Guild Wars 2

First off, this is not a nerf/buff discussion thread. Nor a whining thread. I’d like to discuss Executioner as it is, in the current meta. Whatever few days are left of it.

REPEAT: DO NOT SUGGEST BUFFS/NERFS IN THIS THREAD (YET)

Lately I’ve been thinking: Executioner only activates whenever the opponent is below 50% health, and at that time executioner provides a 1.2x damage multiplier. However, this is the bunker meta. Players are rarely below 50% hp even in 1v2 scenarios. With that in mind, is Executioner a noob trab? If a bunker is below 50% it is very likely they’re in a scenario where they’d die irregardless of a thief’s Executioner or not. On the other hand Executioner can help “execute” low hp targets. But this is plus if and only if those low hp targets wouldn’t have died anyway.

Dunno, do you folks feel the same way? If so, what do ya’ll run instead of Executioner? I’ve been thinking of running Improvisation or even dropping DA for Crit Strikes. With the DA drop coming from Panic Strike working on a similar system to Executioner.

Also set this thread in question mode. After we get some comments about Executioner in the bunker meta I’ll choose an answer and we can talk about buffs/nerfs.

Executioner, from my experience, is not a noob trait at all and is more important in ganking than you would think. Take the classic thief gank for example, generally will will pop a basilisk venom in order to get a stun when you open. This stun when timed correctly will stop an enemy from healing or activating defensive cooldowns. The time in which the enemy is locked down is enough time for you to bring their hp low and then executioner helps you to put in that final damage.

Why is this little push in damage relevant in such a tanky meta? Because if you can take the enemy down before they can pop their heal back to full hp button then you have successfully stopped what could have been a 10+ min fight in a matter of seconds.

It’s easily understandable that you may find the trait redundant as you would think those below 50% hp would die anyway but lets be real how many profs nowadays have a ton of heals? That’s right all of them. The reason executioner is the perfect choice is because it either puts enough extra pressure to make them panic and screw up a heal rotation or it’ll finish them off and allow you to move on to sway another fight.

Is it a noob trait? Short answer is no. Why? Because while with this tanky of a meta it’s not often people fall below 50% hp it is highly effective when a thief player plays their gank and burst around that trait. Even tampests will generally fall below 50% hp if a thief times a burst so that the tempest eats the whole thing. Once that is done if you are good enough to save the right cd’s you can keep them below 50% and pound them with the cd’s you have saved and do as I said above many times.

That’s just how I feel about it in terms of where it stands, it has a job and it does it extremely well and is one of the most skill requiring traits in the meta due to how much it revolves around the thief using the right skills to get the enemy to a point where the bonus kicks in and keeping them there using the right methods after the bonus damage is active.

Alternatives:
Improvisation- The extra use of steal skills can be very strong and in some cases may be the sole reason why you can win a fight or get a successful gank off. (I.E. double stun on a guard preventing a heal, extended slow on rev preventing bursts or heals (note: slow stops rev sword 3 from hitting so that’s where that came from) and Mesmer boons allowing you to stay in the fight longer or recover from a fight better). The random skill recharge can be highly influential as you may gain an extra stunbreak (or 2 if you run shadowstep and get a lucky recharge) or a double heal, etc. It’s more of a utility and defensive buff as opposed to executioner as a damage buff. Just kinda depends on what you feel you need to focus more on in your gameplay (I run executioner cause I like having higher spike damage in fights, but if I notice I need to buff my defensive abilities before a match I’ll swap to improv)

CS- It provides a ton of extra critical damage which can also be highly influential in taking down foes. However, I find sacrificing mug’s damage and sustain from healing is not worth it when I can buff my damage high enough using deadly arts as critical strikes does not provide a good enough sustain option imo to take it over DA. Will it work? Yes it most definitely will. Imo it is not OPTIMAL. Viable, but not optimal.

Hope I was able to contribute positively to the discussion. If you have any more questions about why I feel the way I do I’d love to answer them.

See, I guess from my view tempests and other bunkers can stay above the 50% mark in a 1v2 with a thief for a majority of the time even after a burst. They might dip below the mark sometimes. But even then can usually heal back up and are definitely above the 50% mark for a majority of the time. Although I don’t run Bounding Dodger so I might be lacking a bit of consistent dps. Also just picked up the game again so I don’t know the tempest’s and other bunker’s rotations perfectly yet.

