Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

Dalanor.5387:

Blaeys.3102:

You may not have intended it, but your post comes across a little insulting.

Especially stuff like this:

“We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.”

You need to tone it down and respect other people’s right to their opinions a little more.

This needs to be a balanced discussion where we have civil conversations about topics. Insults and talking down to people works counter to that idea.

How about to defend your points instead of being offensive towards him? He actually pointed out issues in your proposal.

I have no problem defending my points and will happily do so, but I will defend myself when I feel attacked.

All I meant to do was point out that he needs to tone down his offensive tone. Im not sure how I could have done that other than the way I did – and didnt mean to be offensive myself. I apologize if that is the case.

There are a lot of opinions in this thread. They are all valid. Talking down to and insulting people isnt going to further the thread in any way. We need to respect one another and realize we all bring different perspectives to this issue. None of them are wrong. Its about having a discussion.

Forgive me for my “tone.” The point I was making with the line you took offense to is you suggested that the things you want people in an organized raid to do are things that people already do in organized dungeon and fractal groups. Since you suggested it I reckoned that you didn’t have experience in those kinds of groups. I also figure that if you tried it you might understand another level of complexity to the game that already exists.

Perhaps I expressed my exasperation too strongly, but you must understand when someone suggests mechanics that are already highly utilized in the game already it is redundant. It would be like being on a baseball rules update committee and someone suggests “we should make it so that if you get three strikes you’re out.” It makes it seem like that person doesn’t understand the subject he is talking about. So again, forgive me for using a tone you didn’t like, and I’ll forgive you for not being aware how important CC is in organized groups already.

Blaeys.3102:

• It should be mathematically impossible for any group to burn down a boss before it uses all of it abilities several times.

I think that’s a given. As I said before, if you don’t think they can design raid bosses properly you’re mistaken. They are well aware that a good 5 man team makes 50-75k dps per second and they will certainly take that into account.

• It should be impossible to avoid all damage and bosses should liberally apply conditions such as immobilize, weakness, vulnerability, blind, chill and cripple. Players should have to feel like they need to save dodges for the big crushing attacks. Regen, healing, aegis, etc. (as well as condi removal) should be required to stay alive between dodges.

This isn’t self-evidentally good, you have to explain why this is something we should want, not just declare you want it. I’m not against the concept of bosses that do condition overload, but you should be a bit more honest that what you’re trying to do is encourage use of tanky gear for survival.

• Big, fight altering attacks should be interrupt-able via a short window (the Three Toed Tootsie method).

We have a Defiant system that will work well in a raid environment. Also, most modern design raid bosses take mandatory interrupts into their design, don’t worry.

• Bosses should react to player positioning. If a large group of players lumps into a big pile, then the boss should be able to focus more damage on that single spot, requiring even greater healing and support in the party (dodges should never be enough to stay alive in a stack) – or, alternatively, run away from that spot. Likewise, if everyone is widely spread out, the boss should take a “pick them off” strategy, focusing huge attacks at a one player at at time (while still not ignoring others).

This isn’t really how raid bosses are designed in modern games, and reactive AI is asking a bit much. Generally speaking boss attacks in today’s raids are fairly rapid and usually AOE based, with single target attacks in between and require constant repositioning of the team, sometimes in a stack sometimes apart but always moving. I’m pretty sure any raid boss they design will have this in the design.

• Niche abilities, such as boon stripping, reflects/projectile defense, fear, walls of warding etc should be a requirement in many fights. The advantage raiding brings over dungeon runs is you will have greater diversity in the party and access to more tools with which to fight.

We do all these things in organized dungeon groups already. You should try it.

• Where possible, fights should involve secondary objectives (dont let the blood get to the Test Subject)

• The boss should try to control where the group fights. Electrify areas of the floor, use the cutters/walls from the Aetherblade fractal, use the hotfoot mechanic, etc.

Like I said, these things are already done in every raid boss in every game designed in the last few years. I highly doubt anet is going to go backwards mechanically.

