Curse

Reverend Dr · Nov 09, 2008, 08:45 PM // 20:45

When I read the title I thought this was going to be about removing the exhaustion mechanic.

Bad idea, but would have made a more productive thread.

QQ came around as the two "q"'s together look like eyes that are crying.

Test Me · Nov 09, 2008, 09:26 PM // 21:26

OK let's get more examples in as people seem to have trouble understanding what I'm saying, because I am saying too much under one single thread.

So instead of nerfing skills and builds and working against players, I think ANet should:
1. work on providing new content/areas and design them with a certain player build/set of skills in mind since the build is the holy grail of GW. I do very much doubt ANet ever designed content thinking about the build players would use in that content first. They just throw crap at us and see what we come up with, and then they nerf it if they don't like it.

Ex.: They chose to nerf ursanway after it was in use for more than a year. What they could've done instead in that year: add a new elite area to the game designed so that ursan way = fail big time way. Make this elite area the coolest and ursan would have died anyway without people complaining about it being nerfed.

2. work on "nerfing" the crappy 250 items limit per stack - what is that? Like ANet can't afford another byte to count how many of the same thing you've got? Really pathetic, imo.

3. work on lifting the character gold limit - ridiculous. And that's why we need ectos as currency and that's why people farm them and that's why people cry when the farming builds get nerfed or their value changes and so on. They could also add a higher account limit while they are at it.

Also add new cool drops that take over the dying ectos and others. Anything that is in the game for a long time is doomed to become more common and loose value, it is impossible to prevent that people "wantz" it. I don't see how they can't get that simple thing.

4. work on adding much bigger rewards for players actually playing the game. Make them so big that they rival any farm. Let's see who is going to farm when actually playing is just as profitable. After all 8 real people working together to clean up a dungeon for 3h is something that should be promoted over solo farming the UW for 3h. How to you promote that? Make them profitable.

5. introduce simple rewards that invite people to help new players to get through the missions. What's the current incentive to go back and play a mission you've already mastered? None. People only do that when a new guildie begs them. Otherwise everybody is either PvPing or solo farming.

Really I fail to see where GW actually encourages you to play with other players. As someone else very wisely stated, other players are just a liability in this game. The rewards and everything seems to stack up to support that idea. Would it be so hard to "nerf" the quests so that this changes? I don't think so.

6,7,8 you name them...

And imagine all the other things they could do if they would just leave the skill system as it is (broken as it will ever be) and work on something else that is far more relevant and needed.

MirkoTeran · Nov 09, 2008, 09:46 PM // 21:46

With all the changes you want, GW might not be the game for you. Have you considered this? I would suggest you a few single player RPGs where you can mod and upgrade them at your desire.

Test Me · Nov 09, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by MirkoTeran

With all the changes you want, GW might not be the game for you. Have you considered this? I would suggest you a few single player RPGs where you can mod and upgrade them at your desire.

God, why is it so hard to understand this?
All I suggest (can't even want things, who am I to want changes in this game?) is that they spend less time and energy to nerf skills and frustrate people and make it impossible for wikis or anyone to hold up to it (and write guides about it) and turn that energy into more positive nerfs: "let them have whatever farm du jour, we'll implement a new cool area where that build is countered".

I just suggest that change of attitude.

Yes it's borken. And they can fix it by pissing everybody off and cheating (because that's exactly what they do by changing the rules of the game, only that it's not a player that is cheating but rather the game itself) AND make it impossible for casual player to keep up AND ask a tremendous effort from the community to maintain sites and builds (saw how outdated pvx is? or even this forum's build templates? - why do you think that's so?)....

when they could do it the other way around: "let them have the UW and farm it all till they're death bored of it, we'll just give them a new challenge in a new elite area with new elite drops that would become the next cool thing".

How about that approach for a change? And all the energy invested in this ridiculous and pointless skill updates can go towards other areas, I just gave some example.

Come what may, I rest my case.

slowerpoke · Nov 09, 2008, 11:00 PM // 23:00

fatigue is overpowered and should be nerfed

Shadowmoon · Nov 09, 2008, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

4. work on adding much bigger rewards for players actually playing the game. Make them so big that they rival any farm. Let's see who is going to farm when actually playing is just as profitable. After all 8 real people working together to clean up a dungeon for 3h is something that should be promoted over solo farming the UW for 3h. How to you promote that? Make them profitable.

