The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
The Hitpoint System is Outdated.
The fact that a singular best way to do things has crystallized out of all the options in the game and it points toward using just one single gear set and one particular set of builds shows that those things aren’t balanced.
It proves that there’s a best way to do it and people are choosing to do things in that way.
Look at it this way – an assassin’s wearing character has almost the same dps as berserker but players don’t use it. Does it mean it’s so far out of balance compare to zerker that it needs to be rebalanced? no. It just means people don’t care for anything but the best way to do thing – especially when they are farming.
When it comes to DPS ultra-specialization is highly rewarded, with every other type of gameplay it’s punished severely. That simply can’t be the intention of the devs. If they had wanted to develop a game where those styles of gameplay don’t exist at all they simply would have built the game from the ground up to never even lead anyone astray with build options and gear options that indicate that you should be allowed to do things that way.
DPS and skill is highly rewarded – I will again ask you what do you think will happen if you take 5 unskilled or new players – slap berserker gear and damage traits on them and send them to do even simple runs of AC.
Or if you want to take it more seriously – send them to Arah or FOTM 20+.
Tell me – what do you think will happen?
In this game skill is rewarded and the reward for your skill in using dodges and active defense to stay alive is that you can deal more damage and kill things faster.
Alternatively – if you can’t use your skills and must rely on passive defense you’ll take longer but be safer.
That was the intention of the devs in this game – to realize a system where player skill takes precedence over what gear you wear and if you’re truly good you can survive and be rewarded with fast clear times.
The problem here is not this method of balancing – the problem is very old content that cannot possibly stand a chance against players that have farmed it thousands of times.
The build and gear options are there for those who need them – they’re not there to “lead anyone astray” -if you need that extra healing or you want to role play using them – well you can.
Just because something is in the game doesn’t mean it has to be optimal for all types of play nor does it mean it has to be included in all forms of play.
Having options in game doesn’t mean they should all be equally good and equally demanded in all areas of the game.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Fully trinity MMOs have active defenses and CCs too, or allow you to kite enemies around with slows to avoid damage. It’s compltely silly to say that those things existing means the game designers intended for healing to be worthless to performance oriented players.
Other MMOs don’t have dodges. Other MMOs don’t have their players have a mandatory healing skill.
This fact alone underlines their intention that everybody should be doing their own healing and not have to rely on someone else to do it for them.
How can healer be a thing when the developers intended us to be self-sufficient in that regard by giving us OUR OWN healing skill – and more than that – FORCING us to have it – by making it mandatory.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
One thing any lame WoW clone does way better than this game is definitely that you can’t kitten your character and set back your gear progression by weeks because you thought the devs gave you a choice for a reason. You just get whatever gear set says your class’ name on it and it works, no BS, no traps, just a game being honest about the fact that you don’t really have a choice.
It’s simply not like they couldn’t have done it that way in this game too. They could have just made every stat work on every skill and leave it up to the specializations to set what a character is good at at the moment. That would have been a much more elegant solution that wouldn’t leave thousands of people confused and frustrated. They chose to present people with a choice, so they owe it to us to make the choices valid.
Ultimately if they don’t fix it so making choices about gear is actually a valuable part of the game and not just something that frustrates and misleads people then they should just remove gear sets and go with the same system that other MMOs are using.
The problem here is you’re only looking at a small part of the game – dungeons.
Different gear combos have value in different parts of the game – not all gear combos can have the same value in every part of the game.
Berserker gear is good in dungeons – that’s fair and true but in WvW and PvP berserker gear isn’t really a go-to for almost any class. Some classes can run it effectively but it isn’t going to be your go-to option most of the times.
You’re claiming that because every gear combo isn’t meta everywhere the system is broken. That’s simply not true.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The whole raid organization is about maximizing DPS. Yes, your tanks – individually, as a character – want to be as tanky as needed (important choice of word!) and your healers want to be as healer as needed or enough to replace yet another healer.
Of course doing as much damage as possible is ultimately the goal for any group that no longer has survival concerns, but then, this whole topic is about one idea of how more support oriented characters could be used to feed any excess healing they have into the parties damage instead and thereby make them part of the damage stack while preserving the need to retain your health so it goes to damage rather than purely keeping you alive.
You’re claiming that because every gear combo isn’t meta everywhere the system is broken. That’s simply not true.
Oh please. When practically everyone in the game uses one type of gear above all other, when the runes and sigils that go with that gear cost 10+ gold a pop while others languish at 5 silver, when half the dungeons in the game are mostly ignored because they don’t give the right gear to be worth grinding, when you can persistently find a large section of the community unhappy with that state of affairs, there is definitely something broken.
The game gives you only two hard choices where you have to invest significant time into changing to something else. (and even these aren’t very hard by most standards) These two are the choice of class and the choice of gear. On both of these, the ones where balance should be most important, ANet dropped the ball and introduced whole classes that can’t ever be part of an ideal group, as well as whole gear sets that hamstring the player.
Another thing to consider is that they made absolutely no effort to label things or educate players. If you explore the game on your own, and don’t look up everything ahead of time there is absolutely nothing in the game except for other players that will tell you right out which choices are good for what. It presents all of them equally. The only indication you ever get of some things being better for certain purposes than others is that you can’t even earn some gear sets like Cleric from the dungeon vendor, but then they do sell you Magi’s which is an even worse set to run dungeons in, so even that is no solid indication to stay away from certain stats.
(edited by Aetrion.8295)
The whole raid organization is about maximizing DPS. Yes, your tanks – individually, as a character – want to be as tanky as needed (important choice of word!) and your healers want to be as healer as needed or enough to replace yet another healer.
Of course doing as much damage as possible is ultimately the goal for any group that no longer has survival concerns, but then, this whole topic is about one idea of how more support oriented characters could be used to feed any excess healing they have into the parties damage instead and thereby make them part of the damage stack while preserving the need to retain your health so it goes to damage rather than purely keeping you alive.
You’re claiming that because every gear combo isn’t meta everywhere the system is broken. That’s simply not true.
Oh please. When practically everyone in the game uses one type of gear above all other, when the runes and sigils that go with that gear cost 10+ gold a pop while others languish at 5 silver, when half the dungeons in the game are mostly ignored because they don’t give the right gear to be worth grinding, when you can persistently find a large section of the community unhappy with that state of affairs, there is definitely something broken.
