Guild Wars 2

Erukk.1408:

There is a quote I want to say, but for the life of me I can’t remember how it goes or where it came from. And google is no help, since it only brings me to pages related to terrorism.

Kill a man, and he becomes a martyr.
Wound a man, and he becomes a hero.

I can’t remember the last part, but it went something like…

Discredit a man, and he becomes no one.

Jennah can’t really kill Caudecus for these reasons. Because if any harm comes to him, no matter the circumstance, he will be used as a rallying point for Jennah’s enemies to gather under. Her keeping him under her watch offers more advantages.

1. It puts him entirely at her disposal.
2. It heavily restricts his actions.
3. It allows them to monitor any of his remaining actions much more closely.
4. As long as he’s alive, it constricts the bandit actions through lack of clear leadership. His death would only allow for another leader, outside of her knowledge and “care”, to take his place

That method is a very honourable way to govern. Unfortunately it is too idealistic, in believing that the wicked enemies will have a change of heart due to the Queen being honourable. No they won’t. They will merely take advantage of the Queen’s kindness and honour.

You said “If Caudecus is killed, the Queen’s enemies will rally around him as a martyr.” Well actually we don’t have to worry about that anymore. Why? These enemies already gathered to plot against the Queen. Your worries has already happened.

There is no way to change their hearts to make them fall in love with her. They will keep plotting against her until either the Queen is removed/dead, or they themselves are killed.

We are dealing with the aftermath by this point.

Machiavellian believes "It is far better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. "

In this case, love is clearly out of reach. So fear is the only thing left to keep these enemies under control.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it is great that the Queen is kind and is specially nice to the poor and lower classes. However she must be ruthless against her enemies if she wants to survive.

Machiavelli never spoke against noble goals a leader may have. But to fulfil those noble goals, a leader must first destroy/control his enemies to maintain power. Without keeping power, a leader cannot change anything nor protect anyone.

Long story short: The ends justifies the means.

Jelle.4623:

CHIPS.6018:

Snip.

You’re a bit blindsighted on wanting the Queen to be a Machiavellian when A; Machiavellians aren’t perfect and B; Machiavellians don’t fit certain personalities.

Also, what Konig said. Politics are a bit more complicated then

-Queen: ‘Oy you, get this done’
-Anise: ‘Ok’

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when giving orders.

Machiavellian isn’t perfect. But it is believable. There are some very valid reasons to act like Machiavellian.

I do agree that Machiavellian may not fit everyone. Queen Jennah maybe too nice of a person to pull this off. But perhaps Anise can be a Machiavellian. Livia can be a Machiavellian. etc

I don’t want to be led by a bunch of ideal “My Little Pony”, who sees the world with rose-coloured glasses, every single time. I want some Machiavellian allies/leaders to make this whole thing more believable.

As for killing Caudecus, there are ways to get it done. Caudecus himself tried to kill Queen Jennah and hid it behind a robbery/separatists.

Murder in the ancient political world happens very often. It isn’t that hard to pull off.

Egon Vidar.9125:

As nice as this would be, you cannot easily have Game of Thrones-esque serious themes (how one truthfully behave during a war, the cost of honor and your decisions, all these things) in a game of this rating and genre. Well, you can, but it would take a lot of care, skill, and cleverness, and it would be unavoidably dark in some aspects, so I don’t see it happening.. I was actually legitimately surprised (but pleased) when we killed Scarlet, because it seems too grey for the kid-friendly theme Anet almost seems to be trying to cultivate at this point.

That aside, Machiavelli’s The Prince was more than likely a scathing satire, so it probably shouldn’t be used as a source to back this kind of thing..
http://www.historytoday.com/vincent-barnett/niccolo-machiavelli-%E2%80%93-cunning-critic-political-reason

Hmm. Does the story affect the rating? I thought it is blood and violence that affect the rating.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Doesn’t need to be evil. Suppression is what leads to revolts, done for the better or the worse. This is why dystopias are viewed as “bad” even if they really aren’t.

She does not need to suppress the poor people. She is already highly popular with the poor people. There is no rebellion from this group, hence no suppression/fear is needed.

But She does need to suppress/fear/control/destroy her enemies in court. That means those nobles/ministry members who are already plotting against her. They are going to rebel either way. They do not love her, so fear and destruction is the only way left.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

CHIPS.6018:

Well a true Machiavellian would never even let Caudecus to climb so high to cause a threat in the first place. But what’s done is done. Now she have to deal with the aftermath. A Machiavellian have many ways to get rid of Caudecus.

Jennah didn’t let Caudecus rise to power either.

After Jennah’s father’s death, the Ministry was put in charge for a time because Jennah was too young to rule. During this time, the Ministers were given a lot more power than they normally had, and this likely includes Caudecus. Since then, even with Jennah being crowned, they didn’t want to give up the power they got so they’re fighting to deminitize Jennah as an incompetant ruler – this is stated if you talk to Logan during the final Dead Sister step. He also explains the origins of the Ministry Guard – private guards hired because the Seraph were spread too thin, and they’ve since dug a niche for themselves, becoming a united group.

CHIPS.6018:

These is a saying: “Kill one man to set an example and warning to hundreds.” And this my friend is fear.

And this, after a time and with a brave enough fool, leads to an uprising. In the end, this is the cycle of leaderships throughout history and civilization – form of government is made; form of government becomes corrupt; form of government is brought down in rebellion/reformation; rebellion/reformation makes new government; new government becomes corrupt; etc.

CHIPS.6018:

None of these dirty work need to be done by Queen Jennah herself. That’s what henchmen like Arise are for; they do the dirty work so the Queen can keep her hands clean.

You don’t get how politics work, do you? Or at least, the undersided part of it. If her top ranking underling – or in fact, anyone in the Shining Blade – were to do dirty deeds, then since the Shining Blade answers only to the throne and only do the throne’s duties, well… What the Shining Blade did is effectively “What Jennah did”. Even outside of the Shining Blade, if it was someone who’s tied to her, it could easily be pointed by others – backed or not – that Jennah ordered the action. This is why even gang leaders have to keep tight leashes on their underlings – because their actions trace back to the leaders, regardless of whether the leader did it, or ordered it.

-And hence, Queen Jennah wasn’t a Machiavellian when she was younger. Of course age isn’t really an excuse, as there were plenty of Machiavellian teenagers in history. But that’s beside the point.

If Queen Jennah still isn’t a Machiavellian by now, or at least knows how to defend herself against one, she will be destroyed by Caudecus. Because Caudecus is clearly Machiavellian, and he will eventually win this Game of Thrones. Perhaps Logan and us do good heroes will be able to clean up her mess and save her at the end. But that would be lame, boring and predictable.

In short: She need to wise up if she want to survive!

-Ruling by fear doesn’t directly mean evil. The leader (Queen Jennah) may have very noble goals. But unless she can suppress, fear and control her enemies, she will eventually face her own demise.

-Of course at the end it will be some un-linkable guy that do the dirty work, so it cannot be traced back to Queen Jennah. However Queen Jennah will not directly ask the un-linkable guy. Instead she will ask Anise to do it.

E.g.
Queen Jennah: Anise, I believe that Caudecus need to be removed, permanently.
Anise: Yes my queen.

That’s it. The Queen has given his order. Anise will see it though. Caudecus will be found to have hung himself or died of a mysterious disease or died during a robbery. The Queen doesn’t need to plan every single details out. Her underlings will get it done.

In PvE rarely do I see a human zerg moving around. I only see these rarely when a guild group is there. In other times, nearly everyone do the roamer/headless chicken style of gameplay.

