Guild Wars 2

Eruption is totally broken anyway: If you start casting it and immediately dodge to interrupt the cast, you can then start casting another ability earlier than without this trick AND eruption somehow still goes off normally. Therefore i suggest removing the cast time itself entirely, leaving “only” the animation time, which is still looong enough…

Sadly, condition damage build itemization is severely lacking, especially in comparison to power builds which have more stat combinations to choose from. Another example would be Condition Damage/Toughness/Vitality. Would love to have that, but unfortunately it is nowhere to be found… =(

Prototype.9852:

The only way to balance is to enable transfers to low population servers, but disable them to high and full servers. I still don’t understand why free transfers are still there.

I guess they’re here because Anet doesnt’ want to make them paid until they have the guesting system implemented to not screw up PVE players trying to meet with friends on other servers on a regular basis. And I think that’s exactly the right thing to do.
However, while the guesting isn’t live and server transfers free they should introduce blocking access for X days to WvW after a player has changed the server. This way, the WvW imbalances should go away while not unnecessarily limiting pure PVE players.

epicsmooth.7825

Doesn’t punish them.
Clearly if you can’t all transfer to one server together you have another issue all together.

I’ll explain to you how non-WvW players would be punished by an even higher free server transfer CD: There are people out there with multiple circles of friends/communities across different servers. And this isn’t really their fault, as different communities have picked different servers etc. Or are you saying every community in the world should pick the same server?

The underlying problem is guesting not being active yet. If it were, nobody would have a problem with a higher transfer cooldown or paying gems for it.

Also, explain to me why this solution would not solve exactly the same issue with WvW as the higher server transfer cooldown?

Please stop asking for a higher free server transfer cooldown which is punishing many PVE-players with friends scattered across the servers. Ask for a temporary WvW restriction after changing a server for X days instead. It’s much more elegant as it is minimally invasive.

You know when a downed state is bad when you can actually kill yourself by pressing a button. (I’m referring to mist form resetting your downed counter until you die after repeated usage) So with this in mind, a simple CD reduction on mist form alone isn’t sufficient, it shouldn’t be counted as an additional downed event. Because otherwise we would be suiciding that much more often with reduced CD.
Like, seriously, activating mist form to avoid a stomp just to DIE right after because of it should NEVER occur. Ridiculous.
PS: And that isn’t even the biggest problem, which is not being able to interrupt the stomp in the first place 99% of the time…

Peter

Thank you SO much for reducing the camera smoothing. It would be even better if it was gone completely but this is a step in the right direction!

Have to second this. Drastically improves gameplay, now the only big battle in the camera department which has to be fought is the one about FoV.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Although the glyph sucks because of the casting time, the effect itself is actually being toned down to other professions’ revive skills.

While it is true that other classes also aren’t able to revive defeated players, compare it to the Necromancer revive skill which essentially does the same as the Glyph of Renewal in earth attunement, but ADDITIONALLY grants a passive bonus and you see that it’s not brought down to the same level but a level below the other profession’s revive skills…

Glyph of Renewal has to have its cast time reduced to about 1 sec if they’re really going with this change, otherwise it’s just useless and doesn’t make any sense.
Look at the skill as it is now when used while in water attunement: It’s almost better to just revive the ally normally so that he can heal himself immediately afterwards.
Also the cooldown is FAR too high considering how weak it is now. Almost 3 minutes just to help a few downed players? Wow….
Less nerfs, more bugfixes! The list of bugs is conveniently laid out for you by the community! Take for example Ride the Lightning, it’s often like casting a condition on yourself.. Ridiculous.

It’s quite funny if you think about it: A feature that is added to a game, which takes the previously simple code for the mouse look function and turns it into a complex calculation based on ineratia/physics actually makes controlling the camera feel worse. So much work wasted. Give us at least a slider for the smoothing intensity, where one end means “no smoothing at all and direct 1:1 translation of mouse movement into camera rotation, like in almost every kitten game in existence”

Don’t know why everyone keeps saying that making the server transfer cost gems is the only solution to this. Until they have the guesting system implemented, they should simply not allow anyone to enter WvW for X days after changing servers (where X may be something like 7 or 14 days). Because then you’re not impacting the non-WvW-player’s experience. I was a bit disappointed anyway after seeing that Anet went for the 24-hour-limit on server changes instead of a 24-hour-WvW lockout, if WvW was the only reason anyway…

forthegz

I could not disagree more. People are not ‘penalized’ for coming in late.. they just should NOT have as powerful of a character in OPEN WORLD (wvw) as someone who HAS played more.

