Everyone who seems to enjoy the new fractals does not seem to have played them beforehand. Everyone who seems to complain about the new fractals seems to have played them beforehand. It is a really kitten design if to attract new players you have to isolate the old ones.
I played them beforehand and honestly they just weren’t very fun. It was a huge time investment to run all three and potentially a boss too. I really like the new system now, my only complaint being rewards. It was rewarding to get that chest popping up in the bottom right of the screen at the end of the sets of 3(4) fractals, and now there isn’t that same sense.
+ Less tedious, less time investment
- Nerfs to rewards
I can’t agree with this at all. Fractals were definitely more fun before. There was randomness that made it less predictable/boring. You never fully knew, in advance, which fractals you were going to get. That alone broke up the boredom.
I also can’t agree with them being less time investment or less tedious. Clearly this is from the perspective of low level fractals, because if you were doing any high level ones…it would be immediately obvious that you were not saving time once you reached the boss. The bosses on high level fractals take forever to kill. It feels like you are doing an entire extra fractal just slow grinding away at all that health and toughness.
There is also the logistics issue of they way they have broken fractals up into “one island” instead of the previous 4. Now it is the norm for a group to either completely dissolve or partially dissolve after each “island”/fractal. If you do or at least want to enjoy the fractal content, you are now spending extra time forming or looking for a new group after each island. This is not a decrease in time investment…in fact…it increases the negative time investment because you are spending more time not playing the content than before. You are spending that extra time looking for a group repeatedly. I find that to be tedious.
The rewards also play a factor in this. Before, the rewards were just outright better. You got your gold, your loot chest, and your possible ascended item chest as direct rewards from completing the fractal chain. Now, you not only don’t get anywhere near that same level of completion rewards, but you have to still complete multiple fractals to get anywhere near that quantity of rewards. The quality of rewards is still lacking even if you do complete the same number of fractals though. Now, you get some mats and possibly some vendor trash. You also get any real possible rewards locked inside an encryption box…that will likely cost you money to even see what is inside…likely a net loss just to find out. If you do happen to get an ascended ring, the ascended salvage kits are so overpriced it is just ridiculous. Its gotten to the point where its not feasible to stay profitable by just playing the content you like…instead they seem to be forcing us to work the trading post…which I don’t enjoy.
I initially said that I couldn’t agree with any of what you said, but that wasn’t true…the rewards part…I definitely agree with. I think its really crappy that they are trying to bleed everyone out because some players got rich off of grinding content. Not everyone went that route and as a result…not everyone is sitting on a mountain of gold. There really needs to be profitable content in all game modes so that all players can enjoy the game and afford to do things in game.
I like dungeons. They’re fun, they really encourage teamwork, and I’m a collector so I enjoy buying all the gear with dungeon tokens. I’ve noticed that, lately, there are no experienced 80s doing dungeons anymore, and so I always get stuck with low level characters with <500 achievement points who don’t know what they’re doing, and the margin of error is so huge that it becomes a never-ending wipe-fest. I’d like to see more attention given to dungeons, please!
I think what you just said just underlines why Anets decision was right and basically contradicts itself anyways.
You might think of it as teamwork-based content and it even might be on the smallest scale but it doesnt really promote teamwork between veterans and new players.
If they kept dungeon rewards as they were, new players would have a hard time finding a group of veterans that would teach them how to do dungeons.I dont think that is a state of mind that Anet wants to promote in its player base, old and new alike.
Why should you get handsomely rewarded, when you refuse to mentor newer players?
WvW or PvE Commanders during Map Meta events or the harder boss battles have to coordinate a whole map, which often is full of new players or players new to the content. If they wipe, they also dont get any loot or reward or considerably less but they try anyways to teach everybody on the map and organize events.You refuse to teach 1 or 2 new players in a game mode that isnt even time sensitive, like the new meta events and complain that you arent handsomely rewarded for it?
I guess the general mindset of dungeon runners simply refusing to play with new players and mentoring them played a big part in Anets decision to nerf rewards and stop developing for it.
And rightly so.
Because mentoring players isn’t my job as a veteran player.
I’m not supposed to be the game’s tutorial system just because I managed to learn how to play it and how to do things.
Some people enjoy teaching and it provides a good experience to them – some don’t.
Some just want to get their stuff done without having to stop, type, explain, convince and so on.Dungeons did promote teamwork – a veteran party could to amazing things with synergy and competence. This is one of the reasons that dungeons were considered “too easy” and “too farmable”.
Honestly – organizing open world PvE is not something for everyone. Why should some be punished because others enjoy doing something that is hard and unrewarding?
If they want to organize open world PvE – that’s great – but what’s that got to do with me?What you choose to do in game and how you as a player choose to spend your time is your choice – you make it sound like the developers are entitled to punish players for not wanting to play a certain way – which is frankly absurd.
Each finds enjoyment in his or her own way – I personally enjoy making gold and if I can do that with no words exchanged in chat it’s all the better.
I guess the general mindset of dungeon runners simply refusing to play with new players and mentoring them played a big part in Anets decision to nerf rewards and stop developing for it.
And rightly so.I have nothing against new players – I dislike playing with bad players and players that don’t listen. Unfortunately most new players are like that.
I think there were also other – bigger – reasons for the dungeon reward nerf – the “meta zerk” mindset had been with the game a good 2+ years before this change came.They didn’t do it to “correct the community” – they did it because of the game going F2P most likely.
They also did it to make absolutely sure there’s very little (or none) alternative to their new FOTM and Raids.
Stop reading my mind! Seriously though…all of this ^ is exactly what I was thinking.
@ODB
keep in mind the change to 10 man would effect more than raids. one of the reasons they won’t change it is because it would also change it for WvW before, making zergs more powerful and boon supplying classes the best role in WvW. they’re not being stubborn to be stubborn, they have a reason.