Zerg is ok if it is organized. But right now in PvE the players are far from organized.

I talked about this topic on my other thread. I think a lot of these issues are interconnected.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/DPS-Tests-need-to-Stop

I do have to add something about “removing the AoE cap”. I used to support this idea. But I do not anymore. My reason is:

The Greek phalanx stands together to help each other defend. The Roman Legions stands together to help each other defend.

So in a way, the AoE cap is a simulation of the above. A group of soldiers standing together should offer stronger defence.

I do support another idea: Bring back body blocking. Only then can the tanky players effectively defend the glass cannons. Now there will be field tactics possible.

She is a kid. She is just now digging into Scarlet’s technology. She will be important later on.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Do I want the good guys to stop holding the idiot ball? Yes.

Do I want a Machiavellian? Only if it gives a good plot. But it alone wouldn’t make a good plot.

On a side, Jennah’s actions make sense. She’s basically placing Caudecus under house arrest without actually arresting him. She cannot have him killed, otherwise his followers will use Jennah removing her political enemies “without proper cause” (true or not, they’d argue that or the like) as a reason why she is not a reliable ruler; similarly, she couldn’t arrest him because there’s just no evidence – Krytan law states that there must be at least three pieces of evidence provided to call a Minister to trial, and furthermore if the trial fails then all evidence cannot be used against the Minister in future trials (see noble storyline). Caudecus is a very cautious kitten – as far as I know, Logan and Anise had zero evidence on him, let alone three. And even if they did have three, his influence would likely bring the trial in his favor, thus the evidence would get tossed out should he be proven not guilty.

So Jennah was actually really smart in her actions. Clearly it was above the simplemindedness of Logan and CHIPS though.

Well a true Machiavellian would never even let Caudecus to climb so high to cause a threat in the first place. But what’s done is done. Now she have to deal with the aftermath. A Machiavellian have many ways to get rid of Caudecus.

Caudecus will not be executed. He will instead found to have hung himself or died of a mysterious disease or died during a robbery.

There will never even be a trial. In fact Queen Jennah never suspected Caudecus of anything. He will get a huge state funeral that his loyal services so deserved. You catching my drift?

Queen Jennah’s political enemies never loved her, and they never will love her. So to keep them in check these enemies must fear Queen Jennah. Their families. Their friends. None is safe if they chose to plot against the queen. All of them will be utterly destroyed to prevent any chance of a future revenge plot.

These is a saying: “Kill one man to set an example and warning to hundreds.” And this my friend is fear.

None of these dirty work need to be done by Queen Jennah herself. That’s what henchmen like Arise are for; they do the dirty work so the Queen can keep her hands clean.

The Queen did get one thing right: Appear nice and kind to the poor and lower classes. This is a great image to have. The Queen is against ambitious nobles and hunting them down, while give the poor a chance to become middle class. The poor and lower classes, the majority of the population, couldn’t care less about the Queen’s anti-corruption campaigns. In fact they will love it.

Anyone tired of having these idealistic “My Little Pony” types leading us around?

Queen Jennah: I was nearly captured by bandits in Caudecus’ mansion. But Caudecus’ won’t betray me so I am keeping him alive.
Logan: WTH? Kill him to end this threat!
Queen Jennah: No! I am keeping him alive so he can betray me again next time.

Everyone: Hi council. We have almost 100% evidence that Scarlet will attack LA.
LA Council: LOLWUT? No we will do nothing.
Everyone: Ok no worries. We will just clean up your mess after Scarlet arrives.
LA Council: See you in two weeks! ^^

With leaders like these, the “good guys” have no chance of protecting the people. What the good guys need right now is a strong and tough leader as described by Niccolo Machiavelli.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/niccolo_machiavelli.html
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/16201.Niccol_Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli:
-It is far better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
-Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries, for heavy ones they cannot. If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
-There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others. War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans. You cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
-It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

GW2 translation:
-If the Pact want to hold onto its power over Kryta and survive as an organization, it can go 2 ways: Ether be loved, or be feared. It is obvious that the current and future enemies of Kryta do not love the Pact. So fear is the only way to control them. Some of the potential future enemies will fear the Pact so much, that these enemies will never exist at all. This reduces the size of the future threats and make them easier to control and destroy.
-When the Pact wins a battle against a strong enemy, it must push forward until that enemy is utterly destroyed so it will never be able to seek revenge. If not, the Pact will face its own destruction in the future. Look at the White Mantle. Clearly Machiavelli was right.
-War cannot be avoided. The key is the push when the Pact have the advantage, instead of waiting until the advantage belongs to the enemies. And in times of “peace”, the Pact should equip itself for the next future threat.
-It is the job of a good leader (The Pact), on behave of his/her people, to assume that the enemies are purely evil. And when uncontrolled and unbounded, these evil forces will act in the most evil and wicked ways in the future. If the Pact do not assume and act according to this, the Pact cannot protects its people and faces its own demise.

A documentary for those interested.

Yay or nay?

According to you, berserkers are not viable for those armies in wvw and you want to introduce it in pve. Isn’t that going to actually reduce variety? Right now, everything is viable in pve, if you introduce your concepts, berserkers will stop being used.

If you read I said all along, I was NEVER against berserker. I never said berserker should have no role (e.g. zero) whatsoever.

What I am against is DPS tests in World Events, which encourages everyone to use berserker. Read: Everyone. This is a result of a combination of countdown timer, huge boss hp, rarely hitting but massive damage attacks and these bosses/mobs being very bad at killing the players. .

I was promoting build diversity. I am saying that all builds and all gear types should have equally important roles in the success of a World Event.

People dying are the cause of the failure because you spend your limited time on rezzing them or you simply cannot inflict damage because, well, you’re dead.

Yes! That’s exactly what I was saying before.

-Berserker users must survive long enough to deal enough damage to avoid being overwhelmed by waves after waves of mobs.
-Tanks must heal and absorb damage enough to keep their berserkers alive, so these berserkers can deal enough damage to kill the waves after waves of mobs.
-Hybrids are somewhere in between.

There! Everyone, every class, every build and every gear have their uses. That’s what I want future World Events to aim for!

And no, that’s is not already happening. I already explained the reasons many many times.

Living story events aren’t instanced, they’re persistent.

Marionette and Teq are presistent (in the real world). LA and the Knight is instanced (in its own world, with its own event going on.)

haviz.1340:

Yes, those are wvw field medics. But why do berserkers not care about buffs and support? I, as the player, always want stacks of mights or long duration of protection.

Remember that you original statement was:

“Putting down water field once every 15 or 45 seconds doesn’t equal to have a role of a healer. "

I am glad that we come to an agreement that there is indeed part-time support healers in GW2. (you saying “Yes, those are wvw field medics.”) And by definition, healing power and buff/condition duration are all important for that role. And hence gear choices have a huge part in that.

As for “why do berserkers not care about buffs in WvW?”, it is a funny situation. Obviously everyone, including bererkers, wants buffs and heals. But I will say that they don’t want it enough.

Why?

Because there is a 90% chance of berserkers dying in that very first engagement, if they follow their commander.

Once a berserker is down/dead, he cannot be healed or buffed. It is game over for him/her until the next fight. He will miss the second, third and fourth engagements.

So instead, a great majority of the berserkers would refuse to follow their commander. During a zerg fight, they would do the roaming/headless chicken style of fighting. (To be fair, they may stay around for that first round of buffs before the whole fight. But once the fight has started, these berserkers are usually on their own. They will not fight with their army.)

In short: Berserker users in WvW do not want healing/buffs enough to give up their damage. Damage > survival/healing/buffs to them.

