Guild Wars 2

Anet made us choose between unranked arena and solo queue.

Because we all wanted a more relaxing and experiment-free queue, they took out the other queue we loved already. Only ranked queue was left untouched because Esports. Ironically, ranked has been a disaster without solo queue. And it’s no surprise to anyone. The community has warned them of that for years.

Teevell.1684:

And it’s a LEGENDARY. They’ve been in this game for years, and they have always required people to participate in pretty much every aspect of this game. If you want a legendary, but say, you refuse to complete the world map…then you’re not getting a legendary unless you decide to buy it off the TP. If you don’t want to put forth the effort required to get it, then you’ll just have to make peace with not having one. If you really want it, then you’ll just have to play at least two classes. Maybe, instead of posting here, you should be grinding some matches instead.

Not true. PvE legendaries require you to do exactly what players are expected to do when they play a (mmo)rpg. Combat, world exploration, personal progression, loot collection, money saving, etc. It goes with the genre’s expectations. They determine and reward your dedication as a rpg player, not as a super mario player nor as a racing simulation racer. That’s why stuff like jumping puzzles and mini games are not required for your legendary.

The only exception was with the WvW requirement, which received enough backlash. But Anet slowly toned it down, first by removing it out of world exploration and second by adding badges of honor from ap chests. So it’s pretty much a no-issue nowadays.

In contrast, forcing players to play with two or three different characters goes against the genre’s expectations and what a lot of players expect from a (mmo)rpg: role-playing. It should have been an optional achievement for those that like it, and nothing more.

Teevell.1684:

There are parts of this game that I find less fun. I don’t particularly enjoy world exploration, but if I want a legendary, I would have to do it. Just because it isn’t fun for you doesn’t mean it won’t be fun for someone else. Again, if you want the legendary, this is what you’ll have to do. Everyone will just have to decide if the requirements are worth the prize.

“It’s subjective so it’s justified” isn’t a good argument, though. Anet was very clear at laying out their goals, so if their decisions contradict those, it’s worth calling their attention for that.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-pvp-league-begins-on-december-1/

The Ascension is designed to reward investment in PvP by any player and will require more than one season to complete. You don’t need to be the most skilled player to earn it, but highly skilled players will find that they can progress through the Path of the Ascension faster.

Contradiction 1: “Any player” is not the same as “only those that enjoy multi-classing”. Especially when it is widely known and accepted in the MMO landscape that for every player that enjoys multiple characters there is another one that only plays with a single one.

By Anet’s own logic, this achievement would make the most sense if it was optional instead. Highly skilled players will progress (…) faster, afterall.

Contradiction 2: “Designed to reward investment in PvP” is not the same as “No matter how much you invest in PvP, you won’t be rewarded if you don’t multi-class”. This will create, for certain, plenty of situations where player A will get a legendary while player B will not, simply because player A is a multi-classer and player B hates multi-classing, regardless if player B gets to invest two times, three times, five times or ten times more of their time in PvP than player A. How is such a system designed to reward investment?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-pvp-leagues/

PvP leagues will give players of all skill levels regular goals, better matchmaking, and unique rewards, and they’ll provide a better system for ranked play in Guild Wars 2.

Contradiction 3: “Better matchmaking” is not achieved by forcing players to play alts they’re not good at for the sake of a reward, which WILL happen, regardless if a few others decide that the legendary is worth or not worth the achievement.

Yes, the game should incentivate players to try multi-classing so they can become even better at pvp, but the choice should be ultimately theirs, and never by sheer “either you’ll do it or you’ll be punished with less rewards” enforcement.

AP hunters and “I really want that legendary and that’s the last achievement I need” players will ruin matchmaking.

Make a 3-man premade team with voip.

It’ll allow you to:

• Generally avoid 5-man premades from happening too often, which are usually (but not always) the hardest to win. The more players you have on your team, the higher the chances of facing a full premade;
• Still give you a good chance to face full-pug teams, duo queuers and non-voip 3-man premades for an easy/ easier farm;
• On average, assuming that you are faced against other 3-man premades frequently, that’s at least two solo queuers that are easy to farm. Try to identify them in each game, and then make some basic rotations to make sure that they’re always in disadvantage. They usually won’t get help as often as you will, because they are, well, soloers.

Cam Ron.4170:

They did it because there weren’t enough people playing premade

And after getting farmed several times, pugs will stop playing pvp altogether instead of wasting their time with a broken and unfun system.

And then, there won’t be enough people playing anything.

Teevell.1684:

It’s a legendary, it’s not supposed to be easy to acquire. It’s supposed to take time and effort. Nor is it mandatory, that’s why it doesn’t have better stats.

If the effort isn’t worth the prize for you, then I guess you won’t be getting this. I already know it’s not worth it for me, but I’m not going to demand it become easier to acquire just because I don’t feel like putting forth the effort.

But no one is asking for it to be easier to acquire.

I could very well take my 2-3 alts, which I have some pvp experience with, and just do it. Would that make the legendary any harder for me? No. But it would make it incredibly less fun, because I don’t like to play with those characters, which are secondary for a reason, and I wouldn’t especially enjoy using them in “serious”/ less-relaxing pvp.

