If they change it again then id like to see the modifer change to 10% against crippled foes. So its not axe exclusive. Then they just need to improve and rework axe itself.
2) I fail to see how your statement “The better solution is just to create more varied and challenging content” differs from what i’m saying? I’m providing the challenge through the gear modifiers – and it rewards (not punishes) them IF they can master it. Also you must keep in mind that each bolded term in my post is a single idea. Picking the first and third options is just as valid as picking all 4 options.
Ok ill point it out. What you are doing is creating challenge by making the game more punishing. Basically increasing the frequency of being 1 shot and having no ability to recover. The alternative is by creating more challenging encounters which can become difficult without creating annoying 1 shots and overly punishing encounters which you cant recover from.
Noone enjoys missing one dodge and getting instantly downed. Thats a really poor method of adding challenge. Its the old artificial difficulty that fractal scale 50+ had before they reset and removed them. It sure was challenging but it was also very lazy design and incredibly punishing.
Missing a few dodges does kill them. Have you actually played berserker in arah/fractals when not being carried by a guardian or knowledgeable player? A lot of strategy and skill use goes into surviving because if you dont put knowledge and effort in you faceplant instantly.
Players will always choose the fastest method 9/10. It gets them the most rewards for their time. You cant solve that. You can only make it more difficult for them to succeed.
But your method just unfairly punishes them and unfairly rewards other gear. The better solution is just to create more varied and challenging content.
PS. Before suggesting solutions try looking at it from the perspective of an average berserker player. You are far too biased towards other builds.
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For the gear set modifiers. So why is it that the all berserkers set gets a penalty in addition to a bonus? Berserkers already get squished very quickly if they miss a dodge.
Traited axe for the DS build will no longer be a thing once the spec changes come in. So that one advocated use for axe is going. Never really used axe before. Probably never will again.
To be honest this subtle damage change in DS has always bothered me. Its not obvious to new players but its a pretty important thing to take advantage of. So now everyone will be using staff or greatsword for DS camping builds. Which to be honest is another vein of the same issue.
Id seriously love it if anet normalised the weapon strength while in DS so we dont have to worry about using specific weapons just to maximise a transform.
What I find most surprising was that this many people used and cared about axe in the first place lol.
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.
xD
Id never report you gabbo!
It was the rev zerk thread in HoT. Think we pretty much shut that one down though.
#smallVictories
Far too much. :P
If gear is meant to be nothing more than training wheels for players who aren’t still very good, then Anet should embrace that idea and present it as such.
That would be a very controversial move because not everyone considers gear as such. Some people choose certain gear for roleplay reasons. Or because they value their own personal enjoyment over the rest of their group. Some bad builds are fun (lifesteal necro and water staff healing ele for example).
They should leave it. With more interesting encounters there will be less emphasis on gear requirements. Because the success rate of pugs will probably drop if they continue to use gear they cant survive with. Its a people problem anyway. You wont ever solve that no matter what you do.
Its better to have it as it is now than to change it so people are kicking because of success or failure due to not having the right gear. Currently people only kick for trivial reasons like speed and percieved efficiency/usefulness. Thats a pretty lenient system. But as you can see even with those trivial reasons there is still rampant exclusion and encouragement to gravitate towards the optimum. But thats what people do. They dont need good reasons to make harsh requirements. Its their choice who they play with and how they play.
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Forced diversity breaks the “play how you want” and “everything is viable” philosophy. You are asking for a really controversial thing by asking for forced diversity.
Existing mechanics are neglected currently because encounters are lacking. You dont need to nerf or buff any build related stuff to fix that. The meta can still be fully offensive but require the use of a wider range of mechanics to succeed.
And for new stats that effect active defence. I suppose you could do that. But thats just increasing the number of stat combos for no real benefit. It also over complicates things including balance. I also struggle to see how you would do that with a stat. Active defence isnt limited to something as simple as endurance regen. There are many different types.
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I hear ya Vayne, that’s a valid concern, but:
You should be saying “make everything tradeable” instead of “don’t make dungeons”, because unless you follow that up with “…or pvp modes, or wvw maps, or living story episodes, or special world bosses” you’re a hypocrite who just wants to edge out the part of the game you don’t like so nobody else will have new dungeons either.
still this^
And I’d be saying it, if this is what Anet had been doing but it hasn’t. So I don’t want raids if the reward structure doesn’t change, because I don’t suspect it will change.
If everything was tradeable I’d have a lot less issues. But I think it’s more likely we won’t get instanced raids than Anet will change their loot policies of recent months.
Are you kittening serious?
You are basically admitting that you have no problem with raid content if the rewards are balanced properly. So why are you still saying no and just assuming the rewards are going to be kittened?
Im pretty sure anet is more interested in what would make Raids popular for other players. Rather than simple rejection with no relevant reasons. So why dont you just give them the feedback they want. “I want/am ok with challenging content so long as the rewards are tradeable”. There you go. Is that really so hard to admit?
