inferior to melee range?” Having a class of players who the game favours mechanically over every other build is a sign of a badly balanced (at best) game, or a broken game (at worse). If there is absolutely no area of the game where melee characters cannot outperform ranged characters, what point is there in even having ranged options? ANet might as well just delete bows/rifles/pistols/staff/scepters and be done with it, the same way they just removed underwater combat from PvP.

Three stacks of torment/bleed a second and hard hitting cleave attacks? Do you even think these ideas through? That’s not discouraging melee, that’s just flat out preventing it, and there’s no need for that at all. All this would do is encourage five warrior groups starting the fight with berserker’s stance melee then just afk pewpewing with longbows until the stance goes off cooldown (if it lasts that long).

Eh, some of the Guild Bounty bosses can do stuff like that. It’s not exactly new.

And I see nothing wrong with having bosses where attempting to use melee is almost impossible. We have bosses that are flat out immune to ranged attacks. Or that going ranged on them will result in the boss using extremely dangerous attacks that could wipe the party. If one side can have it, why not the other?

If this ends up in groups with 5 Warriors using the tactics you mentioned for speed clearing, and you dislike that thought, then don’t join speed clear/PUG groups. The speed-clearers can kill the boss in under 30 seconds, while a PUG may take 3 mins; that’s really no different to what we’re seeing between speed-clear and PUG dungeon groups now.

The fact that (unless unlucky) your team eats all of the attacks and aggro while you just chill in the back and dodge every now and then so you can feel like you’re actually doing something.

And what about bosses where one player needs to be at a distance for mechanical reasons? (e.g. the lever puller in Dredge fractal, or the fan monkey in Uncategorised) Are those players sitting at range not contributing just because they’re using a ranged weapon to deal what damage they can from their spot?

At Arachnid, fair enough.
Needless to say, I agree with most of what you’re arguing for/against in this thread, but as I posted in a different thread – as long as players let themselves be milked by the gem shop, there is absolutely no incentive, or there is very little of it, to improve the quality of the game. Why would they, after all, if the game nets enough buck to keep itself alive.

On a side note, I’d love to give you a different kind of challenge to fight the restlessness of your mind, but as it’d derail the thread, I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you want to start a different topic on it (I also welcome PMs, ofc). I’m most curious as to ways of fixing, or reversing that negative ‘trend’ in consumership.

At IndigoSundown, those things were cute too, yea.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Mob Design

I feel one of the biggest issues with mob design is that they’re not built like players. Players have access to more tools and such in comparison to mobs:

Players

• 10+ skills at any point (with a few exceptions)
• 5+ skills on weaponswap
• Traits
• Combo Fields + Finishers
• Upgrades (sigils and runes)
• Dodge
• Unique class mechanics
• Revive

Mobs

• Far less skills available
• No traits
• No weapons
• No bonuses (sigils and runes)
• No dodge in the majority of cases
• Unique mechanics don’t have as much ‘presence’
• No revive

Now, times the tools the player has by 5 (since, you know, 5 players), and the amount of counter-ability available to players far, far outweighs what is available to the mob.

I feel mobs should be built like a player. Give them 10 skills minimum. Give them Traits and Dodge. Give them a unique mechanic. Heck, if there’s other mobs / the boss fight consists of more than one boss, give them the ability to combine their abilities and revive each other.

Wow. I would love PvE so much more with this kind of improvement. The challenge alone would keep me occupied in old zones for a long, long time.

Zaxares.5419:

In that case, the question that needs to be addressed is “why is ranged play inferior to melee range?” Having a class of players who the game favours mechanically over every other build is a sign of a badly balanced (at best) game, or a broken game (at worse).

It’s called risk vs reward.

Ranged weapons allow you to hit your target from a distance at which it usually becomes harmless. This, along with Crippled, Chilled or Immobilize allows you to kite the enemy to death, keeping you out of harm’s way for the most part.

Melee weapons do more damage, but also force you to take a more on-your-face approach, which makes you have to dodge your enemy’kittens if you want to live long enough to kill it. In Berserker’s gear, some bosses attacks can take away up to 3/4 of your total health.

So in the end, by going melee you’re trading safety for more damage, and this translates to shorter encounters.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

haviz.1340:

Ok, then fix for sword aa and deletion of mainhand axe, longbow and shortbow.

Deal. But the rangers have to be renamed to meleers, so noone gets confused.

Would it blow your mind to know that the concept of a Ranger isn’t all about actual range/distance?

A better fix for rangers is to give meleers better survivability instead of changing TTK – Ranged characters work as Glass Cannons, while Melee Characters are Mighty Bruisers. The risk is equalized – Ranged characters face fewer threats, but the threats that do hit them hurt them more. Melee characters face more threats, but are better-equipped to handle/endure them.

