I’m not sure if this is exclusive to world vs. world, but a few people, including myself, have been stuck with permanent quickness for the past few hours. We don’t have the buff, but our casts are definitely twice as fast. It’s kind of game-breaking.
Balancing for bad players is impossible yes, but I’m pretty sure its not the case that more bad players randomly roll up Necromancers than other professions. Because it seems clear that more people struggle with this class (and maybe 1 or 2 others), up until or unless they stick with it long enough to get very good, vs certain other profs.
If enough people are ever going to care about this game to be interested in high level tourneys, you first are going to need a flourishing casual game to cultivate that interest. Which is harder to do when any Joe Shmoe can easily jump on a warrior or thief and do well off the bat, but not so much with Necro or other professions. In fact, I think it hurts a profession like the warrior to be so built or dependent on such simple good/bad mechanics like 100B, where there the dividing line of its effectiveness is so much in the hands of the opponent.
This actually isn’t true at all. League of Legends has ridiculously complicated mechanics that most people don’t come close to understanding, and it’s hugely successful. Some heroes and positions are completely impossible for bad or new players to manage.
Same deal with Starcraft 2. One race in particular is considered much more difficult than the other two, and some of the strategies and tactics professional players do would be simply impossible for low-level players to grasp.
If there’s one profession that most new players don’t grasp but the best players can pick up later and really get a use out of, that’s fine. It’s normal for any competitive game or sport.
A game needs to have some level of casual play, but it doesn’t have to include every class and role. It’s fine if some classes just aren’t accessible to worse players. That kind of diversity in challenge is good for the game.
Balancing the game at lower levels is impossible. Way too many of the perceived imbalances are people just being terrible at the game. For example, look at how many people still complain about warriors and Hundred Blades, which is extremely easy to prevent and avoid. If ArenaNet nerfed this ability, warriors would be gutted at high-end play, where balance actually matters due to tournament play, because a few people at low-level play have no idea how to move or position.
Besides, low-level players will always find something else to complain about. Bad players have a tendency to blame the game before themselves, which is why they stay bad. The best players are always analyzing how they did and how teammates performed, which is why they consistently improve.
I was never bragging. I was qualifying. But I do find it different how many psychological defense mechanisms kick in when someone brings up a game that someone else failed at or never quite grasped.
The difference between a professional sports player and a professional e-sports player is that professional sports are generally much easier to understand. What’s happening on the screen is readily apparent due to the stricter structure of professional sports. That doesn’t apply to Guild Wars 2; most people don’t come close to grasping elements like positioning or playing defensively with offense in MMORPGs. (I would be surprised if 90 percent of GW2 players even thought about proper positioning for one second.)
It would be one thing if the hosts were just playing devil’s advocate. That’s fine. But almost every conversation was ended with one of the hosts saying he disagrees. Silly.
It’s obvious this lack of humility will never change, so I’ll leave it at that.
cough bullfeces cough Every person who ever did was big into pvp (old Arathi Basin) later laughed about how crappy the 3v3 setup is and resilience was overpowered. Hell Swifty (aka razors pvp avatar in wow right now) said on Blizzcon 2009 that they are a bad joke, just as battlegrounds with how prevelant the damage reduction from resilience is (being able to wreck up to 69~73% total damage reduction),. I really dont know what it is right now since i had a big pause during Wrath and finally quit when they did the all dungeon nerfs in Cata, but PvP is and will be 3-6 interrupts, 2+ all movement impairing effect removals (counting trinket ofc) and a hardcore healer that the enemy wants to bring down with a lot of strafe behind pillars. What class is or isnt op really doesnt matter (used druid and pally as a example from when some of my friends did it and the arenajunkies tier list back then).
All this from a ex troll Shadow priest Vampiric embrace tap heal/battery.
I understand Swifty is popular because his videos are entertaining, but he was never high rated. He was never close to gladiator. I don’t think he even got hero of the Alliance (rated battleground title).
It used to be a very common misconception among low-rated players that resilience was the best stat, but it wasn’t. Using it was actually bad in a few comps — mainly cleaves and RMP — because having more offensive strength was much more important.
Anyway, this argument got away from the point. All I was saying is that any high-rated player from any MMORPG would be able to immediately understand why Symbolic is right, and it’s always frustrating to see low-level players act like they have the depth of knowledge to disagree in an educated fashion. More humility is necessary in these conversations.
Not that I don’t agree that players shouldn’t argue with those who are more skilled as a habit, but high ranked players are just people too. Just because a “pro” or high ranked player believes something to be true, doesn’t mean it necessarily is. I think this is even more the case in a game like GW2, where even the best are far from having had enough experience to know everything.
