Guild Wars 2

Viore.7542:

Your right, I prefer the AI to randomly wipe out party members one at a time without a good means to mitigate damage.

hit the dodge button

i’m personally surprised at the complaints against the new resurrection mechanic…

i think everyone that is against it should keep in mind that they shouldn’t be getting downed/killed in the first place.

everything is avoidable in this game except for jade maw’s phase change agony.

and to be honest, the excuse of “i’m not perfect” or “i’m just a casual player” (what does that mean, exactly, anyways?) isn’t really an excuse.

i think that if most people just researched a boss/enemy/encounter that they had trouble with— or died on a lot— and just practiced their timing a little bit, there would hardly be any complaints about this.

i’m talking like 10 – 15 minutes of research, and then 10 – 15 min of practicing the timing of dodging / reflecting / distortion / etc.

in my opinion, even the most casual of casual gamers should be able to dedicate a half an hour towards learning how to deal with difficult parts of a dungeon….

I mean, won’t it take you longer than that (and involve a lot of frustration) if you skip research / practice and simply die or go downed a lot?

I can understand not wanting to spend hours on a dungeon— But I can’t understand not taking a few minutes to research and practice things that are usually not as difficult as they seem….

edit: i’m mostly talking about non-arah dungeons, since virtually every arah path is painfully long regardless of skill level. the pain is simply extended further if you wipe during the run

Robert Hrouda.1327:

res-rushing is wack city

any word on the new hard fractal cap, besides considering the jade-maw bypass an exploit? is there a reason it’s gotta be hard-capped at 50+ with exponential / unavoidable agony?

why not restrict us from even choosing 50+, so that those who aren’t aware of this don’t waste their time?

=/

Avatar of Indra.6908:

It’s been a week, what is going on? Not even a single quick fix update so far to temporarily change things until phase 2.

Ten pages of this thread later and still no comment from the staff, not even a: “We have read the posts in this thread so far and acknowledge your frustration that many of you have expressed and we are looking into ways that will balance dungeons that will make them an enjoyable experience for everyone. And we are planning on implementing these changes soon, either during or before phase 2”.

I actually prefer silence over an empty political response

Jzl.8715:

Alucard.8297:

Jzl.8715:

Complaining and feedback are okay, but don’t call people stupid.

I believe I called the issue stupid, not specific people.

“that they would not be so stupid to implement this…”
You were calling people specific out, making a lot of general assumptions about how the dev teams work and saying they are making stupid decisions. It does hurt the eye a bit.

I’m not sure how saying “they would not be so stupid” translates into “stupid.”

Yes, I’m making a lot of general assumptions about how they work, and yes, I’m saying they made some stupid decisions.

But please stop saying inaccurate things and trying to put words in my mouth that I didn’t say (or in this case, type). It’s starting to get annoying, especially when in that specific quote I was giving Robert and Jon the benefit of the doubt, trying to say that I respect them too much to believe that they were the sole forces behind the cap.

As for the poster above me with the youtube vid— that vid does’t show the whole run (jade maw, which is impossible) and was posted on gw2guru already, where I believe the author stated it was before the impossible-cap update.

edit http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79189-fotm-lvl-80/

Jzl.8715:

Complaining and feedback are okay, but don’t call people stupid.

I believe I called the issue stupid, not specific people.

Agree with the 2 above posters, and I’ve tried to communicate this in the official feedback thread (which the devs are silently watching).

The skill for fractals is in even getting up to the Jade Maw, and the res orbs / exploits around what I like to call “stupid agony” only existed because it’s literally impossible to complete the dungeon at the higher levels (50+) any other way.

Now that it’s completely impossible is just frustrating and confusing, since now I have no idea what the devs are thinking in the obvious politically-powered meetings.

I assume that it’s someone who is not part of the actual dungeon development team that’s behind this “stupid hard-cap” on the fractals.

This is because

A) they could just prevent people from choosing a higher fractal than 49, saving them the time and money it would take to get to the now-impossible jade maw

(a much more reasonable way to “hard cap” something…that actually makes sense…)

B) the way that the agony scales so exponentially at 50+ shows us that for SOME [unknown] reason, there’s an interest in barring players of a certain minimum skill level from progressing.

(given the initial concept of “infinite scaling difficulty”, i would think that no dev would imagine barring us from progression based on any other contingency than player skill…)

It just amazes me how we have yet to see an Anet response from Robert Hrouda or Jon Peters, or from anyone for that matter, on this obvious glaring (stupid) issue.

This is yet another reason why I feel that someone higher up on the team is making these dumb decisions, and due to politics or some other superficial reason the devs can’t post what they might want to say (probably something in agreement to our complaints).

I’m not sure why exactly I’m giving Robert Hrouda & Jon Peters such a benefit of the doubt… but I guess I feel that despite all my jokes about them, that they would not be so stupid as to implement this “impossible agony” over a simple “restrict fractal choice to 49 maximum” solution.

Keep up the complaints I guess, maybe we’ll get a response in a few weeks when whoever made this decision hopefully changes their mind.

Sorry to post this again, but I promise it’s the last time I’ll ask:

What are the devs thoughts / attitudes on hard-capping the fractals at 50? Why was this done?

Just to clarify:

The loot WAS a lot better (depending on RNG, of course), but the enemies were also a lot harder, and agony on boss fights meant near-instant death, regardless of agony resist. Isn’t that a fair trade-off?

I understand that you may have considered the revive orbs, pet raising, and other methods of getting around the Jade Maw Phase-Change Agony as exploits. But…you still have yet to tell anyone why this “phase-change agony” absolutely HAS to be a mechanic in the first place…

Why can’t it be avoidable? (with extremely difficult timing, perhaps?) Why do you require that we have specific “agony resist” gear— gear that we will want anyway for the other stats and probably obtain, in order to progress past the Jade Maw? Why is there no skill involved in this mechanic?

Why are you ignoring the player-skill involved to get by all the other bosses and enemies at the higher levels, that even allow us to get up to the Jade Maw?

and finally:

If you’re going to hard-cap the fractals… Why not just make the fractal levels you can choose from not exceed 50? Why use this adamant / stupid agony mechanic to do essentially the same thing?

Doing it the latter way can only lead uninformed players to find out the hard way that it’s capped, after wasting a lot of time and money. At least the former way wouldn’t have anyone go into the dungeon past a level that was “Jade Maw Impossible” now.

Sleeme.5893:

The level 50 cap on fractals is the worst thing you could do. I don’t see any goal anymore now, and probably many good (revive orbs buying) fractal players probably think alike.

I speak for them— we do feel the same.

Our disappointment is pretty steep. It’s as though the previous thread Robert made was for us to fantasize that our feedback would get heard & some kind of balance could be struck, or at least maybe a conversation where we talk about ideas and what people like or don’t like.

But, nope, it’s like we said “The jade maw agony is stupid and isn’t about skill, which is supposed to be one of the major aspects of the game, or any game for that matter, along with fun.” Then the devs said “oh, it’s stupid??? No! You’re stupid!! Now you’ll never get past it!!! haha!”

Disappointed…..big time….

I just wanted to say that I am extremely disappointed in Robert Hrouda for allowing the dev team to kill off possibility to complete the even-numbered fractals at 50+.

Waited for this update in the hopes that I could finally get friends and guild-mates to help me catch up to the other super-high level fractal players, only to find out that the “stupid jade maw agony” (a mechanic that is impossible to avoid during the phase changes) has now been made “even stupider” (I’m not sure if that’s a word, but the statement fits.)

How could you Robert? Why???? I had so much faith in you, you were like Eminem in “Without Me,” that superhero that was gonna save the business. But the kryptonite of apathy and politics….ahh…my hopes and dreams for guild wars 2…crushed

It’s not so much an issue with exploits as it is about your “crowbar” stance against using them… even in groups that want to use them to complete the dungeon more quickly.

This is more about adapting to what more of a group wants to do, and if you refuse to do things any other way than your own (lets say, not using an exploit/glitch that will make things faster or easier), and hinder the group’s progress because of it, then it makes sense that you risk getting booted.

