Guild Wars 2

Well, the only way you’re likely to get an answer is to ask support via a ticket.

We users can only GUESS as to the reason it’s not allowed.

Then it could be a letter combination in the name that catches the filter.

Either way, support is the only one who will be able to tell you the answer as to what’s up with the name.

And considering it’s the censor that’s catching the name and not a report from a player, you will be likely told that there’s nothing they can do and that you’re just going to have to choose a new name.

And ANet doesn’t want any offensive names in their game. Someone reported your name, which mean they view your name just like it is on urbandictionary. And well, support researched it and found the same thing. Since one person found it offensive in game, they figured others in game likely would.

If you wish to appeal the name change, you do need to discuss it with support in a ticket. No action will be taken based on a post on the forum.

Given the fact that you’re aware of a negative connotation of the name coupled with the fact that it’s a highly uncommon name in real life, I would not get your hopes up of it being reversed.

And his guild risks getting banned themselves for submitting false reports.

HHunter.5094:

Brother Grimm
Answer me then, how is it possible that people still Trade via mail ? In LFG u can find people selling precusors,skins and even legendaries..
This guild whould be compromise for those who whould like to trade without any worries and whoud pay less fee ( 1-2%), and in my main post about this guild, i have writen whole system that i guess you havent read.. Trades in guild whould be recorded and saved so later people can look and see that it actualy works..

I dont care about Economy control BS, i dont like to pay such big fees while im selling, the game is already grind as hell , and you have to grind even to sell your dem item… think about that, yes trust isuee is biggest problem for start but i will make sure that it wont happen.
Please before you write anything like : scam or stuff like that, think about it,this is what evryone has in mind , no need to rewrite this 1000x times..

You can not make sure that a scam won’t happen. There is no way you won’t be able to. Especially once you start hiring other middle men. But it could still happen beforehand.

Here’s a situation:

Bob is a scammer. But he knows it won’t be easy to scam one person whose been forewarned about scams. So he initiates trades with mid-ranged priced items. To build up trust. And then he’ll periodically do tons of trades in a short period of time. To build up the expectation that he’ll do lots of trades in a short period of time. He tells you and any other officer that he just really hates the TP fees.

He soon earns the trust of you, other officers (if any), and the regulars. Soon you need a new officer (either to fill a time spot or to replace a time spot filled by a retiring middle man). You choose Bob. He seems trustworthy, he’s done tons of trades with you and has given no red flags that he’s a scammer.

Bob behaves himself for a while, to build up that he’s trustworthy as a middle man, even doing a few BIG priced items (like a couple of legendaries) until he’s put in charge of the transaction of a legendary for gold when the other officers aren’t around. The two parties deposit the gold and the legendary, Bob then withdrawals them himself (he needs this power to move the items should one party be mia) and leaves the guild.

How would you stop a person like Bob? Someone who gave off no signs he was a scammer until he showed his true colors by running off with a ton of gold and a legendary.

simplesimon.2084:

Seera.5916:

So of a player in a guild with withdrawal privileges takes out an item they aren’t supposed to, ANet is going to step in? I thought ANet doesn’t get involved in guild politics. If this is allowed then you would be openning the door to other such breaks of agreements with who can take o it what from a guild bank or trove.

Not that a scammer shouldn’t be punished, but a trading guild shouldn’t have an exception to the polocy on not getting involved in guild politics.

I don’t thnk you understood Talon’s post. He said it’s not agenst the rules, but they are not going to get involved if a trade goes bad.

Really it wouldn’t be hard to set up. Every one gets put in a rank that only has deposit privileges and then when two people agree to trade they both deposit the items to trade and the leader withdraws and delivers the item to complete the trade.

Ah, yes, misread it.

Being in guild format personally makes me less likely to risk player to player trade.

Outside of a guild, at least the person who scammed me can be punished. Within a guild, it’s not something that ANet polices. Both the scammer and the intended party had withdrawal privileges, and ANet doesn’t get involved with guild politics.

So of a player in a guild with withdrawal privileges takes out an item they aren’t supposed to, ANet is going to step in? I thought ANet doesn’t get involved in guild politics. If this is allowed then you would be openning the door to other such breaks of agreements with who can take o it what from a guild bank or trove.

Not that a scammer shouldn’t be punished, but a trading guild shouldn’t have an exception to the polocy on not getting involved in guild politics.

Apolo.5942:

Linken.6345:

No becouse this game is not about grinding gear to gain power, you instead grind for skins to look diffrent.
Guess you dident do your research and for that Im sorry friend

Have you actually seen the ascended armor skins? they are hideous.

That’s what transmutation charges are for. Taking a skin you like and putting on a weapon that you like the stats of.

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

If your goal is to make more types of builds the meta, then you’re advocating for a “trinity” which I will always oppose. Because the meta will always be driven by the optimal gear set as opposed to viable gear sets.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

Personally, I’m leaning toward none of the above because I don’t expect to predict what people will gravitate to more. So I’m not focused on what would be ‘meta’ and I’m not advocating a trinity either since I’d sooner press for just varied content instead but if stats can be more influential of what you can do, I’d hope it would be a matter of preference so any variances would be interchangeable.

And I’m not touching speed runs. Granted, if buff intensity was affected by a support guy or something then maybe that would be a 5th wheel to your speed run. But the way I imagine it, it would be a matter of what utility you want to be good at and either focus on that or simply improve it to a point it is more than serviceable for yourself…like if you want to equip a shield or mace to give you some blocking to cover your kitten, you might look into allocating in some toughness to block out everything or if you’re a mesmer relying on aegis as a safety net, allocate some healing power so it not only blocks the 1st hit but persists to absorb damage on the side for you and allies (if you share aegis).

It’d be up to you what safety net you want and if your team is varied, each would come with their own unique flavor to combine into something strong….meh, so maybe it is closer to the 2nd option.

Seera.5916:

By the way, I am a she, but I understand the pronoun given MMO’s tend to be dominated by male players.

I actually figured as much from the name but decided to just change it to he for reasons. ~shrug~

Yea, I’d be fine with changing stats and mechanics just enough to allow for more effective viable builds for normal play. Normal play being open world environment (where you can’t easily exclude people on even nonviable builds) and casual dungeon runs.

The problem is making sure the change (between stats and mechanics) isn’t such that it turns into requiring a variety of build types (control, damage, support, etc) to do content. That’s easier said than done, I’d imagine. And they’d have to announce this change well in advance to not cause too much of a bad reaction to it. And it would likely require changes to skills and what not as well. So I can’t imagine that this is something that ANet would change unless they figured that a lot of players seemed bored with the current set up. Just too risky, especially if they goof and the initial roll out does require certain types of builds to work together to do content.

Leo G.4501:

Croc.5129:

-snipped for length-

Let’s start at the base. All classes will still have access to all mechanics and abilities. This of course means universal access, whether by ability or trait, to damage abilities, boon stripping, condition cleansing, boons, conditions, blocks, reflects and healing. Then we seperate how effective each one is for each category of the game’s supposed trinity, and retain the option to mix and match as well according to gear choice and trait choice.

Holy kitten! Thank you!

Trying to reply to Seera…it was just exhausting. It was like he was looking at just the latest post of mine and forgetting about everything else I said but stating the very same stuff that we’ve already covered…it’d force me to retread everything I’ve already mentioned and typed and….uhg.

But the reason I’m TRYING to set aside the focus on what happens to the ‘meta’ is because that’s like focusing on the goal before you even looked at a solution. Like coming up with an idea to fund a school function to help kids that get in trouble after school on the streets….but then rant on about responsibilities of parents and environment and upbringing. It side-steps the entire desire of the idea as a whole! You can talk about counseling and big-brother/sister programs you can amend to the idea to help LATER! AFTER you get a working model for the function on the drawing board.

