Showing Posts For Lemondish.3268:
1 2
Been discussing this class a bit over on the subreddit and wanted to get some time in over here as well. I think the biggest issue with the Dragonhunter is a lack of playtime for many. This does not, in any way, strike me as a traditional ranged archetype, and because of that we haven’t had enough time to explore its intricacies. New types of encounters in the BWE suggest that we don’t yet know the value of some of these decisions. But I’ll get into that more in a bit.
The reason I say it doesn’t seem to be a traditional ranged class is that a lot of the criticism I see leveled at DH revolves around the idea of a ranged weapon being paired with what folks call “melee” traps. They feel a lack of cohesion here. The first misconception is that traps should only be used as a melee damage boost, dropped at your feet while ignoring the deep positioning and territory control concepts the skills possess. In just a few small examples in the first BWE, we can see that many of the open world encounters require mobile solutions. The fights aren’t entirely tank and spank any longer. Smokescales, Stoneheads, Pocket raptors – each one has a component that encourages different tactics. Stacking in melee to offload a bunch of traps isn’t going to be the best option.
Which brings me to the second great misconception of the DH – that a ranged weapon should always focus on keeping things at range. That doesn’t need to be the case, and the longbow shows us this. Just like traps, the abilities on the longbow are all about positioning and territory control. Puncture Shot and True Shot thrive on great positioning with the former providing skilled players with a guaranteed slow so you can effectively kite targets to where you want them to be. Everything about this spec appears to be designed around controlling the battlefield under the premise that you aren’t meant to keep things at range, just control them there. You have control over where an enemy is going and who it is allowed to hit. Then, when they inevitably reach you or allies in melee, it’s on your terms.
In that way, I think the weapon abilities and trap utilities successfully fit that purpose.
Not traditional ranged.
Bow, and we can be an old fashion “sapper”. A classic demolitions trope in fantasy lore that would fit engineer well.
Oooooh. With Rambo-style arrowheads!
I like this.
Being able to customize the Engineer weapons in any way would be mighty nice.
OP, keep in mind that we have no clue what the passives are on these. They could be the same as currently or be completely new. The blog post wasn’t clear on that. You also need to take a look at them as a companion piece to the longbow. They don’t necessarily have to be, but they seem far more interesting when you consider them paired.
Spear of Justice: Instead of causing Allies around you to burn on the their next hit you use throw a spear through a group of enemies that burns them as long as they remain within range. I don’t understand the tether part, but I’m guessing it’s not a CC tether but instead a conceptual one.
Maybe good in a zerg… maybe. I Depending on burning duration and application (many 1 second burns > 1 long cleansable burn) and number of enemies tagged.
I like it simply because it’s an ability I actually get to interact with by aiming and hitting a target rather than just a button that I press with no real feedback. I’m eager to see how it works with a few of the new traits like Permeating Wrath as well.
But in the end, this is a ranged tool that applies burn to multiple targets. With burns swapping to intensity stacking over duration, a continuous burn that refreshes when you keep the mobs tethered might actually be pretty fun. It rewards smart play which is always a good thing.
Wings of resolve. Leap and heal instead of a instant heal for the area around you. Good if you’re coming to the rescue of someone, but it’s also (probably) interruptable, negating all healing. A poor cousin to Merciful Intervention.
First, it appears as if you’ve completely ignored all the other potential uses of this ability by comparing it to MI. MI requires a friendly target while wings does not, which offers a variety of offensive and defensive options. It adds to your mobility while using a longbow, an absolutely necessary component to landing traps. Second, it helps with the backline support role as it allows you to relocate to where you’re needed most.
Lastly, you made a huge assumption here by speculating on its vulnerability to interrupts. I’m not sure that’s relevant critique since we haven’t gotten our hands on it.
It also looks bloody cool.
Shield of Courage. Instead of Aegis you create a directional shield that block projectiles. So, essentially a wall of reflection without the reflection. A directional sanctuary without keeping people out or healing. A directional shield of absorbtion maybe.
And I know that no one takes Merciful Intervention, or sanctuary, or carries a shield. But I think that emphasizes how poor a trade off these changes are. We don’t even like the better version of them.[/quote]
It blocks attacks for allies within its range, which reads to me to mean melee as well as projectile. It isn’t clear if this is a block version of the mist wall Revenants are getting. The blog post makes no mention as to whether it stays with you and there’s not much reason to think otherwise except that mobility seems to be a key component to the kit here.
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
The leap sounds like it could be neat, but I can only imagine it being used offensively as a gap closer, honestly. I really wish they would have given us a 4th virtue to tinker with instead, and just made these changes baseline so that virtues feel more important.
It’s mobility either way you look at it. Makes landing a trap easier as the ability to relocate pretty quickly helps with kiting. It also allows you to support from the backline in smaller groups where the current proximity of the base virtue limits your healing range.
OMG!!!!
ANeT looks like they’re trying to duplicate LOTRO. I stopped playing LOTRO due to the grind and the ridiculous way the changed “specialization” tree for characters. It became a chaotic mess.