The game gives you only two hard choices where you have to invest significant time into changing to something else. (and even these aren’t very hard by most standards) These two are the choice of class and the choice of gear. On both of these, the ones where balance should be most important, ANet dropped the ball and introduced whole classes that can’t ever be part of an ideal group, as well as whole gear sets that hamstring the player.
Another thing to consider is that they made absolutely no effort to label things or educate players. If you explore the game on your own, and don’t look up everything ahead of time there is absolutely nothing in the game except for other players that will tell you right out which choices are good for what. It presents all of them equally. The only indication you ever get of some things being better for certain purposes than others is that you can’t even earn some gear sets like Cleric from the dungeon vendor, but then they do sell you Magi’s which is an even worse set to run dungeons in, so even that is no solid indication to stay away from certain stats.
People have moved towards glass cannon gear for PvE because the content is 3 years old. The only places non-glass cannon gear tends to be meta is in PvP and WvW. Where players go up against other players and the average skill of the opponents in general rises as time goes on.
When the game first launched glass cannon was not the meta. Because people weren’t skilled enough to stay alive. Over time, players got better and they looked for things to give them a bigger challenge. Like upping the difficulty setting on a single player RPG or a beat ‘em up game or a racing game, etc. And in the case of MMO’s that typically going more glass cannon. Increasing the odds that any mistake you make will be your last.
The meta is only glass cannon because everyone knows the fights now. The average player only uses glass cannon because the average players know the fights now.
The lack of healers is not the cause for the glass cannon gear on a lot of players. The old known content is.
DPS and skill is highly rewarded – I will again ask you what do you think will happen if you take 5 unskilled or new players – slap berserker gear and damage traits on them and send them to do even simple runs of AC.
Or if you want to take it more seriously – send them to Arah or FOTM 20+.
Tell me – what do you think will happen?
They do just fine.
There’s a little bit of trivia that people don’t know about our gear system: Its actually fairly balanced. When taking the overall damage output x effective HP, comparing the two identical builds with different gear sets results in nearly identical performance. The ability to kill things faster produces a similar DPS drop as being more durable, and the increased survival time means an increased damage output length that is roughly equivalent to just doing damage faster. It is like this for all but nomad’s gear.
It is balanced like this for PVP’s sake. It works fine there. But, in PVE you don’t have zerker enemies or soldiers enemies. You just have enemies. Against any standard enemy, face tanking and auto attacking will produce nearly similar results, regardless of your gear type. So, if you put a bunch of n00bs in either zerker or knights gear, the result will be the same either way.
The imbalance comes from three things:
#1: Reward rates. While on a fight by fight basis the gear is equal, if you take the total event time for completion they are not equal. Higher DPS gives you rewards faster.
#2: Group Contribution. A player with increased durability only “contributes” to the overall performance of the group if they are capable of absorbing attacks. Sometimes this is possible, but the aggro system in this game is finicky, and many enemies have wide AoE arcs of damage. However, pure damage is always a group contribution. Dead deals no DPS, so increased kill times against an enemy means increased party durability.
#3: Active defenses. Active defense give finite windows of damage mitigation for their recharge. This gives a window where the damage mitigation between glass cannon tanky gear is identical. The faster you can kill an enemy, the greater proportion of time this mitigation window takes up of the fight. This leads to the rather contradictory phenomena where being more durable actually makes you take more damage.
Under normal circumstances, the performance of GC gear would be balanced by the higher downed and defeated rate. But the game just isn’t hard enough. The good news is, this is a problem that Anet is already working on.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Fully trinity MMOs have active defenses and CCs too, or allow you to kite enemies around with slows to avoid damage. It’s compltely silly to say that those things existing means the game designers intended for healing to be worthless to performance oriented players.
Healing isn’t worthless to performance oriented players … they still use their heals as active defenses just like everyone else and they work well. You simply can’t distinguish the difference between what a dedicated healer brings vs. healing as an active defense and why GW2 doesn’t need a dedicated healer role.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Yes you have your Evade but in dungeons when 3 silver Mobs attack you at different times evade doestn help long. Single boss fights its another thing but groups where harder at the beginning.
The problem is not that i cant play tanky, the problem is thats it doesnt help to be tanky when you have no aggro.
In a trinity system the tank has aggro so defense is good, the dps class without defense can make damage and the healer must heal.
In GW2 you can play tanky but thats no guarantee that the mob hit you. When the berserker player must evade or run he cant make damage and a tank with maybe a cc weapon has no damage too. A balanced team with alot different people is much harder. You have no synergy effects between berserker,healer and damage class without a solid aggro system.
They do just fine.
Really?
All the new and inexperienced players I’ve met in game have performed poorly in both glass and non-glass gear. With maybe one or two exceptions.
All the friends I’ve brought to the game have died repeatedly in even the most basic of dungeons (AC,CM, COF) when first transitioning to berserker gear.
Unskilled and inexperienced players don’t wear zerker gear well.
I’m not talking about the on-paper performance of stats when comparing EHP and damage – I’m talking about the real in-game effects of people dying left and right because they’re in full glass gear but have no idea how to stay alive in full glass gear.
Don’t forget – even full zerker teams have to bring in skills and time them right in order to mitigate incoming lethal damage.
Without that skill, reflex and knowledge they’ll wipe – easy as that.
If you don’t know when to dodge, If you don’t know when to pop your skills or what the boss’ tells are – you’re going to die regardless of how fast you could have killed your boss in theory.
So, if you put a bunch of n00bs in either zerker or knights gear, the result will be the same either way.
This is again on paper – I’m curious if you actually think this holds up in game.
Under normal circumstances, the performance of GC gear would be balanced by the higher downed and defeated rate. But the game just isn’t hard enough. The good news is, this is a problem that Anet is already working on.
And this was the case – even in GW2’s dungeons at launch. It was hard – going full berserker was considered very difficult and very few players could and would do it.
In time as players got better, more knowledgeable and learned more about the game this changed.
3 years later – can people still expect dungeons to provide the same level of challenge for veterans that they provide for new players?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Yes you have your Evade but in dungeons when 3 silver Mobs attack you at different times evade doestn help long. Single boss fights its another thing but groups where harder at the beginning.
The problem is not that i cant play tanky, the problem is thats it doesnt help to be tanky when you have no aggro.
In a trinity system the tank has aggro so defense is good, the dps class without defense can make damage and the healer must heal.
In GW2 you can play tanky but thats no guarantee that the mob hit you. When the berserker player must evade or run he cant make damage and a tank with maybe a cc weapon has no damage too. A balanced team with alot different people is much harder. You have no synergy effects between berserker,healer and damage class without a solid aggro system.
