Guild Wars 2

Peutrifectus.4830:

Engineer

Hip Shot: Increased the range to 1200.
Net Shot: Increased the range to 1200.
Blunderbuss: Increased the range to 700.
Overcharged Shot: Increased the range to 600.
Jump Shot: Increased the range to 800.

Praise the devs…. now sort out the ping spikes kitten bags

Took them more than a month to integrate the range trait for Rifle.

Now we’re waiting for Pistol, Elixirgun, and did they fix bombkit range yet?

Never got a word on all the things they said they wanted to do, but ultimately didnt. And considering just how much stuff was bugged, who knows if any of this was intented or not.

Its an objective fact that without the prepurchase bonus character slot (which does not apply to preorder or, purchase on or post launch), the new player gets a better deal for the same price than a veteran player.

They are using the pressure of getting a fair deal to get people to prepurchase, i am not okay with that as a bussiness practise. My money should get me atleast just as much value when i buy HoT on launch as someone who didn’t spend the past 3 years supporting GW2.

What difference does it make if he talks about dollars and i talk about euros? GW2 cost me just as much as HoT will, not including the extra 10euros for the char slot.

And i already said i dont care that a char slot is a prepurchase bonus. Besides that the game should be a good deal without prepurchase goodies, i do not plan to prepurchase a game for which so much info is still not disclosed. To just spend 45euros on good faith now and hope that its worth it so i save the 10euros for a char slot.

Also you will lose that bet, i dont blindly buy into hype for games at all. I do my homework before i buy a game, read or watch reviews, watch streams, published information, that sort of thing. Unlike many of the people who prepurchased HoT and didnt even so much as read the FAQ, as was made apparent when people thought every beta event ever was a Beta Weekend Event.

IndigoSundown.5419:

HoT is atm $10 less than GW2 was when it released.

This isnt true at all. I got GW2 from the store for 45euros. HoT however i cannot find for a cheaper price at stores because they dont carry it, the number of resellers for HoT is considerably less then GW2.

So they both cost me 45euros.

But wait! To enjoy the content like Revenant i need to get a character slot as well, thats another 10euros. So that ends up making HoT more expensive than GW2 was.

And i dont care that if i prepurchase i get a free slot, because i dont want to gamble 45euros on the off chance i really end up wanting HoT. The product itself should be attractive enough, and not base its value on prepurchase bonuses.

If youre just in it for WvW (or pvp) then there isnt much content exclusive to HoT, and that can make 55euros a difficult sell.

Essentially what you wont get is as a WvW player is Specializations, Revenant and Guild Hall.

HoT does very little for WvW.

Stochastic.1398:

Phy.2913:

“To continue playing the game after HOT launches – existing players would need to pay a nominal expansion fee of around $15 or there account would be suspended.”

Ya, no. That would be a kitten storm to end all kitten storms.

With the release of the expansion they are effectively doing that, but making everyone pay 50 instead of 15. I have no doubt the new specializations will be OP.

This is simply not true.

You pay 50euros for the HoT exclusive content, but the non’HoT exclusive content and the already existing content you can still play just fine.

And what group of players might not care to much about HoT? Well, WvW players for one. HoT has surprisingly little exclusive content if all you play is WVW. The new borderland is for everyone.
I would not get Revenant or Specializations, everything else in HoT i really do not care about at all. Frankly i find paying 55euros for just specializations and the Revenant (the only content i remotely care about) far to expensive. So i am probably not going to buy HoT as a result, because its not really worth it. Maybe, probably, when there is a discount later down the line.

I doubt i am a special snowflake, surely there are other players who are in the same boat as me. And this was just about WvW.

For pvp the new gamemode is also part of the basegame it seems, the exclusive part is one of the Heroes you summon. So what do pvp players lose out on? One hero, Guild Halls if you really care for that a lot, specializations and the Revenant. Again, one could really wonder if 55euros is worth it to these players and im sure many do.

HoT is mostly a big deal for PvE players or players who dabble in everything. If youre just in it for pvp or wvw, you have a kitten good reason to question if HoT is really worth the asking price if you arent going to enjoy or partake in the majority of the content.

This event is so divorced from what WvW is actually like, that if this is what gets people into WvW they will be gone when the event is as well. Because clearly if this is what they want, WvW is not their cup of tea.

This is unneeded and a lazy way to attempt to solve a problem of diversity.

