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yea, you are not really solving meta build problems with your suggestion.
All you are doing is shifting the meta. I think other posters realize this problem.
If you truly want to change the meta, you kinda have to change the game mode itself. Meta is a reaction to game modes. They are never the problem itself
I think this would solve 1 meta build problem, that being the restriction of classes to specific weapons. Releasing that meta restriction would open up more styles of play that would work with the meta.
This suggestion isn’t meant to drastically change the meta, it’s a baby step in a series of potential baby steps.
Restricted weapon access by class is not a result of meta, so changing that doesn’t affect meta existence. The proof is already in game … we gained more access to weapons through elite specs … but there is still builds for each class optimal for content. The idea that you can remove meta without changing the fundamental way the game works is absurd. You can’t sprinkle classes with some new skills/weapons/traits and pretend that has a profound impact on increasing number of optimal builds. We would need orders of magnitude increase in access to new skills/weapon/traits in order to get a chance that any combination of those new things would mimic top performance of any other build.
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No. Decent groups will complain about people not kicking (similiar to CC) and attacking the wrong enemy. The “DPS meter” tool is capable to show such stats.
Wait what?
A DPS meter (that doesn’t exist in live game) is capable of showing stats on kicking and attacking the wrong enemy? … because DPS meters can differentiate what the ‘correct’ enemy a person is doing DPS on? … or because DPS meters track non-DPS functions?
Let’s not ‘invent’ what a non-existent DPS meter could do to help players, just to justify having one in game.
PHEW! I see little point in arguing about what amounts to garbage science. I fear for the future it this approach to logic is rampant. So little information, so many hypothesis. It’s actually scary that someone would think they could say so much based on so little information. I wouldn’t even be bold enough to make a hypothesis based on the information available to us; some people think they have the whole thing figured out.
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Well this didn’t go in the direction I expected/wanted.
1: I do think build balance is difficult, likely impossible, but worthwhile to aim for both financially for ANet and from a play-ability standpoint as a player.
2: I think my suggestion offers a way to try and help balance what we have by removing the weapon restrictions on classes that the meta creates.
3: But this conversation has seemed to derail into an argument about the meta itself. Perhaps it will be best to remake this thread without any mention of the meta. There are plenty of good reasons to take weapon skills off of builds without referencing the meta.
I don’t think you can actually make a thread about balance without talking about why the meta exists. After all, the meta is the result of the way the game is designed and what builds are optimal to ‘solve’ the game. You can’t talk about one without the other.
I got your point … so you want to reduce the discrepancy … but that still wouldn’t change how often a person swaps between any attunement because that’s based on the encounters. I mean, if you need healing 90% of the time, you would be in water approximately that much. Fire would be useless to you. But the game encounters aren’t designed like that.
I think you are exactly right on how Ele works; you swap to the attunements you need at the moment. If you need DPS 90% of time, you are in Fire 90%. If you need heals for 10%, you’re water. I mean, that’s exactly how the game works for all the other professions and weapons. I don’t understand how that’s different for Ele. The game is designed in that way, on purpose to facilitate active defenses and avoid trinity play. It’s not a mistake that you don’t use other attunments that often.
I’m just curious – does anyone use anything other than Fire as a fallback in Staff? I get that they just offer different types of utility, but seems like Fire is the only one that isn’t under-tuned in terms of DPS.
In particular, it seems like Lightning should be able to compete well, but it just doesn’t, at least not for me. What do people think about this? Am I doing something wrong?
Fire is your main DPS attunement and most content in PvE doesn’t challange you enough to get out of fire… Low risk high reward gameplay. If you want to make the most out of a staff ele by effectively using the other attunements beside fire, try WvW.
Ele players really should be joining together to ask for DPS buffs for the other attunements. There’s no reason Water’s auto should do less than 1/3 the damage of any other auto in the game. Likewise, there’s no reason Earth’s auto should be so weak just because it applies Weakness. How many other abilities stack Weakness while also doing more standard DPS?
