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Crap. I don’t feel less satisfied when I complete a jumping puzzle while others bypass it, because having completed the puzzle is the reward that makes me feel good, not some achievement or chest at the top. If they don’t want to do the jumps, I don’t force them to. If they ask me kindly, I’ll offer them the service of porting them up, and everybody’s happy. Except you, because others don’t do what you’d like them to do. And that’s unsocial.
Personal achievement only goes so far. Part of human nature is wanting what they achieve to be acknowledged and appreciated by others, and allowing people to piggyback on others and still get the full reward that claims they defeated the challenge, greatly devalues that element.
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Good idea, we could really use an updated version.
My list (will update as I notice more)
- Shortbow doesn’t receive full benefits from quickness. This has been the case ever since the “animation fix” that reduced its attack speed, and ironically caused this bug.
- The icon of winters bite on your pet incorrectly states it does 150% damage on its next attack when it should say causes weakness for 10 seconds on the next attack.
To clarify, the only problems I have with the pull is when using axe/axe in PvE. The change is fine in PvP and with sword/axe.
I may rewrite the OP to make the issue with it clearer.
But then, may I ask the slippery slope question?
- Portal is making jumping puzzles too easy, it needs to be removed or disallowed.
- Swiftness and other speed gains make the tight jumps too difficult, needs to be removed or disallowed.
- Personal movement skills like Engineer Rifle #5 or Ranger #3 (I think) on Greatsword allow too fast movement through timed elements, they need to be moved.
- Stability allows to move through timed pushoff or knockback elements, it needs to be removed.
Where do we stop? All of these elements make jumping puzzles substantially easier, yet not all classes have access to them, while others run perma-swiftness or 10s lasting Stability.
If the goal is to make Jumping Puzzles difficult if theoretically designed to be so, then these all need to be disallowed.
As a Mesmer who does not run the typical Centaur + Focus + Mirror setup to gain Swiftness, I find Swiftness to be a much bigger issue than Portal.
I know that’s personal PoV, but how do you think I got up there to portal you? With Swiftness from someone else, because it makes it so much easier.Yet no one ever mentions that. No one mentions how an Engineer will never get blown off at the start of the Metrica Province JP because they can skip that part? Or how people can Stability past the knockbacks in the Obsidian Sanctum.
And really, while of a different scope, I’d hate if my way to make JPs easier is removed, and everyone else gets to keep theirs. Fair’s fair, drop it and lose your swiftness / movement skills / stability. I’ll lose mine + Portal.
I think what matters is the degree that it impacts the content. I find portals to be a large issue because it allows someone to bypass most, if not all, of the puzzle.
I personally like the idea of certain skills giving an advantage in certain puzzles. Its satisfying using your skills in a creative way to gain an advantage. However, this needs to be carefully done as to not trivialize the entire puzzle.
The only thing that strikes me as problematic other than portal may be the engineer rifle #5 skill, and perhaps stability which can be used to bypass most of the challenge in a puzzle which is based around knockback, but if anything has the capability of bypassing large sections of a puzzle I’d also support changes to address it.
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Stop and listen to yourself, I and many other players like Portal, and enjoy the tactics it allows, but because this isn’t the autocracy you would seem to want we should all agree with you? I understand you don’t like them, but I fail to see why you posted they in the Mesmer forum and besides the few trolls who constantly view this sub forum constantly crying for nerfs to Mesmer, you won’t get much agreement from the majority if players who main Mesmer. You can sit all high and mighty on your “I’m a developer” chair all you want, I lessen myself by arguing about it, you have your opinion and obviously are not here to have your mind changed, just push your agenda. Good luck to you, I hope Portal doesn’t change, I guess we will see what the future brings.
I agree with many of its tactical functions, just not bypassing content to the degree we are seeing.
And yes, I think my mind is made up at this point. I just can’t see portals being used in this way as a positive thing.
However, I’m open to ways to address this while still maintaining a useful role in the game, and I think that is worth discussion. Portal right now doesn’t have a very strong in-combat function, which is something they could definitely work on. It could work as a great movement-control based skill, allowing you to jump between points to escape or stay at a distance from the enemy.
After a week my opinion on this remains the same. Although I have grown somewhat used to it, the pull effect is still bothering me and I now find myself hesitant to use the skill at all, knowing it might pull enemies away from my allies.
The skill was better in PvE when you could just throw it for damage and not have to worry about what it might pull every time you did.
I’m curious on how you can believe people play an MMO and not think of it as a social thing.
The bottom line, ‘U-tube’ links or not, boils down to a few simple words: I don’t like it, so no else should have it.
“I don’t like it, so no one else should have it” is what you got out of the arguments against portal? Seriously?
