Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to know if Anet even knows that roaming exists … or do they ever think of balancing condi?

No, no and no.
In summary no.

Which class do you play?

With all the runaway/supersustain builds I’ve been encountering (like druids and warriors), conditions are the lesser evil in roaming imo.

I am really looking forward to Tuesday’s class balance, spvp has been a nightmare as well, to the point where I stopped playing the season after like 20 games.

Anet cares about roaming in that they keep making changes to make roaming more helpful. Yak-upgraded objectives and the new skirmish system are fairly recent changes that encourage roaming.

The problem is neither the spvp nor the wvw teams have any control over class balance and the team that does is mostly interested in pve.

No. And I doubt the balance patch in the coming weeks will help.

Hesacon.8735:

I am really looking forward to Tuesday’s class balance, spvp has been a nightmare as well, to the point where I stopped playing the season after like 20 games.

Anet cares about roaming in that they keep making changes to make roaming more helpful. Yak-upgraded objectives and the new skirmish system are fairly recent changes that encourage roaming.

The problem is neither the spvp nor the wvw teams have any control over class balance and the team that does is mostly interested in pve.

That is incorrect. The primary balance in this game goes of off and is designed for ESL matches. Then PVE 2nd, WVW altogether, regardless of fights scale the last.

They did state that WVW focused balance changes are coming, we’ll see how it goes, and just because they are coming, no one knows how many changes there will be or if they go out all or most or one at a time etc.

Granted that often times it fails even at that, but that is its main point. BTW, try some other MMORPGs and you’ll realize just how good, our bad balancing here is. Yes, MOBAs and FPS games obviously surpass GW2 in balancing, but I play GW2 because its an MMORPG, not a MOBA or FPS game. When I want to play those, I do exactly and precisely that.

Tongku.5326:

I play GW2 because its an MMORPG, not a MOBA or FPS game. When I want to play those, I do exactly and precisely that.

Don’t you like some Stronghold matches sir?

Tongku.5326:

BTW, try some other MMORPGs and you’ll realize just how good, our bad balancing here is.

In some respects this game has far worse balancing than most other MMORPGs I’ve played, for example in how long classes remain weak/undesired in some game modes.

Take WvW large scale for example as we are in the WvW forum, for the entire game guardian has not only been absolutely irreplaceable, it has also been required in huge numbers, meanwhile for the entire game classes like engy, mesmer, ranger & thief have been at best a niche role, at worst completely surplus to requirements, so class “balance” consisted of having more of one class in a raid or zerg than 4 other classes combined, and what’s worse, unlike virtually every other MMORPG I’ve played where of course balance is not perfect, at least it changes, weak classes get buffed, strong gets nerfed.

Tongku.5326:

BTW, try some other MMORPGs and you’ll realize just how good, our bad balancing here is.

“It could be worse” is not an acceptable excuse for… anything.

I don’t mind conditions myself, but all 5 of my utility skills remove 2 conditions each and I am druid so I can just 10k laser beam face roll anyhow.

I’d be happier if they trimmed auto stances and auto immunities and auto reflects and auto auras some.

Hesacon.8735:

Tongku.5326:

BTW, try some other MMORPGs and you’ll realize just how good, our bad balancing here is.

“It could be worse” is not an acceptable excuse for… anything.

https://youtu.be/xzYO0joolR0

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

Napo.1230:

No, no and no.
In summary no.

Didn’t they apologize for a lack of communication with us about a year ago and promised to have more direct dialogue with the players ? I see that went well…

It did. Until they yanked Tyler over to the new expansion.

QQing.3089:

Didn’t they apologize for a lack of communication with us about a year ago and promised to have more direct dialogue with the players ? I see that went well…

That seems to be a trend with them, broken promises and hyping up content without delivering. I just don’t trust anet and refuse to spend gems. It’s not worth it, xpac was a joke and transferring wvw servers can be easily done with gold to gem trade.

It feels like HoT degraded this game instead of improving it.

