Guild Wars 2

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

-snip-
….. GW2 is a game of counters. To know how to counter someone you need to know what their class is capable of. You need to be able to read what weapons they are using, what their secondary weapons are, what utility skills they use, their skill cooldowns, and very good players can even read what build an opponent is using.

That…or you can play a thief. Who cares what they’re using? They have cool downs, you don’t. Complex mechanics and skill chains to setup a spike? Ha ha ha ha ha, spam a leap finisher that can hit for as much as 7k a pop. Spike setups are for chumps who play those other 7 classes. Fight going poorly? Just disengage with stealth and catch your breath for a bit, spam a leap finisher through a smoke field a few times while you think about what to do. Don’t worry, your a thief, this is what you do.

What’s that you say? Can thieves do anything other than spam stealth and massive damage? Of course they can. It’s called sucking, and they have a plethora if versatile means to suck, all of which should suit any sucky play-style. There’s the “I’m really trying guys.” support build, the “excuse me sir but could you remove your boot from my rectum.” bunker build, and the “Where’d my HP get off to? I swear it was right there a second ago.” non-stealth roamer.

Wait wait wait a dev in the Engineer forums?

Somethings not right…there’s a glitch in the matrix…

But in all seriousness, being back slot item friendly with a little UI icon saying which kit we’re using is perfect, dare I say god!#$%ed poetry in motion.

OR

Reskin all the hobosacks based on our backslot item. Having a Super Adventure Box flamethrower would be EPIC.

AC when used defensively = totally balanced.
AC when used offensively = ruins the whole game.

Solution: AC’s can only be placed within or on the walls of a tower/keep/castle etc.

These are anti-personnel weapons meant for fending off enemy zergs attacking you. Anywhere else the anti-personnel weapons are you.

Highest Probable ANet Response: “We will eventually look into a potential fix for these known issues in the near future. In the mean time check out our living story! It’s got loads of new content!”

The problem is not what the thief can do it’s what the thief can’t do.

Why do thieves spam stealth and heartseeker/unload/clusterbomb? Because the devs designed this class so !#$%ing poorly that this is all they can do. Don’t point at the player and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you play a thief.” you need to point at ANet and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you made the thief.”

The class is terribad, so bad in fact that it can only do one thing well (so well it borders on exploitation of game mechanics causing thread after thread of “QQ nerf thief!”) and be about as effective as a pile of hot sick horse !#$% at literally anything else.

The whole class is over-specialized to the point of absolute infantile simplicity, that’s the problem. Saying you want ANet to nerf stealth and HS spam is taking away the only !#$%ing thing the class can do, which is why Thief zealots will troll you every time you mention a nerf to spamming and stealth.

Problem: the whole Thief class stinks worse than a week old diaper wrapped in burnt hair and crammed inside a road killed skunk that got hit by a gravel truck four or five times. Save for one hyper specialized, game breaking, and childishly simple play style, the thief is a horrible class.

Solution: kill it and burn it…or just kill it with fire…then like the mighty Phoenix let it rise from it’s ashes as a valid, well rounded, and challenging class to play.

The design goal here, when we look at our medium armor cousins, is the ability to tank damage unconventionally. Thieves do this the best via stealth tanking to mitigate damage. Rangers can heavily regenerate to mitigate damage taken. Engineers cant do either exceptionally well but have access to options that can permit both to a lesser extent. It goes without saying the Engineer is a master generalist with no clear optimal method behind our damage mitigating options. Blinds, blocks, stealth, regeneration, protection, and damage reduction while stunned are all available to the class but are deliberately scattered in various trait lines, some of which make no sense (Auto-Defense Bomb Dispenser to name one).

The long and short of it is there is no simple fix to damage mitigation for Engineers and of all the things that could be done, raising native toughness is something I think could cause the most imbalance.

As a thought, Engineers could be outfitted with a few more skill options to compensate builds that don’t spec in toughness. With any luck, these are the kinds of skills that ANet is currently working on putting into the game sometime this year.

Until then, if you don’t spec in toughness, Block, Evade, Blind, and CC counter as best you can.

zerospin.8604:

I really want to try playing alts in WvW, but since WxP was introduced, it makes it a waste. I believe it also makes playing characters < 80 in WvW a waste. Don’t the rank chests have a chance on precursor / ascended only if you’re 80?

So I’m stuck on my main until I get all the world mastery points. But they are adding new ones all the time… And once I get all, and go on an alt, they will all be gone.. just awesome.. not.

That’s pretty much it in a nut shell.

The whole “we want you to try out various builds” concept doesn’t hold up. It’s not like we’re limited to a certain number of traits like in the normal class trait system; we only get more of them over time. There’s no point in trying to progress through on another character as it’s making the player start from scratch. We may all be picking a different set of traits first, but on a long enough time line we’ll all end up with the same WvW trait build; max-traited. There’s only so many trait lines the devs could add to the system before they just run out of stuff to trait for, so max-traiting is the goal. A goal that is done the fastest by never wasting play time on an alt, because everything in WvW is designed to take a long time to obtain.

So those are your options ANet:

1) Make World Rank, Traits, and Rewards account bound.

2) Limit the amount of trait lines any one character may have access to in order to encourage playing an alt with access to different traits. (ex: Let us pick a couple siege weapons, one keep weapon, a guard affinity I.e. defense or killer, and give everyone access to the supply and repair traits.)

I would be happy with either…oh and 300 points to carry 5 more supply? Really!? That’s just plain mean!

@OP: Well it’s tricky. Can’t really give a blanket 100% effective answer, but I can tell you how I’ve adjusted my play style to counter hard CC chains like that of a Warrior Hammer: mostly Elixir X.

Depending on the form you get and if that attacker has stability its really effective. For tornado your going to want to spam 2 for blind spam to mitigate their damage, 3 for ranged knock down if they’re kiting like an intelligent person, or 1 if you get rooted and they’re waiting out your form duration. For Rampager, start with that 5 skill and then start auto attacking them, reserve your 3 skill to gap close if they try to get away, your 2 skill for when they try to heal in melee range, and that 4 skill for if you get rooted or on any skill that looks like it may be dangerous (like Eviscerate).

Now if they have stability up and you can stun break and escape with Rocket Boots, do it. Kite them until they don’t have stability and then attack. Pay attention to them if they weapon swap as well since it’ll give you time to do your thing while their hammer is on CD. Personally I run a rifle static discharge build more than anything else, so when I see an opening I press the advantage as hard and fast as possible to put them down or at least on the defensive.

The response to Warriors is to kite their aggression and when they’re all tapped out you !@$% them up and take their lunch money.

DevonCarver.5370:

Shimdroid.2765:

Because with this system they can add ranks without touching the existing ones, in the other way you propose they should modify the entire ranking system each time they add a rank.

This is indeed why the system is built as it is. It is also intended to last for a very, very long time. Beyond that, we are going to be continuing to increase the rate at which you gain those ranks.

I’m not sure I understand this reasoning…

Invader (0-9) -> Bronze Invader (10-19) -> Silver Invader (20-29) -> Gold Invader (30-39)-> and so on.

If you wanted to add ranks use the same convention with those new ranks.

ANet Developer -> Bronze ANet Developer -> Silver ANet Developer -> Gold ANet Developer -> Undead Labs Developer (Jeff Strain ftw)

In terms you’re more familiar with, who wants to go from Tester, to Quality Assurance, to Department Lead, to Head of Design, to finally achieve the coveted and hard earned rank of Bronze Tester?

…but of course apparently all WvW players enjoy promoting ourselves into demotion…

Is it a problem that needs to be fixed? No! Of course not! It’s just !#$%ing stupid, and I personally have no qualms with pointing to anything or anyone to include myself and say, “hey, that’s !#$&ing stupid.”.

