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@ op, you have to understand: there is a huge divide between casual pve — playing while sipping tea/texting — and pvping with a team that “can’t afford” a whipe.
I agree, l’d rather pve be as challenging/engaging as pvp, but that seems very unlikely as it does affect ArenaNet’s bottom line. Were the AI turned up several degrees, and reaction time sped up by two, most pvers wouldn’t make it past the starter area before rage-quitting. Rage-quitting was the scourge of grouping in GW1, seems to have returned for gw2; pvers do not want a challenge, as a whole, they desire the path of least resistance.
Again, you can tune content for characters, rather than characters for content.
… only if the ‘character’ is up for the challenge, as I imply above: many casual pvers are not up to the challenge of content ‘tuned’ to higher difficulty.
Or, are you suggesting that pve AI difficulty be turned down for mesmers and other nerf-batted professions? Though I agree, I personally do not like the convolution borne of splitting skills between pve and pvp, particularly in the function and description.
ArenaNet needs to add coefficient variable to boon/condition/damage skills that proc on percentage variance depending on venue; leaving skill mechanic and description unchanged as a whole.
A stability boon would have a chance to proc more when being used in pve, as an example. Or swiftness could have similar variance chance as: instead of a solid 4 secs, have a variance chance of 2 – 6 secs, where in pvp 6 secs being less likely to occur. Damage coefficient also adjustable for pvp versus pve.
Nothing should be set in stone in skill descriptions; ArenaNet did a good job ‘removing numbers’ from skill info. By adding random variance, skills could be modified continuously with a lot less client-side whine.
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@ op, you have to understand: there is a huge divide between casual pve — playing while sipping tea/texting — and pvping with a team that “can’t afford” a whipe.
I agree, l’d rather pve be as challenging/engaging as pvp, but that seems very unlikely as it does affect ArenaNet’s bottom line. Were the AI turned up several degrees, and reaction time sped up by two, most pvers wouldn’t make it past the starter area before rage-quitting. Rage-quitting was the scourge of grouping in GW1, seems to have returned for gw2; pvers do not want a challenge, as a whole, they desire the path of least resistance.
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I would suggest that ArenaNet make an ‘official’ announcement about Multi-Boxing, in a Highly Visible location, as most players do not know the annoyance is an exploit, or even less how to properly report it [portrait context menu].
For me it is getting out of hand, leading to less interest exploring in open world, kinda wishing for the good ole days of GW1 instancing.
Hmm, there were several, though my memory is feeble.
*Much of WvW is incredible, really transcending in to a current-day classic from the moment you arrive.
*Once was watching the hyper real facial expressions on a mission cut-scene, when in dialogue; it rarely get as good from most of Hollywood.
*Another, when I saw the map ping red, turning around a massive avalanche was thundering from above, completely blocking the road, and being trapped slaughter ensued, would be a neat trick for WvW, /wink.
*Was just running my character through a high level area, and a massive artillery battle was under way, I mean ‘massive’, never seen anything quite like it in a real-time game environment, was as if I was in the middle of a scripted cut scene. Very surreal, yes, I kept running…
*Or the first open dungeon in charrville, with the three bosses in the crypt. After what seemed hours, we were all lol- ing “… was just a starter area event? wtf”
There were many others, but Excellent Work ArenaNet.
Plenty of carrots for me, WvW being an ‘everlasting’ carrot; once you hit 80, multiple gear/builds for different venues are going to be a bundle of carrots. Custom skins for end-game gear/builds. Expansions will add and new weapon set/skills and like legendary, new armor…
Would have preferred the Strain/Phinney concept in EoTN, where there are no level carrots, but rather faction regions to progress in. The Fannum/WoW 1-80 style of over-steamed carrot is fine as levels mean absolutely nothing, except to throttle content.
If there were a way to slip the over-steamed carrots to the slobbering dog under the table, as in: turn off the arbitrary numbers spread across the UI, GW2 would be almost perfect carrot salad.
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Please refrain from making posts that do not provide any meaningful contribution to the topic at hand.
