Guild Wars 2

please help me now.

Couple of issues.
A) every time I try to advance the instance into verdant brink my game freezes and I’m forced to ctrl + alt + delete to regain responsiveness on my PC.

B) I went to LA to do some halloween stuff while it loads a bit more, but now my story step is stuck on “gather at the rally point leading into the maguuma jungle” but that only exists within the instance which i’m now unable to get back in to.

please fix this immediately! i’ve taken some time off to enjoy the game but i’ll be quite upset if all that time has gone into waiting/crashing.

Are there any? I’ve been checking back daily on the forums to see if any exist, but have yet to find any.

I’ve been talking to some friendly SEA guilds and they’d be happy to take me but it’s three hours out of my usual time schedule, which can potentially be a pain.

Are there any oceanic raiding guilds recruiting for primary or secondary statics?
Hit me up if so.

Hey there. Will you have any Australian GMT+10 raid groups?
Peace.

I’d be interested. I’m in Australia so I think I’m 2 hours ahead of you. Shouldn’t be a huge deal though. I’ve added you in game.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

As I was looking forward to playing a Reaper this Friday and finding out I will only have a partial unlock, will half a Reaper even be playable? With that said are there any builds that will leave me tanky enough to sleep walk through enough Hero Challenges so that I can play the expansion how I actually want to play it, as a Reaper?

le epic “play how i want” meme

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. Life force is definately one of the biggest issues for scepter/dagger necros, as well as the low damage scaling of their primary conditions – bleed, torment and poison.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Canakun.8031:

This provides a DUAL and BALANCED perspective on new PvE content that takes into consideration the opinions of the most experienced instanced PvE players, as well as the most experienced World boss PvE players.

How can you even say that with a straight face?

Experienced World Boss players?

How else would you like me to describe a guild dedicated solely to the quick and efficient defeat of open world PvE megabosses? I’ll adjust my language accordingly.

Ragion.2831:

Necro has burning, and this thread probably wouldnt have happened if it isnt being treated like the only condition in the game.

If you are talking of stacking then sure other classes are better but condi necro will beat condi anything any day. If you are talking about PvE well they dont cleanse like players so you can maintain high stacks of various conditions

To answer your question, after the recent buff no i dont think scepter needs a buff. It will cause a lot of problems if it was very strong on its own.

burning deals higher damage per tick than any other damage based condi in the game, so…
nice try though i guess.

Bacon.1835:

Already had its rework around a week ago

“it’s rework” gave us an extra bleed stack and some torment. not really good enough tbh?

Is it ever going to get properly looked at? It doesn’t really seem like it holds a strong place in any game type. It’s my favourite weapon for roaming, and thematically the idea of scepter/dagger with Epidemic has been my favourite build through all iterations of GW2.

But it just seems weak. Neither bleeds nor poison really feel like they do enough damage, especially compared to burning. We’ve seen condi builds break through into the meta but they are mostly engis, guardians and occasionally rangers, all with burn stacks.

I really think necro scepter needs some proper attention and love. Again, in my opinion it’s one of the coolest weapon/class combos in the game, but it’s just not performing.

Any one else share this thought?

added in game. talk to you when you’re online?

rapthorne.7345:

eh, balancing raids around the opinions of people that only adhere to the metagame is going to result in incredibly crap raids.

You have no idea what you just said.

blakdoxa.7520:

There’s going to be a lot of problems if the raid is tweaked according to the top 1% of players… Meaning that the two guilds and others similar will only be capable of even completing the raid. Cause that makes the raid all but impossible for anyone not at their level.
See where I’m going with this?
Expecting a lot of complaining and raid nerfing in the near future.

The content is designed to be very difficult so if the best instanced PvE players are ensuring that it’s doable, but only just doable, THEY ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING.

Lots of you people don’t seem to understand what sort of content this is.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Mireles Lore.5942:

bound by NDA? Why even post this? Just to let everyone know they were passed over for something they never had a fair shot at being considered for?

Why? For transparency and as a means of communication, which I think we all agree is a good thing.

