Indeed, these could be pretty tricky fights for lower levelled players without proper gear and traits- much like how the twisted watchwork bosses could be a real challenge for those under-prepared for them. However, I have to disagree about the overall difficulty of the bosses themselves. I more or less solo’d one of the champs- there were odd bits of additional help, but most of them got one or two-shot and had to run back or gave up- and almost took down the executioner when I was the only one marked, and his sole target for most of the fight. Granted, I may play a somewhat tankier than usual warrior, but I also have the reflexes of roadkill, so I have to dispute the fights being that difficult.
Not going to take the time to write up a whole set of skills and the like, but I would absolutely love to chime in here.
For ele- a bruisery, more melee-oriented type using mace or hammer would be an excellent addition, particularly for pvp. Like the shaman idea given earlier.
For warrior, I would personally love to see one of two things.
1) Pistolier, Bounty Hunter, or something similar. Give them a pistol and either traps or gadgets, meant for steady dps and skirmishing. Profession mechanic could be to add an off-hand burst- based on the idea of carrying an off-hand pistol used to blap someone at mid-range, or stick to your good ol’ eviscerate if in position. Two-handed weapons would just get a second burst option on f2 instead.
2) The other idea is less fleshed out. As the last elite spec focused on the brute strength and ferocity aspect of the class, I’d love to see one focusing more on our frontline support and the more trained, disciplined style of warrior. A melee staff with polearm skins and spear/halberd-styled moves. Utilities meant to enhance our group support- I know we’ve already got banners and shouts, but shouts are largely… not great, and banners are clunky in all but raids and dungeons. For a mechanic, you could give a grip switching ability to change a weapon’s moveset- for example, half-swording a GS for less reach and mobility, but more CC and a less rooted primary damage-dealer. Alternatively, replace burst skills with an “adrenaline rush,” a set of skills that give notable bonuses to personal offense, personal defense, or a big buff to allies while quickly draining adrenaline.
I keep seeing the same arguments over and over again.
However, one argument I generally don’t see is this: raids don’t seem to fit in with the idea of not raising the level or gear cap. In other MMOs, people can come back to a level 70 raid at level 90 when they are stronger. There is no such option in GW2.
Of the arguments against an easier difficulty in a raid, most of them boil down to a claim that they are a bad idea without saying why, or appealing to another MMO (usually WoW) where the same dynamic might not apply.
The only argument I accept against an easier difficulty level of raid is that either there are some rewards locked behind the harder difficulty or all rewards are available (less efficiently) in the easier difficulty. If rewards are locked, then many of the people who are currently complaining will keep complaining. If they are available, people will complain that it devalues their achievements.
I see that as the fundamental essence of the casual vs hardcore conflict. Casuals generally want access to (most of) everything, while hardcore players generally want exclusive rewards that only they can get. Personally, I think that an easier, less efficient way of obtaining the same rewards is fine because I consider getting your rewards more efficiently is enough to have people still want to do hard mode.
This hits the nail on the head. You see this in pvp as well, with the leagues and the legendary backpack. A lot of more experienced players want to be able to use it as a sign of experience and talent, while a lot of newer pvpers are/were worried they wouldn’t be able to get it in the time it’s available. Same with raids- people want to be able to try any content they want and work towards any given goal without drastically changing the way they play, while the more hardcore crowd wants to keep the shiny new gear to themselves as a mark of prestige.
In my personal opinion, I agree with the idea that there ought to be an easier difficulty and that the same rewards should be available, but much slower to get, in said easy mode. Now, before I’m jumped on by some of the current batch of raiders, let me explain myself. GW2 set a precedent very early on with regards to legendary gear. The original legendary weapons were not bind on pickup, you could buy them off the TP if you really wanted to. You could work towards getting one in any way that earns you gold, playing whatever parts of the game you enjoyed. Was it the most prestigious? No. But they were still cool, they were still nice to have, and anyone could feel like they had a shot at getting one if they really wanted. This was the tone they set, this was what legendary gear was for -years- before the expansion, and now they’re departing from that.
Chiming in here. I don’t mind you guys selling skins on the gem store- I’d prefer more armor and fewer outfits, but that’s a different matter entirely- but the RNG involved is a step too far. You’re forcing anyone who wants one of these skins to gamble, either with tons of gold or notable amounts of real money. It’s the rare moment most people would be better off playing the -actual- lottery.