Making baseless assumptions to justify the rejection of content is beyond selfish and absurd.
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You wont “fix” the meta no matter what you do. The only way to stop people trying to maximising damage is by creating encounters where you heal mobs to death or you remove active defence and go back to a classic trinity. Both of those solutions are rather absurd.
What if active defenses relied more on stats? Have condition and boon duration more prevalent in gear stats, and buff them alongside healing power. Have some active defenses, like reflect, rely on support stats as well.
I know the stat system in GW2 is extremely restricting to do much more than that, thus why I suggested that hard content should have scenarios that demand more defensive plays from some players of the party. “Survive in 3 minutes”, “run from enemies”, “walk through a zone without killing anything”, etc. I believe some creativity in GW2’s content design can still save its stat system.
Thats forced diversity and leads into the problem of certain gear and builds being required to complete difficult content.
You can look at it from two angles. Defensive gear boosts active defence. This means defensive gear is even more overpowered and doesnt make sense (why would you need to dodge more in nomads?). Or offensive gear boosts active defence and the meta doesnt change. However if you go by the first option then you either have to nerf base active defence and force them to build defensive on more difficult stuff (bad idea because it goes against their play how you want and everything is viable philosophy). Or you keep base active defence the same as it is and nothing changes.
So you see. You cant really fix it.
You just need to accept there is always one single optimal way. And in an active defence based combat system its always going to be mostly offensive statwise and defensive utility/traitwise (when needed). Which is pretty good design because it allows everything to work but requires higher skill/knowledge to achieve the best results. We just need better encounters to emphasize that.
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GW1 wasnt really focused on active defence. It was completely different and much closer to a classic trinity game.
Many people will agree with you that the stat system in GW2 doesnt really match the combat system. We should have gotten statless gear. And just had traits, runes and sigils to customize. But its too late now.
The thing with active combat games which use active defence is that everyone deals damage no matter what other role they are doing. Which means the optimal is to always maximise as much damage as possible. But this idea of maximising group damage is the same in trinity games. The only difference is that dedicated healers and tanks dont have the luxury to contribute to damage as much as other roles.
You wont “fix” the meta no matter what you do. The only way to stop people trying to maximising damage is by creating encounters where you heal mobs to death or you remove active defence and go back to a classic trinity. Both of those solutions are rather absurd.
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I would love to have a source of dragonite that doesnt make me want to cut myself (fractals give dragonite please). :P
Its not like you really need to go out of your way to get 15k+ AP. I have just over 17k and most of the people i play with have around the same. I have gone out of my way for some achievements. Mainly the living story stuff because it was temporary and took no time at all (its a waste not to even try it and give it a chance). But the rest is just from playing actively since release and trying out various different bits of content.
Whats really challenging is keeping low AP. Anyone whos played a decent amount on a second account will know this. I always find it really amazing seeing new players with lvl80 characters and less than 1k AP. Because even when you skip so much content and get to lvl 80 you end up with quite a lot. So it makes me wonder what the hell did those new players do to get that far without gaining any AP (they probably got told to lvl in EotM or something stupid).
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Well its pretty simple. Dont go overboard with those types of rewards? Or add them in with alternative methods of aquisition? Or make them tradeable?
Oh look! Problem solved.
The hardest thing about liadri was having enough time to do it with all that queueing.
It can and does Vayne, but on the flip side, it can also strengthen a community.
It is all in the way the community handles it.
It’s when you have conflicting goals that you create a situation where the toxicity arises. That’s why I’ve seen more toxicity in Silverwastes than I have in any dungeon I’ve done. “kitten it south, you all suck!” is a pretty common response when they’re overloaded with people and fail. But… that’s easy content and you still have toxicity.
Instances can allow people to play with only those they want to, that’s a good thing imo.
In many games the best rewards are locked into instances. That means that people who want those rewards have to brave those instances. The people who are “good” at those games, band together and farm those instances. The other people try to get into groups, and that’s where the conflict starts.
Now, if you have say 20% of players who love hard content, 20% of the players will be satisfied with that situation . 80% will be broken into two groups. Those who never do it and those who do it grudgingly even though they don’t enjoy it.
Of the groups who don’t do it, that group will be broken up into two groups, those who don’t care about the rewards and those who are frustrated that they’ll never see them. So you have a potential to kitten off a much larger percentage of the player base than you’re helping.
On top of that, the hard content crowd almost always wants if not better, at least exclusive rewards.
So you end up with some people who are really happy and some who are disenfranchised. I’ll probably do the content and not enjoy it. Enough of that and I’ll stop enjoying the game, which is what happens in every other MMO I’ve played to do.
I do enough stuff for rewards I don’t enjoy, I think why am I playing this game to not enjoy it, and I walk away. Happened with Rift, WoW, Lotro, Aion and others.
