Guild Wars 2

stof.9341:

Laila.1078:

to conclude, do yourself a favor and play some lol. it’s much more similar to gw1 than gw2 will ever be. it gives u a better pvp experience and u feel good about yourself when winning a match. who the hell wants to watch a counter get to 500 on cap points?

Or DotA 2 :p

I’d admit that since I started playing those games, the interest for GW2 PvP dropped a LOT. It just is more enjoyable somehow and I’m not sure why. Maybe mainly because the pacing of DotA 2 is a lot slower yet the team fights are a lot more frantic, brutal even. Or because while it’s hard to get into the game and know what you have to do, it’s still easy to understand what is going on.

Mostly, I’d say what I like the most is that people just DIE in DotA 2. When there’s some 1v1 going on for whatever reason, I see his HP go down, I see my HP go down, we trade skills and I die. And I see how close I was to win, I see maybe what I oculd have done to prevent that.

In GW2 we are dancing around each other, I use my skills, stuff gets blocked, evaded, misses, hits, misses, invul, heals 50% HP bar and we dance and dance. My condition bar fills up and threatens to wrap around to a second line, my target boon bar is in the same situation. There’s no time to even look at those icons cause there are too many of them, they blink in and out of existence so fast.

And so much more like this.

At first I was disappointed at what GW had become, certainly in terms of PvP, I couldn’t care less about PvE. Then, though, I began to look at the big picture. What has happened here is a great example of what not to do as a developer. Basically, over promise and under deliver, particularly, in the face of a prequel which should have aptly prepared them to exceed expectations and deliver a fresh, unique perspective to the genre, rather than one that was different just for the sake of being different and easy.

Examples:

• You removed the energy system for all classes but the thief. Great. What did you replace it with to maintain depth? Additionally, why did you decide to have an energy system for the thief and no other class? If it worked there, why not on other classes?

• You removed cast bars to encourage players to watch animations more carefully. Great. Why though, are many animations the same and worse still, why is there so much screen clutter 9 months down the line if this was a clear goal of yours?

• You trivialised interrupts. Great. What did you replace it with to maintain the depth of combat?

Removing the trinity was their first mistake in my opinion. While GW1 was similar to other MMOs in that it had a trinity system, it was different in that you could not have immortal tanks. In fact, it had a meta that was very much unique to its own style of gameplay, that is, the spike meta, which I believe did wonders for making gameplay reactive. They supposedly wanted to make each player perform multiple roles (which isn’t actually inherently better) and let support pick up the slack, but all we have now are fights where it is everyone for themselves, even in ‘high-level’ play. The best examples of teamplay we have are, as I’ve said many times, mesmer portals, mesmer timewarp, mesmer moa spike, mesmer illusion of life and resurrection from downed state. The state of ‘support’ is basically spam shouts and throw down the occassional water field, which quite obviously does not have a high skill cap. This naturally leads us to bunkers and a DPS race.

I love analysing games like this. I could write for hours on this stuff, It interests me quite a bit so I’ll continue to hang around here even If I stop playing (which may be soon, not threatening anything as I am just one person).

It’ll just be interesting to see where they go from here.

Vena.8436:

Paradoxine.8192:

If it isn’t the failure of the living story, it’s the failure of the underlying game mechanics in spite of the engine they have.

I don’t think either of those failed.

But you also seem to have a massive vendetta against the devs/this game… so, ok?

I don’t have a vendetta against this game or the developers. I did have high expectations and I do voice my opinions even if they aren’t positive. Take from that what you will.

I advise the OP to give up. ANET have clearly lost their minds. If it isn’t the failure of the living story, it’s the failure of the underlying game mechanics in spite of the engine they have. There are two likely explanations. One is that the people who made GW1 great have all left. The other is that GW1 was a complete fluke and they never knew what they were doing or how they did it.

Juan Ignacio.8903:

in an old sotg trust me they did say it lol

If that is exactly what they said and you aren’t paraphrasing then that is a slap in the face to anyone who enjoyed GvG in GW1. An insult to be frank. I doubt they’d go as far as to insult their old players, so that’s why I want a source.

Juan Ignacio.8903:

devs said if u want gvg go back to gw1.

Source?

Kugron.5128:

How elitist of you. “You didn’t play back when I used to play so your opinion is invalid.”

I don’t care about coming off as ‘elitist’, nor do I pretend to speak for every GW1 player. Maybe other people will listen to you, like the guy above. Just not me.

Kugron.5128:

Nope, sure didn’t. It was also boring as kitten to watch.

As expected. I propose, then, that your opinion is of less merit than those who have played both games extensively.

I don’t find the need to take seriously the opinions of those who never supported ANET properly back in the GW1 days, sorry.

Kugron.5128:

I didn’t like Gw1.

I very much enjoy Gw2.

Come at me.

I’m willing to bet you never played PvP at a high level in GW1.

Psybunny.8906:

Ever get the feeling that some players try so hard to hold on to the past for the sake of nostalgia that they can’t objectively appreciate new games?

If I was to draw up a feature list that was in GW1 but is missing from GW2 then it would become quite apparent that this ‘nostalgia’ nonsense people keep parroting is simply false. You people seem to propose that it is impossible that a sequel be worse than its predecessor, which is a ridiculous proposition.

Daecollo.9578:

Paradoxine.8192:

Daecollo.9578:

milo.6942:

well since you have no idea, let me help you out:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_versus_Guild

Sorry but this is not GW1.

It says it has NPCs, so it should be with PvE gear.

Ladies and gentleman, for your consideration:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forest_of_Niflhel
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Foefire

Might as well scrap those maps then.

Those NPCs don’t even fight.

You don’t know what you’re talking about do you?

Daecollo.9578:

milo.6942:

well since you have no idea, let me help you out:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_versus_Guild

Sorry but this is not GW1.

It says it has NPCs, so it should be with PvE gear.

Ladies and gentleman, for your consideration:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forest_of_Niflhel
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Foefire

Might as well scrap those maps then.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

milo.6942:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

TheGuy.3568:

Title means exactly what it means. I don;t think balancing classes/builds/etc is going to change that core issue. I still think balancing should be done of course but I think it just isn’t fun enough to attract the pop WvW has right now.

That’s your opinion, would you like to keep it to yourself? There are plenty of people that think this is fun.

Fun, or things that are fun are completely opinionated, and subjective. I am glad you wanted to share with the class, but please sit down.

what a joker this guy is
no one can share opinions! keep it to yourself!
hahahah

That is the joke. He is saying the game is not fun. Why even make a thread about it when fun is completely opinion based? Makes no sense. You might want to read the OP again.