The aggro system is solid – it just isn’t the traditional one you’re used to.
The reason for this is that the devs want everyone fighting and on their toes when doing so.
It shouldn’t be just one man’s job to care about what the boss is doing while the rest target and do their rotation without once having to look up from their skill bars because they know the boss is agroed on the tank.
The reasons why mobs change targets is to ensure people don’t fall asleep mashing 1 until the boss dies.
Even so – if a player adds a lot of toughness it is possible to maintain aggro for extended periods of time. While not permanent it does alleviate some pressure from the other team members. I’ve done it and I’ve seen it done.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Of course I actually believe it. That’s why I said it. Work this out logically:
GIVEN: The survival time X DPS of gear sets are the same.
IF skill dodges are necessary to complete an objective
THEN performance will falter equally when skill dodges are absent.
In my experience, players who transition to zerker gear see a performance boost. They wonder why it is they weren’t wearing zerker gear before. This is largely because of how newbs play: They sit a maximum range plinking away with ranged weapons. When your combat style depends entirely upon kiting and keeping an enemy at a distance, all the toughness and vitality doesn’t do you much good. So, when they swap to zerker and see all those big crits (really it is a 50% or so damage increase over soldier/knight), they do better.
You’re probably confusing meta tactics with GC gear. The transition to using primarily melee weapons and burst skills carries with it both a significantly larger DPS increase than gear switching, and a significantly higher risk involved. It can be quite brutal for a new player to swap to melee combat, and it is here that I see many players falter.
And this was the case – even in GW2’s dungeons at launch. It was hard – going full berserker was considered very difficult and very few players could and would do it.
In time as players got better, more knowledgeable and learned more about the game this changed.
3 years later – can people still expect dungeons to provide the same level of challenge for veterans that they provide for new players?
That’s because it was harder. As time has gone on, the lower level content has been nerfed repeatedly.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
It comes down more to how most difficult encounters work in this game. There is very little “damage noise” in the game where you just take a small but predictable amount of damage that you can’t really avoid, but tank/heal through. Most of the things that really hurt you are big hits that you can see coming,but that need to be avoided no matter how well armored you are.
Even in open world content the encounters that are actually hard are the ones that can knock you down or immobilize you somehow so that you can’t defend against incoming hits anymore (Like Veteran Orrean noble for example). Having a ton of HP oftentimes simply doesn’t work against this because the enemies that can pull it off can do it so often that all your abilities that prevent it, including dodges will be expended in short order. The only way to get out of a fight like that is to kill the enemies before you are out of countermoves. That’s simply easier with extreme damage at your command.
The aggro system is solid – it just isn’t the traditional one you’re used to.
The reason for this is that the devs want everyone fighting and on their toes when doing so.It shouldn’t be just one man’s job to care about what the boss is doing while the rest target and do their rotation without once having to look up from their skill bars because they know the boss is agroed on the tank.
The reasons why mobs change targets is to ensure people don’t fall asleep mashing 1 until the boss dies.Even so – if a player adds a lot of toughness it is possible to maintain aggro for extended periods of time. While not permanent it does alleviate some pressure from the other team members. I’ve done it and I’ve seen it done.
The problem is that Power aka Damage is a attribute which is a active element aka you damage the enemy. Toughness is a defensive attribute which is always behind power implementation AND its a attribute which its dependent from the aggro of the npcs.
Dont make people with berserker gear to pro players, the main problem at the beginning was people like me who has thinking that thoughness and maye a cc hammer is a good pve option to help the team and the lack of damage killed the groups.
And it is a good option. If you’re in a group which struggles to just overpower enemies, having defensive stats and AE-CC is a godsend, it helps tons.
Only:
- Content is so old most people know exactly what to do to power through it.
- Content is so easy that it’s very rare to be a in party which needs any defense at all.
If content were more difficult, the need for defensive gear might actually arise. It has nothing to do with stat balance, a Nomad-Guardian is insanely tanky in a crazy way, see PvP. It’s just that PvE is so insanely easy that it’s rare to need anything but full offense there. Meaning: Zerker or Sinister.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Of course I actually believe it. That’s why I said it. Work this out logically:
GIVEN: The survival time X DPS of gear sets are the same.
IF skill dodges are necessary to complete an objective
THEN performance will falter equally when skill dodges are absent.In my experience, players who transition to zerker gear see a performance boost. They wonder why it is they weren’t wearing zerker gear before. This is largely because of how newbs play: They sit a maximum range plinking away with ranged weapons. When your combat style depends entirely upon kiting and keeping an enemy at a distance, all the toughness and vitality doesn’t do you much good. So, when they swap to zerker and see all those big crits (really it is a 50% or so damage increase over soldier/knight), they do better.
You’re probably confusing meta tactics with GC gear. The transition to using primarily melee weapons and burst skills carries with it both a significantly larger DPS increase than gear switching, and a significantly higher risk involved. It can be quite brutal for a new player to swap to melee combat, and it is here that I see many players falter.
And this was the case – even in GW2’s dungeons at launch. It was hard – going full berserker was considered very difficult and very few players could and would do it.
In time as players got better, more knowledgeable and learned more about the game this changed.
3 years later – can people still expect dungeons to provide the same level of challenge for veterans that they provide for new players?That’s because it was harder. As time has gone on, the lower level content has been nerfed repeatedly.
The problem with your interpretation is that it fails to take into account how player skill influences dodges missed – it isn’t a uniform progression where when player skill goes up missed dodges go down – it’s more of a cut-off.
If you don’t have the skill or knowledge of the boss’ tells and animations you’re not going to make those dodges. It’s not that you’re going to make less of them – you don’t know what you’re dodging and will die very quickly due to not being able to mitigate hard-damage-gates that the boss is throwing out.
If you do know the proper time intervals and boss tells then dodging won’t be a problem.
That’s why I’m telling you your idea is a purely theoretical one – in reality a 5man newbie zerker party will wipe AC like there’s no tomorrow because they have no experience with the game.
Why? because the “performance falter” that you describe is different in the two situations.
Full zerker = fast clear times and high dps with low survivability – one missed dodge equals death.
Full PVT = slow clear times with lower dps and high survivability – one missed dodge equals around 30% health loss.
The problem here is that the newbies in zerker gear will fail to dodge – wipe, fail to dodge – wipe and so on and so forth until they ultimately become so frustrated/annoyed their performance is impaired even more and they’ll most likely eventually give up.
The newbies in PVT gear however will fail dodges and still live so while they might have more dodging to do overall their engagement length is higher so they have a better chance. Why?
