Guild Wars 2

errr, this looks very big, i cant say if its good or bad, its substantially different. many builds will die

Iris Ng.9845:

Umm… my original post was talking about the complaints in the ele sub-forum, which are about ele’s build problems in three game modes. I think it’s fair to look at a class in different point of view, and not just PvE dungeons.

Mesmer wise, they have way more builds in WvW and sPvP. I find they are very interesting. Even Sandy does not always use phantasmal builds.

what type of builds do mesmers use for WvW these days?
other than utility types like teleports, reflects, invis?

Mar.4839:

Zaklex.6308:

A few comments here, first in regards to the Revenant, though they said there would be more info coming, DO NOT expect to be told all of the Legends, Trait Lines and Skills that the Revenant will have. Just like the reveal of the original profession(classes) information, there will be some things you will only find out once in game and you’ve rolled that class.

You’ll most likely get an announcement saying that coming up in "x’ weeks we’ll begin talking about specializations, and that once they start each professions specialization will receive a broad overview of what it does, what weapon in might use, and a few of the skills. Keep in mind if you tell everything there is to know about every new thing, then there’s nothing to learn in game, and you have to save some of that for release.

Guild Halls, expect a very broad overview, with perhaps some details on acquisition, cost, etc.. We already know that we’ll have to discover them in the maps once HoT goes live, but we don’t know the how or when of that discovery.

Mastery information is pretty much complete as far as I’m concerned. I highly doubt they’d tell you ahead of time how many points it will take to complete all Masteries and what every Mastery is, they have to leave some mystery to these systems.

What’s everyone’s hurry, we know there’s an expansion coming, that should be enough if you’re really into the game, other wise, you’re just an information junkie.

No one is asking for every single detail of everything that’s coming in the expansion. It’s mainly just the three big features that have had very little or such a small snippet of information that they’re virtually unknown: Specializations, Guild Halls, “Challenging Group Content”.

For Specializations: The main thing I’m presuming a lot of people want to know is just – How much of a difference to gameplay and existing professions do they really make?

For Guild Halls: The main thing people would like is a very broad overview because we know nothing at all about them other than we’re getting them.

For “Challenging Group Content”: Again, same as Guild Halls, no nothing other than it will exist in the expansion.

I agree that Mastery information is basically complete, people are just asking for some low-level details <- most would consider this to be low priority compared to the big three above but discussion happens nonetheless.

For the Revenant, people just want to know the remaining weapons and legends. I’ll agree that we won’t get to know all the legends until in-game but each Profession page lists all the weapons that a Profession may use, I would think it’s not too much to hope for Revenant to get this same treatment.

Also it’s not that people are rushed, it’s more that we would like some more details because then we won’t have to wonder as much. Of course there’s always gonna be people who are disappointed by whatever information is released but I like to think those people are such a small minority.

yup, you are right.
people want to know if its something they can look forward to.
new proffessions/ways to play class is big one.
how big/varied the world is
new challenges
new goals to work towards

thats what people really want to know about ahead of time.
since there is only one new proffession, specializations is the bulk of new ways to play

how big/waried the new world hasnt exactly been said, but they kind of suggest it

nothing really on new challenges, not too much on new goals, except precursr hunts, but those are mostly old goals at this point.

Windsagio.1340:

Kichwas.7152:

NoTrigger.8396:

i got my dungeon master title 3 weeks after my first char hit 80 and the only experience i had was leveling from 1-40, because i crafted the other 40 levels.
how can gw2 dungeons be hard?
in wildstar we wiped to a single dungeon boss for hours, HOURS.

first of all we dont cheese through dungeons and secondly without berserker gear the dungeons are even easier because there is more room for error.

for HoT instanced content, i want content that utterly destroys me for weeks and months, just like in wildstar. i want to do pulls for weeks on a single boss to figure out the fight and get a perfect execution done.

Oh man I remember that about Wildstar. I also remember those in my guild that cheered when we wiped so much.

A lot of us felt that sort of feeling of “FINALLY… An MMO says it will be tough, and is.”

Yeah I also hope the expac to GW2 can do that… I may even wait to get it, see what all of you people say first… after running it for a little bit…

The essential problem is that most people don’t want that, and it ends up being wasted content.

i dont think wildstar died due to hard dungeons, it died due to other tthings.

Jerus.4350:

Cool, well wahtever it is, it needs adjustments, that or at least people should shut up about it, if we have purposefully nerfed content and people are trying to change the mechanics of the game because that content is too easy… well, am I the only one who thinks that’s crazy here?

problem is, overall their design has become a lot less pure and unified.

there are no easy solutions.

they decided to make the game more level gated and put more things at a higher level, but this clashes with their desires to make content viable and entertaining at all levels.

They want Ascalon to be entertaining for level 80s, but they also want it to be entertaining for level 30s. At the same time they want level 30s to be weaker so that people feel more value in being 80.

Essentially, yeah the design itself is the problem.

They cant make this small repeatable, all levels world they wanted to make, and at the same time put in place the same progression structures that make being lower level drastically different from being higher level.

it just doesnt work out.

Donari.5237:

I agree, Eolirin, with this caveat: They announced that they wanted our feedback so they could tighten up and finalize the systems. We can’t give feedback on information we don’t have.

Of course that doesn’t mean they should info dump the whole project on us. Yet for feedback to matter, they really can’t wait to the very end of development. I know some people will throw tantrums if anything changes from the first announcement but surely they can plaster it with enough “this is a work in progress, anything you see here may be completely removed or changed by the time of release” statements to give more rational sorts quotable material to quash the overreacters.

i think they changed their minds.
they talked about betas, and testing a lot, but we havent seen much that would suggest they are really looking for feedback about anything. We did have a beta, but seems like that was mostly a stress test, they didnt seem to discuss/speak much about other feedback they recieved. They also recently opened up some in house testers.

I dont think they really want normal player feedback much any more.

Jerus.4350:

Fractals have a pretty different implementation compared to dungeons, while I really enjoy them, there are some things that really turn me off them at times that dungeons do better. If dungeons were as interesting as fractals you’d have some pretty awesome content.

And yeah, for sure ont he 2 stats vs 3 stats, but right now we also have a scaling system that when they adjusted Ferocity back last april we shot up in damage going from needing 3-4 FGS rushes to down spider queen, to it dying before the initial 2 finished. Pretty night and day difference in damage potential thanks to that update. I still want them to fix whatever they did back then, but at this point I’ve given up on hoping for it.

it wasnt ferocity that made it crazy. Its because they nerfed traits. Then they had to nerf all content, especially dungeons, to compensate for people losing a lot of power.

a level 30 player now, has 400 less attribute points, and is missing two adept traits. nerfing passive stats, actually increases the comparitive effect of might, and less access to traits tends to make it less likely to obtain full boons.

basically the heavy nerf is needed because a level 30, with less stats, and no traits, is so much weaker than they used to be. The only way they could nerf level 80s would to actually make them a lot weaker than level 30s are, but problem with that is not every level 80 is actually making the best use of their skills and traits/runes

EcoRI.9273:

DonQuack.9025:

EcoRI.9273:

DonQuack.9025:

EcoRI.9273:

I am all for berserker builds and I am all for only skilled players should be able to make the best use out of berserker builds. But that just isn’t the case in the current state of PvE and especially in dungeons. Currently this is the easiest way of clearing dungeons and involves very little skill play.
1Guardian/ 1 Phalanx Str Warrior/ 1Thief/ 2Staff eles.
1: Stealth through all mobs to go to boss.(Save all your long cooldowns)
2: Guardian use aegis before boss becomes active. Warrior just spam Greatsword and drop banners. 2Staff eles does Glyph of Storm Lightning swap to fire, ice bow 5-4. And boss is dead.

You don’t get hit and there is very little active play and you have literally buffed your party’s DPS significantly by doing almost nothing but spamming, it is very scripted and you can literally teach anyone who is willing to learn this type of strategy.

TL:DR you don’t need to be a skilled player to play berserker builds effectively.

Yes because all “zerkers” can do all of those things effortlessly.

Give me 4 random zerkers that you think are bad but can listen to me, I will make them into 3hour dungeon tour runners in 1 week.

Hmm Almost as if you had to teach them a skill. Make them skilled?

