Guild Wars 2

Lilith Ajit.6173:

@Timmy, this is why I think a forum CDI would be extremely beneficial, maybe as CC Danicia running it. Its only relevant to us forumers, but it would be sooo beneficial to actually open up the conversation about moderation. I mentioned this early in the thread, but it might have been ignored because it was in the midst of that infighting that occurred. But nevertheless I think it would be super beneficial to us forumers. As we know, PvF is very important to us.

Absolutely. Or they could put together a quick 30- minute “communicating on forums” training for Arena employees and players alike. :-)

All-

I might be off here – and Chris, please correct me if I’m wrong – but a lot of your complaints aren’t being addressed by Chris because it’s not really his responsibility. It would not surprise me at all if the Community team (which likely handles moderation) isn’t “below” Chris on the org chart.

And even if they do somehow report up to him, I imagine it’s a small part of his job.

While handling forum moderation may be a high priority for you, the CDI, I thought, was a place for us to talk about the long-term direction of the game. That’s an opportunity that gaming communities are rarely afforded, and I find it a bit concerning that the same topics keep coming up over and over and over again.

If we do a CDI on the gem store, that’s an appropriate time to have a discussion about which “bonuses” are okay and which are not. This thread is not an appropriate place.

Furthermore, I’ve seen players on the WvW forums physically threaten devs. I’ve seen players state that specific devs should be fired. NO manager in his right mind would tell his employees that they must engage and respond to a hostile crowd like that.

In my job, if I had somebody tell me that somebody should punch me in the face for a decision I made, I’d walk out. If my boss told me I had to sit around and deal with them, I’d quit. The expectation for game developers shouldn’t be any different.

If you want to get responses, clean up the threads, and maybe devs will return.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing the topics on Friday, Chris!

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

Our Blasts should be able to prioritize our own Combo Field, right?

No, the whole point of having the combo system in the game is for team synergy.

I agree with this, but as somebody who plays a lot of Guardian, I often feel bad that my fields are covering up fields that somebody else may be trying to use, say… an Ele with Lightning Hammer.

It then falls on me to not use any of my skills which lay down a field.

zMajc.4659:

Greeting,

Do do you have any plans to make changes to Dredge fractal to bring it more in line with other fractals? If so, can you give us a rough estimate?

This is why we can’t have nice things.

One of Scarlet’s first attacks, before we knew it was Scarlet, was on Dragon Bash when Theo Ashford was killed. Theo Ashford, an NPC who only had a few lines of dialogue and played almost no role in the story up until that point.

To build compelling stories, you need to first give us time with characters to build a relationship. The “biconics” are an obvious example, but returning characters like XO-Tron and Marcello are also worthy mentions.

Here’s my question: most of these characters are new. Are there reasons why you moved away from characters introduced in the Personal Story? Have you considered bringing back any of those characters? Agent Zrii really blew me away (pun!) and I’d love to see her back, among a handful of others.

videoboy.4162:

timmyf.1490:

Arghore and videoboy-

Please just stop.

Thanks.

Gives Timmy an Adorable Puppy

I’m sorry, Timmy. =/

Aww. <3

Just remember – and I’m guilty of this myself on these very boards – the internet can be a toxic place. It’s easy to be angry and vindictive and snarky. (Oh man, do I love being snarky!)

We all have something invested in the CDI, and for it to be successful, we need to be better.

Most of the ArenaNet developers, even if they lurk on these threads, don’t even bother to post. It seems pretty obvious as to why. I don’t spend much time in the WvW forums, but I hear it’s especially bad over there.

If we can create a safer space here, one where everybody can speak freely without fear of personal attacks, we may start to see more devs come and chime in. The way it is now, though? With all the demands and accusations? They’d be crazy to post.

Arghore and videoboy-

Please just stop.

Thanks.

Valandil-

I’ve had Chris respond to me on a few occasions, but I’ve also had some of my posts go COMPLETELY ignored. Posts that were on-topic and – I thought – really interesting. In one case (my suggestion for specific types of Order Missions), I reposted the idea later and got a variety of responses and positive feedback.

You have to remember that keeping up with the thread is a mammoth task for us in addition to Chris. I can, at best, skim most posts. If I see something interesting, I’ll take a moment to read it further.