There is already a penalty for death- 5 points for the enemy team and your team being temporarily outnumbered. People who suicide or die constantly for no good reason still have every right to play the game, bad or not- we just need to make sure they are all paired with each other and there’ll be no problem.
Elementalists do have some amazing support, maybe a bit too much. In fairness, however, right now they really don’t have much of anything else- as least without running a non-viable gimmick. I’d suggest toning down their group support just a little bit, but at the same time buffing their ability to run a more aggressive setup so we don’t see them completely wiped from the game mode.
Personally, I’d most want them to do some upgrades to current pets so we don’t see everyone running Bristleback/Smokescale, especially in pvp. That said, I have a few suggestions-
-A badger or some form of giant/dire rat.
-Some of the less common monsters, like a basilisk or the behemoths in Ascalon.
-Snakes.
-Dolyaks or rams.
Essentially what most others have been saying. I’ve got nothing against stronghold in principal, but at present the mode is horribly unbalanced.
Discipline is not necessary. You get some nice features from it, but it’s not necessary.
This. It’s super nice to have, sure, but the only line that’s absolutely essential at this point is defense. Strength, berserker, and discipline are all pretty strong lines with their own advantages, and any two can make for a solid build.
It’s mostly down to preference. Personally, I like a somewhat high time-to-kill in my games, but I’ve also never been big on super twitchy gameplay. And the bunker meta of S1 took it way too far.
Yeah, if you guys think getting an AFKer or “toxic” people on your team is so bad, why don’t you guys all just team queue so you can control who you end up with and avoid the “toxic” players?
Just pick up all those players who think it’s ok to 4 cap home and everyone will be happy!
Your problem is with people playing poorly. This is inevitable, and if you want to play competitively you should be doing so in a team anyway. Some people have neither the time nor inclination to learn to play to your standards.
Our problem is with people lacking basic human decency. Those who just want to queue, play a few games more casually, and maybe see how far they can get in the rankings should not have to form a team just to avoid people throwing a tantrum and -deliberately- ruining the game for 4 other people.
Not everyone can or has incentive to learn to play well. Everyone should, on the other hand, learn to act like a proper human being.
Those of you sympathizing with the necro on this one are the single largest reason pvp in this game has done poorly. You are a toxic part of the community who would rather have a game filled with self-centered, inconsiderate tryhards than give less experienced players a break. Aside from perhaps crippling technical difficulties or other outside interruptions, there are almost no acceptable reasons to afk at the start of a match.
If you have a problem with the people you’re queued with by the game, find a team of like-minded people and party with them. Don’t clog solo-q with your gigantic egos.
I like it, though I’m always on board for new armor- not this outfit nonsense- period.
Some pets are very easy to kill. That’s why they are rarely used (in PvP). Dead pet = useless pet. And it is not neccessary to kill the pets to kill the ranger/druid. If you make pets easier to kill, you can basically delete them.
No other class can lose access to its class mechanic for up to 60 seconds.
Actually, most aren’t used because they are just terrible all around and have no practical use in pvp or are just overshadowed completely by other types. Bears, devourers, and pigs are the three tankiest types and are the least used in pvp.
This. The reason the new pets are used nearly universally is because they have the means of reliably hitting another player who’s moving around, instead of chasing slowly after them and being perfectly safe to ignore entirely.
As for the actual discussion… Pets are not that dangerous. Druids are, on the whole, a pretty well balanced class right now- sturdy, but with mediocre damage and a vulnerability to CC. If anything I’d like to see all the OTHER pets improved so they can keep up with enemies, and then maybe worry about trimming them back a bit statwise if need be.
I have some reservations about this idea, but I suppose it could theoretically work so long as every class has at least one amulet for any given playstyle: power, hybrid, condi, support, and one at least somewhat tanky amulet.
I dislike players playing PvP as a way to get gear and materials used for PvE and other modes. It should not be a “reward treadmil” and having such a system only leads to low quality matchmaking where players are predominately PvE players and have no interest in competitive play. If anything rewards in sPvP mode should come in something where the player can use only in sPvP. I’d recommend locking all amulets, sigils, and runes, and just reward that.
I play both PvP and PvE. I don’t play PvP for the rewards, but I have gotten a few nice loot boxes- ascended gear I likely would never have made the grind for otherwise. So long as none of the pvp rewards are exclusively attainable in pvp, as the wings are/were, you likely won’t see many people jumping in just for the rewards. Only those who already liked pvping anyway. Just make pvp a bit more profitable in terms of gold income so people who -do- pvp can afford a few more shinies off the TP now and then.
