(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
No one will quit. People love to exaggerate.
Well each fractal has an interesting mechanic or two and that should be the focus. But requiring the players to repeat this to an unreasonable extent is just asking too much.
I’m not asking for fractals to be removed, just “trimmed”.
For example, the challenge posed in the Harpy fractals is navigating the Harpies without getting knocked-off in the process. That’s fine (although tedious without Guardians). But do we really need to do it a dozen times?
Wouldn’t 3 Harpies on the first ladder and 4 on the second be sufficient?
And the Dredge are in the same boat. The early puzzle is interesting and cool. Blowing up the following gate encourages smart use of class abilities like Stealth. That too is fine. But the following Boss fight is just completely unnecessary and boring, especially compared to the somewhat challenging “actual” boss fight.
The Squid boss is the same. Underwater combat is already bad and spaming the same skills over and over again for 5 minutes without any real mechanics is just boring.
We will have to wait and see.
GW2 has the advantage over its competitors in that nobody really “quits” the game since it doesn’t have a monthly subscription.
If I was ANet I would try and schedule a “Classes 2.0” patch roughly 1 months after TESO’s launch. That’s when the initial months ends and people have to decide if they wish to subscribe.
If ANet pushes a patch then with revised class mechanics, new abilities and a trait overhaul I imagine that would help retain a lot of players.
But again, the “no subscription” is GW2’s strongest suit.
I too have a hard time accepting the standard subscription model after playing GW2 for a year.
Still doesn’t change anything about the fact that downed-state is the worst mechanic this game has.
Except I find it to be one of the best mechanics, so I guess your statement isn’t actually a fact, but more your opinion…
Do you dislike being the person downed or do you dislike that when you kill someone you have to take the time to finish them off?
Also, I don’t know what PvP you play but I rarely if ever see players leave people downed to “bleed out”. That’s just asking for them to rally themselves and for you to have completely wasted your time. Classes you especially can’t leave to “bleed out”: Guardian and Ranger since they have heal abilities. When you say bleed out do you mean you have a bunch of DoTs on them (which is basically just DPSing) or do you mean you let them sit there with the standard downed damage over time?
I don’t like being downed. Downed game-play isn’t fun.
I don’t like having to channel a 3 second finisher to kill someone off who for some inexplicable reason has suddenly gained 50.000 HP from going down.
I don’t like how I have to go through the same ordeal every time, just to finish someone off when 90% of the time, the fight is already won.
I don’t like how easy it is to rezz a fellow player or that some Ranger builds can practically rezz themselves instantly. Try stopping a Guardian from reviving his mate.
I hate the imbalanced nature of many abilities. Elementalists being immortal when near gates is just the pinnacle.
I hate how people in sPvP will down me but just leave me there to bleed out, delaying my respawn for as long as possible.
I hate how some (mostly Condition) builds have no way to prevent someone from reviving his downed mate.
I hate the downed-state underwater, where you can’t even kill some classes 1v1.
I don’t like how downed-state gives a crutch to the larger crowd. Not only do you have to fight an uphill battle in a 2v1 you also have to secure a stomp faster than his ally can rezz.
I hate how it gives viability to Berserker builds. After all who needs survivability when it just takes 3 seconds to revive.
I hate how a target I just took down can instantly rally because some dredge died that he tagged 5 minutes ago.
I hate how easy it is to cheese a rally out of random mobs in the environment.
But most of all I hate the snowballing nature of this mechanic.
So yes, in my opinion it is in fact the worst mechanic that has been conceived for any MMO, thank you very much.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
- No it’s not. At least with death there’s a real chance of failure. At least my respawn timer starts when I’m dead.
- Again, not true. You obviously don’t PvP much. Leaving people to bleed out s common practice in a controlled environment.
- Yes, a certain imbalance is expected. But Elementalists being unkillable near gates and doors? The fact that many downs have counters (Stealth, Stability) but others do not (Mesmer, Ele).
- Dumb response and it changes nothing about it being a snowballing mechanic.
I know how to counter the downed abilities that have counters. Still doesn’t change anything about the fact that downed-state is the worst mechanic this game has.
Most 4 vs. 5 start that way.
There are numerous ways ANet could fix this. But it has been a problem for ages now and it just doesn’t seem to be a priority.
Yea what I don’t understand is, why is Abaddon not teaming up with Gandara. Its obvious last week Deso vs Gandara vs Abaddon will decide who will be first Gandara or Deso. And this week its fight for 3rd spot, Abaddon vs Aurora.