When it comes down to it shuffling up some text in a spread sheet might take you a few hours of copy and paste and as we both know there are vastly more important things a WvW developer needs to be doing than fooling around with an arbitrary naming convention. What’s done is done, it’s a minute "quality of life issue, and I’d rather see the return of orbs, institution of commensurate rewards for WvW players (particularly achievements), more maps, more types of siege, and for the love of all that is good and holy account bound world rank that doesn’t throw all my progress to the side when I decide to play my alt, “hey guys I’ll jump on that cannon I have the traits…wait I’m on my alt…never mind.”

LilMcGinley.3890:

I don’t want to change map-zerg vs map-zerg because that’s lagfest for both parties, therefore, even ground as stupid as it may be (to me). My problem is when a map-zerg wants to fight 30 people. There is simply nothing the group of 30 can do to give them a snowballs chance in hell to make it anywhere close to an even fight or have a chance of surviving. That is when some form of “debuff” needs to be implemented.

Choke points and terrain only goes so far when they have enough numbers to simply ignore the AoE limits and push through.

ANet said they were “working on ways” to make smaller groups more effective and I really hope it’s something good.

First, the mere idea that 30 people should have anything greater than a snow balls chance in hell against 100+ is an absolutely absurd statement. You clash with 3 times your number, you lose, game the !@$% over, see you at spawn. End of story. This is not a problem this is a symptom of poor design that encourages players to gather in the largest possible group they can manage. You can’t cure cancer with morphine: attack the problem not the symptoms.

Second, skill-lagging is a separate can of worms altogether, and I’m certain we can all agree it needs to be fixed, yet the suggestion that debuffing zergs will even remotely lessen its impact is misguided. Sure there won’t be skill lag anymore, because everyone quit playing in general, much less zerging.

Thirdly, the fix, is giving players a reason not to zerg that doesn’t just open the door for griefers like a zerg debuff:
Concept: Time sensitive multi-point orb events. If there are 3 orbs worth 1,000 points a piece when turned in, in each of the four maps, and each drop a rare or better for the contributors, they will split up PuGs by default and present a trade off for the map-population-cap sized zerg; only get one for 1000 or split up for all three for 3000. Simply dropping these orbs in random mid-field locations, or even being obtained from some massive orb champion that must be killed before the orb can be taken, would resolve more than one problem with WvW.

Calae.1738:

Obscure One.4357:

Fix: More bandwidth, more server resources.

I don’t think it’s a hardware issue. I think it’s a game design issue. Their engine has limitations and for what ever reason they believe that some lag in some situations is acceptable.

They generally have poor server architecture and game optimization, and no indication of fixing that…like ever. Random disconnects still occur at least once a week for me, the queue system is bugged and varies depending on which zone your located in when you queue, the Trading Post/Gem Store periodically bugs out with an “Invalid Authorization” forcing a total client reset if you want to restore functionality, moving objects do not always properly render client side relative to actual location server side (ex: Dolyaks), and to top it all off when this Massively Multiplayer game actually becomes a Massively Multiplayer fight the system cannot manage all of the processes creating skill-lag, and when it ends it’s counter method of cutting process Time lingers in the form of “server-quickness”.

The engine doesn’t do them any favors, but that server architecture is an atrocity.

I love me some armor skins!

It’s always nice to see a direct purchase item in the cash-shop. I’ve refused to put any money into the RNG weapon skins ever since I burnt through an embarrassing amount of gems with nothing but a buncha random boosters n such to show for it…felt like that dude in Vegas that just didn’t know when to quit and cut his losses…but that’s beside the point.

Hey ANet, I don’t get to compliment your team very often, but the skins are cool, your art designers/directors are doing a great job, and you should give them all a raise and Friday off work…preferably paid.

One suggestion if I may. Look into making these purchases unlockables akin to the HoM and achievement rewards.

That is all.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

LilMcGinley.3890:

I would assume, at least I think of, people wants debuffs for groups of 50, 60 or even 80… 30-35 would be the ‘average’ guild group size so this doesn’t/wouldn’t effect them unless they all want to run together in a 600 range (which is really small for 50 people)

I like those garrison fights were all servers have a full map zerg.

I like all the fights that are that big, garrison just happens to be my favorite.

I prefer the open field.

No siege. No towers. No camps. No keeps. Just us versus you and a whole lotta bags in one of our near futures. A straight up fight is the most fun you can ask for in WvW, provided the skill lag doesn’t show up to make it miserable for everyone.

Honestly, it’s just overdue for a GvG 25 vs 25 mode that contributes to the winning server’s world score…but I guess its asking to much of Guild Wars 2 to give us guild wars…clearly I’m filled with unrealistic expectations.

Zerging is not the core problem, and years ago when speculating about how WvW would be on Guru forums I recall discussing eloquent methods to counter zerg strategies. The principal one I can recall was a basic notion of efficiency. As it stands the zerg is more efficient than small groups or solo roaming in all aspects of play. Originally there were orbs to counteract the notion that you needed a zerg to be efficient, but now there’s a void in the design that they clearly left behind. The simplest method to counter these zergs is not to debuff them, but to force them to split up to be efficient. If I put a single piece of cheese in a maze and toss in 5 rats they’ll all gang up and find that cheese. But, if I put in 5 pieces of cheese they all won’t end up at the same piece. Same concept. If an event is dropped in some random open field location and pings on everyone’s minimap and that event grants a substatial amount of points the zerg will hit it…but if I threw in twelve, three on each map, then they’d be forced to split up to be efficient. Stay together in a sever zerg and secure one, or split up and fight for them all.

Problem is it requires development time, and a development budget, both of which the WvW team seems to have neither of.

The answer to that question is obvious. We all leave, and they’ll be glad to be rid of us flaming their forums so they can focus on running their PvE Special Olympics, where everyone gets a gold medal just for showing up:

Hey there. Can you press 1 alot? Hurray! Here’s a gold medal, some achievement points, a guaranteed rare drop, a chance at a precursor, and you’re one step closer to that next achievement point tier! Yay! Your very a special player!

At the current rate of improvement its just a matter of time till I uninstall, and that length of time is directly related to the release of Bungie’s Destiny on PC.

LilMcGinlkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittkittennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnny.3890:

Obscure One.4357:

Fix: More bandwidth, more server resources.

Simply put, take that money I spent to buy the GW2: Collectors Edition on the day it went up for pre-purchase, and the money I’m spending on the cash shop, and invest it into the content I care about. Stop spending my personal support of the game on frivolous uninspired PvE bull!%#&, and give me the game you advertised already. I feel like I’m still waiting for GW2 to actually release like I’m supporting some !#$%ing kickstarter program that may never see the light of day…

Unless they put WvW only items in the Gem Shop.. PvE makes them money, WvW doesn’t… hence the PvE updates. Money drives everything.

That’s a misconception.

NCSoft makes the money off the gem store. Then they decide the budget and for what the budget shall be used in meetings with ANet develeopment leadership. Korean gaming structure favors filler content to grind on and whattayaknow, GW2 has so much that they’re giving it away for free and then literally throwing it away like it’s got an expiration date.

Your absolutely right, money drives everything.

Darius Glazkov.9750:

Mandar.9813:

That being said, does it seem right that after nearly a year, my achievements are:
0% Yakslapper (1553 yaks)
8% Realm Avenger (22k kills)
0% Realm Defender (14K)
1% Going Camping (1.8k)
0% Take Everything in Sight (3.1k)

…when I do get there I will only get a MEASLY 5-10 ACHIEVEMENT POINTS…

thats all?

oh and you forgot a sweet title, ty. honestly there were things pretty absurd in GW1 as well and nobody complained. all people got were titles and they were fine with it. i don’t really see why a reward is necessary, personally. i will agree there should be titles in between each tier, but i don’t think completing it should really give you anything special.