You are also not the part of the army. You’re a lone hero or adventurer. Or am I wrong?

When there is 80+ players in one map fighting against mobs, I will say every player in there is considered part of the army.

An un-organized and untrained army due to the current game play mechanics, unfortunately.

Don’t get me wrong I also enjoy that lone hero/adventure part of things. I like dungeons too. But I see huge problems if these World Events (80+ players) are modelled after dungeons (5 players), because they shouldn’t. World Events should model after WvW (80+ players), where its of the similar scale.

I thought every army needs people to scout areas ahead of it as well as its flanks.

Firstly, the current fighting style of World Events have nothing to do with scouting. Scouting means going ahead of the main army, and reporting the situation back to the main army.

The current fighting style in world events is roaming/headless chicken. This isn’t scouting. Come on it is ridiculous to say all 50 players against one Knight are all scouting!

Scouting is part of the organized army. My server in WvW do use scouts (e.g. thieves) to scout ahead, so we are warned about an enemy zerg well before the fight and prevent an ambush.

Now let’s look at PvE and World Events:

How many World Events so far requires humans to scout, because the mob zerg are smart enough to ambush the players? Zero!

I look forward to the day when the mobs are smart enough to do so.

NoTrigger.8396:

CHIPS.6018:

NoTrigger.8396:

do you have any proof or statistics for that? because my pug runs say otherwise. i rarely meet berserker players (and even more rarely good berserker players) and most of the time i end up soloing encounters for them. even when they are using the most extreme tanky gear in the game.
berserker is a minority in this game and as long as the active combat system exists good players will always use berserker.
and tbh with you its the only reason why i am even playing this game. because if i do a mistake i will be punished for it. challenge = fun.
if i wanted to be brainafk all day and press 1111111 i would be playing a different game.

you can finish all of the pve content in this game without armor. if they destroy my berserker gear i will run around naked and still be faster than most people.

Nearly everyone I know runs berserker for pve. We aren’t proud about it. You know why?

Because tbh running berserker isn’t that hard. Not hard at all.

Instead of saying "We are awesome! ", we are saying “The game does not punish berserker players enough.”

And btw, your gear is indeed part of what defines your build. Compare your stat naked with your stats will full gear on. That’s a huge difference in stats.

ok if its not hard at all can you post a video of your party running arah full melee and full berserker and with only 1 warrior in the party?

if anything the game doesnt punish tanky players enough who have so much room for error and leech 24/7 in events and dungeons.

and your argument “in other games you have to die to get better and learn mechanics” is flawed. do you know how many times i died in gw2 until i was able to melee lupi and even solo lupi? you dont.

Carighan.6758:

I still don’t get where this fight is a DPS Test. 150 condition builds could do it with nothing but AA spam from a power-weapon they swapped to and some changed utility-skills.

How can that be a DPS “test”? Don’t need gear, don’t need build, just need to change one weapon and you’re good to go.

its a dps test because bad players are looking for excuses as always to reflect their own mistakes and failure on something else.

You missed my point.

Let’s remove the timer from Teq and the Knights for a second. So it is now a fair fight. it is the players vs Teq. It is now the players vs the Knights. There is no outside laws and rules to interfere with the fight.

What’s the chances of the players failing to kill the knights? Zero!

What is that? Because the mobs (Teq, Knights, etc) are very very bad at killing the players. They never kill the players fast enough to cause a zerg wipe.

Once again Arah/Fractual are dungeons designed for 5 men. This thread is about Living Story Instanced Events. The population size is different. So this cannot be compared.

I do have to say one thing about the dungeons: The bosses in Living Story Instanced Events are easier than the bosses in dungeons. So as the players group got bigger, the boss were designed to be easier. The only reason for this is:

The bigger the player zerg, the more disorganized they are.

In other words:

The mobs/bosses inside dungeons are designed to successfully kill the players to cause a wipe.
The mobs/bosses in Living Story Instanced Events are never designed to successfully kill the players to cause a wipe.

See the difference?

That shows how much faith the devs have on the players.

It is time to prove them wrong.

haviz.1340:

Putting down water field once every 15 or 45 seconds doesn’t equal to have a role of a healer. As an ele, you have 20 skills for you disposition so it’s hard to have a role of a healer while using 2 or 3 skills that are healing. Futhermore, the one that heals is the one that blasts, not the one that puts down the water field.

Water field, Well for Blood, Warrior Shout, etc etc. All of these are support healing. And they are all very important to the army in WvW. By definition, these players are support healers.

A berserker will obvious not care about these support healing or any buffs and supports. They will never be part of it. They are playing roaming/headless chicken style.

“I find it rather amusing you call roaming a headless chicken game while not zerging. Also, in pvp people are somehow running zerkers (hambows, thieves, mesmers, eles).”

Let’s be honest here. Roamers/headless chickens are not part of the army. Roamers do their own thing for the most part. They do not support each other. They are just there, with other roamers, to deal DPS fast enough in these DPS tests/check.

I am not saying this is the wrong way to play PvE. But it gets very boring when every single Living Story event is about roaming/headless chickens/DPS test. The PvE gameplay should be diverse enough that the army style have a role too.

As for PvP, of course people uses berserker there. In small scale fights berserker have no problem. It is in WvW where berserker dies too often to be popular, because the enemy human zergs have no problem killing berserker players.

“In pvp those classes do their jobs fine. Could it be that wvw is somehow imbalanced where berserker’s is not viable? I think I heard anet saying that wvw would be imbalanced hybrid of pvp and pve. Do you fight against 50 people, all spamming aoes, in pvp or pve? Maybe that’s the reason why berserker’s is not viable in wvw zergs.”

WvW style is the correct style for large scale fights. The more players are involved, the less roaming and more organized the army need to be to win.

And yes that’s exactly the reason why berserker is not viable in WvW zergs. They are designed to roam/headless chicken. Berserkers are never meant to fight within an organized army.

“So hard content is now Tequatl and knights? You keep bringing up zergs which even anet is now trying to somehow fix. Game is balanced around 5 man parties (aoe cap and conditions cap) like pvp or instanced pve. Try going high scales fractals on your first time with berserker’s ele in melee range and tell us again how you didn’t die and how easy it was on your first try.
I also heard that berserker’s are dead weights for teq and they often go down very fast.”

The game should have 3 balances for 3 different group sizes. One around 5 men. The other around 15 men. The last 50+ men.

5 men – dungeons
15 men – separated zerg
50+ men – united zerg

Fractal is a dungeon. Bring that up is pointless in a talk about Living Story Instanced Events. The group size is very different. So the gameplay style should be different.

Once again I am not against dungeons roamers/headless chicken/DPS test. But there is too much of that going on right now. The game needs variety. Anet should stop making these Living Story Instanced Events into a dungeon. Instead they should aim for the WvW organized army model.

As for Teq, it seems you totally missed my point:

Berserkers, or anyone, dying isn’t the cause of event failure.
The timer running out is the cause of event failure.

So I don’t know why you bring that up again (berserkers do die! I see them die!). Sure some players will die, but overall the players do not die enough. Why? Because the mobs are very very bad at killing the players in Living Story Instanced Events.

Vargamonth.2047:

CHIPS.6018:

Sorry but there is indeed a role of healer in GW2. We see group healing in WvW every day. Water field + blast. Well of Blood. Warrior shout. Etc Etc.
…

Your point is perfectly clear but I’m not really sure if you’re aware that most of the people you’re discussing with completely dislike the WvW gameplay too and prefer, if anything, sPvP one and/or that headless chicken roamer gameplay you seem to not like at all.
You can’t convince anyone on how flawed you think the PvE is using as an example something they actually find flawed. You just have completely different tastes.

