Guild Wars 2

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Guys, if we make dungeons harder, then the average player suffers that much more. The average player joining a pug is going to have a miserable time in an uncoordinated group where the content is even more difficult. Not everyone runs premades, and not everyone uses a voice chat. Raising the bar for everyone does not simultaneously increase the viability of other builds, nor does it promote a Meta with less reliance on Zerker stats.

Making things more challenging without increasing the scaling of defensive stats means that defensive stats will be even more worthless than they are now. Zerker gear is the best because POWER, PRECISION, FEROCITY scale the best. TOUGHNESS has diminishing returns, HEALING POWER might as well not exist, and VITALITY doesn’t matter because of one-shot mechanics.

If the solution is making AI better, and content in general that much harder, how does that promote diversity of builds? Won’t more and more people gravitate to Zerker Meta because as we all know, blocks, blinds, and protection are available irregardless of the gear you are wearing. This is the reason why Zerker Meta can exist. It exists because you don’t lose out on being able to provide those important protective boons which are much more valuable than defensive stats from Gear. As long as this is true, Zerker will always be best, especially for organized groups.

And not to mention that running harder, longer content should also provide more valuable loot. There’s many variables to consider, and blanket statements like “X and Y should change” cannot be made without considering how to change the other parts of the equation.

TPMN.1483:

1. Why are there other gear stats in the game?
A: as training wheels – once you understand the mechanics you can progress to zerker/assassin. You will be taking a lot more dmg and going down in a single. Hit where before you could have face tanked bosses.

2. How come this thread pops up in some form weekly?
Answers:
*people are struggling to learn to play there class efficiently.
*think they are playing a class well until they are directed to a non-selfish build and move to a more team orientated build.

• frustrated how zerker teams with high skill are rolling through content with times much quicker than they could dream of. This is the casual daily runs (eg CM < 6 mins / CoE < 10 mins/Arah <15 mins) for organised zerker teams with silly errors happening

Take your pick why people are failing badly and asking for there own selfish solo player build to be more effective over a group team orientated build.

From the GW2 website under dungeons “Dungeons in Guild Wars 2 reward players who enjoy organized parties, epic challenges, and delving deeper into the secrets of Tyria.”

Again only damage kills so you are partially right why because conditions are not viable or even training wheels. Other sets are mostly for PvP/WvW there should be two optimal specs in pve glass power and glass condition I wouldn’t be in this thread if conditions weren’t a possible main damage source only damage kills stop thinking you will make valkyrie optimal over zerk. Yes you are partially right make condition optimal in many situations.

Plz stop creating threads like these arguing about the defensive stats when you can find that defense in skills and traits, devs plz stop with the over 9000 vitality and negative 9000 toughness mobs.

So this is what..
“pls make dungeons easier so non-zerker builds are more viable”?

Paraphrasing: “pls make dungeons easier so 1-2 skilled zerker players can carry me in my nomads gear and I can carry on pressing 1”.

Noting that “all I do is press 1 and win. dungeons sux.” is a (selfish) personal choice. You could learn to use your class, getting the most out of it ( and typically completing a run faster, equalling more gold/hour). But most people won’t, or don’t know how to.

I see most players of gw2 using their characters as comparable to 5 y/o kids learning to play piano ( one handed), on a grand piano suitable for a famous orchestra.
Or learning to drive in a top-of-the-line ferrari.

Bubi.7942:

@TPMN, NikeEU:

1. Why not erase all gear then (like I previously proposed)? Have a dumbed-down training mode for all dungeons (basicly story mode), and have the expert mode. There, training done. If everyone is wearing zerker, it doesn’t matter, would be easier to actually balance dungeons.

2. I thought gear and builds were different. You can go all heal traitlines and runes with zerker gear too.
IMO the thread pops up every week cause people get sick and tired of pressing 1 in the corner, and see it as a flaw of the game.

Also this: “Remember after 3 yrs the hardest bosses will seem trivial with good groups who have practiced this daily. For new players there is still the oh “how do I beat this boss” learning curve and what skills do I bring for active defenses?”

This would be nice if it worked so, the thing is, 1 experienced player can breeze through any dungeon with PuGs (granted they listen), simply by saying: “stack here, use reflect” or “invis, skip”.

I suggested a long time ago eliminating gear stats. All gear should be changed to what celestial is now, and the only meaningful gear choices you make is your Runes and Sigils. Essentially, your runes and your traits would define your build. There is only one issue with this…

1. This is how it already is. Your gear prefix doesn’t define your playstyle. Runes, traits and skills (both utility and weapons) do. All eliminating gear stats would do is make the current character build system that already exists more explicit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would have to done in face of huge opposition from the community and frankly probably isn’t worth all that for a change that in the end is cosmetic.

I’ve long ago argued that the biggest issue with the gearing system is that the different gear types have names. The names carry with them unfortunate roleplaying connotations. If berserker gear was simple known as 1-a and nomads was known as 10-a (since they are merely points on linear spectrum of glassy → tanky) it would solve a lot of the problem. I suspect that most of the anti-berserker crowd, if they were honest about it, would admit that they don’t like their characters wearing “berserker” gear because “my character isn’t a berserker.” It’s just roleplaying bs confusing people.

Nope. I could care less about the title of the armor. It is the stat combination. I main Engineer and use Soldiers and tank like a boss. I still do decent damage because power is main stat but toughness/vitality allow me to stay alive and support/tank for my fellow players. The only time this is a problem is if more than one person is doing this then we don’t have enough DPS.

I think the problem is with the min/max people not even allowing for traditional roles even though the roles work just as well. I mean heaven forbid a fight should take 20 more seconds. I find it very beneficial when I get a healing ele that knows what they doing. There are tons of fights that actually cater to this concept where the natural regen of water stance comes in handy.

Because of GW2 system with the no roles ideology people who actually enjoy playing these roles get shunned when they ought to be rewarded. So if ANet doesn’t want to require roles that is fine but make them still viable.

The only problem is the relaxed dungeon queue system that allows for bad experience when players want to play those roles. nothing worse than entering a dungeon and seeinf 2-3 people state “I’m heals”. It isn’t because they are wrong but they know nobody will queue up with them if they state it in the dungeon find.

Some solutions is to NEVER pug, be a jerk and say zerg only post your armor (I should carry armor on me so I can link it just to anger people), play with friends who share same ideas, or give into the meta even if you don’t want to play DPS

None of these solutions are very appetizing huh?

