Guild Wars 2

Taking what people say out of context and strip it of all relevant meaning in order to create a thread that servers utterly no purpose other than to show how much of a kitten you are?

Infraction is at the very least well deserved.

Aneu.1748:

If you believe having points at the centre of the map, rather close to one another, in the middle of all 3 keeps will mean that the zerg will split up then I am afraid you are in for a rude awakening.

Considering that, unlike said keeps with their said champion defenders, these nodes don’t remain capped of their own volition. They need to be baby-sat by at least a few people if you have any intention of holding them for prolonged periods.

These people, along with scouts, have to come from somewhere… and with a fixed map cap, its not hard to see where they’ll come from. In particular when you start actually giving small groups something to play over, they might actually start to play over it.

Otherwise, your zerg will have to detour every few minutes to secure its nodes.

AndrewSX.3794:

Bloodlust: gain utility buffs depending on how many points you hold, magnitude of buffs (10/20/30%) depends on the points held on different BL’s.

No one would care about the buff, completely defeating the point of it.

Who, in WvW of any of the guilds who give a crap about PvP, would care about this buff in the way you’ve constructed it? Obviously no one (which is why you constructed it as you did).
What zerg, in WvW, will care about it if all it gives are irrelevant boosts to irrelevant things like Magic Find or Experience or Karma? Obviously no one, and so the zerg will just keep on zerging. They won’t even care about the stomp bonus because ZvZ rarely resolves to any sort of stomping.

The whole point of this buff, unlike the old orbs, is to force you to spread and manage more of a map, and in ways that cannot simply be “zerged” down in a clockwise or counterclockwise circle because there are no walls and the nodes decap on their own. If the orb buff amounted to nothing, no one would give a kitten about it.

This is an update for small scale (the ones who actually stomp), to give them a standing purpose aside from running around zerg island and having little bouts of irrelevance. If you think some enemy zerg is going to run circles around a map chasing down a small scale group at some nodes, then, if they really have that luxury, the fight was already so lopsided that no amount of arbitrary stat bonuses were going to help.

DAoC managed just fine with an even more powerful buff, and they had their 8v8 GvGs for ages.

Zenguy.6421:

Vena.8436:

You don’t seem to understand: the bigger server WILL NOT CAP the points because they don’t need POINTS.

You’re not enabling the smaller server because the bigger server will never intentionally capture the points in your scenario.

+4 stacks of might, +7% crit chance, +150 Toughtness, Vitality and Healing, ongoing, for everyone on your server. That level of buff is worth picking up, so they will.

You might want to read the discussion because it has nothing to do with the real buff but the poster who I quoted’s idea to make the orb buff grant +1(3) bonus points on kills if you have it, and +50 stats to everyone/anyone who does have it.

I know what it does in reality.

I’m honestly not sure I recall what this is about but I think I do.

Buy the guilty party some sardines, sardines are for everyone.

Benjamin.6235:

It doesn’t matter where they are really. It was still waking up to more players with +150 stats that turned WvW into a complete ghost town from time to time.

Yes it does?

Three orbs behind three waypointed T3 keeps is completely different from three of five nodes (or if you like nine of fifteen), in the open field, that de-cap themselves to neutrality if not baby-sat. If you’re trying to tell me that these two things are even remotely similar, I would have to call you completely off your rocker.

The only way this would be even comparable was if back in the day, the orbs walked themselves back up to the northcamp if one person was not standing in each of three completely different locations half way across the map from each other, at any given point in time.

kurtosis.9526:

Zergs generally don’t stomp till the fight is decided, but after that they sure as heck do, or if they see an opportunity to end a fight or revive their own downed with a Timewarp/Quickness stomp. It happens.

In general they just AoE down, people die to residual effects far more than any stomp when two zergs collide, the bigger the zerg the less stomping ever occurs. Stomping becomes more and more integral the less people that become involved in a fight.

kurtosis.9526:

From what I’ve observed, weaker/lower pop servers are more likely to resort to small scale havoc groups and roamers, and they’re exactly the ones who would benefit a great deal from a stat buff – give the smaller side higher stats so that the stronger/more populated side will have work harder to kill them. If the latter can still succeed at it, they reap the reward of increased PPT from it.

