Guild Wars 2

SaintSnow.6593:

Lol when people build bunker they normally hit like nothing..
Now that you have strength runes in the picture, players can achieve 25 stacks easily and sustain it allowing them to hit much harder than they should. This leads to bunker built warriors and eles hitting like trucks while maintaining high sustain. Plain and simple. I never found the ttk high in this game. The amount of burst has been brought down exponentially since launch.

The TTK is still low, you might not notice it because 90% of people run bunker specs or some other cheese spec that allows them to survive. I will guarantee you that a full berserk player without the tricks(stealth/evade spam/invuln) drops dead in a few seconds against even a bunker, which have always hit decently hard when compared to lifepools but not when compared to unbalanced berserkers hits. Some of the burst has been nerfed, true, but that doesn’t mean the overall damage output vs sustain is anywhere near acceptable. You still have attacks in the game that if 2 berserk players are going at it will literally 1-2 shot 3/4 of the classes. That is EXACTLY why the game quickly went to bunker builds, that is nowhere near balanced. The strength runes just exacerbate the major flaws in the system that need fixed. You can fix the runes but you’re still left with a system that greatly favors whatever classes can build the best sustain/damage ratio.

Sube Dai.8496:

Hang on op, so every class is op (except rangers)? Doesn’t that mean the game is actually balance?

And all you have done is list the most efficient builds. Of course ppl are going to play what works best. That’s what a meta is.

There are top builds that are semi-balanced with each other, however there are FAR more builds that are not anywhere close to those top builds. It’s not even a matter of efficient as that implies all builds can get the job done one is just slightly better at it. No, instead it’s closer to completely broken than it is efficient. Try playing a Vampire necro/thief, trap thief, or venom thief to name a few against any of the top builds. You’ll quickly see that they aren’t even in the same realm even when not fighting for a capture point. ArenaNet should be absolutely ashamed of the balancing they’ve done. Yay! 10% of the builds are balanced against each other and completely decimate the other 90%! Sure it took 2 years and at launch it was probably closer to 15%, but lets have some tournaments!

SaintSnow.6593:

Mainly all this is due to strength runes. The excessive power and damage increase allows classes to trait for more sustain and still put out good damage. Also the fact that conditions are so easily applied requires a lot of passive and active sustain to stay alive. If they change strength runes a bit as well as lower the condition application rate, a lot of issues can be resolved and breathe some life into other areas of gameplay.

No, it is due to a bad stat system and poor balance. Strength runes are a part of that, but by a wide margin not the biggest problem. The problem this game has had since launch is that for most builds the TTK is just way too fast. People play MMO’s for more tactical combat where it is a chess game of picking the right moves. Unless you build tanky or have one of the few builds that can get away with all offense, you need to beef up or die in seconds. There isn’t tons of fun in being 1-2 shotted, and very little “chess” or tactical play. Power vs Defense scaling certainly doesn’t help this, neither does the base health gaps(chasm). The TTK needs brought up, damage should scale more on your stats(IE if you’ve built bunker your damage is low), and of course the stats need reworked.

I would LOVE to see more build variety in the game with lots more counterplay. Sadly it won’t happen as ArenaNet has chosen their direction and we’ve all seen just how fast(slow) they are at making the smallest of changes let alone big ones.

Jedge.3619:

The key word being “still”. If I condi bomb you but I die – are the condi’s still not damaging or affecting your character? You chose AGAIN to ignore what I said again about stat differentiation. Condi gear has defense against power for example with toughness such as rabid or dire. Warriors run dogged march/melandru’s for a reason, because without it they’d be screwed. Condition damage doesn’t also factor in crits. To do that extra damage, there have to be certain conditions to meet such as crit or a lot of power. Condi damage doesn’t need to adhere to the same rules. Conditions, I pull out my lawn chair, throw them on you, and proceed to drink my iced tea. With power, I get off my chair and I have to stick to you to deal the damage. Conditions are passive play. There’s no active element. Condition setups (builds) can bring whatever they want because they have more options when using condition damage.

Sure, condi damage isn’t super efficient in zergs because of all the cleanses. However, in small group fights condi’s are the king of the game.

Can you dodge an eviscerate over and over? Yes
Can you dodge bleeds once they’re on you? No

Dodges are up a lot more often then cleanses. That’s why dodge timing is essential. It takes skill. Cleanses are only up every so often. There’s always a CD for them.

You do realize you can dodge a good deal of condition attacks too right? They impact conditions and power builds equally. You can’t dodge a bleed once it’s on you, but you can certainly dodge it before it gets applied.

Also I don’t think you understand that conditions on an enemy still ticking is equal to a power hit landing. I can’t fathom why people have a hard time with the logic here. If a power attack lands and does 5k damage instantly and a condition lands and will do 5k damage, somehow people think the 5k condition is somehow doing more damage because it is still ticking when you’re dodging, kiting, etc. To make your comparison fair you would have to ask “Can you dodge an eviscerate once it’s landed”, to which the answer is a face-palming no; just like dodging a bleed after it’s applied.

Finally, there are cheese builds on both sides of the fence that make combat a lot easier. Remember the stun warriors? Bunkers doing big damage all while stunning you to death. The thief at launch doing 20k+ bursts instantly to start the fight? How poorly balanced power builds are is a major factor in why bunkering became popular. Conditions at the start were weak compared to power until ANet started handing out more damaging conditions to everyone to attempt to balance it. Low and behold like most things they do, it was the wrong decision. Now we are left with Bunker/power, Bunker/condition, Cheese/condition, and cheese/power as our choices.

Hamster.4861:

Reborn.2934:

X T D.6458:

new maps might stretch out the wvw player base too much and demand more coverage, which is already to stressful for many servers

definitely new and EXTRA maps will create huge problems now …. all are asking for replacement maps of the existent with new design and game mechanisms .

personal i asked for merge of the existent home borders to one like eb in my old thread 4 months ago

check this map : https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/138329/new_map11.JPG

and i full agree of chris’s post under mine

As much as one map would be nice, Anet has made it clear that LARGER maps are not possible with current technologies.

First off the technology for huge maps has been there for well over decade. SWG maps are very big and take forever to cross with a swoop let alone on foot and have player cities. WoW vanilla had 2 large maps that were broken into zones that are still probably bigger than the WvW maps. There are tons of other MMO’s with far bigger maps so technology is not the problem, it’s been there for years.

The problem I am guessing is their engine. If I had to guess, they decided when building the engine that it was easier to just build separate zones connected by loading screens instead of coding a gradual loading system and dealing with the networking of having all the zones connected. It definitely has it’s positives as far as population management, less work, and simplicity. The map sizes are also probably a limitation of computer specs they are aiming for(Lower end) since the game will have to load all the terrain/texture, which is why Eotm can be a bigger map yet since it doesn’t have all the extra terrain that a ground based map has. The negatives to this system are very apparent though since the world isn’t seamless and maps are too small.

I’m sure there are a lot more technical and financial reasons for why they picked the route they took, but make no mistake that the technology is there. ArenaNet just doesn’t want to invest a lot of time/money, it would be a big undertaking, redoing the system for what would probably be no real return on investment. The options we have of course are A. Wait for a engine upgrade(unlikely) B. GW3 C. Another MMO to do it right.

TLDR: It’s not that ArenaNet can’t, they won’t.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Gear is NOT a top priority in GW2, the players are making it a priority (you only need Ascended items if you are doing high lvl fractals). Heck, I even have a character that I WvW with that still has green items equipped. If it were true, that GW2 is equipment-centric, I shouldn’t be as competitive as I am.