So that a discussion may begin with varying points of view and opinion? This is basic stuff.

gesho.9468:

Flowerpower.6795:

Is it just me or is there actually no real teamplay?
i mean.. there are rarely 5v5 fights. Most times it’s 1v1 2v2 3v3 and the only thing that you have to coordinate is your selected target and bursts, rez and finish.
Guild Wars 1 pvp was so different. Even in randomgroups you tried to help each other survive or powerblock, diversion the monk to give your teammates a chance to burst.. in gw2 theres nothing like this 0o
Actually the most important thing is to do damage.. things like chill are a bad joke…
The mesmer: Mass invisbility and Illusions with random interrupts does not need any skill in my opinion. A well played domination mesmer in gw1 was such fun and usefull in teamfights..
kitten i think when it comes to pvp gw1 is still sooooo much better than gw2..
How do you think could arenanet change this? They wanted an esport game. I don’t think gw2 will ever be one unless they change some points drastically
It’s more fun to watch old wc3 replays than watching teamfights in gw2.

imo complain about lack of teamplay is an indication that one got stuck at recognizing hybrid nature of gw2 professions for individual gameplay, but fall short of skills for taking advantage of it for teamplay.

each time teammate went down and you didnt teamplay (peel, heal) you missed on game. hybrid does mean that you can be everything, but not at all that you have to be alone. a more complex game with hybrid is that you play multiple roles by situation, you dps when enemy’s low, you heal when alli’s low, and you make a hard choice when both, things like this. unlike holy trinity, where you are stuck in a single mode, you have to switch and adjust. this is sure harder, but its opposite of boring.

as of more cc, that was my immediate impression too, but thats wrong. what else would you have, wow rugue style chain cc? when whole combat degrades to rng of who split second hits cc first? every other wow post is about cc killing skill and game. gw2 has many more smaller cc’s and it takes more work, you have to cast them many times, in smart combinations, possibly swapping with allis, but hey, thats what skilled combat is, as opposed of chain-cc-got-no-chance one shot combat.

Why are you bringing up WoW? No one is talking about that game. Why do you feel the need to attack a position that we never represented? Did you even play GW1?

gesho.9468:

watch out those who ask for castbars. this is a step towards turning game into interface monitoring and ultimately into spreadsheets.

awareness of enemy actions from monitoring immersive combats rather then interface is an ambitious challenge, but being hard is not a reason to give up on it. i agree thakittens difficult now, but id rather work towards more readable animation. and btw, id rather not have 100%. awareness, not everything is known in real world either. mix of awareness and UNcertainty imo makes the best mixture of combat, which is both skillful, but also dynamic and unpredictable.

Dude have you even played GW1? GW1 had them and guess what, it was not a spreadsheet game and you would do very badly if you were under the illusion it was. I have no idea what games you’ve played in the past but stop using this silly slippery slope argument.

It is all well and good saying improve animations etc but it is also all well and good saying “balance the classes”. Including cast bars is actually the easiest thing for the developers to do at this point, rather than redoing so many animations. Doing nothing is the most easy of all, of course.

Punkins.2087:

Personally, I see the older, slower paced style of most pvp games as boring now. Really, all it was was remembering and executing scripts.. nothing perceptive or reactive about it.

Seeing what is happening and reacting to it in a twitchy fashion is much more engaging, IMO.

I take it you never played backline infuse in GW1? As someone who did, it was very much a twitchy role, though so was mesmer and to a lesser extent, ranger. Thinking about old pvp games is simply incorrect because GW1 is not your typical pvp game. It sounds pretentious but it’s the truth.

We now have the developers taking cues from LoL and the like when they should have consolidated their own style of combat. The reason why GW1 did not reach esport status was because first, the scene was different akittens peak and second, it didn’t have the casual base large enough to accommodate it.

Flowerpower.6795:

2. GvG come on.. this game is named guild wars .. and not dragonparty 2

dragonparty2 sounds like it might be a good game.

LonelyReaper.8075:

lol, skill have to have more weightage and less spammy.

Except it won’t happen at this point because it would require them to change virtually every skill in the game(viable or non viable currently), rip up the trait system and start again basically (you can’t just balance skills when their effect is so dependant on traits). You can’t just say “so change it for sPvP only” because PvE and PvP need to be mostly the same and there is no way they’re going to change everything for such a small community (their own fault really) and risk losing their much larger casual PvE audience. So…what do we do? I don’t know.

kostbabis.8791:

we dont have to go as far as ask holy trinity gamplay..Not when theres all this unexplored options that gw2 can still offer with a few small changes/fixes!

I think we need more emphasis on support. In GW1 for example, healing breeze was single ally targeted. Now its some sort of AoE cone effect and worse, a self heal. What player in their right mind would take that skill now? We can improve teamplay without reverting to trinity, but we’ve got to take a serious look at the basics (support) first. I outlined a few skill types I’d like to see that allow players to help out their team and stay relatively independent, but any mention of teamplay beyond spamming AoE is shot down on these forums. It’s hopeless.

LonelyReaper.8075:

Paradoxine.8192:

LonelyReaper.8075:

what up? and this about gw2 teamwork , suddenly it becomes i want gw1. Then you should just rename the title teamworkin gw1>gw2, then i won’t post anymore.

Sorry, but “always ended in stalemate”? You lost all your credibility there. Please don’t talk about a game you know nothing about. Additionally, yet again we have someone who watches a few youtube clips and thinks he knows the game, worse yet, you reference WoW as though that is relevant. If I judged GW2 gameplay off of youtube clips while never having played it at a decent level, I’d be called an idiot and rightfully so.

I am sorry, go find the post or SOTG that jon stated about gvg. I think it the recent SOTG, he say that it always ended in turtling and so it ended in a stalemate that A-net have to implement a tie breaker to force all the npc into the middle to battle it out.

Edit: If you want to call yourself an idiot be my guest, i won’t judge you.

He didn’t say it always ended in turtling, watch it again. Why do I even bother. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have been accurate. Addressing the last bit of your reply, you can keep up the childish antics if you want to but it doesn’t help your position.

LonelyReaper.8075:

what up? and this about gw2 teamwork , suddenly it becomes i want gw1. Then you should just rename the title teamworkin gw1>gw2, then i won’t post anymore.

Sorry, but “always ended in stalemate”? You lost all your credibility there. Please don’t talk about a game you know nothing about. Additionally, yet again we have someone who watches a few youtube clips and thinks he knows the game, worse yet, you reference WoW as though that is relevant. If I judged GW2 gameplay off of youtube clips while never having played it at a decent level, I’d be called an idiot and rightfully so.