Your ignoring the problem as much as the Devs, maybe you should apply to work there as it appears to be a sought after quality in their PvP/WvW department.

Commensurate reward structure is the issue. I could easily achieve vastly more if I did the mindnumbing living story content in vastly less time than in my preferred and actually entertaining game mode of WvW. As a matter of fact the whole content model is designed so that I can earn most if not all of the achievements in a relatively short period of time. What compounded this issue is the new achievement reward system that now gives out unique rewards for tiers of accumulated achievement points…points that I won’t get all of in WvW for about another 5 years of dedicated play…and it’s a staggeringly low amount of points anyhow. It’s literally less time consuming to get literally every Legendary weapon currently in the game than it is to complete every WvW achievement.

Fix: More bandwidth, more server resources.

Simply put, take that money I spent to buy the GW2: Collectors Edition on the day it went up for pre-purchase, and the money I’m spending on the cash shop, and invest it into the content I care about. Stop spending my personal support of the game on frivolous uninspired PvE bull!%#&, and give me the game you advertised already. I feel like I’m still waiting for GW2 to actually release like I’m supporting some !#$%ing kickstarter program that may never see the light of day…

Zylonite.5913:

DevonCarver.5370:

I’ve said it before, and I will repeat it here. We are aware of the problems with the WvW achievements and will be doing more to address them in the near future. Currently it is more complicated to solve the problems than I would like, which means we need to have a fully comprehensive solution before doing anything.

This is not a complicated issue at all. Just multiply the WvW achievements points by 10 or 20 in your code to balance it out with PvE points…

Let me explain better:

For example we have the “Ultimate Dominator” title Tier 6 [250,000 Total Kills in WvW]. If you add all the achievements for all 6 tiers, they add up to 51 points if I am doing my math correctly. Multiply the points in the code by 10 or 20 and total will be 500 or 1000 points which is reasonable for such a big achievement. [approx takes 800-1000 hours and only 2 players have this title as far as I know]. The same goes for the rest of the WvW achievements. I can understand that the PvE achievement points could get complex due to many different contents compare to WvW, but WvW system is very straight forward achievement system and very easy to balance it in a patch.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_vs_World_

I have mentioned this many times in my other posts: This game is about guilds going to war to protect their home lands (server). Is it really fair to us WvW’ers that a couple of Living story achievements and jumping puzzles in PvE give the same achievement points as a 250,000 WvW kills? Or does ANet want to see all the WvW’ers on low achievement points?

This should be highest priority on your list of issues to fix and not delaying it of being a complicated issues, because it is very simple to fix indeed.

Comprehensive fix:

All WvW achievements operate like the Agent of Entropy achievement. The system already tracks repeats so titles may remain earned at the same amount they are currently. Updating current achievement points based on the new model would be done in identical fashion to the update done to Agent of Entropy.

Then periodically add more achievements and titles that’re commensurate to existing ones..perhaps one that’s based on WvW rank, one for sentry point captures, one for mercenary camp flipping, and so on.

Complicated? No.
Invalidates Existing Progress? No.
Should’ve been done in that patch a little bit ago that only overhauled the entire achievement system and deliberately ignored anything beyond a UI change in the WvW tab.

Now if it’s internal controls that the design leadership is putting on the department, I completely understand it being “complicated”. It’s one thing to not fix it because you cant figure out how, and a whole different kind of complicated if you know how, but that !#$%er making all the implementation decisions keeps stonewalling because it isn't "comprehensive" enough. I'd straight up Office Space style burn that place to the ground if that was the environment I worked in...!#%$ing Lumberg…

yesfourme.8906:

AND ADD “/RANK”!!

We have /rank…it’s for sPvP. You know, that place that we only visit to bypass waypoint cost to get to Lions Arch. But a “/wrank” would be a welcomed addition.

I’m not sure if I should be happy that the dev’s know about this and are working towards a solution…

…or that the dev’s have known about the issue since, roughly, I dunno, launch day to give them the benefit of the doubt, and are still working towards a solution…

a bunch of folks got together and made fully voiced cutscenes, a fully explorable airship, new skill mechanics, and a few mini-games, but the WvW can’t manage a few achievement disparities…within the same relative production window from launch…

To the dev’s I ask, what’s the development budget here? Or are you prevented from answering because you already used it all up just posting on this thread?

Forgive me if I’m a bit burnt out on the “when it’s ready” speech, but I trust that line about as much as I trust a fat kit with my cupcakes. I’m not naive, and I understand parent companies pushing, and market demands being market demands, but Arena Net’s advertising strategy is what brought this jaded MMO-hater to GW2 and made me look like a tool to everyone I overhyped it to in turn. So likely until I find something better to do, I’ll keep on saying to the dev’s exactly what you said to me in order to get me to play GW2.

Maybe that’s it! The idea is to wait until we all quit playing so they don’t have to do anything about it all, like fixing the Paragon from GW1. Truly ingenuous I’d say, and definitely the most fiscally responsible expenditure of development time.

Vol.5241:

You know if you wanted a PvP/WvW-focused game, you shouldn’t have picked GW2. Go play planetside 2 or something.

PvE is the main focus of this game. Let alone you seem to ignore all the WvW additions/QoL improvements you have gotten.

Hey there, don’t you have a meta-event to auto-attack your way through?

Oh and I’ll just put this here so the rest of your friends can read about the flagrant injustice done to people play games for the challenge, which I know must be a totally alien concept to your kind:

http://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads/216375-A-History-of-Guild-Wars-2-eSports-. A good summary to save me time.

…devs took the money I spent the day that CE’s went up for sale for an e-sport quality game, and used it to buy candy, stickers, and bull!@#$ to scatter into the crowd of 1-pressers…

…but yeah, I have no right to feel alienated whatsoever…your totally right… I must have accidentally used logic in my thoughts… Maybe I need more PvE to turn that rationality and reason into mush so I can fit in better with the fan base…

!#%&ing Bull @!# Mother !!$& Hamspter !#$ Kitten !#% Dog !@#$%ers!

/anger
/rant

edit: this thread just suffered an insult worse than deletion…moved to a sub-forum the devs don’t care about…if they did the thread wouldn’t exist. Truly helpful mods, truly helpful…

I like the idea but not the method for implementation. Simply put its just to late in the game to make the change in this manner. Invalidates to much player investment.

Actually wearing heavy armor is something I think is far to much work in implementation, and would be development hours better spent on bug fixing, skill balancing, anything with the Mortar a.k.a. “pile of wet dog !@#$” , and that atrocity they call our downed state. I see all of those fixes happening with relative ease in comparison to transitioning the class to heavy armor in a manner that won’t make Engineers angry.

Perhaps, as a counter idea, allowing Engineers to wear ALL armor and alter tool belt skill Cool Downs based on that. Heavy armor would increase tool belt cool down time, medium armor is unchanged, and light armor reduces tool belt cool downs. This way it integrates into existing mechanics without mucking anything up. It would compensate us for lacking weapon diversity by having a unique armor diversity.

digitalruse.9085:

-snip-

• All Divinity – Puts me at a pretty snazzy 45% crit and +75% crit damage, but jebus is it expensive.
• 4 Altruism – Gives me the handy might stack and boon boost. With traits that is 35%. Is the extra 3-4 seconds on most boons worth it?
• 4 Lyssa – Pick up condition duration and precision and a random boon when I heal.

Am I off my rocker — my brain muddled by just… blech — or am I on the right path?

