Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

TPMN.1483:

So this is a “Learn to play” issue with the game.
Dont make the game something it is not.

The ones who have spent time learning things are entitled to create metas (They Are uber dedicated and generally nice people and should be thanked for making things “easier” for all of us by passing on there infinite knowledge and wisdom instead of keeping it all locked away in the head).

HAHAHA you really should cut the flattery. Besides, knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands as the rampant arguments about this ‘meta’ can attest.

But I’m going to assume you’re just joking in an exaggerated manner (infinite knowledge? LOL). You know if these gw2 virtuosos kept to themselves, perhaps the community wouldn’t be so ready to rend each other limb from limb yet and FGS might yet to be a thing. The only thing you really have to show for your knowledge is more virtual loot which I guess is something. . .

This was a Serious post- the only people I have found who are ready to tear knowledgable players are those who- want to play it there way, think they know everything,, don’t give a monkeys about team play, too prideful to admit they might learn something from someone (insert a whole bunch of other reasons). Most of this boils down to a persons feelings – they should be prepared to learn on each encounter something different and new.

Even when we have run something 1000s of times sometimes we still learn something new or notice something different when doing meta like runs.

It is a small but very vocal minority who do not understand this game that want to tear apart the GW2 virtuosos.

I will repeat this game was designed that Beserker is and was designed to be the best. Don’t make us dig out the original GW2 manifestos proving this.
We have been playing for >2 yrs and I know many may have never seen these items which I speak of.

Threads like this one really amaze and annoy me. They pop up every week, rapidly explode, with a big portion of people talking past each other, throwing around the same old arguments again and again, and yet I still don´t understand why exactly some people think the established meta is supposedly bad for the game.

So, if any of those people could concisely and in a structured manner explain to me why purely offensive, high-risk/high-reward stat combinations being the core of optimized builds is wrong, it would be greatly appreciated.

Skoigoth.9238:

Threads like this one really amaze and annoy me. They pop up every week, rapidly explode, with a big portion of people talking past each other, throwing around the same old arguments again and again, and yet I still don´t understand why exactly some people think the established meta is supposedly bad for the game.

So, if any of those people could concisely and in a structured manner explain to me why purely offensive, high-risk/high-reward stat combinations being the core of optimized builds is wrong, it would be greatly appreciated.

I believe the current topic is in regards to the zerker meta and the effects of it on the community. You are speaking of the idea of just simply using an optimized power oriented build.

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

If it were just “Must be good!” I’d be pretty happy.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

If it were just “Must be good!” I’d be pretty happy.

Then people complain that there is no ‘diversity’ at all to play a different style.
The original poster was complaining about ‘the meta’ has to end.
You have just created a NEW meta with one armor selection – and removed a large proportion of the game breaking WvW and PvP. Congrats.

TPMN.1483:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

If it were just “Must be good!” I’d be pretty happy.

Then people complain that there is no ‘diversity’ at all to play a different style.
The original poster was complaining about ‘the meta’ has to end.
You have just created a NEW meta with one armor selection – and removed a large proportion of the game breaking WvW and PvP. Congrats.

Except there is diversity, if not more diversity. You could pick things based on utility rather than outright damage. You could use more condition damage skills because you’d have more condition damage than being berserker. Your choices for traits wouldn’t have to rely on “Well, this gives me an upgrade to this skill or these skills, but these would give me more damage flat out”.

Filaha.1678:

TPMN.1483:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

If it were just “Must be good!” I’d be pretty happy.

Then people complain that there is no ‘diversity’ at all to play a different style.
The original poster was complaining about ‘the meta’ has to end.
You have just created a NEW meta with one armor selection – and removed a large proportion of the game breaking WvW and PvP. Congrats.

Except there is diversity, if not more diversity. You could pick things based on utility rather than outright damage. You could use more condition damage skills because you’d have more condition damage than being berserker. Your choices for traits wouldn’t have to rely on “Well, this gives me an upgrade to this skill or these skills, but these would give me more damage flat out”.

