Guild Wars 2

Balekai.6083:

Zerker should in my opinion keep the top spot as most optimal if the team is good enough with active defenses.

Slight shift, “Pure damage” is how I’d put it. We do need to stay aware of the constant problem that power is simply more useful than Condition damage.

spoj.9672:

Other options are already viable. I seriously dont understand why people have a problem with this. Please explain to me what is wrong with a system where everything works.

The reason we cant have a decent discussion is because there is a major failing in understanding of the other side.

If you are argueing to make other methods socially acceptible. Then fair enough. But theres no discussion to be had there. Because thats a people problem and unrelated to the system. You also cant fix people. This thread is about changing the system not the people. So i believe you are in the wrong thread.

I said that myself, everything is viable, naked runs are viable.

I’ve posted it a few times, the primary problem is people. People want to divide and denigrate and exclude, and people are tribal and think in terms of sides.

The secondary problem is a lack of variety of encounter. If one method of encounter is far and away easier than any other (as I’d argue is the case right now with DD burns), then it has a de facto stifling effect on development of other styles.

And thank you, but you’re mistaken this is a thread about the direction they’re taking re:Zerker and play styles in HOT. Given that I’ve talked about both the things I think they should do and my opinions on what they are doing, I feel quite at home.

~~~

There’s another point though, I’d argue I understand people’s POV pretty well (as much as possible I want to avoid the ‘sides’ generalization, it’s harmful to the discussion). I think there’s a lot of framing and reframing going on though, both internal and external. To me the primary motivators are a tribal feeling of being under attack (linked with a sense of self-association with a particular playstyle) and a resistance to change of a system that feels comfortable and favorable to people.

Now to be brutally frank, I don’t expect anyone to state agreement with either of those concepts. I mean, they’re not actively negative, but they’re not quite super positive either. That’s not how we like to think of ourselves. The thing is, peoples self-validation isn’t really a reasonable part of the discussion, we have to try our best to cut to the core of things:

~~

So the core of things:

Some people feel attacked and insulted by the “Zerk Meta” and want to strike back and insult back.

Some people just want more variety of playstyles or just variety of play.

Some people Feel attacked and insulted for playing/pushing zerk and want to strike back and insult back

Some people want to complete content as quickly as possible and don’t want to move away from the current style because that hurts their farming rate.

Some people want to be validated and get their props, and really don’t want to give an inch of the ground to those they’ve designated their ‘lessors’.

Some people apparently just want to rage against folks that disagree with them (Anet forum moderation is pretty strong though so those posts don’t last very long, usually)

Almost everyone is a mix of these things.

No, I"m sorry. Making other options viable is not enforcing those methods.

Even if they made pure Direct damage tactically poor, it’s still not enforcing anything, it’s simply moving the ‘optimal’ slider.

A central premise of GW2, and something the devs have done a pretty good job at supporting is that they don’t enforce a particular play style.

~~~

Let’s take a moment to note the ‘people like you’ language, this is why we can’t have nice things ><

~~~

Anyways I, and many people, want to make more of the options available more socially acceptable and want more variety in encounter. You’re flat saying I’m claiming the opposite, and I have no idea why (except convenience in dispute, maybe?)

There’s honestly a brutal level of doublethink in this, and an element of ‘turning accusations back’, but it really has no basis… It’s simply not what I’m saying

Edit: And again, this is the problem. It’s nigh impossible to even have the discussion when it continuously gets filed into these conveniently arguable slots. It’s rote argument that signifies nothing except self-validation.

Still, this is a chance to speak on enforcing playstyles. I like being fast too, so I run zerk or asssasin gear on many of my characters. That being said, If I’m adverting a group I never advertise any grouping limits, and argue with my friends sometimes when they do.

I’m happy with people playing zerk, I do it myself. The thing I’m not happy with is the divisive attitude around it and the fact that people think enforcing their playstyle on their groups is a good filter of skill or acceptibility.

Anyone is free to set their groups as they want, but I don’t think much of it, and more importantly, I think it would be really fun if we had fewer burn friendly fights that took different styles for my characters (and maybe pull out some of the chars that don’t get much play).

Thaddeus.4891:

Windsagio.1340:

I remember!

The discussion seems to pretty consistently breaking down to “Attacking Zerk” and “Defending Zerk from attack”. There’s a very doctrinaire feel to the whole thing, and it gets in the way of discussion.

A lot of the posters end up reading like it’s "DON"T TOUCH OUR ZERK GEAR!" and everything circles back to that motivation. On the other side it’s “ZERK GEAR IS A POX DESTROY IT!” with some “YAY MAKE TRINITY” slipped in.

There are legitimate issues with the game balance in pve, but the defrensive/tribal tone of the discussion makes actually talking about it impossible, because people are more interested in attacking or defending these preset positions.

I try to don’t pay too much attention to those extreme. It’s fun to argue with them, but I don’t really count them as pertinent to the discussion.

If you only take rational point on both side, the situation as I see it is :

Both group want harder content and making condition damage good in PvE. The divergence of opinion come later. And I will generalize grossly.

One side want more diversity in PvE, with an emphasizes on gear diversity. They talk about different solution so that zerker won’t be the only optimized choice anymore.

The other side look at the ideas of the first group but think that either these solutions won’t change the situation (ppl will still play zerker in harder content) or that it will force specific gear (holy trinity). They think that there isn’t a gear diversity problem (outside of condition) and trying to force a ’’solution’’ will only break the game. They prefer that we focus on build diversity (trait, runes, weapons, utilities, etc), harder content and fixing condition in PvE.

I’m 100% bias in that description, but that’s how I view the current situation.

That’s not even bias, it’s just being able to articulate the side you understand better, better

My own biased version woudl be that the sides are (And I hate to be going to a binary, but as you said we’re generalizing for simplicity).

People that want to see more variety of play encouraged either through social means, or in the extreme through bold gameplay changes. They feel that the prevalence of one style of play leads to boring encounters and play. There’s a small, vocal group that want to have a style of play that includes extremely limited/repeated roles, but a lot of variety between roles.