Because lower TTD (Time to death) means you can res people. Higher engagement time with the boss means you might actually get to figure out how it works. It means you have time to react and run away to try to heal up and generally gives you much more leeway when trying to stay alive.
Yes the boss will take a long time but because of their gear they’re allowed to turn mistakes that would be lethal in zerker in non-lethal mistakes.
One lethal mistake is worse than 2-3 non-lethal ones if those ones are spaced out enough for them to not be able to stack up and result in death.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It comes down more to how most difficult encounters work in this game. There is very little “damage noise” in the game where you just take a small but predictable amount of damage that you can’t really avoid, but tank/heal through. Most of the things that really hurt you are big hits that you can see coming,but that need to be avoided no matter how well armored you are.
This is because the devs intended this game to have a skill-based active combat system where you can use your reflexes and knowledge of the game to time dodges and skills and avoid damage.
It was intended for people to be encouraged to avoid damage altogether instead of adding in heavier gear in order to soak it.
That’s why a lot of bosses have these really big wind-up hard hitting attacks. Because the devs want you to:
1. See a hit is coming.
2. Move out of the way and not get hit.
Regarding of “regardless of how well armored you are” – that’s not true. A lot of things that will 1-hit-KO you in full zerker gear will only bring you to 50% or not even that much in let’s say Knight’s.
I ran FOTM 50 the first time I got to it with a mix of knight’s and zerker(Knights armor zerker trinkets). When I switched to full zerker things that before I could survive now would regularly 1-hit-KO me without much room for discussion.
Even in open world content the encounters that are actually hard are the ones that can knock you down or immobilize you somehow so that you can’t defend against incoming hits anymore (Like Veteran Orrean noble for example). Having a ton of HP oftentimes simply doesn’t work against this because the enemies that can pull it off can do it so often that all your abilities that prevent it, including dodges will be expended in short order. The only way to get out of a fight like that is to kill the enemies before you are out of countermoves. That’s simply easier with extreme damage at your command.
This has nothing to do really with your gear – it is enemies applying CC to you and a stun breaker is your friend.
Plus – getting knocked down or immobilized are things that you can dodge ( I know those orrian mobs too) so if you haven’t done it you’re being punished for not having done it by having the mob inflict damage on you.
I doubt that you can’t dodge most if not all CC and Imobilize in the open world.
If you have high toughness – sure the fight will last longer and you won’t dodge all the CC but when the mob hits you it won’t hit you very hard will it?
The game was designed around active play. Active defense. Active counter moves as you call them – it tries through mob and content design to incentivize this type of gameplay and not the passive “stand hear soak damage” we see so often in other MMOs.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
This is because the devs intended this game to have a skill-based active combat system where you can use your reflexes and knowledge of the game to time dodges and skills and avoid damage.
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
The whole problem arises from the fact that they turned one set of stats into soft stats by letting the player change the outcome, while the other is hard stats that can’t be superceded by player skill.
(edited by Aetrion.8295)
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
The whole problem arises from the fact that they turned one set of stats into soft stats by letting the player change the outcome, while the other is hard stats that can’t be superceded by player skill.
Honestly I feel the whole change was kinda stupid, in retrospect. I don’t want twitch-combat in my MMOs, I got different genres doing that far better. I want MMO-components, playing together, forming groups, getting to know people, making friends, etc.
The less the game takes pole position and disallows me social interaction, the better. It should nudge me towards that interaction, not away from it.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
i don’t quite understand. are you advocating a change to that sort of combat system? you’re not only playing the wrong game, then, but the wrong entire genre.
if not, i’m not sure exactly what point you’re trying to make
This is because the devs intended this game to have a skill-based active combat system where you can use your reflexes and knowledge of the game to time dodges and skills and avoid damage.
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
The whole problem arises from the fact that they turned one set of stats into soft stats by letting the player change the outcome, while the other is hard stats that can’t be superceded by player skill.
Yes – and if you look at HoT design with enemies having break bars that once broken allow you to punish them much more you can see a move in the direction you’d perhaps like.
Yes – it annoys me too to no end that I can’t push mobs off ledges for massive fall damage.
Still – smart player positioning can change the outcome of engagements even now. How? Stacking – this is one example.
If I cornerstack a few mobs through my actions as a player I’ve amplified my damage because one attack will now cleave through multiple foes – same with AOEs.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
The whole problem arises from the fact that they turned one set of stats into soft stats by letting the player change the outcome, while the other is hard stats that can’t be superceded by player skill.
Honestly I feel the whole change was kinda stupid, in retrospect. I don’t want twitch-combat in my MMOs, I got different genres doing that far better. I want MMO-components, playing together, forming groups, getting to know people, making friends, etc.
The less the game takes pole position and disallows me social interaction, the better. It should nudge me towards that interaction, not away from it.
Yes but this game is IMO aimed at people that do want twitch reflexes in their MMO and would prefer this sort of game play over the old spam skills and stand there system.
Playing together and forming groups are things that happen in GW2. getting to know people and making friends have nothing to do with the game’s mechanic and are a player driven thing – what exactly is stopping you from making friends in GW2?
GW2 was designed to have player interaction but not force it. It is based on the premise that no single player will be artificially crippled into needing other players in order to complete or take part in content. And this is a good and a unique thing that many of the players who play GW2 enjoy.
I don’t want to be forced to need 2 other people with me just so I can make my class viable.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Snip
That’s why I’m telling you your idea is a purely theoretical one – in reality a 5man newbie zerker party will wipe AC like there’s no tomorrow because they have no experience with the game.
Snip
You are drastically underestimating the damage done by enemy attacks, and how little damage is actually mitigated by passive defenses. Kholers spin, for example, will still OHKO players who are in knight or carrion armor. The same goes for Colossus Rumblus rocks fall everyone dies attack. Same goes for the trolls leap. Same goes for the Howling King’s Scream. Same goes for the Scavanger’s Pounce and consecutive stun. Maybe if you are in PVT armor and you don’t get focused/crit you’ll survive, but a surprisingly large amount of time having twice the effective health means nothing. Getting twice the effective health is actually pretty hard, since you need full soldiers in order to achieve it.
These proportions are tight, and active defenses are very finite. So, the correct statement would be “Should the attack deal enough damage to kill a GC toon but not a non-GC toon, then you get one additional chance to dodge”. Sure, you technically get another chance to dodge, but this neglects the fact that the longer lived enemy gets to launch far more attacks. Even if you dodge precisely in tanky gear, you’ll end up taking more damage because of the enemy’s longer lifespan. If you imprecisely dodge, you’ll get the same amount of progress either way.
