Guild Wars 2

Swagg.9236:

Swagger.1459:

my original reply had an error and was eaten by the forum monsters so i’ll condense my response.

so “none of their attacks have any real punch to them.” really means “they need better defined skills.”. gotcha.

Eh, I suppose I should refine my point about ranger damage.

Although Ranger has a lot of whimpy attacks, they all have a spammable nature (short cool-down; nil cast-time) that allow them to snowball very quickly against an opponent that renders timing dodges or blocks irrelevant. That’s what needs to be fixed. Fixing it is a process of making skills slower and more independent from each other.

Swagger.1459:

the main issues are that rangers are tied to the hip with broken pets and are a mesh of bad ideas from 2 classes in beta. nothing you suggest would make any improvements.

I have a suggestion for that, but it’s not nearly as fleshed out as anything else here. I hesitate to put it up because it’s a very, very work-intensive—but ultimately rather simple—solution that I think would turn people off even more than reworking current skills.

Swagger.1459:

your pseudo dev balancing act across all professions only serves to slow down combat through longer cool downs, longer cast times, charge ups, big telegraphed animations

That’s the point. That sort of balance makes for legible combat in which players can actually capitalize on timed dodges and positioning. Right now spam-centric play-styles like those of the typical Ranger rule the metagame.

Swagger.1459:

and favors melee even more.

That’s not necessarily true. So long as a player uses positioning and snare skills properly, melee can be put in check while allowing the ranged player to maneuver about for a little while longer—or at least that is how it should be. There are some aspects of game-play which make it difficult to achieve such a simple paradigm.

Swagger.1459:

no thanks, professions and combat here are already on par with games like co and dcuo, we don’t need to make things worse

I’m telling you right now that dhuumfire and torment brought on the condi meta which brought on things like Diamond Skin. The only solution to the current condi/passive-proc/throaway-skill meta is simply straight up hard counter immunities and/or extended blocks or invulnerability. This trend will lead us down a path of more Diamond Skins, Incendiary Powders and Dhuumfires until everyone is just killing each other with repeated auto-attacks after having haphazardly pressed every other button on their skill bar.

You, I and a carp ton of people want professions and combat in this game improved, and to have an earnest effort and real investment on the developers part. I understand you have worked kitten your ideas and are passionate about them, but they only look good on paper to you and a couple other people. No, I don’t have all the answers myself, but I know that most of what you are proposing will have a negative affect on gameplay. While your intent is good, it’s your delivery of changes that don’t and won’t work. You need to look at the “bigger bigger” picture of things more before you go around niggling about numbers and percentages on a micro level.

Swagg.9236:

Swagger.1459:

I agree with this swag. “Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them.”

the pets (that are not getting fixed) are the main reason why rangers are weaker offensively. our entire class is balanced around a poorly made mechanic that has been forced on rangers. until pets serve a different function or are handled differently, all these ranger issues will remain the same. yeah, rangers need to do more damage, but not the way you are suggesting to balance things.

Rangers actually don’t necessarily need to do more damage, they need better defined skills. What’s stopping a ranger using [Poison Volley] on recharge or what’s letting an opponent know that a ranger is using [Poison Volley] at all? Does any of it really matter?

Most ranger skills are very much like that: spammable, whimpy, poorly-cued abilities that are instantly lost in even small fights. That’s what needs fixing. I have a fix for pets, but that’s for another thread entirely.

my original reply had an error and was eaten by the forum monsters so i’ll condense my response.

so “none of their attacks have any real punch to them.” really means “they need better defined skills.”. gotcha.

the main issues are that rangers are tied to the hip with broken pets and are a mesh of bad ideas from 2 classes in beta. nothing you suggest would make any improvements.

your pseudo dev balancing act across all professions only serves to slow down combat through longer cool downs, longer cast times, charge ups, big telegraphed animations and favors melee even more. no thanks, professions and combat here are already on par with games like co and dcuo, we don’t need to make things worse. we have had enough “miss the mark” development here, we don’t need anymore.

Josh Foreman.8250:

StriderShinryu.6923:

I suppose what it boils down to with me is a question of why the content needs to be an elite level challenge in the first place. Would it really be all that bad if an average group of players could win?

Not at all. The Marionette was not designed to be beaten only by “elite” players. We have an idea of where the average player is skill-wise, and placed the bar where we hoped would just a tad above that, in the hopes that they would have to stretch a bit. That stretching creates tension, which is the sweet spot in event-type content as far as I’m concerned. (as opposed to the abnegation style smooth sailing content that most of an MMO needs to be.) Without the tension new things get boring faster. Too much tension, (as seems to be your case) and people give up and the content is wasted on them. That seems to be your argument about this event.

Because the player base is a diverse lot, ANY amount of tension will frustrate SOME amount, causing them to be turned off. So fundamentally we have to ask ourselves if we want to ever ask the player to stretch, or keep them all in a happy abnegated state of chillaxing. Does the benefit to those who want some tension from time to time outweigh the frustration of those who don’t?