I know Improvisation gives more utility/defense, and CS gives more crit chance. I did the math on CS with pack runes and found that you get about a +30% crit damage multiplier going 2/2/1, and longer ferocity uptime. Plus there’s the 1.1x damage multiplier from Ferocious Strikes for anyone above 50%. But at the same time with CS you lose the burst/healing from Mug. I think in terms of just damage multipliers CS beats DA, but DA has Mug >_>.

Dunno, jumping between both of them at the moment. Lately have been trying DA with Distracting Daggers over Blinding Powder to get a little bit more dps. Also the additional cd on interrupt seems like it could really screw over a bunker’s rotations.

I do think the trait is worse than it looks and not grandmaster worthy, but we don’t really have much stronger options.

+20% damage at <50% HP is a little worse than +10% damage all the time. Reasons:
It’s counterable
Most of the time people engage in direct fighting while above 50% HP
A bigger portion of the damage buff will be overkill.

The advantage is that you can pick specific targets in group fights to deal a little more damage, but this just reinforces the +1 role of the class, which I do not find fun.

I take executioner. When the bunkers start kiting like crazy and chaining defensive skills because they are low, and I can have any hit I land deal 20% more damage, I’ll take it. Getting them below 50% isn’t actually that hard, even when you’re the only one on them, which shouldn’t be the case unless it’s a 1v1, which you won’t be looking for.

Depends on the class, but I would argue that the trait isn’t that amazing except for Shadow Shot spammers. Odds are if you got them below half, the 20% multiplier isn’t going to help all that much, because either they’re already in the act of mitigating and healing, or they’ll just flat-out die.

That said, I’m not really fond of any of the DA tier 3 traits.

See Deceiver, I play S/D SB and I find executioner helpful there. Especially because S/D is all about sustaining damage after your initial burst until you have enough cd’s to go in again for another burst. The extra damage allows me to keep bunkers low in 1v1 if necessary and provides a much larger amount of burst when I’m ganking lower hp players. S/D has the mobility to stick on a target so my pressure never really drops enough to allow them to get back above 50% once I’ve gotten them there. With the amount of healing in this game you can never assume someone will just die so there needs to be some sort of insurance that they will die and executioner is part of that imo.

Midi, you probably don’t need bounding dodger but if you want more dps sure you can go with it. The big thing is to make sure you pump out as much damage as you can during the lockdown and then refuse to drop the pressure after you have them below 50% to prevent them from healing. Yes it is hard when they have as many heals and invulns as they do but with help from an ally you can easily take them out if the 2 of the people on your team are dedicated to dropping damage onto the tempest.

Yeah if it wasn’t for mug in DA I’d be going crit strikes all the time. I just can’t play without the damage and healing anymore cause I’m so used to it. If the healing and damage was ever made baseline I’d drop DA instantly and go into crit strikes.

I haven’t experimented much with skills as I run S/D with shadowstep, roll for initiative, and prec signet. I find my Damage is high enough in ganks but I don’t know what you run so I have no idea how your dps compares to mine.

Ah I forgot to mention I run Impact Strike instead of Basilisk Venom. So I don’t have the initial lockdown that Basilisk Venom provides. I think both elites have around the same level of usefulness (Said this before, but still learning the current meta so I might be wrong here). Also as far as my setup goes I run: d/p, DA/Trick/DD, and same skills as you except for roll for initiative though. I think I need to work on keeping up auto’s though and am losing some dps due to that.

@Impact, Said this earlier but I feel like getting them below the 50% mark can be hard even if it’s a 1v2. Most classes when they get that low will start spamming invulns and heals to quickly get back up to the mark. And in the case of a 1v3 or 2v3 where you’re focusing one player, you have to ask if executioner is actually accomplishing anything that wouldn’t get accomplished before. Or in the case that it’s not, you have to ask how much faster does executioner let you accomplish what you already would’ve been able to accomplish anyway.

Wouldn’t this be a more useful trait to PvEers? I mean, if you’re fighting a boss mob, they might spend a minute or more in a 50%- state, giving you bonus damage that entire time. A large number of players with similar traits results in much faster kill times over that period than over the first half of the fight.

Remember, this game is not and should not be balanced entirely with PvP in mind, as it is only a small niche within the game as a whole.

Seeing as it already exists and thief has some of the best DPS in the game based only on its < 50% boss health figures alone, the trait is objectively better than others for PvE use.

