Guild Wars 2

On Sunday, July 6th, at 3:30 PST/6:30 EST we’ll be streaming one last Mesmerized podcast where we’ll probably gripe a bit, reminisce a bit, and ultimately close out our mesmer podcast for the foreseeable future.

The stream will go live at twitch.tv/soacgaming

Looking forward to it. Thanks guys for doing the podcast over the past year its been awesome!

BillFreist.1527:

The fact that most of these items ever existed is just blatantly a bug. The decision to throw cooldowns on them were for server performance/stability as the patch notes said, not for balance. Period. This was something that was long overdue.

Think of it this way: Between the embers and whistle, those items were effectively doubling/tripling the amount of players active in a map.

Dev considered consumables that summon AI pets a “bug” because they put a lot of stress on the servers. Mesmers summon and destroy these “AI pets” every few seconds. Mesmers therefore cause the most stress on the servers. Devs keep ignoring our bugs and constantly keep nerfing the class. Players are so fed up that they give up and leave the class for something that is actually viable and works. Less mesmers = happy servers. Looks like this is dev’s hidden agenda and they are finally achieving it.

The end of this podcast is just one of examples.

PS: I know this is a bit anecdotal but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true, even if devs will surely deny it publicly.

frifox.5283:

BillFreist.1527:

The fact that most of these items ever existed is just blatantly a bug. The decision to throw cooldowns on them were for server performance/stability as the patch notes said, not for balance. Period. This was something that was long overdue.

Think of it this way: Between the embers and whistle, those items were effectively doubling/tripling the amount of players active in a map.

Dev considered consumables that summon AI pets a “bug” because they put a lot of stress on the servers. Mesmers summon and destroy these “AI pets” every few seconds. Mesmers therefore cause the most stress on the servers. Devs keep ignoring our bugs and constantly keep nerfing the class. Players are so fed up that they give up and leave the class for something that is actually viable and works. Less mesmers = happy servers. Looks like this is dev’s hidden agenda and they are finally achieving it.

The end of this podcast is just one of examples.

PS: I know this is a bit anecdotal but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true, even if devs will surely deny it publicly.

I don’t believe it’s that intentionally malicious. They just don’t understand the class at all, and it results in what we see.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s truly intentional because that would require devs to be quite evil. However, I do think they are quite happy with the end result no matter what is the cause.

I always listened to the podcast, so will be sad to see it go. Can’t say I’m suprised however.

Honestly, I think what’s going on is a combination of factors:

1. Too much red tape; it really does seem to take close to six months for them to implement just about anything that isn’t a quick fix, and unfortunately they can only do emergency fixes on things that affect an entire playerbase negatively(all AIs in pvp are stronger, 20k fall damage traits, any LS bug).

2. Not enough given to Anet for their budget. For all the money they are definitely making off the game, I understand they’ve had to actually outsource major things like bugtesting and QA; this outsourcing further extends their turnaround time for changes, because now communication has to occur inter-corporation. I’m thinking NCSoft managed to secure a greater cut of the budget for themselves.

3. Trying to do too much at once. It’s not that they can’t do it, but all of the above comes together and turns this into the most problematic symptom/cause; at any given time they’re trying to create new PvE content balanced for a challenge, buff/nerf classes, prepare for WvW and PvP tournaments, AND improve quality of life. This is why it seems like their buff/nerf cycles always seem to focus down a handful of classes at a time, rather than the full picture.

This is all especially evident if you frequent the devtracker; quite often, a dev has asked “Why do you think we should do this feature instead of focus on these other things?” They don’t hate us, just like they don’t hate any other class(and they DO have their bugs) – it sounds more like a cry for help.

This is why we don’t get fixes in due time. This is why we don’t have a proper expansion, and instead have a bi-weekly pseudo-expansion. This is why this update’s ambient voice actors all seem completely disconnected from their lines. Worst of all, this is why the modern patch notes tend towards tooltip changes, compared to the early patches of actual fixes and changes.

We’ve seen a lot of good devs and community people make their final goodbye posts and leave, and while I know employer reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt because negativity is more common on those sites by far, Anet’s reviews are both overwhelmingly negative, and overwhelmingly consistent.

I think its really astonishing to see that it took people two years to realize what kind of company ArenaNet has become. Did not kittenting on the Manifesto two years ago not do it for you?

The Eu Mesmer meet is officially dead.
Podcast ending.
Its like you all are about ready to commit suicide on this forum. Its a bit extreme.
I’m somewhat thrilled to see so many fair-weathered mesmer players finally go. Its long overdue.

Thanks so much for doing all the podcasts. I’ve learned a ton from them.

If this is the last one, here are a few things that I would find really fun and more interesting than talking about what’s wrong.