People keep mistaking the ‘I want to look unique’ with ‘this gear is needed or I am toast’. There is NO GEAR GRIND in this game – the players are doing that to themselves.

Gear is a top priority in EVERY mmo because it is progression. MMO’s are all about progression not just through levels, but through gear, dungeons, ranks, skills, and even traits. People want the best gear and highest level they can get, that is basic mmo 101.

The stuff you’re spewing right now is akin to saying you don’t need max level. You can WvW without max level and you can do almost all the dungeons without max level so clearly leveling isn’t a top priority either. The problem with that argument and yours though is you’re purposefully putting yourself at a disadvantage to prove the point. When I’m playing a MMO I want to be the best that I possibly can. If you’re not in the best gear there is always that question of “if I had better gear maybe I wouldn’t have died.” In WvW there is a big advantage in having ascended over greens. Unless the person in full ascended is much less skilled than the person in greens or the greens player has some sort of other advantage, the better geared player wins.

What makes gear in GW2 grindy(yes even exotics) is what you have to do to get it. Most of the time it’s grinding gold, which is boring after the first hour meaning you get to spend hours bored out of your mind. Then there is crafting, which you need to farm the mats for, once again boring farming. Dungeons? Again you need to run the dungeons a lot, which isn’t helped that most of the “unique” paths are pretty much the same with semi-different bosses. Karma? You might as well farm gold since they basically abandoned it. The best part is that you’ll want multiple sets, so grind it all again!

Everything in this game you do in order to get gear is repetitive and BORING, aka grindy. There is zero fun to be had in trying to put together another set of armor. Say what you might about vanilla WoW but at least most of the things you did to get gear were fun or challenging. Every boss was a chance at good loot and as much as you dreaded rolling bad there was still that anticipation of that loot dropping. In GW2 every boss is vendor trash and the only anticipation you have is whether you’re bags were too full of vendor trash.

The condition problem is several fold and given the glacial class balancing and feature development I fear will never be fixed.

1. The addition of conditions on sigils/runes and classes has given some classes access to too many conditions. The result is a condition burst where it should be attrition. I guess they thought it would aid in build variety but they do the opposite. Condition builds weren’t that great prior to torment, perplexity, etc and were actually kind of weak. Every condition build needs to have as many damaging conditions as possible in order to keep up with power damage and to keep cleanse from making them useless. In order to balance this they need to give classes access to 2-3 damaging conditions max.

1. Damaging Conditions need to be balanced. The stacking/scaling of conditions is just wrong making certain ones better in most situations. Make them all scale similarly, stack, and give them all stacking effects that reward stacking conditions on, which in turn gets us back to attrition. Of course some condition stacking would need to be rebalanced since it is incredibly easy to stack certain conditions on certain builds.

1. Cleanse is too powerful when you don’t have access to a ton of different conditions and most certainly in large group situations. Cleanse shouldn’t remove an entire stack of conditions. Cleanse should instead remove 2 stacks and scale with healing power(say every 300 healing power = 1 stack). AOE skills should obviously remove less,

1. Stat balancing. The entire stat system hasn’t exactly been great since launch. With power scaling with 3 stats and conditions only 2. The -condition duration food/runes need to be removed as it certainly isn’t fair if you can mitigate 40% of their damage where you can’t do the same with power builds. unless of course they add -40% power, -40% crit, or -40% ferocity food/runes as well. I also think that condition and power damage should scale more based on your actual condition damage/power. Power builds should not get as much from damaging conditions and condition builds should not get as much from direct damage attacks.

I’m sure there are things that I’m missing but that’s the bulk of it. Condition builds need to get back to attrition. No conditions shouldn’t be 100% mitigatable like some on these forums think, power and conditions need to be equally balanced. Currently neither are balanced with outliers on each side. You have some classes/builds that have ridiculous power builds and on the other side you have some classes/builds that can apply almost every condition in a few seconds. I am all about unique class builds instead of the homogenized system we have now, but the uniqueness should come from the skills themselves and not at the cost of balance.

Guhracie.3419:

Yeah, no argument that the town clothes was a poor solution for everyone involved.

Distaste.4801:

Call me negative Nancy, but I see this is more bad than it is good. This means they will continue with temporary content in the future. While temporary content is fine when the base game is in a good state, GW2 isn’t. There isn’t a single area of the game that isn’t in need of drastic attention. What’s worse is I’m sure this feature has taken development time away from those areas that need it. I have no idea how they will attempt to balance the old LS content when a good portion required a zone full of people, meaning either those that buy it will be very upset or they will spend time retuning it and a lot of people feel like ArenaNet is ignoring the rest of the game in an attempt at more money.

I’d much rather they actually attempt to balance classes, fix the condition system, actually develop on WvW, make new permanent dungeons, put in a new zone, actually read the CDI’s, etc.

If you can honestly look at what they’ve implemented this year and still say that they’re not reading the CDI’s, then you’re the one not reading the CDI threads.

You’re absolutely right! How did I miss the new scoring system in WvW, the new commander system, or how the coverage issue was fixed. How about how the Ranger was finally fixed and their pets not being a large portion of their damage.

So yes, there are certainly CDI threads that have amounted to nada. I can’t speak for SPvP or LW cdi threads because they aren’t really areas I care about. However I can say that nothing has come of the ranger or wvw cdi threads. Don’t take my word for it though! Go tell the ranger and wvw forum that the devs are listening to CDI threads and wait for their response. I can hear the laughter already.

Call me negative Nancy, but I see this is more bad than it is good. This means they will continue with temporary content in the future. While temporary content is fine when the base game is in a good state, GW2 isn’t. There isn’t a single area of the game that isn’t in need of drastic attention. What’s worse is I’m sure this feature has taken development time away from those areas that need it. I have no idea how they will attempt to balance the old LS content when a good portion required a zone full of people, meaning either those that buy it will be very upset or they will spend time retuning it and a lot of people feel like ArenaNet is ignoring the rest of the game in an attempt at more money.

I’d much rather they actually attempt to balance classes, fix the condition system, actually develop on WvW, make new permanent dungeons, put in a new zone, actually read the CDI’s, etc.

Teon.5168:

Distaste.4801:

Most of the GW2 hate is due to extremely poor post-launch development. We still have incredibly unbalanced builds/classes that seemingly get worse the few times a year they actually try and balance. The entire class system is built on extremely flawed components(conditions, stats, formulas, etc) Temporary content is fine when endgame foundations are solid, but GW2 endgame has NEVER been solid. Dungeons were never in a good place either(the fact that the “3” paths more often than not, feature the same areas with slightly different bosses is weak). Of course we can’t the almost complete reversal of everything they said pre-launch(manifesto, conventions, interviews, etc).

People expected ArenaNet to build on GW2 and in almost 2 years they still really haven’t done that. The things they have added are either disjointed, temporary, or purely flavor.

You could take this exact post, insert almost any mmo game name and/or company name in place of GW2 and Anet, and see this post on almost any mmo forum out there.

I kept it vague so I wouldn’t have to type out all the things that are specifically wrong. If you want me to make the statement very specific then I can and you certainly won’t be able to apply it to another MMO/company. Seriously, I’ll spend a few hours typing up an “anti-manifesto” if you will, on the things ArenaNet has failed at. Just say the word :P

Most of the GW2 hate is due to extremely poor post-launch development. We still have incredibly unbalanced builds/classes that seemingly get worse the few times a year they actually try and balance. The entire class system is built on extremely flawed components(conditions, stats, formulas, etc) Temporary content is fine when endgame foundations are solid, but GW2 endgame has NEVER been solid. Dungeons were never in a good place either(the fact that the “3” paths more often than not, feature the same areas with slightly different bosses is weak). Of course we can’t the almost complete reversal of everything they said pre-launch(manifesto, conventions, interviews, etc).