Bubi.7942:

@TPMN, NikeEU:

2. I thought gear and builds were different. You can go all heal traitlines and runes with zerker gear too.
IMO the thread pops up every week cause people get sick and tired of pressing 1 in the corner, and see it as a flaw of the game.

people should tell anet to make more difficult and challenging instanced content. 99% of the players crying will need nomads gear.
why?
because if they dont even understand how the game works they arent good players.

Bubi.7942:

Also this: “Remember after 3 yrs the hardest bosses will seem trivial with good groups who have practiced this daily. For new players there is still the oh “how do I beat this boss” learning curve and what skills do I bring for active defenses?”

This would be nice if it worked so, the thing is, 1 experienced player can breeze through any dungeon with PuGs (granted they listen), simply by saying: “stack here, use reflect” or “invis, skip”.

the dungeons are easy, really. check out some wildstar stuff like GA raid bosses and the DS raid bosses.
i know dungeons arent raids and its okay when the dungeons are easy, but the wildstar level of difficulty is what anet should be doing in the future.

Sagat.3285:

Yes you are partially right make condition optimal in many situations.

Plz stop creating threads like these arguing about the defensive stats when you can find that defense in skills and traits, devs plz stop with the over 9000 vitality and negative 9000 toughness mobs.

they shouldnt make conditions optimal in many situations. they should make berserker/assassins and glass canon condition builds equally good.

things like mobs that you can only kill with condition damage is gimmick/gambit and not good game design.

cletiscake.9173:

Guys, if we make dungeons harder, then the average player suffers that much more. The average player joining a pug is going to have a miserable time in an uncoordinated group where the content is even more difficult. Not everyone runs premades, and not everyone uses a voice chat. Raising the bar for everyone does not simultaneously increase the viability of other builds, nor does it promote a Meta with less reliance on Zerker stats.

Making things more challenging without increasing the scaling of defensive stats means that defensive stats will be even more worthless than they are now. Zerker gear is the best because POWER, PRECISION, FEROCITY scale the best. TOUGHNESS has diminishing returns, HEALING POWER might as well not exist, and VITALITY doesn’t matter because of one-shot mechanics.

If the solution is making AI better, and content in general that much harder, how does that promote diversity of builds? Won’t more and more people gravitate to Zerker Meta because as we all know, blocks, blinds, and protection are available irregardless of the gear you are wearing. This is the reason why Zerker Meta can exist. It exists because you don’t lose out on being able to provide those important protective boons which are much more valuable than defensive stats from Gear. As long as this is true, Zerker will always be best, especially for organized groups.

And not to mention that running harder, longer content should also provide more valuable loot. There’s many variables to consider, and blanket statements like “X and Y should change” cannot be made without considering how to change the other parts of the equation.

this is true but this is also exactly why the combat in gw2 is different. i dont understand why people want to take that away and turn gw2 combat into a roleplaying trinity experience.

Just want to say, while it’s not meta, there are other builds that are not bad at all.

Take a look at these videos, trioing fractals with relative ease thanks to the pillar guard playing tank/healer. Sure you “can” do that with more optimized builds, but it’s a lot tougher and less forgiving… which is kind of the point of the options we have in this game. The actual play is the same as you’d do with a zerk (maybe couple knights for agro) guard but the execution is far smoother than the vast majority of guards can accomplish with a more meta build (I have played with 2 total, one is not me, i still suck at it).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

Props to Skady for putting out a bunch of videos to show the viability of such a setup and taking a beating for it, doesn’t mean you should stack multiple cleric guards, or really that you should use one, but it certainly demonstrates the power that they have to make things easier.

NoTrigger.8396:

Sagat.3285:

Yes you are partially right make condition optimal in many situations.

Plz stop creating threads like these arguing about the defensive stats when you can find that defense in skills and traits, devs plz stop with the over 9000 vitality and negative 9000 toughness mobs.

they shouldnt make conditions optimal in many situations. they should make berserker/assassins and glass canon condition builds equally good.

things like mobs that you can only kill with condition damage is gimmick/gambit and not good game design.

You can’t have all three equally viable on 1 boss unless mobs have periods where they are more vulnerable to one and resistant to another in phases but how is that supposed to work in open pve?? Solution complete block of ever creating single boss encounters, instead of 1 big,always slow and boring boss , 2-4 challenging one having opposite weaknesses AKA conditions vs burst. I never mentioned only damaged by conditions just optimal situations for conditions, also stop the HP sponge concept that ruins pve, mobs that could be condition tank,heavy buffers so condition transfer can be a thing for example encourage variations.

HoT is not bringing that but at least I hope they recognize that having similar bosses with so many variations to dps is very cheap of them, same concept just different boss skin. If they are having trouble to decide to implement or not I’ll pull my trump card :“Even the casuals are not liking it.”.

I think it’ll be more profession dependant than enemy dependent. Like I said, curious to see the maths on Engineer with sinister vs Assassin. Between the bleeds and confusion stacks I’m curious how it stacks up to ferocity additions.

Alright, because I enjoy crafting ideas, suggestions, improvements, alterations or what have you…here’s my answer to the whole stats thing…but first, what I perceive as the problem and my over all approach to helping reduce the issue.

The Problem, IMO
Basically, just that synergies between team members are limited due to the limited and very narrow goals of combat. The goals of combat are almost always kill the target(s) before they kill you, and I’m not trying to change that, but the approaches to accomplish that are extremely narrow due to available resources. You have dodges, blinds, aegis and stability to cover your behind which requires little investment to obtain which means everything else you dump into dishing out damage which basically amounts to 25 stacks of might/vulnerability and perform your rotation.

Approach
Pretty simple. Baseline performance would be lowered. This might actually remedy several things outside of the scope of the idea such as character progression 1-80 (not needing to lock so much behind invisible barriers and linking that performance to stats that gradually improve due to traits and gear improving).

This ultimately means things like blocking not completely blocking attacks, blinds not making foes always miss, stacking boons/conditions being more difficult, less dodges and slower endurance recovery, etc. It sounds horrible…but that’s only the tail side of the coin.

Stats
I’ve typed it before but I feel every time I redo it, I get the approach slightly different and slightly improved. So let’s start with the basics. I’d want to start by limiting the stats to 5 instead of 6 (technically eight) but I’m taking baby steps here (giant baby steps tho). So of course there will be Power, Precision, Ferocity then Toughness, Benevolence and Malevolence (abbreviated Bv and Mv). The big note here is that Boon Duration and Condition Duration, outside of trait points and some gears (runes/sigils) would be rolled into Bv and Mv respetively. Also of note, Condition Damage is rolled into Mv and Healing Power into Bv and for every point in those stats, those aspects of the stat are all slightly improved.

