Guild Wars 2

I had a conversation with a Mesmer fellow today, about the very same topic.

I suggest to rework GS one like this:
While having a target selected and using your auto attack, a none targetable, just visual effect phantasmal version of yourself spawns at the target, wich attacks when you do.
The attack however will be the same as any GS auto attack chain, just ranged, so yes, CLEAVE!

It sounds so weird I used my AWESOME PAINT SKILLS to visualize what I just said! BEHOLD!!! xD

Fay.2357:

I know chorazin is being sarcastic

Please, just because you have an agenda against condi PU mesmers rightfully getting the buffs they need to be competitive like chaos explosion. Probably dont even have a mesmer, just come here and complain when you get beaten by a condi PU mesmer.

Probably should do some research and learn to play better against condi PU rather than come here and complain.

Dodge the shatters, make sure you double dodge as the shatter is usually staggered, id also recommend dodging the confusion stacks, confusion stacks are generally bad. Oh and dodge the torment from the counter, torment is generally not a wanted condition. Dodge the staff AoE as well as it has a daze attached to it that can trigger perplexity confusion, see above for confusion not being wanted.

Once you master these basic skills your woes against PU mesmers will be a thing of the past.

My guess is that they have tested it and feel that it would be too strong. I can’t see another good reason, considering the iMage gets an extra bounce. Why they can’t/won’t just admit that is another issue, though. I know we would all rather not have the uncertainty.

This is very concerning to me.

In my opinion this is an attempt to gain power and control over these forums, not for the purpose of creating a positive and productive atmosphere, but for the purpose of controlling the content.

The sentence I just wrote, under the new policy could be interpreted as a personal insult under the new rules. Let me explain.

The Dev in this thread posted the following:

Insulting & non-constructive:
“Anet isn’t competent enough with this game”
“Anet lied to us”
“Fire whoever designed this dungeon/weapon/armor”
“whoever designes this dungeon/weapon/armor clearly has no clue”
You can discuss things we’ve said (manifesto, dev posts, blog posts, interviews) and disagree with them or even criticize. We’re okay with that. When it crosses over to insults is where we draw the line.

Its not hard to see what is going on here. ANet has essentially created an environment where any comment that they deem reflects badly on the company (not an individual), will be stricken from the record. They’ve created an environment where users must now very carefully, and very meticulously dance on eggshells to avoid what may or may not be considered a personal insult.

This kind of “force field” moderation will surely work in their favour, but will by no means improve the communication, nor productivity of these forums.

Wow…even writing this post is becoming increasingly difficult as I attempt to find a way to be clear in my criticism, but not “insulting” to an individual, which in ANet’s eyes is also all of ANet.

Perhaps I’ll approach this a different way. Here is what I believe will be the eventual outcome of this new approach to communication.

1. Some players, fully meaning to be fair and constructive will find themselves on the wrong side of interpretation, thus leading to a suspension.

2. As ANet systematically deletes posts and users that they deem “insulting”, players will start to become increasingly agitated and afraid to post.

3. The forums, while visually “positive” to any outside viewer (AKA Google, Game review sites, potential customers), the quality of communication will drop.

4. Eventually ANet will be stuck with a community of players where the majority are free from criticism, and the rest are very, very careful with what they post.

5. Players that have been suspended, are likely to personally feel insulted based on how they interpret the situation, and are less likely in the long run to contribute to the game, or the community.

6. Like other websites/companies that have tried this, what will eventually happen is that players will move to a more open forum where they can vent, communicate, and discuss freely.

I have seen this before on many software, and gaming forums. Whenever a company attempts to put themselves in a position where they can’t be touched, and additionally have the power to suspend, or ban anyone who they feel doesn’t paint them in a positive light, it almost always leads to disaster.

Anyway, based on the moderation practices I’ve personally experienced, I fully expect that my days are numbered here. Once I feel that I can no longer openly and honestly provide my feedback into this game, I will be moving on.

Communication is a two way street, and respect is earned. When an individual or company attempts to control either of those through the use of power, or control, then communication will inevitably break down.

One of the reasons I feel people on the forums have become increasingly more insulting towards Anet has been the fact that over the past year not only has the game shifted direction multiple times from what players thought it was going to be but that most players ( myself included ) feel that we weren’t even kept in the loop. We had a vague idea at best as to where the game was going.

