Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Leo G.4501:

Well, I’ve done my kittenest to not use the term ‘meta’ and even when I do, I usually put it in single quotes. I feel it’s off topic for me because I don’t want to argue about it nor do I actually care about it. It’s only brought up because people like you use it as an argument.

Changing the meta is the topic of the thread, which is “The zerker meta and how to change it.” If the meta is off-topic for your post, then your post is off topic in this thread.

I said it’s off topic “for me”, simply meaning I’m not really into talking about it. Partially because I’ve stretch myself thin talking about junk on the forums as of late but also partially because it would lead me to discussing a slew of other stuff related to the topic, like that it means different things to different aspects of the game, who it’s generalizing and a bunch of other jazz.

If few people want to go out of their way to clarify exactly their meanings when they use the amorphous term ‘meta’ and all the baggage that comes with it, why should I subject myself to do what you people don’t feel bothered to?

Seera.5916:

Exactly.

And I feel, Leo G, that you only claim it’s off topic to avoid discussing the fact that we’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem with your solution. That it won’t increase the variety in the meta unless it FORCES people to play in specific roles to do content. And I will never support any solution that could do that. And since you want variety of roles viable in the meta, then your solution would have to force people to play in specific roles to do content.

You haven’t hit any nail. In fact, it seems like you’re just banging the same drum while the nail is half-way down the hall. But you don’t want to hit the nail, you just want to keep making noise until I shut up.

Also, I’m dismissing most of the baggage of the OP to overturn a ‘meta’ because it’s like overturning a fad. Why even bother with what some speed-runners that find it fun to run dungeons as scripted token dispensers do when my goal is more inline with making other builds like my cleric phantasm mesmer not be at odds with my internal pinging of opportunity cost management. I know how useful my cleric mesmer can be, healing, absorbing damage, stripping boons and throwing around retaliation can be but opportunity costs are a thing. Damage, utilities, cast frames, they are at odds with what I could be doing, such kittentering, reflecting and using my time to attack and dodge instead. And it’s partly like that because of the content.

It all just cheapens the prospect of the idea as a whole because it sets expectations even before an idea is conceived.

Then if your not going with the idea in the first post and want to discuss something different, you need to make a new thread.

Because otherwise, the topic of this thread is the meta and how to change it to include more variety.

I’m fully aware of opportunity costs, I took an economics course while in college and got an A.

The various builds in this game should not all be equal in their damage output. Should not be equal. To have a high support build, you should be giving up the ability to deal tons of damage and the ability to control the enemies. The more you specialize in DPS, support, or control the less well you’ll be able to do the other two aspects. And that’s how it should be! There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

What you say makes a lot sense Loki, most people know pve is too easily because of the design atm, but the suggestions are always the hard part. I like the idea of a change, but the stat change like that could be dangerous.

What I think should happen is:

• Give bosses more toughness but less HP. This will give people more reason to have retaliation and condi.
• Make bosses do more AoE damage. Stop easy stacking and people wearing zerk, it would be higher to dodge massive amounts of AoE.
  *Give certain bosses Auras. On Hit effects maybe, or whenever for example a boss who does a lot of AoE dmg around him on auto attack, and his aura does dmg on you, more the further you are from him. That would bring more interesting gameplays for positioning carefully.
• Give some more bosses conditions! More CC, more Boons! Almost all the bosses in pve just do direct dmg, and theres so much people can do to stop that. There are certain bosses in the newer areas certain dungeons where enemies are actually quite tough, keep that up!

Most people say PVE is easy which is quite true, but a lot of the people who say that don’t want it to chance because they want the easy money. If they make things harder they should also increase the amount of gold you receive for dungeons, hearts and events etc. Mostly events, you don’t get much of anything unless the event spawns a large amount of enemies.

Black para goner.7612:

What you say makes a lot sense Loki, most people know pve is too easily because of the design atm, but the suggestions are always the hard part. I like the idea of a change, but the stat change like that could be dangerous.

What I think should happen is:

• Give bosses more toughness but less HP. This will give people more reason to have retaliation and condi.
• Make bosses do more AoE damage. Stop easy stacking and people wearing zerk, it would be higher to dodge massive amounts of AoE.
  *Give certain bosses Auras. On Hit effects maybe, or whenever for example a boss who does a lot of AoE dmg around him on auto attack, and his aura does dmg on you, more the further you are from him. That would bring more interesting gameplays for positioning carefully.
• Give some more bosses conditions! More CC, more Boons! Almost all the bosses in pve just do direct dmg, and theres so much people can do to stop that. There are certain bosses in the newer areas certain dungeons where enemies are actually quite tough, keep that up!

Most people say PVE is easy which is quite true, but a lot of the people who say that don’t want it to chance because they want the easy money. If they make things harder they should also increase the amount of gold you receive for dungeons, hearts and events etc. Mostly events, you don’t get much of anything unless the event spawns a large amount of enemies.

Let’s not get rid of zerker builds. Just make it to so that it does take skill to run full zerker (glass cannon builds should be for the skilled).

But you also don’t want too many of them to have too many high damage AoE attacks per X time because then you’ll bring the encounters out of the skill level of the casuals. And ANet seems to be designing content with them in mind. Now, they should also have content designed towards giving the hard core gamers a challenge and that’s where they’ve been failing.

