Showing Highly Rated Posts By Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

HoT is not challenging

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I’d like the see those claiming HoT is not challenging link videos of themselves soloing stuff like, say, some of the Hero Challenges, maybe the one in VB with the Vet Teragriff, pack of wolves and mender. We might learn something.

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not but isn’t that one the easiest one to solo?

Forum warriors can claim anything. If HoT really offers no challenge to the OP, surely posting such a video should be trivial for him.

But posting that doesn’t prove anything. That is literally one of the easiest HPs to get in VB. Now if he had a video of him soloing it back when it was a champion then that would be an entirely different story. Or pick any one of the other champion HPs.

I disbelieve his claims, and I’m inviting him to prove me wrong. I’d accept a solo of that point as a modest declaration that he possesses some skill. If he believes that a greater challenge would be more informative, then he can have at it.

Look, I can solo that point, but I’m not going to go out of my way to make a video to show disbelieving players that I can solo it.

I think you are mistaking your position here. He doesn’t need to prove to himself that HoT is too easy. He experiences it. To him, making a video of himself soloing a Hero Point is akin to making a video explaining why the sky is blue. If anything, you should make videos of yourselves failing that HP, so then the OP can understand why it is so hard for others.

Just to get ridiculded by the god-skilled forum warriors in return where maybe 2-3 people actually would offer any helpful advice (other than in the specific profession sub-forum)? That would be the same as the forum warriors posting their OPness and in turn being labled as show-offs/braggers or so.

So you see how ridiculous the whole thing is? Posting a video to prove something isn’t hard is as equally silly as posting a video showing something is too hard. You’re doing it for indignant players, so why do it in the first place? The terms are ill-defined, so there are limitless ways to move the goal posts. In the end it accomplishes nothing.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

WORLD FIRST VALE GUARDIAN KILL

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I just wish I could tell what was going on. I watched a few of the videos, and it looks like the hardest part of this raid will be the gigantic flashing lights obstructing the view.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Love the new patch

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Definitely a good patch.

Humblebrag: making each combo field color coded was my idea.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Favorite point in the story? [Spoilers]

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

The reward box at the end.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

On Reflects...

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

The whole thing just wreaks of bad design. If you make a boss with projectiles, then specifically make those projectiles avoid reflection, then maybe you shouldn’t have made the boss with projectiles in the first place.

Consistency is pretty important. When you have a skill that blocks attacks, but then throw a whole bunch of unblockable attacks into the game, then what good is the skill? Why not balance around people having blocks, instead of just making an attack unblockable?

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Never Fear - Things will get better

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

The one MMO was looking forward to (Everquest Next) has been put on life support. It is a shame, though. Buildable and destructible environments looked fun. I mean, I hated that their whole “permanent changes to the world” thing would mean that the game could only break, but it would’ve been interesting.

That said, I’m fine with HoT. I like the maps, I like the enemies, I like the new specializations, I like masteries, I like the gear prefixes, I like the money I make, I like the music, and I like the new skins. Story is “meh” and I don’t plan on raiding anytime soon, and I haven’t done PVP/WvW stuff, but I find more good than bad in the game right now.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

total PVT bias for dragons

in Dynamic Events

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I don’t see what the problem is. You’re complaining that berserkrs aren’t the best at everything and anything. So there are places in the game where different stat loadouts work better. Whoop. Dee. Doo.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Too frustrating, Too many Rage quitters.

in Twilight Assault

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

It was definitely hard the first time through. Mostly because, when I did it, there wasn’t anyone to teach me. You found out not to kill the oil eating ooze through experience, trust me.

But I’ve always had two philosophies that has gotten me through many tough spots, both in real life and in games. In games, specifically MMOs, it shows up a lot. The two philosophies are as follows:

#1: There’s no point in ragequitting because you’ll suck just as bad in another team.
#2: I have figure out what is going on and teach people because no one else will.

Story of my life right there. I can’t count how many times that I’ve been in a group, and we were given an assignment, or a task, or a job, or a challenge, and upon hearing that challenge everyone just stopped and stared at me. Mouth ajar, silently begging for me to provide the almighty solution, and if I did not they would get frustrated and want to go elsewhere. I am sincerely perplexed that people think that, if they are in a group situation and can’t figure out a problem or can’t contribute meaningfully, that the fault lies with others and they should go somewhere else. To me, it is as if the notion of gravity itself is foreign to these people.

Every subsequent run I’ve had of this dungeon has been a teaching one, even when I am not the one who hosted the group. The intensity of these teaching runs varies, though. Sometimes I can just give a quick synopses and everyone gets it. Other times I have to constantly follow around a troublesome player, yelling out instructions for failure after failure until either they leave, or they eventually learn. I still do see a lot of ragequitters, though. As much as I’d like to just dismiss them as “leeching” that isn’t the case; they sincerely believe that failure is the fault of the rest of the group when they themselves mess up.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Boon hate

in Guardian

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

This boon hate thing is minor at best. Mostly because the new mechanics in play are kind of already in play.

Thieves: There is a trait that, once discovered, I have never taken off any build. It is called Bountiful Theft. It gives AoE vigor for 15 seconds, and also steals 2 boons from a target and gives them in an AoE, too. I use this ability liberally in game, due to how good it is. Worst case scenario it’s vigor, and best case scenario it’s fury + 25 stacks of might.

Warriors: These guys don’t get “boon hate” as much as they get a tool that helps them deal with the fact that they don’t do much in the first place. The anti-blocking abilities are a bit of a bigger worry, but to be fair warriors were getting pwned by pretty much anything that could block their controls.

At least it isn’t an arcane thievery mesmer, which steals all your boons and sets you on fire with your own justice.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Loss of loot drop rate?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I cannot confirm or deny a change in loot chance…

However I do worry about something like this happening. There’s always that fear that, when Anet says they’ll give everyone up to 300% permanent global magic find, that in response to this they’ll cut loot drop rates to maintain balance in the economy.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

You kidding me?

in Thief

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

You just did it. You just told me that no body cared about the sum, and instead everyone is focusing on the “Mechanic”. You dumped two paragraphs and a list about that one, single fact while completely ignoring the quality and synergy of everything. You are either so irrational that you haven’t put two and two together, or you are so shameless that you are lying right to my face.

The third option is that you don’t understand what we’re saying.

