Guild Wars 2

The simplest way I can say it is:

When playing with other people who do condition damage I would like to do the same amount of damage per second as I do when I am fighting solo.

A thief’s back stab always does the same range of damage regardless of how many other thieves attack the target. Why should the number of bleeds inflicted by my scepter be reduced just because some other characters are inflicting bleeds.

The development team has acknowledged this is an issue (see the Jon Peter’s quote in the initial post of this topic).

My suggestion remains, that to support build diversity they should tell us how and when this will be addressed.

Ulari

Agreed maddoctor.

All the damaging conditions suffer from the arbitrary stacking limit: bleeding, burning, poison (the damage portion only).

I have no issue with vulnerability, chill, and healing reduction being capped. Just like buffs (protection as an example) do not stack intensity.

But it is very frustrating to enjoy a build (my current necromancer) and realize I only do my full damage if nobody else is applying significant stacks of bleeding… Compare this to a direct damage class who knows their full damage will always be applied, regardless of who else is attacking the target.

And the real point of my thread was to suggest that this situation could be improved/resolved if ArenaNet followed up Jon Peters’ acknowledgement, and told us how and when this will be addressed.

Ulari

Three months ago there was a lengthy conversation on condition damage which evolved into the negative impacts of the cap on bleed stacks:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds/page/2#post621056

Jon Peters acknowledged the issue in the above post:

JonPeters.5630:

Might as well chime in and say big crowd events where condies are stack capped is also a problem we are investigating.

Jon

JonPeters.5630:

3+ heavy bleeders, but yeah…

Is there any update on how this will be addressed or when?
It has been three months since the Jon’s comments and I tried unsuccessfully to resurrect the thread two months ago.

The short version:
Any number of direct damage dealers all do their full damage to a target.
Only 2 or 3 condition damage dealers do their full damage to a target. Any more than that and the bleed stack is maxed at 25 and further applications of bleed do nothing.
This has led me and other folks I know to abandon condition damage builds… especially for dynamic events and dungeons. I have even seen the bleed cap met in WvW. The forum post I linked above explains why this is a problem (many users contributed to the conversation).

I suggest that in the interest of build and class diversity that the plan for how the game will address the bleed stack issue should be shared.

Ulari

Completely agree!
The OP spells out his issue very well.. and as a player I want the bugs fixed.

I have played several characters in PvE and WvWvW (Mesmer (80), Elementalist (70), Necro (50), Engineer(40), and Ranger(20)). With each character I have hit a wall (or at least bumps) where the skills/abilities do not work at all or do not work as defined in the tool tips.

As a player it is infuriating to be presented options for a character build and then find out they do not work, have not worked since beta, and there is no communication from the development studio that they will ever work…

Ulari

I wish I was as optimistic as you… but my optimism is being beaten down.

Ulari <— just kicked out of WvWvW with literally less than one minute notice for a ‘new build’

Being killed by enemies before they are rendered has got to be fixed.

I am assaulting a supply camp with one team mate and there are only NPCs present. Suddenly I am at 50% health and there are 15-20 enemy player in the camp. I dodge and try to hit Decoy (Mesmer stealth) but I am dead. The enemy players are not all clustered on a single point (not a portal bomb), they are spread around the camp. They have run in and killed me and my partner and the first warning we have is damage… no chance to see them coming and try and evade (because they are not drawn on my screen before they are in melee). The first hit I took in my combat log was from 1000 Blades… Really?

My PC far above minimum specs, and this was not an issue in the first month of the game.

Please tell me there is an ETA for fixing this… It is so frustrating.

I love the concept of WvWvW. I like the mechanics, and the coordination required. I like that there are sieges, raids, defense, etc. But getting killed before I can respond by enemies I can not see is going to drive me from this game.

Ulari

I like the list, but I would add one other thing that many many members of the community want (judging by the forums).

Fix the Professions’ skill and trait bugs

Ulari

Distaste.4801:

This patch addressed nothing that truly needed fixing.

Condition damage is still lackluster compared to Direct damage in both scaling and PvE viability. The limits on bleed stacks, poison/burn duration, etc is just downright dumb. When putting down a poison/burning field for others to use HURTS your damage you know some designer screwed up big.

Burst damage is still sky high. If you want skill to be involved in a fight this needs brought down so most fights last 15s-20s. Who thought 60%+ crit and 100%+ crit damage was a good idea?

Class bugs from beta still not fixed.

Certain classes in a state that is absolutely laughable and shouldn’t have been released like that.

Class base health and armor need rebalanced. There is no logical reason why some classes have 8k extra health and heavy armor and others don’t.

Trait system is still forcing players into traits/stats they won’t use or don’t want(huge reason some classes are in bad shape).

Healing scaling not even close to damage. I want to make a class that does tons of self healing but since heals scale so terribly it isn’t viable. I can get hit by a 20k burst but healing isn’t even close to that.

