Guild Wars 2

CMF.5461:

Players are served a plate of mush and they hate it.

Players are served a plate of mush, and an after meal mint…and they love it!

The mint…is wafer thin

John Smith.4610:

I don’t think they’re off the table. I’ve played several games using this type of RNG in my research recently and they are not my favorite solution, but that’s still a personal opinion, I haven’t developed a professional one yet.

With that in mind, it occurs to me to ask for a layman’s idea of what the requirements of a solution you’d deem ideal would generally be.

What does it need to accomplish beyond the obvious functions of being an RNG at all? Are there specific interdependencies that an RNG system, by its functions, must be able to operate in the parameters of?

From another angle, what sorts of ideas are just plain out, and what general directions would we best be suited to brainstorm in?

John Smith.4610:

I wouldn’t continue it in this fashion if I didn’t agree that there could be superior systems.

How do you feel about hybrid RNG systems that employ such concepts as ‘streakbreaker’ mechanisms, that eventually force or enable some manner of deterministic option? I’m curious, as they’re not uncommon (consequently, I imagine they’ve been examined in various formats before), and wondering what the reasons might be for why they aren’t employed…or if its merely a matter of that they haven’t been employed yet.

Are they off the table? If so, why.

Are they topically relevant? If so, how do you feel about them?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

We’re alike in that spirit – I played at least two such games and two other games before Guild Wars where gear didn’t matter as much as character build. Some of the raiding for stuff . . . where RNG twice over would come into play (did it drop? And if so, can I beat the roll for it?) . . . was not pleasant. But in the other games, there was a certain lack of something for a large part of it – a lack of something to earn prestige-wise.

Even so, I have a low tolerance for high-cost (time or money) gambles based on RNG for rewards . . . required for progression. Cosmetic awards make me grumpy, but I can fluff it off.

Grind for something important? Well, that’s where I sigh and try to figure out how to skirt it. Usually by “how can I minimize the time to get this without cheating outright”.

Couldn’t have described me better right there. Seems we’re in the same boat on this sort of thing.

penelopehannibal.8947:

naiasonod.9265:

So, roughly 0.003 seconds after people learned the terrible truth of Sylvari origins, it hit the RP scene like a bucket of gas hurled into a bonfire.

Some of my fellow RPers immediately started screaming at the 10*283^18 others that just kinda ran with it.

I’d like to say: You’re funny, I laugh at you and can we please stop sometime eventually? I’d like to get back to reading your lovingly crafted six-paragraph emotes about taking a sip of beer than six thousand paragraph arguments about people breaking lore, and the Pact Commander wouldn’t reveal that information, and nobody could know yet, and yadda blah blah blah.

Yes, those are salient points. Nobody cares though. At least, not the tidal wave of everybody else you’re screaming at.

Tilting at windmills comes to mind.

Anyway, I just wanted to PSA that, get it off my chest and, y’know. move on.

Cheers.

Is this a Tarnished Coast thing? Because I’ve heard nothing like this on Piken Square.

From an In-Character point of view, it’s a bit premature and I don’t think we should be basing our Tyria-wide RP on a short video showing what might be just a short, small battle confined in one small area.

As far as I’m concerned, word hasn’t got out yet and I don’t think it will until new content is out.

Yep to TC, and inasmuch as I agree that its premature…well, there goes the tide over on TC at least.

And there goes a few people waving and howling at it. Its kinda like watching someone chase after a bus they’ve just missed.

/shrug

I really don’t get the fuss either way.

Tao.5096:

I once checked what those RP stuff is.
After reading people etc. I thought I’m in some kind of religion circle or something.

At least that’s how I felt :c

For some (most?) of us, its just writing stories with other people.

For some (not most?), its their new life and bawwwww.

The ‘bawwwww’ is the really important bit.

So, roughly 0.003 seconds after people learned the terrible truth of Sylvari origins, it hit the RP scene like a bucket of gas hurled into a bonfire.

Some of my fellow RPers immediately started screaming at the 10*283^18 others that just kinda ran with it.

I’d like to say: You’re funny, I laugh at you and can we please stop sometime eventually? I’d like to get back to reading your lovingly crafted six-paragraph emotes about taking a sip of beer than six thousand paragraph arguments about people breaking lore, and the Pact Commander wouldn’t reveal that information, and nobody could know yet, and yadda blah blah blah.

Yes, those are salient points. Nobody cares though. At least, not the tidal wave of everybody else you’re screaming at.

Tilting at windmills comes to mind.

Anyway, I just wanted to PSA that, get it off my chest and, y’know. move on.

Cheers.

Tom Gore.4035:

But after you do, the gaps will be bigger, as the story missions only appear every 10 levels. You’ll also notice that you won’t have your traits unlocked as you level, instead having to either buy them open with gold or accomplish the associated event to unlock it.

I would save your praise until you’ve gone a few more levels through the NPE. The majority seems to hate it.

I dunno. I think the NPE mostly gets panned by those of us that had our cheese moved by it. Its different, and I personally think its weird, but bad? I’ll phone that in when I figure that out.

The trait locking, that, I declare to be god awful. That’s not NPE though. That’s its own fiasco.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Do ending credits break the immersion for you too?

Reality breaks my immersion!

ANET FIXIT NAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

but I would quit GW2 the instant I see that level cap has been increased and that I have to fix all my characters new gear. I doubt there will be a level increase though, expansion or not.

Right there with you mate. I might wander back sometime after the general total wall of All My Nope began to wear away, though…games that inspire that ‘Gets All My Nope’ feeling in me tend to stay dead in my interests.

UO did it ages ago. Never looked back. WoW did it years ago. Never looked back. SWTOR did it. Never looked back.

Bad feeling to inspire in me, right there. Tends to never actually wear away.

In the pre-cursor era, we used command lines.

Just proves my theory that there was a third gunman on the grass knoll.

They should come up with training arcs that make us complete a specific series of story-based but skill-driven tasks to unlock each tier of traits.

