(edited by Tumult.2578)
Gotta admit it. You really impressed me with this content. The concept, the functionality, the diversity, the graphics, the way the design pushes the players to “get over it” and start working together, the fact that the zerg only helps a little, the way loot is handled with Scarlets Lair, the fact that a lot of players are trying to help other players get better, and much more. You have been listening.
No, I’m not trying to suck up. Check my past posts if you think that. I do hope that this content stays in the game, however I suspect it may be causing some economy issues. If it stays, the loot will have to remain the same to get 75 to 150 people playing it.
This is definitely my favorite part of the Living Story. I’m not exactly sure how it ties in with the story because I don’t Pvp and some of the Stories content is there, so it doesn’t flow for me. Still, Well done!
Part of the problem is that the rewards are not consistent. Players staying in back are needed but get little reward due to the champs in front. Same with the barricade builders. Creating reward for activities that help succeed is a must in large scale events.
It can be a great event and rewarding but it can be “worked” for individual reward which contributes to event failure.
Anet cant or wont apply scaling to these events. Until that changes, get used to a ton of guesting.
For perspective; 4 days ago, on Anvil Rock server I fought the jungle wurm and the golem BY MYSELF. That’s right, two world bosses and nobody else was there between 6 and 9pm. Got the golem down to about 25% before loosing. The Wurm was tougher…
Do you really expect anyone to try and play the “current content” under those conditions? Can the game deprive players from playing the “current content”? No.
Broken? Not broken? These really aren’t the questions.
It has already been admitted that pets are not working right.
Putting the pet on passive is a 30% loss in possible dps. Unquestionable.
Keeping the pet active is still a % loss in possible dps. Only thing questionable is the % of lost dps. Some players are content with that loss because they have found a way to work around that loss and reduce the loss, or gain other benefits helpful to their builds.
It’s still a loss and aren’t you doing a disservice to the class if you claim otherwise?
Do I have to go outside the game to find out how to succeed at the LS content?
There is no “story” to follow here. The content is clearly designed not for guilds but for groups of guilds. In game chat is full of “learn to play” or rude degrading incomplete or incorrect shouted partial instructions. The mail we received is nothing but a direction pointer.
I have no problem going outside the game. Duffys is great. This time I wanted to try and play as if I was an occasional player so I did none of the content the first day and didn’t do any looking for hints or tips. Everyone should try this once. If you do, you will see how bad it can be trying to figure out how to succeed. Is this the difficulty we were asking for?
If your really believe that, I have a great bridge for sale for you. It doesn’t go anywhere but your gonna love it….
It’s bizarre how many people hold their money over ArenaNet’s head like some kind of carrot.
You must be joking. What are you, 10? ANet sells a product, if their customers don’t want to buy said product, then ANet has no money.
The product is the $60 game which everyone here has already bought. For every person on the forums that says they aren’t giving Anet any money there are probably hundreds buying $10 gem cards. One person is small compared to the millions of people who bought the game
As far as explaining how to win, I’ve blocked 6 players so far who were “trying”. They all start out “HEY ALL YOU kittenS” or “OK MORONS YOU HAVE TO DO THIS…” They all failed.
Personally I’d like to see a discussion about pets, but not how to get them to work better, about the fact that the mechanic is admittedly broken.
Specifically, if it is a problem to fix, what can be done to mitigate the damage to the class, until it is fixed, and then if it cant be fixed, what can be done to permanently mitigate the damage done to the class?
This is current unbalance. The classes should be balanced. The questions that need to be discussed are how much of an impact is the broken pet mechanic, and what can be best adjusted to return balance?
I bet you would draw a good crowd with that.
This would be a game breaker for me because celestial gear gives me enough defense to be able to jump into situations that are probably more than I can handle, and still “turn the tide” or make enough change for a win, while still allowing an escape when needed.
This is only good as long as it does enough damage, and that can be tricky adjusting and relies heavily on the extra crit damage.
If pets aren’t fixed, how about a Juvenile Gnat, so our crippled mechanic isn’t obvious to everyone else, and we don’t have to spam the stow key?
If a business admits about 18% of it’s users (in this case Rangers) are not functioning correctly and they are not going to fix it, all the other issues in this forum become pointless.
