The thread title is interesting. Here we have gamers volunteering solutions to a designed encounter in the game. The players, at least those experienced in gaming, know that there is a problem with Grenth and, since 4/30, with all of Orr.
I’ll let you in on a secret: the major problem with Grenth, and all of Orr now, is that Anet doesn’t think it’s a problem. Solve that problem and you fix Orr.
The vet spewing champs (yes, sans loot), 30k hits from somewhere in the particle blur, and the continuous major CC in Orr since 4/30, I believe, are the effects of on-the-job training for developers at Anet. No one familiar with gaming as a gamer (let alone game designer) would design encounters like this. Humans aren’t designed for epic, continuous failure and they certainly don’t play games to experience near assured defeat. And yet, that’s what we have here.
CS is broken. There’s really no explanation for it—it simply is broken. One really can’t explain, rationally, what’s up with this; I certainly don’t understand it.
(edited by Raine.1394)
Whoa, just went to CS for the first time in a week and it is dead. Both in terms of players and events. I was there ~30 mins and nothing popped. The crazy changes to the events themselves since Feb were bad enough. Now to simply not have them running would seem to be a final nail. I guess it’s back to logging in for the daily, logging out, and hoping against hope they get a Chief Reality-testing Officer on board soon. GW2, even at launch, was one of the best games I’ve played. I’d love to be able to go back to the beginning again—at least pre-original southsun. Those were the days.
Yes, this one’s been beaten to death but will continue until Anet manages damage by player rather than stacks on a mob. The fix is easy: damage and ticks, by player, for condition damage—problem solved.
Yes, Anet did play the technical issues card, but since all other games have solved this problem they’ve had to take a step back. They will eventually fix this as it will continue to be a major problem with the game until it’s fixed.
The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.
If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/
On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.
Did anyone else find this post interesting? I mean the pro-farming statements. All the Anet apologists here on the forums claim that Anet does not want you to farm, they just want you to play the game. In other words if you farm you are playing it wrong. DR itself is described on the wiki as “anti-farm code”. This dev post would appear to recognize that farming is an approved and integral part of the MMO genre both for normal character development and expansion, and certainly for any of the major goals (cf. legendary weapons) in a game.
As one who has played for years in several MMO’s, I have found the anti-farming attitudes on the forums mystifying. This post is actually hopeful in that regard. And, Anthony, I recognize that you all have made a number of improvements to “reward” in the game and am thankful for that. I believe most of the criticism is over a trending toward lack of reward that has existed in Orr since the February update. The content there now consists of major failure fests that offer little reward for entering combat. Fix Orr by returning it to the improved state of the January update and you will have gone a long way towards addressing the grievances addressed in this thread. And, Anthony, I agree there is a sweet spot. No one wants loot to rain from the sky simply because you’ve brandished your sword, and no one wants a loot wasteland. I wish you success in finding that sweet spot.
(edited by Raine.1394)
I love the “no farming” posts. It’s really a complete misunderstanding of the MMO genre. Farming is an essential activity for character expansion and any Anet established (cf. legendary) goal in the game. Do people in GW2 have any history in gaming? Does anyone here understand the genre?
Failure? Every time I have had two invasions completed, Balthazar is taken since it bumps up pact morale to get more reinforcements. If you want to rush and just do one invasion that’s fine, but you’ll lose. If you really want to play it safe, do all three.
It will only fail if you don’t make an effort, which is why it’s a very well made event chain.
It’s a ton of fun to do and even more fun to organise, and maybe with incandescent dust being needed to make crystalline dust people won’t mind farming the t5 mats and bags.
You are obviously what is missing then. It is in failure state on all NA servers. If only we had one of you on each server to lead the way.
I just took a look at the state of the temples on US servers and Arah, Balthazar, and Grenth are in a state of 100% failure, on all servers. Other temples are more 80-90% failure. A rational human looks at the reality of open world PvE and is quite puzzled with calls to increase the difficulty. I’m puzzled too.
I do agree that there should be scaling difficulty in dungeons, preferably three modes so everyone can find reward and challenge commensurate with their skill level. Open world PvE should be designed around the player base you find there, i.e., a wide diversity of players. There is absolutely no need to increase the difficulty level of end-game open world PvE.
clones distracted him fairly well
Yes, I noticed this too. His AI apparently does not suffer from what I like to call ‘clairvoyance bug’ where mobs completely ignore clones and alsways spot the player. Would love to see that implemented into standard PvE so I can use my clones as actual confusion instead of just cannonfodder for shattering.