People expected ArenaNet to build on GW2 and in almost 2 years they still really haven’t done that. The things they have added are either disjointed, temporary, or purely flavor.

buckeyecro.9614:

I’m expecting several underpopulated WvW realms will undergo some form of merge, regardless of what the merge is called or marketed as. This is the technically the easiest way to solve the glaring coverage and scoring system problems in WvW. But this is the worst change the community can go through. Merging is probably only a matter of transferring account data to another hard-drive, and shutting down the hard ware.

I can imagine coding a new scoring algorithm could be extremely complicated and take numerous man hours to complete. The merge would only take hours to complete mainly depending on data transfer speed and amount of data transferred. It frees up state of the art servers to be used for other purposes by NCSOFT.

EDIT: My previous post on the Traits General Feedback Thread, explains what I would like to see changed in GW2, and why.

I want to be proven wrong about my suspicions, but I’m not optimistic about it.

There was a MASSIVE outcry for scoring system literally within a month or so after launch. This was back when “coverage” was called “night capping”. I remember a dev saying something along the lines of “We don’t want to change the scoring system in a way that peoples contributions at certain times of day are worth less than others”. Which I found hilarious because that is EXACTLY how it currently is.

No one can try and defend ArenaNet’s behavior anymore. Even if coding a new scoring system is complicated, they’ve had almost 2 years to do so. They’ve also had 2 years to communicate with the WvW community and have only done so a handful of times and often only when pressed. Before GW2 released I would have said that ArenaNet was one of the best MMO developers, now however, they get failing grades in almost every aspect. Their balance team is easily the worst of any AAA mmo; even a lot of indie and asian MMO’s are a lot better. Communication is obviously a great big F. Their design decisions are almost always somewhere south of atrocious, just look at the trait system changes. I can’t really think of a whole lot that they do well anymore.

I think the community just needs to face facts, anything that could possibly make this game drastically better won’t happen anytime in the near future, if ever. ArenaNet has some major issues to deal with internally before they can fix things. I’m not sure if it’s money issues, staffing issues, management issues, working on an expansion, pure incompetence, or what, but that really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it gets handled and more importantly when? Until then you might as well talk to your pillow because at least after your words fall on deaf ears you’ve still got a useful pillow :P

How about we make each armor type have pros and cons and allow every class to choose what they wear. There is no real reason why an elementalist can’t wear heavy armor or a warrior to wear light armor. Almost all classes have melee and ranged fighting styles.

I know some people will say “but what about class balance!”. To that I say, what balance? You could make this change tomorrow and things will be just as “balanced” as they are now because there is no real metric for balance in this game. Similar abilities have different scaling/damage. Similar traits in different places on the trait lines. It really couldn’t hurt the game at this point.

Carighan.6758:

We already have a concept of class-conditions and -boons.

It’s not hard-enforced, and the addition of sigils and runes negate much of it, but in theory, classes have different buffs and debuffs they provide far in excess of what other classes can do.

Examples:

• Warriors: Stability
• Mesmers: Confusion
• Guardians: Aegis. I would also add Burning, but that is sorta-shared with Elementalists.
• Rangers: Cripple/Immobilize (this rarely seems to be distinct much, classes which have a lot of one tend to have a lot of the other, too).
• Thieves: Blindness.
• Necros: Fear

But do keep in mind that we also have something like “secondary” classes. Engineers and Warriors – non-runeset – provide less Confusion than Mesmers but they can do it. Necromancers do Blind, Elementalists can provide half the conditions and boons under the sun but never all at the same time, etc, etc.

The concept is clearly there in the class design, buried deep down somewhere! It’s just that with runes and sigils, it became nearly meaningless.

The concept is there, but much like everything else post-launch they decided to go another direction, which was wrong. The addition of torment to most classes was not needed. The addition of perplexity runes and torment sigil were not needed. What they needed to do was limit each class to 2 damaging conditions and 2 secondary conditions. Then rebalance the conditions to be a bit more equal like poisons/burns stacking but doing lower damage. You could even add effects to damaging conditions like poison has like bleeds reduce endurance regen, burns have a chance to remove a boon, etc.

It will absolutely never happen though. You only need to look at their class development and balance since launch to know that it would take them literally years to make the changes necessary. Instead they will keep putting in new sub-par traits/skills, like putting paper on a bonfire in an attempt to put it out.

We tried to explain why initiative was a terrible system in beta and it fell on deaf ears. There are just too many problems with it that it will never be balanced, especially with the speed that ArenaNet does class balance.

I mean there is sustained dmg vs burst dmg where if you balance for one the other suffers. That has huge implications in build variety and PvE vs PvP balance. Then of course you have the issue with spammable abilities, they obviously have to be balanced much differently than ones based on cooldown alone. Obviously spammable abilities can’t have the impact of say a 40s cooldown ability since max initiative would leave them at ~12s. That obviously leads to the number of abilities a class can use at the start of a fight. With 2 weapon sets on most classes you can obviously use 10 abilities before really waiting on cooldowns, a thief can use 3-4.

The whole system is a big catch 22. Impact has to be low because abilities are spammable, but since they can only use 3-4 they need to have more impact. Too much initiative regen and burst is too high but too low and sustained damage is bad. It will never be fixed.

If they needed to keep initiative I would have liked them to apply it to utilities/elite instead and given the weapon sets normal cooldowns.

Ross Biddle.2367:

SqueamishMoose.9216:

It’s clearly shown that Blackgate can win against either team when they are separated and when they aren’t allied against us. I personally don’t care if we get double-teamed in the off-season, because it doesn’t matter. However, it seems rather unfair to me that Blackgate is getting double-teamed during a tournament, where the score amounts to a reward. It’s pretty much impossible for us to win if it isn’t going to be a fair fight.

Can you define a “fair” fight for me? I’d <b>love</b> to see what BG comes up with within the context of it’s victories.

Just to start, I’m on IoJ server.

I’d love to know what context you’re even talking about because BG has beaten both TC and JQ when they aren’t together without colluding with another server to do so. They even beat them both in round 1. Even if you want to bring up the 2v1 in S1, that was purely due to ArenaNets terrible matchups, the basics of that agreement were JQ can’t win W1 or they’ve already won the season. It had nothing to do with hating JQ, it was purely so the other two servers at least had the chance at winning.

This 2v1 isn’t because either server is at a huge disadvantage and they need to band together to compete. All 3 servers are a relatively fair matchup as far as WvW matchups go. This is done purely out of laziness, cowardice, greed, and trolling. JQ and TC were too lazy to put in extra effort to win so they decided to take the easy route and go for a 2v1 to get the rewards with the added trolling bonus of keeping BG from doing anything since the matchups were fair to begin with. It’s pathetic really that both JQ and TC that were respected servers had to resort to such tactics. I really don’t know what JQ and TC are trying to accomplish here because it just makes them look bad.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Niko Stark.8932:

It’s a 2v1 because it is the only way for JQ and TC to beat BG. Not the soft 2v1 where you have a mutual understanding of when and who to focus on, as with BG + TC and BG + SoS, but a real 2v1 where 2 servers are free to stand next to each other or back up each other’s zerg groups. Despite all the cries of “we only want BG tears” or “BG = stackgate”, it all boils down to the fact that this is the ONLY viable option for JQ or TC to have a chance at 1st place. Also because it’s sweet revenge for being stomped in Season 1.