This needs to be the single driving issue for Rangers. Literally every thread in this forum should be about fixing the Pet Mechanic. Even if we ignore our pets, stow as often as possible, don’t trait into them, whatever, it is still the only significant issue.
If we cannot use this forum to succeed in obtaining equal gameplay with the other classes, then why are we here?
Pet
1st Wish = No more nerfs
2nd Wish = No more nerfs
3rd Wish = No more nerfs
4th Wish = No more nerfs
5th Wish = No more nerfs
Weapons
1st Wish = No more nerfs
2nd Wish = No more nerfs
3rd Wish = No more nerfs
4th Wish = No more nerfs
5th Wish = No more nerfs
Need I continue?
There are multiple teams working on the Living Story. Why not commit a team to new maps and let the Living Story updates happen a little less often? There doesn’t seem to be a problem right now with an extended period with no new Living Story update.
Then just track the forums or do a survey on which is more enjoyable. I cant believe I’m the only one getting tired of so many claiming that they speak for everyone else and only their opinion is valid.
I’m surprised this thread isn’t followed by “Why do you want the Living Story?”
Ranged damage is nerfed to being basically pointless?
That forces us into melee combat in medium armor?
We’re rooted in that medium armor with the only weapon that does actual damage?
Compared to other class mechanics, pets are a joke?
We have some good things too but this stuff is crushing the class.
Spoiler Alert for New players!
I did go back through as much of the thread as I could so forgive me if I am repeating anything.
I didn’t see anything about forced gameplay and I think it should be discussed. I am referring to things like the required dungeon at the end of the personal story, The required WvW for Map Completion, The “Finish the Personal Story” Daily Achievement I get about 3 to 4 times a week…… That stuff.
I understand the desire to insure that players get an opportunity to see all that the game offers. Isn’t there a better way to do this than by Forcing it?
Yes, I know we are not forced to do anything, but when common goals shared by the vast majority of players require gameplay in a new/different area, requiring different skills, gear, abilities, etc… It becomes an expected activity and it then feels like it was forced.
Clearly the game has been designed to encourage exploration into all aspects of the game as it should. If however, I decide that I don’t want to do a dungeon to complete the Personal Story, does the game have to keep telling me which direction to go to finish it? Does it need to “remind me” every day in the upper right corner of the screen?
Does it need to offer it consistently in daily achievements?
I agree that the map status we see on the map page is helpful and wouldn’t want to change it. There doesn’t seem to be as strong of a “requirement” for map completion, and we can pass on map completion and Legendary weapons if we choose but why must we choose?
I’d sure like to see “Oh, I haven’t tried that yet. Other players have said they enjoy it”
rather than “Yeah, I have to go do WvW to get a Legendary” or “How am I supposed to get a pug for Arah as a Ranger to finish my Personal Story?”
Isn’t it possible to allow people to enjoy the parts of the game they like without the constant push into other areas?
I wonder how much time and effort and gold went into builds that were destroyed because the entire game was “balanced” and “rebalanced” for PvP, or because the hunt for the best build in PvP keeps unbalancing it?
Suppose there’s any bad feelings there?
From what I heard, they want people to make suggestions in the sub-forums most related to the area of the game. I’m not sure how useful that will be in the long-run though; it’ll be better in the sense that it will foster more discussion from players interested in that game’s aspect, but having suggestions spread out across the forums may make it harder to keep track of them, especially on sub-forums that are very fast-moving.
I’ll quote myself from another thread:
We want people to make suggestions in the sub-forums which make sense for their ideas. As example, if you have an idea about sPvP, you can and should post it in the sPvP sub-forum.
The development teams are very excited about this change.
So if I want to post a suggestion that pertains exclusively to PvE, where is that done?
Just curious. How many other professions have to;
rely on a single weapon to do good dps,
learn when they can dodge with it,
learn when they can evade with it,
learn when they can disengage with it,
learn how to fight with auto attack off,
learn to fight with auto targeting on,
learn how to position and reposition themselves repeatedly during fights,
assuming their reaction time is good enough.
to master the use of it before becoming consistently effective in combat?
It’s great that we have found ways to use some of the swords odder mechanics for our benefit but we need to keep it in perspective with the other professions. Even the development team has remarked on making gameplay less difficult.