LonelyReaper.8075:

Paradoxine.8192:

LonelyReaper.8075:

DiogoSilva.7089:

DiogoSilva.7089:

……

The way you say it make me think that every1 should be like a warrior, no variety and all brute force and bulk. I wouldn’t want that.

It remind me of warrior that always complain about classes running away or kiting and not facing them directly.

Edit:One thing i agree is that to have classes animation more obvious like warriors , so that players can spot them on the go.

How on earth did you come to that conclusion from what he said? Please be serious.

That what i see, no clone mechanic, no passive ability more linear traits like warrior +dmg -snare duration and remove trait completely , warrior get changes the least if traits are remove, they still most probably play the same. Especially now other classes strength in pvp are tied a lot into their traits , warrior on the other hand are tied to their weapons and utilities. Traits only offer boost to what they have, making it like the beast it is in pve.

LonelyReaper.8075:

no clone mechanic

Once again, what are you talking about? How did you infer this from the removal of traits? I don’t even think removing traits is necessary, just redesigning them, but come on.

kostbabis.8791:

But there is teamwork in gw2..I see people healing allies all the time,peeling for them so they get out of focus fire,giving boons like prot ,stabiliy on purpose chaining cc to burst ..chaining blasts onto a combo field like smoke,using rezz abilities, using portal intelligently. I also see abilities and traits that are directly aimed to allies and not yourself.
Just cause you dont see the above into pug play doesnt mean they dont exist in the game!
I like it a lot this way tbh..I think the way you define teamwork doesnt apply to this game anymore.
You literally saying you want healers,tanks dps..just cause there the support is more defined.Thats all im reading in this topic and im sick of it.

Look, fair enough if you can’t see past the pseudo-depth that is GW2 combat, but believe it or not the rest of us can see past it. Either reply properly with arguments addressing each of our points or don’t reply at all. I can’t refute any of your points because you don’t really make any, you just say vague things which basically cumulatively accept status quo, which is of no use to anyone. I’m sick of the emphasis on esports when the casual players are being shafted and I’ll voice my opinions much like you.

LonelyReaper.8075:

DiogoSilva.7089:

DiogoSilva.7089:

……

The way you say it make me think that every1 should be like a warrior, no variety and all brute force and bulk. I wouldn’t want that.

It remind me of warrior that always complain about classes running away or kiting and not facing them directly.

Edit:One thing i agree is that to have classes animation more obvious like warriors , so that players can spot them on the go.

How on earth did you come to that conclusion from what he said? Please be serious.

DiogoSilva.7089:

DiogoSilva.7089:

AoE is overpowered, but it’s also needed to counter pet armies, stealthed characters, easy rezzing, etc. I believe this reflects the state of the whole game, though. Condition cleansing is mindlessly overpowered, but it’s needed to counter condition spammers. And there’s also boon spamming, although anti-boon is less frequent, to counter extreme, “I can’t even see what happened” bursts.

To expand on this,

Traits only make this worse. In order to make traits interesting, for the sake of not all of them being boring +X stat boosts or -X cooldown effects, traits are overloaded with +conditions, + boons, etc, etc. And so we see classes getting perma-vigor and spamming dodge to get back to points, and classes that get overloaded with boons by using traited-utilities.

The reward of using Mist Form should be its own function: invulnerability. Why reward eles with regen, vigor and condition removal on top of that? The reward and punishment for using a strong, instant-cast Mind Wrack should be the fact that it’s strong, is instant-cast and comes at the cost of your illusions. Why have it add might, have ite ven stronger, be used without illusions, and allow illusion generation by dodging?

The traiting system is a redudant system that, in theory, it has the purpose to offer more player customisation to compensante for the lack of it within the skill system, but in practise, it overloads the game with boons, conditions, info-dumps, hidden stats, extreme bunkers, extreme bursters, etc.

If traiting was removed completely, and the skill system’s customisation was expanded, we would get the same level of customisation, without overloading the game with effects and hidden information. It would also help, indirectly, teamplaying, as each build would be less extreme or less overloaded with tools that make it independent.

I agree 100% with both your posts. Basically we can’t change anything at this point because every system is dependant on each other.

• Can’t change mindless condition cleanse (lol guardian) without changing mindless condition spam
• Can’t change mindless stunbreak spam without overhauling the idea of support(to deal with burst)
• Can’t change stealth spam without kitten ing off every thief
• Can’t change teleport spam without kitten ing off every thief
• Can’t change evade spam without kitten ing off mesmers, thieves

We can’t do anything at this point. This should have all been sorted out in open and closed alpha, beta at the absolute latest.

The problems facing GW2 are symptomatic of a developer team that avoids using mechanics similar to GW1 in anyway due to failing to see just how much they got right in the previous game. Taking more ideas from GW1 did not mean that they would have to compromise on getting rid of the trinity (which by the way is only actually useful in PvE, there will always be a meta and as we’ve seen, UP classes), open world, jumping, more responsive combat, dodging, even getting rid of the energy system.

There are many people on this forum right now who frankly hated GW1 when it was akittens peak, never played the PvP at a high level and are actually happy that we have a successor that is similar in name only. As someone who has played GW1 at a high level, who continues to play GW2, follow tournaments, follow developer talks, participate in discussions as much as possible, I don’t think there is any way that PvP will ever exceed what GW1 had, purely because of what the developers want to do with this game, not because of a lack of potential.

People on this forum avoid comparisons with GW1 because either they feel it isn’t relevant (it really is) or because they themselves don’t know enough about it to comment. Problems that would not exist if more time had been spent on at least bringing to the table features that GW1 had:

• The match making problems
• Lack of game modes
• Lack of rewards
• Lack of proper guild ladder
• Automated tournaments
• AoE spam
• Condition spam
• …….

Where is my backline, frontline, midline? No trinity? Ok then, where is my support, frontline, midline? No midline you say? Ok, so now we’ve regressed to frontline, support? Wait, there isn’t even viable support? How is this a step up? Now everyone can do everything, support doesn’t matter and ‘team skill’ means using mesmer portals.

Replacing healers with support had the potential to increase the skill ceiling even more than the ceiling in GW1. No, you can’t just focus on healing/protection, you’ve got to meaningfully contribute to damage too. We didn’t get that.

We’ve given up too much and gained too little. Why I still come here I don’t know. Hope? Frustration?

milo.6942:

edit:
btw since devs announced they’re buffing warrior and help him vs condi, i can say now that pvp devs have given up on this game ever being good. warrior is probably the best designed class with good visual cues for important skills and good damage but weakness to condi & slows. this could have turned into a good teamplay dynamic like in gw1. they should have nerfed other classes to this level to promote support, but instead they just buff warrior. gg anet.