Well on a RABIDs set – there is more damage than a CELESTIAL Set (esp when focusing on conditions).
The problem is the game is not designed in PvE Dungeons for RABIDs to be the most efficient set (e.g. its not the META yet !).
Where in WvW – RABID is quite efficient in ripping teams apart when BALANCED with other classes in a Zerg busting team.

You have more diversity with different weapon sets, armor sets, utilities and traits – if you choose to use them than rely and focus on ‘zerk’. The right armor, weapons, utilities etc depend where you are, what you are intending to do and what your focus is.

TPMN.1483:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

If it were just “Must be good!” I’d be pretty happy.

Then people complain that there is no ‘diversity’ at all to play a different style.
The original poster was complaining about ‘the meta’ has to end.
You have just created a NEW meta with one armor selection – and removed a large proportion of the game breaking WvW and PvP. Congrats.

Depends on how everything gets balanced around it. He was also complaining specifically about the zerker meta, a collaboration that has for the most part caused a larger rift between everyone larger than a mentality of just being good at what you do, you should actually read his post, granted any meta ideology that promotes seclusion will do this.

Celestial is already still very strong and widely used in sPvP and WvW so I don’t get what it will break except for the fact that you can no longer PvT ball past 55430940 superior arrow carts anymore, a personnel complaint of mine.

I wouldn’t mind seeing how it plays anyways. Anything is better than what we have now I think, a turbo large divide in expectations with a game that is going down in revenue as per q3 reports isn’t what I call a game doing very well, something has to change even if its for the sake of change.

I quite simply just want a dominate ideology where the only expectation is to be the best that you can be with the toolsets that you have chosen, if this is a step in that direction I have no problem cooperating to see if it does anything substantial.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I quite simply just want a dominate ideology where the only expectation is to be the best that you can be with the toolsets that you have chosen, if this is a step in that direction I have no problem cooperating to see if it does anything substantial.

I dont – I like the versatility and diverse set of choices we have.
People will moan more if we change all armor of ALL players and enemies to Celestial.

The game would become very boring in a much faster period of time and make crafting meaningless. May as well make every weapon celestial whilst we are at it too if this was the case.

TPMN.1483:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I quite simply just want a dominate ideology where the only expectation is to be the best that you can be with the toolsets that you have chosen, if this is a step in that direction I have no problem cooperating to see if it does anything substantial.

I dont – I like the versatility and diverse set of choices we have.
People will moan more if we change all armor of ALL players and enemies to Celestial.

The game would become very boring in a much faster period of time and make crafting meaningless. May as well make every weapon celestial whilst we are at it too if this was the case.

Crafting is pretty meaningless as it is, or at least no more meaningful than crafting celestial stuff would be.

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I’m not at all joking, actually. Well, only in that it’d be impossible to actually implement.

I do honestly think that having a statless or “Everything gets upgraded equally” system in a game with a combat system like this would be better.

I think it’d make it easier for them to make more diverse enemies, too. For example, something that takes little direct damage but bigger condition damage would go over better if each “build” had equal condition damage stats and only relied on what skills you take with you. Currently, anyone who’s geared themselves out for berserker would hate that, if they had to get another set of equipment entirely to fight it.

As I mentioned earlier for traits, there are several times on multiple characters that I have where I can’t make a trait choice because I don’t like the traits or can’t use the traits that I have a choice of, but picked for the stats, whereas there are traits deeper into a trait line that don’t give me “useful” stats but I’d like the traits, but don’t want to lose the stats to get it. Removing stats from the traits would mean that I could pick the traits I want for the skills I want without having to sacrifice stats.

Filaha.1678:

As I mentioned earlier for traits, there are several times on multiple characters that I have where I can’t make a trait choice because I don’t like the traits or can’t use the traits that I have a choice of, but picked for the stats, whereas there are traits deeper into a trait line that don’t give me “useful” stats but I’d like the traits, but don’t want to lose the stats to get it. Removing stats from the traits would mean that I could pick the traits I want for the skills I want without having to sacrifice stats.