(This is why I think we need a better format for discussion.)

If there are any ideas you have for how we might be able to better read and promote ideas from each other, please let us know. I think most of us – regardless of whether we’re the cool kids on the thread or not – have the same end goal: making Guild Wars 2 the best game it can be.

We should be working together toward that goal.

DanteZero.9736:

If confusion were to be the condition version of retaliation but with a percentage of damage per stack, then how will condition damage come into play?

At 0 Condition Damage: 1% Damage Returned
At 250 Condition Damage: 1.25% Damage Returned
500: 1.5%
750: 1.75%

etc.

videoboy.4162:

timmyf.1490:

I’m confused. Who is hijacking this thread? The recent posts have been mostly about structure of the CDI, what content is pertinent, how discussion can best be facilitated, and ways to keep the discussions in-check from sprawling, off-topic, 70-page posts.

Is that not relevant to improving the CDI process moving forward?

The people using this thread to complain about other threads.

I’m going to try to phrase this using some techniques often used in counseling.

When people use the CDI thread to try to attract developer attention to a personal complaint, e.g. the Fractal reset, it upsets me. I feel that it distracts from the discussion we are attempting to have. I feel that it is disrespectful of the time and energy many of us put into the CDI thread. I feel that it comes from a place of entitlement: “Developer! I know you are here! Respond to me!”

Because this CDI Process Evolution thread is about improving the CDI topics to be more useful for both ArenaNet and the community, I believe it is a relevant topic that we should discuss here: how do we try to keep the discussion on-topic, respectful, and manageable?

Thaddeus.4891:

Making the Confusion do DOT just change completely the nature of the condition. I would prefer that the confusion make dmg proportional to the attack the ennemy perform. Right now it a fix amount of dmg per stack.

This is a really good idea. 1 stack at 0 Condition Damage = 1% “reflect” of damage. Like Retaliation, but a Condition version.

I’d just prefer that enemies attack faster (with less powerful hits) as this would also help the game be more than Zerk or Go Home, but this would certainly be a way to make Confusion viable.

I’m confused. Who is hijacking this thread? The recent posts have been mostly about structure of the CDI, what content is pertinent, how discussion can best be facilitated, and ways to keep the discussions in-check from sprawling, off-topic, 70-page posts.

Is that not relevant to improving the CDI process moving forward?

The CDI is not your place to air grievances because you know the devs are reading.

I was never really bothered by it before, but I’ll say that it’s an improvement for sure. Definitely feel more like part of the group and not just a bystander.

Shufflepants.9785:

based on my limited anecdotal evidence, I think ecto rates have been stealth buffed.

:-)

Limited anecdotal evidence is limited and anecdotal.

Chris,

I have a proposal for an alternative structure for CDI that may be helpful. One of the problems that we have with the existing length of the thread is that you have two things mixed together:

1) Suggestions/brainstorming of new ideas
2) Discussion of those ideas

This means that, if there’s a particularly hot topic being discussed, it’s almost impossible for somebody else to come in and offer a new idea.

I’m not sure if we’d be able to self-police well enough to do this, but what do you think about having a few different threads like this:

1) CDI General Discussion thread: most similar to what we have now
2) CDI Proposal Thread: these are proposals suggested by the community for you to read over

From the second thread, you can choose proposals which you think merit further discussion or debate and create a new thread meant to have focused discussion over that particular proposal.

For the last CDI, we might have had threads on Order progression, housing, subclasses, for example.

This would hopefully lead to more focused discussion of proposals and assist in the process of creating a community-accepted final proposal.

I’ve had pretty bad lag on and off since the new year. It’s incredibly disruptive.

Phyxius Animus.7356:

The mentality of a Guild Wars 2 player….

“If someone affects me in any way I don’t like, it’s griefing and they should be banned for it. Unless I do the same thing… then it’s okay and they are whiners.”

Camping an area in a PvP environment (WvW IS a pvp environment as Players fight against Players) for the purpose of killing people (you know… the whole point of the zone) is not griefing. It’s not my style, but some people enjoy that. The Devs know this. If they didn’t want this to happen, they wouldn’t implement it in this way.

I don’t think the point that we’re trying to make is that WvW players are bad evil awful people for camping PvE players.