Traps in PvP show up as giant red circles…not much of a trap then is it?

They seriously need to get a team of at least 8 people together to work on classes and combat. Every single aspect of this game(PvE, SPvP, WvW) deals with classes and combat, it is a HUGE part of the game. How they thought only 2 people was smart is beyond my comprehension. I want to know where the developers from pre-launch that understood what MMO gamers wanted went to. This patch is like they looked at what people wanted and just went the opposite direction.

I am truly glad PlanetSide 2 comes out next week because at least I will have something to do while ArenaNet gets it’s act together.

Quoted because it sums up how I feel and is better written that I could have done at the moment.
The only point where I differ is on the healing front… I am fine with no dedicated healers, and the advertised no holy trinity.
But condition damage (bleed stacks which have been discussed on the forums for more than a month), class bugs, trait bugs, etc. are just awful.

Ulari <—disappointed

“ya.. just hang in there till Friday’s patch”

Is there a post anywhere that lists what will be changed in the patch? I have scanned and searched through the forums but I have found no specifics. I think most concerns would evaporate if we knew what was going to be changed.

Ulari

Reluctantly agree.

I like the idea of ‘tactical’ rather then strategic stealth… I got to see it in beta. I played as a thief and I played against thieves, and the stealth implementation felt interesting/fine.

BUT the rendering (or whatever it is) that is allowing people to remain unseen for attack, after attack, after attack is no fun.

Ulari

Any update on this?

Is there someplace I should be looking to see what ArenaNet has planned?
I know resurrecting posts is not always the best plan But I really am not sure where else to look.

Ulari

Thanks for the considerate responses.
I did not know that we were given three hours rather than three minutes in a dungeon or personal story instance. That makes it much less painful.

Any clue how it works in WvWvW? I admit I am not sure where to look.

Omega: Because you asked… Deploy it any time, just give more notice. ArenaNet is in a much better position than me to pick what time impacts the least number of their users.

Teulux: I am not and was not crying.

Ulari

On both Friday and Saturday night (EST), I got the message in game that a new build was available and the server would restart in three minutes. I was kicked just before I started a dungeon on Friday (whew). I am on Yaks Bend (not sure if it was just our server or the entire community who got restarted).

I understand the need to hot-fix issues or deploy emergency code, but three minutes warning in prime time is painful.

Have any of you seen an ArenaNet explanation?
Seems like there could be a better time to kick everybody out of the game.

Ulari

Agreed….

WvWvW is unplayable right now. It is impossible to tell how many people are outside a keep, or defending a supply location, or running towards you on the road. Many times today I got killed without seeing the enemy, and then watched them fade into view once I was dead.

Truly frustrating!!

Ulari

I had a similar issue.

I am running two monitors (GW2 maximized on one). I found the cause was that I had Citrix processes running in the background and periodically they stole ‘focus’ from GW2 and I end up on my desktop. I had the same issues in WoW last year…

My solution was to go into Task Manager and disable all the Citrix processes (used for accessing my work network from home). I have Citrix set to launch on PC start-up so I go through this process whenever I am going to launch GW2.

Sorry if this is not helpful, figured I’d share just in case…. it did fix my issue in GW2 and WoW.

Ulari

I remember WoW with the debuff limit…
But that was fixed in Wow in 2008 or so, right?

Currently I cannot play a condition build in GW… the thought that I am not contributing in combat is just too frustrating. So I’m playing direct damage in the game and trying to keep the issue current on the forums.

Ulari

Has there been any official response to this issue?
I did not see one when I searched the forum.

And…
I have been playing a lot of PvE (party of four (and many more for events)). I re-rolled to a Direct Damage build.

Ulari

Yup. I had the same flashback when I first equipped the Bomb kit!!

Awesome!

Ulari

Bust Nak said it very cleanly…

The bottom line is direct damage scale lineary, condition damage is capped

20 direct damage characters twice do twice the damage as 10 DD characters
20 condition characters do not do twice the damage as 10 condition characters

The 21st DD character does full damage to the target
The 21st condition character does almost no damage to the target

Hard to say it any clearer.

Ulari

Imagine the frustration if the game limited your Direct Damage based on how many other players were attacking.
‘… sorry warrior, your F1 usually does 2,000 damage but since so many players are damaging the boss it only did 400…’
That is what is happening to condition builds with a cap on stacks.

Putting a cap on conditions pushes players (in medium and big groups) to adopt only direct damage builds/professions. This is just as bad as putting a cap on direct damage based on the number of people attacking the target and pushing players away from direct damage builds.

Ulari (opinion/thoughts previously posted in an older topic)

I’d say remove auto-balance completely.

If my team is winning, and I have helped to get us in a winning position, I do not want to be forced to help the team I have been working against.

If my team is losing, I really do not want one of the other sides players to ‘magically’ come to my team to help. I’ll take my loss and look forward to the next match!

I expressed these same thoughts in Beta as bug reports when I was auto-balanced off of teams.