The weaker side is better enabled to take on a stronger side, which actually keeps the game fun for both sides, while still maintaining incentive (in the form of PPT) for the stronger side.

You don’t seem to understand: the bigger server WILL NOT CAP the points because they don’t need POINTS. They have no reason to care about some +1(3) stomp buff in your scenario because they (a.) already are so much larger that they own all the PPT structures and (b.) are getting a passive buff for ignoring things that would otherwise gain them an inconsequential boost because they are already winning and do not generally stomp if zerging.

You’re not enabling the smaller server because the bigger server will never intentionally capture the points in your scenario. Worst case scenario you make this buff so undesirable that no one will even want to cap it and people will end up getting yelled at for capping it because it hurts your server to cap the kitten ed thing by costing them stat bonuses.

You’re not supposed to design mechanics that cause you to note want to do something in fear of hurting your own server. Thats completely backwards.

Moreover, if the lesser server finds themselves with the +stat buff, why would they ever try to get rid of it?

This is completely baffling.

kurtosis.9526:

The thing is, with the 2m warning, I’m afraid zergs will just map hop to the BL they’re about to lose the Bloodlust buff on and wipe the small team trying to ninja it. 2m is plenty of time for that.

Two minutes to map hop and run half-way across the map? I don’t even…

You realize the points decap on their own if they aren’t babysat, right?

Benjamin.6235:

We have tried stat buffs before. Weren’t you here on release?

Except at release, the buff was hidden inside a T3 keep behind a zerg.

You can’t compare completely different scenarios so easily.

kurtosis.9526:

Bloodlust:
1. The server that has Bloodlust buff gets 1 PPT per stack of BL per stomp (up to 3 stacks, one per BL).
2. The server without Bloodlust gets +50 to all stats (stacks with the Outmanned Bonus if they have that as well).

So you want people to avoid buffing themselves…

What?

The zerg doesn’t care about the +1(3) stomp because they never stomp to begin with, so you’re basically telling the zerg to ignore the nodes, reap massive benefits for ignoring them, and then win more.

The stomp bonus is relevant especially for small scale combat where stomping is key; to give said players a penalty for fighting over said buff which only they truly reap benefits from (while perplexedly rewarding zergers ignoring the buff) seems completely self-defeating and pointless.

The entire design (the nodes decapping themselves if left unattended, the need to maintain control for the buff, no reward for capping, etc) is on-paper intended to reward small teams and punish just zerging around in circles.

Kalan.9705:

Subscription games seem vastly superior to this rather cynical milking of players via deliberately frustrating game systems.

Most of things you mentioned exist in subscription games… you seem to be out of touch with reality (particularly in regards to server transfers costing an arm and a leg, or that coverage is and has been an issue in every game with open field PvP with objectives).

I’m pretty sure Aion could check off everything you just listed pretty easily (except it has no match-ups, so if you are on a poorly distributed population server, you’re pretty much boned forever) even when it was P2P back in the day.

Does the buff not apply to Obsidian?

jcbroe.4329:

The point I was attempting to make is that rangers, when compared to other classes, have much less control over the same type of mechanics that those classes have more control over. If more control is given, of course any amount of balancing is needed and by me personally would be accepted, but it only makes sense that the more control is given to the player, the tighter the balance has to be.

I know your point, but you’re missing the finer detail (mammoth elaborated better than I). As I said before, just adding more free functionality is broken. Adding it at opportunity cost in utilities is fine. If you just blankly add more functionality then the beastmaster specs become better than everything else because they not only give you a bunch of rather powerful chain CC skills (at your disposal for free, effectively) and a potent pet but also freedom of utility. You can’t have it both ways.

Dirame.8521:

Just like a Mesmer Phantasm can do damage whilst the Mesmer is CCed? Or a Necro could blow up his minions? or a Guardian can knock you down with his Spirit Hammer (activated skill which is instant cast)?

Those not only require utility sacrifices, they require speccing into some of the lines to make the “allies” even remotely viable. Are you really going to use a Hammer of Wisdom without even a single trait investment (for example)?

The answer is obviously no.

silentnight warrior.2714:

Vena.8436:

silentnight warrior.2714:

- When they will fix targeting

October 4th?

Hope so.

Well that was the idea in the twicth channel when we were all chatting. Of course, development work is never “as planned”.