Without Solo Queue, premades farm pugs and get free points. Is that esports?

This is a really bad idea. It will single-handely lock me and my friend from getting pvp’s legendary backpiece, and, consequently, it turned the entire league system into a disappointment to us both. It’s frustrating, but not surprising, considering Anet’s patch history and anti-hype decisions.

There are players that love the concept of using only a single, main character (like me) and, in some cases, there are those who actually hate playing with alts (like my friend).

Multi-classing might be a requirement to be a top player, but not all competitive players aspire to get to the top. Getting halfway or 3/4th into a league might be a goal enough to many, especially to those that want to prove how far they can go with the character that they like to play, and those goals are perfectly feasible with a single character.

In addition to that, this promotes worse matchmaking, because players will be forced to play professions they do not want to and mess the entire MM system just so they can get this achievement.

Considering that two of the main goals of leagues is to improve matchmaking and give everyone’s an opportunity to build a legendary, it’s doing the exact opposite. This achievement has no meaningful purpose but to arbitrarly exclude part of the community from participating or from having fun.

Kanto.1659:

At least acknowledging the problem would be nice.

They have acknowledged the problem, but not here.

Here’s some weeks old information from Roy’s twitter:

1. Underwater skills not saving properly is getting fixed;
2. A second underwater weapon will eventually be made;
3. No underwater glint “right now, we’ll be looking at adding more uw in the future”.

First one got fixed today.

DarcShriek.5829:

War is hell. Heroes die.

Usually, a good story would make a hero’s death more meaningful, either by giving us a proper character arc for that hero before their death, or making the consequences of their death major.

You can have a story that is both realistic and cruel, while being satisfying and rewarding to the reader/ audience. One of the reasons for why Game of Thrones is so popular is because it can do both pretty well.

Eir’s death felt kinda of empty to me.

CoR is bugged (900 range) and I would rather have it be ground targetted, because as it is now, it’s kind of clumsy to hit a crowd whenever your target decides to move away from it. That being said, I agree that it is a little bit strong, and it would be even more so if those issues were fixed/ improved.

Good to see that other players feel the same way I do.

Interestingly, this problem also happens with Luck, so it’s not a pvp-only problem. But luck is a simple and secondary system in pve, while reward tracks are the core of pvp’s rewards, so pvp players are more heavily affected.

I have no idea why Anet’s idea of “meaningful and rewarding systems” includes making existing systems “less rewarding and less meaningful”. It’s contradictory and somewhat self-destructive.

Let’s put aside all the game balance discussion for a moment and talk about a different issue.

For Guild Halls, some upgrades require (a massive amount of) PvP Potions. They also happen to have no use for the new shards of glory material.

That is absurd. Doing the dailies and getting those potions for some reward spikes are half the fun I have with reward tracks, and I dare to say that applies to many of you as well. The game is pretty much forcing pvp players to sacrifice whatever little they have of a reward system for another system they may desire.

PvE players do not have to sacrifice systematic progression (masteries) to get Guild Hall’s upgrades. Why do PvP players have to?

PvE players play the game, enjoy their “new and meaningul endgame progression systems”, get rewarded (with gold or mats) and then they may deposit those materials to the GH, or not, if they so desire. Perfectly fine.

In contrast, the main source of loot for PvP players comes from reward tracks. The main way for a pvp player to contribute to their guild’s GH is from the rewards that they get by filling reward tracks. If that was all to it, then it would have been perfectly fine: it would have been a parallel to what PvE players have to do. But it seems that Anet thought it was a good idea that, in addition to that – no, in opposition of that, pvp players that want to invest in a GH must not only hinder their only enjoyable reward system, but in doing so, also hinder their main source of materials, which would allow them to contribute (directly or indirectly) to a GH in a normal way, because pvp potions are also needed for guild upgrades.

What’s funny is that HoT brought a new, pvp-only material called shards of glory, which would have been the perfect fit for those guild upgrades: you play pvp, you fill your reward tracks and do your dailies, gain mats and shards, and you would then invest them or not invest them on guild upgrades. That would have been simple, that would have been perfect, that would have been like what happens with PvE’s systems already. But no. Instead, pvp players that want to contribute to their guild’s GH have to take away a bit of whatever little they have.

Meanwhile, the interaction between GH and shards of glory – which are exactly what should have been there, isntead of PvP Potions – is zero, nothing, nada. Zero upgrades that require shards. Shards are an actual reward – they should have been used there. Potions are not a reward exactly – they are more like reward boosters: their purpose is to make the rewarding experience more rewarding.

It’s like Anet has no clear direction internally. They promise to the entire playerbase that they want their new reward systems to feel rewarding, meaningful and enjoyable, and then they force a subsection of their playerbase to have a less rewarding, a less meaningful and a less enjoyable reward system just so they can invest in GHs. Inconsistent and schizofrenic.