Too, I see some concerns about claims of world firsts. ArenaNet doesn’t track, verify, record, or reward world firsts. But making public that certain guilds were involved in testing seems appropriate and relevant in that context, does it not?

I have to say I don’t agree with the last statement. This post essentially sounds like “Neener neener, look what these guys are playing and you aren’t”. As Mireles put it, it’s not like the rest of the community had a shot at it to begin with.

On a personal note, I don’t think these kind of guilds should be the standard to base raid difficulty on. I absolutely DON’T want any content that is only beat by stacking as many damage multipliers as possible, which is what these guilds seem to only be capable of doing. It’s boring, and it only incentivizes more “berserker meta” playstyles.

Oh my god.

These guilds will test the content to make sure it is working well and perfectly FOR FREE so that when you get a chance to go in, there are no bugs.
They are doing this service for the devs and for YOU, the player.

FOR FREE.
Stop being so entitled.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Mireles Lore.5942:

bound by NDA? Why even post this? Just to let everyone know they were passed over for something they never had a fair shot at being considered for?

Why? For transparency and as a means of communication, which I think we all agree is a good thing.

Too, I see some concerns about claims of world firsts. ArenaNet doesn’t track, verify, record, or reward world firsts. But making public that certain guilds were involved in testing seems appropriate and relevant in that context, does it not?

I have to say I don’t agree with the last statement. This post essentially sounds like “Neener neener, look what these guys are playing and you aren’t”. As Mireles put it, it’s not like the rest of the community had a shot at it to begin with.

On a personal note, I don’t think these kind of guilds should be the standard to base raid difficulty on. I absolutely DON’T want any content that is only beat by stacking as many damage multipliers as possible, which is what these guilds seem to only be capable of doing. It’s boring, and it only incentivizes more “berserker meta” playstyles.

Seeing the ongoing beta testing of new content as a reward is your responsibility, not Gailes.
This is a job they’ve been asked to do. They’ve been asked to spoil themselves of the new content that they, like the rest of us, are waiting for, just so they can provide free help to the developer company they support.

Stop acting so entitled.

Pukc.6328:

The problem with the people you picked is that you will get very biased opinions from a small portion everyone who will do the raid. Also they don’t have alot exp raiding or they don’t have exp raiding together.

Either give alot more people the chance to test them or invite people who have alot of exp raiding together to test it.

You’re actually incorrect!
They’ve chosen the two most competitive guilds in both the main forms of PvE – the top dungeon/fractal guild, DnT, and arguably the top open world mega boss guild, Att.
This provides a DUAL and BALANCED perspective on new PvE content that takes into consideration the opinions of the most experienced instanced PvE players, as well as the most experienced World boss PvE players.|

This is a good thing.
Stop complaining.

MidnightStar.2960:

I don’t like the lack of confidence that Anet is presenting from both not being able to release raids during the release date and having to do closed beta tests with a week left from release.

It was a purposeful decision to stagger the raids til after launch.

Raids need to be tested by players before they’re released. Doing it too early would have been a pretty big risk.

Don’t be such a pessimist.

I’m interested. Having so much trouble finding some like-minded Oceanic players. Going to check out the site now.
We can chat in game later if you’d like.

Hey. I’m 22 years old, Australian (Sydney), love Guild Wars 2 but I’m a dedicated raider at heart so I’m pretty stoked to get into this new content. I’d be interested in hangin’ out.

Not sure what server you’re on though. Could you let me know?

SkyShroud.2865:

[TIME] is a singapore based guild and since you are faster by 2.5hrs compare to our SEA prime, the raids might be a little late for you so is up to you.

Otherwise, you can try [STRM], they are oceanic guild but I’m not sure if they do fractals and dungeons. They do WvW a lot though.

Hey Sky, what time do you imagine you’ll be raiding? I’m looking for a group. Late nights don’t bother me too much as long as they are reasonable.
Peace.

don’t craft one then

Title.

I have lots of raiding experience in other games and understand different types of mechanics.
Looking for a group to do raid content with. Not necessarily assigned to a guild, but I’m not against joining up if there is one.
Let me know if you have a group that’s recruiting.
Can play all classes.

rise and the elite both seem very playable.