Xsorus.2507:

While Devon’s answer is silly, How come GvG players don’t take into account the whole Healing/Health Bonus you get from having a greater amount of points then the other side?

Shh. Don’t point out flaws!

silentnight warrior.2714:

- When they will fix targeting

October 4th?

jcbroe.4329:

Because warriors, necros, and guardians have such a hard time chaining any CC they have….

Pretty sure none of those classes come with a free AI.

Also guardian? Most of their CCs require your opponent to be an idiot and walk into your lines repeatedly or stand still for two extremely blatantly obvious animations.

Dirame.8521:

I’m not for adding more buttons (I know I didn’t clearly state that). I would rather have the option of putting one of their skills on my utility bar so I have a better sense of what the pet is going to do next.

That’s fine.

The SotG comment was about just adding more buttons for control (unless my memory is completely shot by my current massive caffeine high). But many people are talking about blankly incorporating more controls into the class, just look at the OP, its asking for toggles same as the standard F#-keys.

… or the posts following mine. >.>

Dirame.8521:

GW1 gave you full control of your pet at the cost of one (or more) of your skill slots being used as a pet skill slot. Why can’t it be done here.

1.) They were useless in anything short of B/P (which was PvE) or IWAY (which was W/R not R/X). Edit: I forgot thumpers!
2.) The control you were slotted came at the cost of your utility, which in this case, adding MORE buttons, completely circumvents. You give them more control without taking anything away. Therein, the developer is perfectly correct that adding more buttons does harm rather than good.
3.) In GW1 the actual control over the pet AI (sans abilities) is identical now as then: attack, defend, sit.

If you want, to say, add in utility skills which let you fire off #2, that’s a different matter entirely. Just adding more buttons would simply imbalance the class and just plain nerfing the ranger to counteract it would make anything but Beastmaster strictly inferior.

Dr Acula.3496:

There fixed it for ya kitten bag.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Why-is-there-hostility-towards-GvG/first#post2796188

And here we start to see examples of it.

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547:

What is this gear you’re running that gives you 15000 Power/Precision/Though/Healing/Vitality? I’d like to buy it please.

You’re right! My apologies, 5%~10% on the stats where a build is actually specialized.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

If your server holds the buff and you want to GvG or roam on an even playing field I don’t think it is possible to sabotage the points and lose the buff.

True, it isn’t. But stop saying “roam” as if anyone expects to “roam” on even playing fields, you cannot expect fairness in open field PvP because you cannot control what the other 79+ people on your or your opponents team will do. When my guild roams, we don’t roam expecting exactly 8-10 people to show up and fight us and it is almost never going to happen where we have a fair fight one way or the other.

The only place that even playing field comes into play is in organized combat where external factors are kept out, ie what everyone here is talking about but keeps trying to label as something that it isn’t (that is to say, trying to throw in the word roaming, when we are clearly discussing GvGs). In this case, you can sabotage yourself by having the opposing team disable your buff without you stopping them… of course the rest of your server may not like that.

ParaldaWind.4523:

No, I don’t want the buff when I go 25v60. Or, more specifically, I don’t want them to have the buff. Hell, I don’t want to have the buff when I go 25v25, or 25v15, or 25v30.

You’re entering an unfair fight, and complain about it being unfair-er (yes, I realize the grammatical faux pas but it was intentional)? Why aren’t you using your superior 25 organized guild mates to neutralize the buff? Is field play and management not something you guys like? Just want to collide X into Y? The buff is roughly 1% of an additional player (per opponent present) (if they hold all three borderland buffs). Would you immediately resign yourselves if you faced off in 25vs61?

For example, we don’t GvG because it removes the whole aspect of geographical play where chokes, high ground, etc. This update, on purely map design, is like a chorus. The fact that capturing the buff almost necessitates the former geographical awareness, while pending on testing, seems like a positive to me.

Do we just have to take everything from the SotG and state it completely out of context?

kurtosis.9526:

Promising upcoming MMORPG’s like EQ:Next launch.

Yup, but its a PvE(X) game. When someone thinks about Everquest, they think excellent (if not a little bit frustrating) PvE.

kurtosis.9526:

Promising upcoming MMORPG’s like ESO launch.

Hahaha, no.

