Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

Windsagio.1340:

rotten.9753:

Windsagio.1340:

The intended comparison is to their simplification of the talent trees (Is that what they call them? It’s been a while) to a set choice per tree as the ‘optimal’ one — ie the removal of the choice.

Then you got it wrong, I’ve suggested removing stats few times already and I had gw1 in mind where you were able to swap your builds in seconds. Going with those rash ideas of reinforcing gear choice will lead to nothing but to reduction of a player’s choice.

“Reducing choices is increasing choices!”

all kidding aside, gear is a meaningful way to accent your intended play style, and to allow a number of things that would be impossible with just traits.

It’s true that the balance is out of whack (although the meaningfulness of the imbalance is wildly exaggerated), but the poor balance doesn’t justify removing the choice.

~~~

The ‘reinforcing gear choice’ is the wrong way to look at it though, it’s ‘making risk/reward meaningful’. Right now, past a basic skill level, risk is not very meaningful in most of the content, and this is too bad.

Wouldn’t it be great if zerk had great payoff but took great skill, as opposed to ‘it has great payoff as long as you’re not absolutely terrible’?

Right now you can use most of your skills and traits without any kind of gear investment, which means there is a huge amount of choice in the game. If certain skills are affected by certain stats then those skills will be used by those that already have the important stats, meaning far less choice and variety for players.

It’s not secret that there is a lack of variety in gear stat choice in the game. But that’s not true in build variety, weapon, utility and trait variety isn’t terrible, in fact the “good” players are already changing their builds multiple times during a single dungeon run. Using different weapons, traits and utilities to be more efficient on different types of content.

It’s highly unlikely and it will harm the game instead of helping it, if they make stats affect skills, like Vitality giving more endurance or Toughness making WoR last longer or anything like that. Limiting BUILD choice isn’t what we need now.

For everyone who is suggesting to tweak how stats affect skills, take a look at PVP. There are more valuable builds in PVP, there are “bunkers” and control / support is even higher valued than in PVE. The answer to making more builds viable is in changing the actual encounters to feel more like PVP encounters.

There is NO need to make defensive stats affect skills.

What you are essentially saying, is that is good that gear doesn’t effect gameplay, because getting gear sucks.

Then why have gear at all?

I think if they made multiple gearsets viable, then the would also have to make getting gearsets less annoying. But they should probably do that anyway.

Or no stats. Which works probably best. But players will have less variety in play

fullren.6031:

Hello,
I’m coming back on GW2 along with 4 friends to prepare for HoT and to taste the new content. and because we missed it aswell.

We are getting confused with the new currencies and materials, how are we supposed to handle so many of them (in quantities)

I have understood that geodes for example are required to craft stuff and buy recipes, but it takes us time to level up crafters to use them and we end up with thousands (literally) of geodes/bandit crests/keys in our vaults.
Same goes for all the ascended crafting materials we still don’t know anything about : all we know is that half our -extended- bank vault is full of powder, crystals, dragonite ore, geodes, keys, bandit things and whatnot.

the 250 limitation was perfect for T1->6 old materials. you’re not gonna loot 250 T5 blood or 250 ori bars in one day unless you really insist on doing so.
but with the pvp rewards tracks and dongeons and world bosses, we get like 250 ascended crystals, geodes and dragonite every 2 days. the 250 limitation shouldn’t apply on everything because the rate at which we loot isn’t the same for everything.
and the new currencies should be added to the wallet, because it’s a currency (geodes, bandit crests)

Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading.
Many people are returning to prepare HoT and I strongly believe that maaany of them can relate to what I’ve said.

btw thanks for the wardrobe system, this is one hell of a good change. keep up the good job.

yes the game gives you a ton of crap to sift through and store now. Its a turnoff for many people.

Valento.9852:

I find it funny how many meta-mentality players think zerker stacking is the ultimate playstyle for dungeons, and other equipments are just a ladder until you get “pro”. This is completely wrong, how come you trash all other gear in a game that has no treadmill? Cleric should have its place, it should be wrong to have a full zerker party. It simply trashes all itemization, which is a core fundamental part of RPGs.

they think it is, because it is. If the meta required different builds, thats what they would do.
The pro versus handicap situation is the way they designed the stats, and the encounters.

Im not saying it should be this way, thats up for debate, but right now, thats the way anets design has played out, and it is a logical result of the way they designed things.

i will say, i personally dont believe you should be required to bring a bunch of specific stat sets in order to succeed. But right now the benefit of DPS stats is great, and other stats arent relatively as effective.
and they are a whole lot less entertaining.

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.

Fenrir.3609:

Defensive stats/builds do already impact upon gameplay and improve your survive. They are utilized by large numbers of players across a wide spectrum of the content in this game. Moreoever, they are far, far from being underpowered.

Now if someone wants to make it so defensive stats impact upon active defense (which is simply not needed), then ALL passive gain from said stats should be removed. No passive toughness gain, and no passive vit health gain, whilst the current baseline for active defense should remain for non defensive builds.

Now if people want to give up all their passive defensive gain from their nomads/pvt and clerics in order to gain some more active defense than go for it. Oddly enough, I doubt many will.

i wouldnt be against it, if it was well executed.

it would probably make for a more interesting game.

but realistically they will probably just make people take more damage.

regardless talking about all the ways it could fail, reminds me how many actual interesting moments, and how much personal skill and knowing your enemy mattered. as well as the variation.

you dont see that in other open world content unless no one is there.
best open world design imo.

Coldtart.4785:

phys.7689:

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

In a team game, I cooperate with my team. In marionette, I sat around watching a completely unrelated team’s failure count as my own.

sometimes in a team game, you have to sit on the bench and hope other players can do their parts, they are still a part of your team.

they are the same people that defended the lane with you, and you could have been placed next to any of them.

Coldtart.4785:

Contribution was more visible, but mattered less. The outcome was the same whether you killed your regulator in 30 seconds or 119 seconds. If even one platform failed, then my contribution was reduced to the same level as the losers even though I won.

in other content it doesnt matter if you specifically live or die, or play well, or afk.

in marionette your play matters.
but also, the other players matter.

everyone has to play better in order to win, and if people suck, you will lose.

do you think michael jordan’s play contribution was zero if the guy off the bench missed the game winning shot?

