Having the attuned rings helps to offset the loss of the amulet infusion, but it still stinks to have to slog through fractals for the best stats in WvW.
I really hope that Anet will add some sort of option for the WvW players to get this that does not require playing outside WvW.
I am with the above posters that would rather suffer some form of torture before spending any amount of time doing fractals.
A few things to contain blobbing:
Enable friendly character collision. Make the blobmanders deal with the negative side of moving and forming big numbers.
Speed debuffs based on group size. It is still a problem that 50 man blobs maintain constant swiftness and can launch people out with movement skills to overtake small groups and single targets.
Friendly fire. Never going to happen, but it would make movement and maneuver in large blobs have a downside. .
Thank you for the input. I just want to make a few points.
Blobbing alone is unlikely to ever be discouraged. The WvW game mode is essentially built around it.
Blob vs Blob vs Blob battles have some merit and fun. Many people play WvW just for this chaotic action.
Being heavily outnumberd against blobs for several hours every day is an issue that can be addressed without trying to discourage people grouping up entirely.
Basically the outnumbered buff could also boost the NPC strength around the objectives, the blob could be forced to move slower, supply cost could increase to build siege, and so on.
The idea would be to make it a bit tougher on those groups that take full advantage of having no resistance during off peak hours. They would still take all the structures largely without resistance, but it would also allow the limited enemy defenders a chance to hold out at times for help, or even reduce the PPT gains at times if they were able to push some of these groups away now and then.
It takes a very special kind of player to log in every day against overwhelming odds knowing that your whole map will be flipped. It takes a great deal of resolve to play knowing that you will die at the hands of an 8 to 1 or 10 to 1 disadvantage for 10 to 12 hours week after week.
There are some good fights here and there while the blob is elsewhere, but overall it is the opposite of fun.
I’m sure something like this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I’ll toss it in anyway:
Seems to me the solution is not to make it easier for a small party to take on a blob – the solution is to discourage blobbing altogether.
So – why not consider a debuff for having too many players from the same server in close proximity to each other. Say, anything over 25 gets an “overcrowded” or a “constricted” condition that reduces offensive stats.
This would force commanders to separate and deploy forces strategically around the maps so as not to gain the condition.
As it is now, you can pump up the outnumbered folks all you want—the blob rolls on.
Yes, something like this might work.
There are ideas out there that could create a form of balance for the grossly outnumbered. I honestly believe that anyone that really enjoys the WvW mode would accept a reasonable attempt to make those overwhelming odds a worse option instead of an ideal one.
One of the key things that separates the top servers from the bottom is around the clock coverage and in most cases it is the night capping that creates the largest disparity between servers.
When a blob can fight a blob fewer people are upset about the odds even though they are rarely close to even.
When a blob is fighting a handful of players that can barely back cap a map, let alone put up any defense, it leads to fewer log ins.
I think your response is appropriate. No one is asking for an ‘I win’ button against overwhelming odds, just enough of a deterrent that the enemy has to spread out to benefit from it rather than blob up.
Also I might add, the outmanned buff is not a very good warning system. A few times over the last week or two it hasn’t even kicked in while a huge blob was taking down a keep. This happened last week. A handful of us were bouncing back and forth across the map trying to hold off some groups of 10 to 15 enemies in HIlls, Bay, and the various towers. Suddenly someone notices swords at our T3 Garrison. By the time a scout managed to see what it was, it turned out to be about 40 JQ and they were already at the inner gate. The buff never activated. We had no idea that there were that many in our BL.
Forget the weak token buffs of appeasement, the actual system has some flaws as far as being any kind of warning system at times.
If Anet is really invested in making the WvW game mode better all around then the outmanned system also needs an overhaul of some sort without making people into superheros of course. I believe that most people are just asking for a reasonable fix to the system, not an ‘I win’ buff.
Same here….T2 is boring. 5 of us will try to take a tower and 50000 JQ will come “steam rolling” around the corner. I realize they want to push to be in T1, but these match ups and server linking are a disaster.
6 more weeks of this sounds painful and boring. It’s just going to drive off more players the more anet lets this continue.
Honestly this has to be the most frustrating part of WvW.
As a member of FA right now I don’t even want to log in during certain points of the day.
I know that the outmanned buff will never boost the stats of the players, but it would be nice to see it boost the guards and lords at least. I wouldn’t mind watching helplessly as the JQ blob had to fight 15 legendary mobs in Bay instead of a few vets and the the lord. It wouldn’t help much, but it would slow them down a bit.
Perhaps if the zergs had to actually work for the cap by killing some tough resistance the K-trains/PvD stuff would be reduced.
No. Just because they outnumber you doesn’t mean anything really. You don’t know how many people from your server or the other server are actually playing. Plus, what happens when its just a regular group of 5-10 people trying to take the keep. Why should they have to fight “15 legendaries instead of a few vets” because their server has a blob on the other side of the map?