The fact that the game essentially prohibits you from “camping” (and by this I mean falling back to, not staying exclusively in) in any attunement except for Fire is totally preposterous.
I’m not sure that’s so clear cut … The approach to gameplay is pretty simple; killing stuff before you die, so it makes sense that the highest DPS attunement is the most leaned on.
The argument to buff other attunements so you don’t camp Fire is the same argument to buff a classes weapons for balance. The problem is that there is no why for doing that, other than giving more choice. From a purely practical consideration, it’s not needed and it adds very little to the game to do it. There is little reason to care about what attunment you are if they are all doing the same damage.
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I actually have an even bigger problem with this ‘aesthetic impact’ argument because if you really don’t care about what pet you use, you can still exercise choice to minimize the visual impact of your pet by choosing a bird; a very reasonable compromise IMO. Of course, most people are stubborn and unreasonable and think an MMO caters to every players whim, so for them, no pet is the only option here.
Well, what exactly do you think auto loot locked behind character progression says about GW2 then? It’s a bad MMO? Let’s not beat around the bush. GW2 didn’t have that feature when it was released. Anet had enough sense to add it through a reward approach … I mean, what’s the fault here? What are you trying to imply? It should have just been added and not attached through high level reward? OK well, you might be right but that’s the way it is. Frankly, I think that approach was generous of them … I would have paid 1000 gems for the feature myself because it’s simply a convenience feature.
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Actually, it’s not silly at all. Even for the aesthetic impact, Virtue of Courage imparts a visual that other people find as unpleasing as people think pets do. I think there are in fact, more similar than they are different. This isn’t unique either. Lots of professions have visual effects associated with the class that you can’t turn off. It’s part of the concept.
I’m still really waiting to see someone present an argument other than “I don’t like it” for why this should be changed. The work need to justify the end results here people.
Players don’t choose classes in PVP because of balance, they choose based on how they perform with them. Assuming that most people like to win in competitive environments, it follows logically their choice is not based on how balanced a class is, but how well they know the class and can use it’s tools to be successful with other people in a team. The idea you present that players look for balance more than anything else in PVP play modes makes no sense, because being successful in those environments is SOO much more than taking a balanced class.
If you find my tone condescending, consider yourself a hostile witness. Given the fact that you only assume the worst possible (and least sensible) reasoning for the lack of balance in this game, I think that’s rather appropriate. I will be looking forward to our next discussion. Thank you.
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its part of the game. it gives you something worth it to work towards.
No its not “part of the game”. its basic feature that every MMO has that anet has not made ‘part of the game’ unless you GRIND for it.
That’s not a correct statement. It’s also not relevant. Clearly, Anet felt it was a reward worth it’s position in the masteries. That is all that matters.
If you think it doesn’t matter that GW2 locks a common MMO option behind in-game grinding then you are fooling yourself.
I don’t think many MMOs Ive played had that option, and if they did, you had to pay cash for it.
That’s pretty much it. The only people fooling themselves are the ones that use other MMO’s as a yardstick to compare to GW2. Anet doesn’t compare themselves to other MMO’s, they try their own ideas and GW2 does lots of things other MMO’s don’t and vice versa. Many of those things are quite novel and you benefit from those things all the time when you play it. If people want the typical MMO and it’s features, GW2 isn’t their game to play.
People ALWAYS compare, especially when deciding what to pay for. I can’t imagine why you would say otherwise.
Don’t insult our intelligence. This isn’t comparing features to make a choice to pay for something vs. something else.
Huh? Of course it is.
Besides … in other MMO’s you pay for it. Here you don’t … so if you want to claim it’s about comparing, well, GW2 sounds like the better option.
I’m talking about deciding which game to play. I didn’t say anything about what you do or do not pay for. I said that you were wrong when you said that people don’t compare.