[con’t]

Benevolence and Boons
So, boons. These are a premiere part of speed clears, primarily for Might, Aegis and Stability, of course! So here I’ll start with what the baseline would end up being:

-Might = same
-Aegis = 50% chance to 100% block an attack. Nullifies effects and reduces damage of attacks by 33% for a short duration after hit/block
-Stability = same
-Vigor = +15% Endurance upon gaining and +5% Recovery
-Fury = same
-Protection = -15% damage taken and -25% Condition Duration on yourself
-Swiftness = +33% movement speed and +10% Recovery when not moving or during Counterstance
Regeneration = same

Some of these are reductions, some are these are improvements and others are oddly the same when it should likely be toned down…but I’ll just mention what slotting for Benevolence does to these boons outside of slightly increasing boon duration.

Regeneration: improves amount of heal per sec.
Swiftness: nothing
Protection: improves damage reduction upwards of 45% with max slotting.
Fury: nothing
Vigor: improves amount of endurance returned upon granting upwards of 100% with max slotting.
Stability: nothing
Aegis: improves chance to block initial attack upwards of 100% with a bit of slotting and increases the window that further damage is reduced after block/hit.
Might: nothing

Now there’s still some nothing in there that I’d like to account for in Bv. Might. Particularly the durations, should be shortened. This, of course, can be easily remedied by any player by just taking might duration increasing effects/gear which is good…it just requires that bit of investment for the specialized role of stacking might. Another point to mention: Combos. Another feature Benevolence has is the spread of boons and this goes for every skill, gear, trait or utility that grants boons…Benevolence increases the number of allies you can apply boons to. Baseline, such as for your standard 5 member utility or combo, this would be reduced to 2 members with only a rolling chance at the other 3 (that gets more and more slimmer as you get to the max). Bv not only increases the chance (up to 100%) that you will hit 5 people, but also increase the cap so you can possibly land boons on up to double the people at max slotting!

So what this entails for the current meta using boons? Well, they can still do what they do and stack might, fury, apply aegis and kill quick, it’ll just be less efficient. Most likely, it will just require the meta to dedicate either someone in some Bv gear, possibly aim for everyone in the group to allocate some Bv into their set-up or make specialized builds that aim to stack might through might duration gears (of which likely only 1 member of the group would be and it’d likely be a profession who can stack might well and easily).

What I’m aiming for? Well, a Cleric geared character might sacrifice a lot of personal damage to support, but small portions of that might be made up through efficiency of boon stacking/sharing just like Berserker is currently sought after for its efficiency of killing things extremely quick which definitely won’t change with who not only seeks to help out the group by applying boons but literally dedicates their build toward it will be rewarded.

[con’t]

Malevolence
This one’s a lot tougher since the state of conditions swing from really awesome to relatively poor. I’ll just go on to say, I think what conditions currently can do is okay but I feel Condition Damage (the stat) is too niche of a stat to exist just to make bleed, burn, confusion and torment effective damage sources. That’s why I think Malevolence should improve the damage of these dps sources but also the duration and effectiveness of conditions that don’t deal damage. Starting from baseline…

Bleed/Burn/Confusion/Torment: same but durations significantly reduced.
Blind: chance to miss starting at 50%, nullifies Counterstance; expires upon missing.
Vulnerability: Increase damage by 1% and stacks intensity; decreases Boon Durations by 5% that does not stack
Weakness: 50% of non-crits glance, -1% Recovery, increases Condition Durations taken by 10%
Chilled: -33% movement speed, +33% cooldown times
Cripple: -33% movement speed, +5% Stun/Knock duration
Fear: same
Immobilize: same
Poison: minor DoT, -33% heal potency, 50% chance of -1 condition removed with cleansing (up to a minimum of 1 condi removed)

Moving onto what Malevolence affects besides scaling the durations higher (having a diminishing return on durations at some point around 800 Mv giving like 33% duration)…

Bleed/Confusion/Torment/Burn: scales the duration higher moreso than the other conditions.
Blind: Increases chance to miss upwards of 90% at a moderate amount of Mv, Counterstance nullification lingers for a duration after the miss is triggered, lasting upwards of 6sec with max Mv slotting.
Vulnerability: Increases the negative Boon duration effect by upwards of 20% with max Mv slotting. Takes the -boon duration of the highest applied in the stack.
Weakness: Increases the -recovery to up to -10% with moderate Mv slotting.
Chill: Increases the -movement and +cooldown by up to 66%, capped at a moderate Mv slotting (basically current Chill)
Cripple: increases -movement to 66% with moderate Mv slotting and +CC duration on target to 20% with max Mv slotting
Fear: same
Immobilize: same
Poison: increases the chance of -condi cleans to 100% with moderately high Mv slotting

[con’t]

Toughness and Counter Stance
Been mentioning Counter Stance for a bit with Vulnerability, Swiftness. But first, to describe the main stats. Armor is the stat that is used to subtract from damage received and Toughness adds to Armor…I would either alter the amount of damage armor reduces damage by quite a bit or decrease how much toughness affects armor. The goal is, toughness shouldn’t be all passive and in exchange, there will be some active things one could do with a defensive type of build. So some of the things toughness could add to a build besides some minor-moderate decrease in direct damage?

• Blocking: Firstly, all blocking attacks have a duration instead of a # of blocks that then results in a counter attack. The durations I’m not that keen on, but it should be moderate enough to be useful (like the current time you have to block on them but you just keep blocking the entire duration) but toughness would scale the durations of blocks that is weighed heavier the more toughness you have (i.e. it only minorly increases duration of blocking with small amounts of toughness but gives you much more time up at the max toughness slotting. That said, blocking will only 100% block the 1st attack then afterwards, drop to 33% chance to block that then scales up 66% with max toughness slotting. What happens when you roll low and don’t fully block? You decrease the damage by 33% and THAT scales higher with toughness up to 50% (of which you cannot be critically hit). So to recap, blocks all have a duration to block, the 1st hit is always blocked then afterwards a chance to block or a % of damage taken and toughness increases the duration of the block, the chance to fully block and the % of damage taken if not blocked. The exception is Warrior’s Shield Stance which will 100% block for its duration but will not scale entirely well with toughness.

