Guild Wars 2

Haralin.1473:

Dopamine.7502:

As topic says. BETA testing has no place in WvW. Use the new BL tests to test WvW for beta characters. BETA characters are unbalanced and have no place in WvW matchups.

No they must be tested in WvW, i tested the Scrapper only in WvW, cause i want it balanced and where can i test it the best? In a live situation where i can see how it works and what the class maybe need or what is too op.

You can test it ‘best’ in a situation where you are able to go up against other players in a wvw environment. Test servers are the best place for this, because it accomplishes that goal with no impact on the competitive game modes of a live game, while still giving the needed test data. If not on a separate server, at least segregate the players so that those not participating in the beta don’t have their games impacted by testers. That is the entire point of a beta test, after all. To test features while avoiding the negative impact of untested features on your live game.

I don’t recall any other MMO/online/multiplayer game I’ve played using their live game as a beta testing zone. And certainly not while also allowing such tests to carry over into the competitive aspects of the game. Even Anet decided to not test their new WVW borderland on the live servers. Why should new classes/specializations be any different?

I don’t think anyone is going to argue that beta tests shouldn’t be done. They are a very important part of game testing, since they give more (and fresh) perspectives and a larger scale than a studio can provide in-house. But there are very good reasons that they are not conducted on a game’s live servers.

Of course, putting this onto a separate test server(or segregated group on live) would likely mean Anet having to open the beta up to more than just HoT prepurchasers to get the population needed for testing. To me, that says keeping that pre-order “incentive” is more important than the integrity of their live game. My guess is that this, and the added cost/effort are the main reasons a test server wasn’t used.

No profession has a downed skill that is an absolute stomp-blocker. The interrupts/knockbacks/etc of other professions can all be countered by stability or blinds from the attacker trying to stomp. Thief’s teleport is on the more reliable side, as you just need to get yourself far enough away to break the stomp. The teleport can’t be countered by the attacker, unless they have their own insta-cast teleport skill to move along with you(and react fast enough for it to work).

I do agree that getting stomped by someone you’ve moved away from should be changed. But I think it’s the functional range of the stomp itself that needs altered. Perhaps even displaying a red circle to show the range, so the downed person has a guide to how far they need to move.

edit:
I forgot to note that thief also has a stealth downed skill, which will also break the stomp activation. The only counter to which would be the (very sparsely available) application of revealed before you stealth. Otherwise, they have no option but to swing at the air to try and hit you.

In comparison to most other classes, thief has some very good downed skills for avoiding/breaking a stomp.

The finish stomp actually has a larger range than it appears to. The range it will still complete in is even larger than the range required to get a ’Finish them" prompt to activate it.

Unfortunately this has been an issue for a while. Until it’s actually fixed the only way to complete the starter area is get lucky and land in another instance (hopefully, a newly created one). With the way megaserver instances are handled, that usually means getting everyone to leave the instance so it shuts down, or going in right after a patch.

I’m surprised you managed to get into 3 instances servers without doing that. Unless you’re on an EU server and changing languages can do it. I think the NA server usually only has 1 instance of that map up most of the time.

reapex.8546:

Menadena.7482:

Yay! I was able to join a party this evening while tagged up.

Yes, that works just fine. People that join your squad will no longer be in a party.

It’s back to ‘normal’ for now. Squads will be just a tag and added chat channel till HoT is out, or perhaps some pre-HoT update to prepare for its release.

Once all of the invite/join features are enabled and the UI fully implmeneted, the new squad system should be completely on-par with the party system. So being tagged up will just mean a bigger “party” with a different UI. There won’t be any reason to be in a party as well as your squad, since the squad replaces all party functionality.

What traits are you using?
And what other skills do you have on the right half of your bar? (including underwater skills)

I wasn’t able to reproduce this in pve (these skills should behave the same as in wvw) with these two skills, even when using the traits that effect them. There has to be some other interaction that is causing it.

Looks like your adapter is one that doesn’t even have the settings I mentioned. Not all of them do, the wifi chip my laptop has lacks it.

You should try enabling the “Multimedia/gaming Environment” setting. That should ensure that any data packets are sent immediately, instead of being held back and done in batches. Those holdbacks are typically really brief, but can sometimes cause latency (lag) or drops.

As for the driver update, you usually won’t find a very up to date driver using the update button in the device properties(it only checks Windows Update’s database). For that, you’d need to check the PC manufacturer’s website, or make note of the adapter model and check the website of the company that makes the adapter itself.