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

but if you want to see it as contribution only matters if you succeed, the same can be said of any other open world content.

basically you are saying in order for them to make a good event, you have to win all the time.
I dont know if you can make events that dont suck if people are always going to win.

Ayrilana.1396:

Hearts actually yield more than dynamic events. Hearts yield 8% of the area level while dynamics events do 7%. Map completion also rewards 10% of whatever level the highest area is on the map.

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

Ayrilana.1396:

Aro.8275:

Hearts are the worst method of exp, do them for fun not the reward :P
They normally point to where events occur, doing the event around a heart will generally complete the heart as well.

Events should be the bread and butter of leveling.
Just killing mobs and events that spawned them took about 31 hours to make a lvl 80 during Halloween. That’s with stacked exp boosters as well. Edge of the Mists works well for alts. If a person finds sPvP enjoyable or simple does the daily in hot-join/practice a fair amount of level tomes come from reward tracks.

With that all said… some of the little stories around hearts are cute/neat/fun.

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.

some hearts slow progress more than they give you exp.

and its always more experience to be fighting things your level (they scale up exp, but not as much as doing something your level)

There are few chains which give massive exp, and destroy the exp from hearts. like the old ulgoth chain, if you use exp boosters, the bonus and the killing itself is huge.

I would say events with monsters that havent been killed in a long time are the best leveling.

and yeah hearts are often not that entertaining. Really wish it wasnt part of map completion

spoj.9672:

Please prove they are not equal then. Because ive seen more evidence of passive defence being far stronger than offensive stats. Simply because there is no skill/knowledge requirement to succeed with passive defence.

And i know that didnt make sense. It makes as much sense as the opposite idea. Which is why i brought it up and i do recognise the parallels (im not stupid). I could of expanded it and said defensive stats should boost weapon damage but decided not to take the mockery that far.

But your idea is completely baffling to me. “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”. Yeah thats a really logical train of thought.

It just looks like you want two extreme opposite spectrums. Invest in defence and you are immortal. Invest in offense and you do loads of damage but cannot survive at all. I really dont see how this is a good direction. Its forced diversity which destroys the current “everything is viable” philosophy.

And if you are actually saying active defence remains as it is for glass but is stronger for defensive stats. How can you get more effective than full damage mitigation? And how can you justify breaking the passive offense vs passive defence balance we have now just for a slightly more obvious incentive for gear diversity.

By the way if you dont nerf base active defence for glass gear then your solution breaks balance between spectrums by making defence too strong but doesnt solve the glass meta dominance. And if you do nerf base active defence then you destroy anets “everything is viable” philosophy. So whats the point in it? What are you trying to do?

imagine for a second, that it wasnt about having all of one stat, or none of it, that you wanted all your stats for different reasons, and choosing different stats would actively effect your gameplay.

Well, thats what having stats is actually supposed to be about.

as to this “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”
you are missing the understanding, these stats are supposed to effect defense, how well you can defend. the ability to avoid hits is a type of defensive play.

why would a person want more dodges? the same reason they want more hp so they are more survivable.

changing the effect of stats would of course have to be balanced, it doesnt have to follow any ones brainstormed exact method. The idea is more important than execution at this stage (the idea stage)

that idea is stats should effect skill usage and active play more.

btw, nerfing glasses defense would not destroy the everything is viable thing, unless it was over nerfed. There is a fairy large window there, of course all glass teams may not end up being the optimal setup(or may require a higher skill cieling) anymore. But that was always a questionable decision.

or, you could get rid of stats all together, if you dont really want to have real choices and diversity.

to be honest, neither of these things is likely to happen, as i said before. What you will see is more simulation style gameplay most likely, more unavoidable dmg.
because simulation is the easiest answer, though, imo the worst.

spoj.9672:

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

But i guess thats unnacceptable because then berserkers would be even more powerful…. Stats effect things equally currently. I really dont see why you want to break that just to get some gear diversity for the sake of diversity.

they dont effect things equally, some are way more effective than others, thats why berserk is the generally the high end stat choice.

The point of having stats at all is diversity, otherwise why have different stats?

I mean i get you guys just want to be the best with minimal item investment, but that type of thinking is in direct opposition to having stat selection at all.

spoj.9672:

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

because defensive stats should increase your defense, and offensive stats your offense?

well even if one wasnt using that paradigm, i wouldnt put it on precision, which is already a super strong stat.

the idea of stats is that they do different things and you choose/balance them.

increasing defense is decreasing risk, IE getting more dodges, or effectiveness from dodge, is reducing your risk,

which means it shouldnt be on the same stat that increases your reward, if you look at it from a risk vs reward standpoint.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

That’s true, compared to other parts of the game, the open portion of the Marionette was far better. However there is a limit to how challenging actual open world content can be where people can join in or leave at any time. At least the Marionette did a very good job at challenging as many people as possible, which isn’t happening anywhere else.

phys.7689:

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

Exactly. Contribution on the platforms mattered more, not less. A single player alive on a platform could manage to beat the final boss to break a chain and be regarded as a small hero. The way the encounter was designed it gave the opportunity for small teams or even individual players to shine in an open world setting, no other event in the entire game managed that.

However, it also caused frustration and lots of problems. I’ve been there when platforms failed and there was nothing you could do to help. That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.

Mixing Open World and Instanced content is an excellent way to add more challenge to a game that the devs decided to be open world only.

pre made guild teams is a no go.
sometimes there arent even a lot of people from a guild on a map. And you are basically locking players out of the open world challenges.

keep in mind if you had enough premades to do the content, it wouldnt have failed anyhow.
24 skilled players in 3 lanes basically guranteed you would have 3-5 skilled people on every platform.

the real truth, is though everyone liked to blame some one else for marionette, the event was only lost due to A LOT of people sucking.

If the defense did its job well you would get 5 failures(i think), this means people failed 5 times. that means 20% of the people engaged are failing. 25/125 people sucking
If you couldnt get 5 failures, that means your zergs were failing at defense.

Everyone loved to blame that one team, but lets be honest, it wasnt one guy that caused a failure, it was a sizable portion of the map.

Middzz.1490:

phys.7689:

Middzz.1490:

Fix fix what …I spend the majority of my time in WvW and so far 3 and half ascended sets

2 light 1 medium and half way a heavy.Those have been crafted with no special farming effort or purchases ..silk is not a problem the red one linen maybe I find the hardest .