Or they could just split the behavior between game modes! I know that’s something they absolutely hate to do, but it can’t seriously be that hard to add a flag in the code that removes the buff/boon cap when not in WvW.
The backpack should also double as a glider.
This^
I was thinking the same thing. It looks like wings! Same as the white/black gem store wings…that also double as a glider. There’s certainly enough investment in getting the fractal legendary backpack to justify them doubling as a glider.
The 5 player buff/boon limit is just dumb when considering the context of raids. Being stubborn about changing it is equally dumb in this same context. Its unnecessarily complicated as well…trying to make it only affect some of your group members in a raid, but not others. Trying to make it also factor in pets…and miss some players in group because of pets isn’t smart either. They just need to re-write the code already and let buffs/boons affect everyone (in range) in your raid group, while giving a copy of the owner’s buffs/boons to their respective pets. This immediately resolves a ton of issues with raid composition. You would no longer feel the need to duplicate professions in raids. You wouldn’t have to worry about aligning specific groups in raids for buff/boon purposes. I’m not even grasping what ANET is gaining by holding out on changing this. Yeah, it will cost some development time, but this can’t seriously be that huge of a resource sink, versus how big of an improvement it would be to the game. This is also yet another example of something we told them about well in advance of them implementing something…only to get ignored/blown off and put out the bad product, as is, anyway. Just fix it already ANET.
Because grinding xp the slow way in content you have already done to death is fun. Put it this way. New players can do map comp and various things they havent experienced to gain xp in old tyria to level masteries. Veterans likely have a large amount of map completion on various characters which never awarded them progress to masteries. They are losing out. And are forced to revisit content that they dont necessarily want to do.
CoF farm gives a fair alternative that hurts noone and makes the grind less painful. Also i wouldnt have bothered doing the cof farm if dungeons and fractals actually rewarded decent amounts and still had semi decent other rewards. So if you are going to get disappointed at the devs be disappointed at the atrocious xp and reward nerfs instead.
This^
I’m almost burnt out with this open world zerging…just trying to force myself to level masteries. I’m finding myself falling asleep mid zerg because its just not fun for me. I would much rather be gaining masteries in fractals instead. I wouldn’t mind mixing it up and doing the map meta as well occasionally, but the weeks of having only open world zerging, for grinding masteries, has taken its toll on me. It is especially disturbing to do like 4-5 fractal runs and see your mastery bar literally not even noticeably move.
Misreading. Not talking about mastery points…those are easy. Talking about the mastery bar …which is the replacement for the experience bar.
I guess its terrible luck with mega servers then, because i’m routinely getting the prompt to switch to more populated maps. I’m accepting the prompts and it helps some. I would still much rather have an opportunity to do something instanced like high level fractals instead though…for HoT maguma masteries…at least something to break the monotony. I’m starting to feel like a hamster running on the treadmill.
I’m about zerged out from running open world events in HoT. Can we get some mastery/xp levels from something instanced for the HoT maguma masteries? Personal story is good, but that only goes so far. How about some decent universal mastery gain from fractals past level 50…since that is technically HoT content? The new zones are nice and all, but I can only stomach so much open world zerging. On top of that….the maps are starting to get pretty deserted…which I’m assuming means that other players are starting to feel the same way.
Don’t be an kitten . Opposing opinions aren’t trolling.
As to what I have a problem with it’s the culture of negativity. We don’t have to love everything, and there are legitimate problems but it’s this vicious cycle you guys get into where you tell each other everythings awful and Anet is picking on you.
Beyond that, I’ve been active around here quite a while and every change except for massive explicit buffs is treated this way. Doesn’t take much pattern recognition to see the issue.
The real problem though is that we should focus on the legitimate issues (ie the difficulty issues, and the issue with people doing focused specific picks once they’ve got their clear) and not mess up the discussion with “Waah this instability makes me play different!” or “Waah I’m not getting enough stuff”.
Do you have any idea how easy and natural it is to ignore a player that they’re not being given enough stuff? The entitled crybaby stuff only draws attention away from the real issues.
like I said..full on troll face lol
@DrEckers: I have accepted that he either wears a permanent troll face on these forums or really just feels the opposite of the rest of us regarding everything. Seriously, who has a problem with people expecting positive rewards from putting in positive effort and completing content? Who is unable to see the lack of these positive rewards versus alternative content in the game? Who else thinks that these new instabilities are enjoyable, rewarding, or contribute to skilled play?
I have mixed feelings about increasing rewards for someone who refuses to help kill the enemies. I think there should be a minimum of at least tagging the enemies to be required for loot. There has to be something to keep people honest and contributing everything they should to encounters.
I’m just going to come out and be honest. We told you so ANET. We told you these ideas for changing fractals were terrible and were going to ruin the fractal experience. You announced some of these changes …specifically the toughness, vitality, and precision scaling of fractal mobs and we immediately told you that those were bad ideas. We explained why they were bad ideas. We explained that changes like this were not going to accomplish what you thought they would…which is to cater to the zerk hate of the phiw crowd. The logic just doesn’t make sense. How did anyone make the logical leap to make you think that making bosses/mobs more resistant to damage…would make anyone happy? Now you have these huge hp/toughness bags for bosses that take everyone a ridiculous amount of time to kill. I’m positive that has not increased the happiness of the phiw crowd….as now it takes them even longer to do fractals in their nomad gear. It has not increased the happiness of the zerk crowd (also your paying customers btw…in case you forgot), since all you have accomplished is to prolong the fights artificially…no new encounter mechanics to reward skilled play. On top of that…you add in the worst ideas ever (instabilities that punish skilled play, take away control of our characters, force involuntary deaths as a result of taking away control of our characters, and punish us for the core mechanics of your game..namely boons and dodging). You also go as far as to seemingly eliminate the rewards from fractals at the same time as removing all the fun from fractals. They don’t even reward decent experience/mastery. You removed the randomization of fractals as well…now just predictable and boring. Are you guys trying to kill our interest in fractals so you can stop supporting them…just like dungeons? If that’s the case, then maybe you are on the right track. Fractals were one of the few reasons I logged in most days. I see no reason to enter a fractal with the current lack of rewards and marathon boss fights. The funny part is that you didn’t even accomplish what you were after with the boss fight changes…now you definitely don’t want to play with low damage dealers…because it will take even longer to complete…for the even crappier rewards (fractal boxes that you have to pay to open…with crap rewards once you do). I’m amazed that someone actually got paid to come up with this stuff.