On top of that there were numerous threads in which players expressed concern about various aspects of the game or asked if certain features would or would not be implemented. If certain things were intended or not – if certain things were going to happen or not.
The majority of these threads as far as I saw were outright ignored – and the few answers that were given were too vague and too PR-heavy that you couldn’t really take anything out of them.
If a player asks something and the answer is " nothing is off the table " you’ve basically not answered anything.
The player was asking because he doesn’t know what will happen. he would like to know but as far as the information available to him goes it could happen or not. Answering with that sort of answer doesn’t really do anything.

Communication is a very important aspect – but it has to work both ways.
Numerous times feedback and suggestions were posted regarding a variety of issues and the answers came back in the tone of " we’re looking into it " – which is great – and I’m not doubting that they are but maybe add some more. Maybe let players know a little about your concerns and maybe let them be a part of the solution instead of shutting them down with a " we’re looking into it " and nothing more.

These things – coupled with various gameplay and gemstore related items have eroded the community’s faith in Anet, they have stretched the player base’s patience thin and right now the bubble is beginning to burst. Players are becoming frustrated and they’re taking it out on Anet – which is wrong and I’m not defending that – but merely offering an explanation as to why all this happened.

So – CC Danicia – if you want this community to be better – we can achieve it together but first the things above have to be taken into account and understood. Only then can we get to the cause of the issue.

As I said, I ran these runes yesterday and they might do many things but none of them is promoting skilled play.
If you need them, the l2p issue might be yours.

One thing I would change, that I just discovered the true reason for.
Winds of chaos revealing you from stealth, if you’ve got a bolt flying out there, somewhere.
I kinda feel you shouldn’t be revealed by anything, from the moment you press decoy/MI/Torch#4, other than actively attacking from stealth. But as is, if you’ve got a bolt flying towards an enemy, you will be revealed from stealth

Actually I think ANET for the most part does listen when it comes to PvE. The problem is that the PvP team is stubborn and won’t increase game modes (hello team deathmatch) and the WvW team is completely out of touch. The WvW team in particular is a problem.

Ok so we all know this is a pretty unbalanced matchup due to the coverage and numbers we have. It’s a fact. But let’s make the best out of this and get some good fights. I wish we can all have some fun.

Evilek.5690:

Of course we see zombie zerg with no brain

Jacklo.4230:

Love the videos that are posted… as if only Thief can do 1 vs X
…
Just some random videos of other people playing different classes to good effect.

You know, maybe it really is JUST YOU.

Literally Roguecraft all over again.

Compare and contrast the amount of WvW trolling videos made by Thieves that demonstrate consistent 1vX trolls versus the amount made by other classes. D/D Bunker Eles come closest to the amount of Thief 1vX trolls (lulz, and that’s what’s posted as counter evidence), and guess what the community thought about that. NERF NERF NERF

In fact, find a single video of even the most bunker Warrior, Necro or Guardian going deep into an enemy zerg, for minutes at a time, harassing and downing the commander from within 15+ of even the worst of players. I’m going to go ahead and guess that when other classes try this, they die.

The reason they don’t perform like the Thief, is because the Thief’s mechanics for survival are vastly superior – which allows them to take what would otherwise be guaranteed suicides without any risk at all. The fact that this capacity is available almost exclusively to the Thief is the very definition of being OP, intended by devs or not. I’m sorry, but that’s what it is.

I love my Thief. He’s my highest rank in WvW and the first class I played in my first BWE. But I call it like I see it. Constant invisibility will be endlessly broken or balanced by being almost completely useless in almost any multiplayer game. It’s a dance done by countless video games before this one, and will probably continue because game designers just don’t learn from other’s mistakes. SWTOR’s version of the rogue class was butchered shortly after launch because, like most Rogue/Assassin/Predator archetypes, it was intentionally designed as a troll class. Give me all of the choices – remove them from my opponent. It is the antithesis of a direct confrontation determined by skill and decision making capacity of the participants involved. The same thing happens with non-mmos. Natural Selection 2 nerfed the invisibility upgrade for the Alien team completely for the same reasons. Same old story. Crysis’ stealth is changed up game to game in multiplayer, as did Halo’s, teetering between broken and useless every other game.

Worst still, it’s just as annoying to new players as getting CC’ed for hours on end, because one of the worst game developer mistakes is to make a player consistently feel helpless or powerless – which is what facing an invisible opponent, who controls the flow of the battle, the location of the battle, and the odds of the battle, does.

As much fun as it is for me and my Guild’s Thieves to run around in perma-stealth builds trolling people who don’t see us coming and can’t even escape or kill us in turn – it’s kinda broken.

I sure liked being a Thief when Thieves could contest supply camp cap zones while invisible around 40+ organized guild players – but it had to change because it was really stupid. And that was with one guy just running around in a single area that everyone can see while stealthed.