- Top two or three tips for fighting each of the other professions 1v1

- What strategies you think are viable for dealing with conditions in the different game modes

- Your favorite Mesmer builds for all the different modes (pve, wvw, pvp – is there one good shatter build for all of these, one good phantasm build, is there a lockdown build that applies to all). Maybe not necessarily looking for the very best build for each situation but something that’s fun and workable for all of them

- Some speculation What do you think is likely to happen with the class in time? What changes do you predict in game mechanics? (It’s interesting to see the latest living world update has some elements that seem like they’re trying to pull more of the pvp concepts into pve. Maybe it’s been going on for a while, but in the current living story, I’m seeing lots of stealthing opponents, opponents with strippable boons, opponents that dodge, demonstration of the portal (though it’s shown in a way that’s different than how it currently works). So some speculation on what you think will come at some point would be cool.

Thx again and have fun!

eldenbri.1059:

Thanks so much for doing all the podcasts. I’ve learned a ton from them.

If this is the last one, here are a few things that I would find really fun and more interesting than talking about what’s wrong.

- Top two or three tips for fighting each of the other professions 1v1

- What strategies you think are viable for dealing with conditions in the different game modes

- Your favorite Mesmer builds for all the different modes (pve, wvw, pvp – is there one good shatter build for all of these, one good phantasm build, is there a lockdown build that applies to all). Maybe not necessarily looking for the very best build for each situation but something that’s fun and workable for all of them

- Some speculation What do you think is likely to happen with the class in time? What changes do you predict in game mechanics? (It’s interesting to see the latest living world update has some elements that seem like they’re trying to pull more of the pvp concepts into pve. Maybe it’s been going on for a while, but in the current living story, I’m seeing lots of stealthing opponents, opponents with strippable boons, opponents that dodge, demonstration of the portal (though it’s shown in a way that’s different than how it currently works). So some speculation on what you think will come at some point would be cool.

Thx again and have fun!

We can look to do some of this as well, thanks for the suggestions.

I’ll see if I can tune in when you guys go on. I’ve always admired your dedication in putting out content like this so regularly. Three cheers~

Appreciation to those who did the podcast, and kudos moving forward.

It’s been fun doing them, even though I was totally caffeinated most of the time due to being the UK and pyro et al being in the US. It was a real honor and pleasure to be asked to co-host them

I can understand why the SOAC team decided not to do them for a while, the Mesmer is not in a healthy place right now and with so many unfixed bugs its hard to know if the failings are the class or because it’s not working as intended and in truth it’s probably better to stop them now rather than have it become a kitten fest every couple of weeks.

I’m still confident that eventually Anet will get the class and indeed the game mechanics right(which, along with the bugs, is I feel the root cause of the Mesmer issues) and when that comes hopefully we can kick start things again

Shan

Podcast going live in ~7 minutes or when Chaos fixes his mic, whichever comes first.

I didnt quite get the time converstion right, so missed the first half! Still stayed up til 1am to listen in as it could be the “last one”.

Good work guys, I’m sure many more appreciate the podcast as well who dont say anything about it.

Perhaps we’ll see you again one day….maybe…..

Came in late unfortunately so I’m going to listen to the first half.

Hope Anet makes some changes and we see you guys back on Mesmerized.

Thanks for SoAC for all the different profession podcasts. There is a lot of good information in them.

pyro, know when it’ll be upload?? Couldn’t saw it, cause that 1am EU xd

Ansau.7326:

pyro, know when it’ll be upload?? Couldn’t saw it, cause that 1am EU xd

It should be up by Wednesday.

The last mesmerized episode is finally up for those that missed the stream. It can be found here:

http://sittingonacouch.com/mesmerized-ep-25-guild-wars-2-mesmer-podcast/

Pyro, Shan, and Chaos meet for one last time to reminisce about the progress of the Mesmer over the years of Guild Wars 2. They cover the changes that the class has experienced as the game progressed, and examine the reasons behind the gradual decline. This is the last Mesmerized podcast for the near future, but they hope that they’ll eventually be motivated to once again play the game and bring more Mesmer discussion to SOAC.

Past episodes can be found here: http://sittingonacouch.com/podcast/guildwars2/mesmer-gw2/

Thanks Pyro. I’m still motivated to play so I’m still around albeit able to get a lot more sleep every 2 weeks.

During the podcast I refer to this video, which was made as a spoof for Mesmer skill improvements in GW1.

As you can see it’s scarily close to what we got, with clones, use of illusions to distract enemies, retaliation, moa morph, speed boosts, shatters, glowy single handed swords and lots of spell effects.

I can only apologise for being one of the ones in that video giving Anet the ideas for the GW2 mesmer

Sorry guys

Great show! I will be waiting for the return!

You might be waiting a long time.

Xavi.6591:

You might be waiting a long time.

yes, ll be better efficient if it ll for another game which can e-sport..

ty/gj for mesmerize.. and gl hf rest of it