This forum is filled non-constructive tantrums that are bellowing so loud that they’re silencing any constructive thoughts. Its so bad that when someone made a thread in the PVP forum over the topic of thieves he was bashed down again and again over how wrong they were. It is crap like this that makes it hard for the devs to get constructive feedback. And like an impetuous child, this forum needs to be brought to its senses.

I only see one person here making personal attacks and not providing any feedback.

There are dozens of positive/constructive ideas that have been born on this subforum since BWE2. People have joined together to give great feedback to the devs including balanced functional skills, animation shortcuts to save time in development, UI examples of how things can be laid out. These forums have been overwhelmingly productive. The negativity comes from the fact that there is no dev response on the outstanding issues.

You need to dust yourself off man, you’re covered in salt.

Its too late. You’ve already done it. Its not even the first time you’ve done it. You’re trying to turn this around, but it isn’t going to work. If you had done so much as a cursory investigation you’d have known that the devs had already taken many of my suggestions and put them in, sometimes at exact value.

No dev is responding because no dev wants to respond to this. When the forum was constructive in the past, a dev responded in the past. Hell, the last response we got was 3 days ago in the daredevil BWE3 thread. But what is a dev supposed to say when the entire forum is eulogizing their thieves, telling other players to reroll, throwing fits of jealousy over things other professions are getting, and proclaiming falsehoods like thieves only have dodges or thieves won’t survive raids?

Everyone is salty because everyone is wading through your tears.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Best map for orichalcum ore?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Auric Basin also has plenty of nodes around the map.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Public announcement: Gear stats and roles.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I think I covered this a few times myself, but I the OP is right, 100%.

What so many people are used to is a system of negatives. The traditional trinity is based upon not being able to do things. DPS doesn’t do support and can’t survive, tanks don’t deal damage, and healers can’t do anything but heal. The system of negatives is restricting, and in being restrictive a player is punished for trying to hybrid gear, or hybrid equipment, because then they end up failing at both.

GW2 is mostly a system of positives. Zerker gives you additional damage, Soldier’s gives you additional survivability, Dire gives you an alternate means of damage, etc. I say “mostly” because there are many stat exchanges going on that I don’t like. But, the end result is, people aren’t used to being able to do everything, and their inability to see nuances causes them to only see a single role game.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Gemstore or Subscription

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

There’s a bit more to it. In multiplayer games, the players themselves are part of the content of the game. It is important to have a strong, vibrant community in game, both to play with and to play against. The player that sticks around for the game and isn’t mean spirited is adding to the quality of game, making it more appealing to the public at large and making buying the game a more attractive investment. Players who don’t buy a thing from the gem shop are contributing to the profits of the game indirectly in this manner, both with new sales and with making the game enjoyable enough for players to want to spend gems in it.

You don’t pay for gems, do you?

Sure, everyone contributes in some manner. But, you lurking about isn’t going to pay for Anet’s employees unless you actively recruit friends to join.

I have played this game since BW3, and frankly I find large parts of the community antisocial and alienating – especially the elite community – who just happens to be the one’s complaining about having to pay for things.

I have paid for gems. Please, for the love of all that is fuzzy and feline in nature, pay attention to what is said, and not whom is saying it. Anyway, being an active member in the game itself is enough to to encourage other people to buy the game, since the larger the player base of an MMO, the more attractive it is to perspective customers. I’m surprised no one has brought it up yet, but I find this to be a fairly relevant video:

particularly at 2:20 and on, where they talk about the free to play nature of multiplayer games.

Another function of the gem store, an one that isn’t often talked about, is the function as a money sink. Though there are a lot of complaints about the gem store, many from principle, a big secondary complaint is that a lot of players can’t afford to buy gems with their in-game money. What goes unsaid is that there are a lot of players that can. I’ve seen players in the game who have hundreds upon hundreds of gold, sometimes thousands of gold. To these players, the horror story of 10g = 100 gems isn’t even worth leering at. They’re capable of blowing gems on khaki shorts on a whim, and when they do this they’re ultimately taking gold out of the economy.

As of late, I’ve fallen into this category. Now I don’t have hundreds of gold but I do have a lot more gold than I do expenses. Considering my lack of real world funds, this is an extremely fair system to me as a whole, and also to anyone else who lacks real world money. Like kids.

Now, the flipside to this is that the gemstore does have the option to let someone who is real world rich become insanely rich in the game just by spending money. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, because although they drive up inflation to a certain extent, they putting money directly into NCsoft’s pocket, thereby making the game profitable. Though the gemstore does have a lot of complaints, I’ve found it to be a meaningful tool to the game, both to those who want to support the game directly with money, and those who want to support the game by being good people to play with.

As for the community, the one in GW2 actually isn’t that bad. I’ve seen a lot worse elsewhere. Although there is a general downward trend I’ve been noticing as of late.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Engineer Turrets Broken as of 30th April

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I have a motto: anything that doesn’t work is, by default, bad. No matter how innovative the design of something is, how novel the idea behind it, how much money went into it, etc. If it doesn’t work, it is bad.

I do wish more resources were put into bugfixing than what are currently. I can’t use my engineer in sPVP anymore because none of the turret traits work.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Does ferocity scale better than power?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

As it happens, this question is a very old one.

In that thread years ago, I was trying to figure out when it is that power became better than precision. This was before ferocity was a “thing”, and crit damage was just itself. Also, my calculus skills have improved since then.

But, you can do similar calculations today:

Damage = K x Power x (1 + (Precision – 916) / 2100) x (0.5 + Ferocity / 1500)

DDamage/DPower = K x (1 + (Precision – 916) / 2100) x (0.5 + Ferocity / 1500)
DDamage/DPrecision = K x Power x ( (0.5 + Ferocity / 1500)
DDamage/DFerocity = K x Power x (1 + (Precision – 916)/2100 x (751/1500)

That is, DDamage/Dpower is the change in damage as power changes. DDamage/DPrecision is the change in damage as how precision changes. DDamage/DFerocity is the change in damage as how ferocity changes. The breakpoints are where one is equivalent to another.

That is… a bit hard to deal with overall, as we’re talking about 3 separate variables that all multiply each other. Also, it is a bit hard to deal with, due to how frivolous it all is. The fact is, you choose stat sets, not arbitrary stats. What arrangements of stats you can have are already preset in stone.

So instead, most theorycrafters look at assassin vs. berserker, and which rune set gives more bang for its buck on which class. The general trend for how damage goes is this:

Power is the most efficient stat, starting out. 1000 power doubles the damage you do from base stats, and there is no cap on this growth. When compared to precision, you’d need 2100 points of precision just to do 50% more damage. Precision and Ferocity can be seen as modifiers to power.