It should and could be tied the order one had joined. Joined the vigil? It’ll be straight up combat missions for you too unlock your trait tiers. You might wind up having to resource manage and direct forces like a warmaster and duke it out one on one against a BBEG boss to unlock grandmaster traits in the end.

Joined the whispers? You’ll have to go on stalker and stealth missions. What begins as a simple spying job for tier 1 traits might escalate into being framed for a murder you didn’t commit and having to find the real culprit for tier two, culminating in a dramatic final conflict against a shocking foe that you’ll get to fight like Batman versus your own personal Joker nemesis to unlock tier 3.

Joined the Priory? Light on combat, heavy on lore, you’ll have to solve puzzles, survive spelunking some ooh-ahh-woo environments and face some lightly challenging combat.

What might begin for a priory member as being involved in fascinating research into a dwarven ruin (and getting into it in the first place) might be tier 1. Members of the research team that excavated the ruin turning up missing under mysterious circumstances and turning up found back in the ruin under some sort of spell forcing them to go through the motions of acting or the lives of ancient dwarves long dead might make the player have to solve some puzzles to find that there’s a sentient artifact malingering in the ruin and get it to release their comrades.

The grand finale could be the artifact, taken into safe keeping by the priory, challenges the player character to a deadly game – to enter into its very mind and learn the terrible truth of the dwarves that lived in that big- woo ruin, at risk of never escaping the artifact’s clutches! Into a misty mindscape the player must then go, to interact with memories and echoes, piecing together both the shocking truth of both the dwarves and the artifact itself while being forced to find a way out with that knowledge.

In this manner, players could pick the nature and theme of the challenge they will pursue and, at the appropriate levels, be able to start on their trait questlines, unlocking the entire tier when they’ve finished.

There very well could be ongoing storylines starting with the first trait tier’s unlocking, continuing when it’s time to unlock tier two and culminating in a grand finish to unlock tier three.

Azrael.4960:

I get the feel that Anet basically said, “You want to be the centre of attention, well here you go! Don’t you feel silly now!”

Personally, I’m not too fussed about playing second fiddle. My character is merely one (warrior/guardian/necro/ele/mes/thief/ranger) among thousands if not hundreds of thousands. What makes me special among the myriad others?

When my character was made a commander, I felt that it wasn’t so much Trahearne’s second in command as merely a senior officer, maybe a battalion commander or a company commander to lead the hordes of Vigil, Priory and Whisper soldiers to their deaths.

GW1 did this much better. Your character was -a- hero, one among many adventurers who set out to join other heroes to battle the White Mantle, the Vizier, Shiro, Abaddon. You weren’t special in any way except that you had some martial skills that enabled you to survive in the world. Beyond that, you were just another adventurer.

They made us second in command via dialogue alone. At no point did the narrative make us much other than Teahearne’s NPC minion.

It works have been a much more effective narrative is the focus has never set us up to be done sort of local hero relative to our species in the first place.

Dragon Age 1 does a great job of telling a compelling story about just some grey warden that’s only special because of his or her choices and circumstances in pretty much every regard.

Narrative focus isn’t the same thing as setting focus.

Amazing stories can be told about plain, ordinary people and who they are, why they do what they do and what their struggles are.

Amazing stories can be told about chosen snowflakes of super-prophecy.

It’s nice to see that were getting into the are of a narrative focus that actively encourages me, at least, to want to care about what I’m dicing my character around doing.

In the personal story? I stopped caring kind before the pain stopped. It had turned into a story about some guy I didn’t care about.

I felt very much like saying… Just phone it in. Tell me how it turns out. I’ma go get in on cursed shore farming.

ionix.9054:

Long gone are the days of getting what you want when you want it.

Also, in my opinion, an RNG backbone decreases socialization. No longer is a guild or a tight knit group of friends required to help you gear up. Now everything can be done via a solo effort and with strangers you will probably never see again.

I think back to the games out around ~2001. We would spend a Saturday gearing up a friend in top gear in preparation for an awesome game night. It required a group or guild to participate. Everyone participated, had fun and knew that their own time would come if they helped out others. This died years ago. For those too young, know that there was a better time for MMOS. MMOS today are too controlled… from every aspect (non persistant zones, instances, currencies, time gating, RNG… )

They were only ’ better days’ if you could live on the schedule of the groups you were absolutely required to function in.

No job, no life and nothing but tone to spend every Saturday gearing p and the rest of the week chipping away at other forced group tasks?

Back in 2001, I was in my second year of college, busting my tail to keep a 3.5 GPA on a full load while working a full time job that required one shift a weekend minimum.

I had free time enough all the same to play my games for a couple hours here and there, but those so-called halcyon days your clearly pining after?

They weren’t anything great in my memory. A whole lot of being unable to synchronize with the schedules with those with nothing but time to sit around and wait for the mail.

An awful lot of having to play with what friends I could accumulate that didn’t leave me in the dust between my play sessions.

But hey, those were the days for anyone with perhaps literally nothing to do on Any day of any week but gear up, I suspect.

I wouldn’t know. MMO’s were so hostile to anyone that couldn’t abdicate real life to live on them for so long that, by the time I found it what fun it could be to regularly group with people, it was 2008.

IMO, those ‘good old days’ can stay dead in memory, and I’ll thank them to do so.

Now? We’ve got our own fellowship!

It’s a mighty leap in the right direction, says I.

Though the worshipful praise is so over the top.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Garrisyl.7402:

I like it more this way than in the personal story where you leave fields of corpses behind and get ignored, while Glorious Leader Trahearne whacks away on a trash mob for half an hour and everyone celebrates him like he just found a culinary application for Bloodstone Dust.

And here we go with this hyperbole again…

Hey… somebody show me in the game where everyone heaped praise on Trahearne, proclaiming him the savior of the world, and ignored you.
Tell me when, exactly, Trahearne just turned towards our character with a grin and said ‘This was all me…’
What story instance or cut scene was this in?