You are right. Roaming/headless chicken/react to animation and stacking on your commander/healing/buffing/support is 2 very different style of game play. My point is to have variety in the PvE gameplay.

-Roaming/headless chicken/react to animation – It is best to have this in dungeons and sPvP.

-Stacking on your commander/healing/buffing/support – It is best to have this in Living Story instanced events and WvW.

The size of these fights are different. It makes perfect since for the gameplay and requirements to be different.

Miroe.2054:

I’d say lets mind control them with inquest technology and then force them to fight at the front rows in the battle against Mordremoth.

Because.. you know.. We are not the Heroes that Tyria deservers, but the ones it needs right now.. or.. wait.. we are the heroes, that Tyria wants, but not the ones it deserves… who its supposed to be looking for, but not who it finds in the end? Not the wrong ones, but not the right ones either? Nah… its complicated…

Its actually not complicated. Read some of the writtings by Niccolo Machiavelli. :P

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/niccolo_machiavelli.html
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/16201.Niccol_Machiavelli

Niccolo Machiavelli:
-It is far better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
-Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries, for heavy ones they cannot. If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
-There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others. War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans. You cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
-It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

GW2 translation:
-If the Pact want to hold onto its power over Kryta and survive as an organization, it can go 2 ways: Ether be loved, or be feared. It is obvious that the current and future enemies of Kryta do not love the Pact. So fear is the only way to control them. Some of the potential future enemies will fear the Pact so much, that these enemies will never exist at all. This reduces the size of the future threats and make them easier to control and destroy.
-When the Pact wins a battle against a strong enemy, it must push forward until that enemy is utterly destroyed so it will never be able to seek revenge. If not, the Pact will face its own destruction in the future. Look at the White Mantle. Clearly Machiavelli was right.
-War cannot be avoided. The key is the push when the Pact have the advantage, instead of waiting until the advantage belongs to the enemies. And in times of “peace”, the Pact should equip itself for the next future threat.
-It is the job of a good leader (The Pact), on behave of his/her people, to assume that the enemies are purely evil. And when uncontrolled and unbounded, these evil forces will act in the most evil and wicked ways in the future. If the Pact do not assume and act according to this, the Pact cannot protects its people and faces its own demise.

Machiavelli is probably right. Listen to him!

Nikaido.3457:

Most action games are like this. Dark Souls feature tankier gear and stat selections, but you can finish the game at lvl 1 (zero levelling) with an upgraded club if you know what you’re doing. Ultimately points in vitality and endurance are only there to make the game easier for you. But people coming to gw2 act like they expected a game like WoW. This isn’t WoW, and if you want WoW you should know where to look at.

Sorry but there is indeed a role of healer in GW2. We see group healing in WvW every day. Water field + blast. Well of Blood. Warrior shout. Etc Etc.

There is no full time healer. This much is true. But there are plenty of part time healers in the game.

I said healer in my previous post. But by extension I meat buffs and supports too. We see Fire Field+Blast, Condition Removal from allies, Boon Removal from foes, adding conditions on foes, etc etc. Those are all valid roles in the game.

Once again, there is no such a role as full time buffers/support. But there are plenty of part time buffers/support

And in the roles above, gear is very important. Healing power increase healing directly. Boon duration/condition duration affects support directly. etc etc.

A direct response to three things you said:

1) "in a group that would actually require someone to babysit them it usually wouldn’t work because the type of player who needs babysitting will also not stand close in melee range but play headless chicken game. "

And that’s exactly why Berserker gear is not popular and hated in WvW. They cannot survive with the zerg, so they have to play that roaming/headless chicken game. Professional WvW guilds requires their members to stay with the commander 100% always.

The core reason: Human enemy zergs have NO PROBLEM killing a player with berserker gear. Like I said 90% of them will die in that very first engagement, nevermind the re-engagements.

So you are right in saying that healers/buffers/support cannot help a berserker player in that situation (WvW). He will die either way. But do not mistaken. Healers/buffers/support is very important for those players who can survive the first engagement. They will be buffed, healed and then engage again for the second, third and fourth time.

I said this many times but here it goes again. The mobs are very very bad in killing berserker players. That’s why WvW and PvE seems like two different dimensions in everything. I said the reason in previous posts so I won’t repeat myself here.

2) “berserker guardian still gives aegis just fine.”

By the same argument, berserker elementalists can give water/fire fields, berserker mesmer can give portals, etc etc. And you will be 100% correct, if you do not take into account of their survivability and availability.

In WvW, let’s say you count on a guardian go give the whole group aegis. After that first engagement, you find out that the guardian you counted on has died. A dead guardian cannot give your group aegis.

The same thing with the other professions. A dead elementalist cannot give your group water/field fields. A dead mesmer cannot give your group portals. etc etc.

In a WvW zerg fight, where it takes 3 or 4 engagements to win, it is very important for these support classes to survive though multiple engagements.

PvE is a different world. Because the mobs are very very bad at killing off berserker players. Your berserker guardian, berserker elementalist and berserker mesmer can do their job just fine.

3) You bring up the Dark Soul, Demon Soul example. This is a great point. Here is the problem with GW2:

In DS, the player must die multiple times to a boss/mob before the player get better. Why? Because the player must die a few times to slowly figure out the pattern of that boss/mob. After that the player will start winning.

In GW2, the berserker players rarely needs that. Even on the first day of those so-called hard contents (Teq, Knights, etc), berserker rarely dies.

You may say “WTH are you talking about I see berserkers die/down on the ground all the time!!!”

No they don’t. Because they never died fast enough to cause a player zerg wipe.

If the game is truly hard enough, then on the very first day of these new events the berserkers should die so often that the player zerg actually gets wiped. This is just like Dark Soul/Demom Soul. The players should die before they get better/improve enough that they start winning.

You may say next “WTH are you talking about those events fails all the time!!!”

Yeah sure. But they fail because of the timer. Not because the mob wipe out all the berserker players.

Hope this makes sense.

haviz.1340:

CHIPS.6018:

Nearly everyone I know runs berserker for pve. We aren’t proud about it. You know why?

Because tbh running berserker isn’t that hard. Not hard at all.

Instead of saying "We are awesome! ", we are saying “The game does not punish berserker players enough.”

And btw, your gear is indeed part of what defines your build. Compare your stat naked with your stats will full gear on. That’s a huge difference in stats.

That’s not exactly a proper sample size. Nearly everyone I know in the game has 20+ years, does it mean there are no people younger than that?

This game doesn’t punish for a lot thing.

Your build is mostly defined by your role, tell me how does power define if you are support or control specced? Those are defined by your weapons, traits and utility skills. Gear (stats) defines your build but it’s not the only factor and not the biggest one.

If you try to heal others with berserker gear, you character will be a very bad healer. You yourself may be very skilled in healing. But your character is bad at healing.

If you are talking about role, then yeah your character’s role is still healer. But it is just a very bad healer.

Gear is important. That’s my point.

haviz.1340:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Your build in GW2 is defined by your gear. It is just so that everyone runs zerker gear, so you make up fine nuances to build an artificial build variety.

All are DDs in first place. Then they get some support to raise the DPS of the group. This has nothing to do with what the DEVs were talking about.

The system is broken, the encounters are all about burning down the boss, no other mechanic needed. No tanking – no tanking gear needed, no real healers – no healing gear needed, nothing else needed but DD.

This is why all group (zerg) content feels the same: Do as much damage as you can, dodge, damage.

