Karolis, you just made me spit coffee on the desk. No, the stupidity isn’t magically restricted to PvP. It’s endemic to the human condition. However, since PvP is the single touchstone for balance in the entire game, it’s the remaining non-PvP population that pays the price every time some noskill dies and starts screaming for nerfs.
Ele damage nerfs, mobility nerfs, the outright destruction of RtL, the strange changes to cantrips – all came from PvP.
Ranger pet damage nerf, with no corresponding damage increase on the ranger. Spirits being changed, and changed, and changed again. The endurance gain nerf. All from PvP.
Warrior going from free-kill to viable in PvP resulted in it going from “easy mode” to “stupidly-easy-afk-mode” in the rest of the game, to the point that every other class is eclipsed by it, due to one skill. The buff was for, surprise, PvP viability.
It comes down to, were you to pull up a comprehensive list of “balance” changes for every class, since the beta events, 99%+ of them would be “because of PvP”. Since, for some reason, Anet really really doesn’t want to split skills – despite the fact that the needs of the different venues are drastically different, it will always be the ones not playing “control-the-node” that suffer.
In PvP, discovering your build has been rendered useless and you have to respec is something that is free to rectify. In WvW/PvE, finding your build is useless and you have to respec can cost hundreds of gold, and weeks of time.
My “ideal” would have been to leave the tutorial at lvl 80, in some seriously fugly gear with stats tied to traits/runes/accessories, not weapons or armour, rather like the PvP gear system, and have the rest of the game’s “VP” be purely finding skills, unlocking traits, and learning your class.
(Skills/traits were handled poorly, IMO. Skills should only be available from NPC’s spread over the world – elite skills being captured from bosses. Traits should be unlocked at the current Skill Point Challenge/Commune spots.)
All gear choices should have been cosmetic. The dev’s could then have focused on bugfixing, making actual content, and improving what we have for wvw/pvp.
Yeah, we probably wouldn’t have retained the people who need grind to feel happy about their game, but we’d have gotten the other end of the spectrum – people who truly want a game where skill trumps gear, and horizontal progression is the norm.
Honestly, revert ALL nerfs, across the board, and balance everything separately. The bulk of the early ele nerfs were more a result of opponents being too stupid to counter, rather than anything OP about the builds. The same can be said for the ranger.
Also, and I cannot stress this enough – keep ALL PvP nerfs as PvP only. Gutting entire classes to satisfy 10% of the game populace is… shortsighted is the most polite term I can use.
OP, this is possibly one of the best posts on the forums, ever.
I still just want a “mapmaking” NPC. One who can take the most complete character’s map, and then make copies of it for your other chars, but only unlocking the WP’s.
I’m the other end of the curve from you, Fluff. As it stands, rangers have one viable damage weapon. It works in a way antithetical to the game’s whole “dodge to avoid damage” approach. Since it’s impossible to actually use the dodge (note, bashing 2 does NOTHING during the leaps, so that’s out – same with bashing 3) it’s what’s driven me away from the ranger – that and the kittening pets.
Were we to get an actually useable 1h weapon (say, dagger) with a decent damage chain that allows us to dodge? Yeah – that’d be great.
I was here that first November. I know how many people stopped playing BEFORE ascended gear and grind were introduced.
The grind hasn’t lower the number of players in this game…it’s increased it.
While I agree with what you’re saying about some level of grind needed in any MMO, I do wonder with your last statement if that is a fact? I mean, we know games go through various stages of influx and people leaving, and also a lot of other things have happened besides just Ascended gear etc in the game since that November. How do we know it is the grind specifically that has added players to the game?
I’d argue he’s dead wrong on that, but that’s just in the group of people I personally know. Quite literally, hundreds of people I was playing with left, and haven’t come back. Some of them went back to GW1, more of them stopped playing any ANet product.
What they achieved was a blatant “kitten you” to the original fanbase – the people who funded gw2. I’m one of two people left who came to GW2 as a group of upwards of 500. That’s over 490 people who quit – the bulk of them (call it 350) the moment “gear grind” was introduced.