Not a bad nerf, but they should give when they take more often. Add a useful boon to it like stability. I think that was something they removed in an early beta possibly.
Also unable to speak to scout acan. I was able to glide to him by jumping from a higher ledge…just like the previous quest npc said. but no response from acan. I have logged off and logged back on hours later with the same problem. I see many other players having the same issue. This is the third part of the “in their footsteps” personal story section. I have yet to try a different server. Hopefully this is something you guys fix instead of us having to do a hack work around. It has my story progress halted.
Same issue here. I’ve been doing what the previous step suggested of gliding around him…jumped from a higher ledge and glided in circles right around his head…no response.
I would love a change to this as well. I do find that it often has me in a more dangerous/sure to die location than if I just didn’t bother to use this at all. It definitely needs more than just a range increase. ideally…the ability to target your destination would be perfect…just like blink. All they would need to do is clone the blink skill for that function.
Assuming that there are trash mobs to a stacking type sigil, what is the highest direct damage yielding weapon sigil combination? I’m the complete opposite of a math person, so hopefully someone else has already figured this out. This is assuming a full direct damage build. Also assuming fully raid buffed…spotter, fury, 25 might, banner of discipline, banner of strength, 25 vulnerability, etc. Also assuming about 55% critical chance unbuffed. Would permanent bonus sigils still have the edge….like force+accuracy? Or would a combination like force+cruelty…or force+bloodlust edge out slightly higher?
Thought I’d post here because people might look here first.
If you got stuck after the new build and can’t enter the portal – says you need to go back into the jungle to learn glider mastery – then the solution is to map to the start wp in silverwastes and then run back to the protal. You’ll no longer be in the “story mode” and can get in.
This isn’t obvious when you’re facing the portal though – so thanks to the player who suggested it! Hope this helps others.
Thank you, been fighting this myself with no success…about to try this now.
Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: ODB.6891
I’m really disappointed with this decision.
I do get why you’re locking specializations behind hero points. You probably want players to have this sense of progession as they slowly unlock their specialization.
And that’s fine.But to me, you went the lazy way about it by tying it to Hero Points. You could have tied it to the personal story-line, so players could unlock their new powers as the story unfolds and Destiny’s Edge 1.0/2.0 unlocks it too. That would have been a nice addition to content.
Or you could have sticked to what happened in the beta, giving access to specializations as soon as we step into the jungle, which would have been fine because we will eventually get the spec through HP grinding.
But since you made this decision, now every player willing to use their elite is going to rush through the amazing maps and events just to get enough HP in order to actually start playing the expansion.
And don’t get me wrong on this, I’m not saying the specialization is the only viable spec to grind through the jungle. I’m saying that it is basically the most game-changing feature of the expansion, and people were expecting to play those specs through the new content, not to grind again some HP to start enjoying them.
This^
Couldn’t have said this better. This was yet another shady decision by ANET. The forums were filled with posts asking about this at least a week or so before this announcement. There was deafening silence from ANET in response because they knew they were going to do this. Waiting on maximum sales before dropping this bomb was in poor taste. They were fully aware of how big of a selling point the e-specs are and that they set zero expectations of not being able to play them upon release. This is almost as dirty as the character slot debacle. They could have spoken up to give players the correct expectation and opportunity to grind out some hero points significantly in advance. This hits players with multiple alts and limited play hours particularly hard. I have several characters that I actually despise the base class mechanics on and only leveled in anticipation of playing the e-specs on. As you can imagine, they have minimal hero points and this pretty much negates the entire point of leveling them to begin with. I can appreciate the compromise ANET has made with this in regards to higher hero point yield from the new zones, but that still means that we have to complete the new zones nearly in their entirety, to fully enjoy the e-specs. Who, in their right minds, would do hero points in central tyria for 1 point each…when they can get 10 points each for the HoT ones come Friday? I guess this is going to depend on how gated these hero points in HoT are by mastery as well (mushrooms, gliding, etc). We are not even guaranteed to be able to access these new HoT hero points unless we complete a certain level of mastery grinding first. 400 hero points + and undisclosed level of mastery grinding + setting/allowing false expectations + extremely/intentionally late reveal of these issues …seems pretty low ANET.
- It would make aegis or pretty much every “on block” skill less and less effective as a survival tool.
No, make sure guardians turn from still alright to barely decent/crappy, because why not. I got carried too many times by random aegis and now I want my revenge!
Not wanna hurt you but the point is to shift a bit survivability from active defense to passive defense. Guardian gain a lot of value with simply the ability to give protection and retaliation. Beside, guard can trait their aegis to heal on block which make them pretty much a free aoe heal.
Translation: Lets completely destroy the effectiveness/contribution of any other group…so long as it means I never have to swap out of my nomad gear! Everyone else should have to pay gold/gems to change their gear around except me!
[sarcasm]Make it happen ANET![/sarcasm]
When there are things that depend on 100% map completion…then “not doing it” is a penalty that is unnecessary.
The only thing you miss out on by not doing 100 % map completion is the Gift of Exploration and I’d like that to have a value.
Don’t call me ignorant because you want everything for free.
How is it free when I’ve already completed those maps at least once? Check the definition of free maybe? You may want to check the definition of everything while you are at it, because that is one thing. In fact, if you are having this much trouble with definitions…you may want to just buy yourself a dictionary lol.