It’s not a penalty/disadvantage for someone to come into a game one month after some hardcore player to have to grind himself up over a long period of time before he can even have a fair match with him?

forthegz

EVERYONE that plays WvW even a little bit.. will GET points.. meaning most players in terms of % of players.. will be around the SAME RANK.. only a very small % of VERY skilled players.. will be a little bit (3-5%) more powerful than other people. So no one is getting penalized.. and no one is going to be WAY MORE POWERFUL than another player simply because they have more time to play.

So almost anybody will be about the same rank anyway? And the effect is minimal anyway? Then just get rid of the whole system because then it doesn’t make a difference in PVP anyway and would only complicate things and waste development time. Also, again you’re just assuming that your system rewards the “skilled players”, which as i pointed out earlier won’t be the case with your proposed indicators for skill (k/d ratio, etc.)

forthegz

Another important point to make.. this is an MMO… if everyone is just going to be completely equal in a months time (full exotics)… what is the point of even having the exotics in the first place? To create the illusion of progression?… An mmo should be about progression, end of story.

Every other MMO has an illusion of progession because the encounters get stronger as the equip level rises, so you’re not really getting stronger in relation to your current raid situation anyway. Also, STOP being so entitled by saying you are the one to define what an MMORPG has to be about. If that’s what you like, fine, go play WoW or 99,9% of current MMORPGs. But NOT GW2! It’s built on the core principle of having a gear plateau, you can’t simply change that. And it’s good to have a game without the gear treadmill as an alternative to all the other MMORPGs out there.

forthegz

If someone puts more time into the game.. or is BETTER THAN YOU.. and they got a higher Realm Rank by out preforming the average player and winning fights against larger groups due to skill… that is absolutely logical and they should be rewarded MORE than someone who does not.

Don’t you see the reward that’s in the game already for these people? You even say it yourself! Winning itself is a reward, holding more points, winning the WvW Matchup, gaining more bonus percentages, gaining more xp/karma/gold etc….

forthegz

When that happens you will lose the real MMO population that has flocked to your game EXPECTING character progression.. NOT TITLES and cosmetics.. thats for kids. You will be left with your GW1 Fanboys.. and people that don’t want to have to ‘grind’ for gear. Very small % of the mmo world.Most people don’t realize it.. but constantly getting better gear or better stats or WHATEVER you are ‘grinding’.. its fun..

This shows GW2 is not the right game for you. First, all players buying GW2 EXPECTING this kind of progession should really have known better, as it was advertised so long and intensively that GW2 has a no-grind philosophy and will not contain the things you want. Then you’re just assuming that only few people don’t want to grind for gear without backing that up whatsoever. If that would be the case, why are so many people playing the game? It would be a big fail if everyone wanted gear grind. Getting better gear IS fun, but it has many negative consequences and while you find it fun, others dont really miss it here in GW2. You’re playing the wrong game and trying to force your view of what an MMORPG has to be onto GW2 although it clashes with its CORE principles/design philosophies.

Seige

Also there already is competition between allies. Look at the server plugs.. Also how does it encourage non-objective based gameplay?

How is there already competition between allies? Explain more in detail please. It encourages non-objective based gameplay by rewarding doing things that aren’t necessarily tied to objectives, like for example two zergs fighting in a desert.

Seige

Those with more time to play than others will always have an advantage over players with less. Experience, money, gear, and badges. What ever happened to rewarding players who invested there time into something?

Aren’t you refuting yourself here? First you state there are plenty rewards for people playing often. Then you complain about the lack of rewards for those players. Nothing more to say here.

Seige

Why give them an advantage? B/c they earned it[…]What is with this socialist thinking that everyone should have an even playing ground? Whatever happened to you are what you make of yourself? Your saying that we should cater to those that do not play as well or invest as much time into a game than those that do otherwise?

Socialist thinking? Seriously? Hey, let’s play a game of chess, but because I played so many chess games in my life, I can have two queens… This is not how a good game works. I’m still bad at chess. But with a system like OP suggested I would be winning against much better players… Not really fair. Also, not using this system doesn’t mean the game caters to casuals/newbies. It simply treats players equally.

Seige

I agree if they do have rewards that those rewards need to be achievable by most. I.E. Daoc. Very easy to get high enough RR (realm rank) to be on an even playing ground.

OP states it should take a VERY LONG time. So you’re disagreeing with him there? If it’s easily obtainable anyway, why put the system in there in the first place? Just unnecessarily complicates things.

forthegz.5814:

This ranking system would be VERY LONG with ‘no end in sight’. […] This system would not reward players that simply ‘put more time’ into the game. It would reward players that perform better consistently, win more fights, kill more players per death ect. This system would reward you based on your individual skill and nothing else.