TL;DR: Contributing to guild upgrades:
As a PvE player, comes at the cost of your loot (as expected);
As a PvP player, comes at the cost of how rewarding and psychologically enjoyable the entire reward system can be;

Avllos.7126:

Yo, Dawg. I heard you like PvE in your PvP – so I put more PvE in your PvP so you can ignore each other and attack doors.

MOBAs have PvE in PvP, yet they are far more popular pvp than conquest.

The problems with Stronghold are due to how the map and its mechanics were implemented:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/StrongHold-plyrs-Unchecked-Box/

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Your response was way too long. But you said it yourself, halfway through bronze league people know how to make things work. So you are telling me if people played 10 games of Stronghold it’s still confusing? I’m betting it takes more than 10 games in a LoL to understand it, even if it’s more casual than dota.

You seem to be comparing people’s first experience with stronghold and a player base who has already played alot of LoL.

I understand that the first experience with stronghold is always going to be confusing by default, but I was comparing the amount of tools that a game like LoL has to make pugs work in team versus what we have in SH (almost none).

LegallyBinding.4937:

People in bronze have zero idea what’s going on, pings or not.

You’d be surprised by how many decent players there are at the later half of bronze league.

But I can go even further and say that I know kids in bronze V that know how to ping, how to wait for ally ganks, and contest dragons and barons as a group. Those things happen partially because the game offers easy tools for them to work as a team, and partially because the way the map is designed lends to players naturally gravitating towards specific group encounters.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

I played Dota 2 because of in game voip. If you are stuck below 3k mmr, you have teammates who you swear were trolling you because their movement around the map and general game sense hurt your soul.

Mobas are not some simple thing that any pug can coordinate. It’s often like hurding cats, while I yell at my support to stop last hitting in my safe lane!!!!

I’m basing my experience on League of Legends. Starting at the lowest league (Bronze level, around halfway its ladder), pug players already know how to coordinate at a basic level, understand their role and syncronize as a team. Sure, definitely not with the map awareness, the positioning, the timing and the skill of better players, but they can still do it, regardless of how complex the game mode is.

The game offers plenty of tools and very effective mechanics to guide players to work in syncronization. The ping system for quick communication, the map structure with clearly defined roles that are easy to understand, the amount of map vision available and the very strictly controlled pacing and sense of progression (which ultimately determines when players can or can not go for objectives) creates several predictable patterns AND a lot of room for improvization.

Halfway each match, when the laning phase is over and players start roaming everywhere, the game becomes more chaotic, like stronghold, but there’s still plenty of mechanics to aid teamplaying among pugs, unlike stronghold.

I don’t know how well this translates into Dota2, as I haven’t played it, but I do know that LoL is widely more popular and dota is known to be more hardcore and complex, so I don’t know if the later happens to be less streamlined or not.

Snowywonders.1378:

Too many secondary objects? You mean either summon npcs (door breakers or champions) to help get to the lord or defend your side? How is that too many?

You don’t know when things are happening? You don’t know all of a sudden that a champion got summoned? There’s a big banner that shows up on your screen when a champion will soon be summonable giving you enough time to get there. And also another banner after, showing you what side summoned it.

Secondary objectives include: two different lanes, two champion channels, one trebuchet and one supply room. That’s about six places that five players must cycle around the map.

MOBAs (or at least, LoL) get away from that problem because they offer plenty of mechanics for map control (vision control, recall), quick communication (ping system) and impose a very strict idea on where each player should be going and what each player’s role should be (aka, usually “stuck” in a lane for quite some time).

Stronghold offers very little of that. You have map icons and in-game warnings, and that’s that. There is no strict lane phase, so each player can be doing one thing in one minute, and another entirely different thing the minute after. You never know where to find them when you may need them, because they’re all roaming everywhere.

1. How can you make sure that every single one of your team mates is controlling every single secondary objective, without using voip?
2. How can you quickly communicate that an opponent’s assault is under control or when it is not, so you know beforehand if you should spend your time running back to the base or if you should instead follow a secondary objective?
3. How can you find out where your missing opponents are or where they may be, without relying on the vision from silent roaming pug players?
4. How can you make sure that you’re going to have a pug ally following you, so you both can go 2 on 2 to secure an important secondary objective?

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Conquest also gets away from those problems (although not totally) because it’s simpler. It is not so reliant on information, because most of the game mode gravitates toward 2 or 3 capture points, where you can easily have allies around you, where you can easily gain vision of all or most of your opponents and where you can easily know where to go in the map based on 2 or 3 points of interest and nothing else. And even then, conquest is not pug-friendly, because it is heavily reliant on non-pug cycling tactics.

Stronghold neither has the simplicity of conquest nor does it have enough infrastructure and necessary mechanics to make pugs work in syncronization, making the map mindlessly chaotic.

So stronghold has two massive problems:

1. Too convoluted OR lacking enough infrastructure to aid pug players play as a team;
2. Unenganging – and sometimes anti-climatic, mechanics;

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Even if you hate mobas they are popular and generally have alot of things going on at various points.

Stronghold is to MOBAs what the Star Wars prequels are to the original Star Wars trilogy. :P

Disliking the prequels does not means you dislike Star Wars, because it’s the original trilogy that made it great. Likewise, disliking Stronghold does not means that person automatically dislikes MOBAs.