If there is a rework of the sword that;
keeps it’s “end combat” ability and
maintains the ability to “stick to” our target and
makes dodge better and
doesn’t affect “reaction time”
then let’s see it.
I know how to keep my pet alive and use it/them effectively but that is still a major problem because no other profession has to devote the time and effort on their class mechanic during a fight, often just keeping it alive.
Until that mechanic is fixed, Rangers have a legitimate complaint regardless of any and all claims of LTP!
I agree there is too much complaining on the forums but this is a valid issue and no matter how many players want things to “look” right, I just cant see the issue going away till it is fixed.
If you truly believe that pets are fine, don’t worry. If they fix it and we become overpowered, I’m pretty sure they know how to nerf us back.
I think my arrows will go farther than my foot, but not much, with a shortbow.
I agree that Ranger is in a sad state. I don’t remember it being this messed up at the start but if “balancing” means I can throw a dagger much father than I can shoot an arrow, I’d prefer the imbalance and be glad to wait till someone, anyone, says I’m overpowered. Oh wait, even if I could shoot farther, It’s still ranged=nerfed damage.
I’ve been trying to make the sword my Main weapon and shortbow more of a backup weapon but the sword takes a lot of practice to make it effective. A mild increase in damage is helpful, if you can stay alive through the root and not leap finish into a mob once you kill your opponent. I have a couple of other professions and they don’t seem to have any weapons that actually require skill to just use normally. Maybe it’s just me, but this forum seems to says otherwise.
Oh, I did read all of your post and I expect anyone else concerned with Ranger issues did also. It was well written and portrays the state of Ranger well.
Thanks for the replies. I though it was a noticeable enough difference to comment on.
I do use Signet of the Hunt often and with so many changes to signets this last update, I wonder if there is something else that got changed somehow unexpectedly.
I agree that the difference between 25% and 33% is small enough to be difficult to notice but I also noticed that I lost ground running with other players while at 33%.
Any ideas on how we could better test this across professions? Even if it’s only 8 %, I think we still want it. Especially when it seems to be “the first 8 %” sometimes.
Something is different. Swiftness just isn’t working like it has. Signet of the Hunt usually adds no increased speed. Call of the Wild works about 50% of the time.
Is it possible that the distance we can hold agro has increased? Usually I can run through an area with aggressive monsters with my pet set to avoid combat and there is a small lag in movement. Now it’s massive and I can hit Call of the Wild and there is no increase in speed at all during the entire 15 seconds it is active.
There are now many times that I can even change a skill like Signet of the Hunt(out of combat required) while I am running and the speed does not increase.
Going to look at my settings but is anyone else experiencing this?
I would love to see new maps in the game, maybe more than anything. I don’t expect to see them for about a year. By then, the “elite” players will have moved on to some new version of PvP somewhere and it will become ok to have a PvE Forum. That is when the developers will start actually communicating with the quiet masses that always wanted new maps. The Living Story is fun but it should never have taken all the games development resources. It may be gradual but I expect more and more resources will be shifted as time goes by.
Some happy medium between occasional LS content designed to stay in place and new map creation will win out. I just hope it happens soon.
As a Norn, we can struggle with a lot of the JP’s due to our size.
There are some tonics that we can use to shrink our character down to a reasonable size for JP’s. Ugh! Why did it take so long for me to realize this…
Although the Ranger forum is rife with actual anger, mainly over the poor pet mechanic, you can find a lot of helpful information there.
Consider looking at Dungeons entirely differently than PvE. You can power through most anything in PvE eventually but that wont work in Dungeons. Ranger has to take a back seat SUPPORT role there. The severe Aoe damage in dungeons kills the pets fast and you not much later. Power isn’t the answer, support is. Plan on staying close to the group and bring skills and traits that buff or protect the group, not just you. There are many ways to give your group might, fury, precision, swiftness, stability etc… and they will need it and expect it.
As far as pets go, there is a good use for each pet in the game. The trick to being good with pets is knowing which to use when, and how to keep it alive. Sometimes you just have to reduce your total damage output and spend the time and effort to keep your pet alive. There are plenty of places in the open world where we can sacrifice our pets for misdirection. Dungeons don’t have many. Plan on keeping the pet alive if you can.