If guardians gets the warriors health then warriors want the guardians access to aegis, if ele gets the warriors toughness we want their group support, and if thieves get our vitality we want their stealth…basically the extra health and toughness is what gives warrior any chance…it is our defensive ability like an extra dodge roll/stealth/aegis/2nd health bar/ or unlimited heals is for other classes
You conveniently left out the insane amount of regen warr can have(the same as druids Troll Unguent actually), the high amount of blocks, condi imunity or lots of condi cleanse(depending on build), damage immunity on utility and trait, dead or alive and good mobility skills.
This is not a nerf/buff warr thread. Whatever balance issues you find should be fixed and are definitely not an excuse for the fact that the rest of the professions are pigeonholed into one or two amulets.
Which is why we need either more amulets or a system that allows greater control of stats. Classes are not balanced to all have the same base health and armor, and changing that would require a ton of additional balance changes in turn. True, warriors have some nice things in their kit, but the regen is new, and all the rest of it wasn’t exactly enough to save us the past 2 seasons.
You’re absolutely right. In fact, A-net should delete all gear that isn’t berserker, in all game modes.
In all seriousness, what do people have against amulets that offer a little bit of durability? I’ve never seen someone impossible to kill because they ran merc, and if they put out too much damage in condis with just the condi damage stat than the problem lies in the output of conditions from individual classes or builds. Options are good, stop trying to take them away and instead tackle the root of the problem.
Any RPG involves varied stats. If all you care about is reflexes, go play a shooter or fighting game instead of trying to take the building aspect of the game away from people.
I have to disagree about needing disc. Str/defense/zerker worked perfectly fine for me, and the last patch did give us a good bit of sustain. Defense is the only essential line, assuming you aren’t running a full glass gunflame build. I’d also certainly disagree that we can’t kill anything- I ran paladin for most of the last season and felt I was dropping people reasonably quickly despite the lack of ferocity. Granted, I only bothered to play til diamond, but that was more because I didn’t feel like muddling with the typical league toxicity any longer than anything else.
Calm down a mite. We were better this season than we were last- thanks to the reduced bunkering letting us actually kill things before stances ran out- and we ought to be better in S3 than we were during this one. We’re making progress.
Not had the chance to play it yet, but I’d like to add an observation. The new skyhammer seems weaker than the Tranquility buff in Temple, and Temple also had the Stillness buff to fight over in its mechanic. My main problems with the original map was that the portal was too easy to trap and that the Skyhammer platform was small enough that many movement skills were very risky- I’d just barely whirlwinded myself off a few times too many, for instance. Making it big enough to allow ranged play and make such skills safe to use from the center of the platform would have done it. I feel the Skyhammer, as a mechanic, should have a bit more punch to it than the new one sounds like it has. Else you’re just left with another generic map.
I liked old Spirit Watch, but there doesn’t seem anything wrong with the changes made to me. I did like the more frequent orb running, but that’s mostly just a matter of preference. Balancing it between classes was a good move.
People want to play the warrior to be this sustain machine. As soon as they accept the fact that we have good, hard, reliable, cc and some insane dps we can put a ton of pressure on these “meta” classes, the better off they will be. I personally have never had an issue in spvp, even versus meta classes, I mean I down necros and mesmers fairly easy, maybe they are bad? Maybe I’m just better?
It takes work, and situational awareness to play warrior, you cant just mash buttons and win most times, but it can be done.
We just have a bad stigma.
I don’t really think most people want warrior to have insane sustain. Think about what people are thinking when they first roll a warrior, assuming they aren’t a veteran. The class description makes them out to be something of a bruiser, right at home on the front lines. This is on par with warriors in WoW, or EQ, or fighters in D&D or what-have-you. Sure, some people might want to build a tank, but for the most part I think many, myself included, just want to be able to stick to a fight.
I get what you’re saying, we do have some great damage and lockdown potential, and most of those who’ve had success have been capitalizing on that. But I didn’t roll a warrior, personally, to play a very loud thief in plate armor.
On the subject of beating meta classes, I’ve also found, oddly enough, that running a rifle makes Reapers a fairly simple class to deal with. As you said, maybe they were just bad, but I never had much trouble with them.
As most of those here have said, the bulk of that was likely due to stances. If you notice your CCs and condis failing, check their bar- odds are they’ve got at least one stance up. These stances, however, are on a pretty high cooldown, so you might try backing away until they wear off and then re-engaging.