Never said he disliked MOBAs. I was just highlighting the point made about how too many objectives going on is a bad thing. And I mentioned that MOBA’s whether you like them or not, have this aspect and are very popular.

And to add to what you said, MOBA’s multiple objectives are very successful because:

• They are engaging, as in, they promote risk/reward plays;
• Any pug team can keep them under control without the need for voice chat, due to how the map layout is excellent at organizing even the most unorganized and random teams, and due to how the mini map and the ping system (among others) are excellent at conveying all the necessary information that non-voip parties need.

Just compare how contesting a dragon works in LoL vs how channeling a hero works in SH.

Dragon:

• Requires the bot lane to leave their lane, which will leave the opponent suspicious (risk);
• Can be warded by opponents so they can spy on dragon contesting (risk by contesters/ reward for skill playing by opponents);
• Can be stolen (risk vs reward, promotes strategical decisions about when or when not to contest it);
• Can attack back, leaving them vulnerable to ganks and roamers (risk vs reward);
• Gives an immediate reward (satisfaction);
• Promotes combat;

SH channeling:

• Any random player from anywhere can get it;
• Because players are always cycling through map, and there’s limited vision of their positioning, it happens that, for most of the time, pugs never know when or if somebody is there;
• Press F. No risk involved if they get caught by another player;
• Needs to be interrupted to cancel the channel. Tanks can spam their stabilities and blocks for easy and uneventful rewards;
• There are two of them and each one is placed at a corner of the map, so the chances of having more than one player near the zone are low, especially in pugs.

It’s like night and day.

MOBA’s objectives work because they’re exciting AND manageable by pugs. SH does the complete opposite, which makes it feel like a shallow wannabe mode instead of serious competition to the pvp giants.

And that’s not the only problem with stronghold. Supply running (get back to your safe zone and press F), unnecessary NPC management (run to base, press F, then go do something else) and very annoying and stealthy trebuchets (which are pretty much F/ 1-button sammers) all lead to making SH very… uneventful, unexciting, anti-climatic.

And then put yourself in the shoes of a viewer/ watcher. “Why are they running back to the base? Why are they running back to the base again? Wait, and again?” “Because they must press F to create a NPC. And again. And again. And now they need to go back to press F to channel a guy.”

Stronghold is less about an epic and engaging base assault, and more about dancing between halfway the map and your base to press F time and time again.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Even if you hate mobas they are popular and generally have alot of things going on at various points.

Stronghold is to MOBAs what the Star Wars prequels are to the original Star Wars trilogy. :P

Disliking the prequels does not means you dislike Star Wars, because it’s the original trilogy that made it great. Likewise, disliking Stronghold does not means that person automatically dislikes MOBAs.

Stronghold suffers from too much noise and clutter. It should have had fewer, simpler but more engaging mechanics. As it stands, it’s the complete opposite: too much to do, and most of it uninteresting and shallow.

In other words, too many mechanics that contribute too little to the game.

Love or hate conquest, its most popular maps are better designed and more effective at creating an enganging pvp experience than current stronghold.

runeblade.7514:

No it wouldn’t be better.

It would simply be even more PvE. Just break the door, and then go for lord.

As opposed to killing npcs or running back and forth between the mid point and a safe point, right? Because those are so engaging and exciting from a pvp point of view.

To be honest, they could simply make it so that doors (in foefire) can only be destroyed if you have the nearest point capped. It would effectively reverse the goals of the map while keeping simplicity and focus on pvp combat. The secondary mechanic would become the primary mechanic (lord), the primary mechanic would become secondary (points), and that would be it. Would it be perfect? No idea, but it would probably turn out to be better than the clusterkitten of shallow objectives that currently creep stronghold.

In theory, stronghold should have been a super exciting map, but I’m disappointed by anet’s implementation.

I don’t know how interesting it may be for a premade team, but among pugs, the map feels mindless.

• There are way too many secondary objectives. Result? Lots of things happening everywhere all the time that you can’t follow, especially if you’re busy fighting. This leads to…
• Stuff happening without you understading why, how or when they happened. Your doing your job somewhere in the map when suddenly you lose a door or your opponent channels champion heroes to their side. You never know when those things are happening until they actually happen, or when the game tells you that they are happening, there’s so much going around that you may either miss that information or – equally bad, understand how useless it may be to cross half a map to prevent the opponent from achieving some things.
• Finally, most of the secondary objectives are so… unengaging, unstreamlined and shallow. Supplies are all about running back and forth between halfway the map and your base. The moment you get a supply, all you need to do is run back to your safe zone. NPCs are all about making a shallow choice between two options and, for players who do not know better, a free mechanic for the playerbase to make bad decisions. And champion heroes are all about going to a specific corner in the map and press F, while everyone else is engaged in another secodnary objective somewhere else in the map.

The goal of the map is enticing: break their base and kill their lord.

The means to achieve that goal are a failure, in my honest opinion. They heavily revolve around doing a checklist of secondary objectives scattered across the map, most of them unenganging and shallow, or simply ignoring most of them, go straight to the champ, and just finish it.

