In technical terms, perhaps this could be changed from a repeated instant skill into a channeled skill with a maximum range equivalent to close melee. This will give some of the improvements needed. I assume the roots are always static and cannot be interrupted if they attack as a channeled skill.
The Pact isn’t there because a player shouldn’t see the Pact before doing his/her personal story where they see it created. The living story by design does not assume the personal story is completed for any character. This is why we always see the three orders in the living story.
I think there have been some continuity errors, such as few NPCs celebrating the killing of a dragon at the dragon bash (without naming Zaitan), but I do see those as errors rather than intentional clues to the timeline.
Is this a CDI about how to do CDI?
My point of view, already mentioned in the living story forum.
As I understand it the initial infused item change will be a wash. Nothing immediately different. The only point of this however seems to be a gear grind on infusions. Collect scraps, buy crafting reagents, craft things together, get something better after finding many pieces on many runs, i.e. gear grind. I don’t see any other reason for this change other than gear grind.
The infusion change doesn’t solve any problems for players wanting to run fractals and WvW with the same equipment. They will still have to choose between AR and stats on their infusions. The gear gap between people who run fractals (PvE) and pure WvW players might even increase with better infusions coming from fractals. I thought this was a clear game design problem that needed solving.
The level drop however seems well thought out. Experienced players who start at L30 and play 20 new levels to get to L50 are going to have much the same experience as if they had kept L50 and played 20 new levels to get to L70. In fact their game experience will be better since they don’t need more AR and mobs will not be scaling up any higher. New players will also get it better since they don’t have to grind through an excessive number of levels. 50 levels in enough, account bound or not. It is just better game design in the long term to have the new levels relaunched at L31-L50.
Could the players have been left with L50 in fractals instead of L30? Possibly, but I don’t see why they should. It lowers their potential enjoyment of the new levels and they haven’t actually beaten the new content yet. It may be more difficult or need new builds and tactics.
Two reasons why players seem angry about this change is time spent and ego. Ego is just silly since fractal level wasn’t public so the only people to admire that were the players themselves, and they can still be proud of that old level if they want to be. Nobody else knows or cares, quite frankly. Time spent is a valid concern but I suggest that they should ask themselves whether they really want justification of their gaming time or whether they want a better game design instead.
They changed this so that instead of a having a +5 fixed bonus on the infused item, you now have a slot that starts with a +5 infusion. What is the point of this? You can slot something better if you put time into it. So the 250 ectos isn’t wasted in my book.
Lets look at it again. A fix bonus is now turned into a gear item that can be improved by spending lots of time in dungeons, collecting lots of item junk, crafting it up, spending money on reagents, to get a better item. In my mind, that is called gear grind and they have made this infusion change specifically to make us grind out more items!
My view – The similarity with bloodstones could be that magic was put into them. That’s pretty vague. We don’t know what use the krait make of obelisks but they have religious beliefs involving prophets and religious beliefs involving obelisks, so they could be related. The obelisks come from the deep ocean so it means there is almost no reliable information to suggest who made them or how. We don’t know if Scarlet used obelisks or not since we saw none in the Nightmare Tower. If the obelisks are storing magical power then it would surely make sense for Scarlet to collect them herself rather than let the krait guard them in religious shrines scattered across the ocean.
I couldn’t work this out at first. These infusion changes didn’t seem to be really solving the problems the game had, such as player having to choose between AR infusions for fractal or stat infusions for PvE/WvW. Then I realised what this is all about.
This is an infusion gear grind. Collect lots of little infusions. Spend money. Spend tokens. Use crafting skills. Get better infusions. Repeat ad infinitum. This has the appearance of a plain straightforward gear grind and it will probably solve no existing game problems.
Just to spell it out, could you please say what would happen to
an ascended ring with a 5AR infusion
an infused ascended ring with a 5AR infusion
an infused ascended ring with a 4 power infusion
an infused ascended ring with a AR+stat infusion
I’m still uncertain and some examples might help. Thanks in advance.
It would need to be 10% on #1 skill attacks from stealth, not 10% on just backstab.
A lot of people seem unhappy about the fractal level of characters being cut to 30 in the next update with new challenges on fractals 31-50. Let’s consider the alternative. What if new fractals had been put in at level 51-70, say, and everyone’s level had been cut to 50?
- Massive AR needed for level 70 – big gear gating -> big grind -> really unpopular
- Ridiculous mob scaling – how hard would level 70 mobs need to be?
- Excessive repetition needed for new players to reach 70 – massive unpopular grind
That’s not going to work, so how about putting the new content in at 31-50 and leaving everyone’s level as it is? That could be done but it is more sensible to cut it back to 30 and give everyone an equal run at the new content. Existing 30+ players haven’t beaten the fractals with the new challenges. They might be a lot more difficult than the current levels or need different builds, we don’t know yet.
So far Anet have tried to punish players by adding extra mobs into any repeated fractals, which is a stupid idea since it doesn’t stop the resets and it just annoying paying customers. If they haven’t come up with a better solution in this update then it won’t happen for a long time now.
