Curse

athariel · Feb 17, 2010, 05:21 PM // 17:21

The problem lies in ANet's way of balancing things. They try to solve the reason rather than the actual problem. Instead of fixing shadowform (nerfing it back to unmaintainable, making it limited to green farming), they try to work it around by improving UW. Now this has two outcomes:

1) speedclear groups adapted to the new situation and it only delayed them
2) balanced groups ceased to exist (have fun doing Pits/Wastes without permasins)
3) SF was around for so long, most people made an assassin and they start to see nothing wrong with it because ecto flows into their characters

What ANet could have done was nerfing shadowform instantly, THEN working out how to balance it.

600/Smite isn't even that big of a problem. Yes, it's overpowered, but at least you can't run past all enemies just to kill the bosses. Also, 600/Smite allows mesmers, elementalists and ritualists to participate rather than assassin only. Permasin groups are either all assassins or assassins + 1-2 support characters.

Everyone crying about Obsidian Flesh being new perma. Have you tried it? It doesn't make you invulnerable to attacks, it doesn't prevent interrupts, it doesn't prevent conditions, it has to be recast more often and slows your character 50% (imagine being crippled all the time).

Oh yeah, and my main is ele, I don't care about voltaic spears or whatever items you're farming, only money I need is for money titles.

Axeman002 · Feb 17, 2010, 05:45 PM // 17:45

u purest still moaning about speedclears?!?!? i been away ages and nothings changed lol..anyway anets new UW implements did alot...it gave people a chance to overcome new obstacles it brought more of a challenge...be it balanced or speed clear. Unless of course u want speed clears to be hard and Balanced/8 random builds to be easy?....either way the update was good as it lost 90% of pugs. And made weak players acctually learn how to play a character efficient.

Bad thing about update.....QQ'rs who find it 'to hard' never shut up, hoping it gets anet to kill the runs people who run fast and efficient builds enjoy.

athariel · Feb 17, 2010, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axeman002

u purest still moaning about speedclears?!?!? i been away ages and nothings changed lol..anyway anets new UW implements did alot...it gave people a chance to overcome new obstacles it brought more of a challenge...be it balanced or speed clear. Unless of course u want speed clears to be hard and Balanced/8 random builds to be easy?....either way the update was good as it lost 90% of pugs. And made weak players acctually learn how to play a character efficient.

Bad thing about update.....QQ'rs who find it 'to hard' never shut up, hoping it gets anet to kill the runs people who run fast and efficient builds enjoy.

Quote:

Profession: A/Mo

no comment.......

vader · Feb 17, 2010, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by coil

crying about how people choose to play the game, if thats what this post is about, is silly.

I'm not "crying about how people choose to play the game". I know players will adapt to whatever changes Anet makes. The question is why does Anet "fix" things when that fix makes areas more off-limits to most players and just increases the rewards for the people that were already playing them. 7 minute speed clear. 23 minute speed clear. It doesn't matter that they increased the time of the speed clear. Being able to finish an "elite" area in such a short time with the potential for a huge reward is a broken game mechanic. It takes longer than that to vanquish most areas of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axeman002

easy?....either way the update was good as it lost 90% of pugs.

How exactly is this a good thing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axeman002

And made weak players acctually learn how to play a character efficient.

Why are you assuming all PUG players are weak players?

ACWhammy · Feb 17, 2010, 07:22 PM // 19:22

While we're on the topic...

I've been attempting UW for the past 2 weeks with balanced groups (no permas) and have been unable to complete the Servants of Grenth quest because either Frozenwind or the Reaper will die. (I've complete it once but then lost on the Four Horseman quest.)

We have no problem staying alive and killing things or doing any other quests. But those quests seems almost impossible.

Every time I enlist a self-proclaimed UW pro, we fail even faster.

I've read wiki as well as the unofficial wiki as well as a guide to UW posted on Guru (I believe it was pre-update)

Can anyone tell me the most efficient way to finish these quests and will I need a perma.

Thanks

AC

Betrayer of Wind · Feb 17, 2010, 08:06 PM // 20:06

For Servants,you need to kill fast or u'll get overwhelmed.

You dont need a perma or any other retarded gimmicks to beat the other quests.

