Guild Wars 2

It’s not dying and new content is a really a computer science problem.

The content in these kind of MMOs has to be handcrafted – and that costs a lot of money and time. So no game will ever have enough ‘content’ to please people.. Unless we develop some sophisticated AI that can create good content..

So for a game developer its all about – how much content do I add? How much grind to I create? What kind of grind do I create? (Difficulty vs. Simple Length) in relation to the cost. If I spend x amount on content – what amount of money will I make? How does this scale? Difficult questions..

I think actually GW2 is one of the best at doing this correctly. They do more with less. A game like WoW spends a lot more on development – but doesn’t really have the replay ability this game has..

Of course other developers have caught on and are making games like Overwatch which make better use of development dollars.. But in the MMO space GW2 is pretty good..

Thing is, there’s room for both types of play in GW2, except that some players who are in the drop-in/drop-out category want some of the rewards that are obviously aimed at the all-in players.

Absolutely. And caving into those players is a royally bad idea..

This isn’t about downgrading content. This is about the shift of gw2 philosophy on platforming. In vanilla gw2 platforming was peripheral to the game. Since HoT platforming has become a requirement for things in the game.

Getting those shoulders is not a requirement. Man up and admit you just want the shoulders rather then pretending you are an expert in game design..

OP is wrong. And this is just a bad idea in general.

Here is why – this is a video game and the developers are human. That means they CANNOT write code that takes into account the disability/time limitations of a player and adjust the content accordingly. They do not have magic abilities.

What they COULD do is either give the content away (likely what the OP really wants) OR they COULD make it even MORE grindy and easier.

Both of these solutions suck. The idea here is that this item is something special – for someone who puts in the time and conquers the challenges of the festival. That is a good idea – as developers do want to reward the best players. That encourage more people to play.. Exclusivity is GOOD for a game.

Just ask Blizzard with their raiding for everyone mantra how their NA market is compared to even Vanilla WoW..

Listen to wrong people and your game will crater. There are legions of people that just want ‘stuff’ and when they get it – they just quit because there is nothing to do. Caving into these people is a disaster.

Game is not a wasteland – OP is making stuff up. I am sure Arenanet has all kinds of stats about who is playing and how much. But I don’t believe for a second that any zone is a wasteland.

Crazy. That’s one of my favorite parts of the game. A fully voiced character is a lot more fun. I played games with silent characters – so dull. I just hope Arenanet is careful who they listen too.

They feel like there isn’t enough content, so they are “forced” to play content that clearly isn’t designed for them. It’s that simple.

So simple eh? Why are you not a video game designer? LOL. Dude – make the content easy for ‘casuals’ and they will blow through it in 30 minutes and complain that they need more content.

Hard content is a kind of gating. Game designers understand that no amount of content will please the ‘casuals’. If you want to see a good example of this – look at WoW which has lost more then 50% of its player base – likely more then 80% in NA.

Games like GW2 have a certain budget – that they can make x amount of content. To get more hours out of it..

They can 1) Make it harder.
2) Make it Grindier.
3) Time gate it – aka you can only run that content at such and such a time.

While two modes would be nice, Anet has already said with dungeons they don’t like that idea, I really don’t think they will do that for raids.

World bosses and Meta-Events are EZ mode raids. The old scarlet event where you had 5 guys go in each lane – that was basically a raid test. So two modes would be repetitive.

The new raids are the equivalent of the ‘pro league’ in PvP – its to give the good PvE’s something to do. Think of it like a power rack in your gym. Not everyone is going use it – but its nice to have – and helps your gym attract the crossfit crowd.

We have friendly raiding – we have always had friendly raiding. It’s called world bosses and meta events. Wait you don’t like those because those are too boring and too easy? Well you wouldn’t like ez mode raiding either.

Raiding was created because we ONLY had EZ mode raiding – and not real raiding. The hardcores asked or this and got it.

Not all content needs to be completed by all players. It’s fine to have content for specific groups. They have league PvP and tournaments for the hardcore PvPers. They have raids for the hardcore PvEs – but tons of content for the casual crowd.