~~~

People who either don’t want the style of play changed (they’re happy with their current learning, don’t want their farms slowed down, enjoy the thrill of rapid burns) or are cynical about the prospect of the change and think there is no viable solution, beyond replacing one problem with another.

~~~~

I am really in the first group. I think there’s a lot of potential for improvement, and I think the hints we’ve seen from HoT are HUGE steps in that direction.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

People fail to realise one simple thing IllegalChocolate mentioned : There will always be the most effective way.

I don’t care personnaly, have all classes and enough gold to rebuild their stat allocation for “new meta”.

Excepting the many many many people on all sides of the discussion who have said and acknowledged exactly that.

Yes there will be a meta that people come up with, there would be even if all play styles were actually even (an impossibility), because that’s how people work. There’s a fairly difficult design question here about expanding the range of styles in an encounter. There are people who are locked into the efficiency trip that both complain the dungeons are boring and also run them the same rote way every time, over and over. Right now it’s a somewhat self-inflicted issue, but it becomes serious if one way is TOO much more efficient, or even considered too much more efficient than the others.

It’s risky to generalize personal goals. “The goal for me and my friends” is easy to but really shouldn’t be conflated with “The goal for everyone”.

Divergent goals and impressing one goal on another (in any direction) are (as I mentioned above) part of the reason we have conflict over this.

EDIT: Thadd, got to run off to a GDC talk, I’ll read and get a good response to your post tonight. From the look at it you have a pretty good summary

I remember!

The discussion seems to pretty consistently breaking down to “Attacking Zerk” and “Defending Zerk from attack”. There’s a very doctrinaire feel to the whole thing, and it gets in the way of discussion.

A lot of the posters end up reading like it’s "DON"T TOUCH OUR ZERK GEAR!" and everything circles back to that motivation. On the other side it’s “ZERK GEAR IS A POX DESTROY IT!” with some “YAY MAKE TRINITY” slipped in.

There are legitimate issues with the game balance in pve, but the defrensive/tribal tone of the discussion makes actually talking about it impossible, because people are more interested in attacking or defending these preset positions.

It’s like the post from Notrigger a bit back (since deleted), it’s pretty aggressive, but more to the point it falls back into a habitual assignment of agruments to the 2 traditional sides of the ‘zerk discussion’ assigning opposition to one side, and reiterating the other side aggressively.

I’d love it to move past that point, but the defensive “don’t touch what’s mine” (or at least perceived as such) attitude makes it so hard to get there.

Thaddeus.4891:

I see your point Windsagio, but I don’t see your goal here? Why shift the discussion toward this aspect. Was it a problem in the last couple of posts?

Hah you got me there, let me look back and try to remember what I was thinking. I’m very much a ‘go with the flow’ kind of poster. Once I find out what got me no the track I’ll post again, sorry ><

Edit: This is also @Thaddeus

That ties into issues of crypto-elitism of course, but I’ve come around to the position that there are a few bad apples poisoning the culture (generally you can tell them because they talk a lot about the depersonalized, dehumanized ‘bads’), and that it’s best to try to let these people have as little impact on the discussion as possible.

Thaddeus.4891:

Windsagio.1340:

Really nothing else to say. This attitude is why this discussion is always an impossible wreck.

Ok so we should say : It’s black and white. PvE is easy in all situation and we can’t really defend any position because PvE = corner stack + pressing 1.

If we are saying otherwise WE are making the discussion impossible?

no, you correct the misapprehension and avoid the attitude of ‘we have to defend ourselves’.

You’re reiterating the fight. At worst, who cares if that guy thinks its easy?

More relevantly, think how this became such a tribal fight where tribe zerker and tribe everyone else that cares hate each other and want to destroy each other?

It’s an attitudinal thing. The defensive mindset makes valuable discussion almost impossible — And I want to reiterate, we’re all guilty of this. The people who are so mad at zerker meta pushers are in the exact same position. They feel the need to defend themselves from a perceived attack.

spoj.9672:

Well then you obviously dont understand what people are saying. We are not argueing against improvements to complexity. We are argueing against the need for alternative gear stats to become optimal. Because doing that creates barriers for entry. It doesnt make sense to ask for that. Making us change traits, utilities and weapons and encouraging (not forcing) us to use defensive stats is fine. A forced approach is a bad idea and it goes against anets philosophies. I really dont understand why people dont understand this.

Also if people really want other gear stats to be optimal. Instead of just spewing reason. Why dont they give examples of how it can be done without causing forced gear changes and making it impossible for some compositions to work? Im sure anet would love to hear them. I would to. Because i certainly cant think of anything that would satisfy both sides.

It comes down to “defending the style” (as Thaddeus said) and arguing against specific changes to the status quo.

My argument is that to get your stated goals, the status quo has got to (and is) shift(ing). The way the game currently works, the style in question is so optimal that it trivializes most content.

My further argument would be that there’s always a risk of emphasizing optimization at the cost of fun. If we take this improper emphasis away, the entire argument disappears. People emphasizing optimization over fun and pushing that culture out into the game is why we have these pro-zerk and anti-zerk conflicts in the first place.

There are people of all opinions that buy into this and make problems, but in GW2 the main thrust of it comes to “If someone doesn’t play like me they’re bads” vs “I’m hurt that you called me a ‘bad’ just because I don’t care to use your style. I’m going to come back at you and say you’re also bad, and lazy, and a jerk.”

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not black or white. Yes PvE is easy, but we gonna defend ourself

Really nothing else to say. This attitude is why this discussion is always an impossible wreck.

This thread, as is the way, is decaying to ‘dungeon culture people defending the status quo they’re comfortable with and defending the validity of their style of play’

I always feel like PvE’ers have a compensation syndrome in compared to PvP, and feel the need to prove it’s as challenging, complex, and deserves the props that PvP gets.

I could make a case that it’s in the speedrun/dungeon culture’s benefit if they mix up the meta some and make things a bit less burn-friendly. PvE in this game is so monstrously easy right now, it almost gives the giggles to see people trying to compare it to the other game modes (excepting people who blob WvW, but that if anything is comparable to PvE in it’s successful optimization of rewards/time).

I always hear people saying they’d like the content to be harder, but any move in that direction will inevitably be at the cost of the speedrun style as it currently stands, because that style being possible makes the runs too easy (and let’s not kid ourselves, most of these runs are absurdly easy no matter what you run).