Not everyone is worried about their honor, or the very subjective and constantly argued “right way to play.” If everyone in my group wanted to use a glitch I hadn’t seen before, I’d go ahead and try it. If everyone, for some odd reason, had a very passionate stance against using a certain glitch, then I would have to comply with their wishes.

It comes down to working with your current group or not working with them. If you want to avoid the issue altogether, then only play with people you know, who share the same views as you.

There is no real bible on how to play a game. My own opinion is that if there is something that will make a dungeon faster, and people are taking advantage of it as part of their strategy, I might as well too.

There is also a very blurry line about exploits and “glitches,” where I could say kiting mobs is an exploit, or:

- using walls & pillars to block projectiles
- standing in spots where monsters have trouble / can’t hit you
- using a healing seed to help regen the group
- alternating stealth skills and running past the majority of monsters
- purposely getting an NPC killed so it doesn’t aggro mobs along the way
- unequipping armor so you can wipe without any penalty besides the checkpoint
- leaving one mob alive at one side during cliffside’s last hammer part (before the boss) so that the rest dont spawn and heal the seal
- at the lower fractal levels using the mesmer skill mimic to absorb the asura boss’s projectiles (That inflict agony) and then shooting them at his robots (thus killing them nearly instantly)
- dying on switches in the dredge fractal and skill getting the bonus of them being active

i could go on and on. even if something is obviously not intended, there is a very hypocritical view against exploits where many people will use “some” but not “all” or “lesser ones” but not “major ones” with their own subjective logic etc etc.

what it comes down to, is that you have your own [subjective] view on “exploits” and being “against them,” but, if in reality, you’re not following a strategy the rest want to try and hold a rock-solid stance that will merely slow them down… how can you blame them for wanting to kick you, or getting annoyed?

this is more of a player personality issue, based around delusions of “honorable correct ways to play a game” (often filled with a number of personal contradictions), and not working with the team

KratosAngel.7289:

This thread is very interesting indeed. I wonder how you can report such behaviours since it’s impossible to screenshot it …
I also think the system is flawed : seriously, 2 is just too short to agree on a kick.
Moreover, the problem with pugs is the system of kick only suggests to support the kick.
What about an option like “nah, this member is fine” ?
Usually, in pugs, when someone votes, other pugs support the kick , assuming there is some good reason, not even knowing why but meh, there is a button, they click.

The idea of this option would be, if there are 3 “no don’t kick”, the member who wanted to kick can no longer votekick that member for X before a changemap or X minutes or something … preventing abuse.
And if there are 3 players for kicking, player gets kicked (as 3 is majority of a group). I think maybe 4 is too much as it would make impossible to kick someone dumb if there’s a friend of his with him who will always troll the group by defending his friend.
Keep in mind that there are still a lot of situations where kicking is required and very useful

I disagree. I think that if there is even one “friend with you” who “Trolls the group” by defending his friend, then that would just be too bad.

All you have to do is reverse your situation (3 people want to troll the guy and his friend, since, like you said, 3 is a [slight] “majority”), and we have the same problem as before. I see no reason to deny anyone the option of having a friend to defend them against being kicked.

If the group isn’t working out then most likely someone will just leave— if the [slight] “majority” of 3 people boots a guy that has a friend with him, obviously the friend will just end up leaving anyway. Either way both of them would get screwed out of the run— the exception being they had no chance to put on the brakes, defend their friend, and talk a little about why they are gonna boot him.

Rather than the pitiful “majority,”or as I like to call it, “angry mob” decision-making, there should be an entire agreement when it comes to something like kicking some poor guy out of a dungeon, for whatever reason.

I see no benefit to allowing 3 people to kick someone— you have the same exact problem you mentioned, where pugs may just “click to support since they assume theres a good reason”, and boot the guy before he even has a chance to defend himself. At least if he has a friend, or you need everyone to agree first, there can at least be some kind of discussion going on first.

There’s no real way for a guy and his friend to troll a party. If someone has a friend that tries to AFK the whole run (doubtful, but I can see an argument here), then you would reasonably be screwed. But this is no different than if someone goes afk and is the party leader, since booting him will boot the whole party.

With the way the current system works, I see no way to abuse kicking people by requiring a unanimous decision to do so— on the contrary, I would expect a much larger number of people to be griefed/trolled/kicked when something could have been worked out or handled differently, or at least discussed first, with only 2-3 people deciding the fate of the other 2. If one guy votes to boot another guy, his friend supports it, the random pug assumes theres a reason and clicks the check mark— same problem as with 2 people deciding this, except the illusion of a majority decision that in reality may be 2 against 2.

The mods will say “report them, bla bla bla,” but I agree, the current system is stupid and IMO it should take 4/5 people to kick someone. It shouldn’t be the [current poorly designed system] vote of a minority of 2 people.

All the other members of a group should have to agree on kicking someone— not just 2 people.

I predict some bashing against the 2 players that allegedly booted you guys, but the real issue is the way the whole party-kick system works.

The system needs to change and improve: a good start would be patching the game so that 4 people need to all agree on kicking the 5th member. It would also be helpful if there was some sort of “reason” you had to choose from or write yourself (as to why your kicking this person.) Something like “AFK”, “Connection Issues”, “Can not / Will not follow team strategies”, “Sucks too much”, “Yells at me too much,” etc.

For some reason or another it seems the devs don’t want to comment on this (I’ve seen robert comment on a few other threads recently, so most likely he read this one).

It could be due to a bunch of different reasons— perhaps they themselves don’t know the answer, since they may not have expected/intended for anyone to get further than the jade maw instant-kill levels of agony, which is around 45-50.

You should just try again on 81 to find out. The worst case scenario— you end up getting the jade maw stage at the end and confirm that it’s capped at 80.

Unfortunately I’ve been stuck at 60 for over 2 weeks ever since my original group broke up & went their separate ways. I haven’t been able to find a new one since

I have to agree with strifey (who has the best time on the stage, as far as I know)— 2 mesmers and 3 warriors is simply the fastest possible setup. There’s no need for a tank, 2 time warps is a big enough burst to take down all the bosses (the last boss may survive a little longer, would depend on optimal skill cycling), and warriors are [arguably] faster when it comes to straight, consistent, damage.

In terms of damage & speed, 3k auto-attacks are hard to beat, no matter what class you are. 2 time warps are literally impossible to beat, no matter what class you are.

IMO 2 mesmers should be in any kind of speedrunning group thats looking for the optimal time, in any dungeon. The only reason you wouldn’t want 2 mesmers is if 1 mesmer’s time warp is enough to take down every single boss, or there’s enough space between bosses for the mesmer to use his time warp whenever it would be significantly useful. Can’t beat the burst of 2x attack speed for an entire group.

On paper time warp may not look like much, but in reality it’s better than any other boon in the game— and usually it’s combined with multiple other boons anyway, like 25 stacks of might.

Iridiana.9078:

MadRage.1584:

Running sparks perfectly and finding the best spot to fight her is really important. It is possible and doesn’t involve luck. Each class has to do its role. I’ll end it by saying that ranger should not run sparks if the sparks take aggro.

We were not running sparks with Rangers, we wanted just to DPS her. But you can’t move with a Ranger in the central zone around the statue cause the pet keeps moving and he ruins the run for the two peoples who are aggroing sparks north/south.
You can pull Dwayna south, or north, away from the central statue and the sparks spawn zone, but then you force the 2 spark-runners to run before she get unstealthed to be in the correct position at the right moment, so you loose DPS, which you won’t loose fighting in the middle.
I only saw one video with a Ranger fighting Simin and obviously he was keeping the pet peaceful and stood far away immobile, doing ranged damage.

Anyway nothing will convince me to re-try this crap apart a fix. I have no desire to waste time anymore only for a title that now seems stupid to me. If I have 20 golds to waste one day maybe I’ll give them to some path-4 runner who sells spots, because I believe you can do this path: 2-3 full berserker warriors (or even 5) , NO rangers, maybe Mesmer with time warp… if you are in the lucky classes enjoy.