So let’s get this straight … you’re trying to tell us that you place a quality of life feature so high on your list of MMO assessment parameters that it’s worthy of impacting your MMO choice between other MMO’s? That’s sounds really insincere. It takes a special someone to place a QoL feature on par with things that typically attract players to a game. In my business, making cases on outliers isn’t a winning bet.
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Also, I’d argue that people assume a decent balancing effort is part of the package when they buy a game without it having to be explicitly promoted.
I would agree, but any reasonable person would also premise that by acknowledging that this is a subjective assessment as well. There is no objective measure of balance. Really the whole idea of what is balanced is completely ridiculous to begin with. It’s much simpler than players like you think it is.
I’m just lol at your assumptions about PVP. I don’t pretend that people use the classes that are most effective for them; that’s what winners do. It’s the losers that complain about inbalance.
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^^ Excellent point … if there is anything this game lacks, it’s a learning curve for people wanting to get into instanced content. The first place any player sees the severity and frequency of the ‘hard parts’ of instanced content is in the instanced content itself. I think that’s a massive failure.
Personally, I don’t want to be the noob that causes failure or hardship, but if I want to instance in a team, I have little choice. That’s a real turn off; no one wants to be that person. Even if it only takes one time to learn it, I’m still that noob in the first time that doesn’t know where to stand or when to CC, etc … maybe that’s just me but if Anet wants more participation, they should think about that, especially if they want to continue to market the game as casual-friendly.
I don’t see how accessibility to raids is related to monitoring damage with DPS meters. I think it’s about player comfort levels. Personally, I think that the mini dungeon daily should be one of those places where Anet could provide this training and experience.
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You can be tired of that fact all you want
I’m tired of the argument because it’s used to justify and rationalize away any fault, inadequacy and culpability on ArenaNet’s part.
Sure, but you don’t seem to want to comprehend the fact that perfect balance between classes isn’t what makes this business money. Anet could hire a whole bunch of devs and set them to the task … and then what? GW2 would have 10 million players because they have awesomely balanced classes? I mean, the assumption that excellent class balance is some significant driving factor to player retention and acquisition is borderline absurd. No one bought this game under the premise that balance was perfect, or even good. They bought it based on the features the game promoted, the theme, etc… GW2 is not unique in the state of it’s class balance compared to other MMOs. I have YET to see a game promoted because of class balance and MMO’s persist and succeed where class balance is not good; I can’t see how anyone would conclude that well balanced classes leads to the success of an MMO. Certainly it could help, but it’s a minor consideration from a business perspective.
Yes, some people leave because their class sucks. So be it. Any game company knows this is a real effect and it’s part of their business plan to deal with it through many different ways. Yes, they could deal with that with a huge balancing effort, but frankly, that’s not an effective solution. You may not want to admit it, but the greatest mitigation to unbalanced classes is allowing players choice among many classes. Anet’s class provision is quite good.
You keep mentioning it’s important for PVP. But in fact, it’s not as important as you would like everyone to believe because as a competitive element of the game, the players in it will take the classes they are most successful with, even if they aren’t balanced perfectly. They want to win. Case in point; the existence of stacked Rev teams.
Anyways, back to the topic. No, I don’t think balancing classes is any sort of practical or logical ‘solution’ to the meta. I think it’s even debatable if the existence of the meta is a problem. I think the only problem is that Anet doesn’t market the game effectively as an alternative approach to the tired methods that other MMO’s rest their laurels on, that most players can’t break their mentality away from.
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In OW, you need to be shattering lots, though you can’t ignore your direct damage either. Load up on illusion skills so you always have some for each trash mob encounter. It’s actually pretty good compared to some slower OW classes and … a little fun.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc78msICFqhdqBFYDiMAJI3oRZ5FB-e
Fill in the blanks.
Some people just really have no ability to actually hear other people. To some people, the Ranger represents more than a pet class, and playing another class is a poor substitute. I really don’t see how this is such a hard concept to grasp.