What happened wasn’t that we started retaining existing players – we started getting the wowgrindfanboi freaks, and people who bought the game with absolutely no idea about what it was advertised as. Even with that, there’s a huge retention problem – for every active person in my guild, there’s probably been 50 kicked for inactivity.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I’ll throw it here, since it fits.
- make toughness far more important. IE: make damage mitigation important. What we have is encounters where the bulk of the enemies do almost no damage, and bosses operate on 1-shot mechanics.
What we need are encounters where the “trash” mobs deal upwards of 1k damage on cleave attacks, others give retaliation to themselves and their allies, and more are de-buffing the players. Seriously – a change to mob design would change the entire meta. If debuffing mobs, clearing conditions and controlling mob movement became as important as dealing damage to the enemies, well, the “dps dps dps dps 111111” meta would just die.
What’s the point of active dodges, blinds, blocks etc if mobs hit frequently and mitigation (aka passive play) is required?
You’ve just removed a core mechanism of gw2, removed skill play, and promoted passive play.You need to choose, when to dodge, what to dodge and how to dodge, instead of just operating by “big multi-attack incoming, use dodge. After this, another attack comes, pop aegis, so you can keep hitting.” If all there is are one shot abilities, even the dodging core mechanic becomes trivial, because utilmately everyone can do it. You see the attack, you dodge, then you keep on hitting and hitting and hitting, till the next overly exaggerated one shot mechanic is fired at you, where you dodge again.
In pvp, you get hit by small attacks left and right and use your dodges whenever you need a brief second to set up a bigger attack or your enemy throws a big attack. Something like this would work for PvE, too. It would force players to use their brain for once.
That’s what I’m talking about. Add to that enough smaller packets of damage that attrition becomes a concern. Either through mobs dealing more damage in general, (which can be mitigated through either toughness or protection/blind/healing) or being more capable of dropping poison/bleeding.
Generally, I’m talking about making it so that zerker would still do what it does (kills quickly) but make having toughness, vitality, the ability to cleanse and heal areas and debuff foes desirable.
Why would SoR have a cap on conditions cleansed? The similar warrior signet has no cap. If it’s not OP on a warrior, it cannot be OP on us…
Ok, I once did a complete workthrough of all ranger traits, but I can’t be kitten d digging it up to repost here.
Some things that should be looked at – the sheer number of “your pet” or “you and your pet” traits that are outside of beastmastery is far too high. A lot of the traits are for things that should be base function of pets or for things that should come as part of another trait.
- Alpha Training. This should be part of the Opening Strikes skill.
- Malicious Training. Merge with Expertise Training and place in Beastmastery.
- Agility Training. Merge with Speed Training. Or better yet, make it a base function of pets.
- Carnivorous Appetite. Merge with Rending Attacks. Make Rending Attacks/Stability Training/Intimidation Training work across all pets – not divided by type.
- Concentration Training. Merge with Compassion Training, or outright replace Compassion Training.
There’s 5 spots opened across the other trait lines for something useful. Other things that should be done:
- Eagle Eye should be the 15pt minor trait in Marksmanship.
- Quick Draw really belongs in Marksmanship as well
- Martial Mastery would make more sense in Skirmishing.
- all the trap traits would make far more sense in Wilderness Survival. Or, traps need their direct damage increased greatly to be useful to power/crit builds.
- The trap traits themselves are strange. The adept level should be “Traps Recharge 20% faster and cover a greater area” Master level should be “Damage from traps is increased 100%. Conditions inflicted by traps last twice as long.” Grandmaster should be “Traps use ground targetting”.
- Signets. Our signets are just wrong. The base functionality should ALWAYS be for the ranger – if needed, trait to have them affect the pet as well.
- Signet of Renewal should just remove all conditions on activation – not attempt to kill our pet with them.