I’m actually against the Celestial and Divinity stat spread concepts, but it’s more personal preference than anything else; I’d rather be a bit more specialized in attributes and leave the generalizing to my skills and play style.

That being said there are a few ways to make Celestial stats and Divinity runes work well, and that’s going to be primarily in your high crit dmg Static Discharge builds. Celestial gear’s strong suit is that it has the highest crit damage of all gear options, and thus makes it the optimal choice for a spec.

As for Altruism and Lyssa, I love them both and use them both in a variety of builds, as both have excellent synergy with Med Kit rotations, and I’m a Med-Kit-Junkie. For Altruism, the main attractions here are the +15% boon duration, the 3 Might stacks, and Fury. The Healing power is kinda, meh as it scales the poorest of all attributes in the game. To capitalize on using it on a Med-Kit rotation, you’ll want to have base stats at 20/-/-/10/10, for Enhance Performance, Invigorating Speed, and Speedy Kits. Since you’ll have a +25% boon duration with the runes and the Alch trait line, you’ll be able to perma-swift, perma-vigor, and perma-fury (Drop Stimulant).

Now with Lyssa runes you gain Precision, my favorite attribute for Engineers, a random boon on your Med-Kit rotation, and a condition clear on Elite skill activation. This can be optimal with just a base of -/-/-/10/- just to use Fast Acting Elixirs to reduce the cool down of Elixir X to 84 seconds. Now many protest the skill for it’s RNG, but once you get used to the forms, it rapidly becomes an amazing skill for any Engineer especially when it’s coupled with a condition clear that grants every boon, it’s basically GODMODE for 5 seconds (not including % increases to boon duration) and just really awesome for the seconds to follow. When used on an CF409 and HGH build these are very strong rune options, but they’re so useful for so many builds for their Precision boost and condition clear that I dare say these could be considered a “general purpose” rune set.

Hope that helps!

itamar.4690:

First of all , thief use medium armor.
And speedy kits are in the alchemy tree, which gives u boon duration that increase ur Swiftness buff.
Maybe 0.5 isnt much, but i never miss even half a second of swiftness.
If you said that when you fail (which u shouldnt) u have 2sec w/o swiftness, that is Entireley ur problem.
Btw, rocket boots.

Incorrect on Speedy Kits, it’s in the Tools line. What you’re thinking of is the trait that synergies with it Invigorating Speed, that gives you vigor whenever you gain swiftness. Also the 10% boon increase from 10 points in Alchemy provides the half second required to manage the kit rotation your using. Personally for such builds I prefer Med Kit, since it will also give you might if you’re using Enhance Performance, a random boon if your using Runes of Lyssa, and cure a condition if your using Saffron-Scented Poultry Soup. That’s swiftness, vigor, might (3 stacks), a random boon, and a condition removal every 10 seconds, with a refresh of swiftness and vigor every 5 seconds to allow for a permanent upkeep. If your more the support type, try Runes of Altruism instead, they’ll give you three more stacks of might and also fury, allowing you to now add fury to swiftness and vigor as boons you can maintain a permanent upkeep on with Drop Stimulant.

@ OP. L2P bro.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bovinity.8610:

Oh no, the PvE-Heroes will tell you that because there’s one Kite in EB JP, they are the most persecuted and ignored people in the entire history of gaming, and that WvW players are clearly the only group that ANet pays attention to.

If they paid more attention to WvW beyond that World XP system then I might be more in tune with it . . . the problem is, I am guessing, how much do you alter WvW after launch without kitten ing off everyone who is used to it and likes it being what it is?

Edit: Also, the trouble of “diluting” or “saturating” the maps with people who are there only for the Living World material or not there because something else is drawing them away.

There are three problems right there that’ve gone on for entirely too long.

-1: Putting PvE goals in PvP zones.

Hey ANet, cut that !#% out. If it's not relevant to whipping some other kids !# don’t put it in WvW, because that kid from PvE is used to the “auto-attack until it poops a treasure chest.” mechanic of your Special Olympics meta-events where everyone who shows up gets a !@#$ing Gold medal.

-2: Artificial Inflation/Deflation of server presence.

Like clock work the fair weather WvWers show up and also leave as soon as that aforementioned piece of cheese gets put in the maze. They just sniff their way to it wherever it may be, WvW or some crap zone that was literally a ghost town before the event, it doesn’t matter. Rewards should reflect personal play choice equally, not discourage/encourage it artificially.

-3: Content in stasis.

Two maps. That’s right Two. One copy and pasted for each server, and one for everyone to share. Want to fix queue times in WvW? Give us more places to be. New zones that pop up in the mists that might provide players with something new to do, things to learn, new mechanics, and character progression? Sounds like a great idea! We’ll just make that one a PvE exclusive that still has no WvW equivalent…brilliant, truly, the epicness of the fail is unrivaled.

“Hey check out our living story! We’re pumping out biweekly new content!”

…for PvE…

Face it, the depth of PvE content is rivaled by that of a kiddie pool. Uninteresting random nonsense that, in the end, people only do for the cheese at the end of the uninspired maze. I will not discount the production quality by the level and art designers, they’re doing a remarkable job and should be pointed to as the all stars of the entire development team hands down. My issue is PvE is flat out not entertaining, and is further trivialized by the vast plethora of reward systems that pat players on the back every 20 minutes…PvE players mind you.

At my current rate, if I continue to focus on the only game mode I find interesting, WvW, I won’t gain a related title for another year of consistent play, with some I may not see for 2 or even 3 years. Not days. Not weeks. Not months. YEARS. This game mode, that actually presents a challenge to players, is the least rewarded mode. I’m not just talking titles, achievement points, or special skins, I’m talking living story.

Every couple of weeks the devs chuck some new shallow and bland content into the game that WvW players care nothing about. Why? Because it doesn’t effect us…like at all. Gnashblah and Kielover-n-die elections are so far removed from the game mode that all these stacks of support tokens I have require me to leave the game mode to turn in. I have no interest in this crap, and I think I speak for all of the dedicated WvWers when I say the whole content model deems us second class players.

Look at the laundry list of achievements, zones, and special activities thrown at PvE via the living story and then discarded like they have a surplus and just can’t be bothered with it. Then look at how long orbs have been removed from WvW with no sign of return, or anything even remotely similar to fill the void. Four teams pumping out a steady stream of content for the living story, meanwhile the crew for WvW got us ranks, that should’ve always been there, and WvW specific traits that are time consuming to get and character bound, both of which add up to heavily discourage playing an alt.

New zones? Nope.
Living Story Achievements? Nope.
New game mechanics (i.e. orbs)? Nope.
New Title Tracks? Nope.
New WvW specific achievements? Nope.
New WvW specific rewards? Nope.

All of those questions are a once a month Yes for PvE players…and even they’re only going to show up for the cheese at the end of the maze, not care about the maze itself, and log off until that next piece of cheese gets put in. How do I know? Because those are the only reasons I even dabble in PvE. I’m in a queue, and may as well knock out some junk content for a skin I can only get by doing it while I wait to do something actually entertaining.

TheLaughingMan.4320:

They need better servers, and all of anet is being whipped by “monetization team” (aka CC) to produce crap temp content that does not draw in new players and just gives an excuse to screw people with rng blc junk, the gameplay itself is not a huge priority.

I predict GW2 to have about 1 year (give or take a month) before monetization is the sole determination of all development of the game. Annual profits will get reported projections will be given to NCSoft investors and ANet will be forced to operate in a manner to meet their parent company’s growth expectation. Thus anything not directly related to profitability will come by October of this year (end of most fiscal years), and if it’s not fixed by then don’t expect it ever.