Oh, we hear you just fine. You want Anet to spend time and money on altering their concept of the Ranger to fit your personal fantasy because you regret your choice of the pet class and apparently never agreed with it from the beginning but played it anyways. You are attached to the name “Ranger” because you feel it’s supposed to be something else based on other fantasy archetypes but this is Guild Wars 2, not any of those other games or LOTR, or any other media.
For some reason too, you have convinced yourselves that it’s just a simple fix that won’t require a massive rework of talents and balancing as evidenced by statements along the lines of: ‘all they have to do is…’ or ’it’s simple to…’ or (my favorite) ‘if I can come up with XYZ then why can’t Anet do it’.
What we’re saying is not that it will never happen, since none of us can predict the future, but that you need to be making lemonade out of these lemons while you wait for your desired gameplay to maybe be implemented because Anet has already said no, no and no again.
I don’t even main a ranger, so I have little emotional investment in this conversation. Therefore, your assumptions are incorrect. Instead, I’m speaking from a high-level concept and game design perspective. Hogtying a profession to a pet when that profession represents more than just pets is silly.
Professions are much more than any single concept that you want to choose. That doesn’t make them hogtied to that single element. I mean, my Guardian is ‘hogtied’ to Virtues … and I don’t even get the option to turn them off like Rangers can with pets. Your statement makes no sense. No profession can just turn off conceptual elements they don’t like. That’s why you get to choose professions.
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You can be tired of that fact all you want; this isn’t a charity and those devs aren’t working for free. It’s a business decision to put them on balancing efforts vs. other things and that has a greater business impact than you seem to be able to comprehend.
If you think it’s realistic for devs to balance their games, then you have to ask yourself why so many MMO’s don’t do it to the degree players desire. I’ve challenged you with this line of thinking in the past … you balked with lame “I’m a bitter player, so devs are incompetent” response. Maybe you should step up with some critical thinking and answer it, because it’s not just GW2 that has this situation … it’s common to experience this in even the best MMOs and in PVP.
So again … you can either be realistic in your view to how MMO’s work … or be like you, the bitter player that decides that all can and should be done, regardless of actual restrictions and constraints … and if it’s not done, you simply dismiss it as lazy, stupid or incompetent game devs that don’t deliver. /shrug
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its part of the game. it gives you something worth it to work towards.
No its not “part of the game”. its basic feature that every MMO has that anet has not made ‘part of the game’ unless you GRIND for it.
That’s not a correct statement. It’s also not relevant. Clearly, Anet felt it was a reward worth it’s position in the masteries. That is all that matters.
If you think it doesn’t matter that GW2 locks a common MMO option behind in-game grinding then you are fooling yourself.
I don’t think many MMOs Ive played had that option, and if they did, you had to pay cash for it.
That’s pretty much it. The only people fooling themselves are the ones that use other MMO’s as a yardstick to compare to GW2. Anet doesn’t compare themselves to other MMO’s, they try their own ideas and GW2 does lots of things other MMO’s don’t and vice versa. Many of those things are quite novel and you benefit from those things all the time when you play it. If people want the typical MMO and it’s features, GW2 isn’t their game to play.
People ALWAYS compare, especially when deciding what to pay for. I can’t imagine why you would say otherwise.
Don’t insult our intelligence. This isn’t comparing features to make a choice to pay for something vs. something else. Besides … in other MMO’s you pay for it. Here you don’t … so if you want to claim it’s about comparing, well, GW2 sounds like the better option.
This mechanic (chests and keys) should be banned from games because it heavily supports gambling.
The likelihood of you ever getting something valuable is below 1%.
If you have a “spending” problem you can easily end up broke and angry.
Actually, I think there is a fine line here, but it’s not gambling per say … you ALWAYS get something for your key and chest. It might not be what you want, but you can’t lose.
I think what I meant by the title is that we should have as many meta builds as possible. From my perspective, what people call the ‘meta’ is a limited few builds, or just 1 single build, per class, or even limiting what classes people should use altogether. I think when people hear meta they hear 2 things, “best” build(s) and “only” build(s). I know the latter is not the literal meaning of meta, but I do think this is the way many people use it.