I agree 100% with this. Warrior feels like the most fun class to play.

• It has strength without being overpowering
• It has defense without being tanky
• It has gap closers without being teleport spam
• It can remove some but not all conditions
• It has no gimmicks

Buffing warrior is easiest in terms of balance, but its detrimental to overall gameplay in my opinion.

All warrior needs is some tweaking on the weapon set animations (particularly hammer) and some balancing for cooldowns and activation times here and there. Traits…well traits are bad on just about every class so that isn’t exclusive to the warrior.

I imagine a game where thieves didn’t stealth all the time with impunity, mesmers didn’t teleport and evade spam and elementalists, rangers didn’t inexplicably have some of the best tank builds in the entire game. I hate needing fifty million stunbreaks for a class to be viable. It trivialises CC completely and once again, decreases the need for cooperation with your other team mates.

So you’re a warrior running hammer. Discounting the warped activation times and animations, you have four CC(bull’s charge, backbreaker, staggering blow, earthshaker). You think you’re going to be smart and set up a nice chain, maybe ES -> BB -> SB -> BC. Too bad your enemies will have two stun breakers at a minimum, and teleports, evades, immunes(which is quite possibly the worst mechanic I’ve seen). Trying to set up any kind of chain is pointless unless you can spam immobilize. Why must everything in this game come down to a spam?

Maybe while we’re at it, decrease the prevalence of AoE skills, decrease particle clutter, get rid of clone spam, for a start. I’d like to play that game, I think.

Lopez.7369:

Not to insult anyone, but I feel anyone arguing against this is just wrong. I guarantee enemy cast bars will be in a year or two from now.

I’ll be willing to make that bet. You can quote me on it, in fact. Cast bars will never be in GW2.

Exedore.6320:

ANet is on the right track. People that promote GW1 GvG are basking in nostalgia. Just watch any GW1 GvG video to see what it was really like.

Don’t expect GW2 to magically turn into a popular eSport overnight. If it’s a good game and it’s enjoyable to watch, it will grow over time. For the players, there needs to be a reason to compete and it needs to be balanced and diverse. Balance and diversity will come as ANet fixes bad traits and tweaks good ones. Getting people to play isn’t as cut-and-dry.

I play GW1 and GW2 regularly, so I can assure you that I’m not “basking in nostalgia” seeing as I can directly compare both games. I also don’t see your point about poorly made youtube videos being representative of gameplay. In that case I could post a thousand links here of boring as hell gameplay from GW2. There are a few things GW2 has done right, like an open world, jumping, more responsive combat system and dodging, but I don’t think we can sit back and say it’s all plain sailing from here.

Exedore.6320:

In addition, there needs to be insight each play. That’s currently a problem due to spell effects, characters jumping around, and camera usage.

How exactly do you propose ANET fix these problems? They said they’ll implement culling, but how will the system work in practice? They haven’t said anything to us have they, other than that they’re working on it. Jumping around? What do you want them to do about that? Camera usage? Do you seriously believe that the only problems with getting insight into GW2 PvP are particle affects, jumping and camera positioning?

The fundamental gameplay won’t change. Even if you subscribe to the belief that the hugely chaotic gameplay due to the number of gap closers, teleports, evades, mass AoE etc etc isn’t a problem, there is still little opportunity for insight in play. What insight is there to be gained from watching two bunkers fight it out, or watching a frankly basic mechanic of portal + illusion of life? Battles are too short to talk about what teams may ‘try’ to do because by the time the casters are done talking, one team would probably be dead due to the fact that DPS >> sustain in all areas of the game.

Conditions come down to frankly a spam fest, it isn’t an issue of “oh well I’ll cover X condition with sets Y and Z” its “Let’s just get as many on point as possible because they can remove 4, 5, 6, 7+ conditions or more in a single CD cycle”. The only class you can currently effectively cover conditions is against the warrior and it is getting buffed to bring it in line with the other classes. Explain to me how having less viable ways of using mechanics is a step up from GW1? Your only option is pressure. Fair enough if they had replaced old strategies with new strategies, but clearly they haven’t. The most complex thing you could do is probably spam conditions, fear into a crowd and then epidemic.

What about the elite system? Half of the elites in every class are completely non-viable. In GW1 having useless elites wasn’t a problem because there were dozens upon dozens of them and even when balance was particularly bad, you still had a few to choose from. Sure, there was a meta just like there will be in any game, but even then you could run a cheese build and maybe surprise people, especially if your overall team skill was high. In GW2 the few that we do have are often times rarely useful outside of PvE and to a lesser extent, WvW.

In general, the emphasis on esports annoys me. We have a situation where the game is not even ready for casual play, just look at the matchmaking which is only now, so many months after release, being addressed. Precious development time is being spent on catering to literally a handful of casters and a few dozen or so teams. The developers can do what they want, but I don’t have to agree with it.

This game needs a whole lot of work yet and frankly until the balance patch I’m not going to say anything positive without good reason, certainly not that we are going in the right direction.

I still play this game. I’m just someone who is going to wait and see before singing their praises, which, I believe, is perhaps the most reasonable option.

Duncanmix.5238:

Just think of it like this: no mmo ever made it to be esport. Gw1 was nothing. Small community of people that really loved it, but never made it big for whatever reasons. Biggest thing to esport was WoW but it failed.
Will gw2 become first big esport mmo? Wait and find out, cause nobody know future.

The entire scene for esports as a whole was different when GW1 was akittens peak. I don’t think that you can draw the conclusion that no mmo will ever be an esport.

This game honestly needed a year extra in development before release, at a minimum. Of course, in the real world, money talks so that is just wishful thinking on my part.

As right as you may be, cast bars will not return to GW2 for the simple reason that they were in GW1.

It would have been fine if animations were all unique, clear, cast times long etc etc but somewhere down the line they stopped doing that. Besides, interrupting skills in this game has no real effect either way unless you’re trying to stop a stomp, which isn’t really a skill. At the most your enemy will wait a few seconds before trying again, unless you managed to down them with the window opened by that single interrupt.

So this probably isn’t even on their list of problems, nor will it be on there after you bringing it up.

ensoriki.5789:

They effectively already exist via small-target Gtaoes

Except that small radius GtAoE support skills are just a crutch for real single targeted skills. For example: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Trident Look at the radius of that skill. How is it feasible to use that effectively in sPvP when everyone is teleporting, gap closing, strafing all the time? Often times it’s difficult to even use it on yourself when you have to dodge and strafe much more pressing AoE that will down you if you don’t get out of the way immediately.