Seera.5916:

The various builds in this game should not all be equal in their damage output. Should not be equal. To have a high support build, you should be giving up the ability to deal tons of damage and the ability to control the enemies. The more you specialize in DPS, support, or control the less well you’ll be able to do the other two aspects. And that’s how it should be! There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

Yes, I agree…but currently the content and mechanics do not support building for anything not damage related. Healing only affects a scant few skills and 1 boon, toughness and vitality help absorb damage and duration traits modify one important aspect of statuses. It seems balanced with what power, precision and ferocity can offer except those boost far more skills and aspects of the game than any other stats. It’s a DPS’s market.

On the flip side, everyone has the same endurance, blocks, evades, combos, reflects, conditions and a mandatory heal. These are not simple consolation prizes, these amount to more than anything those other stats offer. The opportunity cost to specialize in them is too high.

But stats aren’t the only culprit, IMO. Again, content is narrow in how it challenges you. Honestly, I think it’s a long-shot anything can be changed to help any of that out…IMO, if we were going to change the least amount of things to find a solution, alteration of traits to give lesser or more intensity depending on which of your stats is higher or a cap trigger…So offensive traits that give straight damage buffs would give low % if you don’t have high power but their full effect if you have X amount of the stat from gear (runes and sigils included), traits that proc some conditions would have a low chance to trigger unless you had X amount of condition stats, ect.

I was saying similar things because you did not seem to me that you were understanding what I was saying. But that appears to be due to both of us not quite understanding what the other is saying, which happens.

If your goal is to make more types of builds the meta, then you’re advocating for a “trinity” which I will always oppose. Because the meta will always be driven by the optimal gear set as opposed to viable gear sets.

Now, of your goal is to make the viable builds more effective and wanted in normal play and possibly as an optional fifth member of a dungeon speed run for some viable builds, then I’m all for it.

Your thread title points to the former. However, I think you mean the latter based on this post. Youbamy want to consider at least changing thread title and possibly the first post for those who don’t bother to read the discussion.

By the way, I am a she, but I understand the pronoun given MMO’s tend to be dominated by male players.

Black para goner.7612:

What you say makes a lot sense Loki, most people know pve is too easily because of the design atm, but the suggestions are always the hard part. I like the idea of a change, but the stat change like that could be dangerous.

What I think should happen is:

• Give bosses more toughness but less HP. This will give people more reason to have retaliation and condi.
• Make bosses do more AoE damage. Stop easy stacking and people wearing zerk, it would be higher to dodge massive amounts of AoE.
  *Give certain bosses Auras. On Hit effects maybe, or whenever for example a boss who does a lot of AoE dmg around him on auto attack, and his aura does dmg on you, more the further you are from him. That would bring more interesting gameplays for positioning carefully.
• Give some more bosses conditions! More CC, more Boons! Almost all the bosses in pve just do direct dmg, and theres so much people can do to stop that. There are certain bosses in the newer areas certain dungeons where enemies are actually quite tough, keep that up!

Most people say PVE is easy which is quite true, but a lot of the people who say that don’t want it to chance because they want the easy money. If they make things harder they should also increase the amount of gold you receive for dungeons, hearts and events etc. Mostly events, you don’t get much of anything unless the event spawns a large amount of enemies.

Let’s not get rid of zerker builds. Just make it to so that it does take skill to run full zerker (glass cannon builds should be for the skilled).

But you also don’t want too many of them to have too many high damage AoE attacks per X time because then you’ll bring the encounters out of the skill level of the casuals. And ANet seems to be designing content with them in mind. Now, they should also have content designed towards giving the hard core gamers a challenge and that’s where they’ve been failing.

However, for each new boss, and each new mechanic, players will develop a meta for it. What does the best DPS to it and that will be the new meta for those dungeons or events. The problem then becomes balancing releasing the new content and letting people catch up to the new meta gear set wise. Ascended sets aren’t quick to make. Or cheap. Too quickly and people won’t be done making the new set for the last new meta. Too slow and content becomes stale and threads like this pop up.

Leo G.4501:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Leo G.4501:

Well, I’ve done my kittenest to not use the term ‘meta’ and even when I do, I usually put it in single quotes. I feel it’s off topic for me because I don’t want to argue about it nor do I actually care about it. It’s only brought up because people like you use it as an argument.

Changing the meta is the topic of the thread, which is “The zerker meta and how to change it.” If the meta is off-topic for your post, then your post is off topic in this thread.

I said it’s off topic “for me”, simply meaning I’m not really into talking about it. Partially because I’ve stretch myself thin talking about junk on the forums as of late but also partially because it would lead me to discussing a slew of other stuff related to the topic, like that it means different things to different aspects of the game, who it’s generalizing and a bunch of other jazz.

If few people want to go out of their way to clarify exactly their meanings when they use the amorphous term ‘meta’ and all the baggage that comes with it, why should I subject myself to do what you people don’t feel bothered to?

Seera.5916:

Exactly.

And I feel, Leo G, that you only claim it’s off topic to avoid discussing the fact that we’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem with your solution. That it won’t increase the variety in the meta unless it FORCES people to play in specific roles to do content. And I will never support any solution that could do that. And since you want variety of roles viable in the meta, then your solution would have to force people to play in specific roles to do content.

You haven’t hit any nail. In fact, it seems like you’re just banging the same drum while the nail is half-way down the hall. But you don’t want to hit the nail, you just want to keep making noise until I shut up.

Also, I’m dismissing most of the baggage of the OP to overturn a ‘meta’ because it’s like overturning a fad. Why even bother with what some speed-runners that find it fun to run dungeons as scripted token dispensers do when my goal is more inline with making other builds like my cleric phantasm mesmer not be at odds with my internal pinging of opportunity cost management. I know how useful my cleric mesmer can be, healing, absorbing damage, stripping boons and throwing around retaliation can be but opportunity costs are a thing. Damage, utilities, cast frames, they are at odds with what I could be doing, such kittentering, reflecting and using my time to attack and dodge instead. And it’s partly like that because of the content.

It all just cheapens the prospect of the idea as a whole because it sets expectations even before an idea is conceived.

Then if your not going with the idea in the first post and want to discuss something different, you need to make a new thread.

Because otherwise, the topic of this thread is the meta and how to change it to include more variety.

I’m fully aware of opportunity costs, I took an economics course while in college and got an A.

The various builds in this game should not all be equal in their damage output. Should not be equal. To have a high support build, you should be giving up the ability to deal tons of damage and the ability to control the enemies. The more you specialize in DPS, support, or control the less well you’ll be able to do the other two aspects. And that’s how it should be! There is an opportunity cost to being super support based. You lose out on the DPS of a DPS based build. And that’s how it should be.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Leo G.4501:

Well, I’ve done my kittenest to not use the term ‘meta’ and even when I do, I usually put it in single quotes. I feel it’s off topic for me because I don’t want to argue about it nor do I actually care about it. It’s only brought up because people like you use it as an argument.

Changing the meta is the topic of the thread, which is “The zerker meta and how to change it.” If the meta is off-topic for your post, then your post is off topic in this thread.

Exactly.

And I feel, Leo G, that you only claim it’s off topic to avoid discussing the fact that we’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem with your solution. That it won’t increase the variety in the meta unless it FORCES people to play in specific roles to do content. And I will never support any solution that could do that. And since you want variety of roles viable in the meta, then your solution would have to force people to play in specific roles to do content.

dlonie.6547:

Seera.5916:

CDI specific thread would allow for more detail than a thread to various types of threads would be.

Ah, yes, maybe with a little recap of what the devs got out of it, and they could updated if things get delayed/changed (looking at you, fractal leaderboards!).