Since the router is working fine for another PC, it’s probably fine to not worry about updating it. While your PC is likely aware of the router, and it may even show in the device manager, but there isn’t really a ‘driver’ for it on the PC itself. Updating a router’s internal firmware is usually done through the web configuration page the router has. Some newer routers even keep themselves updated. Unless there is a bugfix for a router feature you need/use, or some important security fixes (patch notes usually list this stuff), it’s probably ok to just leave it alone.

Nothing was changed/fixed, the beta is over and the new squad UI isn’t there now. It’s back to the old system for now.

When the new squad system is active, there will be no need to be in a party while in a squad. Squads have their own ‘party’ list and give you most (if not all) of the features a party does. A 5-player squad set to closed/invite-only is basically a party with a different party list UI.

There are some things to be worked out, like what the OP mentioned. But it seems to be mostly missing UI elements for handling invites. I believe others can invite themselves to a squad using the /squadjoin [commander name] command without being on the same map. And I might be mistaken, but I thought there was a /squadinvite (or /invitesquad?) command available this weekend.

I think once the missing pieces are in place, and the UI is polished, squads will easily take the place of a party for when you need a tag or more than 5 in a group.

Kodiak.3281:

Puck.9612:

My only problem with it is they can nerf rangers in less than 24 hours but they allow something that is completely broken like the gun flame bug to last all weekend.

How is rangers being able to stack boons a higher priority than warriors literally 1 shotting people?

Because Rangers shouldn’t be able to stack boons like that. If you want to play a class that can stack those boons, play one, but Ranger isn’kitten

And no class should be able to just 1 shot anyone they see.

I think this entire weekend has shown the need for a PTR. These things do need to be beta tested, but doing so in the live game is not the right way to go about it.

My guess is the biggest reason they are testing on the live server is because the beta is limited to HoT pre-purchasers. That group might not be big enough to provide the testing/stress they want. Having a PTR beta test for all existing players, or even an open beta, would give them the population they need to test it without the negative impact on the live game.

Have you reached the cap on achievement points attainable from daily/monthly achievements? They are capped at 15k, combined for both. For example, if you have 10k from daily and 5k from monthly, you will no longer receive 10 points for completing a daily.

You can see the breakdown of where your points were earned by hovering over the total AP number in the Achievements tab.

I think we’re getting to a point where a lot of players that had done “extra” dailies for more AP( before that ability was removed) are reaching the AP cap.

Speedy.2579:

If I’m tagged up as a commander at Tequatl, I’d like to be able to be in an ordinary party, in case of a disconnection. This new idea seems to have been thought up by somebody who doesn’t actually play the game…

This still works in a squad. When you reconnect you are still in the squad, and even still tagged up/leading it. All of your squad members will be listed in the squad UI, so you can right click on any of them to rejoin the right map instance.

Taxi’ing doesn’t really change at all. Anyone in the squad can be used as a taxi. You’ll see the “Join name in zone” option for any member when you right click their name in the squad UI.

Parties will still be around, but they’ll remain mutually exclusive with being in a squad.

If someone does tag up while partied, I think their existing party will automatically be invited into the new squad. So asking others to tag up shouldn’t cause any disruptions. And if a person in a party already is invited to a squad, their party will either be added automatically(if set to open join), or the commander will see a prompt allowing them to invite the rest of that party (if invite only/closed).

The only restriction would be that squads can (currently, at least) only have 1 commander at a time. I do hope that can be changed in the future to make a bit more organization possible, in both pve and wvw.

Bry.8140:

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

We’re keeping the beta open until noon tomorrow as well so people have more time to experiment with the raid.

8pm Monday or Tuesday evening in EU?

Would be Monday, as it was still Sunday (for Anet in PDT) when that was posted.

You’ve got another 8 hours to get your raid on.

I’m not sure if something related to the game account could cause disconnects. Perhaps if account data or logins are handled across multiple servers, and one of them had a connectivity issue. But I don’t think there’s been any information about the actual setup Anet has for this.

It does sound like you’ve at least improved the problems somewhat. It is possible that the less restrictive firewall settings are giving a bit more tolerance for re-establishing a connection after a brief disruption. There a couple other fairly simple things to do that might help if the local connection is the cause.

You can check a couple settings for your network adapter in the Device Manager. There are several ways to get to that, but I’ll just list one that’s common to all recent windows versions.

press the Windows logo key + R
type “devmgmt.msc” into the run prompt (no quotes), then hit enter or click the OK button

In the Device Manager, find the network adapter you’re using (there are probably a few listed, but should have obvious labels) and double click it to open its properties window. From there go to the Advanced tab and look for settings labeled “Checksum Offloading” or just “Offloading”, and set them to disabled. You’ll only need to change them for IPv4 for GW2, if your adapter separates the settings between v4 and v6. There are likely separate listings for UDP and TCP connections, and it is safe to just disable both of them for IPv4.