At the moment we have the Jade Maw as an exit gateway that players always do last. My solution would have been to put a standard entry gateway fractal first and then random ones afterwards. People wouldn’t reset the random ones if they had to do the gateways again.
There was basically a design problem in the game where ascended items had an infusion slot and you used it either for AR or a different benefit. If you chose AR for fractals then you were under performing elsewhere compared to someone who had taken a power infusion, say. This update solves that design flaw by giving ascended items a specialist AR slot. You don’t have to choose between fractal capability vs PvE/WvW capability. This should be good for players.
I don’t see anything happening different with weapons except perhaps double handers getting 2 AR slots and 2 regular infusion slots.
I don’t really see them doing that as there would need to be infused legendaries then as well, which would just be bizarre. Adding hardcore content that needs even more AR appears to go against the game design Without that new AR gated content the AR on any ascended armor is going to be redundant as well.
If you use cloak and dagger with the blind on stealth trait you can get a more mobile style of play than using black powder. Pistol/dagger can kite small groups of mobs very easily so don’t ignore that for PvE.
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It should. Check previous posts.
1) Channeled skills also counter aegis and blind that only prevent one hit of damage
2) The counter to a channeled skill is an interrupt and you can still shadowstep/evade out
3) An instant skill deals all damage instantly so a channeled skill is never worse than that since there is time to interrupt
4) The channeller needs your target when the skill starts (same as an instant)
5) The channeled skill does not break stealth.
Channeling skills are much slower to apply damage than instants, often need the caster to be static, can be interrupted, other skills cannot be used at the same time, etc. They can be very weak. Stealth does not need to be yet another counter to them.
The problem involves loot bags but isn’t entirely loot bags. Some GW2 events scale up with more players but most become easier and can be finished faster (in itself that’s ok as they shouldn’t become harder). The rewards do not diminish as more players turn up (in itself that’s ok as loot shouldn’t decrease). Together these factors start the zerg since players get loot faster when using overwhelming numbers.
What champ bags do is push the equation even further in favor of zergs. Firstly it makes non-scaling champions mobs a target for zerg speed kills. Secondly it gives more loot to zergs when extra champions spawn in scaled up events. These factors encourage the zerg overkill of champions and events as a consequence of the design.
I certainly think there are some utilities that can be entirely scrapped and redesigned. Some utility lines, such as traps, are not broad enough to support a versatile build and could do with fresh ideas.
The basic reason for bringing new characters into the living story is that they can do all sorts of things to them, such as kill them off or turn them into villains. They can’t kill off a Destiny’s Edge character, or even someone like Queen Jennah, since they are shown alive in the personal story and story dungeons. My bet is that Marjory or Kasmeer will bite the bullet before too long, probably Marjory.
“I’m not complaining about warrior strenght, but on warrior’s options. "
Warriors have plenty of options. A lot of complaints about a weapon not offering cc or mobility are just sorted by pulling a different weapon out of the bag. Some classes have everything on one weapon but that’s only because they have such limited choice (elementalists).
Yes but it might already happen in places. Yes. Yes but this would favor early morning players and work against prime time players.
Fixing events that players never do isn’t a high priority though. There are enough problems to be solved in the events that players are doing.
There could be a clue in the “I’ll be seeing you before you see me” line. If she had some sort of scrying device it would tie into a few other parts of the story.
“But well, back to Scarlet. She isn’t a biologist, didn’t create the Molten Alliance weapons and Aetherblade Tech and she isn’t a mesmer ( saw this one from another in another thread ). Nothing in the game hints, that she had done such a thing. The Hybrid is a Toxic Alliance creation. "
No, there is nothing in the game to suggest that the hybrid is a toxic alliance creation (rather than Scarlet). That is just your assumption. There was nothing at all in the tower to suggest how this hybrid was researched or created. We see a militarized death trap in game but players can decide that it is research and birthing facility if they choose to do so. We still have no idea why a massive tower in the middle of Vaithan lake was necessary to all this. The story is completely full of holes and some players fill in the gaps with their own interpretation of the lore to satisfy themselves.
“So the only reason why people think that Scarlet is some kind of Sue is because she never admits defeat?”
That’s your supposition and it’s wrong. She is a bad villain because she is unbelievable in what she does. A lot of what she does is unexplained and you can either unquestioningly believe it or you question it then disbelieve it. This lore forum only exists because game players believe the game lore is worth discussing as a coherent believable package. As soon as the coherent lore is broken it just becomes rambling fantasy nonsense. That’s where we are with Scarlet.
If there were one or two holes in the story then we could expect them to be filled later or it might not even matter. This living story however is swiss cheese without the cheese.
The enemies can have their health pools scaled up if there are many players nearby. In a tight maze the enemies could be beefed up by players who are actually distant in terms of travel time.
The problem isn’t simple to fix. Events are not scaling properly in terms of challenge and reward. With more players the time taken and risk go down but the rewards go up. Game play usually gets worse with large numbers of players too . Since the event system is at the core of PvE it is a pretty serious problem that will undermine all attempts to make new event based content while it continues.
