1. Would you prefer to go the Megadestroyer route? He’s not a super hard boss, and he doesn’t spawn regularly because of his pre-events, but he’s also one of the less-frequently done world bosses, for exactly those reasons. See also: Karka Queen.
I’d comment on 2 and 3, but I’m exhausted on discussing those particular topics, so I’ll just stick to 1.
I would prefer a system of long event chains that are announced in the UI (like Scarlet and Tequatl were during their events) and once they’ve gone past the initial trigger events and have the rewards spread out along the ENTIRE chain.. and that people showing up at the last minute get little to no rewards. This concept of an event chain and contribution across steps probably doesn’t exist in the game at this time, though.
Many events sort of meet this requirement now, which is why you see Modniir Ulgoth done regularly but Megadestroyer barely done at all. The rewards vs difficulty for the megadestroyer chain pieces and navigating that area is just not up to most peoples standards.
This is sort of a tangent though, the point was more that currently the design is that this will be attempted many times per day for players of all time zones, but that’s not happening. It’s clearly just too difficult for a world event that you want people to attempt 12 times per day…. it’s no longer a debate it is just a fact based on evidence.
(edited by Zosk.5609)
Apologists for “hard content” came out of the woodwork with Tequatl, but now that things have settled down we pretty much have the following facts:
1. Tequatl spawns about 10-12 times per day, but is really only being done once. (After reset). Scarlet doesn’t seem to be done even once per day on my server, we just get a few farmers hoping they make it to Aetherblades (and they rarely do..)
2. Both Tequatl and Scarlet seem to currently require, at least, a full soft-capped zone…if not MORE than that via group invite ‘flex’ room. To put it simply, the scaling of these events is horrible or non-existent.
3. Both events are subject to intentional or unintentional sabotage…whether its turret operators in Tequatl or groups of people uninterested in progress on Scarlet (and who can blame them on Scarlet given the current rewards…).
I am a big supporter of you fixing world events and making them more fun and challenging, but my point is this: If this is the best you can do, please leave the rest of them alone. I mean, a fix to the obvious scaling problems should have come by now…seriously.
Right now, Anet seem myopically focussed on increasing rewards for the winners/leaders as their way of improve participation in WvW (if we offer big enough rewards the leagues will be successful). More nuanced approaches, such as improving the commander system (to make it easier to organise players on the map) or removing unbalancing buffs, do not seem to be on their radar. I look forward to the day when they are.
Your use of the word “myopically” is arousing.
It’s very very possible that WvW population has not declined (if you believe this) because though the huge mismatches have caused a lot of WvW players to quit/take a break/play less, they are replaced by PvE’ers karma training.
It’s like saying Frostgorge sound must be an awesomely fun zone because so many players are always there, when in fact, a large percentage are just grinding the champ train.
I really, REALLY would like to see their data or at least a summary of what their statistics are/mean/etc.
I know a great number of people who log in to WvW to get their 10 kills for the daily and then leave. On the other hand I know people who have been playing since launch and have never run a dungeon/fractal, and practically live in the Maguuma borderlands. We also have those people who hit B and go to a borderland simply as a quick means to Lions Arch or access to a Trading Post/Bank and some vendors. Which of these does ANet consider an “Active WvW” player? All of them? Someone who exceeds a time threshold per day? Someone who accrues some WXP per day?
I honestly feel like simply knowing what metrics the devs use to determine this could go a long way for us (the players and devs) understanding each other.
If it was any other dev team, I’d say they try to make each “option” in the game accessible to more casual players… because keeping people in the game even if they tire of one aspect (like WvW, or dungeons) is kind of what these large MMOs are all about.
However, the way they do PvP in this game already breaks that idea. It’s really only catering to this fantasy of being an e-sport and hardcore players now, IMO. I mean the fact that they built maps clearly designed for 8-10 (or more) people but still insist that even solo tournaments are 5v5 and balanced all the AE effects around that 5 person cap shows they have a one-track mind to favor hardcore team-sports type players here.
You are making an error thinking that your borderlands is “yours”. (But it’s a common error). Clearly, each of the 4 zones represents a contested area or a warzonee and that tower and camp is actually by “default” an enemy tower. That is why those things are so much easier to take than defend….