OP isn’t asking for buffs or nerfs (“yet”) but discussion on the trait in sPvP. Based on the opinion on the OP, he’d be swayed towards buffs which would only benefit PvE players.

People who really care about optimized PvE are the smallest of the smallest of groups of players. Pugs get their ideas set by people who optimize groups, but the people who actually go the extra mile are fewer and further between than the number of players who engage in sPvP and WvW or casual PvE, RP, etc.

Yeah I suppose when it comes to PvE Executioner doesn’t have an alternative (Other than just dropping DA by chance).

I’ve switched to Basilisk Venom and had an easier time using Executioner, even without Bounding Dodger. Still think there’s fights where I go the entire battle getting barely any mileage from the trait, but going to keep using it regardless.

Also picked an answer from above. I think Executioner will be stronger once the popular bunkers get a nerf. Just a small nerf to those bunkers though still wouldn’t make the thief able to do anything other than +1. I don’t think Executioner needs a buff, but I do think it’s in a weird spot with the current meta.

People who really care about optimized PvE are the smallest of the smallest of groups of players.

Bull. People that pay close attention to it may be small, but everyone likes to feel like they are contributing 100% to the game, or get frustrated if they feel that they are dying too often, or taking too long to kill things. The people focused on PvE balance may be relatively small, but the people who care about PvE balance make up the overwhelming majority of players, whether they realize it or not.

The current Improvisation trait got most of its value in sPvP through being able to reset Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder for more stealth rezzes. With additional reveal and AoE, these utilities have lost most of their value. Improv can still generally be more helpful in small fights against certain burst builds, particularly 1v1ing D/P Thieves. However, most of the time now, we just need more damage to secure kills and snowball more quickly. One of the biggest specific benefits of Executioner is it allows a timely Heartseeker to hit hard enough to kill a marauder Scrapper coming out of his passive elixir S with a critical hit.

Ohoni.6057:

People who really care about optimized PvE are the smallest of the smallest of groups of players.

Bull. People that pay close attention to it may be small, but everyone likes to feel like they are contributing 100% to the game, or get frustrated if they feel that they are dying too often, or taking too long to kill things. The people focused on PvE balance may be relatively small, but the people who care about PvE balance make up the overwhelming majority of players, whether they realize it or not.

Yea. As long as they’re not dying and dealing enough damage to make a run go fast enough/successfully enough, the majority of players are happy.

If the PvP formats aren’t tightly balanced, the entire integrity of the game modes falls apart and people move to different games. Count the number of mesmer for me please who quit GW2 because they weren’t leading in DPS/in super-high-demand for competitive speed-running dungeons pre-HoT.

Now count the number of thieves who have quit the game from being sub-par in the PvP formats. We lost Sizer when Acrobatics got gutted. A lot of mesmers left before they got massively buffed.

There’s a reason that games focus on balancing PvP over PvE unless PvP doesn’t exist or isn’t a primary feature of the game, and it has nothing to do with player enjoyment or viability. It comes down to money and the integrity of their game. PvE being imbalanced doesn’t change a lot. PvP being imbalanced causes people to leave, the game to get worse reviews, marketing to fail, and ultimately the game’s death.

Fact of the industry: PvP is more marketable and spectator-friendly. ANet’s fascination with E-SPORTZ!!!!1! shows this trend as well, as per the success of many PvP-centric games and micro-transaction-model imports with deep PvP systems.

It isn’t a noob trap. It’s good in every situation where it is not overshadowed by improvisation.

which is like… 10% of all common situations.

It would be better if it applied slow on a CD of [redacted] length. That way we could apply executioner strikes to those quick-to-run-away elementalists.

Count the number of mesmer for me please who quit GW2 because they weren’t leading in DPS/in super-high-demand for competitive speed-running dungeons pre-HoT.

Now count the number of thieves who have quit the game from being sub-par in the PvP formats. We lost Sizer when Acrobatics got gutted. A lot of mesmers left before they got massively buffed.

You’re the one claiming a discrepancy, it’s on you to count those numbers and report them back. My assumption is that more Mesmers quit because they didn’t enjoy how the class performed in PvE than all of the players who have quit because of PvP issues combined. The PvE player pool is less invested, but so much larger.