I love league of legends, but LoL’s (and mobas, in general) secondary mechanics are far more engaging and pug-friendly than this. Even a full pug team in a moba feels very organized due to how moba’s maps communicate very clearly where each player is meant to be. There are three lanes, but they all work the same and follow the same rules (except some subtle differences). There are NPCs, but those are automatic and seamless, do not require mindless supply running, and estabilish well the pace of the game. There are roamers, but the’re a very clear and well-estabilished role about who is the specialized roamer, and a very clear risk-vs-reward ratio for those that are willing to leave their lanes to roam. There are also turrets, which add safety to the insecure players and create risk/ reward scenarios to the pro players.

In comparison, stronghold feels like a shallow and forgottable imitation.

I’d rather have legends with a cohesive set of utility skills than having 5 glyphs or 5 signets with random effects.

The cohesive set for each legend also creates some interesting strong points and weaknesses. For example, shiro is a very versatile legend with plenty of mobility, action speed and CC, but then it’s “stuck” with a healing skill that, although a decent skill overall (when taken into acokitten both heal and damage), it is not that great when taken only for the healing effect. This adds a very distinct weakness to an otherwise strong and complete legend.

If this was any other profession, you would simply be able to swap that heal for another one, and suddenly have an overpowered kit in your hands. Even if the end result would not be overpowered, there would be no increase in diversity at all. Think of guardians. They always inject their block heal into their blood.

Loboling.5293:

I hope we get spear and trident, they suit the revenant better than harpoon gun. However, I am not at all optimistic that the devs will add another weapon to the class. Since that never happened to any of the other classes after release. This should of been brought up more before launch, but oh well.

Look at other magical classes, all of them have a trident, just as they have a (magical) staff and scepter on ground. Even the physical/ magical “hybrid” classes like the Mesmer and the Guardian.

In contrast, Revenants use the most agressive melee weapons in magical ways (and their only magical weapon at melee range), so I would personally like to see a magical speargun. Is there any profession with a magical speargun? Unless they somehow make trident a more physical weapon for the revenant.

Burtnik.5218:

Im sorry, but revenant was supposed to be balanced around energy for utility skills, short cds+energy cost for weapon skills. Thats why we originally started with no 0 abilities except Jalis road as it had strong stability effect (nerfed into ground). Where people getting that energy+cd from? So far i have seen olny 2 people on forum promoting that but without any real backup to prove it was always meant to be cd+energy for utility skills.

1. Revenant’s flavor and mechanics are a nod to GW1’s, and GW1 had energy + CDs.
2. As you have mentioned, Jalis already had one utility skill with a cooldown since the beginning
3. If I’m not wrong, Ventari’s skills with cooldowns were there since their first initial reveal.
So they were always there, even if scarcely. That we’re getting more of them shows that anet finds them to be necessary.

Also revenant was supposed to have as high mobility in combat as thief outside of it.

Isn’t a 1200 ranged teleport that can bypass walls and be used every five seconds good? You can even use Axe 4 inbetween, and when you switch to Mallyx or to Glint, you’re still left with another (albeit not as good, but, at its current state, spammable) leap and perma swiftness.

Revenant is not exactly “slow”.

It also seems that our movement advantage doesn’t comes only from higher speed, but also decent access to chill. Mallyx and axe’s leap apply chill, sword 2 applies chill, and we have one chill trait. Phase Traversal also cleanses us out of movement-impairing conditions.

As you can see, it’s not a short cooldown that is going to change Revenant’s stickiness.

Also if cd+energy is such a good system, why all games moved out of mana system+cd system and now goes either with short cd’s or no cd’s at all and replaces it with mechanics like stamina? Bc it worse? I rebember the days where we had mana+cd’s in games. Nowdays i cant recall a single game with that feature as that feature is.. dead. It olny proves how “good” that thing is.

I don’t know what games you play, but most have a dual resource system. Keep in mind that not all resources are exactly like energy or exactly like individual cooldowns, but there’s a lot of A+B variants that serve a similar purpose.

To give some examples:
FFXIV: global CD system + energy system + TP system (which is basically a second energy bar);
League of Legends: CD + energy/ fury/ another variant or something else entirely different, like minions. Very few champions use CD as the only form of resource management. Also, LoL is one of the most popular games in the world, and energy + CD is dominant there.

Even if we look at GW2:
Mesmer: CDs + illusions. It is, however, broken in PvE and WvW, because while “energy” is an abstract UI stat, clones have a real presence and are more easily dispatched in some modes than others. This is proof that CD+energy > CD+illusions;
Warrior: CDs + adrenaline (which is pretty much a reverse energy bar). It works fine, and it would be even better if warriors had more adrenaline skills, IMO.
Necromancer: CDs + life force. Life force is pretty much an energy system, except its restricted to a very specific skillset and playstyle only.

If you think about it, all of them are either flawed or very restrictive. Isn’t Revenant’s energy + CD better than those? You’re not screwed in PvE/ WvW like poor mesmers, and not restricted to a single skill/ skillset like warriors and necros.