If Abaddon get second place this week they secure 3rd spot, and if Gandara help them then they should repay by focusing Desolation in last week.
Also Aurora have 2 easy matchups next 2 weeks and they will get 10 points there for sure.
Because contrary to what most people seem to think, forming Alliances in the name of an entire server isn’t that easy.
It’s not like each servers has a governing entity that makes such unanimous decisions.
That’s why I don’t think there are really ever conscious efforts to “double team” outside of the obvious (let’s attack X while the others are attacking Y).
Anyway, Aurora Glade pulling out a 15k lead in the last night makes this fight pretty clear cut. I feels sorry for Abaddon but without an international players base it’s hard to be competitive.
What makes Lyssa so desireable is that it is the only counter to having such a massive amount of Conditions dumped on you.
If classes could only apply..maybe 2-4 different Conditions then Lyssa wouldn’t be all that appealing.
But since Conditions are so abundant and you can quickly find yourself with 8 different Conditions Lyssa are one of the few ways of dealing with it.
Nerf Conditions dumping and you nerf the appeal of Lyssa runes.
I think a 15 minute duration is acceptable for a fractal.
In the past, some fractals like the Dredge fractal and the Asura/Harpies fractal have traditionally dragged on for much, much longer.
I don’t like skipping mobs, not in fractals and not in dungeons but it’s hard to argue against if it cuts your run time by over 50%.
So could some of the longer fractals please have some of their fat trimmed. Less Harpies would be welcome because they are especially annoying. The Dredge too could be slightly less…numerous.
AoE stuning every few seconds is never going to be weak.
Back when designing the different weapon sets the whole Power builds vs. Condition builds mantra didn’t exist.
Having damage diversity made sense to ANet back then when they designed the game but today it obviously does not.
- Try to balance populations before the start by offering discounts/free transfers to lower population realms.
- Then lock transfers for the duration of the league.
- Limit the season to 4 or 5 weeks. 7 weeks is too long and too exhausting.
- No more achievements locked to a specific zone (Eternal Battlegrounds/Borderlands).
Most importantly however, ANet needs to…
- Change the scoring system. Add a catchup mechanic, make kills matter, encourage defense and rewarding taking out upgraded towers.
If there’d would be a single thing I’d like to see changed/removed then it would be the Downed-state mechanic.
Its the most unfun, unbalanced and unfair snowballing mechanic I have ever experienced.
- Unfun because I’m lying on the ground, throwing rocks, spaming a single ability, always going through the same process.
- Unfun because the enemy can simply leave me there, just to delay my respawn.
- Unbalanced because the different downed-skills are highly unbalanced.
- Unfair because reviving someone is incredibly fast compared to stomping.
- Snowballing because it gives a massive upper hand to the larger numbers.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
I’m really just waiting for a different, a deeper MMO.
GW2 is fine for what it is, but it’s just superficial compared to other MMOs.
WvW is really the only redeeming feature of this game for me. While it’s not nearly as epic and complex as I had hoped it would be originally it does have an appealing nature. In fact Zerg vs. Zerg clashes are some of the few highlight this game has to offer.
It’s a shame though that even with the inherent fun that is WvW I have to put up with so many “minor” frustrations that really make me pull my hair.
In WvW it’s the regular lag and the poor balance that make it unenjoyable at times. Wading through waves and waves of enemy Warriors just sin’t fun when they can disengage at will. The lag is the worst though, especially since it makes my Thief virtually unplayable.
tPvP would be fun, even with the random nature of SoloQ. But Skyhammer and the constant 4 vs. 5s are really, really game-breaking. For every good game I find in SoloQ I have to put up with one Skyhammer and one 4 vs 5 (always against me ofc).
PvE is ok I guess, but every big event is just another Zerg fest. There’s simply no reward or place for skillful play in PvE. Dungeons are all about skipping mobs and being super-efficient, rather than being about overcoming challenges.
And then there’s mechanics like downed-state, the worst snowballing mechanic I’ve ever seen, that just make me long for the next thing to come along.
Don’t get me wrong, I like most of the fundamental ideas driving GW2. The active combat, the Dynamic Events etc. But it’s the shallow nature of the game and so many of the frustrating secondary mechanics that really put me off it.
Ok, having an epic duel with a Mesmer.
It’s close, he’s burnt a lot of CDs and his health is at 30%. I’m gaining the upper hand.
Then suddenly….BAM…Moa.
What was a pretty close duel suddenly turns into an easy and somewhat cheesy win for the Mesmer.