One thing you’ll never see is a commander from neither TC or JQ claiming that their server can match BG in manpower, coverage, tactics, or discipline/cooperation of individual players.

Eitherway, I’m getting my weapon skin.

Explain to me how anyone got stomped S1 when W1 someone got 2v1 with BG being in the 2 and the only time the 3 T1 servers matched up in one week was W1 and the last week when SoR already fell apart. Never knew stomping T2 servers was an accomplishment to BG. clapclap #bglogic

Because the 3 T1 servers didn’t have to all be in the same match for one server to win over another. W1 BG pulled ahead during the 2v1, a 2v1 that was absolutely necessary for SoR or BG to even have a chance at winning due to the terrible schedule. W2 BG beat SoR and queue implosion. W5 Blackgate beat Jade Quarry and again in W7 alongside the imploded SoR. Blackgate beat both servers fair and square and that is an accomplishment.

Chunky Milk.2130:

Perfectblue.6409:

Chunky Milk.2130:

You preach about not having “egoism” and then finish your thought with irony.

I guess it’s only natural you have a hint of delusion as well…

I am very clear mate. I was just replying to the OP that winners will be easily carried away by ego. And BG has many of them. What I meant was, when you (TC) finally be winners, I hope you don’t get caught in the hype too

That’s the thing I don’t think you aren’t getting. No one on JQ or TC cares who wins, as long as it isn’t BG.

They certainly do care and that’s exactly why they are doing what they are doing. JQ couldn’t win alone, if they could they would have and the same goes for TC. So they band together on the guise of “we just don’t want BG to win” because it increases their chances of winning. In reality they wanted to win and this is their best chance at it. If they were truly anti-BG it would have been a 2v1 from the start, but it wasn’t because no one knew how the first match would turn out. Once it was obvious who would win it was suddenly “We hate blackgate because mumble mumble”. But keep trying to mask the servers true motives…

It doesn’t even really who wins. Whether it’s JQ or TC it will have an asterisk next to it just like JQ/SOR stamping “buygate” on BG’s win last season. I honestly look forward to JQ or TC trying to brag about the season win. If this was 2 tier 2 servers coming together to beat BG it would be an awesome accomplishment, but as it is it’s just pathetic.

MikaHR.1978:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Eliandal.8735:

……All this is doing (at least in our bracket) is breeding fair weather WvW. If it’s the first matchup – people just don’t show (queues on all maps are gone within 2 hours on Friday night) whereas for the second – well we’ve had off and on queues for different maps all weekend

And therein lies the main problem with WvWvW. Anet has no way to know the percentage of fair-weather players. Servers which actually could compete with each-other simply give up due to morale issues, internal politics, or lack of desire/ability to change tactics for different opponents.

Add to that the insistence on using ranking systems designed for professional sports (or chess) where the team sizes are static and the rosters are known to all sides for a 24/7 game-mode without set teams. Expecting consistent performance from thousands of random people who basically amount to hobbyists (even the most hardcore) is ridiculous.

Swiss is actually great, but with current setup it should be 3 weeks, absolute maximum of 4. Anything over that doenst make much sense (as now experienced)

I could see this working for 4 weeks and 2 leagues, but need to add/remove servers for that so i guess it wont happen.

Swiss is good when all competitors have a decent chance of winning. However that is not the case here since T2 has no chance at beating T1. In chess the favorite player can still be beaten by the player ranked last if he screws up or lets his guard down. In GW2 T1 players could play half as much with their attention on TV and still trounce lower tiers.

The problem with GW2 is that it rewards you bread crumbs instead of a loaf of bread. Sure there are plenty of asian MMO’s out there that have way longer grinds(I used to play MUonline), but compared to western MMO’s GW2 is definitely a grindfest. Even WoW vanilla felt a whole lot less grindy that GW2 does. It has a lot to do with the fact that dungeons/raids/PvP actually rewarded good gear(whole loaves of bread) and gave you a sense of progression. Even if you didn’t get anything on a dungeon/raid it still gave that sense that you were well rewarded for doing it and made you want to do it again(until of course you realized you slighted the RNG gods and run 13 is still a bust). In GW2 you only ever get small amounts of gold, a few tokens, or karma, which I guess they have abandoned. It’s extremely sad when someone does say Tequatl every single day and all they have to show for it is some ectoplasm due to the loot being 99% trash.

Since we still have servers and those servers have population imbalances as well as time zone coverage imbalances there are no tournament systems that will work. There are very few “fair” match-ups and those quickly become imbalanced from transfers. Even when matched against those closest to your servers score there will almost always be a dominant server. Until population, scoring, and coverage issues are addressed there should be no more seasons. Of course the population and coverage issues will never be addressed and therefor we will never have a decent competition. You can thank those that scream “community” whenever a possible solution is even brought up.

Sirendor.1394:

If you want better RvR: Elder scrolls online.
If you want better PvP: Any FPS or you could enjoy TPvP.

ESO RvR is just as bad as GW2, I’d wager most of those saying otherwise are trying to justify the sub.

FPS are not that great for PvP. They come down to two major things knowing the maps(IE hiding spots) and twitch reflex. MMO style combat has the potential for a much higher skill level as well as tactics and strategy.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I can’t believe what I’m reading,… people requested a system like this since release of GW2 – something that has been in GW1 from the get go. Now we got it and people cry how they need to do open world stuff / quests in order to unlock it. Seriously?

Personally I think this is wonderful. I have tons of new traits I can work towards to, and if I’m tired of a build I have to go adventuring to become better. It feels much more like GW1 to me, in a good way.

No, I do not want everything unlocked from the start.
Yes, I want more stuff to do in the open world.

Honestly: thank you, Anet! These changes made the game so much more fun to me.

Because GW1 was a different game and trying to shoehorn that system into GW2 where most of the game is already shaped around it’s lacking trait system is just going to completely screw things up worse than they are. There are also tons of differences between Gw2 and GW1 that cause this system to be a huge failure. First we have the progression gap, 1-30 is a very long time to have absolutely no character progression or customization. In GW1 you had attribute points right away to at least give you the sense of progressing/customizing your character. Then we have the fact that GW1 unlocked SKILLS, which is much better than traits. Skills are gameplay changing, traits can certainly be gameplay changing but only when you have a bunch of them working together, which won’t be happening for a very long time while leveling and possibly not even until after you’ve hit 80. Of course some the unlocks being impossible to unlock at lower levels is a huge bumbling oversight and certainly doesn’t help polish the kitten .

I absolutely hate the new system and knew that when it was announced. GW2 sorely lacks character progression/customization and moving what little it had to much later in the game just makes things frustrating. I really can’t understand how they thought this would be a good idea. The fact that the old system handed out all the traits for relatively low cost/effort doesn’t help things either. If you got in a line where people were being handed a bag of money and when it came your turn they handed you a shovel and said “dig for it”, you’d be a little upset. GW2 is not setup for GW1’s system. If they wanted to stick with this system then they need to add a new progression system that makes it feel like you’re progressing/customizing your character starting in the early levels. The game overall needs more depth and a new system could really help there.