I think you are asking for the wrong thing.
You should be expecting ArenaNet designers to build systems that are resistant or immune to griefing. They cannot make constant judgement calls on the fly about who is using supply “incorrectly” so they need make it intuitive and difficult to abuse.
There’s a lot they could do, possibilities:
- The supplies delivered to structures should just automatically go towards upgrades and repair NPCS so we never have to hear "don’t take supply from the keep!’ in map chat again.
- Do they really have to limit supplies at all? I am not really convinced a system where you go to the camp you get 10 supply wouldn’t be better. The only real issue with it is the power of arrow carts and ability for zergs to drop tons of them, but of course they already can just slightly slower…
- Hookpoints and limits on key siege pieces like golems and trebuchets.
It’s a couple big problems they have no fixes for, and in fact the players fight them on.
For example… they’d love all the servers to have about the same number of people but the players all jumped to create mega-servers before they started charging for transfers, remember that?
In order to help counter zerging more of the rewards needs to come from fighting players and winning those fights instead of sieging and zerging structures. But again, I think movement toward that would cause outrage….
It’s a whole pile of problems with no easy solutions, the worst part is how both the designers and the players seem to be in denial and all pretending that the scoreboard has meaning or is about “skill” in any way. I mean, they are setting up “seasons” tournaments for crying out loud….
If that is the case they are being pretty shortsighted, then. (But I think you’re wrong) He isn’t going to attract 80 people forever. Other bosses will come along and people will develop other priorities once they’ve seen him die a few times.
(Also, are people beating him with 80? No idea what the soft and hard caps on zones actually are, myself…)
I can say with 99.9% certainty that the encounter will be adjusted based on feedback and observation, like almost everything else is in an MMO.
Any adjustments whose purpose is to make it easier, or just as a side effect makes it easier, will be called “nerfs” and the people who feel they deserve a cookie because they have done it now will complain.
But it doesn’t change anything… I don’t think anybody is doing it with less than over the soft cap in the zone, right? So at the very least, scaling adjustments will have to eventually come, whether it is days, weeks, or months from now? If they do not, the content will become not doable by most servers on off-hours or in overflows (it may already be that…)
If everybody does the encounter in the ‘one way’ which seems to be popular (stack a zerg and exploit multiple hit boxes)…. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make other changes to the encounter. (Or at least, the next boss they upgrade they’ll be even more careful in their attempt to make it not about stacking…)
I don’t know what it would take for people to say the ‘rewards’ aren’t crap.
It’s the best chest currently in the game, and you can get it basically by Akitteng in the right place at the right time. (And as people get more experienced and/or they adjust the encounter, it will get easier and more right times will manifest themselves)
This is just the nature of zerg/world events in every game. The tradeoff is if they make the rewards better they’d have to up the respawn time and I don’t think we want the situation of camping for world events all the time to happen….
Retaliation and Confusion just need a big nerf… I’m never sure what you’re supposed to do in this game when faced with situations where you’re taking more damage from attacking than you are dealing…. since almost every ability in the game is an AOE attack.
Even games where there are lots of utility skills and positioning and repositioning have kept damage shields and barbs in check….. so why does this game which is 90% dodging and attacking overpower them so much?
Yes they are terribly designed but for some reason everybody here feels it necessary to defend the status quo and claim their “skills”.
In past games abilities like this were usually limited in power and scope. This game is so simple that it’s mostly just dodge/run/dps…. so if you barb something like DPS with large amounts of damage it’s a whole lot of “what do I do now exactly, run away?”
You can’’t even heal yourself if you’re under confusion…. and you can’t choose not to AE in this game to avoid retaliation unless you just quit attacking.
“Punishment” is one thing…. but what about being able to see where the path you are taking is leading you guys?
No cap + No upward curve + Character based progression + Adding new WvW abilities like crazy =
Hardcore players who focus on one character having a hundreds or a thousand points worth of stuff fighting more casual and balanced players or people who play 2 or 3 characters with just a handful of unlocks…. the imbalances will just get worse over time.
Increasing the rate of WXP worked to create less imbalance in games like DAOC/Warhammer because there was an upward curve and a cap!