I’m going to work towards the Axe I think.
I know necro axe is…horrendous, but still.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Malediktus.9250:

Noone forces you to build the new legendaries as fast as possible. It wont kill you if it takes 6 months

the point is… If I am TRULY supposed to be allowed to “play my way” which has been the GW2 Mantra since launch then why time gate something so badly?

Take for instance ascended… if you TRULY want to you can bypass the time gate by buying the materials BUT if you must go with the time gating a full set of armor worst case for celestial is like a month… That’s somewhat reasonable.

To put something like new legendary weapons behind that much grind that realistically unless you are jobless and lifeless you more than likely won’t get one for MONTHS.

You people constantly seem to be misinterpreting the “play how you want” ideology.

What it is: “there are multiple game modes, and each have the opportunity to reward you meaningfully for the time you spend within that game mode”

What it isn’t (and this is where Yoda and Solomon seem confused): “I do any combination of any quality or quantity of content that I deem appropriate and I should be rewarded with anything I decide I want at the time for doing that content.”

Legendary weapons exist to show mastery of all game types. Especially the new ones.
The “play how you want” choice revolving around legendaries is the choice as to whether you craft one or not.

JediYoda.1275:

you 3 that quoted me congrats on missing the my point

Explain how we missed the your point

JediYoda.1275:

Yup more forcing to play the way we tell/want you to and no longer “play your way”

Yes, you are expected to play the game before you are allowed to craft the new legendaries.
If you don’t like playing the game there are plenty of other skins you can get.

You need ascended armour to progress through the raid.

No point complaining. Seriously. If you want to do raids, you’ll meet the requirements.

Heck, we might even find ways to clear it in exotic soon enough, but don’t demand things be changed to meet the weakest link. This isn’t the content for that.

Ohoni.6057:

Why buy a game if you want to put no effort at all into it? Better go watch it on youtube or buy a movie, those play themselves without any effort.

Why make straw man arguments rather than addressing what a person is actually saying? I couldn’t tell you.

Its just like the AR in fractals, it is there to make sure the players that reach the most difficult fractal 50 actually know what they are doing and played the easier versions of it before.

No it isn’t, it’s there to make sure that players don’t reach Fractal 50 in the minimum possible time. It’s a content-extending practice. A player with max AR isn’t necessarily any better than a player with none. In fact, if I wanted to I could get a full suit of ascended with max AR right now, it would cost a pretty penny but it’s entirely doable with zero skill necessary.

Gearing is zero reflection of player capability.

Plus, ascended armor is no point in getting as the stats increase is so super small anyhow, and the rings and earrings which actually may matter, you practically also get for free with the daily login laurels.

Which is why it shouldn’t be a problem if gear scaling removes that tiny, “no point” increase.

It doesn’t matter whether I seem to think that there should be “endgame equipment” or not. There is end game equipment, that is ascended. Period. In a game where there is vertical progression which Guild Wars 2 is one, one of the end goals would be to obtain end game equipment i.e., ascended or legendary if you care more about the aesthetic aspect.

. . .

I’m sorry, have you ever heard of Guild Wars 2 before today?

Also there is no sort of. There is or there isn’t. Exotic is never meant to be end game. Just like rare, masterwork, fine, common none of which are end game equipment. Ascended is.

and yet Ascended gear wasn’t even conceived until months after launch. . .

Exactly. What the OP wants is a skyrim type of gear generation. ~ player.additem Eternity 001. Why work of the gear while you can just convince the dev to give you a console command to generate the items right?

Nope, that does not accurately reflect anything I’ve said publicly or thought privately.

but someone having 5% more stats is an indication of their statistical capability, so…

This is a bad idea.
For the player-base who worked to get ascended armor for the minor stat increase, turning around and getting rid of that increase in the content tailored to those exact players would be one of the stupidest decisions made in MMORPG history.

If you can’t put in the effort to get ascended armor/weapons then you won’t be clearing raid content anyway so why complain?

Strange. You should only be seeing copper in 1-15 zones.