RodOfDeath.5247:

QQing.3089:

Didn’t they apologize for a lack of communication with us about a year ago and promised to have more direct dialogue with the players ? I see that went well…

That seems to be a trend with them, broken promises and hyping up content without delivering. I just don’t trust anet and refuse to spend gems. It’s not worth it, xpac was a joke and transferring wvw servers can be easily done with gold to gem trade.

It feels like HoT degraded this game instead of improving it.

You mean like the way so many people said it would before it was released from just understanding the nuances and hints about the expansion suggesting a totally wrong turn for the game? As if their prior trends weren’t already on a crash course, and the content/elites/etc. in HoT was all clearly rushed?

define roaming, define a roamer to be precise….
ive once been told that the sole purpose of a roamer is “our purpose is to solo cap camps, towers and keeps”

RodOfDeath.5247:

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Eval.2371:

RodOfDeath.5247:

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

FFXIV is looking good to me and I just want to get back to having an immersive mmo gaming experience. I have a few friends on BDO and they seem happy with it for the most part.

Anet is all show and no go, let’s face it.

Roaming needs balance. I wish I could tell you if they ever think about balancing WvW PvP. Many builds are not fun to play/fight against, but they are extremely effective. That is the definition of bad game design. PvP should be fun for both people, and that doesn’t mean that both people need rewards.

If we’re talking solely about the aspect of class balance in roaming; then absolutely not. In fact, class balance in roaming is probably quite literally at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of class balancing priority. Here is a pleasant but arbitrary hierarchy that seems to hold true for most of the class balancing that is done in this game:

sPvP viability in Conquest> sPvP 5v5 thru 1v1 interactions > PvE Raids = PvE Fractals > PvE general and dungeons > WvW Zerg v Zerg > Roaming small group > Roaming 1v1.

^with the last two there being virtually untouched over-time

It does seem they do some balancing targeted towards roaming (i.e. the nerf to perplexity rune, nerfing DH trueshot….. off the top of my head) but these changes are far and few between.

Fact is, while roamers and small groups are apparently seen as important by the ANet, their interactions when fighting each other generally are not. If you want balancing to come to roaming, I’d say your best bet is to campaign for balancing in spvp since a lot of roaming class balance seems to be tied to spvp class balance.

Arcaedus.7290:

If we’re talking solely about the aspect of class balance in roaming; then absolutely not. In fact, class balance in roaming is probably quite literally at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of class balancing priority. Here is a pleasant but arbitrary hierarchy that seems to hold true for most of the class balancing that is done in this game:

sPvP viability in Conquest> sPvP 5v5 thru 1v1 interactions > PvE Raids = PvE Fractals > PvE general and dungeons > WvW Zerg v Zerg > Roaming small group > Roaming 1v1.

^with the last two there being virtually untouched over-time

It does seem they do some balancing targeted towards roaming (i.e. the nerf to perplexity rune, nerfing DH trueshot….. off the top of my head) but these changes are far and few between.

Fact is, while roamers and small groups are apparently seen as important by the ANet, their interactions when fighting each other generally are not. If you want balancing to come to roaming, I’d say your best bet is to campaign for balancing in spvp since a lot of roaming class balance seems to be tied to spvp class balance.

They balance sPvP by removing stat combos, which is why WvW balance has gotten out of hand. Most complaints I have in WvW small scale are irrelevant in sPvP.
Ghost thief? Hardly a problem because stealth prevents capture point contribution
Condi mesmer? Finally a noticeable problem
Power berserker? Nobody runs that in sPvP, and they didn’t nerf it in WvW because PvE
Druid? Less sustain cheese in PvP because no minstrel gear
Necromancer? Much stronger on point, so it will never be adjusted for off-point combat.

Meanwhile, Dragonhunter isn’t even that good in WvW roaming,

RodOfDeath.5247:

Eval.2371:

RodOfDeath.5247:

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

FFXIV is looking good to me and I just want to get back to having an immersive mmo gaming experience. I have a few friends on BDO and they seem happy with it for the most part.

Anet is all show and no go, let’s face it.

I tried both. FFIV feels like I’m back playing a game like WoW – which I don’t consider a good thing.