These Offload settings have been known to cause some connection issues in quite a few games and other applications, so disabling them can help. I think they only major exception to the general recommendation to disable them is with Intel adapters. But even some Intel models are better off with them disabled.

You can also check your PC manufacturer’s site, or the site of whatever company makes the network adapter, for newer drivers for that model. The adapter maker’s site will likely have a newer version of their generic driver. It might lack(or not work with) any custom settings or software wifi on/off toggle utilities the PC shipped with. This won’t interfere with the functionality of the adapter.

It’s one or the other under the new squad UI system. It takes the place of the party UI, so can’t be in both at the same time.

When it’s fully implemented, you should be able to chat to the full squad, or only one subgroup of it. You will be able to keep your original party as its own subgroup within the squad.

There is something weird going on with kits. After seeing a few topics on it, I’ve made sure to have my bank open in the background while salvaging, to test it myself.

When salvaging a bunch of rare armors with a mystic kit, I noticed the kit was missing from its usual spot in my inventory. I checked the bank first, but it wasn’t there. Turns out, after salvaging one of the armors, the kit had been replaced by the rune extracted from the armor. The kit was in the previously empty inventory slot the rune should have been placed in.

Shoe.5821:

It could be tested on a separate server set from the live game. It shouldn’t need to be on that specific hardware, just another set of servers with the same configuration and interactions. The only difference would be that they’d likely have to open it up to more than just HoT pre-purchasers to get it populated enough for a proper stress test. Having a beta for all paid accounts, or even an open beta would probably be good for marketing/hype anyway.

since the game is no longer sharded, even a close approximation beta-server could have serious flaws duplicating a live environment. this could lead to unpredictable bugs when that content is pushed live. While there have been some minor inconveniences for live players this BWE, it is at least a wash in terms of reliability versus pushing systems live that were only tested in a very limited environment.

i’m sure the commander system worked fine internally and on their test servers. it only crashed and burned when pushed live. Better now, in BWE, then on launch day.

The current megaserver system isn’t really much different than the previous server setup, it just manages the same instances in a different way. This system actually did exist since launch, as the overflow system. They basically just took out the pairing of players in pve instances based on chosen home server and made them act as an overflow with new player pairing methods. The remnants of the old system still exist, as is evident when you go into a dungeon or any other instanced content. Your friends will see you as being on whatever your home server is.

You’re likely right that copying the environment to a test server might not be completely thorough(largely due to the scale), but it should be enough so that much less testing on the live server would be necessary. We’ve had bugs (some game-breaking) and disruptions all week that likely could have been avoided, or condensed into shorter tests like the raid UI experiments last night.

Purple Miku.7032:

Lopez.7369:

Do you guys realize you’re doing all of this on a live server? Please stop ruining people’s fractal and dungeon runs.

How else are they going to determine whether or not it works if the literal only way they can check is on the live servers, since the problems can’t be reproduced on their internal testing servers/clients?

It could be tested on a separate server set from the live game. It shouldn’t need to be on that specific hardware, just another set of servers with the same configuration and interactions. The only difference would be that they’d likely have to open it up to more than just HoT pre-purchasers to get it populated enough for a proper stress test. Having a beta for all paid accounts, or even an open beta would probably be good for marketing/hype anyway.

Despite my not agreeing with doing beta experiments on the live server with players that don’t want to be testing HoT, I do have to give props to the devs that were working at midnight (or beyond) on a Saturday to test and fix this. That’s dedication and deserves some mention.

Seems they re-enabled the new squad/raid UI, and it broke everything again. It’s already back to disabled, though.

You’ll likely have to relog and perhaps use the /leave command to break the party up.

The event there has been buggy/often stuck since release. It usually gets stuck after the first time the event runs in a given instance, so you’ll need to rush there after a patch or get in a newly created instance.

There are a couple guild missions in the area, so it’s possible that some maps will fill up and create new ones handle the population. Weekend evenings would be a good time to try that. Missions reset Mondays at 12:30am Pacific time (UTC -8), so that might be a good time as well, if it falls at an active hour for your server/time zone.

If your network is private and secured you could have it set as such, but there isn’t any need to unless you wanted to share files/printers between your PCs. Public is a bit more secure, so if someone did connect to your network (wifi encryption is pretty good, but not perfect), it does put an extra layer of security between them and your PC/files.

I think home/private does change the default rule set for some applications, so it can require a bit less fiddling with settings to allow connections. I use a third party firewall, so I’m not 100% sure on that.

Two of the more common sources of issues like this would be a firewall or wireless interference (if you’re using a wireless connection to your router).