• A new condition damage model needs to be implemented prior to introducing raids in GW2. It is a broken mechanic that devalues common builds that players want to use.

In fights as long as raid boss fights condition damage is as good as direct. The system doesn’t have to change to enable that. I would also expect to see mechanics like the triple wurm husks to be much more common.

Again (and MOST IMPORTANTLY) , I believe this can all be done in a scalable (or at least multi-tiered including 8,12,16 player versions) raiding models without sacrificing difficulty or complexity. In fact, I think that is crucial (see my other posts in this thread to see how adamant I am about that ).

This isn’t crucial at all. It’s crucial that they get the encounters tuned for one raid size. having one properly tuned raid size and no alternatives is better than one properly tuned raid size and two jokes.

Besides, as I said in my other posts, the more people you add the easier it gets and the less prestige it has. You can say “without sacrificing difficulty” but that is literally impossible. In an 8 man raid if someone dies the team loses 1/8th of its efficiency, in a 16 man they lose 1/16th. there is literally no way for that not to be true.

A few statements from topics in this thread that have come up…

Stacking Watch difficult raid boss videos in other games. The mechanics are such that sometimes you MUST stack, sometimes you CANNOT stack. In a legitimately interesting and difficult raid that was well designed, positioning is vitally important and movement is critical. Anyone concerned that raid bosses will be stacked on and burned down easily have no faith in the anet devs to understand how to design a raid boss. This is not an important topic.

Dodging Some players have cited the power of dodging “invalidating” passive defense stats. rightly so! this is called play skill. This is the chief success of GW2 combat design. The better you get at playing the game the less passive defense you need. The less comfortable you are dodging attacks, the more passive defense you need. This is an excellently designed system that rewards skill.

RNG Rewards RNG rewards do have a place, but so do fixed rewards. I think my original rewards concept in my mega post pages ago described a happy balance between RNG rewards and fixed rewards and all maintaining the prestige of raid loot without a vertical gear progression.

Large Guilds I would suggest that large guilds can easily break down into smaller groups for raids than small guilds can coalesce into larger groupings. Combined with the inherent feature that no matter how scaling is implemented, raids get easier the more players are added you have a situation where it makes little sense to allow raids to scale to large numbers. Simply put, 500 man guilds can easily form groups of 15 for raids, so there is no obstacle to prevent large guilds from raiding, but if raids are large scale it is a barrier to small guilds. Since there is a barrier for small guilds if raids are large, but no barrier for large guilds if raids are smaller scale it makes logical sense for raids to be on the smaller end.

Buying groceries is assisted cheating because you are skipping the laborious farming of your own produce.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Leablo.2651:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Leablo.2651:

Chris, can you provide a baseline definition of “raid”? What exactly is the intention behind creating “raid” content that cannot already be expressed in terms of existing dungeons or fractals? Is it about creating another category of content that is gated to guilds?

Here you go:

‘…instanced co-operative group based ‘challenging’ content…’

Chris

This seems to conflict with the title of the thread, which implies “instanced co-operative guild based ‘challenging’ content…”

I would just like clarification on that.

Should raids be restricted to the guild level that require some form of guild activity/currency to activate/enter, or should they be accessible by anyone? What are your thoughts on that specific?

I was thinking that raids shouldn’t be explicity limited to guilds, but the de facto situation should be that initially they should be tuned so that the difficulty is such that only organized groups can clear them. If the raid is puggable with randoms the first (week/month) of existence then it really isn’t tuned to be difficult enough.

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person

In my defense, you didn’t seem like you understood. Generally, when someone says “lolz gw2 is just stack here dps win lolz” I assume they are a simple person who is used to being carried through dungeons and don’t realize what support mechanics are happening to allow that to happen.

Your post fit that mold; yet another person who mistakenly believes that some how it is the act of stacking that makes the content easy or that stacking grants some mysterious invulnerability quality. Neither of these are the case. So either you don’t know that or you pretend not to know to further your sophistry.