• Counter Stance: is a new mechanic I thought up to replace our current block+counter/cancel skills. Counter Stance (or CS) occurs when you cancel (or re-press) your block skill, ending it prematurely. Doing so activates the secondary CS effect that gives you a temporary offensive edge linked to endurance as well as heightened effectiveness of armor but has a duration and expends your endurance for the offense. Some examples:

- Nine-Tailed Strike (Thief underwater spear skill): expending initiative allows you some evade frames. Or use your endurance to nullify initiative cost for the next attack.
- Counterattack (Ranger GS skill): CC effects on you consume endurance instead of disabling you but your next 3 attack do 25% more damage. Or use your endurance to give your pet’s next 3 attacks a 25% damage boost.
- Riposte (Warrior Sword skill): Expend endurance to transfer 3 conditions to your targets and 1 boon from one of your targets.

As for the duration of the CS, it’d basically be for every 1sec of block, you get 2.5sec of CS. So if a block lasts for 3sec, that make 7.5sec of CS but it works off remaining time. So if you use your block then immediately cancel for CS, you get 7.5 sec but if you use the block for 2sec then cancel, you’ll have 2.5sec of CS. Meaning, if you build for toughness, you’ll have more leeway in how you use your block/CS and can use it to some great/interesting effect. Also, you can cancel CS by pressing it which then puts the skill on cooldown.

[con’t]

Vitality’s Part
For the most part, Vitality’s role will be the same in that it will increase your max HP by the same amount it does now but it will also play a roll in a few other aspects, starting with the most obvious one:

-Endurance: The baseline for endurance will remain 100% BUT, Recovery (the rate at which you recover endurance per sec) will be cut down from 5% per sec to 1.6% per sec (that is, from 0-full endurance in 20sec to 0-full endurance in 60sec). Vitality will improve this greatly, capped at 5% per sec with moderate Vit slotting and upwards of 200% Endurance with max Vit slotting!

-Vigor: To help smooth out the harsh cut in recovery, applying Vigor instantly grants you 15% endurance (it only gives recovery right now) and Bv improves that as mentioned previously! So not all is lost! And it makes skills, traits and gear that apply vigor more sought after (as well as straight +endurance gears/traits)! Another point about Vigor is, the recovery it grants scales by the target’s (not the caster’s) Vit! Putting a target who has moderate Vit slotting at 10% recovery.

-Condition Duration on self: another small bonus to Vit. I’d aim to put it around -20% with max Vit slotting.

-An aside about traits that work off current endurance, rather than leaning on “full”, it’d give you a bonus for each dodge you have saved and rather than leaning on “not full”, it could give you a temporary buff every time you use a dodge that could stack if you use more than 1 dodge. This would give these traits more play in Vit builds as you could get higher bonuses or stack the bonus more times due to having more and numerous dodge rolls in your pocket.

People would say, “Why would someone with that much HP need to dodge that much!?” To which I’d parrot “HP is just a temporary 1-time buff. Once you get hit, it’s gone!” Everytime someone mentions how “useless” vitality is, I just blink and shake my head. Vitality is like ablative armor. Yeah, it gets weaker the more you take off, but you can replace it by using heals, buffs and time. It works to manipulate HP thresholds too (the ones that trigger at a certain lower health %) as well as give you opportunity to act/react with active defense. It’s not a perfect armor though and requires regulation and in today’s game, I might agree it isn’t as useful as damage by a long-shot but people give it far too little credit. And why would so much HP need to dodge? It’s not just dodging. With CS, it gives you an opportunity to blow your endurance for a burst of effect (depending on the CS) as well as the recovery to get your endurance back for dodging soon after.

And that is the (BASIC!) premise! The aim being the playstyle of the game right now would have the same feeling but approaches we currently can’t do or have minimalistic benefits would be enhanced and provide a unique style of play compared to what can be accomplished with just swapping the weapon. It would also change what is currently optimal but this would change with the encounters and group configuration not to mention if the configuration of teams is different, it would require different approaches to adapt.

What I mean is, if you have a team of Berserker gear people aimed with some support, you’ll get similar results to now but likely a bit slower due to might not being as easy to stack on everyone, vulnerability not lasting as long, etc. But if you have players with toughness as their focus, you might get a group rotating CS or bursting CS to get higher effect from their skills or Bv players playing off each others’ boons to make up for their lack of damage or blending the various focuses to synergize with each other’s strengths and fill for weaknesses. You could say we currently do this now but the weaknesses are downplayed/minor and so practically covered by dodge alone. Without more weaknesses, there cannot be truly strong strengths (except for damage lol).

so…….. you are trying to fix something that isnt broken and at the same time you want to change the best part of gw2, the combat system? that doesnt make any sense.
apart from that, if you want to make PvE more interesting you have to start at the core of the problem, the encounters.
why would you force me to use passive stats when my friends and i are SKILLED enough to support each other, dodge kitten and maximize our dps?
why do you want to take away the “get good” and why do you want to introduce the “take dmg instead of avoiding it when you can” ?

and what i see over and over again is that people dont seem to understand the depth of the gw2 combat system. i can partly understand it because the current PvE content doesnt really require to make 100% use of the combat system, but the depth is there and more use will be made once the content requires it.

also, boon duration and other stuff you mentioned comes from traits. if the content requires different trait setups, you will also see more use of different trait lines and boon duration.

-Basically, just that synergies between team members are limited due to the limited and very narrow goals of combat. The goals of combat are almost always kill the target(s) before they kill you

thats the goal in every game, but good players dont need to kill a target before it kills them, because they are good enough to survive.

NoTrigger.8396:

so…….. you are trying to fix something that isnt broken and at the same time you want to change the best part of gw2, the combat system? that doesnt make any sense.

Going to follow your example and stop reading your post right there.

just tell me why you want to change something when:

NoTrigger.8396:

in gw2 the tank is your active defense, and active defense from your group members.
in gw2 the healer is your personal healing skill, defensive boons and combo fields + blast finisher from your team mates.
your guardian focus 5 isnt just a dps or defensive skill, it turns into a heal skill as soon as you blast a water field with it.

there is no reason for more passive gameplay and gear, as long as skill can make a difference. and this is so great about gw2.

people always make it sound like its different in trinity MMOs.
you know what? everyone is running the same gear and build in trinity MMOs, everyone. the only difference is specialisations, that change the way how your class is played → other weapons, other skills.

it makes me really mad when i see people trying to fix something that they dont even seem to understand. i just dont get it.
why would you change the combat system and stuff like that and force players to play more passive and use more passive stuff when the combat system is working exactly as intended? just for the sake of roleplaying something?