Weird it’s almost like your describing a balanced system with give and take that promotes intelligent build choices and forethought. You’re right: we need to scrap that.

hybrid.5027:

Filaha.1678:

As I mentioned earlier for traits, there are several times on multiple characters that I have where I can’t make a trait choice because I don’t like the traits or can’t use the traits that I have a choice of, but picked for the stats, whereas there are traits deeper into a trait line that don’t give me “useful” stats but I’d like the traits, but don’t want to lose the stats to get it. Removing stats from the traits would mean that I could pick the traits I want for the skills I want without having to sacrifice stats.

Weird it’s almost like your describing a balanced system with give and take that promotes intelligent build choices and forethought. You’re right: we need to scrap that.

It would be balanced if the minor “upgrade” the traits give would outweigh the loss of stat points, but your sarcasm is noted.

Anet has already done some stuff to help players that want to be a “healer” or people that just dont like the direct dmg meta:

*added sigil of benevolence (12.5% outgoing healing)
*added 10 % outgoing healing in runes of the monk
*created bosses that you cant be crit (like teq)
*made some bosses harder to stack hotw troll, ac spider (this was not very effective change, but they tried at least making stuff harder)
*nerfed FGS and Norn elite
*reduced the max dmg by 10% when changing crit dmg to ferocity
*new traits like elementalists aquatic benevolence (25% outgoing healing)
*added new stats (like nomad and other condi ones)

I think the game is slowly, very super slowly making some steps in the direction of making other builds less terrible, BUT the great majority of the content is so easy you can still run full zerker.

Skoigoth.9238:

Threads like this one really amaze and annoy me. They pop up every week, rapidly explode, with a big portion of people talking past each other, throwing around the same old arguments again and again, and yet I still don´t understand why exactly some people think the established meta is supposedly bad for the game.

So, if any of those people could concisely and in a structured manner explain to me why purely offensive, high-risk/high-reward stat combinations being the core of optimized builds is wrong, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t think there’s any problem with that kind of builds achieving the best runs.
The problem is more in the line with having a meta stablished so close to the optimal, which means that a quite high amount of people can run those builds, follow some not so hard to pull off tactics and achieve better results than with most other compositions.
If the whole spectrum of defensive / balanced builds is there to allow different approaches with different degrees of difficulty, but any half decent player with a bit of knowledge and experience can perform close to an extreme, well, I might think there could be a problem with that.

TPMN.1483:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I quite simply just want a dominate ideology where the only expectation is to be the best that you can be with the toolsets that you have chosen, if this is a step in that direction I have no problem cooperating to see if it does anything substantial.

I dont – I like the versatility and diverse set of choices we have.
People will moan more if we change all armor of ALL players and enemies to Celestial.

The game would become very boring in a much faster period of time and make crafting meaningless. May as well make every weapon celestial whilst we are at it too if this was the case.

The fact that we are all in zerker gear at our playing level is the exact same thing. The difference between yours and mine is that you can’t blow up molten berserker in fotm50 in 4 seconds anymore.

xDudisx.5914:

Anet has already done some stuff to help players that want to be a “healer” or people that just dont like the direct dmg meta:

*added sigil of benevolence (12.5% outgoing healing)
*added 10 % outgoing healing in runes of the monk
*created bosses that you cant be crit (like teq)
*made some bosses harder to stack hotw troll, ac spider (this was not very effective change, but they tried at least making stuff harder)
*nerfed FGS and Norn elite
*reduced the max dmg by 10% when changing crit dmg to ferocity
*new traits like elementalists aquatic benevolence (25% outgoing healing)
*added new stats (like nomad and other condi ones)

I think the game is slowly, very super slowly making some steps in the direction of making other builds less terrible, BUT the great majority of the content is so easy you can still run full zerker.

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

Thaddeus.4891:

Windsagio.1340:

Well I’m not annoyed per se, I’d hope my posts in this would be clear enough that I think /meta is a waste of time. I’m in this thread for that reason. The ‘meta’ doesn’t need to die, it’s just a silly bit of fluffery, and I’m hoping to spread that message.