Its fine until a rev/ele shows up and protection boons the entire team. Then the random rev skillful passive proc hits and you do effectively 0 damage. Also stability buff hurts warrior more as you won’t be able to break all those stability stacks on people anymore so goodbye setting up hundred blades.
I honestly wonder who the heck is doing balances on warrior.
Most of this will hurt everyone using power, not just warrior. As for the stability buff, how often are you swinging away with CCs if you can’t manage to wait for a .75 second delay? Most of our CCs have a half second or higher casting time anyway, which means you just need to wait a quarter of a second before using the next. Or, depending on circumstances, just wait it out.
As some have been saying, the earlier proc increases the odds of being able to proc twice in a fight- particularly if you’re running a sturdier build with the new healing. If you’re glass, you still get 8-10 seconds total of invuln, you just need to rethink when to fire off your active endure pain a bit. If you aren’t glass, you can potentially juggle the invulns over a longer fight for a much greater period of defense.
Honestly, I feel on the whole the changes are pretty good. Not quite sure why they decided it was longbow that needed the largest buff of our weapons, but fair enough. Physical buffs were long overdue, maybe we’ll see a bit more use of them now.
I do, however, have one MAJOR objection to the changes. While helpful, most of the biggest buffs were applied to the defense traitline. We were already pressured into taking that line if we wanted any ability to survive at all, this only compounds the problem. Future adjustments to warrior should focus on spreading effectiveness to our other lines to give people more options instead of locking us into the same 2-3 specializations.
I miss the banner traits that, with the exception of regen, all got thrown out with the specialization system.
Just repeating what I’ve heard, but supposedly using the 64 bit client version helps with a lot of the technical difficulties. If you aren’t using it now it might be worth switching over. Don’t know for sure if it’ll help, but worth a shot.
I have to heavily disagree with the OPs idea. Right now the game suffers from a very limited selection of viable builds; I certainly don’t want A-net cutting down on build options. Besides, do you want to be the guy who has to explain to a player why their favorite build got thrown on the chopping block for a gimmick?
On the subject of making one of the core specializations an elite, this I might be on board with depending on implementation. Give them a buff and you functionally deal with the problem of the HoT specs being considered overpowered without having to wait around for the next expac to drop. And as someone else said, it doesn’t make that much sense for a warrior to be both disciplined and a berserker at once now does it? Might be some merit to the idea.
….So what you’re saying is you were verbally abusing your team? You seem to be the problem here mate.
How about making it pulse out adrenaline, so when you’re in radius of the banner, it gives you say 5 adrenaline every 3/5 seconds, i can’t really think of much else to add.
The problem here is that adrenaline only helps you and any other warriors on your team. Banners are a group support skill, any buff to them ought to improve that group support- like adding another boon or improving the skill’s radius or uptime.
That presumes that the skill gate has value in the first place, that the exclusivity of the reward has value. It does not. A skill-gated reward has no justification to be superior to a time-gated one, they are all just items acquired while enjoying an entertainment product, not the salary for a job that is actually providing a public good.
You really misunderstand there. The value of an item is how it’s viewed by the community. For raiders in general skill gated stuff has more value than stuff you can just grind out in easy boring content. The same goes for exclusivity, the perceived value is much higher regardless of how valuable something actually is.
So yes, it does matter. You need to be able to at least understand both sides of the argument if you want to actually start making sense.
Exclusivity matters in the real world because of limited resources. Things that are rare are, by definition, more valuable because of it. However, GW2 is not real life. The only limits on any given good in game are the limits developers place on them. What you are arguing is to prevent a large portion of the playerbase from being able to obtain items just so you can feel special about having them. This is wrong, and it’s proof that, as the “Run AC with no armor and a white weapon” comment has demonstrated on this forum- and I believe this thread- that a number of raiders don’t really care about hard content. They just want a way to put everyone else below themselves. What you are saying here is that it’s not good enough that YOU have something, you have to take it away from others to feel happy about it.
I wouldn’t want to see balance changes mid-season because I have played one class (other than for achievements) to legendary for the past 2 seasons (bunker ele last season, druid this season) and to have to adapt to something new in the middle of a season would be really annoying for me. I use the break between seasons to get used to new stuff.
I think balance patches every 3 months is perfect as long as they change the meta and different classes become more powerful/weaker so everyone gets there chance to be a meta class. The last balance patch did change the meta from bunker to dps, but the classes that were powerful last season are still powerful this season which is something I hope changes for season 3, but overall I really like the way balance is being done.
