Curse

AtomicMew · Sep 16, 2009, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin

No, the reasons that I want SF nerfed have relatively little to do with items. It should be nerfed because it's broken in half. It's indefinite invincibility against 90% of the critters in this game. Often, but not always, its weaknesses can be managed against the 10% of critters that are capable of harming you when SF is active. This is not good for the game.

Discordway is invincible against 90% of the critters in the game. Your statement that SF is "broken" has no intrinsic meaning. For the majority of areas in the game, SF is not useful much less even ideal. Define "broken" without being circuitory.

Quote:

Further, I'm arguing that SF is stratifying your game further. It makes the super-rich just that much wealthier for every hour that players are out there farming ecto. The game isn't printing more limited items, it is printing more ecto, and people value ecto. As a result, the limited items become more valuable (and harder to acquire) as more and more ecto gets dumped into the system.

See upier's post above. Mini's are an exception. Without SF, it would inarguably take longer to fill HOM for the majority of players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I doubt Discordway can curbstomp some VQs, e.g. the Desolation with "We Shall Return!" buffed and no Frozen Soil on Discordway, although I've never tried. There's also Grothmar Wardowns, which you said couldn't be done either (so even if it can be done, it's not "curbstomp"). There are more than 3 dungeons not curbstompable by Discordway: Slaver's, Vloxen's, Rragar's, Shards, Ooze Pit and possibly other dungeons I've not thought about. The UW and DoA can't be curbstomped by Discordway, and neither can any area where you see players going "LF Discord partner" during ZQ days.

Taking FS on discordway doesn't make it not-discordway. Also, for the record, I never said Grothmar wasn't doable with discordway (H/H), I said it was non-ideal. The fact that even the mighty Jeydra died once (or was it twice?) proves this point. Rragar's and Ooze pit are definitely discord-able (H/H), but as it's been a while since I did it, I'll admit things might have changed.

Also, when I say "discordway" I mean either 1 man or 2 man, but that's hardly unfair considering playing perma generally means you need to take 8x players to be useful.

Quote:

Now I'll put the reverse question to you. Is there any area which cannot be curbstomped by running Shadow Form?

1) Apparently, UW can't be curbstomped, since 90% of pugs fail.

2) Discordway is superior to SF in any area that would take too long to organize a team when you could just add a few hench and just do it. That's practically any mission, any VQ and most dungeons.

Of course, once you do have a team full of permas, you should be able to do ANY area. But then again, 8 players SHOULD be able to do any area.

Quote:

People use Permas because it's so freaking fast. There is nothing that comes remotely close to clearing Thommis HM, UW, DoA, Kathandrax, Slaver's, etc as fast as Perma, sometimes 8 of them.

Yet what matters, in terms of efficiency, isn't how fast you do a dungeon. 8x Permas is only moderately efficient, when you could do the entire dungeon in slightly more time with 1 smite hero and 6 others players paying you to do it. Dungeon running is an entire paradigm ahead of perma SF SC's (and thus, 600/smite is more "broken" than SF, in general).

Lastly,

Quote:

You can't. I've countered this argument several times already. Don't bring it up unless you can answer the counter.

And I've countered your counter :<. I still have one yomi layer on you, and the entire argument still comes down to playing how YOU want to play and just stop worrying how other people play.

Jeydra · Sep 16, 2009, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Taking FS on discordway doesn't make it not-discordway. Also, for the record, I never said Grothmar wasn't doable with discordway (H/H), I said it was non-ideal. The fact that even the mighty Jeydra died once (or was it twice?) proves this point. Rragar's and Ooze pit are definitely discord-able (H/H), but as it's been a while since I did it, I'll admit things might have changed.

Therefore you agree Grothmar isn't "curbstompable" by Discordway and negate your own argument. Yes?

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

1) Apparently, UW can't be curbstomped, since 90% of pugs fail.

2) Discordway is superior to SF in any area that would take too long to organize a team when you could just add a few hench and just do it. That's practically any mission, any VQ and most dungeons.