Precision is the second most efficient stat, as it increases the chance you’ll do critical damage. With base crit chance, the breakpoint between power and precision is at

Power > 2100 / (0.5 + Ferocity/1500) + Precision – 916

Or when you have 4,284 power. You may have immediately noticed, but there’s no way to get 4,284 power. So when building, you opt for “as much as possible”.

Ferocity is the worst scaling stat, because it is the most dependent. Precision can function without ferocity, but not the reverse. If you put 1000 points into Ferocity with no precision, you get a 5.7% extra damage out of the whole things. It is a total waste, until you already have a lot of precision and a lot of power.

So, in short, power first, precision second, ferocity third. Don’t bother with skipping steps.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

In am so over all the cc in HoT

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

There’s a part of me that is considering writing a guide for HoT. Not just for a map event, but HoT in general. It would be titled: How to survive in a H.O.T. climate, and the first section would be: Crap Happens, and how to handle loss. Then I would go over each enemy, what to watch out for, and how to beat them.

What is holding me back from writing such a guide is the fact that I’m not sure anyone would really benefit from it. The type of person who would go to the forums and complain for… is it months now? Yeah, the the type of person who would go to the forums and complain that the maps are too hard for months because they apparently always get jumped by a bazillion impossible enemies… they aren’t the kind of person who can be helped by a text guide on the web. They fight learning. In order to teach them anything you’d basically have to grind up books into a fine paste and hide it in their ketchup.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

[PvE] Revising the "DPS Meta"

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

To be honest, I’ve skipped a few pages, since most of it seems to be people quoting the dev and whining about how they’ll mess it up. Hopefully the devs wont mess up, and if they apply the Socratic Method they shouldn’t screw up too bad.

To understand why it is the zerker set dominates PVE, it is best to look at where zerker doesn’t dominate: sPVP and WvW. Running around in pure zerker in sPVP is more liable to get you killed than it is to accomplish anything: AI will tear you down, stuns will lock you down quickly, and you don’t have enough health to live through a condi bomb. In WvW zerker sees more uses, both as a ganking tool for thieves and warriors, and also in zerg gameplay, but in these contexts zerker obviously isn’t dominating, or even arguably the best choice.

So, apply the Socratic Method: What is the difference between PVP and PVE that makes it so zerker is unquestionably the best set in PVE, and only so-so in PVP? I already covered much of this on the first page of the thread, but again the best way tl;dr this is the following:

Other players are built around killing you. PVE mobs are not. PVE mobs have seemingly random gimmicks that contribute little to nothing toward how dangerous they are.

It isn’t about stat distribution, or stats working well together, or anything of the sort. It is about enemies having a series of tactics that, realistically, make running in full glass cannon gear actually dangerous.

Enemies need counter-cc. They need burst. They need to kite. They need to heal. They need fast but weaker attacks alongside of slow but strong attacks. They need to debuff. Now, this doesn’t have to be done for every enemy in the game.

These changes should prioritize vets and above, of course. Regular mobs just die too quickly, regardless of what you have them do.

Now, there are many whole goals for this change, and none of them are to stop players from running berserker.

#1: Make PVE more interesting. It’ll be a bit harder, but every class already has the tools needed to deal with most of these things.

#2: Encourage more diversity in utilities and traits. There are so many tools at our disposal (weakness, blinks, chill, poison, CC) that serve little to no purpose because they game is built in such a way that they are useless.

#3: Encourage more diversity in stats. The biggest problem with toughness, vitality, compassion, malice, and expertise is that they are objectively useless for a skilled player. By making these passive stats more useful via compelling design, this makes it so, while zerkers will overall perform worse by themselves, when combined they perform overall better.

By doing this, the game becomes more fun for everyone, and everyone wins.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

This achievement actually upsets me...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

You know, I lived in an alcoholic family, too. An abusive one at that. And you know what? Get over it. Laugh about it. I did, and I do.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Wvw Overtaken by Childish Behaviors

in WvW

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Though the OP is obviously QQing, he does bring up a common complaint I see with a lot of games. And to this common complaint, I respond with Sirlin’s “Play to win”, particularly the section on Scrubs:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

There’s a saying that “all is fair in love and war”, and that is true. If someone wants to hide behind an NPC, that isn’t childish. It’s clever. It is tactical deception. If someone doesn’t want to fight your group and they run off, then this is a tactical retreat. Had I had the option (necros, sadly, have no escape) I would run from most situations where I couldn’t win, too. No point in fighting a frivolous battle where the only thin you’ll do is lose. Stealth and disengaging are perfectly viable tactics to use, and there isn’t anything “wrong” with them.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Spider's Sunglasses

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

My sunglasses? I don’t have sunglasses. I have color changing lenses.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Stacking analyzed, and ideas for mob design

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Ah yes, the good ole “dredge” argument. For those who are unaffiliated, the dredge argument goes like this:

“The dredge are hated because they are harder than the other factions in the game. Therefore, the harder you make enemies in the game, the more like dredge they become, and thus the more people will hate the game”.

This is an argument for complacency and the status quo. But, one must look hard at the game, and ask the question as to why people have this expectation in the first place. The majority of the game is full of rather simplistic enemy groups that have no active or passive defenses, and whose total strategy can be summarized in 3 words or less under their health bar. Players are people, despite what all the cheerleaders who rejected me in highschool said. And as people, they recognize patterns on a subconscious level, and develop a set of expectations based on those patterns.

It is ultimately a self reinforcing problem: people expect the game to be easy and simple because it is easy and simple, and thus embrace a lazier playstyle. Were the game designed differently, players would develop different expectations, and thus wouldn’t have an issue with dredge.

In general, my arguments against complacency usually goes as follows: Don’t be like that, then.

And now, to respond to players and stuff!

IMO, stacking is the reason why the DEVs don’t ever give us new dungeon content.

It trivializes all dungeon content. It also makes fights incredibly boring. Stack in that corner, burn down the boss.
The DEVs seem to not be able to work around it, so they just don’t introduce more dungeons. Seriously, one path replacing an older one in what, 19 monthes now?

I think this was, in part, problems with dissolving the dungeon team and a focus of different priorities rather than it was about being unable to solve the problem. There were other issues around at that time, and TA-A attempted to solve these via gates and movement challenges. Many of the boss mechanics in that dungeon attempt to encourage all players being in melee range. Incidentally, this also encourages stacking to a large degree.