To be fair, change mid season only forces you to adjust if you insist on playing optimal classes at all times, or if they happen to completely gut your build. I’m sure many of the people who main warrior, including myself, don’t care whether or not it’s a top tier class. Just that it be viable. A small shift in how optimal something is shouldn’t drive you away entirely.
Secondly, I am entirely in disagreement with you over the timing of balance patches. What you suggest is not attempting to keep the game reasonably balanced; it’s essentially just having the classes play musical chairs once every few months to swap between their perpetually unbalanced positions. “Shaking up the meta” is all well and good as long as that isn’t the sole goal of balance.
I don’t want warriors to be functional in pvp at the cost of pushing, say, revs out. I want both to be perfectly viable classes at all levels of play. If a balance patch puts someone else in the same position warriors have been in, even if it’s just their turn on the wheel, it’s still a poor balance patch.
Lol, you guys really need to lighten up. Juba’s got it right.
Ordinarily, I’d have let it slide. While I don’t like the holiday myself, I’ve no problem letting others have their fun. The problem comes when, whereas the rest of the classes got a somewhat amusing joke about their mechanics and abilities, the bit with warriors was a direct potshot and insult to those who play the class, on top of the already poor relations between the community and the balance team. The joke was, at best, a tone-deaf attempt at humor and at worst a deliberate insult given circumstances.
The hundred blades bit? That was funny, because it conjures up an amusing image and is a play on one particular aspect of the class. The other class bits? Also funny. But give us a proper balance patch first, THEN you can make jokes about how a class has been dramatically underpowered since the expac launched. Else it’s easy enough to take it as laughing at players rather than laughing with them.
Haha, really funny A-net. Truly you are a comedic genius. Making a note here not to buy gems for the next few months. You sure showed those warriors. Who are they to show up in the pvp mode you’ve been trying to build up?
If they implement this, and people abuse it, then they’ll pay the price themselves through longer queue times or not being able to get a match at all.
There are, however, people who I find to be genuinely disgusting human beings who I would much rather not be thrown on a team with. Sure, if they’re blocked I don’t hear anything from them, but that’s now one teammate you can’t coordinate with.
I’d assumed it would be a case of hit someone → push them forward → hit them again → repeat until you reach the end or they manage to get out of the way.
When you go far, it’s really easy for everyone else to notice when you fail. However, when you succeed, no one really notices. Everyone can cite a time where someone going far cost them the match (or at least seemed to). In fact, I will shortly. But few people can point out when it won them the match. Going far puts a tag on you where you’re either labelled bad or adequate.
My story: On Forest we decided to split 4-1. The opponents do the same. I moa their necro and we stomp him early but it cost us a lot more cool downs than it should have. But we’re fine. It’s now 4v3. But it’s not. The warrior decides to hightail it for far. Yes, the warrior. Now 3v3 and on cool down, we wipe on mid as their home capper arrives and our home capper camps. The warrior does decap far but then proceeds to die to the necro kittenpawned. While we recovered the momentum, we lost the match by about 25 points from that unforced error at the beginning.
To be fair, the warrior’s call would have been right if the situation was a little different: 1. He wasn’t a warrior. They can’t solo like they used to, and not against a necro. 2. Our home capper didn’t camp. As the mesmer, I was considering dropping a portal and quickly decapping far, but the situation didn’t call for it.
I have to disagree with one part of this post- as a warrior main, I usually find necros to be among the easier classes to solo against, personally. Still, the rest of the points stand, and as a warrior you’re probably still best sticking to a teamfight and providing cleave and the odd bit of lockdown.
My story, incidentally, ALSO involves someone pushing far by themselves- I’m starting to sense a pattern here. Our team was composed of myself, two druids, and two other bruiser classes- I seem to recall a Scrapper and a Reaper. One druid, at the start, ran far to contest it. Fair enough, we managed to win the fight at mid anyway. When that fight was certain- all the enemies downed and ours all up- I noticed far was still contested and said druid was still hanging in, so, for better or worse, I charged in to back them up. We managed to cap the point just before their respawns could get in, and to his credit the druid stalled a few of them for a pretty long time. AFTER we lost it, however, he continued to run far and die by himself, never so much as decapping it, every single time. The only reason we won was because our team was significantly better than the opposition the rest of the time.