I mined 2 stacks just from clearing Charr and Sylvari starting areas on my new toon. You just gotta go out of your way to harvest everything.

Make sure you’re in the correct zone

I like a lot of these ideas.
Not sure I like the huge overhaul to scepter 3, but it could work. Also the idea that scepter 2 should be a persisting field makes so much sense… I have to wonder why it wasn’t always like that.

Blast on horn would be nice.

I quite like where staff is tbh, it’s fun, though I understand it’s a bit bland.

Everything else I agree with entirely.

animation glitch

So, from what’s been shown from raids, there are a few things I’ve noticed.

DPS meta still exists. I think the groups clearing Vale Guardian were full zerk, except for the 4 Rabid engineers which I presume was only because sinister was unavailable.

There is room for dedicated support, however this was always filled by druid. No ventari revs or ele heals.
Also, druid seems to still run zerk gear. Apparently this will change as they are lowering Druids base healing, though, so at the very least each standard group will be forced to take 1x clerics druid and 4x sinister engis.
Build diversity or nah.

tl;dr the new meta doesn’t seem too different stat-wise, but seems even stricter profession-wise.
I hope you love what you created, dudes.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAr4Yn0ICV3gd3AO3As3gDchaO2NxSAv6AYBibdHMCA-TByCABAcQAU4EAc8DAALlfXq+zM7PonehxUCGAABY3kYkYwEn4En4EnYTciTciTciFCYxaA-e

And it’s result in this picture:

That’s what I wanted to see.
Happy days!

I want necro scepter to be good and effective in any game mode, but it doesn’t feel like it is.
Even with the recent ‘buffs’ to necro scepter, I’m not seeing much use for it.

Somebody, anybody, convince me that necro scepter is good. Show me a build that works really well with scepter – pvp, pve, whatever. Anything.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Until I see what it looks like, I’m not going to care, and if it takes longer than an hour to complete, once we all know what we are doing, I’ll really not care. Button pressing for an hour to kill one thing is not my idea of a good time, once we know how to kill it.

Thank you for your input.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

So you’re going to take joy in other people’s malcontent, and are proud of how exclusive raids will be.

Yes.
Now go away.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Rashagar.8349:

Okay, but… it’s also possible that them wanting to be included is simply a knee-jerk reaction from them being actively excluded by a rather visible proportion of the community…

Making your own party might not occur to everyone, especially if they haven’t done the fractal/dungeon much and think that starting a party means that people who join it will be expecting some kind of expertise or leadership on their part.

But again, if “PHIW” only covers that very small cross-section of the total number of people who don’t run meta-builds (“dozens of posts by mostly the same people” isn’t a particularly large amount of players), then, by your definition it doesn’t include people who just find something else more fun or who just don’t pay attention to the meta, and lumping all of those people together under the umbrella of “non-meta” and treating them as if they all have the same motivations would be a form of prejudice.

A motivation of wanting to be included while also having fun… how dare they be so selfish…

Far and away the largest motivation in both meta and non-meta groups is maximum convenience. The LFG is a convenience tool. The least amount of time and effort spent is an underlying concern. If convenience were not a major issue, then we would not see these discussions about meta-grouping. People would gravitate to the like-minded.

They don’t because that takes time and effort. Thus, we see people asking that any group in the LFG — at the moment they queue — accept them. And here it is. The desire to maximize one’s own convenience regardless of its impact on others is, by definition, selfish. This applies to meta players who join laissez-faire groups and try to enforce their playstyle as well as non-meta players who join fast-reward groups without having the desired gear and build.

Some meta players form groups, advertising the kind of play they want. Some non-meta players do the same. There are no doubt a myriad of reasons why people don’t want to form a group. Regardless, anyone who disregards the wishes of the people who made the effort to start one with a stated requirement are in fact acting selfishly.

People wanting to tank and heal are not the entirety of those who sought to change the PuG meta. I doubt they are the majority. So, what’s going to happen is the players who want to tank/heal and who meet the skill threshold for raids will be incorporated into the raid PuG meta — whatever it evolves to. Anyone who does not not meet the skill threshold will be kicked once this becomes apparent — regardless of role.