Also, there are many additions via fractals, which is basically a randomized dungeon with scaling difficulty.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Elite Specialization cost too high

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Right now, I’m wondering how it is you managed to get map completion on all maps with all the pre-requisite masteries and all of the collections within 5 hours of stumbling into the jungle.

The stuff that is “walled” is supposed to represent post-maximum level character progression. Much like how you couldn’t realistically play the high level maps without getting that level first, you aren’t supposed to complete the maps without getting the masteries. The vast majority of the map can be accessed with a few points in gliding and jumping mushroom, with only a few smaller bits inaccessible with the later masteries.

The hero points also provide incentives for repetition. They give out daily rewards for completion, which is why you’ll frequently see squads of players go from map to map cycling through the hero points.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

wtf did you do to rangers??

in PvP

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Pre-patch there were builds out there that would stack every buff imaginable on their pet to do massive damage. Someone made a video where they were one-shotting people with the drake in WvW.

It might not be the patch. Are you sure you weren’t fighting one of these builds?

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Buff Our Retaliation Duration

in Necromancer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I do think our retaliation needs to be more accessible. Right now, nearly all our retal is loaded on axe #3:. Unholy feast is actually a really good source of retaliation if you can hit multiple targets, giving near full duration by itself. The problems being that axe sucks, and it requires you to be surrounded to use effectively. So, for the majority of circumstances, it isn’t enough.

But, since our retaliation is currently balanced around another trait that exists almost solely to make other traits worthless, there’s no true way to improve retal without fixing those other issues. I would like to see the following changes, though:

Spiteful Spirit: 5 second duration
Spiteful Vigor: 10 second duration
Unholy Feast: fine where it is

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

In my opinion, Fractals of the Mist is a complete fail.

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

IMO, FoTM does fail, but it isn’t because the enemies are extremely hard or anything. The biggest problem with the dungeon are the cheap tactics and the fact that you can’t self rez unless everyone in the team dies.

Normally you would want to go with either cheap tactics or an inability to rez. But this combines both at the same time, which makes for a very unpleasant dungeon. For example, while doing the underwater fractal there is a pathway that you have to go through that is extremely dark and does high damage in this darkness. The only way to go forward are to grab luminous plants and go from luminous plant to luminous plant.

Problem is, with 5 people and only 2 or 3 plants at each point, someone dies from the darkness. Or they die because the krait in that area use nothing but stuns and sinks and immobilizes. So you have to go back to rez them, but they die immediately since they’re in the darkness without protection, and you’ll likely die if you go there since krait will be around their carcass. So the team dwindles down from 5 to 2 or 1, and those few can’t fight off the vet kraits that await them at the end and then they get killed. Restart event. Then, if someone manages to get forward far enough to hit the checkpoint, they have to suicide themselves so the whole team can arrive and respawn finally.

So you have an obstacle with nearly instant-kill pitfalls that requires most of the team to make it to the end to have a chance, and make it so once someone dies they can’t come back unless everyone dies or someone else manages to rez them but will most likely die in that same spot anyway. That isn’t fun. Dying because someone grabbed the plant you were going to grab along the way isn’t fun. Dying because some invisible krait from behind a sea structure decided to fragment sinks isn’t fun. It’s more like trial and error where the whole event fringes on your weakest link.

Sometimes, players won’t even go back to rez you if 1 or 2 die. Instead, they’ll just continue on the event without you, making sure you get no rewards. That’s arguably worse, because then someone is left out and not because the other players don’t want to rez him, but because he’s too much of a problem to rez.

This is ignoring many of the bugs that occur, such as how if a player falls into laval during one of the events, there is no way to rez that player again. The game will sometimes try to teleport you to a safe place, but this only works on the dead player’s screens. Other players still see your carcass in the midsts of a death trap; unable to save it. Of course, this happens quite often since the place with the lava is a jumping puzzle with nearly invisible holes in the only pathway you can take.

Look, you can take instant death mechanics and put them into the game. That’s cool. You can make places that have no zerg ability due to the lack of rezzing. That is also cool. But you can’t put them both into the same place, since then it becomes a source of neverending frustration fueled by misfortune more than any lack of skill.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

How to stomp people as a necro?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

For my power necro in sPVP most of the time I just wail on the downed party with the dagger auto attack to build up lifeforce. In WvW I use downed players as bait to stack bleeds and use epidemic.

Though in 2 vs 1 there are very few things you can do to truly “stomp safely”. Here are some suggestions to help out:

#1: Use bone fiend and/or dagger #3 to immobilize the second player while you stomp the first.

#2: Use Well of Darkness to make half of your opponent’s attacks miss.

#3: Use that opportunity to do something like stack swarm of locust, well of suffering, and bone minion’s putrid explosion while downing. Often times the second player will try to run in and combo you while you stomp, but bone minions can be detonated without interrupting a stomp. It can do a surprising amount of back damage.

#4: Use Flesh Golem’s charge and/or the warhorn’s daze to stun a target for a large amount of time.

#5: Place a bunch of marks on the downed player. The marks won’t trigger until the second player runs in and activates all them.

And unfortunately those are our best options. Though to be fair, well of darkness is pretty good.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Terror Nerf Incoming?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I’ve seen plenty of condition builds that were 0/30/20/20/0, and 0/30/10/30/0 before. What they would do is take advantage of the vampiric traits and the crits from rabid to heal themselves as much as possible while also stacking regeneration with the staff. This did provide 200 toughness, 200 vitality, 20% boon duration, and 200 healing, so in the end it ended up being quite tanky as condition builds go.

The 0/30/20/0/20 build is the terror build, and it is deceptively more durable if not for one trait: Last Gasp. This trait, on 60 second cooldown, gives you spectral armor at half health. So basically it gives you spectral armor when you need it, breaking stuns and generating life force while under protection. It is arguably the best defensive trait a necromancr has. This is combined with an increase LF pool, and then any one of the adept major traits in that line, such as Spectral Recharge, which would allow double spectral armor while also making wall (back then it was mostly for protection) and walk more effectively. These terror builds usually achieved 100% feat duration anyway, so the extra time in spite meant very little.