Trinity Fire Angel · Feb 17, 2010, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

This link should be put on the Official Wiki under the Game Updates: February 2010 page.

that;s some awesome reading.

Dont Nerf The Perma · Feb 17, 2010, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

I am unfortunately going to have to agree that the changes hurt the non-sc groups more than the sc one's. UW is definately more attractive to sc than get a balanced group for in terms of time. Pre-nerf sc

resent sc 7:23=16min difference...vs...balanced pre

resent (roughly) 45:1hr 40=55min increase. These numbers aren't accurate...just thrown out there for point's sake.

^this right here

Only the real hard-core farmers in UWSC guilds actually farmed UW to the point it was abusive, PuG groups usually didn't get a whole lot because PuG failed 75% of the time and lost money from having to pay for cons and BUs. Now the hard-core farmers are just running Dayway. If anything all the update did was prevent most of the PuGs from doing UWSC and making it harder and longer to do UW with a balanced team of PuGs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axeman002

u purest still moaning about speedclears?!?!? i been away ages and nothings changed lol..anyway anets new UW implements did alot...it gave people a chance to overcome new obstacles it brought more of a challenge...be it balanced or speed clear. Unless of course u want speed clears to be hard and Balanced/8 random builds to be easy?....either way the update was good as it lost 90% of pugs. And made weak players acctually learn how to play a character efficient.

Bad thing about update.....QQ'rs who find it 'to hard' never shut up, hoping it gets anet to kill the runs people who run fast and efficient builds enjoy.

Yeah, you will end up with a group of 7 experienced players that know what they are doing and then the 8th is a noob that brings the rest of the team down. Its frustrating when I'm perma tanking in a group at 4H and then the other perma tank forgets to renew SF before it expires and dies failing the team after an hour and a half of work. Or in wastes when I'm in a group that lets a mob slip past and kill the ice king after another few hours of work. And then you will end up with the idiot that constantly takes the quests as soon as a reaper pops. I wish you could PuG for this, I only get to do 1 run a week with my guild mates, while a dayway PuG can do like 6 runs in 3 hours.

EragonSorceror · Feb 17, 2010, 08:28 PM // 20:28

There was a huge change for speedclears. PUGs can no longer successfully do them. Before PUGs could speedclear UW in one conset, now they can't do it at all. The new speedclear is relegated to dedicated guilds and the general populace can no longer just hop into a pug and pop the chest in twenty minutes. In fact, even experienced speed clear guilds can not do it in twenty minutes anymore. I think that is pretty big. Besides, if the new update really did nothing to speedclears, then why did ectos almost double in price? It's not because the nerf decreased "balanced" groups, I can tell you that. If you think that balanced groups earned a significant amount of ectos (enough to affect the ecto price) pre-nerf, then you obviously never stepped into ToA during that time. You could sit there for hours spamming "monk lfg for uw" and maybe get a couple of level 17s or a mesmer to join you. Everybody else would have hopped onto their sin and cleared UW 10-20 times while you were trying to explain what UW was to unenlightened pugs.

Kaleban · Feb 17, 2010, 08:53 PM // 20:53

The problem with ANet's "fixit" policy and methods is that whenever they try to do something to balance the game, they just drive a bigger wedge between the haves and have-nots.

A player dedicated to doing an area as fast as possible will always find the most efficient means of doing so, and groups of these players basically determine the economy because they control all high end content. Think of it like a collective bargaining concern for ecto prices.

Your "average Joe" players don't have nearly the same dedication, whether due to r/l issues or otherwise, and hence make due with less effective builds, skills, PUGs etc.

What you end up with is your basic economic divide, with the speedclearers and organized guilds (corporations lol) controlling most if not all of the wealth, and leaving the vast majority of players unable to compete.

Its sadly ironic that a game economy after five or so years can so accurately mirror a real world situation, you'd think ANet would like their games to be fun, rather than people speculating on Glittering Dust prices and Ecto flowcharts. And the worst part is every fix they propose only makes this worse.

STOP balancing around the economy and people whining about ecto prices, and START balancing around what is fun and what people enjoy doing. If that means skills that allow any player to solo nuke UW then so be it, its better that than guaranteeing that only 1% of the playerbase will ever see or do any of the endgame content.