I want this because I find it incredibly boring to repeat map clears on each character, just for the sake of having each character show 100% map complete. I have multiple characters who have different maps cleared. Its not like I haven’t actually completed those maps….its just on different characters. That’s literally the one thing that is causing me not to have map complete….
Then don’t do it – this game works without 100% map completion.
When there are things that depend on 100% map completion…then “not doing it” is a penalty that is unnecessary. I would reply to you in the same ignorant fashion….whatever thing it is that could be improved in the game…just don’t do it and ignore it. That sounds just as ignorant coming from me as it did from you. The game “works without” a lot of things. That doesn’t mean those things can’t do with a reasonable improvement. That also doesn’t mean that anyone suggesting such an improvement (that has zero negative effect on anything and anyone in the game) needs commentary that adds nothing to the discussion.
My proposition here is simply to remove the “timer” in favor of a bit more work on the “decay aura”.
Translation: I don’t want to dps
In short, I think that this is the perfect mechanism to gradually increase the pressure on the players instead of the sudden switch to enrage mode. I’ll just assume random value as exemple here. Let’s say that the “decay aura” do 1k damage per second to all naked (without any passive mitigation) player in range.
Translation: I want all zerk players to die a horrible death. I don’t want them to play the game.
What would it do?
Simply, it would make “passive” defence a thing.
Translation: Simply, it would make “passive” defense the only thing.
- It would make aegis or pretty much every “on block” skill less and less effective as a survival tool.
Translation: Make sure that no one else can play the game besides players who think like me.
But overall, I think it could be an healthier mechanism for build and strategy diversity than the boring “enrage mode” that every mmo use again and again.
What could be less healthy and more boring than a face tank / no skill meta, where everyone just gears up in max toughness/vitality/healing power and just tries to outlast every encounter without dodging or blocking or even using any abilities strategically? A meta where there is no chance of failure no matter how many hours you let the fight drag on, due to players being unkillable. What kind of fun would that be? There can’t be any excitement in that. This is a game. Games are supposed to be fun and exciting. What you are describing is neither of those things. I know I would not spend my money or my time on a game to just stand around waiting on bosses to eventually die of old age. Perhaps there is a reason that you see enrage timers in all of these games…because the developers are at least smart enough to realize how boring/annoying the alternative would be.
Your zerk hate is not very well disguised btw. Yet another post with an “idea” of how to make all zerk players die and not be able to enjoy the game that they also pay for. Although worded very well, this post was just as toxic as anything else on these forums…simply due to the underlying intent. You don’t see zerk players trying to come up with ways to keep you from playing the game.
I think this would be a great idea. Would allow for real improvement since you can objectively see performance after the fact. I think we also need the ability to export combat logs for more in-depth break downs too. I used to love world of logs back years ago in WoW. So much information…lead to lots of healthy competition and improvement back then.
(edited by ODB.6891)
I’m in favor of account bound map completion, but only with certain limitations. I don’t want account bound map complete to remove the ability to actually manually complete maps on each character. I want the rewards (experience, loot, etc) to still be there for each character that actually completes a map. I don’t want the maps/zones revealed or way points given to new characters. What I do want is for the cumulative map complete percentage to be account bound. I want this because I find it incredibly boring to repeat map clears on each character, just for the sake of having each character show 100% map complete. I have multiple characters who have different maps cleared. Its not like I haven’t actually completed those maps….its just on different characters. That’s literally the one thing that is causing me not to have map complete….the complete lack of desire to re-do maps that I have already done. Just make the account percentage of map complete be what counts for map complete.
There are definitely more long coats than any other style among the medium armours (for both male and female character) but there are other options available and you can do some interesting things with them by mixing and matching. Remember too that adding or hiding gloves and shoulders (and sometimes helms) can make a big difference in how an outfit looks.
Here’s some examples of ones which don’t have a long coat (for simplicity I kept it to ones that apply to both male and female models, females have a few extra options like the Krytan and Sneakthief coats):
- Priory
- Vigil
- Illustrious (ascended)
- Studded
- Duelist
- Viper
- Striders
- Glorious
To a lesser extent there’s also these, which don’t completely remove it but IMO are less noticeable, because it’s either not as long or only down the back:
- Heritage
- Carapace
- Outlaw
- Ascalonian Sentry
- Armor of Koda
It’s definitely possible to make revealing outfits on human/norn/sylvari female characters using medium armor, especially if you have the Viper skirt (which is just a mini skirt).
It’s not really possible to get something revealing on males or charr and asura (who all use the male models) but IMO (speaking as a straight woman) it is possible to make a “sexy”/attractive outfit, if you bear in mind that sexy doesn’t have to be revealing.
That’s the one area I’d most like to see some improvement if I’m honest (again speaking as a straight woman) – it’s so frustrating trying to make an outfit for a male character that doesn’t cover them completely. I don’t even mean something “sexy” just bare arms would be nice.
I agree with you on the disparity of lacking enough options to show any skin on male medium armor. They really need to open up their art choices a bit more. I’m a bit disappointed in just the general lack of options besides full body straight jackets though…whether male or female. I like the human T3 medium for female characters, but not enough to roll human. They need more choices like that that aren’t race dependent. Same with the norn T3 heavy for female character models….every other race is just out of luck?
noooo i’d say you’re mistaken. Leather definitely has many more, much nicer looking sets than plate. Light armour definitely has the edge, though
(which makes sense, because light armour is essentially just clothing, and leather reinforced clothing. As armour gets heavier, style must be sacrificed for actual function)
Viva bikini plate! Seriously though…bring on the bikini plate :-)
This, just like all online games…are fantasy games…function is irrelevant. Once magic is introduced…logic is dismissed. I’m all for variety in aesthetic style. There should be choices for all mindsets. There should be a full range from full body coffins to skimpy beach wear lol. It would be nice if they would introduce alternate art models for sets to accommodate.