I’m all for this- at least as far as the general idea goes. Plus give us a special polearm for the staff skin, make the weapon skills spear or halberd based. Why does everyone assume warriors have to just be armored versions of the Hulk?
Also, plus one for the Mordhau. We need more -actual- weapon techniques.
I find that this is a very odd question. It’s like asking, “Should only the winners of Wimbledon receive a trophy, or should we give every participant a trophy?”
If you create a reward to recognize some kind of success in a game, then it can only work as recognition if people who don’t meet the requirements, don’t get the reward.
Maybe you could give everyone some lesser version of the rewards, like a “tin medal for effort”. But I’ll bet there’s still people who will complain that they should get the gold medal even if they don’t win.
I’m not sure this is a fair comparison. A badge or title is a trophy, and one I fully support making it difficult to get- locking the wings away is more like giving the winners a shirt with a design nobody else is ever allowed to use or wear. Sure, there will be people complaining they deserve to be in legendary, but I’d wager a good portion of people don’t care about the prestige as much as just getting the wings.
As I said above, the point of this thread is not to discuss the matchmaking. That discussion is being held in plenty of other threads- though I admit there is certainly something wrong with the way its working currently. The point of this thread is to talk about game design philosophy, namely the question of whether bad players should be allowed to grind their way to getting any given item, or whether it ought to be locked behind a certain division requiring skill to reach. They may eventually fix their matchmaking problem, but what philosophy A-net continues with will have a notable impact on a very large portion of the playerbase- all of those save for those few at the top.
Hello everyone. I’ve seen a few mentions of this debate pop up in various threads, but it seems to me to be too often lost among all the bickering over matchmaking, team blaming, calls to “git gud,” and so on. Now, I feel it’s a fairly important matter worthy of discussion regarding the future of pvp and the league system. The question being, namely, should the game offer rewards exclusive to the elite and highest tier of pvpers or should it allow players of any skill to work their way to things like the legendary backpack? This post will not address the frequent question of whether those at the top really are deserving of their position and rewards, as that requires far too much speculation and is more related to problems with matchmaking and game balance rather than design philosophy.
The first school of thought argues that it’s better to have rewards exclusive to high tier pvp. These rewards, because they are more exclusive, in turn become more valuable and more prestigious. They make up a sort of badge of honor and possessing them marks you as among the best. Under this idea, making the wings or future rewards more accessible decreases their value to those who worked hardest in the system.
The second school of thought argues that everybody should be able to work towards any particular reward. Wings or future items should not be locked behind a certain tier, and anyone who plays pvp long enough can eventually earn them. The advantage here is that people who do not enjoy the league feel less pressure to try and progress. They can take their time, break when they want, and not have to worry about clearing either divisions or achievements at a particular rate. This also means that more competitive players do not have to worry as much about being paired with less competitive players.
Personally, while I understand where those who support the first argument are coming from, I have to throw my support behind the second. I would, if I earned the wings, probably never use the skin- they seem gaudy and overly flashy for my tastes. I don’t care much about them, I play ranked simply to see how far I can get playing builds of my own design on warrior- currently early Ruby. If I did earn the wings, however, my pride at having them would be no more diminished by others reaching them.
I propose pvp legendary items should be comparable to PvE legendary weapons. No, they are not cheap. No, they aren’t easy to get. No, not everyone will get them. But everyone, regardless of how good they are, has the option of working their way slowly towards them. I’d also argue this is the best way to handle raids and legendary armor, but that’s a discussion for another day.
I’d also like to note that this problem is not in a vacuum. Currently the game is suffering from a pretty bad shortage of new skins- outfits, uncustomizable as they are, do not count- and Anet has demonstrated an increasing trend of putting new skins exclusively behind high end content. If new skins were added more often that were accessible to the bulk of the playerbase, you might find fewer complaints over those gated few. Time-gating it, however, may still be problematic.
To wrap this rant up, I’d like to extend an olive branch to those who appose this view. If you want a shiny new badge, if you want a title, I would not argue. There should be ways to demonstrate your success in any given game mode at the highest level. I just don’t believe it should come at the expense of locking out gear or skins.
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this far. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t. Please, voice that opinion so that A-net might see it. Just try to do it civilly, eh? See you in game, and may you always fight FOR GREAT JUSTICE!
1. Add an in-game majority voting system to auto Dishonor players for being Toxic/Unhealthy during the game.
2. Normalize certain builds as well as a slight nerf to all specializations but focus strong points – Lower CC’s across the board. Example: For DH only traps with a cast time can stun. Moa reduced by 1s, Engi total stuns reduced by 40%, etc.