Just wanted to say that in my [successful] path 4 run, last week, a ranger was in our group and she had no problem running the 2 sparks at the back wall of the cave.

I think your issues are mostly DPS (on paper it sounds nearly impossible for your group to do the damage needed in the small amounts of time allotted) as well as not completely understanding how to lock the sparks in place (the straight line method I outlined above). 2 rangers 2 eles & a mesmer sound like they’d be too slow to accomplish the appropriate DPS, not to mention the group sounds like it lacks any sort of main tank to hold simin in place & take all the single target petrifies for the group.

You pretty much need either guardians/warriors/mesmers, maybe a necro or 2 (they can tank as well as use their lich form elites for good damage ((especially under time warp— damage is insane when those 2 elites are combined, lich form & time warp)).

A single or maybe two rangers / eles / engineers is workable (you’ll almost NEED time warp for that, though), but the group as -primarily- eles & rangers feels like one that would be near impossible to do the amount of damage necessary, as fast as you have to.

It certainly is possible, but I figure that with the amount of precision (with skill usage, tears, and sparks), all berserker gear, power traits, and the optimal cycling of skills that would be required— not many people would be organized / fast enough to deal whats needed.

I will instantly admit I’m wrong if anyone has a recent video of all rangers / eles / engineers pulling this off.

I challenge the devs to record themselves pulling it off with your group.

FourthVariety.5463:

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/4919/gw223.jpg

Mesmer see, Mesmer do

What does this picture prove? Anyone can avoid agony by staying back there, but I’d like to see the mesmer jump to the platform and still not get hit with it…

FourthVariety.5463:

Four people enter the room, one tentacle is killed, other at 10%.

Fifth person enters the room, either by means of Mesmer portal or Portal Gun.

Four players retreat using the portal.

One person kills tentacle, triggering agony. This person tries their best to make it to a good rez location.

After agony has cooled down a bit, three players enter the room rez the fourth person.

Fifth person waits for agony to return. I trust players know what triggers it the second time.

I would not consider this bug abuse. If ArenaNet wanted you to receive unavoidable agony damage, then why make it a ground target effect?

When you jump to the connecting platform to jade maw’s “room,” agony hits you. The 3 people you’re talking about that would jump to resurrect the 4th would simply die on top of him, even if he somehow managed to blink his way that far before instant-dying to the agony.

I also have to ask what fractal level your on— theory is different than real experience

LaronX.8079:

Brutal Arts.6307:

Are the rewards better?

Nah. You have to get to level 90 to get the god drops .;)

Actually they are much better. At 50+ it seems you’re guaranteed to get either a fractal weapon skin or an infused ring in the daily reward chest (every member of the group got one or the other, every time, in every daily chest).

Also I got at least one exotic armor (sometimes named) almost every run during the level 50 tier, and the only magic find I use is a peach tart. Prior to that tier I had never seen such things drop off trash mobs / chests anywhere remotely near the rate that me and the rest of the group got them at.

Orb.1702:

How is that even possible? with 30 agony resist(the max possible with 2 infused rings and back slot) agony should still be wiping you on 60 at jade maw

it does. you can’t make it too far over 40 without getting killed during the phase changes.

at this point you need a revive orb in order to get up and resurrect the rest of your team, when the agony hits you as you jump towards the jade maw (after everyone wipes). after using the revive orb, the agony doesn’t hit again while your still on that platform. so you can safely get up and get the team— but you have to do this twice since there’s two phase changes

It’s a run I did recently, timed from the door exploding to when the final boss dies (when you gain experience from the death), about 6:27. Go for beating that —

4 warriors & me (mesmer)

an easy way for him to prove its a bug is to record a video of himself entering the dungeon at 81 and then in the top right the difficulty still showing 80.

also have you tried running the fractal anyway? it’s possible that the number may represent 80 but actually count as 81— you could test this by seeing if the jade maw appears or not at the end.

(been stuck on level 60 myself, can’t find a group anymore )

I’d just like to clarify that, contrary to the seemingly popular opinion of a lot of people, getting the sparks to lock into place is not “random” or “luck-based.” I’m sure there IS something wrong with how they lock, but you can guarantee whether or not they lock into place by how you run to the statue.

If you pull the top 2, you have to run / teleport past the statue to one of the holes on the BOTTOM side of the statue. You must also be several feet PAST the hole, not right on it, and you have to expect the sparks to always skip the closest “lock spot” to them.

Though they always skip the “closest spot” to their side, if you maintain a straight line past a second spot on the other side of the statue, the spark will ALWAYS lock into place in that next spot. If you have 2 sparks that both skip the first spot, only ONE will lock into place. Remember, you have to expect this. When that happens, don’t freak out, just start running right past the spark (in a straight line) past an open spot on the other side of the statue.

This will work— if you react quickly and get used to how the locking system functions (I.E, run a few ’test runs" after first getting her to 50%, without rushing to kill her right away.), the runners will probably quickly understand the concept of “running in a straight line past the statue” vs “running in a circle, raging as the spark avoids locking into place.”

It also means that if there is only one spot open, right next to the last spark, that you will have to purposely waste a few seconds to pull the spark to the other side of the statue (a few feet), then back in a straight line past the spot. Do not run in and out of the circle without pulling the spark across to the other side of the statue first, because it simply won’t lock into place.

Again, I’m not defending how it works— it’s probably intended to lock into place in a simpler way. But for now, just run some tests first (patience needed here), make sure you FULLY UNDERSTAND the “straight line past the other side of statue” concept, and it will be 1000x less frustrating… at least when it comes to the sparks.

Something is only frustrating when you don’t understand how it works.

I beat this annoying dungeon path 2 days ago. Took hours, but I blame that more on a lack of coordination & some rage quitters we had to replace.

Our group consisted of: Mesmer (me), 1 ranger, 2 warriors, 1 guard

We started by setting up the 4-1 wisp trick & placing a ton of tears by the wall to the left of the wisp-locking statue. We also made small mini-piles of tears by where me & the ranger would stand to range dps the boss (so we could help with petrifying every now and then.)

The ranger positioned herself above the statue (near the back wall of the cave) while I positioned myself far below the statue (near the bottom left wall by where one of the 3 wisps spawn).

Guardian aggro’d the boss— constant petrification ensued. Him and the 2 warriors pulled simin to the stockpile of tears so that they could help anti-petrify each other, which took a lot of the pressure off me and the ranger. Prior to that, me and the ranger were dpsing, primarily throwing tears, AND running the sparks. This previous setup was way too much for me & the ranger to handle, but when the warriors & guardian threw tears atop themselves while meleeing her, the pressure was greatly lifted.

We got simin near to 50%, I was already standing by where a spark spawned. It pops, the second I see it twitch (to recognize it aggro’ing me) I start running to the center platform. I do this before I even see it attack me— the second the spark twitches I’m running. I make sure to run completely past the statue, so that it will definitely lock in place. ( I found that as long as your pulling the spark in a straight line, it will lock into either one spot by the statue or the next one it flies over. It must be a straight line though, if you run around in a circle it will seem to never lock into place.)

1 Spark enters the spot, simin re-appears (barely healed to 60ish%), the melees are already swinging at her, since they’ve been waiting at the wall she disappeared at. I run in for melee & time warp & activate signet of inspiration to copy all the buffs we have and grant everyone 25 stacks of might (except for the ranger, who is still in her position). After about 10 – 15 seconds I switch back to greatsword and stay ranged, waiting by the spark #1 spot.

We get simin down to 15%, then she stealths. I wait for the first sparks “twitch”, run before it even attacks me, get the furthest entrance spark to “twitch”, turn left, get the last spark on the right wall to “twitch.” the second the last spark “twitches” I blink past the statue (the sparks keep aggro on you despite the distance) and watch which sparks lock into place, then run straight ahead past the last one which always fails to lock into place, so it locks in the spot it originally flew over. (The ranger has easily pulled her two sparks in the back wall as I’m doing this. The melees are hiding by the wall and staying out of the way)

We dps, dwayna was at 40ish% from healing, my time warp is on cooldown, so we only get her to around 20 – 25% before she stealths. I repeat my run. The ranger repeats hers. The melees wait.