I only lasted about a half hour in free the trial of BDO. For a full-action game, it was extremely clunky, and in all seriousness, I felt combat to be very boring, particularly on the ranger, which seemed to just be about alternating spamming the AA button and the ‘S’ key to kite. Also, laughably cringy-terrible story.

The landscape out there at the moment is awful.

Tongku.5326:

BTW, try some other MMORPGs and you’ll realize just how good, our bad balancing here is. Yes, MOBAs and FPS games obviously surpass GW2 in balancing, but I play GW2 because its an MMORPG, not a MOBA or FPS game. When I want to play those, I do exactly and precisely that.

You know there are people who actually like the kind of gameplay WvW offers. Keeps, towers, siege, supply lines, small and large scale fighting. It just happens to be that this fantastic concept has been hastily put together as a side dish to some mediocre korean MMO. Af far as I know there’s no other recent game that offers the same kind of gameplay that WvW offers.

I really couldn’t care less about MMOs.

In WvW the single largest issue IMHO is not class balance which can never be perfect , but the lag that occurs in large scale fights. When this happens classes that rely on quick movement and reactions fare worse. Classes that have lots of passives do better as the passive kicks in without player input.

To Roaming and class balance in that regard. I do not think it wise to develop a game where balance so equal that any class can do everything well. Some will be better at roaming and 1v1 or small scale fights than others. Some will be better with group support. Some will have more mobility. Some will have more armor and ability to take a hit. This allows for varied gameplay dependent on class. If another system were desired then one would have a game with no classes and where people can select from the same pool of skills, traits and weapons available to everyone else without restriction. In such a game format there would still be a set of traits/attributes selected that are superior to others and more commonly used once the people play long enough and try out the combinations. Generally such games do not do as well as class based games.

PvP does this to an extent in that it restricts a number of variables allowing only certain amulet stats, removing gear types and sigils yet even PvP is claimed to have balance issues. I personally do not prefer such a system as one of my major reasons for playing the game is toying with varieties of builds rather than just playing the META and the “one” build used to define a given class.( More “sameness” is not a solution.)

It my opinion that while more difficult this where “Balance” needs to be addressed wherein as many different build types as possible are viable , giving very real advantages while having weaknesses that can be tooled for a given facet of the game such as zerg fights, havoc groups or solo roaming. In such a system it should be understood that no one class and or no one build will be best at all of these things and will have inherent weaknesses that can be countered.

Other balance issues would be towards single traits or skills that are overpowering. It my opinion this an easier process and can be done on a skill by skill or trait by trait basis as they are field tested.

I really do not think importing PvP systems to WvW wise. I do think there has to be more skills reworked so as to act different in each of the games formats.

Finally back to roaming. There no doubt in my mind the ability to roam in smaller groups has changed since Server linking. I could count on being be to do this later on at night prior to linking but this becomes harder now as populations of servers increase. You are much more likley to run into a blob, or a roaming group of 5 or more players meaning as a player you have to start looking to roam in a group just so as to survive such encounters.

This again speaks to the issue of variety and to me a cause of concern. If all server populations equalized via linking then the nature of roaming and small group fights itself changes. We just get larger groups and from that that lag which brings me back to my first point.

Lag remains a major issue and should be addressed.

While perfect balance isn’t possible unless everything is the same, it is quite honestly more or less an intuitive concept than one which can be proven. Thus balance is quite fluid and variable.

The problem is that by most anecdotal means and through professionally-defined ones, GW2 can be argued with overwhelming evidence as being strictly imbalanced. And that’s not a good thing. Many of GW2’s problems do not stem necessarily through numerical imbalances but instead conceptual ones which propagate between formats and other systems.

We know the causes behind the skill lag in WvW. It is still pertinent to the subject of profession balance and design, since most of the causes of why the game lags are tied to mechanics which people complain about as being imbalanced; I.E., passives.

Yes, magically fixing the skill lag with no changes to the design of the specs will make WvW a better experience than it is now, but it won’t explicitly make WvW fun. Even without lag, boon/block/invuln-domination would continue in blobs. The build pool would keep getting decreased over time. The fact this happened almost precisely after HoT and almost entirely involves HoT-related content heavily suggests the game dynamic has changed and has gotten worse.