I’m sure I’m not the only one here that would love to finally see where this happens…

As for getting praised by the NPCs at the end of that fight with the Shadow of the Dragon…
I would have been happy with just having Jory simply say ‘Good fight there, Boss.’ and be done with it.
But like others have said… People whined that they didn’t feel like the center of the universe.
Because hey… screw just being ‘a hero’ who did what they had to do… It’s all about being /THE HERO!!/ who is obviously the biggest special snowflake in all creation and who /must/ be reminded of that at every single opportunity!

For me, NPC’s lavishing us with hollow praise is moot – I think it’s over the top how emphatic that went, but still somewhat better than yet another episode of The Trahearne Show, with us practically as the studio audience expected to actually perform most is the working roles in the production.

Their focus is getting better on a player character driven narrative rather than us playing some ‘And Bob Was There Too’ random nobody.

Hero of Shaemoore? Yeah, nobody had cared about that in forever. We’ve moved on to bigger and better things.

Commander of the Pact? After claw island, we were pretty much reduced to the role of Biff the Understudy being dispatched like we were the NPC’s and Trahearne was the player character.

Imo, we don’t have to be super important chosen ones or children of prophesy about which the cosmos do hang in orbit.

If my character is some grunt soldier, one amongst many, I want the focus to be on what he or she and their squad do. I don’t want to be a captive audience forced to watch some NPC be The General when all its going to amount to is my character being sent off kill ten more boar kitten anyway.

I want to see my just-another-soldier alongside other just-soldiers, dealing with the hard choices they might have to make when on the spot in the field, the relationships they form, the hardships they endure and to see how THEY overcome THEIR trials.

I do not want to see some Elminster of an NPC ride in after we’ve done everything and thoroughly dominate the entire narrative like the whole point of there being a story at all was to convince us that Trahearne is both a Chosen One and the real player character here.

The personal story felt a lot to me like the adventure of a GM that was running his own character with the party and wound up making everything revolve around his own character.

If anything was going to be solved, it was only by the might/grace/wisdom/presence/whimsical mercy of the GM’s personal Gandalf.

Gandalf was an interesting character. Tolkien did wisely to keep him out of almost everything, ’ away on other matters’, though.

Trahearne? Just fine. But if we’re to essentially be the Merries and Pippins in this dog and pony show, at least let the narrative chiefly focus on the adventures of our fellowship.

Not how Gandalf does all this cool stuff, and we were there too.

Kal Spiro.9745:

naiasonod.9265:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

I don’t like that philosophy at all, personally. I have no ‘need to feel like the center of the universe’, but if I wanted to watch a movie, there are better ones, and they also in no way feature anything that is a focus of my creative expressions or time-and-energy investments.

For my experience, a great deal of the personal story post Claw Island was rendered quite unlikeable, because it seemed to be to suddenly become Trahearne’s story, and my character was suddenly his overworked yet still pointlessly present intern.

There are excellent ways to tell a story in which whomever the player is playing is not the central, driving figure at the heart of anything (See: Final Fantasy Tactics), but they didn’t really do that either. It went from very much being ‘my story’ to all these other people I didn’t rightly give two spits about.

I wanted to know more about what my character was actually doing. All the decisions Trahearne goes on to make? Those either should have been ours, or the focus should have been something else entirely. As it was, we got to witness Trahearne making executive decisions, with our role being to go and do all the hard parts.

Any half decent tabletop GM will tell you point blank that players tend not to be enthusiastic about GM-NPC’s showing up and stealing all the thunder, taking all the credit and ‘Gandalkitten’ everything.

I vastly prefer game storylines to be about the character(s) the players are playing. Whether they’re major players in the world or insignificant specks doing whatever is important to them in a world infinitely bigger than they’ll ever see or know, I want it to be about them.

Not some feckless NPC that’s strutted out for me to…what, exactly? Admire? Its clutter, make it go away, I want to get back to the good part.

If I wanted to play a piece of scenery, I’d go try to be an uncredited extra in a film somewhere.

That’s just my take on it. I’m personally glad they’re angling things around to put a proper focus on ‘The main character’.

Because that’s us. And now, here in Season 2, they seem to be getting the idea for how to do the story focus so its on something I feel to be worthwhile.

US

All I got out of this was, “I don’t need to be the center of attention, but I do absolutely need to be the center of attention, or it’s not fun.”

Then your reading comprehension is in the toilet. Try again, bookah.

Manuhell.2759:

Tao.5096:

Okay,
let’s summarize it.

CAUTION!
It is lethal to use Grenade Kit and Flamethrower Kit on enemies with Retaliation.
Please choose different utility skills.
ArenaNet hold no responsibility for your wipe due to Retaliation.

And you (and others in this thread) can’t even see what is wrong with such a common boon disabling entire builds (since you’ve got to spec quite heavily to make those kits even decent).
Especially since those kits are balanced to be used versus multiple enemies…and that just increases the chances people will have retaliation up.

It makes no sense, and yet people just choose to ignore it.

So hey, you must have some pretty strong feelings about condi necros being the unwanted baggage of dungeons and the pointless spacewasters of world bosses.

If we wanna come up with a list of things to cry about, man, we could fuel rivers.

Rivers.

But lets not go there.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

I don’t like that philosophy at all, personally. I have no ‘need to feel like the center of the universe’, but if I wanted to watch a movie, there are better ones, and they also in no way feature anything that is a focus of my creative expressions or time-and-energy investments.

For my experience, a great deal of the personal story post Claw Island was rendered quite unlikeable, because it seemed to be to suddenly become Trahearne’s story, and my character was suddenly his overworked yet still pointlessly present intern.

There are excellent ways to tell a story in which whomever the player is playing is not the central, driving figure at the heart of anything (See: Final Fantasy Tactics), but they didn’t really do that either. It went from very much being ‘my story’ to all these other people I didn’t rightly give two spits about.