Xenesis.6389:

I have to point out the flaw that the top 3 servers faced each other more often than not in that 7 week period, with some rank 4 and 5 thrown in the T1 match ups. Once the league play comes in they will all have more opportunity to face the lower servers, thus more wins, thus more points.

I have a feeling that the match-ups will be decided by multipliers on whether or not a server has fought another using the same old method as current with RNG. Otherwise, they’d have to do 3of12 but that’d be all over the place.

So it will still prefer sticking SoR/JQ/BG/TC in a match-up, it’ll just throw a lamb to slaughter along the way and the one week where none of the goliaths face one another.

Finally watched this, well first half of it; I actually enjoyed the balance discussion at the start especially the conversation about conditions, mesmers, and warriors.

S/D thief is going to lose either its boon or damage aspect, to some degree. Glad to hear that. And damage will be going down across the board, not just buffing defense or the offense of classes like mesmers and elementalists. Also good to hear.

Targetting changes that ignore mesmer clones, good also. This is coming on the October patch right?

Durzlla.6295:

Is….. Is he kidding? Please tell me that was a joke……. Please…

Context is key.

timidobserver.7925:

Looks like he didn’t change his mind, so we are really going to see BG, SOR, and JQ versus Emry Bay and Crystal Desert. I have no idea what Anet is thinking.

Holy kitten, we’re going to see a 3v2?

:D

Jumper.9482:

[Spirit] Ranger’s Shortbow#1 is really hard to play. We don’t want to add in anything more such as giving control over the pet’s knockdown because having to manage between 2 abilities would be just too much for the vast majority of our playerbase to handle.

Well, in this case, they are right!

The vast majority of the Spirit Ranger playerbase wouldn’t be sure of what to do if they could not just throw their keyboards against a wall and win. I mean, just look, after the recent patch I still see Spirit Rangers engage a fight with all their spirits out…

…And then die ten seconds later when all of their spirits died to residual AoE, and turned themselves into lame ducks with six skills.

BurrTheKing.8571:

So I just watched the SotG, sounds like Mr. Sharp is fine with Warriors as they are currently. Super basically said it best, and when Vontehil tried to argue against it he got countered pretty fast. I’m cautiously optimistic.

The only problem with warrior is Healing Sig (passive is too strong) and/or Cleansing Ire; the rest of the “strengths” that are usually complained about are from the point of view of people who try to be greedy with their utilities and end up getting punished for it.

…And the stun build with Sigil rounding up.

Cactus.2710:

Nobody would be clamoring for the former if there was the slightest evidence of the latter.

Dev stream in t-minus 3 hours.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

The SAB team has 8 devs, or more. We have one.

If you’re going to try and make a point, at least don’t do it while demonstrating how uninformed you happen to be on the subject.

Jscull.2514:

It’s why we left.

You’re still here.

In fact you post more than people who actively play (and enjoy) the game, which I find to be a bit of a sad joke really.

Let the kitten continue anyway.

Kincaidia.3192:

At least I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Defending definitely needs a reward more than a trickle of karma/wxp

Defense procs will need to be rewarded in different ways, if you want meaningful rewards, because:

• Defending procs can occur many times during a single attack (a few succesful defenses, during a long keep siege, quickly out-strips WXP gain of actually taking the structure, for example).
• Defending requires nothing more than dumping 4 supply into a wall or gate.
• A single thief tapping the gate can start a defense proc.
• Bots/Griefers can get defense procs by just wasting keep supply.

Also, defending does reward more than trickle of karma -> player bags…. if you win, of course.

This should definitely scale with the upgrades.

Paper → 9
Rock → 20
Fortified → 40

Albane.3618:

In regards to the 2 month period, I was referencing their statement about WvW not getting any updates in the middle of each season. This is in an attempt to keep the matchups “fair.” I would like to raise the point that class balancing will not see this kind of delay, so why should WvW updates? Again, seems like a poor excuse for a lack of creativity.

Which is irrelevant because what was the rate of WvW patching to begin with? A mastery every two weeks? Its not an excuse at much of anything unless you want to see it as such because they aren’t talking about “bug fixes/skill changes” they are talking about things like Bloodlust which in and of itself isn’t something that can just be pumped out in a few weeks, and which completely changes the dynamics of a game/map.