Meaningful as in; players are turning away from mesmer profession; turning to a profession with multiple viable builds — the warrior; suggesting fundimental issues in the thematic structure of the mesmer profession, particularly the ‘narrowness’ of the shatter mechanic, being woefully ‘under-baked’. That, for good example, many players are turning to a profession properly developed; and the obvious and typical a fear that time investment in the next profession a player chooses will likely recieve the same treatment once the ‘whine’ begins to ‘spilleth over’.
.. though I prefer fewer words with more meaning, words that typically – bite.
Whats killing me every patch so far has just been pushing me to join the ever growing legion of warriors.
many share this sentiment and are jumping ship on the mesmer, myself included and apparently several guildies… though they’ll likely nerf the warrior next.
…. meh, may delete my lvl 60 mesmer to free up a slot. Minion bombing is getting – boring. Chaos storm being only interesting skill. Shatters are a joke as they’re only functional with but one or two viable builds. Won’t likely see a much needed overhaul of profession any time soon. Very high probability there will be many more ‘balancing’ nerfs as the profession was never properly ‘complete’ at release. Nerfs are just ‘stop-gaps’ for poor skill/trait synergy.
Weird, for being the least played profession there is such a great need for nerfs, … smacks of bad profession design
Appears ArenaNet is using “The Witcher II” targeting system: face a target and hit it, dodge-roll face another target hit it. Dodge to another, engage cc, face another cc…. though GW2 still needs some work to reach W2 level of polish.
… Leveling, absolutely everything you do make you progress further, crafting, events, wvw, hearts, vistas, poi, sp etc.
The primary purpose of levels in GW2 is ‘hand holding’. See past dev comments. You do not need levels to do any of the above, or advance a story arc, or build an avatar… just hand-holding for WoW fans and WoW clones, hand-holding.
I stopped tab targeting. Attitude targeting lets players engage multiple enemy at once to lock-down an entire pull, and yes, re- acquiring a particular target for focus. Positioning is everything; this isn’t the typical WoW clone, stand around, target tabbing, skill spamming to tab next, skill spamming, target next… kinda game.
The level system undermines the idea that “there is no endgame” and that “the game starts at level 1”. Thus, it should disappear. To be honest, it adds nothing to the game.
The primary purpose is to throttle content and provide a path, to paraphrase ArenaNet lead designer.
But the GW universe no longer has the mystery of open exploration in it. I’m constantly looking at the map to figure out where I’m ‘allowed’ to play next, not very fun imo. I’ll get one or two characters to end-game 80 and call it a day, being that is how the game is now designed to be played. And then play a few extra characters to 30 for story, then delete and repeat for other story threads….
GW is now a game of restrictions rather than exploration, an amusement park feel to it – play some events here, then you qualify to play some events there. Not what drew me to gw1.
In every other way GW2 is an amazing product. I personally tried to overlook the regression to traditional levels, but it’s not what I’d consider ‘fun’. If a character had the option to advance just by following the story events/missions I’d likely play around a bit more. So now I have several characters sitting at mid and early game with little desire to ‘progress’ them. And WvW is out of reach as I refuse to participate with scaled stat/trait/skill imbalance pre lvl 80, not so fun or ‘casual’ there either.
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Would be nice if there was an option to turn off/hide numbers on UI, I’m sick of watching arbitrary numbers as combat feedback…. arbitrary as the combat is always dynamically scaling to area, real lack of vision on ArenaNet’s part.
And yes, levels need to go away. Not enough ‘nads’ to make leap… again, lack of vision – GW1 was revolutionary.
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Having been on Kaineng recently to avoid overflow, queues and general population blight common to larger servers, I’d been hoping for a guild to rise from the ashes and declare a WvW focus. I’m in.
I have a few fun ideas that could help spark participation.
For Kaineng, “The Art of War” discusses the simple rules to defeating larger forces, and after a quick recon last week it seems the virtual battlefield ArenaNet has provide is ripe for the picking.
Good luck, I’ll be in touch.
Yep, even worth the additional $100 spent for gem/upgrades etc, and planning to spend more–
To me, end-game means bad game design. i.e. the WoW evercrack mechanic of endless stat stroking and heroics by numbers – dweeb bate at its finest.