15 legendarys would be an extreme and is more or less just sarcasm, however, being outmanned most of the time against the enemy is far greater than 5 to 10 ppl…..by a lot.
I routinely see 50+ JQ facing about 6 FA in FA BL bay most days.
If that many JQ want to take a keep, they could fight upscaled guards without too much issue or resistance.
What you are suggesting is like 20 people will be taxed to take a keep. Frankly, 20 people against 6 are basically taxed to take a keep because 6 ppl can fight 20.
They (the 20) will have reasonable supply limitations, far less AOE for the wall death traps, and they can be deterred by siege and tactical game play.
6 people against 50 are like nothing. There is no logical reason that scaling could not be used to make those odds a bit better.
If you don’t ever experience being very, very outmanned for around 10 to 12 hours a day, you probably shouldn’t be participating in this discussion.
Same here….T2 is boring. 5 of us will try to take a tower and 50000 JQ will come “steam rolling” around the corner. I realize they want to push to be in T1, but these match ups and server linking are a disaster.
6 more weeks of this sounds painful and boring. It’s just going to drive off more players the more anet lets this continue.
Honestly this has to be the most frustrating part of WvW.
As a member of FA right now I don’t even want to log in during certain points of the day.
I know that the outmanned buff will never boost the stats of the players, but it would be nice to see it boost the guards and lords at least. I wouldn’t mind watching helplessly as the JQ blob had to fight 15 legendary mobs in Bay instead of a few vets and the the lord. It wouldn’t help much, but it would slow them down a bit.
Perhaps if the zergs had to actually work for the cap by killing some tough resistance the K-trains/PvD stuff would be reduced.
We need to do as much as possible to discourage siege turtling.
We do not need to buff siege turtles.
In some fights we have found YB or FA (can’t remember) had 10+ arrow carts in one paper tower.
We should NOT encourage this siege mentality by buffing it.
Three players should never be able to stop a map blob, it’s as simple as that.
Walls and siege are there to delay the blob, not stop the blob.
The walls gave your reinforcements more than enough time to arrive and show their PvP skills to the JQ map blob.
I don’t see the OP’s point as to buff siege or to make it so that 3 people could defend against a mob blob. Being able to dely is the point, and that is basically impossilble in most cases because the blob instantly destroys all the wall siege or makes using it an AOE death trap. 3 people won’t do anything to delay 40 enemies in most towers.
As it stands having 10 ACs in a tower is meaningless when the 3 people to man them are;
A) not always in the tower waiting for a map blob
and
B) three people won’t delay a mob blob at all or ever in the majority of towers and keeps due to the wall designs.
Map blobs will drop 5 superior catas on a wall right next to it, because why use range to avoid AC fire if you can just AOE death the walls right?
The only time that defensive siege really means anything is when the defending force is already in a tower/keep full of siege with enough people to man it as the map blob is building their attacking siege.
Also, some scouts siege towers to the extreme, we love them when they are our side, but hate them when they are on the other. This will never change in WvW.
Recently (a month ago roughly) I got a new computer capable of supporting recording software so I’ve been playing around with it a bit.
While our Bay was being attacked today, I managed to capture a good example of what standing on a wall in WvW is like while it’s being attacked.
The video should speak for itself if you’ve ever worked defense against a large number of players. Basically, if you try to stop the attackers you’ll be obliterated by AOE’s and CC’s.
EDIT: Video may still be working on processing so forgive the quality. I literally just made the YouTube account as well as uploading it so it might be a little fuzzy.
EDIT 2: Okay since people seem to be confused… I was just giving an example of why the design of tower/keep walls are flawed in WvW. I have seen people discuss this various times in the past so I thought I would give a visual idea of how bad it can be at times by provoking the attackers to drop a bunch of AOE’s.
It wasn’t meant for anything other than an example, I apologize for not being clear about that.
I noticed that you just escaped that pull there around the 10 minute mark.
There are very few places to effectively place siege to counter that volume of players.
The know it too, hence all the marks and aoe.
Unfortunately the lip of the wall do nothing to protect the people on it, but don’t prevent being pulled off either.
Half of the range skills we have are obstructed because of it.
This has to be by design. Anet must believe that allowing the attackers to have such an advantage encourages tower flipping and combat. I can’t think or any other rational answer as to why they would allow the walls to remain a death trap for so many years otherwise.
Perhaps now might be a good time for Anet to introduce some new combo fields built around boon removal, visibility, blocks, invulnerability strips, or other similar group strengths.
This could bring some much needed life to the back and mid line players and maybe provide some combos to largely under used weapon choices.
There are classes that have almost no place in the boon share meta. They float on the outside trying to stay away from the damage but have very little to offer in support either. The pew pew does very little damage, there are few ways to slow up or stop these groups and they get over run by the blob in the end.
Anyone that cares will log into another toon, rebuild to survive and comply, roam only, or simply suffer the deaths over and again. Usually they just run with the zerg until they get tired of dying and log out.