Ele’s and Engi’s who have a mechanic to get more skills do not get weaponswap, because they have another way to get those extra skills.
In the same way Revenant had another way, rather than swapping weapons they swapped utility skills. Either way they get their extra skills on a swap.

The problem was that utility skills as a result were not customizable, unlike utility skills for other professions. Leaving Revenants with two types of skills that are static, Weapon (like everyone else) and utility (unlike everyone else).

What Revenant really needed was simply more utility skills. To allow the player to choose which of the X number of utility skills available under each Legend he/she would socket.
But that would mean more effort as new utility skills had to be designed and made. Weaponswap is just a cheap bandaid, Revenants should not have it. They get to many skills for cheap now while maintaining their professions mechanic of energy rather than cooldowns for utility skills. But at the same time they are stuck with static skills that they cannot customize.

Just know that if you aren’t on SFR, EotM is effectively dead as an option. On you if you care about this or not.

I never wanted the hobosacks completely taken away. Just that people who didnt like them to be given an option. Something like a toggleable option where the individual can choose if they want bundles to overwrite back skins, or not.

Since i spend most of the time staring at my characters kitten the backpiece was a far bigger tell to me on what kit i had equiped than a weapon skin is. Since the game sometimes hangs up when switching to, or more particular when dropping, kits.

Gav.1425:

Before the change, boon stripping was effective and trains had counters.

No it wasn’t, and no there weren’t.

AoE boonstripping is either random, or deliberately targeted stability last (i.e Wells). And Mesmers were very rare indeed in the Hammertrain meta. Within the huge mess of boons (swiftness, aegis, retal, protection, regen) and the easy to reapply more (aoe) stability, boon stripping was never effective.
There was no counter to hammertrains either, just another hammertrain.

Gav.1425:

Ranged and melee IMO had a balance. Tanks leap in for the tank bomb. Range use positioning and boon strips to deal with it.

The balance was, 80% Warrior+Guardians get blanket CC immunity for the duration of the fight, while a few necro’s and ele’s stood at the backlines throwing in a bit of aoe.
Everything else was not really part of the hammertrain meta, and boon stripping wasn’t effective.

Gav.1425:

Now in WvW, unless there is a very organized group with at least 2 coordinated guardians per party, tank trains are a thing of the past.

Thank goodness. Dullest meta we had, and we had it for almost two full years. Nothing interesting about “press stability, spam 1, run into enemy blob”. Fights ended very quickly, most professions and builds had no place at all in this meta. It was the most exclusive meta we’ve ever had in WvW.

Is this the kind of WvW we want?

Compared to the dull, exclusive, stale hammertrain meta? kitten yes.

But i get why some people are kittened. They rolled a Warrior or a Guardian and went with the Hammertrain meta. For two years they were the golden duo above and beyond all else. Sucks that isn’t neccesarily true anymore.

Anyway i’d wait to see what Revenant does, that profession has some gnarly aoe projectile counters.

Fox.3469:

You still aren’t getting it.

I get it just fine, you’re the one that doesn’t seem to understand what your asking for.

Fox.3469:

If the optimal way would be let’s say 5 moderately tanky/supp/dps people for a pug,

Why? You are going to punish less tanky professions if you do this. Why can you not see this?
A Warrior is natively far more durable then an Engineer, so the Warrior doesn’t have to sacrifice as much dmg by taking tanky stats as an Engineer to be durable enough for the content. As a result, everyone only wants Warriors.

Fox.3469:

The point is that 5 zerkers works and destroys all combo’s possible.

That’s an exegeration. If i do dungeons i go with friends and we all play kind of whatever, never a problem with clearing dungeons quickly.

Fox.3469:

The optimal way for hard group content should always be on teamspeak with people you know, having some sort of team build that works. If that isn’t the case something in your game is broken.

And it is. What on earth makes you think that a well coordinated group of people on Ts that have experience playing with eachother are not more efficient at clearing content than a rag-tag team of randoms?
The builds that work is all of them. That isn’t broken that is by design.

People need to really get a good grasp of the difference between viable and optimal.

Currently everything is pretty much viable. You can clear a dungeon with 5x Zerkers, and you can clear that same dungeon with 5x Clerics. That’s viable.

It’s faster with 5x Zerkers than it is with 5x Clerics. That’s optimal.

Enforcing roles or forcing certain itemsets other than zerkers (or other equally squishy sets i.e. Rampager) will diminish the pool of builds that are viable. But we will still be stuck with only 1 setup that is optimal.
And considering profession imbalance, this could very easily push certain professions out of being viable, or into very specific roles.