However, for each new boss, and each new mechanic, players will develop a meta for it. What does the best DPS to it and that will be the new meta for those dungeons or events. The problem then becomes balancing releasing the new content and letting people catch up to the new meta gear set wise. Ascended sets aren’t quick to make. Or cheap. Too quickly and people won’t be done making the new set for the last new meta. Too slow and content becomes stale and threads like this pop up.

Seera.5916:

There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

Not equal in their damage output, but equal in their ability to get to the end of a challenge at with similar levels of difficulty. And do you lose out on an equivelant amount of support power by going dps based? Does your ability to shield your allies, grant them protection, might and fury drop to pitiful levels when you trait and gear for dps? Does putting on support based gear make your boons that much better, equivelant to how it makes your damage that much better?

Saying that a rattling off of incomplete ideas will lead to forced roles without detailed counter arguments besides ‘it just will’ is not good for any discussion. Details. Give a scenario.

Let’s start at the base. All classes will still have access to all mechanics and abilities. This of course means universal access, whether by ability or trait, to damage abilities, boon stripping, condition cleansing, boons, conditions, blocks, reflects and healing. Then we seperate how effective each one is for each category of the game’s supposed trinity, and retain the option to mix and match as well according to gear choice and trait choice.

For the sake of definition:

Damage(Greatest offensive capability)

Control(Weakening and debilitating the enemy)

Support(strengthening allies, mitigation of damage and conditions)

It would also help if stats were decoupled completely from the trait lines, since traits should be able to act as ability modifiers without having to worry about extra bonuses.

Damager gameplay remains unchanged, they do damage by hitting the enemy really hard while still having access to traits and utilities for cleansing conditions and granting much weaker boons than a character focused in support. This trend is universal throughout the classes. Though each hit will do much more damage to an enemy, their weaker constitution and defensive capability will force them to disengage more often. Leaving their attacks uninterrupted allows them to completely destroy their enemy.

Deal with damagers by controlling their movements, weakening their assault power and mitigating their attacks.

Control characters weaken the enemy with conditions to make them take more damage from individual hits, limit enemy movement, counter the benefits of enemy boons and utilise more boon stripping to make their conditions even more effective. They will need to watch out for condition cleansing abilities more, since without those conditions on the enemy their attacks are as threatening as wet noodles. Traits to add extra effects to your conditions will apply.

Deal with controllers by cleansing their conditions, plowing through their meager defense swiftly, or using your boons to counter the effect of their conditions.

Support characters have incredibly powerful boons, low base attack, and low condition ability. Blocks would no longer inherently just block 100% damage, and would scale with toughness both in mitigation and in a mechanic i am dubbing ‘riposte’ for now, which boils down to putting a debuff on an attacking enemy when they hit you while you are blocking, making them vulnerable for a limited amount of time. Traits can be used to lengthen the amount of time an enemy player stays under the ‘riposte’ state, determine whether the riposte state can be activated outside of a block (traits like “When an enemy hits you, you, they will enter the riposte state. CD: 30 seconds”) and change the cooldown length of a weapon or utility type under which the block is governed, but toughness (or whatever stat, just something to scale with) determines how great the vulnerability will be. This has crossover with the role of control, but blocks come under mitigation, so is paired with support. Effects of this vulnerability state can be discussed. Balancing will need to be done to determine the mechanics of stacking riposte effects on the attacker so that multiple blocks at once do not feel like a waste.

Reflects can keep the full damage reflection capability as it currently exists, but the damage reflected back will scale with toughness, meaning that in damage gear, damage reflected back is negligable at best, but in high ‘toughness’ gear a larger percentage of the damage reflected by the barrier is returned to the enemy. Traits will affect things like length and ability to reflect different classes of projectiles, seperated into minor and major projectiles for example.

Healing can work as it currently does, just needs some rebalancing in terms of coefficients and encounter applications.

Deal with support using boon stripping, conditions to weaken the effects of support abilities, and saving your most powerful attacks for when they have used up their defenses, capitalizing on moments of weakness where mitigation is at its lowest.

These changes would also make who does what in the combo system more significant as well. Coordination of fields for extra applications of powerful boons and conditions would encourage more communication and be another consideration for weapon/utility choice. The character’s strength would matter even more when they use a combo field.

Mix and match groups as you please, with pure groups using one strategy, and mixed groups using another, taking advantage of the strengths of their allies.

There would be balancing issues to work out between these changes, but this kind of interplay, allowing for different roads to reach the same goal, is ultimately what the discussion is about.

There should be no such thing as an inherently ‘safe’ playstyle, they should all have their weaknesses and pitfalls to be exploited by the enemy. Nobody should be saying they are skilled because they completed the challenge as a glass cannon, they should be skilled because they completed the challenge.

The next challenge after that is expressing these paths differently from class to class to keep them from being homogenous, if we are to follow the philosophy that all classes should be capable of all roles, which is a worthy goal to keep, but a baseline needs to be established first.

Croc.5129:

Not equal in their damage output, but equal in their ability to get to the end of a challenge at with similar levels of difficulty. And do you lose out on an equivelant amount of support power by going dps based? Does your ability to shield your allies, grant them protection, might and fury drop to pitiful levels when you trait and gear for dps? Does putting on support based gear make your boons that much better, equivelant to how it makes your damage that much better?

Saying that a rattling off of incomplete ideas will lead to forced roles without detailed counter arguments besides ‘it just will’ is not good for any discussion. Details. Give a scenario.

