Guild Wars 2

ldyAmalthea.5028:

nightwulf.1986:

We lost consistent summoning of Jagged Horrors when Rise! was changed in beta to shambling horrors on a timer. Sound familiar? The difference then and now is that almost everyone praised the change as good, and sort of glossed over all of the reasons for the change. Lost to time, we are now in a position where people are basically clamoring for Rise! to be changed back. I see people on reddit basically asking for a skill that summons Jagged horrors consistently on a 45-60 second timer. It’s silly to me that there is no memory of balance changes. I still want necros to be strong but I have to agree with another commenter elsewhere that the devs are probably looking forward to the next expansion/elite spec to give Necros another play style at this point instead of trying to make Reaper or base necro on par with Ele or War in terms of damage.

You are not the first I have seen make the reference to rise.

I can not speak for everyone, but I certainly did not forget about Rise. I didn’t have a problem with that change. That was more of an “aww” moment, because it was fun, but not necessary to be viable.

The poor comparison makes me wonder if you or others who have made that statement (while asking “doesn’t anyone remember?”) has stopped to look at the data of what the recent balance patch has done to a necro’s dps in a raid setting.

Try to think about it this way… when they nerfed Rise? I could still go to Tangled Depths and other Hot locations and take part in the content there (the big content at the time.) Such is not the state of Necros after this balance patch.

I see the comparison you are trying to make at the end there and yes, I hear some other players making it too. Although, I don’t think comparing Tangled Depths (open world pve) to Raids is apt. No one really cared about Necros in open world much, it was always in instanced small group content that they got singled out (PVP, Dungeons). However, your implied point about not being meta in Raids anymore takes us back to the question of, should Anet balance for the player driven Meta, against it, or some other option? Was Anet nerfing ice bow 4 and fiery great sword in the dungeon era a good thing or a bad thing? Was nerfing all the charge moves against a wall a good thing or a bad thing? Should Anet adjust skill power around what the maximum potential players find a skill to have or around what power level Anet believes the skill should have? In other words, why not just leave Mark of Horror as is since some players found that what damage it added allowed it compete with other class dps?

I don’t think these questions have answers that are black and white. We’ve been arguing about these philosophical questions of balance since the dungeon era when Necro was highly unpopular and haven’t established anything more than players will continue to make their own rules about how the game should play, and the devs may or may not agree with those ideas.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

It’s “a minor bugfix”, duh.

@nightwulf: Pretty sure people are just crying for the change to get reverted because it wasn’t op in a way Rise was (I’m not sure how Rise worked in the beta besides what you mentioned as I got dragged back into the game by a friend few days before HoT was released, so I wasn’t able to participate in any of that, but I assume it gave damage reduction back then too) and, to be honest, I don’t think most people know what else to do. They see the change, they see how hit it hard and their only solution is “revert, it was uncalled for”. That’s partly due to them not having any idea how else to fix the problems caused by this, probably them knowing Anet won’t give us plenty of buffs otherwise and in a way they’re right; even something as cheesy as this did not make us overpowered. If this really caused problems, they could’ve slapped a cap on it as emergency solution (even if it was 5 which still would’ve been bad but much better than what we have now) or simply waited until they have an idea on how to buff us otherwise.

Saying “they’re preparing us for the next spec” is an extremely lazy and unexcuseable thing to say/do. Remember how elite specs were supposed to be sidegrades, providing simply a different style of play? We all know how true that held the first time around, repeating it another time would be straight up insulting. Worst case scenario is that they will, no one is gonna take reaper anymore because scourge will be so much better and then they’ll slowly nerf the new elite specs until the next ones arrive. I really hope this won’t happen.

Rise initially was just jagged horrors. No damage reduction. Necros at that point largely hated jagged horrors because they died quickly and didn’t do much. Players asked for a new minion and maybe something to make reapers tankier. There were other suggestions but those were the ones I remember. But that’s not all! While Rise! was still jagged horrors, players quickly tested and found out that you could keep all those health degenerating minions alive and amass tons of them in group events where there was a lot of incidental healing. Some time later, Anet changed Rise not only to a new minion (technically the Chinese bone minion model), they also did away with the health degeneration and gave them a timed lifespan. Why? Because they noticed how many jagged horrors players were able to keep alive during group events. For technical and balance reasons, they said, they changed the health degeneration. So, if you are curious as to why they didn’t simply add a minion cap for Mark of Horror, well, they did. It’s 5. It’s the limit on that particular skill they were aiming for. Heart of Thorns showed them it’s potential could be overblown through concerted effort.

As for your last point, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think Anet is balancing with future elite specs in mind, which is what I was hoping to point out. They definitely have some challenges carving out new niches for all 8 professions and creating new and effective play styles going forward. Elite specs serve their purpose in theory. They provide a way to play that doesn’t exist in the core traitlines. You also can’t couple elite specs with other elite specs so it’s never a true additive power/options increase. The problem, as I see it, is that the perceived meta professions were largely already ideal in players eyes so getting them to change their meta builds to include new traits would require some dramatic shifts in either core trait balance, a straight power upgrade through the elite spec, or a paradigm shift in combat mechanics.

Necros definitely benefited from the Reaper trait line mostly in sustained melee damage, not much elsewhere. Rangers, also lackluster previously, got an interesting healing niche carved out for them. Elsewhere, the other classes that are seen as functional or meta didn’t benefit as much or perhaps benefited from the elite spec system for the wrong reasons. Just for example, Warrior and Mesmer elites might as well be considered pure upgrades in what they get versus have to give up. Ele, having never left the meta in most game modes, doesn’t really need it’s elite spec but it’s another way to play. Necros have the most wiggle room in terms of giving them something they don’t already have, other classes not so much. You could either see that as a problem with Necromancers or a problem with the design of all the other classes. You wouldn’t be wrong in either case, it’s simply a matter of how you approach the issue.

We lost consistent summoning of Jagged Horrors when Rise! was changed in beta to shambling horrors on a timer. Sound familiar? The difference then and now is that almost everyone praised the change as good, and sort of glossed over all of the reasons for the change. Lost to time, we are now in a position where people are basically clamoring for Rise! to be changed back. I see people on reddit basically asking for a skill that summons Jagged horrors consistently on a 45-60 second timer. It’s silly to me that there is no memory of balance changes. I still want necros to be strong but I have to agree with another commenter elsewhere that the devs are probably looking forward to the next expansion/elite spec to give Necros another play style at this point instead of trying to make Reaper or base necro on par with Ele or War in terms of damage.

I’m going to hazard a guess and say the devs think that necros weren’t intended to have high uptime on over 10 jagged horrors. This was a scenario that was almost never present pre-hot. If they believe that, then there would be no need to compensate necros as the balance being done was reducing the edge case, overblown effectiveness of a skill in raids. Maintaining that number of jagged horrors is hardly done in open world, although in beta, people were achieving the same thing with the first iteration of “Rise!” before the minions became shambling horrors.