The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

Having said all that, if after a week the Marionette is still only being beaten 1 out of 10 times, then I would say we may have tuned it a bit too difficult. On the other hand, we don’t know how long it takes for the aggregate skill level of the player-base to grow. I don’t know how long it takes for information about traits and builds to disseminate to those who had previously never looked into them. As with all our content, we are closely watching and noting these things so that every future project can learn from it.

P.S. Because several people brought up the idea of buffing the other platforms when one succeeds, I thought I ought to let you all know that this has always been the case. When one platform’s power regulator is destroyed the players on the platforms adjacent get Electrify Aura which gives 60 seconds of protection, swiftness, regeneration, fury, might, vigor and retaliation.

for future events like this (i know it will take time to develop)…

-instanced content (which is sorely lacking here).
-have instances scale by number of players and allow for difficulty level to be chosen. city of heroes had an option for scaling and difficulty so check out the wiki.
-you can still “change the face of tyria” by adding blown up buildings, smoldering craters, new pretty flowers,… when the event it over.

i’m not trying to be negative, but you all are not really pioneering anything new here. it’s frustrating to not see lessons learned from all our mmo forefathers, especially from a modern “aaa” game like this. from a player standpoint, you guys and gals really need to step up your qol development so you can present and offer much better content to players.

I agree with this swag. “Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them.”

the pets (that are not getting fixed) are the main reason why rangers are weaker offensively. our entire class is balanced around a poorly made mechanic that has been forced on rangers. until pets serve a different function or are handled differently, all these ranger issues will remain the same. yeah, rangers need to do more damage, but not the way you are suggesting to balance things.

“Overpowered ranged skills in this game need to be wrangled back into obedience governed by the balancing principles listed above.”

I don’t think we are playing the same game here.

Overall, your ideas of “balance” and change are similar to what the devs have done. It’s been a bunch of number shuffling and reshuffling that has ignored major design flaws and issues. Almost nothing you suggested in the other thread moves this game forward. I’d like to suggest that you really look at things from a macro point of view before you keep tossing more unnecessary number shuffling ideas at the devs and this community.

Have a great day!

Swagg.9236:

Part 2 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

RANGER: "SPAM TO WIN!”
Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them. Across the board aside from a very select few skill, the Ranger’s offensive repertoire is loaded up with whimpy, throwaway, short cool-down, short cast-time attack skills. Most of the time, it’s very difficult to detail what the Ranger is doing until after the effects have hit you (unless they’re just auto-attacking). This sort of spammy blur of attacks is the kind of offensive paradigm that is unhealthy for GW2 because it undermines active damage mitigation such as dodges and single blocks. Because none of the Ranger attacks really have any “oomph” or are telegraphed particularly well, the Ranger just sort of throws skills at opponents which have to guess at random when they should maybe dodge or block.

By removing RNG passive procs while better defining and adding a little more power to individual ranger attacks, their presence on the battlefield will be less of a spam-bot and more of a mobile attack platform with unique, well-cued and potentially game-changing attacks.

great suggestions to make rangers much worse than they already are. the only thing these “balance” ideas will do is push more people to play warriors and thieves or leave the game entirely.

Godmoney.2048:

Last time they showed this…….oh wait i found it. Here I’ll link it to you.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

thanks!

yeah I saw that earlier, but that’s a breakdown of total so I’m looking for lvl 80 info and stats only.

how many characters have been made since launch?

what is the average amount of lvl 80 characters per account?

Among those lvl 80s, what are the profession breakdown percentages?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Swagger.1459:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Substance E.4852:

Then feel free to not troll the forums presenting opinions on class difficulty as fact that should be balanced around.

would you kindly please not accuse me of trolling the forums? i have every right to express my opinion in these forums. accusing me of trolling the forums is totally uncalled for.

the fact is, not everyone can play guardian properly. at least this is the case for me. therefore, guardian can be classified as one of the professions not so easy to play.

but a lot of people can play warrior easily. hence, warrior is one of the easier professions to play.

Swagger.1459:

and why is playing your guardian in spvp a no no

for starters, i do not know when to use the f1 f2 f3 skills, normally i just spam them together with the 90 seconds recharge time invulnerability skill when i feel like my guardian is going to die. the low base health does not allow many rooms for error. my latency is around 200ms – 300ms so playing warrior or other easier professions is much preferred for myself.

i heard people say, for guardians, you need to time your aegis or something, for those big attacks etc. i can never get that right in sPvP.

also, the concept of lowest health pool is not very appealing for me. same reason why i do not play an elementalist.

a game like this should be all about accessibility not alienation, and you have just made a huge case for streamlining profession controls and normalizing hp.

oh Swagger please dun twist my words would ya?

i said guardian is hard for me, but i am sure there are others who are very familiar with guardian. guardian may be hard for me, but for those who play guardians exclusively, i think not.

start looking at the bigger picture.

i’m not twisting words, you highlighted some core issues with the professions system. the more accessible and more balanced things are, the more players are willing to pick up, play and enjoy different professions.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Substance E.4852:

Then feel free to not troll the forums presenting opinions on class difficulty as fact that should be balanced around.

would you kindly please not accuse me of trolling the forums? i have every right to express my opinion in these forums. accusing me of trolling the forums is totally uncalled for.

the fact is, not everyone can play guardian properly. at least this is the case for me. therefore, guardian can be classified as one of the professions not so easy to play.

but a lot of people can play warrior easily. hence, warrior is one of the easier professions to play.