Also, rampager’s is hybrid gear. The “glass cannon equivalent” is still using rabid or carrion, however it has lost the defensive stats from traits and also has lost the few defensive abilities traits had to offer. At 30/30/10/0/0, your only defense is your offense. You need to run spectral wall, and then you have 2 utility slots to go from there, and your choices are incredibly limiting.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Daredevil updates, post BWE 3 (launch)

in Thief

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

  • Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging.

Question: Do caltrop ticks snapshot the thief’s condition damage? In other words will this fail to affect caltrops generated by Uncatchable?

I’m not exactly sure what you are asking, but last I checked condition damage was calculated dynamically between ticks. If this is just a straight up mod to condi damage, then yes it will apply to any previously applied condis.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Solo PvE: Weak compared to other classes?

in Thief

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I suppose it is a moot question.

Not really since the topic of this thread is solo PvE (not only HoT).
The point isn’t how well you can kill mobs in a group full of boons, the question is if you’re equal to other classes alone.
And well, fury every 20 seconds isn’t that great.

Run Critical Strikes. Unrelenting Strikes + No Quarter means permanent fury starting with the second attack against the first enemy.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Thief vs. Necro -- Steal > Corrupt boon HOW?

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Corrupt boon takes entire stacks. Bountiful Theft only grabs 2 stacks. So, if you steal, you’ll end up with only 2 stacks of might. Also, you are being deliberately misleading by giving a thief the maximum possible benefits for steal, while also not giving the maximum possible benefits for corrupt boon.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Seriously Anet, Do You Hate Us That Much?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I run around in full berserker, and I don’t see what the problem is. And no, this isn’t an “I’m so elite” bragging post. I’m actually quite mediocre at this game.

Most of the enemies die pretty easily. The really high damage ones like the frogs and snipers, they’re glass cannons in themselves. The frogs are pretty easy to kill, as a single reflect usually spells the death of them. If not, use a movement skill to close the gap and burst them down, but disengage and range when they go into a melee attack.

Smokescales are just a minor annoyance. They flip around a bit then drop a dodge field. Usually they die before the dodge field. The only complaint I have is that the champ mushrooms have an AoE that displays an incorrect field of effect, and it trips me up because I don’t expect the interface to lie to me.

My best advice, is to be aggressive. Running past things isn’t always easier than killing things. So, if you see a dangerous enemy ahead, be aggressive. Those frogs are surprisingly easy when you take the first move and disable/burst them down.

Also, watch your back. Enemies hide around corners waiting to ambush.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Its not actually that hard to

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Right now, I’m having a hard time figuring out how people aren’t making money.

A)Do Verdant Brink. Flax is good cash, the crowbars have good loot, you can trade the airship parts for loot bags, there’s champions everywhere and enough mobs to get good loot.

B)Do Auric Basin. There’s ancient/ori nodes everywhere, the events are easy to follow, and a well participated map gives you enough Aurilium to buy 27 keys, which is how much you need for the easiest meta in all 4 map lists.

C)Do Tangled Depths. This one is hard, so currently you may need a guild, but once you get crystals, Chak Acid brings bank. The crystal caches are everywhere, and you can loot a ton of them. There’s also a big flax farm here, too. A successful meta event can fill your inventory twice over plus some change, and you can get some cool zerg themed weapons out of it, too. The important thing is that with the specific ascended mats you get out of those crystal caches, you can craft ley-line infused tools, which sell for twice as much as it costs to make them.

D)Do all of the maps. Get the ascended materials, and craft Fulgurite Crystals. 25 Crystals can get you Jeweled Damask Patches, and 50 fulgurite crystals can get you a Jeweled Deldrimoor Steel Plated Dowel. Both are worth about twice what it costs to buy the raw materials, but you need to do the metas on all 3 maps. At the time of writing this, Jeweel Deldrimoor goes for 120G and Jeweled Damask goes for 50g.

E)Dragon Stand. You still get amazing loot out of this place, even if you don’t buy all of the machetes with the other map currencies. Just appear at reset time (30 minutes past every odd hour, might be different in your area), and have a blast. The events are fairly simple and usually succeed.

F)Silverwastes. Still worth a lot of cash.

G)Drytop. Coarse Sand is valuable, and Drytop rains the stuff.

H)There’s always basic gathering. Wood and Ores are quite valuable right now. If you’ve got a watchwork pick, even more so. This method is low maintenance, so you can watch TV while you do it.

I)I’m pretty sure event trains are still run in Cursed Shore and EotM. With the new map rewards, you can get a bit more cash than you’re used to. Even Karka Shell farming is better with these map rewards.

J)Dungeon rewards were lessened. Not removed. You can still run dungeons. Just grab your glass cannon gear and go for it. Most of the places have been power creeped anyway. The important thing is to spend your tokens wisely, buying the right gear to salvage for insignias, inscriptions, and ectoplasm.

Actually, that whole “max DPS” thing is advice that can go for anywhere. The faster something is dead, the faster you get loot and move on.

K) TP flipping is a thing. Just saying. As it happens, due to the high demand of Deldrimor and Spiritwood, it is currently a profit to buy their materials, craft them, then sell them. You can put this in with other dailies such as flax farming and quartz farming.

My question is, what are you doing that isn’t making cash? If you’re anywhere near level 80 content you should be making bank. If your complaint is that “everything that I want to do doesn’t make money”, then that is a wholly different problem than “I can’t make money”. You can. Very easily.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Collaborative Development

in CDI

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

There’s a relevant joke to all this, too:

Q: How many forumer’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 100. 51 to vote to get it changed, and 49 to complain about it.

Complaining about it needing to be changed, and then complaining about how?

-Dimwit

Seriously though, it’s not what is said, it’s how. That holds true for everything related to communication in life. It’s possible to disagree on everything from values to details and still be respectful. We’ve seen a lot of good examples on this forum as well.

-Mrs. Obvious

It’s more about how, seemingly no matter what is done, there’s always an angry mob on the forums over something.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

S/D Vs. S/P

in Thief

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

For PVE, I’d recommend Sword/PIstol.

It’s quite easy to win with: You use Black Powder to blind your enemy, then auto attack them with the sword. As soon as they are not blind and the blind field is gone, use black powder again. Rinse and repeat. You can now face-tank up to 5 vets in berserker gear with no problem.

If you want more skill, you can also use Sword/Dagger. Sword/Dagger has an evade on skill #3, so if you use that when an enemy attacks, you’ll dodge their attack and take no damage. Then you follow up with Lacerwhatever strike, and evade again when they attack again. If you learn the timing and repeat this over and over, you’ll be able to solo champions this way.