Your team is helping you when you rally in WvW, in almost every case….
I would say all the stealths, clones and post-down movement abilities are about 50x more annoying and unfair than rallying. If the idea is to kill you in WvW fights your opponents should have to push, things like moving after you are downed are a much bigger issue….
(edited by Zosk.5609)
But I mean, who really cares about the terrible WXP system anyway…. at it’s current rate with no ‘curve’ and now a hundred or more ‘abilities’ and more every patch… we’re going to end up with a bunch of hardcore WvW players with huge albeit weird and crazy advantages over casual players…. it’s just a terrible system but I don’t see a way out of the corner they’ve painted themselves in.
They should get to fixing up those achievements right away, it will dangle carrots in front of those who like to participate in everything by not making WvW the absolute least rewarding activity.
And they should trash their new ‘matchup’ system and go back to the old one and find a less-awful way to make matchups less stale (I suggest server merges in the smaller servers and free transfer to the mid-range or smaller servers that are left).
Also, no idea why WvW rewards currently help the PvE population. The bonuses there should be: increased Karma, XP, Magic Find and Gold Find INSIDE WVW zones and then maybe 4 other WvW related bonuses like Guard Damage, Guard Resistance, etc.
To help mitigate things like this, they should max the amount of achievement points you can get from monthlies, dailies, and living world events. All parts of these things should be roughly equivalent, and once you’ve completed the X you need to unlock the big reward (5 for dailies, or 6 each for the current event) you should get no more points.
That way, unintentional or intentional exploitation of a broken item, which is inevitable if they insist on putting things out at this crazy 2 week pace, will have little to no real effects. People can just do one of the other steps and basically get the same stuff, perhaps with a little grumbling but no harm done.
So much talking from people who don’t even seem to comprehend the issue.
Do you wonder why so much of the PvE content in the game is so easy? And when it is hard..it’s not because the actual combat is difficult but because the “DDR-style” moves are difficult? And why defensive stats seem unrewarded and everybody can just rely
It’s because they are balancing encounters in the game with the assumption that everybody might be using Magic Find. Because, how can they not? They put it in the game and encouraged it’s use in one of the worst decisions the developers made in this game!
Also worrying about whether the new system will be an exact match or more or less loot is silly…. not to point out the obvious, but the developers have control of the loot tables and give you exactly as much loot as they want to give you. You’re not cheating the system with magic find, they EXPECT you to be using it.
Maybe we should wait until we see things implemented before we make demands that make us look silly due to insufficient information.
Don’t be silly, we all have to start whining now just in case we feel whatever compensation they give isn’t good enough. For reasons.
The alternative being structures become even more indefensible because people can’t get there in time, or people are forced to sit in structures waiting all day for an attack.
Actually, I’d say the zones might be too BIG based on the fact that the two issues I just mentioned are already a problem.
I’m not sure why you’d want to create a situation where it is nearly impossible to meaningfully respond to attacks and expect that to make the game more fun…. it means more PvDoor and less fighting.
because it would mean splitting the zerg into smaller forces and tactical play. thats why!
No, it would not. Explain logically what you think might happen…. Do you think people will split up and do zone defense and just stand around and wait if their zone is not being attacked?
What will happen is..the harder you make it to respond to an attack. The less people will even try.
Really, its like the posters here can’t even get their story straight… how many times have I seen people complaining about how easy it is for the zerg to take down a door before anybody can even get there? And then you guys also simultaneously want to make it HARDER to cross the zone? It absolutely makes no logical sense unless you have some fantastic notions about what the effect will be. (It will break up the zergs cause reasons!)
The alternative being structures become even more indefensible because people can’t get there in time, or people are forced to sit in structures waiting all day for an attack.
Actually, I’d say the zones might be too BIG based on the fact that the two issues I just mentioned are already a problem.
I’m not sure why you’d want to create a situation where it is nearly impossible to meaningfully respond to attacks and expect that to make the game more fun…. it means more PvDoor and less fighting.
The best matchups possible given the attributes was the old system…which everybody whined about to the point where they felt they had to take immediate action.
So now we have variety of bad matchups instead of stale best matchup.
Without attempts to balance server populations and/or some sort of handicapping system those are the only two options.