Some players don’t put any skill points into the Beastmaster line and spend them entirely on themselves. I don’t think that will work well in Dungeons. Experiment, track your results, and have fun learning what works best for you.
Cant tell you how many fights I have completely finished and then the pet shows up from whatever it was off doing out of sight. What really gets me is these places where I am inside 900 range and can shoot my target but my pet simply cant see it till I cross some invisible line. Then when the pet crosses it, it can see and attack my target.
(There are many examples but a good one is on Frostgorge moving east to west towards Ice Floe waypoint killing Icebrood Collosus. The last one to attack is outside the gorge but just barely. I can shoot it all day from within the gorge but my pet will never know it’s there even if it is 400 range away.)
If you look at the two threads; List of buffs and List of nerfs, you can form your own ideas about the changes to Ranger.
Bump for new and returning players.
Bump for new and returning players.
When using Warrior runes My weapon swap is 6 seconds.
If I use my Swords Hornet sting to jump back out of melee combat, I can then hit Quickening Zepher to slap 5 seconds of Crossfire and it’s Bleeds on my opponent with my Shortbow. That leaves time of one more second for either Poison Volley or Crippling shot.
Quite often my opponent already has a large stack of bleeds and Crossfire tops it off at 25 so while Crippling shot does more damage than Poison Volley, it’s doing more bleed. The Poison Volley would add to the poison stack my opponent may still be carrying from my Swords 7 1/4 second Serpent Strike poison, or restart the stack.
Maybe this is a fight by fight thing and I have to just use the best for the circumstances but it’s hard not to use the most powerful skill every time. Any ideas?
All of the weapon ranges I posted are from the current tooltips and weapons wiki.
What I’m trying to get at is that some of the weapons and their individual skills are not realistic.
They may have been more realistic at the start but through “balancing” some of them don’t really make sense. The fact that you can throw a dagger farther than you can shoot an arrow is a good example but there are lots of them.
The reason I am concerned is that there appears to be a reduction in damage for some ranged weapons. Which? How much damage reduction? Has the reduction changed along with the changes in range some weapons have gone through?
I was simply trying to generate discussion to see if anyone else was concerned.
No lies were spread.
An Elementalist can throw a dagger 300 farther than a Ranger can shoot a shortbow.
A Mesmer has 300 more range with a sword and a pistol than a Ranger with a shortbow.
Both Guardians and Mesmers have 300 more range with a Torch than a Ranger with a shortbow.
A Warrior has 300 more range with a Warhorn than a Ranger with a Shortbow.
Warriors and Mesmers have more range with a Greatsword than a Ranger with a shortbow.
Non Ranger weapons?
A warrior has 300 more range with a mace than a Ranger with a shortbow.
There are so many more examples….
So it looks like Warrior is the real ranger with Mesmers a close second.
Yes, we have the Longbow that players still don’t want to use 3 tweeks later.
Someone should start checking into the penalty that “some ranged weapons” receive if you can figure out what is considered a ranged weapon. I bet that’s interesting.
Wow, this “I soloed it with my eyes shut in 10 seconds. Learn to play” stuff is hilarious!
How embarrassing to actually post that concept.
Want to make content more difficult and more fun A-net?
Limit access to 5 or less players and everything resets when they come out. Period!
Zerg play has it’s place in WvW. Leave it there.
Then let’s see how many of these ltp comments show up.
Does anyone know which weapons are subject to the damage penalty ranged weapons get?
How about what percent it is?
Do weapons get the penalty or just individual skills?
Anyone know, or have ideas on how to find out?
This is a real win for the game. Giving players enough time to complete the meta achievement by allowing players to select specific achievements they enjoy instead of forcing players into required content is a great way to proceed.
Personally, there are few JP’s I enjoy. But this choice we get in the living story avoids all the problems players scream about in the forums like the last forced dungeon in Trehernes Personal Story or the forced WvW in total map completion.
Thank you A-net.
While most of us understand this game is run as a business because it is a business and gold sinks have to occur,
I am totally against any daily or monthly achievements that require no effort or skill and are simply bought. This is a blatant insult to the playing base. I would be embarrassed to admit I had done even one of these.
Be careful A-net. Continuing this poor choice could make achievement points worthless to the player base.