I won’t disagree on Cantha being a popular request, but putting request threads on the sticky is risky. People could take the inclusion as quiet support by ANet. If they were completely against the idea, they wouldn’t include it on the list now would they?

A disclaimer at the top of the section would ward off expectations, and make it clear that the threads are only indexed to keep all discussion on the topic contained in one place. (Just playing devil’s advocate, I’m still not sure whether it’d be a good idea )

Yea, they’ve had disclaimers for when they have released what they are working on in the past (the rare times that they did), players still crucified them if things were changed too much or seemingly dropped.

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

Anything that would force the meta to include other roles for the meta (support, healing, tanking, etc) would be such that it would have to require those roles, something this game is not designed to do.

That just isn’t true and I stated examples of why and cited roles in other games etc. Just because there could be roles does not mean one can logically leap that each role or one role will be required above all else or that just because a meta exists, variety can simple be boiled down to the simplicity that exists today. That’s just flat out ignoring variety right there.

For example, in City of Heroes, one could say the meta was mainly Controllers as they could buff each other, negate foes’ attacks with CC and pile on damage with pets. That didn’t stop people from running practically everything else (Controllers weren’t even that popular, Scrappers and Brutes were the most played).

Don’t underestimate player preference. I bet you there are tons of players yerning to use suchandsuch spec in normal play, it’s just most spec not angled toward damage have very little scope of use in normal play. Things don’t have to be a meta to be useful or fun.

And you can already use suchandsuch spec in normal play. Full Clerics doesn’t have much scope in normal play in PvE. Yet I was able to do a majority of the normal play in full Clerics with a build not built for dealing damage. I’ve done a number of casual Fractal runs in Clerics (running in a group that ANOTHER full Cleric member with us).

The only play they couldn’t do is joining groups whose stated purpose is to get through the dungeon as fast as possible.

Any change to the game to that would FORCE a variety of builds in the META would require the necessity of roles. Anything short of forcing a variety of builds will only lead to a temporary state of variety in the meta.

Normal play does not require the use of a Meta build. Just because the meta build is all that’s really talked about on the forums or when people ask for a good build, doesn’t mean that other builds don’t exist or aren’t played. They’re just specific to a person’s play style & skill level, and those that aren’t good at making builds likely refer to the meta because it’s a build they know will work.

dlonie.6547:

BTW, the GvG thread isn’t actually discussing GvG — it’d be a temporary addition until the CDI got started. Right now it just has the answer to “When does it start?” since it got pushed back. After the CDI begins it would be removed.

CDIs in their own sticky would work, or it could just be another section in the main one.

Oops, you’re right — PS/NPE are the same issue. My mistake.

Cantha I’m on the fence about, too. I certainly wouldn’t put it in an “unresolved” section, but it’s a really popular thread that a lot of people use, and it’s been a common request since launch. It’d be up to the maintainer whether they’d want to index random “request” threads, too.

CDI specific thread would allow for more detail than a thread to various types of threads would be.

As for PS/NPE, this one could potentially be:

NPE Issues – The missing Personal Story quests issue is expanded here

That way it is noted that the PS quest issue may come up in the NPE Issues thread but more expanded discussion (including staff responses) can be found in the other thread that’s specific. Especially since the issue will likely take longer than a few months to resolve.

I won’t disagree on Cantha being a popular request, but putting request threads on the sticky is risky. People could take the inclusion as quiet support by ANet. If they were completely against the idea, they wouldn’t include it on the list now would they?

Then I’d only have the last two threads in it of the ones you posted.

GvG CDI sticky is too specific and the CDI is too important to be in a list of FAQ threads sticky. CDI Status should be it’s own sticky and give the link, topic, host, and status of the current CDI as well as to previous CDI’s.

Personal Story I would lump in as part of the NPE issues. Since the whole release a chapter per 10 levels is what caused that set of missions to disappear.

Cantha thread I can’t see them putting on it as it would lead to some people thinking that that means that Cantha will come (why else put it in a sticky) and they may not be ready to do that.

Edit:

I also agree with dlonie, it could also have important topics from the other major subforums.

The thing is, the meta will always be relatively limited in a game whose mechanics do not require a group of people to do specific set roles.

Because for farmers and for those who want to see how fast they can do something, killing things the fastest is king. And that means high DPS.

Because everyone can contribute to the role of tank, support, healer, etc, without sacrificing too much personal DPS. And that’s the beauty of this game that some people can’t seem to grasp is a major difference between GW2 and WoW (and its clones).

Let’s say I run a dungeon with Tina, Ulysses, Victor, and Wendy on some random night and we all wear full Zerker gear. If one member specializes in a certain aspect, via the traits and skills already available to us, it means I can shift my build to work on other aspects or have higher DPS if every other role needed for the dungeon’s encounters is already met. Even though all of us have Zerker gear.

A game without roles will always a favor a high DPS meta. Anything that would force the meta to include other roles for the meta (support, healing, tanking, etc) would be such that it would have to require those roles, something this game is not designed to do.

While new mechanics and wild shifts to gear and traits would likely increase variety in the meta to start in a game without roles, eventually as people learned the new mechanics and calculated the math in the gear and trait set up, the meta will eventually come down to the same variety that we have now.

They don’t want too many stickies on top so that more threads can be on the first page since most people don’t bother to go to page 2 or 3, etc.

Not to mention, what’s in a sticky is supposed to be seen as important. If a lot of threads are a sticky, it could be go against that. The last two you posted I would be ok with. The others are not needed as stickies.

The last two are major issues that a lot of people have concerns/issues with. The others aren’t.

I’m not into PvP so GvG doesn’t appeal to me and I’d imagine there are others who feel the same way.

Cantha I don’t know the lore for, so it’s nothing special for me.

And while I have issues with the Personal Story having the chapter cut, there are others who don’t care for the Personal Story who don’t care that it’s been chopped out. Not to mention the personal story chapter being cut out is one of the NPE issues. As it was cut out as a result of the change in when story missions are shown to players.

Ah, then that would be fine, it just wasn’t apparent in your post that you would allow for random group runs.

Leo G.4501:

I took a year long break after getting bored with the game, came back and played for about another month before getting bored again. I like this game, I really do, but it’s more repetitive than CoH ever was which was the king of repetitive encounters. How it managed to stay fun for 6+ years still feels like a mystery to me but I’m going to guess it had to do with the magnitude of ways you can play a character. GW2 needs an infusion of some imagination or at least some hope considering how many cranky forum posters crying about content or jaded players that feel the need to slash the throat of any kind of ‘new’ idea posted.

Guess what. There ARE a magnitude of ways to play a character.

Just because Zerker is the way the speed running group in dungeons likes to play their characters, doesn’t mean that that’s the only way to play the game.

I pretty much soloed the entire portion of map completion on my main. At the time my main was an Elementalist. Geared in full Clerics once she hit 80, mixed gear sets beforehand. One of the opposing gear sets to Zerker. It’s DPS is abysmal compared to Zerker. I had fun doing it. And parts were challenging. But the Elementalist was my first character in this game and GW2 is my first MMO. There were a few skill challenges that others showed up at and I did need assistance for a few skill points in Malachor’s Leap and Cursed Shore (they tended to be the ones with at least a champion or two nearby and I couldn’t figure out how to sneak by them). And champions aren’t meant to be easily soloed and I don’t have the skills as a casual.

I don’t hear too many complaints about how difficult content is so there must not be too many builds that aren’t able to complete the content.

So it seems to me that the content is doable by any number of builds.

The only time that people demand zerker is when they are organizing a speed run of a dungeon

Zerker gear is popular by the other players because the game mechanics mean that DPS is king. No amount of stat reassignment will change that. It will just mean that the new meta gear set will likely be something other than Zerker.