- Empathic Bond suffers from the same issue as Signet of Renewal. It should be “Pets periodically clean conditions for you.” No more of this sacrificing our “companion”.
I’m sure there’s more, but these all jump to mind as things that I would do, given the power to do so.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I’ll throw it here, since it fits.
- make toughness far more important. IE: make damage mitigation important. What we have is encounters where the bulk of the enemies do almost no damage, and bosses operate on 1-shot mechanics.
What we need are encounters where the “trash” mobs deal upwards of 1k damage on cleave attacks, others give retaliation to themselves and their allies, and more are de-buffing the players. Seriously – a change to mob design would change the entire meta. If debuffing mobs, clearing conditions and controlling mob movement became as important as dealing damage to the enemies, well, the “dps dps dps dps 111111” meta would just die.
The ideal “nerf” to zerker is to change the way/amount that toughness decreases damage, and to give bosses access to serious condition applicaion/removal and damage reflect abilities. (Retaliation comes to mind).
It’s possible to create a meta that requires the different setups, without directly nerfing the zerker setup at all. Just change the content so that DPS DPS DPS DSP 11111111 isn’t the best way to do everything.
Roll a warrior, acquire longbow, profit.
go into WvW with said warrior and get facerolled by longbow ranger.
Do you really believe this? granted a warrior that ONLY has longbow wouldn’t be that great, but yeah I don’t see any ranger build whatsoever standing a chance against warrior with swords and longbow not even a ranger playing perfectly and warrior poorly.
Anyone who’s been playing ranger knows that I speak sooth. Ranger needs a LOT of love before we’re useful for anything but overworld PvE and spirit builds in PvP. Oh, also the condition/regen bunkers for roaming in WvW.
The problems, and Anet is very aware of it, are:
-the pet doesn’t work. Full stop. The lead game designer has said as much. He’s also said they have no plans of fixing it.
-we have 1 useful DPS weapon, and it doesn’t work properly. (1H sword auto-attack chain, I’m looking at you.)
-our utilities aren’t the most useful, and require full 30 point traiting to be functional.
-our damage (weapon skills/traps) is deliberately 30% lower than any other classes, because the pet is bringing up the difference. (see point 1 for why this is a failure).
-ranged combat, the ranger’s supposed specialty, is ineffective by design in melee wars 2.
Yep – unpopular opinion, for sure. I love the “dodge” mechanic. It’s the only part of the game that requires skill. That’s my biggest beef with the PvP in this game – it’s rock, paper, scissors, with only dodge as the equalizer.
My ideal guild wars 2 would have been guild wars 1 with the current graphics and combat mechanics. (that is, mobile combat with dodge and full z axis). What we got was a hack n’ slash, with almost no variety in builds. (pve? go zerker. WvW? zerg in PVT or roam as condition bunker. PvP? Bunker up!)
For those that didn’t play GW1 – the baddies had the same skills as the players, and (especially in the expansions) groups of baddies behaved like groups of players. The PvE in GW2 would be greatly improved by giving all the enemies player skills, with ranged/melee options and access to dodge/endurance. Scaling should be a matter of group size, not a matter of making enemies HP sponges. 1 shot kills are a cheap mechanic as well.
Disagree on the skill requirement in PvP. Agree totally that the AI should be able to dodge. Each enemy should also have ranged/melee combat options, and swap intelligently.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I hate vertical progression. There’s no need for it, other than to satisfy people who cannot have fun without another tier of “achievement” to gain.
IMO gw1 had a far superior approach, wherein all progress was through either cosmetics (skins) or through gaining skills (skill hunting) and learning builds and interaction.
Skill should always trump gear.
I’m sure the metrics show how many people rarely/never go into wvw. I’m equally sure that they view each and every person who spent the time to get 100% of that area as being “into” wvw.
Subdue – that particular quote outright says you are wrong. The best statistical gear, for everyone, without working for it. The fact that you continue to pick individual words from it and quibble about them says far more about you than the people you argue with. At one point, in another thread, you stated point blank that exotic was still “best in slot” when that is categorically untrue.