The point is that ArenaNet keeps trying to push PvE players into WvW in the hopes that it’ll increase the WvW population. Many PvE players avoid WvW because they don’t like it.

It creates a tension. “I want to see what’s up with Scarlet, but I don’t want to PvP. Why do I have to go into WvW and deal with this nonsense just to get the story that I’m interested in?”

The attitude of WvWers (“BAGS BAGS BAGS!!!!”) certainly doesn’t help with this.

mtpelion.4562:

timmyf.1490:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Opposition isn’t the same thing as griefing.

Then we need a new term for people who enjoy killing players who have no interest in player-to-player combat.

Queuing up for WvW is proof that you have interest in player to player combat. If you truly have no interest, you wouldn’t have clicked on the button that takes you there.

…except for if I have interest in what Scarlet is doing, of course.

(Previous example: I have interest in jumping puzzles.)

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Opposition isn’t the same thing as griefing.

Then we need a new term for people who enjoy killing players who have no interest in player-to-player combat.

chronometria.3708:

So I say unto those venturing into the edge of the mists – come armed and come determined enough that when you fall, you get back up and you hunt out the one who felled you so that you can drive him or her from the mists and into the hands of Grenth himself.

The time to ignore us is over – you`re in our world now.

Except for the part where you can’t see anybody’s name, so hunting them out is pretty hard. Oh, and the zergs can make hunting pretty hard. Or other roamers.

I play WvW rarely. It’s not really my thing. I don’t have as much of a hang-up as others, but I’ll say this:

Taking a PvE player who does not enjoy PvP experiences and putting them into a PvP situation where the PvP players want to grief the PvE player as much as possible is a terrible idea.

I think a subforum with multiple proposal topics could make it much easier for people to follow the discussion they care about. It’s a little frustrating, while trying to have a conversation about X, you get a few people (always the same few) who keep posting about Fractal reset and a handful of “I haven’t read any of this but here’s a 3-post 13,000 word dump of my ideas.”

One forum. One post per proposal. Discussion surrounding that proposal.

That also makes the final proposal much easier to create – it can link to and summarize the proposals that were found to be the most popular.

Devs don’t announce new maps on a whiny forum post. You’ll find out when they announce it to the rest of us. On their terms.

Wow.

Failed once in an overflow with dozens of people on SBI’s Teamspeak.

Succeeded once in an overflow where we just came up with a strat on mapchat and followed through.

Coordination helps, but it’s not everything.

(For the record, the successful Overflow strat was about 17-20 who would stay in a lane and then three parties of 5 who would start in lanes 1-3 and then jump. You’d have 17-20 defending and 22-25 in the circle fights. Worked very well.)

Raine.1394:

timmyf.1490:

It’s tough for me. I love this game. I’ve logged 1350 hours and just made my legendary Monday night (Moot!!!!) after a grind-free farm-free process. (I hate grinding. I hate farming. Getting a legendary, then, was quite the process!)

Go to a site that has recipes for legendarys and look for what it takes to create moot. Now, since you are an engineer and can do the math. I’d like you to address the odds of any given players playstyle, use yours, without farming or grinding, result in all the ingredients to produce moot in 1350hrs of play? That’s what would be necessary to create a legendary without grinding or farming. I don’t have to do the math. It’s up there with getting struck by lightning 3 times in one day.

What actually happened is you studied the recipe and played in such a way that you would acquire the necessary ingredients. There is no way on earth that you can craft a legendary without the purposive activity that is called grinding or farming. The idea that you can is not unique to you, but it is wholly false. The legedary grind is a legendary grind. It should be. And, if you crafted a legendary, you did the grind.

Hey man, this is a bit off topic for the thread, but I played a lot of world bosses for rares -> ecto, an activity that I enjoy. I had lots of karma from before the daily nerf. Did my dailies and monthlies for over a year (I started playing August 25th) and bought hundreds of T6 mat bags. I also had about 400g which I used to buy my precursor (163g) and the rest of the mats I needed.

For a couple months, I’d do AC 1 and 3 every day. I didn’t consider that farming or grinding either.

So I suppose, if you’d like to call those things farming or grinding, I farmed/grinded.