If you say so, record a fractal 49 or 50 with just direct damage, nothing else. No support and no controls.

I can agree that open world zergfest is pretty much what you say but how would you design a content with tanks and healers in open world for 150 people?

150 people at the same location will be too laggy. This never should have been the type of gameplay that we should aim for.

Instead 10 smaller zergs of players of 15 men each, spread across the battlefield as required, is much better game play design.

Example:

NoTrigger.8396:

do you have any proof or statistics for that? because my pug runs say otherwise. i rarely meet berserker players (and even more rarely good berserker players) and most of the time i end up soloing encounters for them. even when they are using the most extreme tanky gear in the game.
berserker is a minority in this game and as long as the active combat system exists good players will always use berserker.
and tbh with you its the only reason why i am even playing this game. because if i do a mistake i will be punished for it. challenge = fun.
if i wanted to be brainafk all day and press 1111111 i would be playing a different game.

you can finish all of the pve content in this game without armor. if they destroy my berserker gear i will run around naked and still be faster than most people.

Nearly everyone I know runs berserker for pve. We aren’t proud about it. You know why?

Because tbh running berserker isn’t that hard. Not hard at all.

Instead of saying "We are awesome! ", we are saying “The game does not punish berserker players enough.”

And btw, your gear is indeed part of what defines your build. Compare your stat naked with your stats will full gear on. That’s a huge difference in stats.

Players, you cannot protect everyone. Stop trying. :P

NinjaChris.9340:

Yeah, it’s the old hypocrisy of slaughtering countless goons, but once a vilain with an actual name pops up, people want to spare them because they don’t want to “become their enemy.”

I think it is human nature to avoid killing people that we know. This by itself isn’t wrong.

But the problem with Scarlet is we barely know her. She is a mad woman that wants to wake the Jungle Elder Dragon. She said so herself :“The world will bow down to a new master.”

So she knowingly wants to wake the Jungle Elder Dragon, and call it her master. She is putting millions of lives at risk. Whatever “Morale Event Horizon” she once had was long past. She must be killed.

If the game want us to feel bad for killing a villain, the game need to give us good reasons why. Maybe the villain was trying to save someone else’s life. Maybe the villain have noble goals. Maybe the villain was the main character’s former lover/partner. etc etc

E.g.
-When the lover of the main character, Janet, betrays him for money in Strike Commander.

-When the former partner/teacher of the main character in Aquanox 2, May Ling, betrays him because he rejected her love.

I felt so bad that I tried to disable her ship instead of killing her. But the mission cannot be completed unless I kill her, so I had to shoot down her already disabled ship. I felt pretty bad about that.

The saddest part is in the after briefing, a guy told the main character that “You couldn’t have done this differently. You had to kill her” Well actually, with May Ling’s ship disabled, so she is no longer a threat to the mission, there was absolutely no need to kill her. She wasn’t some crazy evil chick. She was just a jealous girl angry at the main character.

Last picture was me looking at May Ling in the face, seconds before needlessly killing her.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think Lion’s Arch would let them happen.

Besides, given the new lines from holographic Mai Trin about digging in at the Edge of the Mists, I think there are already plans for Mai Trin to return in the future with some Aetherblades.

Calling it now: Mai Trin = Scarlet 2.0 (but hopefully better written!) in that she’ll be leading the unified TA/MA/AB

Well until there is an Airship vs Airship battle between the Pact and Aetherblades, they cannot die out. What’s the point of giving them airships in the first place? They cannot be sky pirates by name only. :P

Riku.4821:

Fenrina.2954:

Riku.4821:

Yeah expect this idea these “unique snowflakes” have was the selling point to this game when it came out.. So people ARE entitled for playing how they want.

There’s an additional factor. The devs have been talking about “build diversity” as a design goal for quite some time. Required bosses that want lots of berserker gear is rather contrary to that goal.

You are correct in all matters. But the problem is it jsut seem to many people WANT to play berserkers. The only way they could solve that is remove it. OR make the game to punishing to DPS race players by adding OHK or harder mechanics than press 1.

If the mobs are successful in killing large quantities of berserker gear users, they will not WANT to play as berserker any longer. Dying isn’t fun.

Naetell.3815:

CHIPS.6018:

My view on berserker gear is written in my other thread. ^^

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/DPS-Tests-need-to-Stop

As for the question “Why don’t we all play warrior?”

There is only one reason why so many people are playing berserker warrior in the fire place: Currently the mobs are very very bad at killing players with berserker gear.

It is true. Mobs suck at killing berserkers. If you do not trust me, go into WvW and try to follow your zerg in berserker. You most likely will be dead in that very first engagement. You won’t be there for the second, third and fourth engagements. :P

The mobs needs to effectively kill off berserker players. Then the norm of gear usage will be somewhere between berserker and tanky. That’s how it should be.

Then the meta will be someting like 4 pieces PvT, everything else zerker.
The problem wouldn’t be solved at all.

The PVT gear may be the most popular. But the game will be very different. Now all gear types (Berserker, Hybrid, Tanky) have their uses. The players have also become better players because the mobs are smarter.

Allow re-spec traits on the fly – Instead of requiring the players to run to a trait NPC every time, just give that option inside the trait window. Still charge the players silver for it, but make it more convenient.

My view on berserker gear is written in my other thread. ^^

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/DPS-Tests-need-to-Stop

As for the question “Why don’t we all play warrior?”

There is only one reason why so many people are playing berserker warrior in the fire place: Currently the mobs are very very bad at killing players with berserker gear.

It is true. Mobs suck at killing berserkers. If you do not trust me, go into WvW and try to follow your zerg in berserker. You most likely will be dead in that very first engagement. You won’t be there for the second, third and fourth engagements. :P

The mobs needs to effectively kill off berserker players. Then the norm of gear usage will be somewhere between berserker and tanky. That’s how it should be.

Vargamonth.2047:

If you’re fighting against a quite zergy amount of enemies, damage becomes fairly unpredictable. If a tanky character can be bursted down so fast that a good reaction time /skillful play is needed in order to retreat to safety (and with a proper personal/team setup, be fully recovered in a few seconds), then everything else would explode and become right unplayable.
On the other hand, if you’re fighting against a single readable enemy, you’ll need a terrible performance (missing several avoidances in a row) to fail.
There’s only one exception to this and that’s about the damage being high enough to almost oneshot the tanky character, and that bring us back to the glass cannon spec which eliminates the threat faster.
Without DPS checks, tankiness is just a much safer way to success.

I’ve no problem with your defend the circle idea. It’s too zergy for my preferences but a lot of people would enjoy it and absolutely has its place.
However, there’s actually a DPS check in that fight. You still need to clear waves fast enough for not being overwhelmed by reserves and fail the event because of a lack of damage.

I would play that event either as a glass cannon staff elementalist (dealing as much AoE damage as possible) or as a hybrid/tanky guardian (fighting in frontline, trying to contain the enemies for the ranged DPS players to stay safe and have an easier time landing their area damage).
I would never play it as a tanky Wave of Wrath spamming guardian who stays in some weird midline where doesn’t “tank” anything, not even receive damage (no point in being tanky, not even talk about traiting for Altruistic Healing), does crappy damage and whose support isn’t THAT good as some people think.
You can expect, however, a good amount of players using this spec (specially if there’s loot for tagging enemies) or any other weird thing like glass cannon frontliners (exploding in matter of seconds and, obviously, not respawning at WP and waiting to be resed at the ned of the fight) or tanky single target ranged backliners. Then, the event would fail and people would complain on the DPS check being too extreme, only organized communities / large guilds being able to complete it or the game being zeker or GTFO.
I hope you get my point here.