She is at about 45% health from the recent heal, we dps again, my time warp still is on CD but I’ve been activating signet of inspiration repeatedly to keep spreading might & help damage simin. We get her to 25-30% health, she stealths.

I run, ranger runs, melees wait. Time warp is still on CD. She reappears at around 45-49% hp.

This time we all move in as all our elites are off CD. Ranger uses rampage as one, I choose not to time warp (because it comes off cd more than halfway through the phase), the warriors & guardian use their strongest offensive elites. We get her to 10%, she stealths.

We repeat the usual spark run 3 more times, and , she is at 35-40% health. We go for broke, repeat the process of activating all elites (whoever could at the time) and I finally get a nice initial time warp off & move in, and at the very last second, where it looked like she should have already stealthed, we got the final blow that finished her.

Took a lot of focus, persistence, and not giving up because we didnt get the 50% – 0 burst. We just made progress, little by little, and eventually beat her. It’s do-able, and if we had all been using our most damaging abilities in the optimal cycles, we probably could have gotten her much earlier.

LunaticSerenade.7615

If the entire party does everything perfectly, sure.

I’m not saying make him a piece of cake. Make him doable in a PUG situation.

“I’m not saying make him a piece of cake, make him doable in a PUG situation.”

I think that’s a contradiction in itself…

“A piece of cake” is usually what’s “doable” in PUG situations. Also every PUG group can be widely different— not to mention the huge amount of variables, including player skill & communication.

They don’t need to nerf any of the bosses. Even if it’s your first time playing together, if you know what you’re doing in terms of the boss, when to dodge, how to stealth / go invuln at the right moments, etc etc, there usually is no need for heavy coordination. I’m surprised you’d complain about Giganticus Lupicus (who’s in every arah path) rather than Lyssa at the end of path 4, where actual coordination is pretty much mandatory to quickly stabilize the wisps and make her appear.

That said, I have a slight grievance with the new FotM update that’s coming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m overjoyed that the d/c issue might get fixed & the level restrictions are being lifted— but as far as higher level groups go, I feel like there’s hardly any motivation for a lower level player to join a higher level player. Let’s say this:

Level 60 player looking for a group

Group of level 30 players need 1 more
———-

The level 60 player already has both of his rings & ascended gear that he wants (as well as fractal skins, lets say) so he has little to no desire to play with the group of 30’s, even for karma.

The group of 30’s need 1 more, but they aren’t about to struggle & try a level 60 run (unless they are feeling particularly adventurous) just to ascend to 31.

My point is that if a level 30 player actually completes a level 60 run, he should have earned progress up to 61. Not 31. I don’t see why he has to do the tedious lower level runs, one by one, when he has already proven he can handle the higher level fractal.

This seems counter-productive and puts hardly any motivation to help each other (lower levels & higher levels), as I certainly could care less about some extra karma, and I’m sure lower levels are not going to want to struggle in a much higher run when they don’t get the progress they deserve out of it. It won’t be the same stand-still that it is now, of course, but I feel like to open the board to non-guild members / friends you need to give them the progress they earn.

It’s unfortunate that the sheer determination to “avoid giving anyone a free ride” is turning progress into a tedious affair that benefits neither player and honestly lacks the logic that should go with it. No one is going to carry someone through a level 60 run…and if they do, they could’ve done it already with anyone at any of the levels anyway. But I seriously doubt a level 1 player will get carried through level 50. Most likely the group would see right away that he couldn’t “handle it” and have to re-organize the group.

It’s not so much elitism as it is a skill check. If someone has the skills, I won’t care what level fractal they’re on or what kind of AR they have. If you’re a guardian constantly putting up wall of reflect, the spectral shield, & out-surviving people… I don’t care if completing the fractal will skip you 30 levels or not. If you can do just as well at level 60 & complete it, you deserve to be on 61. You shouldn’t have to complete 30 lower-tier levels after you just completed a fractal twice as high in difficulty— this is stupid.

Just my 2 cents— and this is coming from someone that already played “the tedious way” up to level 60.

LordByron.8369:

And if you’re complaining about having to spend more effort mashing the keyboard than other classes I don’t think Eles are the right class for you. Period.

if you don t agree with me you are bad and you should quit…
what a better way to discuss in a civil way….

The issue seems to be that people like you cannot read, or more probably are just too focused in telling people they are pro and to others L2P.

He didn’t say that if you don’t agree with him you’re bad & you should quit. His point was something more along the lines of "Yes, you may have to work harder than other classes at some things; switching weapons, cycling your skills, but that’s part of what being an elementalist is about. If you dislike the idea of having to work harder than another class when it comes to certain aspects of gameplay, then maybe you should play a different class. "

Asking the class to be entirely ‘rebalanced’ because you want to be able to tank like a guardian is not valid reasoning… it’s like me arguing that warriors should be able to summon pets, just because most of the other classes can. I could argue that warriors should be allowed to have things that distract enemies, just like most other classes. But then again, this is why classes are different. They have completely different playstyles and abilities.

I can read what you’re saying, I understand what you’re saying.

I don’t know how you can expect the game designers or anyone on this forum to NOT tell you that you need to “learn to play.” It’s not an insult for someone to give you advice or examples of how you can change up your playstyle to accomplish the things you claim “balancing issues” need to solve.

Sometimes there really doesn’t need to be huge changes in health pools or damage-reduction… sometimes there are strategies and techniques, that, if used, would completely change the way someone looked at a class & how it plays.

When I first got this game, I needed to “learn to play” myself. I made a mesmer, created some clones…and watched in horror as they did literally 0’s and 1’s as damage to every enemy in sight. “This class sucks,” I thought. I contemplated writing a post about the stupidity of giving us clones that die so easily and do no damage. But then, right before I wrote such a thing, I decided to “learn to play.” I read the wiki, and wanted to know how people could play as a mesmer with clones that do no damage. After doing some research and testing, I figured out that…to my surprise… clones aren’t supposed to do damage, because you use them as shatter fodder! I felt embarrassed about how I was about to complain about the class needing huge balance changes, until I “learned to play”.

Learning to play a game, to be good at it, should really be…umm…part of every game. A game wouldn’t be fun if any moron off the street could walk into your room and start cycling skills like a pro & doing fractal 60+ without going down. “Fun” and “Skill” can actually go hand in hand, and i think there’s no need for any anger or defensiveness because I, or anyone else, tries to look at ways you could play differently in order to solve your issues… rather than reach for “re balancing classes” right off the bat.

Shayleen.8964:

I do not want to see 1hit player kills from mobs that Anet makes. I want challenging mechanics.

Sounds like you’re saying two different things.

Or, at least, you want less challenging mechanics, since it is certainly challenging to have to dodge a deadly attack that can down you in a single hit.

My mental translation is “I want it to be just challenging enough so that I think it’s kind of hard, but I can still make mistakes and not die.”

In reality, that would make things much less challenging.

LordByron.8369

and have your party to ress you, also being unable to tank switch 1-2.
thus a burden.

….No. In the control room, where someone has to stand by the control switch, and theres a switch on the left and on the right— if you stand on either the left or right switch, and die, the control panel stays open & the doors stay open, and it still counts as though your still alive. Then, after your teammates finish with the control panel and move ahead to the next area, all the dredge around you de-spawn, and they can res you.

Maybe you’re thinking of a different part of the dungeon?

As for the Ascalon fractal, it sounds like you’re making many excuses to cover up things you either don’t understand or don’t have a good strategy for yet. Even with my ability to go invulnerable, with distortion, I have limited uses of it and have to time my dodges just like anyone else. That fractal is all about pulling mobs to the NPCs, and helping them (the npcs) massacre everything in sight. It’s more about buffing & supporting the npcs, as well as avoiding damage, all the while using the NPC’s as tanks so you don’t have to worry much about getting hit (until they all die.)

what has this to do with ele problems?

