Guild Wars 2

AoE is not balanced

I appreciate your engagement for this game to succeed, I really do. Also your argumentation and over explanation is pretty objective and reasonable.
However, this would really bring a big gap between PvP and PvE. Especially for condition classes (they’re allrdy in a bad state there). I think this is something that scares A-Net to actually renew their whole concept, as it is now. Wheter it’s good or not is another question.

All in all E-sport at the moment is just not possible and I hope A-Net will realize if they stay on the same train, it will never be. Therefore some points are a MUST to get into the right direction. However these are huge changes, so this won’t likely happen this or next year.

I observed the forum a bit recently and tried to merge some fixes that the community is asking for:

• Skill-Queue
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Root-dodge-bug-destroying-pvp/first#post1985249
  Exist since the latest patch of this month. My suggestion would be a toggle for it.

• Split SoloQ and Premades
  An issue that we are dealing with since the SoloQ-Implementation. This problem affects almost every player and should be on the top of your priority-list. This affects also the Leaderboards.

• Leaderboards: Not playing and second-accounts
  The ELO-System forces people on the top to not play because they only can lose ranks and fairly are able to increase the gap to players behind them. Also people behind them have a hard time overhauling.
  This issue creates a really static list, which isn’t able to represent what’s actually going on. In conclusion this means players on top tend to not play. (CA’s excluded)
  I hope there are upcoming changes to the Rating-System, so this issue can be avoided. Maybe paired with visible Ratings.

• LFG-Tool
  Everybody who played GW1 know that the LFG-Tool there was amazing. In GW2 it’s not really something that has been noticed.
  If you could implement the old System into GW2 and do it Region-wide (one list of searching-players in EU / NA), this would really improve the PvP-Scene. Pugging would be more easier. So people not have to be in Desolation/Anvil Rock to actually find others to play. In the same time it makes it easier to connect with other players and expand the friend-list.

• Ranger downstate underwater
  A bug since the release of GW2. No need of an explanation here. Affects Temple of the Silent Storm.

• Right click targeting
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-option-to-disable-right-click-targeting/first
  An issue that is not only a good thing for the PvP-Community, but for all GW2-Players. Hope you are working on this.

There are many other issues like the Reward-System or the Random-Map-Rotation, Build Diversity and the Salvage-System etc. As you already mentioned them in past SOTG’s and on the Forum, I left them out here.

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

A-Net told us the revamp of the reward-system will come dec. 2013. It was clearly described on the plans for the last year. So stop telling us you didn’t promise anything. I mean I like the fact that you’re the only guy with enough balls to answer on critical feedback, but then don’t try to defend the development and the work A-Net has done in 1.5 years. Especially when you had so much suggestions from the community to work with . . . and what we get are things like immobilize-stacking?

Sorry but the majority of the PvP-Community can’t take this company seriously anymore.

You listed things that we shouldn’t pay for, but the development should have fixed ages ago.

No skill required, 100% effectiveness, spammable CC, no skill ceiling at all.
Reminds me of HamBow.

The faster you realize that this development and the company behind it is just looking for more profit and not for players satisfaction, the sooner you stop posting suggestions. It’s a pure timewaste and will not find its way into the game.

Because the basic-damage of those weapons are higher + weapon-traits synergyize better with affecting 5 skillz instead of 3 or 2, which is mostly the case for one-handed weapons.

I’m playing this game since release. Till today, I never really experienced progression or any real reward, that would motivate me to continue playing PvP. The only thing that keeps me and many others in this game comes from the social nature aka friends.

Here are some reasons why, followed by suggestions:

• Rank:
  The rank system was a good idea, but was terribly put into the game. While the uncompetitive play (hotjoin) rewarded you the most, there was literally no gain from the competitive play (TeamQ, later SoloQ). It was nothing more than a grind, accessible for everyone. Even though you fixed the gain with the latest patches, it was too late. Ranks had and still have never reached a meaningful place in this game.

I suggest to bring in a new rank-system seperated for SoloQ and TeamQ, mabye paired with an emote / title.