Even if say a zerker Guardian was viable, but Clerics Guardians were much needed, people would force Guardians to go healers because that is what’s needed and refuse Zerker Guardians on principle. Something i’ve seen all to well and all to often in another big, popular, trinity game.

Just be glad that currently you can play the style you like and still get through that dungeon just fine. That being said boss fights can certainly be a lot more interesting. Any fight that is essentially “solved” by stacking in a cornor and wailing on the AI for 12seconds is poorly designed. Currently that would include most bossfights.

Because people make these threads from the perspective of that 1 build or 1 match-up.

Necromancers are certainly incredibly powerful, with the right build. And with the right build they pretty much hardcounter every other condition build ever.

But with another build they might be underpowered, especially if that build happens to be going up against something that it doesn’t do well against either.

Two different people, two different complaints about two entirely different situations. But both will be talking about Necromancer in the broadest sense.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

All these negative comments about the class don’t bode well. . . .

Most negative feedback about Revenant is about it doing to little damage. That is incredibly easy to tweak.

It’s far more important that deeper, more complex mechanics, work and feel right. Because drastic changes to the profession mechanic, or the fancy way skills work, is a lot more work then tweaking damage numbers and scaling.

Exxcalibur.6203:

I dont know how you managed to get three people chasing you, but it would have to have been quite egregious.

Probably not by being a perfect little angel.

If this kind of nonsense spouted here is an indication of character, i can foresee this being a bit of a self-fullfilling prophecy. If you’re going to moan at people for standing their virtual character to close to your virtual character then sooner or later you’ll get some people who think “let’s rile this guy up somewhat”. Because apparently it’s really easy.

I’ve personally never “suffered” this kind of “abuse”. I can only imagine what kind of person you have to be to provoke this kind of behavior on such a regular basis that you feel the need to make a post like this.

Shrubsy.9720:

Phineas Poe.3018:

keramatzmode.1906:

while other classes enjoy their one hit burst and load of sustains.

Such as?

While one hit bursts and loads of sustains is an exaggeration, unless I’m mistaken,

You are mistaken. It’s ofcourse not literally one hit, but through proccing and no-cast time skill stacking, it all lands virtually at the same time.

And yes, it does burst people down incredibly fast. Entire healthpools vanish in the blink of an eye.

Mesmers and Thieves are notorious for this as they can set up their burst entirely from Stealth, so you don’t even see it comming. Just that you are suddenly downed. And notice how there have been no changes to either of these professions. So they get to roll around instagibbing people a bit longer. But AMR was over the top.

krzygum.4028:

After January HoT reveal conference devs told us we can look for hints put into trailer with other specs weapons so that’s why ele sword and thief rifle ideas came up.

And right after they said the art team took some liberties and that we shouldn’t read to much into it.

Telling people to look for clues, whether there really are clues or not sounds like just a marketing hype thing. To get people to dissect and discuss each piece of information in great depth. To keep people fixated on the HoT expansion.

Someone is really stretching the meaning of the words “intimidation” and “abuse”. Let’s reserve these kind of words for people who actually suffer, not for virtual characters who have sparklies thrown at them.

Block, report, move on and let anet sort out who to ban.

krzygum.4028:

Terrahero.9358:

It was suppose to be like this since launch.

Do you have any data or quote to prove this statement? Or is it a wild guess? Because I don’t see any comment from Anet that it’s a bug or intended change. I know it’s in patch notes but the nerf seems over the top and considering how many bugs were introduced 2 weeks ago the scaling can be bugged also.

No it’s not a wild guess. That is what they said when they explained downscaling, during interviews pre-launch.
It was part of their “everything is endgame” sales pitch.

Of course about two months post release they came out with ascended gear, which they then called endgame as well. So the definition of words are plastic, and change based on what they need to mean.

It was suppose to be like this since launch. Low level content remaining challenging was one of the things they wanted with gw2. But for 3 years we’ve had a very ineffective downscaling.

You’re still stronger than an low level character. Just not as ridiculously much anymore.

tairneanach.8427:

Takoyakii.2146:

Engineer have perma swiftness from “steamlined kit” in Tools specialization

Not anymore. Swiftness duration and cooldown are now the same. It’s still basically unlimited swiftness, you just have to pay attention to when it runs out now.

It was always like this. Or atleast for a very long time.