New mechanics would likely help increase variety, but like with the current dungeons, eventually, the variety will lessen as people learn the new mechanics. The new meta would just likely not be as much of a glass cannon as a full zerker is. Old content you’ve done several hundred times you tend to learn what you can and can’t take and how glassy your cannon can be.

Like in Fractals how some people do them without any Agony Resistance, even when they pass level 10.

Not a fan of restricting the daily activity achievement to this. New players may not have enough friends for activities or no one on their friend list wants to do an activity for the veteran players. Or they may only have a limited time and doing it with a group of strangers is just fine for that day.

I love the idea otherwise.

Yea, it’s PvP’s turn for an update geared towards it. This is coming from someone who doesn’t do PvP as it is not fun for me. I realize that there are players of this game for which PvP is the only part of the game that they play.

Relentliss.2170:

I think the Zerker meta makes for some of the worst pve dungeons in MMO’s today. Basically everyone stack up, spam a few blocks and blinds and burn pretty much everything down like that.

Would love for the game to become a little more about Roles, whatever they happen to turn out to be, because atm pve is pretty unstimulating.

That’s the thing. No role is supposed to be required for you to complete any content. And by complete, I mean kill it. Even if it takes a long time. A dungeon run of Arah Path 1 is doable by a group who are all wearing Clerics and traited to be support/healers. It might take them forever and a day because that build does not have high DPS by any stretch of the imagination. But still doable.

It’s been 815 days since the game launched, 818 days for those with headstart access. Let’s say the first 90 days, most players weren’t doing explorable dungeons. They were hard. That’s 725 days or 728 days. Then let’s assume only 1 run of a dungeon per day (and I’d imagine that before the dungeon reward change to daily only, that they were likely run multiple times per day). That’s 725 to 728 times through a dungeon. Please tell me that after doing 700+ runs that you wouldn’t have memorized the tells of the attacks that you would need to dodge or die or figured out how to best kill the bosses.

Now some people don’t mind taking their time in the dungeons even after that many runs. And that’s fine. But there are others who want to see how fast they can do it. To see if they can set/beat a record. And that’s fine as well. There are others who play for the rewards the dungeons give. And that’s also fine.

The thing is, the latter two groups benefit the most if they do the dungeon as quickly as possible. And that means killing things as quickly as possible. And that means high group DPS will be king for those groups. And right now the highest group DPS is zerker.

Until boss mechanics change or new dungeons or other such end game content is added at a semi-regular basis, the meta will always be one build: whatever gives the highest group DPS. There will still be no variety in the meta.

And I do not support any change that would make any group have to wait until they got a specific role before they would be able to complete the content. Even PUGs. Even groups who decide to go in as all Clerics with support/healer builds. Even groups who are all Zerkers with high DPS builds.

epborden.7492:

I don’t think you understood that paragraph. They are not reasons or justifications to mass report. They are a symbol of people creating their own solutions where there are none. The solution isn’t even using the reporting feature at all. The solution is in putting up a wall to prevent common intersections for having the game hacked in the first place. There just really aren’t any in place and it takes more than a novice to see where. He may not be able to do much beyond his ticket queue but he could at least probe the dev team to take action and bring it up in company meetings, and maybe he does. That would be going above and beyond to solve the problem but we have no proof that occurs. When communication doesn’t happen you’re going to find people doing some crazy stuff regardless.

But your suggestion would make things worse regardless of whether or not ANet decides to do something. It inundates the moderators who are told to figure out who is and who is not hacking. Not to mention could lead to players being banned for submitting false reports. So why put the idea out there?

Why not try to come up with a better suggestion for how to handle the hackers and exploiters? One that won’t get people banned or inundate the moderators with a ton of false reports.

If you have a personal guild with a guild bank and have things in it, empty it first.

If no characters are in a guild, the guild is virtually gone since no one can invite you to the guild.

Jana.6831:

sinject.4607:

so is anyone actually against making a sigil more accessible or what?

all is see is people arguing over inane factchecking

No, the point was that someone said these sigils have been availlable each year which they only were by accident last year, so maybe they won’t be availlable ths year at all. And that was what we sorted out. And hey, we’re not anet, we aren’t against making sigils more accessible (well if I had 5 stacks of them I might have something against it).

And whether or not they were supposed to drop last year or not is part of establishing how available they already are. And you can only really say if something should be more or less available if you know how available they already are.

I would not have a problem with that particular sigil becoming more available. Either permanently part of Wintersday specific loot, or added to the more general loot tables. Depending on how much more available ANet wants it.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Jana.6831:

Seera.5916:

You can’t say something doesn’t drop from something but not have the proof to back it up.

You say it only dropped in one area but only provided evidence for that one area. Not the other areas where you claim it never dropped.

Things don’t drop out of just one thing in this game. So you can’t use proof that it drops from Item 1 to say that it doesn’t drop in Item 2.

That’s the problem. You haven’t proven to anyone that it didn’t drop in places other than Snowball Mayhem. Just that the drop rate for it was likely abysmal.

Alright 500 games a about 4-5 or more gifts = ~2000 gifts – got 4 major sigils of generosity of them, got some glue from them, got some stuffing material from them. People in snowball mayhem were linking their superior sigils of generosity they just got.
Got 6000 gifts outside of that game – yes I had them on different stacks – got all backpiece recipes from that, got no sigils, got no stuffing material, got no glue.
Do you have evidence to back up your claim that they dropped from every gift?

No backpiece recipes dropped in 2012. As for definite proof that they dropped from gifts everywhere, there isn’t any (just as there isn’t any definite proof that they dropped just from Snowball Mayhem). Regardless, I strongly doubt that Anet made it so that the gift boxes dropping from Snowball Mayhem had a different loot table than every other gift box drop. RNG is RNG.

Here are the drop/rate tables from the wiki, just because I was curious and looked them up. Just for the Giant and Large boxes.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Large_Wintersday_Gift/drop_rate/2012

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Giant_Wintersday_Gift/drop_rate_%282012%29

And Jana is talking about the Sigil of Generosity. Not a backpiece recipe. At least that’s my understanding of it.

Jana.6831:

Seera.5916:

You can’t say something doesn’t drop from something but not have the proof to back it up.

You say it only dropped in one area but only provided evidence for that one area. Not the other areas where you claim it never dropped.

Things don’t drop out of just one thing in this game. So you can’t use proof that it drops from Item 1 to say that it doesn’t drop in Item 2.

That’s the problem. You haven’t proven to anyone that it didn’t drop in places other than Snowball Mayhem. Just that the drop rate for it was likely abysmal.

Alright 500 games a about 4-5 or more gifts = ~2000 gifts – got 4 major sigils of generosity of them, got some glue from them, got some stuffing material from them. People in snowball mayhem were linking their superior sigils of generosity they just got.
Got 6000 gifts outside of that game – yes I had them on different stacks – got all backpiece recipes from that, got no sigils, got no stuffing material, got no glue.
Do you have evidence to back up your claim that they dropped from every gift?

Never said you were wrong. Just that you hadn’t proven your case. It just seemed odd that they would put a very very very rare drop with just one type of gift.

Which you now have unless someone can come in and say they got one outside of snowball mayhem or know someone who did. 0 in 6000 is a lot of rolls to not hit the magic one for the sigil.

Jana.6831:

Seera.5916:

Jana.6831:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Jana.6831:

eekzie.5640:

They dropped during the second one as well.
I have no reason to assume they won’t drop again.

They only dropped from gifts received in Snowball Mayhem.

No, it dropped from all gifts, not just those acquired in Snowball Mayhem.