So if my theory is correct, it was emergent gameplay but unintended. Necros will need to adapt unless/until they give us another source of bleeds that is easier to balance. I may be wrong but it sounds reasonable in my head.

Lahmia.2193:

nightwulf.1986:

I keep seeing people complain about this nerf, but I’m curious, does anyone remember how “Rise!” functioned initially in beta before they changed it to what it is now? If I remember correctly, it used to spawn jagged horrors, and guess what happened. The devs noticed that people had ridiculous uptime with all the spawned jagged horrors and group healing. As a result, Rise! got changed to what it is now; damage reduction minions on a timer.

This change to Mark of Horror is totally in line with the change to Rise!. If anything, people should still be complaining about the change to Rise! but I suppose we all have short memories. Even I forgot until this patch reminded me.

I’m pretty sure they changed it due to people complaining that “Rise” was crap. This was before Viper Horror became a thing of course.
But on another note, I’d be happy if they just changed the Shambling Horrors into Jagged Horrors again but kept the 25s timer. I only ever bring Rise for the condi transfer and poison field on death, to be honest. I’d happily live without the damage reduction.

Oh, they definitely noticed the jagged horror uptime. Do you remember how many videos came out to test how many minions you could keep up with healing? There were several. If I’m not completely wrong, they did explicitly comment on changing the skill so that it doesn’t blow out the number of minions for technical/performance reasons.

I do also remember the initial outcry about getting jagged horrors, and the complaints were largely based on the understood potential pre-HOT. I’m just saying there is historical context for this. The MoH nerf is not out of the blue.

I keep seeing people complain about this nerf, but I’m curious, does anyone remember how “Rise!” functioned initially in beta before they changed it to what it is now? If I remember correctly, it used to spawn jagged horrors, and guess what happened. The devs noticed that people had ridiculous uptime with all the spawned jagged horrors and group healing. As a result, Rise! got changed to what it is now; damage reduction minions on a timer.

This change to Mark of Horror is totally in line with the change to Rise!. If anything, people should still be complaining about the change to Rise! but I suppose we all have short memories. Even I forgot until this patch reminded me.

Thorniss.2301:

nightwulf.1986:

I think there is an issue with your assumptions behind why elite specs exist. Elite specs were repeatedly described as horizontal, not vertical class progression. You are supposed to give up something in order to gain something. So, not just adding options and functionality but taking some away. On a basic level, that just means giving up a core trait line to access the elite trait line. And yes, that is supposed to be a tradeoff. 3 core trait lines are intended to be as desirable as 2 core, 1 elite and there is a lot that can be discussed about how/why that is/is not effective, what happens when we have more elite specs, but that is the idea.

For Necros, losing death shroud for reaper shroud is totally in line with that design ethos. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to mix and match reaper trait line with death shroud as the traits weren’t designed with death shroud in mind. I think it would make more sense to tweak death shroud which could totally be done with a new elite spec. You might just be getting ahead of yourself.

Of course elite specs were described as horizontal progression, of course 3 core trait lines are intended to be desirable as 2 core and 1 elite, but do you really feel this is true, actually?
That is the idea, you told well, but we have to deal with what it is in game, not on the paper.

I agree with you about the ideal not matching the reality. There’s room for improvement. My takeaway from the elite system thus far is that it benefited some classes more than others, Necro probably being the greatest benefactor since it had so many shortcomings to begin with, and Elementalist the least since they excelled in most areas already with the core spec setup. But I guess what I’m getting at is that we shouldn’t move away from the ideal of tradeoffs through horizontal progression because some other elite specs don’t fit what Anet was aiming for. That’s what it sounds like to me you are suggesting. Move the Necro into a more flexible position at the cost of what many players asked to avoid in the CDI on character progression. Because it won’t end with just Necros getting more flexibility if they intentionally move away from that concept. I’m concerned is all.

Thorniss.2301:

Well, you have traits and utility skills that you may like or not, but Reaper Shroud is not the only reason for picking Reaper spec.

As for the choice between the 2 Shrouds, it comes down to personal preferences.

For example, in DS we have Life Blast, that compared to Life Rend chain has the pro of beeing ranged, but the con of not giving 1.5% life force every third attack. Here we have a classical choice between steady ranged and melee chain; nothing new, just a matter of taste.

Then we have 2 skills that apply chills -the signature condition of the Reaper- : in DS we have Dark Path: comparing it to Executioner’s Scythe we have some pros: it is ranged, it is unblockable, it has half the cooldown. On the other hand, the cons are: it doesn’t stun, it doesn’t leave an ice field. Here the pros are very nice and, in my opinion, not negligibles.

Last, we have 2 skills that apply fear (that again, apply chill in Reaper spec), Doom for DS and Terrify for RS; pros of Doom are: again long range, lower cooldown, instant cast; the only con is single target vs multi target.

The other Shrouds skills i didn’t mention do not apply chill directly, so they are just matter of personal preferences and play style.

As you can see, especially for the lower cooldown, 2 skills out of 5 for DS are very nice in synergy with the benefits that Reaper get from chilling enemies -just like 2 out of 5 for RS-.

Anyway, just remember that if you don’t like Death Shroud on Reaper, you would not be forced to use it with the change i hypothesized; you can always keep Reaper Shroud, as it is now.

The issue right now is that you can already switch between melee and ranged shroud, but you have to drop reaper traits, utilities, etc. It sounds like you think the ranged/melee toggle would be balanced already or require minimal balancing, but I can almost guarantee you they would have to rebalance certain traits to account for known/unknown trait/skill interactions, effectiveness, etc. which is always more time than anyone thinks it will take. They’ve already spent months watching the Reaper trait line, how people use it, where they felt it was too strong, and toning things down. Throw in death shroud, now they have opened another can of worms pretty late into the balance cycle.

In terms of time/effort, they are probably already closer, in terms of dev time, to getting a new elite spec ready than working out switching between ranged and melee shroud. At that point, you’d probably have more data points to consider about whether this option makes sense at all. Maybe death shroud will be so buff this next elite spec that you will wonder why you ever played Reaper. I just think it’s hard to get a sense of the timetable for whether or not to make this sort of call, but I’m almost certain they wouldn’t consider this for several reasons. But if you want a buffed ranged shroud necro, you just might get that in the next expansion which they said they are already working on.

Thorniss.2301:

What about choosing between Death or Reaper Shroud, within the Reaper spec?

It could be done simply by giving the option to switch “on” or “off” the Shroud Knight minor trait.

Probably some of you may argue “why?”. Well, if you think about it, all elite specs in the game adds something to the base mechanic of the related profession; actually, Reaper spec overwrites the old Death Shroud with the Reaper’s one. In my opinion this could open up some nice synergies and be interesting for build diversity – given that if you want to be competitive elite specs are actually mandatory – .
Obviously, the traits in the Reaper spec that work with Reaper Shroud, would work in Death Shorud too.