~~~

This isn’t (shouldn’t be) about validation or denigration of a particular playstyle, it’s in the short term about how improvements to the game in HoT will effect that playstyle, and in the long term about improving the game mode in (this case PvE).

spoj.9672:

Actually no build depends on gear (excluding runes/sigils). Gear contributes to its effectiveness and nothing else. Obviously using condi gear for a healing build doesnt make sense. But it does still work. Its just far from as effective as it could be if you used appropriate gear.

Theres nothing wrong with the gear stats in the game currently. Variation in traits, weapons and utilities is enough for a healthy game. Improved encounters will encourage this variety. But in terms of balance its mostly fine already. Theres just not enough well designed encounters yet.

The only problem which wont be solved by better encounters is condition damage. And thats not really because of gear. Thats simply because conditions are poorly designed. They do not reach as high potential damage as direct and they suffer from the stack limit, overwriting and slow build up time. They are very poor in open world. And this is something thats unlikely to change due to technical limitions.

That is true, but only to the degree that it doesn’t really matter what gear you’re running at all.

DeathPanel.8362:

Bubi.7942:

Lifestealer.4910:

People don’t play MMOs for “fun”, its all about the carrot at the end. After all the MMO games did come from ARPG genre which is all about the end reward. Gw2 tries to be different by saying that we should enjoy the content for what they are. Problem is the games content is not that enjoyable or immersive just like 99% of MMO on the market. Most involve doing mundane tasks over and over. The only way someone is going to enjoy doing that is to get that carrot at the end. After all, loot obssession can be another sort of fun, otherwise games like diablo 3 wouldn’t be so popular.

Not too well worded I think, but yeah, you are right.

It seems some people are mixing “the path” with “the goal”. The “fun” I get from GW2 is earning the reward, putting on my shiny new backpiece, or just seeing that another collection achievment (or any other) is done. And that makes me feel happy and satisfied.