I can teach you how to count in Chinese :-D. Does that make you skilled in Chinese?

you are right, zerker is not actually harder than many of the other stat sets. They know this though.
Their goal is to be as fast as possible, not to face the greatest challenge. Thats just a fake side track. Whatever is the easiest/fastest is what meta is about.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well randomness is good when use properly.

Let say the boss have 5 type of attack, you want some randomness in the order in which the boss will use his 5 attacks so you can’t predict which attack he will do next.

Random AoE pattern, but still telegraphed will force you to not only react to the presence of the AoE, but also in which direction you need to do it.

take the randomness outside of just an attack, and more to a tactic, then you ll get some really interesting fights. The other factor would be, randomness, but within possible tactics that make sense for the situation.
That would be really fun.

NikeEU.7690:

Bubi.7942:

Not sure who suggested above more randomness in encounters to test the “real skill” of the players (someone even joked with Random Mossman). And that’s great, that’s exactly what is needed in my oppinion. Less scripted, less predictable fights. Experience still matters, but it would boil down to skill.

Randomness is not good PvE design.

PvE is essentially a puzzle. Each encounter asks a question. A boss with all projectile attacks is asking “did you bring adequate projectile defenses?” A boss with powerful, but easily telegraphed melee attacks is asking if you can dodge properly, or can stay out of range properly.

There are a couple of ways that an encounter can be badly designed. One is the boss simply asks no question. The boss literally sits there and does nothing threatening and all you do it hit it until it dies. The second is the question is too easy to answer. “Can you dodge an easily telegraphed attack once every 15 seconds with no other threat?” Ummm, yeah we can do that. ZZZZZ. The third is the boss is asking a question for which there is no adequate answer. Maybe the attacks aren’t adequately telegraphed. Maybe he has an attack that cannot be blocked or dodged or prevented in any way. Maybe the boss just goes into stealth and randomly downs a person. Either way, after the fight you realize there is really no way to improve it, the next fight will be just as random and meaningless because there is no answer. Cheap mechanics are not good.

What would be a good boss design? Easy: asking lot’s of questions, all very different in nature. “Did you bring good dps?” “did you bring a water field to heal up?” “did you bring a way to strip defiant stacks to interrupt a key attack?” “did you bring a stunbreaker?” “did you bring projectile defense?” “did your team position themselves intelligently where they needed to be each phase?” “did you avoid standing in red circles?” “did you dodge the telegraphed attacks?” A really challenging boss could ask many or all of these questions plus a bunch others too. The key, however, is the second time you fight the boss you will have made progress to knowing the questions you’re being asked and bringing answers. This is how raid progression works outside of gear. Each boss pull you learn the questions the boss is asking better, and bringing improved answers until it dies.

I’ve compared it to a dance. A good boss fight is like learning a very challenging choreography. A bad boss fight is being asked to dance with no music.

I was going to completely insult this design style,
but then i figured there is something nice about learning the piano, or doing a dance.

however, the depth isnt there, this type of content will get old fast, the easier it is the faster it gets old.

The key to lasting, and really challenging content is not being completely predictable. for AI, that means a certain amount of randomness.
They can have both types.

Fade.1743:

Honestly, I read this thread and see exactly why any level-headed game developer should be close-lipped about information until they can confirm that there’s a 90% chance it will stay the same.

actually on release they changed a ton of stuff, an no one complained, they also told people a lot of information.
trait system totaly changed
legendaries changed
skill points changed
utilities became teired
lore books canceled.
stats changed
energy

list goes on. So i would say the lack of info has more to do with it than anything

eh, to the point of the thread
they probably cant make more builds viable by changinng encounters, they can probably make a dif meta, but it will still be an optimal set.

looking at the most probable future, and how set in their ways both sides are, most likely they will just increase unavoidable dmg , add some survival checks, dps checks, and specialist checks and call it a day.

top players will either bring a gear swap, or make some build swaps. Overall not much will change in terms of diversity, but i think most people have accepted the status quo, and those who havent, will eventually.

Siphaed.9235:

56 days.

That is how long it’s been since the last content update. Will keep updating on either a daily or weekly basis. Let’s see how many days it gets up to until HoT releases?

Last content release far as I know was in january.

Windsagio.1340:

Fenrir, it’s about POV and perspective. If you come into the discussion from a close-minded attitude expecting a fight that’s what you’re going to see and going to get.

To your points:

1) (forcing change of mechanics instead of new encounters ) No I didn’t, I’m all about making the new encounters more interesting. My closest argument to what you’re saying there is that it’s not impossible to do.
2) (“no, the anti-zerk people are the real jerks!”) This is what I’m saying about perspective. You see people you disagree with as being nasty and pushy but not people you agree with. As I said, this effect cuts both ways, and it hurts the discussion both ways.
3)(blah blah blah facetanks) No I"m talking about the same choice always being the most efficient.
4) (something about my ideas being bad retreads?) wow that hurts :‘(. But again perspective. There’s this tendency to shove square pegs into round holes and equate points with the talking points you’re comfortable arguing against. This isnt’ fair to you or to me.

Here’s what it is.
They don’t want stat variation to matter for their play.
That’s about it, its not really even about zerk specifically. Zerk just happens to be the set they already invested in.

Essentially right now there is one stat.set that allows them to be good at everything that matters, and do substantially more dmg, and that is how they prefer it.

I feel this is an ok idea, if it didn’t totally fubar wncounter design and cause numerous stat set balance issues.

Let’s be honest you lnow the only reason bosses are beatable in under 30 seconds is because they can’t give a boss more hp or it would take others 10 years

Thaddeus.4891:

To add to what Jerus said. People can solo about anything in the game in zerker gear and if you solo if that mean it’s 5 times longer (even more) than with a full group. If you can survive alone with zerker gear with more than 5x more times to make mistake, i’m pretty sure than 5 people in knight gear won’t have much difficulty to survive. Unless you are telling me that 5 ppl in knight gear do less damage than 1 guy in zerker?

this is a very weird jump you made here.
i never said knights gear is incapable of succeeding, i said knights gear is not going to make a fight easier. because you will be fighting longer.

i dont really get how you compare 5 knights people to one zerker guy, yes, i would assume 5 people do more dmg than 1 guy? what does that have to do with anything?

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

when i say its uneven, i mean your gain from being say berserker and being say knights is uneven, the proportion of survivability increase is not equal to your damage decrease, which means there is no logical reason to use knights. you are more likely to fail.

Weird I use to have knight gear and I never failed. You can use whatever gear and you can still complete all content so this is just not true.

Lets compare stats. Let’s have a 1 100 dmg weapon with 1000 power hit a target with 1000 armor. Skill coefficient of 1.

1 100 wps x 1 000 power * (1 / 1 000 armor) = 1 100 damage

Now we triple the power.

1100 × 3000 x (1/1000) = 3 300 damage so 3 times more damage.

Ok let get back to the initial situation and triple the armor instead.

1100 × 1000 x (1/3000) = 366.66 damage so 3 times less damage.

So I add 2000 power and I do 3 times the damage. I add 2000 toughness and I receive 3 times less the damage. What is uneven there?

Vitality? If you are a guardian adding 2000 vitality will make you 2.8 more resistant. While for a warrior you will be 2.1 more resistant. It’s less efficient than toughness against direct damage but it can’t be bypass by condition. So I find it pretty even there too.

Precision? Basic critical chance is 4% so you won’t hit of 1100 but 1122 instead with the 150% basic critical damage. If you add 2000 precision you end up almost at 100% crit chance and an overall damage of 1650 so 1.47 times the base damage. It seem not that even there true. They should boost precision no? Especially since there is a cap on it at 100%.

Critical Damage then. In the best scenario with a character that have 100% critical chance but zero critical damage you will hit of 1650 damage (still with 1100 for weapon and 1000 for power). Now we add 2000 ferocity or 133% critical damage.

1100 × 283% = 3113 damage which is 1.88 times more powerful than the initial number.

Of course these number are exemple and will change depending on how many stats you have at the start. Most of them will decrease in importance as you increase them, some won’t and other have a cap. But you see the picture. Your statement is just untrue. The proportion of survivability increase is SUPERIOR to your damage decrease. But active defense which is not affected by stats is more powerful than defensive stats. That’s the reason defensive stats is view as less meaningful than offensive stats. The stats themselves are perfect, but the design of the game emphasis on powerful active defense.