Swagger.1459:

and why is playing your guardian in spvp a no no

for starters, i do not know when to use the f1 f2 f3 skills, normally i just spam them together with the 90 seconds recharge time invulnerability skill when i feel like my guardian is going to die. the low base health does not allow many rooms for error. my latency is around 200ms – 300ms so playing warrior or other easier professions is much preferred for myself.

i heard people say, for guardians, you need to time your aegis or something, for those big attacks etc. i can never get that right in sPvP.

also, the concept of lowest health pool is not very appealing for me. same reason why i do not play an elementalist.

a game like this should be all about accessibility not alienation, and you have just made a huge case for streamlining profession controls and normalizing hp.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Substance E.4852:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

no. i strongly disagree.
the different health values are good, and working as intended.
if anything, they serve as a difficulty check for the professions.

easy mode – High (Warrior, Necromancer) – 18.372 HP
normal mode – Medium (Ranger, Engineer, Mesmer) – 15.082 HP
hard mode – Low (Thief, Guardian, Elementalist) – 10.805 HP

i firmly believe that the base health values are a core game play mechanic and should not be tampered with, ever.

Guardian is hard mode? lol that’s a good one.

at least it is hard mode for me. i can play my guardian okay-ishly in open world PvE, but for sPvP it is a big no no for me.

please try to understand that not everyone has the same skill level when playing online games.

and why is playing your guardian in spvp a no no?

Gloomspanner.5920:

Well, it would seem that if certain boss fights allow you to zoom out farther, then they could easily restrict the amount of zoom in PvP, WvW, and jumping puzzle areas. Why should the rest of the PvE world be punished by this?

equal zoom out won’t break the game. no reason to punish any play mode.

Cassocaster.4576:

In addition, if you could zoom way out, the jumping puzzle you are fighting so hard to beat would become much clearer (this is to state that I think it’s a bad idea).

that seems like a silly reason to think that an option for camera zoom is a bad idea.

Martrim.1078:

A while ago there was a glitch that gave people the ability to zoom out further.
It made arrow cards horribly OP, i realy don’t want to go back to that.

then fix arrow carts.

Gloomspanner.5920:

I would really, really, really like to be able to zoom my camera out further, and not just one the few boss fights that do it for you automatically. Can we please make this happen?

would be great!

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

On the most part it is balanced – several classes though need to be adjusted, either up or down.

speaking more from a pvp view, but pve has some issues as well…

hp to damage output by certain burst attacks is not balanced at all. 1-2-3 shot mechanics (on top of condition wars and a bunch of other junk) done by a single profession is a sign of extremely poor development, care, and financial investment. experience and game design 101 has taught us that it should not exist, but for some reason, anet has ignored many things for over a year and gotten a free pass for certain game decisions and designs like these. i suspect, come april, a huge chunk of pvpers will jump ship if anet doesn’t drastically improve professions and combat.

Tricare.2946:

Make sure you have auto-target off and these are the steps.

1. Run the direction you want to go
2. Select a target behind you or even something you’re about to run past (rabbit ect.)
3. Use your #2 skill
4. Drop target
5. Make sure you’re facing/running the direction you want to go
6. Press #2 again.

No matter where your target is, the move will face your target and evade away from it.

watched the vid. you’re a decent player, but you got lucky to get away from that group and you know it. also, the post I’m quoting basically highlights a gimmicky way to move around the battlefield and only reinforces the need for better forms of movement to stay more competitive in wvw.

somehow I get the feeling that these “amazing things for rangers” will be like the “incredible new items in the gem store”.

tinfoil hat time…
I bet they introduce that “it’s just testing” monthly payment model with subscription perks before they do their balance and content patch so they can try to financially “lock in” as many (disappointed) players as they can from jumping ship this spring.

Cynz.9437:

…LA? If you got Scarlet diary you can see maps and there is one showing LA with 4 red crosses on entrances?

Also, if you talk to Captain Gnashblade, he will complain about how how troops are sent out of LA and that Scarlet gonna hit LA one day~

can’t wait to loot the blt… err save la!

Vol.7601:

Please, I’d love to hear your solution to overflows.

instances instead of open world for raid/squad/guild/very large groups?

X The Manimal.5293:

(Wanted to see if I could get a Dev response for this but also wondering if anyone else is still suffering from this even after the FOV increase that ANet implemented.)