You’re also assuming that there is an entire group wipe every time something goes wrong. Even in a full newb group that is rarely the case. The couple of players who survive can rez the downed ones, thus giving them a much larger margin of error than what you are depicting. They still have heal skills, they still have protection, they still have stun breaks, etc. and so on. Even at launch, players were using their utility bar to increase their survival, and were quite effective at it. They’re also good at running away and attacking at range. Back when the game was first launched, the strategy of the time was one person kite while someone heals the others. Keeping at range is a surprisingly good defensive tactic.
You’re also forgetting that higher DPS is a cumulative bonus, whereas higher durability is a personal bonus. The faster an enemy dies, the faster it stops dealing damage to everyone. Every player with higher damage contributes more and more to the groups survival. The sum total of this contribution is quite staggering, and it makes the tools available to the players more potent.
EDIT: I mused over these points years ago. There’s really two factors that changes how well GC gear does over durable gear:
#1: Healing Capacitance. This is the capability to receive heals. The more durable you are, the more overall healing you can receive. If you are in a situation where you’ve managed to avoid the threshold of lethal damage, this is only meaningful if you are receiving enough health to compensate for that damage. Otherwise, the loss in power just delays the inevitable.
#2: Clinched thresholds. Enemy damage isn’t constant. It is segmented into bursts. Because of the massive heal after every fight, you only need just enough effective HP to survive. This burst delay is the period of time in which more durable gear can make up for the damage they’ve lost. By survivng the lethal hit, a more durable gearset can be more effective if they are capable of downing the enemy between bursts. This benefit lies in the fact that going full tank or full GC isn’t the most efficient combination of EHP x DPS.
These are both rare circumstances in PVE. You brought up one sort-of brought up one in rezzing other players, but this isn’t true healing capacitance, since it requires another player belly up and sacrifice their own safety to bring someone back. Given the statistical similarity between the two gear sets, unless one of those content-specific thresholds are met, GC gear will outpreform tank gear by sheer statistical fortitude alone.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
(edited by Blood Red Arachnid.2493)
You are drastically underestimating the damage done by enemy attacks, and how little damage is actually mitigated by passive defenses. Kholers spin, for example, will still OHKO players who are in knight or carrion armor. The same goes for Colossus Rumblus rocks fall everyone dies attack. Same goes for the trolls leap. Same goes for the Howling King’s Scream. Same goes for the Scavanger’s Pounce and consecutive stun. Maybe if you are in PVT armor and you don’t get focused/crit you’ll survive, but a surprisingly large amount of time having twice the effective health means nothing. Getting twice the effective health is actually pretty hard, since you need full soldiers in order to achieve it.
While some of these are indeed a problem – some aren’t.
Colossus Rumblus’ rock attack is something you’re not supposed to mitigate through player gear or skill but via the NPC that accompanies you and creates a shield in order to protect the players.
The Howling king’s scream actually doesn’t damage or does very little damage – it’s the confusion ( a condition that ignores armor) that will destroy a player that has no idea what he’s doing.
The damage is there but let’s take the Scavanger leap – in zerker gear you can be leaped, knocked down and dead before you get up if you don’t have a stun break. In Knights or PVT your chances of survival are MUCH higher.
These proportions are tight, and active defenses are very finite. So, the correct statement would be “Should the attack deal enough damage to kill a GC toon but not a non-GC toon, then you get one additional chance to dodge”. Sure, you technically get another chance to dodge, but this neglects the fact that the longer lived enemy gets to launch far more attacks. Even if you dodge precisely in tanky gear, you’ll end up taking more damage because of the enemy’s longer lifespan. If you imprecisely dodge, you’ll get the same amount of progress either way.
More attacks but don’t forget your dodges and active skills also come off cool down so technically staying alive longer also gives you more changes to actively mitigate damage.
Yes staying alive in a longer fight in tanky gear means you take more damage but you can afford to do it since the damage over a small interval of time will most likely be insufficient to kill you. It thus gives you an advantage.
It spaces out the fight more or less – it takes longer but the risk over short periods of time(when bosses attack) is lower with a cumulative overall risk being similar to the zerker.
The difference is fighting the mob for 1-2-5 minutes then wiping can be a much more rewarding experience in terms of learning the game and the boss’ mechanics than wipin in the first 10 seconds of the fight and having to run back, wipe again after 10-20 seconds and repeat.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
ou’re also assuming that there is an entire group wipe every time something goes wrong. Even in a full newb group that is rarely the case. The couple of players who survive can rez the downed ones, thus giving them a much larger margin of error than what you are depicting. They still have heal skills, they still have protection, they still have stun breaks, etc. and so on. Even at launch, players were using their utility bar to increase their survival, and were quite effective at it. They’re also good at running away and attacking at range. Back when the game was first launched, the strategy of the time was one person kite while someone heals the others. Keeping at range is a surprisingly good defensive tactic.
In a 5 man full zerker team provided all players are newbies if one or more players go down they will most likely all go down.
It happens with experienced players. So I can only imagine how newbies do it.
#1: Healing Capacitance. This is the capability to receive heals. The more durable you are, the more overall healing you can receive. If you are in a situation where you’ve managed to avoid the threshold of lethal damage, this is only meaningful if you are receiving enough health to compensate for that damage. Otherwise, the loss in power just delays the inevitable.
#2: Clinched thresholds. Enemy damage isn’t constant. It is segmented into bursts. Because of the massive heal after every fight, you only need just enough effective HP to survive. This burst delay is the period of time in which more durable gear can make up for the damage they’ve lost. By survivng the lethal hit, a more durable gearset can be more effective if they are capable of downing the enemy between bursts. This benefit lies in the fact that going full tank or full GC isn’t the most efficient combination of EHP x DPS.
These are both rare circumstances in PVE. You brought up one sort-of brought up one in rezzing other players, but this isn’t true healing capacitance, since it requires another player belly up and sacrifice their own safety to bring someone back. Given the statistical similarity between the two gear sets, unless one of those content-specific thresholds are met, GC gear will outpreform tank gear by sheer statistical fortitude alone.
If you’re going to assume the newbie party can make effective use of utility skills then bringing someone up via banner or other instant res skills should also be factored in. Casting Warbanner for a warrior takes very little time and can bring up your entire party if need be.