If arenanet failed they failed in the same way I think most MMO companies have been failing post-WoW…they are reactionary and listen too much to a player base who whines about things without thinking about what the “solution” might mean for the game….
FYI, making support or tanking impossible is not the goal of the “no-trinity” design.
Guess what, DPS is one of the trinity, jokers! Clearly if the goal of “no-trinity” is to make being a DPS class impossible, it is failed to the nth degree! Look at all those zerkers….
What it means is that most classes are adaptable to multiple roles and that content can be done without strict setups like Healer-Tank-3DPS as in some other popular game you may have heard of……
I hope it’s not an attempt to stop magic find, because if it is it is a very misguided and poor one. The only thing that’s gonna fix this Magic Find crap is making sure there is NO gear in the game that forces you to give up real stats for bonuses like Magic Find/Karma Gain/whatever.
What I hope it actually is, is a realization that their game design is leading most players down the glass cannon path…. with a minority stacking in the opposite direction. Very few people are trying to build balanced classes, it seems, so maybe a push is helpful?
They still have to go through a relatively small door or wall…. and they still only get buffs from each other if they stick close…and there is no collision in this game….
An AoE cap of 10 or so makes a lot more sense, but it is not going to stop large groups doing things and the large groups might stop purposely standing on top of each other but they’re still going to be together because they’re all trying to do the same things at the same time.
Since every attack in the game is basically AoE…it’s questionable how much effect raising the cap will really have, honestly. It’s pretty much dumbing things down and the concept in many/most MMOs of higher damage single target attacks vs lower damage AoE attacks only exists in a watered down way.
I don’t really think what the OP says is true… nor am I sure what it has to do with roleplaying. Guild halls, if they are done right, will appeal to everybody who has a guild (for an example). Also it seems they are spending quite a lot of time on story…. there’s always an event or living story chapter up it seems? I’d say much more than on PvP….
Game is currently not very well balanced.
Offense is always encouraged in these games because people start to whine at things like long stalemates and very long battles (I’ll point at an example of early Warhammer Online here)… and in this game with the high speed and dodging and lots of escape moves…. it is a serious concern that some classes will just never die in some circumstances (arguably, this already happens with thieves and such)
However, this game has several factors where that thinking has gone into overdrive First being the hatred of the ‘trinity’ and wanting to avoid at all cost classes that are support/healing. Second is the debacle known as ‘magic find’ gear where encounters are being tuned down because people are killing their own stats to get more loot… so yes, in PvE basically everything can be turboed through by glass cannons if you know the encounters and more importantly the exploits/loopholes…
You want mace/focus but you’re still going to have to dodge for heals… it’s more like jumping in and out of the middle repeatedly.
Doesn’t seem to give anywhere near 250 Healing Power at level 80. I’m getting around +70 instead. (This is according to paper doll, but seems accurate since it’s not even bumping my Altruistic Healing heal number by 1 point)
There’s 2 separate issues here, let’s not mistake one for the other.
1) Blobbing is too effective. This may be due to the fact that most support skills are AoE, or “Target the 4 closest Allies”, and the game is so heavy on AoE there is the benefit of negating AoE damage by stacking up so only 5 get hit.
2) Roaming the map as a single, large zerg instead of separated groups is too effective and discourages the latter. This is due to the maps being too small.
The OP is referring to #2.
I doubt that Anet will put the effort to change the map geometry, and removing the out-of-combat speed is a lazy, quick fix to achieve similar effects.
I don’t really agree at all… I am always curious what people are comparing it to. After dying, I’d say the time to get back in the action in WvW is higher than average compared to other similar games. There’s also not much porting options. Also, because of the high population of roaming/ganking and the fact that there is so much escaping in this game that people rarely die as a group….it can actually be difficult to get back.
In fact, I say one of many reasons people like to stick together in large clumps is the fact that it becomes much less likely you’ll die and have to run back. You’ll get rezzed if your side wins and the downed state slows down pushes so that many people if they choose can get to a structure and safety when they are losing.
(This is just one reason, others being that people actually think big fights are fun… the current state of structures and siege makes it more rewarding WXP wise as well. However, I think map size has next to nothing to do with it, and the zergs would be just as big if you doubled the size of all 4 maps).