Of course, once you do have a team full of permas, you should be able to do ANY area. But then again, 8 players SHOULD be able to do any area.

1) If that's your argument then Discordway can't curbstomp most VQs either since if you get PuGs to play the Discord Necros, 90% of them will fail.

2) That's irrelevant. It's the harder areas that matter, not the easier ones. A level 20 Elementalist with a wand can curbstomp pre-searing, doesn't make wand damage overpowered. So Discordway can curbstomp lots of the easier (albeit still labelled "Hard Mode" for some reason) content in the game. So what? What's more, Discordway isn't ideal.

Sure 8 players should be able to do any area but there's no way you can match kill speed in some areas - e.g. UW - without using Perma, even if you have 8 players. It's not just a little bit faster it is a LOT faster. Do not ignore this. If Shadow Form became such that your movespeed is slowed by 66% while you are enchanted with it (or even 90%) such that using Permas takes as much time to clear areas as other builds, I'd have no problems with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Yet what matters, in terms of efficiency, isn't how fast you do a dungeon. 8x Permas is only moderately efficient, when you could do the entire dungeon in slightly more time with 1 smite hero and 6 others players paying you to do it. Dungeon running is an entire paradigm ahead of perma SF SC's (and thus, 600/smite is more "broken" than SF, in general).

Moderately efficient? What you talking about moderately efficient? Can 600 / smite do Slaver's Exile in an hour? Can it do Kathandrax in 15 minutes? Can it run to Kathandrax painlessly? Can it skip entire areas just because nobody can touch it?

Shadow Form is so much faster than anything else, including 600 / smite, I don't see why you're claiming it's not efficient.

By the way I feel 600 / smite should be nerfed too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

And I've countered your counter :<. I still have one yomi layer on you, and the entire argument still comes down to playing how YOU want to play and just stop worrying how other people play.

You have? Write it out then, because I've not seen it.

Martin Alvito · Sep 16, 2009, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Discordway is invincible against 90% of the critters in the game. Your statement that SF is "broken" has no intrinsic meaning. For the majority of areas in the game, SF is not useful much less even ideal. Define "broken" without being circuitory.

"Broken" is a classic balance term that dates back to M:tG. In a nutshell, it means that the skill is so overpowered that virtually every team would benefit from running it. For instance, an UW balanced team does strictly better with an SF tank than a Warrior tank. It mitigates vastly more damage and requires very few skill slots.

The only exception to this is areas that have untargeted/monster skill strips such as Frostmaw's, and even then clever players have found ways to deal with that problem and still use SF.

By contrast, there is no "broken" Monk elite at the moment. Different arenas dictate different bars on heal and prot. For comparison, consider the meta with the original LoD.

You mention Discordway, which is also broken. It is clearly the quickest means for a single player to H/H the game in nearly every area. This is bad. If there is a globally efficient solution for the vast majority of the game, the design has failed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

See upier's post above. Mini's are an exception. Without SF, it would inarguably take longer to fill HOM for the majority of players.

This is just wrong. First of all, you can farm title track consumables directly during event weekends faster than you can farm ecto and convert it into such consumables. Secondly, there are numerous faster ways of making money than UWSC. Granted, you can't all substitute to them without killing their value. But the point remains that per unit of time invested, there are numerous, faster solutions to the problem than SF.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Yet what matters, in terms of efficiency, isn't how fast you do a dungeon.

/facepalm

If we're talking about efficiently making money, then the proper measure is money earned per unit of time invested. Speed matters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

8x Permas is only moderately efficient, when you could do the entire dungeon in slightly more time with 1 smite hero and 6 others players paying you to do it. Dungeon running is an entire paradigm ahead of perma SF SC's (and thus, 600/smite is more "broken" than SF, in general).