There’s a reason that games focus on balancing PvP over PvE unless PvP doesn’t exist or isn’t a primary feature of the game, and it has nothing to do with player enjoyment or viability. It comes down to money and the integrity of their game.

No, it comes from their personal bias that they really really really want players to enjoy GW2 as an esport, whether the players care or not. Which they largely don’t.

PvP being imbalanced causes people to leave, the game to get worse reviews, marketing to fail, and ultimately the game’s death.

Lol, self-important much? Every core PvPer could leave the game tomorrow and the game would still be doing fine.

Fact of the industry: PvP is more marketable and spectator-friendly. ANet’s fascination with E-SPORTZ!!!!1! shows this trend as well, as per the success of many PvP-centric games and micro-transaction-model imports with deep PvP systems.

They can be, in other games, but GW2’s never shown that it has the potential to be successful as a PvP-focused product. It is a successful PvE game that includes a PvP element, it is not LoL.

Ohoni,
Only thing mesmers did to even get close to quitting in a pve standpoint was rerolling to another high performance class. PvP, like it or not, has a larger impact on the players who heavily invest into it. PvE doesn’t REQUIRE you to be optimal to perform well, it’s part of the reason many players like it is because you can be at least semi effective on any build for any class. You may not be optimal but you don’t have to be in order to complete PvE content. PvP requires you to be optimal as you are facing other players all running the most optimal thing available for their class. If your class not being optimal shuts you out of the content and it’s the only class you want to play then you quit. Sad truth is that more players have quit the game due to PvP imbalance than PvE.

There is a huge potential for the game to be an esport but it is losing it slowly losing it due to lack of PvP balance. If Anet can achieve good balance in pvp then the playerbase as a whole will be happier than if they just balance to PvE.

It has nothing to do with self importance, the fact of the matter is that the developers are marketing the game as a pvp focused game on social media and that is what many players come to the game expecting to focus their experience on. If every pvp player leaves the game and pvp dies their marketing goes down the drain and they will financially suffer as it will grow extremely difficult to acquire new players for the game and they will have no additional income sources from outside deals with ESL and other high end pvp streaming companies.

Many times in the past GW2 has shown potential for esports and PvP focused marketing (I.E. the first WTS). Again, it’s the lack of pvp balance that has been messing up their possibility for a highly successful PvP game leaving them to only expand on PvE until they can get their balance team on track with what needs to be done for PvP. Atm, your statement is somewhat correct due to the state of PvP balance. The second that improves, your statement flips and you will find that the game is PvP centered with a highly expanded PvE system to complement the game’s design and combat system (which btw, draws more people to PvP).

Now that your heavy PvE bias has been addressed, let’s jump back on topic with our discussion over the current state of Executioner, not how this game should be marketed.

You may not be optimal but you don’t have to be in order to complete PvE content. PvP requires you to be optimal as you are facing other players all running the most optimal thing available for their class.

To a point, but modern PvE content requires you to at least be decent or you will die far too often to have any fun, and in PvP, there’s no real investment. If you get a PvE character to 80, geared, with full Elite spec, and still can’t get what you want out of it, then that’s a huge waste of your time. If you roll up a character in PvP, and it stops being meta, you can roll up a new character and have him meta-capable within minutes.

Sad truth is that more players have quit the game due to PvP imbalance than PvE.

Source?

There is a huge potential for the game to be an esport but it is losing it slowly losing it due to lack of PvP balance.

There has never been a time at which GW2’s PvP aspect was a serious esport contender. They want it sooooooo bad, but it’s just not going to happen and they need to shift resources into what GW2 does better than anyone else, the rest of the game that everyone else is playing.

They should have spent more time on this year’s Wintersday events than they spent on the PvP League season.

It has nothing to do with self importance, the fact of the matter is that the developers are marketing the game as a pvp focused game on social media and that is what many players come to the game expecting to focus their experience on. If every pvp player leaves the game and pvp dies their marketing goes down the drain and they will financially suffer as it will grow extremely difficult to acquire new players for the game and they will have no additional income sources from outside deals with ESL and other high end pvp streaming companies.

Lol. I’m not talking about that other game, I just found that entire paragraph hilarious.

Ohoni.6057:

Fact of the industry: PvP is more marketable and spectator-friendly. ANet’s fascination with E-SPORTZ!!!!1! shows this trend as well, as per the success of many PvP-centric games and micro-transaction-model imports with deep PvP systems.