It has to do with the insane fact that you’re using 2 daggers and trying to melee when you’re NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!! I tried to make it clear but here: “DO NOT MELEE IN ASCALON, THAT’S WHAT THE NPCS ARE FOR— ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE AN ELEMENTALIST!!!!” You wouldn’t expect a mage to run up to a boss and start wacking him on the head with his staff right? Same concept here

This again because you don t use a D/D ele……
fire and water 2 should be straight line breath…..
On charr (dunno if its a bug or what) they seem just drunk as if you waved your mouse in random directions….

Not sure what you’re talking about here…

Also spacing is way harder with a model you are not accustomed to….as i said some weapons require an unforgiving spacing despite having short range.

Not really, especially from melee range where you basically have to be right in front of the mob. If you’re trying to stay as distanced as possible, yet melee, maybe that should be a sign to you that you should be using a different weapon.

D/D ele here i melee too……

Maybe there’s a lot of times you shouldn’t?

infact fotm force me to switch often to staff despite i m not traited/equipped for that.
But staff ele have problems in other parts too…

Then maybe you should adjust your traits and skills for a dungeon that specifically calls for it? This is part of the strategy here, sometimes you can’t just use the same weapons/skill sets/traits for everything. Well, you can, but you probably aren’t playing the class very effectively then.

As a side note to this whole thread, I think the entire group should have to vote on kicking a person, in order to kick them, not just 2 people. Then you wouldn’t have to destroy instances or report people.

If a group of 4 players all ganged up on one person, and did so for the wrong reasons, then I guess just like in real life that person would be screwed. Same goes for your reporting system, and if a bunch of people gang up & report the same person. I know that you investigate reports, but if they baited someone into getting mad, then all reported “verbal abuse”, they could easily abuse the report system as well as get away with it.

To stay on point though, make it so everyones gotta agree on kicking someone, and don’t destroy the whole instance if everyone leaves / kick the party leader

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

Any trash pack where the dominant strategy involves leashing should be removed entirely.

Which dungeon / part are you talking about, and why should it be completely removed? Can it not be altered in some way?

Bosses that tend to involve leashing need to be redesigned to not require/encourage leashing.

What bosses are you talking about? How should they be redesigned? What is so bad about the current design?

• Boss health needs to be reduced 25-50% across the board. *

Why? Can you give any examples?

Chests should have a 0% chance to drop blues, a 75% chance to drop at least one yellow and a 10% chance to drop an exotic.

Why? Wouldn’t this destroy the market value of rares / exotics even further? How could an item that has a 75% chance of appearing in a chest be called rare?

The amount of trash overall should be reduced to approximately FotM levels – twelve pulls between bosses is nothing more than padding.

There are 8 different FotM fractals— which stage/stages are you referring to? What would be the exact number or range that you would be okay with? Why?

Is that clear enough?

It certainly is better, but without explaining “why there’s a problem” or “why changing something would be better” or explaining “exactly how you’d like to see it changed, with specific, clear examples,” I can’t fully understand your issues. I tried to focus in on exactly what I’m referring to by quoting each individual section of your post and asking [what i consider to be reasonable] questions.

Something is clear enough when answers to most of those questions are already there.

I believe high 60’s is currently the highest (maybe 70). There’s only 2 ways around the jade maw’s agony at 50+, revive orb or the ranger’s spirit of nature.

I also agree & have posted in the dungeon discussion thread that the unavoidable phase change agony is very stupid, and should be done away with or changed into something you have a chance to actually dodge/counter.

LordByron.8369:

in ascalon there is a lot of messy effects…
FPS drops drasticaly (i have an high end PC) and charr models are bugged…(try water 2 or fire 2 with D/D) and not using a charr usually its even harder.
Expecially in front of the first door.

Nobody never kicked me….yet its clear that n many occasions the game is balanced on high HP classes.

You may say an ale with 14K hp should be oneshot, but having 16,500 and toughness set i don t like when i see guardians/warriors getting away to many things that oneshot me….

Also i nevre said ele is useless, i just said 2 classes are the best….

Many others haves tricks that makes many stages easier (thief, mesmer, eng).

Ele is just meh….nothing special….and may be a burden in some part of dungeons (expecially first part of dredge)

First I’d just like to state something— I play a DPS mesmer with less HP than you (15k).

I can’t, for the life of me, understand why you keep mentioning the Dredge Fractal as something an ele (or any class) would have a problem with, especially due to the switches.

I don’t know if you realize this, but you can simply die on top of one of those switches in the control room, and your body’s weight still counts as though you were standing on it

There’s no need for you to survive during that part, so I have no idea how you’d be a burden. Being a body on one of the switches is actually helpful & you have tools to make sure you can at least get on top of that switch before you go down.

As for the Ascalon fractal, it sounds like you’re making many excuses to cover up things you either don’t understand or don’t have a good strategy for yet. Even with my ability to go invulnerable, with distortion, I have limited uses of it and have to time my dodges just like anyone else. That fractal is all about pulling mobs to the NPCs, and helping them (the npcs) massacre everything in sight. It’s more about buffing & supporting the npcs, as well as avoiding damage, all the while using the NPC’s as tanks so you don’t have to worry much about getting hit (until they all die.)

Yea, I don’t like playing an ugly charr either, because my 10 foot female norn is my fantasy girlfriend. But it’s just a temporary costume… it doesn’t affect how I play. That fractal is bugged for mesmers as well, since one of our main traits (clone on dodge) doesn’t even work there— yet it’s not really a huge deal, as long as we play good.

You may want to set your settings to “lowest” to avoid a huge FPS slowdown. I get a slowdown myself, but it’s nowhere near unplayable, and mostly occurs during the “arrow shower” areas.

Guardians and warriors can survive at the lower levels using melee because they are just that… guardians and warriors. Classes are different for a reason, there’s no reason whatsoever they should have the same stats & abilities…. that defeats the purpose of playing a different class. I’d quit hating on guardians and using them as examples, since at higher levels they too die in one hit. Thus everyone is equal in that aspect, and your wish has already come true, whenever you make it that far.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

This game is unbalanced and poorly designed when it comes to damage. Yes, anet, keep calling 1hit KO skill. Oh hey, subject alpha? That is a joke. Agony? Don’t even get me stared.
Let’s make a new mechanic where the player just dies, total fun.
They really need to rethink their idea of challenge. 1hko is all you find in this game

For the record, subject alpha only appears to be an extremely difficult boss until you get the timing down. When you realize how much time you have to dodge/aegis/distortion/shadowstep out of the way, and memorize his usual pattern of attacks, it becomes much easier to avoid getting hit.

It’s also not a 1hko, its a 1 hit downed. It will probably lead to a quick KO, but there is a chance for people to help or use multiple abilities to save you.

I would like the punishment for mistakes & failing to avoid a signature move to remain the same. There’s other things that do not 1hko you, and you almost always have a cue or a tell that lets you know what’s coming.

The majority of frustrations with getting 1hit-downed or insta-death’d by agony (that’s not from the jade maw) are due to a lack of understanding a boss’s mechanics. Sometimes you think something works a certain way, or think something is unavoidable…but 99.9% of the time there is something you could have done to avoid getting hit.

There would hardly be a challenge if you could get hit by 2 or more of a signature move that is supposed to be deadly, and not even go down.

I have a friend that used to play halo 2 and always go into “team training” and “big team battle” because there was little to no competition on the other team (usually filled with guests who never played before as well as non-competitive players who made no attempt to do the objective). It was mind-numbingly easy, there was no challenge, and any random person who played the game just as long could have done just as well, if not better.

I don’t want them to ease the difficulty of dungeons, but maybe they can make a “team-training” type dungeon where you can get hit by several attacks & not go down. That way people who complain about dying and don’t want to “learn 2 play” can accomplish something too…sorta.

I’m currently on FotM 57, and one of the members of my group is an elementalist.