What do you think about it? Do you think this would be OP or hard to balance in some way?

I think there is an issue with your assumptions behind why elite specs exist. Elite specs were repeatedly described as horizontal, not vertical class progression. You are supposed to give up something in order to gain something. So, not just adding options and functionality but taking some away. On a basic level, that just means giving up a core trait line to access the elite trait line. And yes, that is supposed to be a tradeoff. 3 core trait lines are intended to be as desirable as 2 core, 1 elite and there is a lot that can be discussed about how/why that is/is not effective, what happens when we have more elite specs, but that is the idea.

For Necros, losing death shroud for reaper shroud is totally in line with that design ethos. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to mix and match reaper trait line with death shroud as the traits weren’t designed with death shroud in mind. I think it would make more sense to tweak death shroud which could totally be done with a new elite spec. You might just be getting ahead of yourself.

It’s possible that the completion rate (elapsed completion time/successive completions) for Fractals post-HOT is something Anet is gathering data on before throwing ascended back into the reward system at the same rate as before. Think about it, if Ascended were rewarded now at the same rates as before for 40-50+ range fractals, the effect would be a significant increase in the amount of fractal gear being awarded for comparatively easier fractal runs. Fractals are very, very accessible right now. And it wouldn’t be out of the question to run multiple high level fractals in succession for significantly higher gains than before. I don’t think that would be an intended outcome of the fractal change.

I feel like what we should be asking is:
Do we like the reward system now?
Do we like consistent guaranteed rewards at the end of every fractal (fractal encryptions, agony resistance)?
Do we want ascended drop rates that are greater, less than, equal to before?
*on the “less than”option, some players do believe that balance of rewards should be based on a number of factors including difficulty, and therefore may opt to lower the reward of certain content if it seems to pay out significantly more than the effort put in.

Personally, I’m not sure how they could justify increasing fractal drop rates to what they were before in the 40-50 range given how much quicker and easier they are now. They may increase it for the much higher levels based on the timetables some people have claimed for completion. But, I’m sure Anet is listening to the complaints but also has some internal metric on player Ascended gear acquisition rates that they are trying to balance out.

Are we talking about these sparkles? I took this screenshot in June. It’s happened around on a few of my characters in a few different maps. It’s happened to me in SparkFly Fen several times and in Southsun Cove.

TinkTinkPOOF.9201:

I asked for a refund already, the gating was a joke, and the amount of work to get a skill set that is ALREADY behind a paywall for someone who only does WvW (we are talking hundreds if not thousands of hours), I will not be buying another anet game, they have ruined any faith I had in them, the game was sold on the idea of play how you want, and that is no longer the case. WvW was always punished compared to PvE, and the xpack was a back handed slap to the face. I already unloaded my accounts of all gold and gear and gave it to my guild, I wish them the best, but I am voting with my wallet and will be uninstalling the game after this post.

When a game starts charging for things that affect combat, such as whole classes and new skill sets through the xpack, it’s a sign of a money grab and the game going down hill, I don’t mind charging for content, but not for things that affect combat.

That last thing, about putting new classes and skills (things that affect combat) behind expansion paywalls….GW1 did it, repeatedly. And it was pretty successful. It’s a standard business model across a number of mmos that I’ve played at the least. There are exceptions out there. I hope you get your money back, if you don’t like it, that’s fine but I personally think your expectations were ill informed given the mmo market and certainly not based on anything Arenanet has said leading up to the expansion. I won’t argue on the wvw point, Anet has intentionally been limiting wealth and other forms of progression there for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

Kravick.4906:

CureForLiving.5360:

Ok that’s not true at all. I think you’ve either not played enough or somehow overestimate just how much content was in a living story. I’m not done yet and I can already say there’s at least as much content as in S2.

Well I disagree entirely, and found what was actually there to be quite lacking. Most of the maps are empty of anything actually meaningful. No heart quests, no exploration achievements. You’re guided to where you are by little green dots, and very few of that map space is actually used for anything beyond that. I’ve just found a whole lot of nothing. Yes, NPC enemies and stuff are there, but to what point? Without a reason to be there, its just like Orr. When was the last time you went to Orr for anything other than the Temple events?

Most of the hero points are blocked by useless gating, so even if you do get there, you can’t get them. Just very, very poorly designed.

GW2 was originally intended to not have hearts at all, but they figured people like you needed direction early on. That’s why Orr has no hearts. They figured by level 80 you wouldn’t need to be told where to go. You experience the story through exploration (for which there are some achievements in VB), which Verdant Brink and the rest are brimming with.

What I’m hearing is you expected more content direction like the lower levels and didn’t get it so it’s bad design. I can only disagree. Some counter points to consider. The “useless gating” referenced is what made games like metroid popular in design and gave depth to replaying a single map. So there is merit to the design. Anet (and players) wanted horizontal progression which means players will experience some degree of delayed gratification in achieving their goals. Anet might fine tune it later on, totally possible, but expecting most progression features given right away at launch was only ever wishful thinking.

Astralporing.1957:

nightwulf.1986:

I would argue that both my and your enjoyment of the game is tied to having an economy that works.

If only they didn’t value their economy higher that the players’ enjoyment of the game.

nightwulf.1986:

But back to dungeons, you can’t have this argument about fractal rewards vs dungeon rewards without remembering why fractals were created. Fractals were a vehicle to offer greater challenge and obtain a higher tier gear than the vanilla dungeons/content. Better rewards in Fractals are largely gated behind Agony resistance as compared to vanilla dungeons which were not intended to be gated at all. This concept was in response to the part of the player base who was clamoring for more difficult content and that exotics were too easy to get. Not everyone mind you was asking for this but enough were for Anet to take notice. Guild Wars 2 offers different tiers of rewards for different types of content, and how they are moving forward with Fractals, I don’t believe it’s out of line given our history as a community.

Actually, it is out of line. You’d realize it after actually reading what you’ve just wrote. Yes, they made Fractals (and then Raids) as a response to a small part of playerbase that wanted to grind for better gear and was clamoring for more difficult content.

It was meant for a small part of playerbase. And now that other content, that doesn’t require that gear grind, is getting axed. The balance between contents is getting pushed more and more towards that small but vocal group of players.

Ok. I read the article the OP was clearly referring to and it gives a bit more context to the conversation. I think questions of how rewarding content is as a matter of perception is extremely important. I’m sure the devs do too. There are some interesting studies on economies and player perception out there for a good read. However, what I read from the recent blog post is that vanilla dungeons were deemed problematic in terms of design. Looking at their history, that should be obvious. The devs were being intentionally vague as to how exactly they were problematic. I won’t pretend to know their reasons but the common perception among players was that vanilla dungeons were on the way out for a while and this confirms that. It’s pretty much legacy content officially. The devs have openly said the dungeons weren’t designed well and it’s entirely possible they feel that fractals/raids are in a much better position to reward players appropriately than dungeons. That’s up for debate of course but that’s what I’m reading from the recent dev post. I think we’ll get a better idea of just what position the dungeons are in when HOT launches.