We get it – you like vertical progression. This game, however, was marketed on the promise of having NO vertical progression. Deal with it.
I side firmly with the “wvw as part of map completion is a big load of bullkitten”. I’m not a competitive sort, FORCING me to compete isn’t going to change my mindset into a CoDtard fanboi.
Actually, I’ll retract part of that – give me something like Magic: The Gathering, and I’m hugely competitive. Or Chess, or Risk. In GW1 I was hugely into PvP, but that’s because of how GW1 worked. The deck-building, skill vs. skill nature of it. GW2 pvp either hold-the-point, yawnfest bunker/condi that is 5v5, or “he-who-has-the-biggest-zerg-wins” of wvw aren’t going to attract me.
Making it something I have to do to get a reward that is 95% based on PvE? That’s just going to raise my blood pressure.
Roll a warrior, acquire longbow, profit.
Thank you for posting this. I agree with this. I would prefer there was no vertical progression in the game. I don’t think that it makes this a better game.
Dude… As far as I know when you play the game you level up a character. And as soon as it’s a level 80 and the vertical progression is over you make another one. So there is not so much difference between you and people that want to progress their characters instead of creating a new one.
There are other ways to progress your characters without vertical progression. There are ways to progress via horizontal progression.
I didn’t say I’m against progression. I’m against gear grind in general.
People played Guild Wars 1 for years, without any stat progression on armor or weapons. What they got instead was new and better skills. And you could level up some skills, so they did more. That to me was far more fun than getting better gear.
I never wanted to be a coat rack for greatness. And if I wanted gear grind, I’d have become a watchmaker.
+1, and then some. Might be the biggest smile the forums have provided me, ever. /salute, sir.
All that shows is that WvW players are too dumb to slot in stability.
Is this a surprise? The biggest reason for the ele nerfs were that “competitive” players were too stupid to pack CC skills.
On topic: A real way to deal with the zerker issue would be to remove defiant from anything but the largest meta-bosses, and give all creatures large and small actual player skills and reasonably thought out builds. Scaling should be through the number of opponents, not through randomly increasing the HP of the sponges.
GW1 did this far better than GW2.
I’m 100% in favor of perma stow. We’ve already been told that they are not going to address the pet issue. Instead of bashing heads against that wall, why not try for something we might actually get?
Other reasonable approach would be to have the pets’ damage reduced to, say, 5% of the total packet, and make them boon/debuff generators instead.
What I worry the most about regarding dueling (aside from the potential to be annoyed) is the fact that the PvE world is coded to recognize everyone as allies. PvP has it’s own areas. So expand on the existing system rather than change key elements and have dueling be the PvP it is. Either have it in the Mists or have a special area for it. What fits in with the lore and core of the game would be to have the Consortium control dueling arenas in Southsun. You want to duel someone the two of you party up, talk to the arena master and get sent into you own little arena. If done like the jubilee it can be a spectator type of sport with people making side bets, etc. You could even add “practice” npcs there to duel if you really wanted to embellish the idea.
But the heart of the PvE world is built around cooperation with everyone. Non-contained dueling goes against that and should be somehow confined to a PvP specific venue.
For all we disagree on other things, i like your thoughts here.
+1 to all 3. also 15 characters.
Seriously, just like the title says. You’ll never balance the ranger as long as 1/3 of the damage is in an uncontrolled packet.
It’s already been admitted by the lead game designer that the pet is broken, and that there’s no intention of fixing it – just do the sensible thing already.