It’s a perfectly solid design.

There seems to be a 99%+ consensus that TD is terrible.

Heh. Tangled Depths has some cool parts. The forums only reflect a portion of the playing base. They are not real time feedback on the game..

HoT has changed the community because GW2 has doubled the playing base temporarily (it’s likely sliding back down now). I have noticed a lot of players playing who didn’t really like the game. Way more griping and longing to play different games and such..

This game has automatic grouping. You only need to form groups in the instances or raids. It’s a soloers dream. If you can’t make here – you can’t make it anywhere.

I don’t oppose hard content, but I oppose hard content in open world, especially the TD meta.

Eh. Sure they will tweak it if no one has completed it.. Or they could up the reward.. But hardcore HoT? You can’t be serious. This game is so casual – you don’t even need a group – just go help other people!

This game is so not hardcore.. Listen I get that SOME people might feel the game is too hard. But here is the rub..

1) People get bored easily by content that they can always complete.
2) To extend this content – you have to make the grind longer..

So GW2 has to find a balance between content creation (expensive)/challenge/repetition..

I think they have done really great here. So I would say – be careful what you wish for. Here is the problem with your scenario OP.

Easy content = more grind. More grind = less players. Less players = money lost.

Sure you can have content that is too difficult..

Then you have hard content = massive frustration. Frustration = less players. Less players = money lost..

I certainly don’t think Arenanet has done that. I see LOTS of players who don’t really like old GW2 who are back playing this game. I’d say that is mission accomplished.

The content might be too difficult for some people – but extremely few. I’d say less the 1 in 1000 video game players would have any difficulty in this game. This is still a very easy game for the most part. (I am not counting raiding or competitive PvP – those are more difficult.).

ANet keeps saying Players want the challenging content. But Whom is the players? Youtubers? Celebrities and their internet followers?

The same people that did fractal 50s before the patch. The hardcore PvE guys are out there. They just didn’t have that much to do..

Problem is, WoW was a hardcore game that started catering to casuals, thus changing their core target group. GW2 was a game for casuals that suddenly started catering to hardcores at the cost of their target group. If you think that changing target group killed WoW, you have to realize that exactly the same will happen here.

Untrue. GW2 was meant to cater to all groups. Casuals are of course they largest groups so they get the most content.

But they have far more hardcore PvP and WvW then WoW has. They have events with money on the line.. Professional gamers are far more hardcore then anything WoW ahs.

Raiding is just meant to give some of the hardcore guilds something to do. It’s important to cater to your hardcore players because they head guilds, write guides etc etc. Arenanet was just throwing their PvE hardcore guys a bone. They already had some hardcore PvP guys.

The guys we had who wanted to raid were stuck with triple wurm and teq – and that become pretty boring for them. Good on arenanet giving them something to do.

Casuals OTOH have endless stuff to do – tons of bosses – tons of meta events – personal story, living story, collections etc etc etc.

GW2 is still pretty casual oriented – but that doesn’t mean EVERY SINGLE BIT of content has to engineered for casuals. Think of GW2 as an amusement park – not everyone has to ride every single ride..

Some guys only go on the water slide.. Some guys really just like the bumper cars etc etc.

GW2 (AN) was saying at one time: build diversity, no gear grind, fun, bring the player not the profession, play what you want, etc.

Have you not heard of fractals? Groups want agony resist there.. and they prefer certain builds. Raiding is the same thing. Just because you suddenly want to raid – don’t pretend Arenanet changed the rules on you..

But if it cost 10 million to build that hardcore roller coaster and only 1% of your customers go on it well that was a huge wast + repairs so so, and since nothing new for the 99% they go find a new amusement park = Park no longer makes hardcore roller coasters ,+ was not the hole point in every one crying about how gw2 had no raids all about a challenge

Same rationale they used for WoW – but it doesn’t work. Again its not about ‘saving’ money – its about the best experience for your customers. Previously GW2 was a themepark that didn’t have a killer roller coaster – now it does.