As for fractals being the desire of a small group of players, I didn’t say that group was small. I don’t think any of us knows just how big that demand was, but all I can say is it happened. We lost some players to it and retained others because of it. Only Anet knows how much damage was done and what was gained.

phys.7689:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

We’ve known for 2 years that they are moving away from dungeons as content. This is just the next logical step. Dungeons are the #1 source of inflation in GW2. By toning down the rewards there they can keep a much healthier game.

inflation or lack of inflation doesnt equal a well designed game.
thats the flaw in the item design of gw2. Making the game suck, or having poor incentives does not make a better game.

this is why i say nothing good comes of tying anything to the economy reward wise in gw2. Because the goal of the economy in gw2 is that it should be should basically stay the same, and players exist to serve the economy, not vice versa.

I think you are heavily underestimating the importance of the in-game economy in terms of the design of Guild Wars 2. The economy is an integral part of how we are rewarded for doing anything in the game. And it’s not just important to GW2, it’s important to any MMO with an in-game economy and cash shop especially. Decisions on what items are account bound/soul bound/not bound at all, whether they are RNG drops or tokens for content, and when and were we get drops are all tied to having and maintaining a functional economy. I would argue that both my and your enjoyment of the game is tied to having an economy that works. The presence of over-inflation is not, as I think you meant to say, the sole metric for good game design. I’m sure many agree.

But back to dungeons, you can’t have this argument about fractal rewards vs dungeon rewards without remembering why fractals were created. Fractals were a vehicle to offer greater challenge and obtain a higher tier gear than the vanilla dungeons/content. Better rewards in Fractals are largely gated behind Agony resistance as compared to vanilla dungeons which were not intended to be gated at all. This concept was in response to the part of the player base who was clamoring for more difficult content and that exotics were too easy to get. Not everyone mind you was asking for this but enough were for Anet to take notice. Guild Wars 2 offers different tiers of rewards for different types of content, and how they are moving forward with Fractals, I don’t believe it’s out of line given our history as a community.

I’ll reiterate what I’ve said elsewhere. Hit and run is not rewarded, nor is commitment punished. At least not in such black and white terms. “Hit and run” as it is described is unsustainable without some committed individuals completing events. With that being the case, how you view player behavior in events is a matter of perspective.

Is Anet punishing players completing events by seeing them through from beginning to end or are they allowing players to exploit the event system by not doing the former? Anet does not encourage players to exploit, although this is a point of contention that shows up a lot in these kinds of complaints. In fact, many aspects of this event design are lessons learned from unintended/unwelcome player behavior in older events. Mobs not dropping loot is one of them, preventing players from zerging with the explicit goal of spawning champs to farm is another, having a personal buff that disappears when hopping maps also is a deterrent to another previously identified issue. All of these issues and more were player critiques that popped up in the past while Anet was experimenting with event design. Anet doesn’t follow this reward model with all events, so there is a time and place for enemies to drop loot and such, but it’s pretty clear that they have been watching players and how they behave in order to steer them to play “the right way.”

They made a public statement saying they heard us, and if this event is any indication, they have been listening. There are still issues to iron out and the key issue brought up in this thread is one that plagues almost all events throughout Tyria that reward participation through damage done, not just this one. They’ll come up with some other idea to curb this sort of behavior eventually.

bacon.9461:

nightwulf.1986:

Agemnon.4608:

nightwulf.1986:

This event is based heavily on the Scarlet Invasions. It has some arguable improvements (mobs not dropping loot) and some odd design cuts (no end boss?). I think it’s better than it’s predecessor overall and has some interesting rewards. It could definitely still be improved upon (cutting all avenues for players to exploit rewards), but it’s hardly the worst pve event ever, in my opinion.

Mobs not dropping loot is far from an improvement. If they don’t drop loot then that’s one less benefit and incentive players have and waste a perfectly good opportunity to salvage blue, green, and yellow gear we collect.

There was a problem with the Scarlet Invasions that was pretty obvious. When events scaled, all people did was farm champs and ignore completing the map event. The same behavior was present with several other events in the game. Anet noticed this and, most likely, designed the Silverwastes events and other meta events around the idea that you only get rewarded for playing as intended, i.e. completing everything. How do you combat that sort of player behavior while still allowing loot to drop? This solution isn’t perfect but it’s definitely a solution to one behavioral issue. Players still get rewarded at the end of the event and can work toward their goal of buying items from the vendor. If new players want blues and greens there are plenty of other events to go around, but that’s not the point of the event at the moment.

Playing as intended == running around and simply tagging a couple mobs to get a stack then moving on?

I don’t agree with that logic. Should you stand on a box where a boss can’t hit you and damage it simply because the game allows it? Clearly, if everyone did what you are suggesting is what Anet intends, no events would get completed. None. And no one would get credit. So how is what you are suggesting what Anet intends?

Edit: Maybe you weren’t saying that was what Anet intended. Honestly, Anet is probably observing this behavior and will probably limit it in future events once they come up with a better method. I’m not saying I know why they chose the personal buff system, but it looks to me like they tried to incentivize completing events and dedicating yourself to a single map instead of map hopping for rewards which was another old issue they wanted to squish. They got the map hopping issue squished but not the event tagging issue.

petespri.6548:

Kahrgan.7401:

All there is to it is tagging mobs, hijacking a catapult sometimes, and this really poses no challenge. Not to mention that its bugged out, and we have no idea how many blooms we are SUPPOSED to get, as well as not getting any for possibly days/weeks.

Bad job arenanet. Simply really bad job.

A pre-cursor or foreshadow of the xpac??! Or was this just a bugged event…. I am really hopeful for raids and hard pve; but I’m thinking I should give it a month or two past release…

Have you been reading the forums during beta weekend? Some people were complaining that they were getting floored by the mobs in the Verdant Brink. I can personally attest that the group composition and mob design is better in the Maguuma Jungle. Some mobs (lookin at you Smokescales) are pretty crazy but not impossible. I’d say the future looks bright. Right now, the mobs in the invasion are scaled down and we have a bunch of scaled down level 80 players which are still OP for the zone level. I have no clue how raids are going to play out in practice but the trailer showed more than just tagging mobs and hijacking catapaults, so you may not need to worry.

Tuomir.1830:

Mordrem Invasion reward scheme (once Anet gets it working) is faulty by design – your blooms scale by the number of incursion events you partake in. This makes tagging in to as many events as possible the most effective means of getting the blooms and the rewards behind them. However, tagging and running to next event is quite counter-intuitive, and can hurt the cooperative effort of the map. So, that’s the problem explained, now for the fix.