I call this extrasensory perception aggro and have noticed it since launch. It’s the same experience for rangers. It’s one of those counter-intuitive aspects to combat in GW2 and glad to hear it’s more intuitive in this encounter.
This was one of the first things I noticed in playing after the patch. I don’t like it. I understand its intention but it adds no more useful information, just more screen clutter. It also looks less polished than the original and harms the aesthetics of the game.
And, it’s not just the big bosses, it’s any typical event with a good-sized group of players. Throw in a couple legendary greatswords, a couple three champs (who began hitting for up to 30k after the 4/30 patch) and meaningful animations are pretty much obscured for their intended purpose. And, that’s the meaning of the frequent seas of rez-me tombstone markers that often define the battlefield in GW2.
It’s like they want everyone in CoF…
Don’t even say, that. Else there won’t be anything worth doing in GW2 if CoF and SE is decided to be nerfed. Or when more annoyance mechanics decided to be put into it. Maybe “Annoyances Wars” should be a better name.
This is dejavu with Blizzard. First 3 months frequently on the game. 4th month forums, complains, etc…etc.
At least Gw2 lasted more than 6 months for me before I head for the forums more. Keep it up and you will lose players like Diablo3.
As one who battled Blizz for 4-6 months in D3 I can appreciate the allusion. For me, the arpg can be summed up as smash monsters/find awesome loot. There were plenty of zombies in D3, but it was misconceived as a “circle trading game” and they forgot to include the loot. There is usually hell to pay when you mess up a success formula and the forums were the focal point of retribution there as they’ve become here. To me, the manifesto was the success formula of GW2 and it lasted until 11/15 when I decided to join the forum wars. I still love the game and don’t want to see it fail. It is so good in fact that they would have to actively work to see it fail. Sadly, on many fronts, that work continues. Beyond the VP, loot and Orr are the two main areas of failure I experience regularly. It would appear others do as well—hence this thread.
Well it’s obviously intended.
Maybe now more people will run Balthazar since you get a ton of loot out of it.
And, why would people choose to experience failure. It’s not in our nature. Until it is redesigned to be an interesting, challenging encounter it will remain in a closed or underway state—as it is as we speak; on all US servers. No rational human will consciously devote their time to creating or participating in failure.
It’s quite sad when the major improvements that a game company can make are reversions to a prior state. It’s fine to experiment and try new things, but only when experience guides that experimentation and prevents it from simply repeating past mistakes (in gaming history) or making bad decisions. There is really no excuse for Orr in its current state. Anet would be making progress if they simply reverted it to the January patch.
(edited by Raine.1394)
Looks like we are out of luck for fixes in the 5/28 patch. I’m sitting in Orr and everything is contested that can be contested and Grenth is failing on schedule. I’ve done a couple DE’s and haven’t encountered a champ risen wraith or champ vet spewing spider so there may have been a very slight improvement. Pretty much failure appears to be the intention. If you’re not failing you’re playing it wrong.
Probably Grenth is still the worst designed event in the game but there are others in the running. Post 5/28 patch it is still failing on schedule. Interesting that they didn’t fix Orr in the two patches since 4/30. By inference this strongly suggests they intend for failure to be the norm. Odd for heroes to fail over and over and over. Maybe we’re not the heroes the game suggested we were.
The casual/hardcore dichotomy is a false dichotomy in modern gaming, especially in the MMO. There is no way for a major title to survive without appealing to casual players. This actually isn’t so much a problem as a feature of the gaming landscape.
The solution is open world PvE which takes casuals into consideration and dungeons with scaling difficulty. Ideally dungeons would have, perhaps, three difficulty modes that would appeal to a broad range of players both in terms of desire and skill. It’s relatively easy to meet the needs of both groups and there is no inherent need for division amongst the player base here.
Hardest, physically, has to be engineer. I couldn’t find a decent build without a ground-targeted basic attack and that level of ground-target spam is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. For those playing this way I implore you to consider the potential nerve damage before it’s too late.
Edit: I know about fast ground targeting, but in GW2 combat of any significance I seldom know where my cursor is. The ground-targeting is at least useful in finding my cursor.
Underwhelming all around. There is no mention of fixing Orr except a mention of Lyssa. This will be a deal-breaker for some.