How do you determine the individual skill of a player adequately? Certainly not by simply counting kill/death ratio or win-rate of “battles” (where you have the problem of defining when a “battle” begins and ends). There are SO many other factors that would have to be included, too. For example if only your stats are used then what about supports not doing much damage/killing many people but helping their allies stay alive? Etc.

Besides i don’t see how your proposed system would NOT grant an advantage to players just because they’re playing often. This is a grind-for-stats approach that doesnt really fit GW2, given the fact that you already have to invest a bit of time into exotic gear to really be competitive anyway.

forthegz.5814:

Points are ONLY given for killing players, (siege weapons do not count).

That’s exactly the problem. What do you think will many people do if this system went live? Mindlessly wandering around looking to duel other people/groups to boost their rank instead of focusing on the objectives. Nobody will use siege weapons anymore, because this doesn’t increase their rank while at the same time their allies would get all the credit for it when the shot takes out the enemies before them.

forthegz.5814:

What % of damage you did to the player.

Another factor that goes against GW2 philosophy. Obviously people would go full damage to try to get the most points of the kills. This hurts teamplay a lot and therefore group-oriented WvW combat. It actually introduces a (damage-)competition between allies, which is exactly what GW2 wants to avoid.

forthegz.5814:

This system in my opinion allows average sized, but highly skilled groups to shine.

Such groups are rewarded in structured PVP and should play there, where skill actually matters. You’re trying way too hard to introduce some kind of skill measurement in a “just-for-fun” style of PVP. And after all, such groups do shine in WvW also, because they’re rewarded for taking/holding supply camps as a minority for example. Rewards are objective based in WvW and should stay this way. Your system would encourage mindlessly slaughtering each other in the middle of nowhere, which doesn’t contribute one bit to WvW gameplay. It would also increase the problem of zergs.

TL;DR
No, because Kill/Death Ratio, Damage to Player etc. as statistics for skill introduce competition between allies and discourage teamplay/supporting others while encouraging non-objective-based gameplay/zerging
No, because it gives people with more in-game-time an advantage over others, which is what GW2 has fortunately (!) removed (sPVP) or minimized (scaled up in WvW, exotics not that time-consuming to craft)
No, because even if you could accurately measure the player skill, why would you give a player an advantage in combat who already plays well and defeats almost every other player? To make it even more frustratingly difficult for bad players to get better and defeat players who are better than themselves?

I agree with the OP, with one little exception: The reason we almost never use the mist form ability is not primarily because our 1&2 are so weak, but it has such a ridiculously long cooldown (about 8 to 10 seconds?), so against normal players you will NEVER be able to even use it before it comes off cooldown. Solution: Lower the cooldown significantly to allow interrupting a stomp.

While I (as an Elementalist player myself) totally agree that this is too much, I’m interested in how the orbs of power were distributed at that time. Because you have to take the stat boost from these into account that the thief likely had, so this situation would most likely never occur in sPVP, which is the only area in the game which Anet really tries to balance anyway.

Hey!

I play a Level 80 Elementalist and run a double dagger condition damage build, or at least try to.
So in order to maximize my condition damage while being sturdy enough to be in melee, I put 20 points into fire for the condition duration, 30 into earth for condition damage and toughness and 10 into Water and Arcane for the added survivability and utility.
So far, so good. But now it makes me question the design of many earth traits. As a condition damage oriented trait line, there are 3 major traits with the “+x% damage” effect, which supposedly has no effect on condition damage at all? Is this a bug, because it isn’t clearly stated in the description? In contrast to this, there is only one major trait which actually increases your damage (longer bleeds).
The biggest offender in this department surely is the trait “Enduring Damage”, which for a 25 point minor trait buffs non-condition damage by 10% while endurance is full. Who puts 25 points to “improve” our bleed-heavy earth skills with a non-condition damage boost? I don’t get it.
The fire trait line also doesn’t really support my build with the major traits as it doesn’t give any condition damage boost aside from a low chance proc which in my opinion isn’t worth stacking precision for (well and 3 secs extra burning for skills that ALREADY ADD burning anyway…)

Second problem is the lack of many stat combinations on gear which include condition damage. With my trait setup and double dagger, I’m looking for maximum condition damage plus survivability for melee combat. I do NOT want precision for reasons i explained earlier nor extra crit damage. The only combination that comes close is condition damage/vitality/power, but where is for example condition damage/vitality/toughness? Never seen that in the game. (Btw: Power/Vitality/Toughness is just all over the place, so the people focusing on direct damage get this combination)

So am I just too focused on condition damage and have to accept that I need a power/condition damage hybrid build to make use of the traits at all? Or is anyone else having the same problems?