For a while now I’ve been jumping into GW2 to try out the new patches only to log out within seconds. I simply could not stand the low FOV and limited camera zoom even after the FOV increase. I feel like I’m playing the game while staring at the ground most of the time.

I believe this could easily be fixed by allowing us to zoom out more. Currently the camera severely limits the experience because in most cases you’re staring more at the ground than the horizon and sky just to see what’s in front of you. If you try to position your camera to see the horizon, it ends up getting caught on the smallest of objects and gets very agitating. The camera seems to be fixed towards the middle of your character which also adds to this weird feeling. I loathe having to run into a cave or tight spaces where the camera gets obscured so much by any little object or wall. It’s very frustrating.

I bought the collector’s edition for the bad-kitten Rytlok but also because I really believe in ANet’s vision and can see the potential with everything they implement but until this is resolved, I just can’t force myself to play this way.

A question to Devs: Are there game-engine or programming limitations to allowing more customization to the camera and player perspective? The FOV increase was a step in the right direction, but I strongly urge you to consider increasing the zoom distance as well.

improved view would be welcome.

as for your dev question, they have increased zoom for certain encounters and it works out great for many reasons so I don’t see why it cant be easily implemented.

what are your top 3 ideas to make alting friendlier?

mine…
1. waypoints unlocked on account, not just per character.
2. all gear made account bound even after use.
3. account wide xp boost per lvl 80 character. for example, each lvl 80 character that you have adds a10% bonus to xp gain for all account characters.

Fasalina.6571:

There are probably 400k people currently playing the game.
I’d assume it impossible for you to be the only one in anything you do in game.

And yes, the hype was real, especially for the GW1 folks that hoped to find a decent successor to their beloved game. Instead they found a “kitten”. The blood flowing through this game is only half royal. Because king papa made love with a lowlife steward and GW2 came out

lol great way to sum up gw2!

I agree. instances for squads and more forgiving event completion timers would be the best ideas for these events going forward.

Atherakhia.4086:

low hanging fruit approach to patching has got us into the mess we’re in now. It’s about time they focused on severe problems and glaring balance issues.

cut them some slack, they are just trying to be unique and innovative in the mmo world by not focusing on these problems and balance issues.

disappointed. 0/10.

why? uber lag. skills were not going off for the run to wurm. more lag. no loot from mobs. boring press 1, dodge and heal content (great professions and combat system you designed for the game). unrealistic to accomplish considering it would take a carp ton more people that would only contribute to the lag. I’m assuming that even if it were finished, the rewards would be carp too. waste of time and resources. better off dropping the balance patch asap, not spring.

your engine cannot handle what you are trying to do, but you keep making open world zerglagjunk content. you need raid group instances for this carp.

“We like to do things a little bit different from everyone else, we like to try to push the envelope, we want to innovate the industry, we don’t want to just copy/paste what’s been doing before. That comes with the possibility of great success and always the risk that you might do something that your player base doesn’t respond well to. But if we’re smart enough to listen to people’s feedback, at the end of the day we’ll always be able to succeed.”

we shall see just how much you all have been listening when the spring time patch drops.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I pray to the gods of RNG, but they rarely answer.

Funny, I’ve had the same experience. Then I tried praying to Zommoros thinking I might get better results, but nope. These gods and djinns are extremely standoffish and nonresponsive, so I think I’m going to try Zhaitan next.

Wildchild.7502:

I have one big concern thats totally breaking the balance with Ranger VS Any other classes

It’s mainly the ’’F2’’ on keyboard ability. Which is the ‘’Pet Special Ability’’

For every other classes the skill is instant while on the ranger it almost never work cause if the pet is using another ability that you cant really control. It will take so much time. The pet will stop moving, cancel the current ability and then start casting the ability you finally want to use.

in a fight that thing last forever. let say I’m using a dog and I want to immbolize an enemy running toward me. There is no way my dog is gonna be able to stop the enemy from charging me because its not instant and require the pet to stop moving to cast it.

We understand what you’re saying, but the main issues are that pets have an extremely poor design and you can easily tell how little resources were devoted to creating them. Fixing f2 will not resolve any balance concerns, there are much deeper problems with rangers (all professions too). If bigger issues like these are not resolved soon, it will be more than just ranger pets coming back to bite them in the backside (pun intended).

Ross Biddle.2367:

The distinction has already been made, there’s more than just “best mobility”, there’s also best landspeed. Warriors are the undisputed kings of GW2 landspeed. The question needs to be asked, has Landspeed been considered for balance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8wtucvZJs

This gameplay is outside the pale and warrior exclusive. It needs to be brought back in line with the rest of the game.

There are certain mechanics that all professions should share (particularly with class designs like we have here) and movement is one of them. Hopefully the spring patch will have resolved many of the disparities between professions. If not, it will be a huge misstep with all player concerns and competitors considered.

