Guild Wars 2

… should have been 3 saved-build slots that you get to choose when to use. But I guess Anet knows best, just like when spending your hero points.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Most champs have more than 1 hitbox, Brie is kind of small but it wouldn’t surprise me if he has 2 hitboxes. So hitting him that many time makes sense to me.

Wow. I didn’t know about the multiple hitboxes… I thought it was just a world boss thing.

ChoChoBo.6503:

And for the damage, with vulnerability, might and how buggy a lot of the damage modifying traits are at the moment, I can see you crit’n for that much.

But this was just one whirling wrath, happening in an extremely short timespan. And that massive crit of 14,000 is significantly larger than any other damage number from the same skill use: more than double the next highest (6,907), which was itself more than triple the next highest (2,271).

Same with Trice’s example, you can see his damage totals go from 8,000 to 9,000 and then suddenly to 23,000… so he had a hit that was 14,000 (and it wasn’t a crit either). Plus, his video is from March so it doesn’t have anything to do with the recent patch and bugs.

Mysterious!

Astralporing.1957:

Funny thing, this is, as, by what Anet said in the HoT sale info, every prepurchaser should be invited to any future HoT beta events. Apparently, it’s not the case.

They just won’t use the word “beta” to get around it.

Those who pre-purchased, they have your money already anyway so they have very little incentive to care about what you think.

What are the chances, now that this isn’t a problem, that the trait will never be fixed and remain disabled forever?

Crovax.7854:

PlatinumMember.5274:

This is the result of giving the people what they wanted. I preferred the LS route, it was a change, but you (not you OP) people wanted an expansion because this mystic expansion. Supposedly, was going to make all your dreams come true and turn gw2 into the MMO you dreamt off.

Well, this is what it is. The ls was the best thing about this game and you people have ruined it for me anyways.

What makes you think that continuous content updates to the live game and development on an expansion are mutualy exclusive? LS was bad because it never added anything of significance in my opinion. An expansion was needed but nobody could have known that would result in a content drought for well over half a year.

Their hyped “bi-weekly” episodes turned out to be something like 4 episodes of “bi-weekly” content every six months. That’s why LS failed.

All the expansion model does is change release dates from spread out, to all-at-once. Only the content delivery system has changed. So if they were incapable of creating content at a decent pace before, we’re still not going to see enough content with an expansion (which is what all the evidence available points to).

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s doable, but will need more coding and I don’t think this improve the game. At least, it doesn’t improve the game enough to be worth the time the devs would be putting into that instead of actual content or features.

Considering all the troubles they’ve had with downscaling, and the fact that they’ll probably have to redo it again after this current attempt, maybe it’d be easier to just spend a bit more effort this one time and just do mob scaling instead.

This would open up a ton of content to level 80 players since most of the world is lower level.

As for making dungeons level 80 — I’d be sufficiently satisfied with that, but I honestly don’t think they care enough about dungeons to bother, even if they thought it was a good idea. This idea is more or less a way to get dungeons to level 80 under the guise of helping open world PvE (which it does, I think).

EremiteAngel.9765:

Start complaining 1 year after HoT arrives.

Chances are, you won’t be complaining 1 year after HoT because Anet would then have the time to fix things.

You have got to be joking. If HoT comes out within the next 6 months, then 1 year after HoT arrives, we’ll have had at most 3 balance patches (one every six months), there’s not even a small probability the game will be close to balanced like that.

spoj.9672:

But what happens when a lvl 80 and a lvl 40 attack the same mob?

No problem:

for any level, say level 40:

1. the damage is calculated as if the mob is level 40
2. that damage is then converted into a percentage of the mob’s total level 40 health (one division operation).
3. that percentage of health is how much the mob ends up losing.

Health bars show percentages, so no need to change anything for that kind of information.

Sissger.6924:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQYjIzg1DfU

Undead Slaying Potion/Plate of Truffle Steak
No aids or consumables were used during the fight.
Enjoy the show!

Love the Yissa as grub bait. Saves me 1 silver every time (yes I’m cheap).

By the way, does she count as an ally when determining how many projectiles come out in the phase 2 barrage?

With all the talk about scaling problems (scaling stats, scaling skills, scaling trait), here’s a solution:

Scale monsters, not players.

• All monsters are default level 80.
• Each player sees a monster downscaled to his/her own level.

Advantages:

• Monsters are simple: no traits, just a few basic stats and a couple attack skills. Scaling mobs is much less complicated compared to scaling players.
• Most players are level 80 so even if downscaling isn’t done perfectly, it won’t be used most of the time anyway (compare to now, where downscaling is the norm).
• No interface changes are needed as you never see anyone else’s damage numbers in this game (who knew, no FPS monitor FTW!) and health bars are all by percentage.