Darox.8069:

Iris Ng.9845:

hybrid.5027:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

hybrid.5027:

Some seasons we are enthusiastic for records some not. It comes and goes. SC wasnt very active last season, very active this one. Last season we did a lot, this season we haven’t cared to do any.

Yes the season is the reason yes

Who are you? Are you even in the speed run community?

I hope you’re compelled enough to return to the scene, Zelyhn XD~

Well it’s hard to say! On the one hand their rhetoric is irresistible, on the other hand …

I really can’t stand the Ice Bow 4 meta!

- Its unintended DPS trivialises content
- It gives you health and you can cast it at range so there is no risk involved
- Its animation and design completely break the immersion
- It has a very short cooldown, which is unfair
- Classes other than elementalists can not access it more than the good-old FGS
- An elementalist wielding IB4 is still better than IB4 casted by a warrior
- It generates vulnerability faster than engineers
- I was always a fan of Gimli, now we’re stuck playing Legolas
- “44444444444444444444 for the win”

Obviously Anet needs to adress this burning issue before adding content to the game!
Obviously a nerf of IB4 would attract new players and bring back those who are long gone!

#TheSeasonIsTheReason2014

The more you cry the more comfortable my waterbed gets.

runeblade.7514:

hybrid.5027:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

CDI Rules:

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

Thanks for quoting your own rules violation. You shouldn’t use terms like “casual” as a pejorative if you don’t want to be called out on it. Additionally, you shouldn’t throw a stone inside of a glass house. If you’d like more advice please PM me.

Blaeys.3102:

I can tell you from years of experience forming set number (10 and 25 player) raids that raiding in other games leads to exclusionary behavior primarily because of the math more than because of the difficulty of the content. GW2 is in a position to do something about that. Scaling seems like the most logical solution.

Exclusion is the inevitable (and desirable) result of challenging content. I was excluded from the tPvP tournament in china (and rightly so!) but I in no way feel entitled to it.

Also, keep in mind no matter how difficult they tune the content eventually it will be on farm status. Once content is on farm status the casuals (in the non-pejorative sense) who were initially excluded will be able to complete it. This is how raids in every game work. Hardcore players finish first, less hard core players finish it later.

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
No stacking

Goal of Proposal
Dungeons content suffers from stacking. I am worried that raiding will simply be 20 people stacking together in a corner to dps.

Proposal Functionality
If players become stronger when together, so do mobs. Design the game around countering stacking and LoSing.

• +10000 toughness when reviving + near 10 allies.
• All mobs can revive each other just like mobs.
• All mobs do 10,000 damage while near 10 of their allies.
• Tons of AoE damage.

Stackfest should be a wipefest.

Associated Risks
Casuals won’t be able to enjoy raiding.

I think you should watch your pejoratives in this thread. You seem to have no clue what stacking is, why it’s done or how it works so the only person revealing himself to be a casual is you.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

On scaling: it is true that we have a certain amount of “magic” scaling in the game, commonly seen in dynamic events. The intent of that system is to keep difficulty consistent across a variety of player counts. The sticking point for myself on raids and scaling is that while we can scale enemies, it is far more difficult to meaningfully scale objectives.

To elaborate, in a 10-player raid, each player is responsible for approximately 1/10 of challenge. As you add players, that challenge share diminishes, so in a 20-player raid, the individual role is about half as important as it would have been with 10 players (challenges of coordination aside).

Of course, group content is rarely so singular and for a good reason. If we have 3 objectives, we divide the focus of the group and your ownership of a 20-player challenge goes from 1/20 to 1/6ish.

Is it possible, then, to just scale objectives along with the player counts? Perhaps. But it seems that would equate to just making many tiers of the content which, to me, sounds like a good way to diminish the total amount of content we could build. What do you guys think?

I would vastly prefer a fixed group size. It’s easier to design encounters since you dont have to worry about scaling issues. Plus, in a relatively smaller group size 6-15ish you can avoid particle effects hell obscuring the fights and that would allow you to make more nuanced mechanics.

dlonie.6547:

hybrid.5027:

Looks like I have to call in all my favors with anet

If you have favors with ANet and we still don’t have a new dungeon, then what the hell, man?