NoTrigger.8396:

there is no reason for more passive gameplay and gear, as long as skill can make a difference. and this is so great about gw2.

And this is how I know you didn’t read the posts.

My goal is to make those passive stats NOT passive.

Or to clarify, less passive. All in all, stats are somewhat passive but what they affect differs. With damage stats, they affect active skills. I aim to do the same for defense stats.

NoTrigger.8396:

it makes me really mad when i see people trying to fix something that they dont even seem to understand. i just dont get it.
why would you change the combat system and stuff like that and force players to play more passive and use more passive stuff when the combat system is working exactly as intended? just for the sake of roleplaying something?

Looking at your edit, I’d say it makes me angry when people are close-minded, stuck up and arrogant about what they believe people try to do or know.

You keep saying it’d change things to force players to use more passive stuff? Uh, no. With the simple example of endurance and dodge rolls, if you have less opportunity for them, that means you need to rely on applying Vigor, swapping weapons (sigil of energy) and traits that apply vigor/endurance to be able to dodge more often.

You tell me if that’s more passive than just getting a dodge every 10 sec guaranteed?

i understand exactly what you are trying to do. but it is simply not needed and more passive gameplay will be a by-product of your changes.

read the quote from my post above.
since you can tank and support through the combat system without set roles, the one thing left is maximizing your dps.
and there is nothing wrong with it. so why change it? just so you can say “kitten the system im different” ?

guess what people will do when there is more incoming damage? they will do waterfield rotations, use more protection, use vigor from traits, and so on…..
BEFORE they will even think about a more defensive gear set.

or in other words: they will make full use of the combat system instead of relying on passive stats. the result of this is more active and fun gameplay and more teamplay than in trinity MMOs on top of that.

in a game where every single player can provide support, every single player can avoid damage through his own active defense and active defense from his team mates,
the amount of passive defense only depends on how good the player is.
and it boogles my mind that people constantly want to change this.

NoTrigger.8396:

i understand exactly what you are trying to do. but it is simply not needed and more passive gameplay will be a by-product of your changes.

Okay, well then perhaps I’m being too harsh. I don’t understand why you’d think passive gameplay will be a byproduct. Explain. And don’t just point to “zomg roles!” because even playing roles isn’t passive, by a long shot.

you take active defense and bind it to gear, because you want more build diversity.

but instead of trying to do this, why not change encounters or make new encounters that are more difficult to beat first?

you know, if there would be a boss in the game that can only be beaten by the best players in glass cannon gear, more use for defensive stats will be natural by-product, because players who are not as good at the game will rely on defensive gear in order to figure out the fight, understand the mechanics and improve.

thats when defensive gear will shine. and even at the moment defensive and offensive gear is exactly doing what it is supposed to do. give you more room for error at the cost of dps, or give you more dps at the cost of higher risk.

support, boon duration, cc and all of the other stuff is totally independed of gear, because the important stuff comes from weapons, traits and utility skills.

a meta build is not a dps build. its a support build without sacrificing too much dps.
you can take the berserker meta build and use soldier gear instead. it will not change the gameplay of the build in any way. you can even use nomads, it will change nothing, except give you more room for error.

a build is not defined by your stats. people really need to get away from that tunnel vision.

and as soon as you bind active defense to gear, you take away more than you do good, because you reduce the amount of options.
thats like changing it so if you dont wear dps gear you wont deal any damage.

another by-product of more challenging content for example is that the fire staff elementalist will not camp fire anymore and camp water for most of the time and use completely different traits to have a high water field uptime and stuff like that.
thats build diversity, build diversity independed of gear. but at the moment we simply dont need to make use of it, because of the easy content.

its really not hard to understand and if people finally understood this we wouldnt be here arguing about the same boring stuff every single day.

but i cant blame the players. because the lack of motivation to get good and research how the game works isnt their fault.

NoTrigger.8396:

a build is not defined by your stats. people really need to get away from that tunnel vision.

Going to butt in right here. If you want to spout about semantics then go on with someone else.

As far as stats and builds. Stats are a PART of a build. Get that straight, please. For instance, a build with 60% Boon duration and 1000 Healing power and nothing in the build to utilize it is a bad build. A build that applies constant AoE regen but nothing to boost it is a foregone effort in futility.

If you’re going to talk about tunnel vision and understanding semantics, talk to someone that the discussion is applicable toward.

and as soon as you bind active defense to gear, you take away more than you do good.

Stop it.

No where am I binding crap to anything. You can still get benefit from whatever you can now in my suggestion. The only difference is things are limited. If rewarding you for choosing a set path of stats is binding, then perhaps we should unbind damage from weapons as well. Everything should just be quick time events and if you succeed in pressing the button at just the right time, you get max damage. If you don’t, you get no damage.

another by-product of more challenging content for example is that the fire staff elementalist will not camp fire anymore and camp water for most of the time and use completely different traits to have a high water field uptime and stuff like that.

Do you even play elementalist?

are you going to tell me now that you play a scepter focus earth elementalist in pve?

im at the point where i start to believe my english is too bad in order for you to understand me so ill just link you this:

Leo G.4501:

No where am I binding crap to anything. You can still get benefit from whatever you can now in my suggestion. The only difference is things are limited.

and why limit it? whats the reason? if im good enough to dodge everything, why go and force me to use defensive gear in the future to allow me to dodge everything?

do you realize how bad the whole idea is? you punish skilled players just for the sake of introducing pseudo “gear diversity”.

this is the thing i dont understand. why make changes so defensive gear is more needed, when you dont have to change anything because the combat and build system is completely fine? nothing will change, except damage output will be lower overall.
people will still use the same traits etc…. gameplay wont change, feeling of your build wont change.
nothing will change except Captain PHIW can now tell his friends “im running a knights build :-)”

its like sticking lead weights to the feet of the fastest sprinter in the world just so he is as slow as everyone else and at the same time make him more resistent to cramps.

Some very good points, Leo G. Bad thing is… well, you can understand what i think about devs by simply reading my signature. But that’s okay.

But i have something to add. You said about endurance consuming and i thought about “what if there would be some traits which would allow us to cancel dodge roll in the middle of animation at cost of endurance to do something?”. Something active. Lets say, for warrior it would be an uppercut which consume 2 or 3 stacks of defiance in single hit. Some sort of rocket boots jump or just some explosion with big damage (really big damage because of 2 endurance bars cost so it might become a part of rotation and will match high risk – high reward idea at the same time) heading the opposite from your first dodge direction for engineer.