You know, I don’t really care about Ascended Gear one way or the other. I hear lots of complaints about it being uber-expensive. I haven’t spent any money on Ascended Gear. I have a few items from laurels and such. My crafting is moving along steadily, it’s in the upper 400s. It may take me 6 months or a year to craft the Armor, should I decide to do so. Wasn’t that the idea? To introduce something that took some time to achieve? What’s the big rush? Maybe all those in a hurry are Fractal players, I just don’t know. But, if you don’t buy your materials, it’s not very expensive…at least, not for me. =)
The problem is that they put a stat increase on it. Honestly, if they’d left it with exotic stats with the addition of agony resistance then I’d be perfectly happy. I’d feel like I had reached a fully geared position, and I’d be relaxed and playing the game, enjoying myself. Instead I don’t feel fully geared, I’m not relaxed, and as a result I’m not enjoying myself nearly as much as I would be. I feel the constant compulsion to work towards ascended gear so I can be “done” and start really playing the game. This is a problem for me in most MMORPGs, and RPGs in general, but the one game that avoided it and as a result gained my loyalty and love for years was Guild Wars. I just wanted the same thing from its sequel and I’m incredibly disappointed that the developers decided to head in a different direction.
You have politely summed up my feelings, sir. +1.
There should be the option to turn off the skill effects of anyone who isn’t you, and to tone yours down to whatever level you personally desire.
My idea of GW2 dueling:
Make a whole separate server for it. We name the server Ascalon for now.
People who want to duel must Guest to Ascalon to participate.
You may NOT select Ascalon as your home server ever.
You do not spend one of your two daily passes to Guest to Ascalon, it’s free.
Ascalon will never participate in WvW.Ascalon only has basic events such as escort monastery brew or collect wurm eggs.
No Scarlet Invasions. No Group Events. No Bosses such as Tequatl or Shatterer.
There are gathering nodes on Ascalon.
You can be of any level and use PvE gear.
You get downscaled depending on the map. You do not get upscaled.
Confusion and Retaliation use the same formula as WvW.
There is no overflow. If you are in Queensdale and Kessex is full, you queue.
Free Player Killing. Do not complain about being Player Killed while doing events, you are here for that.
Players drop loot when killed. Players gain better loot depending on how many players they killed on a streak, dying resets the streak. Killed Players drop better loot depending on how long they survived.
Every player is your enemy(red names) on all the maps, except for 6 safe zones(major cities and LA).
You see every ally on minimap as a green dot, and every foe as an orange dot(just like in southsun survival), but you only see people on your current map.
If you add someone to your party, they become your ally.
Party limited to 5 members(and walk in a group of 5). This discourages large guild zerging as they are going to be hitting each other if they walk together. This encourages small guild groups of 5 though.
Ascalon is never included in and does not give credit for map completion.
All waypoints are active and have the same cost depending on how far you travel.
You can waypoint to escape if you see enemies, but not if you are in combat.
Repair costs are the same, must be done at Repairs npcs.
No Commander tags.Feel free to add your ideas on top of mine for Ascalon, the Open World Free PK server.
That’s actually reasonable, for how duels should work. Which means the pro-duelist crowd won’t like it, since they can’t gank folks who don’t want to duel.
I really can’t wrap my head around the idea that people are opposed to consensual dueling in the open world. Just click “No.”
Or heck, make it a toggle on the Hero page. “Allow Dueling? Y/N.” That way these folks wouldn’t even be bothered with having to decline duels.
“you scared bro? duel me bro? you scared? I’d kick your kitten , bro!” so you ignore him.
Then his guild starts up with “you scared, bro? duel him bro! don’t hide behind ignore, bro!” And we’d soon discover the upper threshold of the block function.
Vacation, I’d expect. All the truly non-essential jobs seem to stop doing their thing around Christmas.
One you overlooked – reduce base recharge rate to 10 seconds – have it hit a minimum rate of 7 seconds with a 30 point investment.
For me, it makes sense to balance around sPvP because honestly, PVE is easy and no changes to any traits, etc… will change that.
Remember though, PvE players are the ones paying to keep the game online. It’s a simple truth. More than 90% of the gaming population will NEVER set foot into a PvP venue.
Perhaps not regularly kittening off the masses that pay their salaries is something they should consider.