This is should be the prime focus of WvW development teams…that and maybe adding a few more maps…

4 teams dedicated to crap content that gets used and discarded like a common contraceptive, and WvW gets neglected like a politicians illegitimate “crazy night in college” love child. There are actual problems with the core game that are seemingly deliberately ignored likely because of the relative difficulty associated to fixing them, and I understand that’s always going to be an issue from a development perspective. But game design is a gestalt practice, and if any singular part of the design fails the whole suffers. “Skill-lag” is no exception.

Clearly the architecture wasn’t designed to handle large amounts of complex data in real time, and thus skill-lag. WvW, made to enable large group play, fails to do so when the server bottle necks from tracking exponentially increasing numbers of conditions, boons, positions, and triggered events…so it just stops doing so as to not crash the whole thing.

The complexity of a fix likely has to do with how the server prioritizes processes and associates them to the correct resources. Eventually, these resources are operating at maximum capacity and the highest priority processes override other processes and though the command gets received it has nowhere to go and thus “skill-lag”. The server is busy with tracking priority processes which are likely object movement, object location, and object properties (conditions, boons, health, endurance, etc.). Object actions must fall close to the priority processes becoming what we call “rubber-banding”; server resources are to busy to update object location and conflict with client end information.

The fix would require more bandwidth and more server resources…which costs money. Figuring out a way to dedicate existing bandwidth and resources to WvW may be even more costly in development time depending on the complexity of the architecture, and may even be flat out impossible barring a total re-build.

I hate skill lag as much as the next guy, but fixing it doesn’t seem to be a simple undertaking from my perspective. Granted a bit more thought to those like myself who literally only play the game for WvW should be taken into account, but in looking at sPvP/tPvP and WvW compared to PvE, it’s clear ANet is playing favorites so I won’t hold my breath. A patch here, a bug fix there, and a new trait line every so often is all we should expect…oh and horrible skill lag, annoying queue times, the exact same maps, and to be treated like second class players clearly ignored by the “living story” content model.

mzt.3270:

The question is very clear and concise, I am asking why we are slow as well has having a poor health pool and medium armor.

It’s not that the question isn’t clear, but the presumption that the question is valid that is the issue.

Engineers are not slow unless you build them that way. Engineers are not squishy unless you build them that way.

The answer to your question is the question itself: Why the !@#% is your Engineer slow and squishy?! You’re doing it wrong!

Best Reset Night Ever.

Didn’t think a good match-up would ever happen again. Makes me wish I could do it all night long

…unfortunately sleep is a biological necessity…

~From TC With Love~

Fix for instakilled turrets:

Deployable Turrets: Turret skills use ground targeting and recharge instantly when destroyed (20 second cool down)

The real problem with the turret is the AI. When we look at everything in the game that has anything at all to do with game AI we see Arena Net’s clear weakness in design capability. All the AI in the entire game is slightly less intelligent as a pile of dog !#$ because at least the dog !#$ has the good sense to stink to let people know thakittens detestable.

Ranger pets, terribad.
Mesmer clones, terribad.
Necro minions, terribad.
…and Engineer’s turrets are terribad.
Even NPC’s are terribad as literally every time I do a dungeon with a character from this legendary “Destiny’s Edge” group they end up face down on the floor the entire time, and I’m always wondering, “Why the !#$ did we even bring this guy!? Why the !#$ didn’t we bring Talkora?!”

Simply put, ANet needs to contact some companies, get some price quotes, and contract out their AI programming to a crew that can make some really punishing and intelligent AI. And not just for class pet/pseudo-pet AI, but for all of PvE as well. Imagine if the Shatterer actually interacted with our horde instead of the “auto-attack it till it poops a treasure box” system it is now. If X number of people can be in a zone and Y is the main attraction of the zone, then Y should be capable of beating the !@#$ out of X…okay I’m starting to get off topic.

Point is, ANet makes bad AI, and because of this anything that’s considered “strong” just has an arbitrarily large amount of health, toughness, or attack power and in some cases all three. Seeing as they only ever really tweak a damage number here, or a health pool total there, and occasionally fix a stray bug with the AI you can tell that any major reworking of the AI is something they just want to put in a closet and never look at.

SmallCat.7413:

When I choose engineer, I think he is a long range character.
And now i found that i was wrong.
He does not hold a rifle, but the shotgun…………. lol
Look at warrior and ranger,and look at you,engineer!
What‘s in your hand?Rifle?No!That is a shotgun!All the hight damage skills need use in a short distance!

So very true.

The Warrior rifle is so distant and impersonal, always trying to shut people out, afraid of getting close to someone. But the Engineer rifle wants to get nice and close, cozy up to it’s fire, and make sweet sweet death to people all night long.

Rahar.9872:

Obscure One.4357:

-snip-, last post above me

It’s an interesting idea, and it could work. The fundamental problem you seem to be missing, however, is we have a mechanic in place to already limit this skill spamming; Initiative.

snip

See what I’m trying to say here?

I get exactly what you’re saying: the problem is vastly more complicated in that same skill spam is a byproduct not a problem in and of itself. In that context it’s not same skill spamming that should be addressed, but viability for those other 4 skills on the bar.

This will take more time to formulate an idea to counteract, but when I think of it, I’m sure to post it here and endure the petty nonsense and stupidity of the vast majority of thief sub-forum contributors.

Daecollo.9578:

Travlane.5948:

a zerk guardian can really put a hurting on somebody! especially with rage sigil going off!

might be a silly question here but oh well:

if you have 2 daggers and on each dagger is a sigil of rage….i know they share the same cooldown…..but does that give you 2x the chance at it going off bc there is 2?
for instance. sigil of rage: 10% chance to gain quickness on a crit for 3 secs.

so you hit something and Sigil A: 10% chance misses
on the same hit then goes Sigil B: 10 % chance Proc’s and quickness buff goes on.

It does not increase the chance. :<

Just like 2 “5% Critical Chance” Sigils is still only 5% instead of 10%.

Daecollo is correct.

When it comes to the crit chance sigils these specifically do not stack. This is a different element of the sigil proc mechanic. Proc on crit sigils each have a chance to proc on the same critical hit, though the % chance remains the same, I.E. 60% chance to remove a boon from a sigil of Nullification will not stack to 120% chance when slotting another identical sigil, but both have an opportunity to proc on a critical hit thus increasing the odds of a proc. Granted once one procs they both go on CD, this is actually advantageous granting each crit after the cool down to again have two chances at the proc instead of one. The only situation in which this is really viable is with low crit rate builds to try to capitalize on a crit for the desired effect.

Rahar.9872:

Obscure One.4357:

OP’s post

For what it’s worth, I agree with you to an extent. I understand that beating these Thieves is not the problem here. In a matter of fact, I posted this same exact idea a few months back and understand where you’re coming from. But let’s take a closer look. And for the sake of the Thief’s forum’s dignity (ha) I’ll be very civil about it.

Adding this sort of functionality to our skills would punish us too harshly, in too many ways. Aren’t we limited to initiative cost at any rate? Either way, sometimes, it’s best to spam a skill, especially when the enemy is so pressured he has nothing left. This is just one case where it’s beneficial to spam a skill, IE, Heartseeker. But there’s other things, too. Headshot comes to mind. I run a very initiative-traited build where spamming headshot can disable an opponent for seconds at a time, while my allies do the damage. Is it practical? Maybe not. Is it effective? Yes. Is it unfair? No. He can dodge my headshots, but is too confused or not situationally aware to do so. Which brings me to my next point.

If spamming a skill is so cheap and predictable, why do these so-called “good” players have such a hard time countering it? Are they so short sighted and ignorant that they can’t predict, or for that matter see, me spamming a skill? Keep in mind most of these skills are easily blocked, dodged, or invuln’d. A good player would see this and punish me for it without the game doing so for them. Adding this functionality would simply be a handicap for bad players.