For the firewall, make sure the game has both in and outbound connections allowed. If you’re using Window’s built-in firewall, its settings are in the Security section of the Control Panel. There will be a link/button in that section to “allow an app through Windows firewall”. The exact location varies somewhat between Windows versions.

If you’re using a wireless connection, you can try re-positioning the router or antennas. Changing the wireless channel in the router’s settings can also help. If you’re using a laptop, temporarily moving closer to the router or using a wired connection can help to prove/rule out the connection as the cause.

Some of the background/ambient sounds from the map/area I’m in keeps playing with the game tabbed out/minimized/otherwise in the background. The majority of audio properly mutes, as per the “Mute when GW2 is in the background” setting. Some of the persistent audio is quite loud (normal volume for the effect) while others are barely audible.

I’ve noticed this over the past few days, starting with one of Tuesday’s updates.

There has been a thread or two about this one. I’ve not had it happen to me yet, but a friend has had it twice on her ranger. Both times, she was able to re-select a heal, but this was on a level 80 that already had them all unlocked which could make a difference.

It’s not limited to just beta and squads. There have been some game-wide party, party chat, andguild chat issues today.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Guild-chat-5/first

If you’re in a party, you’ll likely need to /leave to fix it. In addition to relogging, that is.

After party chat stopped working, we relogged to find ourselves no longer in a party. But none of us could rejoin, because the game was telling us that the we were all still in another party.

This started happening with the attempt to make on-heal rune effects not trigger when exiting tonic forms. Initially, they weren’t functional with a lot of (maybe all) heals. Hopefully they do properly fix it instead of leaving these runes as they are now.

I just logged in, and friends immediately warned me about guild and party chats randomly breaking. Not beta chars, because none of them even own HoT.

They did mention that relogging was the only way they’ve found to fix it.

They do lack the contrast the old blue icons had with most map colors, and the difference between a earned and unearned points doesn’t stand out as much. They also blend with the map background more easily than vista/PoI markers when you zoom out a step or two.

They would probably be fine using the same icon with the old color. With maybe darkening the unearned icon a couple shades to make the difference more apparent.

From the OP’s comments, it sounds like he/she might have had them as a collector’s item, and likely knows they aren’t of any actual use. It’s certainly not unprecedented for gamers to collect ingame items that are no longer available or used in the game. I know of quite a few people that do this, and even have a few of such items myself.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter from a functional/gameplay perspective if old and unused items are completely purged from the game’s database. But it seems like a strange use of resources to bother with such a cleanup of a single item.

If you’ve only attempted this once (or not logged out before retrying), log out and re-attempt to convert the stats. Sometimes the forge will randomly fail to recognize items, or act as if you don’t have a valid recipe put into the slots. I’ve had this happen multiple times making various legendary weapon gifts in the forge. Logging out and back in has always fixed it.

I think there a few bugs that can cause this, because I have it happen fairly often when not in the air. Some skills will still activate, but many self-casting skills will simply refuse to work. This even effects instant cast skills. And quite a few condi/immob cleansing skills fall into those categories.

The only theory I have for the cause in these cases is the current target being behind me, or at least out of the forward-facing ‘cone of fire’. That shouldn’t have any impact on self-casting skills, but it seems to be commonly occurring in this situation.

It’s possible that uneven terrain/slopes could be causing a mid-air effect without jumping, but I don’t think that’s what is happening. That should prevent nearly all skills from activating.

A friend had the same thing happen this morning, but she was able to select a heal skill when out of combat. She had just logged in to not having one equipped, despite playing the character yesterday (still before last night’s patch) with no issues. As with the OP, her character was a ranger. She also mentioned her selection of heal skills having a “blank” skill in the list.

I’ve not had this happen on my ranger, which I was playing before and after last night’s update. I also created a new human ranger this morning to attempt recreate the issue, with no luck.

Edit the game shortcut.

Right click it
Click Properties
Go to the Shortcut tab
In the Target field and -repair to the end of the line

I will look something like this
“…\Gw2.exe” -repair

Be sure to put -repair outside the quotes, with a single space before it

This has to be some sort of bug, as it should be impossible to not have a heal skill selected. You start with 2 unlocked and shouldn’t be able to de-select one, just swap between them.

Wanze.8410:

mrstealth.6701:

lordkrall.7241:

This is what was said in relation to the removal:

The entire current line of finishers will be removed from Upgrades after this week, so this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems.

I for one think it was rather clear that they would be obtainable another way from that statement. Heck there were people speculating minutes after the blog post that they would come back as BLC items. So clearly there were others that thought the same.