3. Stability should be shaved from every class on elite specs. Half the reason elite specs performs better is because of their utilities; its suppose to be a play style change not a huge performance boost.
4. I would love non-class stacking in unranked as well. Prioritize non class stacking more in Matchmaking but have a 5m queue threshold for matchmaking to revert back to normal class stacking for an individual player who hasnt gotten a match.
I have to really disagree with number 1. Yes, people who are toxic should be given much harsher penalties. However, this feature would be very prone to abuse. I’ve seen enough teams that might hit you with it just for playing warrior, for instance. Also, it’s very vague. Does unhealthy include just playing poorly? Some people might think so, I wouldn’t. What we need more is for people who are reported for regularly harassing others or going afk to be given much more extensive bans when reported AFTER having been reviewed by Anet moderators.
I think the others are all probably alright though. Don’t see any immediate reason they wouldn’t work or cause some other problem. Worth a shot, eh?
I think the league reward structure needs to change and here is why:
If I get to Ruby and I can’t make it out, the system has said that this is where I belong in terms of skill. If I have already completed the achievements I can get for the season, there is now no difference between ranked and unranked. I have basically “capped” my reward progression. So how do we keep people playing in rank for reward IF that is their incentive rather than just playing for fun?
1. Reward track progress boost per tier of play
Reward people in each tier with a multiplier for getting through the reward tracks faster. So Amber would be a 1x multiplier, Emerald would be a 1.25, Sapphire would be a 1.50, Ruby would be 1.75, and Diamond would be 2x multiplier. You can tweak the numbers but this would mean that you would complete reward tracks faster based when playing ranked over unranked.2. Allow shards of glory to purchase non HoT ascended weapon chests. Make it high like 5k or something. That way you can farm ranked for shards and since ascended items are account bound, you don’t mess up the Trading Post
3. Introduce 3 legendary reward tracks that you can unlock each time you hit a Legendary rank. So you hit Legend x1, you get one unlock. You hit legend x2, you have another unlock. You can make one the Sunless reward track for Sunless weapons, you could make another the Cultural Reward track for cultural armor skins, etc. Obviously they would need to include non HoT content since you have a mix of HoT and nonHot players.
This would allow people to earn new skins that are expensive by playing the game their way and most of them are account bound so they won’t mess with the TP.
TLDR: Increase the incentive to play ranked by making reward track grind easier, make shards of glory more useful, create legendary reward tracks that reward with some of the higher rewards from the base game.
I agree strongly with the first two- people should be rewarded for their time in pvp at least comparable to time spent in PvE. The third I have some reservations about- pvp rewards should not be locked behind legendary. Sure, go ahead and give them increased speed as in your first suggestion, but any player, no matter how good, should be allowed to work towards the same rewards. A big part of the problem in recent seasons has, I feel, been people wanting the rewards from climbing in the league rather than necessarily wanting the badge for pride’s sake. Remove that incentive and you can make leagues as strict and skill based as you like without hurting anyone- aside from maybe a few egos.
Getting ‘stuck’ in ruby is a very important topic regarding how best league should operate. We changed matchmaking to make the ladder more prestigious and so far it has done that. Divisions are aligning with skill level much better than season 1. The product of this change is that the bulk of players who hover around the middle of the mmr curve should stay in sapphire and ruby. Win rate will level out at 50% because there are plentiful players of similar mmr in the same division.
Should average players be able to climb out of the middle divisions by grinding? This removes prestige and can make matchmaking worse within a division, but always allows a sense of progression.
Should average players stay in the middle divisions because that’s where they belong at their skill level? This retains prestige and only improving skill will allow climbing, but rewards and progression stop at some point through the season.
Is there an incentive that could be added to league games for players who have reached their appropriate division and can no longer climb?
If I may make a suggestion? If you want to give people a sense of prestige, promote more high-level tournaments. Maybe not to the scale of this past pro-season, but rather frequent, say, weekly or monthly contests with small in-game prizes. Make these the gateway to the pro-leagues instead of this free-for-all ladder. Those who truly enjoy the competition and want to take pride in pvp can do so without locking a large chunk of the player base out of certain items or out of having fun. If I want a legendary weapon from PvE, I can either do the specific content to make one or go grind out a few thousand gold to buy one. The backpack, however, is on an ever-ticking clock before it disappears forever. People’s attempt at getting it may be adding extra frustration to their efforts to climb through the ranks. Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who genuinely enjoys pvp for the most part, and played it for about a year prior to the launch of leagues. I can’t imagine what it must be like for those who normally don’t like pvp at all. I’m all for expanding the rewards pvp offers, just…. maybe not so exclusively?