Dagger/Dagger has a similar dodge, although it is harder to use. What I did for D/D specs was put 10 points into Shadow Arts, so it blinds enemies every time you go into stealth. Then, when you use Cloak and Dagger, it’ll blind the enemy and let you back stab them. 3 seconds later, they’re blind again. 3 seconds later, blind again. Rinse and repeat. Doing this, you can keep a group near permanently blinded, while also being able to evade and solo champions. However, it is harder than either of the two above to do either.

I’d avoid conditions until you get to around 65+. They don’t scale well, so ultimately avoid using P/P and P/D.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Legendary weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

What a peculiar situation.
The Legendaries aren’t done six months after HoT.
I wonder what the deal is here. Are the models done, or is it taking ages to set up all the quests to acquire them? Either way, it seems there’s too much effort going in – judging by the SXSW panel, the developers spend FAR too much time thinking. Just my humble opinion. I like that they are pouring love into their work, I just think the balance is off.

Given how quickly they can bang out Black Lion skins, it’s highly unlikely the models are the bottleneck. It’s more likely that the framework for Collections is flawed in some way that bogs down development, like every collection item requiring a change and testing of every associated mob, event, and/or loot table (so one Legendary is the equivalent of tweak 30 different events) or something.

I suspect they only managed to get the first three out by skipping testing, since any amount of testing should have told the devs it was stupid to have collection items in events that would only spawn after failed events.

This definitely makes sense. Although I remember the collections being horribly bug-ridden as well as badly designed.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Why should I play engineer?

in Engineer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

No one is perfect.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Staff elemental is support. ye right.

in Elementalist

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I haven’t played an elementalist in awhile, but there are two things I know when I’m in WvW:

I’m happy whenever I see a staff elementalist on my side.
I dread when I see one on the other side.

Seriously, those stun fields and meteor showers have messed up my tactics so many times, and whenever we have one I get so many more loot bags out of the ordeal. Maybe you just haven’t figured out how to make a staff elementalist you really like, because I’ve seen people that own with that staff.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Bog Otter's take on Legendary Suspension.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Well, given how resources are currently being split, there’s a good chance that the Living Story team just doubled in size.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

They wanted my blood - TPVP

in Engineer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I third protection fueled injection. Without any stunbreakers in that build, the ability to get protection on a missed dodge would be nearly priceless.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Shroud dependent on Health Points??

in Necromancer

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_force

Your life force is 69% of your health. 79.35% when traited.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

A case for the Holy Trinity.

in Suggestions

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Personally I would call the holy trinity blasphemy as far as MMOs go. Now, I myself have played several MMOs:

Runescape: Paper/rock/scissors system, no tank/heal/DPS
Phantasy Star Universe: Active combat game. Had status, debuffs, buffs, and heals, but no role restrictions.
Monster Hunter: Active combat game. Had no roles so to speak, but you could build for stuff like disabling or immunity to certain effects.
City of Heroes: Had 4 roles: melee (tank), range (DPS), support, control. Multiple classes could do multiple roles, and as such many weren’t necessary.
GW2: should go without saying.

Of all these, City of Heroes is the one that had the closest to a trinity system. It had a quadruple system, in which pretty much every “role” (in which most classes could do two or more) had enough potency to handle most situations, so the system was quite free form for most content. The game was balanced way below the peak performance for the majority of content, but also gave a difficulty slider so that you could crank up the hurt if you chose to do so. The advantage to balancing this way is that players, given enough investment, could make themselves insanely powerful and completely break the “required class” mold.

This is the online gaming experience I grew up with: The #1 priority for all of the games was to be kitten. Sure, there were specs and roles that you could do, but so long as you were awesome enough it didn’t matter. There is nothing cooler than, once your entire team has died, you soloing that big boss on a buffer/debuffer because you are so good that you can do it.

Because of this, I find necessitating the trinity to be a stupid decision. While making roles, the trinity eliminates individuality and innovation. It does this by relying on a lazy mechanic that exploits the aggro system, causing enemies to fight you only where you are strongest. Sure, if you play a linchpin class the whole team dies when you do, and this can make you feel important, but in reality you’re just a nameless cog in the machine: If you do your job no one notices or cares, and if you mess up you’re immediately despised and replaced. Group composition becomes limited because of hard DPS checks, and 2/3rds of the roles you can play aren’t DPS.

And this isn’t even real cooperation. One person runs up and gets angry with others mess up, another person plays whackamole with HP bars an heals, and the rest hang back and shoot at stuff until it dies. There is very little feedback needed. Real cooperation would involve reacting to situations, innovating solutions to them, and having abilities with specific placement and circumstances that require others to cooperate to be effective.

This is exactly what GW2 does. The support abilities are based on placement and circumstances, using AoE mechanics instead of player targeting. They are combo fields, which require active observation an action to take advantage of. They use CC as a form of defense and offense, timing appropriately to reposition and disable enemies. GW2 does all of these things nicely. It doesn’t require them, which is IMO a strength more than a weakness. This has made the combat in GW2 exciting and individualized, where good performance is noticed instead of ignored, and bad performance is compensated for instead of group killing.

The proper purpose of “roles” isn’t to force a player into a particular set up due to necessity by design. No, the proper purpose of roles is to provide unique and meaningful ways to be awesome. Every class should have different tools to handle the same encounter, and each one should go about engagements differently because they have different strengths. Not different weaknesses.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

HoT is not challenging

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

It occurred to me that I’ve never actually stated my position on this. It all comes down to what qualifies as challenging.

While I’m not actually good at playing the game, many people would say I am good at the game. This is all due to the preparation and analysis I make. I build to the maximum and I figure out simple tricks and tactics to beat encounters. Because of this, nearly every encounter in this game (and most games, for that matter), can be reduced down to a series of steps toward guaranteed victory. Once you know those steps, everything is pretty simple, really.

If you are familiar with the game, figuring out these steps should be pretty easy. Yes, there is a good chance you’ll be downed by your first sniper, but after the 3rd or 4th one they’re pretty mundane. If you aren’t familiar with the game, it might take a bit longer. But, so long as you are observant and have decent problem solving skills, victory will come naturally.

A real “challenge” is when executing those series of steps is difficult, or if there isn’t a series of steps at all. The latter is really rare, but the former not as much. Most of the overworld content isn’t too challenging. It is quite a bit harder than the base game overworld is currently, but that is just a series of steps.