No, sorry I know that I’m right, I have played that game 500 times because I wanted a superior sigil of generosity and received 4 major sigils of generosity – only from these gifts, I also got a lot of other gifts from all around tyria. Not so sure about the gift from the music thingy, might be that they were the old ones as well, haven’t played that game that much. They stacked differently as well, if I remember correctly.

Or your luck was just such that it only showed up the gifts you got from the game.

Did you get 500 gifts from not Snowball Mayhem?

How many were not from Snowball Mayhem if not 500?

I can flip a coin 100 times and have it land on heads all 100 times. Is that easy to do? No way. But still possible.

You could have easily received 50 gifts outside of Snowball Mayhem and not gotten the sigil from them even if they are supposed to. Because each time you open a gift, it doesn’t look to see what your last open of a gift was. Each RNG roll is independent of the other. You could have been rolling such that you only got the sigil from the game even though it was coded to drop in all gifts.

Just go ask the people who do Teq for the Sunless weapon skins. Or Fractals for specific skins or weapon types.

Edit to add:

Based on your numbers, if your drop was at the game’s chance the sigils drop at a 0.8% chance. That’s really really low. You would need 125 drops before you can even claim that the code was wrong. Because that’s how many drops it would take that if the rolls were true to the percentage chance, to be sure you got 1 drop. 125 times .008 is 1.

Where’s the problem here? I never said how many gifts I got and one got more than just one gift for one match of Snowball Mayhem, also depending on win or lose. I had a lot of gifts from 500 games of Snowball madness, which also contained glue and stuffing material which weren’t a thing last year anyway. And I got 3 times as many gifts from the rest of Tyria and I’m telling you: I know I’m right – I wouldn’t have played that game that many times otherwise. Although it was fun but not really 500 times.

Edit: But believe what you want. I just hope we get some fresh sigils this year. Although I probably won’t be playing that game that often – last year was kind of enough.

You can’t say something doesn’t drop from something but not have the proof to back it up.

You say it only dropped in one area but only provided evidence for that one area. Not the other areas where you claim it never dropped.

Things don’t drop out of just one thing in this game. So you can’t use proof that it drops from Item 1 to say that it doesn’t drop in Item 2.

That’s the problem. You haven’t proven to anyone that it didn’t drop in places other than Snowball Mayhem. Just that the drop rate for it was likely abysmal.

Just want to add that they are the same stats as Ascended gear. So you’re really only working towards the skin and the swappable stats.

And is that truly worth the stress and chance of burn out to you?

Best advice: unless you want to risk being burned out on the game when you finally do get the legendary, don’t try to see just how fast you can get it.

If it’s stressful, you’re trying to make it too quickly. It’s not supposed to be a stressful goal. It’s supposed to be a long term goal.

Jana.6831:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Jana.6831:

eekzie.5640:

They dropped during the second one as well.
I have no reason to assume they won’t drop again.

They only dropped from gifts received in Snowball Mayhem.

No, it dropped from all gifts, not just those acquired in Snowball Mayhem.

No, sorry I know that I’m right, I have played that game 500 times because I wanted a superior sigil of generosity and received 4 major sigils of generosity – only from these gifts, I also got a lot of other gifts from all around tyria. Not so sure about the gift from the music thingy, might be that they were the old ones as well, haven’t played that game that much. They stacked differently as well, if I remember correctly.

Or your luck was just such that it only showed up the gifts you got from the game.

Did you get 500 gifts from not Snowball Mayhem?

How many were not from Snowball Mayhem if not 500?

I can flip a coin 100 times and have it land on heads all 100 times. Is that easy to do? No way. But still possible.

You could have easily received 50 gifts outside of Snowball Mayhem and not gotten the sigil from them even if they are supposed to. Because each time you open a gift, it doesn’t look to see what your last open of a gift was. Each RNG roll is independent of the other. You could have been rolling such that you only got the sigil from the game even though it was coded to drop in all gifts.

Just go ask the people who do Teq for the Sunless weapon skins. Or Fractals for specific skins or weapon types.

Edit to add:

Based on your numbers, if your drop was at the game’s chance the sigils drop at a 0.8% chance. That’s really really low. You would need 125 drops before you can even claim that the code was wrong. Because that’s how many drops it would take that if the rolls were true to the percentage chance, to be sure you got 1 drop. 125 times .008 is 1.

I’m a pure PvE player and I fully understand that PvP and WvW need their updates too.

All aspects of the game need updates and it’s about time something other than PvE got the focus of a patch.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

epborden.7492:

Because of the actions of several members of different guilds caught hacking, our realm has taken it upon itself to create new rules as to how we report hackers. Guild members have both individually, and as whole groups hacked. It has been with such flamboyant disregard for being caught that we are now reporting every member of a guild should it have members that have been caught. So many different members are hacking that we just don’t know who is innocent and who is not, and because of that we have no choice but to report every member of a guild.

If you are a member, commander, or creator of a guild and hold your guild in high regard please find members that hack and take action against them soon so your whole guild is not penalized for the actions of a few. Hacking has become so rampant in WvW that many realms are now reporting any member of a guild should any member of that guild be caught hacking. This can lead to YOU being falsely reported and possibly BANNED from playing Guild Wars 2.

1. Falsely reporting players for botting/hacking will result in your own account being suspended.

2. Being falsely reported will not result in your account being banned.

This. The moderators do not appreciate getting reports on people who have not broken any rules. It’s called wasting their time. Time that could be spent researching ACTUAL botters and hackers. Not tons of innocents.

However, if you are innocent and get accidentally banned, you can create a support ticket for an appeal and they usually do unban those they accidentally ban.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Seera.5916:

Players should expect most content to fall into the flash mob with swords or coordinated group play.

I’m not sure why I or other players should expect this.

ANet does a great job of spreading around the types of events to include coodinated group play, events that require players to come together in a quick group to finish the event then disperse, and even solo events.

I don’t see why players should expect ANet to abandon their solo play efforts and focus all their time on coordinated group play events.

Really, that is one of the great things about this game. There is so much variety that there is something for everyone to enjoy. But not everyone is going to enjoy everything.

And tbh, I’m not really sure how the LS has been lacking in group content given Silverwastes and Drytop and how their events are setup.

It’s still in the MMO genre. Players should expect that a majority of things released to be things that cater to group play. Whether or not that group play is doable solo or not is another thing. Explorable mode dungeons are doable solo if you have the skills, though they were designed to be coordinated group content.

The personal story and LS2 have the ability to be done in small groups but ANet let it be doable solo, except the last step in the personal story (which is Arah story mode). LS2 only that way most likely due to most people wanting more permanent content.

If ANet releases 11 things and 7 of them are group play oriented, that’s still a majority of group play oriented content.

They release their content and balance around 1-5 players for instances, 5 players for dungeons, and larger groups for open world (how many depends on if it’s flash mob or coordinated).

Yes, they’ve done a better job this LS season at releasing content doable in groups or solo. I hope they continue to balance solo/small group (2-5 players) play and group play, but I don’t expect them to release content geared toward solo players only.

Behellagh.1468:

Seera.5916:

Behellagh.1468:

MMO means that other players share the same world with you. Doesn’t mean you have to play with them.

That doesn’t mean you should expect the major content to be doable by a single person.

And that’s where the flash mob with swords come into play. I’m not fighting alone, I’m just not in a formal group. Most of my guildies grind dungeon paths, fractals and WvW. I prefer PvE so I rarely see them unless we bump into each other at a world event or at the TP/Bank in a city.

But not all content they’ll add will be single player or flash mob with swords. They will likely add in content in the future that requires coordinated group play. Teq, Marionette, and Three-Headed Wurm are/were popular events. The dungeon players deserve a new permanent dungeon (or path as long as it doesn’t override any of the existing paths) at this point, they’ve been neglected since Fractals came out. Short of one temporary LS1 event.