Let’s start at the base. All classes will still have access to all mechanics and abilities. This of course means universal access, whether by ability or trait, to damage abilities, boon stripping, condition cleansing, boons, conditions, blocks, reflects and healing. Then we seperate how effective each one is for each category of the game’s supposed trinity, and retain the option to mix and match as well according to gear choice and trait choice.

Holy kitten! Thank you!

Trying to reply to Seera…it was just exhausting. It was like he was looking at just the latest post of mine and forgetting about everything else I said but stating the very same stuff that we’ve already covered…it’d force me to retread everything I’ve already mentioned and typed and….uhg.

But the reason I’m TRYING to set aside the focus on what happens to the ‘meta’ is because that’s like focusing on the goal before you even looked at a solution. Like coming up with an idea to fund a school function to help kids that get in trouble after school on the streets….but then rant on about responsibilities of parents and environment and upbringing. It side-steps the entire desire of the idea as a whole! You can talk about counseling and big-brother/sister programs you can amend to the idea to help LATER! AFTER you get a working model for the function on the drawing board.

Seera.5916:

The various builds in this game should not all be equal in their damage output. Should not be equal. To have a high support build, you should be giving up the ability to deal tons of damage and the ability to control the enemies. The more you specialize in DPS, support, or control the less well you’ll be able to do the other two aspects. And that’s how it should be! There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

Yes, I agree…but currently the content and mechanics do not support building for anything not damage related. Healing only affects a scant few skills and 1 boon, toughness and vitality help absorb damage and duration traits modify one important aspect of statuses. It seems balanced with what power, precision and ferocity can offer except those boost far more skills and aspects of the game than any other stats. It’s a DPS’s market.

On the flip side, everyone has the same endurance, blocks, evades, combos, reflects, conditions and a mandatory heal. These are not simple consolation prizes, these amount to more than anything those other stats offer. The opportunity cost to specialize in them is too high.

But stats aren’t the only culprit, IMO. Again, content is narrow in how it challenges you. Honestly, I think it’s a long-shot anything can be changed to help any of that out…IMO, if we were going to change the least amount of things to find a solution, alteration of traits to give lesser or more intensity depending on which of your stats is higher or a cap trigger…So offensive traits that give straight damage buffs would give low % if you don’t have high power but their full effect if you have X amount of the stat from gear (runes and sigils included), traits that proc some conditions would have a low chance to trigger unless you had X amount of condition stats, ect.

Leo G.4501:

Croc.5129:

-snipped for length-

Let’s start at the base. All classes will still have access to all mechanics and abilities. This of course means universal access, whether by ability or trait, to damage abilities, boon stripping, condition cleansing, boons, conditions, blocks, reflects and healing. Then we seperate how effective each one is for each category of the game’s supposed trinity, and retain the option to mix and match as well according to gear choice and trait choice.

Holy kitten! Thank you!

Trying to reply to Seera…it was just exhausting. It was like he was looking at just the latest post of mine and forgetting about everything else I said but stating the very same stuff that we’ve already covered…it’d force me to retread everything I’ve already mentioned and typed and….uhg.

But the reason I’m TRYING to set aside the focus on what happens to the ‘meta’ is because that’s like focusing on the goal before you even looked at a solution. Like coming up with an idea to fund a school function to help kids that get in trouble after school on the streets….but then rant on about responsibilities of parents and environment and upbringing. It side-steps the entire desire of the idea as a whole! You can talk about counseling and big-brother/sister programs you can amend to the idea to help LATER! AFTER you get a working model for the function on the drawing board.

Seera.5916:

The various builds in this game should not all be equal in their damage output. Should not be equal. To have a high support build, you should be giving up the ability to deal tons of damage and the ability to control the enemies. The more you specialize in DPS, support, or control the less well you’ll be able to do the other two aspects. And that’s how it should be! There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

Yes, I agree…but currently the content and mechanics do not support building for anything not damage related. Healing only affects a scant few skills and 1 boon, toughness and vitality help absorb damage and duration traits modify one important aspect of statuses. It seems balanced with what power, precision and ferocity can offer except those boost far more skills and aspects of the game than any other stats. It’s a DPS’s market.

On the flip side, everyone has the same endurance, blocks, evades, combos, reflects, conditions and a mandatory heal. These are not simple consolation prizes, these amount to more than anything those other stats offer. The opportunity cost to specialize in them is too high.

But stats aren’t the only culprit, IMO. Again, content is narrow in how it challenges you. Honestly, I think it’s a long-shot anything can be changed to help any of that out…IMO, if we were going to change the least amount of things to find a solution, alteration of traits to give lesser or more intensity depending on which of your stats is higher or a cap trigger…So offensive traits that give straight damage buffs would give low % if you don’t have high power but their full effect if you have X amount of the stat from gear (runes and sigils included), traits that proc some conditions would have a low chance to trigger unless you had X amount of condition stats, ect.

I was saying similar things because you did not seem to me that you were understanding what I was saying. But that appears to be due to both of us not quite understanding what the other is saying, which happens.

If your goal is to make more types of builds the meta, then you’re advocating for a “trinity” which I will always oppose. Because the meta will always be driven by the optimal gear set as opposed to viable gear sets.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

Your thread title points to the former. However, I think you mean the latter based on this post. Youbamy want to consider at least changing thread title and possibly the first post for those who don’t bother to read the discussion.

By the way, I am a she, but I understand the pronoun given MMO’s tend to be dominated by male players.