At one point you mentioned this “delaying the inevitable” and while this could hold true I explained above how this delay can be fruitful and beneficial to the newbies while the instant wipe is far more detrimental.
Having a chance to adapt and learn a fight is much more present in the drawn out engagement compared to the almost instant wipe.
Ultimately I’m trying to point out that while GC gear is optimal for experienced veterans that like to farm dungeons it’s rarely seen used by players who are new and inexperienced.
I also don’t see the reason GC shouldn’t be really good in one area of the game considering that other gear sets have their respective areas where they’re better than GC gear.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
You’re also forgetting that higher DPS is a cumulative bonus, whereas higher durability is a personal bonus. The faster an enemy dies, the faster it stops dealing damage to everyone. Every player with higher damage contributes more and more to the groups survival. The sum total of this contribution is quite staggering, and it makes the tools available to the players more potent.
Well, it’s also a lot easier to res people if you’re tankier since you can’t dodge then. In that respect, higher durability can become a cumulative bonus because it increases overall uptime and reduces chances of wiping, even if only one or two people went Soldiers. And if durability gives you more time before having to dodge, it also means you can spend that time attacking, thus reducing DPS loss from dodge time.
Of course, that’s meaningless if everything one-hit KOs everyone regardless of their durability. That’s a sign of flawed content, lazily designed to mask boring design with absurd numbers.
I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
While some of these are indeed a problem – some aren’t.
You’re nitpicking. My point stands.
More attacks but don’t forget your dodges and active skills also come off cool down so technically staying alive longer also gives you more changes to actively mitigate damage
No, it doesn’t. You might get one more shot, and thats it. What keeps people alive is disengage, where they switch to a ranged weapon and run away from a fight.
The difference is fighting the mob for 1-2-5 minutes then wiping can be a much more rewarding experience in terms of learning the game and the boss’ mechanics than wipin in the first 10 seconds of the fight and having to run back, wipe again after 10-20 seconds and repeat.
The boss fight lasts 30 seconds. And no, it isn’t more rewarding. It is discouraging, doing trivial damage slowly only to be overpowered anyway.
In a 5 man full zerker team provided all players are newbies if one or more players go down they will most likely all go down.
It happens with experienced players. So I can only imagine how newbies do it.
Experienced players stack. Newbie players run around all over the place. The boss can’t focus damage, so when he’s chasing one player another is healing the downed.
At one point you mentioned this “delaying the inevitable” and while this could hold true I explained above how this delay can be fruitful and beneficial to the newbies while the instant wipe is far more detrimental.
And I’ve been explaining to you that it isn’t true. It isn’t instant wipe. It isn’t far more detrimental.
Having a chance to adapt and learn a fight is much more present in the drawn out engagement compared to the almost instant wipe.
Its not. Learning a fight in zerker gear is easy: you only need to successfully read and predict once or twice, and you’re good. Rinse and repeat for future encounters.
Ultimately I’m trying to point out that while GC gear is optimal for experienced veterans that like to farm dungeons it’s rarely seen used by players who are new and inexperienced.
It is rarely used by new players because they have a large set of incorrect preconceived notions about how the PVE game works. Both from PVP in this game and PVE in other games.
I also don’t see the reason GC shouldn’t be really good in one area of the game considering that other gear sets have their respective areas where they’re better than GC gear.
Two probelms.
#1: Balance. When Anet makes PVE content, they either have to balance it for the layman and make it too easy for vets in max DPS gear, or they balance it for max DPS gear and make it too hard for the layman.
#2: Preference in play is still a really big thing. Anet themselves have said that they didn’t intend or want the zerker meta that currently exists. Making other gear more useful means more people feel fulfilled in their playstyle. And no, they aren’t trying to obsolete the full GC party. They’re trying to raise the skill cap in specific ways so that you have to actually be skilled to pull it off. Currently, GC gear wins by sheer statistical fortitude alone.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
i don’t quite understand. are you advocating a change to that sort of combat system? you’re not only playing the wrong game, then, but the wrong entire genre.
if not, i’m not sure exactly what point you’re trying to make
Think about what I’ve been asking for this entire topic. It’s about making the ability to gain more hitpoints than you need valuable to you. It’s about making all the defensive stats have value even if you LOS and dodge and kite like an absolute pro.
It’s got nothing to do with changing the combat system entirely, it has everything to do with simply admitting that defensive stats end up in a bad place when the game allows players to actively avoid getting hit, while offensive stats remain required for everyone because the game doesn’t allow you to make any clever positional plays or land aimed shots or use the environment for extra damage.
That latter part isn’t going to change, because it would require a whole new game to change it, but the first part can be changed by giving defensive stats other functions that don’t just kick in once you’ve already screwed up and gotten hit.
This is because the devs intended this game to have a skill-based active combat system where you can use your reflexes and knowledge of the game to time dodges and skills and avoid damage.
Too bad it doesn’t have a skill based active combat system where you can use good aim and knowledge of the game to inflict a lot of damage too.
Maybe that’s true, but it’s neither here nor there for this discussion. Eventually MMO’s will get closer to the ‘FPS’ approach and some have even tried to get closer to that. I don’t think the genre can support that yet, or you would see it already.
Regardless, you’re in a seemingly contrasting position here. You advocate MORE features taking into account the player skills but you for some reason you want to regress from that with enhancements and emphasis on defensive stats/healing? kitten .
Regardless, you’re in a seemingly contrasting position here. You advocate MORE features taking into account the player skills but you for some reason you want to regress from that with enhancements and emphasis on defensive stats/healing? kitten .
No, I’m advocating for rethinking the way hitpoints work to not just include a punishment for running out of hitpoints, but also include rewards for having more than you need. That way all the skilled play remains important to getting those rewards without eliminating the benefit of someone giving you extra health.
And a question would be if you’re dealing more damage by healing your allies then you’re technically a dps by proxy of the heals you put out – so why not just play dps in the first place?
Or is it that some people need to see green number on their screen instead of white ones to feel good?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
#1: Balance. When Anet makes PVE content, they either have to balance it for the layman and make it too easy for vets in max DPS gear, or they balance it for max DPS gear and make it too hard for the layman.
#2: Preference in play is still a really big thing. Anet themselves have said that they didn’t intend or want the zerker meta that currently exists. Making other gear more useful means more people feel fulfilled in their playstyle. And no, they aren’t trying to obsolete the full GC party. They’re trying to raise the skill cap in specific ways so that you have to actually be skilled to pull it off. Currently, GC gear wins by sheer statistical fortitude alone.