Some people might want to ride on that roller coaster – some folks might want to right the tilt-whirl. But GW2 the amusement park has dozens of tilt-whirls, lots of ferris wheels and bumper cars. Why should they spend the time and money to make a kids ride version of the roller coaster?

It would be a crappy ride. A baby coaster is a snooze. Again we KNOW this because we have played LFR in WoW. It’s not a good experience. EZ-mode raiding is not a good idea – most of the fun – almost all of it comes from the difficulty and overcoming it.

But here is where the amusement park analogy breaks down.. LFR made raiding less fun for people that were already raiding because they felt compelled to do it to either gear up or learn the fights..

So you turn one positive experience into two negative ones. Its simply not good game design to promote bad game experiences. It’s much better to have some people who want to raid but can’t – aka BC WoW then it is to have tons of people turned off from raiding and MMOs in general (modern WoW).

WoW if you didn’t know is losing millions of customers and many feel they are leaving the industry. Its just not a good model to follow.

This is one of those ‘sounded so good on paper’ ideas – that doesn’t actually work in practice.

Here is what advocates imagine will happen..

Raiders will continue to raid like they used to – and get the same rewards! Woot.
Casuals will get a chance to ‘experience’ the content that they would see other wise. They will get to see the story..

Here is what will ACTUALLY HAPPEN..

Raiders will ‘practice’ on the new ‘casual’ mode before defeating the bosses on the main mode. Sometimes they won’t even get to the main mode. When they do get to and beat the boss instead of the ecstatic OMG I DEFEATED XYZ BOSS TODAY feeling they get they will feel ‘Meh’ it was a bit harder.. I guess I don’t really like raiding..

Casuals will initially be excited by raiding. WOOT raiding for undergeared people too. But when it fails – assuming its not total face roll people will get mad and yell at strangers. People are not nice to strangers.

Okay so maybe they make it ’can’t fail’ then it will feel really boring – kinda like a meta event but without any fear of failure that you still have to sign up for. They will be bored as well.

This is what WILL happen. Some of us KNOW this because we have played this game called World of Warcraft – which used to be immensely popular before they started listening to ‘casuals’ on forums.

Be careful what you wish for…

What is most important about game design is the playing EXPERIENCE. Its not maximizing the ‘value’ of your ‘content’. If you have an amusement park – its not important that all the customers go on EVERY SINGLE RIDE. All that matters is the rides they go on – they really really like.

This is a theme park MMO – we want fun rides. I will never do a PvP tournament – I still like it that they exist.

Worst idea ever – leave the game design to game designers. GW2 is chock full of ez mode raids – with champions, world bosses and mega events. Dumbing down your one little raid so that ‘everyone’ can ‘experience the story’ will bring arenanet misery.

All the now happy raiders will play through the ‘practice’ mode and then try the ‘real’ one but those samey victories will be dull. Instead of the joy and happiness that comes from being an elite player.. They will feel none of this.

And worse all the people that want to raid but don’t – they will discover they didn’t really want to raid either.

In short GW2 will lose players – much the way WoW has lost 50% of its population since the addition of LFR. Bad ideas from bad players.. They don’t need that here.

World Bosses and Map meta Events = Easy Raiding..

We don’t need easy mode for regular raiding. Games like WoW with their inability to scale content and primitive architecture benefit more from ez mode raiding.

EG is a great guild. The guy that does triple worm sounds a lot like wooden potatoes.. and a great leader. Very good choice..

Let me say first – I am a fan of the game, and I want to see it do well. So this marketing mistake hurts me. I don’t want my favorite game to go under..

So here is what you do..

Step 1. Give all the people who have purchased the standard game some amount of gems/slots etc.
Step 2. Release a cheaper version of the game that’s upgrade only

In this way you soothe the ire of the early adopters – these are the most loyal advocates of the game. It costs more but you get beta, slots, gems etc. And you give the remaining fans a choice – buy now and get beta and some free stuff. Or wait and buy later..

Guys.. This was a strategic error. You should have lowered the game price to $10 (which you have done in the past) and then charged $40 for the expansion or $50 dollar bundle for new players.