But, that being said, my point was that you seem to be casting this bizarre prognosis (just by simple observation on your other posts) about a thing that won’t be releasing for a month meanwhile something far more relevant/important is being released two weeks from now, which completely seems to have gone under your radar.

Rednik.3809:

Guildmate got ascended weapon drop in WvW yesterday. I think with new magic find chances on better drops become significantly higher.

I know of a few of ours who pulled in a rather bizarrely high number of Ascended/Exotics from their chests after the most recent patch.

Albane.3618:

Dev response: "While we are still looking at ways to break up the zerg, we hope that our new coat of paint, codename “WvW Seasons,” will make the matchups more balanced in terms of having unbalanced matchups. Remember, we can only update WvW every 2 months, and we still need to finish implementing all the masteries that are utterly useless. With that said, you should go play another game and stop posting useful ideas on our forums. See you all on the battlefield!"

I guess someone doesn’t really pay attention to updates at all. Sept 17th → WvW Patch <- reserve judgment. Seasons start on October 4th.

How do I into flow of time?

selan.8354:

do u even play wvw? ok then tell me what happens if a zerg with a ton of necros hits a zerg with a lot of mesmers? what about the new warrior meta? its ridiculous how strong the warrior is in wvw. gueardian trains are nearly unstoppable.thieves crit u for kitten 8k even if u have toughness. i cant even react due to the interrupt spam in wvw.

Making an extreme, impossible example is not how you demonstrate a point; ie. a zerg of mesmers vs a zerg of necros. One that will never happen, two you seem to be under the impression that Null Field (an extremely powerful ability in WvW) doesn’t exist.

selan.8354:

meanwhile mesmers are bottom feeders(and no im not talking about stupid roaming im talking about wvw).

Just because you don’t like the builds they have available (and since when is roaming not a part of WvW?) doesn’t mean jack. There will always be optimal builds: optimal builds for zerging, for roaming, and for havoc.

Summing up this thread to spare people the sheer atrophy their brain will experience upon reading:

My Opinion >Your Opinion: The Thread.

And…

Anyone who disagrees with me is a fanboy, and is therefore wrong.

TGSlasher.1458:

Not only do you have to balance the profession over 3 parts of the game, but you also have to balance the profession and its builds to other builds of the same profession and the other professions. Taking into consideration how those other builds then perform in PvE, PvP (against all other builds) and WvW.

WvW is a self-correcting system, imo, because of how large a number of people that get involved therein individual class OP-ness gets diluted.

Achilles.2197:

I believe he is referring to the abyssmal numbers that watched GW2 PAX

Which I keep trying to remind you people is a silly metric because the highest GW2 viewer count has been at 9~10k (Ascended Crafting). (Pre-launch it only ever reached 20k.)

5.5k (on only the English stream since everyone likes to ignore other languages) is apparently more than 50% of the population base that even bothers to watch Twitch.

In context of relative reality, the word “abysmal” has no place.

garethh.3518:

In a team based game, having AN enemy who’s spec hardcounters yours can be played around through teamwork and positioning… but in a 1v1 or 2v2 skirmish… there is very little room to play around with…
Pugs hate feeling useless.
Pros need tons of depth in gameplay.
Hard counters in conquest supply neither.

Hard counters exist in all game types, and the more lopsided or cheese a spec (spirit rangers, greedy necros) the more blatant and potent the hard counter to them ends up being. A team comp comprised of two identical cheese builds was met with all of one single build that shut them down. There’s no team play around that because you’re over invested, this sort of rock-paper-scissors roster dynamics will always exist.

SYNC played well in team fights despite said hard-countering but they were losing in management and skirmishes; this to me would imply depth in a game. When you over-invest in a powerful but cheesy spec (especially one to which you know there is a hard counter), you face the risk of being countered and countered hard. No game, or amount of depth, can save you from that.

The 1v1, 2v2 hard countering exists in all games because games are rarely if ever balanced around 1v1 or 2v2. This is taken into account when building a team and assigning roles (usually), or if you believe you can outplay a player. This is also why most builds don’t just slap four spirits on to their bar and call it a day spamming 111111. They have utilities to face various issues.

shoufer.2917:

so you want zergers to get everything and people who take time to defend get nothing. You should be able to find another game you would fit into better keep the responses intelligent and help make the game better

What?