Then those people will leave. It’s pretty simple. I was in Orr today I had no problem there. But I’m not, and never will be, a farmer.
Those who are so obsessed with farming Orr that it’s all they care about, probably aren’t going to make a big difference to the game anyway.
It has nothing to do with ‘farming’. It has to do with playing the game. Read the forums, try Grenth, try gates of Arah. Watch it fail. Try it again. Watch it fail again. Look at the open Temples on the new Bear site. This morning Grenth was contested on every single server in the GW2 universe. The problem is actually quite straightforward. Saying that everything is fine is not helping the game.
I don’t say that everything is fine. You can find my complaints in numbers of threads. They’re not the same complaints as yours.
I HAD assumed you were talking about the farming problems, however, due to the massive number of threads by farmers in the last few days, so for that I apologize.
But stop saying I say nothings wrong, because it’s a demonstrable lie.
No lying here. You said you had no problem with Orr. If you were playing the content there and not farming, you would have to have problems in Orr because for any significant content (DE chains other than plinx (cf. Arah) and all temple fights now) it almost always fails. In my book perpetual failure is a problem; maybe your mileage varies here.
There’s no reason to do Grenth, hence why it’s never done. If they added some exclusive vendor (aka Balthazar), it would get done more. Most people take the path of least resistance.
Not so on my server. When it’s up, someone is attempting it. The problem is that it almost always fails, at least 9 times out of 10, probably more.
Underwhelming all around. There is no mention of fixing Orr except a mention of Lyssa. This will be a deal-breaker for some.
Then those people will leave. It’s pretty simple. I was in Orr today I had no problem there. But I’m not, and never will be, a farmer.
Those who are so obsessed with farming Orr that it’s all they care about, probably aren’t going to make a big difference to the game anyway.
It has nothing to do with ‘farming’. It has to do with playing the game. Read the forums, try Grenth, try gates of Arah. Watch it fail. Try it again. Watch it fail again. Look at the open Temples on the new Bear site. This morning Grenth was contested on every single server in the GW2 universe. The problem is actually quite straightforward. Saying that everything is fine is not helping the game.
Underwhelming all around. There is no mention of fixing Orr except a mention of Lyssa. This will be a deal-breaker for some.
I feel no need at all to micro-manage other peoples play styles and will have to leave it to the play police among us.
You already can play the content without heavy armor classes so no need to lock them out. The issue is that people know what group composition gets optimum results: 1 gaurdian, 3 warriors, 1 mesmer. It’s the GW2 trinity for the min/maxer crowd. People will notice what works and play it—there is no player base problem here. It’s really an issue around profession and combat design and that’s where the resolution lies.
At this point we’re all questioning along similar lines. The next update will be telling. We are currently dealing with a very discouraged player base and a very out of balance game. It’s time to fix it as a high-level priority. From my perspective it’s code red and we will see players hemorrhaging from the game if it continues.
This is a useful resource for shoppers in light of free guesting—thanks. It is, however, a sad statement on the state of the game.
Of course the why remains unknown. There may be a profit motive and there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit. Sadly, however, the alt-unfriendly environment begins to color the whole game for an altoholic. The situation with alts is serious enough to warrant Anet’s attention. It would be nice to see some love for this bit of the player base.
Something like this, especially if generous, would go a long way towards calming the alt-unfriendly animus the game has garnered since the inception of VP. The altoholic typically plays a lot but must look at year at a time schedules for gearing each alt. It really doesn’t have to be this way.
No, it sounds like a dangerous idea. Like as not, if there were an attempt to do this they’d make it unplayable. As it is, it’s only the starter zones that are truly one-shot areas and you can tone yourself down if you really feel a need to be challenged in a starter area. After seeing what they did to Orr in the 4/30 patch, I won’t be advocating that the open world needs to be harder. It actually doesn’t outside the starter zones.
I liked their original take on scaling balance and have suffered whiplash in all subsequent attempts at balancing the open world.
Yep, warrior, guardian, mesmer is the trinity at the moment. I’ve long advocated more work around balance in terms of the professions, but now it seems open world PvE balance is the major area out of order. The 4/30 patch made Orr a mess. Today, I ventured there and a champ risen wraith stayed up for two DE’s as the “heroic” folk there refused to stop feeding their life to him so he could despawn. It’s sad when the best strategy around combat is to stay out of combat.
