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I think having JP’s in game is a great addition and many love them. I would strongly oppose ‘requiring’ them in any way and that includes putting them in as required components in open world PvE or dungeons. They are great as long as they can be avoided as some players just aren’t good at this (or don’t like it) and there’s no reason to marginalize a group within the player base.
I see two issues here. One is aggro and they need to fix it game-wide. Aggro is something we understand in our gut and it’s not just gaming experience here, rather it follows IRL experience. Aggro doesn’t feel right. It’s mysterious and triggers a visceral response that screams that something is wrong here.
The other issue is with how events scale and who they are addressed to. You shouldn’t need to avoid other players because they will likely fail an event. That’s just an indicator that the event is not well-designed for open world PvE. I’m not saying the events need to be designed with an absolute beginner in mind, simply that they should be designed with open world PvE in mind.
Agree. The design of events in open world PvE should revolve around the player you find there, and that would be a wide diversity of players. This is a recognition something akin to how form follows function guides architecture. You don’t design open world events addressed to hardcore, highly skilled players. Anet has actually said they were attempting to do this with Grenth and it’s simply the wrong thing to do.
By that I don’t mean that the content should be easy in a level 80 zone, simply level appropriate and most MMO’s find this balance fairly easily. It’s really not a place to experiment with hard mode, that would be instances with tiered difficulty. I’ll sign on to any effort to re-think combat in open world PvE in GW2. What they are doing is simply alienating players and harming the game.
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That was pretty much my question, is it a bug, a joke (not close enough to 4/1 though), or intentional. Other threads on event scaling would indicate that aspects may be unintentional and they are looking at it. Sadly, in some comments Anet made around Grenth being addressed to more skilled, hard mode players, I’m afraid that it is largely intentional, but may have been pushed well over the top by a scaling issue.
Bottom line is that open world PvE in an MMO should not be addressed, anywhere, to hard mode players. The design around the open world should take into consideration the player base found in the open world. And, by that, I’m not saying it needs to be easy, simply appropriate and most MMO’s have arrived at a good balance here. Where hard mode comes in is instances. I’m personally in favor of tiered difficulty being available to satisfy a diverse player base both in terms of desire and skill.
I’m afraid Anet has a whetted finger to the wind again and are listening to those who say everything is too easy. The answer here is not to make DE’s in the open world silly.
No, I don’t want Ascended armor any more than I wanted Ascended Trinkets. But, Anet has ventured down the well-worn path of vertical progression and given that it is vertical and will progress, I don’t think there is any doubt about whether we will have Ascended armor…sadly…whether I want it or not.
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There are a variety of elements in loot systems that attempt to correct for the vagaries of a more purely rng approach. And, if the forums are a good indicator there are many who feel more a sense of lack than reward from the current tuning of the loot system in the game. I would imagine that over time Anet will make improvements in this regard. No one wants BiS to rain from the sky, but players have come to expect a sense of reward around loot by simply playing the game as opposed to rolling the dice. A chance to roll the dice never quite rises to the level of finding interesting, valuable items in-game.
I agree that there should be scaling difficulty in the game. Where that properly belongs is in dungeons. Anet stated that they were addressing the more skilled player in the design of the new Grenth and that is exactly not where to place hard mode content. Open world PvE should be designed around what you find in the open world: a wide diversity of players who are not playing from an interrupt list.
But, in instances, to the extent that they can add challenge without cheap mechanics I’d love to see some kind of difficulty scaling and preferably not agony related—there was really no need to resort to agony-gating.
The one thing we need most in this game is more zones with epic scalable-5-to-100 fights for guilds and organized groups to enjoy. In places like Orr, I would vote that they design around groups rather than collections of individuals. Even if the temples stay contested/events stay in failed state 90% of the time, having the challenge there for guilds and groups when they want to tackle them is important. Dumbing them down would take that from the game. Places like Orr should be there for organized groups more than anything.
Dungeons are meant for organized groups. Guild missions are meant for organized groups. Making 1 of the 2 max level areas into a playground “for organized groups more than anything” is not a good idea. I’d support instanced versions of the temple events being available for large, organized guilds/groups, but leave the open world content accessible to everyone.