Defensive stats don’t need a fix. The only way to make them useful is to make them more useful than active defense, which will change drastically the whole game. If you want that, there is plenty of game for you, gw2 isn’t one of them.

2000 toughness doesnt give you 3 times less damage
you have 926 toughness base, and 920-1200 armor
so you basically take half the damage
BUT not only that but defensive stats have nothing to do with active defense. So you only take half the damage from mistakes.
lets say you succesfully negate damage half the time.
you are now taking 75% damage but your only doing 33% as much damage.

over the course of the fight killing it 3 times faster is more effecient than reducing your damage by only 25%

vitality is innacurate

vitality only increases your intial survivability, not your continous survivability.

you may start with 2.8 times as much hp, but thats irrelevant after the first two attacks, after that point it is all about healing and toughness.

so yes surviability stats are very inferior.

Ayrilana.1396:

Draknar.5748:

Ayrilana.1396:

Map completion is the second fastest method of leveling outside of consumables/crafting. I will make the disclaimer that Halloween was a special case as you have so many events in such a small area and tons of mobs due to scaling. You won’t find this the majority of the time.

That’s not true.

Consumables/crafting is fastest (also costs money that new chars don’t have yet)
EoTM is 2nd (with a good zerg, otherwise not really).
Killing yellow mobs with boosters (XP + Celebration + Killstreak) is 3rd (while constantly moving to new mobs for max bonus XP)
I would say map completion is 4th, maybe even 5th behind PvP (you get tomes of knowledge pretty often if you PvP regularly)

EDIT: You know, now that I think about it, for completely new players with no money and no access to boosters, map completion might actually be towards the top of the list after a good EoTM rotation. I still think PvP is faster if you enjoy PvP. WvW is too hit and miss IMO.

Read the entire thread please or at least all of my posts. I was not counting consumables/crafting in that ranking. There is no way that farming enemies with boosters is quicker to level in the open world. There were exceptions which I gave an example of one.

it is, if you have enough boosters and know where to farm

food+killstreak+regular is 230%

i believe exploration bonus goes up to 200% of monster exp (might be more but i forget)
killing an enemy your level, gives .125 of your next level
200% bonus makes that
.375 per kill X 330%(230+100) = 1.2375% tnl per enemy

which means killing 8 enemies would give you more exp than a dynamic event or a reknown heart.

i didnt include the bonuses that a new player probably couldnt get, like a birthday booster (which stacks) laureate boosters, etc.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

nope, playing offensively does not require offensive gear.
I can play offensively in clerics or even nomads gear.

Playing in “full zerker” is easy.
But then so is walking up to a boss and dying.
Playing it well is not easy. This is where the learning curve is much longer than you seem to realise.

also knights gear is not harder to play than zerker.
edit:
I’ve met a lot of people who can’t play well in any type of gear. Just to point that out.

playing offensively without offensive gear will lower your damage by like 60% everything you do will be substantially less effective.

playing offensively in nomads and clerics gear is not playing offensively. because you are 60% lower than max effecincy

playing defensively in berserker can still have you at max effeciency, which is not taking enough damage to kill you.

playing in knights gear is harder than zerker if you play with a high skill level, because you will have to do everything longer. taking one extra hit does not negate the fact that you had to fight twice as long.
sometimes you dont even get one extra hit out of knights.

speaking of people who cant play well in any gear isnt really relevant.

Jerus.4350:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

A defensive martial artist still practices his punches.
A defensive basketball player still does countless free throws and learns to run the offensive plays

Stats reward a good defender in GW2 by allowing him to more easily stack his offensive potential for when he does attack.

We don’t have one dimensional roles in GW2 any more than on a basketball team. A defender that can’t shoot isn’t going to get very far no matter how good at defense he is. I love good defensive minded players, they make things go so smooth with their correct use of blinds/reflects/aegis/condi clears, doesn’t mean they aren’t expected to contribute to the offense too.

which is fine.
skill use wise, defensive play is rewarded, and they have some good traits to customize that.

stat wise though?
defensive stats do nothing interesting, and basically only work if you fail at actively handling enemies

stat wise on the DPS side?
huge boost to DPS, works just as well when you actively succeed.

really what im saying is that stats effects are very unbalanced and offer little real choice/depth. many of you guys like this, because you dont want to get multiple sets. Thats a fine argument for why stat diversity should not exist, but not a good reason why our current stat diversity is essentially not creating qualitative diversity

What you describe in the first part is exactly why we have a meta and why multiple gear sets exist. They’re there to allow people to have options that allow mistakes. Meta is meta because you don’t need that and you gain more from offensive stats assuming you aren’t constantly splatting because you didn’t take your safety net.

And it’s exactly why our current system will not have a qualitative diversity. But, why is that a problem? Why is it an issue that the best option assuming you can handle it is a full glass setup? I still don’t understand why it’s a problem other than wanting extra complexity, which I can understand but there is beauty in simplicity as well.

you realize that there are number of stat sets that dont let you make more mistakes because the increase in survivability doesnt match up with how much longer you will be fighting the enemy right?
there only few of the many sets that actually make it easier.

thats one of the reasons the whole difficulty slider thing fails, because these stats are not really an accurate difficulty slider.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Except that people ARE choosing to take more defensive stat gear, because it makes it easier to learn the encounters. It provides a safety net. AKA difficulty slider.

Yes, gw2 favors the skilled by rewarding them with the ability to complete content faster and yield more reward in the time they have to play.
Yes defensive stats result in killing things slower. This is how your rewards are reduced. You can complete less in the time you have available.

so:
greater skill = less need for defensive stats = more reward*
lesser skill = greater need for defensive stats = less reward*

*within your play time frame.

Playing defensively does NOT mean playing unskillfully. But it does not mean you require defensive gear. It also doesn’t mean you can ONLY play defensively. Playstyle can switch even within a single fight.
There is no problem here.

You still haven’t explained how you suggest to improve things rather than drive players away.

tl:dr
It honestly seems like you want a completely different game. One where there are roles such as “tank” “dps” and “healer” which are much more clearly defined. As opposed to each and every player taking equal responsibility for each role.

I understand, its a radical shift in the way you play. It has a learning curve to it that is long. It requires much more adaptation and progressive thinking. It’s not for everyone.

once again you are trying to attribute to me things which have nothing to do with anything i have said

i do not prefer tank/dps/healer games at all.

your theory that berserk is the most difficult stat set to play is incorrect. being able to do so much more damage in fact makes fights easier, and makes it so you are less likely to make a mistake by having less opportunities to make a mistake.
knights, sentinels, shamans, giver, carrion, rabid, cavalier are all harder, because the survivability gain doesnt not match the amount longer you will have to defend.

it is however harder than nomads and clerics teams.

yes i know playing defensively doesnt require defensive gear, but playing offensively does. therefore one should almost always choose an offensive set.

once again, a lot of you guys are essentially saying stats should not really matter
except for doing damage, stats should definately matter for doing damage.

TPMN.1483:

“stats in a game are supposed to represent how you build yourself.”
- wrong. This is not a RPG MMO more an action mmo.

I can play defensively all day by running around in big circles at 600-900 range with perma swiftness ! I am now the master of defense ?

tons of succesful action games use stats, dark souls, secret of mana 3, most sports games, racing games. Devil may cry has stats building on different weapons.

Skoigoth.9238:

phys.7689:

Skoigoth.9238:

<snip>

first of all in either system, stats effect skills, or stats cease to exist, people will be able to roleplay healers or tanks

If you are role playing a healer, why do you need stats? In a no stat system, role playing a healer would be about traits, runes, and skill selection.

Bad choice of words on my side, forgive me. I wasn´t talking about actual role playing (the term is often used sarcastically for people with PHIW-mentality). What I was trying to say is that a system as you suggested it wouldn´t add to that really, because you can already play such builds and be successful at doing stuff in this game. Removing or normalizing stats now, even if it probably would have been the right thing to do back when the game was in beta, would most certainly just take options away from these players and not add any (which would lead to even more QQ).

phys.7689:

If stats effect skills, you would be able to more interesting things with healing and support.