Doing a dungeon 145 times for that (not a made up number, that’s actually how many times you have to do a dungeon for a full collcetion) is not fun. It’s the way towards fun, but the process itself is boring and mundane.

For me fun and dungeons are polar opposites, yet I do them occasianally (2-3x times a week).

It’s hard for me to believe that someone running the same path for the 35th time still finds it enjoyable.

Exactly. This is what I’ve been trying to make some people here understand. Doing the same pve content 1000+ times over is not fun. Completing your build and getting the gear you want, then taking it to wvw to fight real players is what’s fun for me.

There’s a obsessive/compulsive element in what you’re saying that is valuable for designers to consider, but it’s not even remotely an universal attitude (and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that people fled other MMOs to GW2 in order to escape that feeling), and it’s an extremely destructive way to design a game, to feed that attitude.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Windsagio.1340:

If you’re not playing for fun, then why play?

Oh please don’t tell people how to play….

OK lets get serious here. They can do whatever they want. If they’re playing and they’re not enjoying it (having fun) there’s something broken somewhere. People do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, but if they dont’ enjoy it and only want the rewards that’s pretty massively dysfunctional.

As a designer, It’d be disheartening to see players saying that, even knowing that that’s a known factor in some MMO players.

If you’re playing from loot obsession, how you play doesn’t matter, and the designers shouldn’t really try to please you.

Of course I don’t believe what he says is really right, I was at a talk at GDC today (on buying games you’re not gonna play) and the very first thing the presenter said was that there’s a huge gap between how players describe their behavior and interests and what those behaviors/interests actually are.

Edit: This is important too, toxicity gets thrown around a lot in these discussions, but the ‘not playing to enjoy myself’ attitude is a truly poisonous. That thought process is inherently incompatable with good discussion, except in the base level ‘how do we exploit this weird obsession for profit?’ kind of way… And I hope Anet uses that kind of thought process as little as possible in their design.

thefantasticg.3984:

As long as there is a healthbar on the enemy then DPS will always be king.

And I’m with Deathpanel on this one. I’ve done somewhere well north of 500 fractals and surely 1000+ dungeons by now… I don’t watch cut scenes anymore and very rarely is it fun because of bads. I’m there for the gold/loots.

If you’re not playing for fun, then why play?

survivable dps is king. back when we didn’t know better there was actually a time when people hated pure DPS setup players in their groups because they spent all their time lounging about on the ground. In that time (years ago now), in many groups, pure DPS wasn’t well appreciated or desirable.

As survivability tactics became more commonly known that changed, and as it became so exceptionally easy to stay alive as pure DPS in a proper team, the meta shifted.

If pure DPS survivability becomes much more difficult (lots of ideas floating around), the meta will shift and pure DPS will become less popular again.

Essential flaw is the old ‘only conditions are optimal’ vs ‘only conditions are possible’.

As long as every build is reasonable some builds being better for some encounters and others being better for others isn’t only acceptable, it’s desirable.

VodCom.6924:

The actual situation can be fine for you. However, what if we could keep the builds you love and play relevant while opening new opportunities for optimal play ? WvW and sPvP feature rich and varied meta builds, why can’t PvE have the same variety ?

Really because smart AI is both very difficult to do and very annoying to the players.

PvE is about learning and patterns with a small amount of reaction/controlled randomness.

PvP is about build (hard meta) and very rapid situational reactivity.

Neither skillset is better or more important than the others, but they’re extremely different sets, and to some degree have very different appeals.

Also, as there’s been some discussion, expectations are different. For PvE there’s actually a fairly high expectation of success. you master PvE.

You can’t effectively master PvP unless you’re the best player in the world. If matchmaking worked perfectly you’d eventually average out your win/loss if you play enough.

Thaumanova Anamoly agrees with you, now that I think of it ><

VodCom.6924:

Windsagio.1340:

NoTrigger.8396:

snipped

Well… that was insanely combative…

And you’re arguing against points that I’m not even making.

You have to understand that NoTrigger and others have had this argument with random dudes for years and sometimes bad habits and frustration take the better of them.

Also, not everyone has a clear view of what is going on. Saying the actual lack of variety of optimal builds is bad because it is the result of a bad game design decision makes sense. It is a constructive opinion that I personnaly share.

However, more childish people claim the meta is bad because it does not correspond to the way they are playing. In other words, some people want to change the meta instead of adapting themselves. Arguing with these people (who often claim that “because everything should be completed by everyone, every gear/build should be equally effective”) is like arguing with a wall. It’s frustrating.

There is a consensus on this “more variety of optimal builds is better for everyone”. Even though there will always be a “best build/party setup”, there could be alternative setups that would be almost as effective as the optimal one. I would be delighted to see the game moving to this direction. Keep berserker the way it is and make condition glass canon parties almost as effective.