I think so to, but I think we all have to be realistic in how much effort that would require without really delivering much to the game. Again, how you compare one build to another? Even if you take the simplest measure; DPS, then it’s quite a complex task to purposefully develop an alternate combination of traits/stats/weaponskills/etc…. that isn’t just a variation on the current meta, but is close to it in damage … then you do that 9 times for each class … then you do that again every time something changes the game to make sure you maintain this multi-meta utopia.
Maybe it’s not obvious to you but that’s a lot of work and frankly, the end result is that no one really cares all that much because Anet stopped doing something else in the game to deliver these additional meta builds. It’s not practical and it’s not realistic because alternate builds, whether they are equivalent or not, don’t really score high on the content meter.
I think the other final thing to note is that we almost have this without any extra work from the devs. If you are willing to compromise your damage even just 10% of what the meta gives, a whole world of builds opens up to you on many classes. So, really what we are talking about is if the work necessary to achieve that meta equivalence is worth the effort. I can’t see how it would be. If you’re not playing meta anyways, obviously your not a stickler for whatever percentage of damage you lose. This appeals to such a small proportion of the community.
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its part of the game. it gives you something worth it to work towards.
No its not “part of the game”. its basic feature that every MMO has that anet has not made ‘part of the game’ unless you GRIND for it.
That’s not a correct statement. It’s also not relevant. Clearly, Anet felt it was a reward worth it’s position in the masteries. That is all that matters.
If you think it doesn’t matter that GW2 locks a common MMO option behind in-game grinding then you are fooling yourself.
I don’t think many MMOs Ive played had that option, and if they did, you had to pay cash for it.
That’s pretty much it. The only people fooling themselves are the ones that use other MMO’s as a yardstick to compare to GW2. Anet doesn’t compare themselves to other MMO’s, they try their own ideas and GW2 does lots of things other MMO’s don’t and vice versa. Many of those things are quite novel and you benefit from those things all the time when you play it. If people want the typical MMO and it’s features, GW2 isn’t their game to play.
I’m a firm believer that Anet intended all build traits to be equally useful.
I don’t see anything ingame that makes me think this was Anet’s intention at all. It would be nice, but I don’t think there is some way to measure what ‘equally useful’ is or when it’s even achieved. I can see you put some thinking behind your ideas, but this assumption you have made means it’s all built on a faulty premise.
No, I think that if Anet intended all build traits to be equally useful, they would have went a completely different route for the first time they did the traits revamp. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that something like a take less damage when falling trait is no where near as useful as a damage increase or a runspeed trait, yet Anet left many of those things as is. Therefore …
I do believe that Anet made certain traits useful for SPECIFIC scenarios; so in that sense, damage when falling traits are good for JP’s. In that sense, Anet has already achieved what you think was intended, in a very limited sense.
Back to meta; it can never be a lie. It does exist, simply because of the way the encounters are designed. Even if you think there could be certain setups that are equivalent to each other, then you would just have many meta builds, not just one. But make no mistake, it’s still real.
The only way to ‘wreck’ meta is to have dynamic encounters where boss actions and parameters (e.g., immunities) change in real time, so that no player could anticipate the best way to defeat them. That has nothing to do with any parameter a player could choose; it’s entirely on encounter design.
Well wouldent be so bad if I could run any build I wanted on my characters but sadly you pigonholed into meta
This just in…
In co-op content, the group is above the individual.
More gamebreaking news at 11.
Just in you say, well I could do any co-op content before raids with any build I wanted it just took longer.
If you say I should be able to do that with raids to then perfect.
That’s not entirely correct actually … a noob playing any build they wanted was just as unwelcomed in dungeon and fractals as they are in raids. The only difference is that noobs tend to be more ‘put up with’ because there is no enrage in dungeons and fractals, so they can be carried easier.
So if you want to actually help yourself out to GET to the point of playing any build you want in raids, you better start with marketing yourself as a player any raiding party would want first.