The more tightly-tuned raids are, the more skill, build and gear will matter. If raids are tuned very hard (to challenge the top 10% in player skill, say), we’re likely to see exclusion based on skill (you didn’t do X fast enough), build (you don’t have trait X slotted) and gear (ping full Asc. for your role or kick).

So, what Harper and others are saying is the the inclusion of required tanking and healing is only likely to please a small portion of those who’ve been complaining about exclusion based on gear/build/profession while increasing the overall number of those who are being excluded. If that number is too large, we’ll see raids nerfed, or maybe Anet will finally get that you cannot make one-size-fits-all challenging content and they will do raid tiers like WoW uses.

You worded it better than I could have hoped to.

Rashagar.8349:

Cyninja.2954:

Rashagar.8349:

Cyninja.2954:

Rashagar.8349:

Canakun.8031:

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.

Hahaha! Yes, it’s all jealousy on their part, that must be it. =P

As an aside, if PHIW is meant to be “Play How I Want” and being used to categorise a certain play style, if you really want to coin a phrase for that style of play then I feel a more accurate representation of that player group’s mind set would be shown with “PHYW”, Play How You Want.

The people interested in perpetuating a specific meta are the ones insisting that other players should conform for optimisation purposes, everyone else is more welcoming and inclusive of alternative play styles.

Just a semantics thing, but it’s little touches like that that do betray a certain prejudice in the OP’s writing. “Play How I Want” makes it sound like that player’s primary motivation is selfishness, ruining meta-runners gold gains per minute or some other such foolishness, whereas “Play How You Want” is much closer to the reality of being motivated by inclusiveness and friendliness.

Harper.4173:

To an elite player and a farmer another player is a resource – an NPC – a bot – something that gets something done – I for example have absolutely no interest in why people who don’t run meta builds don’t run them.

Harper, that’s not the hallmarks of an “elite” player, that’s the hallmarks of a psychopath.

Oh no, I think PHIW fits the crowd and the mentality just fine. Especially with the semantics you just mentioned.

That’s… nice?

I really don’t follow you, sorry. How is wanting to promote inclusivity the same as being selfish?

Do you think that someone who welcomes everyone wouldn’t extend that welcome to someone running zerker stats? If so, then, I’m sorry that your personal experience has led you to that assumption but it’s incompatible with my personal experience.

Yeah, that reply may require more explanation than just a back-handed throw-away comment from you.

The PHIW crowd you refer to are the most vocal about change. Honestly, most players running zerker gear could care less what others play. They search for like minded people and everything is fine.

On the other side your typical PHIW player will want to change the current meta so their build is forced on other players. While under the guise if pretending to want to have the game opened to more builds, in essence it mostly boils down to just:“I want MY build to get taken along.”

Hence the PHIW fits perfectly. Also I disagree that PHIW players are inclusive. Quite the contrary.

So, you’re saying that people who play the way they want rather than following the meta, actually want to change the meta so that they’ll be following the meta? Isn’t it more likely that they just don’t care about the meta or don’t find the current meta play style fun? Cos that’s the “PHIW crowd” that I was referring to.

If your definition of PHIW is that narrow as to exclude the people I just mentioned then it probably shouldn’t be the term that you use to describe… whoever it is you’re talking about.

By the sounds of it, if most zerker players don’t care what other’s play then those zerker players actually are PHIW players. It just happens that the way they want to play is zerker.

I think it’s more like that most of the people who complain, on the forums especially, about the strictness of the meta are complaining that the way they want to play isn’t the most desired way. It’s pretty bizarre to think of it like that, I know, but unfortunately that’s how it is.
That’s why Anet is introducing the need for dedicated healing – they listened to what they though the PHIW crowd were asking for.