A simple understandable trait system is best. You should stick with it. This new example looks like LOTRO. But obviously you’ve made up your minds to complicate the system and we can’t change it. Look what happened when you changed the original trait system. The vast majority hated it and it was poorly thought out.Please stop.
How is the current system better? How is it simpler? 99% of possible builds in the old system are complete crap. For example stuff like 1/1/6/5/1 with all Adept Traits, and that’s just an extreme example. Why would you want a system that has so many traps and pitfalls? Why would you think its simpler? What part of it do you prefer over this? Is it just an issue you have with the UI?
With the new system it will be much harder to create these kind of obscene crap combinations, since you’ll always get 3 Adept, 3 Master, AND 3 Grandmaster traits. The choices are a bit more limited, but it makes them much more meaningful. I’m not sure how this isn’t a simpler method. You can’t actually go wrong with this.
Isn’t this new trait system effectively the N(ew)P(layer)E(xperience) system being reskinned, rebranded and put into HoT so we all after swallow it?
That’s not the impression I got. In fact, most of it is completely different from the current system. I’m not sure why you think it’s just a reskin when completely new functionality is being added.
I don’t think this new one is going to be tolerable in any way.
Says the guy who didn’t actually read or understand it. Here’s a summary:
Only three trait lines can be chosen, but you can pick the grandmaster on all those lines. This means that every build will have exactly 9 Minor Traits and 9 Major Traits. Also, choosing a trait line will immediately give you some additional attributes or improvement to your class mechanic. This change makes it impossible to splash 1 point in a fourth trait line, but it’s not like many current builds do it anyway.
Trait choices will be more focused and easier to understand, but also more restricted. Every major trait will have only three choices and you won’t be able to pick a trait from previous tiers: for example you can’t choose an Adept trait on Grandmaster tier. Traits will be more powerful and you will be able to pick 2 more than before (9 Major Traits against the current 7), but choice will be a bit more limited (only 3 Adept, 3 Master, and 3 Grandmaster traits against the current 6 Adept, 4 Master, and 3 Grandmaster).
New profession specializations are actually one new trait line. As simple as that. Choosing that line will give you new skills, a new equippable weapon, and new class mechanics. This also means that you will be able to choose only two among other trait lines. [Personal note: I am a bit worried that profession specializations may be too similar to core professions… but we’ll see].
Professions will decide base attribute points, traits lines and gear will do the rest. Every player will have 1000 base points on every stat, then profession will add some points, then each chosen specialization will add more, and finally equipment will do the same. This means that some professions may have higher power that others, a bit like Warrior has currently more health and armor that others.
Unlocks in PvE are basically unchanged, while in PvP everything will be unlocked from start. They renamed “Skill Points” into “Hero Points”, but the concept is basically the same, except that you (probably) won’t be able to get more Hero Points than what you need to unlock everything. By spending points on a track you will unlock traits and skills related to that particular track: for example the “Signet Track” for Warrior will unlock Signet skills and maybe traits that influence Signet usage. No more hunting down traits through specific content – just do what you want in PvE and you’ll unlock them via hero points (aka skill points).
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
I’m excited for these changes. Here are a few of my questions:
- What happens to currently unlocked traits/skills? Do they remain unlocked in the new system?
- Are hero points remaining character specific (like skill points currently are)?
- We can currently trade skill points for specific crafting materials. Will there be a way to choose what we receive from excess hero points or is it random?
- What will happen to the skillpoint scrolls?
- When are you releasing this so I can inject it directly into my bloodstream?
Just read through the two blog post and my first reaction was that GW2 was basically going against what I expected from it. First with locking our possibilities at early levels as if all players were unable to understand to simplest of mechanism and second by turning traits acquisition into what looks like a grind festival. Frankly speaking I’ve never considered any unlocking of capabilities to be a desirable game feature because gaming has always been about content to me (lore, adventure, loot, …) and not about having to work just so I could use a single skill.
Initially I was excited about the extension but reading those latest two blogs about the specialization system killed all of it making me wonder if I shouldn’t quit the game instead, I have 8 alternates and I like to experiment (was planning on a 9th to get all professions), build flexibility is not something that is only important in PvP.
How do you feel about the current system?
So I’ve been gone from the game since before they redid the trait system. I’m not sure I remember anything about my old build except that I was using a pistol and shield and nearly all my gear is Berzerker’s (except I don’t remember ferocity being a thing). In any case, I feel like I’m probably going to need to relearn a lot of things build-wise since I have no clue where the meta is.
Where should I start to get back into the swing of things? Any guides for returning players? Any builds I should look at in the interim? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The cheapest way right now is buying gems, trading them in for gold and then buying them, farming 50g takes a Loooooong time (capital L), and these items are only dropping every 40-50 runs on 3 loot bags per run (tier 4). (that’s one every 5-6 hours for what it’s worth, and as someone who’s only gotten 2, I cannot guarantee that rate).