Stupid people will be stupid, and haters will be haters. Nothing you can really do about biased people.

This has nothing to do with FotM or your health pool.

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

I’m not here to say dungeons must be changed. I’m offering my suggestions as to how to make them more fun. If nothing changes with dungeons, fine. I’ll just continue not doing them. My understanding, however, is that most people feel the same way I do.

To be fair, you didn’t really give any suggestions as to how to make them more fun… you merely mentioned what you don’t want to do. And it seems you neither want to skip everything and fight bosses, or skip nothing & fight bosses.

This isn’t solely aimed at you, but those kinds of hypocritical & vague statements almost give a reader the illusion that you want game designers to have some sort of arbitrary middle-ground that happens to suit your personal tastes.

When anyone voices their opinion in this discussion, and takes the time to complain about what’s wrong with a particular dungeon… they should also take the time to clearly suggest a solution that would appease them. It also would be nice to state why you are complaining about some things, despite how obvious you think the reasoning should be.

For example, I can’t really understand why an experienced player would not want to skip as much as possible in a dungeon. I can understand killing some extra things for some loot, on certain beneficial occasions, but aside from that I have no idea why anyone would complain about that. Perhaps if you think it’s too easy to skip mobs or too hard to skip mobs or suggest maybe they should have some sort of difficult mini-game that would allow you to skip most of the mobs, then the designers could have considerations to work with.

When not being clear and specific in what you want, why you don’t like something, and what you propose for a solution— how can you expect any other result than for the game designers to implement something that you don’t like?

If you go “okay I don’t want a dungeon to be tedious,” maybe anet will go “okay we’ll do something to keep it more fresh,” and they add ninjas that randomly appear and can 1-hit kill assassinate you. Then maybe you won’t like that, and you’ll complain “this is stupid now I have to be on-edge for random ninjas that don’t even give me a reward?” If, instead, you said “okay, I think to keep dungeons from being tedious, you should have random duels that force us to go 1v1 against each other for a random chest, instead of just killing more random trash mobs,” then that’s an idea people can start working with. I don’t know if anyone would agree with that, but hey, that’s something you could throw out there.

Just my 2 cents— communication between both sides is key here, not just placing all the pressure on the game design team.

This is how a grudge system would work:

Players have the option of either fighting the majority of monsters in a dungeon or skipping them, just like how it is now (or was, in some cases). However, the more monsters they skip, the more of a grudge they acquire. This grudge lasts for a long amount of time (lets say until the next “daily reset” occurs).

All bosses in all dungeons should gain a mechanic that tacks on their “grudge” to players who get hit by one or multiple signature moves. This would be very much akin to agony, except that there would be no way to have defense for it, and more of a “grudge” meant that it did more and more damage per tick through it’s duration.

If a player had skipped nearly all the monsters in 2 or 3 different runs, let’s say, the grudge would instantly kill them.

I feel that this is a good way to both reward players (in a way) for killing everything, by making bosses easier, yet not force it onto experienced players that feel they have mastered the bosses and can handle them without getting hit by certain signature moves.

If such a system WAS implemented, I believe the rewards should be increased significantly for all dungeons.

3) Reward players for [seemingly] better gameplay:

I think that there should be different types of bonuses for different displays of skill in a dungeon run:

1) “Flawless Victory” bonus— One of the best bonuses possible, rewarded for a run where no team member fully dies. If any member dies, no one gets this reward.

2) “Less deaths equals more gold” bonus— A team-based bonus that will apply to a dungeon run where team members die less than a certain number of times. For example, you give people a “6 death limit” on Arah Path 3. This means that, as a team, if the death toll stays at 6 or under, the rewards improve by a certain %. So, if in one run, there were only 3 deaths, you’re rewards would be improved accordingly. If you had 4 deaths as a team, your rewards would be worse than the 3-death reward, etc etc. If the deaths add up to more than 6 times, then the reward simply scales back to what it was normally.

This way no one is punished if they suck, yet they are rewarded if they prove they have good teamwork and player skill. It will motivate people to get better at dungeons and will eliminate the crutch of things like bringing lupus to a waypoint and dying repeatedly as you slowly kill him. People could still do it, but their rewards would just be normal then, when they could be a lot better if they managed to kill him without dying.

For now I think only full-deaths should be penalized, not being downed. (Though perhaps something can be done with that as well)

3) “Time is money” bonus— If players manage to complete each boss fight (or all boss fights as a whole) under a certain time limit, they get rewarded for having good strategy, being efficient at killing the boss, and not dying (since dying would slow down their boss fight greatly). This should be focused MORE on how much longer it would take if they had to revive a member mid-fight, rather than attempt to force everyone to invite a warrior-type class for maximum DPS.

These are just some thoughts off the top of my head. I think if Robert takes a look at them and meditates about his own gaming ideas, he’ll come up with something that accomplishes what he wants and at the same time doesn’t anger the player-base.

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

I think it’s odd you made a “dungeon changes discussion patch” when all the dungeon changes that we have been waiting for since before the Lost Shores patch have yet to hit live.

Non-FotM dungeons are still terrible, fotm is still fragmenting and disconnecting people.

The only changes to dungeons in this patch are 1) Mitigating the RNG on rings, which is a plus; 2) forcing players to farm low-level fractals for vials/globs since there’s no way to downgrade; and 3) adding more trash to non-fotm dungeons when currently the #1 complaint about non-fotm dungeons is that they’re tedious and full of trash.

So…1 step forward, 2 steps back…

I agree it was probably a mistake for Rob to add some more monsters/buff up existing monsters in the dungeons without improving the reward.

Looking at it from his side of things, I can understand that his goal is to “even out” the paths in all the dungeons, so that one path isn’t severely overplayed compared to the others.

The problem with that concept is that people are always going to find something that is easiest for them, and they will always prefer to run that over something that gives them more of a headache. Just because everyone runs path 3 of arah, for example, because it’s the easiest path, doesn’t mean “oh well I better make that harder then so they’ll have a reason to run the other paths.”

What I think Rob should have done, if he were to add new mobs, is…

1) Make them optional to kill— as well as reward some kind of mini-chest for doing so. Maybe some compromise on what the chest can drop (extreme small chance of a precursor like other chests, etc), but not just give away rare or exotic weapons & armor for killing a few monsters. An extreme small chance for those things, however, wouldn’t be bad.

- This would introduce new monsters, with a small reward for killing them, yet not force people to fight things they used to be able to skip. I’m sure something like this would be a fair compromise & would make many people happy.

2) Create a “grudge” system. “What’s a grudge system,” you ask?

Think of it this way… right now, there’s no way to convince an experienced player that it would be better for them not to skip monsters. In other words, experienced players are always going to want to get through a dungeon as quickly as possible, and skip things that aren’t mandatory.

Even if you introduce some sort of small reward for not skipping things, it won’t be enough to convince a player it’s worth his time. And you can’t really give them a huge reward for playing the dungeon the way you wanted them to play it from the start.

There’s an illusion of a complicated issue here that has no answer. But it’s only an illusion.

A “grudge system” would be that answer.

mystiq makes a valid point;

i’d suggest allowing “backwards forging” as a temporary relief to players who are missing the lower tiered essence, but don’t want to feel forced to play the lower tiers to get them.

It would be nice if we could pay a small fee & convert a shard of crystallized mist essence into 5 globs of coagulated mists essence, as well as the glob into 5 vials of condensed mists essence.

It takes 5 of the lower tiered ones to make a higher tiered one, so why can’t we convert them backwards as well? I wouldn’t mind paying some kind of fee / tedious recipe for it, but if we can do it one way, we should be able to do it backwards as well.

This would reward players who do the higher fractals because then only one higher tiered essence would be needed to count for 5 lower tiered ones, yet still leave a window of desire to do the lower ones if you’re only missing say 1 or 2 vials (or have no more higher tiered _ of mist essence to backwards convert)

Robert Hrouda.1327:

@alucard

I don’t imagine you will get in trouble. I actually appreciate your thoughtful and constructive criticism.