I’m willing to look at the new iteration of difficulty, assuming anyone on my server bothers to do the temples. However, I still expect the invisible mobs and particle obfuscation to be an issue. I can also tell you there are very few doing Pen/Shelt/Jofast during prime time on FC, so we never saw anything beyond veterans.
Agree. Open world PvE should not be designed around well-coordinated groups of skilled players. Why? Because it’s open to all players and a 90% fail rate just indicates a problem with how the event is conceived. No one wants mindless afk-combat, but the open world in an MMO is not about crushing challenge; that’s what tiered difficulty in instances should address. Please design the open world for what you will find in the open world, a wide diversity of players who are not playing from a coordinated interrupt list.
And, you must lose the random one-shot’s from nowhere. It’s not fun to die from no apparent cause. A big piece of learning skillful play is being able to analyze an unsuccessful encounter and being able to understand where you went wrong. If the only wrong you’ve done is being in combat range of multiple champs who spam hard-hitting abilities in all directions then something is wrong with the game. That’s not challenge, crushing or otherwise—it’s simply cheap.
I think the mobs in question largely spam hard-hitting abilities generally as the number of downed players would suggest. There’s nothing quite like getting hit for 20 or 30k from an unknown source—unknown, that is, until you review the combat log.
Aggro continues to be a mystery and problem in the game. I first noticed this on my ranger when mobs began ignoring my pet and making a bee-line for me sometime around level 35. I did an experiment: I remained at max range (approx. 1200) and sent my pet in to attack the mob while I performed no attacks. The mob still attacked me. Bizarre how I could end up higher on the aggro list than my pet who was actually attacking. But, this actually happened. Through further experimentation I found that adding points to beast mastery seemed to solve the problem of non-existent pet aggro, but that was the beginning of noticing general anomalies in the aggro mechanic in the game.
But, yes, I’ve noticed inexplicable locking on of mobs that normal measures of aggro (proximity, damage done, etc.) would not seem to account for.
Yeah, I would suggest trying them both out and then not limiting yourself to either. I have all 8 proffs at 80 and play them all on occasion.
In general Warrior is king of PvE and a Warrior can be very effective in WvW. Ranger is great for solo PvE but nobody will be beating a path to your door for group play. Rangers have only one viable role in WvW: bait for an ambush, and can contribute marginally in PvP.
A larger issue for you personally is what playstyle do you prefer. Either can play ranged or Melee, but the Warrior is natively melee and, I would argue, that the Ranger is natively ranged (though you’d never guess this through Anet’s treatment of the longbow) and some prefer to play it melee.
This is an excellent post, not in the sense the individual statements haven’t been made, but that it encapsulates the issue within a well-reasoned argument. It also answers the question: why don’t players feel rewarded (beyond intrinsic rewards) when they play GW2. It’s simply because it’s designed to take, not give.
GW2 is certainly not alone. D3, which shares it’s monetization model, functions and feels exactly the same, same loot wasteland, same yellow brick road to the cash shop.
I’m not sure that the practice is indefensible so much as unworkable. I’ve mused long and hard on this and often that has manifested as support for the subscription model.
1. Companies need to make money.
2. We play games to feel rewarded (again, beyond the intrinsic rewards of the gameplay itself).
3. There is no free lunch.There needs to be more money changing hands than the box sale, but how to effect that? The majority of players really think that they are getting a F2P game after they B2P. And, they will defend to the death the model without ever noticing that they are being extorted in the process. As Maz says, they have some investment and they have donned Blinkered Helm of the White Knight.
Again, great post. The current model and methods around monetization are slimey and greasy. Worst of all, they make for an unrewarding game. I don’t know the answer to the problem, but I know I don’t like the B2P/F2P games I’ve played for this very reason. It’s good to have the rot exposed to the fresh air and sunshine.
Yet more proof that no game’s features will appeal to everyone. GW2’s model works very well for me. The subscription and F2P models don’t. Why? Sub games offer tiered treadmills, which feel to me like, “Gear up so you can gear up again.” F2P usually involves needing to pay out cash for in game advantages over non-payers.
I don’t feel that cosmetic items are necessary to enjoy a game. I also won’t buy RNG stuff, ever. If this practice is “slimy” and “rotten,” so be it. However, making moral objections and expecting a business to take the high road is imo a lost cause. Talk to their bottom line, instead, if you want change.