I wanted to know more about what my character was actually doing. All the decisions Trahearne goes on to make? Those either should have been ours, or the focus should have been something else entirely. As it was, we got to witness Trahearne making executive decisions, with our role being to go and do all the hard parts.

Any half decent tabletop GM will tell you point blank that players tend not to be enthusiastic about GM-NPC’s showing up and stealing all the thunder, taking all the credit and ’Gandalf’ing’ everything.

I vastly prefer game storylines to be about the character(s) the players are playing. Whether they’re major players in the world or insignificant specks doing whatever is important to them in a world infinitely bigger than they’ll ever see or know, I want it to be about them.

Not some feckless NPC that’s strutted out for me to…what, exactly? Admire? Its clutter, make it go away, I want to get back to the good part.

If I wanted to play a piece of scenery, I’d go try to be an uncredited extra in a film somewhere.

That’s just my take on it. I’m personally glad they’re angling things around to put a proper focus on ‘The main character’.

Because that’s us. And now, here in Season 2, they seem to be getting the idea for how to do the story focus so its on something I feel to be worthwhile.

US

Valento.9852:

naiasonod.9265:

Valento.9852:

One reason: Casuals that love farming. Spamming pewpew is a relief it seems.

It is kind’ve stress relieving, you know? I wouldn’t go so far as to say cathartic, but sometimes, I come home from work and I’m stressed as all kitten, but after an hour or two of going around mindlessly killing the crap out of things, sometimes I really do feel much better.

Is that a poor thing, do you suppose?

No. Absolutely not. By all means, pewpew all night long if you wish. But let other people who enjoy actual hard content to have theirs, as there’s already so much for casuals. 2% of the game makes use of some organization/coordination (and Triple Trouble/fractals are still work-in-progress in terms of difficulty).

I tend to like a decent amount of content I find challenging too. I don’t care for fractals much strictly due to my ‘gear treadmill makes brain sad’ brain condition, but I don’t know that there’s anything especially wrong with those either.

I love that they’re utterly optional. I ignore them entirely and don’t feel like I’m missing a thing.

I do love me a good world boss though. Coordination and organization aren’t anathema to me, though I won’t lie – I do strongly tend to prefer doing my own casual-skrub thing off on my putzy own.

Far be it from me to begrudge them having harder stuff. I’m just not certain they could make a lot much harder than they already do and not essentially be making it for a tiny handful of people almost exclusively.

Zoso.8279:

This post had me laughing from beginning to end IDK if we are getting an expansion or some other form of large content but I do think something significant is on the way. Lol and all of you are just bad sports picking on a defenseless OP :P the forums are a dangerous place indeed lmao!

Excuse me mister-missus-person. I think you dropped this expension over here. I would like to be returning it.

Astral Projections.7320:

naiasonod.9265:

They look well designed to me, though don’t fit any of the aesthetics for any of my characters. I don’t imagine they’re going to fit the aesthetics of a lot of characters, but hey, they’re not hurting anyone to be there at least.

Just not sure how much demand for that look there’ll really be. Would be interesting to actually know.

They are in the range of 90-100 gold for most of them which is a typical price.
Demand varies greatly from 500+ buy orders to less than 10.
https://www.gw2tp.com/search?name=Mordrem+

Aha! Well called, mate. I’ll see what this says over the next week or so.

SilverWF.4789:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I do not NEED more sustain, I know enemies will use retaliation, and anticipate, I use well of suffering first with necro, just because of this.
And when on ele You WILL get full hits when you attack zergs. And while you will not get the 100000 damage, but IF they use retal you will go down. = Anti spike…

And staff #1 from guard hits 5 people, You hit 15 with corresponding conditions do not forget that. You can say retaliation is op , but please also reverse it. You have IMHO one of the easiest weaponsets available , with a very short cooldown, providing massive AOE.

Making it completely unpunishable would also instantly require a drastic engineer grenade NERF, as enigineers are already OP as shown in PvP. You are just trying to make enigineer MORE OP. And NERF 5 other classes.

I fully disagree with your motivation engineer is the only victim, and I want to know how people are going to defend against AOEs? Especially unblockable marks, unblockable traps and BIG AOE fields?

And I tried to explain other AOE fields with pulses will also get a lot of retaliation damage. You seem to fail to see having your 5 skills hitting 75 targets in seconds can cause problems, to yourself. Also IMHO when I hear I shouldn’t cry about people staying in my MS why do you focus so much about all those people in YOUR field of fire, as they should be moving off as well?

I think you are aware how dangerous Flamthrowers are when fighting them with melee weapons. and while trying to melee retaliation is needed else you will fail… which would cause flamthrower to be nerfed as well as conseqence…

In the end: recapping: Your grenades are High Risk High Reward, as are my meteor showers or 8 stacked Wells& Marks. And I would very much dislike it to see retaliation removed as it would make all AOE skills something different: It would make AoE’s overpowered and thus ready to be NERFED.

Everything needs a counter in a game else it will be overpowered, and anything that will be OP will be nerfed.

Mate, you are blinded or what? High risk reward? Not grenades. Nades dealing a way low damage for being called like that.
(your PVP experience just LOL. Retaliation is not an issue in PVP)

You are continue popping this stupid example with Meteor shower? Ok, let’s take it.
24 hits per 3 target each. 72 separate hits. 72*400=28800 retaliation damage.
But, Ele can switch to water and start healing himself. Or use another skills to deal damage.
Also, it goes not in 1 second, but in 9 seconds, so it will be 3200 retal damage per second only
But, how many damage he able to do total? Every meteor hits for ~3,5k damage (2,5k non crit and up to 5k crit), so let’s calculate: 72*3500=252k damage and more!

What’s about Engi here?
Flame jet hits 3 targets with 5 _ hits per second. So, it will be 3*5*9=135 unique hits per 9 seconds.
It will bring him 54000 retaliation damage or 6k per second. Without possibility to switch for something healing.
What about total damage? Every FJ hit deals ~500 damage. Or 67500 damage per 9 seconds total.
(Sooooo overpowered, yeah!)