Also as i i would like to mention number 1001 time, cd’s are affected by chill/interrupts. Energy doesnt suffer from this. By adding cd to PT i can now log on power lock mesmer and lock any shiro rev out of PT for 15 seconds turning their legend useless for it mobility job #nice balance

I can understand that concern, but counterplay is healthy for the game. if anything, that can be a good reason to keep skills strong.

No one knows yet, but we will have a second one eventually.

It’s excellent to pull your enemies together in pve. Makes AAing with sword much easier, and it allows you to make the best use of the third AA chain. The interrupt is also nice for bosses.

Burtnik.5218:

Maybe bc PT is the olny one source of mobility we have while thief has many?…
Maybe bc we were supposed to be balanced around energy, not cd’s?

You want the Revenant to be designed like a Thief and balanced like a Thief. Well, you shouldn’t expect that because they’re different professions.

Thieves are meant to have top-tier mobility and to be balanced around energy costs.

Revenants are meant to have good in-combat mobility (which they do, whether they’re as good as thieves or not) and to be balanced around both energy and cooldowns.

Different professions, different goals.

Why did they decide to nerf it? What was the problem that they were trying to fix? Knowing this answer would help us understand why they nerfed the skill the way they did.

Had they found the skill to be too strong in every single scenario, they would have increased its energy cost or nerfed its effect. Simple, and it would solve the problem, right? But they didn’t do any of that, which implies that was not the problem in the first place.

The added CD implies that they decided to nerf this skill because of how strong it was when used several times consecutively. Because that’s exactly what a CD is meant to do. If that is true, than the addition of the cooldown makes perfect sense and I can’t of anything better that they could have done.

Most people that are upset by this change do not understand that the more tools that a developer has to balance a skill, the easier it will be to target and fix the main problems without creating secondary consequences. Balancing skills around cooldowns and energy costs gives to developers much more freedom to make better balance decisions than simply balancing around one or the other exclusively. Some people believe that the Revenant should be balanced exclusively through energy costs, regardless of when that might be appropriate or not. We have to be careful of that, because while it may make sense for some skills, it may not make sense for others.

It’s the opposite. Thief’s initiative is the flawed mechanic. GW1’s energy system is a proven and true formula.

glaphen.5230:

Don’t understand why they removed Ogre, Lich and Pirate, why did they not remove them 3 years ago.

Probably because of the buff to pets.

Here’s some comments from Roy’s twitter:

• Underwater skills not saving properly is getting fixed;
• A second underwater weapon will eventually be made;
• No underwater glint “right now, we’ll be looking at adding more uw in the future”.

Burtnik.5218:

Revenant is energy based. Not cd.

I see this idea thrown out a lot, and I don’t understand why.

Thieves are the profession that is exclusively energy based (well, for the weapon skills, that is).

Revenant’s mechanics were always advertised as being a nod to GW1’s combat system, which featured both energy and cooldowns. We learned very early on that revs were getting cooldowns. There’s nothing new about that.

If thats the issue with rev then i dont know..scrap the energy system completely and dumb it to trashbin? What was said before? That they added energy system so they could give us strong abilities limited by energy.

You are under the assumption that a profession with only cooldowns and a profession with both cooldowns and energy is the same thing, which is utterly wrong. Energy allows for lower cooldowns and stronger skills, and this is a reality even with CDs slapped in.

That they would balance it by upping/lowering energy. What we getting? Slapped cd on everything.

Energy is a tool for balancing. CD is another tool. The more tools anet has to balance, the more precisely they’ll be able to target and nerf specific problems without creating too many secodnary consequences. With Phase Traversal getting a CD, this is exactly what happened: Anet was able to nerf the extreme mobility that occured from using the skill repeatedely, without having to nerf the skill when used only once. This is a good thing. It is not a bad thing.

There was more purposes to use this skill as for example getting unblockables. Thats not really wise to do anymore. If PT fail to teleport, its put on cd, if it get interrupted it goes on cd (if it was power lock mesmer it goes on 15cd – thats cool right?), if chilled and cant affort to do RP (in b4 added cd), your cd is increased to 8,3sec.

Counterplay is healthy, so that is not a problem. In fact, it might be an additional reason to preserve the skill’s current strength without having to nerf it with a higher energy cost. If it gets proven that the unblockable effect becomes useless with this change, anet can always buff that particular effect in the future.

If everything get cd, what i am supposed to do with energy? Swap at 70% cus i cant use my skills either way? Then it wont matter or actually it will as rev will be focused around spamming everything off cd, swap, spam it again rinse repeat.

You answered your own question without knowing it. Energy prevents you from spamming everything off cooldown, because spamming everything off cooldown requires more energy than what you’ll usually have. This is what makes energy + cooldown so awesome. Other professions spam everything off cooldown because they do NOT have energy. Thieves spam skills because they do NOT have cooldowns. Revenants barely spam (or not at all) because they have both.

If every single profession in GW2 had both energy and cooldowns, like the Revenant, then GW2 would be a less spammy game and it would have been more successful at pvp esports to this day.