It would work in any other game that doesn’t advertise its action style combat. What about thieves? Are they now bruisers?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I don’t think the majority of players want this. I mentioned this in the dredge defense post, that most people have come to have a rather lazy expectation of the game. Particularly because the game validates this expectation around every curve. The mentality of complacency is a kittene to shake.

But I stand as the minority in many ways. Instead of an end to stacking, a lot of people want the following:

A)Anti-melee mechanics
B)Anti-zerker mechanics
C)Anti meta mechanics
D) Anti n00b mechanics
E)No change at all
F) Substantial increases in difficulty
G) Substantial increase in ranged effectiveness

So I ask not to judge the volume of my voice, but the quality.

Agreed – I do respect you and always consider your posts as well written and generally a great read.

I’ve simply pointed out how I feel the spirit of the community would take these changes.

Look at the new Crown Pavilion anti-zerg mechanics and what it did.

Played for 2 hours post-patch, the general consensus was that the new pavilion was a waste of time and 3 hours after patch you didn’t even have enough people to do the blitz properly.

People came – saw you can’t farm it and left it alone.

You can’t have legendary weapons costing around 1.500-1800 gold to craft and not expect people to want rewards instead of challenge.

I’ve also – in my previous post added a few ideas of how to improve the current situation – what do you think about those?

Zaxares.5419:

In that case, the question that needs to be addressed is “why is ranged play inferior to melee range?” Having a class of players who the game favours mechanically over every other build is a sign of a badly balanced (at best) game, or a broken game (at worse). If there is absolutely no area of the game where melee characters cannot outperform ranged characters, what point is there in even having ranged options? ANet might as well just delete bows/rifles/pistols/staff/scepters and be done with it, the same way they just removed underwater combat from PvP.

Because ranged tactics are much more forgiving and should be much less rewarding.
A melee character will outperform a range player in almost all areas of the game because melee is more demanding on player skill.

Don’t agree? Look at newbie players – they’ll almost always be using range only or most of the time.
Remember when the game launched and nobody had any idea about how to navigate and complete the content? There were tons of posts on the forum that went " melee is suicide, make melee viable".

In time players adapt and learn, range has a role, but has a trade-off and I see nothing wrong with that.

In that case, the question that needs to be addressed is “why is ranged play inferior to melee range?” Having a class of players who the game favours mechanically over every other build is a sign of a badly balanced (at best) game, or a broken game (at worse). If there is absolutely no area of the game where melee characters cannot outperform ranged characters, what point is there in even having ranged options? ANet might as well just delete bows/rifles/pistols/staff/scepters and be done with it, the same way they just removed underwater combat from PvP.

The point is that ranged weapons come with less risk, that is why they exist in this game. This means your casuals and newbies can do content, while your experienced players can rightfully cut through it with melee weapons because they’re familiar enough with it.

Risk/reward

People are too quick to call things broken, but the risk/reward of melee vs. range is something that’s present in like every RPG ever, it’s not broken at all.

Eh, some of the Guild Bounty bosses can do stuff like that. It’s not exactly new.

For open world, whatever. I mean you have people being instantly killed there and everyone ranges, anyway. For dungeons though, no, things like that are not needed at all.

And I see nothing wrong with having bosses where attempting to use melee is almost impossible. We have bosses that are flat out immune to ranged attacks. Or that going ranged on them will result in the boss using extremely dangerous attacks that could wipe the party. If one side can have it, why not the other?

The whole point of anti-ranged mechanics is to force people out of their comfort zone. Melee is already risky enough that there doesn’t need to be specifically anti-melee mechanics besides the threat of being dealt damage.

If this ends up in groups with 5 Warriors using the tactics you mentioned for speed clearing, and you dislike that thought, then don’t join speed clear/PUG groups. The speed-clearers can kill the boss in under 30 seconds, while a PUG may take 3 mins; that’s really no different to what we’re seeing between speed-clear and PUG dungeon groups now.

I dislike it because it stagnates class diversity and encourages you to just brute force fights. Or you just go five staff ele and range it since staff eles at (close) range are insanely good damage. PbAoE conditions to discourage melee is honestly a terrible idea.

And what about bosses where one player needs to be at a distance for mechanical reasons? (e.g. the lever puller in Dredge fractal, or the fan monkey in Uncategorised) Are those players sitting at range not contributing just because they’re using a ranged weapon to deal what damage they can from their spot?

Players don’t need to be at a distance for either of those fights, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

You drop the lever in dredge, drop down and melee the boss with the group and kill it. With Old Tom, you run in, put either an earth elemental, bear pet or untraited wardens in front of the party and burst it within those ~10 seconds.

maha.7902:

In that case, the question that needs to be addressed is “why is ranged play inferior to melee range?” Having a class of players who the game favours mechanically over every other build is a sign of a badly balanced (at best) game, or a broken game (at worse). If there is absolutely no area of the game where melee characters cannot outperform ranged characters, what point is there in even having ranged options? ANet might as well just delete bows/rifles/pistols/staff/scepters and be done with it, the same way they just removed underwater combat from PvP.