Personally I don’t think price is a big deal – and I want GW2 to succeed so I am getting it. But your marketing department screwed up..

It’s certainly a mix of horizontal and vertical (as always) – but its mostly horizontal because you can get to each mastery without having done the others..

It’s like being able to go to any raid – without doing any of the previous raids in WoW. But you still have to work to finish each individual raid. As usual I think Arenanet gets this right – and is the only MMO company that is doing progression in a way that allows you to easily skip or wait on content..

What it boils down to is that to me, just my opinion, but I feel all physical power based damage all the time in every dungeon for every class being best ALWAYS is monotonous.

Okay so like Zerker is bad because it feels monotonous to you.. But you can’t explain how your changes would end this monotony, or what your changes would be, or even why having your armor read a certain name causes this dread boredom..

Well don’t sweat it – condition damage will be a thing.

Ok, a few things, I don’t want ANY gear to be best in ALL situations. I do NOT want the holy trinity. I do NOT want berserker gear to be bad. I want it to be good, hell, even best in SOME situations, but not all.

But you haven’t explained how this makes the game better. Does having more preparation in dungeons improve the experience for the players? Oh yeah – now I have to bring a nomad set? Do you think anyone outside of you would be excited about that? Do you think more people would do dungeons because you now have a gear grind hurdle?

Its not even the fact that it’s the best gear for ALL dungeons but the fact it’s best for ALL dungeons AND ALL classes. And a final note, the game isn’t boring to me due to one gear set being best.

And the problem with is what from a gameplay perspective? Do you suffer because you see the wrong letters near your armor? Or is it a loot problem? You are not explaining this ‘problem’ other then restating it. It’s like saying the problem with ice cream is ice cream.. Let’s do something about this ice cream problem. LMAO.

Will you be satisfied with the upcoming condi buff? You will see sinister and rabid really popular.

What I don’t like is how the great gw2 community has turned into a wannabe meta cesspool that provides a toxic environment to anyone with a different opinion. I want the gear link crap and that mindset to be destroyed and burned.

Community seems fine – I’d try a different guild. There is always going to be ‘fastest’ possible combination – unless you make all gear the same (which would be the same as removing all gear).

You need some rationale with your theory. I personally think a soft trinity would be cool. So like 3 max DPSers + 1 tanky dude and 1 healy dude > 5 DPSers in terms of clearing content. That would be okay with me. But just saying you don’t like beserker because its the best is nonsensical.

Something is always going to be the best. Right now Arenanet says – hey you want to clear content the fastest – wear the armor with the least defensive stats and play well. But want to clear content any old way? Any old armor will do.

That seems downright logical.. sorry man. I think Arenanet has it right – and you haven’t really thought about what you are saying at all..

could you please link to those internal metrics?

Going to have ask a GM – this was the rationale they gave for changing it. It seems reasonable enough. I think the new system is an improvement. I’d like to see some quality of life changes for swapping weapons out of combat.. That would make the load out concept more fun for me at least.

Raising unavoidable damage making zerker gear not even viable is a horrible idea. All I’m saying is there should be a time and a place for everything. I’m sick of zerker being the best in every time and place (in regards to the pve community anyway)

Why? What is wrong with one kind of gear being the best? How does it make the game boring for you? Would the game still be boring with Sinister, Assassin, and Zerker gear the best? Because that’s happening soon enough..

Would a holy trinity make you happy? Because then tanky and healy gear would have big value in PvE. I’d even be cool with that. But just hoping that some how magically zerker gear won’t be good in PVE situations and that this would make the game better..

That’s just odd and irrational. If you want to fix something – first you have to explain why something is broken..

I think they are changing necros as well. They don’t want passive playstyles encouraged.. I think Rangers will still be fun – I am not worried.

After all this time has passed, and looking back on the updates, tweaks, buffs, nerfs, and reworking of existing systems from day one of this game being released. I will never understand why they felt the need to rework traits in the game. What was so wrong about it? What was so difficult about buying three different books that unlocked all your traits in different tiers? Why fix something that isn’t broken, or hard to understand? I just don’t know.