In addressing the monetization model, I was talking to the bottom line. And, I have no problem with game companies making a profit as it is essential to the game itself.
One correction: there is no inherent correlation between sub model and vertical progression. VP has existed historically in sub model games, but they are entirely separate concepts with no inherent need to coexist.
By the way, I’m not making a plea for a sub model, just sharing my musings and noting that the problems under discussion have gone hand in hand with B2P/F2P games in my experience.
The majority of players really think that they are getting a F2P game after they B2P. And, they will defend to the death the model without ever noticing that they are being extorted in the process.
You make some fair points, but I have to object to this insinuation that I’m being extorted and I’m just too ignorant to see it. Yes, I did get a F2P game after B2P. The game is everything I want it to be. I’m not defending the model to death because I’m blind, I’m doing it because, for me, it’s been fantastic. Please point out where I’m being extorted if I’m getting all the game content I want from launch and updates and I have no interest in these mini pets and limited time weapon skins.
My wife and I have enjoyed playing this game off and on since September, and combined we’ve spent about $220 on it. The price per hour is ridiculously low for a fun and engaging hobby. I fail to see how this is extortion, nor do I defend the game because I am deeply invested in it. Very much the opposite, I don’t play the RNG lottery and I’ve taken breaks from it anywhere from a few days to several months.
I just don’t like to see people distort the truth to support baseless accusations.
Let me clarify and state that I did not attempt to roll all players into the blinkered category. There are players who, like you, do not play the obvious lotteries and are generally satisfied with level of reward from the game. This is both natural and fine.
To me the RNG lottery is not confined to the boxes and my original post was actually more general in this regard. My referenced “loot wasteland” has to do with the loot system generally, and is not limited to the RNG boxes—they are just part of the loot system. And, again, it is fine if you feel satisfied with the general level of reward in the game. But, as you can see, there is another class of player who are both aware and conversant on the issues under discussion and I believe OP has made a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument representative of this class of player.
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This is an excellent post, not in the sense the individual statements haven’t been made, but that it encapsulates the issue within a well-reasoned argument. It also answers the question: why don’t players feel rewarded (beyond intrinsic rewards) when they play GW2. It’s simply because it’s designed to take, not give.
GW2 is certainly not alone. D3, which shares it’s monetization model, functions and feels exactly the same, same loot wasteland, same yellow brick road to the cash shop.
I’m not sure that the practice is indefensible so much as unworkable. I’ve mused long and hard on this and often that has manifested as support for the subscription model.
1. Companies need to make money.
2. We play games to feel rewarded (again, beyond the intrinsic rewards of the gameplay itself).
3. There is no free lunch.
There needs to be more money changing hands than the box sale, but how to effect that? The majority of players really think that they are getting a F2P game after they B2P. And, they will defend to the death the model without ever noticing that they are being extorted in the process. As Maz says, they have some investment and they have donned Blinkered Helm of the White Knight.
Again, great post. The current model and methods around monetization are slimey and greasy. Worst of all, they make for an unrewarding game. I don’t know the answer to the problem, but I know I don’t like the B2P/F2P games I’ve played for this very reason. It’s good to have the rot exposed to the fresh air and sunshine.
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It’s really no different than BLTC in terms of the likelihood of getting anything of value. I have somewhere near 500 BLTC’s in the bank as there is no incentive to spend money on keys. It’s like gambling in vegas. Some will win; chances are it won’t be you. And, like gambling generally, it’s not a good use of money.
I’m sure that Malchor’s Leap is affected by both temporary interest in Southsun and the 4/30 patch which made much of Orr unplayable. It’s not at all challenging or fun unless you enjoy random, unavoidable death. It is a hassle when WP’s are all contested but those that enjoy it in the first place are probably not put off by the long walk. I mean, they are still dead men walking even when they are, uh, walking.
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Does anyone else find it odd that random Champion mobs are more deadly then Dragon Champions like The Claw of Jormag and Tequatl?
now that you posted it, next patch we will sea claw and teq doing random unavoidable aoe doing 100k damage to everyone in the map, might add agony as well while they are at it
Also my greatest fear. And, it’s why I cringe when anyone says X event is too easy. It may be, but he solution, of course, will be to make it unplayable.
I also applaud the level of observation that you put into this, but agree with Vol. They just need to fix the event. Events in the open world should not require a complex puzzle being figured out, or a code broken, in order to successfully complete them.