Essence Snow · Feb 17, 2010, 08:53 PM // 20:53

One can assume that most simply dislike the changes b/c it negatively affect those that it was not intended to. It is much the same arguement as the spill-over effect from PvP/PvE changes. One side is alway going to disllike the changes. The update was supposed to affect SC's yet it "spilled-over" onto the non-SC's. Imagine if an update that was focused on balanced groups negatively effected SC groups. We would hear the same shtick from the SC side that we are hearing from the balanced side now. Some ppl like SCs and some don't. I'm not really sure if the ? at hand really deals with PUG's or not, but I know enjoying both SCing and balanced in UW in the past...I now enlight of the update lean more to the SC just b/c it is less frustrating to fail after 30mins than after 1hr30mins and spend less time finding a PUG for it. Yes I enjoy PUGs. Meeting new ppl for the most part outweighs failing.

Ugh · Feb 17, 2010, 08:58 PM // 20:58

The UW changes improved the game by adding new content.

If Four Horsemen and Wastes were less impossible to do without a perma, drops were improved, and SF was nerfed along with the update, it would've been much better.

And yes, I know it's not impossible to do 4H and Wastes without a perma, so please keep your bragging and lrn2plays to yourself. But as far as I know, it either requires some sort of tank or a spirit spammer to do 4H. And in my opinion, any well-thought-out team with above average players should be able to clear UW without requiring any specific builds (or consumables, for that matter).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

Ugh, I wish the update would just get here already.

I can't grant wishes, sorry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EragonSorceror

Besides, if the new update really did nothing to speedclears, then why did ectos almost double in price?

Could also be because many people are hoarding ectos in preparation for the SF nerf.

snowman relic · Feb 17, 2010, 09:10 PM // 21:10

People look ok shadow form is not the problem look at the average shadow form farming build

Glyph of Swiftness, Deadly Paradox, Shadow Form, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, Silver Armor, "By Ural's Hammer", Intensity,

The template if you wish to see them: OwZTkY/8ZS6jHRnBZIXkHKVEHEA

On this average build i see six support skills and two that get the job done the two are Shadow Form and Silver Armor being a perma sin myself i regretfully admit without Silver Armor we would lose our ability to farm as quickly effectivly causing assasins to need at least one other for damage as they tank and is that really any different from way back in prophesis (sorry im not the best speller) when Warriors tanked as eles took out huge mobs? and if you do not remember it go look in pre you will still see eles asking for warriors to tank. Now Shadow Form is used in Other Speed clears not just UW sinway (7 sins one necro or monk) and killing shadow form would disrupt many different clears ones that take hours to begin with making them longer so i ask please other members of the guild wars community do not go after the red herring the real problem is in the damage skill in that bar

RhanoctJocosa · Feb 17, 2010, 09:22 PM // 21:22

nerf the shit out of shadow form- problem solved. if people come up with new ways to speed clear, nerf them into the ground too. sooner or later people will HAVE to play 'normal' pve builds again and runs will end up taking a couple hours like they were supposed to. by normal i'm talking about bad tanking wars, bonders, ss, .....

MisterB · Feb 17, 2010, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowman relic

People look ok shadow form is not the problem look at the average shadow form farming build

No, Sliver Armor is not the problem in your example. Take away SF, and the build fails. Take away Sliver and its 3 support skills, and you have 4 slots for damage. This thread isn't about shadow form.

Reformed · Feb 17, 2010, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

nerf the shit out of shadow form- problem solved. if people come up with new ways to speed clear, nerf them into the ground too. sooner or later people will HAVE to play 'normal' pve builds again and runs will end up taking a couple hours like they were supposed to. by normal i'm talking about bad tanking wars, bonders, ss, .....

This would work just fine except the game has hopelessly degenerated into dependency on PvE skills and consumables. SF is the tip of a gigantic iceberg, EotN should never have been created. It all comes back to an entitlement culture that sprung up where everyone must be able to do everything regardless of individual skill. Instead of encouraging and helping these players to learn the fundamentals they put in items that transform them into hard mode monsters for 30 minutes.