Internal metrics showed that many people weren’t even using the trait/build system at all. That’s a huge problem when a great deal of the fun of your game is supposed be having a Diablo III style ‘load out’ for your character that you pick to make your character more useful..

I remember back in WotLK. My priest had a heal set and a damage set. My paladin had a heal and tank set. Regearing for different roles was a pain in the kitten there. Regrearing is also a pain in the kitten in GW2.

I agree its something of a pain. But I think that misses the primary objection – it’s just a BAD idea. It’s a REALLY bad idea.

Why? GW2 isn’t even like WoW. It’s a fundamentally different game in concept and design. Let me explain. GW2 wants you to dungeons – because well you like dungeons. They want you to do the raid like events (Teq, Triple worm etc) because well you like raids.

This means unlike WoW they don’t need to build in ‘time sinks’ to slow your progress. You don’t do dungeons so you can get gear so you can raid. You do dungeons because you think they are fun. So the question for changes should be – would this change make it more fun? Little gear grinds/walls aren’t what make dungeons fun – they serve as time sinks to slow progress in MMOs. They are not fun producers.

The net result of changes to make multiple sets of gear (for each character) optimal would be less people running the PvE content. I can’t think of a worse idea then that for arenanet.

See thats the problem, other builds/armor sets are viable. Situations need to occur where zerker is not optimal. They shouldnt change the gear, they should do something to make people want another set for a certain situation. Hopefully by doing this people will say oh great youre running berseker gear! And then see someone running sinister and say great, we will be able to make great use of that in this encounter. Right now one set is optimal in every situation. It isnt the gears fault, its the fault of the situation that mandates berserker gear for optimal performance.

Why? What good does having defensive sets necessary do for the game? As I explained earlier the obvious way to do that is to raise unavoidable white damage such that Zerker is not viable for that encounter…

Tell me how that solution makes the game better? Yeah you have to switch into another set of gear. Once you do the – game will play more or less the same. Everyone good will just wear the minimum level defensive gear – just like they do now.

Arenanet needs to improve things like stacking and fields and support roles etc – not worrying about achieving ‘gear’ balance.

hazenvirus.8154:

Kulvar.1239:

It’s a common mistake.
Not a need of different gears to “complete”, but a need of different gears to “fastest-ly complete”.

Exemple !
First boss is normal, promoting zerk gear.
Second boss have a mechanism where someone with high survivability can activate mechanism to fasten the fight.
Third boss have a special weaknesses against conditions
Fourth boss steal healing from players, for a tactical fight
Fifth boss release regular radiation waves, making Regeneration, Protection, and Retaliation very useful.

<em>Lol, I am just imagining the new LFG posts. Must have zerker, sinister, nomad, apothecary. Link gear or kick.</em>

+1. This. You need to look at this change from a gameplay perspective – not a ‘satisfy some random requirement’ perspective. Does the game actually play better if you need to use nomad to clear part of a dungeon? Is switching armor in between fights compelling game play? Hell no.

Lucky for us I believe the current developers get this – even if some players do not. Nothing wrong with making say sinister gear very strong in dungeons – because that will encourage active combat just as well as Zerker gear.

Gear could have an economic dimension. Maybe every gear piece could have power, precision, and ferocity; but while soldier’s gear complements that with vitality and toughness, zerker gear might have an economic benefit — perhaps used zerker weapons could be turned in to NPCs for unique rewards, for example, while ‘used’ zerk armour could yield much better salvage (turning certain pieces of used armour in to an NPC would be a bit weird).

Like I said I am not worried about the ‘costs’ of switching armor types to the ‘new’ Meta. I just don’t see the point of it. Making everyone where something like Celestial doesn’t accomplish anything either.

You are not thinking this through..

There TWO proposed ‘fixes’ to the Zerk meta.

1) Add in additional unavoidable damage such that you will not able to wear Zerker gear.

2) Make the other armor sets relatively ‘stronger’.