Server resources:

• When an attack happens, monster stats are first downscaled, then all computations proceed as they do now. This is not very many extra computations. The downscaling can be precalculated and stored if you want to avoid any real time downscaling computations.

Bloodstealer.5978:

doubling HP on world bosses on a whim was not the way to go about fixing content challenge.

But it is the easiest, least effort way.

Element Two.7316:

Lord Kuru.3685:

…I don’t have an engie: was thinking of making one though, and was just wondering what kind of fun could be had.

The best fun you can have is not wallsploiting him

Yeah, normally I feel the same, but lately, Anet’s complete lack okittennowledgement of the Lupi autoattack issue puts me a kind of eye-for-an-eye mood.

I was finishing Brie off on guardian (she was at less than 2% health) and used Whirling Wrath one time on here. Here’s the relevant combat log entries:

You critically hit Operative Brie for 2,271 using [Whirling Wrath]
You critically hit Operative Brie for 2,271 using [Whirling Wrath]
You critically hit Operative Brie for 851 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit Operative Brie for 1,066 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit Operative Brie for 1,066 using [Whirling Wrath]
You critically hit Operative Brie for 6,907 using [Whirling Wrath]
You critically hit Operative Brie for 14,708 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit Operative Brie for 698 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit Operative Brie for 792 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit Operative Brie for 297 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit critically hit Operative Brie for 1,702 using [Whirling Wrath]
You hit critically hit Operative Brie for 2,673 using [Whirling Wrath]

What’s the deal with so many Whirling Wrath hits? It doesn’t hit that many times does it (The tooltip says 7x)? And where did the really high 14,708 come from?

I guess I don’t understand this skill.

Taku.6352:

Don’t see why not but you could just always use the elixir toss…

P.S. The turret bubbles have like 1-2 second activation time and the supply crate itself takes 1 second to cast so you’d have to be pretty good on timing the drop itself to get a good kill.

Oh, thanks! …. didn’t know about that elixir.

…I don’t have an engie: was thinking of making one though, and was just wondering what kind of fun could be had.

Sunshine.5014:

They should have the balance changes monthly

10 more balance changes per year than they have now? I don’t think they’re capable of that.

… with supply crate and turret reflects? Just curious.

And if your build depends on stats like precision (for crit procs, for exmaple), you’re set back even further. The whole downscaling idea is a disaster.

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

What’s the recharge on this trait?

• Stop scaling players down to the level of the map.
• Scale mobs (including bosses) to the level of the players: a mob appears to each player with health, armor, etc. scaled according to that player’s level.

Why?

With the current scaling, the same player in one zone can have drastically different stats when in a different zone, making fights in the two different zones very different.

With mob scaling instead of player scaling, things are easier because most players in this game are level 80. This takes player variability out of the equation when balancing.

For example, if you know zergs at Jormag in a level 70 zone can put out 1000000 DPS, then you know the same zergs will roughly put out the same 1000000 DPS for the Fire Elemental in a level 15 zone. The job of determining how much health each boss needs is much easier this way.

Amount of effort needed to implement this = 100.
Amount of effort Anet wishes to spend on dungeon content = 1.

So I don’t think this will happen.

SpitfireIXA.1807:

But I think Anet has been generally more responsive than given credit for. Which is why I am posting.

LOL. Are you serious? This is not the PvP forum. Anet’s responsiveness to WvW issues is at 0, so it’s pretty much impossible for them to be more responsive than given credit for.

1. You can look up recent matchups on mos.millenium.org. You’ll see that outside of T1, where there is some collusion going on, no tier has even matchups week in and week out.
2. They removed all the WvW-related forums and you’re no longer allowed to talk about matchups in the one remaining forum, so don’t bother looking here.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

There is still some fine-tuning that needs to be done to the system.

Fine tuning is when you get things mostly right and need to tweak some small things. I wouldn’t call getting it mostly wrong and fixing that, fine tuning.

That’s why Ascended gear was/is a terrible mistake.

Hidori.3472:

This is still broken.

ETA on patch?

I think it’s pretty safe to say at this point the ETA is never.

1. L2P.
2. Dungeons are abandonware at this point (they’ve actually said so).

Stompy.1387:

Yes, it’s because there is an aftercast delay on each of the auto attacks. For the dagger auto chain, Double Strike has the least aftercast delay, then Wild Strike, then Lotus Strike. For the Sword, Slash (second hit) has the least aftercast delay, then Slice (first hit), then Crippling Strike.