Tweaks are probably needed, but I can’t see how it would hurt to bring a bit more depth to the combat options outside of and in co-operation of the boon share meta from the other classes.
The boon strip option is barely viable. Boon application far exceeds the cool downs that the corrupt/boon strip players are hampered by and it requires specific targeting to be effective, whereas boon application is almost passive aside from the Mesmers that have a bit of work to do.
Plus, I do think that combo fields have been largely ignored from the developmental side. It was one of the key sell features of the game and is widely used in PvP, but stagnated by a lack of real diversity for the players to choose from.
My thoughts on this might be way off of course, but I would much rather see Anet add depth and options to the game to make other classes wanted instead of nerfing some of the current classes. These nerfs all too often end up taking the fun from one player base or class without increasing the fun for everyone else.
I don’t think that the crafting stations were responsible for resent night queues.
Perhaps they might be during other times when an invading force has bombed in with a giant blob and our reinforcing commanders are struggling to get guild members in. That is a very infrequent issue though.
I think the false numbers effecting transfers are the greater concern and focus. Over the course of days/weeks/months those PvE players that only use the crafting/banking/black lion service are probably impacting the WvW population numbers to some degree.
Either way I don’t care. I can adapt to crafting elsewhere when it is required, and way point costs do not impact me.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
Everyone knows that the best roaming tactic is to roll the stealth/mobile classes and source the OP builds.
/sarcasm.
One on one is annoying for sure, but I don’t see that many roamers running around alone these days. Usually they are in pairs or trios and absolutely certain to make sure the lone player is dead.
Truthfully, if roaming for one on one fights is your thing you have to suffer the annoyances or re-roll the very thing you detest. Happiness is just a character creation screen away I guess….oh and stealth traps.
Good luck and try to have fun.
My log in was much the same.
We are paired with FA this cycle.
I went to our shared BL earlier today and found Bay contested by about 6 to 8 enemies from the MAG contingent. Call outs were made and about 3 pug/roamers showed to defend. Of course we were wiped pretty easily and Bay was lost.
5 minutes later a we have the out-manned buff and a giant zerg of MAGs are in our garrison.
They didn’t need to rally that many to take it, but they did with glee.
Good for them on flipping our entire BL, however there is no real honor or reward in rolling over about 6 defenders with a group of 40 or 50.
I didn’t even get to do a proper estimated count of them because I was trying in vain to find the best place to make a stand before a near instant death.
We were even out-manned afterwards for about an hour while a few of us made attempts to take some stuff back. I logged off to go grocery shopping instead.
Some people still love to PvD it seems, and they love to out number the enemy by a heavy amount. I don’t hold it against anyone that chooses to log out and wait for more people to get online. There is zero fun in being overwhelmed by such absurd numbers and without any sign of help on the horizon.
I hope that MAG army wasn’t patting themselves on the back too hard. Our BL was empty and gift wrapped for them so if they were looking for fights they should feel very let down. Somehow I don’t think that was case though.
WvW death is not permanent, but no one wants to be steam rolled and farmed by an overwhelming force either. That is the complete opposite of fun.
This is a subjective issue.
If you play on the T1 servers, there is a likelihood that these maps might be too small. The opposite might be the case for the lower servers, especially during the mid week.
Smaller maps induce conflict and lead to more fights.
Larger maps lead to more strategic play (generally if they are well designed) and more calculated fights.
I used to play a game that was entirely WvW and pvp based several years ago. Invasions involved taking out guards to each map which were on timers of one hour. Taking them down and keeping them open for conquering involved strategy. There was a bonus pillar that each faction wanted to destroy for an attack bonus and also had an hour cool down before it could be taken back.
We used to have battles for several hours, many times up to 16 hours all in all.
The maps were fairly large and we could hide in numerous places creatively.
Map size was rarely, if ever an issue. The issues were almost always related to population imbalances and night capping.
Night capping was resolved when battle schedules were introduced only allowing invasions during a specific time frame. The population imbalances were never resolved.
I don’t believe that map sizes are an issue in Gw2 WvW. I also don’t expect that night capping and population issues will ever be resolved without sacrificing the guild system.
…and people think that Anet is to blame for most of the WvW problems.
The community creates the bigger problems, especially when a select few are simply megalomaniacs intent on controlling everyone and everything.
The two best options in my opinion are;
1) Cut off all ties with those people that are toxic and play in blissful ignorance of it all. Which is almost impossible to do when the politics are in all forms of chat.
or
2) Get out of there and find a new home with fewer toxic people running the show. In fact, anyone with good intentions and a decent moral compass could find a home on a smaller server. There are several that would welcome some folks that just looking for fights and fun.
Leave the insane, and all too serious politics to the toxic megalomaniacs and usurpers. They deserve each other and should be left to stew in their own toxic mess.
yeah, never understood why you have to move ALL THE WAY to the edge of a wall (where you will burn through your stability in about 2 seconds while people pull you off) to cast down on an area you can clearly see (based on having the high ground) but you can hit unseen objects above you, behind solid wall if you are on the low ground.