I am glad we agree that the mobs must stop following the rarely hitting the players, one hit killing model.

This should be replaced by the often hitting the players, but lower damage model.

Yes berserker should always deal the highest damage, if the player can survive with it. At the same time, tanky characters should survive longer than berserker gear. The medium that Anet should aim for is hybrid, somewhere in the middle. Berserker is the extreme in damage, while tanky is the extreme in survival.

The biggest obstacle right now is that too many people is using berserker already. So Anet may be hesitant to make new contents and AI that can effectively killing off berserker gear players (e.g. 90% chance for berserker to die once every 5 minutes). Anet may be worried about the outcry from the berserkers.

But this is important for the long term of the game.

The defend the circle idea is just one of many. The key is to make all 3 types of gears useful. The event, instead of being a DPS test, now test and see if the players know what they are doing. Here is how the players may fail the event.

Berserkers: If they do not know how to survive, they will die rapidly. The zerg DPS will drop and the player zerg will wipe. Zerg wipe=game over.

Hybrids: Somewhere in the middle.

Tanks: If they do not know how to either absorb damage for or heal their allies, their allies will die around them. This will drop the zerg DPS. The waves after waves of mobs will eventually kill everyone. Zerg wipe=game over.

Vexander.9850:

It seems possible to me that all of the Molten Alliance, Aether Blades, and Toxic Alliance forces that continued to follow Scarlet went to Lion’s Arch, that the attack on the city was the, ‘All or Nothing,’ moment for those three factions, and that they’ll be wiped out and any possible survivors will simply return to their respective factions. Molten Alliance Dredge would return to the Moletariate, while their Charr would return to the Flame Legion. Toxic Alliance Nightmare Court Sylvari would return to the Nightmare Court, while Krait return to… Krait. That sort of thing.

In short, I wouldn’t be surprised if these Alliances were destroyed or disbanded.

The Toxic Kraits are (according to Angel) considered outsiders to the original Kraits. So they can “never” return.

The other factions, maybe.

So the miasma gas got blown out to sea? But I thought the gas can be redeployed by those canisters. I mean the wind is always blowing. The only way to keep the miasma gas going is by deploying new canisters.

Unless Scarlet “ran out of gas” just before she can finish the drilling. >_>

Simple question really. What are we going to do with the MA, AB and TA? Do we chase them till the ends of the world? Or do we forget about them, until they become a major threat again?

I ask this because a number of players have said that they felt bad for killing Scarlet. And this is shocking. Scarlet killed thousands of civilians and soldiers. Even if we capture her, she will certainly be executed.

I guess this question expands into: Do we want to be that ideal hero with a no killing no matter what rule? Or do we want to be the dark knight, doing whatever it takes to protect the people?

Although this is funny, considering that we had been killing MA, AB and TA all along.

Anyways, I am with the retribution/dark knight camp.

It is not that I am angry. But it is obvious that if the Pact do not annihilate all members of these alliances, they will grow into major threats in the future. The Pact must kill all of them while they are weak. Give them no time to regroup.

We will find them. We will find their family and friends. We will torture them, until they give us the info we need to find the next member. When they are no longer useful we will execute them.

Munich (2005), Kryta edition. Start the manhunt.

We must set a clear example. People foolish enough to try to wake up an elder dragon is well beyond any sort of redemption and Moral Event Horizon. We will send so much fear and terror that no one will ever do something so foolish ever again.

You?

Was it ever explained how the Pact entered LA to kill Scarlet, when it was full of Miasma gas?

The Pact do not have to escape from the city anymore. So obviously they found a solution.

There are a lot of Canthans in Kryta. Marjory can be any body’s descendent.

I am glad I finished the Scarlet story before yesterday’s patch. After the patch, it was 7 tries 7 fails.

Vargamonth.2047:

And that’s exactly my point.
Whenever some content is allowed to fail (winning the event becomes dominant over doing it fast) and no DPS checks are included, the most deffensive setups will always be the safest choice.
DPS checks are needed in order to disallow the most survivable setups and force players to take as many risks as they’re confident on handling.
No matter how you design a content, there’ll be always an optimal strategy. When that strategy is about using the spec that reduces the risk the most, there’s absolutely no point on using anything else and build diversity gets completely destroyed.

Yes this is where we disagree. I am not saying you are wrong. But we want very different things.

“Identifying animations” in Living Story events only works if it is 40+ players vs 1 single boss. We cannot have other mobs around that can provide a serious threat.

Why?

Because if these assistant mobs does provide a serious threat, “identifying animations” will become too difficult. Imaging fight against 1 world boss, at the same time being chased by 10 assistant mobs that can all legitimately one-hit-kill you. It will be too difficult to “identifying animations” all these attacks at the same time.

Getting hit is unexpected. So they will hurt a lot. The game is pretty much Devil May Cry in “Dante Must Die” mode.

I personally love the idea of fighting one world boss, while being chased by 10 assistant mobs. Getting hit is expected, yet deals less damage. As a result the players can equip tanky gears to survive these attacks.

BTW I am not saying a tanky gear character should be able to face tank absolutely everything neither. But a reasonable amount of damage avoidance will allow him to survive.

I still stand by my point that the current mobs are very very bad at killing berserker players. That’s why berserker is the norm; it is the optimal damage. If the berserker players does die often, the optimal damage will no longer be berserker. It will be somewhere between berserker and tanky gear. And that’s what it should be.

Rough example:

Berserker: Dies on average once every 5 minutes. Deals 3 times the average damage.
Hybrid: Dies on average once every 30 minutes. Deals 1 time the average group damage.
Pure tank: Dies on average once every 60 minutes. Deals 0.5 time the average group damage.

I also disagree with the point on timer is a requirement. It isn’t. My hold the circle event does not need a timer. The players just need to survive against all the attacks from the mobs, until the mobs run out of troops.

Since it is game over when the players losses the circle for merely 3 seconds, there is very little time to WP and run back. That means the players cannot get wiped at all.

In the above event, there is incentive to go all 3 type of gear: Berserker, hybrid and tanky. Why?

Berserker: Kill mobs before the next wave of mobs (reserves) arrive.
Hybrid: Constant damage.
Tanky: Absort damage. Heal allies. “Troll” the control circle if the fight goes south (just like WvW), to give a slight chance for the dead players to WPing and running back.

So we will have players of all 3 types doing their part. All 3 types are useful in their own ways. That’s exactly what the game should promote: Build Diversity.

Many other things they can do. This is just one idea.

haviz.1340:

This rule doesn’t apply when condies ignores toughness, use mostly ranged weapon sets and condie users are tanky. Why should faceroll builds be more efficient?

You are talking about 4 very different issues here.

1) Ignore toughness

Conditions can be removed. Conditions rarely lasts their full duration, and so rarely deals their full damage.

Think of the times when weak mobs dies too fast. Sometimes condition users does not even get experience and loot from these weak mobs.

Max 25 stacks of bleed when it is 1 on 1. Max 25 stacks of bleed when it is 80 people on 1 boss.

Conditions do not critical hit.

Conditions cannot take advantage of low armor, high health targets.

etc etc

2) Ranged weapons

You are now talking about range vs melee. This is a risk vs reward factor.

I was talking about DoT vs DD. This is a timing issue; damage now vs high damage later.

Notice that there is melee DoT (e.g. Hundred Blades). There is also range DD (e.g. warrior with rifle).

3) condie users are tanky

DD users can be just as tanky. Which law said DD must use berserker gear?

4) Why should faceroll builds be more efficient?