They left it rather…open. Basically, Anet can say they never told us they wouldn’t make them available some other way. While technically the truth, it’s can easily mislead.

It still doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to make that change the very next day after the promotion stopped. The nature of the promotion heavily implies that the items wouldn’t be a available at all for some time. They had to know that is how most people would interpret it, even with the openness of their statement.

They could have been open and clear with their plans to add them to BLCs only a week later. But they chose not to, in favor of promoting this as the “last chance” to obtain them for some time.

There was no promotion, just a PSA that the finishers wont be available for directly via gems after 1 week.

It doesn’t have to be on sale/discount to be a promotion. Making a news post about it, and adding on a “x days left” timer in the gemstore is promoting the items. They were raising awareness of the product, which is the definition of a promotion.

lordkrall.7241:

This is what was said in relation to the removal:

The entire current line of finishers will be removed from Upgrades after this week, so this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems.

I for one think it was rather clear that they would be obtainable another way from that statement. Heck there were people speculating minutes after the blog post that they would come back as BLC items. So clearly there were others that thought the same.

They left it rather…open. Basically, Anet can say they never told us they wouldn’t make them available some other way. While technically the truth, it’s can easily mislead.

It still doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to make that change the very next day after the promotion stopped. The nature of the promotion heavily implies that the items wouldn’t be a available at all for some time. They had to know that is how most people would interpret it, even with the openness of their statement.

They could have been open and clear with their plans to add them to BLCs only a week later. But they chose not to, in favor of promoting this as the “last chance” to obtain them for some time.

InfamousRSX.7285:

Now they told me there was “24 hours windows” to ask for a refund… really? was the sale a 24 hour event? wow… just wow. i bought it 1 day before that 24 hours windows….

“I know that we recently changed the way that players get finishers. We were offering refunds for players that had bought them within a 24 hour window from when they were taken of the market. Sadly, this purchase did not fall within that time frame and that is why we cannot offer a refund for the finisher.”

Regards,

GM Milk Dudz

Wow

That is just disgusting. They need to be honoring any refund request for purchases made after their non-sense “1 week left” promotion started.

InfamousRSX.7285:

A better way to promotion this sale had to be like " last change to buy directly from gemstore, but there will be other means to get from the game after".

There was no reason at all to promote them. It was just a marketing trick to give us the impression that the items wouldn’t be available for a long time, so we’d rush to buy them.

Ryou.2398:

Ok I am a little confused here, people are saying they are in the trade post but I do not see the search option and I tried the word finishers and nothing, is there a more specific name for these?

Thank you.

Searching for “finisher” (singular, no ‘s’) will show all of them.

They really need some consistency/standard policy in their support. Especially when it comes to dealing with how customers’ money is handled. You can’t just refuse one customer’s refund, while allowing another that was requested for the very same reason.

You’re likely right that it’s something beyond your control. The only real option available (aside from the security software/router ones already pretty much ruled out) on the player’s side is the /clientport argument. I know various ISPs have been known to throttled game traffic along with P2P traffic, whether intentionally or just careless filtering. It’s more likely to cause increased latency than disconnects, but it is possible. Some have had luck using ports 80 or 443 for the game.

The only other local thing I can think of would be the network card drivers/settings. Updating drivers, or even trying older versions might help. And Checksum Offloading has been known to cause some problems/additional latency with some network adapters(like Realtek/Marvell chips that are commony built into motherboards). If the settings are available, they’d be in the advanced settings tab for the network adapter in device manager. Disable the options if they’re on, and try enabling if they’re already disabled. They can actually help performance on some of the higher end adapters. I’ve seen a few reports that Intel’s do well with it enabled, and I have it on with mine(Intel 82579V)

RoseofGilead.8907:

If they have you blocked, then they CANNOT whisper you. No way around it. If you try to whisper someone you’ve blocked, you get an Error message. The end.

However, if they have their status set to Invisible, then they can whisper you, and you won’t be able to whisper them back because of them being set to Invisible. So, they’re not whispering people they’ve blocked; they’re whispering people while Invisible.

There’s no flaw in the Block system here; it’s just an annoying side effect of having an Invisible status.

This is correct. I just tested ingame, and could not PM someone I had blocked. But you can still send mail till they block you.

However, it isn’t much different than someone going invisible to prevent responses. They have a means to further annoy you by preventing any rebuttal, so they use it. But even if they couldn’t prevent your reply, they would still be PM’ing whatever offensive crap to you. The only difference being that you’d be able to respond. Either way, you’re going to be receiving their offensive PMs and will need to block the person if you wish to stop that.