Closest Anet got to this was DoA, unfortunately duping and anet refusing to update rewards makes this area still not as profitable as it should be. Mallyxes greens are worthless, the demonic sheild is worthless, tormented weapons are relatively dirt cheap for the effort.

Numa Pompilius · Nov 09, 2008, 11:06 PM // 23:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by freakdaddy

what gets me is the fact that most of you people instead of actually giving an answer to the OP you give sarcasm and grief

That's because OP is a whiny crybaby who is annoyed that Essence of Celerity has had its duration lessened from 25% to 20%, so his pvxwiki ecto farming Shadowform build doesn't work any more, and he still hasn't figured out what skill to change to make it work again.
He's just smart enough to realize there already are threads about that, so he's framed it more generally as WHY DOES ANET HAVE TO NERF EVERYTHING?!?!?!

Every. Single. Time. there's a skill balance, even if it's a buff not a nerf, we get threads like this. It gets old. It gets really, really, really, old.

(hint: it's Glyph of Swiftness! hth!)

nikkooo · Nov 09, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

i dont see how these 'skill balances' make the game any better
pve'wise, its all sins
and pvp'wise, most sins' skills are still broken....

Taki · Nov 10, 2008, 01:05 AM // 01:05

When people say you may want to find another game, that's really sound advice. But there's also nothing wrong with wanting some changes you think would improve a game that you like. Unfortunately, not only are there many people other than yourself that play who want very different things than you, but the game just wasn't designed to accommodate some of these changes.

The no monthly fee/chapter model was intended to have people play through the game's limited PvE content a limited amount of times, then focus on PvP if desired, and/or put the game down until the next chapter was released. Get it? Beat the game, put it away, then come back and buy the sequel so Anet can keep going. With no monthly fee the new chapters were their major source of revenue and they needed to concentrate on those. They even had two teams working concurrently on two separate yearly chapters; while one team releases and polishes one game, the next team is 6 months into the other.

But Anet underestimated the amount of MMORPG/WoW reject no-lifers and were genuinely surprised to see so many remain in the game after playing through it and not bother much with PvP - some of the best co-op play at the time IMO. Instead, with no higher levels to grind towards, no Legendary Sword of Doom to hunt, no areas restricted to level infinite players only, they did pointless crap like farm endlessly to amass virtual wealth and take prices out of reach of regular players, stand around towns uttering such stupidity that many had to make use of their chat filters when in these places (some still have them off), complain that there was nothing left to do and how bored they were.

So Anet decided to throw the no-lifers a bone and gave them more things to keep them busy while they work on new content i.e. the next chapter, or as is the case today, GW2. The nerfs/balances are meant to keep the current game "balanced" and players happy. How much they fail at that is open to debate but their intentions were good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

And imagine all the other things they could do if they would just leave the skill system as it is (broken as it will ever be) and work on something else that is far more relevant and needed.

I'd argue there's nothing more relevant or needed than GW2 at this point. Seriously, find something else to pass the time (guru is a good place for daily kicks).

Test Me · Nov 10, 2008, 09:59 AM // 09:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

That's because OP is a whiny crybaby who is annoyed that Essence of Celerity has had its duration lessened from 25% to 20%, so his pvxwiki ecto farming Shadowform build doesn't work any more, and he still hasn't figured out what skill to change to make it work again.
He's just smart enough to realize there already are threads about that, so he's framed it more generally as WHY DOES ANET HAVE TO NERF EVERYTHING?!?!?!

Every. Single. Time. there's a skill balance, even if it's a buff not a nerf, we get threads like this. It gets old. It gets really, really, really, old.

(hint: it's Glyph of Swiftness! hth!)

I've never done UW SC, nor am I interested in.

The reason I've started this thread is because I got 3 of my friends convinced to give it a try to this game. They bought all campaigns and GWEN with the new all-in-one offer and they've completely quited in about than 2 months, by the time second nerf came around.

It was hugely insanely hard to explain them how to play and that you need good builds with sklls form all 3 campaigns and by the time they got that their builds were outdated PvP and PvE and no one would pug with them cause they didn't have the skill du jour.

So how exactly do you explain to someone new hundreds of skills and then even explain them that they will change monthly:

"you know all I tell you and all builds I give you are good this month, next month when they update/nerf it I would need to give you another one, but for now just use what I gave you should be good for a while"

They really found no point in sticking around and they kind of blamed me for their wasted money, cause I said it's a really cool game.