But generally you could do the dungeon even faster by taking SF and a kill character for the boss, bypassing almost all encounters. 605/smiting Sepulchre of Dragrimmar takes about 35 minutes. I can do it with SF and one other character in ten.

upier · Sep 16, 2009, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

While I agree with you in principle, the solution to the problem is not to make it very easy to farm ecto (which screws with other markets). The solution is to make the consumables available to farm more regularly, and improve the available means with which players can farm them. I oppose the current "best available means" because of all the negatives it creates - the inflation, the death of diversity, the required title grind. Making the desired consumables available more frequently is strictly superior to permitting SF to flourish.

This just gets back to nerfing Vaettirs being a poor idea. That region could easily have been farmed by ObsFlesh at relatively little time reduction using kegs. Further, players made more "money" farming Vaettirs during good events than they ever will farming UW. And it's not as though it was challenging.

Of course, then you're reducing the amount of "content" by reducing the amount of time investment necessary to get the items. But at least it's grind-based content that you're getting rid of.

The bolded part is the winning part. Although I'd be much more in favour of it if farming wasn't even required. (For instance, the SS title is the perfect example of something that was done the right way. One can either farm the hell out of the wurms OR one can just play though the game - VQing it and one maxes the title. I'd LOVE to see something like this done to the booze title.)
And the only reason why I then defend SF, is because I don't see this happening.
And if that doesn't happen, yet they kill off SF, the amount of grind in this game increases.
I'd rather have the devil I know.
(That's also the reason why I support the XTH. XTH enabled me to save up enough gold when playing the way I wanted to, which means with next to zero farming, to be able to waste those 200k+ on the Rings when they came rolling into town.)

Also, keep in mind that the stuff I ALSO consider problematic are things like chests, Lucky, Unlucky, IDing, and Luxon/Kurzick potentially even GWEN titles and NOT just sweets/booze.

And this is the core issue and why A.Net actually needs to take farming into account when dealing with PvE. Fix this and a lot of things can die.

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

This is just wrong. First of all, you can farm title track consumables directly during event weekends faster than you can farm ecto and convert it into such consumables. Secondly, there are numerous faster ways of making money than UWSC. Granted, you can't all substitute to them without killing their value. But the point remains that per unit of time invested, there are numerous, faster solutions to the problem than SF.

The bolded part is why I am with traversc on this. You need a way that will provide sufficient founds for the masses.
And the current situation achieves that.

And not only that, it provides options for players to party - which seems to be something A.Net is striving to achieve now that the game is on the brink of death.

DreamWind · Sep 16, 2009, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

The bolded part is why I am with traversc on this. You need a way that will provide sufficient founds for the masses.
And the current situation achieves that.

So UWSC is nothing but a situation that helps achieve sufficient funds for the masses? LoL. What the hell happened to this game?

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

And not only that, it provides options for players to party - which seems to be something A.Net is striving to achieve now that the game is on the brink of death.

I thought it was a solo operation...

upier · Sep 16, 2009, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

So UWSC is nothing but a situation that helps achieve sufficient funds for the masses? LoL. What the hell happened to this game?

People didn't want to stop playing it.

DreamWind · Sep 16, 2009, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

People didn't want to stop playing it.

So breaking it solved the problem? I don't think so.

Martin Alvito · Sep 16, 2009, 02:26 PM // 14:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

(That's also the reason why I support the XTH. XTH enabled me to save up enough gold when playing the way I wanted to, which means with next to zero farming, to be able to waste those 200k+ on the Rings when they came rolling into town.)

Which I think illustrates where we differ. You don't care about the externality, because it doesn't affect you. This is the classic problem with externalities; since the costs are pushed off onto others, the system gets overused (from a societal efficiency standpoint).

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

Also, keep in mind that the stuff I ALSO consider problematic are things like chests, Lucky, Unlucky, IDing, and Luxon/Kurzick potentially even GWEN titles and NOT just sweets/booze.

Here I think we've identified where we're going to agree, although I think our reasons differ. The designers made these titles for the truly hardcore, and also with the expectation that most players would not strive to max all of them. It turns out that it really burns the completionists to have titles that they cannot complete in a reasonable period of time, and this leads to unhealthy behaviors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

The bolded part is why I am with traversc on this. You need a way that will provide sufficient founds for the masses.