Tanky builds became faceroll builds because the mobs are VERY VERY BAD at killing the players. I mean look at them. They can barely kill berserker players.

If you think it is hard to berserker in Living Story, try going WvW with berserker gear. Like I said, 90% chance of dying in that first engagement.

Let’s be honest. It is super easy for a berserker to survive in PvE. None of these events so far had been successful at killing berserker gear users in mass quantities.

Berserker isn’t dying enough in PvE. That’s why they are so popular, to the point that a great majority of the people use them. The mobs cannot even take out berserker (easiest to kill) on a consistent basis. It shows how bad their AI is and how badly designed they are. The risk vs reward is out of balance.

ThiBash.5634:

ShibVicious.9681:

Here’s how I see most the knights battles go down that I’ve partaken in.

Large group of people rush the knight. All those wonderful zerker characters that do tons of damage run in, get swinging there swords and sure, they’re putting up some big numbers. Good job. Problem. 20 seconds later. Half of them are dead. One attack and poof, all lying on their backs, perma’d and begging for a res, instead of wp and running back.
In contrast, I’m running knights gear. Sure I don’t hit as hard, but I don’t die as soon as I’m hit. My increased survivability means that ultimately I’m out damaging a large number of these zerker characters because I’m constantly damaging the knight throughout the encounter, as opposed to throwing down some mad spike damage at the start and then nothing else for the remainder.

If that were true everything would be fine. However…

…if you pick a non-melee weapon, there’s only 1 attack you gotta dodge to take 0 damage. This means that there’s literally no reason not to take max damage gear for these events. And given the huge amount of time it takes to take them down, I’d say they were balanced for a full zerker group.

Once what you say actually starts being true ingame, the different gear sets will have their place. But right now, there’s no risk for the berserkers and thus their main downside doesn’t exist.

I understand this issue. To resolve this:

Mobs must be organized enough to have a chance to literally take out the player zerg. The players need to literally lay on the ground all dead.

Someone metioned before:

Well, what’s stopping the players from WPing and running back and keep fighting? We seen this problem in dungeons before.

Answer: Change the winning/lossing condition, so the players cannot wipe at all.

In WvW, to capture a tower/keep the players have to have 100% control of the lord’s room circle. They can add this into the event.

“If the players lose control of this circle for over 3 seconds (zero players alive inside the circle), mobs win. Game over.”

3 seconds is not enough time to WP and run back. So a wipe is game over, pretty much.

To split the zerg, have 5 of these circles on the map (e.g. 5 of them inside LA). If at any time any one of these 5 circles have no players in it for over 3 seconds, TOTALLY game over for everyone. (Players you all suck cry me a river. :P)

Just one of the many things Anet can do.

Responding to these 2 replies.

JackDaniels.1697:

Funny how condition builds rant how useless they are in the Knight fights, when once the Knights are condition vulnerable, they melt faster than the pure dps thrown at them.

NoTrigger.8396:

they should stop using a damage type that was never designed to be the “main” damage type in this game, until arenanet changes it.

Whoa hold on a minute. Listen to this rule:

Duration of Time damage MUST out-damage Direct Damage over time!

Why? Because if not, where is the balance?

DoT (bleeding, poison, etc) can be removed. And it deals damage slower, so it can be more easily healed.

DD can be dodged, blocked, etc. But guess what? DoT can be dodge, blocked, etc too! Anything that counters DD also counters DoT!

There is no main damage. DoT and DD are both equality important. DoT is better for pressure. DD is better for spiking. That’s how it always was, since GW1.

So why is DoT better than DD in a boss fight?

Because the boss have a billion HP. So a boss fight is always a drawn out fight. And in drawn out fights, OF COURSE DoT is better! What else is new? You cannot spike a boss. You can only pressure a boss.

Blame the boss design (billion HP, etc). Do not blame DoT out damaging DD over time. It must be this way.

Lastly, do not forget that Vulnerability 25 stacks is also a major factor in the boss melting like butter when it can be affected by conditions. And that helps DD not DoT.

Vargamonth.2047:

In any case, I’m fairly sure we’re not going to agree on how to improve the game.
The way you talk about WvW big battles makes me think that you somehow like how they work. On the other hand, I think they don’t fit the whole idea of the active combat system and absolutely hate them :P

I actually support a new idea altogether: An improvement to the mob AI so they fight as a unit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Important-Suggestion-Mob-Unit-AI/

The problem with is “identifying animations” is that it is too focused on Berserker gear. Why? Because it involved dodging an boss attack with the perfect timing. That means that boss attack, since it is designed to hit so rarely (with the player dodging), must deal very devastating damage. That means one or two mistakes by the player and he is dead.

With this design philosophy, tanky equipment must be made useless. Why? Because if a tanky character can face tank this boss’ attack, then everyone will just face tank it. Then there is absolutely no need to “identifying animations” anymore.

In the above “identifying animations” environment, berserker is the only way to go. The player try to kill the boss ASAP, so they don’t have to dodge as much. Tanky equipment are meaningless here, because 1 or 2 mistake will down any character.

I guess there lies the core problem of “identifying animations”:

“Identifying animations” puts the game into two extremes:
One hit kill from the boss
vs
Maximum DPS from the player.

(Side Note: Necromancers are designed to face tank everything, putting them in a serious disadvantage in this type of gameplay. But that’s a different story.)

Now I am not against the idea of “identifying animations” anywhere. I just believe there need to be variety in the game. In fact this type of gameplay already widely exist in dungeons. It shouldn’t be the only way to play this game. So let’s not continue to add this type of gameplay into the game, until other types have been added in sufficient numbers.

I believe in open world Living Story events, it is much better to follow a different philosophy in game design. The “Mob Unit AI” philosophy is one idea that I came up with. It put the focus of the fight into the players organizing themselves against an organized mob army. This change the focus from a DPS test into a organize the players until they win.

Like I said there are many other things Anet can do.

Vexander.9850:

CHIPS.6018:

AFAIK, there is no law in Kryta against gay or lesbian relationships. None of the 6 gods said anything about that neither. Lyssa is pretty much in a lesbian relationship with herself. :P

Cantha maybe a different story.

I doubt such a law exists in Cantha, they worship the same Six Gods as the rest of Humanity. I don’t think the Norn care, the Charr probably have homosexual relationships based on the closeness of Warbands, and we know the Sylvari don’t even have gender roles in their society. I don’t like to think of the Asura in any way when it comes to romance, orientation, or anything sexual, but I doubt they care much either.

Maybe the Tengu’s will care. :P

AFAIK, there is no law in Kryta against gay or lesbian relationships. None of the 6 gods said anything about that neither. Lyssa is pretty much in a lesbian relationship with herself. :P

No one in the game said anything against these relationships. When Marjory and Kasmeer kissed, Rox and Braham couldn’t care less.

All signs indicates that homosexual relationships are wildly accepted in Kryta.

Cantha maybe a different story. They may include that Asian ultra-conservative culture in that area.

Vargamonth.2047:

In any case, when player gear (even trait/weapon) choices are mostly about a balance between damage output and passive survivability, there’ll always be some kind of DPS check. Without them, designing a content to be challenging for tanky builds but still doable by more aggresive specs is extremely complicated.
The only downside on tanky gear is that it kills way slower and, when you’re going to have a limited amount of tries (temporary content taking place at fixed hours), maximizing the success rate becomes way more important than completion speed.
Without DPS checks, there’ll be no use for anything but the most defensive armor sets (currently, while suboptimal, you can use them as a cover for possible mistakes; the opposite can’t ever be true).