I know that a Moa isn’t completely defenseless, often dangerous enough to deal some hurt, but since you don’t get any opportunities to practice as a Moa I’m not sure what my best move is.
So when I’m a Moa, what’s my best move?
I know I can run away….but that often ends fatal anyway or at least gives the Mesmer the upper hand.
I tried mashing 1, but that too doesn’t seem to deal all that much damage.
It exists so that larger numbers have an even easier time rolling over the little guys.
Even as a Thief I have to admit that ANet added the worst stealth mechanic of any MMO to date.
It’s frustrating for players to fight against, it’s frickle and annoying at times for the users and it’s far too beneficial in just about every way when specced into Shadow Arts.
Instead of being the Thief’s defensive fallback, it’s the Thief’s universal ability for everything from setting up damage over condition cleansing to blinding and healing.
Stealth is this game is probably the biggest class design blunder.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
Today the game is unplayable in WvW.
Unplayable lag even during the middle of the afternoon without any heavy activity.
This is kitten ing me off. The lag in this game is intolerable.
Router reset, game seems fine in PvE so that excludes any connection errors.
Location: Germany
Server Abaddon’s Mouth
Provider: Unitymedia 10M/bit.
Looks like Gandara is going to win this one with quite a significant lead in the end. Wouldn’t have thought it would be so decisive in the end, but it’s obvious now.
Gandara simply has the best coverage during any time that is not prime-time.
Aurora Glade is coming in second because they realize how important the Bloodlust buff is, something the other servers largely ignore.
Abaddon still has the best PuG blobs by far though, quite impressive really how well they fare against many other random blobs. I guess they have some decent commanders there afterall.
/observations.
Yes, Skyhammer is a map that shows a complete ignorance towards competitive play.
It favors cheese builds and classes with knockbacks and Stability. The cannon ruins any sentiment of good PvP fights.
It can be salvaged, but that would mean pretty much removing all the things that make it “special”. So no energy floors, no stupid cannon.
The jump pads could be something used to give it a unique touch that doesn’t involve cheese and frustrating crap.
I think the OP is making less a point about balance than the type of player, playing a class.
If you have a Guardian playing soloQ, chances are high that he’s a bunker. As such, he gladly plays his role bunkering a point and helping his team succeed. This is an easy concept to grasp.
A Thief’s role on the other hand is that of burst assist and back-capping. That role is less straight-forward and requires lots of tactical awareness. And that’s not such a common trait. It also requires team-mates to fill roles the Thief can’t fill, such as bunkering.
Everyone can roam, but only some can bunker and as such the Thief is at much more mercy of his team than other classes. Hence they’re more prone to losses. That, and many Thief players are plain bad. And a bad Thief is useless, as opposed to a bad Warrior or Guardian who is still at least somewhat useful.
Come to think of it has anyone got 3 ectos from a rare recently?
Pretty sure I got 3 yesterday from a rare. I salvage every rare amour and weapons under 80.
Yep, just a few hours ago.
The average salvage rate has always been 0.8-09 Ectos per rare.
That means almost 50% of your salvages are duds.
Sometimes I feel like the luck in this game is very one sided.
You have a number of people who claim to get an Exotic drop every 2 days while in contrast, I see a random Exotic drop maybe once a month.
Some people have multiple Precursors drop…like 5-6 over the course of a year. Most people get none.
We had a guy in our guild who had a reputation for getting good loot. And I’m talking about 1 Exotic a day, sometimes even multiple per Fractals run.
I know this is all anecdotal, but I don’t trust the RNG in this game. It seems like either you’re blessed or you have no chance.
Guilds have a fixed number of slots when it comes to fights. Guild vs. Guild is typically 20 vs. 20 and so in order to win you will want to bring the most effective classes.
And those simply are Warriors, Guardians and Necros. Elementalists get an honorable mention for their water fields and AoE damage. But often you don’t need more than a handful.
That’s just the way it is and I don’t see this changing anytime soon because this isn’t due to some ability that is easily changed. These advantages are fundamentally ingrained in the class design.
And we all know how ANet struggles to make even the smallest balance change.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
I’d love to have more group support.
But aside from high DPS, we have very little to offer to a group. And Warriors (and to a lesser extent, all other classes) bring similar DPS with no danger of being instant-gibbed as commonly happens to glass-cannon Thieves.
If you are playing for points then it’s hard to ignore the newly added ruins that provide the Bloodlust buff.
Having all three Bloodlust stacks can make up over a third of your total score, more than controlling an entire Borderland.