Takes time a bit so what the inventory fills quite fast.

how much silk scraps do you get in an hour, what type of gameplay do you do to get it (eotm, karma training, defending, etc)

How many an hour no idea totally not important, I play not for silk thats a by product .All said was never had a problem with getting silk …Recycle bags armor etc throw away the endless dust ore etc .Then when have time craft and never ever found problem not enough silk .Generally have enough to not only craft but sell .Do that when I need to empty bags fast.
As for what generally OCX in WvW borderland sometimes EB.

how much you get per time frame actually matters a lot, if your claim is that it is easy to get from normal play.

i mean if i only feel like crafting a damask once per week, and i play 20 hours a week, of course i will have enough silk.
But that isnt really “easy” relative to anything else, and not really the type of progress most people would like.
it would take 25-36 weeks to get all armor at that rate btw.

short version, numbers matter when you are trying to make comparisons.

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

maddoctor.2738:

xev.9476:

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

The huge difference between the Marionette fight and all the other boss fights is that it engaged nearly everyone involved. Unlike other encounters where players can start auto-attack, go afk, and win if the others play well, in the Marionette fight all players were challenged because it split the big player bob on the platforms. On those platforms you didn’t have 20 people to hide behind to kill the bosses, you had to play yourself.

I think the key in creating challenging content is to CHALLENGE EVERYONE. If the encounter needs a couple of players to do mechanics and kill certain mobs while the rest are auto-attacking then it’s a bad encounter. A good encounter is one that every player involved needs to play well to succeed, and it’s very hard to do in the open world where everyone can join (and leave) at any time, with variable skill levels.

The Marionette “worked” because it was a hybrid between instanced and open world. It had the open world afk part where players fought waves of mobs (with zero possibility of ever losing because it was super easy) and the platform fights which split the players well so smaller groups fought the bosses.

A good way forward with next encounters is to make World Bosses guild events like the guild challenge in Blazeridge. The guild that starts that challenge gets bazookas to destroy some crystals, everyone can join that guild and help with mobs, but they can’t use the bazookas.

So imagine if let’s say the Triple Trouble wurm was a guild event and to be more specific let’s look at Amber. Only guild members can be “eaten” by the Wurm to enter its belly, and in there they have to fight a powerful boss (instead of just attacking) in order to charge the spear.

In a similar way, if the Marionette was “recreated” as a guild mission, only guild members could join the platforms with pre-made groups, build in a way to defeat the bosses, while everyone else can join the lane defense.

Or at Tequatl, only guild members can use the Turrets. At certain times Tequatl will get his scale invulnerability buff and the only way to remove it, is from guild members (and only guild members) to enter the Vortex and defeat a group of bosses down there to remove the hardened scales.

Using this system, you stay in the open world, which is Anet’s goal, they hate instances. BUT you add challenging small group encounters into the mix.

actually if people afk zerged the mob killing, it would lead to less time to succeed, and possible failure.
you had to actually target specific monsters which did more damage to the wall. And use control effects/conditions (cc actually mattered) or else after a while the big dude would run for the wall.

Also, some monsters appeared in the back, and some paths had zerg screwing monsters that could kill/annoy/mess up zergs if they didnt deal with them properly, like aetherblades/toxic krait/ molten.

the zergs werent big enough usually to automatically win with no risk. There are times when just 2-3 people moving over to a lane made a large difference in how well they were able to defend the lane.

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

NikeEU.7690:

Some of these suggested “improvements.”

Wearing gear that is better at soaking damage (aka not needing to dodge) improves you ability to dodge. OK. That makes all the sense.

I’m happy to leave the game design to the professionals after reading really good suggestions like that.

no one stat makes you not need to dodge.
you mean stats designed to improve your survival, improve your ACTIVE survival? CRAZY.
did you ever notice they link acrobatics to vitality on theif? the trait line with vitality, and giving you effects like swiftness on dodge, and endurance return on dodge, vigor on heal?

xev.9476:

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

not everyone is going to like everything, but its not as simple as zerging down content.
It isnt the most challenging fight in terms of a really small window for success, it was a better description is it was fairly engaging.

its probably the open world content that has the most possible variations, good unpredictability, high drama moments, encouraging reward structure, and your single contributions matter more.
the zerg portion is smaller (15-30 people) with the goal being defeating the enemies before they get to the goal line, rather than just killing, some do more dmg than others, different enemies in each lane, so you can see a real effect, or be part of a clutch defensive play.
then you have mini boss fights with different mechanics in each path, but you cant be 100% sure which boss you will get because people fail. doable by 2 people but scales well up to 10 people to still be similarly entertaining.

basically it all comes together really well to be entertaining, and personally engaging, moreso than teq/wurm, which is more about being a coordinated army, than personal play.

Its not the hardest thing in the game, but its probably one of the most entertaining/repeatable things in the open world.

of course your opinion may be different.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

The marionette also had rampant population issues (a lot of the time, one or more platforms would only have a couple of people on it, and there’s kitten-all the rest can do to help them), and some stupid design decisions.

they had a bug early on where people werent getting distributed properly, they fixed that before the event ended.
After that point, when you saw only two people on a platform, it was because the others died, or you only had like 10 people in a lane.

and really it was doable with like 3-4 people per platform, a lot of times felt easier when i only had a couple people with me.

its not like tequatl or wurm is any easier with a few people.

regardless of whatever, i would still say it was the most entertaining open world group content even with its flaws. What is better?

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

like i said, its ok to have events fail if players dont play well. They will learn eventually. I am fine with losing it sometimes when people dont play well enough.
The only way people will learn, is if the content actually fails them for not learning. If being sucky wins, people will continue to be sucky

it is true that its temporary nature made it tricky.

I still say its probably the best open world/group/boss content they have created thus far, in terms of actual engagement and entertainment.

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

TheDaiBish.9735:

TheDraco.3965:

A bit of a bold statement but hear me out. Its been nearly 3 months since the announcement of the expansion and the only information given about “challenging group content” is pointing at an open world Wyvern boss.

Actually, in one of the interviews Colin said that the Wyvern fight was just an example of a tough open world boss:

…the Wyvern is an example of just a tough boss in the open world. It’s not a mega boss, it’s not some super, crazy challenging group content that we want you to do. It’s just an example of what world bosses are going to start being like.

