Guild Wars 2

Morale is at an all time low with every few days you see posts on here, on Reddit, and on many other forums about former engineers looking for a replacement class. I humbly ask that we have some sort of post from the developers regarding the current status of the class and its direction. I absolutely feel that this will assuage some of the unpleasantness that has developed after this latest patch. We’ve already seen that even a small level of communication helps as proven by the mesmer beta forums in BWE 2 and 3.

Many engineers quite like the class, but are becoming quite disheartened not only about the recent changes, but about what is perceived as a lack of caring about the class. Some of us still believe that this isn’t the case. Please prove us right.

I second this message sincerely

A little communication would go a long way.

I third this message and do hope those words are not lost on the wind.
I love the engineer class, but things are looking really dire. It’s hard to keep my hopes up in the current situation.

Considering a simple post is as far as click, we definitely need more communications, not just the bug-fixes, but also more open discussions.

You have my rifle!

Would love some more communication.

Been asking for this for so long.

signed. we need to know what’s happening so there are no more surprises come january/feb

+1, I’m looking more and more at my Guardian and thinking I should bring him to 80 ASAP.

If we’re going to get them to talk to us, we need to start being people they can talk to without worry of getting their heads bitten off. I’m as guilty of this as any on this particular forum, to be honest, but it’s likely that the general air of vitriolic discontent makes them just the tiniest bit nervous.

I hope they do talk to us more, though. That’d go a long way toward cooling down the tempers, I imagine; part of it seems to be that we feel ignored.

theValeyard.3690:

I humbly ask that we have some sort of post from the developers regarding the current status of the class and its direction.

Isn´t that exactly what they added to the last patch-notes? I think we all know this class-description about versatility and what they think we have to pay for it.

You guys are seriously asking for this while they are all probably not working and with their families for the holidays? You could have more patience than this.

@MindlessRuff.1948

Well, you should consider that holidays also mean that players play more ’coz of spare time, thus wanting to play their engineer, our engineer more, please bear with us.

The other day, I posted in a thread where a fellow talked about playing the game with his wife and wanted a change made making it easier for him to get into groups with her and stuff. I forget the specifics, but I commented “Aw cute, bumping for justice”, and within no time received an infraction.

Mods can pick through hundreds of posts, and deliver warnings for such arbitrary things, but can’t be bothered to reply to what seems to be a very pertinent topic. Whether you agree or not that Engineers are underpowered, need to be fixed, etc, you have to at least agree that the topic deserves some input from the devs, or at least community management.

MindlessRuff.1948:

You guys are seriously asking for this while they are all probably not working and with their families for the holidays? You could have more patience than this.

There have been, at last count, two, perhaps three, posts from devs on this Engineer forum.

In the entire time the game has been out.

Every couple patches, a thread pops up asking for more communication, or so it seems – they’re certainly around often enough that they’re generally easily visible, and if they aren’t, somebody makes a new one. Patience has been had.

Also, it’s not like we’re really asking for them to drop everything, roll back in to work and solve all our problems right now, if not sooner, but rather just a general “So, uh, hey, it’d be nice to maybe be able to talk to you guys without hunting you down in-game.”

MindlessRuff.1948:

You guys are seriously asking for this while they are all probably not working and with their families for the holidays? You could have more patience than this.

We’re not saying they have to communicate TOMORROW LOL seriously, it’s in here so they can check it when they get back. But it IS serious enough that we do require an answer once the holidays have gone.

Ponder.3647:

Whether you agree or not that Engineers are underpowered, need to be fixed, etc, you have to at least agree that the topic deserves some input from the devs, or at least community management.

We do need some in here that’s for sure. Out of the few posts I’ve seen from devs. 2 were nice posts trying to help the community by explaining or giving info about upcoming changes. (the bugs post, and JonPeters talking about sigils) the other two posts (seriously I’ve only seen two others) have been “be nice to one another” and “we’re closing this thread down now”

The other thing that bothers me alot about how they communicate is they know people come here to find answers but they post important bits of information ALL over the internet. twitter, facebook, reddit, wiki, interviews with obscure game websites, alot of us never use these places and certainly shouldn’t have to follow these things just to find the communications we need. The forums should be the first and only place to post every new bit of information for future plans, every patch detail (saying they adjusted the rest of the kits just isn’t enough information) that changes gameplay.