I’m a hardcore-casual hunter-gatherer altoholic. I’m definitely not hardcore, but tend to study games, read theorycrafting, and min/max to a degree. I think I’m somewhere in between hardcore and casual. Historically, I’ve loved gathering and crafting and am somewhat sad that it’s not viable in GW2 like in other games. I still gather, but no crafting except to level and complete a daily.
Altoholic-cred: I have 13 characters at level 80 and one of each profession. (I couldn’t believe the guy earlier with 35 characters /kneel.) Of course I’ve doubled up on some professions because I wanted a bad kitten Charr warrior and a huge Norn warrior, and of course, a human warrior that I could actually jump with. One of my major goals is to have a T3 cultural set for each character. And, someday, Bifrost for my guardian. It’s funny, I hated the staff leveling as it felt so weak—now, I love it.
I just got done with a party in Orr that I was invited to. I learned what the others did for a living, musical instruments played, and that Paris Hilton has made a new album (didn’t really need to know that—but oh well.)
I’ve found GW2 to be a far friendlier game than WoW. One of the reasons I left WoW was cross-realm zones. More people in a zone is like adding more rats to a cage. GW2 has, by design, addressed many of the reasons people are like rats in other games. But, that said, you do need to be on a populated server, and you really need to be in an active guild if you need continuous interaction. I’m on Tarnished Coast and it is a great server. It’s populated everywhere I play and has a lot of good guilds and people. Try guesting there and see what you think.
I’m talking about Orr and being pulled by groups of, what, 20 spiders successively (let’s say 3 times) and CC’d each time. That’s the problem. You absolutely can’t kill all the mobs that spawn at shelt before they spam CC; and, comments like that are why I suspect that some may not be venturing far outside of Queensdale in the game.
Have you actually fought the spiders? And not died?
If you have, you should know they only do that web pull attack rarely. Once they use it, likely they won’t get another chance because they’ll be killed. Unless you’re just running around them, waiting for them to die of fatigue, it’s highly unlikely those 20 spiders will actually do much attacking because their attacks are very very slow. Pretty much every spider attack is a 1.5sec wind up with a 1sec period between each attack.
The problem is excessive major CC. Like the 30k hits from somewhere in the particle blur, spammed major CC by enemy mobs is not a player skill issue. These are both mechanics that negate skill-based play, not require it. Removing cheap mechanics is the first step toward rewarding and challenging end-game content.
And if it hits for 30k damage, then it’s group content.
And you people complain that CC is bad and you’d rather just dodge big hits? That’s dumb, IMO. Because if those hits are big and you have to protect an NPC to accomplish an event and then that event scales with more people, the event becomes practically impossible to complete.
Perhaps until you guys begin to define what ‘cheap mechanics’ means will the discussion actually get somewhere…because all you’ve mentioned is ‘thakitten is annoying’ or ‘boring’ which aren’t objective points to balance the game around.
Yes, I have actually fought the spiders and that’s why I used them as examples. The problem is that they don’t use the pull/CC rarely and, as I described, I’ve been pulled/CC’d in rapid succession for 3 times. Given the content is Orr that means my stun breaker is already on cool down but I might be able to break a given stun in the chain. In terms of not dying, on my tanky warrior (I enjoy axe/shield gameplay) I almost never die except to the cheap shots. On a light or medium armor prof other than my necro death is a real possibility given the excessive CC.
The 30k hits were occurring regularly after the 4/30 patch and not in group content, i.e., those marked as a group event. The champ chicken’s shoot egg or the putrifier’s arcing shot both were in excess of the max health of almost any character. Why the mechanic was cheap is that, if there were, say, three champs up, you could be hit out of the particle blur with to warning such as an animation that would indicate thakitten was targeting you and attacking. IOW, your death penalty came from simply being in combat and in combat range of the mob. This is the opposite of skilled play where a post-mortem always reveals an error you performed which caused your death. It, like spammed CC, is cheap and is pretty much the opposite of challenging.
When Colin fronted a group of questioners about ascended gear originally, he said straight out that people should complain about it if they want, but avoid the slippery slope argument. Anet doesn’t want to make ascended gear massively OP and the more ascended gear they add, the more ways to get it will be added.
Up to now, it didn’t actually follow that pattern. Not only the avenues of getting ascended are very limited, any new stuff required different methods and wasn’t accessible through old ones. WvW addition will change it a bit, but not much, since it wil still require laurels – and not all currently existing ascended gear will be available there anyway.