That isn’t to say that I, who have played all of 1 hour on a mesmer, should go around pulling stuff out of nowhere, but that many things are still very open to debate.
Many of the things Symbolic was talking about have little to do with the specifics of Guild Wars 2. Things like putting too much into one ability (Death Shroud) or relying on bad AI that has an extremely basic, common counter (pets and AOE) are just fundamentally bad spec and gameplay decisions. To anyone who has been high rated in any MMO, they’re decisions that are really obviously unviable.
They’re not bad issues to discuss because the conversation can help out worse players, but it’s cringeworthy to hear a clearly inexperienced person argue with someone who is considerably more experienced.
Yes, the WoW arenas that were 99% have pally and druid (or depending on their current balance warlock/shammy) that can keybind and win…
Oh and stack all the Resilience!
Barring healers, stacking resilience was terrible for most classes and comps. And I played long enough to see way more than just paladins and druids being overpowered, but I did not play those classes.
Just the fact you didn’t know these things should humble you a bit.
Not to be condescending, but as someone who was top 5 in World of Warcraft arenas, it always makes me cringe when low-rated players try to argue with high-rated players. It’s fallacious to submit to what an authority figure says, but everything Symbolic said is objectively true to anyone who plays Guild Wars 2 and has experience in high-rated PvP in any MMO.
The rest of the conversation was interesting, particularly how most low-rated or new players tend to underestimate necromancers and overestimate how imbalanced the game really is. The latter in particular happens in every MMO I’ve ever played.
I am completely open to criticism, so don’t worry about offending me.
I’m probably going to have to hold off on doing structured PvP, but I’m eyeing dungeon guides as revamps come into play. First up would obviously be AC.
A few people in my guild missed credit because of overflow on Sparkfly Fen. We also got the bounty in Blazeridge Steppes, so that could have been locked out if Shatterer was going on as well.
Actually, what inspired me to make this thread was the tier 3 bounty I did right before posting it, but that doesn’t have anything to do with my argument. Your post is an ad hominem.
The exhaustive organization required is only “challenging” at a meta level. It’s not actually difficult within the framework of the game itself. In other words, the gameplay isn’t challenging; the only challenge is getting enough people to follow the NPCs before starting and getting everyone else in position to tag the mobs for credit. That’s not the exciting hunt ArenaNet seemed to be going for when describing these missions.
The real issue is how terribly the mechanics scale on these bosses. They’re fun with five to 10 people, but they’re total loot piñatas with 30 or more.
Title says it all. Right now, there’s no challenge to it because big guilds just find all the targets before starting the mission, and actually killing the bosses isn’t very challenging.
I realize the patrolling paths will probably have to be made smaller as a remedy, but that’s better than the current situation.
Also, the targets die way too quickly, even at tier 3. It’s sad how many people don’t get credit because of loading screens.
ArenaNet can’t force people to not be lazy. The alternative to people camping is making the events random, which is debatably worse (see: Thaida Covington).
I have enjoyed exploring the world and finding the literally dozens of events and puzzles in the outdoor world that give the new chests. I’m also having more fun farming Orr now that I can diversify my gameplay with meaningful temple events and other bosses in between.
Wow to people who know I hate grind I find dailies aren’t as bad when compared to the terrible gold grind. I don’t mind doing dailies, meh the gathering is a bit annoying but tollerable.
The gold grind is tedious to almost silly. Find a market invest, rinse repeat for days and days on end. Or you can do CoF, or FOTM or Tunnel. Yep your sorta stuck to one of those choices. Its like work and completly contridicts Anet’s manifesto.
Except for dungeons, the best way to farm gold is hopping from world boss to world boss. I got like 12 rares in an hour earlier.
That seems to match their manifesto fine. Doing dungeons and world events is exactly what Guild Wars 2 PvE is supposed to be all about.
The developers likely have data that disproves most of the complaints in this thread for a huge majority of players. With the last two patches, the game, particularly in the open world, is more active than ever. Even low-level zones now have a ton of activity. And the daily achievements are definitely being completed more often and quickly.
To precizely seperate them from the method of grinding FotM and making them gear meant for all players.
If you could trade them in for pristine relics then that would mean that if you grinded you could possibly get them faster and more of them. Now there is an achievement gate instead of a gate that includes grinding up to higher levels of FotM to get pristine relics.
If i want to grind for it i should be able to
Game design is not about what you think you want or consider fair.
Never is me exaggerating, so I’ll fix that. But it’s very rare if I use it when I’m in range and facing a target. Somebody said it’s an invisible projectile, so that might explain the discrepancy.