Lauriewonnacott.9841:

I think you’re somehow under the impression that current end game PvE – Fractals and the like, is actually hard and that’s why people don’t like it or can’t get into it. That’s BS – prebuffing and active mitigation isn’t hard at all, but currently the end game stuff is fully broken. Anyone who does Fractals frequently will tell you that lvl 50 fractals are the easiest level because everyone who joins knows what they’re doing. That’s what makes people dislike it and keeps them from getting into it – they just have to learn a few basic mechanics and then it’s easy – the learning curve is steep but VERY short, and people are always disappointed in the end. A meta group doesn’t need any skill to win, they just push icebow 4. Most bosses can be killed in less than 30 seconds. If they ever want to have rewarding challenging content then we can’t have fights that short. Anybody can focus on dodging and their rotation for 30 seconds – fewer can for 10mins, and then healing becomes necessary to right any slip ups.

I agree with you, but not everyone will. Like I said in my OP, there are factors that may make it difficult for other players to master things that you or I take for granted – like prebuffing, etc.
From my experience, these tend to be age, ability, latency, or a combination of those three.

You are a particularly difficult individual, I’ll give you that much.

First of all, no.
You’re wrong.

The metagame in any MMO is the most mathematically optimal way of clearing content that develops after many hours, of many days of many weeks of many months of testing and developing builds until there is no further way to optimize your play.
That is literally all that it is.
That’s what the term means. You can’t place a new meaning onto this term, base your assumptions and accusations around that meaning and expect it to be taken seriously.
Sorry.
That’s not how words work.
It’s not something made up – it’s an optimized form of play that has been mathematically proven to be the best (read: fastest, most efficient) way of repeatedly clearing content.
It exists, and it will change… and those of us who care to, will adapt and continue to enjoy optimizing our play.

Secondly, while you’re absolutely correct in what you said, which is essentially that player skill contributes to performance just as much as statistical optimization, you fail to realize how irrelevant that is.
The meta is the mathematical optimization. The meta gets played out through user performance, and they intersect. That was my point in the opening paragraph. That players who cannot master the user performance necessary to make the most use out of the mathematically optimal statistics, tend to drift away from them.

Thirdly, whether the meta should be considered the default form of play or not is entirely irrelevant and just an attempt for you to, yet again, characterize me as an elitist. It’s boring.
Because the meta is the most efficient way to clear content – and this isn’t just GW2, but all MMORPG’s, ever – it is generally understood to be the standard form of play, as most players will generally aim to find the most efficient way to do the content they want to do. There is nothing wrong with detracting from that if someone wants to, nor is there anything wrong with acknowledging the existence of detractors.

Next point.
It is entirely your issue if you see faster as meaning better. Personally, for me, I DO find faster to be better, but that’s my subjective experience and as I’ve mentioned previously I understand there are people who don’t want to rush through their content. There’s nothing even remotely close to a superiority complex going on here.
I’m really concerned about the types of human reactions you’ve had to have such negative reaction to literally everything somebody says to you.

You mention that the meta provides a societal pressure. That’s true, and that will always exist because the majority of players, and this is factual accuracy not what you will inevitably label my “superiority complex”, wish to play their game in the most time efficient way.
The ironic thing, though, is that the current state of Guild Wars 2 actually very comfortably allows players do play whatever they Gods kitten ed wish to play. It’s as simple as putting “PHIW” into the party finder.
Very bizarre that people still find this difficult.

You remind me of a quote I read earlier:
I’ve never met someone who didn’t justify their prejudices in experience. That’s why bigotry is so pervasive: no bigot thinks they’re a bigot. They just think they’re “right”.

It applies to you pretty well.

I’m gonna finalise this discussion with this final point.

When the new meta develops, I’m going to adapt to it. I’m going to play it, whether that means playing full zerk like I have been, or changing to clerics, or sentinels, or whatever the meta requires because that’s how I want to play. Efficiency is an important part of the way I play my games, and that’s all there is to it.

And here’s the kicker – I know you’re gonna love this – there will still be people who refuse to play the meta.
The fun part is, this new content is going to be harder, more challenging, and a lot stricter.

Call me elitist all you want, it means absolutely nothing to me, but I think I’m going to enjoy playing the game a lot more than you.