Maybe I’m being facetious here but in that case can you list a few examples of skills that are actually effective and reliable for use with single targets so that I can use them myself? Thanks :P

ensoriki.5789:

it’s unlikely any actual skills will be added to the game outside of an expansion.

If this was GW1 I would have agreed with you, but look at what’s been happening lately. In the next few patches alone we’re getting warriors and necromancers seeing changes to almost every trait line, I assume new skills (for stun breaking?) or at the very least a re-purposing of the existing skills in a big way. I don’t think it is a huge departure from what we’ve already seen to add a handful of new skills.

ensoriki.5789:

Seems to be the case, though it doesn’t seem to be very conducive to team play does it?

But it is? Well if you disagree I suppose you can try running Venom Share by yourself and seeing how well that works. These support skills are aoe but they still require co-ordination and an eye.

There’s plenty of support in GW2 but like I said it’s either underperforming and needs adjustment (Ranger Spirits) or can be somewhat problematic to use (Geyser) or in the worst case scenario it’s random (Elixirs).

My point wasn’t that no support exists, clearly that would be a stupid point to make. I’m just saying that both single targeted support skills and AoE support skills should have their place. It would be foolish to completely abandon the powerful engineer water fields for one thing, just because of a handful of single targeted skills being added. Each type of skill has its place.

For example, I don’t run a ranger but its entirely possible spirits are UP and need balancing, but that is precisely the point, there it would just be a balancing problem. My issue is that single targeted support skills do not exist.

If they were simply UP I could just complain here and there like everyone else does about the thief (lol) but the issue is more pressing than that.

I’m not proposing we take anything away, I’m proposing that we add to the game.

Vena.8436:

There is no reason, no matter how much you might clamor for it, to rework the entire skill dynamic from group support/positioning vs. controlled targeting to controlled targeting vs. controlled targeting.

Where did I say I wanted to rework the entire skill system? I must say it is getting rather tiring to propose suggestions and then get shot down as though I am trying to fundamentally change the game. Disagreeing with me is fine, but please don’t make it out to be that I am proposing to bring back energy pools, remove dodge, add cast bars, disable jumping etc etc and return to GW1 (which is what I assume you’re implying when you reference ‘whack a mole’ e.g spike meta, which btw wouldn’t work either way in GW2)

ensoriki.5789:

I doubt they’re going to change their current skill dynamic and throw in new wrenches into balance because of Foefire.

Foefire was just an example of where I think the developers are going wrong. They could take foefire out of the game and I would still advocate for these types of skills.

ensoriki.5789:

GW2 philosophy seems to be that you help each other and yourself simultaneously or just yourself.

Seems to be the case, though it doesn’t seem to be very conducive to team play does it?

ensoriki.5789:

Throwing in single target skills changes the game.

It changes the game, but you could say the same about just about anything, whether we’re talking about changing a skill description or otherwise. Now you may mean that the proposed changes affect gameplay in a big way, but really like I said above, the effects would by no means turn everything on its head. It would certainly be less of a ‘game changing’ thing then buffing warrior and necromancer, for example. I know this will come off as abrasive, but could we just discuss the changes on their on merit?

ensoriki.5789:

There is plenty of stop Players can do to assist a lord but some of them are pretty weak atm, and in addition the Lord is just too easy to dispatch as an individual and so to remedy that he needs better support when players aren’t there to baby sit him, hence giving him healers.

Indeed it is one solution, but wouldn’t it be far more exciting to see a caster watch a single guy go back to reinforce lord and have the entire outcome of a match essentially come down to a 1v1? I’m just giving this example due to the emphasis the developers are putting on #ESPORTZ

I admit readily that it will be easier for the developers to simply add NPC healers, but ultimately what we all want is the best possible PvP experience. If you believe that my changes would be worse than implementing NPC healers then explain why (other than simply being more than a cosmetic change to the game).

Just to clarify, the entire point of this thread is to talk about support. Not specifically foefire, nor the lord mechanics.

So I’ve said this in many posts, many threads in one way or another and really, I’m going to make a much, much larger post outlining my exact thoughts on the issue later this month when I have more time, but I just want to get this out there to the devs before it’s too late.

Give the players the tools.

You (the developers) say that it is a problem that people can 1v1 the lord. You say that the lord is too easy to take down. Your proposed solution is adding NPC healers and such to make it impossible to 1v1 and hard to take down even with a full team. Instead of resorting to NPC mechanics, how about you let the players do the work?

Basically what we need are strong single ally targeted support skills. They don’t have to be heals, they can, for example, apply protection. The point is, though, that suddenly the players themselves can prevent people bursting down the lord and, even better, they can now try more varied team compositions due to not having to have X number of bunkers.

With decent support skills, the event of teams bursting down a poor guardian bunker while he’s moa’d would have a solid counter. You still wouldn’t be able to tank but you would be able to prevent bursts every now and again and maybe the occasional downed state here and there. The only ‘support’ we have to speak of is AoE, namely, shouts and water fields. What we need are strong single target skills.

Developers: If you’re reading this, I get that you don’t want to bring back the trinity, but the approach you’re taking is misguided. You need to take a look at support first and foremost. Yes, team fights will become longer (Is this a bad thing?), no, we won’t have boring stale mates because support skills won’t be cumulatively strong enough to keep up teams indefinitely. I’d love to hear a dialogue on this issue, if nothing else. I’ll post some mockups of skills I’d like to see (no class in particular) to give you an idea of what I envision.

• Protective Spirit: Applies protection and regeneration for 10 seconds. Removes a condition. Cooldown 40 sceonds. single ally targeted Uses old animation for the sake of the old days.
• Mark of Protection: For 8 seconds, each incoming attack is negated and the target is healed for X. Cooldown 90 seconds. single ally targeted (This will be the pseudo-invulnerability skill – I don’t like invuln but it’s in your game so…) Note that X will be low(no heals back to full from burst). Pick an animation of your choice.
• Shield of Deflection: For 5 seconds, the targeted ally blocks all incoming attacks. Cooldown 40 seconds. single ally targeted Pick an animation of your choice.

I used GW1 skill names because I don’t trust my naming sense.

Advantages of implementing these types of skills:

• Burst prevention becomes a thing, rather than waiting till downed state
• It becomes feasible to send one person to reinforce the lord
• Team fights in high level play become longer, the idea of ‘pressure’ returns, which will only add to the depth. Will be a bonus for casting as they can now talk about such things.
• Low level play relatively unaffected – the coordination needed to effectively use what few support skills you have will scarcely be found in teams not using voice communications.
• Team composition designers are given more freedom as they will no longer have to be so strict on general toughness/vitality.