Neither approach has shown even the tiniest bit of merit. With the first approach you end up with everyone switching to the new meta – which is the new minimum viable defense level. So it might soldiers or knights etc.

But the game play does not change one iota. All it does is alienate the players who acquired ascended Beserker gear. What good is that to Arenanet?

With the second approach – make the defensive armors better – sure you can get some people out of Zerk gear. But this time it HURTS gameplay. Instead of having your most skilled players using all the tools in their toolbox to speed through content.. You end up with people ignoring mechanics. If say Clerics were boosted such that it did 90% of Zerker damage and you could live through three boss attacks instead of 1 with zerkers then you would indeed have a lot of people switching to Clerics.

But this sucks for arenanet too. You want your game to play like Bloodborne not baseball simulator 2000..

The THIRD fix – that no one is really talking about is the Holy Trinity. That provides a natural reason to use alternate gear sets in PvE. And the lack of that is the reason why everyone intelligent specs their character like the DPSer they are..

Improve the radius of buffs/auras. Improve the range of getting up downed guys. Improve the range of melee weapons a bit. Make bosses have some dangerous frontal attacks..

GW2 needs actual mechanics changes like this to stop stacking. The PvE guys didn’t quite get it right. The game plays how it’s supposed to in PvP IMHO.

Making content that requires a certain amount of a passive defensive stat changes nothing, but reduces the amount of viable stat combinations. Adding agony effects to normal dungeons and open world would have the same effect without reducing diversity and I doubt people want to have to do fractals to get enough Agony resist just to do open world or dungeon content, just like we don’t want to have to change our gear stats all the time for content.

This. Honestly for me its relatively trivial to switch all my guys to orange gear that’s more defensive. But people who have put in the time to get ascended Zerkers are going to be ticked.

From a gameplay perspective changes like this do almost nothing. BEST CASE – you have people that will bring different gear to different dungeons. Okay everyone put your soldiers on for this boss. BFD..

The game will not PLAY any different. The gear you wear is just stat packages. GW2 should concentrate on improving gameplay. I’d start with increasing the range of boon auras so you don’t have to stack in one spot..and then add new dungeons where we wouldn’t be encouraged to stack in one spot..

That way we dont get into silly games where we are looking to nerf what zerker was intended for, high dps output, and allow the high defensive builds to do precisely what they are intended for, surviving where others might not.

While that sounds reasonable – it won’t work. You can make is so you need x amount of passive defense to live – and everyone will switch to that spec/stat. But you haven’t really solved any problem.

Why? Because the game will play the same. Maybe some sets of gear become useless because even the most skilled players can’t use them. But the game will play exactly the same. It’s just now that everyone will use soldiers and such..

Let’s say that instead the buff defensive gear such that it provides more defense. Well that DOES change gameplay – but not in a good way. It makes it such that facerolling dungeons and standing in fire will allow for mindless dungeon running.

Open world content even if FULL Beserker is already mindlessly easy with regards to survival. So now dungeons would be that easy as well. So we can rule out this change as stupid as well.

The solution is not so simple without a trinity in PVE. Think about other MMOs – the only reason they had diversity was because they had different roles. The tank would stack all kinds of defensive stats and the healer would stack stats that help healing – but everyone else – the DPS would stack pure DPS stats.

In GW2 we essentially only have DPS – so everyone stacks offensive stats. This is the necessary outcome. You can raise the ‘white’ damage so to speak so that everyone is forced to stack some defensive stats – but why bother if the game will play identically.

The Zerk Meta must be changed crowd is just not thinking logically about game design. Woe be to arenanet if they take their input seriously. They do not understand gaming mechanics at all..

Trinity + Diversity = people who stand around and ignore mechanics while someone babysits. The everyone heal your own butt idea is one of the best ones that GW2 has.. I hope we don’t really go down this road..

Arenanet is working with a limited budget – deciding how to spread out the content is tricky. I think they have done alright. There is always a group of gamers who will burn through the content in a very short amount of time. You cannot keep up with them..