According to some morons I forced anet to nerf fiery greatsword.

Part 2

Rewards

Trash mobs – In addition to the normal loot table for elite mobs, the trash have a good chance to drop a unique unrefined t7 mat (ore). The unrefined t7 mats are tradeable and have a relatively high vendor price.
Subbosses – In addition to normal legendary mob loot table, the sub-bosses will include a crafting recipe for unique ascended armor and weapon pieces and refined (ingot) versions of the t7 mats. Additionally they will have a rare chance to drop a weapon or armor box for the unique pieces.
End Boss – In addition to normal legendary mob loot table, the end boss will drop multiple pieces of the t7 refined mats and a chest containing either one of the unique ascended weapons or one of the armor pieces. Additionally, defeating the end boss will spawn the crafter who will allow players with sufficient resources to craft the armor or weapons. Ideally, the rewards would be balanced to provide the materials to craft at least one weapon or armor piece per full clear in addition to the piece for defeating the end boss.

Defeating the final boss will unlock an achievement title. Clearing the raid in under a set time (tuned to be moderately challenging to an experienced team but still forgiving of mistakes will unlock another title.

Example Raid An example raid would be “The Cleansing of Arah” where players would spawn in the Lupicus room and could move outward to through any of the 5 doors. There will be subquests in different areas of the dungeon, each with the sub boss. Upon completion of 6 sub quests the end boss will spawn in the Lupicus room, or a portal to the Lair of Zhaitan (hint, hint) will open there and the end boss will be combated.

Hi, I am Nike, the leader of Death and Taxes [DnT]. Our guild has an 11 year history of being at the forefront of MMO raiding and end game content. Our GW2 branch is well known for producing quality PVE guides and setting dungeon speed run records. In my humble opinion, I feel that I have a good idea of what the dungeon/fractal community in GW2 wants when it comes to raiding, challenging content and worthy rewards.

Proposal Overview

A suggested implementation of instanced raiding within guild wars 2.

Goal of Proposal

To implement instanced raiding which provides a sense of progression and achievement without compromising the unique attributes that make combat in Guild Wars 2 different than standard MMO genre games.

Proposal Functionality

This will be long-ish. Pack a lunch.

Accessibility Raid instances will be activated through the current Guild Mission system. When someone with mission control activates the raid portal in the open world, the first players in the guild to interact with the portal are transported to the raid instance. Activating a Guild Raid should cost some amount of Guild Merits, but not an excessive amount. Players should be encouraged to make multiple attempts per week, but discouraged from making hundreds of bad attempts. 1 to 5 Merits to activate seems like a compromise.

Size Raids will have a fixed player scale of 8-15. Any smaller than 8 is hardly worth of being called a raid, any larger than 16 some of the nuance of the unique combat system is lost due to particle effects and decreased mechanical complexity.

There will be no waypoints, and no ability to resurrect in case of a full party wipe. If you wipe players will be returned to the open world. Players can hard res each other as normal in cases of a partial wipe.

Raid Description Raid instances will be large zones, similar in size to an entire explorable dungeon or one of the main cities (Lions Arch, Divinity’s Reach etc). Players will spawn in a central area and can move outward in any desired direction, as the instances will be open ended. There will be 6 sub-quests throughout the instances in different areas of the zone and can be done in any order. Each quest will have unique goals and challenging sub-bosses. As an example of the suggested difficulty, I would cite Lupicus as an example of the baseline easiest difficulty and complexity of these subbosses. Each quest will have Raid Reward Chest (detailed below) upon completion.