Edit: I forgot the important point: there are lots of fun once a day things that really help. My 1350 hours was over something like 450-460 days of play. 1350 hours over 250 days would require a pretty crazy grind.

There are some really terrifying stories about the impressions the train makes on new players. Really scary stuff.

The bosses are hourly, so the wait is more like 30 minutes. Assuming you do both.

It’s entirely possible he hasn’t been in the instance yet.

I’d say this is the best story release BY FAR.

I’m going to agree and disagree. I like the new circles for many of the same reasons. But if your primary concern is letting the animations shine, you’ve got the wrong target.

I can see animations above the red circles. I cannot see animations through the light show of particle effects.

When I’m fighting bosses, I find it nearly impossible to see what the boss is doing. Until they properly clean up the particle effects, the new red circles make it easier to avoid the hits.

munkiman.3068:

Pretty sure it’s a timing thing or at least it seems like one. It could be that the poker style dealer is resetting if too long a time has passed between people entering. I haven’t played it enough to say for sure, but it does seems the last one or two platforms seem to have the least amount of people. I wonder if the dealer style is even counting the cards dealt before it deals out more. If not, there really should be a check in place to see how many are on which platform and spread them out accordingly.

If people are not getting kicked or voluntarily leaving, no platform should have more than 1 player more than any other.

I can’t say for certain that it’s the portal time-out thing that’s causing an issue, but it’s certainly something they could look into. Hard to replicate in test environments, though, unless you have a way to simulate lag.

Josh- I have a theory as to why you might get only 1 player in a circle. One time, going through the portal, I was maybe a bit overzealous in whacking the interact key to take the port. I was ported in, but then a split second later, I was kicked out and given a message that I couldn’t enter because of the energy field sickness debuff.

I believe that, if you interact multiple times with the field before the server responds, the second interact will cause the debuff to be added and kick you out.

I don’t know if this is helpful as a fix suggestion, but if you can, try applying the sickness debuff about 5 seconds after you’ve gotten onto the circle.

Also: thanks for coming here and responding. I really hope you guys solve the overflow issue soon. I’ve been trying to do this event with about 8-10 guildies and have found it basically impossible to get in the event together. We can’t get everybody into an overflow before it fills up half the time!

If you’re on Sanctum of Rall, send me a private message here or in-game and I can provide some details for you to see if you’re a good fit.

I had this happen last night during Marionette, but everything worked except for weapon swap. It was really strange.

I’d totally agree with the source of the problem being the ways that the encounters are designed. My issue is that you (and the OP) seem to be doing this:

1) If you ignore dodge Zerker is balanced
2) If the mechanics weren’t so broken Zerker is balanced

Right now, for PvE, Zerker is by far the best gear for pretty much every class in pretty much every encounter. You could say that the other classes need to be brought up instead of bringing down Zerker.

I think that’s irrelevant.

Zerker is better than everything else.

Fixing that should include changes to the mechanics, changes to the encounters, changes to condition stacks, changes to attack speed of mobs, changes to downscaling. Lots of changes.

I just think it’s ridiculous how strongly people react to a minor rebalancing of gear. Oh, your Hundred Blades is only going to hit for 22k instead of 24k now?

You can call it a nerf. I call it bad balancing from the start that’s finally getting fixed.

Raine.1394:

Your stated gripe was that the rangers were just standing there trading blows. Remember? You said “dodging makes a HUGE difference.” I explained why, if you were interested in the effects of gear, you wouldn’t want them dodging. And, you initially insulted the OP (“Great work.”) for excluding or holding all other variables constant, specifically for excluding dodging, which is what you would do if you were interested in the impact of one variable among them.

I don’t have an engineering degree from a top engineering school. I am not a scientist. In fact, I am a software developer and my degree is not in any scientific field. But, I recognized the scientific method without having to think about it, and you didn’t.

Okay, look, here’s the problem: dodging is an active part of the game. Dodging increases the effective HP of the character. It essentially makes Toughness = infinity during the dodge cycle. It does this equally for both the Zerker and Soldier.

What that means is that, if you added in dodge cycles, during that time the Soldier’s toughness does NOTHING. That would alter the calculations a bit.