Source

so based on the beta, new world bosses, will be lame.

in their defense though, most of the world bosses are lame now

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

whether a skill is useless with minimal stat investment would be a matter of balance.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Thats fine, like i said,
either stats should actually effect gameplay (all stats) to similar levels
or stats should not exist.
a vote for not exist is fine with me.
vote for actually being choices is also fine

the false choice that it currently is (difficulty slider vs time to complete) is a bad function for stats, and a really ineffecient means of difficulty adjustment

I’ll just skip right past the part about the current set up working exactly as intended and get right to the heart of the matter. There needs to be a worthwhile reason for them to make changes. What exactly is this worthwhile reason? Is this reason that players in defensive gear have difficulty completing content? Is this reason that players in defensive gear aren’t getting exactly what they invested in from defensive gear? Is this reason that …..

Well, they probably will never change it, because it would change so many things.

Which means, if they want stats to have value, they will have to go the simulation route, and nerf active defense, either directly, or by making the content such that active defenses have less effect.

Which seems to be the direction they are going to try to go.
which imo is a bad direction, but thats the only way they can make these stats useful without a large scale change to the foundation.

i personally would rather no stats at all to the tons of unavoidable damage, have to have X skill to win type scenarios that that solution would take.

the other problem with the current system, is that the range of dps/defense/special skills is too wide.
and the only solution for that, within the current framework is to start designing content that makes more roles/skills mandatory. The future is hard dps checks, and survivability checks, and specific skill set checks. This makes it so its more predictable what stats/skills players will have, and thus easier to design.

Which i find inferior to a system with less of a range(in stats) but more real choices, and ways to succeed.

so yeah, the reason to change? because building on this foundation means bad things. However i doubt they will change the foundation, they will just make the game more simulation like. I find that to be a lot less entertaining, but maybe thats just me.

The core of the issue is simple

they designed a stat system based around simulation playstyles, where you are guaranteed to take damage, have to recover HP in order to win.

the only way to make stats like that work is if you make the game play in a simulation style.
currently the game is designed where the stat system does not match the gameplay, they are probably going to change the gameplay to match the stat system.

I would rather they change the stat system to match the gameplay.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

Boxers are known for having a “jaw” or not.

notice i said “just”

you can consider meatbag defense, but you also should consider other factors, how heavily you weight each depends on what type offense you have to defend, and the limitations of each type of defense

Exun.7825:

Thanks Fenrir this is a very complete answer, much more than I expected actually.

@Phys : Actually I am on the side of active defense, dodge etc.. this is just that for the last post it would have been messy since I was focusing on numbers.

yeah i understood that it would muddy things, just pointing out that in this case, the muddyness is an extremely large part of the equation

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

reflect is just based on the enemy damage, not player stats.

Completely false statement.

and no, stats effecting utilities would not make them useless, it would change their effectiveness based on your stat investment, which works just fine in other games, one of which would be Guild wars 1. Notice dps stats already do this, other stats are either heavily throttled, or no effect at all.

Any utility that isn’t effective at performing its function is useless. Hence why people don’t use certain utilities at all…because they are sub par. Changing utilities to not working well unless loaded up with defensive stats therefore makes said utilities useless for players not loaded up with said defensive stats. What you are lobbying for is the exact opposite of what ANET has been trying to accomplish with buffing under used utilities. ANET wants all utilities to be used…and not just by a subset of players.

If stats serve a purpose, they should actually effect skill use, which is the dominant factor in how this game is played.
If stats dont effect skill use, their effect is negligeble in a game without guaranteed stat checks(unavoidable dmg/effects/condi/skills), and are more trouble than they are worth.

Its illogical to expect defensive stats to be able to affect defensive skill/utility use. That would mean that all defensive skills/utilities need to be rendered completely ineffective to anyone not loaded up with toughness. What good is a block that doesn’t actually block the damage completely….may as well use protection instead. What good is that block, in the face of overwhelming one shot mechanics, when it still doesn’t block the one shot?

This whole argument about wanting defensive stats to affect utilities makes no sense…how can you make a block or reflect stop more than 100% incoming damage? That’s what they currently do…they stop 100% of the incoming damage. They do this for anyone…including for you in your toughness gear. As I said in a previous post, this is on top of your toughness…because when the block/reflect is over…you still have your passive damage reduction from toughness. Are you really asking for immortality? Or is this entire argument really just about trying to find a way to make zerk players die again? Enlighten me if there is some other purpose to this argument about wanting defensive stats to determine the effectiveness of defensive utilities/skills.

people pointed out the crit/ferocity angle awhile back

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

whether a skill is useless with minimal stat investment would be a matter of balance.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Thats fine, like i said,
either stats should actually effect gameplay (all stats) to similar levels
or stats should not exist.
a vote for not exist is fine with me.
vote for actually being choices is also fine

the false choice that it currently is (difficulty slider vs time to complete) is a bad function for stats, and a really ineffecient means of difficulty adjustment

Fenrir.3609:

Exun.7825:

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

There are plenty of guides and links with regards to theory crafting et al, a simple google search should turn up a fair few.

A good place to start is the dungeon forums in general, websites of top level guilds like http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292, sites like http://gw2dungeons.net/ as well as http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki and youtube stuff from the likes of Goku, miku, nike, obal, sesshi and a host of others.

Defensive gear/builds means you can pretty much face tank through w3, open world pve and dungeons in this game with little to no effort or thought for having to be proactive/highly reactive in your game play. Back when the game first game out I actually ran an AH and then a clerics spvp bunker guard and my first dungeon mob solo was AC spider queen, facetanked it, took zero effort really (oh the shame of it!). If I had ran a full glass meta build then (as I always do now), then I would have eaten dirt. The defensive gear/build carried me through the content whilst I was still learning.

Heres a classic from rT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Yes you can still eat it in certain circumstances, but with the way people talk on these boards you would imagine defensive gear is weak… it isn’t.

phys.7689:

not considering active defense is a large flaw, most of your defense is actually active.

As it should be given the combat system, it certainly isn’t a flaw. And yet defensive gear and builds carries people not very good at (or simply not interested in) active defense through the content and is often part of the meta within certain aspects of the game (or are you bunkering down on point or frontlining as a full glass dungeon zerk meta guard with great success?).