Disadvantages of implementing these types of skills:

• Not strong enough to be of much use to disorganised teams, perhaps fitting a ‘niche’? (though you could argue shoutcasting support is already fitting a ‘niche’)
• May become ‘mandatory’ skills much like portal, epidemic, etc etc.

Note that you can read its effect on low level play to be both an advantage and a disadvantage.

As always, feedback is appreciated, I’ll gladly add to the list of disadvantages if you make a compelling argument.

Just to clarify, the entire point of this thread is to talk about support. Not specifically foefire, nor the lord mechanics.

Asomal.6453:

Vanthian.9267:

Best of luck trying to get this community forum to understand all of these “low skill, high reward” builds. I have been trying to get people to understand the cheesiness of it for a while and all they do is mock.

Some people believe it actually takes skill to hit with grenades -_-….
Better yet, some still claim that a Shatter Mesmer is hard to play….

I agree OP, things need to change to make this game better but I am doubtful at 8 months in for the change to happen.

That’s not it. Those builds may be ‘easy’ to play, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to play effectively. You can tell who is more skilled between two, lets say, BM Rangers, even if they are playing the same build. It’s an easy-to-pick build, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy to master.

However, the true problem with these called cheese builds, is that they are too good, even in the hands of a not so skilled player. And what’s even worse, they can actually shadow some trully hard to master builds! An ‘mediocre’ mesmer player may have better results than an skillfull zerker necro, thanks to the profession and build…

I still feel like the skill ceiling isn’t high enough. Or maybe that’s incorrect. Basically I think the problem now is the skill floor is too close to the skill ceiling. Any complete noob can just luck out and get some kills, not only because of the fact that support is desperately in need of an overhaul(inb4 shout spam guardian), but due to the fact that you can only be ‘so good’ as any particular build/class. I feel like combat does need more depth, contrary to the sarcastic reply above.

I recognise that giving combat more depth isn’t easy or something you can rush out in a month, but I still want to see it. I think adding some more decent support skills will go a long way towards raising the ‘team’ skill cap.

For instance, a skill that applies protection, regeneration, removes a condition and lasts 10 seconds, cooldown 45 seconds, single player targeted? Yes please. If we had powerful skills like this there wouldn’t be any need to continuously go back and forth on minor changes to skills (like nerfing moa) because raw skill and coordination could make up for the shortcomings of UP builds.

Overhauling support will do much of the work for us without resorting to completely changing the games fundamentals, like energy pools, etc.

waka.9826:

I honestly don’t know how ANET guys could have a sigil meeting and think of “Oh let’s give the player invuln after he just killed everything”

DAT ANET LOGIC

It doesn’t help that invulnerability is a really really cheap mechanic in the first place. I’d honestly prefer it if it was out of the game. Change it to a 80% reduction in damage during the duration or something(compared to the 33% of protection), I don’t care, but complete god mode is just so lame.

Goorman.7916:

Absolutely agree. Skillcap for all classes has to be increased in order to create diverse combat.
And also, it is probably moveton to quote yourself, but i will do it anyway.

…
Suggestion:
Increase casting time for a lot of skills to 0.75-1 seconds.
Make interrupted skills to be put on full cooldown.
(those changes will reward players that actively interrupt foes, thus increasing the importance of control)
Give some skills endurance cost, for example 4 and 5 on twohanders have endurance cost, 3 on onehanders and 5 on offhanders have endurance cost.
(This will give a lot of defence/offence tradeoffs, also improving risk vs reward factor:
you tried to finish your enemy with 80 endurance cost hammer bash, he dodged and now you lost your advantage)

I don’t think asking the devs to increase casting times for so many skills is a realistic suggestion. Even if it would improve gameplay, they won’t do it as the amount of balancing decisions they’d have to make would be insane. Instead I think a start would be like you said having interrupted skills put on full cooldown. At the very least, skillful players would be able to interrupt long cast time utilities, though there is still much work to be done in the way of telegraphing and unique skill animations.

Additionally, there aren’t really many convenient interrupts in the game. Your best bet is fear, but all the other interrupts require you to either use something like SoA or a melee KD/KB. What I’m trying to say is that the chances that you’ll be able to interrupt anything worthwhile is pretty low. Most skills cast in < 1 second and unlike GW1, you don’t have specific targeted interrupts like http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Savage_Shot etc, let alone a cast bar.

As for the endurance requirement, it will never happen. The developers absolutely do not want an energy system like GW1 (for better or worse). The thief’s initiative system is the closest we’ll get.

I do wonder why they bothered giving the thief an energy system at all though, and no other class.

Svarty.8019:

On another note, please could you fix the RNG element of the matchup system.

It’s horrible and needs to be eliminated.

Are you kidding? We’d be back to the old, deeply flawed match making system. The great thing about this new system is once we’ve got ratings that actually mean something (by challenging many different opponents), the RNG can be toned down if necessary. Right now it needs to stay where it is.

KaMiKaZe.1874:

So far I had a blast, Don’t know why everyone is crying… Gandara yes they have a huge zerg, but wouldnt call it a blobb… We don’t give gandara any reason to split up, we run with 1 commander aswell… Except for few guilds that splits off from commanders.

FSV is enjoying the matchup but hoping we will see the old Gandara before they met Abbadons Mouth blobb =) Think that changed Gandara forever

I am seeing less and less Arborstone which makes me abit sad but it could also be that we just not in same border.

Arborstone is doing great ticking more than FSP atm so good job and keep at it!

I for one had a lot of fun tonight in the open field on FSP BL. I mostly ran in a dumb zerg of about 15 people (no commander) and FSP sure made us pay for that I commend your efforts, if nothing else.

I agree that weapon skills need changes across the board. The hammer for the warrior strikes me as particularly clumsy, I’ll be making a list of changes I’d like to see in my dream patch thread, expect a bump soon.

These kind of changes are what I like the most because they’re A. Fairly easy for developers to implement and B. Positively affect the diversity of builds in a big way.

Julius.1094:

Weakness should change, it’s UP and people don’t care about it. Blinds on the other hand are used all the time. The problem is new players just spam it, blinds should be used in anticipation of a big attack, example, on my engi with flamethrower if a thief goes stealth near I wait a moment than pop AOE blind often resulting in him getting hit by it just as he goes in for the backstab making it miss. You can get a stomp on some classes by using an instant cast blind right before they cast their cc downed ability, etc. The examples are many but the point it’s to be used strategically to stop an important attack and it works for that purpose. Your suggestion would make it not a sure thing, so it could no longer be used reliably in that manner, it would make it overall stronger and be best used by just putting up w/e you can thus changing the nature of the condition entirely. I happen to think it is fine as is, so yes if they need to rework something entirely and change a lot of abilities to do so yes they should.