Players should expect most content to fall into the flash mob with swords or coordinated group play.

Behellagh.1468:

MMO means that other players share the same world with you. Doesn’t mean you have to play with them.

That doesn’t mean you should expect the major content to be doable by a single person.

The main reason I think that that LS2 is mostly single player is due to them wanting to be in the story journal which meant it had to be instanced content like the personal story. Being single player was just a side effect of them making a change to fit the demands of the players (ability to do the story over again as well as not have to be on during those 2 weeks to enjoy it).

And if you read my last paragraph, it should have been clear that I am a player who prefers to play by themselves. So I’m fully aware that I don’t have to play with others.

I just don’t expect nor demand ANet to cater their major content releases around my lack of desire to play with others.

Behellagh.1468:

I like the flash mob with swords approach that this game has. As it is I think the game has too much required team play. I do understand where the OP is coming from but if this game needs even more teaming then I would be less inclined to play, especially if the rewards for that team content aren’t attainable by other in game means (other than gold).

This is an MMO. You should expect group content unless told otherwise.

LS2 will likely finish as mostly personal story instances for the repeatability it offers.

But any living story after that, I would assume group required until told otherwise.

I really don’t get why people want MMOs to create single player content. They aren’t single player games by definition.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that they are adding in content with the capability of being completed by a single player for the LS. But I don’t expect or demand that ANet caters to my desire to play alone in a multiplayer game.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Harper.4173:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

DaveGan.8065:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I honestly can’t give you any suggestion on filtering alternatives. I’ve always given everyone I met an honest chance, to get to know them, but I guess that is where I’m different.

To be brutally honest, most people aren’t about fairness, but quickness in this game. As I mentioned before, gear is a choice everyone can make and equality of opportunity exists for the most part.

Referencing your unquoted bit, I’m pretty sure you understood my logic, but intentionally chose not to accept it. You showed your understanding when you brought up “filtering alternatives”.

You also don’t need to be so passive aggressive or personal. I’m not very elitist myself (I generally ask for 80 zerkers but do not check gear or traits), nor do I do many dungeons anymore. However, I absolutely support a group’s right to prioritize quickness over fairness even with the use of not-always-reliable filtering and profiling.

I understand this mentality as my previous proposals seek to rebalance the setups that allow multitudes of ideologies be competitive in the terms of quickness. I am not asking for everyone to slow down, I am asking for everyone the ability to be competitive as long as the dedication is as strong. Take a look at my previous suggestions that don’t have me wailing on the zerker meta from a personal opinion standpoint, I personally find them reasonable.

Flawed, but I believe my ideas to be in the right direction as far as making content that can be considered threatening but with its own forgiving systems.

I’m sorry but this isn’t some form of Anime – where the hero just wills his way to victory.
Wanting to be good doesn’t equal being good. Being good takes time, takes practice, knowledge, time investment and will.

Just because a group of bad players wants it very much to be just as fast as the group that has basically dedicated their in-game time to being great at the game doesn’t mean the game should change to give them similar clear times.

Just because a player who has 500 hours of gametime wants to be just as effective as someone who’s put in well over 2000 doesn’t mean that the game should accommodate that.

You want to be good? You want competitive clear times? Work for it. Gear for it. Learn the encounters. Learn your class. Practice. Execute flawlessly and then you’ll have it.

Why hand it out freely? Just because they want to and are doing the best they can?
Maybe sometimes – just like in life – your best isn’t good enough. My best wasn’t good enough when I first put on zerker gear but I worked towards it and made it work.

The game doesn’t have to change to accommodate for these players – they have to change adapt and improve.

You don’t understand my perspective.

I am saying if two people have 2000 hours of gameplay with the same skill ceiling but have different skillsets and statistical strengths, they should be able to succeed in roughly the same time as long as they are tackling the challenges using their advantages.

So someone who specs in healing power and boons should be able to complete content at the same rate as someone who specs for power and condition damage?

Boons would have be really really really powerful.

But then those who spec for power and boons would then be the meta, wouldn’kitten Increase base damage and those really powerful boons will just multiply that.

tofumon.5924:

Seera.5916:

tofumon.5924:

masterJP.5048:

I also did’nt like the NPE at first but after trying it I have to say its not that bad. Getting traits now is fun !!!

… no it’s not. We used to get them all by level 60. Now there are some adept traits we can’t even unlock until level 50.

Fun is subjective.

I find Sims 2 and Sims 3 fun. My brother does not. Neither my brother nor I have the correct opinion on whether Sims 2 or Sims 3 is fun or not. Because the question “Is it fun?” doesn’t have a right or wrong answer.

The process of unlocking them can be fun, but arguing that pushing back trait acquisition levels is “fun” is the same as saying “playing the game without traits is more fun than playing them with traits.”

And some probably do find the challenge of playing without traits to be more fun than the challenge of playing with traits. Like I said, it’s subjective.

I will say that those who find the new way to get traits fun in its entirety are probably greatly outnumbered by those who don’t find some aspect of getting traits fun. As anyone who reads the thread about the changes can easily see.

GOSU.9574:

Chicago Jack.5647:

GOSU.9574:

As soon as you finish the tutorial the cross swords is at the top left of the screen. It hasn’t changed since release.

No, I didn’t have access to them until I hit a certain level. I can’t remember which level, but the only way I could have gone to wvw or pvp was to walk to lions arch.

I make alts and run the tutorial every day, for pvp alts. After tutorial the swords are there. You will be auto-level 2 after tutorial.

I think it’s an account unlock. You unlock it on one character and all have them. Most of us veterans were likely already passed the point it unlocked on one of our characters.

Loki.8793:

Seera.5916:

snip

Your comments can be broken down into 2 parts.

1. Specialization will cause people to have to look for and wait for specific builds to do team-based content.
2. You want to be able to do everything your class can offer without having to invest into it.

For 1, since you seem to haven’t realized it yet, the game already is that way. It’s just not as apparent. And its not as apparent because everyone runs the same kitten thing in PvE. In PvP, people have to fill specific roles. In high level fractals, people have to fulfill specific roles. In WvWvW roaming groups, people have to fulfill specific roles. In zergs and world bosses, people have to fulfill specific roles. And when you are in LFG pugs, you still need to fulfill roles. I don’t know what game you’ve been playing, but it sure isn’t this one.

For 2, you seem to have this fear of not having every option given to you at every moment. Specialization creates depth. It means you have to think ahead and choose what and how you are going to approach something. This is the very concept GW1 was built on, and is arguably one of the fundamental reasons for its success.

When you have every option given to you, there’s no thought in what you do. You can just rush in, swap a utility or two, and bam, everything is covered. There’s no skill in this. There’s no depth. There’s no fulfillment. It just turns the game into an effortless grind for rewards.

If specialization were implemented into the game, the game would change, there is no question about that. The question is how it will change, and how that change would influence the game and community. You claim that the change would be negative, but you don’t give much reason for that other than the need for specific roles being more apparent that it is now. And that isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. If anything, I feel the game would become a lot more social from the change, and a lot less mind-numbingly casual.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but despite GW2 being a game where it is easy to play with other people, it really isn’t that social. In GW1, when you were in a PUG, you were constantly talking to people. In GW2, when you are in a PUG, you’re lucky if someone says more than “Hello” when they enter the party.

God forbid the change makes you have to talk to people in an MMO and coordinate a team. God forbid you have to think about your character and how to play him, and learn the actual game mechanics. God forbid the reward comes from the actual game play. No, you would rather not think about those things and just face roll everything as you always have.