Nades.
3 nades per 5 targets, 2 times in 1 second: 3*5*2*9=270 unique hits.
270*400 = 108000 retaliation damage or 12k per second
every nade able to hit for ~800r, so it will be 216k total
FOUR times more “rewarding” than Elems, right?

Guardian staff#1
10 hits every second or 90 hits
90*400=36k or 4k/sec
Every hit deals ~1500 damage or 135k total
the same non-cd and non-target skill

So, point me please to the TRULY rewarding risk.

The truly rewarding skill is stopping what you’re doing, then doing something that doesn’t immediately cause you to kill yourself.

I’m sure you can find something other than flamethrower and grenades to use, yeah? Some other way to be useful sometimes? I see engineers out there plenty often. I see plenty of them not dropping dead all the time like the world’s out to get them.

Adapt or keep dyin’, mate. There’s a very good chance they’re not going to nerf this no matter what you think or don’t.

Valento.9852:

One reason: Casuals that love farming. Spamming pewpew is a relief it seems.

It is kind’ve stress relieving, you know? I wouldn’t go so far as to say cathartic, but sometimes, I come home from work and I’m stressed as all kitten, but after an hour or two of going around mindlessly killing the crap out of things, sometimes I really do feel much better.

Is that a poor thing, do you suppose?

I’d like…ehhhh….uhhh…the number six, medium, with …oh heck, give me the expension.

With cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese.

If I take a bite out of a red sylvari, will they taste like cherry starbursts?

…LET’S FIND OUT

As your sovereign Wall of Texter and self-titled RantMaster, I declare Anet’s inclusion of the announcement to be grand. Lovely. Well placed. Poised. Dashing. Elegant. Inspired. Fortuitous! Serendipitous.

Pretty darn swell. The OP needs moar cowbell, however.

SilverWF.4789:

Tao.5096:

Well, I gotta agree with naiasonod.
If majority of groups with engineers win, despite enemy team having perma retaliation, then why should it be nerfed/changed/adjusted to your specific group, because you wipe on it?
It proves that there is a countermeasure and either you don’t know what it is, or simply don’t want to use it.

There is NO “majority” groups with Engis, Engineers by itself – rare class. And sure, we need “contrmeasure” against non-exist Engineers groups, but must not have it againts huge number of mindlessly #1 spammers guardians/warriors groups.

Stop trashtalking here please, how many times I need to repeat this?
We do not ask for advices (I can give a tons of it by myself), we don’t need your roaming experience, we don’t need your fairytales about overpowered Engineers DPS, we don’t need your dreams about “check every enemy and strip 10 boons at once”, we don’t need your fantasies about “coordination and sniping some classes”. All of this MUST be count as trolling.
But I wonder, that you can troll someone freely here, but have no rights to call someone as troll. “Democracy” double standards.

What the heck dude?

These forums aren’t a democracy. What are you even going on about there? Never mind.

The point is still simple – you gotta learn to adapt to it. If grenade and flamethrower are getting you dead, do something else. Do other useful things. Heck, tell funny jokes in voice.

It’s all good, yeah? I mean, come on mate, I have two necromancers and necros can’t even sneak into a decent dungeon run.

I keep threatening to deck a necro out if full nomads and run around in a pink robe, but nobody cares. Or believes I’d actually buy or craft anything nomads. They’re right to disregard me.

Necro will never be good for that stuff though. Engineers will probably always have to be very wary of when they drop their nuclear devastation.

Guardians will probably always be momma’s boys.

Just how it is, ya? Can you feel what I’m saying?

aspirine.6852:

naiasonod.9265:

SilverWF.4789:

I think I need to repeat this post to stop this “smart” advices about boon stripping.

SilverWF.4789:

also, some genius with obvious advices about “strip boos” maybe will be interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmePzrl-jAs

Dunno who is this, just found it yesterday occasionally.
Just check how long time he have buffs (and Retaliation sure) and how long he have conditions. Also check this at his targets, when he have target selected – most of time he didn’t.
I’ve found, what there is 100% uptime of main buffs and ~70% of Retaliation. And something like 15% of conditions uptime.

Nice link. So why does my wvw guild basically win because we feel like going or there and doing so?

Ever stop to think that maybe you’re just plain doing it wrong?

This whole thread reeks of a certain ‘there is only one right way’ groupthink though.

So, hey, have fun with that. When Anet goes right on not nerfing retal because it isn’t actually broken, you can have done exactly nothing to adapt and try.

I’ll see ya in wvw, mate. Might bring out my boon guard and tome of wrath just for you.

Take your engi into WvW and it should be clear that alteast there is something strange about grenades and retal

Where do you WvW btw, perhaps we already met

I won’t say there’s no danger to engineers because of retaliation, or that for how some of their favorite aoe works that they’re not vulnerable to retal accordingly.

Not at all. But is that … Incorrect?

I dunno. I won’t lie – I don’t think it is, but neither do I know.

What I do know is that on Tarnished Coast, we don’t have a lot of big wvw guilds, but we do have some decent ones. [YUM] and [CERN] are two of my favorites, and CERN is pretty beast when it comes to coordination.

They don’t have retal problems. Engi isn’t my class, but if it has some powers that need looking at for his they’re affected by retal, that’d be a thing to ask for.

Nerf retal? No. It isn’t broken in any way I can identify or even heard about.

Cheap disco glitter, man. Fo’ realz. The real problem seems to me to be not dealing with it as one can. And it can be dealt with.

TC forevarrrrrrr! tumbles off cliff, dies due to misadventure

Tim.6450:

I don’t see a problem with reataliation. The ‘problem’ is the property of the skills used. Most players who complain use engineers with grenades and flamethrowers as an example to justify the need to change retaliation. One problem is that these skills reap the advantages of proc trait, sigils,… but gain the disadvantages of retaliation as it should be. By modifying retaliation you shift the balance in an unfair way.

The second problem is grenades and flamethrowers are the most extreme cases (mass multi-proc auto attacks). Changing retaliation for those skills would make retaliation useless.