I think that whole concept of using endurance for something else than just dodges is good.

combat and build system is completely fine?

It’s actually not. As it was said above, gear is a part of the build. When everybody uses the same gear (assasin/zerk is not quite different) its a bad sign. In PvE each class has like 1 or 2 builds with minimum variations, that’s not good too.

The whole situation is pretty unhealthy too. We have some traits only for pvp, some for wvw, and a bunch for pve, instead of them being useful in all modes.

Now, answer this question:
What if devs will do what Leo suggests and damage output will become higher?

Don’t say “it won’t”. Just answer the question.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

combat and build system is completely fine?

It’s actually not. As it was said above, gear is a part of the build. When everybody uses the same gear (assasin/zerk is not quite different) its a bad sign. In PvE each class has like 1 or 2 builds with minimum variations, that’s not good too.

tell me a single MMO where its different.
making condition damage better is good, so classes who make good use of conditions can run a glass cannon condition damage build.
but enforcing tanky gear is beyond stupid, bad game design, and takes away from the skill based game to turn it into a more passive experience for roleplayers.
have you ever seen DDs run around in tanky gear in any good MMO? i dont think so.
and if you want to bring the tank/healer argument, as i explained above the tank and healer is replaced by the active combat system and team play potential in the gw2 combat system.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

The whole situation is pretty unhealthy too. We have some traits only for pvp, some for wvw, and a bunch for pve, instead of them being useful in all modes.

two simple reasons why its never going to be useful in all modes is because each mode is different and anet only balances for lol esports.
and even here, tell me a single MMO where its different.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

Now, answer this question:
What if devs will do what Leo suggests and damage output will become higher?

Don’t say “it won’t”. Just answer the question.

1. it will still be bad because it will reduce options and force players who are far above the skill level to use defensive gear when they wouldnt need it.
and more passive gameplay is less interesting and exciting.

2. the players who woke up one day and saw the light will rage and be on rampage because you just told them to delete the ascended berserker/assassins gear they grinded for.

3. i will lose all of my hope and faith

4. i will go back to wildstar where i can trust the devs and where devs appear on my guilds teamspeak each week during our raid times, while watching us raid, to ask for feedback and talk to us.

The game makes is incredibly easy to spec/build for the specific content you are doing.

Many min/maxers change builds mid dungeon (let alone when switching from pve to pvp), many change builds dependant upon what their current team comp is. You know, they are buying into a) the combat system and b) something called teamplay.

Either spec for the content you are doing or run your 24/7 nomad facetank (or whatever floats your boat) and accept that said facetank is not going to be optimal at all things. It can do it, but don’t moan about the fact that groups striving for efficiency don’t want it.

Fenrir.3609:

The game makes is incredibly easy to spec/build for the specific content you are doing.

Many min/maxers change builds mid dungeon (let alone when switching from pve to pvp), many change builds dependant upon what their current team comp is. You know, they are buying into a) the combat system and b) something called teamplay.

Either spec for the content you are doing or run your 24/7 nomad facetank (or whatever floats your boat) and accept that said facetank is not going to be optimal at all things. It can do it, but don’t moan about the fact that groups striving for efficiency don’t want it.

3 groups of people here , the zerker activists, the defensive stats activists and the damage activists. 2 of those are very close minded the argument with zerker is more damage/risk more reward, damage activists understand that that why conditions should be on par with power. Defense stats activists have no real argument and are kind of ignorant of the system AKA make conditions in PvE a real thing looking at kitten seems they forgot again.

NoTrigger.8396:

and why limit it? whats the reason? if im good enough to dodge everything, why go and force me to use defensive gear in the future to allow me to dodge everything?

Because if you have the capability to dodge everything by default, the game has to compensate by making things you cannot dodge. It’s the same in PvP, you can’t put mechanics in the game that have no counterplay. If you do, then you have to look toward methods of limiting that mechanic.

NoTrigger.8396:

do you realize how bad the whole idea is?

No, not from your posts. I’m still weary that you read it. Not saying you had to but then why argue against something you didn’t bother to consider let alone skim through?

NoTrigger.8396:

you punish skilled players just for the sake of introducing pseudo “gear diversity”.

That’s one way to look at it. But “skilled players” just adapt. The premise of my idea is that the game is very easy to trivialize because the tools are so strong. It makes it so you don’t even need half the tools you have at your disposal, leaving a breadth of tools that go unused. I’d try to regulate this by taking some of the effectiveness and spread it to other less-often used tool. Results should be, the game is somewhat tougher until you figure what tools you absolutely need or let others cover your weaknesses while you play to your strengths. It’d be said though, cicumstances could be measured so it would create a more challenging atmosphere.

NoTrigger.8396:

this is the thing i dont understand. why make changes so defensive gear is more needed, when you dont have to change anything because the combat and build system is completely fine? nothing will change, except damage output will be lower overall.
people will still use the same traits etc…. gameplay wont change, feeling of your build wont change.

Is all you’re going to do is make assumptions?

NoTrigger.8396:

nothing will change except Captain PHIW can now tell his friends “im running a knights build :-)”

Truth be told, I’d want that “knights build” to actually DO something different than just take trash mob auto-attacks a bit better, but you’re intentionally glossing over these points.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

But i have something to add. You said about endurance consuming and i thought about “what if there would be some traits which would allow us to cancel dodge roll in the middle of animation at cost of endurance to do something?”. Something active. Lets say, for warrior it would be an uppercut which consume 2 or 3 stacks of defiance in single hit. Some sort of rocket boots jump or just some explosion with big damage (really big damage because of 2 endurance bars cost so it might become a part of rotation and will match high risk – high reward idea at the same time) heading the opposite from your first dodge direction for engineer.

I think that whole concept of using endurance for something else than just dodges is good.

My previous write up of the idea didn’t include it but I thought about it. It’s really a rough idea that could use more consideration on its own. But trying to get discussion going on these forums is like pulling tiger teeth with steaksauce mittens on.

It’s actually not. As it was said above, gear is a part of the build. When everybody uses the same gear (assasin/zerk is not quite different) its a bad sign. In PvE each class has like 1 or 2 builds with minimum variations, that’s not good too.