This is why I said you aren’t thinking about the game and instead are only thinking of yourself.

1. But not to the degree of a trinity. That’s what I mean by specialization. Specialization to the point where you need others to fill other specific things. Where you have to sit and wait for a healer to have a chance at doing something. And that’s the only way changing gear and traits alone will affect the meta to allow for a variety given the current AI. And how much variety that would have is questionable. Certain classes would likely be able to fill certain roles better.

I get that there’s already some specialization given dungeon LFG’s looking for specific classes. As they can do specific things that other classes can’t. Like Ele’s bring the FGS, LH, and IB. But if you don’t get an Ele, you won’t be unable to complete the dungeon. It just won’t be as fast if it’s a dungeon that benefits from one or more of those.

And if the specialization goes the way of the trinity then the manifesto is broken yet again. Because I’d have to wait for others with a specific build to do content. And wasn’t that something this game was not supposed to have? Long waits to play the game while you waited for someone with the right build to show up.

I don’t see how the AI of this game will be anything but DPS is king with how it currently is and that’s not a wide variety of builds. So the changes to gear and stats would have to be to such a degree that it would be like having a trinity to increase variety of builds because there would be a wider variety of roles that need to be filled.

The way to change the meta is to allow for variety (which is what the OP wants), is for the AI to change. If fights are made longer due to the changed mechanics from the AI, then condi builds become more viable. Because condi damage is over time. If fights are made longer, then support builds become more viable because they give boons and remove conditions in order to speed up the fight. But no one build becomes required.

maddoctor.2738:

Seera.5916:

Kite.2510:

Zaklex.6308:

Kite.2510:

~Snip~

My intention was to Buff (double) the rewards small groups are getting, and nerf the rewards that more than 20 player groups (stop being increased after intense enemy tagging)

I have a suggestion for you, before you thought of this idea…did you do an event with say 5 players and tally your rewards, then do the exact same event with 20 players and tally your rewards? IF you did, and you’re talking about the rewards from the event…were they any different? IF you’re talking about the drops from mobs in the event(which have nothing to do with the event rewards by the way), then you should be getting more drops from the mobs in the event with 20 players than the one with 5 because there are more mobs to begin with when there are those 20 players vs the 5. Now tell me there’s an issue after reading the above statement.

Keep in mind, event rewards(which are rewards, and not loot), are different from mob loot(which are not rewards)…they’re mutually exclusive. One does affect the other, nor should the mob loot be capped, because not all mobs are associated with events.

I’m strictly speaking about loot rewards (with the exception of bandit chest’s in SW that are lootable by everyone)
The event may give whatever the hell it wants. I would have a problem with that, since everyone would get the same.
When it comes to looting mobs however, I want to close the gap of loot you get when you are on a small or a big group!

And it punishes groups who play together. Guilds get punished for running Orr Temple runs or for running around maps and doing events together.

It is not fair that a group of people who defeat 10 enemies should get the same number of drops as a group who defeats 5 enemies. And that’s what your proposal says. I call that unfair and punishment for playing with a group. And you should never be punished in this game for playing in a group. No matter what size that group is.

No it’s not punishment. It is actually fair that a group defeating 10 enemies should get the same drops as a group that defeats 5 enemies. Why?

1) Because the event takes the exact same amount of time, and if not more players will finish it even faster. So the drops per minute for the individual player will be the exact same, why shouldn’kitten

2) Few players have a challenge, more players make it easy mode (safety in numbers). The less the players, the higher the challenge, yet you want more rewards for less challenge. Why?

3) If events with more players spawned only veterans /elites then it wouldn’t be a problem, now they spawn a large number of normal mobs, see for example Temple of Grenth or Temple of Melandru final events. The individual player isn’t doing anything more if it’s 20+ players, but more mobs spawn resulting in more drops for everyone, while the chance of getting even hit is diminished. Why should these players be rewarded more?

While I believe more players shouldn’t get more rewards, it’s all about the individual player and keeping the drops equal, I don’t want a direct nerf. The way they did the rewards in the Silverwastes events is the best way and needs to be applied everywhere. Get rewards for the fact that you finish an event, not based on how many mobs you tag or how many people where there.

Your solution is a better one than the OP’s.

But in events where mobs drop loot, the chance of them dropping loot should not be changed just because of the number of people playing with me.

Zergs with normal mobs already have an inherent drop in loot. Because it becomes harder for people to tag everything if there are more people in there applying damage. The chance of drops should not have how many people are there as a factor.

OP’s solution has the possibility of punishing large groups if the nerf rate is too high. It will be too hard to equalize based on number of players. Especially for different events where scaling effects new spawns differently. Like some spawn vets and champs which may slow down the event, but others like you mentioned just spawn more normal mobs. Her solution will punish someone. Because ANet would never be able to get the percentage right.

Mobs that drop loot that spawn from events should not be affected by number of people present.

I’d say a mixture would be best. Have the elites and champs have a chance at dropping loot if they spawn (they don’t get mowed down super quickly and would slow the event down). And if that loot isn’t a huge number, reduce chances of junk showing up in those drops.

tofumon.5924:

masterJP.5048:

I also did’nt like the NPE at first but after trying it I have to say its not that bad. Getting traits now is fun !!!

… no it’s not. We used to get them all by level 60. Now there are some adept traits we can’t even unlock until level 50.

Fun is subjective.

I find Sims 2 and Sims 3 fun. My brother does not. Neither my brother nor I have the correct opinion on whether Sims 2 or Sims 3 is fun or not. Because the question “Is it fun?” doesn’t have a right or wrong answer.

nightwulf.1986:

Seera.5916:

nightwulf.1986:

What I’m most curious about is what players who appreciate the current PVE meta think about combat/balance updates in the future? Should Anet balance PVE builds with this current meta in mind? Acknowledging, for the sake of argument, that there are “training wheel” stats and builds, where should Anet focus their development efforts with regard to shifting numbers around and making underused builds more viable? Or do you believe that some underused builds shouldn’t be made more “viable” because they were intended to be excluded from the meta? I’m having a hard time picturing evolution of the combat and balance where a meta is considered near perfect. Help me out here.

But conversely, they shouldn’t change the balance simply to get rid of the current meta. Balance shouldn’t be making every build the meta build for everything.

In a perfectly balanced MMO, there would likely still be a meta.

Speed runs in dungeons = killing things the fastest, which inherently means DPS is king. So whatever build gives the highest group DPS without sacrificing too much personal DPS is king (zerker is the current meta).

Specific events will have a specific set of conditions that will make certain builds better than others and those builds will be meta for their specific events. Or aspects of the game. And it may vary from class to class based on class specifics and what they would bring to the group (MMO’s rarely have things designed for just one player)

You see, I can understand that there will always be an ideal meta for certain circumstances. That, at least to my small mind, seems to be an unavoidable consequence of having choices. But I guess I was asking whether people feel that skills and stats tied to the current meta need tweaking at all? The first part of your response suggests that we need only minor changes if any to the current pve meta because it is meta for a reason. The second part of your statement suggests that we should expect builds to not be as effective for every situation, ala counter build enemy comps in GW1. Would that, and should that also apply to dungeons? That would be a very different situation than what we have now even outside of dungeons. I get the impression that what people who appreciate the current meta would be looking for in future updates are primarily skills and stats that a) provide group support b) group defense c) increase group damage. Consider how people laughed at devs for the new mesmer trait Disruptor’s Sustainment. Are we going to continue to deride development efforts in areas that we feel don’t support the meta and attempt to push people toward “bad builds”? Is it possible to create a more empowering “meta”? Or should devs just go with the flow?

Edit: Apparently I don’t know my ABC’s.

Probably. There is no perfectly balanced MMO.