Seriously, people don’t care about the scoreboard.
Even if the system was perfect, MOST people are going out to WvW to have fun and find interesting fights…. this vocal minority of people who live by the scoreboard and are willing to run siege for hours “For the realm” need to realize the hard fact…they are a minority.
That being said, it’s even worse because the current scoring system is total crap. The winner each week is chosen by who has the most people participating and the most off-hours coverage…that’s it! Why would anybody take it seriously enough to pass up potentially fun fights?
Well I don’t know who cares about the scoreboard and who doesn’t. Witness the “fair weather” phenomenon. And I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make – using strategy or not?
But I do agree with you that most people play for the fun and for interesting fights. And that is why using strategy is better – it will lead to more fun and more interesting fights.
Why? What does the scoreboard have to do with whether a particular fight will be interesting or a blowout?
My point is the three-way fight type of meta-strategy doesn’t have that much effect on the winner of the match each week (mostly because Coverage is king over anything that happens prime time), and no effect on player rewards (both types: lootz and fun).
So people are only paying attention to it when they feel like it and smart ones aren’t passing up potentially fun fights based on the fact the person they’re attacking is in 3rd place on a meaningless scoreboard.
Will not accomplish what you suggest, and belongs in the trash bin with all other suggestions that the game should make things more frustrating for it’s own players. I mean, come on.
Punishing risk taking just means people take less risks, FYI, and in the current state of the game that means even more people sitting at structures firing siege over and over and only leaving when there IS a zerg to back them up and rez them. Don’t understand why this is such a complicated concept…the less you punish risk the more people are willing to have fun and run around solo or in small groups or hit keeps they might not be able to take….
Seriously, people don’t care about the scoreboard.
Even if the system was perfect, MOST people are going out to WvW to have fun and find interesting fights…. this vocal minority of people who live by the scoreboard and are willing to run siege for hours “For the realm” need to realize the hard fact…they are a minority.
That being said, it’s even worse because the current scoring system is total crap. The winner each week is chosen by who has the most people participating and the most off-hours coverage…that’s it! Why would anybody take it seriously enough to pass up potentially fun fights?
Siege is a big part of it as well… if you have enough people and organization to portal bomb you probably can just drop 5-10 arrow carts and push off the attack. It’s more effective AND safer?
I think the 3-way fight is implemented very much like DAOC and don’t see what your laundry list has to do with that.
Of course, one might point out that DAOC and Warhammer had an AE cap (just like every game, pretty much). Also, they has super-easy in-combat ranged resurrection that makes picking up downed players look like hard mode…..
I am curious..there seems to be a ton of people doing condition damage out there. So, why do you think the current pro/con of Power damage vs Crit damage vs Condition damage is so far off?
I’d say there are some conditions that need nerfed(Confusion and Retaliation are still really badly designed/balanced). And some that are really bad (Burning?)… but overall I think any major condition love would also have to come with some nerfs….since there seems to be a lot of people going for condition builds in the current state?
Movement barb effects are usually for melee characters…no idea why Mesmers would be getting them.
I hope it’s because they are nerfing Confusion and Retaliation into the ground myself, because they just aren’t fair and don’t balance well at all…but we will see.
Bunch of people want to mash arrow cart buttons and get WXP… not sure how a reasonable person can think that dropping half a dozen arrow carts actually breaking up potentially fun fights and turning back sieges… or that people sitting all day in a tower with arrow carts just sniping creates an atmosphere of fun or fairness.
People say they want to be able to defend, but this is not the way. Arrow carts are only good structure defense because of something that (hopefully) will eventually get fixed… attacking through doors and around other corners that make the arrow cart immune.
Want real defense…. slow down door and wall destruction, add things like postern doors to towers…and if you wanna overpower something make it the Boiling Oil.
Everybody constantly whines that things are forcing them to play ‘one character’ but I don’t think reality reinforces your conclusion… for a game this young it is alt-city out there. Clearly most players feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (and we all know over time…alts become more popular in these games because people want variety of play).
Why don’t you mind it? It’s crazy that there are a bunch of random mobs effectively on the roads….
