Guild Wars 2

Sakulos.7963:

ANET knows it better that you think

Any evidence or shall we stick to writing personal opinions as facts?

+1 Kultas. I haven’t played pvp for over a month now and will also leave the game if they fail us once again this month.

I heard this topic was meaningful.

As I always say, everything starts with an enthusiast inside the studio (like Robert) who pushes the cause of some particular part of the game (in this case – the ranger).

How I see it – necros just don’t have that person and so there is truly no one to get the profession to be interesting and cool like others.

I may be horribly wrong, but that’s just how it looks and always did.

After the last update I finally stopped playing, right now I’m in the state of sticking around and watching the forums. I’ll see how SotG goes, will as usually play for 1 or 2 days after next patch to see if it’s worth anything.

If things aren’t fixed in this patch and by fixed I mean a big balance(not the useless crap we received every month so far), rankings (not 100 people list NPC in HotM) and some look into Custom Arenas and Observer mode (a video or something + a blogpost), I will most surely leave the game.

The being patient and forgiving devs every month honeymoon period is over. The faith is lost if they don’t deliver this month.

@up: Exactly! Another part where they pretty much, and I have a problem finding a proper word, failed with the design. They shouldn’t add skills/mechanics that just negate your other effects.

Spectral skills should synergise with DS just as minions should synergise with transforms. Do Guardians lose spirit weapons when they use their Tomes? I think they don’t.

If there’s a balance problem (I guess minion life siphoning could be one of the issues) – rework the skills or traits that cause problems!

This is basic stuff…

Defektive.7283:

Nord.5360:

ArenaNet Developer (and balance guru) Karl McLain will be joining us as well. That makes…1…2…3 devs. No big deal.

Drill him on Warrior changes.

I beg of you.

Have me on the show and I’ll do it.

I have a pack of angry necros in a dire need of answers. I think we can join forces and drill him together,

Robert Hrouda took a shot at trying to interact with ranger community and I admire that attempt.

He just plays a ranger and designs dungeons which combined allow him to provide suggestions to improve the profession during balance meetings he attends. I even asked if necro has such an enthusiast, but I don’t think so.

Oh well, being happy for ranger players, rangers are insanely fun.

@Khalifa: I agree. It is something I raised few months ago about general necro feel. The class mechanic didn’t allow devs to get more creative with the skills and created lots of balance issues.

Devs changed many skills prior to launch. I’m pretty sure axe had a gap closer (visible on the locust swarm promo video), Doom was a fear skill with an animation from downstate fear. You were able to summon 3 bone minions, Grasping Dead was a different skill. Fear was necro-exclusive. Even the DS was different (I think it started as a unique pre-downed state phase).

All professions have these things in promo videos, but still there’s this feeling of devs scratching their heads thinking how to fix necro and having really hard time.

Nice try at that if you’re trying to say I suck, I cannot prove I don’t but let me just say, that I completed most of PvE when it still meant something and I pvp’d thousands of tournaments.

I learned to play the game back in BWE3 and further when necro was a total kitten. And the argument about the game not being even a year old is, quite comically, getting old.

You’re missing my point trying to blindly defend necro when it has obvious problems and gets no interest from Anet at all.

You may be patient enough to have no problem with that, but my patience is no more with all my friends long gone for other games. Same goes for sPvP, but I believe you don’t play it, Bhawb.

They expect hostility, because they know they messed up in many different places.

Just look over sPvP forums to see how a badly designed and implemented PvP makes combined with terrible balance makes people react. All this half a year after the game shipped.

I have every right to criticise as long as it is constructive. I did it multiple times, but there is no answer, no reaction.

No wonder, they’re not responding.

Khalifahaze.6045:

“poor design” doesn’t make this class bad I would hardly consider it a dump class. A good necro is the deciding factor in tpvp team fights. I wouldn’t even consider this class to have an overall poor design we just need a few tweaks, nothing too major.

I obviously don’t mean necros are bad. I main a necro and played it a lot. Not only, as most people, in PvE.
The poor design is a comparative description. I believe DS is one of the best profession mechanics design-wise, but the skills there are boring as hell. The staff – the new level of boring. All weapons based on auto + some ground target/channel – boring!

Deep and interesting combo possibilities – sometimes, mostly not.
Play dynamic? Hell no.

I could go on and on. Don’t tell me these are small things.

And as a fun fact I use to make fun of necro – it was the only profession NOT played by a single Anet dev during long hours of beta event streams.

I believe in actions, they cannot lie.

Acarius.3052:

I’m pretty sure leman is being sarcastic here.

