Didnt really fully enjoy the game until i started trying dungeons with guild members. Its not just about the content. Its the enclosed environment of a small group of friends in a social gametype. Theres nothing social about being in a 100 man zerg.
Then fractals introduced some really good content to add to the social small group experience. Shame the rewards make it hard to justify playing if you actually want to work towards cosmetic stuff. And a shame they havent actually added much to them.
Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?
Lets just ignore the severely and unrealistically skewed in favour of open world example you gave.
Id say a more accurate guess would be 10% sPvP, 25% WvW, 15% instanced PvE and 50% open world. Even thats kind of generous.
Reread my post again, I specifically stated my hypothetical game is PvE only, there is no sPvP or WvW, therefore my percentages are more accurate than you would care to believe(they are also based somewhat on reality, from a old post about WoW’s community breakdown). Also, from a purely business perspective, anyone that is of sound mind would concentrate on the 90% market and dismiss the 10%, let the smaller percentage go elsewhere and don’t waste resources on them.
You also said a million active players. Are you seriously suggesting to completely ignore 100,000 customers? The best option is always to appeal to both communities unless one is a very very small minority. But no matter the percentage difference. The instanced content community is not small enough to be totally ignored. Regardless of what bullkitten numbers you pull from totally different games.
Also as someone mentioned in an earlier post. Those numbers from WoW were inaccurate and only represent the very beginning of the game before they made raids appeal to a wider audience.
Axe 2 is flat out bad, objectively, compared to every other similar skill. Ghastly Claws takes 2.25 seconds to deliver 2.88 coefficients of damage, with the utility of 12% LF. Whirling Wrath does the same damage on up to 5 targets, while also being a whirl finisher Volley deals more damage at double the range and while being a projectile finisher Rapid Fire deals significantly more damage, almost a full 1.0 coefficient more, at again double the range, while stacking vuln, and being a projectile finisher Blurred Frenzy while being the only one to deal less damage, it gives Blur for the full effect Hundred Blades good ol’ 100b of course roots you for the effect, while dealing almost double the damage of Ghastly Claws cleaving.
Every similar ability except for Blurred Frenzy deals more damage, most of them at similar or higher ranges, with better utility. And these aren’t necessarily on weapons that are considered good either, a lot of these weapons have problems of their own, and are still stronger than Axe. Ghastly Claws is absolutely in need of help, it just flat out doesn’t do enough.
To add to this. Whirling Wrath does significantly more damage because it has bonus projectiles which add to the damage. Blurred Frenzy is a really strong way to keep dealing damage when you need to dodge, resulting in no DPS loss from stopping the auto attack (its actually a slight increase). So yeah all those examples are significantly better than ghastly claws.
Except there obviously is demand because they are adding “challenging group content”. Whatever that might be. And like i said a 10% group is pretty big. If you divide all the groups up the hardcore community doesnt look so small. You guys are are saying we are ignoring the business side. Thats not really true. If anything you are ignoring some of the most important parts of the business side.
There are other aspects you are completely overlooking. Like who creates the most fan made content and advertises the game through that? Is it the casual players? Nope. Its the big reviewers and the hardcore community that uploads videos of their organised dungeons/raids/achievements. The hardcore community is very vocal. Thats actually a good thing. It means they often have influence and the ability to advertise the game to a wide range.
The casual players that say nothing and dont produce any content certainly dont bring any extra sales in except for maybe the odd friend or two. On the other hand content creators have the potential to bring in hundreds of new players or even encourage current players to try different parts of the game that they previously overlooked.
Also big influencers like MattVisual and WoodenPotatoes arent really part of the hardcore community but they have stated they want things like raids and more instanced content. And they had a surprisingly large amount of support for those comments. There is demand and there are a lot more people who want this stuff than you think.
Yeah i want the rules to state dungeon completion credit is required. Because these dont really prove anything other than you can goat to the end boss. If and when the rules change it means we need to delete the arah p2 record as well.
Right it’s based on what I don’t like. Obviously no other group of people could possibly have the same likes or dislikes as me. or the same interests. Obviously I’m not in a guild was a couple of hundred people, many of whom I speak to each week. Obviously I have no power of observation and can’t draw conclusions from what I’ve seen and heard.
Yes, there are people out there frustrated by the fact that they have to do specific content that they don’t like to get rewards they really want. I know this because some of them have actually posted threads about it. They’re usually shot down pretty fast, but stuff has been posted.
And more than that I’ve seen people talking in map chat about stuff, heard people in guild talk about stuff like that, and yes, some people are frustrated. Now that’s not to say they’re leaving, or threatening to leave, but you know, I don’t have to see someone get hit by a car to know that if cars are driving too fast, it’s likely going to happen at some point.
The direction of the game, reward-wise is moving in a way that some people are definitely asking for and some people are definitely disenfranchised by. Not just me.