They can be, in other games, but GW2’s never shown that it has the potential to be successful as a PvP-focused product. It is a successful PvE game that includes a PvP element, it is not LoL.

It wasn’t initially because they made their combat mechanics too complex for newbies to watch and understand the depth of what was occurring, they’ve never properly balanced their game, spectator options didn’t exist for the first two years, and they didn’t innovate on their game mode in regards to formats, maps, or systems changes for competitive leagues done properly (HoT season is also a failure here).

sPvP’s lack of success has been attributed to many failures design-wise. My comment was to parody ANet’s continual devotion and consistent failures on the basis that despite having long-lost its massive “E-sports” potential, they still push so hard for it because it’s so marketable. PvP systems and good combat mechanics ultimately are what define success in this industry. I played League in its beta days and have playe dit and continue to play it. Let me tell you, that game was NOT graphically-attractive, its champion pool extremely limited, and its player count was very, very low. Its balance was impeccable, though. Its gameplay extremely tight, and champion design was very simple. They worked on streaming options and did their streaming of major events in-house with proprietary tools, then released those tools as early as possible with claims years prior mentioning that it was on the way and a big development focus. League’s current state of affairs and imbalance, complex champion mechanics, and highly-competitive prizes are achieved at this point largely from their game’s size.

Online gaming at its core is largely competitive, and this is very marketable. That’s what I’m trying to emphasize.

PvP systems and good combat mechanics ultimately are what define success in this industry.

No. PvP is one path to success, but it’s not a path that is open to GW2. PvE is another path. I recently saw a gaming site list GW2 as the best MMO out there, beating out LoL, Hearthstone, DOTA, and plenty of other PvP heavy title, and their reasons why were entirely based on open world PvE, not a single mention of the game’s PvP side. GW2 focusing on PvP because it works for other games, they might as well focus on crushing candy.

Weird how this has broken down into a PvP vs PvE thing.

I have no comment about which is the “path to success” or not. However I do think that, for reasons already mentioned above, PvP imbalance is much easier to notice than PvE balance. Honestly I would like to think that a balanced PvP would be possible without breaking the balance in PvE.

Also Ohoni you keep saying source this and source that. But seeing as how you post on the forums, you must have also seen the number of complaints about PvP balance that go on around here. Most of which, in my opinion, outnumbers PvE balance complaints.

Midi.8359:

Lately I’ve been thinking: Executioner only activates whenever the opponent is below 50% health, and at that time executioner provides a 1.2x damage multiplier. However, this is the bunker meta. Players are rarely below 50% hp even in 1v2 scenarios. With that in mind, is Executioner a noob trab? If a bunker is below 50% it is very likely they’re in a scenario where they’d die irregardless of a thief’s Executioner or not. On the other hand Executioner can help “execute” low hp targets. But this is plus if and only if those low hp targets wouldn’t have died anyway.

Just adding my two cents.

You’re looking at it from a wrong angle. In fact, due to the bunker meta, Executioner is even more needed. Taking down low HP target is a waste of Executioner, that I agree. However, when facing a bunker, they can often stay alive below 50% most of the time because some of them 50% of their health is equal to the ‘zerker Thief’s full health bar — thus when they fall below 50%, it’s seems like the Thief is fighting a fully healed target.

As an example, a condition-bunker-Reaper sits at 28k health with 14k health at 50%. That extra 20% damage definitely comes in handy in finishing them off.

Also Ohoni you keep saying source this and source that. But seeing as how you post on the forums, you must have also seen the number of complaints about PvP balance that go on around here. Most of which, in my opinion, outnumbers PvE balance complaints.

Sure, but that means nothing, from a customer quantitative standpoint. PvPers are, by nature, competitive. They also tend to be rather vocal. Remember that game forums tend to only have a few hundred, maybe a few thousand active posters, when the game itself has hundreds of thousands, likely millions of unique players.

You can expect that in any mixed community, for every PvPer complaining about something, there are ten to a hundred times as many non-PvPers who are upset about something, but in no way interact with the forums or other public outlets. When they get upset, they don’t complain about it, but that doesn’t mean that their complaints are not important, because when enough of their complaints pile up, they just quietly quit. This is why forums do not make a representative sample group, you can never say “well more of the forum people think X, so therefore. . . _anything.”_ Even starting a thought that way means that your conclusion will be worthless. Forums have value, but it’s in discussion, in pursuing different ideas and honing them to their best potential, they have absolutely zero value for polling or group-size comparison.