You can already do “interesting” stuff with healing (interesting is a rather subjective category if you ask me) and there is a reason pretty much ALL of the meta builds are support oriented.
So no, tieing the effectiveness of skills to stats wouldn´t make the game more interesting, if anything it would probably only make defensive builds even more defensive and vice versa with offensive builds.

phys.7689:

yes, my solutions are unrealistic, <snip>

Then it is pointless to argue about them any further, don´t you think?

just because something is unrealistic doesnt mean its not a better answer. for example getting a new dungeon is very unrealstic, but i think its a better answer.

How interesting something is made by stats depends on how interestingly you design stat effects/interactions.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

So.. greater skill = less need for defensive stats.
Inversely: lesser skill = greater need for defensive stats.

looks fine to me.

because you connect being defensive minded with being less skillfull.

that doesnt have to be the case.

That doesn’t make any sense to me.

ok, lets take a martial artist, being defensive means you have to react properly and know how to prevent various outcomes, it requires as much skill as being offensive.

basketball, playing defense well, is about timing, predicting your enemy, positioning etc, its pretty hard. they say, defense wins championships

tank in other games, requires as much skill as DPS or more.

street fighter 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsgin-y8_J0

dude basically defends the entire combination attack of his enemy, high skill, defense.

in this game stats reward skilled offense
stats do not reward skilled defense.

just because someone may want to be a defensive player, doesnt mean they want to be inferior skill wise. However thats how the stat system currently works.

high defensive stats reason for existing is less about playstyle, and more about lower skill.

You misunderstand something. I love playing defensively in the game on so many encounters. I bring Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, use Hammer as Weapon, have the trait Absolute Resolution, and many other things to protect my party and play defensively.

Let’s use the same analogy you used, of the martial artist:
A Martial artist that is defending is using different moves (skills) than when attacking. If he uses some leather armor protection (toughness) or adds little spikes on his gloves (power) won’t change his moves, he can still defend or attack. And even in the most defensive situation, if he had to choose between adding extra damage on his fists or using some form of armor protection he might well go for the extra damage if he is skilled enough to avoid the blows altogether.

stats in a game are supposed to represent how you build yourself.

so its the difference between the martial artist who practices reacting to punches, creating openings after blocking, and training his body to take attacks so he can take advantage/create openings

versus someone who trained themselves to throw faster attacks, with more power, and throw them for longer.

these different types of training would create very different fighting styles, even with the same basic martial arts. And its based on the mind and preference of the martial artist, the defensive trained guy isnt training to make mistakes

Jerus.4350:

A defensive martial artist still practices his punches.
A defensive basketball player still does countless free throws and learns to run the offensive plays

Stats reward a good defender in GW2 by allowing him to more easily stack his offensive potential for when he does attack.

We don’t have one dimensional roles in GW2 any more than on a basketball team. A defender that can’t shoot isn’t going to get very far no matter how good at defense he is. I love good defensive minded players, they make things go so smooth with their correct use of blinds/reflects/aegis/condi clears, doesn’t mean they aren’t expected to contribute to the offense too.

which is fine.
skill use wise, defensive play is rewarded, and they have some good traits to customize that.

stat wise though?
defensive stats do nothing interesting, and basically only work if you fail at actively handling enemies

stat wise on the DPS side?
huge boost to DPS, works just as well when you actively succeed.

really what im saying is that stats effects are very unbalanced and offer little real choice/depth. many of you guys like this, because you dont want to get multiple sets. Thats a fine argument for why stat diversity should not exist, but not a good reason why our current stat diversity is essentially not creating qualitative diversity

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

So.. greater skill = less need for defensive stats.
Inversely: lesser skill = greater need for defensive stats.

looks fine to me.

because you connect being defensive minded with being less skillfull.

that doesnt have to be the case.

In a game without trinity it is.

Defensive minded players are there to get attacked and hold mob attention on them, that’s why they exist. In a game with dynamic action combat, defensive stats just give you a bit of extra survivability for when you make a mistake and mess up. So, since the defensive stats offer an extra layer of protection for player mistakes, it requires SLIGHTLY less skill to play with those stats.

And if you go all out in defensive gear you don’t even have to dodge attacks, there’ve been numerous videos on this thread alone showing what a full defensive party can do, facerolling through the hardest content without even dodging. How is that skillful?

incorrect
in this game without trinity it is.
In other games not so much.

i am not saying in this game defensive stats effect skilled play, i am saying they do not.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

So.. greater skill = less need for defensive stats.
Inversely: lesser skill = greater need for defensive stats.

looks fine to me.

because you connect being defensive minded with being less skillfull.

that doesnt have to be the case.

That doesn’t make any sense to me.

ok, lets take a martial artist, being defensive means you have to react properly and know how to prevent various outcomes, it requires as much skill as being offensive.

basketball, playing defense well, is about timing, predicting your enemy, positioning etc, its pretty hard. they say, defense wins championships

tank in other games, requires as much skill as DPS or more.

street fighter 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsgin-y8_J0

dude basically defends the entire combination attack of his enemy, high skill, defense.

in this game stats reward skilled offense
stats do not reward skilled defense.

just because someone may want to be a defensive player, doesnt mean they want to be inferior skill wise. However thats how the stat system currently works.

high defensive stats reason for existing is less about playstyle, and more about lower skill.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

And we see that as a good thing. The only possible objection is you want tanky stats to be equally good for experienced players for… the sake of getting to use gear with a different name. Who cares what the name of the gear is? Just use what is most effective based on your skill level.

I like being criticized for “defending the status quo.” Sure. Whatever. The implication being that if the system was to change the good players wouldn’t be adaptable and suddenly all the bad players who have their Soldiers set would become the best players in the game. Sadly for you guys, the good players would still be better than the bad players regardless. They would still finish content faster and more cleanly. There would still be elitism and there would still be a meta and there would still be build exclusion. None of the so-called problems of the “zerker meta” have anything to do with the gear, but are the simple result of community standards and regardless of what you do there will always be community standards.

you like to assume a lot, you like to be adversarial.

There is no implication, good players will be good players, that wont change, why would i want it to change? Changing stats wont change that.

This isnt about elitism, that has nothing to do with build variety, many other games have elitism, and they dont have berserker style play.

This is very simple:
the point of stat customization existing at all, should be to customize your game play and build, to work to create various playstyles. Thats the only reason you should put it in a game.

If the game is better off without stat customization, which is a position that may have merit, then TAKE OUT STAT CUSTOMIZATION.

the best argument for our current implementation of stat customization is that you can use it to set handicap.
you know whats better at setting handicaps?
a little meter you move over that sets your handicap.

So how about a difficulty slider that works like this:

0% damage reduction: 100% rewards.
100% damage reduction 0% rewards.

Oh, and everyone is basically in full zerker. Just with higher base stats instead of stats on gear.
How many are going to want to turn that slider down from 100% rewards?
How many are going to prefer this to being able to take different gear, and simply slow down the run in favor of making it easier?
note: this would come at the cost of dev time, reducing the content we get to play.

i would have no problem with that slider at all.
devs are already spending time trying to figure out how to balance stats, and reworking things because stats have a large rng.

stats have rng?
care to back that statement up?

i meant range not rng. as in the variation between stats requires them to spend extra time balancing, like they had to juggle a number of traits multiple times due to the stats attached to them.

and whenever they design a boss, they have to consider the large variation in dps between different stats.

ect.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

So.. greater skill = less need for defensive stats.
Inversely: lesser skill = greater need for defensive stats.

looks fine to me.

because you connect being defensive minded with being less skillfull.

that doesnt have to be the case.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

And we see that as a good thing. The only possible objection is you want tanky stats to be equally good for experienced players for… the sake of getting to use gear with a different name. Who cares what the name of the gear is? Just use what is most effective based on your skill level.

I like being criticized for “defending the status quo.” Sure. Whatever. The implication being that if the system was to change the good players wouldn’t be adaptable and suddenly all the bad players who have their Soldiers set would become the best players in the game. Sadly for you guys, the good players would still be better than the bad players regardless. They would still finish content faster and more cleanly. There would still be elitism and there would still be a meta and there would still be build exclusion. None of the so-called problems of the “zerker meta” have anything to do with the gear, but are the simple result of community standards and regardless of what you do there will always be community standards.

you like to assume a lot, you like to be adversarial.

There is no implication, good players will be good players, that wont change, why would i want it to change? Changing stats wont change that.

This isnt about elitism, that has nothing to do with build variety, many other games have elitism, and they dont have berserker style play.