Now the true problem is : how do you implement this without breaking the servers nor breaking PvP ?

It’s shades of religious or political ‘debate’ on any number of websites, where you expect people to continually fall back on comfortable rote arguments and comfortable rote outrage. It really shouldn’t have any place in discussing game design.

~~~

As my second post above, I honestly really like the way Anet is approaching the problem. They’re addressing issues that make the berzerker style too safe and too easy so that it’s a high risk/high damage style instead of a high damage/low risk if you know the expected patterns’ style.

They’re also trying to make it so high DD isn’t the best way to kill always, but I’m sure we’ll agree they’ve had a harder time with that. They had to nerf the mordrem hounds, and husks end up being just dull as fight opponents.

Lifestealer.4910:

Windsagio.1340:

NoTrigger.8396:

hazenvirus.8154:

Max direct damage will likely still be the go to unless Anet radically changes current and future content to punish players who rely on proper positioning, dodging, and active defenses over passive stats and face tanking.

and why would they do that?
why would they change it from rewarding good players for being good to rewarding bad players for being bad?

that doesnt make any sense and is beyond stupid.

Because an encounter with multiple strong solutions is more interesting than an encounter with a single overwhelmingly optimal solution. It’s certainly not easy to do, but it’s a worthwhile and important goal.

On the bolded part, the kind of thinking you’re expressing there is very basic to why this is difficult to discuss. It’s applying almost moral values to a design decision.

It really depends on what Anet wants for their challenging instanced content. If they want to make the dungeons more forgiving for new/bad players then buffing tank gear or making it relevant into the meta would meet that end. If however they want make content so difficult to the point where every mistake is instant death then they have to balance things with zerker, which means every other spec would be left in the dust.

There are plenty of ways to change the style without simply making it easier. Any quick ‘solution’ I can think of is wrought with problems, but you can see where they’re going with the changes:

They’re limiting extremely strong defensive abilities (stability)
They’re making CC in general weaker (and sometimes almost entirely disabled) vs bosses, and most importantly removing first hit CC.

They’re doing system changes to hit some of the thigns that make zerker burns so effective right now without nerfing the zerker stat set (and without making things easier or more forgiving).

It’s the best way to go on it, I’d hope we’d all agree.

NoTrigger.8396:

snipped

Well… that was insanely combative…

And you’re arguing against points that I’m not even making.

First of all, I’m not looking at gear, I’m looking at style. There’s a tendency to aggressively and obsessively defend the gear and accuse others of attacking the gear as if that’s the line in the sand.

Secondly, I at least have been pretty clear that yes, a new meta would emerge: To quote myself from a post above “The zerker problem is people”. It’s the need to exclude and obsess over minor optimizations that makes this a discussion outside of honestly somewhat vague design refinements.

Thirdly, there’s a platonic ideal for the design (which I"m going out of the way to admit is impossible, and extremely difficult to even approach), which is that all approaches are potentially desirable for encounters. It’s partially due to the social issues, but this is not the current state in GW2. Any designer worth their salt would want to fix it.

it’s not about punishing good or bad players or rewarding bad or good players, it’s about maximizing the variety of play and encounter

NoTrigger.8396:

hazenvirus.8154:

Max direct damage will likely still be the go to unless Anet radically changes current and future content to punish players who rely on proper positioning, dodging, and active defenses over passive stats and face tanking.

and why would they do that?
why would they change it from rewarding good players for being good to rewarding bad players for being bad?

that doesnt make any sense and is beyond stupid.

Because an encounter with multiple strong solutions is more interesting than an encounter with a single overwhelmingly optimal solution. It’s certainly not easy to do, but it’s a worthwhile and important goal.

On the bolded part, the kind of thinking you’re expressing there is very basic to why this is difficult to discuss. It’s applying almost moral values to a design decision.

spoj.9672:

Well thats the thing. Because the gear itself isnt out of balance. So you really shouldnt say it is. We have enough people insisting it is, we dont need more people saying it. Defensive gear is just as op at surviving as offensive gear is op at doing damage.

And yes it seems they are addressing the issue through the content without forcing roles, gear types etc. Which is good. Unfortunately we still get constant threads like this where people keep blaming the problems on a gearset.

The problem I have with that framing, and the reason I dont’ like it is because it ends up reading really really poorly.

It seems like we’re in agreement that the ‘problem’ (such as it is) needs to be repaired through game rules and encounter design rather than just in numbers, but there’s an issue where people come off as if they’re defending their preferred gearset rather than considering the optimal gameplay fixes, which heavily alienates people.

~~

Maybe I’m just being way too meta though, since we have total agreement (afaik) on what the actual fix entails

spoj.9672:

Its not out of balance. The content is just old and too easy for bad players to do well in glass gear. Gear is not the problem.

Oh c’mon.

Still, I’ll rephrase just for you: ’it’s out of balance for the current content’.

The cause of the imbalance doesn’t negate the imbalance.

It should, and in fact has to, be fixed holistically, and every sign points to that being the way they’re fixing it.

ODB.6891:

hybrid.5027:

I like how people are trying to solve the zerker “problem.” News flash: it’s not a “problem.” Glass cannon builds are the end result of a game with active defenses and classes who are self-sufficient on healing. Period. This is not only not a problem, it is actually a good thing and a step forward in MMO design.

If you really want to nerf zerker, introduce new content so challenging that the bad players who wear zerker and get carried by their DPS have to take off the zerker to survive. But be careful what you wish for.

I’m still struggling with the whole desire to nerf zerker to begin with. All the suggestions to make it harder to play in a specific gear set. You never hear anyone cry…nerf soldier or nerf nomad. No one wants to make it hard for players in survival gear to survive, but they want to make it hard for players in dps gear to dps.

That’s pretty easy, if one set is out of balance, it’s reasonable to want them balanced.

The problem of balance is actually very difficult in GW2 because of the philosophies around their gameplay.

It being so easy to DPS wrecks balance between gear and playstyles, plus it in some cases trivializes encounters.

From a strict design standpoint it’s something that needs some kind of fixing, the problem is fixing it while keeping pure DPS builds (not just zerk/assassin, note, all pure dps) viable.

hybrid.5027:

I like how people are trying to solve the zerker “problem.” News flash: it’s not a “problem.” Glass cannon builds are the end result of a game with active defenses and classes who are self-sufficient on healing. Period. This is not only not a problem, it is actually a good thing and a step forward in MMO design.

If you really want to nerf zerker, introduce new content so challenging that the bad players who wear zerker and get carried by their DPS have to take off the zerker to survive. But be careful what you wish for.

The “Zerker Problem” has, is, and always will be, people.

Lifestealer.4910:

Sagat.3285:

rotten.9753:

Sagat.3285:

Are you saying pve should be a walk in the park or some kind of daily grinding ??? I didn’t mention open pvp in pve nor npc trainer mobs. Elaborate on your statement I don’t understand … You want pve to be a tag along spam fest please explain .

They will adapt like they always do stop thinking they need training wheels pve can be challenging as well. Can a 100% pve player tell me what is your comfort zone???

No, I’m saying that pve players expect from pve something else than pvp-like gameplay, e.g. bigger numbers, usually only one boss fought at the time, winning most of the time (instead of ~50%), etc.

#fail

Challenging group content huh? Can a dev confirm this is the direction the pve in this game will take so we can stop trying, just end it now and be honest.

I prefer challenging content as well that focuses on individual skill but over the past few years Anet clearly wanted PvE to be faceroll which is why the only major contents are the ez mode living story and the “challenging” world bosses with quotation because If I call zerging with thousands of people while afk watching TV is challenging that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

I think it’s all but explicit. PVE is meant to be accessible, if you want the upper limits of skilled play PvP was always the intended route.

@Shiren, Et al.

The essential problem is that for pure damage to be viable, it has to be the fastest. If it’s not faster than play with more defensive stats than it has no advantage at all, at least to people min/maxing.

The imbalance between damage types being 1 thing, the other bit is pretty hard to solve without messing up gameplay in a more general manner.

The steps they’re taking (weakening stability, normalizing CC) are huge steps in the direction of making pure zerker groups take a substantial skill jump, but there’s still quite a ways to go on that front, and the path isn’t remotely clear.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

Windsagio.1340:

People always think they can trick companies into essentially giving away their content.

No it’s not in their best interest, people will use farmed gold > gem conversions instead of actual $$$ to buy the game, which reduces sales.

It would drive the price of gems crazy up, but that doesn’t convert cleanly into more gem sales.

I don’t think you understand how gems work.

I do of course, but it’s not central to my point.

The only reason people want the expansion for gems instead of for cash is because gems have substantially less real value to those people than cash does. Anything else is smokescreen.

People would hate PvP style enemies, if would feel unfair if the computer were both smart enough to be effective and had full open access to the player skills at player cooldowns.

Well the most basic problem is that active defenses are too good for the fights, mainly because they intentionally try to keep the fights short because long fights are boring.

This both makes it easier to support continual active defenses, and also weakens conditions due to the ‘ramping up period’.

There’s a few ways they could hurt zerk, but all at the cost of hurting the rest of the game;

Lots of retaliation for instance, hurts zerk heavily. So would situational, but unavoidable damage (so you can’t stay in and DPS for long periods of time without stepping out, but you have longer dps windows with toughness or vitality — although this still has issues with being antimelee but not antiranged or vice versa)