I don’t think it’s possible to come to any reasonable conclusions or even speculation with such shallow access to information. You could speculate all you want about why there were drops in revenue. Not even Anet knows, unless players tell them. Even then, self-reporting is not too reliable.
I think HoT was a divergent direction from the original, but other than that, there isn’t much else to say it’s why something happens to revenues.
Frankly, I think they should make us pay for LS … I don’t see a problem with that. I can’t actually believe they can make this model work with all the free content we get. If anything, that’s an impressive feature they should promote.
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its part of the game. it gives you something worth it to work towards.
No its not “part of the game”. its basic feature that every MMO has that anet has not made ‘part of the game’ unless you GRIND for it.
That’s not a correct statement. It’s also not relevant. Clearly, Anet felt it was a reward worth it’s position in the masteries. That is all that matters.
You didn’t offer a different perspective, you just said “there’s a way to make money that I’m not going to tell you about”. That isn’t an alternative strategy.
Actually, it’s very reasonable. Crafting doesn’t need to cost you money; that is a VERY different perspective to what most people think. Just because he doesn’t spill the beans on how to do it doesn’t mean he’s not helpful. I know most people just want things handed to them but you know … this is worth the investigation if the player doesn’t want to go broken crafting.
I have to be honest, it shocks me that people think this kind of change would actually be simplistic and straightforward. if all you want is to permanently stow your pet and not see it at all, sure, but if you’re asking for a buff to compensate for that loss it’s a new can of worms that, if I’m being honest, doesn’t seem like something Anet would he inclined to spend time balancing, especially with bigger fish to fry for Rangers (like actually FIXING the pets in the first place).
It just won’t be as simple as “you do X more damage while your pet is gone” :/
The easiest way to put this to bed is to make the Avoid Combat option make the pet invisible. Anyone that thinks Anet is going to give some option to change pet out for some other effect is delusional. There is no reason for it to happen and little value in implementing it.
Good thing about Symbol of Swiftness is that it works when gathering/opening chests, since you stop regularly.
You would have ground to make a point if 7 out of 9 classes didn’t have access to +25% movement speed, with Rev getting perma swiftness instead. There’s nothing about guardian’s identity that makes it the most slow class.
Well, there is … Guardian’s identity defined by Anet.
Citation needed
Not really … Anet devs create the Guardian concept according to what they want. I mean, what else would they do?
But if you are unsure if Anet creates the game according to their ideas, well, go check up on Ready up # … 13 I think? Explains well why Guardians don’t have 25% RS buff, straight from the devs own mouths on video. I’m guessing you will find a way to say it’s not relevant, considering you don’t seem to think Anet defines the class as they see fit in the first place.
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Ok, how about we answer a question:
These people who would be elitist pricks and harshly kick people for the slightest dip from perfection if they had an integrated DPS meter to view from…
Do those who appose a DPS meter believe that said pricks do not already harshly kick people? In other words, do you believe they would only start being pricks if they had a meter?
I don’t think any reasonable person would think a DPS meter is necessary for them to act that way. The question is if a DPS meter is necessary or useful tool in the game to play it … if not, then why put it in? I don’t even see how it would be useful information to the average player, considering most probably have no idea how to interpret the data from such a thing.
Did ANet publicly tell everyone that there are DPS meters in Alpha, or did Nike just leak that info?
at what time stamp in the video did he actually say there was a DPS meter in alpha?
At the start of the video he says there was a 3rd party dps meter that was released, it does read memory and is 100% in violation of the ToU and could result in action being taken on your account.
I was just wondering where he said there was an official one in alpha.
Edit: Someone helped me out by stating it was at 5:47 in the video.
Also, in his video someone commented, “I wonder how DPS meter looks on alpha servers.” Nike responded by saying, “Maybe some of the raid testing guilds or devs will chime in.” That made it seem like both of them knew that DPS meters are in Alpha. Maybe I’m reading into it too much
Maybe he didn’t actually see it personally but it’s I think it’s safe to assume Anet has some sort of tools available for testers to see that information as they developed the game.