Zenaide.3046:

I just want a pet ooze

pet oozes would be awesome! would be even more awesome if they could change into various weapons during combat and mimic certain profession attacks. for example, you could have one that can take shape of a dagger that bounces around and has an auto attack like heartseeker. the f2 ability could be a stealth/backstab combo on a 10 second timer. all damage would be equivalent to a lvl 80 thief built for high damage. warrior hammer ooze… elementalist staff ooze… mezmer greatsword ooze… guardian shield ooze… think of the possibilities and amazing balance oozes could provide rangers!

jcbroe.4329:

Swagger.1459:

jcbroe.4329:

Personally, I prefer that they fix the bugs in the game that are causing unintentional functionality before they put too much of a focus on balance/overhaul. Unintended functionality could lead to even more bugs down the road if they don’t nip them in the bud now, and since ANet seems to enjoy using inheritance in their coding, a bug could be passed through and effect multiple things, and changing it at that point could literally break everything that they spend time building on top of the bug.

So personally, I think that it’s good that they get this stuff done now. I saw some true excitement about the ranger changes they were unwilling/unable to talk about during the stream, which is a true first to see the devs excited about something ranger related.

So ultimately, we’ll have to wait to see if the changes are as exciting to us as they seemed to be to the devs.

After the patch though, the Elite Spirit will still be one of the best elites in the game, and Empathic Bond will be functioning just like I had though it always functioned, and the traps will maybe get something I thought they should have always had.

Here’s to hoping some fresh gameplay is created though!

valid points j. guess i’m just tired of seeing potential wasted and larger issues neglected across all professions.

I definitely understand. It took years for ANet to get Guild Wars 1 balance into a good place. The majority of the time, their balance patches always ended up leaving something overpowered, and something nerfed so hard it wasn’t part of the metagame anymore.

I get jaded just like everybody else, and I don’t blame anybody, because any reasonably negative (aka not making threats or being so insulting that it no longer comes of as criticism) things being said about ANets patching/balancing are just criticisms that are brought on by their own methodology and the changes that are actually made at the end of the day.

Guild Wars 1 took 3 months between balance patches. Even if it was a pressing issue, if it didn’t constitute as a bug, ANet wouldn’t fix it. Coming from that kind of experience with their patching process, I can honestly say that seeing any sort of changes a month after a balance patch shows me that balance is taking a much larger precedence for them this time around, which shows signs that it still has the potential get better.

I just let the patch notes determine how much “criticism” I offer up at the end of the day. So it’s more of just a wait and see thing until Tuesday (I think the 21st is patch day anyways).

Right now we’re in what I like to refer to as “balance limbo” where ANet does a livestream/patch preview and only gives the tiniest actual details out about the incoming changes, which then stimulates the forum into an entire knee-jerk reaction based on the smallest amount of facts combining with the largest amount of speculation possible.

The best way to not let it effect you or get to you is to just get away from the forums and wait until patch day to see for yourself. I found that I enjoy the game much better when I’m not always reading about every little thing that’s wrong with it on the forums. Granted that gameplay gets stale and there are still glaring issues at times, but without all the doom and gloom, the game can at least remain enjoyable, and I can walk away and do something else whenever I’m just not feeling Guild Wars 2.

points well written and advice being implemented so I can balance out my forum frustrations with some reason. personal patch notes will be made available tomorrow! thanks j!

jcbroe.4329:

Personally, I prefer that they fix the bugs in the game that are causing unintentional functionality before they put too much of a focus on balance/overhaul. Unintended functionality could lead to even more bugs down the road if they don’t nip them in the bud now, and since ANet seems to enjoy using inheritance in their coding, a bug could be passed through and effect multiple things, and changing it at that point could literally break everything that they spend time building on top of the bug.

So personally, I think that it’s good that they get this stuff done now. I saw some true excitement about the ranger changes they were unwilling/unable to talk about during the stream, which is a true first to see the devs excited about something ranger related.

So ultimately, we’ll have to wait to see if the changes are as exciting to us as they seemed to be to the devs.

After the patch though, the Elite Spirit will still be one of the best elites in the game, and Empathic Bond will be functioning just like I had though it always functioned, and the traps will maybe get something I thought they should have always had.

Here’s to hoping some fresh gameplay is created though!

valid points j. guess i’m just tired of seeing potential wasted and larger issues neglected across all professions.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, “top DPS builds” will be losing about 10% damage. If the relationship between Ferocity and critical damage percentage is linear, all critical builds will lose about 10%, not just the top builds. In order to affect the top builds more than those with lesser gear, there would have to be some amount of diminishing return once you reach a certain threshold in Ferocity. If that’s the case, where is that threshold?

So who exactly got nerfed? Did Ascended pursuers take a bigger hit than those who stuck with exotic or worse? Did everyone take the same hit to pay for Ascended adding damage on the top in the first place? Is there a sliding scale?

Finally, just how much critical damage percentage did Ascended add to the game? Is this cut-back to reign outliers in, or to add ~10% to the health of every mob out there as far as all crit builds are concerned?