I appreciate that. I also wasn’t trying to place the blame on you personally despite joking about the list being your fault.

I agree with some of the above posters that there is a feeling of deception when you don’t release all the details in the patch notes. I understand that you guys can’t sit there and be expected to write “Fixed the ambient lights in arah path 1 so they are .0001 shades brighter”, but you really should let people know when you change spawns or secretly change the terrain somewhere to address an exploit.

(As a side note, rather than just posting a list of changes, it would be nice if you guys later amended that list to include why you made those changes)

Imagine someone doing all of FotM 60, only to get to the Jade Maw and see the “getting around phase-change agony” stepping stone was removed, and not have any revive orbs on them. They would’ve wasted their time getting that far because they weren’t prepared with an alternative plan and didn’t see such a change in the patch notes.

Sabin.4590:

which is easy to rework, a simple solution to that would be a 30m window where if you were to sell the item back to the npc( any npc) , you’d be given your tokens back.

That’s how star wars the old republic did and camon, that’s not even a game as good as guild wars 2.

this is a good idea. even better, they should simply make it an “infinite amount of time” to re-exchange something for tokens, as long as you haven’t equipped it yet.

i say this because i can imagine someone purchasing the wrong the late at night, then going straight to sleep, then waking up the next day & realizing they messed up.

part 4

7) Make progression account-bound please

There are very few people who will like the idea of re-doing 50+ levels of the fractals of the mist on an alt. If we manage to get to stage 50 on a guardian, then going in on a warrior doesn’t mean we are suddenly kitten and don’t know the basic strategies & methods of beating all of the levels. The knowledge didn’t suddenly disappear as we switched characters. Sure, someone may suck horribly when he switches to his ranger… but guess what, I’ve met a guy that played 45+ levels on mesmer and still couldn’t dodge the dredge-boss’s agony, and was using a scepter as his primary means of attack. Was this guy bad? Sure. Was it due to trying a character he wasn’t used to? No. Sometimes bad players may make it to a high level, in any game, for any number of reasons. The level means nothing in the long run— their skill and ability to adapt is what’s important.

Basically, there’s no reason I should be stopped from switching to a guardian if my group already has 3 mesmers in it. Sometimes a group set-up may call for switching classes, and it’s a [dumb] shame that I can’t do that because of this “character-based” progression. I’ll probably still mostly play on my mesmer, but it would be nice to have the freedom to try a different class at a higher level, rather than going through the excessively tedius routine of running all the levels again, one by one.

8) Please let us know what changes you are considering making, before you just go ahead and make them

I’ve met people that wasted a lot of time and money forging their own back-piece, before doing so with the fractal dungeon’s token back-pieces was possible. It’d be nice to, you know, give us kind of a “heads up” on some things. You don’t have to make any promises, or give any dates, or anything like that. You don’t even have to commit to whatever your considering. It’d just be nice to “be in the loop” and kind of know what “can possibly happen” in the near-future.

Of course it’s your game and your decisions, but it would be nice of you to simply give us a word every now and then on something you’re thinking about.

End of long post— hope it was helpful and I don’t get in trouble

part 3

4) Why the #@$! can’t I sell the rings i don’t want?

Really, it’s lucky enough to even get one (or go through 10 agonizing dailies to buy a non-infused ring). Why can I not simply exchange a ring I don’t want for a ring I actually do want, especially if I haven’t used it yet?! I can understand not letting me sell it to other players— what I can’t understand is why I’m just stuck with something I can’t use.

SOLUTION: Let me sell the ring for 10 pristine relics, so I can at least get the horrible non-infused version of what I want. Or better yet, let me exchange an infused ring I hate, for an infused ring I actually want. I already went to the trouble of getting lucky / crafting an infused ring…so why can’t I just exchange it for a different one? Again, whoever got this passed at the board meeting must be slipping roofies in everyone’s coffee.

You had the right idea…you did…but then you forgot what the purpose of that idea was

5) No Leaderboards?

I’m kind of curious how far people have gotten thus far. You’ve got leaderboards for PvP, which I’m sure were much more complicated to implement— so…can we get some sort of viewable leaderboard for how far people have gotten? Even better, can we get a filter that showed us not only how far people have gotten, but how long their run clocked in at? I’d be curious to see the fastest times for some of the higher levels, as well as what stages they had to run. If someone ran stage 50 in 30 minutes, I’d assume they got swamp, ice & water. If I saw someone ran Grawl, Dredge, and Cultist Hammer in 30 minutes, I’d probably ask for their autograph.

It feels like there would be more of a purpose, besides everything else, to be able to get more information on how far everyone’s gotten and what the best times some people have gotten. Not everyone can/will run fraps and record an awesome speed run, let alone spread the news of it to everyone. It would be cool to simply know a certain time was possible or not— or reaching a certain level was possible, and have some proof.

6) Overflow Requirement

Yes yes I know you guys are working on the “must be on overflow if you’re from different servers” issue as well as the “disconnecting = a ruined run” issue. But I’ve got an idea on the first issue.

SOLUTION: Let us manually join an overflow, regardless of whether a friend/guildmate is on it or not. There you go, first problem solved without having to try and fix whatever complicated netcode is causing the issue. I’m sure you must have a way to do this, since you already have an easy way to right-click and join a party member’s overflow. Why not simply let us join an overflow manually? You could even restrict us to a random overflow, since then our party members could join us once we got there. I fail to see how this could be abused or ruin anything in the game. All you have to do is limit the “manual overflow” to lion’s arch only. Then no one can abuse it to mine things, do double events, or whatever else you might be worried about.

part 2

2) Stop trying to make the jade maw impossible at 50+:

Really, if you don’t want us to get to a certain level, then simply limit the progression to a specific number. Don’t try to force us to die during the final stage, on an impossible-to-avoid agony hit, that completely subtracts “skill” from the equation… because at a high enough level you can’t even time healing each other, due to dying so fast. I have no idea how the guy that came up with that idea managed to get it passed in whatever meeting you guys have. For a game that focuses so much more on “fair chance” and “skill” it makes me wonder what the thinking is behind this universally-hated element that basically says “okay now you all die and you can’t do anything about it! haha! you wasted your time getting this far!!!”

i even noticed you guys snuck in a little patch to the jade maw’s stage, where you removed one of the stones you can jump on, in order to reach the boss. this used to be the only known way around the idiotic element of an agony-based “forced death” (by dying on the edge of the stone and getting revived), but of course you decided to eliminate that “exploit” which only allowed you to continue fighting the boss fight.

Solution: Change the phase-change agony mechanic to something else— make it dodge-able. Make it reflectable; make it target everyone but one person. Make it SOMETHING where we can actually counter it in some form. You can even let the jade maw reset if we all mess up what we’re supposed to do at that point. But don’t just leave it there as a stupid game-element where you basically are screwed and can’t do anything about it. That defeats the whole purpose of the dungeon that’s supposed to be “infinite” and ruins the fun of seeing how far you can get. Please change this, it really is dumb.

3) Make new s—- happen at the higher stages:

Okay, so finally I get to FotM level 40. Man I can’t wait to see what’s in store this time!! Oh…wait…it’s the exact same thing as level 10, except everything hurts more. Do the monsters do anything new…? Oh…they don’t….it’s the exact same pattern. Okay, but there’s gotta be some kind of new boss fight right?!! Nope…same exact thing…again….

It gets kind of stale when one hit kills you at FotM 40, and one hit kills you at FotM 50. At that point you do the same exact thing, dodge the same exact patterns, reflect the same exact projectiles, & stand in the same exact spots. BORING!!! “Increase in difficulty” doesn’t mean “increase in how much damage stuff does.” It also eventually becomes a 0 “increase in difficulty” once you simply die in one hit from everything. After getting used to timing the dodges & general strategies, it’s just…the same thing…again…and again.

SOLUTION: How about giving monsters some new moves? How about introducing DIFFERENT monsters, or NEW monsters, at certain tiers of the dungeon. How about changing the pattern of attacks monsters do, or introduce new elements into the mix like a “Grim reaper” enemy that appears every now and then, at random, and stalks you throughout the runs.