But this is far from the only solution to the problem. The main reason that you're screaming for money is because of the expensive title tracks. Let's face it, filling a HoM with crap armor sets, weapons, pets and hero armors isn't very expensive.

The other reason is the unintended consequences of loot scaling, which roughly quartered the income from "playing the game" normally.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

And not only that, it provides options for players to party - which seems to be something A.Net is striving to achieve now that the game is on the brink of death.

There are plenty of substitutes, although ANet would be well served to introduce new ones in the next content update. People argued that nerfing Ursan would be the death of teamplay, and it was only until a new alternative was found.

upier · Sep 16, 2009, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Which I think illustrates where we differ. You don't care about the externality, because it doesn't affect you. This is the classic problem with externalities; since the costs are pushed off onto others, the system gets overused (from a societal efficiency standpoint).

And probably the only group that suffers from this are the high-end mini-/really rare weapons-folks.
Because those are the only groups that do not have a unlimited supply of their item of choice. All other items got relatively cheaper though this influx of goods. The merch never runs out of lockicks, nor cakes.
But like I said, those are actually the groups that desires goods that are designed to exclude masses from having them. It's because so few people have them, that they want them!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Here I think we've identified where we're going to agree, although I think our reasons differ. The designers made these titles for the truly hardcore, and also with the expectation that most players would not strive to max all of them. It turns out that it really burns the completionists to have titles that they cannot complete in a reasonable period of time, and this leads to unhealthy behaviors.

There is also the problem of the game getting older and this suddenly becoming the only content that the masses haven't done yet.
And yes, I don't see this unhealthy behaviour ending as long as that is in the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

But this is far from the only solution to the problem. The main reason that you're screaming for money is because of the expensive title tracks. Let's face it, filling a HoM with crap armor sets, weapons, pets and hero armors isn't very expensive.

The other reason is the unintended consequences of loot scaling, which roughly quartered the income from "playing the game" normally.

The problem is that after the titles-change, A.Net stated that they don't plan on changing any other titles. Plus they are giving us GW2 instead of fixing GW1.
Which means this is the broken game we are stuck with.
And until a new solution is presented, I am not in favour of removing the current one. Because I simply do not trust them that they will even provide it and I'd rather have something as broken as SF than nothing to at least reduce this problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

There are plenty of substitutes, although ANet would be well served to introduce new ones in the next content update. People argued that nerfing Ursan would be the death of teamplay, and it was only until a new alternative was found.

And look where we are now.

maxxfury · Sep 16, 2009, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Killing Sf is only HALF of the issue here...but it DOES need to be sorted..8 min UW is too fast...THAT part IS obvious.

The other half is Changing the NEED to use SF in this way in the first place, mainly some of the "high end" titles. the stupidly high req of some of them need "fixing" especially this late in the games life cycle.

If both parts dont happen then it will just shift back to terra based speed clears and take a little longer. Tho it likely will anyway due to peoples desire for "cool" gear ect.

It doesnt directly affect me as if i want to do uw/doa ill grab friends and actually enjoy doin the areas with good company having a laugh

then im not a hardcore farmer or a title RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO

but 10~ mins is stupid :P

Martin Alvito · Sep 16, 2009, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

But like I said, those are actually the groups that desires goods that are designed to exclude masses from having them. It's because so few people have them, that they want them!

Correct, but the externality is that the massive influx of goods makes it continually more difficult for different players to acquire them from their present owners. If you're like me, and you have the rare items, it's great. You make money at no time cost. But that's probably not a set of players we want to be rewarding.

If you curb the rate at which ecto is produced and permit the economy to produce more of the consumables that people want, this is Pareto-improving for everyone except owners of rare items that want to sell them. So you're harming a very small group of people (and not by making them take losses, just by cutting the rate of gains) to make everyone else better off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

There is also the problem of the game getting older and this suddenly becoming the only content that the masses haven't done yet.
And yes, I don't see this unhealthy behaviour ending as long as that is in the game.