This is very simple:
the point of stat customization existing at all, should be to customize your game play and build, to work to create various playstyles. Thats the only reason you should put it in a game.

If the game is better off without stat customization, which is a position that may have merit, then TAKE OUT STAT CUSTOMIZATION.

the best argument for our current implementation of stat customization is that you can use it to set handicap.
you know whats better at setting handicaps?
a little meter you move over that sets your handicap.

So how about a difficulty slider that works like this:

0% damage reduction: 100% rewards.
100% damage reduction 0% rewards.

Oh, and everyone is basically in full zerker. Just with higher base stats instead of stats on gear.
How many are going to want to turn that slider down from 100% rewards?
How many are going to prefer this to being able to take different gear, and simply slow down the run in favor of making it easier?
note: this would come at the cost of dev time, reducing the content we get to play.

i would have no problem with that slider at all.
devs are already spending time trying to figure out how to balance stats, and reworking things because stats have a large rng.

maha.7902:

stats effectiveness is uneven

how is this bad? why should stat effectiveness be even? why should I be able to build assassins in league with pure tank items and be equally as efficient in assassinating people as if I built full offense? you shouldn’t and therefore you can’t. just how you can’t build tanks with full damage otherwise you can’t fulfill your role as a fight initiator who soaks up damage.

They cant design a proper hp amount or damage recieved for enemies because the variation is so large.

except they can, and do. they can do flat amounts of damage and they can do percentage damage.

which also effects enemy scaling like when they had to nerf queens pavillion enemies because the differences in gear made some scaled up bosses nigh unbeatable, then rebalanced to easily zergable.

i’m pretty sure the queen’s pavilion was built to be as anti-zerg as possible last time round, in fact it was outright impossible to get gold reward if you zerged champions down.

when i say its uneven, i mean your gain from being say berserker and being say knights is uneven, the proportion of survivability increase is not equal to your damage decrease, which means there is no logical reason to use knights. you are more likely to fail. this is not the odd man out, almost every stat set is ineffecient compared to beserkers. in terms of what you get versus what you give up.

no they cant create a proper amount of HP
best case teams kill things so fast they are not really much of a threat
worst dps teams kill things so slow it takes forver
average people feel like bosses are big boring hp bags that have you doing the same thing for too long.

from what i remember queens pavilion they had to nerf one of the bosses healing and another bosses dmg scaling, or something.
by zerg, i mean how it scaled from 5 players (pretty easy) to 25 players (pretty hard for the ones i think they nerfed)

but i could be misremembering.

Skoigoth.9238:

phys.7689:

<snip>

I am not saying the game must have stat diversity, i am saying they already put stat diversity in the game, its just a really crappy execution.
so either, make stat diversity actually matter
or
remove stat diversity.

OR
you leave it as is, so that people can role-play as healers or tanks if they feel like and are still able to complete any kind of content they wish to complete, hmm?

Again: Optimal =/= viable

There is nothing wrong with that at all.

phys.7689:

<snip>
but, there is something to be said for very well balanced difficulties, and lower investment to achieve best case scenarios, like you might see in a fighting game/action game.
<snip>

Except that GW2 is not like a fighting or FPS game. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Seriously, why do try so desperately to justify such a MAJOR and unrealistic overhaul of the game´s stat system phys? Based on what we know about the upcoming stuff in HoT (Specializations, Mastery system etc.) the devs already try to make the gameplay more diversified (more traits, more weapons, more skills).

Then all we really need is some new instanced content with improved encounter design in the vein of Lupi, Mai or the Marionette and there you have your “challenging group content”, without having to break the current system by making changes for the sake of it.

first of all in either system, stats effect skills, or stats cease to exist, people will be able to roleplay healers or tanks

If you are role playing a healer, why do you need stats? In a no stat system, role playing a healer would be about traits, runes, and skill selection.
If stats effect skills, you would be able to more interesting things with healing and support.

yes, my solutions are unrealistic, however, they have a real problem, which they will likely try to fix, and the more realistic solution?
more unavoidable damage
more gimmicks that require specific build sets to succeed

which i dont prefer at all. so yeah i ll suggest the better, but more difficult to implement solutions over the easy to impliment, but annoying solutions.

maha.7902:

you appear to be in the no need for stat customization camp then.
So why do we have stats at all? why not just remove them?

oh don’t worry, I really wish they removed stats, it would have stopped a whole load of the insanity that gets posted on these boards every day if people didn’t get so uptight about stat prefixes.

personally, i like stat diversity when its well executed, it gives me many ways to play the game, and different things to try.

but, there is something to be said for very well balanced difficulties, and lower investment to achieve best case scenarios, like you might see in a fighting game/action game.

but it is well executed because you can use whatever stats you want and still beat content/ making defensive stats give equal (or similar) amount of reward to offensive stats is poor execution, hence why some people have qualms with the meta right now in league – you have super tanks who build straight defense who can duel people who build pure damage and still throw them in the trash can because their base damages are so high that they don’t need to build any sort of damage – or worse, their damage actually scales on their armour/health/magic resistance so you’re fully rewarded for building defensively.

in the context of league, it’s a necessary evil to do this to keep tanks in the meta since they need to actually be a threat when two teams fight otherwise they’ll be completely ignored by the damage carries on both teams, but this thread is of course about dungeons whereas league is pvp. in the context of dungeons, it’s like a warrior stacking toughness and vitality, and having traits that grant power, precision and ferocity equivalent to a certain % of their toughness/vitality, it would be stupid and rewards bad play.

its not well executed
stats effectiveness is uneven
They cant design a proper hp amount or damage recieved for enemies because the variation is so large.
which also effects enemy scaling like when they had to nerf queens pavillion enemies because the differences in gear made some scaled up bosses nigh unbeatable, then rebalanced to easily zergable.

we got the worst of both worlds.

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

defensive stats EFFECTING SKILLS wont remove skillful play at all.

Look at it the other way: How does having defensive stats making Wall of Reflect last 2 seconds longer promote skilled play? How about 20% Stability duration?

Having Stability last longer doesn’t promote skillful play. Skillful play is using Stability in response to a boss tell that will do a group CC. In that context, it doesn’t matter if Stability lasts 4 seconds or 8 seconds. All that matters is you use it when you need it, or rather when you don’t use it when you don’t need it. Adding duration to Stability in PvE, for example, is simply another set of training wheels, security blanket, crutches for inexperienced players who don’t know what to do. Combining the security blanket of tanky stats with the security blanket of defensive boon duration isn’t promoting skillful play, its just making the game even easier for new players to make a deadly mistake in.

longer stability for skillfull play would be popping coordinating high% stability players stability to be able to use a team burst (might fury quickness)when normally a monster might require you to back off, or fall down, and a memer with boon duration bonus, using signet of inspiration to double the uptime of the stability stacks so you can still fight in a rockslide.

other people could just run to safe areas for substantially less effort.

wall of reflect lasting two seconds longer?, if timed excellently, right as he attacks, you may be able to get an extra hit of damage. or get extra vulnerability uptime by soaking an extra hits with light auras from the field.

there is usually some ways in which something that effects skills can be used skillfully for greater effect.

All of that is about precise timing of the skills we already have access to and has nothing to do with duration mattering or tanky gear mattering; which is exactly the point I made in my quoted text that you did nothing to counter. It’s time you just admit that it doesn’t promote skilled play and I pretty much turned your point.

being able to customize your duration of effects, can be the difference between getting two procs or one proc based on how well you time the effect.

for example. feedback, base duration of 6 seconds,
if by investing in stats i can get it up to 9 seconds, against monsters that hit once every 4 seconds, i can get 3 procs instead of two, but only if i time it to right before the first attack, if im a second off i only get two.

feedback is also an etheral field which i might use with my team to give an opponent more stacks of confusion, for more skills used.

and thats only the way it would interact with one skill on my bar.

maha.7902:

how is making it easier to chain boons or reflects skillful play?

using something like a mesmer’s mantra of concentration right now is skillful because the stability has such low duration that you need to time it fast enough to mitigate the CC but not too soon that you miss it.

and your wall of reflect example is literally just longer duration letting you deal damage longer, and “soaking extra hits” just gives off a massive “I want to be a tank” vibe.

what this game needs is more, new content, not offering rewards for unskilled play. what this game does not need is forced diversity.

can we go back to people complaining about “playing how they want”? I found that a lot less annoying to read than people whining about “diversity” as if it’s some sort of holy grail. in fact, let me give you an example right now – in League of Legends this season it’s probably at its most diverse point so far, in regards to playable champions. you have ****-tier champions who have rose up and become staples of professional play and actually being banned out by teams. you have your regular champions with high mobility, high damage and overloaded skill sets being played. you have tanks being played, bruisers, assassins, absolutely everything right now is playable.

and yet you still have people there incessantly whining about diversity, because the champions they like now still work but aren’t as favoured (the meta there right now favours, surprise surprise, playing super tanks).

if ANet force build diversity, there will be whining. if the status quo is maintained, there will be whining. either way they lose, except with forced diversity people are now being forced in to playing certain builds or gear sets whereas right now you can literally do what you want. sure, you won’t optimal, but whatever, you can still do what you want and clear content just fine.

you appear to be in the no need for stat customization camp then.
So why do we have stats at all? why not just remove them?