• Reward-Track:
  Good intention, but doesn’t reward the PvP-Crowd. Still it was the first move into the right direction and I appreciated that. However, we don’t really need bags and chests that can be farmed 10 times faster in PvE. We need tracks that reward all different groups precisely. Casuals, soloqers and teams should get different reward-tracks. I’d like to see instead of PvE-mats a own currency for PvP (like glory, but put into a better system). Please avoid to make a grind-fest out of it if you ever consider to do that again.

For soloq-ers and teams I suggest seasons with special rewards at the end. Give ppl an incentive to actually form a team and play together. You did it with ToL the first time. Problem there: It only lasts for a short period of time.

• Lack of unique titles, special skins and other PvP-only items (e.g. Zaishen-Keys):
  I liked the system with chests, materials and unique rewards like the Qualification Points. Sadly you missed the opportunity to make something out of it. The biggest fault you made was to give everyone access to everything (note: if something is accessible to everyone, it looses its value).
  Also I missed unique titles/items for the core-base of PvP, some sort of reward that differentiate you from others (key-word: Prestige).

Hint: get back to the date when you released paid-tournaments with gem-prices. This was the biggest incentive we’ve ever had in this game.

• Lack of proper balancing:
  Balancing was and is still a big issue in this game. While the latest patch corrected a few skills, the trend to power-creep and easy-to-play-builds dominate. Some of the classes are too independent (eg. ele, warrior), which decrease teamplay heavily and leads into more bunkerish setups.
  Also the philosophy of every class should be able to fill every role is not healthy for the game.

• Lack of different Game-Modes:
  In my opinion why PvP-Teams are so rare is the fact that it is very hard to get into conquest. Not because the builds are hard to learn, but the rotations have to be timed and coordinated extremely well. This creates a huge entry barrier to newer teams and also prevent more experienced players from pugging.

• Lack of a well-thought ladder-system:
  Recently I saw a lot of posts about the ladder-system, most of them not very positive.
  There are already enough suggestions for it.

Quick-Note: Make the soloq-ladder showing single persons, while the teamq-ladder showing guilds. Connect it with a season-system and finally reaveal ratings please.

• Queue-System:
  I regret the fact that there is only the possibility to queue for one-round-matches.
  What I suggest would be bring back the option of a “several-rounds-tournament”. This not only gives the players the feeling of progression, but also is a great chance to couple these tournaments with a proper reward-system.

Hint: progressive curved rewards instead of linears.

Also I’d like to see a option of a map-choice. Something like both teams can eliminate one map from the map-pool, which won’t be played.

Allie showed clearly how less of an idea they have actually about the game. A team that does balance in general and is not splitted into the 3 modes. I hope you get, that this won’t work. I mean we see your balance patches and there are a lot of so called “fails”, which could be avoided.
Necro was the best example. Players that actually had an idea about the class (A-Net definitely had not) asked for more defensive abilities, and your solution is insane damage through 2 more conditions via traits (sidenote: burning is the strongest condition in the game damagewise).

However, as you wish constructive feedback i’ll give you some. Split the balance teams, because PvE is in everyway different than PvP (warrior showed you that since release). Second point is to get some help and work together with the community more. With this I don’t mean the 99% garbage ppl who write BS in here everyday, just to get the impression of having an idea about the game. I mean ppl who actually invest time trying out every single aspect of the class. Grab them and get a second meaning.

What you did with the SOTG showed us how bad your concept is. You talk about balance and stuff in there and tell some “secrets” you plan to change in the future. When the patch finally arrives all things you promised are messed in a overpowered/underpowered way or never found its way into the game. What you come up with is a totally new package of balance we never heard about. The result of this surprise is huge rage in the forum.
The way how A-Net deals with players who bring critical feedback up? Ignorance.

You had 12 months of constructive feedback. Everyday a person brought up a good aspect to change the game positive. Don’t tell me, you still need feedback to change the elemental issues! Just silly…

Benjamin.7893:

Remove ranks and tie rewards to actually accomplishing something instead of just playing a lot.

This idea is too complex for them to understand

low salaries create high fluctuation.
Definitely a big loss for the already weak team.

Nuoper.7503:

To be honest. Warrior is totally design fail in pvp. (poor to cure condition, no roaming etc.)
Anet should redo the warrior design concept and make it more viable for pvp.