As for is there a reason? Yes. Think about it this way; imagine two different attacks, one that has a one second cast time with one second aftercast delay and one with a two second cast time. Overall they have the same total time to activate, but which one would be harder to hit on a moving target/easier to interrupt? The two second cast time.

The best way to get around this is to just not continuously press your auto attacks if you anticipate needing to use a dodge skill shortly.

IMO aftercast makes things needlessly complicated. Too many mechanics makes things harder to balance; this game already has too many mechanics as it is.

Anyway, for a pretty major mechanic, aftercasts aren’t even documented in the game, WTF?

The old blue skill point icon was much more visible.

Anet is terrible at balancing. That’s why they’ve been removing more and more build choices from the game: the fewer builds there are, the easier to balance. It doesn’t look like we’re even near their balancing capabilities, so expect removal of more choice in the future.

If you removed the incentive to k-train, the map will just be empty. We’ve seen it before when trains in PvE maps got nerfed.

The fact is, EotM is a spectacular fail. Which makes it so puzzling why so many of its features are being put into real WvW and the HoT map.

IndigoSundown.5419:

A system which provides for scaled mobs (rather than scaled players) was in use a long time ago in the late City of X games. Players of very different levels could face these mobs side-by-side and mob numbers would adjust depending on the level of the character that was attacking or being attacked. Iirc, the mobs had some sort of icon instead of a number to indicate their level and were used during events. Whether this is possible with the game engine ANet is using in GW2 I have no idea. It seems like engine issues get cited frequently as a reason why ANet cannot do something in GW2 that other, older games can do.

This. All mobs should be default level 80 and for each individual player, they should be scaled downwards as appropriate. Mobs don’t have builds that break under scaling. Players do. So mobs should be the ones who are scaled.

I suggested this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Downscaling-is-fail-Try-this/first#post5213731

In short, all monsters are stored as level 80. Downscale the monsters to the appropriate player level. (Every player who would previously have been downscaled now sees the monster as the same level as the player).

Monsters don’t have builds that easily get ruined; players do though. So this system works better than the current one.

Dawdler.8521:

Lord Kuru.3685:

• If a level 80 and a low level character both fight the same monster, the 80 sees it with 1,000,000 health and the low level sees it with 200,000 health (or whatever). The health bar of the monster does not have to change as it shows percentages. The level 80 hits for bigger numbers, but that is compensated for by the monster’s bigger health (and armor, etc.)

Lulwat? That’s complicated as all kitten and would require mobs to literally have 80 different HP bars (one for each level). What’s next, adjusting HP by using the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics?

They really just need to get the numbers correct with the current system.

It’s no more complicated than having to downscale players. And if Anet is lazy they can just use the downscaling algorithm they had for players to apply to monsters. (All monsters are default level 80, and then downscaled in my scheme.)

The point is you can’t get the numbers “correct” with the current system because player builds often depend heavily on stats (particularly crit chance builds), but scaling monsters: their exact stat numbers are not as important as they don’t really have “builds”.

This is much better than scaling players to monsters because doing that ruins builds. For example if you depend on critical chance for your build, scaling down ruins your precision greatly disrupts your build.

However, scaling monsters is no big deal because they don’t have finely tuned builds. It’s just a matter of creating a function that takes a monster’s level 80 health (or whatever stat) and converting it to a level 55 (or whatever) appropriate health stat.

For level 80 characters, make all monsters appear (amount of health, amount of damage taken, amount of damage dealt, armor, etc.) and act as level 80 creatures. For level-appropriate characters, monsters appear as they do now.

notes/examples:

• If a level 80 and a low level character both fight the same monster, the 80 sees it with 1,000,000 health and the low level sees it with 200,000 health (or whatever). The health bar of the monster does not have to change as it shows percentages. The level 80 hits for bigger numbers, but that is compensated for by the monster’s bigger health (and armor, etc.)

• The only damage numbers you ever see are your own (outgoing and incoming) so there’s no worry of confusion from seeing big numbers (from the 80) mixed with small numbers (from the low level).

• If a monster hits both a level 80 and a low level, it does level 80 damage to the level 80 guy, and low level damage to the low level guy.

• For player levels other than 80, scale monsters appropriately to that player level.

TLDR: Store all monsters as level 80. Each individual player sees the monster with downscaled stats appropriate to that player’s level.

Edit: Some people seem to think this is complicated… but it’s no more complicated than creating downscaling algorithms for players.
But it’s better because downscaling ruins player builds (ones that depend on crit chance, for example) and players don’t like that. But scaling monsters is no big deal (to the player) since they don’t have finely tuned builds.