Ulari

milo.6942:

Ulari I’m no developer, and maybe your idea is feasible, but I think it makes too many assumptions about how to rate teams, and may have a high chance to incorrectly match players up. I think you are over-engineering the solution and introducing too many new problems.

First, thanks to milo (and Vayra) for their constructive and reasonable responses.
I do fall into the trap of suggesting a solution.

To be completely clear I’ll try and stick with requirements (requests):
— I want to group with my friends and compete in sPvP.
— I do not want to PUG (pick-up-group) stomp.
— I do not want to have to coordinate a tournament team when I have only two additional friends online.
— I do not want to ‘fight the system’ to join my friends (switching teams during the match).

I know I can play in sPvP with my friends now by joining their match and switching teams when I have to, so playing with friends is possible… it is just cumbersome.

Final note:
With no matchmaking system, PUG stomping is also possible… form your group, join your friend’s match, switch sides if you have to, stomp.

Ulari

A Response would be nice.. even for casual players.

4. Is there going to be any improvement made to allow two to four friends to play sPVP together (on the same team)?

I have suggested in other posts how an ELO/ranking system would address this.

Ulari

If I am online with two friends my options are:
— Find two more friends and take my PUG into a tournament
— Join sPvP and switch sides until we are all on the same team

I keep coming back Mike O’Brian’s quote from the GW2 Design Manifesto:
“MMOs are social games. So why do they sometimes seem to work so hard to punish you for playing with other players?”

What is wrong with a player rating system that:
— Keeps track of player’s wins and losses in sPVP (already in game)
— Defines team rating based on the players’ ratings
— Inflates the rating of any linked or pre-made teams (to account for their better communication)
— Then pairs up similarly rated teams?

Solo players would not get stomped by pre-mades, and a group of friends could play casual, non-tournament sPVP together.

Ulari

/signed
Especially #1 and #2.

I agree with #1 (ranked system) absolutely!
And I believe a ranking system would solve your issue #2… Good teams fight good teams, whether the good team is a bunch of experienced single players (PUG) or a good premade. When ranking teams, inflate the rating of premade teams to ‘balance’ them for their improved communication (vent, etc.).

And ‘suggestion Forum’? I have not seen one. This seems like the best possible forum in which to have this discussion.

Ulari

Yes. I want to play sPvP with my friends.

I have stated this in several relevant forum post in beta and live.

And…
A player rating system (ELO) that is aggregated to a team rating when pickup teams are formed will address the ‘… I don’t want pre-mades to stomp PUGs…’ discussion.

I know tournaments are out there, but when I am online with one or two friends we just want to jump in and play…

Ulari

As Luna said:
I just can’t wait til they give us a “join as party” option and let us play with our friends for an entire sPvP match. :’(

Has anyone seen an AreanaNet comment on this (or any comments on sPvP)? I have searched but found nothing… and sPvP has been in discussion since the early beta weekends.

Ulari

My experiences with the game have been different than yours (different expectations/focus probably). But there is one point you make that I agree with 100%

Structured [PvP] is not player friendly right now. I want to be able to que up with my friends and play with them.

When I am online with a buddy, we want to play together.

Ulari

/signed

Condistions do damage, Direct attacks do damage. Imagine the frustration if the game limited your Direct Damage based on how much damage other players were doing.
‘… sorry warrior, your F1 usually does 2,000 damage but since so many players are damaging the boss it only did 400…’
That is what is happening to condition builds with a cap on stacks.

Putting a cap on DoTs is ‘bad’ and will push players (in big groups) to adopt only direct damage builds/professions.

Agree 100%.

I posted on this in Beta but did not see an ArenaNet response.
Please bear with me if you’ve seen my logic/comments before.

TL/DR:
I want to play sPvP with a friend or two. I do not want to ‘PUG stomp’. I believe sPvP matches can be balanced by player win/loss records so matches are ‘fair’.

Details:
I know the Hot Join sPvP is set up so formed groups can not stomp groups of individuals. And I do not want to go ‘PUG stomping’ . I want to play with one or two friends.

The game keeps track of sPvP wins/losses by account, so it ‘knows’ how good a player is. Balancing sPvP matches with this information would allow groups of players to be matched against each other based on their group ratings… and a a premade group could have their rating inflated to account for the fact that they are coordinating better.

I have seen posts on other forums asking/begging/demanding an ELO system and allowing players to group join sPvP… I see no downside to this.

It is infuriating that the game will let me play with a buddy in sPvP ‘sometimes’ by joining their in progress sPvP session… but not let me and my friend join as a group. It leaves me with the impression ‘sure you can play with your friend, but it is cumbersome and not guaranteed’.

This game is awesome and allows me to play with my friends in WvWvW (scaled to 80) and in PvE (down-scaled to the zone level). The scaling of characters level is brilliant!! But…

I want to play sPvP with my friends.

Ulari