You got me

I wrote it somewhere else already, but let me write it once more -

Necros are Anet’s dump profession – no one in the studio mains necro, no one cares about it. This is why there are no cool skills, awesome mechanics and great gameplay for necros. If they feel generous, they just tweak numbers of kittenty skills and expect the problem to be solved.

I know what some people will say in a while – Leman’s writing nonsense, he has no evidence, etc. You’re right – I don’t, but I don’t need any evidence to see how poorly designed necro is in comparison with some ‘cool’ professions and frankly I don’t care anymore. I fought for changes since the game hit live and there wasn’t a single thing improved. Only bug fixes and some number changes.

Devs won’t even answer questions about undocumented changes. How am I supposed to respect that behaviour on their part?

In the meantime, Jon Peters randomly jumps on mesmer forums to give comfort about skill’s misleading name/tooltip. Nice joke.

/realism

Wish we had even tenth of this level of interaction on necro forums.

I’m afraid there is no one in Anet playing necro and therefore no one to push the cause, similar to how orphans are left unwanted by their parents forever doomed to have the harder start and worse life.

High hp pool and DS make up for the lack of invulnerability!

They do, they really do! I keep believing this! I want to believe!

HP+DS is enough, it is, it is, it is!

It is, right?

Except for the part that necros have no representative on balance meetings. Probably why they are so boring and simplistic.

New page is there, probably will be upgraded soon!

March 26, 2013

A hybrid army erupts through fiery portals in the Shiverpeaks. A Molten Alliance between the dredge and the charr Flame Legion has created a force powerful enough to massacre any who stand in their way. One settlement, one homestead at a time, they’re wiping out all resistance. The razing has begun.

In Flame and Frost: The Razing you’ll meet the norn Braham and Rox the charr, two Tyrians who fervently believe in doing what’s right, no matter the risk. Join Braham and Rox in a desperate battle to defend their homelands from annihilation in the third installment in this four-part series!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/march-2013/

Let’s make it an official discussion thread!

Warrior/Guardian

…

Engie/Necro

With that said, I’m really curious about a raw data like that released in the first month after launch. I think we could try asking John Smith or devs in general to give us some meaningful percentages we could analyse.

Cheers!

Hi,

I really like the idea, but I don’t think it will melt faces of some really decent players in higher-end tournaments.

Still a nice build idea and a refreshment from usual and boring builds necro players tend to advertise.

Regarding current meta and skill level I’m used to experience (r40+) power build with lots of snares and new focus boon removal looks a bit more effective in my view. As I say though, it’s my own opinion.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Captain Tervelan: Of course you’re still alive. Should’ve known a few centaurs couldn’t kill the “Hero of Shaemoor.” They’re your specialty, after all, right?

<Character>: I know what happened to Falcon Company, Tervelan. How could you give them up to the centaurs? How could you betray their trust like that?

Captain Tervelan: I didn’t want to do it. My soldiers were starving, our equipment was ruined…I had to do something or the centaurs would have killed us all.

Captain Tervelan: So, yeah, I sold out Falcon Company so that some politician could say the queen was a bad ruler. But the rest of my command lived.

Captain Tervelan: I got funds to reequip my soldiers, munitions, decent rations, and a promotion. My command’s killed more centaurs than the rest of the Seraph combined—thanks to Falcon Company’s sacrifice.

<Character>: And all it cost was one company of your fellow soldiers. You’re not an officer, you’re a greedy, lowlife thug. And you’ll pay for what you’ve done.

Captain Tervelan: You and Bigsby… If you hadn’t dug so deep, you both could’ve done a lot to help us. All of us. But now you’ll just be ettin food. Bigsby may be already.

Captain Tervelan: This gate should hold you all in. I’m sorry it came to this. Good-bye, “Hero.” When you meet her, tell your sister I said hello.

This certainly is NOT a way adults would talk. This is rather poorly written and even worse executed. Its’ impossible for me to take it seriously.

And we aren’t even touching asuras and the way they are presented, their dialogue and general behaviour.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I go to the meetings as a representative for rangers and dungeons, since I play both of those things extensively. Here’s how my list is looking so far:

Robert, you earned my absolute respect by doing what you’re doing in this and the other (the dungeon one) thread. I believe that you just sort of became Ranger community’s favourite developer and Ranger’s guardian angel. This is an inspirational effort.

I don’t play ranger extensively, I don’t main it per se, but I think it’s a great profession that is extremely fun and the Community is blessed by having a person like You.