Make each incursion two events. The first event is as is right now, but doesn’t increase the event counter that your blooms scale to. The second one triggers once the first is completed, scales to the amount of players present (in order to not die too quickly, so as to not prevent people present getting their credit, but fast enough that you need to be in the vicinity to make it), and counts for the incursion counter. Of course, some would still attempt to tag the second event and run, but sticking around for the full event would be far more lucrative than it is now.

What you are describing is pretty much the very first Scarlet Invasions. It was a two part meta event. The first part was the scattered events across the map done in phases. The second part was fighting a scarlet hologram boss at a single location that everyone had to get to. They scrapped the boss fight part of the design this time around for unknown reasons. There was also no personal counter per event completed if I remember correctly.

ham.8209:

a event where you must spend gold to get rewards. is not worth doing at all. not only that but with no drops of loot from kills is not worth doing even more so when there is no extra special items being dropped from the said event . all together not worth the doing of this event at all . nor worth wasting time on a useless event .

Sovereign weapons available during the Queen’s Jubilee cost gold as well as a Favor of the Pavillion. Just saying. There’s a precedent.

Agemnon.4608:

nightwulf.1986:

This event is based heavily on the Scarlet Invasions. It has some arguable improvements (mobs not dropping loot) and some odd design cuts (no end boss?). I think it’s better than it’s predecessor overall and has some interesting rewards. It could definitely still be improved upon (cutting all avenues for players to exploit rewards), but it’s hardly the worst pve event ever, in my opinion.

Mobs not dropping loot is far from an improvement. If they don’t drop loot then that’s one less benefit and incentive players have and waste a perfectly good opportunity to salvage blue, green, and yellow gear we collect.

There was a problem with the Scarlet Invasions that was pretty obvious. When events scaled, all people did was farm champs and ignore completing the map event. The same behavior was present with several other events in the game. Anet noticed this and, most likely, designed the Silverwastes events and other meta events around the idea that you only get rewarded for playing as intended, i.e. completing everything. How do you combat that sort of player behavior while still allowing loot to drop? This solution isn’t perfect but it’s definitely a solution to one behavioral issue. Players still get rewarded at the end of the event and can work toward their goal of buying items from the vendor. If new players want blues and greens there are plenty of other events to go around, but that’s not the point of the event at the moment.

This event is based heavily on the Scarlet Invasions. It has some arguable improvements (mobs not dropping loot) and some odd design cuts (no end boss?). I think it’s better than it’s predecessor overall and has some interesting rewards. It could definitely still be improved upon (cutting all avenues for players to exploit rewards), but it’s hardly the worst pve event ever, in my opinion.

Altair.8402:

Why isn’t anyone complaining about meteor shower? Granted the radius is larger, but it does 1.5x the damage of icebow #4 with 1/2 the CD (1/3 if you trait for it).

I believe the quick answer is because you don’t see meteor shower melting bosses in organized groups. If it’s not common, there’s likely a reason something else is being used more often. In this case, that something else is ice bow. Do you think meteor shower should be nerfed as well?

rogerwilko.6895:

I hope that the day will come when ice bow will not be stupidly op.
But it’s been 3 years already and my hope is almost gone.

Many people didn’t want Fiery Greatsword to be nerfed and it happened. People even were waiting in the wings for the Norn Bear form rush to be the next best thing but Anet cut that off at the pass as well. It was pretty much in the same position as ice bow, so really, nothing is sacred. Anet didn’t given an explanation for the timing of FGS nerf, nor have they given an explanation for their inaction on Ice bow and probably won’t unless it suits them. So, really, there’s not much else to do. They know how much damage it does. They’ll change it if they truly think it will hamper the difficulty of future content. When is anyone’s guess.

As for the argument that something new will take it’s place if it does get nerfed, you’re probably right. And that’s the challenge of balance. It’s difficult to get right and is often a series of moving targets that require evaluation and re-evaluation. The only mindset that prevents the game from getting better is the one that believes it cannot get better.

Well, theoretically, all the Jade Wind was comprised of was the same magic that came from the Gods. So it is possible that dragon magic would do the same. I didn’t remember that particular theory about the origins of the Black Moa. It would make sense. There were some normal moas surrounding this particular Black Moa. Maybe he was once a normal Moa too.

So, I was running for my life in the verdant brink, as one tends to do. I run up a ramp here, jump a mushroom there, and lo! I spot a sleeping Black Moa. At first it didn’t register that this was a big Moa, but then it hit me. It’s a wild Black Moa, out in the open. Having played guild wars 1, it makes me wonder what on Tyria a Black Moa is doing in the Maguuma Jungle? The only other Black Moa that can be spotted in the Wild is an elusive one that only spawns as part of a hidden dynamic event. Is this precedent for fighting Black Moas in the wild in the future? What’s it doing in the Verdant brink? One would think that only the hardiest of creatures can survive out there. I suppose the Black Moa is one of them.

Pandaman.4758:

Given that BWE is about beta testing and not having fun, you aren’t really missing anything beyond the chance to improve the product before it ships – and as horrifying as the prospect may be, I think you’ll just have to trust the Americans to give good feedback on balance issues and bugs in your stead.

Oh God, what am I saying? It’s all doomed! (I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Mostly)

I see that bolded part a lot from some people, and I gotta say, it’s not either or, it’s both. The devs have publicly stated they want to know what’s fun as well as what’s broken in the beta weekend events. Sometimes you gotta figure out the latter before you can get to the former as we saw last beta.

And yeah, I’ll echo the sentiment that this probably has to do with Anet hours of operation in Bellevue, Washington. Quick question to those peeved by this, what are some examples of companies that have done beta event times that are equally amenable in all regions and times zones?

Anet admitted some time ago that they messed up with karma rewards. Karma gains were too high and not enough karma sinks. The result was a glut of karma in the playerbase. Their only remedy from what I remember were the orrian boxes added to Karma vendors in Orr to encourage people to gamble their karma away. Although, what I think happened is people learned what was in the loot table pretty quickly and felt it wasn’t profitable/interesting and ended up waiting until Anet released some other karma sink that was. That day hasn’t come yet, and it may not. To be fair, Anet has been laying groundwork for all sorts of systems and reward mechanisms for the last couple of years. I’m not counting karma down and out just yet.

This was a response from Robert Gee to the mesmer forum on why mesmers don’t have a bunch of blast finishers (sound familiar?).

Robert Gee.9246:

From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.

We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.

His response makes it sound like profession (and encounter) design was supposed to allow for other professions to fill in the weaknesses that are inherent in other professions. And clearly, he knows there are some issues with this. Much like for mesmers, rangers, etc., getting this balance right for necros is a work in progress. They have a target they are shooting for and it’s either avoiding giving all professions what the current meta calls for, testing the waters for future content to see if that is what is needed or whatever design balance concept #3 is. This isn’t quite new info in terms of what they’ve said before about balance and design, but also remember that with the Blood Magic redesign, making blood is power a group buff, and giving Reaper Shroud 2 a projectile block, they are open to new ideas in terms of profession design/theme.

spoj.9672:

nightwulf.1986:

…That statement pretty much runs counter to what players who enjoy the current meta believe, which is that the combat and encounters cannot be improved on, effectively leaving necro out of favor in group comps for the foreseeable future. There’s a lot to this issue and I must admit that I personally feel that people who believe the current meta that excludes the necromancer is immovable are incredibly myopic.