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Gibson.4036:

Though, like most, I’m very wary that the fix will be as bad as what we have now.

Yeah, currently there are two options:

1) They haven’t started working on the system.

2) They have started working on the new system, but haven’t consulted the players.

I’m not sure which is worse…

its probably number 2, which i find really surprising. because they already did that once, and it was a collosal failure, that has marred the game for one year.

It must have costed money/time in development, and time again to try to fix. and yet i have yet to see a post that really suggests they really understand the flaws of the system. The only thing they seem to have gotten is that the system is so bad, no one would want to do it more than once.
Which means they may very well make a crappy system, that you only have to do once per account.

The company is way too obsessed with secrecy as opposed to good design. Which didnt used to be the case. We heard about and commented on tons of things which didnt make it into the game on release.

Its not important we be surprised by core game mechanics, its important we enjoy core game mechanics.

Middzz.1490:

Fix fix what …I spend the majority of my time in WvW and so far 3 and half ascended sets

2 light 1 medium and half way a heavy.Those have been crafted with no special farming effort or purchases ..silk is not a problem the red one linen maybe I find the hardest .

Takes time a bit so what the inventory fills quite fast.

how much silk scraps do you get in an hour, what type of gameplay do you do to get it (eotm, karma training, defending, etc)

Exun.7825:

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

not considering active defense is a large flaw, most of your defense is actually active.

Jerus.4350:

Because there is more than 1 game type and it’s an interesting way to make a difficulty slider without calling it a difficulty slider and offending someone >.<

Get rid of vit/toughness gear and Arrow carts in WvW = insta death if you’re not a warrior or perfectly rotating skills on a fully life forced necro. Having some heavy damagers in WvW is awesome, but when you run into seige if they don’t hve a second set of gear they’re going to have to hang back till the carts are cleared. Basically… defenses are quite important in other game types.

its a really crappy way of making a difficulty slider. It requires too much investment in terms of money and inventory, and it isnt clear which stats will actually end up making it easier for you, or how much easier(different based on job/skills) and some stats dont even make it any easier.

As far as other game modes, there is only one, that uses the same gear, and thats WvW, so maybe they should put a WvW tag on 22/24 armors? Usually games handle PVP specific needs by having separate stats/slots on gear for pvp focused adjustments.

That way they dont have to balance the PVE game around stats that only serve a purpose in WvW. (which has tons of unavoidable damage)

and yeah, they arent using the same stats, which is part of why the game has so many problems in encounter design, and people learning how the game works.

rotten.9753:

Jerus.4350:

Why do you want this to happen? Because you want more gear types to become more popular? So that instead of being able to change up a build on the fly you’ll instead have to carry around multiple sets of 12+ items to be able to have multiple builds. Doesn’t really sound desirable to me.

Exactly this, gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity is pretty much bothersome when you actually want to use that diversity and change your entire build.

if they didnt want gear diversity for the sake of diversity, what was the point of making 24 stat combinations.
IE if we are supposed to be playing one or two stat sets, why create 22 more to trap people in bad stats, which then you have to design content assuming people have some of these stats.

i mean what it boils down to, is you are saying, most stat spreads need to be useless, so that i dont have to get a lot gear.
which is a valid point, but then shouldnt they cease to exist?

Jerus.4350:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

So should they remove the passive effect of vit/toughness and make it work purely on activatable skills. Is that what people who currently wear tanky gear would want? Or do they choose to use that gear because it acts as a passive safety net?

It really doesnt matter if it effects passive and active, or just active. In either case skills would have to be tuned accordingly.

as for what people want from their tanky stats, they probably want to be noticeably better at dealing with/responding to enemy attacks.

if the point of stats is just handicap adjustment, i suggest they get rid of that, and add a slider that increases rewards for lowering your handicap.

So rework the entire game’s base systems because one type of gear is preferable in content that is supposedly so underutilized that it’s not even worth putting changes to it in the patch notes let alone make more content like it. (If the majority or even half of the people in Silverwastes wore zerk gear I don’t’ think we’d ever fail a boss due to time )

Why do you want this to happen? Because you want more gear types to become more popular? So that instead of being able to change up a build on the fly you’ll instead have to carry around multiple sets of 12+ items to be able to have multiple builds. Doesn’t really sound desirable to me.

it doesnt HAVE to happen, it just has to happen if they want stats to ever actually matter.
If they dont care about stats mattering, then they should really get rid of them.
The large stat spread makes it fairly difficult to design encounters that make sense for most players.

and yes, if they make stats actually matter, then there would probably be some use for more than one stat set, so yeah you would probably want multiple stat sets. But if there is no point in multiple stat sets, all you are doing is creating a situation where people will be mad their stats serve no real purpose.

Overall, what im really saying is, the way to make multiple stats viable, is to have them actually effect different facets of active play, since the game is mostly active play.

Now if they dont mind a lot of stats not being viable, then ok, but why do we have so many stat sets for people to invest in, and become dissapointed with?

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

… i think that stats should effect active defense, just like stats effect active offense.(also active support and active control) and in similar proportions.
if it doesnt work that way, you will end up having the current problem, where a bunch of stats are comparitively useless, and DPS stats are the only stats that matter, for high level play.
…

You do realize that there is exactly one utility type that is impacted by offensive stats right? That is reflect. That is entirely because one of the two purposes of reflect is to do damage to the attacker. The other purpose is to prevent the projectile damage to the defender…which it does regardless of what armor set you are wearing.

Do you also realize that if you made utilities not accomplish their goal…just because you aren’t wearing a particular armor set…you would invalidate the majority of utilities in the game for players and make less diversity? I’m sorry, but that idea is not well thought out. I see multiple people keep suggesting something like that and its pretty ridiculous. One person in this thread is even suggesting that utilities only work partially if you aren’t wearing “tank” gear…in an obvious attempt to both validate him wearing said “tank” gear and try to force anyone not wearing “tank” gear into doing so. Its amazing how people can even get their minds wrapped around such a hypocritical concept as trying to force others to play how they want…but at the same time crying a river of tears on the forums not so long ago about the same thing having been expected of them.

reflect is just based on the enemy damage, not player stats.