Oh, and I read your post about “whack-a-mole”ing skills. For some reason, the Elementalist’s playstyle came to mind. Can’t imagine why.

A fair analysis. I appreciate the change of pace.

Perhaps the problem is to integrated into the class to attempt to apply cool downs for skill spamming. As far as I can tell it would certainly nerf untalented same skill spamming, but certain viable build strategies would get caught in the cross fire. I’d prefer this not to be the case with Exhaustion. I want to see a fostering of more skilled game-play and expanded build diversity at the expense of removing unskilled game-play.

Maybe Exhaustion is something I’m looking at being handled incorrectly entirely. The cost of unskilled gameplay should come at the expense of other options, or more simply longer cool downs for them instead. Steal, heal skill, and utility skills could all be instantly be put on these short 1.5 second stacking cool downs (max of 3 seconds still) when skill spamming within 2 seconds. This, instead of preventing a thief from using the skill, forces the thief to be smart about using skill spam as other valuable skills must be sacrificed to do so leaving them vulnerable. Ideally the playstyle would change so that the effects of this extra cool-down is minimized as the thief would likely only skill spam when everything is already on cool down and they literally don’t have any other option.

Additionally changing the Lead Attacks grandmaster minor trait to, in addition to the 1% increase in damage per initiative point, to also reduce cool downs of non-elite skills when activating them by 1% per initiative you have when activating them. Effectively putting the ball in the thieves court if it wants to mitigate cool downs from skill spamming; activate steal, heals and utilities before skill spamming to reduce the impending increased cool down by up to 15%. This very well could encourage the use of other options over a same skill spam, if only to have that heal skill not on a 3 second cool down when someone turns around and spikes them. I think it may actually buff an existing build that replenishes initiative via Signet Use, Infusion of Shadow, and Kleptomaniac (didn’t mention Quick Pockets as I don’t know of any real reason to trait that deep into Acrobatics, but hey I’m no pro thief so anyone feel free to enlighten me).

So, what do you think? Exhaustion doesn’t effect weapon skills, but rather all other non-elite skills that use a cool-down mechanic anyhow by imposing a cool down, or increasing a current cool down. It seems to be a fair trade if the thief wants to go purely offensive with skill spamming it comes at the cost of healing and utility options.

Travlane.5948:

Obscure One.4357:

Travlane.5948:

panicbutton.1053:

Again, you’re asking for a change to the mechanics of the class. What makes us different is that we CAN spam one skill if we want — despite how inefficient it is. It’s inefficiency should be enough to make you think smarter… You’re not even noting other builds that we are capable of running besides d/d heartseekers.

Look, we have already discussed how useless spamming heartseeker is in a real fight. Now you’re requesting that we make it even worse if we chain the same moves? We are the only class that can chain the same moves over and over, your suggestion for exhaustion only targets thieves. The sole motive of making people “think” more is not enough to establish this, YOUR motive should be that spamming heartseeker will not kill anyone besides the person that JUST got into pvp/wvw.

exactly correct. Its like telling a guardian not to wear toughness/heal armor and to think more creatively. if u wanna wear that kind of armor you are going to move at a -15% speed deduction. lol. will it promote more skillful guardians design? yes! is it warranted? i dont think i should have to answer that.

where will he stop with this. you are targeting unskillful players i understand that. but its no different than saying to a cookie cutter user that you will have a debuff if you decide to copy a nubby META of FOTM build. 90% of the players in the game are really not skillful.

your idea….if you look at it in an economical sense…..is a horrible idea. and let me be the first to tell you…when you present and idea…always consider the economical ramifications first because not only are they an important factor….they are the MOST important factor.

will this make more people angry than not?
how will this affect incoming revenue?
will this discourage bad players from paying/playing more?
will it affect the overall game in a negative way?
is it warranted?
is it popular belief it should be this way?
how can i turn this idea into money?

they have questions like this when they implement new ideas. of course balancing is key too b ut that falls under the games perspective from players and how we will view and react to it.

I presented this suggestion for the specific purpose of gleaning other rational opinions. The loudest response thus far has been, “kitten and learn to play” which is not only irrelevant to the point, but not furthering a rational dialog in regard to an actual issue.

I can completely except rational reasons for an error in my thinking, as a select few have pointed out, since as I noted in my initial post I am no expert in all things thief. Counter points should include ways to resolve the issue which off the top of my head would span from adding build diversity, to initiative pool benefits to discourage draining it with unskilled spam. Exhaustion is just a singular idea targeting a root problem, and resolving the root problem is the intention, not furthering an idea that may in fact do more harm than good, despite its intention.

yes but your root problem is idiots and ignoramuses. problem is for you that they also have money and are paying players and also the majority of players within gw2. this means that there is no reason for gw2 team to irritate them. thief mesmer and ele are the hardest classes to play bc they have the most options and versatility. other classes are stronger at their specialties but easier to play. i understand where you are comign from but the suggested idea breaks the foundation of the class. would be like giving rangers a 150 range bow attacks. it just wouldnt work and they wont kill anything. your problem is one of irritation ….. bc even these dum dums that play like that? they are a gift. accept it…down them…collect their bags

I cannot accept pandering to the lamestream gamer because they are paying customers. This is the source of all that is soulless and wrong with other games and companies across the industry. I’m not nieve enough to think that game development isn’t a business that needs to remain profitabile, but dumbing games down as a money making strategy is a concept I’ll stand on a soap box and protest, with much more anger and conviction than a base thread such as this aiming to nerf noobs. As not to derail my own thread into a rant about such a concept I merely hold the developers to their design goal of producing the best game ever, and as a paying customer myself, if they do not, they will lose my business faster than you can say “Destiny is confirmed for PC!”

Overall fun, challenging, and skill based gameplay lays the ground work for consumer retention. Ignore that and you basically hand your customers off to the next set of devs that promise the best and fail to deliver.

Travlane.5948:

panicbutton.1053:

Again, you’re asking for a change to the mechanics of the class. What makes us different is that we CAN spam one skill if we want — despite how inefficient it is. It’s inefficiency should be enough to make you think smarter… You’re not even noting other builds that we are capable of running besides d/d heartseekers.

Look, we have already discussed how useless spamming heartseeker is in a real fight. Now you’re requesting that we make it even worse if we chain the same moves? We are the only class that can chain the same moves over and over, your suggestion for exhaustion only targets thieves. The sole motive of making people “think” more is not enough to establish this, YOUR motive should be that spamming heartseeker will not kill anyone besides the person that JUST got into pvp/wvw.

exactly correct. Its like telling a guardian not to wear toughness/heal armor and to think more creatively. if u wanna wear that kind of armor you are going to move at a -15% speed deduction. lol. will it promote more skillful guardians design? yes! is it warranted? i dont think i should have to answer that.

where will he stop with this. you are targeting unskillful players i understand that. but its no different than saying to a cookie cutter user that you will have a debuff if you decide to copy a nubby META of FOTM build. 90% of the players in the game are really not skillful.

your idea….if you look at it in an economical sense…..is a horrible idea. and let me be the first to tell you…when you present and idea…always consider the economical ramifications first because not only are they an important factor….they are the MOST important factor.

will this make more people angry than not?
how will this affect incoming revenue?
will this discourage bad players from paying/playing more?
will it affect the overall game in a negative way?
is it warranted?
is it popular belief it should be this way?
how can i turn this idea into money?

they have questions like this when they implement new ideas. of course balancing is key too b ut that falls under the games perspective from players and how we will view and react to it.

I presented this suggestion for the specific purpose of gleaning other rational opinions. The loudest response thus far has been, “kitten and learn to play” which is not only irrelevant to the point, but not furthering a rational dialog in regard to an actual issue.