It’s not worth $50 even if you play PvE. If you only do WvW, the value is almost nonexistent.

Don’t forget the jellies not spawning bug that’s been there for almost 3 years now.

Lack of choice is bad. But the trend is for Anet to remove choice from the game (remember mix and match runes?). I don’t think they have the skills to balance the game until the amount of choice is reduced even more.

Also, the UI is AWFUL.

From the patch notes, a lot of skills seem to have been unsplit from PvE and PvP. They’re not trying to balance both together again are they?

I was fooling around with D/D thief and death blossom’s evade. Is it the aftercast of the autoattack (last one in the chain, I think) that causes it to sometimes not activate instantly?

And if so, is there a reason for this mechanic?

Zenith.7301:

Why are people calling for nerfs based on the experience of a 3 year old poorly designed and maintained dungeon set.

The game is to be balanced for the upcoming content not this husk that we have right now.

What else are you going to balance for? Open world faceroll, 1-pressing content?

Sword/dagger 3 evade doesn’t give enough evades?

Is it possible with death blossom, or is the 1/4 second evade too short because of lag?

They are terrible at balance (look at their admission that condis are OP, just one day after the update — funny that everyone but Anet knew this would be the case).

The lack of choice helps them balance. This has been their trend since the beginning. Remember when people used to mix and match runes?

The new UI is just awful though.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Asides addressing the main complaints about shady pre-purchase tactics here are 4 easy steps for you to make those pre-purchase copies moving:

1. determine and announce release date. It can be an estimation like spring 2016, but give your prospective buyers something to hang on to.

2. Announce the size and number of PvE zones in HoT.

3. Announce plans regarding LS3 – if it will happen and what sort of stuff will you throw in it (new maps? new skills? just story and achies?).

4. Announce beta schedules and open betas – no better way to get ppl who are on the fence to pre-purchase then giving them a taste of the actual thing. Unless it sucks and you know it, that is.

There, couldn’t lay it out simpler if I tried, and you’re welcome btw.

It’s very possible they don’t want to announce some of these because they might cause fewer pre-orders. For example:

1. if the release date is too far away (e.g. 2016), people are going to hesitate to buy and those who have already bought will be angry.

2. If there are as few PvE zones as people are projecting, why would they say that? Though I can imagine there being 2 zones with 3 layers each and having them call it “Six new zones!”

3. If there isn’t going to be LS anymore, they’re not going to say anything about when season 3 comes. LS was their failed content delivery model and expansions are the new one. I wouldn’t be surprised if their new plan was to have an expansion every year with no content in between.

(Incidentally, LS failed because the “a new episode every 2 weeks” turned out to be closer to “a small episode every 2 weeks for 8 weeks, then a 4 months break.” In other words, not enough content. From the looks of it the expansion will have the same problem — not surprising: if they had trouble creating enough content before, who’s to say they can do it now just because the delivery model is different.)

ColinJohanson.2394:

If your group online is too small, you’ll need to invite friends (or pay/beg/sing-songs-to-woo peeps in Lion’s Arch!) to come with you and help you claim the guild hall to own one.

So now that we’ve been officially told to pay mercenaries to help us get a guild hall, will there be any support if we are cheated? Paid, but no service? Or paid, entered guild, cleaned out contents?

Oh who am I kidding. No change, right?

Atherakhia.4086:

Ayrilana.1396:

Ever heard of pre-order bonuses? Same concept.

It’s really not. If you introduce a new class, you should provide a character slot so your existing playerbase that has no available slots isn’t inconvenienced by buying your new product.

Pre-order bonuses are great. Making the bonus something the average player expects regardless is silly.

Very much this.

The new traits and skills UI pages are awful.

Traits page:

Why not just have all 5 lines visible in their entirety as with the old trait page. you “check” the three of them that you want, then select the individual traits. Nice and simple.

Right now with the split windows (all traits visible on the left panel, but traits only selectable on the right panel) it’s a mess. Also, the traits you selected for each trait line should not be forgotten when you deselect that trait line.

Skills pages:

The circles just take up too much space. Is there even a functional purpose for using a circle? What’s wrong with arranging them linearly in rows, with each row being all skills of the same skill type? It’s not like there are that many. This would allow us to see all skills on a single page.

IMO GW2’s UI in general is pretty poorly done. Remember the horrid grid of currencies?

They went with the solution that gave as little as possible to players and kept as much money for themselves as they could. Not too surprising.