I still believe sPvP systems should just absorb those from WvW and PvE. Why balance for three seaparate formats, each with different mathematical systems, when you can balance for all of them at once? Persistent-problem skills shouldn’t need to be changed individually between formats. If they’re persistent-problems, it’s because they’re poorly-designed. Fix the design-level; do not solve problems on the implementation-level. That’s best-practice in almost every industry and in software development for any problem scope. The talent at ANet shouldn’t be missing this, because I can tell you that every software dev they have already knows this. The designers are failing, which is really, really sad.

Roaming/Small-scale did not die with linking. It died with HoT. That’s just the truth. My entire friends list which I tried to keep up-to-date is inactive/quit. The return of Alpine and the prospect of links brought some players back for a little bit, and because the other issues with HoT (profession balance/design, subsystems like guild buffs, etc.) did not get fixed, the same people left again. It next has nothing to do with linking. As I said many months/years ago, simple-linking would solve symptoms of the problem, make it look like it’d get better, and then it’d just get worse, because the causes went undiagnosed. That’s what’s happening right now with server stacking, mass quitting, the blob mentality and death of small-scale, etc. Small-scale just isn’t fun the way it used to be because it’s dominated by a few select power-creeped builds. The entire reason people played small-scale to begin with was to escape the strict confines of the ZvZ meta and play what they wanted to. All small-scale took was playing well. Profession/build choice rarely mattered unless you tried to abuse cheese to fight massively outnumbered. Small-scale WvW was the most diverse and interesting PvP element of the game prior to HoT, and that has been completely wiped out.

So people who still like WvW just omniblob now.

DeceiverX.8361:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Eval.2371:

RodOfDeath.5247:

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

FFXIV is looking good to me and I just want to get back to having an immersive mmo gaming experience. I have a few friends on BDO and they seem happy with it for the most part.

Anet is all show and no go, let’s face it.

I tried both. FFIV feels like I’m back playing a game like WoW – which I don’t consider a good thing.

I only lasted about a half hour in free the trial of BDO. For a full-action game, it was extremely clunky, and in all seriousness, I felt combat to be very boring, particularly on the ranger, which seemed to just be about alternating spamming the AA button and the ‘S’ key to kite. Also, laughably cringy-terrible story.

The landscape out there at the moment is awful.

I wanted to like bdo, revisited it a couple times but like aion I just couldn’t get very high in lvl before realizing the pve only gets worse as you lvl up and then there is the never ending gear grind that if you fall behind on the curve you are out of the game. I did like BDO skill chaining conceptually, never did fully explore it obviously as I was low lvl.

Justine.6351:

DeceiverX.8361:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Eval.2371:

RodOfDeath.5247:

No.

I’m checking out other mmos and the writing is on the wall with anet, they are sloppy and disorganized compared to other establishments. I’m seeing much more organization and communication with the player base in the competitors forums in addition to attention to bugs/PM/future goals.

Look around, you’ll be surprised….seriously.

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

FFXIV is looking good to me and I just want to get back to having an immersive mmo gaming experience. I have a few friends on BDO and they seem happy with it for the most part.

Anet is all show and no go, let’s face it.

I tried both. FFIV feels like I’m back playing a game like WoW – which I don’t consider a good thing.

I only lasted about a half hour in free the trial of BDO. For a full-action game, it was extremely clunky, and in all seriousness, I felt combat to be very boring, particularly on the ranger, which seemed to just be about alternating spamming the AA button and the ‘S’ key to kite. Also, laughably cringy-terrible story.

The landscape out there at the moment is awful.

I wanted to like bdo, revisited it a couple times but like aion I just couldn’t get very high in lvl before realizing the pve only gets worse as you lvl up and then there is the never ending gear grind that if you fall behind on the curve you are out of the game. I did like BDO skill chaining conceptually, never did fully explore it obviously as I was low lvl.

In theory the BDO combat is quite good and fluent. I quite liked it in the beginning, the various combo actions, how you could use the movement keys and attack to various effects.

In practice you will be de-syncing and lag warping all over the place. And that’s ignoring other fatal flaws like the healing pots (bring 3508246720467 of them or you may loose the fight), insane gear difference (did you bring a +15 to a +16 fight? GTFO!!!) and stunlock bonanza.