There are certainly ways, but there’s always a somewhat sizable gameplay cost, which is why they’ve avoided it.

Plus they want to keep it viable, of course.

Which reinforces the point, tanking is possible and in fact works ><

Jerus.4350:

Ahh yeah… well that’s the old “pillar guard” type build. The whole Valor tree doesn’t benefit anyone but you much for defense (extra toughness from strength in numbers is all). Personally I dropped that as an option for me when I got frustrated with the inconsistency of toughness agro mechanics. Hammer with the honor tree traits are a variation that can make for a nice smooth ride for the group though, theory crafting of course you can do other stuff, but like I said I was just curious what build you were talking about, thanks for posting.

The weird thing is that the aggro is actually shockingly consistent. You’re right though, the honor tree is mostly balls. The only real reason to go into it at all is that AH makes tanking possible because of the massive passive heal.

I am wondering why the aggro has been so consistent tho’, I figured the build doesn’t get used for DPS reasons but if people have threat issues that makes more sense, I just wonder why that hasn’t been a problem when I’ve seen it, do fracs have modified aggro tables?

Jerus.4350:

^^ absolutely Windsagio.

When people say they want “hard content” it’s not really an objective term that they mean. They mean they want content that stresses them, but is fun and beatable. This means that it’s going to have a completely different meaning to various people. Personally I still find Lupi to be hard, I can somewhat consistently solo him, but he still stresses me, a misstep and I fail, but he’s fun and beatable. I’m sure some folks out there like maybe Purple Miku, Dub or No Trigger who’ve soloed him so many times it’s become routine probably wouldn’t consider him hard at this point, I mean some people have soloed him with only dodge roll damage on warrior… that’s nuts.

Also, curious, what is the healing build you were talking about earlier in the thread? I’m a big fan of meta variations, I think there’s lots of strength in traits/utility/weapon choices that can make ones life much easier while still getting things done relatively quickly. For example Hammer guard and variations on traits from the standard 35042 damage build.

I can’t log in to check, but this is the basics (thus there are some gaps with minor things like sigils, I think it’s just more damage however you want to get it);

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWl8ApXo1CxUI8DJRCRg9X761XBHA-TpAZgAi7PAUGAA

its 00660 with 2 floater points (usually in either fiery wrath or master of consecrations).

I used the build editor in PVP mode because its much much faster, usually you mix in zerker trinkets with celestial armor for a bit more dps push.

That one is incomplete because I can’t log in right now so I’m going off raw memory As is the way, you swap in pure of voice when appropriate.

Similarly staff weapon swap is optional, you use it because of “Line of Warding” and because empower is like a 70% self heal in addition to the group heal (noting the problems with might overwrites). As an aside, line and ring of warding are skills I really really don’t see enough guardians using. In the right circumstance, they’re infinite damage mitigation (while they last)

In celestial gear you’re almost guaranteed aggro, the boses really stick to you (you see it the most with mossman, the svanir dude, and the arcdiviner. Because Aggro is fairly reliable everyone can stay in melee and close, which keeps them in your marks, which gives you additional self-heals from the protection ticks. Proper placement keeps people out of cleaves, and if there’s incidental damage or something you have breath.

Now I’m not gonna deny, this is slower than the dps build, alhtough you get a surprising amount of damage out of your marks (especially if you’re running fiery wrath). However, it simplifies many many fights, and between the large incidental healing and aggro control lets the dps’ers focus on DPS.

edit: And yes, as to why I brougth this up, this build can pretty easily face tank most 49 fractals with a little bit of intelligent skill use and your group staying in your marks for AH ticks.

Also I’m not a high theory crafter, so I’m ready to get blown up on theory, exept to my other point, this build is known but most good people don’t do it anyways because pure dps still works if your good enough (and is usually faster). In fact, it’s MASSIVE overkill on anything but high level fractals.

Harper.4173:

Zetsumei.4975:

You avoid that by making bosses more like players and therefore needing a varied party comp for the unique things each profession brings to the table. I think people too often forget to compare with PvP when talking about changing Pve. For example if bosses relied on having a skill which applies a very long stability buff to them rather being invulnerable to CC or having long protection and regen rather than lazily slapping on a bigger health bar then professions like necros and mesmers would be needed for their boon strip. You can see what I’m getting at.

I’m going to have to remind you here that GW2 aims at a casual player base that has casual goals and doesn’t exactly want their PVE experience to be PVP.

People go into general PVE to win, get loot and feel like a hero. Fighting PVP-tier mobs diminishes that greatly and ruins the “hero experience” for the vast majority of players that are at an average or below average level of experience and skill.

If people wanted to fight PVP tier opponents they’d be doing PVP.