I am not saying the game must have stat diversity, i am saying they already put stat diversity in the game, its just a really crappy execution.
so either, make stat diversity actually matter
or
remove stat diversity.

personally, i like stat diversity when its well executed, it gives me many ways to play the game, and different things to try.
but, there is something to be said for very well balanced difficulties, and lower investment to achieve best case scenarios, like you might see in a fighting game/action game.

what sucks is that what we have now is the worst of both worlds.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

It’s obvious that there is a difference in effectiveness of gear, however increasing skill abilities with stats won’t have the effect people think it will have. It won’t open new builds and add variety to the game, it will just limit player creativity and their ability to adapt to any situation.

Although I understand there is a problem with certain gear stats that are underperforming, that doesn’t mean the proposed alternative is any good either. In fact, it will make things worse, not better.

it will open new builds and add variety to the game most definately

How is making skills more effective with certain stats going to accomplish that? For example, I can already make a powerful Stealth-focused build on my Thief, if Stealth was affected let’s say by Boon Duration how is that going to add a new build for me?

If Wall of Reflection lasts longer with extra Boon Duration, and the base duration is nerfed, how is that going to create NEW builds for my Guardian?

Now I can use a large variety of builds on my characters, if skills / traits on those builds are less powerful without specific stat investment, then my available builds will be reduced, as my gear stats will allow me to play only a small subset of what I used to play, destroying my build variety.

Unless of course I invest heavily on multiple sets of gear to be able to play all my favorite builds effectively, but that’s not going to happen. Where do you draw the line on how many gear sets a player should have to be effective?

Let’s not forget, this isn’t a trinity game.

trinity has nothing to do with build diversity

it will create new playstyles because stats themselves will alter what type of profitable combinations, and playstyles you can bring to the table.

Sorry I don’t see any new playstyles appearing if you tie stats to skills, only limit players. There are loads of playstyles already out there and gear doesn’t affect them, only player skill does. You can switch between playstyles at will without getting punished by not having specific gear stats.

Hey let’s say projectile reflects are better with more Vitality, Stealth is better with more Boon Duration and Stuns last longer with more Toughness. And if you also nerf the current skills so you actually NEED some stat investment to make them work like they do now, it will be even worse.

Players will be using the exact same traits, utility skills and weapon skills, only be required to use specific gear stats too… Is that really worth it?

New meta: Looking for Sentinel Guardian, Giver Thief, Knight Elementalist. Reminds me of some other games that GW2 tried to avoid becoming like.

and like i said, they need to change the way you store and obtain gear no matter how you slice it, IF they want gear to equal customization/horizontal progression.

Then I hope they don’t want gear to equal customization or horizontal progression.

you are afraid that if stats matter you will have to invest more in stats.
thats a valid concern

but its crazy for you to say effecting stats doesnt change gameplay.
the difference between being able to stun people longer is a difference in whether control skills are worth using or not.

control skills being useful can change your entire skill bar, and set up new useful combos, as well as group synergies.
you know this. You know, that it will create more overall builds/interactions/playstyles.

it will however make you less effecient at mastering all the possible builds without a larger gear investment.
thats a fine complaint, but it doesnt really have anything to do with having more overall build diversity and playstyles.

and to your last comment,
you realize i said REGARDLESS of if they change anything they should make gear be more obtainable, and less taxing on inventory.

i dont know why you as a player would not want that to happen, its a win win no matter how you look at it.

now, maybe you want no stats at all, i could see how that could have its own benefits. but as it is right now?
most stat sets are traps
people complaining their stat sets are useless
poor balance between different stat set players
trivilized content on both ends of the spectrum

and the worst one?
most likely they will make the game more simulation like when they try to make things more challenging
IE more required damage
and more required builds

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

defensive stats EFFECTING SKILLS wont remove skillful play at all.

Look at it the other way: How does having defensive stats making Wall of Reflect last 2 seconds longer promote skilled play? How about 20% Stability duration?

Having Stability last longer doesn’t promote skillful play. Skillful play is using Stability in response to a boss tell that will do a group CC. In that context, it doesn’t matter if Stability lasts 4 seconds or 8 seconds. All that matters is you use it when you need it, or rather when you don’t use it when you don’t need it. Adding duration to Stability in PvE, for example, is simply another set of training wheels, security blanket, crutches for inexperienced players who don’t know what to do. Combining the security blanket of tanky stats with the security blanket of defensive boon duration isn’t promoting skillful play, its just making the game even easier for new players to make a deadly mistake in.

longer stability for skillfull play would be popping coordinating high% stability players stability to be able to use a team burst (might fury quickness)when normally a monster might require you to back off, or fall down, and a memer with boon duration bonus, using signet of inspiration to double the uptime of the stability stacks so you can still fight in a rockslide.

other people could just run to safe areas for substantially less effort.

wall of reflect lasting two seconds longer?, if timed excellently, right as he attacks, you may be able to get an extra hit of damage. or get extra vulnerability uptime by soaking an extra hits with light auras from the field.

there is usually some ways in which something that effects skills can be used skillfully for greater effect.

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

And we see that as a good thing. The only possible objection is you want tanky stats to be equally good for experienced players for… the sake of getting to use gear with a different name. Who cares what the name of the gear is? Just use what is most effective based on your skill level.

I like being criticized for “defending the status quo.” Sure. Whatever. The implication being that if the system was to change the good players wouldn’t be adaptable and suddenly all the bad players who have their Soldiers set would become the best players in the game. Sadly for you guys, the good players would still be better than the bad players regardless. They would still finish content faster and more cleanly. There would still be elitism and there would still be a meta and there would still be build exclusion. None of the so-called problems of the “zerker meta” have anything to do with the gear, but are the simple result of community standards and regardless of what you do there will always be community standards.

you like to assume a lot, you like to be adversarial.

There is no implication, good players will be good players, that wont change, why would i want it to change? Changing stats wont change that.

This isnt about elitism, that has nothing to do with build variety, many other games have elitism, and they dont have berserker style play.

This is very simple:
the point of stat customization existing at all, should be to customize your game play and build, to work to create various playstyles. Thats the only reason you should put it in a game.

If the game is better off without stat customization, which is a position that may have merit, then TAKE OUT STAT CUSTOMIZATION.

the best argument for our current implementation of stat customization is that you can use it to set handicap.
you know whats better at setting handicaps?
a little meter you move over that sets your handicap.

spoj.9672:

phys.7689:

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

I might want to afk a fight. Like so: https://youtu.be/x1mxlA13ICk

You cannot say that this gearset + build is not incredibly effective at doing just that.

The whole point of the gear in the hands of a skilled or unskilled player is that you dont need to dodge. Using the skill arguement is irrelevant. Another way to look at it is that the gear is effective at making mistakes more forgiving.

Obviously if you want to be faster, you are skilled and intend to dodge then it makes no sense to use nomads because you would not get anything out of it. But thats going for a different goal. Nomads would obviously be ineffective at that particular goal.

afking is not skillfull play.

making mistakes more forgiving is not a playstyle, it is how good you are at a playstyle.