Which eventually drops all of you into the rare mini market...and then things just get ugly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

And look where we are now.

There is something to be said for unstable metas. The whole point of having all these skills in the game is to use them. Diablo 2 has what, a dozen or so efficient archetypes that see play across a half-dozen classes? We have one. (If you count H/H Discordway, two.)

I can get that (and the experience is more satisfying) in any quality early or late 90's CRPG you care to name. We're past the point where global optima are acceptable in game design. It's not plausible to redesign the monsters to deal with SF; people have already demonstrated that they can get around even deep, monster-skill strips that burn SF. SF needs a nerf so that players are compelled to develop new solutions.

And yes, if 605/smite turns out to be the universal solution, it would then need a nerf. Same for Obs Flesh.

DreamWind · Sep 16, 2009, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

There is also the problem of the game getting older and this suddenly becoming the only content that the masses haven't done yet.

The game is not and was never about new content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

And yes, I don't see this unhealthy behaviour ending as long as that is in the game.

Remove the promotion of and the desire for the unhealthy behavior.

The forth fly · Sep 16, 2009, 08:57 PM // 20:57

remove every RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing skill you bunch of RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs god you piss me off

DreamWind · Sep 16, 2009, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by The forth fly

remove every RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing skill you bunch of RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs god you piss me off

Profession: A/E

Rofl.

Fitz Rinley · Sep 16, 2009, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puebert

I don't understand why everyone assumes the skill is going to be nerfed. Shadow Form could be a broader term meaning the areas it is capable of farming.

I hope the skill is removed, but I don't think that quote means the areas aren't going to be looked at.

There has always been a problem with elite areas and elite gamer preferences. Elite gamers want the most efficient reward gaining effect. Elite areas are intended to be harder than average but enjoyable investments in time. End Result: Elite gamers min./max. builds and then make the environment exclusive for them to abuse.

Skills like Ursan were destroyed because they made the game playable in all areas by all players. Apparently everyone being able to play was unacceptable. But what has not been unacceptable is elite areas where you are only allowed in if you have "Insert Set Build Nazi Creation A Here" on X members, "Insert Set Build Nazi Creation B Here" on Y members, and "Insert Set Build Nazi Creation C Here" on Z members.

I have yet to do certain elite areas for that reason. Random PUGS cannot be effective and the Build Nazi Bar of the Moment does not fit a Paragon, etc. I have been trying to arrange to do Urgoz or the Deep, to no avail. (Experienced) Members of my alliance "know you can't do it unless you have only these builds" on necros and rangers with back up healing - paragons and others need not apply.

It isn't just Shadow Form, its the lack of functionality of all these elite areas. SF works because it can do what nothing else can - prevent damage while allowing one to deliver it. Most clearing builds are based on high levels of trapping or other PC not present when the baddy arrives/baddy hit at a distance skills. Instead of making these areas challenging or harder they made them exclusive to those who play as if it were a job, instead of those who play for camaraderie and fun. Of course, I have been repeatedly told that casual players are just not meant to ever do these areas for which they paid to play by buying the game.

They do need to look at these areas and they need to make them functional for all players to play - not just a few elite farmers.

Commander Kanen · Sep 16, 2009, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Ok, so if the areas that SF can farm are going to be made harder. that means all other toons will need some sort of buff to help balence things out.
So either they buff spirits that make enchants run out faster or make loads more touch skill mobs or something of that nature. which makes gameplay for normal people alot harder.

Age · Sep 17, 2009, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Kanen

Ok, so if the areas that SF can farm are going to be made harder. that means all other toons will need some sort of buff to help balence things out.
So either they buff spirits that make enchants run out faster or make loads more touch skill mobs or something of that nature. which makes gameplay for normal people alot harder.