Yeah. Keeping an open mind is really helpful in this game. I’ve made a lot of improvements to my build and even this guide just by talking to people and trying new things. Sometimes the ideas or suggestions end up being horrible or mathematically flawed, but it usually doesn’t hurt to try or run the numbers.
Corrupt Boon is ridiculously good. I’m always a bit surprised when I see people dismiss it. Being able to convert stability to fear, vigor to three stacks of bleed, and retaliation to three stacks of confusion can easily gib someone, like you said. Getting rid of might stacks and turning them into weakness has also saved me a few times.
In comparison to the other trait options, Terror is a huge DPS gain, even without buffed condition duration. It also provides decent AOE burst in world vs. world.
Although, I could see an argument for using two of those slots for Cond/Tough/Vit Ascended items. Make your Condimancer a bit more tankish. Probably only lose
~1% on Crit-Rate.
I disagree. Necromancers have enough health with this build. If survivability ever feels like a problem, it’s a personal, not class, issue.
Lately I’ve started dropping corrupt boon for Well of suffering (and I take Focused Rituals for it) when I’m doing WvW and I’m not solo roaming. (easy enough to swap back if needed)
I feel it’s very strong against zergs and gives you an additional ranged AoE tool in sieges.
The direct damage and vulnerability is useless for condition necromancers, and losing Terror is worthless.
Dueling is not necessary for improvement, and it hurts the server as a whole. Other ways of improvement can actually help a server. That’s the point.
Besides, you’re just showing an example of sample bias. Those same people who became good through dueling would become good through other means if dueling wasn’t an option. That’s how good players work.
If not in World vs World, where then shall people refine their skills, and learn to play their class for small scale fights? Spvp, as i said, is completely different. You cannot make the same build with the same stats.
learning to fight (or refining) your skills in WvW is necessary to be the best you can be at your class. Duels are the best way to do this.
I never said people shouldn’t refine their skills in small-scale fights. I said they shouldn’t do it through dueling.
And dueling is not the best way to learn how to play; dueling actually makes a lot of people fairly predictable. That’s why so many people who are good at duels in other games ended up being terrible at the competitive PvP that matters, such as arenas and rated battlegrounds.
Either way, keeping the framework of world vs. world stable is much more important to world vs. world as a gameplay mode than allowing players to improve individual skill.
I used the term correctly. You just added a layer to my post, which plainly said world vs. world is not there to let you refine your skills through dueling. That’s what made your post a straw man.
Also, adults aren’t supposed to argue from fallacies or acknowledge them as real arguments. (In theory, anyway. This thread is a good example of how susceptible the masses are to emotional appeals.)
Well Lopez doesn’t refute the validity of JPs or PvE dynamic events in WvW – his only argument is that WvW duelists hurt WvW scores and progress.
For all you JP+PvE users I’d like to add in that structured WvW dynamic events give WvW players and a world clear advantages – Badges and Blueprints (and Vet defense / attack mobs).
I think we need to clearly point out the pros and cons of dueling in a WvW zone and whether or not it actually hurts a server as Lopez is saying.
Dueling Pros:
A) helps improve morale
B) helps to refine 1v1 1v2 2v2 and small group synergy and tactics
C) is the only PvP option for cross world interaction other than WvW
Dueling Cons:
A) takes up space on the world without giving defense / offense to the world
B) generates no income for the world (supply running / badges / blueprints)
Those are the 5 pros and cons I can see – discuss now people
Good post.
I think the cons outweigh the pros, considering WvW was never meant to do B and C. Dueling hurts within the established framework of WvW.
It’s perfectly valid. You’re complaining that these people are not contributing to your server’s effort in the battlefield, yet you are doing precisely that by being in the jumping puzzle to begin with.
I don’t think you know what a straw man or ad hominem is, so I’ll put it another way: Whether the jumping puzzle is good or bad has no relevance with whether dueling is good or bad. Maybe doing the jumping puzzle is bad, but that doesn’t justify dueling in any way.
Also, you’re making a big assumption by saying I was in the jumping puzzle to do it. Maybe I was there to duel. Maybe I was there to kill the duelers. Maybe I just wanted the screenshot. Who knows?
I saw this earlier. It was just a bunch of people dueling from two servers dueling each other.
From what I saw in map chat, it was directly hurting our efforts in the rest of the map. These were people who were essentially taking up a world vs. world slot while failing to contribute in any way to the group. It’s basically the equivalent to people AFK botting in a battleground in other games.
And yet there you are, doing a jumping puzzle in WvW.
Irony.
That’s not irony; it’s a coincidence. Your point also isn’t valid; it’s a straw man and ad hominem rolled into one.