The warrior is, besides the Guardian, actually the best designed class in this game. You clearly don’t understand why the Warrior has such a difficult state. That being said, the rest of the classes should be redesigned around the warrior, not vice versa.

I doubt feedback from the community has priority when I look at things like “Immobilize-Stacking”, “Skyhammer still in SoloQ”, “Dhuumfire”, “Diamond-Skin” or general “Powercreep”.

Things the community never asked for or sometimes even protested against and still ignored by A-Net.

To me it looks like the Designers want to create their own world and be creative in general, without cleaning the mess they’ve left. Since the dhuumfire patch the balance was and still is in a horrible state.
They had nearly 1 year to fix things. But instead we get more abilities and traits, which will cause even more issues. I don’t get the strategy behind this nor how the management can’t see such crucial faults.

Playing the nice guys in the forums and telling us everyday awesome things will come “soon” and it’s only the “tip of the iceberg”, won’t get you any further in the long run.

All their work ends up in a mess, as the actual meta clearly shows. However, if they would actually listen to certain ppl in this forum, they would have half the work to do. Instead they ignore this forum and try to create their own game, realizing after some weeks that they made it even worse.

More posting = less features ? Which features? Good joke on that

DevO.9854:

they would do it if they got worth while rewards.

- meaningful ranks like in gw1.
- progressive rewards, means rewards getting better for every consecutive win for e.g.
- in general rewards that are challenging and not a one-shot goal like armors/weapons (rewards that create incentives for a longer period of time and reward also good play, not grind)

Ken.9018:

The melee class/builds are already bad enough and underpowered in this game, won’t Torment further make melee builds unviable? like thieves, warriors, etc etc

Thieves have enough condi-cleanse, stealth and ports to actually being able to ignore most of the conditions. Warriors on the otherside are a 100% visible target, without ports and gap-closers that are affected heavily by conditions.
For me personally the warrior is the only real melee class in this game, which explains why they are in such a handicapped state.

we give you constructive feedback since 12 months. In this period we gave you several possible solutions for every issue that this game still has. I would say about 1% of it was actually worked on. Besides that, helseth mentioned and explained the issues. So there is enough things you could work on. Spamming the forums is a bad excuse for incapability.

The PvP-Community which invested so much time into this game is just frustrated in which pace the issues getting fixed. Especially stuff that is in every other game allrdy available at release (soloQ, leaderboards, different modes etc.). No wonder people are getting upset. But ye, it’s kinda pointless to write on this forum, as you ingore every critical / negative feedback.

As many ppl mentioned, they have no clue about competitive pvp. Otherwise they wouldn’t say eles don’t need restrictions in healing or talking about minion-masters. Especially Karl: had no idea, didn’t even know if turrets are blasts or not. If they want to improve the balance issues around classes, then mabye just ask top-players about it. They have much more experience than the devs, while playing on private-test-servers with joke-builds nobody has ever played.

Well, I rarely watch tournaments on twitch, not even mentioning to replay some old games. Would never do that actually. It’s funny to play the game itself, but in my opinion it’s really boring to watch it. And it’s not about the depth of gameplay or lack of strats.
It’s just too obvious what will happen next due to conquest. The only map which brings in some great moments is “legacy of foefire”, cuz of the lord. But the rest of the maps is predictable, static and stale.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

Saying “casual” and “pvp” in one post.
You’re doing it wrong.

A-Net doing it wrong too.

Working under a incompetent Management will stop you, my friend . . .

Evade-thieves are hated anyway . . . but my meditation guard became useless!

The overall problem of PvP is that GW2 intentionally was created as a PvE-Game. Then they added some sort of PvP to sell it under purposes of E-Sports in mind and as an AAA-PVP title game. See the problem?

To save PvP in this game they’d have to restructure the whole system, which is after 11 months not possible anymore. Now A-Net just can try to fix the broken system as good as they can and hope not every player will leave it till next year.

The problem is more like during the day we have no other continents to fill up the work-time space. That’s because NA and EU is seperated. And a level down you have 30 different servers, where ppl are spreaded and can’t chat with each other. If you would have one big server this would never happen.