In another thread on Balthazar someone posted on seeing something he had never seen in GW2 or any other game happen, the whole continent’s population came together to strategise and successfully uncontest the temple. What he didn’t notice is that it should not take something happening that he had never seen in any game before to successfully complete an event in a game. It’s just so wrong on the face of it. I really don’t understand how players miss it.
I only tried this once on a level appropriate character. Kinda stumbled on him and died instantaneously. Did several seconds of reality-testing of the encounter and decided Anet had never done one.
Like so many Anet DE’s this one is silly, and with their outrageously silly event scaling it would probably be worse with a group of well-geared level 80 characters. I simply put it on my list of events to avoid. That list has grown quite long.
I’m on TC and Orr is practically dead since the April patch made it unplayable. People tried heroically for quite awhile as TC has both the population and the heroic will. I went yesterday to see if there had been any changes in the event scaling in the new patch. The temples were all contested and there weren’t enough players there to test the event scaling. I won’t be returning.
I actually went to CS in Orr first thing after the 5/14 patch. There was practically no one there (people are getting the message that Anet doesn’t want them there), so I really didn’t get to test the event scaling. I did a couple events and no champs spawned. However I did notice one disturbing thing. The normal mobs seemed significantly stronger than before.
There was nothing in the patch notes on game balance in Orr. Can we get a red post on whether there actually has been any changes? Has there been a coup de grâce?
I believe that it was Anet that originally referred to these specific changes as intended to make aspects of the game more “interesting”. And, I believe, they did this in response to player comments that the game was too easy.
That said, I believe that it actually betrays a basic misunderstanding of the open world in an MMO. Since the last patch Orr is simply an unplayable mess. I love the L2P posts complaining that DE’s should not always result in victories. Always? Last time I was in CS the temple fights were running well over 90% failures.
I recognize true challenge in games such as Dark Souls as being able to do a post mortem, recognize immediately where you went wrong, and learn to put in the necessary correction and do better next time. In GW2, challenge, apparently, is being alive one moment, dead the next, and having to review the combat log to see you were hit for 30k by some random mob that wasn’t even observable in the particle blur center screen.
This is what most people are complaining about, i.e., not really anything on the the easy to hard spectrum. (That and the champs that spawn more vets than there are players on the field.) Orr hasn’t gotten more interesting or challenging, simply worse.
I think people get too narrowly focused on RNG in these discussions. As some have pointed out, RNG is commonly used in games, and in most cases successfully. Google “loot system”; it’s a very illuminating study for gamers. Pure RNG is seldom used for anything but trash loot. More often a loot system would be more properly called a rules-based system that often uses RNG to distribute loot. The point here being that it can be tuned to affect the perceived value of reward. It can be a wasteland or the big rock candy mountain.
Regardless of the nature of the loot system, there are important underlying goals. Loot is a reward for play. It’s also essential to maintain and evolve our characters. All games offer intrinsic rewards in terms of the gameplay itself. In the MMO genre, and anything close to it (arpg, etc.), there is loot. The key to a successful loot system is that players experience a sense of reward in terms of loot from playing the game. I think that all the complaints about RNG are simply complaints about a loot system that is not currently tuned to provide players with the commonly expected level of reward.
And, please, no psycho-babble about these kids today . The problem is much simpler than that and doesn’t require an advanced degree. We play games to have fun. Reward is fun. We don’t want loot to rain from the sky and we don’t want a loot wasteland. We want to enjoy the reward of the game’s play and we want to experience a sense of reward in terms of found loot.
As one who has happily gathered and crafted in other MMO’s, I noticed immediately that that just wasn’t going to happen in GW2. As you note, in order for crafting to be viable, gathering/farming must be predictable. In another MMO I played for years there were profitable “recipes” that made items that were useful to other players. I knew exactly what resources were needed and where to get them. This is how it works when gathering/crafting works.
That said, I don’t think we need another currency for this and it would be preferable to simply correct the problem. We actually have a “token” that can be used and that would be gold. However, part of the joy of gathering/crafting for many of us is the thrill of the hunt. I’d like to retain that rather than see gold as the answer to every problem.