On another note, many people may be frustrated because something does seem somehow off with their matchmaking. Yes, people will always tend to inflate their own egos and blame their teammates rather than look for where they might be at fault themselves, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be something off. Case in point, right now I’m in early Ruby. Maybe this is where I’m supposed to be, maybe it isn’t. What bothers me is the VAST spread in the quality of my teammates. Sometimes I get people who genuinely impress me or who at the very least hold their own. Teams that communicate, know what they’re doing, and generally perform pretty well. Other times, and mind you this is in the same tier of the same division, I get people who are utterly horrible. People running far alone and dying at start, people losing every fight, not securing stomps, and so on. Meanwhile, I usually manage to win most of my 1v1s and feel like a respectable presence during teamfights. What bothers me is that somehow the game seems to think I belong with both groups of people at once, which means somebody’s MMR has to be inaccurate. Now, I’m not perfect by any means- trust me, I’ve fought a pro player before, I know I’m well off that mark- but I’ve seen people in my RP guild pvping for the first time do better than some of these guys. Only slight hyperbole.
As someone pointed out above, if someone playing a non-meta build is put on your team, that means they’ve somehow managed to convince the game they’re as good on it as you are on your meta class. Meaning back off and let people run what they want.
If they get put on the enemy team, well, you’ve nothing to complain about now do you?
Sincerely,
A warrior who’s killed a great many reapers, druids, and scrappers this season.
I’ve made it to Ruby, soloing and playing almost exclusively warrior save for a few achievement-seeking games. I did not play much of S1- I played for a little while, got tired of the grind, and left pvp up until the very end where I decided to push up to Sapphire before the season ended.
S2 has been, in my opinion, very preferable. In Amber I got a few crap games, but for the most part I was able to blow right through them. In Emerald and Sapphire things got a bit harder, but I still felt I was making progress. Now I’m taking a break, waiting to see how the population levels out because I’ve not been happy with a lot of my recent teammates. Last few games have generally been close, win or lose.
S1 seemed to me to be mostly a lottery as a solo-queue, at least when playing a class less suited to carrying a match. I didn’t feel like I was improving and going up against better players as I progressed, and that getting to a higher division wouldn’t prove much of anything besides a masochistic streak.
S2, while faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from perfect, at least allows you to semi-reliably advance if you’re above the average player in your division. It still has a fair bit of luck and gaming of the system involved, but I feel at least like progressing solo is much more feasible. Now if A-net would stop giving new people average MMR and would start seeding people with much more experience, we’d have a workable system
Context: I’ve played a little over 1k games over the span of about a year, almost all of them as a warrior using a number of different builds.
The best bit of advice I can offer to people having trouble is to stop when you start losing more than 1 or 2 matches at a time. Odds are either the current group of players you’re likely to be matched against is higher MMR than you, in which case you’re best off letting them progress a bit, OR you’re getting stuck with people who are less than capable. Give it some time, walk away, and hope they’re gone when you come back.
While the hostility of the individual was uncalled for, and they are likely somewhat missing the point of conquest, I’d like to play Devil’s Advocate a moment.
There are games where, for some reason, your team is just not very good. Your allies get all split up, and a group of 2-3 of them are always moving around and killing anyone before you can regroup. Whether it’s your fault or not, this is likely to result in you getting killed over and over again, and not being able to accomplish much of anything the entire match, These are, while rare, in my experience the absolute worst kind of match.
In most lost causes, you can at least get the satisfaction of maybe winning a few 1v1 fights off to the side- a small victory, maybe, but something to hold onto and keep playing for. When every 1v1 is interrupted by a swarm of the enemy team, you can’t get an iota of fun out of the rest of the match and might as well- as much as I hate those who do- go afk. It was likely this feeling of frustration that led to their comments, rather than actually feeling you were cheating.
Got 3 minutes dishonor for doing absolutely nothing. Queue popped, I clicked accept, message stayed up on the screen for a minute with one check mark missing, and then disappeared. A few seconds later, the game dropped me from the queue and gave me a small dishonor penalty. My guess would be this has something to do with the double-queue bug I keep seeing mentioned in chat.