Showing Posts For frunkee.3962:
There are so many potential ways of dealing with the condition cap that it’s just sad they haven’t pulled the trigger on any of them.
1. When an intensity condition is pushed off the 25 stack limit have it apply full damage right then before going away. Group those as a single damage spike to limit network traffic. For non-damaging stacked conditions give it a standard damage evaluation.
2. For duration stacking conditions have multiples of a minute become intensity conditions.
3. Remove the condition cap and group all condition damage by other players as a single damage spike for network traffic.
4. Change all multiples of the same condition from the same source to a single stronger condition. So a former 3 bleed skill would be a 3 times stronger single bleed. Multiple consecutive conditions would also increase the effectiveness of the original condition, prorated for how many ticks it has already fired.
5. Lump all condition damage of a given type into a single undifferentiated chunk.
Any of these would be better than saying that certain builds are next to useless when there is more than one in PvE.
Yes there are some bigger changes I’d like to see in the game, but there are three small ones that I think would nicely improve the environment.
Power of the Mists Reset: Right now the rewards all completely reset when the maps are reset. This means two things. First, the rewards build up during the week, and then suddenly drop to zero. Second, the later and more difficult to get rewards last only for a limited time. How about instead each reward lasts for 5-6 days from achievement, continuing right through the reset. What and how much for the next level would depend on how many are currently active.
Karma Item Refund: I hardly ever consider it worthwhile to buy non-endgame Karma items. The TP has near equivalent items, and I can get most of the purchase price back when I sell/salvage them. I also don’t enjoy playing the lottery with the Mystic Forge. What if you could sell back Karma items for 1/2 or 1/3 the Karma that you paid for them? Suddenly I’d be willing to buy low or mid-level Karma items knowing I’d get something back again when I was done with it. Also it would be less expensive to experiment with endgame Karma items knowing I can put some of the purchase price towards a different item if I decide to change. I’d almost certainly end up spending more Karma because I would know that buying an item wasn’t a total sinkhole if it ended up not being what I wanted.
Dynamic Event Time Reward: For most dynamic events it is easy to get the gold reward with relatively little time investment. However there are events that are made to take a while, well past when anyone will have achieved the Gold reward. What if there was an extra “time based” reward for sticking with these events and seeing them through? You could even have a similar bronze/silver/gold tiering structure for actively participating in the event for 40/60/80% of its length. I’m thinking of events that, because of their structure, will always last at least 5 minutes or longer (not just a collection event that people took a long time to complete).
When I look at my GW1 and GW2 accounts this doesn’t look like a huge payoff. I earned .23 AP/hour played in GW1. GW2 is earning me around 5.2 AP/hour played. I don’t particularly chase AP in GW2, and in GW1 I definitely was going for HoM at the end. That puts the optimistic estimate at GW1 time being worth only 1/22nd of what it is worth in GW2 as far as AP. For many people I bet it is much less than that.
That’s not a huge reward for investing a lot of time and effort in their previous game.
I’ve started trying out a bit of WvW. I don’t often hang with the zerg, but there are plenty of corners of the map to be involved in even when the main action is somewhere else. Unfortunately I’m not that interested in my server doing well right now, and it’s entirely because of World Completion.
I’m on the Henge of Denravi server, and just this past week we dropped from Blue to Red. This was good for me because it let me pick up the Red Borderlands easily. We also, for a brief period, held most of the Eternal Battlegrounds map. Now all I am missing for world completion is the Green Borderlands. It’s possible that my server might take the entire Green Borderlands, but as a practical fact I’ll probably have to wait until we happen to become Green. At this point we are more likely to drop a tier to get to Green rather than gain enough to top our current tier. So I’m stuck rooting against my server.
I don’t mind the Eternal Battlegrounds being a requirement for World Completion. That encourages supporting the server and makes me want to play WvW. The problem is the (duplicated, repetitive, uninteresting, arbitrary) Borderlands that you have to repeat three times. If each Borderland was different that would at least make exploring them more fun, but it doesn’t even have that going for it. There’s nothing to look forward to in WvW but my server losing horribly over the next few weeks and then running through the same areas I’ve already done two times before. It’s too bad because I’d really rather join in and help out, but then that would be working against my World Completion goal.
Set max selectable level of the dungeon to highest level achieved in the party rather than lowest. Upon completion increase a player’s level by one if the level selected is >= the individual’s level. Index rewards for each player to the lesser of their current level or that of the dungeon, not just the level of the dungeon.
Done, fixed.
(edited by frunkee.3962)
I’ve decided not to play this weekend. I’d like to try the new content, but it’s not like I don’t have other things to do and this is a direction that I don’t think is very good for the game. Still, I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth and I still plan to play in the future.
However, I think there are three unavoidable consequences to this change:
1. Content Degredation – Presuming that most of the PvE content is geared towards the current strength, increasing the strength at 80 means the content will gradually get out of whack. Interestingly adding new character levels would be less damaging, since it is easier to balance individual character levels rather than a wider range of strength at the same level. So much for everything being endgame.
2. The Legendary Promise – Stating that Legendaries will always be as good as the best available means that suddenly they aren’t cosmetically better they are actually better. Who wouldn’t want inflation proof gear, ones that will get free upgrades when new items are introduced? Now you aren’t grinding because of the challenge or the cosmetic improvement, but for the insurance and the guarantee. So much for the grind not giving you better gear.
3. Do what you want – There are a few main routes of activity in the game (not counting sPvP since it isn’t affected). PvE, Dungeons, WvW and crafting come to mind. All of them give you the ability to obtain max power gear. Now, dungeons are the way to get the best. They’ve stated that other ways of getting the gear will become available, but how long is the delay and why? Why force those who want this gear to do dungeons? Why, in a game that trumpeted our ability to do what we enjoy, are we forced down a narrow path? So much for freedom of activity.