The only actual issue I see here is mail still working for players you have blocked. But it’s still a minor issue, as you can prevent further mail by blocking them. And the fact that even without this “bug”, they would still be sending you mail that you could then return to sender. So (again), fixed or not, you will still be getting whatever they feel like sending you, you’ll just have the ability to return/reply.

Aomine.5012:

mrstealth.6701:

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

Healers are relevant, because one of the key concerns here is that lack of a healer is the very reason that the 10-thief party would fail. It certainly wouldn’t be because 10 thieves lack DPS. With the way GW2 is designed, trying to add in healers could very likely mean that the healing profession is the only single profession that might be truly required to complete content. Other professions do still bring valuable aspects to a party, but none of them are required in the way a primary healer would be. And if a druid healer isn’t required, it will simply never be used because it’s not designed to do anything else.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

That’s never been how GW2 was designed or balance. For the most part, DPS is DPS and it doesn’t matter all that much what profession it’s coming from. The biggest differences in DPS between the professions are probably direct/condi damage versus reflected damage, and the professions’ varying ability to provide DPS buffs to others.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

I do agree that it’s a bit extreme, but it’s also something Anet specifically mentioned that they intended to be doable.

Not true.

We don’t know about HoT yet, but for 3 years, all the contents are base on dps, and the difficulty are base on some key defensive skills activation time (aegis/ stability), and all the offensive buffs stacking (25 might, fury, quickness, 25 vulnerable).

The good team makes the fight ends in a very short period of time, thus making all the contents trivial. It is never about healing, and is never required.

HoT may be different, but we are yet to see any of those, so you really can’t judge on things you haven’t see at all.

But for now, other than the raid that healers may potentially be needed, they’re no content in this game that requires a dedicated healer who doesn’t has anything other than healing. (no offensive and defensive buffs)

That was about HoT and Druids, not the rest of the game’s content. It’s a given that the Druid will be pretty much useless/redundant in all existing content. because all of it was designed to be completed while relying on self-healing and limited support.

Looking at the Druid I see a spec that is likely to be required for one aspect of the game (raids), going against the core design of the game, while being useless/unwanted in the rest of pve. The only other place I see Druid shining is in wvw, where it could potentially be extremely overpowered (which looks probable from what has been said).

I’d like to be wrong here, and see the Druid as just a viable option to take a more DPS-focused party that lacks other defense/support roles. But I see it being more likely that the Druid will be too powerful a healer for the rest of the party to make up for in its absence, without sacrificing too much DPS for support.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Healers have nothing to do with the argument that I responded to, which was that ten thieves (or any other group comp using ten of the same profession) ‘must’ be able to complete a raid.

Healers are relevant, because one of the key concerns here is that lack of a healer is the very reason that the 10-thief party would fail. It certainly wouldn’t be because 10 thieves lack DPS. With the way GW2 is designed, trying to add in healers could very likely mean that the healing profession is the only single profession that might be truly required to complete content. Other professions do still bring valuable aspects to a party, but none of them are required in the way a primary healer would be. And if a druid healer isn’t required, it will simply never be used because it’s not designed to do anything else.

What I am saying is that every time you exclude a profession from your raid group in favour of a different profession, you should end up losing out on something that you’re really going to miss, and ultimately, that almost invariably has to mean that one way or another, you lose a nice, fat chunk of your practical raid DPS.

Why?

Because the typical raid encounter can be reduced to a pretty simple question:

“Can you successfully deal with these mechanics while maintaining an average of at least x DPS for y time?”

If you can answer ‘yes’ to that question, you win. If you can’t, you wipe and will have to try again.

Everything about any fight that follows this formula ultimately boils down to either increasing your raid’s DPS or avoiding the loss of DPS.

That’s never been how GW2 was designed or balance. For the most part, DPS is DPS and it doesn’t matter all that much what profession it’s coming from. The biggest differences in DPS between the professions are probably direct/condi damage versus reflected damage, and the professions’ varying ability to provide DPS buffs to others.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

It’s never really been the intended design to that degree — what they’ve promised is that you shouldn’t have to wait around for a member of one specific profession, and all signs point to that continuing to be the case.

But that doesn’t mean that full groups of ten of the same profession can or should be viable in all conceivable PvE content. That’s taking the original idea to an extreme.

I do agree that it’s a bit extreme, but it’s also something Anet specifically mentioned that they intended to be doable.

evilunderling.9265:

mrstealth.6701:

It means that something is very wrong because being able to do that is the core philosophy of the game. Being able to complete any content with whatever party composition you have. You take who you have, and don’t have to wait around because you lack a healer/etc.