Not sure if it’s something that was suggested (or is this how it will actually function and I’m just entirely oblivious?), but after hearing some discussion about how an entire set of armor may be a bit too easy to get, given that the entire sets difficulty is comparable to a generation 1 legendary weapon, here is my proposal.

One legendary armor piece per raid wing.
Or rather, the raid item needed to craft it.

For example, when wing 1 comes out, it has an item – let’s say it’s the item required to complete the legendary helmet. When wing 2 comes out, the gloves. Etc, etc.

In my opinion this could simulate a form of progression for people building a legendary armor set. There would be an additional excitement for a new raid wing release, as well, as it would lead to the availability of the next piece.
After all 6 wings are released, a player will be able to complete a full set – this will also show that the player has participated in every wing.

I’m tired so this probably wasn’t worded perfectly, but it’s a simple proposal.

I wonder if this is what they’ll end up doing anyway. Ideas?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Canakun.8031:

Mate, you’re the only one struggling to prove your opinion is the legitimate one.
What I’m saying is the new meta is stricter than the previous meta, which comfortably allowed for people to play whatever they wanted.

You have a very strange definition of struggling. You also have a very strange definition of opinion. We aren’t talking opinions here. We’re discussing predictions over facts.

And in those predictions, it is very possible for you to be wrong.

ODB.6891:

I’m sorry, but that was a complete internalization of your own issues…brought to life in electronic print. He said nothing that hasn’t been openly admitted by many phiw players on these same forums.

You agree with his prejudices, and similarly feel them justified, so you are just echoing how right you think he is. And in doing so, you’ve already gotten several things wrong.

#1: He did name someone. Calls them PHIW. Detractors. You call them PHIW, too. And by giving them a name you’ve generalized a group of “others” who’s thoughts and feelings don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say a specific name, it is still a recognizable group.

This seems like projection. I was talking about people who detract from the strictness of the meta do so because they want to play how they want. It was necessary to label the group in order to make a point involving the group.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#2: The meta isn’t a consensus. It is an idea invented by a few that gets forced onto other players with such oppressive pervasiveness that others assume it true.

Err, no. ‘The meta’ in this instance is the most optimal way to do things. It isn’t ‘created’ by a few people, it’s eventually worked towards and found out by many people, over a long period of time.
And nobody has forced you to do anything – and I’d love for you to stop using the term oppressive. Your victim complex is your business, but please respect that this is an inappropriate use of the word.

#3: The problem isn’t the existence of a meta. The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. This whole caricature of PHIW not wanting a meta is false, and yet it persists so much that elitists keep bringing it up over and over again. Like you just did.

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.
Even with a ‘new meta,’ there will be people who want to play how they want, and how they want may not necessarily fit in the meta, and they may be removed from a meta group, and they may moan about it on the forums, again.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#4: There were no room for exception or other people in that quote. He said that the reason (ONE reason, singular) that there were some “detractors” from the meta, is because they can’t “grasp” (understand, comprehend, to get a hold of mentally) how to play properly. Clearly labeling them as the minority, declaring them mentally incapable, and not giving any allowance for exceptions or legitimacy in difference of opinion. The implication here is that, if these people weren’t so mentally incapable, then everyone would be on board with the zerker meta. Ergo, disagree = stupid.

You’ve developed this idea of me and my opinions in your head and you will stop at nothing to prove that I’m that way.

For the sake of argument, here’s the definition of the word grasp:
comprehend fully.
“the press failed to grasp the significance of what had happened”
synonyms: understand, comprehend, follow, take in, realize, perceive, see, apprehend, assimilate

Now, I said:
“The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp (i.e. understand, take in, etc.) the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.”

What I said in this passage is so much more harmless than you’re willing to accept.
I stated that some of the players who do not like to participate in zerk meta content, are as such because they’ve had difficulty grasping the fundamental aspects of that meta – and this is often due to latency, age, ability, or otherwise.
This is not a matter of saying “if you can’t play this content you’re mentally incapable.” In fact, I think you definitely need to reflect on what you consider to be mentally incapable.