Furthermore, the Soldier has very low critical chance. There’s lots of on-crit effects, including boons and conditions, which would also alter this calculation. (Vigor on crit, for example, would allow the Zerker to dodge more and increase their effective HP even more.) Conditions on crit mean extra damage.

I know it’s nice to have numbers to go along with things, but these numbers ignore too much of the game (and make too many other assumptions) to be useful as a statement in every game mode.

I guess I’d say it this way: if Zerker is not overpowered in PvE, why is it considered the best gear BY FAR?

(The short answer: because you’re not really fighting a single other player wearing Soldier’s gear… the bosses have huge HP pools but not really a lot of toughness.)

I apologize for my original snark, it was unnecessary and unproductive. But the point I was trying to make still stands: this math, while potentially useful for certain game modes, tells us nothing about the relative power of Zerk vs Soldiers in PvE.

Raine.1394:

No, please reread my post. You are not missing out on anything. You are excluding all variables except one in order to understand the effects of changing that one variable, here gear. This demonstrates the effects of gear alone. It doesn’t say there are no other factors, it simply seeks to understand the impact of one. This approach will be clear to anyone who has taken any 101 science class. It is an integral part of the scientific method.

Please don’t lecture me on the scientific method. I have an engineering degree from one of the top engineering schools in the United States.

When you are problem-solving, you often have to make assumptions. The problem is that the original post’s assumptions are incorrect. Or rather, they tell us a lot about a very limited case.

Perhaps for WvW this is useful information, but I don’t think this “math” is applicable to PvE encounters in this game.

I’ve seen a lot of different complains about the new events, waiting around for them to begin, etc. I have a humble suggestion for a change that might alleviate a lot of the concerns. This is for Marionette, but you could extend it to Tequatl or Giant Wurm pretty easily.

Similar to Siegerazor in WvW, have each of the five “biconics” (Marjory Kasmeer Rox Braham Taimi) be gathering points for players. The meta-tracker will show the number of players near them along with a minimum. So…

If the event fails, everybody dies… but you can immediately restart it by gathering at the biconics.

This means no more waiting around for hours. Failure still sucks, but you can get up and try again. The count makes it easier to tell how many people are at each lane.

This allows for open world mass-scale content without timers and without instances.

Thoughts?

Raine.1394:

timmyf.1490:

Wait, so you’re saying that a theorycrafted PvP encounter between two Rangers auto-attacking each other with sword and never dodging proves Zerk isn’t OP?

Great work.

A well-known site that provides metrics for a game has a metric called PvP Dummy. The metric essentially assumes that two players stand and trade blows. What this does is to remove skill as a factor and just demonstrate the effects of gear. In other words this assumes two players of equal skill. This is actually a scientific approach. You exclude variables in such a way as to demonstrate the effects of changing one variable—here gear.

Again, dodging makes a HUGE difference. A Zerker dodge might mitigate 3000 damage while a Soldiers dodge might only mitigate 1800. (I don’t have the numbers up in my reply.)

If you ignore dodging, you’re missing out on a core, essential part of the game.

Keep in mind there are two different things here:

1) Maximum camera distance from player. Usually we’d call this the “zoom” though that’s not really the right word.
2) Field of View, the angle of vision captured by the lens of the camera.

More FoV lets you see more of the world without really making your character smaller. More camera distance lets you move your camera up higher so that you, the player, are smaller.

For the boss encounters, you definitely get more camera distance. I think the FoV increases slightly as well (leading to a weird bending effect as the camera moves out and widens its FOV) but I’m not 100% sure on that.

I still think those are the smaller problems with the camera. As you mentioned in the original post, it’s the camera getting caught on things that’s far more frustrating.

Wait, so you’re saying that a theorycrafted PvP encounter between two Rangers auto-attacking each other with sword and never dodging proves Zerk isn’t OP?

Great work.

It’s tough for me. I love this game. I’ve logged 1350 hours and just made my legendary Monday night (Moot!!!!) after a grind-free farm-free process. (I hate grinding. I hate farming. Getting a legendary, then, was quite the process!)

I want to do these events. I want to coordinate and organize and gather people and beat them. I love that concept!

But guess what? Yelling at people on mapchat and hoping they listen to you is not a fun or compelling game mode. No matter how many commanders or how much explaining we do, there will still be people who ignore it. As far as I can tell, this event is pretty unforgiving, especially when dealing with the portal/champ fights.