That’s all we’re asking for.

I wondered what you were talking about, but after a simple search…

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15dfzg/which_profession_should_i_pick_up_mesmer_or/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15ddem/alternative_class/

Yeah, people rather are simply quitting Engineer. I remember it being the least common profession after Mesmer, and we all know how that turned out.

My thief is about to ding 76… Give me a reason why I should stick with the engineer.

I second this as well. I love playing my Engineer. And like many here, have probably tried EVERYTHING the Engineer has to offer. It’s a shame that most of the weapon kits are so bugged that I get wrecked even when I pull off what would have been a killer combo splat attack on my enemy in WvW. A guildmate was asking about Engineers, and after I told him a bit about it, he said “It seems ANet made a class for the rest to destroy, dude.”… It got me thinking…‘maybe he’s right’…

Also…

Being that Engineer was the last class to be made, does it feel like it’s a Frankenstein, created with the leftovers of other ideas?

The main problem here is that Anet did a major update on the Engineer class, then they left us all hanging after that. Not even a single form of communication was made for the past few weeks. Isn’t is common protocol to get feed backs from your customers especially on major updates? Not even a single dev has taken his time to reply. It’s really a shame because I thought Anet Team was a pretty good team but it seems they’re only focusing on certain classes especially Warrior and Thief.

I don’t think anyone will start flaming devs if they come here.

But they really need to clear some confusion from engi players.

Is it:
a) That engi is permament sidekick and will remain so forever and we are free to roll another class?
b) That ANET was wrong with profession design and will have some major work done on engineer?
c) That we don’t understand a thing and there’s some secret way to be an OP engi noone knows about (except devs)?

Only developers can answer that and we’d like to hear some answers.

Isslair.4908:

Is it:
a) That engi is permament sidekick and will remain so forever and we are free to roll another class?

This is the part im concerned about the most considering the statement they just put out about how the engineer is the “queen” of versatility and must pay dearly for it. sigh.

MindlessRuff.1948:

You guys are seriously asking for this while they are all probably not working and with their families for the holidays? You could have more patience than this.

As others have already said, we’re
Not asking for them to talk to us this moment; we’re just saying that
engineers have a lot of issues
that haven’t been addressed or even acknowledged.

Bugs! We’ve got bugs that haven’t been touched in months, no timeline, no
update. Instead, a history of nerfs; a nerf on grenades. Sure, you can throw nades pretty far, but they really weren’t that good. And let’s not
forget that class description in the patch notes.

Engineers, according to those notes, have to pay the hybrid tax, for some vague
notion of ‘versatility.’ Unless they talk to us, we don’t know what that means. Your
guess is as good as mine, but it looks like it means we’re supposed to be second-rate.
Is that what anyone wants? No, I don’t think so. All we’re asking for is some dialogue.

Please.

They already did communicate …

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

This told me everything I needed to know about their views on the Engineer.

this is disrespectful to us, they are kidding or what? I am dressed in full berserker right to equalize the gap with other classes who wear soldier (just an example with all the disadvantages that this entails) … I would be good to do a little less damage, but at the moment it is too unfair.
I do not hide my distrust of Anet, given the lack of communication. I played this class from the beta and would love to continue to do so, then “Gentlemen,” get a move on!
Thank you.

I find myself wondering if there’s anything planned for the Engineer in the Wintersday end-patch. Anybody have any idea whether there is or not?

com·mu·ni·ca·tion
/k??myo?oni?k?SH?n/
Noun
The imparting or exchanging of information or news.
A letter or message containing such information or news.
Synonyms
connection – message – connexion – intercourse

Communication is a two way street. This thread unfortunately lacks any suggestions as to what kind of communication anyone wants. What else, for example, as a community that plays the engineer, would you imagine the patch notes like the ones from DEC. 14, include in regards to your character?