Mesmer are Op like warrior were 1.5 years ago. Mesmer are on top right now but things will change… It’s a MMO with patch cycle.
On top of what exactly? 1v1 PvP maybe? As far as I recall, that is not what they balance around. The issue you guys are having is that you all keep attempting to face roll mesmers by trying to melee/zerk them down and end up getting face rolled in return by shatters….which are a hard counter to low hp/low defensive characters. This is going to keep happening until:
1. You guys learn to deal with shatters
-or-
2. ANET changes the mesmer class mechanic to be utility instead of damage oriented
I really don’t see #1 happening since there is a steady influx of bads to repeat the same mistakes. I think #2 is the more likely scenario, if anything, but ANET has been exceedingly resistant to shift mesmer damage onto the actual mesmer instead of the phantasms/shatters. If #2 actually happened, they could finally fix mesmer sustained damage as well…instead of just the burst that bads cry about in PvP.
“That’s only when below 50% HP. And while sinister reaper no doubt does do some nice damage, other classes do more.”
Doing “more damage” only helps when you’re staying alive and able to do your full rotation at all times. I did up to mid 60s with my group at fractal release and it was absolutely brutal. Unless they screw up the scaling and make 100 barely any harder than 50 is right now, then you can bet that a meta group will have to care about survivability somehow.
Meta groups always cared about survivability…they just didn’t handle it via gear…they handled it via utilities, traits, and weapons skills. I don’t really see this changing for any level of fractals, with the exception of maybe adding druids into the equation for heals. We also have the herald now, that has the option for party wide perma protection. Survivability covered…and not by a profession that only takes care of itself.
As far as the below 50% quote….he was talking specifically about the competitive damage component. Reapers spend half of every encounter way below the dps curve due to traits that depend on mob hp level. I just can’t see reapers being a part of any desired 5 man meta…or even a 10 man meta with the combination of their gated damage output, mobility of enemies in raids (so far) versus grave digger cast time, lack of party buff contribution, and incompatibility with party wide healing while in shroud.
I purchased a couple of weeks ago and I have my free slot already..showed up in less than a week.
The drama queens in this thread are hilarious. Chris stated ANET’s position on the issue…and it is clear from what he said, that this isn’t a high priority for them. I also cannot imagine that this is even a frequent issue for anyone other than sellers….who are putting the target on their own backs with their unsupported actions. This is an issue of party formation politics…just like he said. Pick your parties/group mates wisely. I pug 90% of the time and this never happens to me anymore. The reasons include being highly selective in the LFG groups that I will join/stay in, making sure my performance in groups is up to par, not running off at the mouth in said groups, and not putting a bull’s eye on my back by trying to sell something that doesn’t actually cost anything.
I can, however, get behind what Jerus said about changing the auto join function to a request to join instead. That would be a win by all sides in this situation. I know people who want to hide will hate my next suggestion, but I would even go as far as to have the LFG do a role check calculation based on stat trends on the requester’s gear…too see if they fit what the party is actually looking for. Nothing too invasive…just maybe in indicator of the highest stat type. That way you don’t end up with a party full of healers when you are looking for some damage and vice versa.
As above, it’s already finalized. I’m sure though it has enough long coats and buttcapes to satisfy the most discerning taste.
I’m so sick of their art design team and their obsession with buttcapes.
I play late night east coast hours…generally after 12pm eastern. I play multiple professions, primarily Mesmer and Guardian. My gear preference is berserker and I prefer groups that are relatively serious about efficiency and smooth/fast clears. I’m a strong believer in everyone putting in their best efforts for group success, so I always max out my characters and optimize them. I’m looking for a guild that feels the same way. I’m looking for a guild that has expectations of clearing the new HoT raids with efficiency and coordination. I got in on the last BWE and I’m pretty set on splitting my time between Chronomancer, Herald, and maybe my Guardian. Raids and fractals are the key content types I’m interested in, but I’ll undoubtedly be in multiple content modes on the grind for the new legendary weapons.
I’m not looking for a guild with any type of strict raiding schedule. I am looking for a guild with enough competent players online at a time, to form a raid/fractal group on a regular basis to get things done. I have raided seriously in previous games for years and enjoyed that type of environment. I’m looking forward to the GW2 version with a reliable group.
Just no.
Anyone who has played an MMO where this option was available will know just how much discrimination, griefing, and animosity this inevitably creates. Its negative impact on a gaming community far surpasses any associated benefits. And as others have already said, if you want to know what a person has…just ask! Problem solved.
I played a lot of MMOs and only “discrimination” I saw was against leechers and kittenes who think they can waste everyone’s time by PHIWing in the group content without warning anyone.
Truth they don’t want to hear lol. They would rather flame the OP instead. Players in this game have gotten used to not being exposed for taking advantage of group mates and are extremely aggressive towards anything that threatens their ability to continue to do so. Inspect, logs, and meters are that direct threat to exposure.
Here are the Engineer and Scrapper POV’s from the Vale Guardian kill that OP is talking about:
Engineer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8AKNIO_q2Q&feature=youtu.beScrapper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFAS7jPwPKk&feature=youtu.beI’m not sure that our DPS is as terrible as OP makes it out to be but I do also wish that the people in this thread would stop bashing OP having apparently also never seen the videos. Maybe do some research before screaming “YOU’RE WRONG GRAVEDIGGER SPAM IS SO OP.”
Its the same people that are vehemently against meters that are saying the OP is so wrong, which is suspicious to say the least. To claim that necro/reaper dps is so high, but at the same time be so rabidly opposed to having a clear, in-game way to see the facts…
ODB: Game design isn’t like civil rights law.
very insightful reply, to a minor analogy instead of the major content of the post, but yes…the analogy was accurate. A restriction on some specific item or tool is not going to prevent the underlying behaviors and attitudes…which are already commonly known to be present anyway. There’s the analogy spelled out.