Not equal in their damage output, but equal in their ability to get to the end of a challenge at with similar levels of difficulty.

This doesnt make sense. If the damage output is different then the ability to complete the content should vary in completion time. And if more support/defence is taken then the difficulty should be diminished. This is currently how it already works.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

If this is your goal then I would just like to say that you are going about this in completely the wrong direction. The build, gear and trait system should be left well alone. To make other builds more effective for normal groups you simply need to improve the content. That means increasing the difficulty and creating more complex encounters and mechanics.

Which is something that most of us have been asking for. But for some reason everyone wants to change the system instead. Which will only lead to exclusion because of roles and destruction of certain playstyles. Its not the right solution for this particular game.

spoj.9672:

Not equal in their damage output, but equal in their ability to get to the end of a challenge at with similar levels of difficulty.

This doesnt make sense. If the damage output is different then the ability to complete the content should vary in completion time. And if more support/defence is taken then the difficulty should be diminished. This is currently how it already works.

Control players weaken the enemy’s defenses so that their more meager attacks will do the damage, and keep the enemy from more frequently punishing their weak defenses.

Support players create more frequent openings in their enemy’s defenses so that they can do damage that way, combined with boosting their own abilities, though their direct damage without these boosts or these openings is not equal to an an unaided damage player. They need to time their abilities properly or else leave themselves vulnerable, as their base ability to do damage is not great, and using their defensive abilities too early leaves them vulnerable to assault.

A damage player will do much, much more damage per hit, but their lack of defense and weaker control of the enemy means they will have to more properly choose when to strike the enemy with their strongest attacks, and have to more frequently withdraw from dangerous situations before heading back into battle to keep up their damage.

Even after that, you can mix these groups in any way you like and still come out with similar results as long as all players utilised their characters optimally.

It puts a different angle on what efficiency means when more paths to a quick victory are made available. And it provides for greater options around which to build content.

Seera.5916:

If your goal is to make more types of builds the meta, then you’re advocating for a “trinity” which I will always oppose. Because the meta will always be driven by the optimal gear set as opposed to viable gear sets.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

Personally, I’m leaning toward none of the above because I don’t expect to predict what people will gravitate to more. So I’m not focused on what would be ‘meta’ and I’m not advocating a trinity either since I’d sooner press for just varied content instead but if stats can be more influential of what you can do, I’d hope it would be a matter of preference so any variances would be interchangeable.

And I’m not touching speed runs. Granted, if buff intensity was affected by a support guy or something then maybe that would be a 5th wheel to your speed run. But the way I imagine it, it would be a matter of what utility you want to be good at and either focus on that or simply improve it to a point it is more than serviceable for yourself…like if you want to equip a shield or mace to give you some blocking to cover your kitten, you might look into allocating in some toughness to block out everything or if you’re a mesmer relying on aegis as a safety net, allocate some healing power so it not only blocks the 1st hit but persists to absorb damage on the side for you and allies (if you share aegis).

It’d be up to you what safety net you want and if your team is varied, each would come with their own unique flavor to combine into something strong….meh, so maybe it is closer to the 2nd option.

Seera.5916:

By the way, I am a she, but I understand the pronoun given MMO’s tend to be dominated by male players.

I actually figured as much from the name but decided to just change it to he for reasons. ~shrug~

spoj.9672:

Which is something that most of us have been asking for. But for some reason everyone wants to change the system instead. Which will only lead to exclusion because of roles and destruction of certain playstyles. Its not the right solution for this particular game.

There’s a lot of different ideas floating around. Personally, I think touch ups to a multitude of things, not simply one catch-all solution is needed and I’ve outlined some of what I’m thinking.

Other posters, like Croc, are putting forth ideas for feedback because his idea and maybe parts of others, would be a better solution than what you can come up with. Don’t just jump to the conclusion that you’ve got everything figured out, there’s a lot of perspectives out there.

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

If your goal is to make more types of builds the meta, then you’re advocating for a “trinity” which I will always oppose. Because the meta will always be driven by the optimal gear set as opposed to viable gear sets.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

Personally, I’m leaning toward none of the above because I don’t expect to predict what people will gravitate to more. So I’m not focused on what would be ‘meta’ and I’m not advocating a trinity either since I’d sooner press for just varied content instead but if stats can be more influential of what you can do, I’d hope it would be a matter of preference so any variances would be interchangeable.

And I’m not touching speed runs. Granted, if buff intensity was affected by a support guy or something then maybe that would be a 5th wheel to your speed run. But the way I imagine it, it would be a matter of what utility you want to be good at and either focus on that or simply improve it to a point it is more than serviceable for yourself…like if you want to equip a shield or mace to give you some blocking to cover your kitten, you might look into allocating in some toughness to block out everything or if you’re a mesmer relying on aegis as a safety net, allocate some healing power so it not only blocks the 1st hit but persists to absorb damage on the side for you and allies (if you share aegis).

It’d be up to you what safety net you want and if your team is varied, each would come with their own unique flavor to combine into something strong….meh, so maybe it is closer to the 2nd option.

Seera.5916:

By the way, I am a she, but I understand the pronoun given MMO’s tend to be dominated by male players.

I actually figured as much from the name but decided to just change it to he for reasons. ~shrug~

Yea, I’d be fine with changing stats and mechanics just enough to allow for more effective viable builds for normal play. Normal play being open world environment (where you can’t easily exclude people on even nonviable builds) and casual dungeon runs.