I posted this a while back, if you do not understand what COMMUNICATION is, you may want to review that definition at the top.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/communication-in-DEC-14-patch/first#post1022664

The communication we want is fairly simple, either:

a) Most of our engineer players are wrong. Engineer is just how we (A-net) want it. Give up, reroll, leave game.

or

b) We realise our vision is disconnected from our engineer playerbase. We’re finally going to fix some bugs. We’re going to completely reconsider our class justification statement with regards to engineer. You don’t need to reroll or leave game, we’re listening now.

In addition all classes would be pleased to hear that for the new year, being able to enjoy your class is now an equal priority as new pve grinds, so A net will add 8 new staff one for each class bringing the balance team from two people upto ten the bare minimum such an integral area deserves.

Kalan.9705:

The communication we want is fairly simple, either:

a) Most of our engineer players are wrong. Engineer is just how we (A-net) want it. Give up, reroll, leave game.

or

b) We realise our vision is disconnected from our engineer playerbase. We’re finally going to fix some bugs. We’re going to completely reconsider our class justification statement with regards to engineer. You don’t need to reroll or leave game, we’re listening now.

In addition all classes would be pleased to hear that for the new year, being able to enjoy your class is now an equal priority as new pve grinds, so A net will add 8 new staff one for each class bringing the balance team from two people upto ten the bare minimum such an integral area deserves.

I’m not even looking for this much – it’d be good to know that, at least, the devs do look at this forum, is all. See, as far as we can tell, they only look in once in a great while, going by their posts. They don’t seem interested in even so much as clearing up misunderstandings about modifications to function.

It would also be nice to have a response to the questions raised by the ‘class balance philosophy’ of the December 14th patch.

Liquid.9672:

They already did communicate …

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

This told me everything I needed to know about their views on the Engineer.

This .. This … 100 times this. I personally would like them to just give up on the boons idea and make us kings of toon controls. We either manipulate where enemy toons will be or are able to massively move ourselves around. Catapults that shoot ourselves or disabling rocks at enemies, that kind of thing.

I believe every class but Ele and Ranger have negative or downsides metioned right in Anet’s class description. Only allowing for skill ceiling on elementalist to be the down side. If you get passed that… enjoy the ride… on the lightning.

Kalan.9705:

The communication we want is fairly simple, either:

a) Most of our engineer players are wrong. Engineer is just how we (A-net) want it. Give up, reroll, leave game.

or

b) We realise our vision is disconnected from our engineer playerbase. We’re finally going to fix some bugs. We’re going to completely reconsider our class justification statement with regards to engineer. You don’t need to reroll or leave game, we’re listening now.

I would like this. I have no superhuge problems with the engineer class, it is my main and I love playing my engi. But I do see the discrepancies and holes between the engineer and other professions and within the engineer profession itself, by which I mean… there are things wrong with it. And it would be nice to hear some acknowledgement of this fact and maybe hear a plan on how they intend to tackle it.

The problem with Anet’s communcation, though, is that they tend to … lets call it “be overly enthusiastic” about future plans and changes, and they’ll hold up this big balloon full of big ideas to the player base… and then comes the needle of reality that pops the balloon and we’re left with the question: “is that it?”

So even if they do communicate with us, I’m going to be wary. I would love for them to shoot straight with us and be realistic about things, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

ANet seems to be less communicative all around than they used to be. We were told we had a bunch of relevant points in the November patch notes, but not given any idea what they were. We were told kit sigils were coming in the Christmas patch, but none of the other things. Every reasonable player knows that patch notes are works in progress, but every interested player is still curious what the patch will probably bring. It would be really nice if they would tell players what they expect will be in the patch notes before the patch goes live, rather than run the “Better to ask forgiveness than permission” policy they seem to have now. It’s been awhile since I’ve played WoW, but I remember their early patch notes carrying the “Work in Progress” disclaimer, just to keep it clear.

I’m sure players of every profession would like to bring reality and/or discontent to the developer’s vision for us all. That sort of dialogue should be open, we don’t play in a vacuum, and if GW2 is going to live as long as the first, they could probably use the help.

Im gonna play devils advocate here and say:

I think our versatility lies in the various combinations we can make utilizating combo field, kits, gadgets, elixirs etc. We have access to almost all the boons and effects. The cost of being able to do this is our ability to use those boons and effects are weaker. The cooldowns are long by design.