However if you’re playing for fun, then you typically avoid the ruins because standing around, waiting…trying to coordinate a cap, then getting it….but having it capped back again a few minutes later etc. etc. isn’t fun.
I can understand the sentiment of giving roamers something to fight for. I also think that kills should matter, even regular kills. But these ruins aren’t adding anything to the game. Taking them isn’t fun, holding them isn’t fun. It’s just a lot of standing and running around.
They’re also just another snowballing mechanic that gives more points to the already dominant server.
Can we please rethink this whole thing again because for all the work that went into it (let’s be honest, WXP aside this has been the only major update to WvW…GW2’s most appealing content…in the past year) it really doesn’t enhance the game.
I think they need to reduce the damage players deal against doors so that a large zerg isn’t significantly faster at kicking down a door than a smaller one (assuming your standard 3 Flame Rams).
In fact I think it would be good if only melee weapons could damage doors. At least that way Oil might see more use.
This is something I’ve complained about in PvE more than once, but it’s exasperated in WvW thanks to Claok and Dagger.
Ok so we were fighting a group of Thieves that were both relying on Cloak and Dagger to stealth.
Smart as we were, we knew to kill of the surrounding mobs so we’d be their only viable targets to Cloak and Dagger off, which in turn would allow us to counter it.
But the problem was that the mobs respawned less than 30 seconds after killing them, making it practically impossible to weed them out.
This is incredibly dumb and uncalled for in PvE and WvW. Can’t we have more acceptable respawn timers so our action impact the world for more than 30 seconds?
A base-line respawn timer of 60-100 seconds is surely not too much to ask.
There are some incredibly powerful duel builds for Mesmers out there. Some that make then practically unbeatable without Condition spam.
But I doubt they’d be able to take on EVERY class and every build successfully.
There are simply too many bunker build out there that don’t die to single players. There are also builds that counter one specific aspect of a class.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mesmers came out on top in an all class duel tournament but not with a single build.
Yeah, 10% higher Backstab damage.
I’m sure that would go down well with the community.
Point being, yes, this rune-set would be awesome for Thieves if Condition Damage was replaced with Power.
But it would also be best-in-slot, at least in terms of DPS. And I’m not sure if giving Thieves even more front-loaded damage is currently the best way forward for the class.
So while you are right, the rune-set does not make much sense for a Thief, fixing it would make it overpowered.
Apparently sPvP balance is so sensitive that adding new Sigils would be too disruptive of the meta.
On the other hand having everyone fighting uphill battles against Warriors and Necros for months on end is somehow acceptable.
Rolling dice to make random class changes takes time.
Ok, I’ve just about had it with this game. I am kitten ed.
I’ve lots the last 6 matches in SoloQ, 4 of which were due to 4 vs. 5 games…all of course against my team.
The other two were because of terrible, terrible team compositions where I have 3 Thieves, a Ranger and an Engineer and am up against 2 Warriors, 2 Necros and a Guardian.
I don’t mind losing matches as long as the games are good, but there is no fun in fighting 4 vs 5.
And there is no fun in having a terrible team composition when you enemy is rolling with multiple FotM classes.
Can it be that hard to force people to play matches they queue up for?
And can it really be that hard to ensure classes are equally distributed across the teams? Come on, it’s not rocket science.
Immob says, prevents movement. Teleport/shadowstep is a movement skill.. Why does that still works? Because they can already do other skills like a 3sec evade from flurry
You said it yourself. Shadowsteps are teleports, not movement increasing skills.
They practically teleport your character from one location to another. Strictly speaking you’re not moving. A leap or Whirlwind on the other hand very clearly move you, so they are affected by immobilize.
The animations make this quite clear, actually.
Well to be honest, maybe rank 1 is a little low for tournaments. But if someone already has multiple characters at various levels and is an experienced PvPer then there’s no reason for him to be holding back his team.
Sure, you should be confident enough with your class to win fights but as long as you have spent significant time on that class that should be the case.
Personally I’d be ok with anyone in Solo Q who has accumulated 20 ranks across all his characters and has logged a significant numbers of hours on each character.
So no creating an Engineer and jumping straight into SoloQ. But no arbitrary barrier of entry.
Nah, it’s not just you. I’m sitting on close to 100 boosters and they just seem to be getting more and more.
They last for 1 hour, during which you normally complete you daily and are granted another. But once you add in the odd random boosters you might get from chests you have more income than expenditure.
The entire mechanic has become redundant because you’re effectively playing with a booster ALL the time.
Well there are a number of traits that add crit-chance.
There’s 5% for being above 90% health, there’s Sigil of Accuracy and then there’s Fury.