Upon completion of the sub-quests, the end boss will spawn in the original central area. This boss will be extremely mechanically challenging and tuned to a level of difficulty that would commensurate with challenging raid bosses in other games in the genre. A good example of modern raid design difficulty would be Ohmna from Wildstar Genetic Archives or Nightmare Brontes from SWTOR Dread Fortress.
To be blunt, the end boss, like the ones mentioned above, will be especially mechanically challenging and guilds should not have the expectation to defeat the boss (or even get to the boss as the sub bosses will be challenging) until they have significant practice. Defeating the end boss of the raid will spawn a Glorious Raid Reward Chest.

The trash mobs in the raid should be somewhat challenging, akin to the Arah Elites. They should roam in in packs with paths that cross so players must be careful not to over-aggro. The trash packs should be mixed professions designed to have complimentary skill sets.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

hybrid.5027:

Some seasons we are enthusiastic for records some not. It comes and goes. SC wasnt very active last season, very active this one. Last season we did a lot, this season we haven’t cared to do any.

Yes the season is the reason yes

Who are you? Are you even in the speed run community?

Vikkela.7261:

How Do You Know They Are Not Actually Carrying You?

Because I am the one soloing lupicus and they died to kicks in phase 1.

Some seasons we are enthusiastic for records some not. It comes and goes. SC wasnt very active last season, very active this one. Last season we did a lot, this season we haven’t cared to do any.

How about looking at it from a top down perspective.

Anet has a concept of how many hours of gameplay they think a legendary should generally require. In pre-launch interviews I recall that number being 6-12 months so mostly casual, but focused, gameplay. Is this accurate? I think so. If you only play one or two hours per day but make sure you use your time efficiently it shouldn’t take more than a year to make Twilight. So the system as it exists now is working as intended. if you think 6-12 months of casual gameplay is too long for a legendary that is a personal issue.

I’m not against some other alternative system of precursor acquisition, for what its worth, so long as the hours to obtain it roughly equals the hours to farm the gold to buy the median price precursor outright.

In GW1 my favorite class was the necromancer

Looks like I have to call in all my favors with anet and get ice bow nerfed. Once that happens, I’ll go for Glyph of Storms. Once that happens I’ll get meteor shower nerfed.

then, and only then, will I rest soundly on my waterbed filled with the tears of particular people.

You should make choices by looking ahead to where you’ll be in a few months with practice when you’re good at the game rather than where you are now.

Plus the most optimal / viable pve builds are a known quantity and you can check out metabattle to see what you should be doing.

essjaybee.1283:

Rauderi.8706:

essjaybee.1283:

It is beyond debate that those who question the price of Precursors deserve naught but the severest Ridicule, as they are Entitled, they despise Hard Work, and they are undoubtedly Communists or Socialists (perhaps Both!). Therefore, it is the duty of the benevolent Rich to expose their Flawed logic. An Unpleasant task, perhaps, but those who have succeeded— through Skill, Cunning, and Superiority of Birth— to amass significant amounts of pixelated Wealth should view the Education of their lesser brethren not as a Burden, but rather as their God-Given Responsibility.

(How’d I do?)

Wow, for a moment, I hated you. Grats.
Reminds me of the faux-conversations I have with my ’bandmate.
/golfclap

;D

Much of this thread reads like a badly-written Gilded Age political tract (complete with Random Capitalizations for Emphasis), so I figured I’d just be a little more explicit about the philosophy on display here.

You’re batting 1,000 against all the strawmen out there.

Swiftpaw plays ranger in dungeons every day and has no trouble staying alive with longbow on swap and doesn’t get stuck on longbow.

Ropechef.6192:

heads up gang..

Raid CDI starts Monday.

Part of me wants to write an epic rundown of my opinions on what gw2 raids should be, challenge, progressions, rewards, design etc. Only I know what will happen is…

1. chris won’t acknowledge it.
2. The other Nike will post something like “raid instances should have crafting stations so we can use Artificer 500 to craft a special weapon to kill the boss lolz”.
3. Chris will respond with, “thats a clever idea!”
4. I’ll say that the idea is so dumb only a moron would think of something like that.
5. Another account will get banned from posting.