And of course MMOs are social, I never denied that. What I was trying to express is some players may be taking the social aspect too far, to the point where they start seeing the game-play aspects as an inconvenience to their social gratification.
This is the main point I’m trying to make against portal:
“OMG this jump puzzle is hard” resulting in trying to get better or giving up on it is good from a game design standpoint. It adds value to the content and a strong feeling of satisfaction once it is finished.
“OMG this jump puzzle is hard, where is a portal” and “ooh a portal, I can just skip the entire thing and get the reward anyways” is bad from a game design standpoint. It allows players to completely bypass the obstacles and mechanics, devaluing the content. This offers less satisfaction for completing the content, both for those who use the portal and those who completed it without portals.
Furthermore, because portals devalue the content, the associated rewards the developers can add are also limited. They have to balance the rewards with the challenge, and because the challenge can be trivialized due to portals, they can’t give as strong rewards.
And just to be clear, I am of the view that it is the game designers responsibility to create content to direct the players and what players do in the game will be based around how general human psychology interacts with what is built.
Being a player, I follow the paths created by the developers. This means I’ll use things like the path of least resistance, just like the majority of the community, and jump in any portals I see to speed things along.
This is also why I find the suggestion of “stop using portals if you don’t like them”, and other suggestions following that line of reasoning, to be futile. Suggestions like these never solve the issue as its impossible to get everyone to follow it. To truly address issues like these you have to make a change to the cause of the problem itself, not how people react to the problem.
When I speak against portals I do so from the standpoint of a game developer who seeks to improve the paths put in front of the players. I seek to change the portal not because of childish reasons, but because I want to see the quality of the game improved.
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The only thing there is to look forward to in a level cap increase in trait point. Outside of that it’s just an artificial and forced grind that doesn’t contribute anything positive to the game.
The only way I’d support a level cap increase is if:
- It was not applied to SPvP so we would still have the 70 trait point system.
- Our current equipment would not be devalued, so no level 81+ equipment, runes, infusions, or anything of that nature.
I’m surprised so many people around here are defending something like using portals to completely bypass content. I’d have to question if people are actually playing this as a game or instead as a social experience similar to facebook.
Since there is a general lack of understanding on game design around here, I suggest everyone that supports portal at the very least watch this video. Hopefully you’ll understand the issues with it afterwards.
It’s a video game. A lot of mesmers are trying to be nice helping people out. Not everyone plays like you, values the same things you do or believes what you believe. Dont like Mesmer portals…..easy……don’t take them. You be all L33t and let everyone else play as they enjoy. It’s a VIDEO GAME.
What is going on in jumping puzzle is less along the lines of helping someone, and more along the lines of completing the content for them.
You can help people by doing things like reviving them and showing them the correct path by staying in front of them, but the difference with this is that they still have to do all the jumps themselves. What portals do is allow them do bypass most, if not all, of the jumps, and thus the content itself.
This defeats the purpose of the content, allowing players to not participate in it and just grab the rewards, which were meant for people who participated in and completed the content.
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Well you can take anything to the extreme. By your logic you could have said that I would support a player logging in and typing /fullexotic80 and being granted a fully kitted out level 80 character.
No. Because that WOULD break the game.
Jumping puzzles do not give the same rewards as dungeons, and they can only be completed for loot once per day. Which is not the same for dungeons.
If once per day someone could gain the same rewards as me for not doing a dungeon as I did for doing, be my guest. It bothers me not that you recieved a few tokens and some silver for free.
Actually a more accurate comparison would be you supporting a character creating 20 tickets per 90 seconds, that would allow him to grant other players free exotic equipment and level 80 characters.
Although leveling and gearing can be seen as more difficult, this would trivialize leveling and gearing a character just as portals trivialize jump puzzles in the respect that once a single player completed it, he allows 20 others every 90 seconds to also achieve what he just did, rewards and achievements included.
The degree of the rewards or difficult of the task isn’t relevant in this. The fact is that a mechanic like portals allows other players to completely bypass whatever challenge there was and claim whatever rewards there were.
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@ Deimos Tel ARin and Cryx Tryx:
Okay, I get it, you play mesmers. That explains the vabid defense of the portals on your part. Do note that it is not my stated desire to have portals removed from the game, but rather altered to still be viable and desirable skills, without allowing others access to rewards they did not earn. I even made a suggestion to that effect in my OP.
Mesmer is just one of my characters, I have a character of every class on the go right now except engineer.
The fact that I play one has nothing to do with my opinion on the portal. I disagree with you on the base principal that you are against people using them to access content they did not earn.
I personally see nothing wrong with helping someone complete a jumping puzzle, dungeon, or vista.
It doesn’t bother me that I have to work to complete a jumping puzzle yet someone else can just take a portal to complete it. Hense why when I am on my Mesmer I am only too happy to help out.