Except, DR does nothing whatsoever to deter bots. It simply reduces the amount of goods received by bots and players equally. Imagine a police force that punished law abiding citizens and criminals equally. Now there is a good analogy for police and DR.
In WoW I wasn’t farming competitive nodes in my example and there was little competition for mobs in terms of tagging. They were simply there and I farmed them. Also, in WoW there are far more nodes available and farming nodes whether mining or herbs there would be far more available than in GW2. I’m talking stacks and stacks of mats from a typical farming session—far beyond what is possible in GW2. I’m afraid the question still stands. How is this possible in a game like WoW without the economy collapsing?
DR does act to deter bots. You are correct that it also affects the public. Think of this more like police doing road block Breathalyzer tests (do they do that where you live?). You get stopped whether you were drinking or not, and this is to deter people from drinking. Everyone is affected negatively. You can also think of it like security at an airport etc. It happens all the time that the general public receives inconvenience for the sake of the community at large.
Your individual example for WoW needs to be taken in the context of WoW as a whole. The fact that nodes can only be mined if you have that profession trained, and that a mine can only be mined by one person, and that loot can only be from the party are all important factors. The entire loot table in WoW is going to be less, because not everyone can tag something for loot. Here you have lots of people with little loot, in WoW you have less people with lots of loot. That is how it is possible. That is also why here the prices are much less than in WoW.
Look up the word deter. DR does nothing whatsover to deter bots. It doesn’t even inconvenience them—they’re bots—they just run. DR simply reduces the loot for bots and players equally.
What I’m saying about WoW is that, with all it’s many different features in place, I get a lot more loot from farming in WoW than I do in GW2, all the while without encountering DR. I would ask how this is possible to do without the economy collapsing again, but I think I’ve made the point clearly.
The police force/DR analogy is a bad one. What the police do is identify criminals and remove them. The best way to identify and remove bots absent something in the client like Warden is through data-mining techniques in a data warehouse. It is extremely easy to model bot-like behavior and identify the bots in the game data.
As far as DR and the economy go consider another large MMO with a similar economy, sans RLT, WoW. In WoW I often would craft a set of max-level gear for friends as it would quickly get them into heroics. It would take hours to farm the mats, and I did it in the same spot. At the end of the farming session I would be getting the same amount of mats as in the beginning of the session. How is it possible for this to happen without the economy collapsing around the players?
DR really has no reason for its existence and penalizes players simply for playing the game. It’s an idea whose time has gone.
Except the strongest part of the police force is their presence as a deterrent, not their actual actions. DR is like any form of crime deterrents.
Hard to compare WoW to GW2 in terms of economy, because in WoW there are a limited number of nodes. In GW2 everyone has their own nodes they can access, therefore these materials are effectively not limited. As for drops, WoW has much less spawning enemies than GW2, and anyone who tags an enemy in GW2 receives the loot, whereas in WoW only the party who attacked it first gets it. These additions make playing together more fun, but they also add a lot more loot. DR is the way to restrict or limit this loot in GW2. In WoW it is done by not allowing everyone to have access to the loot.
Except, DR does nothing whatsoever to deter bots. It simply reduces the amount of goods received by bots and players equally. Imagine a police force that punished law abiding citizens and criminals equally. Now there is a good analogy for police and DR.
In WoW I wasn’t farming competitive nodes in my example and there was little competition for mobs in terms of tagging. They were simply there and I farmed them. Also, in WoW there are far more nodes available and farming nodes whether mining or herbs there would be far more available than in GW2. I’m talking stacks and stacks of mats from a typical farming session—far beyond what is possible in GW2. I’m afraid the question still stands. How is this possible in a game like WoW without the economy collapsing?
The police force/DR analogy is a bad one. What the police do is identify criminals and remove them. The best way to identify and remove bots absent something in the client like Warden is through data-mining techniques in a data warehouse. It is extremely easy to model bot-like behavior and identify the bots in the game data.
As far as DR and the economy go consider another large MMO with a similar economy, sans RLT, WoW. In WoW I often would craft a set of max-level gear for friends as it would quickly get them into heroics. It would take hours to farm the mats, and I did it in the same spot. At the end of the farming session I would be getting the same amount of mats as in the beginning of the session. How is it possible for this to happen without the economy collapsing around the players?
DR really has no reason for its existence and penalizes players simply for playing the game. It’s an idea whose time has gone.