Same thing happens with siege disablers too. Can hit things out of LOS above, but not below unless you move completely to the edge.
It makes no sense at all
I hate getting pulled off of an arrow cart by the attacking enemies, especially when they really shouldn’t be able to have any line of sight to do it based on how the game mechanics work yet it still happens.
Attackers have the greater advantages because it lends to more combat and action. I really wish that Anet would make some changes to some of these things though. The top of the walls should not be a death trap for the folks inside the tower unless it is from enemy siege. At least if enemy siege was the cause of the death trap it would be much more sensible compared to an Ele that is getting face burn while casting all that stuff.
I always feel like I move too much. I’m always circling enemies I’m focused on. I guess that’s better than being a statue. x.x
I do this also.
I move away from aoe circles, use CC to keep some mobs out of my way while I finish off my target.
I choose which mob to attack from a tactical point of view so that I get the most dangerous ones out of the way first if there are several.
This is just smart game play. You can never do it too much.
I don’t think I have ever heard or read anyone comment on the hardened gates in a bad way. If anything it gives the less populated a chance to stave off a larger force. Now we are going to be back to big forces just powering down gates.
Bigger forces have no issue with powering down anything really.
It only takes a few minutes for a 30+ zerg to drop 5 – 7 sup catas and drop walls before anyone can respond.
By the time the commander has a chance to get the defense core to the objective, that zerg has usually breached already and cleared the siege. You might catch them at the inner of a keep, but most of the time it is the melee combat that pushes them out, certainly not the defensive siege because the walls are death traps.
Time is precious in WvW and small groups on low population servers have gross amounts of it.
This is great !! You can cry all you like siege huggers this is just the start…..
I am curious. Why do you play a siege based game mode if you don’t like siege?
Wouldn’t sPvP be a better fit for this mindset?
IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.
Vast majority of players are casual though – they just love running around the MANY big maps in the old world, exploring and discovering and doing random stuff. HoT doesnt offer that, with the old worlds level of ease. It just doesn’t. Making harder content is fine, but it doesn’t cater to the majority.
I was watching teapot time (or whatever its called, with Brazil & Inks, etc) and something Inks said stuck in my brain. He mentioned that his wife plays, and she plays casually, and that HoT was a huge turnoff to her – she just went back to playing core Tyria. My suspicion is, that the bulk of the people playing the game are like her – casual. They just want to log in, roam about adventuring and exploring, with little to no stress. Its not that they are stupid, or idiots or can’t play – they dont want to. HoT offers that demograph little to nothing – maps are harder and confusing, no interest in raids, what maps thier are are gated behind heavy grind and heavy repetition. It really just doesn’t offer that vast, open exploring dynamic like the old world.
HoT is almost everything the old game isn’t in many ways. This is the main problem. They made the original game one way, then did a 90 degree turn. If that’s what ANet wants, and it seems to be as they listened to the crowd that was demanding this, they now have to live with the result – its a massive turnoff to many who liked the old game world. If Living Story 3 bombs I’d be very concerned. Gemstore sales and raids can only paper over the cracks for so long.
This, and one step further.
Many of these types of players are playing for the social aspect. This is not one of my gaming needs, but it is for so many others. They don’t log in to play content that requires constant focus for the duration of their game time. Instead they want to be able to chat away with friends and guildies while doing content that requires much less concentration for the most part.
These people don’t mind challenging content if they can avoid it or take in smaller doses. If the whole map is made up of challenging content, these folks avoid it entirely unless there is a real need for them to complete it. It isn’t fun for them, it is a chore, and they are very vocal about that as we see frequently on the forums.
GW2 attracted these players for about 3 years. HoT has pushed them into a corner, albeit a large corner known as central Tyria, but a corner none the less.
Personally I don’t mind the HoT maps. I just don’t like meta content gating my progress. I prefer to explore maps in my own way and at my own pace. I don’t want to do it on timers and via large group content. I believe that this is what instance maps in MMOs are for; people that want challenging content without affecting the rest of the map.
I do that soft landing thing while gliding, but I try to land on saplings. After you chop them down it looks like you are hovering. I worry that someone will report me for hacking because of it though.
I front flip often over cliffs and objects by pressing jump and dodge at the same time. Due to my key binds this sometimes ends with a heal also because my middle mouse button has three possible clicks, left, right, and center. I usually hit the left click right after the center and space bar together. It looks like I am cheering my landing.
I don’t like to kill bear cubs or wolf cubs etc. It seems wrong and I try to avoid it. Oddly enough, any white named critter is fair game.
The most organized and collectively helpful guilds that I have been in over the years have been WvW guilds.
I have never joined a raid guild, or dungeon based guild because that is content that I do not like. Some of the larger guilds have done said content, but I haven’t joined a large guild since the launch of HoT. I can’t say if those guilds are as collectively focused on everyone’s success or not.