So I suppose you would support the creation of a mechanic that allowed anyone outside of a dungeon to enter a completed one and claim the full reward, achievements included?
Without a doubt portals trivialize content. If a single player makes it past something such as the lava boulders in CoF or any jumping puzzle, they can allow many other players the ability to completely bypass the challenge, simply because 1 player made it to the end. For content which is meant to test the individual player, portals break the challenge associated with the content, allowing anyone of any skill level to piggyback.
But trivializing content isn’t the only issue; portals give large advantages in competitive areas. Players can warp teammates to the end of the WvW jump puzzle, allowing them to easily maintain control over it, they can warp entire zergs into keeps or towers with healthy gates and walls, they can “portal bomb”, and they can move golems very efficiently.
Personally I’d like to see portals removed and mesmers given something in their place. But if ANet is happy with how portals are functioning, they need to be expanded to other classes. You can’t limit something this powerful to a single class.
I just tested the damage of the longbow in the mists, and this is what I came out with:
On heavy golems with a steady longbow (216 weapon str) and 916 power:
Long range shot 1,000+ range: 83 damage
Rapid fire: 34 damage per hit
Barrage: 36 damage per hit
Compared to the damage formula based on skill coefficients before the latest patch:
Long range shot: 262 × 916 x x 0.9 / 2600 = 83
Rapid fire: 262 × 916 × 0.375 / 2600 = 34.6
Barrage: 262 × 916 × 0.4 / 2600 = 36.9
Conclusion: None of these skills had their damage reduced in the latest patch, in SPvP at least. I may do a test in PvE to see if that format is affected, just to be sure.
EDIT: I just tested damage on dummies in lions arch. Critical hits aren’t a factor in this test as they don’t take critical hit damage, and I also used all longbow affecting traits to see if those were having an impact on the damage of barrage.
This one won’t be a completely accurate test as I don’t have the patience to get the minimum and max hit, or find the armor values of the dummies which a google and wiki search didn’t provide.
Instead i just used barrage and rapid fire 30 times and took the average:
30 rapid fires came to 539.73 per hit on average.
30 barrages came to 575.2 pet hit on average.
Barrage has a coefficient 6.25% higher than rapid fire, so if you boost rapid fires damage by 6.25% to try to make them equal, you come out with 573.463125 compared to 575.2 from barrage, which is within the expected margin of error.
Based on this, it is very unlikely that barrage has been affected in PvE, unless something wacky is going on with the critical hit modifier.
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Last night messing about in WvW, I noticed that the pull usually only works halfway… if it lands that is.
Often it missed, but from my engineer experience I know that the Tool Kit pull is easy to avoid as well.
But when it did pull, my target ended up a bit in front of me, not even melee range.Bit odd.
Always many things going on in WvW, so not sure what the cause is.
On dummies it does pull closer.
From some testing I did in heart of the mists, it seems to pull enemies 450 range (half of the 900 range the untrained projectile travels by). Off-hand training does not seem to affect this.
Some other things I’ve noticed from testing it there:
- The direction of the pull is relative to your character, not the path of the projectile. Because the projectile heads towards your character this isn’t noticeable unless you use it inside an enemy or the projectile passes through your character on the returning trip somehow and hits someone behind you.
- If you’re closer than that 450 range, it will only pull them up to you. If you are moving forward during this pull, the enemy will end up behind you.
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So today I ran some dungeons and tried to make the new pull work out for axe/axe, but overall it only caused problems.
Due to the nature of its flight and the pull, it feels so random every time you toss it. Will it bounce off a wall and return faster? Will it go off a cliff and not return at all? I threw it like 3 seconds ago, when will it pull someone if it does at all? Is an ally blocking the path of the enemy preventing them from being pulled the full distance?
Its so annoying to use because of these factors; you don’t know what the heck is going to happen most of the time after you throw it. If you expect to pull an enemy you feel frustrated when it doesn’t. If you don’t think it will pull an enemy you become shocked when you see it appear right in your face and start hitting you. Its just plain annoying.
Additionally If it does pull someone while you are moving forward your character will be blocked or walk into them. If you were targeting that opponent or using skills when they got pulled, those skills will be canceled and you will be unable to attack as they are behind you. This generally isn’t a problem with skills that serve as intentional instant pulls, but the long flight time and wild nature of the projectile doesn’t allow it to be used reliably.
In my hours playing today, trying to make the pull work out, I found few situations where it was useful. A few times I was able to help pull a stray enemy into the bundle my team had created, but far more often the skill pulled enemies away from my allies, caused me harm from tossing enemies right in my face, and stopping my attacks when the target ended up behind me when i was moving when they got pulled.