Guess we won’t know til this goes live.

at face value, this change will not have a noticeable affect. seems like an overall waste of time and coding when there are larger issues to tackle.

edit- players are still going to get blasted in the face by big hits from a single profession and downed in seconds. hp disparities that allow for 1 shot mechanics will still exist. burst will still remain out of control and alienate more players in pvp environments. the go to profession list will be the same for content. damage builds will remain king because the other quasitrinityishbutnotish build mechanics are terrible. list goes on…

Lexandro.1456:

Yeah, “amazing” in anet’s mind mean things like the sic-em change or a the LB4 change for stealth. I’ve lost any kind of faith in Anet when it comes to improving the ranger.

if those are any kind of indicators, then yes, there are some truly “amazing” things coming down the pipeline.

Mario Lemieux.9107:

Is simple: stop DEBUFFING. Players dont like to hear “you will do less damage” “you will now loot less” “you will now be less interested in our game”

Stop taking things AWAY from players.

For goodness sakes, why was it IMPOSSIBLE to just freakin BUFF the other stat combos??? Slightly BUFF the power/prec/crit dmg, or whatever else is viable, for the other stat sets?!?!

Abominable decision here. Wonder how many will consider this their last straw with Anet.

Another example: (quote from dulfy) “We moved stat weights to later bonuses (i.e. 4, 5, 6) so people don’t use mix-match rune bonuses.”

Why? Let people be creative and mix and match. Why the hell would you do this?
You might as well not let us mix and match armor skins.
While you’re at it, only 1 dye color per armor set.

Gosh this game has come a long way…down.

reply for your overarching message…

I agree, this game keeps going down hill and the quarterly financials are representative of that. lots of talk and fluff without proof in the pudding so to speak. there is definitely more mmo business than usual around these parts, and last years patch notes speak for themselves. I know the devs work hard, but it’s the smart that is missing.

Tricare.2946:

We are getting more nerfs. However, there are buffs coming…..

-Spirit of Nature – ‘reduced’ to 320hp/second
-Talking about adding fields to traps, maybe.
- Empathic Bond- no longer removes conditions if pet is dead. (which I’m 90% sure, was already the case)

so let me get this right…

-less HoT on a very particular build that was an op bug? was it really so strong comparatively? really?
-activated trap provides us a bit more damage and effects to attacks that encourages us to stand in a small area so it’s easier for opponents to blast us in the face. this will all be made useless anyway because of all those red circles being tossed around players.
-makes sense when pets are dead, but the pets are dead a lot and useless in most situations anyway.

this looks to me like bunker nerf… err “bug fix” that will ultimately benefit opponents, but whatever at this point.

looking at the big picture…
there so many huge boulders blocking all professions from progressing and they keep wasting time and resources kicking around pebbles like these? with all due respect, are these guys cs majors who are true gamers or just cs majors with console experience that only analyzer spread and stat sheets all day? I’m not trying to be rude, but each patch seems more and more out of touch with what is currently going on in the game and basically does nothing to create a better professions and combat experience. essentially they just toss more sugar on **** and move it around as opposed to cleaning it up. I don’t care about these supposed great and awesomely cool stuffz that can’t be mentioned, I care about what is being said, and more importantly, what is in patch notes. I’m sorry for being so negative, but the track record here is extremely poor and this “meta” clearly reflects developer experience, care and level of investment.

edit- I don’t know about you guys and gals, but after a year of subpar development that keeps missing the mark, I don’t see a brighter gaming experience for the long run. there better be some miracle patches being uploaded soon or this game will keep “thinning out” as it has been.

I believe engineers need a rocket launcher to make them more viable and balanced across all game modes.

thanks for reading!

edit- I’m being sincere.

Cynz.9437:

Swagger.1459:

Brando.1374:

that is straight up glass.
using all utilities for his burst, no condi removal, no healing in stealth, no Blinds, no stun breakers, no stability
he will most likely die if someone tickled him for 2 seconds.

Burst compared to hp is straight up asinine.

No one who actually cares for a healthy and balanced pvp experience cares about what you have to sacrifice to obtain such high burst numbers. They care about getting rid of ridiculous game mechanics like these for long term retention and increased player participation.

If I were a game developer, I’d be embarrassed to let poor mechanics like these remain as long as they have.

and what would you give thieves instead? they should like any class have a chance in fight, don’t you think?

stuff. idk. whatever. i’m talking in macro not micro, so I don’t care to think about it right now. all professions (that includes our precious little thieves) need work, but the elephants in the room need to start being addressed for balanced changes, improved gameplay and diversity to occur.

Brando.1374:

that is straight up glass.
using all utilities for his burst, no condi removal, no healing in stealth, no Blinds, no stun breakers, no stability
he will most likely die if someone tickled him for 2 seconds.

Burst compared to hp is straight up asinine.

No one who actually cares for a healthy and balanced pvp experience cares about what you have to sacrifice to obtain such high burst numbers. They care about getting rid of ridiculous game mechanics like these for long term retention and increased player participation.