(edited by ODB.6891)
I believe this all stems from the idea that the first fight was somehow a dps check, rather then a mechanics check. Some of the people that downed him had minutes left on their timer, this isn’t a dps check fight, people just hit the enrage because they didn’t execute the mechanics correctly.
Somehow you may be right.
By just not putting that timer in, oh how much of this drama could have been spared.
Isn’t that above all a much stronger argument against enrage “timers”, just to cut all the drama and start get playing against cool encounter mechanics ?
Actually, its an even stronger argument for meters and logs. I understand if you have some vested bias against meters/logs, but you need to at least present a valid argument. If there were meters and logs, then it would clearly show if the dps was where it needed to be…and if the enrage timer was reached anyway…that would clearly show that it was a mechanics issue instead of a dps issue. The meters would show the performance levels, the logs would show the downs, damage sources, etc. All that would be left is mechanics. Depending on the mechanics, the logs may even be able to show that too.
Meters are not bad for themself, but for the attitude they bring to the game. It is a tool that is not used like it should be used 90% of times from 90% of ppl.. Everyone that played WoW (expecially good players) understand what i mean.
The problem with this logic is like gun laws. People argue that no one should have guns to keep criminals from having guns. Like criminals aren’t going to kill you with a knife or even a rock if they can’t get their hands on a gun. This is of course ignoring the obvious fact that gun laws aren’t going to stop criminals from getting a gun anyway.
Back to the in game point though, People are going to scrutinize and filter group members with or without meters. The only difference is that it is extremely more accurate and efficient with meters than without. You can save your group from hours of wiping just by having meters + good logs. I played WoW and we were very successful…so I consider myself a decent player. I was always in the top 5 on dps on my various characters when not relegated to some type of hybrid role in WoW. I don’t see a problem with meters at all. You are always going to have some idiots who misuse tools. They are just that…idiots…people will quickly recognize them as such and begin avoiding grouping with them. The benefits from the tools far outweigh the idiots. In depth analysis of strengths, weaknesses, failures allows players to improve and for groups to succeed and grow. Being able to see exactly what boss effects/attacks are killing you (amid the blur of particle effects) is a valuable tool. Being able to see uptime on boons and conditions is equally valuable. Being able to see what players are actually maintaining said boons and conditions and in what proportions allows the raid leader to balance group contribution and allows individual players to adjust their builds/skills to improve. Yes, dps is also a metric provided by meters and it is still very important…as clearing a raid encounter does still mean actually killing the boss. Just because people are so afraid of getting exposed for unacceptable dps performance does not make that an invalid metric to watch…regarding ensuring success. Any group that is worth playing with, should already know that all professions do not output equal dps. Dps should be measured by profession and role…not by raw output. No reasonable raid leader is going to expect a chronomancer to output elementalist or engineer level dps. What they should be expecting from the chronomancer would be alacrity, quickness, and slow uptime…with medium level dps…with boon stripping as applicable. I just chose the chronomancer as an example, but similar things would apply to different professions.
Meters are a valid tool for raids and there is no inherent negative to them. Its just business as usual to filter out bad elements…idiots who are going to be idiots with or without meters. Raids are what ANET has advertised as challenging group content. That means you need to put your best effort into being able to complete them. That means minimal mistakes and the ability to learn from and correct mistakes. Meters + logs are, by definition, a tool set that provides the information to do this. I agree with Azure, although less abrasively, that meters and logs should be available for this content type. How can you really improve if you don’t have all of the information on the problem? I agree with Azure that it is impractical and even unfair for a raid leader to be expected to eyeball everyone in the raid, during the entire encounter….just to see what they are doing wrong. It is extremely more practical to have tools to just review things after the encounter.
Btw…this was not all a replay to you Nephar…I just piggy backed off your post to avoid multiple posts.
Isn’t it ironic how the trinity-guys got what htey wanted (the trinity) and now whine because it takes away diversity and makes teamcomps more rigid with demanding encounters?
Oh-ho, don’t you say.
Boo-kittening-hoo.
I’m loving it too lol. Watching them realize this is priceless, especially since we told them this would be the result while they were begging for this trinity-lite version of GW2.
Gear check, inspects etc are the bane of MMO’s. They go against the spirit of teamwork and cooperation.
I have to disagree with you here. Gear checks and inspects are a filter to make sure people are at least attempting to bring teamwork and cooperation. There has to be a way, in content that actually matters, to make sure the people joining you are at least invested enough in that content…to meaningfully contribute. That’s the same reason they had to remove magic find from gear in this game…leeches. People joining your groups that had no intention of meaningfully contributing…just there to stand in a corner collecting loot bags at the group’s expense. The spirit of teamwork and cooperation would be to bring your top level of contribution to the top level group content.
Currently this is an extremely small issue compared to other games, but will probably change come HoT now. This is meant to be the game which forgoes that problem and encourages teamplay not waiting around for the right classes and gear. It almost gets the former, but I’m not necs seeing the company encourage the latter.
I don’t recall them ever saying gear quality would not matter for any content. They did say they wanted to avoid the gear treadmill…and for the most part they have done that. Just like someone else said…the extension from exotic to ascended does not equal a treadmill. They did fail kitten the waiting on the right classes part though, particularly on the issue of there actually being at least one unwanted class in raids.
Ascended armour is not something pleasant for most players to get. If it was, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue. Now, those coming into the game new, will be gated by other players requiring ascended before they can step into the raid. That’s not how GW should work.
If I am shut out of a raid, I want it to be because I am not good enough as a player, not because I don’t have someone elses perception of what items I should have on me.