Plenty of people DO legitimately get mad though, as the OP shows.

Well now you look like a geocentrist running around trying to spread the word that the earth is the centre of the universe.

You still gonna have to prove that meta is a waste of time. The only thing you were able to prove so far is that you are not good enough to be able to survive in Silverwaste and that you think that that’s hard content.

Maybe you don’t know that, but when fractal started ppl were doing level 80 with zero Agony Resistance were literally every hit could 1 shot you. And they were still doing it with zerker gear.

I’m not trying to convince you guys, you’re bizarrely committed to the subject.

This is more for people who don’t have ego-ties to the concept, so let me repeat myself:

In almost any dungeon that you’d want to pug the time difference between a ‘meta’ and ‘non-meta’ group is very small. If saving 5 minutes on a TA run is important enough to you that you’re willing to wait longer in LFG and take the time and effort to gear check people, that’s on you.

Nobody Pugs a lvl 80 fractal, just between you and me.

~~~

Edit: And on a more personal note, if you’re going for maximum reward/time you first don’t understand the concept of ‘games’ and secondly shouldn’t be running dungeons anyways.

TPMN.1483:

Leo G.4501:

TPMN.1483:

So this is a “Learn to play” issue with the game.
Dont make the game something it is not.

The ones who have spent time learning things are entitled to create metas (They Are uber dedicated and generally nice people and should be thanked for making things “easier” for all of us by passing on there infinite knowledge and wisdom instead of keeping it all locked away in the head).

HAHAHA you really should cut the flattery. Besides, knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands as the rampant arguments about this ‘meta’ can attest.

But I’m going to assume you’re just joking in an exaggerated manner (infinite knowledge? LOL). You know if these gw2 virtuosos kept to themselves, perhaps the community wouldn’t be so ready to rend each other limb from limb yet and FGS might yet to be a thing. The only thing you really have to show for your knowledge is more virtual loot which I guess is something. . .

This was a Serious post- the only people I have found who are ready to tear knowledgable players are those who- want to play it there way, think they know everything,, don’t give a monkeys about team play, too prideful to admit they might learn something from someone (insert a whole bunch of other reasons). Most of this boils down to a persons feelings – they should be prepared to learn on each encounter something different and new.

Even when we have run something 1000s of times sometimes we still learn something new or notice something different when doing meta like runs.

It is a small but very vocal minority who do not understand this game that want to tear apart the GW2 virtuosos.

I will repeat this game was designed that Beserker is and was designed to be the best. Don’t make us dig out the original GW2 manifestos proving this.
We have been playing for >2 yrs and I know many may have never seen these items which I speak of.

Brilliance.

you’re correct that no one pugs lvl80 fractals because they don’t exist.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

What point are you arguing for or against?

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

What point are you arguing for or against?

I am stating that what he said is factual.

EDIT: now that im re-reading my statement I can see how it can be confusing, ill try better next time.

Windsagio.1340:

I’m not trying to convince you guys, you’re bizarrely committed to the subject.

This is more for people who don’t have ego-ties to the concept, so let me repeat myself:

In almost any dungeon that you’d want to pug the time difference between a ‘meta’ and ‘non-meta’ group is very small. If saving 5 minutes on a TA run is important enough to you that you’re willing to wait longer in LFG and take the time and effort to gear check people, that’s on you.

Nobody Pugs a lvl 80 fractal, just between you and me.

~~~

Edit: And on a more personal note, if you’re going for maximum reward/time you first don’t understand the concept of ‘games’ and secondly shouldn’t be running dungeons anyways.

HOLY CRAP. So all that time I didn’t have fun optimizing dungeons run and i didn’t even knew it. WOW thanks man, I’ll stop running dungeon then since you just make me realize that didn’t understood the concept of game and shouldn’t be running dungeons anyways.

Thanks mate

Ya the difference between meta and non meta can be really small. It depend on a large quantity of stuff.
- Running a meta build
- Having the skill to run the build efficiently
- Having the knowledge of each encounter and of the dungeon in general
- Having a good group composition
- Everybody doing their job to have max might, vulnerability, fury, banners, etc.
- Does everybody have consumable?