If nobody ever farmed everything would’ve been cheap. But people don’t realise this and continue to farm so prices continue to go up…. when people finally wake up and see how bad farming is for the economy maybe they’ll stop complaining about “nerfing” the loot of farming spots/dungeons.
Micro economics 101. When there are more goods available (here through farming) the price goes down all other factors held constant. The more people farming ori nodes, the lower the price of ori. You might say that farmers are self-limited by this. The more people farm, the lower the prices will go. They are only hurting themselves in this regard.
As John Smith (GW2 resident economist) will attest, GW2 has an economy. It’s normal in any economy for individuals to buy and sell. Farming in GW2 will do nothing to harm the economy.
I’m really mixed on guild halls. They could be great but I fear it would just be like guild missions, something for guilds other than your own. Player housing is interesting and could probably be successfully implemented, but I’d much prefer core game, profession balance, and combat to be addressed before anything as peripheral as guild halls is considered.
Orr is simply not working at present. I play on a populated server with plenty of people but most of the action is in mapchat around considering Anet and speculating on “what were they thinking”. If you are thinking of temple fights I’d wait till they are fixed. In terms of karma farming, plinx works and pent/shelt is mostly doable, though completely annoying and irritating. When a champ risen wraith spawns just get far, far away and wait for him to despawn.
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I’ve soloed it a number of times. I did notice that it seemed a bit OP when soloing it on a level 80 full exotic warrior doing map completion the last time through. It was a neck and neck race in terms of who would run out of health first, but I just managed to pull it off. I did think it a bit odd for a non-group event/vet mob.
The engineer is at the bottom of the list of the three red-haired stepchildren. The other two could be ‘naturalized’ through a few major changes to the class and game. The engineer needs to be re-engineered. I love the idea of the engineer. I have one at 80. I don’t, however, play my engineer.
I love the comments that farming is not “intended”. This is simply a misunderstanding of gaming in or near the genre. Farming is essential for any major goal in the game, say, acquiring a Legendary. That should be obvious. But, it is also how we maintain and evolve our characters. And, farming can be an enjoyable end in it’s own right. I am one of those people that actually enjoy what others would call farming.
I would love nothing more than if they made farming rewarding (and fun, not like Orr) and crafting a viable end-game option.
As stated by others, NO the thief is not the golden child, that would be the warrior. That should be plainly obvious through reading patch notes. Thieves are pistol-whipped regularly; warriors not so much.
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I can tell you from mapchat on a fairly mature/game-friendly server that Anet is bleeding player goodwill on a daily basis in Orr. I’m willing to give them a “scaling issue” with the champ wraith, spider, and chickens. But game balance is a issue somewhere in most of the zones I play. The temple fights and DE’s are a chaotic mess, not something that you would design as a challenging, interesting encounter. Too often death is by a 30k one-shot that you would have no chance to dodge because with multiple heavy-hitters up you can’t watch all of them at once and besides the abilities are spammed and the particle blur of GW2 combat makes anticipating attacks futile. Level 80 combat simply needs to be re-conceived.
Check out:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns
You will never see any in-game indicator of DR status. It states that it is not designed to affect the “average” player. If average players saw how often they were playing under DR the forums would be on fire. This is why you will never see a DR indicator.
DR, as a concept, is flawed. What exactly is wrong if a player wants to play DE’s for four hours in one area? Do we really need a minder micro-managing our playstyle to this degree?
This is just one of the things they didn’t think about when they added vertical progression to the game. Managing VP is a nightmare. I have all the professions at 80 and I am, well, kittened by VP. Welcome to the club.
Agree. The best strategy against them, as you can’t get within combat range without dying, is to leave them alone in the hopes that they will despawn. Wholly inappropriate for any DE in open world PvE. I would vote for simply removing it from the game. I wouldn’t greet an attempt to balance it with any confidence.
On my server, I’ve noticed mapchat around the event that would indicate little interest in doing this event. I’ve done it a couple times and won’t do it again. It has a high failure rate and a high chance of death. The rewards are like rewards everywhere; if you are lucky you might get a blue item.
This is just one of the examples of imbalance in open world PvE in the game. Unbalanced events are sprinkled throughout the game and are pervasive in Orr. Most players are aware of this and simply avoid those events. This is simply one of those events. After months of comment on this and observing the game only get worse, I don’t have high hopes of anything changing. I’d suggest that you, like others, add it to your high risk/low reward list and don’t attempt it.