In conclusion, the pull effect can be useful in some situations, but due to the unreliable nature of the projectile, amount of time that passes from when you use a skill to when an enemy gets pulled, and inconvenience it causes when used with a main hand axe, a pull effect is not well suited for this weapon in PvE.
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It’s pretty clear they don’t even consider PvE or build diversity when they balance. The pull could have (and should have) been a traitable option. This would have preserved the skill’s place as a DPS skill for axe/axe rangers and allowed it to pull targets for melee builds (what are those?) when traited. Instead, ranged users will endanger themselves and inconvenience their party with unwanted pulls.
Having to use traits to add the pull effect sounds like a good idea.
Regardless of whether it fits with the weapon or not, we finally have a skill that allows us to do some wall-fishing in WvW.
Since the axe floats along the ground, not thrown into the air, it cannot hit people on walls. It will simply hit the wall and come back to you.
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The pull effect that was added to path of scars in today’s patch doesn’t fit in well with axe/axe in PvE.
When using a power build, axe/axe is one of the best choices available, and the most powerful skill that makes it worth using is path of scars. It does a good amount of damage, pierces enemies, and is worth using even if you couldn’t line up the second hit. To top it all off it was a projectile finisher with a 15 second cool-down, 12 if traited.
The problem with this patch is that this function of this skill won’t change. You’ll still be using it as often as possible for the damage output, only now it will be tossing enemies around every 12 seconds, pulling enemies away from your allies and towards you, annoying your team, and putting yourself at risk.
When looking at skill changes they need to take into account the impact it will have on all weapon combinations and game modes, but this didn’t happen. This update was directed far more towards the PvP and melee side, and didn’t account for the largely negative impact it would have on axe/axe in PvE.
Something which may be better suited for this skill would be a stun or daze. This would fit in with both melee and ranged play styles and would work great with the Moment of Clarity trait, which isn’t that popular due to the limited availability and long cool-downs on the current daze/stun skills, but would be amazing with path of scars.
EDIT:
Prehaps removing the pull wouldn’t be the best route as people seem to really like it in PvP and with sword/axe, and some even in PvE with axe/axe. But that doesn’t remove that this skill is a highly unreliable pull and how it was slapped on a skill which was previously meant for damage.
A better route than changing it to a stun or daze may be making the pull optional and more reliable.
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Assuming these will be the real patch notes:
- Not enough was done to make up for the pet nerfs.
- A lot more could have been done for traits.
- Giving path of scars, a damage focused skill, the ability to pull opponents will ruin the skill for axe/axe in PvE. If I’m a ranged character I do not want to be pulling enemies away from my allies and towards me!
- Winters bite is screwed over, having its weakness duration cut by 70% even though weakness won’t be all that more powerful. Against monsters with unshakable this will only last 1.5 seconds. Overall this skill will be much weaker than it was before. Essentially what weakness will do is this: targets physical damage is reduced by 12.5% for 3 seconds (1.5 for enemies with unshakable). Doesn’t that seem underwhelming?
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I’ve found 1,500 range with a projectile that can go well past that to be very helpful. You can hit siege and other players from a distance no other profession can.
I’d like to see more armor, especially some sets from GW1.
A strategy which has been trivializing a lot of dungeons is “stacking” (everyone standing in/around an enemy) and using line-of-sight to pull a group of enemies into a ball. It seems like neither the AI, attacks of enemies, or the balance of the game was designed with this in mind.
Most of the problem comes from many enemies having single-target focused attacks. What this does is allow everyone to huddle together without risk to anything but one player, and if that player goes down everyone can just press F and revive them in an instant. This not only reduces the risk associated with melee attacks, which is one of the main balancing points between ranged and melee weapons, but can reduce or even eliminate the risk of combat in general.
What this also allows is the entire party to always be in range of support skills. Any combo field, shout, symbol, and projectile reflect/block will be guaranteed to apply to or protect your entire team. This itself isn’t a problem, but when combined with the reduction of risk stacking provides it gives an even larger advantage. Players should be allowed to do this for an advantage, but doing so should result in a great risk to the party, which currently isn’t there due to stacking.
Additionally, some enemies even stop using some of their powerful attacks when the team stacks, as well as some attacks not being able to hit you while you stand inside the enemy. For instance, against the spider boss in AC you can stand next to it and it won’t use its AoE attack and against subject alpha he will stop using his fire attack and his earth attack won’t hit you.
In short, the core of the problem with stacking is that it eliminates the risk of melee and combat in general. Neither the balance of the game or the behavior of enemies was designed with this in mind so steps need to be taken to balance this out.
Here is what I suggest:
- Enemies should be fixed so that they use all their skills regardless of if players are stacking or not.
- Attacks like subject alphas rock attack should also affect the area inside him.
- Enemies should have access to more AoE and cleave attacks.