GW2 is pure joy in comparison. Everytime I see one of those youtube videos kittening about how BDO is p2w, how they’re gonna leave the game now because it’s a quick money grubbing scheme and how Kakao kittens them up the butt with greed rivalling Konami yet still cry about how there is no game that give them those big, grand fights that BDO does… I laugh a little. Because GW2 does pretty much everything except griefing better.

I will make my best case to illustrate why I think DeceiverX incorrect on his reasoning for the state of raoming in WvW. He does not much like the HOT expansion so tends to blame every issue on that.

First and foremost there was a pre-hot and there were people in WvW discussing any number of issues on these boards rearding WvW. If one wished they can go back and read those posts. People were speaking of ways to break up the tendency or perceived need to Blob in WvW long before a HOT.

If one reads those boards pre-hot they will also find a number of people asking for advice about moving to a lower tier server because they preferred small scale fights or roaming over the blob and while they did occur on the largest population servers , they were not to the degree they wished.

I know a number of people who dropped to our server and told me this the very reason they did so. They preferred smaller scale fights. They got more of their style of roaming in.

There is also post Hot and while a number of people quit the game since than and claim it was because of HOT this can hardly be tied to “roaming” . I have favored roaming and smaller scale fights all along and all I saw was different builds. Any that quit the game due to HOT would have quit even if they did not roam at all. (This sort of like claiming longer prison sentences lead to a drop in crime just because there a drop in crime after longer prison sentences applied. Correlation does not mean Causation)

The second reason I will give as to population being the major player in what is referred to as roaming is one that is post HOT. Populations on a given server change throughout the day. I personally tend to avoid the peak populations on our server when the population at its highest because given i favor smaller scale fights or roaming on my own or with a few others, there fewer of those to be had. They can be found but more often than not you can have 5 or so a side having a pretty nice fight when a blob from one side or another comes and rolls you over. On servers I face I get used to certain persons I play against being on a certain time of the day. We will sometimes chat and they will indicate they prefer those later hours as well as they simply find better fights not related to blobbing.

Without reservation I can state that the times in the evening prior to linking where I could roam and not find blobs to the same times after linking are less. This does not mean I feel linking a bad idea, it just that the type of gameplay afforded has changed.

HOT certainly introdcced power creep and lead to a change in the gameplay but WvW issues existed long before HOT and the roaming versus the blob issue and the “its all about population” issue was always there.

I have dropped down servers intentionally as well. Actually, I’ve done so repeatedly because in our prime, our havoc guild has been one of the major factors in bringing guilds up tiers. Then they get bandwagoned, drama happens, everything falls apart, and the process repeats. I’ve been in small-scale guilds since day 1, playing crazy comps dedicated to messing big groups up (mesmer pentagram was my favorite). That said, I’ve surfed many a zerg when it’s been required. If there’s a 70-man blob at your keep’s gates, you fall in and give ‘em hell. Flipping hylek or tapping their keep isn’t going to do anything: they know you’re either coming to defend or can see your main force there already.

I’ve played at one point in time on over two thirds of the servers in NA and have run alongside almost every major guild that’s stayed around for longer than a period of two years. Yes, low-pop servers historically attracted more small groups and historically had better small groups, because there was not half-AFK-1-spam-blobbing SMC lords on these servers. If the numbers were reasonably fair, the matchups were a slugfest, and for as long as the wins didn’t accumulate too heavily towards one server, it stayed interesting. But low-tier servers didn’t grow. WvW kept shrinking, and more people kept transferring. People wanted free wins. Guild that transferred to T1 and got beat would run away to low-pop servers and steamroll them to feel better for the ktrain. And in many cases, the small groups would then also leave for greener pastures. They could beat the crappy guild groups that transferred in running hammertrain and the likes – it wouldn’t be hard to do – but the reality of the fact is that the “roaming style” you’re talking about above is the desire to play (and do remotely well with) any given loadout. Anyone was able to make anything work in small-scale WvW. Yes, some builds were better than others, like condi dire PU mes, but nothing felt absolutely and tremendously weak. This is why I call the game imbalanced and blame HoT. Elite specs broke this dynamic of fun combat – only a few certain things are even worth running, and pretty much all of the elites are absolutely mandatory, and the changes to guilds effectively negated small-group efficacy.