And we’ve finally arrived at this part of our discussion – eventually all meta/gear/encounter discussions lead here.
They made the game for average players and in a game designed to pose average challenge to average players really good players can get away with almost anything.
As long as their focus continues to be on easy, accessible and majority-focused content the problem won’t go away. It can’t.
You can’t simultaneously make the same content accessible to the average or new player and still challenging and difficult for the veteran – you can do one or the other – never both.
If in HoT they decide to move away from this and give us actual hardcore content that doesn’t have carebear safety nets like infinite respawning in any instance and super easy bosses we might see some changes even in the meta.
Just think about how much more difficult and risky it would be to play a full GC build in a full GC team if wiping meant you had to start over. Or got kicked from your instance and lost your entrance fee. That would make it so that only the best of the best attempt the content in full glass.
But since there’s no real down side to dying other than double clicking the nearest waypoint – people are free to do anything really.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
And a question would be if you’re dealing more damage by healing your allies then you’re technically a dps by proxy of the heals you put out – so why not just play dps in the first place?
Or is it that some people need to see green number on their screen instead of white ones to feel good?
I could turn that question right around and say if it doesn’t matter either way why are you so opposed to people using healing to contribute to the damage?
It’s a roleplaying game, building a character that thematically suits you is a huge part of it. Why is it so weird to you that the exact same way someone might like to play a heavily armored fighter while another person plays a sneaky thief some people really enjoy keeping an eye on their allies rather than the enemies.
Especially in a game like this, where heals are ground targeted or have cone effects so there actually is quite a bit of interesting positional play to them, healing is way more interesting than in most MMOs where you just play whack a mole with a raid frame.
Regardless, you’re in a seemingly contrasting position here. You advocate MORE features taking into account the player skills but you for some reason you want to regress from that with enhancements and emphasis on defensive stats/healing? kitten .
No, I’m advocating for rethinking the way hitpoints work to not just include a punishment for running out of hitpoints, but also include rewards for having more than you need. That way all the skilled play remains important to getting those rewards without eliminating the benefit of someone giving you extra health.
This is just my opinion but I can’t imagine why there should be any reward for having more HP than you need. That doesn’t make sense to me, especially if the premise is to reward skilled play; skilled players need to heal less often than scrubby ones. If anything, you should be rewarded for running as little HP as you can and GW2 already does that.
I can also imagine a reward for avoiding having to heal … these are the things that are rewards for playing well.
This is just my opinion but I can’t imagine why there should be any reward for having more HP than you need. That doesn’t make sense to me, especially if the premise is to reward skilled play; skilled players need to heal less often than scrubby ones. If anything, you should be rewarded for running as little HP as you can and GW2 already does that.
Depends on your point of view I guess.
From my point of view “Support character that focuses on boosting party instead of dealing damage” is a perfectly reasonable RPG archetype that should be represented in all levels of play, not just some kind of noob enabler.
As such the system shouldn’t detract from that role by making the #1 skill play aspect of the game the ability to reduce your need for healing.
Sure, being able to wear less healing gear is in a sense a way to trade the need to heal for more damage, it just also destroys the niche for anyone who actually enjoys playing that type of character.
(edited by Aetrion.8295)
We just come full circle; game is designed to avoid catering to these niches of players that want to tank, heal, etc… There is no sensible argument that can be made to rewarding those specific tasks in a game that has discarded these tired, old cliche roles. It really DOESN’T depend on someone’s point of view; it depends on the concept of the game.
I don’t see how there can be any sensible argument made that it’s better to completely get rid of those roles, especially in a game that has specs, stats and gear to support them, rather then reforming them to fit with the new paradigm.
You don’t need a sensible argument to do that because the game already exists in that state. You just need to know it’s the reality of the system your suggesting an opposing change into. What you are suggesting goes literally against the concept of the game.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
If you go back to the roots of video fantasy RPG’s, you have D&D, which had different classes. All of them did damage. Clerics were the healers, but they only used heals in combat occasionally, instead focusing on melee combat, counter-spells and miscellany. This was true even into 4.0. I doubt 5.0 went to a heal only class, but I can’t say for sure. The SPRPG’s I’ve played had healers, who also could do damage, like the Mage in Dragon Age: Origins.
The “I only heal” role was an artifact of specific trinity MMO’s. Even in those MMO’s, heal-onlies did damage when they could — or at least I and the ones I taught did. In fact, the MMO genre has been moving away from “heal only” with classes like the Chloromancer in Rift, which heals by doing damage.
As to specs and gear… if a gear stat or trait is desired by players in any game mode, for any purpose, its existence is justified. It does not have to be useful at the pinnacle of play in every mode.
What you’re proposing is a complete redo of what health means in an MMO. This would require an extensive revamp of the game’s mechanics, mobs, PvP, and WvW — essentially making a new game arise from the ashes of the old. This is not only unlikely in the extreme, it would be unwise. Every player who plays GW2 has an investment in the game. Remaking it would mean disenfranchising a lot of them. Consider the number of complaints about lesser changes (e.g., traits 1.5 and 2.0, the Ferocity change) versus the number of people who complain that the game is not designed so they can take responsibility for a group’s health bars and be desired in bloody speed runs. You’ll find that the latter is water in a thimble compared to water in a large lake.
Never said there should be characters that only heal, just character that focus on support over damage without being a drag on the group.
That doesn’t change the point at all … being DPS and support in this game isn’t mutually exclusive so you can have both and still not be a drag on the group.
That doesn’t change the point at all … being DPS and support in this game isn’t mutually exclusive so you can have both and still not be a drag on the group.
But you can never be an asset to a group even if your DPS is low because there just aren’t powerful enough support abilities that run off the stats that make your DPS low to warrant ever using them.
You can’t simultaneously make the same content accessible to the average or new player and still challenging and difficult for the veteran – you can do one or the other – never both.
I am assuming you are conceding all other points. But this, right here, is where you are wrong. The phrase “easy to learn, hard to master” exists for a reason.
The problem was diagnosed years ago. The GC meta is sustained by the lackluster enemy and encounter design. GW2’s combat system was made PVP first, and it shows. There are a multitude of objectives that can be accomplished each in many ways, and because of this multiple varieties of gear and builds are enforced. The enemies are designed like this were a standard MMO, with poor AI and one or two skills. The objectives the same: 99% of problems are solved ultimately by killing enemies.
Not all balance is the same. The high performance of GC gear is supported primarily by the high concentration of burst that all enemies have. Higher ambient damage means more value in passive defenses, and more effective healing capacitance.