- Enemies should have a variety of actions when a player goes out of their sight, not rushing at them 100% of the time.
Just these 3 changes with likely balance it out. Because of more AoE attacks and enemies no longer having disabled skills, players will need to spread out and focus more on their positioning rather than all huddling in a ball. However more AoE might cause a few issues like companions (pets, minions, ect) getting killed too easily so AoE mitigation might need to be applied to them.
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In response to Erasculio.2914:
Picking apart my post rather than trying to understand the spirit behind it isn’t contributing anything to the thread.
Basically what I’m trying to get at in my OP is that these mechanics limit control by too great of a degree against champion and legendary monsters, which happen to make up a large portion of your fighting time in places like dungeons. The effectiveness of control is also very limited compared to damage and support which is unfair and this has a negative impact on professions, weapons, and skills which are focused more around control than damage or support.
But I don’t see a point in explaining myself further than that, and I don’t have any interest in distracting from the point of this thread by picking apart your post, so I’ll skip right to the basis of your post which seems to be this section:
Defiant is not the issue with control. The true issue is that there isn’t anything worth interrupting.
A lot of people complain that dungeons do not require team work, or communication, or good timing. Well, imagine if a boss had a skill that players HAD to interrupt. Imagine that boss has Defiant. What would happen?
Players would need team work. People would have to work together to use control effects and leave the boss open for the real interrupt at the right time. Players would need to communicate, so everyone knows who is doing the real interrupt, in order to avoid wasting control effects. Players would need good timing, to get the interrupt at the right time.
This is the real issue. Enemy fights are just a matter of DPS because there is no use for anything else: no enemy has a skill really worth interrupting, no enemy has to be crippled or immobilized, no enemy needs to be launched away. Support has pretty much the same issue – some bosses do moderate damage, but more often than not this is not damage that needs to be deflected, it can just be dodged or healed through.
Saying “OMG, Defiant sucks l0l0l0l0lzz!11” is easy. Seeing the true problem and how ArenaNet could fix it is not. Instead of having boring fights with enemies that have one million health points and who have very few interesting attacks, most of which can simply be dodged or just taken and healed through, ArenaNet should focus on twisting these mechanics around. An enemy who has little health but who does so much damage that players cannot use raw DPS to kill it before it kills them; an enemy with damage dealing skills that cannot be dodged; an enemy that must be prevented from reaching a given point in the map; an enemy that takes no damage, but that players must kill by throwing off a ledge; those mechanics are what ArenaNet needs to change, not Defiant.
To which I partially agree. It would be nice if more importance was given to control in the mechanics of a fight, such as being able to to knock an enemy out of an AoE that is buffing him or using immobilize to slow him from reaching an object that could also buff him or something. Placing more importance on mechanics might also allow them to reduce the health of the monsters. This would be a better way to address berserker warriors rushing in and killing bosses in an instant than just boosting their health.
But control isn’t just meant to be utilized in specific enemy mechanics; it is also designed to manipulate movement which can be used offensively or defensively. This can already be utilized in a few ways such as pushing enemies together and keeping enemies out of melee range. The problem with defiance is that it severely impairs players from using control in such a way against bosses.
I disagree with the part about coordination and too much importance given to control in the mechanics of fights. Coordination should give an advantage but expecting the entire party to coordinate in such a large way just to use control effectively is extreme. Control should play a role in the mechanics, such as by helping keep the enemy at a distance, preventing it from receiving buffs, and interrupting the occasional skill, but designing mechanics that would force players to these things to survive, damage, or kill an enemy would also be extreme in the same way that a boss that would wipe anyone who didn’t have projectile reflect up would be.
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defiant (from wiki) " Gains defiant when targeted by crowd control skills. Blind is 10% effective. Weakness and vulnerability last 50% less time."
make the same sense as:Gains defiant when targeted by damage skills, AOE is 10% effective, channeled skills last 50% less time (and do 50% less damage).
since we don’t have the above, why do we need unshakable mobs?
it is one of the silliest mechanics in the game.
That part of unshakable seems silly too. I’m not sure how the blind being 10% effective works (does it only have a 10% chance of negating an attack but stays on until it does negate one?) but reducing the duration of vulnerability and weakness is unfair and often pointless if your team has enough of it.
Keep defiant or yea, would haev to totally revamp the use like poster above said. reduce effectiveness. however, the exact changes are so open for disucsion, lots of research would be needed. Do NOT jump to conclusions, fast opinions about defiant. we need a good solid change, not just a knee jerk reaction.
Agreed; we need a modification of the system, not a complete removal. Even when consumables aren’t used I’m sure there are some combination out there that can stun lock enemies if it didn’t exist so we need some version of it, just one not as strict as the current one.
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Some anti-stealth skills would be cool.