The issue YOU’RE having is that you’re so used to being a part of incendiary conversations that you haven’t even allowed for the possibility of innocence.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Either the OP is needs to learn how to write better, or the OP is an elitist who’s trying (and failing) to hide his discriminatory position. And since I just quoted the OP going out of his way to pronounce how much he is winning the argument, I’m going to go with the latter.

I certainly could do with better writing skills, and you can consider me an elitist all you want.
I like to think of myself as more of a realist, though.

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

Rashagar.8349:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Well the only reason it will never go away is because there will always be people who believe it’s the only way to play. If people stopped caring about it it would never come back.

I don’t believe it will ever go away, but that’s only because the people who push it will never stop pushing.

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

This is true. The meta is only a problem when a meta comp is, as it is now, not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it can complete a run in literally half the time based solely on build rather than player skill

Take a look back at GW1, take something like the SS necro meta. It was more efficient, but in the end, if you took another well designed group that wasn’t running it, your clear times were at least 90% as efficient. Might stacking zerk meta is able to literally remove 40% of the party and have the same clear times as a balanced non-meta comp.

Nobody wants content to be faceroll, but what people do want is to bring in characters they actually like to play, make some adjustments to traits, weapons, and armor, and still feel like they’re being decently efficient.

It’s not based solely on build.
You still need to know what you’re doing, and have the skills to complete content at half the intended speed.

I’m not going to be one of those people that says “zerk is faceroll” I’ve done it. It isn’t. It requires just as much coordination, not more, than running a balanced build. You blast fire, pop reflects and aegis at the right time, and position yourself well. It’s the same thing any non-meta group composition does. It just happens to pay out stupidly faster clear times for it.

That is totally based upon build alone. Take the same players, hand them a more balanced group, and see if they can even come close to half the same clear time. They can’t. It isn’t because the people playing the might stack meta are good and the balanced group with a condi necro, full prot guard, and random assorted non-warrior DPS is bad. It’s because they picked the build that, through a quirk of game design, is capable of running the content twice as fast or faster, assuming both groups play their toons and their party correctly.

The possibility of completing it that much faster is all about build, class, and skill design and has nothing to do with player skill at all. When discussing balance you don’t balance player skill. You can’t balance player skill. You balance around best case scenarios, assuming the people playing the game are playing their characters with equal degrees of skill in terms of hitting the proper positioning, reactions, and skill rotations.

Didn’t DnT do a full clerics run of Arah path 4 and get it done in under 20 minutes?

MirrorOfNature.4279:

This kind of behaviour and mindset is exactly the reason why I always avoid groups looking specificlly for meta build. I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but META is not the only way to do the content in this game, and it will not be the only way to do content in HOT.

What is wrong with you that you need to make this strawman? The guy you’re replying to literally said there were multiple ways to do content, but there will always be a best way.
At least argue our points instead of this made up fantasy you have about zerk players.

Nobody is saying Meta is the only way to do content. It is simply the most optimal way to do content.
Gods be good this conversations is painful.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

But the disadvantage is that a guardian who doesn’t want to do that will have little room in the new content since that build is very necessary.
I mean sure – you could spread out the healing over multiple classes but why would you bother when you could force your guardian to play Cleric’s or replace him with one that will.

Not necessarily. For the ambiguous “that” to be true, a guardian would have to both inept at other roles but skilled at healing. If a guard is capable of both healing and damage, then both a healing guard and a damage guard could be in the same party.

The problem with this complaint is that it is far more specific, and thus it applies to far fewer people. There is a big difference between “I want to play a certain role” and “I want to play a certain role on a certain class”. The difference being the latter just changes classes, where the former just stops playing the game.

Harper.4173:

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.

If it didn’t matter, then elitists wouldn’t spend time trying to come up with theories to explain someone else’s opinions are illegitimate.

EDIT: Fixed code

Mate, you’re the only one struggling to prove your opinion is the legitimate one.
What I’m saying is the new meta is stricter than the previous meta, which comfortably allowed for people to play whatever they wanted.

Crazy.1894:

Good for you. I still think it’s too hard.

I think he was just suggesting a build you can try to solo the content.
No need to be snarky.

Oh my god, okay.