Devs should push the balance to what they feel fits best with their vision of where the game should go. Not the people who yell at any change that may harm their precious meta. The meta can change from one build set to another without needing the blessing of the meta followers.

They shouldn’t nerf something because it’s the meta. They should nerf something because it’s overpowered.

I never played GW1 so I can’t really get the reference enough to answer the question about dungeons. I’m game for opening up variety in builds that could be used in a serious group of dungeon runners who don’t necessarily want to see how fast they can do a dungeon that time (fastest possible will always be about group DPS with the smallest personal DPS sacrifice possible).

Loki.8793:

Seera.5916:

Loki.8793:

Seera.5916:

I don’t agree with the OP. His solution will not get rid of meta builds, which is what OP claims to hate.

All of my posts in this thread have been against this solution.

No, I never once said I hated meta builds. Where did you get this idea?

What I want and advocate for is more build variety seen in the meta and to have other stats aside from power and crits have some sort of relevance in the meta.

Because every build will never be equal to each other. There will always be a build that’s just better than the rest. Or a small set of builds.

The more variety gets coded into being required the more of a trinity this game becomes. And one of the main selling points of this game was no trinity. No having to wait for a healer. No having to wait for a tank.

I don’t have to wait for a boon booster or a condition giver or a healer or a whatever. I can go out and do things by myself. I can give myself boons. I can give conditions and I can cure conditions. I can heal myself and I can go to town on enemies.

Your solution means I have to give up things that I can do because I can’t spec for everything. Meaning there will be less things that I can solo, even if I’m the best player in the game (and I’m not). So if I give up my ability to give conditions very well, that if content is made that requires conditions be given, I’ll likely have to partner with someone else to do it.

You’re focusing way too much on the direct example I gave to illustrate my suggestion rather than the suggestion itself, which I explicitly stated multiple times not to do.

I maintain the characters are too strong at the moment and can do too many things at once with absolutely no investment. This is what has lead to the stale meta we have seen for the past 2 years. My suggestion is to limit what a character can do naturally and to open up options through specialization, where stat choices are not just purely for stats but also directly affect the potency of your skills. This is exactly what was done in GW1 and it worked fabulously, and there is very little reason why it wouldn’t work similarly here.

When your only complaint is that you don’t like the inconvenience of not having every option in front of you at all times, it’s clear you aren’t thinking about the game but instead are only thinking about yourself. You’ve been spoiled, and it shows.

Your example should be the perfect example of your suggestion brought to the table. So if you don’t want people to use your example, then you shouldn’t have posted it as it is and posted something that you would like people to use.

Specialization leads to a trinity. Or a Duo. Or a Quartet.

Then LFG’s will turn into: Looking for – 1 condi, 1 healer, 1 boon, no DPS.

And that’s what ANet did not want to happen. It did not want to have players having to wait for a specific build to join their group in order to complete content. Your suggestion would cause that.

I mess up in a dungeon, I at least have the ability to heal myself a good bit if I wasn’t stupid too quickly beforehand. If you make me have to specialize in healing to do so, then I have to make sure my groups have a healer if I don’t specialize in healing. And if I specialize in healing, I will have to give up something else. Which means that’s one less group I can join. The group not looking for a healer but that something else that I had to give up to be able to heal myself well. So I have to wait to play the game.

Specialization without the game needing it will lead no where. No one will change. Because until the game forces players to have a variety, there won’t be a huge variety in the meta. And if you force people, you create a trinity (or however many types of players you need to survive).

Everyone will travel in zergs because there will likely be enough people in them that they’ll have every necessary build in the necessary numbers. Because the manifesto says I can play how I want to play.

Your solution actually goes against that line in the manifesto. Playing how I want may mean I don’t get to do content that I want to do. Because no group wants the specialty that I want to do.

If you don’t force the best that will happen is that a few gear options get changed to some of the “training” wheel builds to give a bit more survivability, but DPS would still be king. Zerker would still be the primary gear set. And there will be those who won’t need to change a thing because they are that good (I am not one of them, I die quite often in Clerics gear).

nightwulf.1986:

What I’m most curious about is what players who appreciate the current PVE meta think about combat/balance updates in the future? Should Anet balance PVE builds with this current meta in mind? Acknowledging, for the sake of argument, that there are “training wheel” stats and builds, where should Anet focus their development efforts with regard to shifting numbers around and making underused builds more viable? Or do you believe that some underused builds shouldn’t be made more “viable” because they were intended to be excluded from the meta? I’m having a hard time picturing evolution of the combat and balance where a meta is considered near perfect. Help me out here.

But conversely, they shouldn’t change the balance simply to get rid of the current meta. Balance shouldn’t be making every build the meta build for everything.

In a perfectly balanced MMO, there would likely still be a meta.

Speed runs in dungeons = killing things the fastest, which inherently means DPS is king. So whatever build gives the highest group DPS without sacrificing too much personal DPS is king (zerker is the current meta).

Specific events will have a specific set of conditions that will make certain builds better than others and those builds will be meta for their specific events. Or aspects of the game. And it may vary from class to class based on class specifics and what they would bring to the group (MMO’s rarely have things designed for just one player)

Loki.8793:

Seera.5916:

I don’t agree with the OP. His solution will not get rid of meta builds, which is what OP claims to hate.

All of my posts in this thread have been against this solution.

No, I never once said I hated meta builds. Where did you get this idea?

What I want and advocate for is more build variety seen in the meta and to have other stats aside from power and crits have some sort of relevance in the meta.

Because every build will never be equal to each other. There will always be a build that’s just better than the rest. Or a small set of builds.

The more variety gets coded into being required the more of a trinity this game becomes. And one of the main selling points of this game was no trinity. No having to wait for a healer. No having to wait for a tank.

I don’t have to wait for a boon booster or a condition giver or a healer or a whatever. I can go out and do things by myself. I can give myself boons. I can give conditions and I can cure conditions. I can heal myself and I can go to town on enemies.

Your solution means I have to give up things that I can do because I can’t spec for everything. Meaning there will be less things that I can solo, even if I’m the best player in the game (and I’m not). So if I give up my ability to give conditions very well, that if content is made that requires conditions be given, I’ll likely have to partner with someone else to do it.

Kite.2510:

Zaklex.6308:

Kite.2510:

~Snip~

My intention was to Buff (double) the rewards small groups are getting, and nerf the rewards that more than 20 player groups (stop being increased after intense enemy tagging)

I have a suggestion for you, before you thought of this idea…did you do an event with say 5 players and tally your rewards, then do the exact same event with 20 players and tally your rewards? IF you did, and you’re talking about the rewards from the event…were they any different? IF you’re talking about the drops from mobs in the event(which have nothing to do with the event rewards by the way), then you should be getting more drops from the mobs in the event with 20 players than the one with 5 because there are more mobs to begin with when there are those 20 players vs the 5. Now tell me there’s an issue after reading the above statement.

Keep in mind, event rewards(which are rewards, and not loot), are different from mob loot(which are not rewards)…they’re mutually exclusive. One does affect the other, nor should the mob loot be capped, because not all mobs are associated with events.

I’m strictly speaking about loot rewards (with the exception of bandit chest’s in SW that are lootable by everyone)
The event may give whatever the hell it wants. I would have a problem with that, since everyone would get the same.
When it comes to looting mobs however, I want to close the gap of loot you get when you are on a small or a big group!

And it punishes groups who play together. Guilds get punished for running Orr Temple runs or for running around maps and doing events together.

It is not fair that a group of people who defeat 10 enemies should get the same number of drops as a group who defeats 5 enemies. And that’s what your proposal says. I call that unfair and punishment for playing with a group. And you should never be punished in this game for playing in a group. No matter what size that group is.