Blaeys.3102:

most of the time, the people kittening in map chat or putting people down are usually the ones at the bottom of the charts when the match is over – Im guessing from spending too much time worrying about other people and not enough about themselves.

I had to agree with your comment till you wrote this section. Sadly I have to disagree. The ppl that are on the bottom are mostly the ppl that care about conquest (defending nodes /keeping points neutral against 2 or more ppl). The rest is just zerging around doing some points, letting opponents freecaps and things like this.

+1, but don’t remove hotjoin. Moreover make it less rewarding. It can’t be the case that competitive play is less rewarding towards rank-ups than hotjoin farming. Not a good design at all.

Your Game My Rules.5324:

AlKTN.3742:

Just remind this : “GW2 PvP is made for ESPORT”.

I hope you remember (anet staff) [WM], [DF], [rawr], [KMD], [KvZ] etcetcetc so much nice guilds and their legendary’s GvG.

Wtf is [KvZ] doing in this list?

Oh snap! Pretty epic to promote own guilds as legendary.

So A-Net strategy is to create new possible balance-issues, before even fixing the old ones? I hope we get a good explanation in tomorrows Ready-Up.

Thousands of ppl have allrdy quit. I would say the competitive Teams from the past have all disbanded by now. As the jannaury patch in my eyes will be another dissapointment, I gonna watch for other games too. The only thing keeps me playing the game is the dailies.

TBH: Since the 8-round PAID tournaments with gem-rewards have gone, competition has gone worse and worse. CA was a good introduction but not supported by A-Net in anyway. Other ppl had to step in to do A-Nets job, but naturally couldn’t provide any viable prices. Everytime A-Net release a patch i have to /facepalm, because they do everything wrong, they can possibly do wrong.

Join in PvE or WvW. It’s not competition but it’s at least rewarding and fun instead of frustrating and repetitive.

Beren Forever.1379:

Someone needs to buy the rights to take the pvp from gw1 and to make a new free game of it (and by new I mean better graphics etc but DONT CHANGE IT) with useless DLC to earn money. When I see people enjoying free games like LoL… I want to tell them the story of gw1 pvp

Made me smile. If I’d have the cash I would do buy the rights . . . Sometimes I wish GW1’s release would have been in 2012.

ronpierce.2760:

Deimos, I’m just going to say it… Your sense of balance is terrible. You’re constantly defending broken unfun mechanics, and typically because you abuse them. Also this isn’t rock paper scissor. Its paper (conditions) can sometimes cover rock, or Rock (other) sometimes penetrates the paper. Rock can cause a gun (AR engi) to miss fire, or the gun can blow it to pieces, but pretty much always the gun destroys the paper without the paper even having a chance to blow away… That’s…. Not balance. No one likes Rock Paper Gun balance.

+1

I am the only one here who still lagging horribly? 5 sec frozen screen and then I’m down. It’s riddicolous to play tournaments with that. I tested my Internet several times, played other online-games and never had a lag. I can stream HD flawless without any probs.
Seems like the GW2-Servers have huge issues. I hope this can be fixed somehow, because it’s not fun to play like this.

Before bringing in such fancy rewards you are all crying about, A-Net should actually fix Hotjoin and it’s absurd rewards that are completely harm teamplay and reduce the competitive scene since release. More or less what Archaon said earlier.

If they removed it, they would admit an error.
That’s why it’s not gonna happen . . .

The problem is moreover that condition builds have thoughness, which directly affect power builds. On the otherside power builds have no stat to reduce condition damage. As simple as that.

Phaeton.9582:

or you could just play better and not let him decap.. certainly anyone running warrior or guard has no excuse for allowing them to decap in any scenario.

And that’s an instant counter..

Well, you can adjust your build to counter it, for e.g. double stability on warrior (a Guardian will get a decap sooner or later). But then again, is that fun to Play against? Player versus Point? Noone enjoys that.

Bunker spec for ele:

Traits: 0 / 0 / 10 / 30 / 30

Earth: III (earth’s embrace)
Water: III (Soothing disruption), IX (Cantrip Mastery), XI (Cleansing Water)
Arcana: IV (Final Shielding), V (Elemental Attunement), XI (Evasive Arcana)

Utilities: Armor of Earth, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Ether Renewal.
Elite is up to you, what you prefer.