To the person you quoted’s credit, there are more than a couple variants of build for the classes in PvE, it’s just the variations tend to play very similarly. Funny thing, I’ve been going on about shaking up the playstyles of the professions for a while now so all this was before specializations were announced. My hope is, specializations will provide a much needed “shaking up” of the standard profession’s playstyle.

Now, answer this question:
What if devs will do what Leo suggests and damage output will become higher?

Don’t say “it won’t”. Just answer the question.

Mind you, I said that was the basic premise of the idea. I hadn’t mentioned Power, Precision, Ferocity or Reflects, Retaliation and a few other things about combos…

Funny thing here guys.. .they made dungeons harder already for the PHIW – they nerfed might !

Leo G.4501:

NoTrigger.8396:

and why limit it? whats the reason? if im good enough to dodge everything, why go and force me to use defensive gear in the future to allow me to dodge everything?

Because if you have the capability to dodge everything by default

Capacity:
Sure.

Ability?
no.

Less than 1% of the players I know can dodge every 1hit ko.
Hell Less than 1% of them even know what most of the bosses have as 1hit KOs or what the telegraph for it is.
Come back when only the handicapped can’t dodge everything effortlessly.

edit: Without a guardian who can provide aegis in a split-second to save your unskilled behind from a 1hit KO.

Leo G.4501:

The premise of my idea is that the game is very easy to trivialize because the tools are so strong. It makes it so you don’t even need half the tools you have at your disposal, leaving a breadth of tools that go unused.

the game is trivialized because the content is trivial. once the content is really challenging and difficult using all of your tools will be the norm and required.
thats another thing you seem to ignore or dont want to understand.
and by tools i dont mean defensive gear.

and yes, some tools are very strong. but only in the right hands.

Leo G.4501:

Results should be, the game is somewhat tougher until you figure what tools you absolutely need or let others cover your weaknesses while you play to your strengths. It’d be said though, cicumstances could be measured so it would create a more challenging atmosphere.

by forcing good players to use defensive gear you wont make anything more challenging, you will make it even easier.
and you know what would create a more challenging atmosphere?
again, content that is more challenging and difficult to beat.

apart from that, adding stuff like endurance regen, more vigor or w/e to defensive gear doesnt make ANY sense at all, because defensive gear is there to reduce your damage taken and thus less active defense is needed.

when people dont understand the obvious or simply refuse to understand it i dont really know what i can do.
ill stop responding now because it seems like im wasting my time here.

I love when people say “stats are a part of your build.” In a sense that is true, because it is a choice you make when character building but what stats don’t do is more important…

They don’t determine if you are melee or ranged, your weapon skills do that. They don’t determine if you are selfish or supportive, your utility skills do that. They don’t provide you with unique abilities, your traits, runes and sigils do that.

Your stats are literally the absolute least meaningfuly definitive thing about your build.

If you ask someone “tell me about your build” and the first thing they mention is their stats that is no different than asking, “what kind of guy is steve?” and getting the response, “well his hair is brown.” Sure, its a feature but it doesn’t really inform you of anything qualitatively.

Bubi.7942:

Simple solution:

Remove gear stats.

Bam. All problems solved.

seems crazy, but really stats dont do much good for the game in the current iteration. only a couple stats change the way you play, mostly it just sets your passive dmg taken versus passive dmg given, which would be better served with a handicap slider.

most of the stats that would change how you play, are limited in their effectiveness greatly.

mostly the stat spread just ends up making the game hard to balance

Introduce more fights on the difficulty scale of level 50 mai trin, and watch ( more than) half the player base scurry off to clerics/pvt gear.

That being said, Started asking pugs to ping gear for 50s a few weeks ago.
90% turn up with pvt/cele gear. Trooper/Traveler runes etc.

If anet were to look at the metrics for how many players have berserker/assassins gear equipped right now, I suspect the % would be a lot lower than some expect.

edit:
To be fair most eles in pugs have to run cele gear because most guardians I’ve met can’t protect them from a wet noodle.

I tend to have to whip out the clerics armor on my guard quite often for teams who can’t dodge too (so this is also down to teamwork as well as individual skill and counterplay in pve).

cletiscake.9173:

I see a lot of people here saying that the only way to kill the Zerker Meta is to make dungeon content harder (less stacking in corners, and less DPS stats),

A lot of people also say they want a subscription, easier achievements, and free gems. Doesn’t mean that’s what ANet is going to give us.

In any case, there isn’t any single reason why Zerker is the meta, which means any single change to the game won’t “fix” the problem. It could make another stat combo the meta, but one single thing won’t eliminate the problem of one combo being most efficient.

• Stacking increases damage more efficiently, because it’s easier to apply group buffs, especially with combos.
• Active defense allows people to forgo support-ish/defensive-stats.
• Slow-moving and slow-casting NPCs allow players to overwhelm foes.
• Traditional AI allows players to outmaneuver NPCs easily.
• Standard programming allows players to become familiar with NPC behavior, but NPCs don’t adapt to player behavior.

Another way to put it: it’s almost inevitable that something will be more efficient than everything else, because players learn PvE faster than developers can change the content.

In the current state of the content, most bosses just explode against a meta-ish setup. The long CC effect from Deep Freeze (which can easily be used twice on a short window if the group is somewhat organized) plus at least two party wide aegis from a Guardian are usually more than enough to render the enemy barely threatening for the whole duration of the fight.
For a single player or cooperative game, where there are no global implications, this is perfectly fine. It’s up to us to chose our tactics and nobody really cares if a spiky approach finishes fights faster than a more sustained one.
For an MMO, where there’s a global economy and the same content will be played over and over on a farm status, this isn’t true anymore. Faster runs will result on a higher gold income over time and we should expect players to gravitate towards them as much as they can, eventually creating at least one “meta” approach to ensure everybody is on the same page tactic wise.
Against what seems to be popular belief, meta builds and tactics won’t settle around the fastest approach, but around the most rewarding PuG friendly and easy to execute one. The problem arises when this easy approach is totally biased towards the most offensive options of the build spectrum.

We need to step into the arguably most challenging content of the game (several fights on high level fractals and a few specific encounters outside of them) for things to change. For the execution of a not-so-difficult tactic to not be enough and begin to feel the action combat system and the real risks of wearing glass for 5-man groups.
This is the point where players may start considering toher options. Where a slower but safer approach might be prefered over the risk of a neverending cycle of wipes. Where completely different and diverse approaches could eventually earn the “meta” label.