You didn’t read what I wrote I’d wager because (a.) nowhere was zerging mentioned nor is it even a point of discussion, (b.) no where did you address the very legitimate concern I’ve raised based on evidence of what happened in this game on launch, and (c.) no where did you even bother to try and address my concern about the blatant problem this would cause by rewarding griefers tangibly.

Do you think Yaks don’t reward anything for kittens and giggles?

I’m not Evil Kenevil, I don’t want to not reward defense because I am some evil mastermind twirling his mustache. I fear that just upping rewards will do more harm than good.

garethh.3518:

It in GW2, in a small skirmishy game… it just leaves an unavoidable situation where you will get kitten on, best player NA or not…

It leaves them but good teams will shift around that.

The CC/SYNC match-up was pretty much showcasing this. They (CC) built a team comp that simply hard countered SYNC. Wherever those spirit rangers showed up, there was a warrior to greet them.

Conquest certainly limits this variety by forcing scrimmages, I agree.

garethh.3518:

Hah.
Good times.

They were terrible times! Mein gott!

If only the world were so kind as to spare me from any more MJ products…

garethh.3518:

GW2’s have caring in spades… they just are incompetent from one means or another… shoring up that issue with simplicity would only seem to help.

The studio is small when it comes down to the makers and shakers, but I’d probably call them talented. The development team, while numbered at 200, is largely not actually that large when it comes to actual creators. The four teams on LS largely employ tools already created while new tech is also made in the background, with SAB being the only wide exception of an update that is pretty much showcasing novel tech. I think, across the board, you actually have a very small group of developers actually developing tools that slowly make their way into usage but said developing resources are spread all over the game from WvW to PvP to PvE. I’d even go so far as to wager that given the complexity of the former two vs. the later one, that they actually do get a good bit of attention but their cycle of development is simply much, much longer given even equal developmental man power.

Now, why is the actual creation team so small? You’d probably have to go up to upper management for that and the offices of NCSoft. When it comes down to it, when daddy calls, he’s going to want people in places where most of the money flows from.

At least its not SoE… Someday, in the future, I might actually be able to log into FFXIV and figure out if I like the game. Someday.

PS: The fact that the devs care in spades, is, if anything, what gives some people hope that this game has a future.

Remember yaks?
Remember when they gave rewards?
Remember when twenty people would escort two timed yaks?
Remember when bots filled up the queues?

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

(Long story short, its hard to reward this stuff without it instantly becoming abusable/exploitable. I, for one, don’t want Siegegriefer McGrieferson to get “sweet rewards” for doing his thing.)

Toad.6528:

None of us are devs? :O

Don’t lie, we know you’re a dev! Your secret is out!

Darnis.4056:

Warriors were definitely meta even before Pax… like REALLY meta.. in fact they need to be tweaked slightly.. too many buffs too fast..

Its the signet, specifically, if I were to blame anything really.

The combination of Zerkers (no poison) and Signet makes it hard to shut them down. If only just poison were able to ignore Zerkers, it’d probably be much more manageable than it is now.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Long live the community!

The community is dead! Long live the community!

Chaith.8256:

It’s odd, I find S/D thieves to be a fairly uncommon sight in most high ranked tournaments. I’m agreeing though.

Common or not, really, doesn’t matter. The moment an elementalist or mesmer appears on the enemy team, it would be foolish not to roll in a S/D thief.

I’d prefer it more if the build were tuned to be in line with how warrior currently operates against necros and spirit rangers -> punishes their utility greed. The hammer warrior simply demolishes spirits and leaves a spirit ranger with nothing on the back four of his ability slots, especially now and he’ll be dead in 25s. Likewise a necro slotted with greedy, offensive utilities find themselves getting stunlocked. Stunlock warrior, though, quickly falls apart against more balanced builds and professions that can managed his skull cracks, for example. (Healing signet is a bit too oppressive though.)

S/D as it stands is just a bit too good, no matter the enemy build, against those two classes.

People still play Spirit Rangers?

As for eles/mesmers, S/D thief is still too much of a dominating force unless something works its way into team dynamics to be able to remove it from pressuring team elementalists or mesmers, but that still won’t solve the problem of said classes get sniped by said thief.