Healers have nothing to do with it. Let’s go back over what I said:

1. Balance requires that dropping one profession in favour of two of a different profession results in a substantial DPS loss.
2. You shouldn’t be able to kitten your raid’s DPS substantially eight times over and still pass a tight DPS check or enrage timer, like the ones that will presumably feature in every single raid.

From those points, it follows that if ten thieves can even come within sight of completing a raid, then either the raid is tuned badly, or the game’s balance is off. Not because of healing or reflects or whatever, but because of DPS.

As for the game’s philosophy being about always being able to succeed with whatever you have to hand, a raid comp comprising ten of the same profession is pretty contrived. If you just grab ten people from your guild and tell all of them to play their favourite specs, you should usually end up with something diverse enough to work.

Of course, if you’re trying to set up a raiding static for OMFG or Favourable Winds, you’re probably going to be in trouble.

Healers have everything to do with what’s being discussed in this thread. If the Druid is a powerful enough healer that they are required to complete content, and cannot be viably subbed with other classes, then there is a major conflict with the game’s design philosophy.

Balance requires that dropping one profession in favour of two of a different profession results in a substantial DPS loss.

I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make there. It looks like you’re trying to say that taking two of the same profession automatically means a DPS loss, which makes no sense. If you’re dropping one profession (1 player, or mulitple?) for another profession, your gain/loss in DPS is going to depend on which professions/builds/roles those are. They all have different levels of DPS, support, and survivability.

If you drop a Reaper for a second Warrior, you’re maybe losing a higher DPS player, but you’re gaining one that still has good DPS and can help buff others to increase their DPS. I’m not saying that every professions balanced perfectly, because that’s not really ever going to happen in any game. But they are balanced in such a way that you’re not gimping yourself by taking two of one profession, instead of two different ones.

You shouldn’t be able to kitten your raid’s DPS substantially eight times over and still pass a tight DPS check or enrage timer, like the ones that will presumably feature in every single raid.

That goes without saying. You’re going to need enough DPS to beat that timer. But that has nothing to do with taking a mixed party or one made entirely of a single profession. Having a 2nd guardian instead of a warrior doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean you can’t beat that timer.

The entire design philosophy of GW2 is for the profession to be balanced with each other so that any party composition is possible. That a certain profession or mix of professions is not required. That 10 of the same profession can complete any content, even if it’s not likely to be the best/fastest/easiest. In fact, that was a specific thing Anet was showing off before launch. Being able to complete dungeons of 5 of the same profession.

Whether you agree with it or not, or whether if fits your idea of what profession balance is, that is the intended design of GW2. Or at least it has been for the last 3 years.

Leo G.4501:

So you’re pretty much guessing yet you’ll go to the extreme to call someone a liar despite your lack of evidence or first-hand knowledge?

The OP actually phrased it more as a question to open discussion on it. And it’s a question I think should be asked.

I’m not against the devs going against the perceived philosophy because the perceived philosophy is that, so long as you have enough aegis, blind, reflect and damage, the game won’t ask you to do anything more and you’ll be able to blast through content. If the game, at some point, asks you to sustain instead? Or to keep something alive? Or to control the foes? There is nothing wrong with that.

It’s not a perceived philosophy, it’s what Anet clearly stated and has continued stating for years. And it’s not about having enough aegis/blind/etc, it’s about never needing a specific class. Never having to wait around because your group’s healer had to work overtime. Anet made a very specific choice to not have a healing class in GW2, and used that choice as a key point of their core design philosophy and marketing.

Yet here we are with a dedicated healing spec announced. One that is claimed to be unlike anything we’ve seen in the game so far, and very powerful in raids. Along with saying new content will have unavoidable damage(implying outside healing is needed). To me, everything put together is heavily implying that druids will be nearly (if not absolutely) required.

Coulter.2315:

drkmgic.9583:

Coulter.2315:

The philosophy has always been that given a set of people they can adapt their builds to accomodate the requirements of the encounter.

People seem to have interpreted this to mean “your chosen build works everywhere and no one should ask you to change.” Which is nonsense.

What it means is if a druid is a healer and then is removed from a group then the rest can switch things around to cover that gap.

Except that’s not the case isn’kitten Tell me which warrior specs can compensate for the sheer amount of heals the druid has or the necro or the mesmer. The druid alone has 5 healing on their staff nuff said

THE GROUP CAN PROVIDE IT. You think in such small ways. If I remove the druid that doesn’t mean it can be replaced by a warrior, it means you can shift the focus of a number of other players to cover the gap…

I’ll give an example so people can try to pitcture it.

Group of 10 people raiding, using a druid for a lot of healing. Druid doesn’t turn up one evening. Response from raid leader :

We’ll need higher Protection up time, Guards can you adjust for that.