IMO, I flip flop on this issue but now that we know meta is irrelevant to completing content, I don’t see the need to give meta pushers yet another tool to soapbox with.
That’s a bit of a loaded question; how WELL you can play if you don’t use Traveler’s Runes. I don’t think it improves play that much, nor do I believe it will make a significant difference in performance. I do notice I HAVE to play chrono, which has nice enhancements, but doesn’t really change how I play over base mesmer.
Hold on people … don’t get too excited over what Bobby said there. It was a little vague but you can see a big diversion from anything raid-like in that statement.
They are investigating DIFFERENT METHODS to make the story more ACCESSIBLE. That tells me it’s not raid, as we know it in GW2.
^^ yup, big difference between having lots to do and having to do lots.
I think that the point is also not just about limiting vertical progression, but focusing on rewards that aren’t related to ‘the next level’ of gear. After all, there is a huge number of skins to collect throughout the game. People need to recognize the game for what it is; it’s not a ‘gear with better stats’ reward kind of game. It’s a ‘cute quaggan backpack’ reward kind of game.
I can see how you might classify not having the choice to tank/heal is removing choice from people. I see that as freedom as well, because if I bring a tank/heal to a raid, I’m either tanking/healing or I’m told to go take a hike. Even in SWTOR, where swapping roles is just a matter of taking a different tree, that’s still the case. People don’t want your DPS wanna be healer/tank builds for DPS positions. If I had to choose, I would take the ‘restriction’ that GW2 imposes on me over that other kind of discrimination any day.
I’m not actually factually wrong about WoW, because I did say IN SOME INSTANCES. Obviously WoW wouldn’t be one of them in that case.
Anyways, the whole suggestion is only of academic interest anyways; Trinity MMO’s work because content is built for trinity compositions. GW2 small team content isn’t. Suggesting Anet introduce roles AND rework all instanced content for those roles to be relevant is of little benefit and self-serving.
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In any event, having defined roles wasn’t enough to prevent WoW from becoming a straight DPS-fest once you reach raid farm status anyway. Yeah, your healer heals and your tank tanks, but they do it with as much DPS thrown in as possible. Not really any different than it is here, but I think the gameplay in the learning phase can actually be more compelling without the trinity.
That’s an excellent point … tank and the healers only do those things ‘just enough’ … I’ve not played a single trinity-based MMO where tanks/healers pared back their gear from tanking/healing into DPS for optimal performance as they mastered the raids. Indeed, in some instances, tanks and healers became irrelevant once player performance was optimized; that’s a real screw over if you’re a tank/healer looking for groups to raid with.
From what I can tell, GW2 (smartly) skipped that tank/healer step that most people view as necessary for instanced team content. Good move IMO.
I think the objection is a perception of what addons do to help players complete difficult content in GW2, which is funny if you actually know how ‘hard’ raids are.
Their is a big difference between Anet saying “hey you play this class so you heal” or Anet saying “This class has access to team healing skills”. That’s the difference between roles associated with classes and effects linked to actions.
If completely changes the way encounters are designed. You’re suggestion seems to ignore how significant a paradigm shift this would be, as well as how incompatible such an approach would work for the current game state. That makes it completely unrealistic.
I think if any suggestion like this were to be successful, we would need encounters that could be solved in more than one manner, to make the choice of ‘this’ or ‘that’ for a player on a specific class actually meaningful. Not to say Anet isn’t capable of that … but that’s not how the game currently works. Any suggestion to diversify class roles has to be matched with a thoughtful way to implement that in instanced content.
Not only is that not easy or small, it doesn’t sound like a good return on investment.
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Your suggestion is no different than how SWTOR implements trees for trinity functions. It’s just a thinly veiled trinity with more (but similar) functions (which I suspect you do to try to fool people into thinking it’s a good idea), which brings me back to the fact that this is a whole different way for Anet to implement their teambased content than what exists already. What is the motivation for doing that?