“First off, they’re NOT very mobile. That’s the issue”
Yeah get used it to it. Traps, turrets, smoke, spirits, fields, etc, are not particularly mobile either. Rangers have two entirely static utility lines with traps and spirits that need traits to make them worthwhile. You’ve a point that all utilities should be balanced, but to honest some classes have whole utility lines that are entirely dysfunctional and banners are just about fit for purpose (even if perceived as weak).
(edited by Stooperdale.3560)
Thief defensive skills can be inappropriate and negated far too often so it seems sensible to give us more health. If thieves had better defenses, including some useful passive defense, then thieves wouldn’t need a bigger health pool.
Some classes already complain that the stolen skills are better than their own skills. They won’t appreciate thieves using them again and again.
70 skill points will give you 14 separate benefits, some of which are fixed and some which come from a pool of 12 skills. There’s plenty of customization there.
In one sense you are looking at the design backwards. All skills are available for SPvP. That is the design. Leveling up in PvE (or WvW) is just a process to take you to the SPvP level.
Banners are fine. Compared to ranger spirits they are indestructible, mobile, and give extra skills. They can be placed on the run. They are reliable. They have good duration. They buff a group. They are fit for purpose with no trait support at all. If they’re not worth a slot in SPvP because warriors don’t need to specialize to defend points … well it’s a non-issue, in my opinion.
Us tracking her down is probably going to be part of the LS early next year, since the next LS seems to be fractals, and then we have Wintersday taking up most, if not all, of December.
That’s possible but the living world is meant to show us the world now. It is bad storytelling to suddenly introduce events that should have been happening all along, such as all Scarlet’s enemies trying to find her.
Do the enchanters respawn correctly yet on the cliffside or is that still busted once it fails?
Warrior. There are a lot of sophisticated answers but the simple truth is that they are just the best PVE class, only surpassed by guardians in high fractals. Class balance essentially doesn’t exist. Thieves for example can be great in some fractals but just horrid in others.
There’s another obvious gap in the living story now about who’s trying to track Scarlet down. Surely there would be someone trying to find her given how many powerful enemies she has created. That could make a story, but instead we get a mail each month from someone telling us to fight at a new base that has been stumbled upon.
There a few clues suggesting the Jungle dragon and a dozen clues suggesting Zaitan. It could be either but the personal story culminates in Zaitan so probably starts there as well.
Before everyone gets upset, lets remember that the tower is essentially zerg content. That isn’t good permanent content since zergs gets boring faster than some other content. As soon as players drift off and spend time elsewhere there won’t be enough people inside to keep it going and it’ll be a deathtrap for the solo players walking through.
Removing the tower also lets the living story put out more temporary zerg content later (hurray!). There will never be enough interested players to keep the Mad King’s Labyrinth, the Nightmare Tower, the Queen’s Pavillion, a Scarlet invasion, orrian temples, Jormag etc, and any new living story content all going at the same.
Yes, Scarlet is probably the alter ego of ANet’s lead designer. “My work here his done. Thousands of players are running around a maze and zerging monsters, entertaining me until I can find more minis for the game store.”
I think it will be the icebrood and the skirtt, but nobody will care a rat’s ice about it.
This is really rubbish. Why hasn’t it been fixed yet? Every time I run down the ramp from the top of the Nightmare tower I’m taking thousands of damaging from falling. It’s ridiculous.
There is a personal storyline where the skritt steal destroyer eggs and get into trouble. I don’t remember any suggestion of them being corrupted or being more susceptible due to their hive intelligence. Their biggest weakness was their individual stupidity.
“I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.”
Not believable. If that’s the mistake that the writers have made then the living story is totally doomed.
Anything can work really. You can pump up healing and pet stats to improve pet tanking as well for the really tough champs. Zerker does it faster.
“The more people taking defensive gear in zergs the worse it gets. "
Worse for the zerg, the better for player. Players are selfish so they take defensive gear in zergs. If you want to reduce your survivability by 25% for the zerg to take the boss down 1% faster then that’s your choice.
I’ll suggest something unthinkable. Kill some.
It’s the same answer for all these questions. If you enjoy it, play it. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t play it. If you missed it then don’t worry, there is more living story to play next month. Enjoying the game when you log on is more important than slavishly finishing achievements. Don’t set yourself goals that burn you out.
Within big random sequences you are likely to see repetition, patterns, big leads, etc. In fact, it would be very unlikely for a big random sequence to look satisfactorily random in every subset. Essentially, it means you can’t determine anything from somebody getting wonderful results from the forge while someone else gets nothing.
The forge is almost certain to be random as Anet gain nothing from designing it any other way.
Those down skills are designed for PvP balance so they are not much use in PvE. The shadowstep can get you out of aoe circles which is reasonable enough in a dungeon group.
People are saying that the living comes too quickly and is rushed etc but each chapter should have a few months lead time for development. The story should come first followed by scripts, voice acting, art design, zone layouts, monster design, play testing etc. So if a story writer decides to finish Scarlet then we wouldn’t see that until months later anyway.
Has anyone else noticed that due to the shortage of villains in the living story our allies are having to double as nightmare enemies within the side rooms? It makes no sense really.