The icd of Speedy Kits has always matched the base duration of swiftness it gave, back when it was still 5sec icd/5sec swiftness.

Now it’s 20sec icd for 20sec swiftness.

Necro the new Turret Engineer, and you post this in the WvW forum? The turrets have been absolute garbage in pve and wvw. If Necro’s are in wvw now like the Turret engineer was (and still it) before, i say buff necro’s! Because your saying they are completely unviable.

Based on nothing but a trailer background character people concluded absolutely that Thieves get rifle. It could’ve been a random npc, npc’s dont have to follow the rules that professions follow, and it was later admitted (in response to spears) that the art team took some liberties when they made this trailer.

And now, based on a piece of artwork, people are concluding without a doubt that Thieves get the staff!
It could be anything, it could be a new story npc, or better yet one of the new Stronghold champions. Didn’t they announce one that stealths you as his support ability? Sounds like it could be a Thief based champion.

It would be quite a laugh when in the end Thief gets neither staff or rifle. That whole “no spec gets the same new weapon” is just speculation as well.

Conditions got a big buff, and yet still power builds dominate.

Damage in general is over the top imo, not just conditions. Conditions should get a nerf and so should power, and power needs a bigger slash than conditions.

Yah this isn’t even the worst, especially upscaling in wvw has caused problems numerous times.

Buffs from claimed Keeps getting upscaled. Everyone and their dog was a lv2 Ranger with a Longbow, that was in essence a mobile Sup. Arrowcart.

The birthday cakeshooter gun, that gives +all stats. That was getting upscaled aswell, still have a funny screenshot somewhere of the absurd stats. 35k hp, 80% crit chance, 254% critdamage, 1.5k healing, 1,5k condition damage, 2.5k power, 2.5k toughness. Was hilarious, i autoattacked a full lv80 for 6k crits as a lv2.

There have been other instances aswell, upscaling is often overlooked it seems when stats are being boosted by new mechanics.

Jana.6831:

Terrahero.9358:

They think it’s to confusing for people if their skill works slightly different or does a different bit of damage.
It’s shocking how utterly incompetent and moronic anet thinks players are. The nanny-developer.

I disagree – my thief worked differently in pvp than in wvw so trying to figure out a build in pvp (for wvw) was useless, also the balance is based on pvp but there’s still wvw which is handeled as if it were pve.
Even if I know that pvp works differently than pve it’s very hard to adapt the muscle memory.
So yeah they might change it as this game does everything pve players want – but I seriously hope they don’t.

Balance changes are predominantly made for pvp, not pve. And changes made specifically for pve are more often reserved exclusively to pve than if it was for pvp, which does often impact other gamemodes.

WvW also has it’s own set of rules, altough the variations are slight. Example, pvp has Revealed at 4sec, but wvw and pve at 3. But Confusion does ~+130% of the damage it does in pvp or wvw.
So there are three seperate rulesets already but the differences are very minor, affecting but a handful of skills/effects at best.

They think it’s to confusing for people if their skill works slightly different or does a different bit of damage.
It’s shocking how utterly incompetent and moronic anet thinks players are. The nanny-developer.

Of course these gamemodes should all be balanced differently. You cannot possible compare two small times fighting over who gets to stand in a fairly small circle, to 40 people bashing into a Multi-phase worldboss, to 30 vs 30 players clashing in wvw, to 5 players fighting a set of mobs and bosses in dungeons.

And yet all of this is to be balanced under the same design that is primarily focussed on pvp with only very few differences, altough they do exist.

It’s beyond frustrating to have to change gear, runes, sigils, whatever in pve or wvw solely due to changes as a result of pvp. Pvp’ers can just hobble to a vendor and pick up an entire different set of gear, runes, sigils, weapons, everything! For free! The players who have to spend time and effort to get theirs get screwed over, and have their time spend consistently invalidated.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

What fine print? It’s CLEAR what the pre-purchase gives access to.

If you have to parse specific wording and think of the ways to circumvent it in order to get the full meaning, then the message is not only not clear, but intentionally misleading.

They have an FAQ page that they link to, where it clearly explains what they mean with Beta Weekend Event.

The fact you all prepurchased without even reading an FAQ is just, i cannot put it to words. You all did not spend a single minute even looking into the product you were paying for, did you?

I bust anet plenty for being vague, which they do either willfull or through neglect. But this time it was pretty clear and well explained.