Of course the issue is not dungeons or open world PvE. The problem arises in “group” play. As such, the solution is to remove it from gear entirely. D3 is a good model for this. They tried shared MF and that just led to the opposite problem, "I invested in all this MF and other leeches now get to share it?. The only solution is to remove it from gear entirely. Anet will most likely copy D3 and institute something like their paragon levels where you gain MF simply by playing the game.
It is nice that Colin is finally lining up with current thinking on MF. I would suggest that you don’t call it paragon levels when you take MF off gear as that is already taken. Perhaps go with Kripps suggestion and call it champion levels. Glad to hear that you recognize it as a problem though. Perhaps consulting in the area of game design by experienced developers would help you to avoid problems like this in the future.
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As one who is currently playing in Orr I can tell you that trinity or no, we find ourselves at the mercy of amateur developers—period.
How about the Champion Risen Wraith with lifesteal? You can’t even get in combat range without dying. I think the safest course for Anet, at this point, would be to simply remove all champs from Orr as they obviously are not able to balance the game with them present. My vote is NOT to attempt a nerf as I doubt they will be able to successfully pull it off. Just remove the champs—problem solved.
Orr, in terms of temple events and DE’s generally is indicative of a general misunderstanding of game balance in open world PvE in the MMO genre. I’m not sure at all that it has to do with a lack of testing. It is so outrageously unbalanced that it is silly. The sad part is that, testing or no, Anet has to be aware of it. The fact that Orr could become like this does not bode well for the future.
I think the density is fine now in Orr outside the DE’s. The problem, for me, is the power/health of the mobs, continuous major CC, and the number that can one-shot you out of the particle blur. The current Champ risen wraith should simply not be in game with the abilities it has. DE’s in Orr are not fun or challenging. They are so outrageously unbalanced that they are simply silly.
Either one of two things is true; either they made it like this because they don’t want people to play there, or they haven’t a clue about game balance in open world PvE in an MMO. Neither possibility is encouraging in terms of rectifying the issue. I will give them a hint if it is the former. If you want people to play in other areas of the game make them equally rewarding and the players go there. Build it and they will come. It is not a good strategy to encourage players out of an area by making it unplayable. That solution is not a solution and will simply serve to make players angry and bleed their goodwill towards the game.
(edited by Raine.1394)
Definitely report the person. You will be unlikely to get anything back, but Anet will undoubtedly respond to a pattern of abuse like this—you may save someone else a similar fate.
Also, it is a good idea to have an officer be the gate for items of any value. It doesn’t prevent you from a rogue officer, but it is one more level of security.
My engineer is my least played character. The only viable builds I’ve found involve ground-targeted skills and spamming these skills while kiting is a prescription for a repetitive strain injury. I keep hoping they’ll re-engineer the engineer, but until they do I won’t be playing mine. The answer here is simple; reroll another profession.
On playing a charr, I have less sympathy as my Charr warrior is my most played character. I love him as he just seems the archetypal badkitten. I do have issues with the Charr in terms of responsive character navigation. There should be improvements ideally, but I’ve made peace with it for now.
I’m actually with the poster above in getting less and less excited about the game. I used to enjoy playing in cursed shore, but with the post January changes it’s no longer any fun to play there and wouldn’t be for any except those who enjoy failure and continuous wipefests. GW2 has serious problems around balance. Both in terms of professions and general game balance. I don’t know how long the game will be able to endure the imbalance.
CS is sillier than ever after today’s patch. Between the champ risen wraith that can’t even be approached and the sea of vet spiders Anet is obviously not understanding game balance in open world PvE in an MMO. How about fixing the game sooner rather than later?
I agree that the Anet experiments in game balance have been a huge failure, especially in Orr. DE’s in the cursed shore are simply silly right now for open world PvE. That said, for leveling purposes, you really need to be on a populated server to enjoy the game maximally. Try guesting on Tarnished Coast or one of the other populated servers.
I understand the utility of including server name, but it would probably serve just as well to say that Orr, right now, is a bugged, unbalanced mess. Orr needs to be fixed server wide. Returning it to its January ‘improved’ state would solve the balance issues for the most part.