Who said they are going to be made harder if anything it needs to be toned down form what it is today.This is to give others that aren't hard core farmers or SC a chance at getting alteast their set of fow armour for their HoM.

Jeydra · Sep 17, 2009, 01:24 AM // 01:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Who said they are going to be made harder if anything it needs to be toned down form what it is today.This is to give others that aren't hard core farmers or SC a chance at getting alteast their set of fow armour for their HoM.

I got a better idea. How about we change "You Are All Weaklings!" to 5e, 0s recharge shout. Target foe and all adjacent foes lose all health. This would make it possible to PuG the UW easily, letting people who aren't hard-core farmers or SC a chance of experiencing what it's like to clear the UW HM. And then if they still aren't happy with the farming required to get their Ectos / $$$, we could also change FoW armor to cost 50g. This would give everyone FoW armor with barely any cost.

In the meantime, anyone unhappy with these changes can, you know, simply ignore them. Don't bring "You Are All Weaklings!" and do UW HM balanceway, hitting up their friends and guildmates and whatever. As for FoW armor, simply amass the pre-change Ectos / $$$ required, then after buying FoW armor for 50g, delete the Ectos / $$$ as payment.

It's an excellent change. Win-win situation. Does everything Shadow Form currently does, but makes it even easier. Lose nothing, everyone is happy, why not?

@upier - I'm not going to agree with you for fundamental reasons. I believe the casual player has all he wants from the game already. Max armor, skills, not-too-much grind required to hit effective levels for PvE skills, perfect equipment. Maxing Drunkard / Sweet Tooth / Lucky / Unlucky etc. is just icing on the cake. Doing it gains you nothing except prestige, losing it loses you nothing except prestige either. If you are aware of the amount of work and time you have to spend to max them and still want to do it then go ahead; if you don't then don't. Simple.

You seem to be arguing that people like you, who otherwise cannot amass 200k to spend on Lucky / Unlucky, should be allowed to max the titles anyway. I don't care to be honest. You don't play enough, so you don't get to max the titles.

Whine and cry and complain about the game being badly designed and that you need Shadow Form to bypass the gold requirements, you still are as effective on the battlefield as the next player, and the % boost to retaining Lockpicks / salvage items with a max Lucky title is hardly going to compensate the money you have to sink into maxing those titles. I see no reasonable grounds for complaint, and so I'm not going to agree with your stance ... which also means we're done, we disagree on this fundamental point.

AtomicMew · Sep 17, 2009, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Therefore you agree Grothmar isn't "curbstompable" by Discordway and negate your own argument. Yes?

No, because it is definitely curbstompable with 2-man discordway.

Quote:

1) If that's your argument then Discordway can't curbstomp most VQs either since if you get PuGs to play the Discord Necros, 90% of them will fail.

You can't possibly think that's a decent counter-argument. Discordway isn't played with 8 players. UWSC is. Difficulty is a very relevant factor in determing how "balanced" something is. If you were rewarded 1000 ecto for perfecting Through Fire and Flame on expert, that would not be unbalanced (even though it only takes ~5 minutes).

Quote:

2) That's irrelevant. It's the harder areas that matter, not the easier ones. A level 20 Elementalist with a wand can curbstomp pre-searing, doesn't make wand damage overpowered. So Discordway can curbstomp lots of the easier (albeit still labelled "Hard Mode" for some reason) content in the game.

That's exactly what I was arguing before you started disagreeing with me. The only place SF matters is in high end areas. The "nerf because of the ubiquity of SF" argument is false (which was what the guy I was quoting before was talking about).

Quote:

Moderately efficient? What you talking about moderately efficient? Can 600 / smite do Slaver's Exile in an hour? Can it do Kathandrax in 15 minutes? Can it run to Kathandrax painlessly? Can it skip entire areas just because nobody can touch it?

Shadow Form is so much faster than anything else, including 600 / smite, I don't see why you're claiming it's not efficient.