Taunt already does to much:
-It’s a hard-Cc
-Forces skill spam, proccing whatever you do not want to proc
-Displaces targets, but like Fear the target runs so it also procs Torment
-Locks your selected-target, greatly dimishing certain stun-breaker/instant abilities

It’s like Stun and Fear had a love child and raised it on steroids and growth hormones. And you want to add even more to it? Making it an AoE hard-CC that can impose significant damage on those affected as well?

I don’t see that going down to well.

Bubby.6475:

Disabling grenadier is not even a big deal. It’s not like we don’t have mortar kit.

Grenades are better, and don’t take an elite.

You pick the mortar if you desperately want long-range and to play more of a support/utility role. For damage it’s not worth it.

Disabling the Grenadier trait doesn’t do to much. But it does leave that adept-tier pretty devoid. Fall-damage trait, trait not working, 5% dmg when above 90% hp. The latter may be the best, but not because it’s good but the other two are virtually (and quite literally) useless.

It’s a weaker version of the old Grenadeer Grenade kit. Sure it doesn’t take a trait, but instead it will take your Elite slot. So no Supply Crate.

If i had to choose i’d take the old Grenadekit back, even if it meant having to trait for it again. I’d have a kit which does poison, blind, chill, a solid bleed and works great for both power and condition builds. Without losing the very useful Supply Crate.

Thinking it’s a gift to the whole profession is just ridiculous. Maybe it fits your playstyle, but i feel it was to the detriment of Engineers.

Astralporing.1957:

Terrahero.9358:

Neither is this test even a beta weekend event. Had they said “access to all bèta’s”, you’d have a point. But they were very clear (for once) that this was about beta weekend events.

Actually, some of the official retailers did change that into “access to all future betas”, so apparently Anet wasn’t that clear in comunicating with them.

That may be. But that sounds like a problem from the official retailers.

Going by trailer video it was clear, access to beta weekend events.

Going by the big banner on the home page, acces to beta weekend events.

FAQ page always talks about beta weekend events, it even has a segment where they once again explain what exactly a beta weekend event is.

What are Beta Weekend Events and when will they take place?

Beta Weekend Events are selected weekends when everyone who pre-purchases the game is invited to test Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. BWEs may include new content or a repeat of content available in previous tests.

The Heart of Thorns Beta Weekend Events will be announced as we get closer to them.

The idea that a lot of people who prepurchased are not well informed does seem true when threads like this pop up.

tenklo.6104:

a slap to the face. regardless of what hand it is still a slap to the face……they new what they did… and they know we want to test this out.. it like waving a steak in front of a dog then slapping it with it. its gonna attack u for what u did.

This stress test was announced to happen before prepurchase was available, and at the time they already made it clear they wanted active wvw players to test it.

Neither is this test even a beta weekend event. Had they said “access to all bèta’s”, you’d have a point. But they were very clear (for once) that this was about beta weekend events. Something that has been clearly defined in the past.

It doesn’t mean you have no chance of getting in, just that it’s not guarenteed. And if anet sticks to what they said (for once), being an active wvw players increases those chances.

Great, with this broken trait out of the way we can now get a better idea on the performance of engineers. Which i think is not very good.

Also this, and the Guardian trait disable, does show pretty well the big drawack of completely stripping away choice. Both Explosives Adept tier and the Zeal GM tier now don’t really have any choices. There is only one trait to reasonably take, and it’s a pretty poor trait at that.
Build diversity went down the drain.

Map packs fracture the community, and pvp is pretty small as it is.

It’s bad, but not as bad as instantly getting blown up by zerkers. Atleast you actually got to press some buttons.

style.6173:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

if you take 24 ticks of burning. not 5, not 10 but 24 friggin ticks of burning, then you’ve got nothing and nobody to blame other then yourself man. how the hell do you even pull this off? u didn’t cleanse anything whatsoever. which means it’s been your choice which is fine and all but don’t complain about burning damage, whoever did that much damage per tick is most likely a condi based build.

Wow. I bet this person actually thinks burning is balanced right now.

Burning is very strong, but it’s no worst than the insane power burst that’s going on. Which is honestly a bigger concern. A burn killing you in a few seconds has more counterplay than instantly dropping dead at the hands of someone who was perfectly invisible.

lighter.2708:

really? chaith played ESL without grenadier

That trait was banned iirc.

Immediatly engi’s far less popular.