And that’s ignoring the +7% Crit-chance when behind an enemy trait.
So yeah, there’s very little practical reason go have more than 70% crit-chance.
Bare in mind that your damage will be pitiful without significant amounts of Power.
I agree with runeblade.
Normalizing everything just makes your choices meaningless. I think it’s ok if Retaliation is better vs. some moves than vs. others. And anyway, it’s not like you’d ever not use it if you had it at your disposal.
Yes, Infusion of Shadows will only grant you 2 Initiative when entering stealth and none if you are already stealthed.
The nerf is directed specifically at D/P perma-stealthing using the Black Powder + Heartseeker combo. It won’t really affect any of the others builds much at all since the increased passive Initiative regeneration will make up for any losses.
The only builds that would want Infusion of Shadows are Cloak and Dagger spamers. But I don’t see them being starved for Initative after the patch.
This matchup looks like it’s going to be close as hell.
Coverage during the week is going to be the decisive factor.
There could be numerous reasons. But since this seems to be more of a general problem you might be the cause.
Are you using the mouse to turn and aim and your keyboard (WSAD) to move and trigger abilities?
If not, then improper controls are holding you back.
Ok so I’ve encountered this build a few times.
It’s basically taking the standard D/D Bunker build with the high mobility, healing and survivability and combining it with a conjured Flame Sword for very high DPS.
It makes them almost like Warriors in a way, except that they have to press buttons to heal.
So what exactly is this build and gear that makes it so incredibly effective? Because I literally could not kill the last Ele I met with this build in WvW while a single Flamesword Whirl would take 40% of my HP.
All direct damage builds do that quite well.
The initial Daggerstorm should take most mobs down to 50% or less, maybe even killing the ranged guards.
Black Powder is great for finishing off the rest without taking damage, so that would mean running either Sword/Pistol or Dagger/Pistol.
But D/D should be alright too when using the Blind on Stealth trait.
Don’t listen to Excalibur’s tears. While he’s not completely wrong he’s overly dramatic.
Thieves are fine in sPvP and still a regular in most matches. Even highly ranked teams still use Thieves. But they are taken for their extreme mobility and burst, rather than their ability to win fights.
The prevalence of Conditions and AoE damage spam makes it hard for Thieves to contribute in fights. Their entire survivability is based around either perma-blinding or perma-dodging their opponent.
But once you rid yourself of the idea of having to win every fight and instead focus on capping you will remain a valued asset to your team.
As for WvW, most Thieves I encounter still run D/D and that play-style and burst is practically unchanged. D/P is slightly different, with less burst, but higher survivability thanks to Black Powder. However the Stealth mechanic can be extremely frustrating if you’re new to it. Constantly Heartseeking into critters, minions or invisible players can make you pull your hair out because it breaks stealth.
I wouldn’t recommend you play it since it will be nerfed by the time you’d be used to it.
-snip-
Oh I never said Thieves were OP. In fact I think they’re a bit of a one-trick pony.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Stealth is poorly designed by people who don’t really have a solid grasp of how class design should work.
Stealth to Thieves is a bit like what Divine Storm used to be for Paladins in WoW. It was their signature move that healed them, was AoE, did the most damage, applied Conditions etc.
It pretty much did everything which made the class overly dependent on it. This was deemed poor design and changed later on to diversify the play-style a little.
Stealth is a bit like that, except that it has no real cooldown (except for Revealed).
I think the problem is Agony.
They added this Condition about 6 months ago and since then they’ve be spiraling out of control.
Agony is another DPS Condition, next to Poison, Bleed, Burning and Confusion, that also helps to cover the additional Conditions.
Remove Agony and you get back to reasonable levels of Condition pressure.
I’m with Jzaku on this.
I’d say Thief AoE is fine. They have cleave damage on Sword and dedicated AoE on the bow. That’s the way it should be.
The problem is that every other class has far too much AoE damage. Necros and Warriors being the biggest offenders obviously, but it applies to Engineers and others as well.
Elementalists and Rangers are less problematic in this regard because their AoE comes from specializing in it, which is a fair trade-off. Eles need a staff for solid AoE and Rangers traps. Both come at the cost of other abilities.
You need to pack a Sword and Pistol, Power and Precision gear and then just stand in your Black Powder combo field and auto-attack for the win.
Sword/Pistol is really hard to beat in PvE. Black Powder allows you to kill most melee mobs without taking damage at all. Ranged mobs can be tricky, but that’s what Infiltrator Strike and Pistol Whip are for.