Ya if you don’t have the right meta build but you do most of the other stuff, you will still be able to do a good run. But there a wide range of time depending on several factor. For exemple, doing all 3 CoE path can take about 30-35min in a record run. My guild can do it in 45-50min. In most good speed clear pug group, you can do it in 60-70min. But this can easily go to 90-120min with most pug group.

Now that doesn’t mean go meta or go home. Like you said, its a game. I’m perfectly fine doing longer run with guild member that are new, learning or are more casual. I enjoy those run too. But that doesn’t change the fact that meta are the best way to do these content, even if other ways to do that same content can be as fun or even more enjoyable for other kind of ppl.

I can’t believe this anti-meta thing is still around. After having compared the well-thought-out arguments in favor of the Berserker’s armor and the anti-meta arguments that simply dodge the bullet in that they give vague, guessing reasons why it is oh so terrible to optimize your game play the fact that this thread is still active makes me cringe.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

What point are you arguing for or against?

I am stating that what he said is factual.

EDIT: now that im re-reading my statement I can see how it can be confusing, ill try better next time.

So you believe, I take it, that it’s factual that the game is clearly moving in the direction of a trinity and the “zerker mentality people” should become comfortable with that future?

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

What point are you arguing for or against?

I am stating that what he said is factual.

EDIT: now that im re-reading my statement I can see how it can be confusing, ill try better next time.

So you believe, I take it, that it’s factual that the game is clearly moving in the direction of a trinity and the “zerker mentality people” should become comfortable with that future?

trinity in the sense of the trinity outlined by mike o brien in one of his blog posts of turning it into a more literal and not the classic holy trinity we are familiar with in games like WoW. I know that sounds confusing.

Anet has already stated in the beginning 2013 that they had planned to make small baby steps to address the dominance of power.

When looking at the types of enemies introduced in season 2, we can see there is “effort” to try and introduce variance of enemies slowly to get people warmed up for additional gradual changes. This is why we are recognizing sinister stats in certain situations while full power specs are still maintaining relevancy (I myself walk around in full berserker in silverwastes).

Good, because at the rate at which Anet is roling out their ‘trinity’ and the rate in which they produce content that I would play, I won’t be around for the point where you have to use a nomads guardian or whatever to complete content

To create a classic trinity they’d need to rework the agro system to be more predictable.

I don’t see this happening.

What was shown earlier in this thread is that they’ve strengthened the ability to heal allies, which is something they originally put huge restrictions on. So they’re simply making that a bit more reasonable. Still far from optimal but it can be nice. A buddy of mine played a hammer guard with water sigils and monk runes, made things faceroll easy getting hit for 66% of the damage, getting heals throughout that were enough to keep all of us topped off for scholar bonuses, in the end it didn’t take much longer to finish things. Still, not optimal.

I’ve seen non meta things as being nice, they surely can make things easier, but at this point most people aren’t after easy as much as they’re after speed. Going for speed and being more risky inserts a bit of fun to those that have become bored with safer runs.

Cheezy.2039:

Good, because at the rate at which Anet is roling out their ‘trinity’ and the rate in which they produce content that I would play, I won’t be around for the point where you have to use a nomads guardian or whatever to complete content

I would like to avoid mandatory nomad guardians myself, my desire is for it to be seen in equal light.

spoj.9672:

Leo G.4501:

TPMN.1483:

So this is a “Learn to play” issue with the game.
Dont make the game something it is not.

The ones who have spent time learning things are entitled to create metas (They Are uber dedicated and generally nice people and should be thanked for making things “easier” for all of us by passing on there infinite knowledge and wisdom instead of keeping it all locked away in the head).

HAHAHA you really should cut the flattery. Besides, knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands as the rampant arguments about this ‘meta’ can attest.