I think you have made a poor assumption; that making GW2 more like everyone else will increase market share and player retention. I think there is much to suggest the opposite; mainly that veteran players are generally accepting or happy with the current approach.
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There are reasons to have it, there are reasons not to have it. What is relevant are the reasons ANET has to not have it.
I’m a believer in separation of PVP and PVE. Yes, PVE people could ignore it, but actually, no they can’t because PVE in open world isn’t always this nice friendly duel that people walk away smiling and shaking hands. Inevitably, it’s about who’s got the bigger peen, and this all plays out on map chat or in vicinity.
So before you all start going and telling us how PVP duels don’t affect people doing PVE, so it shouldn’t be a problem to put it in PVE maps … just don’t.
So if I swap my rifle for a hammer in my build, it’s better, just because Hammer is better than Rifle? I can assure you it wouldn’t be better for me to do that. I lose quite a bit of things that the Hammer doesn’t give me and on the other hand, the hammer adds nothing to the build. What you have said makes no sense.
Sounds good. Link build plz.
I already did.
I don’t understand why you would discuss a topic with people on the forums either … clearly you only want people to agree with your point of view. When they offer their own ideas that aren’t inline with yours, you shut down and dismiss them any way you can.
Anyways, back to the topic … truth is that there are roles, they are just more integrated with game effects instead of class design. That’s probably much too subtle for players so indoctrinated by the trinity approach to gaming. I never denied there was roles; it’s just realized in a different manner than traditional MMO’s.
I don’t see your idea being any more than what other MMO’s do; defining roles by class. You simply added more categories that might be considered minor in other games. Anet threw that out the window over 4 years ago. The game is BUILT on not having that. Our roles are defined by effects and actions.
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^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.
The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.
Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.
I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.
There is only one obvious facet of reality … the way the game is designed. You seem to have decided this reality doesn’t work for you; that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean as a game concept, it can’t work and deliver content people want. Seems to me GW2 isn’t doing too bad ditching these nonsensical, limiting ideas of ‘roles’.
You, like others who don’t enjoy this particular reality, have a real choice as a consumer of a service; to not consume this service Anet offers. Lucky for the people that do enjoy the game for it’s refreshing approach, most of those unhappy players have enough sense to realize that after 4 years, Anet isn’t trying to rinse and repeat the tired ideas of decades old MMO’s; They use their choice to stop playing, or at least accept this reality for what it is. What’s stopping you?
The most disturbing thing is … there are roles in the team, you just can’t seem to get over the fact that Anet doesn’t dictate what they are to you in a direct manner. That’s just a player’s failure to grasp what is a more realistic and abstract concept in gaming. It appears you’re one of these people that just likes being told what to do and giving up their choice; perhaps that’s why you haven’t left a game that you view has such a significant deficiency in concept.
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^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.
The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.
Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.
You would have ground to make a point if 7 out of 9 classes didn’t have access to +25% movement speed, with Rev getting perma swiftness instead. There’s nothing about guardian’s identity that makes it the most slow class.
Well, there is … Guardian’s identity defined by Anet.
Actually, I don’t think there is any logical connection to getting a name change with a makeover … Anet did write it in the description … by making absolutely no mention of it. I mean, that’s disingenuous to suggest that Anet needs to tell you what is not included in something … by mentioning it’s not included. YOU are to fault for that error.
If you don’t want to pay with real money, convert gold to gems; Anet has GENEROUSLY given players this option for those that value their money more than their time.
Well, that’s an important distinction wouldn’t you say? I think it is.
Sword was good before, now it’s amazing.
Sheild has also been improved quite a bit, but it still has a defensive focus.
Not sure the weapons themselves give you ‘tanky’ DPS, but definitely sword is a very high DPS weapon now, with the right traits/stats.
There are lots of places, especially if you don’t raid with exclusive teams that can’t do anything but mirror comps.