The sad thing is that the range is still 1200 or maybe 1150 you just need to manually fire. So why all the QQ
Right. Why all the QQ when all the other professions have to switch to manual firing to get maximum distance from their shots. Oh Wait…
Look, either this is a ranged weapon with reduced damage because it’s ranged, or it has the same range as other melee weapons and should have it’s damage increased to match other melee weapons. Right now it is double nerfed.
(edited by Tumult.2578)
Now that the longbow has been buffed to the point of being equally as poor a weapon as the other Ranger weapons,
ISN’T IT TIME TO PUT THE RANGE BACK TO 1200 ON THE SHORTBOW?
Since there was never any claim of the shortbow being overpowered and the only reason was to make the longbow somehow more appealing. That is the only reason offered by a-net.
Title basically says it. There must be new players that didn’t experience it last year. There are different things going on this time. Players must have ideas and suggestions they want to discuss.
Not that it screams “we’re really not interested in Wintersday comments” but maybe some new good ideas would come from it.
Remember, even though most professions have good gap closing skills, our bows are so dangerous that they have to do much less damage than melee weapons. (Yeah, I haven’t figured that logic out yet either)
So they would have to make a shortbow melee attack much stronger than it’s other skills. I wouldn’t count on that happening.
If you look at how so many opponents have a distance or gap closing mechanic and really want to include playing at range in your game,
The Sword has a nice opportunity to regain range with it’s Hornet’s Sting number two skill. It’s not a lot of distance, but with a Shortbow and Quickening Zepher you can throw a whole lot of bleeds, and/or cripple or poison at your opponent and,
regain the opportunity to see the fight/battle from the ranged perspective.
Of course the Sword has other severe issues but they can be reduced and tolerated by many players, if DPS is what you really want. (Ok, you might beat that Champion with a sword, but your just as likely to jump over the cliff when it dies and never get your loot!)
Relogged, Re-did it, Got the Achievement.
Without possibly spoiling content for others, suffice it to say that I used the force option 4 times and completed the entire instance but did not get the achievement.
The biggest issue I have with the Tower is the required finishers. It simply seems stupid to stop the fight with the other 4 or 5 Toxic attacking me just to use a finisher on the almost dead one.
I understand their value in PvP and WvW. They seem ridiculously out of place in the tower.
Wouldn’t Scarlet Claus fit better?
So much like Scarlet Claws.
At 3.5 million sales the first year, or approximately $210 Million in sales of the game alone, not counting Jewels, etc… That definitely leaves enough to hire someone to say
“Oops, That was an unexpected occurrence, however since so many players have completed this content, it will remain. This is a good opportunity to discover how guesting works for those how haven’t finished yet”.
However I suspect this was intended as original content that didn’t make it in before launch. If so, the decision to add it later was an exceptionally poor choice.
These are for the game developers.
1.) Why do you believe that more possible build combinations is a good thing to strive for when new build combinations suffer from all the same basic problems the current build combinations do?
2.) With your excellent new approach to discussing “profession balancing” you clarify that you want constructive, concise, specific comments that are objective, respectful, and mindful of scope and content. How are we to provide those comments when you give us
" We feel like rangers also currently have too much endurance regeneration through traits."
without any explanation regarding why, under which circumstances, in PvE, WvW, PvP, and with the expectation that a change like this wont have much more significance in one area of the game than another?
I’m not asking any of this in some attempt to be disrespectful. I love the game. I simply don’t see the logic here. Please explain. Thank you.
I would strongly suggest that you change the way you look at your pets. There is no single pet or pair of pets that work best. Each pet has it’s own individual abilities and if you can become accustomed to switching pets to the “right” pets before a fight at lower levels now, it will become second nature by the time you reach level 80.
Different pets for dungeons, different for Champions, different for zergs, the list just goes on. This game is constantly changing too and you have to keep up with the changes.
If you can make your journey to level 80 about learning the pets abilities, and serious flaws, about discovering what weapons work best for your play style given the current circumstances, and about which traits and skills enhance your collective abilities, I suspect you will enjoy this game as much as I do.
Good Luck!
Don’t kid yourself. You will be dying a lot more without that Regeneration.
Glad you like the fluff though.