I don’t really like to pull out the ‘realistic’ card because it’s mostly irrelevant…but it is completely unrealistic and makes no sense…. the roads should be cleared and if they want to use mobs as rough terrain…then you can’t put them everywhere!
A commander is a 100 gold price tag in order to create squads/warbands.
People who treat it as if it is something more are the problem, honestly…
If you take the stance that you are a squad and ASK people to help and INFORM them of your actions…there is no room for argument or endless debate (other than trolling).
If you take the stance that the whole map owes you allegiance just because you put on a tag and try to FORCE people to follow and browbeat them… well you are just creating drama.
Sadly, in this and similar games, the latter seems to be the norm. Trying to catch flies with vinegar and ending up turning map chat into a debate club every single day…
Not sure why anybody defends the current placement.
If the idea is to place monsters to create ‘rough terrain’ the designers did not do a very good job…they should not be anywhere near the main roads and paths through the zone…. it seems like they are absolutely everywhere.
Anti personnel siege should not work like this… in every other game it would require line of sight.
Not sure why anybody thinks arrow carts should be doing so much more damage than a player can…. in every other game the idea of anti-personnel siege is to give you a way to do damage when you think it’s too risky to fight yourself. And, therefore, less risk means less damage?
It’s just a perfect storm of stupid… there’s clearly some siege monkey types who think dropping siege and mashing 1 should mean wins and they’ve got the ear of some of the devs. Very disappointing.
The change was only a PR and psychological effect move. Of course it was a horrible idea logically to give people worse matchups, but it was better than stale matchups, I think?
What is really needed:
- Changes in scoring system to make it less about coverage (some system where you score points that are at least partially based on how much fighting is going on)
- A serious attempt to balance server populations so that more servers are close together in number of WvW players.
Nobody who knows what they are talking about is really talking about removing the AE cap, OP.
They are really talking about increasing it. All games(I know of) have some cap here…
You just have to do a substitute and replace whenever you hear somebody talking about removing it… and not just for performance reasons. Any change to this cap will result in ArenaNet having to examine and every AE ability in the game…and potentially split them for PvP. A small change from say.. 5 to 10 might not have too many repercussions but 20? 30? Tons of splits….
I assume that well placed siege comment was an actual joke…right? I guess well-placed means exploiting the fact that stuff goes through corners and doors and walls….
It’s sort of sad. The vast majority of players would love the focus to be on fighting… but there’s a vocal minority (including some devs, I guess) who think dropping 10 arrow carts and mashing buttons should be able to turn back a siege….
And if you dare criticize, you’re trying to turn this into an open field fight only game! (Which would be a great trick, since the WvW maps are basically jam-packed full of structures…)
Deep down I am hoping it is because they are going to change plant nodes to work the same as the other nodes (three hits)….
I love the defenders of Retaliation and Confusion…. being a glass cannon has little to do with it.
If you wanted to “punish” glass cannons properly…you’d make them do damage based on a percentage of the damage the attack deals, and also you’d make it only trigger once per attack (somehow?)
Who it really punishes is people who use AE attacks, glassy or not. And in a game where AT THE SAME TIME, people are debating how AE power needs to be increased…. I mean get your story straight!
What will it take for the ‘defenders’ to get it?
Nobody is asking you to sit in towers and keeps. It is not the intention that you’ll spend an hour just sitting there “refreshing the siege” and waiting.
Join a group, a squad, and/or a zerg and actively respond to threats…this is what the designers intend and the players really want. You can respond by entering and setting up a counter-siege, pushing out the “doors”, or just deal with it directly and hit them from behind, or you can take something else to make a trade if you think it’s best…. the thing is, nobody is asking you to do boring stuff (the devs or your fellow players) so why do you think we should make that boring stuff more interesting?
A solution designed to placate whiners and solving nothing….
We WANT to fight the servers that are closest to us in power level and get the closest matchups the system can provide….the people claiming it is “boring” are just being silly.
If you want variation, you need to implement a handicapping system OR make a serious effort to equalize server populations. This will do nothing…
I think the fact everybody thinks they need hammer demonstrates how sad trying to melee in this game can be without stuns or jumps.
Mace/Shield + Staff should be much better for you but it is admittedly difficult to keep people in range.