The problem is making sure the change (between stats and mechanics) isn’t such that it turns into requiring a variety of build types (control, damage, support, etc) to do content. That’s easier said than done, I’d imagine. And they’d have to announce this change well in advance to not cause too much of a bad reaction to it. And it would likely require changes to skills and what not as well. So I can’t imagine that this is something that ANet would change unless they figured that a lot of players seemed bored with the current set up. Just too risky, especially if they goof and the initial roll out does require certain types of builds to work together to do content.

On the topic of content changes? How about the following? There’s no need to implement them all, even one or two will do.

AC:
Ascalonian Fighter variants: Core Skill: Fiery Block

• Mace Guardian: chain, Symbol of Faith, Protector’s Strike
• Sword Guardian: chain, Flashing Blade, Zealot’s defense
• Mace Warrior: chain, Counterblow, Pommel Bash
• Sword Guardian with shield: chain, Shield of Absorption, Zealot’s Defense
• Hammer Guardian: chain, Zealot’s Embrace, Banish.

Ascalonian Elementalist: Core skill: Fire Storm

• Air Ele: Lightning Surge, Gust, Chain Lightning
• Water Ele: Healing Rain, Frozen Ground, Water Blast
• Fire Ele: Flame Burst, Lava Font, Fireball
• Earth Ele: Unsteady Ground, Eruption, Stoning

Ascalonian Mesmer: Core skill: That daze skill it has

• Condition Mesmer: Chaos Armor, Chaos Storm, Winds of Chaos
• Illusion Mesmer (scepter/torch): Phantasmal Mage. Confusing Images, chain
• Duelist Mesmer (sword/pistol): Magic Bullet, Blurred Frenzy, chain.

Ascalonian Monk: Core skill: Heals Allies with slightly reduced healing (about 3/4 of current)

• Healer Guardian: Orb of Light, Line of Warding, Wave of Wrath
• Support Guardian: Empower, Symbol of Swiftness, Wave of Wrath
• Judge Guardian: Ray of Judgment, Shield of Judgment, Orb of Wrath
• Smiter Monk: Smite, Chains of Light, Orb of Wrath

Ascalonian Necromancer: Core skill: Animate Bone Fiend

• Blood Magic (Dagger): Life Siphon, Dark Pact, dagger chain
• Condi Necro (Scepter/Dagger): Enfeebling Blood, Grasping Dread, scepter chain
• Staff Necro: Mark of Blood, Chilblains, Putrid Mark, Necrotic Grasp
• Corruption Necro: Corrupt Boon, Epidemic, Deathly Swarm, Rending Claws

Ascalonian Ranger: Ignites Arrows

• Shortbow condi: Poison Volley, Crippling Shot, Crossfire
• Shortbow Daze: Concussion Shot, Quick shot, Crossfire
• Barrager: Barrage, Point Blank Shot, Long Range Shot
• Rapid: Rapid Fire, Point Blank Shot, Long Range Shot

The list has support oriented characters like the water ele or support monk, control characters aplenty, condition appliers, one boonstripper, direct damage, and mixes of them.

—

that aside, I agree that useful boons and control are much more accessible without sacrificing direct damage than it should be, and that the trait system is overdue for a balance. Off the top of my head I can think of the following to change it:

• Fire/Blast combos give 1 stack of might instead of 3, but lasts 25% longer: This makes spamming blast finishers less useful but more stackable.

More to come later.

Boro.7359:

that aside, I agree that useful boons and control are much more accessible without sacrificing direct damage than it should be

Some people, yourself included, apparently, seem to think the game is balanced around dungeons. It isn’t.

Then why did I also suggest to balance dungeons around the game?

khm I understand that PvP is the actual focus though, and normal play, as well as massive group events need to be considered.

But that also requires to redo the whole participation mechanic to track damage mitigation, stun, etc.. to make other playstyles viable (esp in events and fighting mobs where you don’t get contribution for healing participants, applying blind, daze, stun, the list goes on) which increases processing time and server load for the game, although I recall in some update notes that the combat log already tracks such things.

If you understand, then what would happen to PvP balance and profession balance if useful boons and control were much less accessible unless built for? What happens to professions that are designed to depend on boons as they are — not as you envision them?

spoj.9672:

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

If this is your goal then I would just like to say that you are going about this in completely the wrong direction. The build, gear and trait system should be left well alone. To make other builds more effective for normal groups you simply need to improve the content. That means increasing the difficulty and creating more complex encounters and mechanics.

Which is something that most of us have been asking for. But for some reason everyone wants to change the system instead. Which will only lead to exclusion because of roles and destruction of certain playstyles. Its not the right solution for this particular game.

I’m not sure what leads you to this conclusion. With little effort, I can think of a reasonable way to make non-meta builds more engaging and not create exclusivity. Other games do it rather well; there is nothing unique about ANet’s approach that excludes them from doing it in GW2. The beautiful part is that most of the mechanics needed to do it are already ingame; Trait resets/gear swapping and dynamic skillbar setups. There are even parts of the game that demonstrate a recognition of how it would be implemented; (The guy you drop lava on in Fractals for instance). It would not be hard for Anet to design encounters where exclusive use of a meta builds would be detrimental if they wanted to do so.

The only barrier here is Anet’s own appetite to encourage people to not use meta builds through content design. I think that appetite doesn’t exist so we are all safe from these ideas. We’ve only seen a dose of that with Teq, and that felt more like an experiment as opposed to a direction they are taking.