All the ascended gear is currently hidden behind either restrictive timelocks, a very specific mode of gameplay, or both. Nothing so far suggests that it is going to change anytime soon.
the high level fractals being an acceptable exception since you can get ascended gear by running the fractals anyway
No, you can’t. No amulets or earrings in fractals.
And yes, it is funny that the best argument ascended apologetics can come with is that “people do not care about this stuff”. If they don’t, why introduce it at all?
I have always found the defense from insignificance amusing. If the best defense of something is that it is insignificant, well, that’s just pretty sad.
Those arguing against VP are not arguing from a slippery slope argument or from inference as opposed to fact. VP is an extremely well-known element in game design. VP is what VP is. It does what it does. It was added for a reason and that reason is for it to do what VP does. To argue that this is slippery slope is tantamount to putting together a puzzle of 100 white pieces and then suggesting that we will have a black puzzle upon completion. The problems associated with VP, and they have already been well articulated on the forums, are not problems of implementation, they are problems with VP itself.
Dodge was not a feature of any of them. But, again, dodge is not an infinite resource, but the major CC of the enemy mobs is effectively infinite—at least beyond the ability to dodge or employ any other CC breaker not on cool down. That is actually the problem.
Again, it’s not that CC lasts 2 seconds, it’s that it can be spammed. It effectively lasts until you’re dead in many scenarios. I sometimes wonder if all commentators have actually played the content under discussion.
Well, do you actually try to kill the mobs? How can it be infinite spammed CC when half the time mobs die before they can even use it?
Sometimes I wonder, if the people complaining about this actually play the content under discussion…I mean, content outside of Queensdale and actively participate…meaning killing the mobs and not standing there pressing 1. It’s not suppose to be easy to take on an army and yet if played right, you can…
I’m talking about Orr and being pulled by groups of, what, 20 spiders successively (let’s say 3 times) and CC’d each time. That’s the problem. You absolutely can’t kill all the mobs that spawn at shelt before they spam CC; and, comments like that are why I suspect that some may not be venturing far outside of Queensdale in the game.
The problem is excessive major CC. Like the 30k hits from somewhere in the particle blur, spammed major CC by enemy mobs is not a player skill issue. These are both mechanics that negate skill-based play, not require it. Removing cheap mechanics is the first step toward rewarding and challenging end-game content.
I have started to notice that more and more people are turning constructive posts into rage filled off topic railings about how either the OP has been cheating and deserves to be banned or that it just isn’t fair that the OP came up with other ways to enjoy the game. This turns even the most helpful thing’s into ignored refuse because people start to avoid these threads and thus the community falls apart.
On the other hand I have noticed that players are starting to pull together more in game looking for solutions to difficult problems and working as a team to overcome the challenges they face. Which is absolutely thrilling. People asking if anyone needs help and being constructive brings those participating closer together and the community grows.
Am I going crazy or have things really gotten this bad on the Forums and Improved that much in game?
To answer your exact question I would have to say: ‘crazy’. The forums have been fairly stable since the Great Schism back in November of last year. No changes here to speak of.
In game, since the 4/30 patch there are decidedly fewer instances of people pulling together to solve the challenges they face—at least in Orr. I am on an excellent server with a reputation, historically, for keeping the temples open (well, except Balthazar—that ones pretty much closed everywhere). No longer. Orr, since 4/30, is pretty much a fail-fest with increasingly discouraged players. It is far more common, in game, to see someone cursing Anet than anything like pulling together to solve a challenge. This is a disturbing new trend and I hope that Anet fixes Orr once and for all. They made a step forward in January, but have taken many steps back since.
So, I would have to disagree with this OP.
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It is sad that marketing has come to mean deception. It didn’t have to be like this. That said, Anet is not alone here and it’s simply a pervasive reality in the business world. Marketing can be interesting as a thing in itself, but it can never be read as an accurate representation of reality.
Journalism and science have fallen to similar gods. Just part of the contemporary landscape.
Block, fear, aegis, and reflection are not available to all classes.
Okay, name the profession that doesn’t have any of those things.