Longbow Auto = 0.5 coefficients/second

Sword Auto = 1.05 coefficients/second

That’s a wrap.

Mesket.5728:

just show anything from ANET before release where they talk about a game meta being dps and the rest of the gear used as training curve. I will shut up now and forever about it if ANET has something from before game release date where they say that.

Since I never claimed they said that, it would be weird for me to look for a quote. You know what its called when you create a fake position, like you did right there, and then knock it down? That’s a strawman argument.

You’re being simple-minded. Tanky gear makes you receive less damage. DPS gear makes you deal more damage. Anet clearly intended these things to be so. they did not intend tanky gear to deal more damage or DPS gear to soak more passively. That’s the point. The gear does what it does. It does what its used for. What its used for it what it does. This is so simple I feel you must be trolling if you do not understand.

In a game with a dodge button they 100% obviously intended for the best, most experienced players to rely on dodges more than passive defense in pve. This is indisputable. So what is the inverse position? they intended for the inexperienced players to rely more on passive defense. The game design is so simple and elegant it seems extremely bizarre that you believe it wasn’t intended to be so.

That champion coe abom dies super fast. The two trash elites with him are far more dangerous actually.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

hybrid.5027:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Pro Tip: two eles can make four deep freezes.

oh man with 4 eles and one head shot spamming thief that mossman won’t be doing anything. best comp.

I know some people who needed 3 anchor guardians in order to get past Mossman anything in 70+

I don’t. Maybe you should name them?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Pro Tip: two eles can make four deep freezes.

oh man with 4 eles and one head shot spamming thief that mossman won’t be doing anything. best comp.

Pro Tip: one ele can make two deep freezes.

Darox.8069:

hybrid.5027:

Sure, because you need ele for perma-Fury. But much like you only need one warrior for banners you only need one ele for fury.

Let’s see if I can give a go at this:
You only need one thief for stealth
You only need one ranger for spotter
You only need one guardian for reflects
You only need one mesmer for portal
You only need one engi to prove that Guang was wrong
You only need one necro to show that Anet does not care about PvE
How did I do?

That sounds about right, the case for a second ele is only slightly stronger than the case for the rest of those.

Taking the time to explain the mechanics of every boss in the game would be rough, plus you wouldn’t believe me anyway since you still don’t accept I’m right about Kohler.

kyubi.3620:

hybrid.5027:

kyubi.3620:

Honestly you may not understand that feeling because you may or may not have played the first game but when your used to deal massive damage with pet and be loved in teams (guild wars 2 minion master and beastmasters or spirit spammer) You just cant go back to behing some kind of dismal damage specialisation who spam an auto attack.

Many nostalgic build died with the new game or became close to useless due to how the game stat were attributed. Those who still seeks those nostalgic feeling are simply put given a punch to the face.

SoS ritualist and the true minion master rest in peace.

I played GW1 and minion master and ranger beastmasters were horrible there too.

So Kyubi wants tanky stats to be good for “nostalgia” purposes.

Mesket wants tanky stats to be good because of some bizarre notion of design symmetry.

It’s really good to know that my conclusion (people wanting tanky stats to be good have irrational reasons) is correct.

Because Aura of the lich and signet of spirit doesnt get stuff done everywhere? Troll spotted. I dont give a heck about tanky stat i want a glass cannon summoner style with 0 armor and pure damage.

Also horrible damage to beastmaster? Say that again to my 200 damage hits. I dont think youve played realy long if thats the conclusion you got because BM can easily compete with dervish and sins on a single target damage basis all while providing a somewhat immortal unit that has no death penalty and can be rezed at will.

Theres a good reason why signet of spirit ritualist and minions masters where near mendatory to successfull group runs.

Guy who can’t read spotted. I didn’t say SoS was bad. SoS is party of the meta. Ranger beastmaster and aura of the lich builds are not. besides this is off topic anyway. Who cares about your AFK to win gw1 builds we are talking about gw2.