Forzani.2584:

That’s one of the problems, they do play the game. Most games have a test server where the players can test things out. Here? They do it themselves. Did you see the twitch feed when they were introducing the new pvp map? the dev was giddy with excitement talking about how the map was gonna be great for his thieves blinks/teleports. We are in their world.

New blood? Maybe, maybe not. What they do need is some oversight. Someone that is in charge of quality control. Someone that doesn’t play the game so he has no bias towards any class. Someone that reads the forum or talks to a few random players about game flaws. Then goes back to the team and asks why?

No I didn’t see the new map one, but I did see the one where they were joking about how OP warrior is. They can be excited about maps all they want but they also need to realize when they’ve failed. Testing it yourself is fine for big bug issues but I can guarantee that the staff they have aren’t nearly as good as some of the players and won’t think of the things that the overall playerbase does.

I’ll definitely agree that they need something. Heck even 1 dev per class would be a huge boost. Their balance speed is absolutely glacial and 99% of the time the community can theorycraft the outcome. If they were more open about changes they wouldn’t even need to spend weeks in-house testing. The community would basically figure it out for them. However once again we go back to them just not listening. I mean they posted this patches class balance stuff a month ago and I can think of 1-2 things that got changed from feedback; One of which was them actually making the right change in the notes and then changing it due to whiners(I’m looking at you mesmers).

Splatter Paw.7238:

Lol do you need to see him? Where does a thief need to position to get a BS? Your back! You should revise how you deal with stealth if because you can’t see him, all counter play is void to you for his one trick pony build.

He can also just hit you from either side and get the back damage bonus. Basically it gives thieves a 75% chance of landing a good backstab.

Personally I don’t care what class is doing it, but there shouldn’t be ANY skills in the game doing such huge bursts. I mean some classes can literally be one shot and that’s not skilled play. It ultimately pushes everyone to have survivable builds, oh I wonder why bunker builds are a big thing…

ArenaNets balance team has failed by every single metric since launch. Conditions are an absolute mess both in PvP and PvE. Rangers…nuff said. Tons of traits are absolutely useless and misplaced in trait lines. I mean the list goes on. If I failed at my job for a single month I would be fired, but here we are 1.5 years in and every patch we get the same trash where things that need fixed weren’t, things that didn’t need changed were, and makes you wonder if they even play the game. They need some new blood on the balance team and most certainly a new direction for where to take balance. Whatever they are doing is not working and it needs to change.

Apparition.1576:

So your arguement for greatswords burst is, that if combined with axe its not useless?

So my rebuttle would be, that would be more of a statement regarded Axe effectiveness and Greatsword lack of.

Three things I want to bring up,

Firstly, the individual might not be using axe as his alternative build. So should any greatsword build be deemed useless if not combined with another weapon?

Secondly, good players don’t get caught with hundred blades period. Hundred blades is a skill that takes at least one utility skill in order to land. Bulls Rush or bola now that Warrior stuns were nerfed but that’s another story. Even with that said, even those skills no good players should ever be hit with.

Lastly, my main point is that you are not thinking about this the right way. Buffing greatsword WILL NOT be a buff to warriors. It will allow them to choose between whether to use greatsword, hammer, and axe for #1 skill damage.

Keep in mind, that Axe, especially not. Axe 1 out damages GS1 by a LARGE Margin (already before feature update pack). Hammer 1 does higher burst AND weakens enemies.

You can’t be damaged by multiple weapons at the same time, there is a reason GS 1 is a joke in pvp environments. Because the only thing players have to do is just stay moving,

I reiterate buffing GS 1 Greatsword is not going to make warriors any stronger. It may just allow warriors to not be so reliant on axe burst or hammer stuns…

Greatsword is a utility/mobility weapon, of course it needs to be paired with another weapon to get the most out of it. Every class has weapons that are best used in combination with another.

Good players won’t get caught in a FULL 100b, that doesn’t mean they won’t take a few hits. You don’t need to land a full 100b for it to be effective either. Not only will you have done damage but you’ve potentially had them waste a dodge and if they are melee you’ve stopped them from doing damage.

Buffing GS is most certainly a buff to warriors. Here is the point that you’re missing completely. Even if GS is the warriors worst weapon, it is still better than most of the weapons other classes have. This means that warriors other weapons need to come down, not buff GS. The warrior is a powerhouse with multiple great builds and you want to buff them some more? I know you’re going to come back with “then other classes need buffed”. NO, the TTK in PvP is already too high. If we keep buffing it will end up with all classes able to one shot everyone. The powercreep needs to stop.

Since GW2 released ArenaNet has always taken one step forward and one ortwo steps back. Take a loot back at Ascended gear. Putting in a new progression dungeon(fotm) was good, having upgrades that would specifically help in that dungeon was also good, but making a higher tier of gear and allowing it outside the dungeon completely negated any good that was done. Then it was guild missions which was a good idea, however small guilds need not apply so that was bad. Even this patch. New traits are a good idea, however a complete trait revamp that screws new players is bad. This list can certainly go on.

I will commend that ArenaNet is at least finally making some bigger changes(whether they are the right ones or not is very debatable), however they need to keep them up and really put thought behind their designs. Another feature patch simply can’t take more than 3 months. New games are coming and customers faith is already on it’s last legs. They cannot stick to the glacial pace of class fixes/balance, they can’t keep putting out temporary content when the core game is lacking. The main thing that has even afforded them the time they’ve gotten so far is simply the B2P model.

Legendary items allow you to change stats and will always have the best stats if I am not mistaken. That alone is reward enough. When stats get increased again I’m sure you won’t be complaining about having 2 of them then.

Talyn.3295:

Distaste.4801:

So I’m selfish for wanting WvW to be healthier for all players? The word you’re looking for is selfless.

No, that isn’t the word at all. I am at least honest about my intentions, and if they are selfish or not. I won’t claim any moral high ground. You say you want want is good for wvw or a healthier one, however you want to make a choice for us. You don’t represent the whole community.

There are people who made choices, you want to un-make those. By telling us we have to play your way. And you are telling us its the best way. I will agree with Deli above me winning does come up a bit to much on your post. But I won’t say that is your only reason.

There are three groups of people on here. Those who move to big servers for bigger fights and those who move to smaller ones for smaller fights. And those who want there cake and eat it too. What you want is to tell them all they need to play your way. Which they don’t need to. Servers are fine. We don’t need any changes, and I am willing to be most of us don’t want them either.

You’re still not getting the idea at all. We implement a system that incorporates the communities we currently have and even give room for new communities to appear, all while balancing out the populations. This could incorporate new map rulesets, like a lower population roamer map, GvG match maps, etc. Things that try to cover all aspects of what people enjoy in WvW so that most people are covered.

As for winning coming up. I AM FROM BLACKGATE, I’ve won plenty. This isn’t some rant from a person on a lower server that doesn’t win matches. The point is that WvW is a competition and a lot of the fun in a competition is the fair chance at winning. The problem with the current system is that the population/coverage differences are so big that from match to match you either stomp the enemy or get your face pushed in. I love good close matchups win or lose, I don’t enjoy winning by a huge margin and no one enjoys losing by a large margin. I’m sure a lot of people would agree with me there. The game needs a system that brings close matchups back.

My vote is towards greater good of everyone by trying to find a new system that pleases the majority. Your vote is to stomp around saying “NO” and sticking your head in the sand while ignoring the problems. The mere fact that you cannot recognize there are major problems is baffling, have you not read the WvW forums for the past year? I guess if things are fine on Blackgate though then it’s fine for everyone…

Talyn.3295:

Now this is the pot calling the kettle black is it not it? My community is strong becasue we worked at it and we made it strong. EoTM failed fore a number of reasons. Which have been discussed to death.