So in short instead of changing retaliation change the problem skills.

^

That, I agree with. Kudos.

SilverWF.4789:

I think I need to repeat this post to stop this “smart” advices about boon stripping.

SilverWF.4789:

also, some genius with obvious advices about “strip boos” maybe will be interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmePzrl-jAs

Dunno who is this, just found it yesterday occasionally.
Just check how long time he have buffs (and Retaliation sure) and how long he have conditions. Also check this at his targets, when he have target selected – most of time he didn’t.
I’ve found, what there is 100% uptime of main buffs and ~70% of Retaliation. And something like 15% of conditions uptime.

Nice link. So why does my wvw guild basically win because we feel like going or there and doing so?

Ever stop to think that maybe you’re just plain doing it wrong?

This whole thread reeks of a certain ‘there is only one right way’ groupthink though.

So, hey, have fun with that. When Anet goes right on not nerfing retal because it isn’t actually broken, you can have done exactly nothing to adapt and try.

I’ll see ya in wvw, mate. Might bring out my boon guard and tome of wrath just for you.

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

SilverWF.4789:

Hi there!
How about to make a limit for retaliation? Let it can hit the same target only once per second?
Or let it will be affected by Toughness and Armor
Or let it will scales up from Condition damage (since it ignoring armor, like any another conditions), but not from Power.

Because it really sucks while playing with multi-hit-per-second classes, for example Flamethrower/Grenade Engineer. You are able to literally kill yourself in 2-3 seconds only using your own offensive skills and even not being hit by enemies!

Since you think I don’t know what the op even is, here’s your sign.

Don’t use grenade and flamethrower when you know you’re just going to kill yourself. Get smarter than that. Coordinate. Get some people set up to strip boons and have them synchronize use of them just a bit. Time your burst to right after the strippers (formal title) rip the prot and retal stacks down.

In the meantime, get some thieves and rangers coordinating into guardian kill squads. Kill all guardians. Kill all mesmers too. But guardians especially.

It sounds more complicated than it is. And it works pretty well.

Just follow a tag and do whatever when blobs collide and, honestly, what were you expecting to eventually happen?

You should be rewarded for being smart, not have the matter dumbed down so you don’t have to try anymore.

I don’t need advices from someone, who playing thief in small scaled fights only and can bring advices to this mode, even if noone asked this.

We don’t have retal problems though, mate. And there’s nothing small scale about charging around with fifty or sixty of of one’s guild, as well as all the stragglers that ride with the tornado.

It really doesn’t seem like you’ve got any problems that some coordination and timing wouldn’t fix. That’s my point here.

xihorus.2804:

I have come up with a solution to fix your woes!

Since your character is always in the center of the screen, take a blue dry-erase marker and shade in an aura around him. Then, regardless of what weapons you have equipped, you will always have a blue aura! If you’re feeling daring, you can even buy a pack of dry-erase markers and have a different color aura every day. Or a rainbow aura!

By Dwayna, I’m brilliant….

I keep trying to color over the people I don’t like, but that keep moving

SilverWF.4789:

Hi there!
How about to make a limit for retaliation? Let it can hit the same target only once per second?
Or let it will be affected by Toughness and Armor
Or let it will scales up from Condition damage (since it ignoring armor, like any another conditions), but not from Power.

Because it really sucks while playing with multi-hit-per-second classes, for example Flamethrower/Grenade Engineer. You are able to literally kill yourself in 2-3 seconds only using your own offensive skills and even not being hit by enemies!

Since you think I don’t know what the op even is, here’s your sign.

Don’t use grenade and flamethrower when you know you’re just going to kill yourself. Get smarter than that. Coordinate. Get some people set up to strip boons and have them synchronize use of them just a bit. Time your burst to right after the strippers (formal title) rip the prot and retal stacks down.

In the meantime, get some thieves and rangers coordinating into guardian kill squads. Kill all guardians. Kill all mesmers too. But guardians especially.

It sounds more complicated than it is. And it works pretty well.

Just follow a tag and do whatever when blobs collide and, honestly, what were you expecting to eventually happen?

You should be rewarded for being smart, not have the matter dumbed down so you don’t have to try anymore.

Novuake.2691:

naiasonod.9265:

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

Novuake.2691:

naiasonod.9265:

So, lets get rid of one of the only mechanics thieves and engineers actually have to turn their brains on to deal with?

No.

Hahahhaa you clearly have very little understanding of either class. ESPECIALLY Engineer.

hahahahahhahahahahahahah answers still no hahaha lololol and I couldn’t care less.

So yeah, things relying on fast attacks get nailed hard by retaliation. Wade into layers of retaliation spamming fast attacks, kill yourself.

Sounds like a L2P issue, not a broken mechanic.

And the actually one who need to learn to play here is you.

Your total lack of evidence to sustain your point is …well, rather typical. You don’t like my opinion? Good for you. I see it as neither being broken nor especially in need of any sort of nerf.

Spoiler: I have a thief that I play in wvw. There’s a magic trick to not killing yourself on layers of retal. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

You wanna tell me I don’t know how to play? Getin line – I swear I’ll care tomorrow. Promise.

Lack of evidence? Lol! Read this thread and try to find something.
And your “pro” advice about boon strip too – already answered for this advice.

You know what’s pro? Getting good, not crying over a mechanic that’s barely even relevant if you’re not mindlessly spamming things while watching YouTube.

Seriously, some folks on this thread said some well observed things, and you know, maybe some different counters wouldn’t be a bad idea.

But no. Retaliation still has to be worth something in pve, and as it stands, it’s not broken anywhere.

But you’re clearly interested in seeing it balanced for large group PvP only. Have you even vaguely considered what the impact would be on the rest of the game?

Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

If your zerg died repeatedly because of well timed and coordinated retaliation coverage thrown in your faces, get good and don’t let them do that next time.

Or don’t.

Man, I’m not even pro wvw and this isn’t hard. What’s your deal?