I’ll address your other points in due course but to begin with I think it would be good to talk about blind for a bit. As far as I have experience, blind is borderline useless unless you are using smoke fields. Funnily enough it gives credibility to your AoE blind point.

Regarding spamming blind: AoE smoke fields are already basically spamming blind. The only time in all my hundreds of hours on this game that blind has ever caused me to do anything other than simply clear with an auto attack is when I’m fighting NPC’s, specifically, those pesky scouts in WvW. It’s no surprise that it is only a problem there because they.. well.. basically spam it.

You said that new players would just spam blind to an even greater degree if It got buffed. This may be true, but apart from the fact that the cooldowns could simply be adjusted, If they just activate it as soon as it comes off cooldown then they aren’t playing at a high level. In high level play and even for just good players, they will use blind when a warrior starts hundred blades while they’re immobilized, or they’ll use it to help your squishy thief who is getting bursted down by a guardian’s GS. As it stands right now, stopping one auto attack generally doesn’t cut it. Sure, in 5% of cases you might be able to pull off a clutch save but at this point it is more luck than high skill seeing as all the classes in GW2 can output dozens of attacks in very short time intervals.

Activating blind on a warrior who isn’t in range of you won’t help you. Activating blind on a mesmer who primarily uses phantasms won’t help you. It will still be a situational skill but it will be more viable.

I wouldn’t be against changing the change to ‘Blind now makes the target miss X attacks’ where X > 1, but surely something needs to be done.

Thanks for the feedback.

Julius.1094:

Gandarel.5091:

Julius, this is a false concept about splitting te community.

More gamemodes bring in more players, more attenton, more time spent and more fun and diversity.

Without spliting the PvP playerbase players will get bored, mostly if they don’t like that only existing gamemode.

Without splitting the playerbase there won’t be anything that could be split nor keep.

More modes (content)-> More attention -> More players -> More profit -> Everyone is happy

So if we add 3 new game modes the pvp population will quadruple in size? Ok. Good luck with that. New game modes can attract new players but they also do split the community as each mode requires a separate queue. So it has to be done gradually and carefully not just go all balls in and add 4 game modes in a game less than a year old.

Like I’ve already said in my reply above, whether they release the game modes gradually over the course of a few updates or not isn’t really my concern. I was simply suggesting game modes that I’d and I believe other players, would like to see eventually. It honestly seems to me like you’re making much out of nothing here.

Julius.1094:

A lot of your design suggestions just reflect a different game that isn’t this one.

I don’t think this is helpful in the least. The same argument could be made for indeed any change and ultimately If we’re going to just say that any changes we don’t like are turning it into a different game then we won’t get anywhere.

Julius.1094:

AOE is just fine as is, nerfing it would have many unwanted consequences……..

I’m going to have to ask you to read through the thread. I have already addressed this point.

Julius.1094:

Teleports, evades and immunes are fine, they all require people to pay attention to hit a target (you can’t just spam, u need to watch the animation and hit at the end of the immune and evade etc.) only thing i would change is the mesmer teleport CD is too low.

I don’t agree, I feel like combat is too chaotic at the moment. I think teleports, evades and immunes are used (or available?) too often. It’s to the point where they aren’t used sparingly because they don’t need to be. To fully address this point I’d have to write a very, very long reply with numerous examples, numbers etc but suffice to say I think we won’t agree on this point.

Julius.1094:

The suggested change to condition would change the game and not for the better, just different. Different for different sakes is a waste of development time.

It is not different for the sake of being different. If you really can’t see how changing the way players approach conditions to the way I propose would change the game for the better in any way then I don’t know what to tell you. Fair enough If you think the disadvantages of the change outweigh the advantages, but do you really believe there are no advantages to be gained?

Julius.1094:

Most condi removal is active, the passive ones add a different flavor, what the game needs is an UI for procs and other passive effects…..

Most condition removal is active. Your point is? I propose that the ‘passive’ condition removal be changed. Please address the advantages and disadvantages of the change rather than just telling me status quo is fine.

Julius.1094:

“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness. Effected changes intended to make each class more unique and varied, as well as increase the number of viable builds therein.” These are just really vague and an obvious goal, you don’t make any specific suggestions.

Again, I’ve said to both the developers and in a note at the bottom of my post that I realise that it is idealistic. This is the dream patch. Some suggestions will be less feasible than others but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still want it.

Julius.1094:

That change to blind would make it OP, change its purpose and force devs to revise every blind ability in the game. No.

Blind would not become overpowered. Like I’ve already said, the duration would be lowballed to begin with and increased over the course of multiple patches. Secondly, ‘change its purpose’? Blind is most definitely underpowered at the moment. To have an entire skill (e.g Blinding Flash) that merely prevents ONE measly attack, that can be cleared with an auto attack is underpowered. Your third point, about the need to change each and every blind skill is irrelevant, but additionally it irks me because you seem to imply that the developers should not change conditions and mechanics in need of reworking purely because it would take too much work.

I’ll give an example. The developers (not me) have said themselves that they’re looking at weakness. This might mean that they have to change every skill:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness
as well as a few traits. Ultimately the developers are in the business of ensuring game balance. If they need to completely rework something then that is what they must do.

Julius.1094:

That’s way too many game modes and would spread the community too thin. Fairly soon Anet should add ONE unique new game mode so there is a bit more flavor. A third one shouldn’t be added until the community is a lot larger and much further down the line.

The community would be spread too thin if and only if such a massive patch brought 0 new players. I somehow doubt that would be the case. You can’t simply wait until the community is large enough and then introduce game modes. At the very least, not with the current state of affairs. People are tired of conquest and a new game mode is just what this game needs to attract more people to try sPvP. If really necessary, the game modes I suggested can be introduced one by one, but this isn’t ‘The multiple sPvP patch’ thread. That is something for the developers to decide, who have access to statistics I don’t.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted you guys to know that we’re watching this thread here in the office. The results are a great way for us to see (even if it’s a very small sample size) how some of the players are feeling about what they’d like to see improved.

Could you watch my ‘The Dream sPvP Patch’ thread? Much of the stuff in there will require months to implement or is idealistic (e.g “Bring all classes to the same level of overall effectiveness”) but it is also true that some of the stuff in there should be easy to implement (quality of life stuff). I’ll be updating it regularly and will bump periodically to add to it.