I’m giving you the causes; my list of ~200 active friends and followers, almost all WvW players, has been reduced to about six people, and the exodus started almost immediately with HoT. A lot of whispers from people who didn’t even message me in particular, just saying things to everyone they knew like "Going down friends list, quitting from HoT, find me here @[game]. My guild has quit the game. They returned with alpine, saying they would return with alpine, and leave again if the professions weren’t balance better or if DBL came back. They’re gone, due to the former (I keep in touch with them regularly as I’ve gamed with them for almost ten years). My backup guilds have quit the game. RL friends will not play or come back to it. When asked why, all of them give the same reason: HoT killed WvW. We had the same doomsday expressions coming from a million voices of small guilds when/before HoT launched, and nothing has changed. And now ANet is down on profits and players by a massive margin, despite pushing more sales and actually trying to work on WvW itself.

Contemplate what happened in the first few weeks of the pairings; WvW populations spiked. Massively. Not just more in queue; no, many servers saw their population level on server selection increase by a full tier. Previously non-full servers were full. This means that there weren’t just more people queuing for the same map; it means there were more people playing WvW in general. WvW saw a brief, true re-invigoration when linkings started happening. The demands of the community were not met in terms of providing a fun gameplay experience, however. And that’s the part that fails us all the most.

(Continued below)

(From above)

You say you play in off hours, yet that’s not really where small-scale should be flourishing exclusively. It was just as important in prime-time as it was before. We’re seeing omniblob only because the small-scale community is gone, and server links are only guising the problem that the population has dropped. Why else would Anet shift so much focus to WvW after HoT? Why would they include the PvE scene more and more into the game mode, such as GoB or the community-wide polls, rather than targeting changes to specifically WvW players? The bleeding started well-before the linking, and is going to continue just as rapidly regardless of what they do with it.

And, of course, the lag has factually gotten worse with HoT. Not because of pairings, but because of the professions. We’ve been told in the past the lag comes from the number of routines being called due to proc effects causing a whole bunch of code propagation. HoT objectively made this worse. There are more procs and AoE’s and more resource-demanding procs and AoE’s in the game than before. A lot of this comes from poor design and imbalanced abilities. You blame the lag as a major problem, and the lag is attributed by many community members to HoT, because the mechanics that make the lag even worse are disproportionately tied to HoT. It was never this bad before the expansion released.

Continuous improvements have been made, however small they may be. It still doesn’t change the fact the huge culmination of changes that happened in HoT blatantly killed off what was a very lively small-scale scene. Before the release in primetime T1, the small-scale scene was still imperative and very much alive. I ran small groups then in those tiers at that time. You could go three minutes without getting a fight between two groups of around five people. Roaming alone was dead beforehand, but in the higher tiers, roaming alone had been dead for years, since active communities realized that aside from having one or two people doing so to scout and tap, it was a waste of men; twenty people spread out alone over a map is much less effective at everything than six squads of three.

And the numbers continued to fall week after week. We’re about where we are density-wise pre-pairings, which was also an all-time-low per server, coincidentally which happened after HoT.

HoT vastly reduced diversity. There’s no way to logically deny it. Subsequent changes made even to this day keep reducing it. A lot of justification ultimately rests on how the elite specializations were implemented and how the surrounding content shaped WvW on top of the fallout of small guilds. The lack of options, lack of purpose in small-scale, and simply put lack of fun gameplay mechanics in small-scale removed the incentive for people to do it. All of this can be attributed in one way or another to the expansion, like it or not.

If ANet has the balls to nerf their precious elite specs and other diversity-killing abominations like durability runes and the new stat sets, that’s to be determined, but I’m not expecting anything, particularly since the majority of people that would be voicing their outrage have already given up and left the game.