If the loot you get from kohler and his chest is worth on average 25 – 50 silver, and it takes 15 seconds to kill him, you can do the math on that. The only people who skip kohler on daily runs are bads.

Killing Kohler makes the run faster in p1 and p2 by giving you a waypoint. And the loot for Kohler makes killing him worth the time. It takes 15 seconds to kill him and you get a dozen or so silver worth of loot, with a chance at better drops. This is why most speed clear groups kill kohler in their daily dungeon runs.

Just like the people who say fractal rewards are bad, you aren’t calculating the actual value of the loot you’re getting on a time/reward level.

Sure, because you need ele for perma-Fury. But much like you only need one warrior for banners you only need one ele for fury.

I do find it funny how quickly people forget the fractal tournament. Remind me how well the ele heavy comps did there?

Mesket.5728:

(before someone comes with the training wheels excuse… find me a “training wheels gear” feature explained before release)

It’s self-evident. If you fresh install the game at launch and you die alot you will add tankier gear. If you don’t die alot your natural inclination will be to experiment by adding DPS gear. I don’t know how you can fail to see the intention there.

Did they envision a state of the game where 99% of the player base ran full DPS gear in pve? Doubtful. But then again I don’t think they envisions a state of the game where there was no new dungeon/challenging content for over a year, either.

kyubi.3620:

Honestly you may not understand that feeling because you may or may not have played the first game but when your used to deal massive damage with pet and be loved in teams (guild wars 2 minion master and beastmasters or spirit spammer) You just cant go back to behing some kind of dismal damage specialisation who spam an auto attack.

Many nostalgic build died with the new game or became close to useless due to how the game stat were attributed. Those who still seeks those nostalgic feeling are simply put given a punch to the face.

SoS ritualist and the true minion master rest in peace.

I played GW1 and minion master and ranger beastmasters were horrible there too.

So Kyubi wants tanky stats to be good for “nostalgia” purposes.

Mesket wants tanky stats to be good because of some bizarre notion of design symmetry.

It’s really good to know that my conclusion (people wanting tanky stats to be good have irrational reasons) is correct.

kyubi.3620:

Does any of you got other constructive ideas about how to provide extra reward to doing the full dungeon witheout penalising speedrunners?

Here are some issues…

1. Your conclusions are based upon the premise that “providing extra reward to full clears without penalizing speedrunners” is a good thing. You assume this is something desirable and that it is a goal development should work towards. This is not self-evident and it is not something you can just assume. You have to make a case for this premise that is meaningful.

2. Skipping non-optional bosses is an exploit, so saying that exploits should be fixed goes without saying.

3. I don’t understand why people who do full clears need more incentive, since they get significantly more loot per dungeon path from all the mobs they kill.

To make entertaining videos.

But seriously, the biggest contribution an ele makes in fractals is Fury from Persisting Flames, and you only need one ele for perma fury. Adding more eles won’t improve the smoothness or speed of your runs.

I’ll never understand why supposedly competent players want tanky gear to be good or optimal or whatever. Who cares what the name attached to your gear is? The only logical explanation I can come up with is they want to roleplay as a tanky character but they also want to feel effective in groups when they do, and it irks them that their roleplay desires conflict with the game design.

If there is another coherent narrative I’d love to hear it.

Random fractal skin + 10 pristine relics + 20 slot fractal box + mystic forge stone = fractal weapon skin box

PSYCHE THAT WOULD ONLY BE THE BEST THING EVER SO DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT HOPING FOR IT

Ele still sucks in fractals. Nothing has changed that.

kyubi.3620:

Its gone from play the build you want to go ahead and suck as any build you want.

They never promised all builds would be equal. “Play how you want” meant that you could do all game modes and be rewarded. Period. That’s the original context of your statement.

If you think they EVER intended a completely random selection of gear and traits to be equally effective to a developed build you’re sadly mistaken. No game developer would ever be so stupid to say that all builds will be equally viable.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how MMOs work. No matter what the game, given a set environment (raids, world pvp, arenas etc) there will always be things that are slightly more effective than others. And the more complicated the character building process and more options you give players the wider the gap between good and bad is. Any time you give people options synergies will develop and certain sets of options will be inherently superior, that’s just a fact and if you think this isn’t inevitable in every game you’re dead wrong.