Neox.3497:

dlonie.6547:

Obtena: A lot of us are done holding out. I was very interested in Wildstar, but not for $60. Now its $20 with a free trial and soon F2P. Been playing it for about a week, and having a blast.

Haha exactly like me just that it wasn’t only the initial price but the very bad performance.

Meh. I played Wildstar from the start. It’s not that good. The combat is actually fairly primitive if you look beyond the graphic splash..

Raids and Dungeons for MMOS are halo content. Few people will every do them – but its important to have them because so many players THINK they will. People need a goal and something to aspire too in MMOs. And you want the hardcore in your game.

So I think GW2 is hurting themselves by not adding any instances. Toyota sells mostly Camrys and Prii but that doesn’t mean they don’t make RC-F sport or the FR-S. Not everyone is going to be elite – but that doesn’t mean the elite is not helpful.

MMOs benefit hugely from the elite class with evangelizes their game. Where to I get my builds from? Well Nike and his elite PVE players and guild.. I always appreciate the good players – they make the game so much more fun.

Zerk is not the problem. It is the solution. The problem is how to you make sure people don’t ‘gear’ their way through encounters. There should be no set of gear that lets you ‘faceroll’ in an MMO. And by making the gear with the least defensive stats most useful – you help prevent this.

Other sets of gear – like sinster – which are all offensive as the best is fine as well. Defensive gear sets work fine in WvW and PvP because you are fighting human opponets. But AI’s aren’t as advanced – if you buff defensive gears you will get slow faceroll style dungeons.

Let’s be real about this. There are ALOT of gamers who aren’t good – and want to be able to GEAR their way through encounters. This is why they dislike the Zerk meta. Hey if xyz gear combination let me face roll this dungeon I could spend days collecting that combination – and then face roll it! Hooray.

Grinders like that – this game is not supposed to appeal to be for grinders. Plenty of other MMOs go with that approach. I applaud GW2 for trying a different one. We want GW2 to be like Bloodborne not baseball simulator 2014.

IMHO, recent additions to the game have done much (compared to the past at least) to increase usefulness of other stats but much more is needed. Changes need to be implemented across the board. Also, active defenses need to be tied to your stat combo. As it is now, active damage mitigation has little-to-nothing to do with your build and it is good enough to decide the outcome of a fight. In its face, build diversity (apart from time differences) means nothing.

Why? You never answer this question.. Let’s imagine that you win and suddenly you need all sorts of gear sets to do various encounters. Maybe you have PVT set to fight some bosses – and you have a Nomad set for Teq.

So sure ‘gear diversity’ is a thing now in PVE. But so what – the game itself won’t be better – might take some more grinding to get a few different gear sets – but it won’t add anything to game play. And in fact without extensive rebalancing its likely to take a whole lot AWAY from gameplay.

You are on some meaningless quest to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. Do you troll Corvette sites and pledge to allow more ‘engine’ diversity in their cars? Why can’t we have a Corvette with a 3 cylinder turbo? LMAO.

On the Corvette forum they would tell you to buy a different car – here I honestly suggest you play a different game. They have done something neat in PvE in this game.

#1. You don’t need DPS – but you might want it. You can choose between how tough your guy is or how fast you can kill.
#2. You can vary your DPS via gear, build, and choice of melee or ranged.
#3. More DPS = more challenge. So glass cannons really go down easy – but the reward is more fun and more loot. More toughness/vitality etc give you more survivability (and the ability to ignore more mechanics) but if you choose this EZ mode you get loot slower.

Where is the problem here? That’s smart design from a company that’s let’s face it – isn’t really into dungeons in the first place.

That’s pretty much perfect right there. The major problem with PVE in this game is just what others have said – we need more of it. We also could likely use wider boon effect areas and bigger fields..so you wouldn’t have to stack so much for optimal play.

There’s plenty wrong with zerk meta… and with active defense measures in general. passive and active defense should scale according to your build. zerk aegis should negate significantly less damage than knights; zerk retaliation should hit harder than nomad; giver’s (weapon)/sinister blind should last longer and block greater number of attacks/mitigate damage than assassin.