Ohoni.6057:

You can expect that in any mixed community, for every PvPer complaining about something, there are ten to a hundred times as many non-PvPers who are upset about something, but in no way interact with the forums or other public outlets.

Source for this information? I only know the claim that a “small” portion of players take to alternate media to make complaints. As far as I am concerned, there is no evidence and has been no evidence of such a claim that PvP players are 10 to 100 times more likely to complain on external media about a game to its developers over non-PvP players. Additionally, a factor of ten for a range is absolutely massive, particularly when discussing percentages.

Source for this information? I only know the claim that a “small” portion of players take to alternate media to make complaints. As far as I am concerned, there is no evidence and has been no evidence of such a claim that PvP players are 10 to 100 times more likely to complain on external media about a game to its developers over non-PvP players. Additionally, a factor of ten for a range is absolutely massive, particularly when discussing percentages.

Well, the most popular example came from LotRO, where one of their community guys said:

Raiders comprise the smallest, by far, group in our game. PvMP players are far larger and even they are small. in fact together the two groups wouldn’t comprise 10% of the total player base and never have (this is important. it’s not a new thing, it’s a long standing historical fact).

Forum posters comprise a slightly larger group than the combined group of PvMP and Raiders. However, Raiders and PvMP players make up the overwhelming majority of forum posters (More than half. Though raiders are the smaller group of the two (PvMP/Raiders)). So you have a tiny group, inside a small group that is grossly disproportionately represented on the forums.

Now that was true for his game, but seems to also be true for most games, within a reasonable margin. And when you look at GW2 during League season, when plenty of players have no League pips at all, and very few of those blue or higher, it seems likely that most players at most dabble lightly in PvP and do not consider it a significant portion of their gaming experience.

I think it also just stands to reason that the less casual form of gameplay that requires more attention and effort would attract players willing to spend more attention and effort discussing the game on social media. The casuals just play the game for a bit and then stop playing to do something else entirely (ideally, from ANet’s position, eventually returning to play the game some more).

Ohoni.6057:

You can expect that in any mixed community, for every PvPer complaining about something, there are ten to a hundred times as many non-PvPers who are upset about something, but in no way interact with the forums or other public outlets. When they get upset, they don’t complain about it, but that doesn’t mean that their complaints are not important, because when enough of their complaints pile up, they just quietly quit. This is why forums do not make a representative sample group, you can never say “well more of the forum people think X, so therefore. . . _anything.”_ Even starting a thought that way means that your conclusion will be worthless. Forums have value, but it’s in discussion, in pursuing different ideas and honing them to their best potential, they have absolutely zero value for polling or group-size comparison.

Just by going through the GW2 official forum (this one) is enough proof that your assessments are not true.

Just by comparing the “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” to the “PvP” forum is enough to show that non-PvP players are very vocal —- 2000+ pages vs 890+ pages respectively. Then it gets even larger when you add the pages from other non-PvP forums (300+ from FDR and 300+ from HotS for instance).

Another thing about forums that is invisible to others is the number of hits/visits each page gets in a daily basis and how many searches are conducted on a specific topic. You may not see a lot of post from non-PvP but I can guarantee that ArenaNet has data on how many non-posters are viewing any particular page or topic. For example, there is a post about the nerfs on Thief that garnered hundreds of replies, yet there are thousands of hits/view about it. That is a strong indication on what players are interested about and which topic they care less about. So even if they didn’t post, their complaints are recorded.

Just by comparing the “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” to the “PvP” forum is enough to show that non-PvP players are very vocal —- 2000+ pages vs 890+ pages respectively. Then it gets even larger when you add the pages from other non-PvP forums (300+ from FDR and 300+ from HotS for instance).

“People posting outside the PvP forums” are not necessarily “players that aren’t PvP focused.” A lot of people on individual class threads, for example, are very PvP focused and trying to build up their favorite classes as a PvP class. In other threads, it may be less PvPers, but still the “hardcore” style PvEers that want things like raids to be a dominant activity, far and away more rewarding than anything else.

The point is, “hardcore” type players, ones who value skill over fun, and who believe that the most skilled should see far higher success than the lower skilled, have a tendency to dominate the conversations on gaming forums at a far higher rate than their actual value to the game itself, so you should never take “well, the majority of the forums seem to think. . .” as any sort of actual mandate. It’s like polling the convention floor of a political party to see where the nation is thinking.