Though I will say, most other games hid their build imbalances behind gear grinds so a bad build with better gear will trump a good build with bad gear. Luckily gear quality is more or less irrelevant in GW2 and bad builds rise and fall on their merit rather than scrubs being able to be bailed out by gear grind.

Mesket.5728:

I like the game, I just wish it was better,… as it is, it feels like a Mario Bros without platforms or a Mario Kart without gadgets.

You should start solo/duo/trio dungeons without a Thief. I think you’ll find the dungeon design isn’t bad at all.

Etien.4601:

Surbrus.6942:

Etien.4601:

Without a guardian by it’s side, an elementalist is a total failure nowadays imo. So your argument is invalid.

A normal zerker DPS traited Guardian’s Aegis is just as strong as whatever crazy “tank” Guardian’s Aegis… if that is what you were referring too. Support comes from skills (and traits), not from stats.

DPS traited guard is the worst class at the moment. It always has been. There is a huge CD for the aegis to refresh in a dps build and it saves you from 1 hit and that’s it. Then 80 seconds cd? Fail imo.
Let’s say you use “Shave yourselves” and you can place x2 Aegis in a row. Not recomended. I’ve seen so many failed guardian builds, sometimes I wonder if we play the same game or not lol.

The best pve guardians in the game all play berserker guardian. I can name them if you like so you can get some pointers.

Crushing Blow should be 10x stacks of confusion.

The gear stats aren’t worthless at all. In pvp every amulet is viable in one build or another. In WvW the full gamut of gearsets are viable. In PvE, among experienced players there is little variety, however among beginers the concept of tanky-gear-as-training-wheels not only exists but it works perfectly as intended.

Would I have designed the game differently? Probably so, I would have designed the game without gear stats and made all character building choices locked to traits, runes and sigils. But that isn’t relevant because its not going to change, won’t change and SHOULDN’T change. This is the game we have, and it’s kitten good actually. I can’t make you quit the game dude, but if you don’t enjoy the game for what it is you’re simply driving yourself crazy by being frustrated by what it isn’t. I would suggest you find a game you like better and be happy, but I doubt you’ll listen.

Mesket.5728:

hybrid.5027:

What does wearing tanky gear have to do with speccing for support? Does Sentinel’s gear make your Wall of Reflect last longer?

Speaking conceptually, the faster you divorce yourself from the gear = playstyle mindset the better you’ll be. I mean it’s only been two years and I still have to put this fire out on a weekly basis so maybe I’m hoping for people to learn something they never will.

Maybe after 2 years you will realize that you are wrong? Its an MMORPG after all, gearing, stat/trait/perk/talent (w/e it’s called in dif. games) build and play-style goes hand by hand. It is defined by genre and its not like ANet wanted to changed that, they designed the game wrong and ended up where we are. The fact we all use the same dps gear is not a design feature, it’s a symptom of a badly designed game. You can’t blame players for playing an MMORPG like an MMORPG.

The problem for you is that I am not wrong at all. I am describing the game as it is, based on the mechanics that actually exist within the real game. You’re describing a fantasy scenario based on other games and other mechanics and philosophies that do not exist in Guild Wars 2.

So I’ll say it again, the faster you can divorce yourself from the concept that gear informs your playstyle the happily you’ll be and the more you’ll enjoy this game. Until then, you’ll be spitting into the wind.

kyubi.3620:

but i wish sometime we did the ac like in the old day with kholer and the non stacked spider.

Most speed run groups kill Kohler. And killing the spider queen in the open is the speed run meta. The scrub tier pug meta hasn’t figured out either of those things though. I’d say give it 6 months before speed run meta trickles down to pug tier, but based on how pug eles are still dropping FGS and not using Ice Bow that may be overly optimistic.