Sever pride is one of the few things that keep people playing this game. Color Pride isn’t gonna do it.

Let people move where they like. You complain people want to be on the top Servers. Give them a reason to be on your server. If you can’t do that. I don’t see where you have the right to complain.

You think you are the first person to come up with these questions

So I’m selfish for wanting WvW to be healthier for all players? The word you’re looking for is selfless.

People want to have a fair chance at winning and to play with other people, that is why they go to top servers. It is absolutely no fun to run around a zone with zero friendly players only to get run over by an enemy zerg. This tournament just highlights the problems with servers with a giant neon sign. There is only one matchup in the game that is even remotely competitive and I’d bet after next week even that starts getting extremely lopsided.

If all you have to offer for a solution to the current problems is recruit, which caused these problems, or don’t complain, then clearly this discussion is over. You’ve failed to see that continuing as is will just push the game further towards it’s demise, if you can’t even see that then good luck in the next game, I hope you learn from what you’re about to experience.

Communities absorb members who fit into them. snip

Communities don’t absorb those that fit into them because communities can’t control who joins the server. I’d put money on there being more than a few guilds on each top server that the “community” wish would leave. The community by the way is extremely subjective. To you it might be a bunch of guilds that all participate with each other, to others it’s who they see in chat; point being that you might control who joins a guild alliance on a server but that doesn’t mean you can stop people from changing the overall community.

A lot of people simply won’t care about merges, they will quickly adopt their new identity, build new communities and continue on. You also again assume that there will be no way for communities to be matched together. If all JQ players are matched with JQ players whenever possible they won’t even notice much of a difference.

Again, communities absorb members. You pick a community that has a similar outlook on things. SoR was a good example of two separate communities who were lumped together and wanted different things. One half wanted to just play for fights and when they were given EoTM they took it. Leaving the rest to sink or swim as they best they could. I do not want to see what happened to them happen to any other server.

Where do you expect these communities to go when the number of viable servers drops? More SOR like situations are coming except there will be nowhere to transfer. If we have a new system where communities can congregate without being forced into other communities while still having a fair chance at winning the game will be better off.

Server based WvW works. snip

Server based WvW doesn’t work, just look around. Every week most of the matchups are complete blowouts. The tournament outcome will be known by week 3(REAL competitive huh?). How many server implosions have we had? How many dead/dying servers are there? If you were around at launch then you’ll remember that transfers was a very hot topic and people begged ANet to close them but it took too long. That was the beginning of server stacking to dominate and also the start of WvW’s demise. Leaving things as they are is throwing dirt on the coffin.

I am not advocating EotM style gameplay, which is a point you’ve missed. I’m saying that we need a new system that removes servers to balance the population, adds things for the communities to rally behind, and helps bring about fair competitive matches. EotM is none of that, it is purely a testing ground and a waiting room. It should remain that way.

Talyn.3295:

Call me selfish if you want. But I honestly don’t care.

Everyone in the lower tiers knows exactly how this game is played. If they want to be part of a bigger community they only need to move up. There were many people that did this during the free transfers. HoD got a lot of them. And for those players I am happy.

WvW is dog eat dog. There is nothing balanced about it, and that is why I love it. I fought like crazy the other night when I score dipped. And yesterday my server re-rallied to lift the score back up.

If your community can’t survive its not only the top servers fault. Some of time time its because there is no effort to make a community. Ask yourself why they left the server? Was the community even there? Everyone has to be accountable for there own actions.

Not everyone started at the top of T1 some of us had to work our way up, fight by fight.

The suggestion to break apart what as be built simply because others are not able to build up the same is selfish in and of itself. I don’t know when it happened but these days working hard and being successful seems to be something to be ashamed up not celebrated.

I will never support anything other then letting players move where they want to move by there own choice.

You’re both selfish and shortsighted. It’s all fine and dandy until this actually starts to impact you. I’d be willing to bet that when it finally does you’ll be right here on the forum asking why ArenaNet isn’t doing anything.

Here is a few things to think about. If the population continues to decrease due to bad matchups, population imbalances, etc what will happen to WvW? If communities keep absorbing other communities at what point is the original community gone?

Done thinking? Here is how I see things going if things remain the same. Populations will continue to decrease and ArenaNet will put even less resources into WvW, which is incredibly bad for anyone that likes WvW. People will continue to condense onto the top 3 servers or quit until all other servers are ghost towns. The communities you’re fighting so hard to protect now will eventually be mixed with the communities of all the other servers, which is exactly what you’re trying to avoid.

The options before you are keep WvW as it is, all communities will end up merged anyway, and WvW will die. Or we can condense the population, give communities new flags to rally behind, and try to revitalize WvW. At worst the end results are the same, at best getting rid of servers renews interest in WvW and gets it more developer resources. It isn’t even a hard choice, but too many selfish people scared of change will doom WvW to stagnation.

First off, the megaserver system will try to place players together based on server, guild, friend, etc. That means that if your server can field an entire map by itself you’ll likely not see any change. Second with guesting the issue, or non-issue rather, already exists. Blackgate already gets tons of guests to their PvE maps and clearly this is not a problem.

I’d also like to ask that people here actually think about someone other than themselves for a second. Even if there are minor ill effects to some server communities, the overall boost to the games health trumps that. Would you rather have your server community with a handful of people left playing or a whole lot more people playing and your community expands from serverwide to gamewide?

The same logic applies to WvW but the server pride blowhards can’t think outside their small boxes to understand the situation. We can either have a bunch of dying servers and server pride(how it is now) OR we can kill servers to condense/balance the population and give the server communities something new to rally behind.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Its not really the condition damage that is the problem. It is the NUMBER of conditions that can be easily applied without any thought at all. It is just spam, spam, spam. Then we get into Conditional removal which unless specifically built just to counter – not kill just counter condition builds mean you won’t be killing anyone and you will be killed by any hybrid or power build.

Pretty much every condition build has too many conditions, except Ele which have to rely on rune sets and Sigils to grab as many new Conditions as they can. Look what Condi Necro and Engineer can do compared to Condi Ele. Any build that is built for Anti conditions won’t have a problem with Ele because Ele can not spam numerous conditions over and over again. That is how ALL condition builds should be.

Rather than just spamming them from the moment you get into combat it should be about using the RIGHT condition at the RIGHT time. None of this Grenade spamming while at range and then spamming Pistol/Shield and Bombs. Or spamming auto attacks for conditions combined with Signet of Spite.

Finally! Someone gets it!

The conditions need an overhaul badly. Each class should have access to 2 damaging conditions which means removing condition application from runes/sigils on top of removing them from classes. All damaging conditions should stack(damage balance needed), all conditions should have a secondary effect like poison(burns could remove buffs, bleeds increase endurance costs, etc). Stacking of conditions needs rebalanced since some are/would be easy to stack to 25 in seconds. Condition removal needs rebalanced so it doesn’t remove an entire stack.

The effect would be conditions would be actual attrition instead of burst. You wouldn’t need a ton of covering conditions to deal with removal since a single cleanse wouldn’t negate a ton of your skills. With all damage conditions stacking it balances them out damage wise and has the bonus effect in PvE of poison/fire combo fields not being absolutely worthless.

style.6173:

Distaste.4801:

DevonCarver.5370:

DaMikenatr.7041:

I know we don’t really speak well of the CDIs at times, but they did make a post addressing how they understand the World Identity is too important based on player feedback, so I don’t know that they would change something in that direction. Of course all we can do for now is speculate.