I’m not dismissing the OP entirely, but most of what is being argued is just beginner’s mistakes. Being chained CC’ed is a problem when you’re outmatched and that’s hardly a reason to put a cooldown on an effect that already only lasts a short time.
however if the effect has no cooldown potentially the enemy could decide to use that one and only attack stunning you into eternity. No cooldown for enemy abilities, no pattern and no diminishing returns at the same time is stupid.
1. Mobs don’t just decide to only use stunning attacks.
2. Mobs attack extremely slowly, like literally one attack every 1.5 seconds.
3. Not only is there over a second of time between their attacks, but their CC attacks are usually telegraphed with extra animation frames taking even more time.
4. CC only lasts a couple of seconds, likely not even enough time for them to hit you while you’re down.
5. If there is more than two mobs you’re facing capable of keeping you CC’ed for long periods of time, then you’re likely meant to be with a group while facing them.
Again, it’s not that CC lasts 2 seconds, it’s that it can be spammed. It effectively lasts until you’re dead in many scenarios. I sometimes wonder if all commentators have actually played the content under discussion.
I’ve played MMO’s and various takes on the RPG for years. I understand the role of CC in games, how to deal with it, and why it is there. I love CC. What I haven’t encountered in my years of playing is a game imbalanced to the extent GW2 is in this regard. I’m on a server that previously was known for keeping the temples open. They are no longer open regularly and the failure rate is well over 90%. The problem is not excessive challenge. I know challenge and this is not it. I suppose that if we need gear we can guest on a miracle server. But, what we can’t do is enjoy a challenging encounter in Orr. Those have been made silly and removed from the game altogether.
There is a very dramatic difference between the temple events and the normal mobs you encounter while running around in Orr. The temple events have become either tedious slogs or coordinated-group, open-world raids, but the CC/conditions applied by the regular mobs in Orr or elsewhere in the game are easily countered, avoided or endured. The only condition/CC in Orr that is over-done is the Melandru effect, and that is flat-out area denial unless you have an awful lot of regen.
That’s not correct. It’s both the temple events and pent/sheltl/jofast. It can happen in any DE except plinx it seems.
I’ve played MMO’s and various takes on the RPG for years. I understand the role of CC in games, how to deal with it, and why it is there. I love CC. What I haven’t encountered in my years of playing is a game imbalanced to the extent GW2 is in this regard. I’m on a server that previously was known for keeping the temples open. They are no longer open regularly and the failure rate is well over 90%. The problem is not excessive challenge. I know challenge and this is not it. I suppose that if we need gear we can guest on a miracle server. But, what we can’t do is enjoy a challenging encounter in Orr. Those have been made silly and removed from the game altogether.
And how many of those RPGs let you dodge to negate attacks completely?
Dodge was not a feature of any of them. But, again, dodge is not an infinite resource, but the major CC of the enemy mobs is effectively infinite—at least beyond the ability to dodge or employ any other CC breaker not on cool down. That is actually the problem.
(edited by Raine.1394)
Try not to charge in head first to a pack of enemies that use crowd control. Use ranged attacks, pets, illusions etc.
I can think of seven ways to avoid mob knock backs off the top of my head:
Dodge
Stability
Block
Reflection
Stun
Blind
FearChilling an enemy also helps because it will put the knock back on longer cool-down.
Quoted because people seem to miss it. There are many solutions, and all classes have access to some of them if you are having trouble. Use your tools, why would you want the game even easier. Remove all CC from mobs and what do you have? No threat at all.
You just want to log in and get loot for zero effort or thought? How is that even a game.
Quoted because I didn’t miss it and it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand. I’m well aware of my abilities and use them appropriately. This is not a learn to play issue; rather, it’s a learn to design issue. The problem is spammed major CC. All the above solutions are on a cooldown of some kind.
When major CC is spammed you are left without abilities to use to break stuns. It’s not an issue around skilled play. What I and others are saying is that when you are skill-capped, the employment of continuous major CC renders those very skills irrelevant because they are on cooldown.
I’ve played MMO’s and various takes on the RPG for years. I understand the role of CC in games, how to deal with it, and why it is there. I love CC. What I haven’t encountered in my years of playing is a game imbalanced to the extent GW2 is in this regard. I’m on a server that previously was known for keeping the temples open. They are no longer open regularly and the failure rate is well over 90%. The problem is not excessive challenge. I know challenge and this is not it. I suppose that if we need gear we can guest on a miracle server. But, what we can’t do is enjoy a challenging encounter in Orr. Those have been made silly and removed from the game altogether.