Now if you have evidence that no one else feels like this, or about numbers, I’d sure be glad to listen. I don’t know how big my group is. What I do believe is the people who want challenging content tend to be a fringe group.
This is a funny thing to bring up. Ive seen the exact same evidence of a huge amount of players wanting new dungeons, new instanced content and greater challenge and even in some cases exclusive rewards to that content. Your side is no less a fringe group than the other groups despite what you may think. You always see less of the groups you arent part of and more of the groups you are part of.
Except that it’s not as likely a fringe group. Devs have been saying across many games for many years all sorts of variations on casuals are the most numerous players of any game but hard core are the most vocal.
You don’t have to believe it, but it doesn’t change what’s been said. The most recent example I can think of is from a lotro dev who said less than 10% of the population of the game raided since launch, but they account for 50% of forum posts.
Yeah but id be willing to bet the group that wants more instanced content is larger than the group that doesnt want exclusive rewards anywhere. Id agree the open world fanbase is larger than the hardcore community. But then you have to consider how many different groups there are in GW2. 10% is a pretty huge group when you consider sPvP, WvW, roleplayers, open worlders and do it all players.
Open world players can be further divided up and you can never appease all of them at the same time. I have seen very casual open world players saying they want to see more instanced content and raids. So yeah… I think appealing to a pretty tight shipped large group like the hardcore community is actually quite a safe investment. Because the other groups seem to have members that would like to dabble in that content as well.
There is high demand for instanced content whether you like it or not. Believe what you want but the numbers ive seen are far from small. And its very difficult to consider it a minority from my observations. If it is a minority, its not a very small one. An example of a very small minority would be speedrunners. But thats only a minority subsection of the dungeon/fractal community.
And that isn’t even a change of playstyle. In both examples you’re melee dps because you equipped a melee weapon that has no function other than DPS and blocks.
You do realize though that impale in itself has 900 range and is a projectile finisher?
You do realise warrior does not have a one handed ranged weapon. So regardless of whether sword offhand has one ranged skill or not, you are using a melee set.
Yeah except ventari legend forces you into a full set of other skills you probably dont want. Honestly now that we have seen more and more rev. Im not really considering the class anything special. Its got a lot of cool stuff and some nice utility. But it seems like its going to be a weak jack of all trades class. Kind of like engi/ele but with a wider range of options and more durable/defensive feel closer to guardian.
Nothing that you’ve just said has any bearing on the fact that the toxic behavior that players express over gear types is completely unfounded if the gear is not the actual problem. If people were willing to stop being such kittens to each other, maybe there wouldn’t be such an issue with how other people choose to play the game.
Your challenge has no meaning to me, by the way. You need to look at and understand what I actually said before I’ll even bother imagining any sort of witch hunt you choose to throw at me.
Thats because it is unfounded in most cases.
People just use those requirements as a filter. Because if you dont filter you might get the worst of the worst in your group. People are reward driven. And no one enjoys having a disastrous experience with complete strangers.
If content was harder and wasnt 3 years old we wouldnt see such strict filters and requirements. Most people have done the content so much that they wont tolerate even a very small difference. So yes in the grand scheme of things the toxic behaviour is completely unfounded. But people have developed higher standards due to the stale content and meta.
Is it really so hard to believe that its a people problem and not a gear problem? Its not really surprising to me given the state of society in general.
Gear is just an optional supplement. If you want to use those extra supplements for your support builds you are free to do so. But dont expect the meta to go backwards when we can compensate for lack of healing power/boon duration through other means.
That link doesnt show that nightmare court is better than scarlet armies. It simply shows the species of the mobs in TA. Scarlet army slaying works on nightmare court so it should be equal.
Ive not seen any proof of them not working on specific nightmare court mobs.
The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.
The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.
Obviously there will always be some sort of meta, but the current problem we face with GW2 is that the efficiency gap between zerker builds and less damage-oriented builds is enormous. It’s rather evident that there’s a balancing fault when having 1 person bringing defensive gear to a zerker party actually makes a run take longer to complete and makes it more difficult at the same time. If anything, it should be a purely linear tradeoff.
This is completely false. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and a pug group that has a mismatch of builds and doesnt utilise all tools at their disposal is enormous. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and the same group using defensive gear but all the same buffs and strategies is very small.
We have proof of this. My guild did a no dodge fully defensive arah p2 a year back and we were deliberately very slow. Yes the entire run still only took 30 minutes. Which was faster than most pugs at the time. And we were certainly using worse builds for the run. We werent even stacking might and we werent using any remotely valid strategies yet we were faster than a pug.
Its the players that make the difference. The builds and gear are completely overshadowed by proper strategies and group buffing.
Obviously in-depth knowledge of the dungeon layout and structure of each encounter provides an advantage, but your example doesn’t really provide a counterpoint to what I said about using “easier” gear actually making things more difficult for a group that is primarily centered around DPS-oriented builds.