I would say that raids are quite challenging, though.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Why so many guardians?

in Guardian

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

The guardian has appeal to it. It isn’t as bland as the warrior, it isn’t as squishy as the thief, it isn’t as complicated as the mesmer. The guardian has a ton of utilities that are both strong and easy to use, and a class mechanic that rewards players for both doing nothing and using the class mechanic. The guardian is in a good place in PVE and PVP; very few people pick up the class, then throw it away in confused impotence.

It is used as a main a lot because it is good. I nearly mained the guardian myself, but I decided to start with the Engineer because I liked the idea of the Elixir Gun.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

We need balance patch ._.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I’m fine with more frequent but less precise balance patches, myself. Here’s why:

#1: There’s a drastic drop off in returns after a short while. It’s something that a lot of artists will tell you. I’m going to paraphrase Trey Parker and Matt Stone on why it is they make each episode of South Park in a week: “You can spend several months on an episode, getting the timing exactly perfect for that one or two jokes, but if you keeping working at getting it perfect, you’ll never get it done. You’re spending a lot of time to make that episode maybe 10% better. It is better to get that episode out there and not worry about it being perfect”. Balance patches are similar: you can see the problems that need fixing within a month or two. Spending 6 months between balance passes only makes it 10% better.

#2: Feedback is important. The thing with ideas is that they have inertia, and just because the devs have been sitting on a thought for 6 months doesn’t make it smarter. I’d rather the devs throw out their 90% quickly, so they can see what happens and get feedback on how things have changed. Then, when they do the next balance patch, they can take that into consideration and make adjustments again. A faster balance patch may be a bit worse, but it is worse for substantially less time.

#3: Long inaction clearly isn’t working. They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, but expect different results.

#4: Changing up the game regularly will encourage players to come back regularly. A balance pass every 2-3 months means that when something is bad, a player can just take a break for a bit. A balance patch every 6 months creates a feeling of hopelessness, knowing that you’ll have to live with a problem for an extended period of time. Faster updates means higher retention.

I’d rather Anet gets it wrong fast and improves themselves, rather than taking forever to get it wrong anyway and taking forever to improve themselves.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Do you even care about relationships?

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Elephant in the room: the heavily implied lesbian innuendo. The fact is that not everyone likes, agrees with, or is comfortable with homosexuality. It could be that they find the physical act to be disconcerting. It could be that they don’t agree with notion of contemporary homosexuality as a whole.

Such people and opinions are best ignored.

It could be something less, like how many don’t like how the fanservice angle is patronizing men, or how their sexuality is being used to crutch an otherwise uninteresting story, thus exploiting the entire demographic.

This complaint I can accept. However that’s just video games for you, you could say the same about the design of female armor being eyecandy in general. Yet people point out this particular instance when it’s on par with the rest of GW2’s design and writing, which makes me think that a lot of them are actually complaining for the first set of reasons yet trying to hide their own issues by claiming it’s for the last one. Or do you think the OP was complaining about Logan and Jennah or other instances of NPC’s shown as being in a relationship until now?

Strange. I thought my opinion was best ignored… it’s something I’ve come to call the Seth Macfarlane syndrome. It is when some form of public entertainment becomes a vehicle for the author(s) political ideologies and agenda. Suddenly that serial comedy or drama you were watching has become a thinly veiled metaphor about the international trade policies of Ireland or something like that, and it just painful to watch. The people who don’t agree get offended, many of the people who do agree find it painful to watch anyway, and all because the author has taken the position that they should just “forget” those that disagree with them.

Anyway, I’m certain there are those who don’t support the lesbian angle because they aren’t comfortable with it will make tangential complaints about the Kas/Jory relationship, but there is definitely not “a lot” of this, judging by the content of the rest of this thread. I give my fellow man a bit more depth than that, and take most things said at face value. You have to consider the reverse of the situation as well: while you can say that people hate the story because of homosexual overtones, you can also say that people only like the story because of homosexual overtones. Widespread dismissal is a two-way street. If anything, those that don’t support Kas/Jory would just stay silent about the issue.

As for the silence, I do fear that it is because of a second “elephant” in the room: the devs. By putting this into the story, the developers, AKA the people who moderate this website and have power over your account, have made their position clear. To publicly defy this position can have serious repercussions to the game. I’ve seen it happen at least a half dozen times: there will be a public forum with a thread to specifically discuss an issue, but anyone who disagrees with moderators gets their posts deleted and are banned. Tolerance is a two way street, too: you have to accept that people disagree with you, and that those who disagree with you are people.

The devs themselves are the ones who introduced this topic when they put it into the game. As to whether the devs have the maturity to allow discussion of the topic they introduced, that remains to be seen.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Can't find a main, discuss yours

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Mains are only a thing in PVP where you need to practice endlessly to deal with other players who practice endlessly.

In PVE, don’t worry about a main. Just play whatever.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

The concept of a traditional MMORPG is dying

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

No, you have opinions based on the facts of how MMO concepts evolve and mutate.

Opinions can be uninformed or just overzealous generalizations or just flat out wrong.

You have no idea what an opinion is. You’re just using it as a blanket term to dismiss whatever you don’t agree with.

There’s a dozen other ways to reason about things out there other than opinions. Extrapolations are one. Observations are another. Juxtaposition, yet more still. Speculation exists, too. Expectation is there as well. These culminate into hypothesis and theory. Interestingly enough, these create a standard with which they are falsifiable. Thus, they are not a personal quality judgement of any sort.

Unless I preface something with “Personally”, or “IMO”, then I am not offering an opinion. I am offering an extrapolation, an observation, a comparison, a speculation, a hypothesis, or a theory. To counterpoint, lets take an extreme example. Lets say I were to eat a handful of mud, and proclaim it is delicious. How do you prove it is wrong? You can certainly prove you don’t like it, and you can prove most don’t like it, but what does that matter against a warped taste pallet that frankly does not care what others think? Is the love of the taste of dirt an overzealous generalization, or “uninformed” somehow? No, it is not.

Well duh I don’t take issue with some facts you pulled up from a wiki or a youtube video (lol I’ve seen them already, most likely). But when someone comes around making wrong generalizations (“hurr durr The only time you’ll be seeing an MMO that has a similar style to the old ones is if it is designed specifically to tap into nostalgia. duuur”) then yeah, I’ll go and take offense.

That is not a generalization or an opinion. It is a prediction.