Ultimately, I really enjoy the class so if nothing’s ever done I don’t lose – but one day I’d like to think my Thief’s performance in PvP is because I’m good or am slowly getting better, not because my invisibility is EZ MODE ACTIVATED. I don’t even consider myself a good Thief, and shudder to think of the type of performances skilled ones can do in WvW.

Low risk – high reward is not good because it removes any decision making process. Anything that has no risk but has the potential of yielding the same rewards as something else that does have risk is obviously the better and more intelligent choice. Why would I ever roam on my <insert class choice here> if I’m slow, can be outzerged and can’t escape from losing battles when I can do so on my <insert class here> and never have to pay repair costs? For the challenge? Because I hate my gold? For the lulz?

Thieves are not all powerful in WvWvW, but there is no denying the latest patch made them overly popular. And there has always been lots of thieves in WvWvW. When the culling was broken, I often called it Thief Wars 2, because sometimes I could e.g. see 5 people on our side, each and every one being thieves. How is that for a game balance?

Of course you can beat thieves in combat, but most people agree: fighting against them is no fun. But can you kill a really good thief? Fighting them is extremely annoying as they remain visible very short amount of time and dodge while visible or keep teleporting short range. Many duo thief teams can achieve almost permanent invisibility, which in my honest opinion should be fixed.

Thieves still enjoy the advantage of being the best roaming profession and best professions to prey upon the flanks of a fleeing enemy group. They can snipe dolyaks, venture deep behind enemy lines, snipe the tail of an fleeing zerg and initiate combat against solo roamers without much any risk at all. In worst scenario they can always enter stealth, shadowstep and then heartseeker spam/infiltrator’s arrow teleport away. This allows thieves to run glass cannon builds, which would not be that viable with other professions. Low risk, high reward <— a clear sign some balancing should be done.

Few things should be changed:
- Revert the revealed back to 4 seconds in WvWvW. 3 seconds is too short considering the size of the map and chaotic nature of the combat. Besides thieves in WvWvW have much easier time entering stealth than in pvp setting. They rarely ever get knocked out of shadow refuge and they can use whatever forest animal etc. to grant stealth with cloak & dagger (it is much easier to land C&D on an animal or NPC than a human player who tries to avoid that).
- Currently sword #2 (infiltrator’s strike/shadow return) allows unlimited range teleport. This basically can give the thief a superbly powerful way to get out of combat or do the supply runs faster than any other profession. This should be reduced to max 1200 range.
- Reduce the amount of stealth you can get from combo fields. Thieves have the best blast finishers in the game: clusterbomb. Black powder + clustercomb = area stealth. Combine that with right mix of traits e.g. patience —> perma stealth. Fix: reduce the amount of how many seconds of stealth you can get from smoke field into half.
- Larcenous strike is a bit too good at the moment. Either increase its initiative cost or make is steal only 1 boon.
- Stealth stomp should not work. This should of course affect all professions e.g. mesmers and engineers also denied of doing stealth stomps.

Note that I am NOT suggesting these game balancing changes to other forms of the game, only WvWvW.

While talking about Confusion as a counterpart to Poison in another thread, I had the thought that the comparison does indeed make sense, but that it’d be an interesting basis for a Confusion-implementation.

Poison punished healing without thinking. You lose a percentage of each heal, so you’re better off first cleansing Poison, then healing. But you also have to factor in pressure, so in some situations you may need to heal first (biting the bullet), then heal so you’re free to heal more afterwards.

Confusion isn’t all that different. It punished spamming skills without thinking. You take damage every time you press the button, so you’re better off making the cleanse your first one. Although sometimes pressure is too high and you need to first heal / port / defend, then cleanse.

But if that’s the goal, then I suggest making Confusion a duration-stacking condition:

• Power of the sole Confusion-stack should be ~3 current stacks, maybe more. Potentially going to be quite different in each game mode.
• Duration stacks, base duration should probably be 4 seconds. This would help a lot with PvE Confusion since now you can apply 20s Confusion with the Sceptre, or 12-16s with CoF. (edit: Or maybe 3s. I don’t know exactly. Tricky to judge.)
• Caps at ~60s total duration.

This’d facilitate Confusion as a “Think before you push”-condition because if unchecked it’ll stay on you a substantial amount of time, constantly ticking health off. Damage would need to be carefully balanced to be threatening but not inherently lethal (since that’s not the point, as with Poison), and can then be buffed for PvE to make it a PvE-useful damage source.

Anyhow, that’s my random thought for the day.