See- Anet can’t have their cake and eat it – they can’t make the game harder by making it more PVP like without alienating players that need their hero empowerment fantasy. The moment Casual Chris(not related to any real person) gets stomped by just mobs over and over again is the moment the mirage of him being awesome and good at the game vanishes. So too will his interest die out in the majority of cases. And with his interests in the game going down the drain so too will Anet’s revenue.

It’s not just that of course, there’s a lot of false pride over what is actually fairly accessible content that goes on. PvP-hard content would alienate a lot of midcore-hardcore players as well.

People want to feel some challenge but also want reliably beatable content. It’s not just Chris Casual, but also Hardcore Harry that feels that way.

People always think they can trick companies into essentially giving away their content.

No it’s not in their best interest, people will use farmed gold > gem conversions instead of actual $$$ to buy the game, which reduces sales.

It would drive the price of gems crazy up, but that doesn’t convert cleanly into more gem sales.

Sagat.3285:

Crit chance/damage remains=optimal zerker for life.

It’s funny how we can’t build full tank/healing/condi but you can for dps,3 stats doing the same while 1 for others, sure great balance. No matter how many changes they make zerker with crit will always be optimal unless they slap non critable mobs on you which is lame I would much rather have them remove those two if they are looking to improve stats customization if not just say it already.

You can do exactly that (with 1 class) the issue is that the content is doable without doing that so why bother?

Right now you can build full tank and massive healing (even group healing) into 1 character at a noticable but not crippling loss of dps. The fact that people have that possibility (and it’s avery well known build) and don’t do it anyways probably says as much as you need to know.

Killing the ‘zerker meta’ would just lead to them creating a ‘different meta’. People want to exclude, and they’ll find a way to build their filters.

Random notes:

Idiot twitter dev guy: An idiot or doing PR work via twitter. No good designer would be that doctrinaire about it.

Making bosses (or just enemies) moer like players: I think that players would actually hate that, they’d think the enemies were cheating.

maddoctor.2738:

Well I used to run TA with a guildie that had a PVT AH Guardian and he never-ever got mob threat, only took damage from AoEs. I doubt this will change with some Taunt condition.

Maybe they’re different somehow, but in fractals anyways, a celestial or knight or magi AH guardian will almost always get all the threat

Zackie.8923:

Pockets.3201:

Zackie.8923:

Nike.2631:

Zackie.8923:

FINALLY AFTER 2 LONG YEARS WINGS ARE HERE, OH MY GOD… i hope the wings are dye-able?

I think the word ‘Black’ in the item name should dispel any false prospects of that.

thats bad..

please anet, make it dyeable…. doesn’t make sense to have black wings only…

That will never happen.

One, I don’t think any backpacks are dyeable.
Two, this way they can sell us various other colored wings separately.

ah yea… money grubbing inc

In fairness, no back piece is dyable, they’re not gonna change the ui for just the one item ><

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lorgus.6148:

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

No, that is how Defiant currently works. Once it switches over to the new system, Ice Bow 5 will strip off much more than blinding powder.

As for what the outcome is, we really don’t know. On some enemies, it will be something specific. On others, who knows?

If the end result is, say, a 5 second stun, does it really matter that Ice Bow 5 doesn’t do anything special to the break bar?

It certainly makes all the garment-rending about ‘taunt’ seem silly ><

I bet you’re right though, some champs will have a special effect (like the wyvern, or the shell they mentioned), others will likely just have a window of vulnerability…

… especially the old world champs, I presume they don’t want to design specific effects for all of them.

BrunoBRS.5178:

once it reaches 0, the boss is hit by a pre-determined stun (so even if the final hit is a knockback or a blind, it will stun the boss), and then the bar it back to full again, probably in “you can’t damage it right now” mode.

This, except it might not be a stun, but a ‘encounter appropriate effect’. Type of CC doesn’t, from how I read it, matter at all.

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

If anything it’s more a direct blow on frost bow 5.

segman.3560:

I’d like to share my gratitude to arena net for removing instance owner without any party leader function. This broke the game not only for sellers but also for normal dungeon runners trying to fill their parties with pugs.

This is only your fault arena net.

No, not really. This hurts the game for sellers and a small number of people doing weird specific things (like doing a solo/small-group run and then for some reason opening up for pugs, or having 2 people mysteriously quit at the end of a dungeon).

Every time this comes up you get a ton of ‘I don’t have any problems with this, even though I run many dungeons every day’.

Suddenly having 2 (or more) spots open at the end of Arah is a huge risk factor, but it’s also one that almost never comes up in normal play.

Because not A == B

If they level up right and don’t skip with tomes there won’t be any problem.

What with tomes existing, there are gonna be a ton of trashbag revs at first.

Armor stats let you mitigate the stat effects of your trait choices. The lower the equipment stats we have available the more 1-sided characters will have to be.