Obtena.7952:

spoj.9672:

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

If this is your goal then I would just like to say that you are going about this in completely the wrong direction. The build, gear and trait system should be left well alone. To make other builds more effective for normal groups you simply need to improve the content. That means increasing the difficulty and creating more complex encounters and mechanics.

Which is something that most of us have been asking for. But for some reason everyone wants to change the system instead. Which will only lead to exclusion because of roles and destruction of certain playstyles. Its not the right solution for this particular game.

I’m not sure what leads you to this conclusion. With little effort, I can think of a reasonable way to make non-meta builds more engaging and not create exclusivity. Other games do it rather well; there is nothing unique about ANet’s approach that excludes them from doing it in GW2. The beautiful part is that most of the mechanics needed to do it are already ingame; Trait resets/gear swapping and dynamic skillbar setups. There are even parts of the game that demonstrate a recognition of how it would be implemented; (The guy you drop lava on in Fractals for instance). It would not be hard for Anet to design encounters where exclusive use of a meta builds would be detrimental if they wanted to do so.

The only barrier here is Anet’s own appetite to encourage people to not use meta builds through content design. I think that appetite doesn’t exist so we are all safe from these ideas. We’ve only seen a dose of that with Teq, and that felt more like an experiment as opposed to a direction they are taking.

Do go on. Whats your method?

Environmental damage on mobs through placing them and controlling their position … as one example. Another example, current meta could be completely irrelevant in an encounter where ever the goal isn’t killing something but instead, completing puzzles, etc… Other games do it ALL the time for their content; GW 2 could as well.

It’s not hard to think of ways to make the damage meta irrelevant in the context of GW2 … or design encounters so there is NO meta; you simply pick the builds optimized for content as necessary when it’s encountered. Heck, even individual mobs could be designed to be susceptible to different kinds of damage or combinations of effects, prompting players to co-ordinate their strategies to finishing content where no particular build is optimized if the effects are random enough. It’s simply a matter of IF Anet wants to do something like that in the game.

This in fact, is one of the reasons GW2 appeals to such a wide market … the approach to completing content is very 1 dimensional. I’m not surprised we have a damage meta in this game because it’s very familiar to gamers. I would be surprised if that ever changed.

Obtena.7952:

Environmental damage on mobs through placing them and controlling their position … as one example. It’s not hard to think of ways to make the damage meta irrelevant in the context of GW2 … or design encounters so there is NO meta; you simply pick the builds optimized for content as necessary when it’s encountered. Heck, even individual mobs could be designed to be susceptible to different kinds of damage or combinations of effects, prompting players to co-ordinate their strategies to finishing content. It’s simply a matter of IF Anet wants to do it.

This in fact, is one of the reasons GW2 appeals to such a wide market … the approach to completing content is very 1 dimensional. I’m not surprised we have a damage meta in this game because it’s very familiar to gamers. I would be surprised if that ever changed.

Thats changing the encounters, not the system. Which is exactly what I said….

Obtena.7952:

I’m not surprised we have a damage meta in this game because it’s very familiar to gamers. I would be surprised if that ever changed.

Almost every game revolves around fighting / damage. Especially MMO’s. Hell you literally one shot everything in Mario too. Related video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QJVGtKPjNc

As for the rest of your posts. Gimmicks are just gimmicks and we have enough of that in Aetherpath though IF it’s implemented properly non-combat mechanics can be engaging.

I’ve missed what the differentiation between what the system is and the game content but I think even if we talk systems changes (for example, going to holy trinity from current approach), it could still work because again, GW2 isn’t unique in this regard. If properly designed, there would be no exclusivity (GW2 just isn’t hard enough to make THE BEST of some class exclusive for a specific role).

I think the discussion for changing the approach to ‘the meta’ has merits, despite however it’s done. That kind of diversity keeps the game fresh.

Relentliss.2170:

hybrid.5027:

Relentliss.2170:

I think the Zerker meta makes for some of the worst pve dungeons in MMO’s today. Basically everyone stack up, spam a few blocks and blinds and burn pretty much everything down like that.

You’ve never been in a speed run. Don’t discuss what you don’t know.

Lately I’ve been doing them with my pve friends. So I do know of what I speak.

Doing fast-casual dungeon runs in a semi-organized group is not a speed run. Look at record runs if you want to see the difference.

Bran.7425:

DeceiverX.8361:

you don’t depend on pre-defined strategies to achieve the same end result

Tell that to the stack in the corner (and skip if that doesn’t work) people.

Again, this has to do with dungeon design and mob AI, not class functionality. Unless you plan on removing all AOE’s and cleaving effects from the game, nothing will change regarding stacking. And even then, it’s also done largely for sharing powerful effects like banners, boon sharing, haste, etc. Again, why is all this done? Because it optimizes performance and reduces time spent on trash mobs/boring encounters.

Boro.7359:

First off, the only reason the Tank-DPS-Heal triangle doesn’t exist is because there isn’t anything other than DPS, but just like in a trinity game you are supposed to bring the meta, and as the game gets older, this will shift even more as more people settle into speedruns or just quit the game.