( _edit: case and point just in the time it took me to reply:

Obscure One -> L2P

_ )

I can completely except rational reasons for an error in my thinking, as a select few have pointed out, since as I noted in my initial post I am no expert in all things thief. Counter points should include ways to resolve the issue which off the top of my head would span from adding build diversity, to initiative pool benefits to discourage draining it with unskilled spam. Exhaustion is just a singular idea targeting a root problem, and resolving the root problem is the intention, not furthering an idea that may in fact do more harm than good, despite its intention.

The general idea of initiative is a resource system, with more potent abilities costing more than others. What it fails to account for is skill viability, largely in regard to versatility. Heartseeker is a great skill in and out of combat primarily for it’s almost constant viability. Gap closing, leap finishing, and good damage, tossed on one skill flat out makes it a bargain buy for even the most frugal initiative spender. Is it broken? Not at all save for some bugs that effect most every movement skill in uneven terrain. Is it overpowered? No, the skill is particularly well balanced.

So what’s the problem? Viability particularly when used more than once, which discourages skillful use of the classes other options. Why use an immobilize with a spammable gap closer? Why use a pull (other than the fact it’s super buggy)? I’m not encouraged to mix things up and play smarter, or develop alternative skill rotations. I’m actually discouraged from doing so since the class mechanics allow mobility and damage that tracks my intended target and keeping me at my most damaging range of melee. With a Warrior, particularly a greatsword combined with a sword mainhand and bulls charge, only then does an Immobilize begin to look like a good idea…but if he’d retreating with every gap closer he has, there’s no real reason to chase (unless I’m on my Engineer and catch up to within 1200 of him with ease and yank him back with a Magnet pull and Immobilize him with a net shot so my thief duo partner can catch up.)

The point is the skill needs a limitation other than initiative cost. Exhaustion reinforces that if you need to use a skill more than twice in a row within 2 seconds, you shouldn’t need to use it again for 1.5 seconds, and if you do you don’t need it for 3 seconds, after which your free to use it twice again back to back. This encourages inserting other skills in between the rotation to teach the thief to use it’s other options. That being said, thieves also need more options.

(edit: it has come to my attention that a couple of my posts were deemed inflammatory and were thus deleted by the moderators. To this I say…maybe you should do a sweep of other sub-forums…these deletes were only “kinda inflammatory” by comparison to the stuff I say in my regular haunts…but then again the dev team doesn’t care about Engineer forums so I’ll only say what I really think over there from now on.)

bobross.5034:

-snip-more unintelligible garbage-snip-

1) You propose a major nerf to the thief core mechanic.

Minor nerf. A brief CD would just be a learn to play issue separating good players from bad ones, especially if implemented correctly. If you notice I’m completely open to other suggestions in doing away with unskilled game play, so if you have any ideas I love to hear something other than “not yours”.

2) You do very little to justify the need for the nerf

Same skill spamming is being abused by newbie thieves all around you, if you aren’t aware of this you must not be playing the same game.

3) The only justification you give, is that skill spamming is somehow overpowered (presumably heartseeker spam? I know you’re not complaining about body shot).

Not once have I said skill spamming is “overpowered”. I even mentioned what happens to folks who attempt this tactic with me, apparently despite the uninteligible garage you presented as a response you still have yet to read the original post. Not sure why I’m bothering reading yours, but I take my condescension is a suitable reply when faced with such baseless dismissals.

4) Since your argument is based on a flawed assumption, people attacked the assumption, rather than entertaining your “solution” which is absolutely not needed – because there isn’t a problem.

Really? “is-not! is-so!” logic to confront a reasonable suggestion? This just gets more and more productive on each line… I’m certain there’ll be great substance to be gleaned on this point…just as soon as I can find it.

5) Refusing to follow your directions (think it over, and don’t disagree with me) is not the same as being too stupid to read your whole post. People didn’t need to think much, because any thief player can see that this post has no merit.

When your right your right. Being stupid is so much different than following a direction to read, reasonably consider an idea, and then formulate an opinion, because that would be…so…not stupid…

6) All you need to do to see how flawed your assumption is, is what you imagine thieves are doing…roll a thief, get out there in PvP and heartseeker spam. See how many people you down, and how long you stay alive.
7) Hopefully as part of that, you’ll also L2P.

And the grand crecendo that you weren’t paying attention at all… the entirety of the context of the post was written from the perspective of literally “get out there in PvP and heartseeker spam. See how many people you down, and how long you stay alive.” . I also mention how incredibly successful I was, and I do not think I should have been whilst pointing to this as the root cause for my suggestion.

Intelligent conversation. Truly I’m overwhelmed.

Topher.1684:

Can you at least see that this “fix” would do much more then “fix” HS spam? (like anets nerf to CnD in order to fix BS spike…)

If I could, then I wouldn’t have presented the suggestion, and in that alternate universe we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Fact: same skill spamming is encouraged by the class mechanics.
Fact: same skill spamming is a viable play-style.
Fact: same skill spamming sets the player skill floor of the class very low.

This all undermines a skill based game and trivializes the class. Is it a “learn to play issue” to counter same skill spamming? Absolutely, and that’s a problem. One skill, when pressed repeatedly sits firmly among play-styles as something that requires countering. Think about that for a moment, it is absurd.

Exhaustion is something that, with careful attention paid to what few viable builds exist in the class to begin with, could serve to raise the skill floor. My goal is not to nerf viable, skill based, and generally well executed builds. The goal is to encourage running them and discourage picking up a pair of daggers, going full zerker (or maybe Celestial now) and pressing 2 until you wear a hole in your keyboard where that 2 used to be. For example, generally speaking, I disagree with implementation of the “Revealed” debuff, even if a counter to stealth was warranted, this was not a way to do it as it doesn’t foster skill-based game play…again pandering to bad players.

Topher.1684:

IMO, hunters sb auto attack is too fast. Maybe for every 3 arrows fired without using another skill they should have their damage reduced by a stacking 10% debuff. This would help prevent those horribad rangers from auto attacking things to death.

That’s an issue better handled by implementing a skill chain where the first two attacks are “meh” for direct damage, but cause a condition, and the final attack is the pure damage attack.

To be honest I’d expect more QQing from Rangers than Thieves with a damage reducing exhaustion mechanic, as that class needs more fixing up than an exploded meth lab.

Travlane.5948:

perhaps you lack understanding :P you said urself its not broken or OP….why change it. why not make it cost less initiative then lol. why destroy something thats fine??? i mean really

Obscure One.4357:

see original post.

Travlane.5948:

see video above. HeartSeeker is not broken or Overpowering.

see original post. I did not use the term “Broken” as it functions as intended. I did not use the term “Overpowering” as the skill alone is balanced. You lack both understanding and context.

Hype.8032:

Maybe I’m off base here but it feels like the phrase, “u mad cuz u bad” applies here.

Your proposed nerf is ridiculous and unmerited.

Ridiculous and unmerited would describe the ability to not only play a class, but excel at doing so in a game armed with only the experience of fighting against them. I know the limits of 2-spamming thieves fairly well, and I see the problem is inherent to the class design encouraging unskilled game play.

Perhaps skilled game-play based on knowledge and experience is something you disapprove of?

Viking Jorun.5413:

This would nerf a lot more viable builds than it would help to decrease heartseeker spamming. Condition D/D thieves who use death blossom (their only source of bleed aside from caltrops), the infamous cripspam s/d thieves, boon strip s/d thieves and s/p control thieves would all suffer.

I do think that they need to increase the after cast on heartseeker, because as of now it’s already a pretty spammy move even when you don’t intend on hitting it more than once.