If I were a game developer, I’d be embarrassed to let poor mechanics like these remain as long as they have.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s one of those human things to do something with the path of least resistance and danger, especially when there is a reward at the end. I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
I think the better solution is to look at why people are skipping things, and approach from a different angle. Trash mobs have too much HP, and can’t be counted on for lucrative drops from a Risk/Time vs Reward, so people interested in making money (most groups) aren’t incentivized to do it, whereas the end chest/boss are more guaranteed and accountable returns on time and risk. I also think there is something to be said about interesting trash mob mechanics making them more enjoyable of a fight.
I can’t make the rewards from trash mobs so lucrative though that people just farm the first couple trash mobs/boss in a dungeon and then rinse/repeat. We encountered this when people just farmed the first boss in an instance and then restarted it (earlier around launch time), and we had to adjust the content as a result. It’s a fine line you have to walk to encourage players to get to the end, but make the process of getting there rewarding enough as well.

I don’t imagine this next update will resolve all the skipping behavior. The path of least resistance is engrained in people, and even if I do everything I could to incentivize people, there will still be those who skip stuff. I have been fixing exploits that will require players to complete more of the events in dungeons, but I am sure people will still skip what they can to get to their end goal.

For now I would encourage those not looking to skip to find some folks who don’t like skipping and make a guild with them… or maybe look for guilds that are dedicated to not skipping, and tag along with them. I’m in a couple of them (anonymously), and it really is an effective solution to playing the game the way you want to play it: Find other people with similar interests and band together with them.

some immediate ideas… clearing a dungeon path provides bonus popup chests. boss chest rewards modified upward by how much you kill. each kill provides a bonus to mf for drops and reward chests that disappears when dungeon is complete.

long term ideas… push the other devs hard for profession changes so you can make much better instanced, dungeon and fractal content.

Devata.6589:

Swagger.1459:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Mimizu.7340:

I see so many animals in the game that I would like to charm into a ranger pet yet the game only allows me a small portion of them.

Ranger pets need expanding to include all the working animals in the game.

I would like a Stag pet, for example.

(and i miss the zoo island from gw)

That is one of the elements I touched on with the RP part of horizontel progression here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/63#post3494474

It´s not yet on the proposal list. Hope Chris will adds that soon. Think the RP (or casual or whatever you name it) horizontal progression is pretty much non-existing in GW2 and it could make huge steps there.

Can you put a short proposal together for the CDI group to discuss please?

Chris

love you chris, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

I understand you asked for a discussion proposal, but it is currently unnecessary because this topic has been discussed for over a year now. pets are mostly useless and hinder ranger performance, balance against other classes and overall growth. many will be highly upset if any development dollars goes toward adding more pets when you cannot improve the ones we currently have, and continue to force this poorly made profession mechanic. most players would be all for this if you genuinely fix the ranger and the pet became completely optional, but until then, no thank you sir.

love,
swagger

The point here is horizontal progression. You see, there are many people who like to collect minis, do fun crafts and find rare pets. It’s not so much about the combat mechanic but about you going and finding that rare one of making a full collection.

I know people do complain about ho useless pets but mini’s are also useless or fun crafts that have been talked about are also useless in a sence that they don’t add anything to the fight. It however does add something for horizontal progression. And thats what this CDI is about.

The part that didn’t get quoted was the one asking for more ranger pets. Rangers don’t need more pets until fundamental flaws to performance are addressed. There does not need to be additional discussion on adding pets, there needs to be a proposal on fixing the ranger and implementing these fixes to our class mechanics first.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Vol.7601:

Atlas.9704:

Comparing to Game of Thrones? Very ambitious, but let’s see how Season 2 goes before assuming such things.

The big patch idea I like, hopefully some of that Quality of Life stuff will be housing related.

I’m sure if Scarlet ended up like the folks @ The Red Wedding, people in GW2 would take that over an expansion ;p

I’m going to roll with the idea that Scarlet becomes our ally at the end of this arc. That way, she’ll ALWAYS be a part of every Living Story going forward.

That would be awesome! I can see it now… We free scarlet from the corruption of the dragons evil plot to destroy tyria and become her sidekick! Then scarlet and treeherguy fall in love and we follow and support them as they save the world from mysticism and tyranny! Maybe she will get a cool sword too and they can morph together to battle titanic monsters while we watch! Then during each of their celebrations, we could play the role of fun box and firework manager so we can make sure everyone celebrates their accomplishments in style! Perhaps we will earn another pact token as well! So excited!!!

lordkrall.7241:

Swagger.1459:

and they keep doing so in a pathetic “slap your loyal customers in the face” kinda way. well, I guess when financials keep dropping, it’s only feasible to spend development dollars on cheap and cheesy items and content.

Hm?
How are they slapping me and others like me in the face?
Because they release things you personally don’t like?