The only difference in gw2 is that you can do even less things within a metagame than in a trinity game: If you have a tank, you build and play it differently, making tanky sets useful within a metagame. If you build a nuker or any kind of DPS, you might be looking into DPS items (which may be DoT like conditions, direct damage, or damage bonus scaling with your distance to target, all potentially useful), same with healer or defensive supporter: healing boosts, boosts to prots, or just boosts to spell casting time and spell recharge (the 40/40 sets).

The supposed beauty you keep talking about is that it chains your hands to DPS, even though the core idea was to abolish it in a way to allow wildly different combinations to not only work, but flourish, depending on player skill. Instead you have about two-three builds per profession and that’s it, they all do the same few things. It’s not better than the trinity: it’s even less.

In case you want to see where it leads, gw1 devolved into speedclears as people either adapted to the very very ultra specific builds items ranks and consumables, or quit playing deeming the grind not worth their time. And dead game is dead.

Right. The roles don’t exist because there are no pre-defined types. Every class has multiple build patterns, and can decide to perform a variety of roles. I’m not going to say some options aren’t under-powered or not viable, but frankly, it has nothing to do with the relative power of berserker or P/F/x gear. Hell, berserker builds in most PvP formats are usually underwhelming and are not exactly considered very good, with only a few specific builds as exceptions on the basis that they have no synergy elsewhere as tank stats are simply wasted. Otherwise, it’s not optimizing for the format. Thus again, it has nothing to do with gear, and entirely to do with dungeon design. There is no reward for building tankier, or more based upon support. Therefore, it’s purposeless. And with tank/support roles being effective in other formats and berserker gear being ineffective in others, clearly it has nothing to do with gear but simply that it makes more sense berserker gear is better since all dungeons are about is draining health bars.

And I don’t get the complaints about speedruns. I’ve only ever been kicked from one party because they didn’t agree with my build/class because it was a speedrun. Seems they forgot to advertise it before I joined. Otherwise, I’ve gotten a party for every dungeon with an “all welcome” sign within 30 mins of signing up or making one since I started running dungeons two years ago. Dungeon runners are probably leaving not because of the meta but because dungeons are stale. Which again, has to do entirely with dungeon design.

There are no alternatives in trinity-based games. I’m sorry, but claiming there is more diversity in high-level PvE play (since that’s what we’re talking about here due to the complaints about speed-runs and a berserker metagame for said speedruns) is absolute BS. Most MMO’s only provide support for certain party dynamics with ONE build or role for each class in mind. To claim that there’s less diversity in what the classes are doing in a given dungeon is a blatant lie. The next time your party gets healed by a DoT party support rogue while your ranger tanks and your paladin DPS’s in any other WoW clone, let me know. I’m an avid Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder player, and I can tell you now that the class limitations are terrible for the sake of roleplaying and building unique characters. The fact that so much needs to be house-ruled demonstrates that systems built around class roles become boring and more restrictive.

And regarding player skill flourishing? Why isn’kitten We’re in a meta where glass cannon is the name of the game, which undeniably based upon encounters takes more skill. So why is it not? You guessed it – bad dungeon design. Nothing is punishing to DPS players. It’s not because DPS/berserker is too strong (again, if it was, then berserker would be the meta in more than just PvE), but because yet again the dungeons were made poorly to the point where the difficulty is overcome by simple tactics like wall-stacking.

And that’s the thing. All of those builds should be operating similarly. That’s because that’s how the game was designed. NO SPECIFIC ROLES AND SHARED SKILLS. Yes, you can build yourself towards one dynamic, but your greatsword is still hitting harder on your guard than the staff, no matter how you kit. Do I agree with this part? Yes and no, but that’s a whole other topic and has nothing to do with berserker gear.

And you mention GW1 had a specific builds and a defined meta worse than GW2’s despite the fact it supported defined roles in its combat like tanks, healers, etc. Something something optimizing time for speedruns because metagames are player-defined strategies which optimize time : reward. GW1 wiki describes tanks as taking advantages in mob AI. It’s like they exist on the mere basis that encounters weren’t created well to support a more diverse environment. OH WAIT.

Dalanor.5387:

Obtena.7952:

I’m not surprised we have a damage meta in this game because it’s very familiar to gamers. I would be surprised if that ever changed.

Almost every game revolves around fighting / damage. Especially MMO’s. Hell you literally one shot everything in Mario too. Related video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QJVGtKPjNc

As for the rest of your posts. Gimmicks are just gimmicks and we have enough of that in Aetherpath though IF it’s implemented properly non-combat mechanics can be engaging.

I think the Glint’s Lair stuff demonstrated this pretty well, it was a bit too time gated but overall pretty well done as far as I’m concerned and I wouldn’t mind a bit more of that style game play if they could possibly address the time gating a bit.

EDIT: watching that video brought a whole new meaning to what I think of as “non combat”, and sure sounds interesting.

Jerus.4350:

Dalanor.5387:

Obtena.7952:

I’m not surprised we have a damage meta in this game because it’s very familiar to gamers. I would be surprised if that ever changed.

Almost every game revolves around fighting / damage. Especially MMO’s. Hell you literally one shot everything in Mario too. Related video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QJVGtKPjNc

As for the rest of your posts. Gimmicks are just gimmicks and we have enough of that in Aetherpath though IF it’s implemented properly non-combat mechanics can be engaging.

I think the Glint’s Lair stuff demonstrated this pretty well, it was a bit too time gated but overall pretty well done as far as I’m concerned and I wouldn’t mind a bit more of that style game play if they could possibly address the time gating a bit.