and no, stats effecting utilities would not make them useless, it would change their effectiveness based on your stat investment, which works just fine in other games, one of which would be Guild wars 1. Notice dps stats already do this, other stats are either heavily throttled, or no effect at all.

If stats serve a purpose, they should actually effect skill use, which is the dominant factor in how this game is played.
If stats dont effect skill use, their effect is negligeble in a game without guaranteed stat checks(unavoidable dmg/effects/condi/skills), and are more trouble than they are worth.

However, notice how in GW1 the different stats were primarily used to buff their respective skills and it wasn’t “optimal” to have trait points on a trait
line without utilizing it.

Only profession specific trait lines affected the characters in some other way other than skills, like increased energy pool for Elementalists, or faster casting for Mesmers. All other trait lines gave absolutely no benefits to the character outside of their skill usage.

yeah, but they had numerous skills with full uptime, which would be most similar to changing your passive stats.
which is why i say it doesnt really matter if it includes passive stats or not, they would just have to design how they are effected by stats accordingly.

Also, gw1 stat system generated much more qualitative choice in playstyle, and build, and stats actually effected your style of play, so yeah, if i was going to have stats, i would make them actually effect how the game is played, at all levels of skill.

Jerus.4350:

So should they remove the passive effect of vit/toughness and make it work purely on activatable skills. Is that what people who currently wear tanky gear would want? Or do they choose to use that gear because it acts as a passive safety net?

It really doesnt matter if it effects passive and active, or just active. In either case skills would have to be tuned accordingly.

as for what people want from their tanky stats, they probably want to be noticeably better at dealing with/responding to enemy attacks.

if the point of stats is just handicap adjustment, i suggest they get rid of that, and add a slider that increases rewards for lowering your handicap.

lol they supposedly stopped selling it because they wouldnt put out something not working as intended with known issues.
and yet they continue to sell it.
oh well good luck

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

… i think that stats should effect active defense, just like stats effect active offense.(also active support and active control) and in similar proportions.
if it doesnt work that way, you will end up having the current problem, where a bunch of stats are comparitively useless, and DPS stats are the only stats that matter, for high level play.
…

You do realize that there is exactly one utility type that is impacted by offensive stats right? That is reflect. That is entirely because one of the two purposes of reflect is to do damage to the attacker. The other purpose is to prevent the projectile damage to the defender…which it does regardless of what armor set you are wearing.

Do you also realize that if you made utilities not accomplish their goal…just because you aren’t wearing a particular armor set…you would invalidate the majority of utilities in the game for players and make less diversity? I’m sorry, but that idea is not well thought out. I see multiple people keep suggesting something like that and its pretty ridiculous. One person in this thread is even suggesting that utilities only work partially if you aren’t wearing “tank” gear…in an obvious attempt to both validate him wearing said “tank” gear and try to force anyone not wearing “tank” gear into doing so. Its amazing how people can even get their minds wrapped around such a hypocritical concept as trying to force others to play how they want…but at the same time crying a river of tears on the forums not so long ago about the same thing having been expected of them.

reflect is just based on the enemy damage, not player stats.

and no, stats effecting utilities would not make them useless, it would change their effectiveness based on your stat investment, which works just fine in other games, one of which would be Guild wars 1. Notice dps stats already do this, other stats are either heavily throttled, or no effect at all.

If stats serve a purpose, they should actually effect skill use, which is the dominant factor in how this game is played.
If stats dont effect skill use, their effect is negligeble in a game without guaranteed stat checks(unavoidable dmg/effects/condi/skills), and are more trouble than they are worth.

serenke.4806:

phys.7689:

serenke.4806:

There are no reliable ways to get cloth? I craft my damask every day (if i cannot be bothered to get the linen then i make the time-gated stuff only and worry about batch crafting damask on the weekend).

For wool, cotton and linen i use karma (buy shoes, MF, salvage, repeat). For silk you can either get champ bags from silverwastes but since i hate digging in the dirt, i usually do dungeons that give you lvl 70+ rare armor. 30 tokens per cloth headpiece, salvage… ecto and silk (sometimes you get gossamer, bleh).

Pretty sure the karma thing works with silk too, just that i never had problems acquiring it elsewhere so never tried to look for the appropriate merchants.

And to Severino, i don’t care if the majority of the population does not think of ways or looks for information how to get the goods they want and instead come complaining about it on the forums but if you do post, then get your facts straight.

you may have missed my question

how much silk can you get per hour of play without buying it?
i suppose you are saying you do it from dungeon run tokens, but that is an extremely small amount of silk per hour.
60 tokens is two pieces of gear; lets say that averages to 4 scraps. if you do a dungeon path in 4 minutes, that would be one scrap a minute, and you would need 300 minutes per day. which is 5 hours.

so whats your method?

While doing a dungeon with a level 80 char, i use roughly 75 salvages per 3 paths. A considerable percentage of that is also cloth based armor. So the token armor piece is just in addition to the drops you get while killing things.

how long does it take you do to do 3 paths that give you 75 salvages. a speed run would probably only give you like 10 -15 items, so i assume you are killing more bosses/enemies/taking longer.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The solution to people’s “silk” problem is simple. There are multiple ways to get it, without buying from the TP.

• Play WvW. You get a lot of loot drops from killing other players. Salvage the light armor drops and Discarded Garments.
• Use Karma to buy high level light armors, MF them, then salvage. Not the most cost-efficient method, but still doable
• PvE farm high level maps. Playing the game normally allows you to get drops that can be salvaged.

Using the methods above, you can get stacks of Silk per hour. Even more so if you have a portable Mystic Forge with you.

no, you do not get stacks per hour doing those things.

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

no, even for unskilled players active defense is far superior.

you can give all of your major stats to toughness, so you take 40% less damage, against an enemy swinging once every 4 seconds, 5 attacks in 20 seconds
or you can give nothing to toughness and dodge, and you take 40% less damage by only taking 3 attacks. if you use vigor? well you can take 80% less damage.

active defense is always superior to passive defense, the advantage to passive defense is when you run out of active defense, or mess up.

And to say it once again, i have no problem with active defense at all, i think that active defense should be the main way in which you deal with enemy attacks. However, IF you want to have a stat system, it should represent a real choice, and real descions. Most stats do not represent actual useful descions. People who dont know this assume they will actually matter, and are shocked to find out they are relatively worthless.