Muddy Terrain for the ranger is one skill in particular I feel would fit in very well. Logic wise If someone is walking through mud you’d see their footprints breaking the stealth. Mechanic wise this skill right now is fairly weak, but if it was given a reveal effect on it, it could serve as a 20 second anti-stealth AoE which would give people a reason to use it.
Something like this would be great, much more convenient than putting something like your mouse cursor over the bar to know when to shoot.
Reworked the OP a bit. I hope the developers are aware how much this impacts the game because CC honestly feels useless in dungeons. Its not even worth control based weapons or skills as they aren’t going to be nearly as useful as something based around damage or support.
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I love doing dungeons and run a few every day, but the dredge fractal is the single reason I try to avoid fractals of the mists. Every time a new fractal loads I cringe and if my party is unlucky enough to get the map my heart sinks followed by everyone in the party expressing their frustration.
The main problem with this dungeon is that there’s no way to combat the dredge. They respawn faster than you can defeat them and it’s impossible to survive a prolonged fight, especially in higher level fractals. This turns the strategy of beating the two most problematic areas, the cage and door, into “res rushing” as there is no way to combat the hoard of dredge.
For example:
At the cage 2 people stay dead on the switches so the other 3 can keep respawning and going back in, hoping that one of these times they get lucky and the person on the panel doesn’t get interrupted.
At the door (if you get the bombs) the party runs into the army of dredge, grabs a bomb, places it at the door, and then retreats (often with a few people getting killed in the process). This then needs to be repeated depending on how many bombs went off, sometimes taking 6+ runs.
Running in, hoping your team gets lucky, and if not respawning and trying again, just isn’t fun and can be extremely frustrating. We need some concrete mechanics and strategies to complete this fractal that don’t rely on luck, constantly respawning, specific classes, glitches, or exploits.
If you die by things like the boulders in CoF path 1, as a dolphin in the underwater fractal, and the lasers in CoE, it degrades your armor. Armor gives no advantage when trying to get past these things so players often resort to removing all their armor so they don’t have to pay a fee if they mess up.
Armor degrading from these puzzles is an inconvenience that only frustrates players. Would it be possible to remove it?
If you actually read the context of “you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game” rather than just reading that part and taking it literally, they are speaking about players should be fairly rewarded no matter what area of the game they decide to participate in.
This essentially means that their goal is to make it so you can level up, gain the best equipment, and earn a fair profit in any area of the game. It does not mean that they want players taking advantage of broken dungeons like CoF path 1.
If DR was expanded it would just bring CoF in line with other dungeons and you’d still be able to gain a fair profit from it. It would not break their promise of being able to “play the game how you want to”.
But again, I dislike DR in its current state because its too broad. They need to cut it back who it affects so players doing normal dungeon runs aren’t as effected by it while also expanding its harshness so those who do exploit or take advantage of broken content will not be able to gain huge profits.
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I wouldn’t go as far as calling avoiding or running past enemies an exploit, but I see the point you’re trying to make.
I run a lot of dungeons and typically I’ve found skipping to be more efficient even with Inexperienced players. However the one exception of this may be Twilight Arbor where skipping with inexperienced players, or even just someone making a mistake, can actually cost time due to the difficulty of the run (lots of CC effects, blossoms, distance) and lack of waypoints.
Ya I mean you probably punish the normal player more than anything. They actaully made DR more linient from last patch.
I actually have a better idea. Start with 60 token, 20, 10, 5, after that loot get nerf too.
That is probably what fit more in mind with Bri’s complaint.
Not saying I support the idea. Just saying it probably fit Bri’s vision more without punishing normal player.
Hmm, something like that might work out a lot better! It would achieve the same effect for those doing repetitive speed runs, yet wouldn’t affect players who casually run the same path a few times in a day.
But I also see a need for DR to stop players from profiting from exploits and poor design.
Here’s an idea. How about they remove the features and fix the poor design? That way the problem solves itself without punishing people for playing the game.
Considering the crypt AC has become, I wouldn’t expect much.
No game or developer is perfect so they need some sort of safety net (in this case DR) just in case there are flaws with what they created. That’s not to excuse bad design though, they really need to fix up some of the dungeons.
But until that bad design is addressed, I think an easy and good step to take would be to increase that DR safety net so those currently taking advantage of unintended or poor design can’t gain huge profits from it any longer.
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I just want to say that I do not like DR in its current shape and see no reason for it to be so strict as to pushing players from running the same dungeon more than once a day. I would be in favor of making DR reset more often, allowing players to run the same dungeon path multiple times in a day without being punished.
But I also see a need for DR to stop players from profiting from exploits and poor design. An issue with the DR currently is that it applies in no way to the coin or bag drops, which players can gain a large amount of profit from, and should be changed for the same reason we have DR on the completion reward.