Ascended gear wasn’t something that was “pleasant” for anyone to get. It was an investment of time and in game resources for everyone. That being said, no one is stopping you from raiding. You are entirely capable of forming your own raid and going in there unprepared if you want to experience that end game content…as a brand new player. You can even choose to invest in ascended gear instead…via farming and purchasing of materials and crafting your ascended gear asap…that way you can be more prepared for this end game content. If you are so new to the game that you haven’t saved the necessary gold, etc…then crafting (and selling ) certain exotics can net you significant profits to fund your ascended crafting. That being said, if you are that new to the game…what is it that has you convinced that you are that good of a player to contribute to the hardest content in the game? Wouldn’t it make more sense to practice the other content leading up to raids first? Perhaps fractals…that actually drop ascended loot boxes for free and give you gold?
I very much enjoyed playing chronomancer in this past BWE. I’m not really seeing anything that needs any type of nerf…possible exception being the F5. The only reason I mention the F5 is for PvP reasons though…which I think is a very poor reason to nerf it btw. Its not like players can’t adapt to the concept that a chronomancer is extremely likely to try to unload everything they have with this right at the start of any encounter…before they put anything on cool down. Its also not like our damage is super high either.
Everyone keeps crying about our shield #4, which is absolutely ridiculous to complain about. Its definitely not the longest block in the game. The second phase of the block (deja vu) only becomes available if people are dumb enough to attack you with echo of memory up. Shouldn’t there be a penalty for bonehead decisions? Its not any worse than attacking a Herald with infuse light up or attacking a guardian with retaliation, attacking a druid through sublime conversion, trying to melee a warrior in the middle of hundred blades, or trying to melee a reaper….all bonehead decisions with way worse penalties than echo of memory/deja vu….who’s only actual penality is summoning a phantasm with weak dps…that gets insta-gibbed anyway and a second opportunity to block. We can’t even dps while the block is active. Performing any attacks while it is active actually cancels the shield and cancels the phantasm summon. The shield does not even do any damage initially, during, or after it ends. To my knowledge, we can’t even use our healing skill during the shield without cancelling it. That all seems pretty balanced to me. Shield is not a high dps weapon. To be honest, there is no combination used with chronomancer shield that actually yields high dps. Chronomancer is really not a high dps profession. Even with the 10% to sword auto…we still rank pretty low on dps. That’s why it seems so ridiculous that people keep talking about nerfs to the chronomancer. All we have are survival tools and group utility.
If anything the chronomancer needs a few tweaks and possibly a buff to its damage output. I think blurred frenzy should have gotten the same 10% buff that the sword auto attack got. I think protected phantasms should be baseline…or at least a couple of seconds of distortion upon summon for phantasms to be able to not die instantly. I think the well trait needs to be reworked again, so as not to make it so desirable to slot 5 wells and nothing else for utilities. They need to make more alacrity available on a couple of wells…instead of a trait that encourages you to chain spam wells…ignoring their actual individual intended purposes. Other utilities should not be completely invalidated because of one trait.
Legendaries also require full map completion…so there will always be that.
Its already clear they don’t care about any of the previous fundamental design structures if they are going to make healing a stand alone thing. That point is already moot.
Its also clear from what they have been telling us and showing us for HoT raids, that its no longer just a game of dps and burst, but also of support and survival. Yes, dps is still required…as the enemies aren’t going to kill themselves!
Quality level of your armor has absolutely nothing to do with removing any class from participation. There are the full range of ascended armor stats available to all classes…not even sure what you were smoking with that statement. The “berserker meta” never had anything to do with heavy versus light versus medium armor type. Really, I want some of what you are smoking asap! Elementalists ended up being the prime component in zerk groups to the extent that you wanted more than one in a group. I’m pretty sure they were not wearing heavy armor. My mesmer also never had any issues in any group that advertised meta or zerk. Of course, I wasn’t running around camping GS in these groups with nomad gear on either. I’m also sure thieves were part of the meta to a degree as well…medium armor. I’m pretty sure the only classes that could legitimately complain about not being able to get into meta groups were necromancers and rangers. Necromancers had/have a legitimate gripe, but that has nothing to do with gear….that’s 100% stubborn development wanting them to be a special snowflake…intentionally keeping them from being group friendly. Rangers 100% had the ability to play in the meta runs…the class was just so overloaded with nomad bearbows that no one would trust one to not bring this to a group….spamming knock back with their longbows from max range the entire fights. Now they have an option that almost makes them required for serious attempts at raids….druid. On that side note about the WoW Shaman, my enhancement shaman was awesome and was even asked for in raids…those rogues and dps warriors were even annoying in how persistent they were in demanding specific totems. Bloodlust was also a nice contribution in burn phases.
Undoubtedly there is going to be a new meta in HoT raiding, its human nature to try and find the most effective and efficient route to solving a puzzle. Again, this has nothing to do with ascended armor. I agree with you that no game should penalize for the class you choose, but that is entirely a design issue on ANET’s part. Even then, the only classes that I see having potential issues are necromancers/reapers and possibly daredevils. Not so sure about the daredevils as I haven’t checked them out thoroughly yet. As far as class balance issues go, I don’t think it is anywhere near what you are intimating. Yes, my chronomancer has sub par dps, but the utility and support coupled with this mid to low tier dps guarantees a raid spot for at least one chronomancer. That is balance in my opinion. If each class can bring highly valued things to the table…enough to offset dps inequities…then balance is on the right track. I would love it if they also fixed the dps inequities too though.
This thread topic was really about wanting to be coddled for refusing to craft ascended gear…which is a completely invalid complaint on so many levels. There is no skill in obtaining any gear. There is simply effort. Anyone could pick up random masterwork gear. Anyone could brute force face roll dungeons to get exotic gear…or simply buy it off the TP…or even craft it themselves. The same with ascended gear. The issue is preparedness versus wanting a handout and for others to cater to laziness/stubbornness. Why would they put the development time and resources in…specifically for people that cannot be bothered to put in any of the same investment?