Many WvW guilds have disbanded or had become inactive with the DBL release. In some cases I don’t even see signs of previously active guilds on my server any longer. This is a bit more difficult to sort out now that the WvW merger has taken place, but I still don’t see very many familiar names and guilds that once existed.
I can see why the TS would feel that there is little to no guild support for PvE content. Apart from the regular WvW guilds, there are very few PvE based guilds that seem to do much outside of raids these days.
I wonder if an overhaul of the guild experience system would help with that. In my current guild that bar does not move very much if at all lately. If anyone else logs in, it is largely members focused on solo content or HoT farming/hunting for completion stuff. Our guild hall is at a standstill because the few of us willing to donate just can’t grind out the gold and materials at a fun pace to further the cause.
Guilds in GW2 do seem to lack in purpose unless you are focused on some specific types of group content. Especially those that can include larger numbers, but they are not always rewarding on a guild level.
I do think that the WvW reward tracks are also helping to stabilize the mat/ecto portion of the economy.
This places a great deal more supply into the system without much change at all to normal game play for many.
As long as a farm is not dramatically affecting the market price or supply or generating a toxic environment to play in, I personally have no concerns about the farm.
I have not done this event even once, so I have no interest in defending it on a personal level. In fact I support any and all natural farming methods that do not use bots, hacks, or exploits to generate obscene in game wealth. While this farm might be on the line of an exploit, there doesn’t seem to be any adverse effect on the economy as yet.
I will trust that Anet will do the right thing for the health of the game if this somehow proves to be out of control in the future.
When you type out numbers, server, location, and then 30 seconds later have someone ask the status of your tower/keep.
/sigh.
There are lots of scouts that don’t mind manning siege.
I have done it plenty over the years.
For sure there are people that use a macro, but I doubt this is a widespread issue.
I have seen players tag a garrison over and over again for hours and hours also. Some folks just don’t mind doing simple things for a length of time that others would hate.
Scouting is just like that. I can watch some movies or read forums online while doing a very dull job in WvW. Pressing 111111111111….is not a hardship for people like me.
Gathering wood for 20 or 30 minutes along with your normal dailies should be able to offset any gold gathering issues.
Truthfully, gold has never been easier to gain than the present.
It has took me the better part of the last three days to make some minor progress in Verdant Brink.
There are still two bosses up in the canopy that I can’t seem to get help with because the population of the map would rather do a more favorable rotation in the time available.
Help requests were met with a variety of responses ranging from none at all to sarcastic hostility.
On two occasions I got DCed from the game only to return to a new map at different stages of progression and population numbers. On several other occasions I was prompted to move to a more populated map which ended up being a bit of a gamble. Sometimes this would put me into another map with a different focus, other times I didn’t take the bait, and the map filled up again, or I achieved nothing of note.
There were zero groups in the LFG that were seeking anything that I required. I could have started my own, but I elected not to bother with that due to the frequency of DCing and prompts to leave the map for another.
Ultimately I will end up accomplishing what I need to get done, but I think it will be from luck, perseverance, and attrition rather than natural or normal game play.
This thread is six months old and the old concerns about drastically slower and frustrating progression in HoT appears to be quite justified.
I am not angry or upset by it, just resigned to the unfortunate fact that I don’t chase the content with all the other locusts at launch and now have to work much harder at it than I would like.
I do like the linking because it has made my server feel alive in WvW again.
I would like to see more balancing efforts to be made.
The idea that people are piling into the lower population servers that are linked with the T1 over populations should be addressed somehow. As long as these servers are linked, they should share a cut off for transfers.
Otherwise this linking system will ultimately lead to the very same issues that it has been expected to fix.
It would be nice for the jeweler profession to get some interesting items to craft, even if they were just cosmetic.
Especially because silver and gold ore are insanely plentiful and barely useful.
Like many others here have mentioned already; there was no need to craft exotic rings and such because ascended are easy to get.
I do transmogrify some items to be sold when I have acquired enough of the mats via normal game play. The profits don’t equal the work if you try to buy them in my opinion though. Farming for wood yields more gold per hour with a fraction of the effort.
Jewelers are starving while lumberjacks are raking in the $$$ all over Tyria.
My main class is Necro.
It was my first character. I can’t seem to play anything else as comfortably.
I wish there were some good guild groups on maguuma. All I meet is groups of 3-4 thieves or mesmers. Annoying fights.
Yeah, but Maguuma’s KDR has been top notch lately…they must be doing something right!
We ran into this guild over and over again the other day. They were tight and taking full advantage of condi power. Seemed like there were aoe/marks everywhere all the time.
How did you run out of stuff in 2 months?
After 7 months I still don’t have enough time to finish things. Even though I’ve been finishing bigger goals, they keep adding things to distract me.
Locust effect.
TS probably zerged the maps with the majority and ignored the content that they are not interested in.
While such an opinion and idea might not be our version of right or correct, it is their version of right or correct.