Subdue, we’re never going to agree. That much is obvious. The fact that you’re now insisting that second best is equivalent to best shows that.
The most extreme damage difference would be on zerker gear, wherein the difference is roughly 13% in straight direct damage. Add to that the increased proc on crit (once more per 10 hits) and then the extra damage on crit (79% crit damage with ascended, vs 69% with exotics.) So, not only will the person in ascended gear hit for 13% more all the time, but on a crit, they’re going to hit for 10% extra damage, and they’re going to get a critical hit more often.
It’s not a huge difference, but it’s one that will win fights, everything else being equal. It’s something that becomes extremely notable when running glass cannon builds.
All of that adds to my objection, but at the core, it remains the part that you dismissed with a “yea, yea yea”. Sorry, your dismissal doesn’t make my complaint any less relevant.
Beyond that, they could have spent the dev hours wasted on the time gated, gear treadmill, satisfy-the-game-locusts garbage that outright reversed the premise they sold the game under creating something worthwhile.
Nope – it’s the actual description I bought the game under that has me jerked around. I took part in the conversations with the dev teams, followed the blogs, and provided feedback. Right up until 2 months after the game went live, every comment they had on gear could be summed up as “everybody will be able to have BiS gear when they hit max level”. Gear was going to follow the same guidelines as GW1.
What that means is that the BiS gear I got in 2005 would still be BiS, were I to log in right now. I wouldn’t be behind. I could roll a new character, and be at max level with absolute best gear inside of 20 hours.
This is what we were told gear would be. It’s how it was implemented. They changed that.
I’ve not once denied that there’s nothing in-game that can’t be done in exotics. That’s not the point. The fact that, all other things being equal, the better geared person WILL win in any comparison – that’s a problem. Dungeon runs? Well, the fellow in full ascended will be dealing (assuming zerker gear) about 14% more damage than the guy in exotics – he will die less, and be done faster. In wvw, it won’t make an individual difference, mostly. Across a large group? The side with the most people kitted out with Ascended WILL win.
Hell, people have already started demanded Ascended gear pinging for dungeons. Mind you, to me that’s a sign that I don’t want to play with those people in the first place – but it will become more common.
Those are the reasons that ascended upsets me.
There’s no contest for PvE. Warrior is stupid-easy-mode. For PvP, it’s a bit of a tougher call. WvW zerg warfare it’s warrior/guardian/necro. WvW roaming is thief, no contest. The 5v5 PvP, someone else would have to weigh in on, since I avoid it.
I wonder how much time and effort and gold went into builds that were destroyed because the entire game was “balanced” and “rebalanced” for PvP, or because the hunt for the best build in PvP keeps unbalancing it?
Suppose there’s any bad feelings there?
Many. The nerfing-into-the-ground of the ele, because pvpers were too stupid to pack CC skills, + the destruction of RtL because ONE pvp build had too much going for it has wrecked the entire class for everyone else.
The fact that the (extremely rare) ranger builds that didn’t suck have been broken repeatedly has made the class useless except in pvp as a cond/spirit point holder, or a regen/tank in wvw.
The buffs that warrior got to make it viable in pvp has made it stupid-easy-mode in every other game mode, eclipsing all other classes.
The two biggest balance failures in GW2 are 1) giving everyone more-or-less the same damage potential with drastic differences in health and defense (this is the WORST balance move I’ve seen in any game, ever. 2) the utter failure to split skill nerfs between pvp and the rest of the game.
As it is, everyone who doesn’t PvP (that is, the majority of the playerbase) suffers to keep “balance” in PvP – a game mode based purely on one’s ability to sit in one spot and not die for as long as possible.
Subdue, I see it as failing both groups. The ones who crave treadmills won’t be satisfied with the ascended + infusions. If the treadmill stops, that group is going to leave again. (That’s on the assumption that any came back, which I doubt mightily)
Those of us who HATE vertical progression are still going to be upset over being jerked about.