This game I like. But if exclusive rewards, too many of them, are locked behind content I’m not enjoying, I can see myself walking away from here too.
One of the things I like about this game is that I can get most rewards doing most things. Not all, but most. I’d sort of hope that would stay the same.
And we have repeatedly said that that isnt an issue with GW2. Ascended is the BiS gear and it will remain so. The only rewards will be skins and monetary rewards. And theres no reason challenging instanced content cant be accessible to other players. They might have a more difficult time completing it. But if they want exclusive skins then thats fair that they have to step up to reach those purely optional rewards. Its no different to being forced to do Triple Trouble for wurm armour or fractals for fractal weapons.
Although i would argue that trying to do Triple Trouble is far less accessible to most players than any instance has ever been. So your accessibility arguement doesnt hold up in the slightest.
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Id rather have no info for a few weeks and all the rev stuff in one go than have it spread over several weeks. Maybe thats just me.
The mallyx elite shapeshifts. So the ventari elite might shapeshift. Thats what i was suggesting. I wasnt suggesting a general shapeshift whenever you equip the ventari legend lol.
Yeah i get that. It just seems really dull and another way to drag things out.
I dont really care for info about the rev. I want to see big meaningful content reveals or the rest of the elite specs. Revenant can be done in one go or not at all to make it a surprise. Im sure im not the only one getting bored and impatient with the reveals we are getting. :P
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Which is what i said. But like i also said before. I feel like thats such a pathetic small amount of info for a reveal.
If it is the ventari legend then why would it show a centaur unless you have the ability to transform into a centaur. :P
Im sorry but my entire point is that because the image shows a centaur it must mean this is a transformation (ventari legend elite?) or its something completely different. I would be very disappointed with that elite though.
I admit now that ive seen that datamined ventari model (which even has the hood). It seems like a good bet. Guess this is going to be a boring couple of weeks of reveals. :P
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Because showing ventari is only one small part of the class. If they are going to reveal base stuff for revenant i would expect all the core stuff at once and a teaser image that actually looks like a revenant (black mist effects etc). Are they going to show off the revenant over 5 weeks? Because i dont see the community being too pleased about such a slow dragged out pace and the lack of other more interesting reveals.
This is also a very clean image of a centaur with thorny vines. It doesnt really seem like the sort of thing to tease a class or spec related reveal.
I thought you were linking gw2 patch notes with sarcasm. Stop confusing me. :P
The revenant assumption seems silly to me. Its a centaur, not a playable race. Theres no revenant style symbol/colouring either. A transform into something like a centaur seems pretty odd. Its no less odd than a druid transforming into a centaur.
Im not saying its impossible. Just seems pretty much equally unlikely as druid (putting dev comments aside).
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Id say the same about revenant. :P
Its lore or something related to lore. Calling it.
Liadri is basically an instance….
Theres no difference to being in the same map but only your party can access an encounter and an actual party instance. Apart from one has the possible issue of lag. Surely the option with less lag issues and freedom to use larger areas and story telling is a better idea.
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@Vayne
If that was the main purpose of the game they would not have developed dungeons and later on fractals. Its an important part of making open world stand out from other MMO’s. And its popular with a large group so its contantly developed. But thats all it is.
Dungeons are clearly listed on that page as well. I really dont see any indication that dynamic events and open world was the main focus. They wanted varied content types to suit multiple different types of players. And that is purely a marketing page.
I assume they still want varied content types to appeal to different groups otherwise they would have completely shut down support of other areas and closed all dungeons. They wouldnt be announcing things like adventures, fractal masteries and “challenging group content” if they werent interested in creating varied content.
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The dynamic events was focused on because it was innovative and good for marketing. Dont try to spin it any other way. They have never said that one particular area is the focus of the game. Thats just your opinion.
Its certainly true they have focused more on open world content over time for various reasons. But that doesnt mean its the main focus of the game. Its just easier and more popular to develop. But it doesnt really have the same longevity as other content.
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It only makes sense as a lore reference. But a lore reference can also be related to challenging content. Id say its most likely to do with pure lore like some kind of deep dive into centaurs (similar to the jungle hylek blog post). But theres a slim chance its something else linked to lore.
Class and spec reveal images have been really obvious and representative of the class/spec they are teasing. This is a centaur with thorns. So the only way thats representative of revenants ventari legend is if we get to transform into a centaur as one of the abilities. But thats highly unlikely to me. Hence i feel revenant is a major grasp at straws.
It was not. It was sold as play how you want. They discussed dynamic events and meaningful choices in dungeons (explorable multi paths and story modes) at length. Both aspects fell short on the promises made.
Yes. It was. They made a big deal out of the world not being stagnant. What you do has an effect blah blah blah. They used the event chain about a dragon destroying a bridge repeatedly to explain event chains.