The good news is they can bring these things in line but slowly. As one small changes can have a ripple effect on the various combinations. It is better from their view to keep the cooldowns high and the effects pretty weak. So then they can assess which skills to buff later on based on matrix and player feedback.

For instance look at turrets. They may be weak on their own, but what happens when you combine traits with them that make them alot stronger. What if turrets were as tanky as ranger pets. Also lets say they had lower cd. The durability of turrets in a build where they explode and can be placed anywhere would be the same as the durability of turrets with no traits. It wouldnt make sense. As time goes on turrets will find a place and will be brought in line to where they can be viable. Although finding that place will take some time, judgng from Anet philosophy on changes and current patch schedule.

First: Turret traits aren’t that impressive. There’s a reason I consider the most useful turret trait to be the one that makes them explode when they’re destroyed.

Breakdown:
30% damage reduction seems like a lot, but they don’t have much health or armor from anywhere but this trait, often being destroyed in one or two hits from anything that you might actually need the help of your utility skills to fight.
Regenerating Turrets sounds great, too, but they only heal once every ten seconds, and are immobile to begin with – combined with their innate, even if traited, fragility, and the mobile nature of much of the game, Autotool Installation is just about useless.
Rifled Turret Barrels adds a little damage – but it’s not much (from 385 to 443 versus a Practice Dummy in Fort Marriner). Its effect on the range is similarly lackluster, especially with the Mortar.

Let’s not even talk about PvE Deployable Turrets.

tl;dr: Turret traits kinda suck – and this is coming from somebody currently running a P/P full turret build.

I’m a proponent of making turrets scale with gear, as they already scale with traits – even if that means nerfing the base stats to keep it balanced.

Second: Almost all of those boons, especially the ones applied to allies, are chosen at random. Compare to Elementalist, who can lay down, and repeatedly activate with minimal difficulty, a combo field of several types – reliably. Yes, we can achieve various odd sets of effects, but so far, I’ve yet to come across a combination that really explains the general lack of improvement (bugfixing, balancing, or otherwise) the Engineer class has received.

Maybe turrets werent the best example. The point I was trying to make is that they have to balance each skill for every build due to the nature of how our class works. This tends to lead to some skills having to be under-powered in some specs and just decent in others.

We have to leave all bias ingame. We have to look at this objectively and try to get emotions out of it.

Here are the health values of the turrets:

Rifle turret 7470
Flame turret 8964
Thumper turret 11952
Net Turret 5976
Rocket Turret 7470

Auto Tool Installation Trait Heals 10% hp of turret every 10 seconds

Toolkit auto attack heals for 2.49% Throw Wrench 5%
Also you can trait that to double both.

PvE Depolyable Turrets is broken we know that.

Now that we have some of the facts. Let’s look at your suggestion and let me add to my original point.

Making Turrets scale with gear.
Well what we do know is without metal plating turrets take alot of damage(pure? needs more testing). With metal plating they have about the same defense as a light armor class. (Although this part needs more testing.) So if we made them scale with gear, would you remove the trait? Would the trait become Turrets scale with armor?

I personally dont think they would be very balanced if they were tankier than the player. So I would say the trait and your suggestion cant exist at the same time. I would turn the trait into your suggestion if it was me.

Also what about the many ways you can heal the turret. Have you taken those into account? This is where I see problems arising. It is hard to balance the turret with healing and without it. Either they are weak and only good if u fully trait them or they are good when you dont trait them and broken when you do. This is the point I was trying to make.

Base stats of turrets are already bad and dont scale so I dont think they need to be nerfed. No one takes turrets as their primary source of damage because of this. Most of the turrets but thumper have low hp so they drop very fast that is the best problem with them. Although if we made them scale with stats. It would be like fighting up to 3 different “mini engineer” with low hp. Which you can summon at the various different cd. Now imagine if when you managed to kill one of these mini engineers you are knocked back. The time you get there another has spawned. What if one of these mini engineer could blind….another could put you in a net turret… another could knock you back….

Edit: What if these mini engineer could be summoned by a boss engineer up to 900 yds away… :P

See what I’m getting at.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your feedback. We will forward your concerns to the team to make sure they are taken in consideration.

Thanks for your understanding. This thread is closed