When I started playing, things were much different. Had I started now... I agree with them. And I got tired of following up their update wiki and all as well. I just want to play! And I just want to be given the stability that when I learn what a skill does and how a build works I don't have to throw all that to the garbage next month. How are you even expected to keep up with this game?

I do realize that this may not be a problem to hardcore fans that give it a lot of time and attention, but I just don't have that much time to invest in it.

And the thing is that the opinion of hardcore fans doesn't matter. A game is successful if casual players like it. Hardcore fans will play it anyway no matter what they throw at them, and they are not the majority of the player base (or maybe that's not true anymore with GW at this point, I don't know).

That's where I come from.

PS: I didn't even know they nerfed the essence, I don't have any cons on me and rarely had to use them, and I didn't see it in the update notes. Is it true?
But anyway if true, if you think about it this is even worse than a skill nerf. Is like ANet going into your pocket and replace all your $25 bills with $20 bills. So you can't even be sure on the item stats now? You buy it today because you think this item does X and you buy 200 of them and tomorrow this item is useless to you cause it doesn't do X anymore, but you already have 200? Hmmm.. just as a PS. I don't know if they nerfed it, hadn't seen it in the official updates when I looked. And I wouldn't care, just more proof that nothing is safe to the big nerf wand of ANet. Next I'll find that my 20% enchant staff mode will be nerfed to 15%, cause it's too unbalanced. Or who knows what they'll entertain us with (one thing is for sure though, it's not going to be new content, they never nerf the content - golden rule).

PS2: Anyway the observation is right. I did become a cry baby with this thread. So I'll just shut up. If you people find all this OK, that's fine with me. Since I started playing this game long ago, I kind of accumulated a lot seeing how it all went from good to worse to really bad and I've expressed too many ideas and points that could be improved in just one go. Take my feedback for what it's worth, at least I bothered giving my feedback as I believe this is least I can do for a game I really liked and enjoyed time ago.

upier · Nov 10, 2008, 11:02 AM // 11:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

It was hugely insanely hard to explain them how to play and that you need good builds with sklls form all 3 campaigns and by the time they got that their builds were outdated PvP and PvE and no one would pug with them cause they didn't have the skill du jour.

Regarding PvE - that's pure and simple bullshit.
1. People do not not play with other people because said people would lack certain skills - but rather because multiplayer is dead in GW.
2. Your friends will be able to win GW PvE with crappy builds. We all did.

Cargan · Nov 10, 2008, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Skill changes are what keeps the game interesting. It's much better to change the skills so people have to find new ways to beat an area. If they never changed the skills then the old areas would be the same every time and would get stale fast. It's the fact that the skills change, and therefore so do the enemies in each area.

in essence, you're suggesting that the current content never changes (letting it get stale so it can always be done the same way every time 'til the end of days) and they just keep adding new content with better rewards. That's just asking for a very fast cycle since as soon as people have done whatever new area they'll ask for more, and more, and more. Then what do we have? You back on here QQing about having too many areas to keep up with?

Skill updates are what keeps the game fresh since every time there's a skill update people look at them and work out what they can use to their advantage and what other possibilities there are now.

Also, to note the point in your first post, you noted you have to keep checking what skills are being used on you as you can't tell from the icon? If you get to know the current content better then you'd know what skills the enemies in each area use. The fuctionality of the skills very rarely changes, so it's going to be the same effect every time give or take a couple of points to the power/duration. My advice to counter your problems of not knowing skills is to get to know the current content better.

As for having to level up a character every time you find new farming builds, just create a character of each profession and get it to a certain point throughout each campaign. Then if you find there's something you want to do there's very little work to be done to get to the point where you need to be, if any at all.

papryk · Nov 10, 2008, 01:21 PM // 13:21

to OP:
go play WoW
it seems that GW is just too smart for you...

SmokingHotImolation · Nov 10, 2008, 01:44 PM // 13:44

[QUOTE=papryk;4345977]to OP:
go play WoW
it seems that GW is just too smart for you...[/QUOTE]

I lol'd
12chars

Test Me · Nov 10, 2008, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

Regarding PvE - that's pure and simple bullshit.
1. People do not not play with other people because said people would lack certain skills - but rather because multiplayer is dead in GW.
2. Your friends will be able to win GW PvE with crappy builds. We all did.

It was mostely PvP. One of my friends didn't even want to hear about PvE, although he didn't realize a PvP toon starts with all things "maxed" and etc.