Its NOT just large groups.

Period.

Then what? Spvp? Not really my thing, but I’d expect there to be a lot less retal stacking in spvp. Also, just as many ways to strip it. And no zerg to rely on having everything going almost all the time in.

So… If not just large group. Where?

Where else could this be seen as a problem? Honest question – I don’t think it is in wvw at all.

Where do you think it is otherwise?

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

Another coordinated blob? Well, that’s when it gets interesting. No?

Oh, God, “pro” players speaks, all get away!
Every blob uses the same tactic: stack, buff might, Veil, place fields, use blasts, then spam Staff#1. Sooooooooooooo “pro”.
So why the hell only Engineers must be punished by Retaliation?

Also, so “pro” players as you can’t even read. bet, you have no idea what I’m suggesting, you are just against that because… no, the “troll” word is restricted here
So you are against that, because you didn’t want to change everything in your gamestyle. Yeah, it is pretty easy to mindlessly spam blasts in blob. And thieves can do that much better than another classes.
Or you a kind of thieves who lurking NEAR blob fights and fastkills some wounded players. Or maybe just stomping.
“pro” player, LOL.

It’s pro to coordinate in mumble?

I feel flattered. Will be geniuses if we don’t wear pants on our heads, apparently.

And engineers aren’t being punished. You’re literally killing yourself using an ability you know can annihilate your own face in situations when stacked retal is assured.

But you’re gonna, y’know, just do it anyway. Your seem like the sort that just does whatever and is confused and angry when it doesn’t always work.

Also, no, not every blob does exactly that all the time. Just the ones led by whomever threw a tag up and started herding the cows around.

Really though. Coordination, mate. Try it.

This isn’t pro-l337 attitude either. This is ‘I wvw a few times a week with a huge guild that seems to be drunk most of the time, and we still romp around like a tornado because coordination’.

Nothing pro about it. The guys that trash us are probably pro though. We suspect them f being bear wrestling Siberians and ninjas.

If you’re dying to retal all the time… the problem really isn’t retaliation.

It really just isn’t.

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

Novuake.2691:

naiasonod.9265:

So, lets get rid of one of the only mechanics thieves and engineers actually have to turn their brains on to deal with?

No.

Hahahhaa you clearly have very little understanding of either class. ESPECIALLY Engineer.

hahahahahhahahahahahahah answers still no hahaha lololol and I couldn’t care less.

So yeah, things relying on fast attacks get nailed hard by retaliation. Wade into layers of retaliation spamming fast attacks, kill yourself.

Sounds like a L2P issue, not a broken mechanic.

And the actually one who need to learn to play here is you.

Your total lack of evidence to sustain your point is …well, rather typical. You don’t like my opinion? Good for you. I see it as neither being broken nor especially in need of any sort of nerf.

Spoiler: I have a thief that I play in wvw. There’s a magic trick to not killing yourself on layers of retal. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

You wanna tell me I don’t know how to play? Getin line – I swear I’ll care tomorrow. Promise.

Lack of evidence? Lol! Read this thread and try to find something.
And your “pro” advice about boon strip too – already answered for this advice.

You know what’s pro? Getting good, not crying over a mechanic that’s barely even relevant if you’re not mindlessly spamming things while watching YouTube.

Seriously, some folks on this thread said some well observed things, and you know, maybe some different counters wouldn’t be a bad idea.

But no. Retaliation still has to be worth something in pve, and as it stands, it’s not broken anywhere.

But you’re clearly interested in seeing it balanced for large group PvP only. Have you even vaguely considered what the impact would be on the rest of the game?

Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

If your zerg died repeatedly because of well timed and coordinated retaliation coverage thrown in your faces, get good and don’t let them do that next time.

Or don’t.

Man, I’m not even pro wvw and this isn’t hard. What’s your deal?

aspirine.6852:

naiasonod.9265:

Mirta.5029:

SilverWF if you’re talking a blob versus blob fights then you counter a blob with a blob. Tell your blob to bring more boon strip necros (they can do it with aoe’s) and use voice coms to make sure that your commander tells you when to unleash the barrage.

Do you really expect to throw whatever skills with no strategy at all and win?

Yes. Yes he really seems to.

I coordinate with the guild I wvw with in voice. We never have these problems.

When people start yelling ‘Strip!’, bang banged bang, boon strip smorgasbord, and several corny jokes about being naked already.

Its already kinda faceroll. Why remove the benefits of being coordinated?

You cant have met any decent groups then. Because no matter how much you strip, any good coordinated group with have retal back up in full effect. If it even gets stripped in the first line of corruptions.

Some blobs are good and some aren’t. Sometimes we try to strip and burn and that works, sometimes we just chase each other around like loony toons.

I didn’t say it was an I Win button. Just the one punch followed as quickly as possible by many aoes and cleave spams.

Retaliation is not a major problem when nine of ten times, you can absolutely rely on another blob opening with their best aoe and condis. When my guild hits a Bob that’s not coordinated, they’re dead. It’s not really even a question.

Another coordinated blob? Well, that’s when it gets interesting. No?

Mirta.5029:

SilverWF if you’re talking a blob versus blob fights then you counter a blob with a blob. Tell your blob to bring more boon strip necros (they can do it with aoe’s) and use voice coms to make sure that your commander tells you when to unleash the barrage.

Do you really expect to throw whatever skills with no strategy at all and win?

Yes. Yes he really seems to.

I coordinate with the guild I wvw with in voice. We never have these problems.

When people start yelling ‘Strip!’, bang banged bang, boon strip smorgasbord, and several corny jokes about being naked already.

Its already kinda faceroll. Why remove the benefits of being coordinated?

SilverWF.4789:

naiasonod.9265:

Novuake.2691:

naiasonod.9265:

So, lets get rid of one of the only mechanics thieves and engineers actually have to turn their brains on to deal with?

No.