You were making so much sense up until this point. I think you have a rather shallow and unfair view of some player groups.

nightwulf.1986:

How to tackle that issue can be approached from a number of directions, which may include simply giving necromancers blast finishers and invuln/evasion etc., but Anet is, as always, clandestine in their larger design goals. Where necros fit in group content is as much up in the air as they ever were prior to the announcement. Perhaps, in a post beta weekend followup, they’ll comment on this matter.

And then you made sense again. However we have been suggesting these simple small solutions for a very long time and nothing has been done.

I’ll admit that I didn’t elaborate fully on the various positions, and there are many, taken by “players who enjoy the current meta” with regard to where the game can go and why it’s enjoyable with the current profession balance. My goal was to point out what I felt was a particularly defeatist position that I’ve seen echoed more than once that serves to undermine the notion that the game can, in fact, evolve.

Anet has specifically avoided making any promises about making Necros more desired in structured group comps.

The strange, maybe not so strange, thing about profession balance is that Anet makes it their policy to not discuss the meta in general. I’m absolutely certain that Anet is aware of the player psychology and game environment that created the meta, but when talking about what direction they are taking the elite specs and core professions, the current meta is always a non-issue. The lack of recognition affects not only the necromancer but all the other professions in terms of what players can expect when the professions are being balanced. It’s probably a big reason why the tempest received such a lukewarm reception on a class that already has what is needed in the current meta with the core specializations available.

It’s important to remember that Anet has said, and it’s what some have pointed out already, that they believe that the encounters in the game can be improved to where the full extent of the combat system is realized which suggests that there is room for improvement. That statement pretty much runs counter to what players who enjoy the current meta believe, which is that the combat and encounters cannot be improved on, effectively leaving necro out of favor in group comps for the foreseeable future. There’s a lot to this issue and I must admit that I personally feel that people who believe the current meta that excludes the necromancer is immovable are incredibly myopic. How to tackle that issue can be approached from a number of directions, which may include simply giving necromancers blast finishers and invuln/evasion etc., but Anet is, as always, clandestine in their larger design goals. Where necros fit in group content is as much up in the air as they ever were prior to the announcement. Perhaps, in a post beta weekend followup, they’ll comment on this matter.

nekretaal.6485:

There is a hard cap on minions.

These minions get damage redirected to them, naturally health degen, and disappear after 30 seconds. Thats overdoing it.

What number is that hard cap set at? I had 11 jagged horrors out plus a blood fiend, a bone fiend , 2 bone minions, and a flesh golem. That’s 15 so far. How many more could I obtain? After looking at the wiki discussion on minion caps, I don’t think there was anything conclusive about what the cap actually is. It was just based on what we could test within the scope of minion generation as was available at the time.

Petrol.9086:

I love the sound of the skill, but yes it needs to apply instantly. Not only would it feel more responsive as a defensive skill but also you wouldn’t haveto deal with the wonky AI.

Being under pressure and using the skill only to have them stand there like morons, as minions tend to do, would probably break a few keyboards.

Yeah, that’s where the third point about fixing AI comes in. It’s an important point and I don’t believe it has escaped their notice. But, that’s the thing. You don’t design skills around bugs. At least, I don’t think you should design around bugs. Necros have some instant defensive skills already (stun breaks mostly) and it’s certainly not unheard of to have an effective form of defense that you have to work for.

That being said, I guess the question is are there too many balance points against the current shambling horrors to stay alive and provide their benefit? So far, they bleed out, take normal damage from enemies, and take additional damage from you when you get hit. Given that, they will probably die much faster than the current jagged horrors unless they have much higher health. In addition to that, they have to successfully land an attack to provide the dark bond buff. In PVE, that’s not a big deal depending on the scenario unless there is a lot of AOE. In that case, none of your minions are going to last long but your shambling horrors are going to be the first to go.

Actually, if you make Dark Bond an instant buff on spawn, you may kill the horrors before they even reach their target. Eh, too much to weigh in on and too many unknowns.

Bacon.1835:

To quote Robert:

• Rise!”: This skill is now unblockable and instant cast. Damage increased. Now creates a shambling horror for each foe hit which lose health every second. These minions place Dark Bond on their master when they hit with attacks which causes 50% of the damage from attacks on the master to be redirected to the minion.

Not sure what a shambling horror looks like but it’s already an improvement on the previous version. The spell has very nice synergy with Death Nova with minions taking increased damage further expediting subsequent explosions. These minions also fit the thematic of Death Magic (i.e. tanky) quite nicely.

Couple of things I’d change:

• Remove the need for minions to attack to apply the dark bond. Have it apply instantly when they are summoned.
• Allow the damage redirection to affect party members.
• *Fix minion AI

Thoughts?

Not sure about the value of giving a constant buff on summon. It would be nice I guess, but I suppose it matters how exactly dark bond functions. We have only a basic description so far. On attack buffs were added to a number of traits for core specializations, probably in response to discussions among players about the lack of counter play or interest in completely passive buffs. If it stays as an on hit benefit, it’s roughly the same risk/reward as having the bleed on hit from the horrors.

As for making it a party wide buff, they have to give them crazy large health pools to last even a few seconds considering how much damage they’d take in a 5 person party situation. The immediate issue with that which comes to mind is that if you wanted them to last for any significant period of time as a party support skill, they’d have too much health when you run solo. Actually, how does Phantasmal Defender hold up in group situations? Should it be a better Phantasmal Defender that you can heal to prolong?

There’s a lot to consider but Necros have a hard time with personal defense as it is and it seems clear to me that Robert and co are going out of their way to avoid just giving necros evades, vigor, blocks, and invuln. If staying alive means not sharing Dark Bond, I might just take that.

I’ll wait to see what the new minion does. The short work-in-progress description didn’t mention leaving a jagged horror behind but that would be a must have for minion builds if it turns out that way. As for longevity, the minions don’t attack often enough for the siphons to offset the damage they take if the enemy you fight has any sort of aoe. Right now, minions can be healed by outside sources but not reliably. Blood of the master was designed for a very different sort of minion combat than what we have in GW2. However, if it were to come back, I would tack it on to the Blood Fiend sacrifice skill. That would make sacrificing Blood Fiend feel less like just losing your passive heal for a meager self heal.