The problem is not with knock backs per se. The problem is continuous major CC of whatever variety. The ability to spam CC eventually renders skill-based play impossible as you quickly have break stun like abilities on cool down. Anet has gone over the line here with recent patches. The only real challenge in the game at the moment is the challenge of balancing it.
It’s interesting that people want to minimize the impact of gear in a vertically progressing game. One metrics site has a measure called PvP dummy that gives a score based entirely on gear. The meaning of the metric is that if two players stood and traded blows, the one with the higher score would win—every time. And, this is how you would scientifically measure the significance of gear, i.e., by holding all other factors constant and just looking at the impact of gear in the mix. It has a significant impact for any players playing at the same skill level, even if the difference is only slight.
I think of past gaming experience and if a player in a serious guild ignored, say, an enchant that gave him 1% more DPS he would be looked at like he or she was from Mars and be told to fix it before raid time. What I’m saying is not that we need to be min/maxers, simply that it does make a difference and experienced gamers know this as baseline knowledge.
Regardless, as I said in a post above the significance is not in the initial stat differences. With VP, the variances will increase in magnitude over time. And, if it’s not significant to you now, stick around and eventually it will be significant—even to you.
I have a human, norn, and charr warrior. (I know, it’s a personal problem.) The only differences are in aesthetics and character navigation. The Charr warrior, to me, seems to be the very essence of a warrior and I love playing him. I’m quite fond of the Norn, but his lumbering gait is a continuing issue—I still play him though. The human is probably best all around in terms of character navigation but I go to the Charr more often than not when I want to play a warrior as opposed to do a jumping puzzle.
I know at least one creature artist who spent too much time with Georgia O’Keeffe in art school.
Why do you need to have Ascended gear at all? I haven’t got any Ascended gear on any of my characters and do absolutely fine. The only thing I can think of you’d need it for is Fractals, which is fairly self-contained (I don’t do Fractals though).
So why do people feel that they need them at all? Let alone for each aspect of the game?
Because ascended equipment gives you the slight edge over players with just exotics…
Except it doesn’t really give you any edge at all. The few points of extra stats aren’t even noticeable. Wearing exotics and fighting someone with ascended gear is no different to fighting someone with exotic gear.
Google “vertical progression”. This is what they said they added in November; ascended gear is simply the way it was initially implemented. The relative stat variances of the initial pieces are largely irrelevant. There will be more. Vertical: the power level of the game increases. Progression: it continuously and continually progresses over time. Vertical progression does not progress by stopping.
Ascended gear is simply the path of the power curve. This form of progression is thought to both give players a sense of progression and motivate a desire for continued play. Arguing from the stat differences of the initial pieces simply misses the point entirely. You must ride the power curve if you want to play the game long-term. That’s what VP is and that’s what VP does.
BTW, I agree with the OP. Vertical progression, especially as implemented, is alt-unfriendly already. The current thinking around infusions will now further penalize those who play not only a variety of characters, but in a variety of styles.
(edited by Raine.1394)
I’d prefer to wean Anet off their gambling addiction. This seems a step in the wrong direction.
I wasn’t talking about all Temples though. It’d be nice for at least one to require a lot of planning and skill.
I suppose everyone has a different definition of “a lot.” I have no problems with “skill required.” I do have a problem with:
- Make-or-break mob mechanics that require interrupts on a Defiant-bearing Champion in an open-world, anyone-can-join situation
- Veteran summons who outnumber the players 2 or 3 to 1
- Giving mobs a lot of AoE in events that require protecting NPC’s or devices that have tissue paper defense and which stay in one place
- Massive hits out of culling and/or particle blur
My biggest issue is with the last one. No amount of skill matters if players cannot see the mobs they’re supposed to dodge, interrupt, etc.
Well stated. Your last bullet, in fact, removes the skill factor entirely. The current encounters are actually not technically challenging at all. You can fail simply through the “error” of being in combat.
Yes, Orr is the worst it’s been since launch. There were some nice improvements made in January’s patch, but everything they’ve done since have made it worse. I don’t think they will be able to top April’s patch as it made it largely unplayable.
It will only be fixed when they come to a new understanding of open world PvE, i.e., a different consensus opinion than they currently share. I hope they can pull it off. It’s kinda sad to have so much content where the answer to staying alive is staying out of combat.
(edited by Raine.1394)