Hahahhaa you clearly have very little understanding of either class. ESPECIALLY Engineer.

hahahahahhahahahahahahah answers still no hahaha lololol and I couldn’t care less.

So yeah, things relying on fast attacks get nailed hard by retaliation. Wade into layers of retaliation spamming fast attacks, kill yourself.

Sounds like a L2P issue, not a broken mechanic.

And the actually one who need to learn to play here is you.

Your total lack of evidence to sustain your point is …well, rather typical. You don’t like my opinion? Good for you. I see it as neither being broken nor especially in need of any sort of nerf.

Spoiler: I have a thief that I play in wvw. There’s a magic trick to not killing yourself on layers of retal. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

You wanna tell me I don’t know how to play? Getin line – I swear I’ll care tomorrow. Promise.

They look well designed to me, though don’t fit any of the aesthetics for any of my characters. I don’t imagine they’re going to fit the aesthetics of a lot of characters, but hey, they’re not hurting anyone to be there at least.

Just not sure how much demand for that look there’ll really be. Would be interesting to actually know.

Novuake.2691:

naiasonod.9265:

So, lets get rid of one of the only mechanics thieves and engineers actually have to turn their brains on to deal with?

No.

Hahahhaa you clearly have very little understanding of either class. ESPECIALLY Engineer.

hahahahahhahahahahahahah answers still no hahaha lololol and I couldn’t care less.

So yeah, things relying on fast attacks get nailed hard by retaliation. Wade into layers of retaliation spamming fast attacks, kill yourself.

Sounds like a L2P issue, not a broken mechanic.

Branden Gee.2150:

Thank you for these thoughts. If these ideas have already been brought up before I did not seem them and so I am replying in this thread instead of the possible past threads.

(1) If we want the camera to point down at a sleeping character we would need the camera to know about the emote happening. On top of this right now, from my understanding, most players who do screenshots use /sleep in order to get their character out of the frame. If we were to change this functionality we would want to give players another alternative to hide their character.

(2) I personally like this idea.

(3) How close is closer?

(5) Camera orientation changing seems like it would be very jaring when in combat. I would be curious to hear your ideas for a control scheme for this.

(5b) Would this be like a ‘lock on target’ look-at?

Allowing us to zoom into first person would address number one effectively.

So, lets get rid of one of the only mechanics thieves and engineers actually have to turn their brains on to deal with?

No.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

azizul.8469:

what’s social media ?

I think it’s that Flitter thing all the young-uns are on about.

That’s that thing with all them doohickies and the chirpy bird! I seen it on the television.

Taku.6352:

Just RNG and humane reaction to try to find a pattern in everything.

You know, that excuse carries only so far. Human capacity for pattern recognition isn’t exactly a flaw on the whole, and some of us are extremely good at it. Even the worst of us is far, far better able to look at a picture of a child holding a hammer and standing over a broken vase and, with no further information, be very likely capable of figuring out what happened with accuracy than anything of A.I’s and algorithms are yet.

I’m somewhat tired of seeing human cognition offhandedly dismissed irrespective of evidence in accompaniment simply because some people’s faith in algorithms borders on deranged.

RNG doesn’t exist. There is code performing functions that simulate randomness, and sometimes, they are in fact flawed. Sometimes, they do wind up being essentially broken.

And they’re significantly easier to check for flaws than the human mind is.

So let’s not dismiss a thoroughly valid question out of hand. RNG is not always perfect. And sometimes, we much maligned pattern-seekers are very good at spotting the patterns that indicate something that’s supposed to be random being not so random.

Ephixa.6053:

naiasonod.9265:

I want to be sympathetic, but I just can’t.

I see people glowing and I do not think ‘ooh, so prestigious!’.

I tend to go ‘ahgahd, that’s hideous’ and look elsewhere.

Obviously that’s just my take, but it biases my opinion heavily.

I’m not sorry if there’s less anime glowing going on. I’m just not.

I respect your opinion, it’s good to know how somebody feels about it. But think of it this way; Isn’t it better to always have the option instead of it being taken away?(Or at least mostly taken away, only to be seen in certain circumstances.)

Yes, it’s just a game. But I appreciate the option to “show off” an accomplishment in it. Besides, A lot of people asked me “Hey what’s that stuff around you?” And I would tell them it’s the Quip, so then I actually had an instance where a person went for it and got it for the same reason I did.

And that’s the offset to my own opinion, yeah. That’s the part I want to earnestly sympathize with, because I think you have a valid point there.

I just can’t really say I’d beer one that’s likely to miss aura glowing. Seems weird to me in this particular game. In other themed settings, sure, no problem, but I suppose Tyria just doesn’t feel like an anime setting.

I try not to overthink it. Just like I’m still trying to not over think that dragon kitten super saiyan hair charr can get.

It’s supposed to be fun and goofy. I find such things distracting and a bit visually conflicting.

Artsy fartsy opinion is with its weight in chewed spinach though. I do understand your gripe. And I certainly don’t disagree that you’re right to have one.

Someone has neither been in love not has any clue what devotion feels like. The rest of your rant, Imbune, I find merely to be dissatisfied opinion. I certainly have many of those, so I’m hardly one to begrudge others their own.

But you are painfully, agonizingly out of touch with why someone in Caithe’s position might do what she did.

It needs no explanation to anyone that’s every loved someone more than themselves. Many parents would ram a knife into many hearts to protect their children, even if their children were in the wrong. Many husbands and wives would make a very similar decision, even knowing that their significant other were in the wrong.

That’s devotion. It isn’t necessarily logical and had no relative necessity to be reasonable.

You’re losing your mind here trying to make it fit in a rational, specifically logical box.

What that is that’s confusing you so? That was never in that box. And it pretty much never will be.

I want to be sympathetic, but I just can’t.

I see people glowing and I do not think ‘ooh, so prestigious!’.

I tend to go ‘ahgahd, that’s hideous’ and look elsewhere.

Obviously that’s just my take, but it biases my opinion heavily.

I’m not sorry if there’s less anime glowing going on. I’m just not.