In a way, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot with this argument, because saying that strategy and expertise triumphs over builds and gear just makes the elitist mentality that many carry behind the zerker meta all the more unjustified. Which one is it?
Yeah i admit that was a poor example. However I can expand on that example. That was basically the worst possible composition and builds yet it wasnt that bad for time. If we had actually used proper strategies and stacked buffs with those terrible builds we would have saved 15 minutes easily.
The gap between berserker and other builds is not enormous. Its trivial. Its all the other factors that make the gap.
If that’s the case, then I still don’t get why people make such a big deal about zerker/meta setups. If the build and gear aren’t that great of a factor, then why are so many people so snobbish about it? Most pug groups don’t go trying to shatter time records, so how come people emphasize having zerker gear/meta build groups, over simply asking for people with adequate dungeon knowledge? The two aren’t necessarily directly related to each other.
Because to go back to a beloved theme (not really beloved), the zerk meta problem is people not gameplay.
Never thought id be quoting and agreeing with Windsagio.
But yes this is basically what the problem is. Pugs are ignorant. You can try your best to fix ignorance and intolerance. But you probably wont get far in the grand scheme of things.
The QoL fix is worth it because there are certain steal items you do not want to use. There is a rifle which launched you back when you use it. It basically CC’s yourself. But you have to use it to steal again. This solves that issue.
The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.
The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.
Obviously there will always be some sort of meta, but the current problem we face with GW2 is that the efficiency gap between zerker builds and less damage-oriented builds is enormous. It’s rather evident that there’s a balancing fault when having 1 person bringing defensive gear to a zerker party actually makes a run take longer to complete and makes it more difficult at the same time. If anything, it should be a purely linear tradeoff.
This is completely false. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and a pug group that has a mismatch of builds and doesnt utilise all tools at their disposal is enormous. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and the same group using defensive gear but all the same buffs and strategies is very small.
We have proof of this. My guild did a no dodge fully defensive arah p2 a year back and we were deliberately very slow. Yes the entire run still only took 30 minutes. Which was faster than most pugs at the time. And we were certainly using worse builds for the run. We werent even stacking might and we werent using any remotely valid strategies yet we were faster than a pug.
Its the players that make the difference. The builds and gear are completely overshadowed by proper strategies and group buffing.
Obviously in-depth knowledge of the dungeon layout and structure of each encounter provides an advantage, but your example doesn’t really provide a counterpoint to what I said about using “easier” gear actually making things more difficult for a group that is primarily centered around DPS-oriented builds.
In a way, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot with this argument, because saying that strategy and expertise triumphs over builds and gear just makes the elitist mentality that many carry behind the zerker meta all the more unjustified. Which one is it?
Yeah i admit that was a poor example. However I can expand on that example. That was basically the worst possible composition and builds yet it wasnt that bad for time. If we had actually used proper strategies and stacked buffs with those terrible builds we would have saved 15 minutes easily.
The gap between berserker and other builds is not enormous. Its trivial. Its all the other factors that make the gap.
Why would life transfer make you feel like you are cheating? Its pretty terrible damage it just feels satisfying because its AOE it feels like it does good damage.
The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.
The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.
Obviously there will always be some sort of meta, but the current problem we face with GW2 is that the efficiency gap between zerker builds and less damage-oriented builds is enormous. It’s rather evident that there’s a balancing fault when having 1 person bringing defensive gear to a zerker party actually makes a run take longer to complete and makes it more difficult at the same time. If anything, it should be a purely linear tradeoff.
This is completely false. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and a pug group that has a mismatch of builds and doesnt utilise all tools at their disposal is enormous. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and the same group using defensive gear but all the same buffs and strategies is very small.
We have proof of this. My guild did a no dodge fully defensive arah p2 a year back and we were deliberately very slow. Yes the entire run still only took 30 minutes. Which was faster than most pugs at the time. And we were certainly using worse builds for the run. We werent even stacking might and we werent using any remotely valid strategies yet we were faster than a pug.
Its the players that make the difference. The builds and gear are completely overshadowed by proper strategies and group buffing.
Oh no dont get me wrong i think PS is fine as it is. I was just saying its very strong and somewhat devalues might stacking in fire fields. Which requires a bit more group investment.
Might stacking itself is only over the top strong in the case of PS + forceful greatsword combo. But that build has tradeoffs to get that. So the OP’s statement of might stacking in general being too strong is mostly false.
It wont be the new zones you are missing. It will probably be some private instance POI’s. New hearts and waypoints in old zones and chantry of secrets.
The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.
The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.
I like a certain amount of planning over pure twitch. It’s a spectrum. There are more skills in the worlds of gaming than just reflexes and reading an attack telegraph animation.
Planning like choice of utilities, weapons and traits? Yes please. Forcing me to carry multiple sets of gear? No thanks.
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