Guild Wars 2

I think one thing some people have lost track of is WHY some people on SoR are trying so hard to keep tight control over all of the maps.

A significant number of the people from SoR who are reacting quickly, keeping things blue as much as possible, are not actually competing with either YB or GoM.

They’re playing a deeper game. The real competition here is with Tarnished Coast for a slot in the 3rd bracket: http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

Back several pages in this lengthy thread the goal was clearly stated by a member of TW (shared by several other transfer guilds, I’m sure) that SoR would skip straight to the 3rd bracket. I looked at the numbers and, frankly, I didn’t think it could happen. But now it’s looking… possible. I welcome and respect our new guilds, and they want to get us into higher-tier matches as soon as possible.

Myself, I’m not participating in an all-blue map that still has queues. I’m taking a small break and working on map completion or alts. But I understand and respect the game being played, and the goal is not bad sportsmanship or demoralization. SoR players in general have a lot of respect for YB and GoM both, and were our situations reversed I’d be pretty annoyed if not outright angry at being spawn-camped when down by so much.

The people doing this aren’t all trying to be jerks when they crush any temporary gains. The larger game at play here requires as close to a full-blue map at all times as possible. I’m neutral on whether this is a great idea or not, but I think people have lost track of it in this thread and wanted to restate what I think is going on. It may not make a lot of friends in the short term, but in the metagame this is a legitimate strategy.

Personally, I think turning off free xfers and doing a series of shorter matches would be a better solution – but it turns out I’m not ArenaNet. In lieu of that, some people are doing their best to ‘fix the system within the system’ – and I hope YB and GoM realize they are in this sense unintended targets.

I have done this path successfully without a Guardian. We had 2 eles (1 damage, 1 support, both staff), necro, thief, and mesmer.

It was very difficult with that comp, but possible. Having a heavy armor class or two around would be recommended.

I’ve experienced this “party leader leaving → ejecting everyone from the instance” behavior, and am very glad to hear it is being looked at.

It killed pub dungeon runs for me for over a week.

Just thought of this. Honest question.

For those of you that have DR affecting sparse numbers of runs DAYS apart: Do you log in, run dungeons, then log back off nearly immediately after (perhaps in disgust)?

I’m wondering if the system isn’t taking REAL time between runs into account, rather, just PLAYED time between runs.

CM went from a pleasant puggable run, at a difficulty level appropriate for STORY MODE, to a nightmare that rips pugs apart if you don’t have a Guardian with both Stability Circle and Reflective Wall. Which makes sense, because it’s STORY mode, and STORY mode is designed to be a brick wall for elite players that have specific comps, coordinat… what’s that? No? Huh. Could have fooled me.

And sometimes even if you do have said Guardian, pugs still fail this STORY mode dungeon hard. To the point of ninja logging, or leaving the group (which occasionally resets the entire instance, which should be classified as griefing). Oh yeah. There’s much FUN to be had in CM Story now.

The changes made to CM story are just terrible, and the fact they haven’t been selectively reverted says volumes about ArenaNet’s intentions regarding Story mode Dungeons – nevermind Exp modes. Most blatant anti-player changes I’ve seen in any game in a very long time.

I agree with Carnagh about CM Story. I only have story mode experience post-patch, but I’ve done the Seraph explorable path pre-patch.

I led a pub group in CM Story the day after the `exploit fix` (read: extreme buff to the supposedly-pub-friendly story mode) and we managed to handle most of it. Harder, for sure, but we handled it. Probably helped that I’m a fully support built Guardian.

Up until the archer boss around the passed-out drunken dude.

That fight is no longer possible for pubs. I’m just putting that out there. The 3 new melee mobs that pop out hit like trucks, even against my (in other conditions) extremely resilient Guardian. They also chain knockbacks. And you’re supposed to deal with all of these mobs at once, until you’ve killed SEVEN high-hp silver mobs? I was using every survival trick in my book, and was only lasting 10-20 seconds longer than the rest of my group. Good luck getting a group to focus one target down when a) it’s a pub group, and b) everyone except the tankiest of us get wiped within 10 seconds.

Oh, and of course now that it’s a multi-mob fight all of their HP resets.

This is not story mode material. I had two groups fall apart and three ninja loggers that night alone; it was BY FAR the poorest experience I have had ingame since GW2 was released.

In my opinion, about half of the buffing to CM story should be reverted (especially this fight’s new mechanics). More HP, somewhat more damage, OK. This is not. If people can still blow through it, then the diminishing returns on rewards kicks in. Fine.

tl;dr – Please selectively revert changes to CM so story modes remain possible for pub groups.

Hellkaiser.6025:

…
any words on the extreme difficulty makeover Cm story mode recieved?

If explorable mode is to be the extreme:
“I’m uber1337 coz my stacked team can keep magg alive”

Then why was cm elevated to:
“moar kiting, omg one shot again! rez plz! respawn quick, lf guardian no squishies”

seems to me no one is doing it for even fun anymore, or at a massively reduced rate at least.

This is what I want to know. I led a pub group in CM Story the day after the `exploit fix` (read: extreme buff to the supposedly-pub-friendly story mode) and we managed to handle most of it. Harder, for sure, but we handled it. Probably helped that I’m a fully support built Guardian.

Up until the archer boss around the passed-out drunken dude.

That fight is no longer possible for pubs. I’m just putting that out there. The 3 new melee mobs that pop out hit like trucks, even against my (in other conditions) extremely resilient Guardian. They also chain knockbacks. And you’re supposed to deal with all of these mobs at once, until you’ve killed SEVEN high-hp silver mobs? I was using every survival trick in my book, and was only lasting 10-20 seconds longer than the rest of my group. Good luck getting a group to focus one target down when a) it’s a pub group, and b) everyone except the tankiest of us get wiped within 10 seconds.

Oh, and of course now that it’s a multi-mob fight all of their HP resets.

This is not story mode material. I had two groups fall apart and three ninja loggers that night alone; it was BY FAR the poorest experience I have had since GW2 was released.

In my opinion, about half of the buffing to CM story should be reverted (especially this fight’s new mechanics). More HP, somewhat more damage, OK. This is not. If people can still blow through it, then the diminishing returns on rewards kicks in. Fine.

tl;dr – Please selectively revert changes to CM so story modes remain possible for pub groups.

I’m all for fixing exploits, and the community manager that was quoted earlier seems to think that’s all that happened here. NOT true. CM story is no longer puggable. Everything seemed harder yet possible up until the boss around the drunk guy.

THAT fight is now massively overtuned; the new 3 thieves who rush in charge, chain knockbacks, and hit like a truck even against a fully support / vit+toughness specced guardian. The pub players I were playing with may have had lesser skill, but even focusing targets everyone fell like wheat to a scythe. I used every trick in my book, and could hardly keep myself alive. As a team, we couldn’t even burn one mob out of apparently 7 needed… and the fight resets health.

I guess it penalizes graveyard zerg, but also caused two separate groups to break up and three people to ninja log out. I’ve never had a worse experience in a GW2 dungeon.

This is CM Story, emphasis on STORY. Nerf the rewards if you have to. But keep it possible for pub groups. I’m a fairly good player, and this is unreasonable.