DeceiverX.8361:

(From above)
[…]
If ANet has the balls to nerf their precious elite specs and other diversity-killing abominations like durability runes and the new stat sets, that’s to be determined, but I’m not expecting anything, particularly since the majority of people that would be voicing their outrage have already given up and left the game.

We won’t ever see Elite Specialisations nerf; marketing. You paid, you get better stuff. The only way for us to see more diversity is to wait for more elite specialisations to appear. When, where? God knows, since Mo himself said there will be no talking about next expansion anytime soon. Unless we will see elite specs drop in without expansion, which is really doubtful.

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Can’t believe I’m saying this after so many years with GW, but I’m currently waiting on this game, coming this fall, they borrowed alot of good elements from GW and GW2 + other mmorpgs like air combat and dynamic class system that allows both trinity and/or individualized class combat mechanics, google it: Revelation Online

https://youtu.be/FnVARwA0Kcs
https://youtu.be/jSaDqW7WEpI

Woop S.7851:

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Can’t believe I’m saying this after so many years with GW, but I’m currently waiting on this game, coming this fall, they borrowed alot of good elements from GW and GW2 + other mmorpgs like air combat and dynamic class system that allows both trinity and/or individualized class combat mechanics, google it: Revelation Online

https://youtu.be/FnVARwA0Kcs
https://youtu.be/jSaDqW7WEpI

Quickly looked at lazy peons summary and its already p2w in the east, whice means its gonna be 10x p2w in the west because the publisher will kitten it up as a get cash quick scheme while not giving a kitten about the game. We know it. Its an inevitable failure. Why even bother…

Woody Woody.8356:

I just wanted to know if Anet even knows that roaming exists … or do they ever think of balancing condi?

A lot of roamers use condi specs (mesmers, thiefs and i´ve seen even the good old burn guardian lately ) so i am not sure what your point is.

Cecilia.5179:

Meanwhile, Dragonhunter isn’t even that good in WvW roaming,

DH is ridiculously strong in WvW roaming. We roam with double DH, a druid and a Rev , i am one of the DH´s. You have very high damage, good mobility and good cleanse (more than on my necro lol). DH is in all honesty one of the classes that does deserve to be toned down.

DeceiverX.8361:

If ANet has the balls to nerf their precious elite specs and other diversity-killing abominations like durability runes and the new stat sets, that’s to be determined, but I’m not expecting anything, particularly since the majority of people that would be voicing their outrage have already given up and left the game.

That will never happen because WvW for them is PvE, plus they do not have any experience at all with how WvW fights are like in large and small scale. The PvP Team for example has or can balance only through amulets, what runes are available etc. they do not have a direct influence over skills. As long as Arenanet does not have really dedicated devs in the balancing team with a passion for wvw nothing will happen, and they did never have such people.

Better question what do you want to get out of roaming? There lots of room for roamers to help your world and your zerg guilds by slowing ppl down from spawn by killing them and by contesting wp. There room for roamers to stop objectives from upgrading and to keep tabs on the other teams movement by taking sentry. There even room for roamers to harass blobs to a point and or confuse them of where your group it.
But if you think you can win a map solo on roaming groups alone why would it be fair and how would you even hope to hold an objective?

You know whilst i think power Rev and DH are a little strong i dont have an issue with them compared to Zerker, Druid, Condi Chrono and Condi Thief. Both the ghost thief and the perma dodge death blossom variants.

They just need to apply the same nerfbat to those 4 classes they bent the Scrapper over the barrel with. Im kind of happy where scrapper is atm, they have joined the ranks of power eles, mesmers, thieves in the reasonable category.

The only problem with condi is tick speed. It spams combat log. You can’t do that with power attacks, really. There’s only lbow ranger, and lightning storm type skills that spam power attacks in a row. Overload air was nerfed in all game modes because of ranked spvp.

Chorazin.4107:

and the perma dodge death blossom variants.

Yes absolutely, this build is ridiculous.

Do players care about roaming is a better question. This week especially it’s endless 2,3, or 5 man groups and no roamers.

DeWolfe.2174:

Do players care about roaming is a better question. This week especially it’s endless 2,3, or 5 man groups and no roamers.