Personally I have been doing something very opposite to the TS. I played a bit of the HoT content, but didn’t want to blast through it in large groups. Instead I stayed out and have now returned to a pace that allows me to explore the maps comfortably.
I haven’t even finished Verdant Brink completely yet. I revisit for a few hours here and there and I like it much better now. The content difficulty was never an issue for me, it was more that I don’t like doing a map with hundreds of players buzzing all about.
Everyone has their own idea of what is important content. I don’t think of legendary armor as important content, whereas TS obviously does.
You want to know why so many players don’t use or can’t figure CC out?
Because it’s called CC. Crowd Control. Which most logical, reasoning people who don’t spend all their time gaming would take to mean controlling crowds, such as blowing back boss ADDS, or controlling the field of battle such that crowds of enemies don’t interfere during a burn phase or somesuch.
Using Crowd Control to break a “breakbar” on a single boss enemy makes no rational sense. GW2’s interface and instructions do not do an adequate job of explaining to players what enemies do, what affects them, etc. And it’s been this way since launch, with ANet’s idea of a minimal interface and excessive battle pyrotechnics from all professions.
A more concise description could read: “Use Status Control Effects to stun Enemy and take more damage.” Skill tool tips in game could actually say what effect they’d have on a Breakbar if any, or those skills could have a differently colored background or would highlight an enemy translucent blue if it affects the breakbar, etc.
If you’re going to have a minimal interface and no tutorial, along with a frantic combat system where one hit KOs occur frequently, you can’t expect players to Alt-Tab to search the Wiki for the encounter they’re currently in. It’s poor game design to have to consult a reference manual, unless you’re playing flight sims.
I think you are correct in the assertion that many players just don’t understand the mechanic.
The other part is that they feel forced to limit certain skills until the break bar resets before using them again, which also messes with normal and perhaps more logical rotations. Not to diss on Rangers too much, but how many times have you watched one senselessly use that knock back and push a mob/boss right out of everyone’s aoes, weapon range? Many other players do this stuff all the time, but we don’t see it clearly because a knock back is a huge visual clue.
Playing a staff Necro as an example is s a bit frustrating if you are trying to use only 2 skills for the majority of the fight and saving the combo finisher for a break bar, or the CCs directly for the break bar. I tend to drop 3 then 4 as a matter of normal rotation. It feels weird to spam 1 and 2 waiting for that break bar to reset, and the utilities vary depending the on fight mechanics.
There are other weapons to use also, but they require being in certain ranges and positions that are not healthy for a Necro to be in against some bosses. It can be very frustrating knowing that you have some very good CC skills to break the bar, only to risk certain death to use them.
I don’t hate the system. I just don’t like how the break bar mechanic sometimes forces players to play poorly because of the boss mechanics. This is greatly magnified when a large portion of the players have no idea how to break that bar, or simply can’t do it effectively.
A basic Champion like the Champion Ram in Timberline Falls is not a challenge or a real threat for most players. I often happen across people soloing it and that break bar is full or nearly full as I approach. Within my first few seconds of joining the fight I have dropped it almost entirely and he begins to melt fast. It is not required to drop the bar on this Champion, but I do find it odd that many don’t even try to do it.
I think that Anet should invest a bit more in getting the players to understand the mechanic, how it works, and which skills are required to do it. It couldn’t hurt.
The whole concept of a minion is that they are ordered around by the person in power over them. Their whole existence is based on their leaders whims and desires. It’s actually a very negative term but that is besides the point. Let’s look at the definition of “Minion” for a moment “a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power”. The key word being servile. That would look like they take orders to me. So, being able to tell your minions to either “STAY” or “ATTACK” does not seem too far a stretch in the scheme of things.
I agree.
Good game play in raids and dungeons requires control of all skills, pets, and minions.
Necros can’t control their minions in a reliable fashion. They are often idle for no reason at all or out of control aggroing unwanted trash mobs. A bit more control would not hurt anyone and only help overall game play.
This request is quite reasonable.
The Yak speed does better for promoting camp/sniping.
I do feel like the towers in the North BL are too slow to upgrade. The incentive to protect the North camp and those yaks is just not enough for anyone to stick with it. I have seen those towers take 8 hours to get to T2 let alone T3. Even on higher population servers, few people will be that dedicated to escorting yaks.
Some adjustment should be made, but perhaps it should be to reduce the number of yaks needed for those two north towers. They are pivotal locations for both defense and attacks, but very difficult to upgrade as it is right now.
I used to pick up a cripple that would last 23 hours etc in Straights of Devastation on my Necro a while ago.
When some of the traits were changed, I no longer get this.
Condition removal would get rid of it, or I would transfer it to one of the nearby ambient creatures.
It was an annoyance, but I never had to log out because of it.
I just tested this now. It is near Oceanside Ordinance, the field hospital. If I have Plague Signet active I can pick up a cripple there that lasts 3 days+.
(edited by chefdiablo.6791)
I just tried to rationalize a world without mounts again. Nope, still convinced that intelligent beings would have mounts.