Sure, farming 50g takes a long time, but I can’t imagine most long time players don’t have that much available to spend at a whim. I don’t, since I’ve only just returned to the game after a really long hiatus. On the other hand, most of my guild mates bought them the first day, and they fully expect to recoup their losses before the next round of whatever content comes up that they can buy the rewards from. A couple of them haven’t even stepped into Candidate Trials. It seems odd to me that people would applaud the fact that you can only acquire these items from challenging content while being perfectly okay with people not having to do anything but clicking ‘buy’ to get them. At least if they were accessible in the easier tiers you’d have to do something to get it lol
You people are all hypocrites. “GW2 is too casual!” In comes Aetherblade Retreat and Candidate Trials. “Not everyone is competent enough for these types of content!” In comes more fluff. “GW2 is too casual!” Ad infinitum. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. There isn’t a subscription fee – no one is forcing you to pay it. Hell, if you don’t regularly buy gems to support the company, you shouldn’t even be complaining about free content in the first place. The devs themselves have stated that T4 Trials is challenging, though not necessarily rewarding, content.
If you really want the skins, go get a competent group and complete T4s, or go buy them off the TP. RNG weapons are RNG because it’s suppose to be a “limited edition” type of content; in other words, Anet wants to keep them RARE. When you are farming for a chance to get these skins, you have to realize that you are risking your time and effort for a chance. So whose fault is it when you put so much time and effort for an RNG weapon, only to get nothing in the end? You.
I think you’re missing the point here. A lot of the feedback folks are giving is that it isn’t fun. For GW2’s first foray into hardcore content territory, I think its pretty valid to tell Anet when it isn’t really doing it for them.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. If they could just come out and tell me that some of this content isn’t meant for me, then I wouldn’t sweat it. Instead it took a huge negative reaction to say anything about it.
Yes. Perhaps if they were more upfront about it at the beginning then maybe people would not have gotten so upset about it.
I think the fact thakittens so transient is also an issue. Content like this, even with all its flaws, could be accepted if it were permanent. That way players that aren’t the hardest of the hard core could work toward those goals and rewards at their own pace, learning from their mistakes and taking it on as often or as little as they wish.
Limiting the skins to the higher tiers feels like a big let down to me too. They’re not account bound or anything, so I can just buy them off the TP, which is actually a much more efficient and lazier method than doing it properly. At least if you could get the item in the lower tiers and it wasn’t account bound, you’d actually be doing something for it and thus feel that sense of accomplishment. Instead you can either achieve the item by buying it with gold, buying it with gems (through black lion chests), or actually doing the content.
yo anet
ignore all the kitten
pls keep making the content more and more challenging.
the world is a better place when the winners are few, and not everyone feels entitled to think they themselves are the best
This content encourages playing solo because its easier than in a group, which is kind of contrary to the whole philosophy of an MMO. It rewards exploiting while punishing those who missed the chance. It overvalues damage at the expense of build diversity, promotes cheesing due to mutually exclusive goals, and essentially forces you to grind and grind because it’ll only be here for another week. Not to mention the fact that luck in spawns plays a much larger factor than it ever should. All this without even guaranteeing you the real prize.
If this is the future of challenging content for GW2, then I think we should all be disappointed.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. I know what content I can do, and I feel like it was falsely presented as being doable given the early experiences prior to the patch.
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
I have a few suggestions for next time you guys decide to develop challenging content. There’s potential in this type of swarm content, but what you created here doesn’t live up to the potential.
1. Do not tie it to two separate achievements. Duplication of content is not a sufficient method for padding these updates. If it is unavoidable without making them appear too thin, perhaps consider going back to a monthly update plan.
2. Do not make the sought after rewards RNG. It encourages grinding rather than playing for the experience.
3. Do not split the player’s focus between two mutually exclusive objectives. Killing mobs is one thing, and therefore encourages you to be in the fray by the treasure piles. Catching Plunderers, the only thing that forces you to fail (aside from death) encourages you to stay away from combat and play on the beach by the big rock. The messaging here is all over the map.
4. Tweak the difficulty scaling so that doing it in a coordinated group is the preferred method.
5. Avoid just increasing health pools for higher tiers as that tends to kill build diversity and forces people to overvalue damage over everything else.
6. Do not limit this type of challenging content to only two weeks. It encourages players to rush into it in search of exploits or bugs and it punishes those that didn’t. With time, players can learn from their mistakes, practice the content, and really feel like they accomplished something when they finally achieve it. Instead it encourages smashing your head against the content until you get lucky because its so transient.
7. There appears to be a nasty bug that, unlike the spawn issue, will likely not be fixed due to the limited time the content will be available. When Plunderers reach their pile and are pulled or pushed away from it, they will deposit their loot no matter where they’ve been relocated to. Its as if they reach a specific point and cannot be stopped. There’s no real indication of how the player has failed in their timing. Pushing them away should require them to head back to the little lightning area instead of being able to deposit it wherever they are.
8. Make it fun. Even if the rewards are trash, people will play it for the experience.
9. Be more upfront about this content being designed for very few people. Had I known this before hand, I would have stayed away from it completely. I know I’m not a particularly good player, so if I know content isn’t designed for me then I can just skip it and do something I enjoy more. Like eating glass or sticking my hand inside a bee hive.
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
1 2