But I’m going to assume you’re just joking in an exaggerated manner (infinite knowledge? LOL). You know if these gw2 virtuosos kept to themselves, perhaps the community wouldn’t be so ready to rend each other limb from limb yet and FGS might yet to be a thing. The only thing you really have to show for your knowledge is more virtual loot which I guess is something. . .

I think ignorance is far more dangerous in the wrong hands. Weve had evidence of that in the past. Fortunately most of those examples have since stopped playing the game and ceased the spread of misinformation.

Im not really sure why anyone would think its dangerous to share knowledge. Maybe the way in which they share it might be unfavourable but the knowledge itself should be valued, respected and shared. If you mean its dangerous in the hands of people who dont really know what they are talking about so they spread misinformation then I agree. But I didnt get that impression from your post.

Ignorance isn’t dangerous because you can never escape it. It’s ever present and often uncovering knowledge only broadens ignorance. Once you embrace ignorance, then you can truly enjoy learning.

And if you can only think of that one way knowledge can be misused, you just aren’t being creative. I had thought of at least 3 when I wrote that post and I hadn’t slept for 28 hours and was in the middle of a night drivers training exercise while I was writing it.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

hybrid.5027:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

This right here.

Whether you guys like it or not, things are changing. You can accept the fact that it is changing and start taking steps to pad yourself from the impact so that your ideologies can survive in some shape or form or get left behind.

What point are you arguing for or against?

I am stating that what he said is factual.

EDIT: now that im re-reading my statement I can see how it can be confusing, ill try better next time.

So you believe, I take it, that it’s factual that the game is clearly moving in the direction of a trinity and the “zerker mentality people” should become comfortable with that future?

trinity in the sense of the trinity outlined by mike o brien in one of his blog posts of turning it into a more literal and not the classic holy trinity we are familiar with in games like WoW. I know that sounds confusing.

Anet has already stated in the beginning 2013 that they had planned to make small baby steps to address the dominance of power.

When looking at the types of enemies introduced in season 2, we can see there is “effort” to try and introduce variance of enemies slowly to get people warmed up for additional gradual changes. This is why we are recognizing sinister stats in certain situations while full power specs are still maintaining relevancy (I myself walk around in full berserker in silverwastes).

Ah, so you’re one of the many who misinterprets that blog post. His statement was that there won’t be defined roles, all players will be able to contribute “dps, support, control.” To take from that ancient blog post that they want hardened roles is wishful thinking.

though why someone would want to wish for something bad, I have no idea.

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Leo G.4501:

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Actually, I can’t remember the game right now, but there was at least one RPG I’ve played where setting it to hard meant that both you and monsters did more damage to each other, and setting it to easy meant you did less to each other.

Basically, higher risk for faster fights, or lower risk but longer battles.

I rarely run zerker meta and I do every dungeon. It’s about finding the right people to play with rather than a problem with builds.

Filaha.1678:

Leo G.4501:

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Actually, I can’t remember the game right now, but there was at least one RPG I’ve played where setting it to hard meant that both you and monsters did more damage to each other, and setting it to easy meant you did less to each other.

Basically, higher risk for faster fights, or lower risk but longer battles.

That’s every game. That’s the reason games have endgame gear specifically for hard content. Leo seems to be under the impression the zerkers just run up to mobs and press 1 and they all explode. That’s hardly the case. If it was, why wouldn’t everyone just throw on some zerker’s and face roll the whole game and then make threads about how the game is too easy instead of anti-meta threads?

Tman.6349:

Filaha.1678:

Leo G.4501:

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Actually, I can’t remember the game right now, but there was at least one RPG I’ve played where setting it to hard meant that both you and monsters did more damage to each other, and setting it to easy meant you did less to each other.

Basically, higher risk for faster fights, or lower risk but longer battles.

That’s every game. That’s the reason games have endgame gear specifically for hard content. Leo seems to be under the impression the zerkers just run up to mobs and press 1 and they all explode. That’s hardly the case.

Uh, no, I’m pretty sure that Halo on Legendary and Devil May Cry on (insert hardest difficulty per game here) didn’t make you kill things faster in return for making you take more damage. They were generally “take more damage, deal less”.