Keep your arguments coming guys, I’m still firmly convinced that a new exciting system “mounts” would be good for the community, make perfect sense for an intelligent and diverse world, and would help the Anet disposable income base to further develop the game.
Don’t try to defend what is already, open up your minds to new possibilities. Only old rotting people accept things as they are and never make any progress. Mounts will be progress, income would be too.
This game engine suffers already with the number of pets and skill effects. Mounts would just be one more thing to crowd heavily populated areas and ultimately drop the frame rate to slide show speeds.
Anet has been fighting the frame rate problem from day one and losing. Mounts will most likely not be embraced much more than the broom and magic carpet style that already exist.
In addition, I would prefer they focus their resources on fixing the bugs and balance issues over mounts. That is just my opinion of course.
All it needs is to have its channel speed increased to 2-2.5s
This.
It’s already tough enough to land so many long cast times as a Necro, it wouldn’t hurt to have some channel speeds adjusted a bit.
And yet they still haven’t fixed teragriffs so their charge has a proper-sized hitbox!
My lord yes.
Positioning is a very important part of game play and those things really put it out of whack.
I’ve encountered very little ranger/necro hate recently. But rangers generally have a bad rap because of Bearbows. You know the type. Uses nothing but longbow with a bear pet, stays far away from the group not benefiting from buffs and worst of all spams point blank shot off cool down driving everyone else crazy.
And honestly, even as a ranger, i can’t stand them either. And i’m easy going, i say come in whatever build you want as long as it contributes to the group in someway.
Bearbows just don’t. They actually make the run unplesant at worst because of their constant knockback spam.
This.
I think these types of players, and there are many of them in GW2, are going to really dislike HOT if the content is as difficult as many suspect.
Laying off the skills that drop DPS or nullify useful combo fields is something that many open world players are just terrible at. Regular runs of the maps fighting champs and farming nodes will put you in touch with these players frequently. HOT will end up nerfed to appease them just because they can’t lay off the pointless knock back or use their blocks, and reflects properly.
On topic; The TS brings up the number one reason I don’t do dungeons. Group content is no longer fun when the robotic skip this, stack here, spam this method of completion is adopted by nearly everyone. The elitist groups take over and enjoyment is sacrificed in place of efficiency.
That doesn’t make the elite players wrong in their choice of game play. Ultimately I believe it is up to Anet to make changes to the game that make all classes desired for dungeon content. Failure to do so is what leads to these issues between the player base.
At this point all you can do is create your own groups, with people you already know, and hope that they don’t kick you out.
Is there supposed to be? You gain life force from deaths and from weapon skills and from spectral skills. This has always been the way.
And its a stupid way.
Agreed. Our class mechanic we can’t escape from runs on LF and only certain utilities offer it and maybe one skill per weapon.
Meanwhile warriors just have to attack………….
I will add that warriors also have two skills that will instantly fill that adrenaline bar; signet of fury and the heal “To the Limit”. Necros do not have an instant LF generator. Comparing the two is largely an apples and oranges type of thing as far as core mechanics go, but LF is much more difficult to acquire than adrenaline is in my opinion.
I really wish Anet would abandon the concept of Necro attrition. They keep trying to tell us we want our enemies close….we don’t want that because those enemies hit back and hard.
A guardian might be more in line with that concept on some level because they can block, reduce, and become invulnerable for huge amounts of damage that we simply cannot.
What would work for us is if the conditions that get applied to us would boost our life force. That way in a battle with few hittable enemies around we could still manage to stay alive and force the enemy to choose their attacks more carefully. Every experienced player that fights a Necro knows that they want to drain our life force and then break us. Once that precious life force is gone, we are desperate to get it back, win the fight (a tall order) or get away (impossible without divine intervention).
Our group helpfulness is another problem altogether. Anet has no interest in making us an ideal party or group member due to our skill and build choices. Again I think the key to this problem revolves around the condition concept. If we were naturally by group proximity able to reduce the application and effects of conditions, we might find ourselves more useful to group play. Even if we had access to a skill that made the group immune to conditions for a period or cleared group conditions we might be considerably more desirable in some instances throughout the game. Plague signet is not something that is ideal for this because our whole build ends up built around sucking up additional damage and then sending them or consuming them. Our damage in such a build would make us a greater liability than what most players think we already are.
Just my quick thoughts on the matter.
The drop rate and the price are largely prohibitive for anyone to pursue these skins.
Most people are willing to chase any item if it is affordable to buy, farm, or combination of both.
When all options are well beyond achieving by normal means, then this becomes an issue that Anet should take steps to change. The daily map rewards might help to solve the problem. Most players would like better access to the materials they want and need instead of gold farming in order to acquire them.
It seems like most people just wanted a character slot included with the expansion so they could play the new class.
A bit of research might have solved this problem before the package pricing was made available.
Of course the possibility would still exist that many would still complain about the pricing of those packages regardless of a character slot included with the base expansion.