Weapons: Scepter / Dagger
Sigils: Sigil of Energy (triggers on attunement switch), second sigil is up to you.

Amulet: Cleric Amulet / Shaman Amulet
Rings/Accessoires etc.: Based on healing power / toughness / vitality (whatever comb you prefer)

Runes: Water / Monk / Earth (whatever you prefer)

I explain quickly how this works:
You have 3 cantrips. On every cantrip you activate you get vigor and regeneration. Whenever you gain regeneration you loose 1 condition.

Attunements:

Water-Attunement:
Whenever you swap to water-att. you heal up to 3k life, gain regeneration and through that you loose a condition.
Skills: You have on water-attunement 2 heals (water-trident, cleansing wave) that gives you up to 3k heal per skill. with frost-armor it’s easy to kite melees (especially thiefes)
Whenever you dodge on water-att. you get heal up to 3k (cd: 9s). All heal / regeneration you get through Water is AoE based (affect nearby allies)

Air Attunement:
Whenever you swap to Air-Att. you get swiftness.
Skills: you have 1 blind, 1 knockback which gives you also swiftness. The most important skill “Ride the Lightning” is one of the best escapes in game ( if you go low-health use it to get out) and is also a great movement skill. Whenever you dodge on air-att nearby foes are blinded.

Earth-Attunement:
Whenever you switch to earth attunement you get protection.
Skills: nr. 3 is good for aoe blind. Nr. 2 reduces dmg, nr. 4 is aoe knockdown, 5 is for great aoe dmg. whenever you dodge on earth-att nearby foes get crippled and bleeding.

Fire-Attunement:
Whenever you swapp to fir-att you get 1 stack might.
Skills: Basically you combo: Phoenix (2) then cast the ring (4) and then phoenix (3) + fire grab (5). This is not only for dmg. This provides you a lot of might-stacks. (blast finishers in firefields give you 3 stacks-might per blast). Whenever you dodge on fire-att. nearby foes get burning + dmg.

Heal-Skill: Ether Renewal can be replaced, but for me it’s the best heal out there. When you can channel it to the end you get about 7k heal and loose 8 conditions in 3 seconds.

In conclusion: You have access to massive condition remove, lot of boons (regeneration + protection), you are a great support for a whole team due to boon-sharing (trait) and attunement-swapping + dodging which effects allies too. You have more than 2k toughness and 3k armor. You have the ability to escape a battle (Ride the lightning). You have anti-melee conditions as chill (frost-armor), earth-attunement dodge (cripple), blinds. You have access to several heals (water-trident, cleansing water, dodge on water-att., swapping to water-att. ether renewal).

If there are any questions feel free to ask me ingame.
IGN: Empathetic Fighter

finally, thanks!

Arlen.1625:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Because the basic-damage of those weapons are higher + weapon-traits synergyize better with affecting 5 skillz instead of 3 or 2, which is mostly the case for one-handed weapons.

Even assuming that you are right (and I think you are not), it would be better to ballance those weapons on the damage-side, allowing the players more versatility on their builds.

What I said is fact, it’s not something we assume. Basic damage is higher (proof ingame or consult internet), Traits which boosts one-handed weapons mostly affecting 2-3 skillz (rare exceptions on dual-wield), while two-handed weapons are fully affected on all 5 skillz.
Lowering the basic-damage and add a second weapon sigil, could be fine. However, I think it is well balanced as it is right now.

This game needs a complete overhaul. The skill-floor of this game is pathetic on many aspects as perma dodging, spaming, AoE-clutter, instant casts/bad animations, AI and all the other stuff that leads to such randomness, like passive and hidden traits…

If A-Net keeps refusing that this game has not reached any stat near it’s full potential, than this game will become another E-sport forced fail.

Mesmer indeed is a very powerfull class. However, others like the necro, ranger or warrior just overshadow it.

This game (said by many players) has turned into a dead-end. Thanks to A-Net not listening to the core-PvP-players for balance-improvements.

So sad to see such potential going nowhere . . .

You basically summarize everything we allrdy know and which has been over-discussed in several threads, every week.

As he played for MATH he must be a troll.