The point is that ranged weapons come with less risk, that is why they exist in this game. This means your casuals and newbies can do content, while your experienced players can rightfully cut through it with melee weapons because they’re familiar enough with it.

Risk/reward

People are too quick to call things broken, but the risk/reward of melee vs. range is something that’s present in like every RPG ever, it’s not broken at all.

Eh, some of the Guild Bounty bosses can do stuff like that. It’s not exactly new.

For open world, whatever. I mean you have people being instantly killed there and everyone ranges, anyway. For dungeons though, no, things like that are not needed at all.

And I see nothing wrong with having bosses where attempting to use melee is almost impossible. We have bosses that are flat out immune to ranged attacks. Or that going ranged on them will result in the boss using extremely dangerous attacks that could wipe the party. If one side can have it, why not the other?

The whole point of anti-ranged mechanics is to force people out of their comfort zone. Melee is already risky enough that there doesn’t need to be specifically anti-melee mechanics besides the threat of being dealt damage.

If this ends up in groups with 5 Warriors using the tactics you mentioned for speed clearing, and you dislike that thought, then don’t join speed clear/PUG groups. The speed-clearers can kill the boss in under 30 seconds, while a PUG may take 3 mins; that’s really no different to what we’re seeing between speed-clear and PUG dungeon groups now.

I dislike it because it stagnates class diversity and encourages you to just brute force fights. Or you just go five staff ele and range it since staff eles at (close) range are insanely good damage. PbAoE conditions to discourage melee is honestly a terrible idea.

And what about bosses where one player needs to be at a distance for mechanical reasons? (e.g. the lever puller in Dredge fractal, or the fan monkey in Uncategorised) Are those players sitting at range not contributing just because they’re using a ranged weapon to deal what damage they can from their spot?

Players don’t need to be at a distance for either of those fights, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

You drop the lever in dredge, drop down and melee the boss with the group and kill it. With Old Tom, you run in, put either an earth elemental, bear pet or untraited wardens in front of the party and burst it within those ~10 seconds.

To be perfectly honest, stacking tends to ruin your point. stacking is actaully easier than kiting. while in a normal situation, melee is moe difficult, stacking negates this difficulty.
One answer i would say is smarter AI, with faster attacks, and less dmg from its faster attacks. (they wont kill you instantly, but they force you to back off, or at least attempt to avoid/mitigate them. The game is more balanced for PVP, and one of the main differences is PVP is frequency of attacks. Yes melee is harder, and should give more dmg, except right now it isnt harder due to stacking and super slow attacks.

the other factor is as weposu said, part of the attacks that you have to deal with or face greater dmg, that come more often.

phys.7689:

To be perfectly honest, stacking tends to ruin your point. stacking is actually easier than kiting when you’re in a competent group, because otherwise everyone will fail to evade when needed and die miserably.

FTFY

haviz.1340:

It would work in any other game that doesn’t advertise its action style combat. What about thieves? Are they now bruisers?

Yes, just sneakier about it. Instead of delivering strong punches to the face, they deliver strong punches to the back of the head or kidney or gonads – same overall DPS, though.

And, instead of just taking punches to the face, they blind, dodge, and poof away. Same melee survivability, though.

Of course, others have made the point that another big encourager of stacking is the Boon Fields. I think those can be changed so that the short-duration ones give their full benefit once (And only once) at any time someone enters (And at full benefit, as though they spent the entire time in it currently), and long-duration boon fields grant theirs whenever the duration of the boons runs out, allowing people to spread out after they get their boons to avoid anti-stacking mob mechanics. Then again, this would probably break PvP.

Also – if Defiant works the way I’ve heard it does (Inherent buff that replenishes itself at fixed intervals, and needs to be ‘chewed through’ with control effects to negate before you can CC), it actually is counterproductive to not stunlocking the bosses. It requires parties that want to control the boss have enough CC abilities to sustain and chew through the stacks of defiant – which is also enough to Stunlock the boss when it’s out of said stacks, and makes it impossible to control the boss at desperate/key points if it still has Defiant.

A better mechanic would be to change Defiant so that it stacks as a boss with the trait gets hit by CC effects, and instead of being a shield to eat through, it’s a buff that delays CC application and/or shortens CC effect durations per point in the stack. Parties that try to stunlock it find themselves against an unstoppable juggernaut, while those who ration their control effects can stop it when it’s most tactically valuable to do so.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

haviz.1340:

Ok, then fix for sword aa and deletion of mainhand axe, longbow and shortbow.

Deal. But the rangers have to be renamed to meleers, so noone gets confused.

Would it blow your mind to know that the concept of a Ranger isn’t all about actual range/distance?

It blows my mind that you obviously never heard about #sarcasm.

Sword AA sucks tho.