Queue for intelligent response in thief forums: ~2 hours

I suppose I wouldn’t know much in regard to those builds, though I am familiar with PvE viability, I haven’t had enough time with the class to try out anything else (nor been encouraged to do so as inflicting down state is my favorite condition). What about limiting exhaustion to non-auto-attack skills that are combo finishers or a stacking 10% reduction in damage (max -30%) in place of the cool down? I’m not sure the aftercast would be all to great as this impedes mobility, and I know if I can’t stick and move I’m going to get melted (especially against Mesmers, how thieves even fight them is flat out beyond me).

animalmom.1062:

I would like the class defining thief skill initiative not to work because I don’t like it. I would also like to nerf this and give no other buffs to compensate.

This suggestion doesn’t effect the initiative system any more than the Revealed debuff effects cloak and dagger. The longest duration of Exhaustion attainable is 3 seconds, as the CD prevents the thief from using this skill again within the 2 second time, it resets:

¹ Heartseeker
²Heartseeker
1.5 second cool-down
³Heartseeker within 2 seconds
3 second cool-down
⁴ start back at ¹

If you have the skill to avoid pressing 2 for .5 seconds, you will never see a 3 second cool down. I asked for actual opinions based on allowing this idea to bounce around your mind…apparently the idea didn’t have much room to bounce.

Travlane.5948:

@OBSCURE ONE….would u like me to show you a video of 2 …that way i dont hve to call u a liar :P? or just rediculous. what class are you and what armor set?

Within the context of what I’m talking about, Thief is the class. I’m using runes of the Scholar, sigils of force and sigils of fire (D/D, P/P), and a zerker amulet.

purgatoryz.6038:

Exhaustion is already in the game, it’s called: running out of initiative. We are a spamming class. It’s called burst for a reason.

If you are under 25% against a power/crit thief, you SHOULD be getting HS spammed. It’s our best form of damage @ that hp level. Don’t blame them for using the most optimal skill for the occasion.

Perhaps I’m old fashioned in thinking burst should require, skill, experience, talent, or an understanding of how game mechanics interact to reach an optimal damage potential…you know, like those seven other classes.

Being able to burst someone with well timed stealth and backstab is a respectable burst, and legitimate play-style. Being able to consistently beat and at least come close to beating people who have nearly a year of class experience on me with a class they’ve played since launch and I’ve only toyed with primarily by using one skill is a bad class design.

Travlane.5948:

if u can dodge roll 2 x theres no way a thief can even get u under half. dont care even if ur full zerker. sorry man u r way off base here. besides this is another THIEF ONLY nerf. wont affect other classes. just thieves…thieves are weakest class if not 2nd weakest class overall out there. dare i say the cliche “L2P” ?

Firstly, no. You don’t dodge away from heartseeker spamming, you activate a block, cripple, immobilize, or daze/stun/knockback/knockdown, and then spike them.

Secondly, yes. I would love to L2P a thief, but thus far pressing 2 is my best option in way to many situations to bother learning more complex build options. Mobility, damage, stealth, all in one weapon set. Sure P/P is fun, but swapping back to d/d and 2 spamming someone after they’ve burnt endurance on my unload and pistol autos is often a guaranteed down for me, and the stealth stomp is just as easy…only fails if they fight back, which more often than not they just run scared.

The subject line says it all.

I’m pretty much fed up with a class design allowing those who pick up the Thief class to spend less than a day with it and compete with some of the best DPS metagamers to ever put their hands on GW2…by pressing 2…a lot.

Now before you crazed defenders of all things Thief get all up in arms over another thread calling for a nerf, please read, let this idea bounce around in your head a bit, and then reply with an actual opinion.

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

Ok, here it is:

New sPvP and WvW Feature: Exhaustion “when activating the same non-auto-attack (#1 skill) weapon skill within 2 seconds that skill gains a 1.5 second cooldown that stacks in intensity.”

As far as I can tell this only effects skill spamming and doesn’t circumvent the initiative system, but rather encourages learning to play the class as intended. Pressing one key to victory is pandering to bad players and trivializing the class as a whole. Watching an initiative bar and playing Wack-A-Mole with the 2-key should not be the back bone of a play-style.

My biggest problem doesn’t stem from being attacked by this type of play style, oh no. I beat those kids like it’s a Chris Brown and Rihanna RP. The problem is my difficulty in learning the class. Everytime I try to get into it, I get myself into a situation in which repetitively pressing 2 is the best choice (cloak & dagger, backstab, they run…soooo heartseeker…still alive, still running, sooooo heartseeker…still not down? still running…heartseeker!) Other classes, of with I have 4 fully exoticed at 80, I’m forced to use something else, because the skill I’d like to use is on cool-down, so I have to figure out what to do with my other options. This is how I learn, and this prevents me from playing a non-2-spamming thief. I burn out my initiative pressing 2 and if it doesn’t kill them I stealth away and recover…and then try something else only to end up doing it again, which actually beats other thieves more often than anyone else, which is dumb, since I’ve collectively put in about 10 hours of game time into the class and only in sPvP.

I think it needs to much improvement to justify the development time. Even if it was just fixed to work as intended it’s a terrible Elite skill. Elites are intended to be game changers, momentum shifters, and overall flat out more powerful than every other skill. This easily destroyed mortar placement is none of the above.

Traited grenades have a greater combat effect than mortar for numerous reasons ranging from no loss of mobility, the use of utility and tool belt skills, no close range dead zone, and they cannot be destroyed AND they’re just a regular utility skill. Put frankly even if Mortar was a regular utility skill I wouldn’t use it, it’s trash that needs to be discarded and replaced.

They should do mortar like everything else in GW2 that doesn’t work and gets ignored by the player’s: remove it from the game. At least then I don’t have to look at it any more, and have a glimmer of hope that someday they’ll fill that elite slot with something that isn’t a hot seaming load of whale @#$%.

Zenguy.6421:

Aberrant.6749:

Legit Prep In.5893:

+1 for TURRETS ARE STILL NOT FIXED!! COomeeeeooon its been a whole YEAR now !

Turrets have been totally been fixed… in the veterinary sense.

ROFLMAO!

Lol!

Turrets just need better AI, about 4k armor and 30k HP, and toss in a CD reduction trait option will ya? I mean seriously WTF!?

I’ve actually tested this type of build using Acidic Elixirs and Static Discharge. I used Enhance Performance, Invigorating Speed, Speedy Kits, Cleansing 409, and HGH (20/0/0/30/20). Stacking might was crucial in optimizing damage, and that was done with cycling Med kit and pitching Elixirs like a mad man. Med kit was preferable for having the tool belt heal recharged at 25% hp, instead of Elixir H.

Basically you want to be close to the target when using this build. Naturally that suggests using P/S or P/P but in my last go around I used Rifle and all in all I think it was better suited for the build with it’s low recharge Net Shot over off hand pistol Glue Shot. Jump Shot at point blank range was a welcomed extra AoE.

My damage numbers were nothing too grand with 1k – 1.5k being my typical damage per hit. Notably one can do better damage if focused more on ctit & crit damage as I was mostly looking to test the viability of Engineers boon removal with the build (yes I also tested the Mine in a version of this build…it sucks…even if you can double proc SD off the mine field tool belt, the skill itself is a waste and you’re better off slotting rifle turret.)

Anyhow hope that helps!

Turrets totally need some magical fairy dev dust and happy thoughts…

Olba.5376:

oZii.2864:

Sold on healing signet without a doubt sold bye bye healing surge it’s been fun!

Personally I’m going to be doing Mending in WvW and Signet in PvE.

^ this.

Surge is awesome, don’t get me wrong. Especially nice for adrenaline gain, but I’ve got plenty of places to get my adrenaline from…condition management not so much.