Yeah, i miss half the time as well. It is a spastic mechanic, poorly designed. If there isn’t going to be ‘auto move’ to proper range, there should at least be no way to spend the attack beyond range.
Similar to system message ‘Skill on Cooldown’ there should be ‘Skill Out of Range’ and no way to fire skill until in range.
… auto-move into to range would be better, especially for skills with low range.
[quote from another thread:]
There are several ways the shatter mechanic could work:
—[staff] Shatter procs on death command of all illusions also adds boon to nearby allies
—[gs] Shatter procs when an illusion is killed by enemy shatter is aoe
—[scepter] Shatter procs on next attack, or offhand attack shatter bounces
—[1h sword] Shatter procs as defensive buff when struck by melee, spell or range and on dodge.
—etc
Being able to use shatters relative to the weapon equipped depends on how many pets are summoned — more pets, more powerful the effect. Re-summon recharges, when pet[s] not destroyed by shatter.
Weapon determines the type of proc. [not type of shatter]
Shatters could auto-cast when illusion summoned: ctrl-click as ‘on summoning’ an illusion.
This would make the mesmer a very complex opponent to follow, particularly when weapon swapping is properly utilized. The player has more controller over the shattered illusion.
Get it done, profession fixed.
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Charge time seems like an eternity, particularly for a fast-paced game. Too much like preparations in GW1. Waiting around for a burst effect to be ready is kind of a wash. Though, as it is traited with 1h sword, I’d suspect it is meant to provide sin-like ‘gun-n-run’ tactic—once spent, get out of the way for another mantra casting session.
Duelist build using slow cast mantras not quite on par with a duelist archetype play-style, but there seems to be a few work-arounds.
GW1, AoC, tried a few others, with little result.
“0” would be my first choice, then 20, then 80… but I’m happy with what arenanet has given us, levels being mostly irrelevant beyond throttling content.
… if I could just find the “turn off combat/UI numbers” option, levels would be truly irrelevant, anyone know where that UI option is hidden? Watching numbers explode from middle of screen is kinda goofy.
Rarely, if ever. Minion bombing seems wrong as primary shatter mechanic. Mesmer needs a bit of work. Fun profession otherwise.
I run a shatter/confusion/phantasm hybrid and it works fine. Every buff or “fix” in this threat would make the class even more dominant in PvP.
Not sure anyone is asking to be “more dominant in pvp”. Balancing is just a numbers game anyway…
Personally, I’d like to see the play-style range and flexibility common to the gw1 mesmer translated to gw2.
I’m with OP: minion bombing is a rather weak translation from what the mesmer once was. I like what gw2 has done for the mesmer in many respects, it’s a good start, but I personally see lots of room for improvement, particularly more options beyond ‘minion bombing’ as the primary mechanic for shatters.
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Wolfend, I don’t get what you’re proposing.
The idea is to remove Shatter as a bar, and replace it with an automatic trigger according to weapon equipped? But how do I select which shatter, in that case?
Bar and choice remains, was just suggesting an auto-proc option to reduce ‘finger fu’ overhead.
Ctrl-click one of your shatters and it auto-procs when an illusion is summoned, the more summoned, the greater the stack for next attack [sceptre] or retaliation/dodge effect [sword], pure illusion shatters [staff/gs] are ‘as coded’ using current minion bomb system.
There are several ways the shatter mechanic could work:
—Shatter procs on death command of all illusions [staff] also adds boon to nearby allies
—Shatter procs when an illusion is killed by enemy [great sword] shatter is aoe
—Shatter procs on next attack, or offhand attack [scepter] shatter bounces
—Shatter procs as defensive buff when struck by melee, spell or range and on ‘dodge’ [1h sword]
—etc
Being able to use shatters relative to the weapon equipped depends on how many pets are summoned — more pets, more powerful the effect. Re-summon recharges, when pet[s] not destroyed by shatter.
Weapon determines the type of proc. [not type of shatter]
Shatters could auto-proc, ctrl-click as ‘on summoning’ an illusion.
This would make the mesmer a very complex opponent to follow, particularly when weapon swapping is properly utilized. The player has more controller over the shattered illusion.
Get it done, profession fixed.
(edited by Wolfend.5287)