Guild Wars 2

perry.9645:

Rednik.3809:

perry.9645:

The same thing applies to fractals just that they also somehow decided to completely nerf any sort of threat the enemies were, Mossman on lvl 50 used to oneshot elementalists easily now he barely hits them below scholar.

Mossman on lvl 50 used to be dead in 10 seconds with double icebow and a competent thief. For some reason you forgot this.

yes but this required coordination and one kittenup could easily get you killed also 10s suure when even the record runs had 20s kills

In the most reductionist sense…

Old moss: Line up skills correctly and get fast kill or die.

New moss: Go afk for 10 minutes and come back to clear your inventory from autoloot.

Old moss was executionally demanded in setup, though for optimal kills on new moss there’s more of an incentive to play well longer. Longer play motivates shifts toward playing the same way longer but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’ll maintain that with the shift toward longer fights in raids new moss does provide something of value as a target dummy setup to practice rotations daily, but the elegance and beauty of burst kills is certainly lost.

There’s something to be said for sustained rotation excellence though, and it yields rewards through efficiency in a similar way that burst kills did, if it does so less dramatically.

I’ll also say after going back and doing dungeons a bit recently that they can still be quite a bit of fun. And remember, no one is making you take a PS warrior – and it probably won’t affect clear speed that significantly one way or another. Especially if you have a skilled team to run with, as I expect Perry does.

TL;DR: I value many of the lessons raid teach. I believe raids can teach anything a dungeon can.

Editted for clarity.

Nightstormer.8526:

TL;DR: Re: Nike – Dungeon nerfs are bad but raid emphasis can ultimately produce more, better players.

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Emphasis on only one type of content generates a player skill gap: those who are carried by others in dungeons or spam 111 in open world >>>>>>>>>>>>>> people who raid.

With dungeons going down the drain, the skill gap will only wider. Dungeons were perfect training ground.
[/quote]

Before I begin, let me just say that I would say that I feel it’s just as easy, in many cases, to 111 through dungeons as it is in open world, but that’s functionally impossible in raids. But that’s more an opinion and played experience than a necessary result of game design decisions. And I would love to see dungeons back as a supported game type.

Dungeons were a training ground, and a good one. But they trained a very specific type of skills. The more I reflect on Nike’s points and my own, I think we both agree that raids have been better at teaching certain abilities. The skills raids teach happen to the ones I value more highly.
For example, coming from a more traditional mmo raiding background, something I found lacking in players I meet in dungeons, fractals, and still to some degree in raids that frustrates me the most is the inability of many players to copy a build out of Google and mimic a dps rotation from a youtube guide. That’s something I’d like people I play with to be able to do. I think enrage timers help with that. I don’t think anything in dungeons really encouraged that or suggested that mindset. Now, there’s more to life than watching Nike’s warrior and guide doing it, but that’s probably a good place to start and I don’t think very many players got that far. And I think learning to dodge without also doing a rotation on top of it is a pretty useless ability. I hear a lot that when you’re dead your dps is zero. This is true, but many players do zero dps or close to it while alive as well.

Nike notes that people may not be learning to dodge as well since there aren’t oneshots. There may be some truth to that (not a dungeon expert). However, I don’t feel that dodging could be punished significantly harder in raids. I think the types of players that struggle with dodging mechanics like Gor’s knockback also aren’t capable of making the enrage timer if they do get knocked back. They die either way, but in the raid case there may be some more learning before the death.
As for having an in-depth understanding of classes, dungeons certainly did more for that. But remember, right now each wing is looking like about 20 minutes of content to speed clear. That’s significantly less content than even the limited number of dungeons in this game. I suspect as we start seeing more and more encounters we’ll have to learn more about classes. Already Wing 2 added considerations of projectile block/reflect and, to certain degree, add management and condi clear.

Though raids may not incentivize class knowledge as well, they have provided a mechanism by which some very compelling play-styles were introduced. The highly involved rotation of condition engineer, buff management of boon share chrono, and reactive nature of condi druid healer are playstyles that I feel require a good understanding of class mechanics. While in less skilled groups I usually shy away from engis and urge druids to stay on staff, I think a lot more people are trying much more interesting builds and learning a lot about class mechanics as a result.

I didn’t really enjoy dungeons in this game that much but I have really enjoyed raids, so maybe I’m not the best person to be talking about the varying strengths of each content type, but I think there’s a lot going on in raids that they may not be getting credit for yet and want to remind everyone that we do expect some more content to come in this same vein.

TL;DR: Re: Nike – Dungeon nerfs are bad but raid emphasis can ultimately produce more, better players.

Far be it from me to debate the titans of the game of the nature of player skill post-dungeon, but I think that rather than see a regression in overall player skill we’re seeing more of a dynamic shift, I believe the regressions in specific areas to be largely temporary. I miss dungeons and want them back (perhaps not as much as Nike or Perry) but I really believe the shift in emphasis to raids has been an unnecessary (the dungeon nerf is perhaps the worst high level game design decision of which I am aware) but nevertheless somewhat positive change.

I really only started playing the game seriously when raids came up, but it was certainly obvious to me that experienced dungeons runners had a significantly higher level of play than general player population, but I found that experienced pvpers and imports from other games were able to close the gap fairly quickly and become equivalently effective raiders. This isn’t so much a bad thing as a change in what it means to have pve content in Guild Wars.

I really think the introduction of enrage timers to the last remaining pve endgame content has been an immensely positive change. While many players were able to push themselves in dungeons by speedrunning, the de facto failure mechanism in fractals and dungeons was a lack of defense rather than a lack of offense, even if higher damage compositions could trivialize some encounters. Enrage timers, while far from tight, still enforce a new notion of player skill in terms of sustained excellence in damage rotation and awareness. While these players are perhaps a poor fit for traditional dungeon speed runs given the significantly higher diversity of challenge in these old content, I find it hard to believe from my played experience that the general player base has not significantly increased in ability to sustain a high level of gameplay in a certain type of circumstance.

As someone with a background in other games that heavily privilege raids, to me this is a positive change. Dungeons, as we all well know, could often be soloed unless containing mechanics specifically hardened to soloers which meant in many situations a 5 player dungeon party really only needed a single competent member. Not so in raids. While many guilds have been able to secure kills with fewer players, I have yet to see an emergence of raid boss duos which, to me, would be the equivalent from a high level difficulty perspective.

I deeply regret not having a chance to hone my class knowledge on existing content in dungeons by virtue of the content type no longer being supported, though of course I could make a greater personal effort to join in on dungeon tours.

But to me, raids seem to be rapidly shifting toward a similarly demanding environment but are doing so with added notion enrage timers and, in the long term, I can’t help but believe this is overall a positive change.