Take a look at many of the mmorpgs or mobas in the market, and you’ll see that energy + cooldown is the norm. GW1 had that too.

Usually, energy + cooldown leads to healthier gameplay. Cooldowns are great to prevent players from spamming the same skill over and over. The lack of cooldowns is one of the reasons for why thieves have the reputation of being spammy among non-thieves. Meanwhile, energy is great to prevent players from spamming their entire skill set on cooldown, because using some skills will lock them from using others, forcing strategical decisions, resource management and promoting risk/ reward plays while creating windows of play where “not much happens” (which is very precious time, because that “wasted” time gives the opportunity for players to spend more time reading the battle and observing everything that is happening).

GW2’s combat system is, generally, very spammy. You either spam the same ability over and over with a thief, or spam most of your abilities when out of cooldown with everyone else. This has been especially bad for pvp’s competitive scene, because battles rarely have a climax and rarely give the opportunity for players some resting/ watching time. This is mostly due to the lack of energy management across most classes, because energy management involves spending most of your energy on powerful skills for deadly plays (the climaxes) or put you waiting for you to build up your energy to set those deadly combos (the waiting time). But, as thieves show, energy without cooldowns leads to abusive and mindless rotations that no one likes or respects, like the classic Heartseeker combo.

In that regard, the Revenant is an evolution of GW2’s combat system.

Artaz.3819:

Ultimately, big picture, we have an identity crisis for Revenant. Is Revenant supposed to be constricted by energy or is it supposed to be constricted by cooldowns.

On a general basis, weapon skills generally have high cd/ low energy while utility skills generally have low/no cd/ high energy, exceptions aside.

Weapon skills are meant to be used with less energy constraints, while the right half bar provides plent of energy sinks.

So far, this seems to be so coherent with the profession as a whole, so I can’t detect any identity crisis here. It works pretty well in practice, because the low energy cost of weapon skills means you’re not stuck AAing all the time, while the low or the lack of cds on the right half bar means you’re free to sink a lot of energy at any time for big plays. Again, it feels pretty solid to me, which makes me wonder if there is an identity crisis here at all. It all feels very intentional, very well thought-out by anet developers.

Feel free to disagree.

Burtnik.5218:

Raising energy was all that is needed.

You are proposing a nerf to all situations where this skill is only needed to be used once, while anet apparently only wanted to nerf it when it is used multiple times.

Global nerf vs situational nerf.

When used only once, is this skill overpowered? If so, then yes, have them increase its energy cost or something. But at the moment, anet decided that it is not overpowered in that situation.

Killyox.3950:

Except there are at least 5 ways you could nerf PT.

Reduce/Remove dmg
Increase cost by 5-10
Remove/reduce “unblockables”
Reduce the distance travelled
Disable “teleport” function so you have to be in range of the skill for it to work (atm you can be outside and it moves you still)

Reduce/ remove the damage: it would not fix the problem AND nerf it in other situations.
Increase the cost: it would not fix the problem AND nerf it in other situations.
Remove unblockables: it would not fix the problem AND nerf it in other situations.
Reduce travel: it would not fix the problem AND nerf it in other situations.
Disable “teleport”: might be an interesting fix, but I’m not sure if it would fix the problem.

All your proposals revolve around nerfing the skill in every single scenario, including any scenario where the skill wasn’t broken in the first place, just for the sake of preserving a niche playstyle that belongs to the thief. You want this skill to be nerfed everywhere JUST so YOU can chase thieves better.

Fortunately for us all, a small cd addition has fixed the problem without nerfing the skill where it didn’t nerfing.

Killyox.3950:

The purpose of Energy was exactly that we COULD repeatedly use skill and thus would be unable to use other skills because of that. Do I use Skill X and Y or do I use skill X twice in row instead but can’t use skill Y until I regen some energy? That’s the purpose of energy.

Same like Thieves can spam their attacks until they run out of INI and they can’t use other things. That’s not complementing each other, that’s countering each other.

That’s one of the purposes of energy, and it still does applies to some existing skills.

Energy + CD also has a very unique purpose: serve as an excellent balancing and risk-reward tool that neither CDs or energy alone can provide. It’s the least abusable of the three.

It’s fine that some skills are designed to be used repeatedily, it’s fine that some skills are designed to merely have a cooldown and, otherwise, come for free (or close to it), but having entire professions restricted to that is not as fine, and it’s one of the sources oft some of GW2’s combat problems. In this regard, GW1 combat is better. And so is the Revenant.

In many ways, Revenant’s/ GW1’s energy system is far more solid that thief’s initiative. And it’s not only because of the energy + cd proven formula. The lack of energy-generating traits, the energy upkeeps, global energy gain on swap and the threshould mechanic for the sake of trait effects all make this system far more solid and well designed than Thief’s.

Initiative is, in comparison, simplistic, primitive, restritive and hard to balance for.

Taldren.7523:

You balance by adjusting energy cost or actually tweaking the values of the ability … you do not add a second mechanic on top of the first.