For me, it’s a lose/lose. The only group who won’t be disenchanted would be those who bought the game with no expectations, and thus had no preconception for what the game would be.
I kinda love that I spend such a truly insane amount of time arguing with you, when 90%+ of the time we agree. Think the biggest difference is that you’re inclined to shrug and accept the bad while enjoying the good – I’m more inclined to inscribe a list of bad things onto a dead fish, and then go beat a dev with it.
I rather wish they’d spend more time on adding new content, so I’d have something more fun to do than rant on the forums. (I’m really not as bitter as some of my posts make me sound.) Other than grind out ascended, run a champ train, or watch my server utterly fail at WvW, I’m at a loss for things to do in-game.
At this point in GW1 timeline, they’d added Sorrow’s Furnace, Factions had come out, and I spent my time 1) running folks to droks, 2) getting characters though factions, and taking part in the FA/JQ warfare, 3) Monking for strangers in Thunderhead, 4) playing with builds. Nostalgia ftw.
Also, good chatting with you, dude! (I don’t say that enough, and I should)
The only changes that would bring me back to my ranger would be (in order of importance)
- optional pet. F1 toggles attack/return, F2 is the “never-activates” special skill F3 would toggle passive/aggressive, F4 would stow pet and add a 30% damage boost to all weapon and trap skills.
- change 1H sword so that the AA chain no longer has the bloody leaps, so that dodging works. (Leave everything about the chain the same, just remove leaps. Change Monarch Leap/Hornet Sting to work inversely to current – leap in, then disengage. Leave skill 3 as is)
- Change SoR to be “Passive: Lose a condition every 10 seconds. Active: Cure all conditions. 45 second recharge.”
- Replace “Alpha Training” with “Eagle Eye” (alpha training should be part of “Opening Strike”) move Quick Draw to Marksmanship. Replace it in Skirmishing with Martial Mastery.
- Fix the trap traits so that traps are useful to more build types. There should be an adept trait that gives 20% recharge and greater area. Master trait should be 100% increased condition duration and damage. Grandmaster should be ground targeted traps. Base damage (not condition, but damage) needs to be higher on traps in general.
That would be my dream patch.
I’d actually really love if they made it so that you could change stats on Ascended gear at a crafting table. That would leave in the gear, while still allowing people to explore other builds without being either 1) stuck in gimpy gear, or 2) obligated to grind incessantly to have BiS again.
Actually, were they to introduce stat swapping on ascended gear, I’d never complain about it again.
Oh, I know they didn’t set out to “screw over our loyal long term fan base.” I’m saying that’s what the result was. In my opinion, they aimed for too much income, fell short, and then screwed the very people who gave them the ability to consider making this game in the first place.
The result, for me, is a game that I almost love, but now am disgusted with each time I log on, because there was this huge potential, and they dropped the ball.
Honestly, taking the exact GW1 world, the skill/attribute system (if not the plethora of skills) and adding making new quests, new stories, the current graphics and combat system?
Yep – I’d love that. Really I would. The gw2 combat system itself is amazing. The world is astoundingly pretty. The TP is a godsend. The skills/traits/gear system? It sucks diseased moose wang. The (snicker, laugh) story? It’s terribad. Really, it’s just bad. Crafting is possibly the worst system I’ve encountered in a game ever. Class balance is so broken it’s laughable.
The original Anet team had gold with GW1. Making improvements for the sequel would have been nice. From where I sit, they’ve torpedoed the franchise.
Vayne, I know you don’t see it as important – to others, myself included, it is though. One of the major reasons I bought this game was that, the times I interacted with the devs regarding gw2, I was one of the people asking about gear progression. Without fail, the response was a variation of “cosmetic only” and “BiS for all, the same as GW1.”
This is no longer true. The fact that there isn’t (yet) anything in game that requires the BiS gear isn’t relevant. The fact that I personally bought the game under false pretenses is extraordinarily relevant.