List the places that are done solo SF. Of those, how many require cons? Now list the places that are done with 600/smite. Of course a combination of SF and 600 will be faster for most places, but 600 is almost always the powerhouse. SF sins simply cannot compete with the damage output of 600/smite.

Also, Kathandrax in 15 minutes - I assume this is the SC with 8x sins? If so, as stated earlier, it's not nearly as profitable as running players.

Quote:

You have? Write it out then, because I've not seen it.

You argued that it is impossible to do UWSC balanced because of the presence of SF makes it inefficient. However, UWSC is also inefficient, and so its presence shouldn't keep you from, and others like you, from playing how YOU want to play, since, no matter how you do UW, it will always be inefficient and just "for fun" (unless you're one of those treadmill lemmings that relies on known farms to make money.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin

"Broken" is a classic balance term that dates back to M:tG. In a nutshell, it means that the skill is so overpowered that virtually every team would benefit from running it. For instance, an UW balanced team does strictly better with an SF tank than a Warrior tank. It mitigates vastly more damage and requires very few skill slots.

And there's the rub. SF is simply not as ubiquitous as you think it is.

Quote:

First of all, you can farm title track consumables directly during event weekends faster than you can farm ecto and convert it into such consumables. Secondly, there are numerous faster ways of making money than UWSC. Granted, you can't all substitute to them without killing their value. But the point remains that per unit of time invested, there are numerous, faster solutions to the problem than SF.

Seems like you're saying UWSC isn't an overpowered farm.

Quote:

605/smiting Sepulchre of Dragrimmar takes about 35 minutes. I can do it with SF and one other character in ten.

What was it you said earlier? Oh, right. "Attempting to generalize from an instance is fail logic."

Jeydra · Sep 17, 2009, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

You can't possibly think that's a decent counter-argument. Discordway isn't played with 8 players. UWSC is. Difficulty is a very relevant factor in determing how "balanced" something is. If you were rewarded 1000 ecto for perfecting Through Fire and Flame on expert, that would not be unbalanced (even though it only takes ~5 minutes).

That's no argument. Do you think running Duncan HM is easy? Of course not. Yet if killing Duncan in HM in under 10 minutes rewarded you with 1000 ectos, do you call that balanced? I do not care that the UWSC is "hard". It's imbalanced.

I do not recognize "through fire and flame" by the way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

That's exactly what I was arguing before you started disagreeing with me. The only place SF matters is in high end areas. The "nerf because of the ubiquity of SF" argument is false (which was what the guy I was quoting before was talking about).

SF works pretty much everywhere, you know. It's just overkill on firepower.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

List the places that are done solo SF. Of those, how many require cons? Now list the places that are done with 600/smite. Of course a combination of SF and 600 will be faster for most places, but 600 is almost always the powerhouse. SF sins simply cannot compete with the damage output of 600/smite.

Also, Kathandrax in 15 minutes - I assume this is the SC with 8x sins? If so, as stated earlier, it's not nearly as profitable as running players.

Not like I care. It's possible. If there were this item that cost 200k gold to make, but then, when used, provides you an instant clear of an area / mission / whatever, I'd call that imbalanced too. Profit doesn't matter.

PS: shame on you for only seeing $$$ when you evaluate balance problems like this one. What about the other professions in the game? What about other builds an Assassin can reasonably use?

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

You argued that it is impossible to do UWSC balanced because of the presence of SF makes it inefficient. However, UWSC is also inefficient, and so its presence shouldn't keep you from, and others like you, from playing how YOU want to play, since, no matter how you do UW, it will always be inefficient and just "for fun" (unless you're one of those treadmill lemmings that relies on known farms to make money.)

Lol!? UWSC inefficient? What kind of ridiculous statement is that? Have you ever tried to do the UW with a balanced team? How much time does it take? How much time does it take to put a team together? And you're saying UWSC is inefficient????

And no I did not make this argument. I argued that it's impossible to PuG Thommis HM during ZQ days because most people just do VSF. Tell me VSF is inefficient, too.