There were some issues with the Tequatl fight and I hoped that would prompt some re-evaluation, but this fight seems to have all the same issues.

(That said, the execution of this flawed idea was tremendous. The fight is really cool, the design is great, the music is great, etc. So props for that.)

CoRtex.2157:

So you are saying they can let you buy the game and ban you permanently 1 second after your account has been made and be legal? I would call that stealing, the law might find that an act of stealing. It wouldn’t be if it was in the ToS and you accepted it.

This thread has really derailed and should probably be closed, but one last thing: you would spend more money filing a lawsuit (that would be immediately tossed out of court) and acquiring a lawyer than you’d spend buying 10 more copies of the game.

My concern is that there may be people here who see your comments and think, “Oh, yeah, this guy read the ToS and thinks it’s okay! So I’ll try it!”

People: don’t.

Okay, that’s it from me.

Sure, man. Whatever you want to do.

For everybody else: don’t hack your FoV.

I’ll refer you here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros/354869

Specifically, increasing FoV would violate this option: “Does this program allow someone to play faster, better, longer, or more accurately than someone who doesn’t use it?”

By seeing more, you gain an advantage over other players. But, you know, play at your own risk.

CoRtex.2157:

timmyf.1490:

CoRtex.2157:

you could always make a program that increases your FOV distance,, better for the eyes and anet doesn’t have to spend time on fixing the problem Learn, c++ or c# together with some ASM & memory address knowledge (Just following “how to give good feedback” that anet posted) oh you might want to make an address signature scanner so it doesn’t break when the game updates.

Off topic, Anet your “how to give good feedback” says “no-one knows best”, so anet doesn’t either… so how can anet define what’s good feedback? hmmm

Great suggestion on how to violate the Terms of Service and get your account terminated.

How is it a violation? 3rd party software? You could always, inject the game with a dll, then it’s not 3rd party anymore.

ToS state that you cannot modify the game in a way that makes you better, faster, stronger, etc. Anything that gives you an advantage over other players.

Having a wider FoV is certainly an advantage in certain game modes – WvW and sPvP especially.

I haven’t heard of anybody getting banned for hacking FoV, but it’s certainly not worth taking the chance.

CoRtex.2157:

you could always make a program that increases your FOV distance,, better for the eyes and anet doesn’t have to spend time on fixing the problem Learn, c++ or c# together with some ASM & memory address knowledge (Just following “how to give good feedback” that anet posted) oh you might want to make an address signature scanner so it doesn’t break when the game updates.

Off topic, Anet your “how to give good feedback” says “no-one knows best”, so anet doesn’t either… so how can anet define what’s good feedback? hmmm

Great suggestion on how to violate the Terms of Service and get your account terminated.

To piggyback on Kimeekat, I also see this:

“God, Trahearne gets all the credit! I’m the hero! Why don’t I get treated like it!”

“UGH why aren’t there more people attacking the marionette? Where’s Destiny’s Edge? And the Pact? Why don’t they see her as a threat?”

If you fight as a team, it means sharing credit. So you can either 1) have little involvement from iconic/biconic/Order characters and be the hero or 2) you can be part of a team and share credit. You can’t have both.

…so this means I can’t have your gold?

This has been a problem for a long time and is primarily caused because the camera is treated as a physical object. The absolute worst camera experience I can remember was a part of the Not So Secret jumping puzzle.

Near the beginning of the interior area, there’s a spot where you have to jump across some pipes. Before that, though, you run underneath them.

My camera would hit each pipe, push forward toward me to avoid it, and then slide back up higher once it cleared the pipe. Like six times in a row. It made me sick.

The answer to this, of course, is to lower your camera so you have a less top-down view, but that’s much less possible in other areas. If there’s a wall behind you, or some other structure, you just have to deal with it. :-(

1) PvE is so easy you can faceroll the whole thing
2) Zerker is way more powerful than everything else
3) …so make everything else stronger?

Wouldn’t it follow that Zerker should be nerfed? I’m not saying that’s the only change that’s necessary, but it seems like the thing that sticks out is how you can roll Warrior, grab a Greatsword, gear up as a Zerker, and press 2 to demolish everything in your way.