Those are FPS not RPGs. RPGs it’s pretty typical that the more defensive options have lower offensive capabilities but create a more forgiving play style.

I’d love a “hard mode” for dungeons like we have scaling fractals. In those senses yes the “hard mode” is more health and harder hitting. But that’s not what we’re talking here. We’re talking gear selection aren’t we? Being defensive is “easier” in that it’s more forgiving in general, but you lose offensive potential thus the time of a kill is increased. It’s pretty normal RPG setup.

this discussion feels meaningless

Meta = optimum play style dont means zerker even so it is in most cases. Buff a gear a new Meta will come.

I feel more ppl come here to look for a shoulder to talk about there bad dunguon expierence where they be kicked for comming with non optimal gear .

I myself had the worsed runs with non meta groups not bcs they play bad but bcs they dont understand the encounter and blameing ppl very fast for dying in a fight which would be over in 2 min with meta team but 15 minutes in a non meta where I was the only zerk and other proudly posting there Cleric gear and telling me to tank as a Guard…

So all in all Meta or not all we want is fun dunguon encounters whith interessting boss mechanics and a lot movement.

Do we want a certain class in a certain gear to do a dunguon? No but this is what could happen if we force anet to make more gear types be meta.

then u get your 20 minutes waiting for a Normad Ele and a Condition Guard

Vargamonth.2047:

Skoigoth.9238:

Threads like this one really amaze and annoy me. They pop up every week, rapidly explode, with a big portion of people talking past each other, throwing around the same old arguments again and again, and yet I still don´t understand why exactly some people think the established meta is supposedly bad for the game.

So, if any of those people could concisely and in a structured manner explain to me why purely offensive, high-risk/high-reward stat combinations being the core of optimized builds is wrong, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t think there’s any problem with that kind of builds achieving the best runs.
The problem is more in the line with having a meta stablished so close to the optimal, which means that a quite high amount of people can run those builds, follow some not so hard to pull off tactics and achieve better results than with most other compositions.
If the whole spectrum of defensive / balanced builds is there to allow different approaches with different degrees of difficulty, but any half decent player with a bit of knowledge and experience can perform close to an extreme, well, I might think there could be a problem with that.

But that´s a problem with the content, not with the builds/stats the make up the meta, don´t you agree?

Jerus.4350:

Those are FPS not RPGs. RPGs it’s pretty typical that the more defensive options have lower offensive capabilities but create a more forgiving play style.

I’d love a “hard mode” for dungeons like we have scaling fractals. In those senses yes the “hard mode” is more health and harder hitting. But that’s not what we’re talking here. We’re talking gear selection aren’t we? Being defensive is “easier” in that it’s more forgiving in general, but you lose offensive potential thus the time of a kill is increased. It’s pretty normal RPG setup.

Oh but gw2 isn’t an RPG!!!

Practically every evidence arguing meta gameplay, how the game was designed/meant to be played, what the game isn’t, all point to gw2 being an action game! We’re even contemplating removing stats from gear (I actually think we could make a while thread about that. Just think of all the good you could do for encounters and improvements to traits) putting it further from its RPG roots.

And most action games with difficulty settings, the mobs are easier to kill on easy mode. . .

It’s been said before, but the problem with the established meta isn’t the meta itself, but rather how people act in relation to the meta… part of that being putting heavy emphasis on it.

Changing what the meta is won’t do anything to help that of course, but the core is there.

For what god forsaken reason would anyone want to run anything but zerker in PVE? I can see if like, someone got upset over a Guardian not wanting to run zerker and getting kicked.. but any other class? Why? There is absolutely no logical legitimate reason other than wanting to be a special snowflake and take more time than needed to complete an instance.

This isn’t a kittening meta, it’s just logical.

Kitarpa.8143:

For what god forsaken reason would anyone want to run anything but zerker in PVE? I can see if like, someone got upset over a Guardian not wanting to run zerker and getting kicked.. but any other class? Why? There is absolutely no logical legitimate reason other than wanting to be a special snowflake and take more time than needed to complete an instance.