For example, there is a post about the nerfs on Thief that garnered hundreds of replies, yet there are thousands of hits/view about it. That is a strong indication on what players are interested about and which topic they care less about. So even if they didn’t post, their complaints are recorded.

You can’t really get much information out of that though. If thousands of people viewed a thread about Thief nerfs, then all you can tell is that those people were interested in the topic (although keep in mind that the “views” recorded are not unique views, at least some of those are the same people viewing the pages multiple times), but you cannot tell whether they agree or disagree with the conclusions inside, only that they were not compelled to respond on the topic. They might have been people thinking “yes, Thieves were nerfed and need to be fixed!” or they might have been people who thought “what do they mean? Thieves are fine.”

Ohoni.6057:

Just by comparing the “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” to the “PvP” forum is enough to show that non-PvP players are very vocal —- 2000+ pages vs 890+ pages respectively. Then it gets even larger when you add the pages from other non-PvP forums (300+ from FDR and 300+ from HotS for instance).

“People posting outside the PvP forums” are not necessarily “players that aren’t PvP focused.”

Players leaving the game are not necessarily silent casual majority either. The forums simply indicate what players, who visits the forums, are interested in. It’s not an indication of which group the visitor favors.

A lot of people on individual class threads, for example, are very PvP focused and trying to build up their favorite classes as a PvP class. In other threads, it may be less PvPers, but still the “hardcore” style PvEers that want things like raids to be a dominant activity, far and away more rewarding than anything else.

The point is, “hardcore” type players, ones who value skill over fun, and who believe that the most skilled should see far higher success than the lower skilled, have a tendency to dominate the conversations on gaming forums at a far higher rate than their actual value to the game itself, so you should never take “well, the majority of the forums seem to think. . .” as any sort of actual mandate. It’s like polling the convention floor of a political party to see where the nation is thinking.

The individual class threads are categorized as sub-forums only because they are not representative of what players are interested in as a whole. However, in each topic posted, it’s a simple indication that players who visit these forums are more interested in casual topics like “Let’s see some thief pics” than “Post Your Build Thread”. Which is a strong indication that you are wrong to believe that a lot of people in these threads are hardcore or PvP-focused.

You can’t really get much information out of that though. If thousands of people viewed a thread about Thief nerfs, then all you can tell is that those people were interested in the topic (although keep in mind that the “views” recorded are not unique views, at least some of those are the same people viewing the pages multiple times), but you cannot tell whether they agree or disagree with the conclusions inside, only that they were not compelled to respond on the topic. They might have been people thinking “yes, Thieves were nerfed and need to be fixed!” or they might have been people who thought “what do they mean? Thieves are fine.”

That’s exactly my point. The number of views on non-PvP topics shows that players on the forum are less interested with PvP-based topics. Which also prove that your assessment is wrong that only PvP focused or competitive players posts in the forums.

If you cannot tell what the players think by looking at the number of views, how do you then can tell what non-posters are thinking?

Players leaving the game are not necessarily silent casual majority either. The forums simply indicate what players, who visits the forums, are interested in. It’s not an indication of which group the visitor favors.

Which is my point, just that you cannot say “because people on the forums believe X, the majority of GW2 players believe. . .” anything. It’s a completely non-representative sample group.The game’s general population might agree with the forum’s consensus completely, or could just as easily disagree almost entirely, there’s absolutely no way of knowing based on forum feedback alone.

However, in each topic posted, it’s a simple indication that players who visit these forums are more interested in casual topics like “Let’s see some thief pics” than “Post Your Build Thread”. Which is a strong indication that you are wrong to believe that a lot of people in these threads are hardcore or PvP-focused.

I’ve seen way more “this class needs X (to be competitive in PvP” or “this calls is overpowered (in PvP)” posts in the class threads than “let’s see pics of your class” type threads.

If you cannot tell what the players think by looking at the number of views, how do you then can tell what non-posters are thinking?

You can’t, that’s the point. They are complete ciphers. You can only collect data on the “average player” from actual gameplay, either by scientifically polling the community (through in-game pop-ups), or by using ingame metrics to compile hours spent in each mode and that sort of thing. The forums can’t provide any useful data on numbers, it can only provide anecdotal case studies on what individual players think about it.