To quell speculation early, that is not what we are doing. The announcement will have more info, but we are absolutely not getting rid of worlds and putting everyone into an EotM type system.

This is very sad news and a bad design decision. The only 2 options I see left on the table are grouping servers together on one side and of course just merging servers. The first option will not in anyway fix the coverage problem as SEA/EU coverage will still be on 1-2 servers. The second option effectively destroys the server communities of all but 3 worlds and once again does not fix the coverage issue. Maybe if you bring EU servers into the fold, but I believe long ago that was stated as not possible.

Unless of course you don’t think there is a problem with current population/coverage issues…that of course means we have an even bigger issue. Then again you guys thought another WvW tournament was a good idea, it’s not even a tournament since higher wvw population servers win, almost all current matchups are blowouts that are in no way fun. That of of course brings us back to the question then of, what are you going to do about the population/coverage issues that basically ruin any competition in WvW?

You are completely wrong. This is a great decision. Just because you do not have any server pride, a lot of others do.

Where you are correct is that longer term population differences need to be taken into account. Personally, I’d prefer to see a change to the scoring system to address that.

How do you propose that population issues get handled? How is changing the scoring system going to account for huge population differences? Scoring changes would only help in cases where the fights are already relatively close. The blowouts that normally happen would still be blowouts, unless of course that you weight the system so much and negate huge amounts of effort for the side that was winning. I don’t think I have to explain how that would be bad or end up getting abused.

In order for scoring changes to be effective the population needs to be condensed. That of course brings us to the crux of the issue, how do you condense the population with server pride standing in the way?

Karuna.1357:

yanniell.1236:

Factions is the solution for the worst WvW problem: coverage wars. It can’t come soon enough.

If you want to see the collapse of the entire game, then sure.

I’m already watching the game collapse. That’s what puzzles me about the people trying to stand by server pride. Server after server collapsing, people jumping from server to server to stack them, and most matchups being a complete blowout. Yet server pride > the overall WvW health. Let’s continue with server pride though, it’s done a real bang up job so far!

DevonCarver.5370:

DaMikenatr.7041:

I know we don’t really speak well of the CDIs at times, but they did make a post addressing how they understand the World Identity is too important based on player feedback, so I don’t know that they would change something in that direction. Of course all we can do for now is speculate.

To quell speculation early, that is not what we are doing. The announcement will have more info, but we are absolutely not getting rid of worlds and putting everyone into an EotM type system.

This is very sad news and a bad design decision. The only 2 options I see left on the table are grouping servers together on one side and of course just merging servers. The first option will not in anyway fix the coverage problem as SEA/EU coverage will still be on 1-2 servers. The second option effectively destroys the server communities of all but 3 worlds and once again does not fix the coverage issue. Maybe if you bring EU servers into the fold, but I believe long ago that was stated as not possible.

Unless of course you don’t think there is a problem with current population/coverage issues…that of course means we have an even bigger issue. Then again you guys thought another WvW tournament was a good idea, it’s not even a tournament since higher wvw population servers win, almost all current matchups are blowouts that are in no way fun. That of of course brings us back to the question then of, what are you going to do about the population/coverage issues that basically ruin any competition in WvW?

Ok I Did It.2854:

If they make WvW like EotM it will completely destroy communities, and will probably lead to the mass exodus of several big WvW guilds, with as Anet will soon be competing with other MMO’s coming out this year, it would not make sense to do this.

WvW should be left tied to a server, leave the mega server to PvE/sPvP ( if its needed )

It won’t destroy anything. The communities that exist just need a rallying flag to stand behind and currently that is servers. Most communities don’t care about the server name itself but the community around them. Take away servers and give them something else to rally behind and those communities will shift there with no issues.

You also ignore that the current system has destroyed many communities and will destroy many more. Due to servers and population issues people jump ship all the time. Heck just recently it was SoR who had it’s community gutted and dropped like a stone through the ranks, it certainly wasn’t the first time that happened.

So here are your options:
1. No more servers and 3 sides whether they are factions, colors, or whatever with an Eotm style overflow map system. Server communities are displaced temporarily and eventually rally behind a faction, color, etc. This helps alleviate the population/coverage issues.
2. Things remain as they are, population/coverage issues still remain, and communities continue to die as the population eventually condenses onto 3 servers anyway.

You have to be very short sighted to think that leaving things as they are will be anything but bad for WvW.

Overall this is going to be a huge positive addition to the game. I’m sure there are some cases where this won’t be a great change but to the overall population not having to guest to find people to play with or complete bosses/events is going to be awesome.

Welcome to what WvW has been dealing with guys . All of you can try and balance this rune via cooldown but I’ll say what actually needs to be said and this goes for WvW and PvP.

STOP PUTTING DAMAGING CONDITIONS ON RUNES/SIGILS

This just gives classes/builds more access to conditions and turns an attrition playstyle into burst. Each class should be limited to the number of conditions they can use. Instead make new/runes sigils bolster those conditions. Once you’ve limited the conditions then you can rebalance stacks and the number of cleanses. Otherwise you might as well just homogenize all the classes and give equal access to all conditions because that is what these runes do.

As much as I criticize ArenaNet, this patch does have some good changes in it. The only real rowdy people I see are the ones against the crit damage nerf and it was known since day 1 that cirt/critdmg was way over the top. If you somehow subscribed that it was okay then the varying levels of crit dmg per point of other stats on gear was a red flag that logicially it would get fixed. Even with some of the changes being bad this patch at least shows that ArenaNet is starting to actually make big changes to the game. If they can continue to do so every 3 months then GW2 will be better off than it was for the past 1.5 years. If they actually start consulting the community and listening, not these ignored CDI threads, they will be even better off. Through in a test server and you’ll definitely have people taking off the life jackets.

Anyone threatening to leave the game at the first real sign that ArenaNet is finally willing to make changes is bonkers. The real test is the patches after this one. They’ve already said offhand that the crit damage change was done in order for further changes to happen. Will conditions be addressed in both PvE and PVP? Maybe CDI stuff will actually be implemented?! This patch is just a door, what’s behind the door is what will determine if players leave or stay.

ArenaNet would rather add more skills/traits than fix old ones. They need to just go back to the original design they announced and see how that plays out. Maybe someday they will actually allow a vampire build, but considering the “buff” our siphon skills got it won’t be in the next year.

urieldhynne.2743:

Nice big gift pack in april to prevent player migrate to TESO online, now you are “listening” the community after a year ignoring us, but what about perma stealth?

Doesn’t everyone in ESO get sneak? I wouldn’t imagine people that hated perma-stealth on one class here migrating there where entire armies can sneak around unseen.

Realist.5812:

Doug.4930:

In a word, no. You need to play thief to understand how difficult it is to land a back stab whilst even crippled. Movement reduced by 50%? No one would run a melee thief, it would be impracticable and pain full.

Thieves are already getting hit hard with the upcoming crit dmg nerf. This would make the class almost unplayable.

Because only thieves use crit damage.

You still have stealth spam crutch to keep you from being killed. You’ll be fine.

The burst thief(warrior too) uses several damage modifierss in order to hit the big numbers, moreso than most classes iirc. So theoretically the thief is hit harder by this crit damage change than some other classes.