How about giving the bosses entirely new mechanics at certain stages? Maybe the iceboss will summon a miniature dragon that tries to break into the room, and you have to somehow barricade the wall while you struggle to finish off the boss before his pet comes in and rips you into pieces. Then if his pet DOES break in, rather than simply lose, you can, with extremely precise timing, dodge his lunges and/or stun him. To add to the difficulty, you can give the pet extreme swiftness & quickness, so that people will feel like they “pretty much lost” if it breaks in, yet it would still be, though EXTREMELY difficult, possible to win the fight even with the dragon in the room the whole time.

This is just one example— I know you claimed to introduce new levels to the fractals, but how about introducing things that only happen at certain tiers? At level 60, I’d like a special “middle of hell” stage where I have to fight the son of giga lupicus, but only available to people at that tier. You can still give ALL levels the majority of new stages, but you should have something new at each tier. This will keep people guessing and make them actually look forward to getting futher in the dungeon, and for more than simply getting some rewards. “I wonder what they’ll have at level 100!” you exclaim to your friends after seeing the latest challenge level for your tier. Basically there has to be something NEW and FRESH, besides “enemies do more damage and take longer to kill.” That is the opposite of new and fresh, it’s called “stupid.”

It should be an understood sub-effect, as you get further in the levels, for everything to hit harder and take longer to die— not the only thing that changes.

multiple-part super long post

part 1

Okay first off I’m glad that you made an actual discussion thread where we can voice our thoughts & opinions. I have a really detailed criticism for you guys concerning The Fractals Of the Mist that is aimed at being constructive rather than the same complaints echoed over and over again.

For some background, I’m currently on level 55 of the fractals of the mist, and I’ve made a pseudo-guide & multiple videos with commentary, with the goal to help others succeed in the dungeon.

Link to the guide

Recent FotM 52 run

Here’s my unbiased list of critciques, which include my amazingly brilliant suggestions on what you should do to remedy them. Note that I have no programming experience whatsoever and I speak only for myself (though I predict many people, if not everyone, will agree with me).

List of things Robert Hrouda and Jon Peters screwed up: (and how to fix them)

1) Difficulty of forming a group with people at the exact same progression level:

This is one of the biggest problems I have with the whole dungeon— getting a group for it. While I understand you don’t want people to get a free ride all the way up, you need some kind of reasonable range that people can work with.

SOLUTION: I would say that [b]between 5 to 10 levels[/b] is a nice place to start at, and that as the levels get higher (perhaps 30 or 40+), you allow the higher end of the range to suffice. This way if someone’s at 45, which is still a fairly high level to reach, I can actually bring them into my group at 55. Then, upon completion, they will gain credit for up to 55 as well.

Wait, I know what you’re afraid of here. “But then people will complain that they worked at 10 levels for nothing when others just got a free ride.” But no! That’s not the case! At that high of a level, players would kneel down and praise you for simply allowing them to have a much easier way of forming a group. I sure as hell wouldn’t care if someone got a “free ride” from 45-55, since they technically had to prove they could make it through 55 anyway, and I rather do that than wait for days on end to try and get a group.

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

There’s no way this is the case with all phantasms. When I use Illusionary Leap now (which is NOT a powerful summon) half the time the clone dies or leaps to an empty space where the enemy used to be (because the enemy ran somewhere else). The Phantasmal Warden’s use of stuffing projectiles is near impossible now because he just sits there for way too long before starting that first attack, though it is humorous to note that now he actually RUNS TO THE ENEMY before doing the attack, if the enemy moved.

Remember we need to have an enemy targeted to even summon a phantasm, which means that we can’t put one down somewhere in advance or strategize in a way that would be able to counter the delay. The clones and phantasms are so weak that they get one-shotted in pretty much any dungeon. That in itself is really enough of a balance— even without the delay you have to time when you summon them to hope to get a hit off. Now though you have to pray the enemy somehow stands still AND hits a totally different target. It’s really frustrating and kills the use of ALL clones/phantasms, especially the berserker.

Have you tried the new way phantasms work? I feel like there’s some misunderstanding going on here, where you don’t realize the delay is either much longer than it’s supposed to be, or affecting all phantasms.

It’s hard enough to play as a mesmer as-is in PvE… nerfing us for no reason really doesn’t look like it’s “balanced” at all. Go “balance” a guardian, since they definitely have a lot more advantages than mesmers in that department.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Furienify.5738:

Furienify.5738:

Ended up encountering this problem just now.

Our Mesmers were able to glitch through the door, though, allowing us to skip ahead to Alpha and get our tokens. Thank goodness.

Since I got some tells about this, I’ll elaborate (though I risk some infraction/ban for “exploiting” past bugs):

There’s a door between the Bjarl room and the room where you fight Alpha for the last time. If your Mesmer stands back on the stairs before that door, they can see through the gap underneath the door, and use that to target their Blink skill. The reticle won’t go straight to the other side due to LoS issues, but you can get it mostly “inside” the door.

You’ll teleport, either into the door itself, or to the other side. If you get stuck inside and don’t get trapped in a “falling” animation, you can use Blink or Phase Retreat to try and get through. If you get through all the way, you can use Portal to get your team across. Just don’t die/wipe on Alpha.

Thanks for this information, saved my teams run, much appreciated. Hope there is no action taken for you being creative and working around a serious bug.

Thank you for this as well. I really hope you don’t get in trouble for giving people a way to work around an unexpected bug that’s 90% of the way into a dungeon run.

I agree that dungeons need an overhaul.

I think there can be a very simple solution when it comes to the difficulty and varying skill levels of different people.

bold Introduce new difficulty options to each dungeon*bold*

Or, at least, do so for the explore-mode dungeons.

You can have an “Easy Mode”, “Normal Mode,” “Hard Mode,” and an “Insane” / “Impossible” mode.

The basic idea is that the rewards differ based on the difficulty of the dungeon, with “Easy Mode” yielding lower-level rewards (lets say level 30 armors or weapons), “Normal Mode” yielding between level 40-50 armors or weapons, etc etc.

Now, to not punish anyone for doing easier modes, there -still- should be, while extremely small, a chance for exotic weapons and armor. This “extremely small chance” increases to more and more “achievable” the higher the difficulty.

This will allow people with lower skill, or those with a different strategy of running easier missions faster, they’re own way to play and get a chance at rare things without upsetting the fun of people looking for more of a challenge.

On “Insane” mode, you should force people out of the dungeon if they all wipe. No retries allowed. (This should only be done for the extreme hardest difficulty.) To balance this, you should increase the base rewards and make the chance of an exotic weapon/armor (or some other good reward) much higher, should they actually finish the dungeon.

You should also put time restrictions on the harder runs, so people literally “can’t” grind it. I don’t want to say “Final Fantasy 11” style, because we all get little shivers of disgust when we hear that— but I think it would be better to have less “chances” of finishing the run, the harder the diffculty.

This would require more strategy in the preparation of a group, and not mindless grinding and re-getting up at the waypoint until you eventually win (which is another problem with dungeons.)

It would also bring some excitement and fun to look foward to every day.

Let easy mode be retried as many times as someone wants, and the modes after that be given limited chances. Perhaps you have to wait a few hours for “Normal Mode”, and then you get the idea.

I’d like to see something like this implemented.

I’m surprised they would ban someone at all for “inappropriate language.”

Isn’t there an option for a language filter in the game? What’s the purpose of that if you aren’t allowed to curse?

I also believe the game is not supposed to be played by those under 13 years old (Says something like that on the back of the box).

I could understand if someone was purposely trying to -bypass- the language filter, so that even those who had a preference not to see bad language, saw it anyway, and got emotional over it for some reason.

I know it’s their game and they can do whatever they want with it, but… really?

(I assume that the OP was telling the truth in saying he only used bad language, and didn’t threaten/aim it at someone/ a certain racial group/gender personally)