The best reason I can give is that CoF path 1 is out of line with the intended design of the dungeon, is imbalanced in comparison with many of the other dungeons, and as a result there needs to be a change to either bring it in line with what was intended, or reduce the reward so players cannot take advantage of the dungeon being like this.
The reason I suggest DR is because it is the easiest way to address this. The other solution would be a rework of the dungeon, as well as other dungeons which may also be prone to “speed runs” but due to CoF path 1 being the best, are not currently popular.
I dont see how doing arah p4 and having it take 3-4 hours to complete would warrant a loot reduction in the already bad loot. CoF p1 you might have an argument. But “Blanket” DR is bad.
Then perhaps they should rework the entire DR system, which is applied like a “blanket”, but before that is done we need it to be expanded for the same reason it was implemented in the first place.
To clarify, just in case my OP was a bit vague, this is about reducing rewards from repeating the same dungeon path multiple times, just like how the end reward gets reduced. It won’t affect you at all if you run different dungeons or paths.
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I’m not sure if this will be the most popular thread, but the issue of repetitive “speed runs” in dungeons is something that needs to be addressed, and expanding diminishing returns in dungeons is likely the easiest and more effective way to handle this.
Affecting the bags of wondrous goods and silver drops from bosses, scaling equally with the reduction in the end-reward, is probably the best approach. So for instance, if you would get 10 silver and 1 bag from a boss normally, on your second run on the same day you would now get 5 silver and 50% chance of a bag, and this would decrease even further the more runs you did.
These bags and silver drops are a large source of money in these speed runs to my knowledge, so just affecting these will probably be enough.
You guys need a serious chill pill. You’re way too quick to attack people who try to bring positive energy into this community. I don’t know if it’s the lack of real human contact or what that causes it but I’m not pouting when I say some of you guys are lame. I’m simply calling it like it is. A lot of you I would avoid in both real life and games because you basically do nothing but tear people down.
Criticizing builds, abilities, and mechanics is a good thing, and generally imperative to the health of any gaming community. I certainly haven’t read all of your posts, but it seems that every time I see you comment here on the forums it’s always in defense of some maligned mechanic or ability. I’ve never seen you acknowledge that there are genuinely problematic and lackluster abilities floating around. You seem hellbent on bringing positivity in here for the sake of positivity, and that strikes me as neither fair nor useful.
I’m glad Chopps is looking for effective ways to utilize things like spirits which most people deem as worthless and won’t even bother with, but there is a feeling that when he does so he’s acting like there’s no problem with the skill at all, and that’s why I think people criticize him so much.
Looking at whirling defense for example, it does have a few somewhat useful functions like reflection and vulnerability, but just because something has a few uses doesn’t mean its a sub-par skill overall and could use some buffs. When you try to point out these uses you can make the skill sound like it doesn’t have any issues at all which can be far from the case.
On the other side of things I’m sure some of us are the opposite and when we criticize a skill we make it sound completely worthless when there are situations where it can be viable like Chopps tries to show in his video.
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I’m not even sure what you want them to change. Do you want infusions to be interchangeable? Do you want them to be trade-able so that it’s more convenient to replace them on a whim (which is personally what I believe would best satisfy your stance without any detriment to the game)? Or do you want it to be more convenient to make multiple sets of gear that are all identical except for your infusions? I’m thinking it’s one of the first two but it’s hard to tell because you haven’t actually said so yourself yet.
What I’ve suggested is additional infusion slots. For instance, ascended items would get both a WvW infusion slot as well as the offensive, defensive, or utility one.
defrule.7236 also suggested that we be able to unlock infusions and slot whatever infusions you have on that character, which I actually feel would be a better solution than the one I suggested.
My guess is that we will be able to benefit from 1 unique infusion for each piece of ascended equipment. If this is true players will basically need to get a second set of ascended accessories for these infusions, not just one extra piece like for the utility amulets.
My first question is “why wouldn’t you just put it in the infusion slot of the ascended gear piece you already have?” My second question is “why would you even want the infusion if WvW isn’t the game type you focus on?” After that I would ask anyone who thinks this way if they actually have fun playing the game, or if they’re too stressed out from trying to make sure they have 5 different amulets for 5 different game or play styles.
In order to use the new WvW infusions I’d have to replace my current ones. This is not an option. The only solution is to get a second set of the ascended items I already have to use the new infusions.
I focus on every area of the game other than SPvP. Prior to all these infusions I could use the exact same equipment set for a specific build, regardless of where I went. This convenience is being removed if I want to play at my best.
I’m no casual player and am very focused on efficiency within a play-style I enjoy. It saves me time in reaching my goals and makes me a better player in general when I look for advantages in both stats and strategies. It doesn’t make the game any less fun trying to be as efficient as you can, but it does make it less fun when they put inconveniences on you like with these infusions.