I think WvW is a great example of where Berserker doesn’t work.

In WvW, the damage comes at random times. You have no idea when your enemy will hit you. You enemies are human, and they do whatever they want. There is no set pattern.

The result? Only the best of the best WvWers will dare to use berserker gear in a zerg fight.

Why? It can be roughly estimated that 90% of the berserker gear users in WvW will not survive that first zerg engagement.

Now, a zerg fight usually involves the two zergs engaging, breaking off to buff/heal, engaging again, breaking off to buff/heal again, etc etc. However none of this concerns berserker gear users. 90% of them will be dead in that very first engagement.

Is there a timer in WvW zerg fights? Nope. But it works. So how exactly is this different from Living Story events?

Because WvW, in general, are highly successful in killing off berserker gear users. Living Story events, on the other hand, are very poor at killing off berserker gear users.

I think the game need to be designed so that there is a 80-90% chance of dying for berserker gear users.

Maximum glass cannon=>90% chance of dying once every 5 minutes (on average).
Maximum tanker=>10% chance of dying once every 5 minutes (on average).

This way, there is a real incentive to get more tanky. Glass cannons that dies that often actually deals less damage than more tankier builds. And if too many players are glass cannons, it is possible for a zerg wipe (people are dying too fast too often to be ressed, so eventually everyone is dead). That’s the mission failure; not due to timer running out.

Azreell.1568:

The funny part is Anet wants to have build and gear diversity.

Or so they told us that is the reason for the zerker meta dps nerf which basically lowers the dps of all players in game via crit damage.

Then they design new content with nothing more then one huge glorified DPS check.

They really need to make up their minds because it’s starting to frustrate far to many people.

To be fair, I am fairly certain that this whole Scarlet series was already finished in development before they started the CDI. It is pointless to go back to change the stuff that is already completed.

All our opinions will be used for future contents. Gameplay, lore, etc.

SirMoogie.9263:

What mechanic would you propose to replace the timers in this fight that would still allow it to be challenging/capable of being failed?

At the end of the day, there are only 2 options.

1) Anet should change the game so more gear types and builds are useful.

2) All players should go buy Berserker gear.

If Anet wants option 1, there are many things they can do . For example:

1) Replace one-hit-kills with Duration of Time attacks. These DoT attacks will happen so often that it is physically impossible to avoid them all. Berserkers, unless supported by healers, will certainly need to retreat from the fight to rest up. This way there is an active role for healers and tanks.

2) This boss deals 10 times the damage when affected by Might. Another boss takes 1/10th the damage when affected by Protection. This make it mandatory to remove this boss’s Might. So boon removal have an active role.

3) This boss takes 10 times the damage and condition damage when the players have Might on them. This makes having fire field+blast very important.

4) This boss is totally immune to any damage, unless it is inside one of the three specific areas. So the players need to lure the boss into these spots to hurt it. This add a tactical side to the fight.

5) Increase the bleed cap from 25 to 100.

etc etc

There are a million thing Anet can do to change these fights. And they will all be better than these DPS tests that we have been seeing.

Enaretos.8079:

Hey now, don’t be lke this my friends and don’t talk about DPS race.

Take a second and think about this :
- the goal of the event is to kill 3 bosses.
- people are bringing their defensive gear in the event.
- they complain that they can’t complete the event.

??? I fail to understand…

And about condition damage not working, I find it quite logical : I’ve never seen metal bleed, nor even burn to a small fire. Think about the immersion :>

The thing is:

The goal of world events are always to kill something.

This isn’t even the cause of the problem.

The cause of the problem is that all the world bosses we seen so far is huge hp pool and count down timer.

These two things means that it is all about the berserker gear. All other gears are underpowered, if not flat out useless.

The game should be designed so all different gears have their own benefits and flaws. DPS and berserker should not be the only way. If not, why bother to have other gears at all? Just have everyone use berserker gear and be done with it.

kokiman.2364:

CHIPS.6018:

So I just tried that “Kill 3 Legendary Clockworks” quest. It is nothing but a DPS test. Can we please stop having quests like these?

These quests are saying:
If you are not using berserker gear, go home.

No these “quest”, they are actually called events, are not a DPS check, they are events that encourage people to play together. The biggest problem right now is, that there are way to many “unique snowflakes” around that keep shouting “I PLAY HOW I WANT AND YOU PLAY HOW YOU WANT” which is something that just doesn’t work in a genre that is all about playing together.

I was in a group that was organized. Nearly everyone there dodged those pull+slam attacks no problem. However we failed due to purely a lack of DPS.

thefantasticg.3984:

CHIPS.6018:

Is my proposal that bad? Or is it too hard to understand?

If they aren’t going to put the resources into fixing the Ranger pet AI, what ever on this blue planet that we live on makes you think they’re going to put the resources neccessary to fix the same code that the Ranger pet AI uses?

Fixing the mob AI is more important than fixing the ranger pet AI. Not every player plays the ranger. But all the players have to deal with the mob AI.

And BTW when the mob AI is fixed, the ranger pet AI will probably be fixed along with it. ^^

The way I see it, mob AI is nearly non-existent right now. If they have a hammer, they swing it at the player and spam skills. If they have a rifle, they shoot at the player and spam skills. etc.

The mobs don’t think. They also aren’t aware of their allies around them. Each mob just fight by itself.

This type of AI may work in the open world, where the players roam around. It doesn’t work as well when there is a zerg of players.

Right now the only reason these mobs provides the players with any sort of challenge is their 1,000 times of health and 10 times the damage, when compared to the players.

These kind of fights are getting dull tbh.

MuxyKillin.7036:

It would also make a various and underused control skills a lot more apealing, support would have a reason other than dmage buffs, melee would be a roll of the dice and trust in your fellow team-mates. It has a lot of potentian for fun encounters, a lot of potential for epic fights… there’s just one hitch….. think Dredge fractal clown car…. That’s gotta be one of the primary issues of such an AI change… at least related to the reserves tactic you mentioned.

Oh yes. This will definitely make the fights more exciting.

Now players need to stack to buff, just to be at event strength as the mobs.

They will also need to debuff the mobs to reduce their damage. The elite and champion mobs with 25 stacks of might will hurt a lot. Things like Protection and Fury will also need to be removed.

The only way to survive these AoE onslaughts will be stacking together to reduce overall damage taken (maximum AoE is 5 targets).

When basic and advanced tactics are implemented, the fights becomes much harder. The players will have to listen closely to their commander (on teamspeak, mumble) to have be successful.

Lankybird.8149:

I think in large open events that are instants like LA one would be to much chaos. Firstly the lag some experience (fellow lag guildies) would not be able to handle it, secondly I think this AI system would take months if not years of work only to be wasted by people zerging them down. I would LOVE this style in Dungeons. Instead of big health bar OP moves Boss have 5 or 6 other AI all with similar stats to take on in epic fight.

I believe the first part can already be done.

1) No random mob spawns for the unit
2) Mobs will stack on their Champion as their commander
3) Each champion have a different field+blast
4) Mobs in a unit are downed, and needs to be finished
5) Focus fire

The basic and advanced tactics may take longer. But those can be done later. ^^

Lalangamena.3694:

I wish it was like that on veteran and elite mobs.

I understand that regular mobs are dumb for low level players and lazy players.
but veterans should be exactly like that.

also all dynamic events should spawn veteran mobs and not regular mobs.

also to the AI devs, please see these:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012410/Improving-AI-Decision-Modeling-Through

http://gdcvault.com/play/1015683/Embracing-the-Dark-Art-of

They may also need to hire someone with experience in RTS to help write the AI.