To be honest, had they implemented ascended in a way that 1) rewarded is consistently for certain quests/achievements, 2) followed the dungeon exotic setup, with a slightly higher requirement (say, 1000 tokens per piece), 3) introduced it without the insane grind required for crafting, I’d likely not ever complain. As it is, I find the acquisition method to be the part that irritates me the most.
(The other reason I bought GW2 would simply be my love of GW1, which stands out for me as one of the best games I’ve ever had the joy of playing – easily equal to the zelda or elder scrolls franchises. That’s actually part of why I’m as vocal as I am about ascended and some of the other issues – they’ve taken what, for me, was a truly amazing thing, and kitten all over it.)
Edgar, the “placed in an instanced area” is, to me, the ideal form of dueling, were it to exist. You’ll find that most of the people asking for dueling are against that though.
The only reason for it to not be instanced would be for duelists to feel good for ganking newbs, that is, either trolling or showing off. Neither one is a behaviour I’d wish to encourage in the community.
Volkon, I suppose in fairness I should point out it’s not the manifesto so much as all the other interviews/blogs/in game chats/streams.
Ones wherein we were told that ALL players, including casuals, would be able to get BiS gear AT level 80. Ones where they extolled how wonderful having progression exist as pure cosmetic upgrades and personal skill gain would be.
I know that the quote about BiS gear has been presented repeatedly in this thread. Others about the amazing branching storyline (the one that actually reduces in complexity with each step) and the sense of being a great hero (or enabling the salad man to steal our thunder).
I am, frankly, too tired and lazy to dig up the clippings for the, oh, hundredth time. They’ve been quoted, over and over again, in all the threads about the manifesto and the game direction and how grind is bad. Grind isn’t bad, per se – but we were promised NO STAT GRIND. This is a HUGE part of why many people have bought the game.
Let’s face it, the ground has been covered before. People that share my viewpoint will most likely never purchase another Anet product, and I know that I, at the very least, will never believe what the dev’s say again.
Hell, I wouldn’t have posted here, except that I’m amazed that this particular conversation keeps happening. Perhaps it’s time that Anet makes a new advertisement, and tells the truth this time around.
“Amazing visuals? We’ve got them – the most gorgeous world in an MMO that exists to date. We’ll never give you a reason to visit it though.
Amazing, fluid combat? We’ve made a system for it, but we’ve introduced mechanics that make it entirely null.
Intense multiplayer combat? We’ve got that, but have made it in a way that rewards mindless zergball play, with no strategy beyond “press attack repeatedly”
Small scale skilled combat? We’ll have a venue for it, but only one game mode, and it will only have one real strategy to it.
We’ll have a gear system that will only reward people who grind incessantly, and even then, we’re going to time gate it and make it hideously expensive.
Specs to make you unique? How dare you wish to be different – between the 3 game modes, there are only 3 truly useful specs – anything else may work, but it will certainly not work well.
We’ve created something with amazing potential, and would far rather grub after gem sales than take any action to realise that potential"
Set the above to some epic music, with visuals that don’t actually appear anywhere in the game, and voila, we’ve got an advertisement.
Agree with both of you (and am curious if Vayne has been taking drugs). Pure horizontal progression – skins, skills and build options – would have been a far better way for them to go.
To shorten this (ha, 10 pages, shorten, right) ANet lied. They took actions which went counter to what they had spent 5+ years advertising their upcoming game to be.
The other option, which some have put forward, is that they ALWAYS intended to make the changes they have – in that case, they’re guilty of years of false advertising.
Take your pick – either way, one cannot trust what the Devs are saying.
The bulk of the complaining about ascended has less to do with the actual stat increase (which does matter if you’re into WvW or min/maxing) but to do with the fact that Anet spend 5 years pimping their game as being one without gear progression or grind for gear.
I’m too lazy to look for the quote, but in essence, it was that everyone, including casuals would have the BiS gear at level 80. Further gear progression would be purely cosmetic.
Ascended is a blatant “kitten you” to every person who bought the game with that ideal in mind.