I’m sorry you don’t understand the bigger picture. oh well, have a great day!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Mimizu.7340:

I see so many animals in the game that I would like to charm into a ranger pet yet the game only allows me a small portion of them.

Ranger pets need expanding to include all the working animals in the game.

I would like a Stag pet, for example.

(and i miss the zoo island from gw)

That is one of the elements I touched on with the RP part of horizontel progression here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/63#post3494474

It´s not yet on the proposal list. Hope Chris will adds that soon. Think the RP (or casual or whatever you name it) horizontal progression is pretty much non-existing in GW2 and it could make huge steps there.

Can you put a short proposal together for the CDI group to discuss please?

Chris

love you chris, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

I understand you asked for a discussion proposal, but it is currently unnecessary because this topic has been discussed for over a year now. pets are mostly useless and hinder ranger performance, balance against other classes and overall growth. many will be highly upset if any development dollars goes toward adding more pets when you cannot improve the ones we currently have, and continue to force this poorly made profession mechanic. most players would be all for this if you genuinely fix the ranger and the pet became completely optional, but until then, no thank you sir.

love,
swagger

lordkrall.7241:

The game needs to make money in order to survive.

and they keep doing so in a pathetic “slap your loyal customers in the face” kinda way. well, I guess when financials keep dropping, it’s only feasible to spend development dollars on cheap and cheesy items and content.

Artereis.1260:

Can we solicit opinions from the balance team about certain issues? I’d really like to hear someone speak of what the general opinion is regarding movement speed in all aspects.

Out of combat: Is there a desire to bring parity between the classes with respect to out of combat movement speed, either including or excluding abilities with a movement component? Is the ability to rune a set of armor to gain additional swiftness to close the gap considered the best case scenario, or a band-aid or something in between?

In combat: Are all classes currently where they are meant to be for in combat mobility? Are there certain areas that are being considered for improvement or impairment?

all professions should have the same movement speed and access to movement abilities. additionally, base movement needs to be increased and combat movement suppression needs to be removed because running in mud is not enjoyable.

Lamir.6702:

Sword [PvE] : The auto attack root is incredibly jeopardizing and the long delay on #2 and #3 make them unsatisfactory as replacement dodges in many situations. Please consider changing for PvE. There is little to no upside to the root effect. Rarely any enemies will run away from you in PvE and if they are you can just run to them normally.

This is my biggest issue with ranger. There was a dev post earlier on the ranger thread where the dev said he thought he had an idea but then discussed with the team and they thought it was “interesting functionality” or to that effect. I’m sorry but maybe in PvP that could be the case, but there are no situations that I can think of endgame PvE where the rooting effect of the sword auto is more than a detriment to both yourself and your team (of course it is still good DPS but why is the root there?). You need to dodge in many end game areas if you want to stay alive and if you want to move you should be able to use the keyboard WASD. I can understand that certain skills can function this way – but not an autoattack! It’s a skill that needs to be able to DPS without putting yourself in some serious danger.

One way people currently deal with this is to either turn off auto attack or use a channeled skill to interrupt the auto chain, both of which are unwieldy and both of which still produce a delayed dodge because you have to finish the current sword attack if it’s on #2 or #3 in the chain (which will be maybe 0.2s) before you can actually start dodging.

it needs to be changed for all game modes.

Akisame.9508:

OGDeadHead.8326:

If warrior damage is 100, what is ranger damage compared to that?

1. Ranger hits every attack, pet hits every fourth/fifth attack = ? damage
2. Ranger hits every attack, pet hits every second attack = ? damage
3. Ranger hits every attack, pet hits every attack = ? damage

I would think that ranger total damage was calculated from the beginning to be ranger+pet hit all of their attacks, just like any other class.

That is the way they are doing the math, problem is pet hits less then 25% of the time and is normally dead (in WvW at least) through 3/4 of the battle on a 60 second timer is it? Leaving us with 30% less damage for a full minute during a battle. Not only that but we don’t even hit all the time with ranged weapons because of the constant sidestepping to evade our arrows and if they are standing on a pebble we get a obstruction message or out of range message even if they are not obstructed or out of range. I love it when I can’t hit someone below me from the fort wall with a bow and arrow because they are out of range but if I could spit, I’d nail them in the forehead! They need to give ranger’s 100% of the damage control, pet’s do not work, they stated this already, and they also stated that they do not plan on fixing it any time soon. We’ve waited a year already, it’s time for us to receive our full damage and screw the pet!

great points and love that last sentence!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Aeonblade.8709:

Swagger.1459:

I hope that if a “grand journey” to horizontal progression is introduced, the paths are equally offered to wvw, pvers and dungeon/fractal players or you’ll run into the same issues that we currently have with ascended vertical progression.

This, remember, WvW centric players aren’t going to be pleased if they have to farm PvE for their progression, be it horizontal or vertical

I certainly respect your points.

Chris

thanks sir, you are awesome! i can’t wait for all of my respectable points to be implemented!

sincerely,
your humble respectable points person