Unfortunately, the crappy reward distribution across the whole game makes this content incredibly easy to ignore. The gear gating of fractals doesn’t help either.
If there’s no carrot, no reason for a player to run a more balanced or even defensive build through a challenging enviroment over facerrolling most other content (the majority of it) on full offensive gear, we will hardly ever see any healthy gear diversity.

If a broader gear and build diversity is the main goal, we need:
a) Content that truly challenges a pure active approach and still retains a decent level of threat for defensive setups.
b) A proper reward for it, something ANet has shown to be terrible at.

NikeEU.7690:

I love when people say “stats are a part of your build.” In a sense that is true, because it is a choice you make when character building but what stats don’t do is more important…

They don’t determine if you are melee or ranged, your weapon skills do that. They don’t determine if you are selfish or supportive, your utility skills do that. They don’t provide you with unique abilities, your traits, runes and sigils do that.

Your stats are literally the absolute least meaningfuly definitive thing about your build.

If you ask someone “tell me about your build” and the first thing they mention is their stats that is no different than asking, “what kind of guy is steve?” and getting the response, “well his hair is brown.” Sure, its a feature but it doesn’t really inform you of anything qualitatively.

Love that analogy Nike.

Also, in regards to STATS.

STATS are only good for predictions, and have a ‘general’ idea of the type of character you are aiming for…

The character you finish and are happy with, are presented by stats. Your character defines your stats.

Not the other way around.

Stats aren’t definitive. Remember that.

Skill use, situation, and order of events in a sequence all contribute how to things play out.

Certain classes are going to have advantage over another, and not necessarily a stat based one.

A warrior will have to get in range of a hunter to fight it, this is an advantage.

However, you can always say that when the warrior IS in range, he will dominate (mostly).

There are possibilities that happen that STATS don’t always account for.

Dungeons should be fun, part of the fun is challenge, everyone in full zerk speed running is not fun nor is it challenging. You can say “but but if everyone goes tanky the fights will last longer” but that unrealistic. People will still insist on everyone running full zerk, stacking, and everything else that makes it quick and painless.

This is the reason the trinity was there to begin with, while I can respect that they tried to get away from the trinity, the current format has made dungeons a formality to earn gold vs something to do for fun.

Nuzt.7894:

Dungeons should be fun, part of the fun is challenge, everyone in full zerk speed running is not fun nor is it challenging. You can say “but but if everyone goes tanky the fights will last longer” but that unrealistic. People will still insist on everyone running full zerk, stacking, and everything else that makes it quick and painless.

This is the reason the trinity was there to begin with, while I can respect that they tried to get away from the trinity, the current format has made dungeons a formality to earn gold vs something to do for fun.

How long did it take before dungeons were easy though? I know when I first started with my old group we failed fights quite often, got stuck on some and pounded our heads on them. Fights like lupicus/grawl shaman/mai trin are still often PUG killers if they don’t use strait up exploits to trivialize them.

I really don’t agree with the idea that dungeons are too easy. They only got to be this way because we have done them dozens and dozens of times. Because people like Wethospu and many others have analyzed them to death and spread that information to help people get through them. Even DnT groups used to use defensive stats and Pillar Guards. Of course as you master content and the game you feel comfortable dropping your safety nets and going balls out.

Even these other games that people call more challenging has their top content mastered, trivialized and optimized in the same way after a while.

We just need some new content. New Lupis, more Mai Trins or Grawl Shamans, content doesn’t need some attrition mechanics to encourage defensive gear, it just needs new content that we have to learn that is complex like these fights. Something that keeps smacking you in the face, and if you’re in glass kills you, until you learn how to actively defend yourself.

Jerus.4350:

I really don’t agree with the idea that dungeons are too easy. They only got to be this way because we have done them dozens and dozens of times. Because people like Wethospu and many others have analyzed them to death and spread that information to help people get through them.

True.

And ppl like to talk about situation record run and use those example like there were common in-game.

Vargamonth.2047:

In the current state of the content, most bosses just explode against a meta-ish setup.

Exactly like that. I’m a min-maxer, I solo and speed run dungeons. But I rarely just explode most bosses when I play. Yes it’s easy to do for AC, but other than that, rare are the groups that just explode bosses. More than just meta build, you need a good group composition, knowledgeable players, consumable, good tactics, etc.

Nuzt.7894:

Dungeons should be fun, part of the fun is challenge, everyone in full zerk speed running is not fun nor is it challenging. You can say “but but if everyone goes tanky the fights will last longer” but that unrealistic. People will still insist on everyone running full zerk, stacking, and everything else that makes it quick and painless.

This is the reason the trinity was there to begin with, while I can respect that they tried to get away from the trinity, the current format has made dungeons a formality to earn gold vs something to do for fun.

1. It is fun.

2. It is challenging. Don’t believe me? Go set a speed run record. Win the next speed clear tournament. Speed running is not easy. Unless you consider what PUGS in berserker gear do to be speed runs, you are sorrily mistaken. I assure you that if you joined my nightly dungeon tour you wouldn’t be able to keep up with us and our pace of play.

NikeEU.7690:

Nuzt.7894:

Dungeons should be fun, part of the fun is challenge, everyone in full zerk speed running is not fun nor is it challenging. You can say “but but if everyone goes tanky the fights will last longer” but that unrealistic. People will still insist on everyone running full zerk, stacking, and everything else that makes it quick and painless.

This is the reason the trinity was there to begin with, while I can respect that they tried to get away from the trinity, the current format has made dungeons a formality to earn gold vs something to do for fun.

1. It is fun.

2. It is challenging. Don’t believe me? Go set a speed run record. Win the next speed clear tournament. Speed running is not easy. Unless you consider what PUGS in berserker gear do to be speed runs, you are sorrily mistaken. I assure you that if you joined my nightly dungeon tour you wouldn’t be able to keep up with us and our pace of play.

I can’t either, and it was streaming!… lots of fun though

Windsagio.1340:

‘cept it’s not skill based, because the ‘high skill/high risk’ option can be used by all skill levels.

Ha! Try sending 5 new players into a dungeon in full zerk and see how well they do. It is skill based, it’s just that everyone has spent the past 3 years honing said skills.

cthaeh.2168:

Ha! Try sending 5 new players into a dungeon in full zerk and see how well they do. It is skill based, it’s just that everyone has spent the past 3 years honing said skills.

Maybe it’s time then to develop something that plays slightly different.
Something where, even if knowledge, experience and muscle memory still help in the long run, it’s not enough to completely dominate the content.