So either, make stats actually be a descion, that effects how you actively play the game, or get rid of the false choices that lead to poor encounter design.
Or keep the status quo, and have people forever complaining about stats that dont matter, and HPbag bosses for average parties, and lack of challenge for elite parties.

See you are closer to use than you think. We know it’s an imperfect system. Defensive gear are there for WvW and Training Wheels only and it bugs a lot of people. We just don’t give a crap about that and wouldn’t mind at all if they removed gear and we all had celestial stats.

But the other way around? Every single person that came forward with an ’’solution’’ to the problem by making other gear better was painfully bad. Trying to artificially give more use to defensive gear. Those idea usually end up forcing player to use some sort of defensive gear because without it you can’t dodge or received so much damage or thing like that. It’s gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity without improving the game and usually by destroying the active gameplay that we love so much.

So none of the three solution are appealing. Status Quo will still continue to see those kind of tread but at least the game will still be about active gameplay. Removing the gear choice will kitten people off, will make WvW weird, and it will be hard to do for Anet. Making defensive gear an optimal choice will destroy the game we love.

phys.7689:

as for the passive offense, no, its not passive, you have to choose an attack, and press the button to gain anything from a DPS stat, that is the opposite of passive. Those stats effect the damage of your skills, defense stats do not effect the defense provided by your skills.

And you have to choose to put yourself in arm ways to gain anything from defensive stats, that’s the opposite of passive??. That’s not an argument.

You need to actively use a skill to use the passive buff provided by offensive stats.

you dont have to choose to put yourself in harms way, enemies will run up to you and hit you.
passive offense is a ranger with a pet

but ok lets not use the words passive

dps stats effect dmg done by the skills you press
def stats do not effect dmg recieved(or anything) due to the skills you press

Thaddeus.4891:

phys.7689:

counterplay requires your opponent to be able to do something to you.

If a fight lasts 20 seconds, and an opponent attacks once every 4 seconds, you can negate everything he can throw at you with 3 dodges and 2 aegis, which you can generate in 20 seconds fairly easily, heck you can even eat an attack or 2 in that time if you have protect.

lets be honest, defensively such a fight is far from deep, or even requiring counterplay.

You are partially right. The emphasis in such fight is usually more about the offensive strategy. You need to stack might fast (hopefully before the boss is ready), you need to give fury, put your banner down, get the boss to 25 stack of vulnerability, etc, etc.

Yes some fight make that super easy. Super fight like in CoF or AC end boss are brain dead whatever you do, they are just so easy. But you also have a lot of interesting fight where trying to burst the boss down will make you in a difficult situation.

Let take some exemple. The Spider Queen in AC need some reflect and a fast Deep Freeze to make the burst. Otherwise the little spider will kill your group or the Queen will immobilize you in her poison. The end boss of HotW path 1 will need you to manage his defiant because you want to deep freeze him back to back. Lupi will be able to do around 10 attacks before you take him down with several of them being one-kill. Archdiviner will last long enough while you need to stay in melee range.

which is fine strategy, but it is not really much counterplay. It definately takes coordination and a sound strategy to burn something in 20 seconds, but counterplay? not so much

spoj.9672:

They passively increase the damage you deal. Just like defensive stats passively decrease the damage you take. Or are you going to pick on that and say because you cant attack passively they arent passive stats?

Offensive stats do nothing to individual skills. They simply increase your base damage. Which happens to be used whenever doing damage. Shocking I know. They do not increase the damage coefficients of skills. Those are constant.

Active defence is only superior for skilled players. For everyone else passive defence is a godsend. And with better content that will be emphasized further. This is an active combat game. One of the best things about it is the ability to completely avoid damage with active defence. If you dont like it thats tough. Accept that this is what anet wanted or go play another game.

no, even for unskilled players active defense is far superior.

you can give all of your major stats to toughness, so you take 40% less damage, against an enemy swinging once every 4 seconds, 5 attacks in 20 seconds
or you can give nothing to toughness and dodge, and you take 40% less damage by only taking 3 attacks. if you use vigor? well you can take 80% less damage.

active defense is always superior to passive defense, the advantage to passive defense is when you run out of active defense, or mess up.

And to say it once again, i have no problem with active defense at all, i think that active defense should be the main way in which you deal with enemy attacks. However, IF you want to have a stat system, it should represent a real choice, and real descions. Most stats do not represent actual useful descions. People who dont know this assume they will actually matter, and are shocked to find out they are relatively worthless.

So either, make stats actually be a descion, that effects how you actively play the game, or get rid of the false choices that lead to poor encounter design.
Or keep the status quo, and have people forever complaining about stats that dont matter, and HPbag bosses for average parties, and lack of challenge for elite parties.

as for the passive offense, no, its not passive, you have to choose an attack, and press the button to gain anything from a DPS stat, that is the opposite of passive. Those stats effect the damage of your skills, defense stats do not effect the defense provided by your skills.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

uhh, actually i think stats has more to do with your DPS than synergy play.
25 stacks of might is 750
fury is 20% crit rate

you get more than 750 from traits and armor/weapon/trinkets
you get more crit rate from taits armor/weapon/trinkets
and you get ferocity from that, which you cant get from synergy

so im pretty sure those stats are more important.

some of those damages are multiplicative, not additive as well, end result is that there is a huge difference in dps between someone with no offense stats, and someone with all offense stats.

and design has to adjust their HP based around that range, and the fight overall, as well as phases (if they have phases)

Which is why I stated “build choice, utilities and group synergy” and not just “group synergy”. There is no denying gear stats make an impact, but the removal of them certainly would not resolve the issue you seem to see, as far as I am concerned that is.

Removing stats from gear would not remove boss design issues, nor would it appease the majority of the people who come on the forums to cry about “zerkers!!!” because instead they would be crying about build disparity.

boss design issues, even with excellent boss design, you would still have, with the current dps spread, some people beating them in 20 seconds. Lets be honest, no amount of interesting boss design, aside from negating your dmg is going to shine in 20 seconds.

and just to make that fight last 20 seconds, the boss needs so much hp, other people will take forever.

Build diversity is changeable on the fly, with minimal investment, gear is not.

yup. to make bosses that are significantly long for meta built parties, they would be so long for no meta that they wouldnt bother. Look how many PHIW’s do arah p4 regularly?