This translates into everyone running around ignoring in game mechanics/and or arenanet flat out boosting spike damage by a huge amount so Zerkers becomes useless. Neither scenario improves game play. With option one it becomes "ez’ mode for grinders/soloers (and better players can already solo) with option you just have a new meta that plays exactly like the old one – just slower.

Combat can have so many more dimensions by tying all effects to attributes i.e. blind from sinister converts greater # hits to glancing/missed blows with reduced duration or from giver to stay on mobs longer but less converted blows. Have attribute types specialize in certain boon/condition type i.e. tie vitality to endurance and toughness to aegis and zerk to retaliation & so on.

See above. This does not add any dimensions at all. You either create the boring faceroll dimension or the same thing but slower dimension. It’s just one different dimension.

My thought is to add a breakpoint in stats that changes your skills. For example if you have 1.5k+ healing power your heal skill becomes aoe and if it was already aoe the size gets bigger. Or if you have 2k+ toughness you gain a 10% chance to negate critical hits every 500 vit gives you a 5% chance to end a condition early. I would feel motivated to try different gear if there was a reason. But frankly I feel just as squishy with full soldiers or clerics as zerker, except my DPS is kitten. I think MMO trinity should exist, but each class should be able to choose from suppot, DPS, or healing roles.

Boosting passive mitigation = bad idea. It’s already fairly terrible – they should do the exact opposite. They should revamp weapon skills to allow for more blinds/aegis/evades etc. They should make sure the mobs can’t turn themselves around instantly. They should make sure the mobs are slow attackers.

You want to do everything to enhance playing the right way – and do everything you can to bury WoW style – passive spreadsheet oriented gaming. This is why people like shooters – its about the action – not about the grinding to achieve gear superiority or the 5 minutes you spend ‘planning’ your build.

All boosting the passive stats does is allow players to ignore in game mechanics. The zerker elitists are a force for good encouraging the players to play the way the game was meant to be played. Arenanet WANTS you to learn to dodge the wind walls. They WANT you to learn to hit aegis on your guardian right before Lupicus kicks the rogue. What they DON’T want for you is to face tank and roll kitten.

They make this exceedingly clear. Look at the wicked Rodeo and dodgy achievements from the living story. They want you to learn how to play the right way. How friggin boring would those be if you just face-rolled it.

There is ZERO wrong with the zerker meta. The really problem is the rest of the combat system in combination with encounter design. Fields and Boons and utilities only cover a small area and thus it pays off to stack. You stack together you can leverage fields/boons/reflects for extra damage/utility for the entire party.

Arenanet didn’t quite think that stuff through in PvE. It’s pretty obvious giving people powerful boons, fields and reflects is going to make people want to stack. Zerker stuff in PvE is just the intelligent way to deal with content.

They need to find a way to prevent stacking that does not ruin player synergy in PvE. They have not done this. Hate all you want but stacking might/stealth/timing reflects/using blinds etc takes a lot more teamwork they letting guys gear up and face tank hard stuff down.

Knockback is an interrupt. I use it a lot. If people don’t like it tough on them.

Jana – Zerker meta is about PvE. There is no Zerker meta in WvW or PvP. <g>

Soldiers is tanking – two defensive stats. For a thief Zerker gear is the meta. It’s hard but zerkers tend to be the best players. You have to be.

Lifestealer.4910:

So what i get from this thread is people want healing power and toughness to be viable so they can run their full cleric build and face tank mobs/bosses that could one shot a zerker right?.. why is this good for the game exactly?.. cleric guardian can already facetank fractal 50 mossman like nobodies business, or take 2-3 lupicus swipes to the face and live. This makes me think that all the people that opt for these “diverse” builds are just bad players.
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I think this is basically the gist of this thread. They do it under the guise of ‘build diversity’ …which seems to add nothing to the play experience.

The litmus test for game changes should be – does it making playing the character more fun. Does it reward skill – more in actual game play? If the answer is no – then its likely Arenanet got it right.