EDIT: watching that video brought a whole new meaning to what I think of as “non combat”, and sure sounds interesting.

That instance was overwhelmed with horribly long and gimmicky “fights”. Once in a while it wouldn’t hurt though. Think about Dreamwalker in WoW’s Icecrown. That encounter was quite a big surprise for me at first and it was a very nice addition to the overall raid exprience even being a “simple” add management with a huge pressure on dedicated healers.

Never played WoW, but I did play EQ and my 2 favorite raids were both mainly due to the non combat aspects.

One raid we had to play Mastermind, Blackout, and Simon Says with panels on the floor in 4 different rooms while the rest of the raid protected the people doing the puzzles. It was very fun mainly bcause even those not doing and enjoying the puzzles were still kept busy by additional combat mechanics.

Another raid we had 4 areas catered to different classes, there was a tower were the enemies died from different forms of CC effects. A tower where condition damage was king, a tower where agro control was vital, and another where condition cleansing was the focal point.

These were very much gimmick raids, but they were still very enjoyable. Gimmicks aren’t necessarily bad, they just shouldn’t be making up the entire game. Again, my only problem with glint’s lair was the timegated parts, that could be remedied though in various different ways. Long doesn’t necessarily mean bad, it’s just when that long is boring that it’s bad. The fights in Arah are longer than the fights in AC does that make them bad? naw because they’re interesting and fun.

I don’t get the ‘gimmicky’ label. It seems if something isn’t a straight up DPS fight, then people label it a gimmick. Frankly, that’s nonsense. A gimmick would be a short cut to win a fight (like bursting Lupi), not having to solve puzzles, time CC, timed mazes …

The hidden arcana instance was gimmicky because most of the fights did not involve any use of class skills. They were simply puzzles to do percentage health damage. Thats boring. It would of been better to use puzzles to make the boss vulnerable to attacks for a short duration. Just like the first boss in that instance.

But yes you could also say things like exploding lupi is gimmicky aswell. But thats a gimmicky tactic. Not a gimmicky encounter.

@DeceiverX, Fair points on content, I concede that. Actually, reading back I have a hard time figuring out what I wanted to say.

I disagree with gw1 being even more pigeonholing you into builds than gw2, since at it’s prime time (factions release→gwfc) there were crazy things you could get away in high-end PvP, such as 3 hundred blades warriors (pre-buff 100b even), or hammer rangers, then later scythe rangers, scythe assassins, dagger warriors. In PvE I could get away with a word of healing warrior as the sole healer once. (and this was when woh was a cheap heal other nothing more). Since then it changed though, and you might be referring to that.

As for the ongoing discussion, I’d like to see variant or “gimmick” content. I remember running into some toxic alliance kittens in caledon who never died because of pvp downed, and that was the most fun encounter I had so far.

DeceiverX.8361:

There are no alternatives in trinity-based games. I’m sorry, but claiming there is more diversity in high-level PvE play (since that’s what we’re talking about here due to the complaints about speed-runs and a berserker metagame for said speedruns) is absolute BS. Most MMO’s only provide support for certain party dynamics with ONE build or role for each class in mind. To claim that there’s less diversity in what the classes are doing in a given dungeon is a blatant lie.

Are you asking for evidence or examples?

I’d like some examples. Remember we’re talking about high-end, fully min-maxed PvE. I understand many games support multiple builds/roles for classes in schemes beyond this (many PvP builds often use these schemes), but this is not about diversity but the direct complaint that the trinity is a better system for including more diversity within the scope of absolutely optimized PvE. I’d really like to see the mathematics behind how a given game managed to make multiple styles/classes able to build and play entirely different roles in various combinations while keeping clear times within around a <= 10% time margin of completion of endgame content.

I sincerely doubt you’ll find such an example, seeing as that would imply there exists a game with no metagame strategies while including the same or more possible diversity on the basis that it has achieved near-perfect balance and subsequently near-diversity. And I know for a fact that is something that has yet to be achieved in the game industry.

I’ve never heard of a trinity game that allowed 5 healers to finish the end-game content in a reasonable manner. Or 5 tanks. Or 5 utterly selfish DPS. Oddly, enough GW2 actually allows bad groups like that to succeed.

Quite. Yes, they can achieve said goal, but not within a timeframe even remotely close to the optimized/meta group.

And again, this is mostly the case because said encounters are designed with that trinity (or whatever meta the game developers envisioned/realize people play) in mind.

Thus, the distribution of effectiveness of different builds and classes within a given game which is relatively balanced is dependent almost entirely on the encounters created and not the actual classes or gear combinations themselves.

AD&D2E & Baldur’s Gate 1: Can be done with a fighter only party, can be done with an all arcane caster party ending fights in magic missiles and melf minute meteors, fighter/cleric multiclasses galore for melee heavy play, or a lot of archers, since as we know they are pretty much kings of dps early game (can be done with fighters rangers and rogues). All clerics or all divine casters I haven’t seen yet though, but shouldn’t be a problem, since it’s even easier than an all-fighter party.

I’ve seen plenty of trinity games that allow people to succeed playing how they want to play AND do it in a reasonable manner; GW2 is no different. In fact, I’ve seen it happen where players complete content MORE efficiently by purposefully avoiding trinity. I think that games that are fashioned in this way provide more longevity to its players because there are many more ways to ‘solve’ the game with different approaches. This is not something so obscure or unique that it should prevent anyone from thinking it couldn’t be the same in GW2.