I don’t think it is unreasonable for the players to want a free character slot included in the base package. A character slot is not something physical that needs to be manufactured. It would have been a simple good will gesture for everyone, Veteran players and new players to enjoy, with only one side completely understanding the value of that gesture right now.
I bought the game and actually thought it would be a good game. I got trolled hard…..
And so you hang around for opportunities to complain about it?
I think the game of life of trolling you hard.
If you think that’s bad, wait till you roll a necro and indifferently kill harmless creatures for their LifeForce…
This!
Bunnies and frogs seem to be my victims of choice. I dagger slash them even when I don’t need the Lifeforce.
Nice bug, but better question is: Why take Vampiric rituals instead of putting a single point into Curses, Soul Reaping or Spite and get better returns from the sheer stats gained?
My Vampiric build is 1, 6, 0, 6, 1, using Vampiric rituals, and weakness along with the wells. I can’t out damage foes very much with it, but I can survive lengthy battles with 3 to 5 enemies in time for help to arrive. Too bad Bloodthirst works against VR, in WvW it is not as noticeable as it is in PvP where you know most of the time where damage is coming from and which player is dealing it.
I play this build for fun and built an entirely new character just for it. I hope that the Vampiric traits do see some favorable tweaks with the expansion update because Necros do need more than just Reaper as the FOTM. While many are theory crafting builds, others are going to be thinking counter play just the same.
EotM is a strange map/game type for WvW. Removing the Karma and Pve rewards would likely result in killing the majority of the active participating population. Most of those players are there to level up and get the rewards, without that, they won’t run in circles endlessly for stuff that has little to no in game value.
I don’t have too much time logged there because it was introduced during my lengthy year + hiatus. I find the map more about Karma and loot farming than anything related to pvp.
Basically if you are looking for more pvp based content on a large scale, that map is the worst place to go. Most of the players get upset if keeps and towers are being defended well and they will actively push to move off for easier targets to take.
The pve aspects are somewhat out of place, but Anet has included this type of content in all of the WvW maps to date although it has been focused more in EotM as far as I can tell. Pve content is not a hindrance in EotM, but some added fluff that breaks up the monotony of zerg rolling the map in small doses.
The design of the EtoM map is a strange juxtaposition of anti zerg efforts from the narrow passages and long runs after death point of view. On the other hand, the objectives and NPC content largely favors groups and obviously the bigger the group the faster the rewards arrive. Even organization is largely based around the in-game chat features because you are bundled with mega server type groupings. It’s best to leave the serious WvW hat at home if you are rolling around in there.
EotM is always going to be a Karma train map with Pve content and reward minded players. It is necessary evil because it caters to the casual minded zerg type players that GW2 attracts.
If there was any change to it, I would like to see some more way points opened up for control. After getting mass feared off something, it is very discouraging to know that catching up with the zerg could be a long time due to map design, enemy presence, and the fact that they are always moving around at a high pace changing directions frequently.
Unless I somehow amass enough gold that purchasing a legendary or two is nothing but a fraction of my in game wealth, I will not have any.
I have numerous ascended weapons and gear though. I can craft them at a worthwhile pace and cost without investing unhealthy amounts of time to this game.
Balance in GW2 does exist on some levels. It’s just a matter of perspective.
Farming for T6 mats is a massive investment of time. There have been some very good farming spots that players used but were eventually thinned out and ruined by DR. Now that the Megaserver is in place, managing to find a spot that is not farmed already by some desperate soul is close to impossible.
This is why nearly everyone claims that farming gold to purchase those mats is the best method. Gold is very easy to acquire in comparison.
If you really want to take a farming approach to obtain Gold without doing dungeons, Silver Wastes is the best option. A more laid back and ultimately slower method is to farm nodes. Timberline Falls is a good map for this. You can get a variety of metals, lumber, and herbs that sell for a decent amount on the TP.
I often run Timberline Falls with four different characters farming nodes because I can get the things I need for sale as well as crafting in a relaxed way. This allows me to watch movies and T.V. shows at the same time without being too focused on the map events that Silver Wastes requires.
Farmers are the backbone of any MMO economy. The efforts to prevent us from effectively farming T6 mats has pushed gold farming to the forefront. This has also made it so that numerous bots, under the map node farming, and teleporting cheats are being used to get that precious currency.
There are so many ways to make gold in this game, but the most effective methods will turn you into a mindless grind Zombie or dungeon crawler, unless you are very clever with using the TP.
The sooner you accept this, the better it will be for your mental health.
Would be nice if the chill chained after the fear activated. IE they run and then get chilled.
I haven’t invested very much into trying to figure this stuff out as yet. I basically want to wait until we get updated and try it out myself with an open mind and an explorers attitude.
That said, with the information I already know, the Reaper sounds great in some areas but some challenges are on the horizon. I am used to using a dagger as my melee weapon of choice along with dagger/focus/horn. A slow GS sounds alarming when I imagine it.