I read about minion bombing being a possibility when the beta weekend was going. I tested out how much damage I could do in the pvp area and got decent damage on the golems, but yeah, it’s a bit unreliable as there is no way to kill them all outside of using a transformation elite on a high cool down. What I did later was try to see how many jagged horrors I could keep up at once in the open world. I think I counted 11 jagged horrors during an event where there was enough aoe healing to keep my first wave of horrors alive long enough for a second wave of them. I did not test this build with a transformation elite, but I might next time. This would have been decent bleed damage but only under very specific conditions that allow the first wave of horrors to live long enough. And probably more than decent spike damage if you could corral them on top of your enemy to blow them up. Now that they are shambling horrors, the value in blowing them up might not be the same.

Edit: Where’s Blood of the Master when you need it?

This was a recent look I had after lucking out on a certain necklace. It made lots of screenshots look dramatic in the right light. Very “shadow of the night”.

So, Smokescales can join the, very much missed, Molten Protectors in the list of mobs that make stacking a pain. Anyone who remembers those Protectors should remember the need to prioritize that guy and make sure he didn’t make group fights a pain. With the amount of CC available to players, it should be possible to take down even two regular smokescales together. I believe we are simply too used to being able to take down groups of vets that have 0 defensive capabilities. This guy is very much much anti-zerker, he can evade attacks with a relatively high uptime if he is not constantly being CC’d and his offense has innate defense by being hard to target.

I don’t know about toning down smokescales, or at least, I don’t know how I would tone them down if they needed it, maybe increase the cooldown on their smokefield a bit. But they aren’t mordrem, so I’d imagine you won’t see them in team fights with groups of other mordrem typically. This would make them much less of a problem for players given where you are likely to run into them unlike the mordrem wolves who buffed their team mates with retaliation, which absolutely wrecked players without boon stripping given their uptime. That was really only problematic given the number of wolves that typically showed up in group fights allowing almost 100% uptime on retaliation. Smokescales, given their location at the moment, and where they are likely to appear, are only a problem if you run into a bunch of them at once. Running is always an option.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Then Anet has frankly failed at a very base level. Unlocking the elite spec should only allow your character to use the weapon as any other weapon, regardless if the elite spec is chosen or not.

This inability to use the weapon if you’re not using the spec actively flies in the face of player choice (again) and shows that Anet has had no intention to balance these new specs with the old.

What is sounds like you are suggesting flies in the face of what Anet has said they don’t want to do ever which is create a situation like in GW1 where they keep adding so many choices that it becomes impossible to balance. That degree of player choice was arguably destructive to the balance of the game. At least, Anet has said as much. Limiting the number of combinations an elite spec has access to reduces the permutations that Anet has to account for when balancing new elite specs in the future. There has been some criticism of how elite specs are being rolled out and what it means when more elite specs are added, some of which is valid, but I disagree with adding new weapons for core specs.

I guess where I’d take the discussion here is to ask people whether they feel adding new weapons to the core spec is vertical progression or horizontal progression or neither? For those proposing adding new weapons to the core spec for the forseeable future, what are the risks associated with doing so?

To echo Palindrome, the tradeoff for using an elite spec is supposed to be being unable to go into three of your core spec lines instead of only 2. That is only a tradeoff, of course, if you are making a meaningful choice by giving up that third core traitline in your build setup. Using Necro as an example, if I go reaper, I couldn’t take Foot in the Grave, Vampiric Rituals, and Unholy Feast as Grandmasters alongside the Reaper traitline. Now, having a cleaving, melee deathshroud with new abilities and better life force generation is a pretty big buff compared to the clunky life blast we have already. That issue is largely one of balance/content, not an issue with the concept of elite specializations themselves. Also consider that with the ability to change traits on the fly, you are still free to optimize your loadout for a situation where the elite spec may not be optimal or necessary. And I believe, for elite specs to not be a straight upgrade, there has to be content where it would not be optimal to swap them in.

Pertinent questions:
Which model makes more money for Anet, subscription model with cash shop, B2P with cash shop, or F2P with cash shop? <—-Relevant to Anet mostly.
Do any of these monetisation models result in less money going back into game development? <——Consumer psychology question. Usually brought up by players.
What are the hurdles, imagined or otherwise, that would prevent players from buying into these business models? <——Another consumer psychology question.
What examples can we look to, historically, to forecast the success of said business models? <——Look at AOC, Wildstar, WOW, FFXIV, etc. All relevant to the question, all very different stories of success/failure/change.

The list of questions that help determine what business model to run with, I would imagine, can run pretty long and can’t be easily divorced from the original question posed in the thread. Swapping an expansion price point some find too high for locking access to the service behind a subscription fee is indeed trading one perceived evil for another, but to add to that, consider that players have already harped on Anet for the Manifesto language debacle for many years. They don’t need more ammo. The three business models used in MMOs referenced in the questions earlier all have pros and cons. Add to that, consumer perception of service access value has changed over the years. MMOs haven’t come up with a bullet proof business model as there are success and failure stories within all models. There has to be some risk assessment done where you get an idea of who you are going to lose and why, and whether or not you are ok with those numbers.

I don’t think adding a subscription fee that removes access to the game when not paid will endear the market demographic Anet has catered to for three years. Not to mention that no MMO (that I can think of) has gone from a “F2P” model to a P2P model. That would be a enormous uphill marketing battle. I think Anet’s idea of bundling previous expansions is a great way to alleviate the fear of having a high barrier to entry starting price point for new players. If anything, I think they just need to be more creative in how they add value for existing players for future expansions if they continue with this model as expected. There isn’t sufficient evidence to suggest that a subscription model has a higher chance of financial success for Anet nor added value for us as players.

Colin said pretty plainly the only reason we didn’t see other races in this last beta was that all the animations and voice work wasn’t done yet for the rest. They weren’t picking and choosing a race at random here. Of course, humans being the most popular race meant that they were finished first. When the other races are done, I’m sure we’ll get the choice to use them.

Let’s all just agree that this proposal is missing a lot of necessary info. GW2 is a buy to play game that subsidizes, I repeat, subsidizes itself through additional monetization. Free is just a marketing term that has a lot less meaning to the consumer than it does to the company. I can assure you that the $50 is not a value that exists in a vacuum. Unless the OP has a comprehensize model of monetization that includes gem store sales and other methods of monetizing, that “nominal expanson fee” is without sufficient context.

Given that they are changing the activities to Adventures, it’s possible we’ll see polymock return as an “Adventure.”

To be more specific, a bug in a patch a while back accidentally granted some players achievements through the Hall of Monuments that they didn’t earn. So to address this, the devs disabled access to the Hall of Monuments temporarily, only recently reinstating access to the location but not the vendor inside. They did make a statement that they were working on a fix but said it would take a while as it’s a complicated issue.

loreah.8671:

What are the benefits of being in the group then?

If you are asking about the benefits of being in a group in general, you get:
*a closed party chat system.
*Icons on your minimap showing you where your party members are at all times.
*boons you and your group cast prioritize your group first when others are around.
*your collective damage as a party is counted for tagging individual mobs for credit.