I think 2-5 can still contitute roaming, altho what you see more these days are groups of 10+…

Solo roaming was dead way before HoT.

Jeknar.6184:

Solo roaming was dead way before HoT.

Ahem… you know that it’s still done, and can be done successfully.

Choppy.4183:

Jeknar.6184:

Solo roaming was dead way before HoT.

Ahem… you know that it’s still done, and can be done successfully.

Doing it and it still being a thing are two different scenarios… I still solo roam but it’s more frustrating than fun.

There’s another one I’m waiting on called Blessed Online that allows customized skill system similar to the 8 skill bar system in GW1, holy trinity (healer, dps, nuker possible), you can set what skills to activate when you press 1 – 9 with specialization branches after you reach a certain level (for example Cleric -> Priest, or Cleric -> Paladin tank, still in beta, they’re revamping their skill system even more for NA release in 2017, check it out:

Custom skill system setup: https://youtu.be/UnzmzoDWF6I?t=8s
Realm vs Realm (custom build ranger): https://youtu.be/1_XaNSXpzSE?t=43s

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Woop S.7851:

There’s another one I’m waiting on called Blessed Online that allows customized skill system similar to the 8 skill bar system in GW1, holy trinity (healer, dps, nuker possible), you can set what skills to activate when you press 1 – 9 with specialization branches after you reach a certain level (for example Cleric -> Priest, or Cleric -> Paladin tank, still in beta, they’re revamping their skill system even more for NA release in 2017, check it out:

Custom skill system setup: https://youtu.be/UnzmzoDWF6I?t=8s
Realm vs Realm (custom build ranger): https://youtu.be/1_XaNSXpzSE?t=43s

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

It looks interesting but it’s being published by Aeria Games, which means it will likely turn into a kittenty P2W crapfest.

Dawdler.8521:

Woop S.7851:

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Can’t believe I’m saying this after so many years with GW, but I’m currently waiting on this game, coming this fall, they borrowed alot of good elements from GW and GW2 + other mmorpgs like air combat and dynamic class system that allows both trinity and/or individualized class combat mechanics, google it: Revelation Online

https://youtu.be/FnVARwA0Kcs
https://youtu.be/jSaDqW7WEpI

Quickly looked at lazy peons summary and its already p2w in the east, whice means its gonna be 10x p2w in the west because the publisher will kitten it up as a get cash quick scheme while not giving a kitten about the game. We know it. Its an inevitable failure. Why even bother…

Why bother? Because p2w for whatever it means to other people seems to be in pretty much every game including GW2. You pay, you get more goodies… and this game looks like it could possibly have elements that a lot of people would like. PvP type encounters pretty much everywhere, if not everywhere.. and even aerial combat. It could very well be the place I at least try out seriously after 4 solid years and then some of playing nothing but GW2. Unless GW2 WvW starts changing in some good ways (and I don’t have answers there), I just might see myself in a “game switch” for the first time in years.

thanks to anet, some skills, kits, whatever are simple useless in the game in some scenarios as WVW or PVP.

think of what Anet has done in the game.

a lot of players simply dropped out of Gw2 after Hot.
a lot of players simply just dont have faith on seeing some corrections here and there.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Woop S.7851:

There’s another one I’m waiting on called Blessed Online that allows customized skill system similar to the 8 skill bar system in GW1, holy trinity (healer, dps, nuker possible), you can set what skills to activate when you press 1 – 9 with specialization branches after you reach a certain level (for example Cleric -> Priest, or Cleric -> Paladin tank, still in beta, they’re revamping their skill system even more for NA release in 2017, check it out:

Custom skill system setup: https://youtu.be/UnzmzoDWF6I?t=8s
Realm vs Realm (custom build ranger): https://youtu.be/1_XaNSXpzSE?t=43s

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

It looks interesting but it’s being published by Aeria Games, which means it will likely turn into a kittenty P2W crapfest.

Agreed, looks unique but you go the website and see a girl in high heels with huge knockers with the cliche pistol. Just little hints like that make me think of boob and soul….I mean blade and soul. Just make a good game, same ole mmo cosmetic crap being released lol

Anet, you can go ahead and give me an infraction point now