That path doesn’t even have particularly challenging bosses, just a lot of them.

Thats the thing though, a lot of people like the short instances. It caters well for limited time, but we can do a string of them when we have lots of time. Casual gamers catered for.

To say there is no need for counterplay ( or strategy/tactics) because a fight takes 20 seconds is naive and ignorant however.
Noting that much of the current content is sub-80 and so is meant partially as a learning curve. I think the " we need more endgame/level 80 dungeons/higher fractals" is becoming the proverbial dead horse now though.

I don’t see any problem with being able to change builds on the fly with little cost.
Gear is expensive, and this is why people don’t want to be forced into having multiple sets. Inventory slots get expensive too. Still not seeing any problem here.

counterplay requires your opponent to be able to do something to you.

If a fight lasts 20 seconds, and an opponent attacks once every 4 seconds, you can negate everything he can throw at you with 3 dodges and 2 aegis, which you can generate in 20 seconds fairly easily, heck you can even eat an attack or 2 in that time if you have protect.

lets be honest, defensively such a fight is far from deep, or even requiring counterplay.

spoj.9672:

Stats are passive. They only effect passive offence and defence. Making them effect active defence would imbalance the game. You would have to make offensive stats effect offensive buffs to restore balance (more power makes might stronger, precision makes fury stronger etc etc). Which would just make the game overly complex.

Make encounters more challenging and people will see the benefits of passive defensive stats. They are already very balanced in respect to offence. As can be seen in the various no dodge and full nomads videos people have recorded. Its just people naturally prefer to go faster and recieve their rewards faster. So it creates a skewed view that offensive stats are superior. When in fact they arent when you look at it objectively.

dps stats do not increase passive offense, there is no such thing as passive offense in this game (that would be auto attack) Dps stats make offensive skills, that you press, when you want to press them, do more damage. Defense stats do not effect defensive skills, and make them more effective when you press them.

offensive stats are superior, because active defense is more effective than passive defense.
+1400 toughness reduces dmg recieved by like 35-40% HOWEVER this only comes into play after dodges, blinds, aegis, blocks, invulnerables, and positioning, all of which are totally uneffected by stats.
1400 power 700precision and 700 ferocity increase damage by much more than 40% and every direct damage skill will benefit.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

uhh, actually i think stats has more to do with your DPS than synergy play.
25 stacks of might is 750
fury is 20% crit rate

you get more than 750 from traits and armor/weapon/trinkets
you get more crit rate from taits armor/weapon/trinkets
and you get ferocity from that, which you cant get from synergy

so im pretty sure those stats are more important.

some of those damages are multiplicative, not additive as well, end result is that there is a huge difference in dps between someone with no offense stats, and someone with all offense stats.

and design has to adjust their HP based around that range, and the fight overall, as well as phases (if they have phases)

Which is why I stated “build choice, utilities and group synergy” and not just “group synergy”. There is no denying gear stats make an impact, but the removal of them certainly would not resolve the issue you seem to see, as far as I am concerned that is.

Removing stats from gear would not remove boss design issues, nor would it appease the majority of the people who come on the forums to cry about “zerkers!!!” because instead they would be crying about build disparity.

boss design issues, even with excellent boss design, you would still have, with the current dps spread, some people beating them in 20 seconds. Lets be honest, no amount of interesting boss design, aside from negating your dmg is going to shine in 20 seconds.

and just to make that fight last 20 seconds, the boss needs so much hp, other people will take forever.

Build diversity is changeable on the fly, with minimal investment, gear is not.

Fenrir.3609:

You would not overcome any boss design issues by removing stats from gear so long as build choice, utilities and group synergy remains the primary driver of group dps.

Or are we also suggesting removing build choice now as well?

uhh, actually i think stats has more to do with your DPS than synergy play.
25 stacks of might is 750
fury is 20% crit rate

you get more than 750 from traits and armor/weapon/trinkets
you get more crit rate from taits armor/weapon/trinkets
and you get ferocity from that, which you cant get from synergy

so im pretty sure those stats are more important.

some of those damages are multiplicative, not additive as well, end result is that there is a huge difference in dps between someone with no offense stats, and someone with all offense stats.

and design has to adjust their HP based around that range, and the fight overall, as well as phases (if they have phases)

maha.7902:

but if 99% of the people on these forums aren’t even going to be taking part in high end play why does it even matter if DPS stats are the best?

because tons of content suffers from the large range in damage.
Thats one of the reasons, for many players fights are too long and boring, because HP has to consider people who are the upper middle class of DPS (not the ultimate speed runners) who can blow stuff up 4 times faster than average players. at the same time they are probably only taking twice as much risk in doing so.

then on the other, pro difference stat side, you realize that stat choice really doesnt matter much. You dont really have good choices. you are basically going to be almost as good at everything except dps no matter what stats you have. And a ton weaker at dps if you dont choose dps stats.

basically stats as they are currently only cause problems, and add very little.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

passive defense is not a major part of high level play.

Why should it ever be when you have a choice of the two?

One involves you doing nothing, the other requires you to actively manage skills, dodges and utilities in order to survive.

Again, even if you take the view that “ah but, you don’t ever need to dodge because everything is dead before it can hit you!” (which is not the case all the time let’s face it). Then the argument is the same. Passive defense still requires you to do sweet fa, active defense requires the player/group to stack might correctly, unload dps correctly, in the right order and at the right time. i.e. they actually have to do something.

Let’s face it, you can strap on “tanky” gear and run a non glass build and breeze through 99.99999% of the content of this game without breaking a sweat using all the passive facetanking you can take. But people are moaning about the fact that people bothering to run meta builds for the specific content they are doing and buying into active defense are doing said content faster/better then they are? fml That is not aimed at you btw Phys, just the general tone of the thread.

EDIT: It is funny people keep moaning about how op dodges are when going on evidence from in the game itself only about 1% (and that is being generous) of the games playerbase is actually capable of doing it when it matters.

i dont think passive defense should be a major part of high end content.

but i think that stats should effect active defense, just like stats effect active offense.(also active support and active control) and in similar proportions.
if it doesnt work that way, you will end up having the current problem, where a bunch of stats are comparitively useless, and DPS stats are the only stats that matter, for high level play.

at which point I would say having stats is not worth the problems they create with balancing content.