I hope that the players can stay soft on you

In an unrelated note, is it possible for you to say, who’s this kind of representative for Necromancer? I understand that sharing such info isn’t necessarily something you could or would like to do, so I won’t be surprised if you refrain from answering.

Once again, you’re a superstar, Mr Hrouda.

critickitten.1498:

I said that it’s hilarious for someone to say that they miss the “serious” tone of GW1’s story when it was laughably absurd from an outside point of view.

It wasn’t. End of topic.

1. Asura are goofy and pathetic most of the time.
2. Every major event revolves around asuras.
3. Every major content is turned goofy and pathetic.
…
And the voices, Dear God, “SeeeeeeeeEEEEEEE?!?!?? Thiiiis is why we need a coheeeeesive plan!”

Detha in Fractals is one kitten NPC that I would kill if I could. Literally, cut her head off with an axe and impale it on a pike.

I made a separate thread, but I found this one again and decided to paste it here since there’s a bigger chance someone actually reads it. If it’s been suggested already, excuse me, I had no time to read everything.

A quick suggestion I’d like to give and ask about your opinion regarding the SotG in March.

I, for one, believe that while SotG should touch topics like the new map, matchmaking, rating, upcoming ladder/something/custom arena/observer mode, it shouldn’t focus on these things.

Heck, we can as well write the usual answer on a blackboard behind Grouch and frankly the devs can say whatever they want. We learned it changes nothing until it goes live.

My suggestion, proposal and request is to make it more profession/balance/vision oriented.

Give each profession few minutes (fair share!) so that devs can elaborate on how they designed the profession, how they see it now and where are they taking it in the near future (strongest spots, weakest spots, weapon sets, etc.) Basically something compared to the short note from designer team in a December patch (link to the post)

What I think the community can agree with is we should also talk about where we are regarding Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS and AOE balance (also in the post linked above).

What I personally would like to get answered is the recent change to Death Shroud that now doesn’t allow for a weapon swap as well as get info about new DS UI that was said to has been worked on more than 2 months ago.

First idea is cool, basically giving a pet 2 possible dodges/2 seconds of evade on ‘To Me’ command would be great.

Hey,

A quick suggestion I’d like to give and ask about your opinion regarding the SotG in March.

I, for one, believe that while SotG should touch topics like the new map, matchmaking, rating, upcoming ladder/something/custom arena/observer mode, it shouldn’t focus on these things.

Heck, we can as well write the usual answer on a blackboard behind Grouch and frankly the devs can say whatever they want. We learned it changes nothing until it goes live.

My suggestion, proposal and request is to make it more profession/balance/vision oriented.

Give each profession few minutes (fair share!) so that devs can elaborate on how they designed the profession, how they see it now and where are they taking it in the near future (strongest spots, weakest spots, weapon sets, etc.) Basically something compared to the short note from designer team in a December patch (link to the post)

What I think the community can agree with is we should also talk about where we are regarding Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS and AOE balance (also in the post linked above).

What I personally would like to get answered is the recent change to Death Shroud that now doesn’t allow for a weapon swap as well as get info about new DS UI that was said to has been worked on more than 2 months ago.

What do you guys think? Is it possible we can get such discussion?

Nice thread.

I as well have been tracking dev movements for some time now. I noticed that devs haven’t spoken about most professions lately.

Important facts:

1. Rangers aren’t being discussed about on forums. (regarding this subforum and the thread).
2. Necromancers (my other top profession) are in the same spot – absolute denial of existence on dev part. Most notable example lately – a bug/fix with our profession mechanic which I tried to get explained with numerous people on numerous occasions, without success.
3. Jon Peters made an appearance after last patch few times, when I last checked – he wrote 3-4 posts on mesmer forums. He also mentioned undocumented elementalist changes and later added them to the notes after the patch.
4. Devs are very picky about whose question they choose to answer.
5. There is no sign of any change happening in the near future.
6. Increased activity in sPvP forums regarding PvP in general after the patch (they mentioned they use to have more time after a patch hits the live environment).

reedju.5786:

Do you mean weapon swapping while in DS? because that is still very possible.

It isn’t.

Sowin.5187:

How about a little lemon juice on that cut?!

You can say whatever you want. I don’t care about an arrogant reply from some random PvEr. But go one, continue adding your pointless posts protecting the current system.

Fact is, the content discriminates smaller guilds and it caused me and my guild literally leave the game in a period of 2 days after patch.

Is the lack of swapping when under Death Shroud introduced in the last patch intentional or is it a bug?

It was always possible, but last patch blocked it.

Some answer from a dev would be appreciated.

evilapprentice.6379:

AGAIN,
Nobody has a right to duel.