This isn’t a kittening meta, it’s just logical.

You know, if you could make special snowflakes in the game, people probably would just play for fun. It’s rather impossible though (disregarding the meta) as there’s very limited customization available.

Scratch that, there is some moderate visual customization. I have always said I love the way gw2 handled it’s races.

The whole point of the game is to make your character into a special snowflake

Almost none of the gameplay is super challenging, but there are thousands of visual customization options (including all the skins and dyes) and tons of titles.

Leo G.4501:

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Well normally hard mode means also better rewards, but here in GW2 (sorry to only refer to this game) there are no better reward hence “hard mode” aka speed clearing meta increase the reward… flow. You basically have the “die at the drop of a hat” part but since you won’t get better reward you don’t increase monster’s life. But the compensation for the risk is the time you take and then the gold per hour.

This is not a hard mode per se, it was a comparison … and you know it.
In this game you set yourself your comfort zone by your gear and the reward for not needing too much comfort is better reward flow.

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

Those are FPS not RPGs. RPGs it’s pretty typical that the more defensive options have lower offensive capabilities but create a more forgiving play style.

I’d love a “hard mode” for dungeons like we have scaling fractals. In those senses yes the “hard mode” is more health and harder hitting. But that’s not what we’re talking here. We’re talking gear selection aren’t we? Being defensive is “easier” in that it’s more forgiving in general, but you lose offensive potential thus the time of a kill is increased. It’s pretty normal RPG setup.

Oh but gw2 isn’t an RPG!!!

Practically every evidence arguing meta gameplay, how the game was designed/meant to be played, what the game isn’t, all point to gw2 being an action game! We’re even contemplating removing stats from gear (I actually think we could make a while thread about that. Just think of all the good you could do for encounters and improvements to traits) putting it further from its RPG roots.

And most action games with difficulty settings, the mobs are easier to kill on easy mode. . .

True it’s very much more based on an action play style but it’s still inside an RPG system by the fact that you have gear in the first place. Those gear choices can make things easier but take longer, just like defensive gear in any RPG type system.

The one area where we do have a pretty legitimate “hard mode” is fractals with higher levels and that falls in pretty much exactly as you say.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I believe the current topic is in regards to the zerker meta and the effects of it on the community. You are speaking of the idea of just simply using an optimized power oriented build.

KSIBBQ.8123:

This Zerker meta has to end. It has killed the diversity too long. This game has such a unique build system, and you should truly be able to play how you want. However, unless you have a pre made, then people will kick you. Start building your toon the way you want to!

You believe incorrectly. The OP’s initial complaint was about “lack of diversity” and being able to play as he wants. He does not seek to change people’s behavior by making a case for them accepting other builds as they are, he seeks to have the developer change the game so that a myriad of builds (he does not specify a build he plays) fit into the meta.

IndigoSundown.5419:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I believe the current topic is in regards to the zerker meta and the effects of it on the community. You are speaking of the idea of just simply using an optimized power oriented build.

KSIBBQ.8123:

This Zerker meta has to end. It has killed the diversity too long. This game has such a unique build system, and you should truly be able to play how you want. However, unless you have a pre made, then people will kick you. Start building your toon the way you want to!

You believe incorrectly. The OP’s initial complaint was about “lack of diversity” and being able to play as he wants. He does not seek to change people’s behavior by making a case for them accepting other builds as they are, he seeks to have the developer change the game so that a myriad of builds (he does not specify a build he plays) fit into the meta.

The OP’s position isn’t great though, that got mostly cleared out by the end of page 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

You believe incorrectly. The OP’s initial complaint was about “lack of diversity” and being able to play as he wants. He does not seek to change people’s behavior by making a case for them accepting other builds as they are, he seeks to have the developer change the game so that a myriad of builds (he does not specify a build he plays) fit into the meta.

Seeking to have the game developer radically alter the game so your special snowflake build becomes meta… that’s about the most myopic thing I’ve ever heard.