Your method of reasoning, quite frankly dumb. You’ve disregarded why it is people would “crave” these styles, and just taken it as some self evident ubiquitous truth. You came to your conclusion by dismissing information, not embracing it.

If you think I acquired this knowledge by wiki or youtube videos, then you are horribly mistaken. I’ve lived it. I’ve been walking this earth since before Nintendo was a thing. I played the atari 2600 and the intellivision. I saw as turn based became a thing, became widespread, and more importantly I watched as the RPG elements turned away. I watched turn based become games about recharge bars for pseudo real-time combat, rhythm and timing games, card games and pre-fight strategizing, over-head tactics and placement commanding squads, etc. And then, I watched as those games moved away from the turn based component altogether, and become fighting games, rhythm games, real time strategy, and the modern ARPG that we see everywhere.

That move wasn’t arbitrary or random. It was a market movement. Those games sold better. And them selling better wasn’t an arbitrary or random move, either. If you want a source I can give you one. Spoiler: of the 25 best selling games, there’s only two turn based games, and both of them are Pokemon.

But apparently you don’t consider the artistic side of game design. Not saying it’s an artform but it takes a creative mind to craft a game and limitations are a chopping block for cleverness, forcing creators to think outside the norm.

So you utilize the strengths of a design and build upon it, not disregard it because something else that’s newer and fresher is possible. It’d be different if the older designs were inherently flawed instead of just different. That’s why they are still made. They are different and gamers enjoy variety. The reason you see so many action-MMOs made now is because they weren’t very viable before.

That’s the problem, though: the designs did have inherent flaws. I.E. if Everquest wasn’t flawed, they wouldn’t constantly try to make more and better Everquests. Now that we both agree that videogames are not an artform, we can say what they really are: a piece of engineering and technology made specifically to sell entertainment as a service. Artistry is is but one facet that may be entertaining. There are many more. When you recognize that, you can break down the different game styles into advantages and disadvantages, and analyze them as an engineer or an economist would.

Lets take GW2 for an example, and compare it to what the OP lists.

“Gone are the days of slow dungeon crawls and long repetitive encounters.”
-Low availability to the general public
-Attention fatigue and horrible retention rate
-Low public appeal or interest
+Low cost to time investment ration assuming your players are already hooked
-Requires skinnerbox mechanisms to manipulate players to keep playing.
-Skinnerbox leads to irritable community who plays out of obligation and not fun.
+Can milk a lot of money via purchases or subscriptions from a hooked fanbase.

“one of the biggest selling points of an MMORPG is for progression within a communal environment. You grind (often through repetitive gameplay) to obtain great items and show them off to online crowds, which makes you value and appreciate your achievements even more.”
-Severe inequality between players of different ages time investments
-Elitism
-Unfair in competitive aspects (hard and soft PVP)
-Depressing grinds
+Personal accomplishment
+The ability to wield superior strength due to greater time investments
-Repetitive
-Severe inequality between players of different incomes (cash shop games only)

This is Stockhom Syndrome.

I can sympathize with the loss of some older systems in MMOs. IMO there’s a much better thread on this subject, in which before it devolved into raid bickering it actually went over a lot of different things that are missing now but in conventional MMORPGs that were actually good.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Its not actually that hard to

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Please no more of this “leeching traders” crap again. It has already been discussed at length that free trade isn’t evil. It goes through the same song and dance over and over again.

You’re not eliminating free trade. It is a good thing, not a bad thing.

It’s open to debate whether ‘free trade’ is a good thing or not, that’s not the issue, the issue is the leechers are typical middle-men, they add no value but simply leech cash out of others’ work.

You may like the idea, you may even do it, I loathe it, I loathe middle-men!

Its really not open to debate. There’s no evidence for restricting re-trade being beneficial. There’s plenty of evidence that the current system for re-trade is beneficial. Middle men aren’t leeching anything. Hell, given the variability of the market, half the time they give you money. If not by being wrong about the direction of market turns, by being wrong about the degree of the market turn. I have yet to hear a single case that isn’t based in utter naivete or wrought with jealousy for the restricting of trading base goods.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

Is GW2 the best MMO?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Of course there is a best MMO. The best MMO is the one that combines the various elements which constitute an MMO in the best way possible.

As for if GW2 is the best MMO… unless City of Heroes spontaneously rises from the dead or my idea for an MMORTS actually takes off… then GW2 is definitely a strong contender.

PROs:
*Very smooth gameplay. It flows easily and it makes sense.
*Solid dynamic action. This is a technical aspect that is underlooked a lot, but the fact that I can fire a fireball at an enemy, have it arc over and get body blocked by a different enemy, all in real time is an amazing achievement.
*Decent class system. Note: I hate the holy trinity..
*In recent releases, enemy design has stepped up to be meaningful encounters that are both dangerous enough to make you loose, but easy enough that you’ll most likely win.
*Stable economy. Yes, that is a big achievement.
*Fair. Everything gives experience, and the game is more concerned with rewarding who was there instead of dicing up everyone’s contribution to try and reward who did the most.
*Beautiful landscape design. Though in most places there’s nothing to actually do, the aesthetics of the whole place is awesome.
*Dynamic event system. It is much better than the old “fetch seven bear kitten” quest system that seemingly every other game uses.
*Auto scaling makes the entire world more valuable.\
*Comparatively little grind. The emphasis of balancing around exotics means that you don’t have to spend months to reach a bare minimum level of competency.
*Community is meh. Yes, “meh” is an achievement for MMOs, as most MMO communities are filled with whiny brats who can dedicate a full time job’s worth of time to being a pain in the kitten .

CONS:
*The story sucks. It is generic mystic babble following mediocre characters in a hastily written and generic storyline. Poor and obvious direction choices, poor implementation.
*The company has no idea what it is doing. Arenanet is an ideal based company, and so it’ll throw in grandiose ideas that sound good in their head, but overall fail in implementation.
*The market is bland. With all drops being indiscriminate bags filled with boxes filled with sacks, the prospect of finding a much needed but rare material in obscure corners of the world is lost.
*As said above, the world is mostly empty, having very little reason to go places other than to see a place.
*Balance passes take forever, meaning that if something is imbalanced or broken it will stay like that for several months.
*The code is spaghetti, and every time something is fixed, 2 things are broken.
*The community moderators are oppressive and ideologically motivated.
*Though the combat is done very well, there is little to do other than combat and “press F”.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.