Stopped reading there. How can you even say that? You seem to be very angry about the whole thing and it started with a very simple problem.

And I have none, because my guild is too small and doesn’t have Art of War.

Thanks for making us quit the game. We were really waiting for this guild content.

OP, you found out you were mistaken. Empty servers are used for dueling.

Now, if you could, stop arguing and let go.

Well, many people I talked to agreed that the Legacy of the Foefire and the Forest of Niflhel both need changes to make them somewhat interesting after we tasted the Temple of the Silent Storm and the Storm Watch.

Question is, where Anet takes them…

On topic – I agree that Lord/base mechanic needs to be given much more emphasis.

Agreed, OP.

This is something I’ve been saying since the first month after release. I’ve recently even wrote a post to one of the coolest devs out there asking about some of those things.

Alas, there has never been any substantial response. Even the latest necro DS change regarding weapon sets is something that remains unanswered and it is huge and has far going consequences.

I’m trying my best not to mock the devs for this, I really do. but seeing that DS UI remains unchanged and that we have an undocumented change that is unexplained pushes me to my limits of acceptance. In the meantime, the devs posted something like 4 posts in mesmer forums.

It makes me want to quit the game, something I invested a lot of time, effort and passion into. They are not helping me… us carry on.

Trahearne is stronger than Abaddon.

… and there’s gonna be a Fractal in GW3 with a grawl shaman jumping into water and morphing into big Karka.

Larynx.2453:

Evan Lesh.3295:

So a Mega Dummy with 10x hp would be better?

Please add “Mega Dummy” as a title under its name if you do add it.

Why not just call it a “Evan’s Mega Dummy”?

Parisalchuk.9230:

If the nemesis is an Asuran I am done with this game. I cant stand that every single monthly update that introduced a large event (aka, not Fire Frost since this has all be prelude) has had an Asuran as its main central NPC.

+1000

Hi, Evan,

Thanks for taking you time to reach out to community.

I would like to ask you, who can I try talking to regarding the necromancer changes.
In particular, recent patch introduced a change to our DS mechanic that now forbids us from swapping weapons inside it. There has been no official word about it, even though I tried to get a response.

Once again thanks for talking to us, we appreciate that.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/living-story-evolution/

Furthermore, do we all presume that So-and-So is dead, because he died at level 80, or do we assume the opposite?

In order to make this easier on ourselves, and on you, we’ll be introducing a set of characters specific to the Living Story, at the end of March. Hint: one’s a norn, and one’s a charr.

Discuss!

Hi, Tyler,

Thanks for taking you time to reach out to community.

As Defektive, I would like to ask, who can I try talking to regarding the necromancer.
In particular, recent patch introduced a change to our DS mechanic that now forbids us from swapping weapons inside it. There has been no official word about it, even though I tried to get a response.

Once again thanks for talking to us, we appreciate that.

This game is an engineering miracle. Believe me.

It were the designers who failed to create events that wouldn’t be zergfests.

Lol, this looks terrible…

Just another example of how necros are left alone as a red-headed anet’s stepchildren with no intention on anet’s side to clear things up.

Camera zoom out in Lion’s Arch? No problem.

How was I able to do it? I have no idea.

I was running and suddenly I noticed my camera is zoomed out like crazy.

In short, “big PvP/balance patch”.

Unless it comes live in March, there will be no reason to stick around and play PvP. If it’s not ready for March, as we were made to believe, there will be literally no incentive to log in to the game.

My guild is giving it one last month and a chance to bring the ‘big’ stuff. If March fails, it’s unlikely we’re ever going to play again.

edruviransu.1029:

Probably they saw the rest of the patch notes.

You do realise that the “rest of the patch” you mention was just a quick additional nerf they added with a follow-up patch after the whole community went crazy, right?

OP talked with the devs on Skype after Xeph wrote his wonderful (now deleted) topic.

The devs convinced OP to write this topic, hoping his position would calm the community.

The OP obliged.

Community is calm.

Mission accomplished.

The changes from this patch were pretty much what the players have been saying since the launch. The problem is it took 6 months for devs to understand that.

I’ll picture it using an example:

You cast your marks and have 3 seconds remaining until weapon swap is available.

You go into DS and know that when you leave, you’ll have staff equipped with its cooldowns. You can pop in, wait a moment and swap the weapon. Then, when you leave DS, you have the other weapon set with all skills available AND you can possibly switch to staff back again. You get a whole additional rotation.

This can mean a dagger immobilise or focus vulnerability/boon removal for example. It is extremely powerful and adds to the profession depth.