Deatgs Corrupter · Feb 17, 2010, 09:43 PM // 21:43

okie here we go.
Skeles+dhuummn, as op said haven't helped, the point was to reduce inflow of ectos,balance economy and then a net realised that gw gold is the weakest Currency out there... anyways they decide to do this by introducing randomly placed foes, which are a minor irritant to shadow form sins, but they destroy other farm builds and also take out the pugs, now I love pugs, you meet new people etc etc...but when u fail 8 times you realise a-net wants to destroy pugs. the whole point of gw is that it wasn't grind based, or as people call it now dedication. ofc there were going to be challenges when playing, but not impossible challenges.
there way to stop these huge rewards, introduce a green mini worth millions, and still let sf go free.
UW is imssible with pugs in balamced teams, it used to be feasible in the early days but not anymore, I personally want to see a balanced team take on dhummn.
Second point; its been said before, if a-net give creatures ridicolous attributes and damage, and with new skeles make quests impossible for ordinary players then they will turn to easier options like sf.

My thoughts; a-net imo are putting out harder content thinking that only die-hards and really really exp players are left, they obviously have memory loss seeing as they advertised their game so it didn't matter how much time you spent, But how you were able to manipulte 2 class system. I.e shadow form sliver.
The nerf is overdue, maybe they realised how many people use sf and don't want to dissapoint.
if a-net really want to stop people doing sc, thehave a system, such as warhammer, where once you open an end chest, you don't get random golds worth 700g unided but instead an item worth more than the random money drops found on the floor. if they implement this then they can justify making areas ridicolously hard for balanced/pug teams. for example SoO pug balance took 2-3 hours when fendi was z bounty, the chance of BDS is so low no one is going to get it, whereas SoOsc with pugs 30mins much more attractive proposition.
just realised my idea is a bit marxist, oh well.
@axerman; seeing a you haven't played the game in ages, you obviously have not experienced new content, and therefore really can't comment.
-laters deatgs

Trader of Secrets · Feb 17, 2010, 09:46 PM // 21:46

I think anet already addressed the issue. The update showed that the only real problem was not the difficulty of UW, but just SF. A few skeles here and there with some skills to bypass SF was still not enough to stop SF based speedclears. Thus leading up to the coming SF rework. Also they probably looked at all the other dungeons and areas that SF can totally thrash and decided not to update them all but just hit the core of their problems, something they shouldve done a long time ago.

Markus Clouser · Feb 17, 2010, 09:53 PM // 21:53

HEY A-NET!

Randomly picked 3 posts from a sea of identical ideas:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

regular groups have a much harder time than before

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

the changes hurt the non-sc groups more than the sc ones

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

they also killed balanced groups

I've been trying UW since the update with all kinds of groups. No SC. I tried as a Warrior and as a Ritualist. The biggest problem for me was to keep the party intact until Dhuum. After an hour most of them got bored or some of us were really fail and we... oh well, failed. Frustration galore. Last time I tried we ended up in a 6 man party and we had to work our way through the last quests to have fun with Dhuum. After 5 or 10 mins of toying with Dhuum we got slaughtered. Yes. That was the most fun I've had in UW lately (sarcasm meter should spike).

THIS: (focus on "our")

Quote:

Originally Posted by Day Trooper

myself and the others who created DayWay [...] So this definitely 'improved' our GW gameplay experience.

and THIS:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deatgs Corrupter

a-net imo are putting out harder content thinking that only die-hards and really really exp players are left

What I think about the update?
- SCs take a bit longer
- SCers still make good money from selling UW chest rewards
- Balanced groups ..meh, read again the first quotes

What I do during the revamped UW besides the usual 'focus on GW' thing?
- get frustrated
- get frustrated
- get prematurely bald because I'm pulling my hair out because I'm frustrated
- think about visiting a psychiatrist
- get frustrated
- have fun after I realize we're all gonna die
- think about doing an assassin so I can do SC and finish UW this year

I even started to think that doing UW is a waste of time (which obviously it isn't but it suddenly morphs into that once someone ragequits).

So that's my rant.
- MC

Deatgs Corrupter · Feb 17, 2010, 10:08 PM // 22:08

ah yes the infamous sf nerf, I swear to god/gods that it was supposedly up and last week, however not coming until next week