There is no “solution” needed. You complain about putting in the basic effort to gear up for the content level…saying that you don’t have enough time in game to do so. If you don’t have enough time in game to have crafted a couple of components a day or even during a week…of ascended gear….then what makes anyone think you have enough time to even attempt a raid? I mean it literally takes seconds to craft the pieces to make ascended gear. You don’t have to craft an entire ascended gear piece in a day…or even in a week. You don’t have to farm materials…they are all sitting right there in the TP except for a few things like dragonite. If you have been playing the game at all, then you should have tons of dragonite, empyreal fragments, and bloodstone dust accumulated…especially since you have apparently never crafted any ascended items. Those things literally drop from every game mode in some way. Even the common components like silk, iron, etc drop from just playing the game. If you had time to get exotic gear…then you definitely had time to be working on ascended gear. You just chose not to. Why would anyone (developers or other players) invest in someone who simply “chooses not to”? This sounds like part of that crowd that always complained about not wanting or needing to craft ascended, which was over a year ago I think. Now look where that attitude has them. They had plenty of time to get with the program. You have created this situation yourself. The good news is that its not too late to resolve it yourself. Get busy crafting instead of expecting everyone else to cater to you for being lazy or stubborn.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Just NO! I’m so tired of every causal argument being a finger pointing episode of talking about “zerker”. You guys seriously need to start looking at yourselves and stop trying to find excuses for your issues. The enrage timers are there because it is absolutely crucial to have a dps check to stop you guys from trying to faceroll content in full nomad groups. You guys seem obsessed with finding the “safest” possible way to get a guaranteed win. That is the opposite of what raids are about. Raids are “challenging group content”. They can’t be a challenge if all you have to do is faceroll in full nomad parties. Of course dropping the enrage timer will drop the skill requirement…what kind of skill is needed to faceroll in unkillable nomad groups? I think it is way past time to start examining your own skill/builds and stop crying about “zerker” every time things aren’t easy.
(edited by ODB.6891)
I look forward to dragging down whatever team gets stuck with me in PvP when I need to get these.
I’ll be all, “Hey, blame Anet.”
This^
I’ll be doing the same. I’ll be terrible in PvP lol…but so long as I don’t have to pay some ridiculous price on the TP…I’ll be happy to be a rally bot in PvP.
.Echo of Memory:
Again, please remove the continious block before it is too late.
I saw it coming…. Some people now complain that it is too strong in Combo with déjà-vu; And yes, they are right.
Now they are talking about reducing the time of the block(sensless). Please, before you change the Name of the skill and/or change something about déjà-vu, just revert it to single block. To have 1,25 sec block or block 1 Attack, won’t make the real difference.As said in my Previous post. Déjà-vu is there to make up for the weak block.
Chronomancer just don’t need a continious block.People won’t understand or hate me. But it is a matter of being skilled, to be able to deal with 1 attack block. You don’t need to block everything randomly.
Plus, somewhere i don’t want the Chronomancer to be so easy to play.Every skill in the entire game can’t be there specifically for PvP and only PvP…especially when raids are a thing now. There is nothing wrong with a couple seconds of continuous block at a time now. There are multiple classes that have continuous blocks…I don’t see all this forum crying about those.
Chronomancer is not a real bunker, won’t be and will never be. Continious Block for which Mode?
You could Block 2 attacks in a row. It was enough.
I didn’t get any problem in WvW nor in PvE
If you plan to rush in middle of the crowd and to shine, you failed as Mesmer and as Chronomancer.
It has Not his place there.It is more a question of being skilled or having some cheesy block.
You people forget that Tides of time is the real block and that Echo of Memory is the phantasm summon.…Err, in PvP, the only real place a bunker matters? (Note: Conquest game mode -_-u )
And yeah, Chronomancer as bunker did fine. Better than fine. It was incredible.
I think you didn’ t read my post well.
I, myself use the chronomancer as some kind of bunker in PvP(and you know what? i was doing fine with the previous block) , but not in Pve and Not in WvW. There are far better utility for this.Since he said “Every skill in the entire game can’t be there specifically for PvP and only PvP”
I ask him for which mode does he need continious block, which is mostly and mainly for PVP.
If you read my post well, you would see I mentioned the game mode in that post. It was only a couple of sentences…come on…
.Echo of Memory:
Again, please remove the continious block before it is too late.
I saw it coming…. Some people now complain that it is too strong in Combo with déjà-vu; And yes, they are right.
Now they are talking about reducing the time of the block(sensless). Please, before you change the Name of the skill and/or change something about déjà-vu, just revert it to single block. To have 1,25 sec block or block 1 Attack, won’t make the real difference.As said in my Previous post. Déjà-vu is there to make up for the weak block.
Chronomancer just don’t need a continious block.People won’t understand or hate me. But it is a matter of being skilled, to be able to deal with 1 attack block. You don’t need to block everything randomly.
Plus, somewhere i don’t want the Chronomancer to be so easy to play.Every skill in the entire game can’t be there specifically for PvP and only PvP…especially when raids are a thing now. There is nothing wrong with a couple seconds of continuous block at a time now. There are multiple classes that have continuous blocks…I don’t see all this forum crying about those.
Chronomancer is not a real bunker, won’t be and will never be. Continious Block for which Mode?
You could Block 2 attacks in a row. It was enough.
I didn’t get any problem in WvW nor in PvE
If you plan to rush in middle of the crowd and to shine, you failed as Mesmer and as Chronomancer.
It has Not his place there.It is more a question of being skilled or having some cheesy block.
You people forget that Tides of time is the real block and that Echo of Memory is the phantasm summon.
I think I’ll leave it up to the developers to decide what was actually needed…oh…that’s right…they gave the continuous block. Looks like they already decided if two blocks were enough or not. Your short sighted view of what should and should not be isn’t really holding a lot of relevance. Again, there are multiple game modes to consider and there is already a clear precedent with invuln skills on multiple classes for short durations. Ours isn’t the least overpowered as you can’t actually attack during it + the phantasm summoned is at the end of the channel + weak damage. The short of it is…if you dislike it that much..don’t use it.