Like i said many times, if the goal of stat distributions is to adjust difficulty, that would be much more effeciently achieved with a totally different system.

also, berserker is not the hardest set to play. a midrange stat set is probably harder to play, because killing fast does in fact eliminate mechanics, risk, and decrease oppurtunity to make mistakes.

for setting difficulty the stat sets are all over the place, and different for different professions, it also generates difficulties balancing content and normalizing difficulty.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

Yes, so you want to make defensive stats more important and remove skillfull play from the game?

having stats effect skills, doesnt make the game less skillfull.
was playing an domination mesmer in gw1 less skillfull than playing a strength warrior?

defensive stats EFFECTING SKILLS wont remove skillful play at all.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

It’s obvious that there is a difference in effectiveness of gear, however increasing skill abilities with stats won’t have the effect people think it will have. It won’t open new builds and add variety to the game, it will just limit player creativity and their ability to adapt to any situation.

Although I understand there is a problem with certain gear stats that are underperforming, that doesn’t mean the proposed alternative is any good either. In fact, it will make things worse, not better.

it will open new builds and add variety to the game most definately

How is making skills more effective with certain stats going to accomplish that? For example, I can already make a powerful Stealth-focused build on my Thief, if Stealth was affected let’s say by Boon Duration how is that going to add a new build for me?

If Wall of Reflection lasts longer with extra Boon Duration, and the base duration is nerfed, how is that going to create NEW builds for my Guardian?

Now I can use a large variety of builds on my characters, if skills / traits on those builds are less powerful without specific stat investment, then my available builds will be reduced, as my gear stats will allow me to play only a small subset of what I used to play, destroying my build variety.

Unless of course I invest heavily on multiple sets of gear to be able to play all my favorite builds effectively, but that’s not going to happen. Where do you draw the line on how many gear sets a player should have to be effective?

Let’s not forget, this isn’t a trinity game.

trinity has nothing to do with build diversity

it will create new playstyles because stats themselves will alter what type of profitable combinations, and playstyles you can bring to the table.

a mesmer who can dodge more, can create more clones, which means they can do all sorts of new combinations of attacks, effects, debuffs, etc.

a warrior with longer endure pain can string together eat more dmg without having to move, potentially getting more dps with less risk, or reviving someone, or holding enemy attention

and like i said, they need to change the way you store and obtain gear no matter how you slice it, IF they want gear to equal customization/horizontal progression.

spoj.9672:

You still havent explained how you got those numbers though. And like i said whatever numeric comparison you give is meaningless. Actual gameplay effectiveness is what matters. It doesnt matter if toughness gives you really poor returns compared to power. If toughness allows you to survive encounters with greater ease then it is effective at doing that.

ok ignore the numbers, thats fine, because its even worse when you look at how you describe for pve.

a highly skilled person with 100% toughness cannot survive better than a person with 100% power.

they can make more mistakes, but a highly skilled person does not make that many mistakes. toughness, vitality give no benefit for skillfull play. thats why the more skill full you get, the less useful the stats are.

now, i know you say this is always the case, but it is not. in other games, being a top of the line defender is about skillful play.

maddoctor.2738:

It’s obvious that there is a difference in effectiveness of gear, however increasing skill abilities with stats won’t have the effect people think it will have. It won’t open new builds and add variety to the game, it will just limit player creativity and their ability to adapt to any situation.

Although I understand there is a problem with certain gear stats that are underperforming, that doesn’t mean the proposed alternative is any good either. In fact, it will make things worse, not better.

it will open new builds and add variety to the game most definately

it will not give the ability to adapt to any situation without a much larger investment in inventory and gear.

however, i personally think inventory and gear need a rework no matter how you slice it.
ascended is probably one of the biggest killers of diversity, with its insane time investment,
and tying stats customization to gear and basic inventory kills it the rest of the way.

but those are different flaws. those are flaws with accessibility of the current stat customization. where as the way stats effect things are flaws with the stat customization itself.

now if we are better off with no customization, that is fine, but having it, and having it not actually offer many real choices, is bad.

spoj.9672:

@Phys
How are you getting these numbers? Sounds like you have just made some up. Without context they mean nothing.

Effectiveness is measured by its intended purpose. So comparing them like that means nothing. Nomads is incredibly effective at faceroll afking content. Berserkers isnt. Berserkers is incredibly effective at maximising direct damage. Nomads isnt. Do you see my point? It depends on what you as a player set your goal as. Most people value speed which is why berserker is popular and other gearsets are excluded. This is a player goal issue, not a balance issue. Its also the fault of easy content, With harder content less people will go for the extremes because the chance of failure is higher. But that is unrelated to stat balance.

And even if you can compare with those numbers its not important. Whats important is a stat combos ability to do its job. And berserker is no better than nomads at doing its job. In fact i would say nomads is better at doing its job because theres almost no chance of failure. Obviously some stat combos are less effective in some areas. But the only real comparison is the two extremes nomads vs berserker.

its possible i messed up some numbers, and did rough estimates. like stats can give you 2x more power, but weapon strength is in the damage equation. regardless, its pretty clear some stats underperform, and stat sets with those stats will underperform.

its also obvious some stats work multiplicatively, and many do not.

spoj.9672:

Hmm lets cherry pick one of the worst stat combos and compare it to one of the best. #logic

actually thats exactly what you should do when figuring out how balanced something is.

power is one of the best performing stats. 121% effectiveness including base crits
condition damage is also a top performer, 120% but doesnt synergize that well with other stats, and its effectiveness isnt across the board, some proffessions just have crappy condi damage.

toughness/vitality/ferocity are about 60-70% effective
precison is about 52% effective
healing is all over the place, but looks like a high estimation 30% effective
boon duration is 26% effective.

precision seems though low, but in terms of how it effects dmg, its tricky because it also procs conditions and special effects. it also interacts multiplicatively with power and ferocity.

long story short.
all other stats are mechanically inferior to power except condition damage, and ferocity and precision are the best multiplicative effects (boon duration/healing have low effeciency)

so how bad your stat set actually is mechanically, is basically pretty easy to figure out. and berserkers is the top of the heap, mechanically

and gamedplay wise, wayyy ahead.

point of the comparison is, as far as supplementing your build, it is obviously more worthwhile to do berserk
and considering game design, most of the stats sets are even worse. (like toughness is only a small portion of your ability to defend, whereas power is most of your ability to DPS)

spoj.9672:

Yes stats should never have been implemented. But its too late now.

And the point of stats in this game is not to change the way you play. Its to change the effectiveness of various passive parts of the system. Its a build supplementor. Not a build changer.

as a build supplementor it is extremely poorly balanced to the point of being useless/deceptive.

givers: Become 40% tougher. heal for 15% more boons last 6% longer overall, lets say 50% more survivable. heck lets make it 60% you are about 20% (better at supporting.

zerker:
117% more base dmg 35% more chance to crit 50% more damage per crit
something like 200% more damage?

thats a really crappy supplement compared to berserker. which is why it sucks as a supplement, its illogical to select anything but berzerker.
and whats even worse? in game design, passive survival is less useful to begin with. so its actually an ever worse tradeoff.

so basically, stat customization is a lie at supplementing your build.
And thats why there is always this rage. anyone who didnt pick berserk realizes eventually, that their stat points are straight up inferior. not just from a gameplay perspective, but in raw numbers, just inferior.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

there is a lot more exp than there is levels, if you just map complete you will end up outleveling content, which is ineffecient.
you get less % exp the higher your level difference is.
therefore you are always better off in areas where you are the same level or slightly lower.

also dynamic events are generally shorter than hearts

Im not saying never do hearts, but the most effecient way is to do only the easy hearts, preferably that you can finish while doing dynamic events, it would be easier if you could see more of the dynamic event progresses, but yeah, full map completion is generally not the fastest way.

usually by the time i hit 80, i may only have like 30% map completion, and i primarily pve it.
i did 8 .5 charachters to 80.

would be nice if we could compare but i doubt we kept track of playtime to 80

I’ll assume that when you state content then you mean all items needed for map completion. Using your argument, completing all events that are below your level is inefficient too. Now remember, events have cool downs and they are not that numerous in any specific area level on a map. You may very well find several events at your level but there’s not enough to consistently farm them unless you plan on hopping maps. As a new character, you don’t have access to waypoints to places that you haven’t been to.

Just about all hearts in the game are easy. There are only a small percentage that take quite some time such as that stealth one I mentioned earlier.