Warrior can you grab a few Shouts for that Condi Phase.

Mesmer can you bring the Well Heal, Inspiration+Chrono for Quickness Mantra of Pain Heals to top us up at that damage intensive part.

The team can adjust to cover the gap.

Right now we don’t know if that will be viable or not. It depends on just how powerful of a healer the Druid really is, and how much the content is tuned with that in mind. If a Druid can equal 2-3 other support focused players, then it seems quite possible that a group could have a lot of difficulty finding an alternative. Especially if the party is not already heavy in classes that have access to such builds.

The summary of the Druid reveal on dulfy.net certainly gives the impression that they are quite powerful healers, and that a few non-heal-spec’d players taking a bit of support won’t stack up.

Bringing heavy healing to GW2, unlike anything you have seen before. Strong support, very powerful in upcoming raids and WvW. Can sustain a zerg train of 20-30 players in WvW.

Shadow Phage.9084:

And then you realize that the ‘anti-trinity’ experiment is largely a failed one that led to the rise, and perpetuation, of the zerker meta. Moving away from generalists toward specialists isn’t a bad thing. It creates a need for specs that would otherwise never be seen, because they simply aren’t wanted or needed in the current environment.

In no way does the addition of the Druid change anything. All the other classes already have viable heal specs. They all operate somewhat differently, and are better, and worse, in certain situations.

I’m not against specialization and roles. I love playing dedicated heal/support, but I see trying to implement them into GW2 being difficult, if not an outright bad idea. The game was designed from the ground up to not have healers. Sure, there are builds that have some focus on healing, but not to the degree that the Druid is supposed to.

I think it’s very likely that Druids will either end up being required or unwanted. Unless existing content all gets retuned to fit them, they won’t really have a place. And that is not something I see happening. In pve, I don’t see the spec being used outside of raids. Open world content certainly can’t be designed to make their presence important, because the content would be too difficult if there weren’t enough/any of them at an event. And if the past three years have shown as anything, it’s that heal/support spec’d players would have trouble getting credit for those events. An overhaul of that system is something I’d love to see (it’s long overdue), but it’s another thing I just don’t see happening.

As much as I like the idea of getting more tailored roles, I just don’t see a primary healer working in this game’s content and mechanics. Too much would have to change in order to make it viable and balanced, without going against the core philosophy of it not being a hard requirement. Tuning new content to make better use of the existing heal/support roles seems like a much more realistic and obtainable goal. Make those builds more important instead of trying to add in something the game was designed to not have.

EdwinLi.1284

Healer does exist in GW2, it is just few bother to use the Healer builds or just never bothered noticing the existance of healer builds.

Current heal specs are builds that focus more on healing and support than others, but aren’t dedicated to it nearly as much as the Druid. No other class has all of their weapon skills being used for healing. I think mace/shield guardian is the closest to that, and that’s hardly fully focused on healing.

Leo G.4501

Op, you don’t find it rude to accuse someone of lying? Have you ever considered you have a bias that imposed a certain viewpoint of the game’s situation and balance? And would it be a bad thing to take in the perspectives of other players in regards to balance, previous, current and future?

It’s not just one person’s viewpoint, it’s what the devs outright stated years ago (and have continued stating through present day). That there would be no waiting for a healer to complete your party, that you could take whoever you had complete any content. We can’t say for certain whether or not that core philosophy is being abandoned, but given today’s info I think it’s reasonable to question it.

evilunderling.9265:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not referring to optimal. I am referring to viable. If it is not possible for full thief raids to complete the entire thing, then something has gone wrong…

That doesn’t imply that anything has gone wrong at all.

Raids are meant to be hard — the norm for hardcore raids in other games is that you need to be able to do something like 90% of your theoretically attainable DPS to beat the enrage timer. GW2 should be quite a bit more lenient than that (after all, we will never have genuinely better gear to bring along), but not by that much if they’re to remain credible.

Every time you drop a profession in favour of stacking another profession, balance demands that you’re significantly worse off for doing so. If these are credible raids and the game is balanced, you should not be able to do that eight times over.

It means that something is very wrong because being able to do that is the core philosophy of the game. Being able to complete any content with whatever party composition you have. You take who you have, and don’t have to wait around because you lack a healer/etc.

If you have to sit around for an hour and wait for a druid or other player that is setup/geared as a dedicated healer, then Anet has completely thrown their core design philosophy out the window.

For dedicated healing to fit into the game’s design, it would need to be an option, not a requirement. Taking one dedicated healer instead of having lesser healing/defense support spread over several other party members. I think it’s doable, but it will be a difficult and delicate balance to make sure both options are equally viable.