There are many more ways in which the game can be made more difficult that punishes melee GC gear more than anything else, however these are harder to program. AI that closes for burst or kites players, skills that give temporary but powerful defensive abilities, enemies that ambush with relatively high burst, etc and so on. Basically take all the things that make running full GC gear risky in PVP, and put them in PVE.
The whole discussion is moot. Anet already plan to do this. They’ve already done some of it with mordrem and aetherblades, and they’re going to continue doing it.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
The whole discussion is moot. Anet already plan to do this. They’ve already done some of it with mordrem and aetherblades, and they’re going to continue doing it.
Yeah they are trying to make all stats worth taking but not by how the OP is suggesting (buffing the stats, which is the topic of the thread) instead they are doing what they should, change the encounter design. The topic was moot from the start, there is nothing broken with defensive stats, no need to fix what isn’t broken
The whole discussion is moot. Anet already plan to do this. They’ve already done some of it with mordrem and aetherblades, and they’re going to continue doing it.
Yeah they are trying to make all stats worth taking but not by how the OP is suggesting (buffing the stats, which is the topic of the thread) instead they are doing what they should, change the encounter design. The topic was moot from the start, there is nothing broken with defensive stats, no need to fix what isn’t broken
Certainly not toughness. Vitality could use a boost, but healing power is, imo, unsalvageable.
The whole discussion is moot. Anet already plan to do this. They’ve already done some of it with mordrem and aetherblades, and they’re going to continue doing it.
Yeah they are trying to make all stats worth taking but not by how the OP is suggesting (buffing the stats, which is the topic of the thread) instead they are doing what they should, change the encounter design. The topic was moot from the start, there is nothing broken with defensive stats, no need to fix what isn’t broken
Certainly not toughness. Vitality could use a boost, but healing power is, imo, unsalvageable.
If Healing Power is so bad then why is it used so much in PVP/WvW? Same with Vitality and Toughness. No, the stats themselves are fine. The mobs (and even more so boss) design is what needs to change.
Certainly not toughness. Vitality could use a boost, but healing power is, imo, unsalvageable.
If Healing Power is so bad then why is it used so much in PVP/WvW? Same with Vitality and Toughness.
because those modes have a mechanic to instakill a downed player, and the damage is typically too intense and unpredictable to dodge or endure without additional protections.
The problem is that healing ONLY has a place in pvp and wvw. I’m don’t want to see dedicated healers in this game but i think it could play a better roll outside pvp, but for that to happen it can’t be an attribute. as soon as you have to allocate a large amount of your limited quantity of stats to it, it becomes undesirable.
better to remove it as a stat and have healing increases as a mechanic.
Certainly not toughness. Vitality could use a boost, but healing power is, imo, unsalvageable.
If Healing Power is so bad then why is it used so much in PVP/WvW? Same with Vitality and Toughness.
because those modes have a mechanic to instakill a downed player, and the damage is typically too intense and unpredictable to dodge or endure without additional protections.
The problem is that healing ONLY has a place in pvp and wvw. I’m don’t want to see dedicated healers in this game but i think it could play a better roll outside pvp, but for that to happen it can’t be an attribute. as soon as you have to allocate a large amount of your limited quantity of stats to it, it becomes undesirable.
better to remove it as a stat and have healing increases as a mechanic.
So instead of fixing the problem (PVE encounter design) you want to change how stats work which will have an effect even on the place where they are already used (PVP/WVW). I’m glad Anet prefer to add more interesting and complex mobs in PVE rather than ruining stats for all game modes.
And a question would be if you’re dealing more damage by healing your allies then you’re technically a dps by proxy of the heals you put out – so why not just play dps in the first place?
Or is it that some people need to see green number on their screen instead of white ones to feel good?I could turn that question right around and say if it doesn’t matter either way why are you so opposed to people using healing to contribute to the damage?
It’s a roleplaying game, building a character that thematically suits you is a huge part of it. Why is it so weird to you that the exact same way someone might like to play a heavily armored fighter while another person plays a sneaky thief some people really enjoy keeping an eye on their allies rather than the enemies.
Especially in a game like this, where heals are ground targeted or have cone effects so there actually is quite a bit of interesting positional play to them, healing is way more interesting than in most MMOs where you just play whack a mole with a raid frame.
It’s weird because this was advertised as a no-tank, no-healer game. I’m wondering why people who want these made their way to GW2. Were they uninformed?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
So instead of fixing the problem (PVE encounter design) you want to change how stats work which will have an effect even on the place where they are already used (PVP/WVW). I’m glad Anet prefer to add more interesting and complex mobs in PVE rather than ruining stats for all game modes.
What’s the fix? will you be assigning healing power outside your wvw build? Do you expect the ‘meta’ to include healing power builds, going forward?
The problem, as i see it, is this; if damage is too high, & too unpredictable, then players cannot complete the encounter without defensive stats (except by getting lucky). The whole dodge mechanic is built around avoiding this; what’smore, this has enabled the lauded trinity-free game we have now (which i like)
As soon as a critical threshold is crossed, where players cannot complete an encounter without defensive stats, that is when the meta will shift. Long before that, the content will be considered punishingly difficult by the average player, who will most likely avoid it, or just play a different game altogether. Presumably ANet doesn’t want either of those things to happen (not the meta shift; if they care at all, it’s probably an attitude of mild interest bordering on indifference)
So how do you make content smarter without being harder, and yet make healing useful without being required? We weren’t seeing it in the last beta weekend. The mobs had much higher price-of-failure difficulty, where if you missed the cues or diddn’t understand what was going on, you were likely to die; over the weekend, most people figured out how to cope with them (my revenant had trouble only when confronted by multiple smokescales, which tends to lead to them chaining their evasive mist fields and being invulnerable; she was built a lot less tanky than my current characters are)
The thing about healing power is that it isn’t a fixed number; you need the very highest achievable number to be not-game breaking, so that is the point you have to balance around. With a linear scaling system (as exists now), that means that at low numbers, the stat is worse than worthless, because not only does it not do enough to help out but it costs you other essential stat points which would probably have helped more.
An exponential scaling system might work better, but that gives them more data points to balance around; not game breaking at the top end, useful at low levels without overpowering the current balance; powerful at moderate levels without feeling like it tapers off too sharply)
It’s good that people are optimistic that a balance can be found; it shows trust in ANet as a developer, which means a mindset which is much less hostile and is probably part of the reason the GW2 playerbase is generally more friendly and helpful than in other MMOs.
I simply don’t share that optimism.