And I’m sure there’s more I’m missing. Hearts in particular are usually individual contribution only. I forget if there are any that work through group contribution.

Atin.1237:

Jalis Elite skill is a stunbreak. The stunbreak is insta cast. Prolly why you take the full energy cost as soon as you cast it instead of when the channel is finished so you cant have a free stun break.

There was a bug discovered early on where pretty much that happened. There was a video showing someone cast-canceling the Jalis elite to repeatedly stun break the wyvern wind gust knockdown during the Verdant Brink beta. I think it was because it didn’t cash in on the energy cost at the start of the cast.

That aside, Revenants have (theoretically) two more legends coming up. There is more room for stun break utilities there. And, assuming Anet sticks to the key decision point being your legend loadout, if you want a stun break you may really just be looking at one or two legends with a stun break and the global traited stun break on legend swap. That global stun break does free you from choosing a legend based on whether or not they have a stun break in their utilities. This, doesn’t sound so unreasonable. I mean, is the alternative to give Revenants a stun break on all of their legends? That might be pushing it.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Thanatos.2691:

Is there a revenant around? Revenants have a displace skill which teleports enemies away from them; the teleported enemies have no visual effect to show that they are being affected by this skill, which makes it appear as if they were rubberbanding. Revenant is still in the beta phase, so don’t go crazy over this if revenants are indeed the source of your confusion.

That does sound like what I was experiencing. If this is indeed somehow intended then I hope they remove that skill very quickly, otherwise I will certainly be kicking any revenant from my group.

Consider it just another annoying knockback skill. It’s pretty much how it functions. If thief had a knockback on their weapon skills that use initiative, you’d probably be just as angry. This particular revenant skill gets spammed because the displacement skill uses a resource without a cooldown like thief headshot. I personally think it’s a powerful tool that has a number of good applications (possibly needs tuning with bosses and Defiance), but just like a gaggle of rangers using their knockback skills, there is a time and a place for everything.

Vicariuz.1605:

nightwulf.1986:

Vicariuz.1605:

krzygum.4028:

Vicariuz.1605:

krzygum.4028:

Anet is never ignoring problems. They are professionals and they are working on a schedule. Game breaking fixes are highest priority and those will be fixed first. The changes introduced with june 23rd patch is a well thought bussiness decision, prepared for a long time. They changed some things about game mechanics with trait merging and rebalancing and this is for us players to discover new solutions with current system. It’s like discovering the game as a new player. I love this!

Oh really? Then tell me why it’s two years since they said they would fixed necro minion ai, and it still is bugged exactly the same as then. Pretty sure when your entire skill bar stands 600 feet from you and never attacks, it’s gamebreaking.

There are MANY bugs from release that are still in the game, and have simply NEVER been fixed. I wish I had open ended deadlines for extremely important things in my line of work, but I don’t have that luxury, I have polished products to market.

I don’t know, maybe those things you consider bugs are not bugs? If there are real problems I’m sure it’s on their list. Those are professional, educated employees, they know what they are doing.

So it’s not a bug that the AI is genuinely broken and has been for years, with Anet comments on it. Got it. You are blinded by your fandom.

Listen, the best example of why your call to arms is a non-issue is Condition Stacking. Since launch, it was broken. Anet heard us and repeatedly told us that they were working on fixes to condition damage pretty early on, but like you, people believed that Anet was sitting on their hands for years doing nothing. Low and behold, years later, we have a fix for condition stacking.

Was it a week, two weeks, or even a month after the initial reports from players that this got fixed? No way. It took over 2 and a half years. Are there other bugs since release that still aren’t fixed? You betcha! As someone pointed out earlier, Anet has their own priorities for when to resolve bugs and balance stuff which will usually conflict with when we want them fixed (Now!). In addition to that, the bugs/balance issues that you and others have problems with, in all likelihood, do not have easy or obvious answers. Even if they did, Anet’s own internal release schedule may delay releasing a fix/balance/correction. So, you have pointed out things you and others have problems with. Great! They probably already know about them and will probably just push out a fix when its ready™.

Wow it takes years to make non stacking conditions stack AND increase the stack cap? Bravo, encor. Oh they are doing a stellar job with balance, just take a look at the PvP section, every one RAVES about how balanced the game is, the top players themselves RAVE about how balanced everything is after years of careful changes. I grasp the point you are trying to convey, the issue with that is, well, plainly obvious.

I just wanted to make sure you understood that ignoring an issue =/= working on their own time table. Two very different complaints. Do they take too long on fixing everything? No. Some things? Probably. But as I’ve said in other threads that it has taken years to address some bugs/balance issues in a number of other mmos. That is not to say it takes that long for every game balance or bug, but again, we don’t know what their internal schedule for this stuff is. Because of my experience with other mmos, this doesn’t really phase me personally.

Vicariuz.1605:

krzygum.4028:

Vicariuz.1605:

krzygum.4028:

Anet is never ignoring problems. They are professionals and they are working on a schedule. Game breaking fixes are highest priority and those will be fixed first. The changes introduced with june 23rd patch is a well thought bussiness decision, prepared for a long time. They changed some things about game mechanics with trait merging and rebalancing and this is for us players to discover new solutions with current system. It’s like discovering the game as a new player. I love this!

Oh really? Then tell me why it’s two years since they said they would fixed necro minion ai, and it still is bugged exactly the same as then. Pretty sure when your entire skill bar stands 600 feet from you and never attacks, it’s gamebreaking.

There are MANY bugs from release that are still in the game, and have simply NEVER been fixed. I wish I had open ended deadlines for extremely important things in my line of work, but I don’t have that luxury, I have polished products to market.

I don’t know, maybe those things you consider bugs are not bugs? If there are real problems I’m sure it’s on their list. Those are professional, educated employees, they know what they are doing.

So it’s not a bug that the AI is genuinely broken and has been for years, with Anet comments on it. Got it. You are blinded by your fandom.

Listen, the best example of why your call to arms is a non-issue is Condition Stacking. Since launch, it was broken. Anet heard us and repeatedly told us that they were working on fixes to condition damage pretty early on, but like you, people believed that Anet was sitting on their hands for years doing nothing. Low and behold, years later, we have a fix for condition stacking.

Was it a week, two weeks, or even a month after the initial reports from players that this got fixed? No way. It took over 2 and a half years. Are there other bugs since release that still aren’t fixed? You betcha! As someone pointed out earlier, Anet has their own priorities for when to resolve bugs and balance stuff which will usually conflict with when we want them fixed (Now!). In addition to that, the bugs/balance issues that you and others have problems with, in all likelihood, do not have easy or obvious answers. Even if they did, Anet’s own internal release schedule may delay releasing a fix/balance/correction. So, you have pointed out things you and others have problems with. Great! They probably already know about them and will probably just push out a fix when its ready™.