As stated by another person, a 10% boost in overall stat points compared to exotics doesn’t mean a 10% boost in your character.
Suppose you get 50 more vitality with as ended over exotics. This may actually come out to 1% increase in your overall stats. These 50 counts only give you 500 more health which really won’t be noticeable.
I’ll do an actual comparison later.
I’m going a bit off topic again, but I figured I’d clarify the impact ascended equipment has to correct my “misleading” post that provided the math on ascended vs exotic accessories.
A player with medium tier health has base stats of 916 across 5 stats. Traits can add another 1,400 points to this. This adds up to a total of 5,980 stat points.
A full set of exotic equipment will provide:
Accessories 1,200
Weapon 435 (2h)
Armor 1,827
Orbs on armor 228
This adds up to 3,690 stat points for equipment.
Based on this exotic equipment provides roughly 38% of a players stat bonuses. If we assume future ascended items follow the same numbers as the current accessories and provide a 10% bonus, ascended items will provide a 3.8% combat advantage in terms of stats, not counting infusions.
However this is not including weapon strength. Because of weapon damage playing such a large role in the damage formula, ascended weaponry will provide a direct 10% increase in physical damage in addition to whatever bonus the stats provide.
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I find it funny that the ascended apologists in this thread don’t even notice the new special WvW infusions ANet is adding. They’ll probably go far beyond a simple +5 to a stat and will be required to be optimal in WvW. It does depend on how useful they’ll turn out though but it it’s something like 5% more PvP damage or 5% less PvP damage (offensive or defensive), it’ll be required to have them to be optimal.
In a sense, it’s even worse than the added stats on ascended compared to Exotic.
From the update preview:
“Now you can purchase Ascended rings and amulets and upgrade your WvW abilities with six new Infusions that give your character special WvW bonuses! Just speak to the new Laurel and Badge Merchants on each map”
My guess is that we will be able to benefit from 1 unique infusion for each piece of ascended equipment. If this is true players will basically need to get a second set of ascended accessories for these infusions, not just one extra piece like for the utility amulets.
If you really see no ‘need’ for different infusions then you are doing it wrong. You can certainly get by just fine, but you could make life easier on yourself.
No there is no need to get different infusions. If you really want to be “optimal” then your MF infusion will be in your MF amulet, the same with exotics/rares whatever, no change there, nothing different in infusions. The 5 AR Infusion is used in Fractals as a placeholder until you get the +5/5 Infusions, those are best/optimal everywhere.
Seriously +Gold Infusion for dungeons? That’s “optimal” now?
Gold or magic find infusions are more beneficial in dungeons than any of the other infusions. If you are going for what is optimal, you will need one of these in addition to your stat/agony resist infusion.
Following this next update you will also need another ascended item for every WvW infusion that provides an advantage.
My concern isn’t really about the current state of infusions, but what they will be like after the next update and if they continue down this path. If they plan to keep expanding infusions just how many sets of ascended items will we need to utilize them all?
I know I’ve also gone a bit off topic as well, but I created this thread to be about having to buy duplicate ascended items to use infusions designed for specific areas of the game in order to play at your best, not about how powerful ascended items are or how much of a role player skill has in the game. I’d like to get back on that topic.
Only if you simply MUST have BiS in every possible facet of this game. If that’s the case then yes you will need a separate set of accessories (and at some point armor when ascended armor comes out whenever that is) for each different area you’d like to be in. For me personally I feel my full set of exotic and ascended accessories will do me just fine in WvW. I really don’t care if someone has an infusion over me. Skill trumps that difference any day of the week lol.
They will be marginally better stat-wise, who cares…
Is it so much to ask for something like an extra infusion slot specifically for these WvW infusions so that those of us who do have best in slot items don’t have to purchase two of the same item just for a different infusion, frequently swap equipment, and use up a fair amount amount of inventory slots just to play at our best in every area of the game?
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I recall them saying that they were planning a new currency for ascended items in WvW. I’m glad they didn’t go with that however; we have too many currencies already!
Except it doesn’t really give you any edge at all. The few points of extra stats aren’t even noticeable. Wearing exotics and fighting someone with ascended gear is no different to fighting someone with exotic gear.
Not counting the bonuses with infusions, a full set of ascended accessories will give 1,322 stats compared to the 1,200 that exotic gives, or a 10.16% increase.
If you include infusions you can get another 30 stats, bringing it up to a 12.6% increase. As better infusions are added, including the WvW specific ones, the gap will only grow larger.
Maybe its not very noticable at the moment due to us only having a limited set of ascended items, but once the armor and weapons are released it will make a pretty noticeable difference.