Is it really a crutch when that’s the ONLY thing keeping thieves from being killed? A crutch would be something a class relies on heavily when without it they are still fine. However a thief without stealth is a free kill. I mean I fully get that the current stealth levels are incredibly poor design, but that’s basically what the thief class has to survive. If we are going to start calling main class pillars “crutches” then Mesmer clones, Elementalist attunements, Necro Deathshroud, etc are all crutches that those classes use to keep from being killed. I wish they would just learn to play…sounds stupid right?

Allie Murdock.8152:

sPvP players don’t get experience by playing in it. In WvW, players gain experience from events and killing things.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, just pointing out that the two don’t really compare.

And in SPvP you don’t have to level so you’re not a huge detriment to your team. A lot of people want this purely so they can be on their level 80 characters, level their alts, and not bring their server down in WvW. If scaling were fixed and uplevels didn’t die instantly then it wouldn’t be such an issue, but it currently is.

Kharr.5746:

So many of these “why does the other class have more HP than my class” threads have been posted since launch that it is getting ridiculous. This game is not about raw stats, and never will be. Every class has a different playstyle and the game is quite balanced even if you don’t think it is.

If any of you want to know why ele only has less hp than warrior, you should look up some ele videos. Before they were hit with the nerf stick for several patches in a row, they could do 1 vs 10 (not kidding — see videos on youtube) even though they had only a little bit of HP. Eles are getting some nice buffs in the coming patch which will bring them back into competitive scenarios (staff ele is already used in high-level pvp and WvW). On a similar note, until healing signet got doubled in healing power, warriors were the worst PvP class despite having more hp and armor than any other.

I could go on explaining why each class has the base stats that they do, but that’d be a waste of my time. If you think x class is better than others, play it. Every class has a different play style and not every class can be mastered by every player.

Uhhh raw stats play a HUGE role in the game. Being able to hit 3200 armor without putting on full soldiers set allows some classes to pour even more into attacks. Certain classes do have access to certain survival traits/abilities but in most cases you need to spec a certain way in order to obtain them. That means that any build not using them is at a disadvantage when compared to the class that has innate defenses.

That’s what makes the who base health/armor differences a poor mechanic. Everyone should have equal stats to start with and then offering their defenses via skills/spec.

You can’t treat the thief like other classes in this respect. The initiative system was a bad design decision and thus this isn’t something that can be balanced easily if at all.

Initiative is a huge trade off and has pros and cons. The pros are that it allows the thief to burst by using the same skills in a row and use a skill every 3-6 seconds. The cons are that all your skills use the same pool and if you just used an attack skill and need a defense skill you’re toast, this also impacts weapon swaps since you can’t just swap and get 4 fresh skills to use. The normal system allows players to use skills when they are needed, but of course you can’t use the same skills back to back and some skills have much longer cooldowns.

If you slow the thief’s regeneration that impacts both their offense and defense entirely. This would then make chill worse for the thief than other classes in the game, which if we want balance shouldn’t be the case. A normal player only gets punished by chill for skills he uses, all other skills are not impacted until used while chilled. The thief on the other hand would immediately have all their skills effected even if they weren’t used. So slowing initiative does not balance the situation.

The best system I can even come up with would be that skills used while chilled on a thief would then get a cooldown at 66% of their initiative cost or if the thief wanted to bypass the cooldown the skill would cost 66% more initiative. 6 initiative attack would get a 4s cooldown or cost 10 initiative. A bit of pro-rating could then be done so if the person waited 2 seconds of the 4 then the skill would cost 8 initiative. This still basically cripples the thief’s ability to burst using the same skill which is the positive of the initiative system, it is better IMO than slowing initiative because at least all your skills aren’t impacted.

Anyway you want to do it though is going to be unfair to one side or the other. The initiative system isn’t very balanceable between sustain/burst and tossing in chill can completely destroy the thief class.

Alissah.9281:

Isnt life blast #1 in deathshroud? It cant be that difficult to use 1 skill every 10 seconds…

Several things add to it being a difficult thing to use. First off it’s tied to DS and that is our survivability. So keeping it in rotation is effectively limiting our survivability due to the DS cooldown. If you use DS for the burn and 5s later you need to tank some damage you’re toast. Lifeforce as condition spec isn’t nearly as abundant and once again using it up on a burn means you’re limiting your DS when you need it. Lifeblast itself can be dodged somewhat easily due to 1s cast time and projectile travel time so it’s unreliable. Then we have the DS condition combo of bleeding/chill+fear+torment and trying to stack Lifeblast into makes things harder and longer to pull off. The objective when the combo is done is to get in and out of DS as fast as possible to preserve lifeforce and get DS off cooldown for tanking damage.

I absolutely hate the direction devs are pushing the necro. They keep tying everything to death shroud and it’s simply not that great of a mechanic.

deathklock.4961:

JustARTificial.3175:

People won’t leave to play TESO. The game is riddled with more fundamental problems than GW believe it or not.

Both games are very similar in play style, i like teso better just because the amount of diversity in builds, and cryodill is bigger than all the gw2 wvsw maps combined, and you get mounts, and having such a large area to play, there is more smaller battles going on on the outskirts of the big zerg battles.

It only seems like there are diverse builds because people haven’t figured out what the best builds are yet. Once that happens things will narrow down very quickly. The same thing happened to GW2. At the start there were tons of different builds, but as people figured things out the builds dwindled.

Cyrodil is certainly big but with mounts and fast travel the net result will be similar to gw2. What I’m waiting to see is entire zergs sneaking around. that will be hilarious. People thought thieves/mesmers in gw2 were bad! I just have this picture of 2 enemy zergs sneaking around trying to find each other, let the hilarity ensue!

Shadowmoon.7986:

Just what I wanted in my DPS power trait line, a healing trait using conditions. PvE version of Dhuumfire is nerfed into the ground, necro are not getting any additional condi support for pve, but hey, warriors get another DPS multiplier.

Well to be fair that traitline is also for conditions. What irks me is they finally nerfed dhumfire into the ground and we don’t get our other condition nerfs that were done to balance OP Dhumfire reverted.

stobes.9254:

Lol the drama is real. If youre all so upset because of how “easy” it will be for pvpers to get a legendary, then form a team and see how easy it will be for you. Whoever wins deserves it. Doesnt matter if it took them less time, its going to be a LOT more challenging than getting one in pve. Theyre not competing in a kitteng hotjoin here, its a tournament with the best pvpers. Some of you need to stop being so emotionally attached to this game.

This problem is that it incentives one portion of the game as greater than the rest. I agree the winners should be rewarded with something awesome, but not something that tons of other people in other areas of the game have put in 1500+ hours to obtain and STILL haven’t gotten even the precursor. I realize that SPvP takes a certain set of skills and dedication, but so does WvW and fractals. By giving out legendaries in a SPvP match they are effectively saying that all other facets of the game are worthless compared to SPvP. Heck in PvE you have like a 1% chance of getting an ascended item. The people who have killed the 3 wurms should at the very least get a precursor but instead it’s junk loot and some coin.

I know why they are doing it though. It’s purely to get more people into SPvP in an attempt to make it an Esport. The problem with that is as soon as the event is over the “new” people will just go back to ignoring it. If they actually put some effort into actually balancing things and producing some new game modes it might actually take off. I’d love to play with my PvE character in different matches like all the other MMO’s and earn some unique skins. SPvP is just disjointed from the rest of the game, if it doesn’t advance MY character in some fashion(skins/items) there isn’t much point doing it.

I wish they would convert SPvP into regular MMO battlegrounds that people can queue for. Then produce a completely separate F2P game that is just SPvP with tons of skins, of course GW2 players can still play it.