But that wasnt the only thing they were talking about. They were also talking about similar choices for dungeons. The game was never advertised as fully open world. They were very excited to reveal their take on instanced dungeons and explorable paths. Dont make stuff up to suit your own agenda.
We could just as easily demand they make good on that dungeon choice promise instead before they create more “open world crap”. But i wont because i knows theres merits to having both types. Sadly many people seem to be against a range of content when it involves stuff they dont personally care about.
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Some people are less tolerable than others. They dont want to play with strangers. They want to control who they play with. Open world doesnt let you do that. Which can lead to incredible hostility.
Theres also the issue of open world content being completely trivialised by zerging with sheer numbers. No matter how much you try to split the zerg up there will always be a numbers issue. And it can cause even more negative experiences when the map doesnt split up properly.
You also cant expect a full map to properly split in open world. There are some people that just dont want to be that person to go fill the numbers where they are needed. Which means some groups always have too many and others always have too little.
Map wide splitting and organisation is a massive headache and the challenge comes from organisation not actual individual effort and skill. And because of this it leads to pseudo instancing via overflow hopping with big community teamspeak servers (See Triple Trouble for reference). Which completely negates the point of it being open world in the first place as it no longer becomes all inclusive of every type of player.
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Come on guys. Why in the world would they use Ventari as a teaser for challenging group content? You are grasping at straws.
Because the content involved has a lore background to do with centaurs/ventari? All content of this type has lore. Fractals have lore. Dungeons have lore. Challenging group content will probably have lore…
Id say saying its revenant because of a datamined legend is grasping at straws. Why would they use a single legend as the teaser for a class? Why would they only reveal one legend? And i severely doubt we will transform into a centaur so it seems even less likely that its to do with that.
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The game was originally sold as open world. They made much about dynamic events and made huge promises that never happened. I want them to fulfill that promise before attempting more instanced crap.
It was not. It was sold as play how you want. They discussed dynamic events and meaningful choices in dungeons (explorable multi paths and story modes) at length. Both aspects fell short on the promises made.
I feel like revenant is a very forced conclusion and dont believe its anything to do with it. To me i instantly got the challenging content vibe. But it could equally just be lore or some non class/spec feature.
Thats simply because pugs dont understand why stacking existed. They are copying the old fgs strategies without realising why it was being done. Back when fgs was still a thing you would get pug groups with no eles stacking in fgs spots (logic!). Pugs dont have a clue and they take over a year to catch up to the actual meta.
#friendsdontletfriendsPUG
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Look at fractals for reference. It shows they can do it. And stacking in a corner hasnt been a thing for over a year….
But it should be. Its such a wasted opportunity to have this combat and build system and no challenging instanced content to take advantage of it. :<
Plague being a 20 second stationary effect is a massive nerf to its usefulness; if you want to make Plague worthless its a great way to do it though.
Lets not even suggest adding a self inflicting condition to plague please. Would rather not see another pointless nerf. CPC is already ruined because of that poor aspect of corruption skills.
5s of Slow, technically a corruption, actually does nothing.
That nerfs plagues use as a pseudo stunbreak. For example on lupi using plague for the grub on phase transition. I admit its minor. But i dont see why we need to nerf a skill just to justify its inclusion into a skill type.
Say no to content. /s
Because nicknames are fun gabbo.
And yes, it’s not an issue that they require the right setup to be used optimally. Many utility skills can be useless in the wrong setup. If you’re using conditions, you’re using Staff and Scepter/dagger, both of which have condition transfers. Sure, it’d be nice if DS had a condi transfer too, but it’s not needed to take advantage of it.
But it is mandatory that you slot either staff, dagger offhand, plague signet or consume conditions when using corruption skills. Thats poor design. Its restrictive and limits an entire selection of utilities unfairly. Now if corruptions applied resistance to the necro for the duration of the self inflicted condition then it becomes a whole different story. But as it stands those skills hurt the necro and force you to take something extra to deal with the penalty. Self conditions like weakness are far more damaging than a small health sacrifice.
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But do you not see the problem of being forced to use a cleanse or transfer when using corruption skills? If we had a baseline transfer inside DS it would be different.
I dont think the self inflicted conditons do anything for them. BiP is the only good one for it. But you have to slot/blow a transfer so the rest of the time its just a hindrance. Id rather see the self inflicted conditions go and then give us new utilities in a future elite spec which do the self harm thing properly. The best examples i can think of are blood renewal and blood ritual from gw1. Immediate sacrifice for gradual overall gain. Its a good concept. Corruptions really dont do that at all.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Renewal
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Ritual
Also look at gw1 version of BiP. Its completely different. And so much better.
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Lets not even suggest adding a self inflicting condition to plague please. Would rather not see another pointless nerf. CPC is already ruined because of that poor aspect of corruption skills.