Bas.7406:

Except GW1 was hated by a large majority of the pvp and mmorpg community as an overcomplicated mess of a game. I can point to a larger portion of people who genuinely though that GW1’s overpowered specs, hilarious monk builds, ridiculously complicated fighting style, and time consuming fights was a main reason for it’s inability to attract the casual fan.

…

Unfortunately your perception is stuck on this perception that everyone agrees with you. Hopefully we can convince you shortly that you are misguided in your hatred.

Overcomplicated? Mess? ‘Hilarious’ monk builds? ‘Ridiculously complicated fighting style’?

It seems to me like you said very little of substance here. I could go through and address each and every point but it would be a waste of time.

I’m kind of disappointed to be honest. It would be nice for the very few people who actually interact directly with the developers to have a little more class than that.

You know, I’ve always thought that the level of discussion on here was pretty bad, but now you guys aren’t even trying. You’re openly kitten flinging at each other, all jostling trying to get the high ground and all desperately trying to appear superior. That’s why you guys keep relentlessly attacking the ‘skill’ of someone who doesn’t agree with you.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Kitten that, if you could even score 100 points against any of the top teams, I’ll give you a pat on the back. Trash like you should just get your internet freedom removed because you abuse your anonymity to say spiteful things just because they don’t go your way.

This had to be the crowning piece.

If the moderators are really going to ignore stuff like this then they might as well just shut down this forum.

milo.6942:

Gandarel.5091:

Sprawl.3891:

Solo queue
Fixed match making (no 5v4)
More modes

How do you want to stop alt f4? Really curious. Ragequit is the only way you can leave a match, and if you log in you will be taken back to the arena. How could they force even matchups even more?…

Penalty? If you stay logged off for 15 mins that’s already one. If they bring penalty, levaers will be afkers. That’s all, because you can’t really leave.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dishonorable

I’m tempted to just link to GW1 mechanics when someone voices their opinion on a problem in GW2. Maybe the developers will get the message?

timecookie.8570:

Added a “Clear skills queue” / “Abort current skill” button which does not interfere with target selection and does not pop a Menu. Amen.

This a thousand times. I was actually thinking about this last night. What is the actual reason for this not being in the game? Must we be forced to use a dodge or whatever to cancel? I’ll add this among some other things to the original post in a while.

garethh.3518:

whoever is coding the thing, still in college…

That’s one area that I cannot agree with you on. The ‘developers’ as in, the actual programmers, map designers etc working on this game are some of the best in the industry no doubt. Now, the gameplay and mechanic designers… they are a different story.

Lylandrissabelle.5463:

Surely they’ll add the PvP content next month, I can feel it.

You do not know how hard I laughed at your post in conjunction with that .gif

I should probably take a break from GW2 at this point, like maybe a 2 year break? I honestly don’t even know what they’re doing at this point.

GW1 is still the better game. Sure, the movement isn’t as smooth and natural as GW2 and it was instanced, but if you copy and pasted GW1 mechanics but fixed those two issues we would literally have a better game than GW2.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Rewards. Winning a bigger amount of glory at the end of a bob-join match won’t force ppl to stop zerging as glory has no value in this game.

I do agree that my rewards system suggestion is probably a band-aid at this point, I’ll change the original post to a “work in progress”.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

• Greatly increased the effectiveness of conditions
Have you ever played against an HGH? Conditions have their place in the game.

I’m by no means saying that conditions are useless, far from it, my only issue is that they are…I don’t know…trivial? This is a point which is hard for me to explain because I can’t say that conditions feel ‘trivial’ and in the same breath say that they aren’t useless. Maybe I’m going overboard with this but I look at my guardian that can remove 2 conditions per shout (of which I usually have three) + one every 10 seconds and It doesn’t seem very balanced considering I didn’t exactly have to give up anything to have such strong condition removal. Of course, then I have to explain why I don’t simply advocate nerfing certain condition removal options.

I just feel like I want conditions to play a larger role in the mind of the player specifically. Once again, I’ve probably butchered my explanation of this but I can’t really think of how to explain it. In any case though, my suggestion isn’t ‘nerfing’ conditions, nor ‘buffing’ them. It just changes how players will have to approach conditions.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

•Changed many previously AoE type skills to single player targeted skills.
Not good idea. It’s the dmg overall and the conquest-mode that makes AoE spells that effective. They just should slightly lower the dmg and the graphical effect (as you mentioned).

Many is probably an exaggeration. I can only think of a handful of skills off the top of my ahead. I’ll revise the original post to ‘a few’.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Also trying to get every class on the same level of effectiveness is really hard work. And a-net is allrdy in this process polishing the traitlines and stuff.

I can really agree with this one. I think part of the problem is ANET deciding what role they want each class to play. I mean, they’ve said what role they want for each class in the past but I think that there is room for improvement. I think a large part of this will be increasing the number of viable builds. By increasing the number of viable builds, niches inside each class will become more used and we (the players) should be able to see more clearly how best to use each class in a battle. I do give ANET credit on this part though, they are making a genuine effort to balance the classes.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

“New Game-Modes”: Not possible in this year (mabye 2014), as A-Net has the pace of a glacier with updates and patches.

Don’t know about this one. In the last SOTG (IIRC?) they said they were working on some new game modes. It seems unlikely that they still have seven months of work left before they can release it.

milo.6942:

@ empathetic re: conditions
i think he just means each stack of condition will do more damage, but skills will apply fewer stacks so there is less condi spam, and more deliberate condi application and removal.

Yes, this is correct

I just want to change how players approach and deal with conditions, It’s not a buff or nerf either way. Think of it as the difference between “death by a 1000 cuts” and ‘death by 100 cuts’ or something.

uberkingkong.8041:

If they added a bank or blt to hearts of mist, that would be the new hub for pve because basically you go play pve, your in some zone like frostgorge sound, you got stuff you need to put in bank? Click on hearts of mist, goto bank, click hearts of mist again and your back in frostgorge sound. Your just lazy if you cant run to LA for the bank and back, it doesn’t take that long, 15 seconds really worth complaining about?

I see what you’re trying to say but:

1. I don’t feel like it would become a PvE hub. LA would still be more convenient due to the crafting stations, etc. You could even disallow the placement of player owned crafting stations within the mists if it was that much of a problem. Even if it did become a PvE hub, it wouldn’t exactly be a massive problem. You wouldn’t be prevented from joining games.

2. Many quality of life improvements are ‘unnecessary’. It’s easy to say that you can simply find other ways to do things but the game isn’t improved that way. Also, I somehow doubt that adding a handful of vendors will take up weeks of testing and design.

Really appreciate the feedback guys.