An increased energy cost would nerf this skill in all scenarios. Likewise, toned down effects would nerf this skill in all scenarios. The CD reduction, however, only nerfs this skill in some specific situations (when you would want to use it two times or more in a row) while keeping it as strong as it always has been in any other situation.

This is EXACTLY why you add a second mechanic to balance a skill. The more tools anet has to balance each skill, the easier it is for them to target and nerf some problematic scenarios without having to affect their usefulness in other, non-problematic situations. With more variables to balance around, it’s easier to target and fix problems without destroying the whole thing.

Killyox.3950:

Ragion.2831:

As a heavy Rev player i hate to admit it but these are good changes but dang they hurt.

PT CD is not a good change. Other changes are ok.

Putting another mechanic (CD) on top of skill governing mechanic (energy) is bad. New invalidates/diminishes the existance of the former (energy here). It basically changes revenant into something it wasn’t advertised as. Energy was meant to be our cooldown. If I have 100 energy I can do elite and some other skills or just back to back skill X. If I cannot do it then why have energy if there is no choice.

CDs lock players from spamming the same skill.
Energy locks players from spamming the remaining skills.

Both mechanics complement each other.

Killyox.3950:

I am perfectly fine with this. Would make skill difference between two rev players easier to spot. These are still decisions we make whether good or bad. CDs are bad because they take away that decision making entirely.

CDs are good because they prevent spam of the same skill (see: thieves). Unless you, for some reason, think that thieves are a brilliantly designed profession.

Energy + CD is a much more solid base to design and balance for than having just either. In fact, one of the biggest reasons for why GW2’s combat is so spammy, is because it only relies in one or the other alone.

If you didn’t like the nerf on this skill, don’t suggest even bigger nerfs to replace the added cd.

Vavume.8065:

Same issue, verdant brink 100% and no reward, also not received retroactive rewards for dry top swilver wastes and south sun.

On Dry Top and Silverwastes, one of my characters got a retroactive chest for both, while the other didn’t. Also, my friend didn’t get any chest yet.

Cooldown locks a player from spamming the same skill.
Energy locks the player from spamming the remaining skills.

They complement each other perfectly. It also gives to anet more tools to balance the class. Imagine if the revenant was doomed to only have energy like the thief: anet would be forced to increase its energy cost, nerfing the skill in every aspect of the game. But by preserving the same energy cost and adding some CD, they had the freedom to nerf the skill in some specific situations where it was too strong while preserve its power in other situations where it was fine.

The irony of this thread is that people are suggesting much heavier nerfs over the one we actually got.

Increasing the energy cost of this skill would nerf its usefulness in every single situation. In every single situation. In contrast, the addition of a short CD is only a nerf to some very specific situations, in particularly, to those where you would want to use this skill 2 or 3 times repeatedly, like thief chasing.

This nerf is softer than your tears.

Longbow for ranged condi-weapon, please.

I want PBAoE direct-damage greatsword like warriors and guardians. Not the most original idea, but just like all charming clichés in the world, there’s a reason for why people love that.

Dynasty.5127:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Dynasty.5127:

I still personally would very much like to see the number dropped down a bit from 400.

It IS dropped down a bit from 400, actually. Don’t forget that the last HP unlocks are spent on skins and runes.

I am aware of this fact, if you would like all the skins and stuff it is still 400. It’s a personal opinion, you don’t have to agree with it.

Yes, but skins and runes fall a lot easier under the reward category, so if we’re talking purely about wanting to enjoy a new gameplay experience by playing new content with new skills/ traits from the get-go, it should be more streamlined than what it may appear to be.

Bhima.9518:

I’m not sure that is a good thing from a design perspective, and this feels more like a case of adding progression where it wasn’t needed (we have the new storyline, masteries, fractals, raids and legendaries for progression).

Narrative progression, map progression (masteries), boss progression (fractals, raids), item progression (collectibles) and character progression (elite specs).

They all fill their unique purpose, even if they overlap at times (but nothing wrong with that, though).

Dynasty.5127:

I still personally would very much like to see the number dropped down a bit from 400.

It IS dropped down a bit from 400, actually. Don’t forget that the last HP unlocks are spent on skins and runes.

Considering that the last and costier HP unlocks are tied to two cosmetic items and to runes/ sigils, perhaps you’ll only need 200-300 to get all the skills/ traits you need.

Progression: gradually unlock new tools as you play the game and experience new content.

Grind: slaughter 1000 rats (or any equivalent) through a week or a month for that 0.01% chance of getting an Excalibur.

Delius.1968:

You’re confusing masteries (progression that I am looking forward to) with class mechanics (that I paid for as part of an expansion).

Unlocking new abilities and new classes has always been a form of progression in video games. It has been the case for this very game, it has been the case for GW1, it has been the case for pretty much every RPG, and I could go on.

It also happens to be a more exciting form of progression than unlocking any skin that you’ll know you’ll never use. Even masteries are, in some way, a way to unlock new abilities. (HoT) Masteries just happen to be map abilities, while elite specs offer more personal character abilities.

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

Again, I understand that this may be annoying for players that have a lot of alts. But that’s pretty much it.