Rather than continue this discussion, I’ll post this link on what someone says is the most optimal route. It’s outdated and won’t contain changes caused by LS1 but those differences are minor.

http://www.ehmry.com/topic/2221-tour-de-waypoint/

Unless you can present a guide or method that shows dynamic event farming yields more XP/hr than map completion, there’s really no point in discussing this further. As I stated in a previous post, I personally have done map completion and any events that I came across. I would not go out of my way to complete them and I would normally skip the ones that seem more time-consuming or at the very least tag them.

what i am actually telling you is that full map completion is ineffecient for leveling in PVE, yes i am saying you should move on when a map is too low for you. This means most starter maps are not effecient, and many 15-25s

Its not like, only do dynamic events, its like
explore the world )get waypoints, and zones, skill points
moving towards properly leveled areas
while doing as many dynamic events as you can
picking up easy or almost completed hearts

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Leo G.4501:

NoTrigger.8396:

actually gw2 has the most entitled community ive ever seen in the history of seeing gaming communitys.

I’d actually say GW2 has the most intolerant and close-minded community I’ve encountered. Entitlement tends to be on a case-by-case basis since it also depends on context. Like, seems those that fervently defend PvE meta and speed runs think they’re entitled to some sort of upper status where they should somehow have more weight to their opinion.

But as far as intolerant and close-minded, I see it reflected in-game and on the forums. It often results in lots of wasted discussion and effort.

Can be seen on both sides of most arguments unfortunately.

Said it before and I’ll say it again, I enjoy the current GW2 system because it puts your tools on easily changeable tools, with gear in PVE mainly being a difficulty slider, both allowing less skills/active/whatever players to get by by beefing up a bit, and players can glass up and doing so is rewarded with faster kill times. These two people can group together and they both have their individual difficulty, I think it’s a pretty great setup.

On top of that by keeping most of the game based around actively defending yourself it keeps a player engaged. I played MMOs way back, and the reason I quit my first MMO completely after YEARS of always coming back was because it got boring, playing was too much based around using the correct setup and not enough to actively do. So I’d be doing raids half afk, and the one reaction I’d have to make every couple mins I’d only ever miss because I was so bored I stopped paying attention. So I like this setup. Some attrition based mechanics could perhaps encourage more tanky setups, but the flip side to attrition based mechanics is that you can also simply stack the dps and burn through it. So I’m not an overly big fan of those.

Again I’ll say if tank gear is something they want to make popular, they could put out “hard modes” that are unforgiving in that once you’re downed you’re dead and there’s no coming back. Perfect runs are required. Doing that and you’d have a lot of people loading up their safety nets again, only the especially brave would continue to glass up and believe they can handle it without a mistake.

its not really a pure difficulty slider

the game is actually probably hardest when your gear is in the middle.
because truth is, high dps does make fights easier
high defense also makes it easier

being in the middle? you fight long enough to make more mistakes, and mistakes can kill you.

i still say its a crappy difficulty slider and if thats the purpose they should design a real one.

stats should change how you play/how effective you are at various playstyles
or they shouldnt exist.

No they shouldn’t change how you play. Stats in the game do NOT affect your playstyle at all, it’s the rest of the build that defines the playstyle and the role, skills, traits and weapon choices. Currently the only exception to this rule is the difference between condition build and power build, other than that you can do anything you want with any gear stats you want. That’s one of the best things about this game.

It allows players to change their builds on the fly to adapt to any situation, without having a huge part of the inventory filled up by different gear sets. Good players are already utilizing most of the available weapons. Take for example a Guardian, all weapons except for the Shield have a use in the game and make certain encounters faster / smoother.

Why lock the player on specific builds / weapons with specific stats? Why limit player choice and variety?

I said OR, because there should only be two options

Stats SHOULD effect the way you play, because that is the point of customizable stats.
if you have customizable stats, it should effect the way you play the game.

OR

stats should not exist, for some of the reasons you mentioned.

What is the point of stat customization as it is in the game now? Really, what purpose does it actually serve in the game.

Jerus.4350:

Leo G.4501:

NoTrigger.8396:

actually gw2 has the most entitled community ive ever seen in the history of seeing gaming communitys.

I’d actually say GW2 has the most intolerant and close-minded community I’ve encountered. Entitlement tends to be on a case-by-case basis since it also depends on context. Like, seems those that fervently defend PvE meta and speed runs think they’re entitled to some sort of upper status where they should somehow have more weight to their opinion.

But as far as intolerant and close-minded, I see it reflected in-game and on the forums. It often results in lots of wasted discussion and effort.

Can be seen on both sides of most arguments unfortunately.

Said it before and I’ll say it again, I enjoy the current GW2 system because it puts your tools on easily changeable tools, with gear in PVE mainly being a difficulty slider, both allowing less skills/active/whatever players to get by by beefing up a bit, and players can glass up and doing so is rewarded with faster kill times. These two people can group together and they both have their individual difficulty, I think it’s a pretty great setup.

On top of that by keeping most of the game based around actively defending yourself it keeps a player engaged. I played MMOs way back, and the reason I quit my first MMO completely after YEARS of always coming back was because it got boring, playing was too much based around using the correct setup and not enough to actively do. So I’d be doing raids half afk, and the one reaction I’d have to make every couple mins I’d only ever miss because I was so bored I stopped paying attention. So I like this setup. Some attrition based mechanics could perhaps encourage more tanky setups, but the flip side to attrition based mechanics is that you can also simply stack the dps and burn through it. So I’m not an overly big fan of those.

Again I’ll say if tank gear is something they want to make popular, they could put out “hard modes” that are unforgiving in that once you’re downed you’re dead and there’s no coming back. Perfect runs are required. Doing that and you’d have a lot of people loading up their safety nets again, only the especially brave would continue to glass up and believe they can handle it without a mistake.

its not really a pure difficulty slider

the game is actually probably hardest when your gear is in the middle.
because truth is, high dps does make fights easier
high defense also makes it easier

being in the middle? you fight long enough to make more mistakes, and mistakes can kill you.

i still say its a crappy difficulty slider and if thats the purpose they should design a real one.

stats should change how you play/how effective you are at various playstyles
or they shouldnt exist.

Xenon.4537:

What a lot of people want (my guild especially [Att]) is something challenging they can do together as a cohesive community. We want to feel like a team when we take down a boss. It doesn’t have to be open world, but if it is, then we want to be able to engage that boss as a coordinated group, not a random congregation of random people from the megaserver.

And this isn’t about excluding outsiders. Anyone can join [Att] to take down the wurm with us, as long as they get on teamspeak and listen to commanders.

On top of that we want more challenge to validate the effort it takes to coordinate 100+ people for one event. Wurm is great, but the next best thing (Tequatl) is too easy and we only do it right after wurm as a habit. Nothing else in the game is worth organizing for besides guild missions which are a completely different experience.

The wyvern honestly doesn’t look like something that would fit this bill. The platform is kind of small, and it’s been demonstrated with only smaller groups fighting it. It looks great as an open world boss, but not as the challenging raid content we want.

If you don’t want outsiders, you don’t want open world.
This discussion is about open world, not saying they shouldn’t discuss instanced content, but that’s a dif discussion

TheDraco.3965:

phys.7689:

TheDraco.3965:

This talk about the marionette is a perfect example of the point I made in the original post. You cannot have meaningful group content in the open world if your success is dependent on people you cant even reasonably communicate with.

yes you can, you just are going to have to have people accept that they are a group, and that means if a enough people play poorly, they will lose.

i lost a lot of marrionettes, and i won some.
The difference was that people played better, thats a good reason to succeed imo.

people will not learn how to read chat/communicate/learn the game, if they never have to.

I played games where world bosses would wipe people who didnt play right, i dont know why thats such a crazy concept in this game.

You are outlining the problem here and propping it up like its a good thing. When you have an abundance of players who never have to communicate with you and you fail solely because of those people that’s BAD design.

When you have a small number of people that you can actually talk too, strategize, improve play with, where the victory is more within your control rather than blindly on random people that’s GOOD design.

They have world bossed which required like 40-60 people, that’s not to different than organizing 80-100.

It can be done, tequatl and wurm, while not personally interesting, have people doing it who learned how to play it.

People will learn to play when there is an incentive to do so. Even large groups, it happens here, and in every other game.

The difference between marrionette and teq/wurm is that it is more entertaining while learning, with more personal skill and less simulation level organiZation.