I don’t believe engi’s are in a good spot at all. Best bet is probably to go conditions, but even that you won’t do as good and if you run into one necro you are practically a free kill. To much very strong counterplay to going condition as engi.

rotten.9753:

Archaon.9524:

quite funny cause in last esl pretty much everyone had a double ele team…no double engi (Let alone double mesmer lol)

Looking at which class is played the most in high level tournaments (And even 2 on each team) is a really valid way to spot broken stuff and i think we already have a winner

…and it’s not mesmer nor engi (Even with nade’s bug)

Granadier was banned.

That’s the point exactly. Engineers are really not in a good spot right now, it is one broken trait that gives that illusion. When that gets fixed i expect to see a sharp decline in engi’s. Because they are really not in a good spot.

anet has disabled a trait for Guardians that was broken, and i expect they will simply do the same for grenadier.

Since anet’s Colin Johanson said they are very focussed on the upcomming xpack, i doubt any real balance changes will be made any time soon. So all the builds that are broken without the abuse of obviously bugged mechancics will probably be left to dominate for quite some time.

A OK.8276:

Weapon swaps and kits? Get those fingers warmed up!!

No way Thieves will keep weaponswap if they get kits.

Henrik.7560:

50k in 25 hits, wow. So that’s 2k on average just from one condition that’s meant to be short duration. Right. Nice anet.

Who says it wasn’t a short duration?

25 hits just means there were atleast 25seconds of burning on him. He stayed alive atleast 25seconds for that to even happen. Considering the immense amount of damage he’d have to outheal and endure i’d wager the fight lasted quite a bit longer even.
Otherwise this person had something like 1k+ healing/sec. Which is also ridiculous.

Kurogami.9210:

But what if the players were given the choice to voluntarily support ANet and GW2 with a small monthly donation?

It’s called “Buying Gems”.

This kind of thread pops up every once in a while. What makes people think anet needs a charity system when they have a shop full of junk, gimmicks and quircky knick-knacks you can buy if you really want to give them money?

Swoo.5079:

The fact level 80s don’t touch low level areas is due to the fact that there are few rewards – removing champions and such didn’t help.

Some of the boosts seem to not work either, like the sigil of bloodlust.

I still don’t see a need to use any kind of rotation, enemies die fast enough.

They are going to add in map rewards. Things like t6 mats and such, so you can go out into the world and be more free in what you do to get rewards.

So that reward is apparently comming for doing lower level maps. But that has to also come with bringing down the faceroll of lower level maps. Seems they introduced the latter first.

24 hits. That means you stayed alive atleast 24 seconds for all that to ramp up. Thats 23seconds longer than a mesmer, engineer or thief burst.

Not saying it isn’t bad and in need of nerf, but that picture is hardly condemning considering whats currently rolling around in pvp. I’d sooner look at the video of Guardian bursting upto 12-14stacks of Burning instantly and getting 5k+ ticks.

Obviously anet greatly underestimated how easily Burning could be stacked when they gave it the damage they did.

Saiyan.1704:

I was under the impression that 4 stacks of burns tick once, but will count as 4 hits. Is that not the case?

No.

It’s a game wide issue. Was getting insane lag spikes in Straits of Devestation. It was so bad that i fell, didn’t register the damage, cut down a tree (and acquired the wood), then suddenly dropped dead from the fall damage. That was a good 6seconds delay, and didn’t seem to have interupted me harvesting which was the weirdest part.

I could write a long post about why a sub is absolutely not the way to go. But i can be very short about it, it will never happen. Ever. Not with GW2 any way, they sold the game on “no sub” and “once you buy, free forever”.

Anet may have flopped on many things, but if they suddenly start charging 15$ a month just to keep logging in they might as well close shop. The amount of outrage, demand for refund and loss of respect would just shut them down right then and there.

There was a test server of sorts, but it got shut down.

So in a way, yes we are the beta testers of the latest patch. And usually there is one follow up patch (not counting hotfixes) within a reasonable time frame. After that patch, whatever is broken, bugged, overpowered or underpowered is usually staying that way till the next balance patch.
Which is typically just around the cornor of 6 months from now.

A bit of a heads up would’ve been nice. I also don’t understand the reasoning that giving resets is confusing, seems like a lot of people aren’t sure whats going on or why they can’t fix their weird builds.

That still should not put a lowbie ahead of someone downscaled. But i’m curious to see the numbers nonetheless. I’m not ruling out that there might be certain points in between 1 to 80 where this system could go awry. It has happend before.