As I said, I was trying to make too many points in one thread cause I don't get the time to do this usually. I taked about PvE, PvP, farming over normal play, nerfs etc etc NVM, if any I said is useful to anyone than so be it.

My nerf fatigue is still a fact. But it may be just my problem, I admit.

In PvP terms, to me this explains why most of the people are "noobs" after 3 years of play and why there is no real easy transition from PvE to PvP. And the few that do actually master PvP, all they do is complain why the player base is so terrible. They never go think a step further to why that may happen.

But just for my own curiosity and maybe to prove me right or wrong.

Can you please point me to any sort of doc (official or not) that explains how to start playing, how to get in PvP, what's a build, how to create your own build giving some examples of skills synergies and offers some good suggestions on what basic build to use at start up time and how to grow?

My bet is that if there would be any such page, or if someone wanted to add one by the time the page was done it would be already outdated. You're free to prove me wrong.

Maybe I'll learn something from this one.

upier · Nov 10, 2008, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

It was mostely PvP. One of my friends didn't even want to hear about PvE, although he didn't realize a PvP toon starts with all things "maxed" and etc.

Skill > time starts to apply for PvP once the player becomes acquainted with all the skills, builds and techniques ran in the arena of choice (for instance - weapon mastery classes are pretty much the worst thing one can bring to the Luxon side at Aspenwood compared to the status of the warrior in arenas where targets can not hide behind closed doors).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

In PvP terms, to me this explains why most of the people are "noobs" after 3 years of play and why there is no real easy transition from PvE to PvP.

Simple.
PvE and PvP do not follow the same rules.
If you want to play PvP - you need to learn the mechanics of GW, and if you want to PvE - you need to learn how to spam Protective Spirit.

Sjeng · Nov 10, 2008, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by pamelf

I'm sorry, but I don't think the OP deserves all this sarcasm. It was a well constructed post, and actually has some valid points if you read it all the way through. With so many skills, and so many changes it IS sometimes hard to keep track of what skills are doing, and what changes have been made and how they effect you. Builds are constantly in flux, and it makes it difficult to get a grip on skill usage sometimes.

While that's true, that was only his first part. After this imo valid point, he concluded with a whine about PvE not being rewarding enough, how people are "forced" to farm for new armor and skills that are needed to adapt to the "nerfs" Anet introduces.

Then later he states:

Quote:

If this really is how the core of the game should be, then leave it as that but:
- give me the option to create level 20 PvE toons
- give me the option to load equipment templates in PvE based on what I've unlocked, and even elite armors could be unlocked for all my other toons once I buy the first set
- give me the option to travel any place on the map I have already unlocked on another toon

- Part of the fun of the game is leveling a new toon up to level 20, and learning new skills while doing so.
- Equipment isn't that big of a problem. Ever heard of collectors? All you need is ONE toon through the game(s), who can go and kill some creatures, collect 5 of their drops, and trade those for a perfect blue weapon req. 9, max stats, that might only need a few upgrades (prophecies are already fully modded). Sure, you might want nicer looking weapons, greens or elite skins, but you don't NEED those to have a well equipped toon. And as you play, you easily make enough cash for that elite armor or cool weapon.
- That would be too easy. Create a new toon, map to emberlight camp, buy all the skills you need, map to Droknar's Forge, buy maximum armor, then breeze through prophecies untill you get to Droknar's Forge the normal way. *yawn*. You can already get a run to droknar and learn unlocked skills with tomes, so this is not needed. At all.

These 3 points would do exactly the opposite of making GW fun: it would make it boring.

So the OP shouldn't moan imo if that's his grief.
The only valid point he made is the fact that skills change so often, it's sometimes hard to keep up for the casual player.
But then again, I'm also a casual player, and I really don't know all the skills in the game that well, but i just make my own builds, or get them from forums or friends, I read them ingame before going out, and see how they work, then later tweak them to better suit my playing habits. And yes I kinda ignore a lot of skills I don't know about (mostly mesmer skills lol). And I do pretty fine in PvE. (suck at PvP though).

And even though upier slightly exaggerates it by saying "learn to spam Protective Spirit", it's true that PvE isn't that hard. The only hard parts are some bonuses (like the annoying runners in Moddok Crevice) or missions that you just aren't that good at while doing them alone with H/H (I can name a few), some master difficulty quests, and perhaps Hard Mode.
And even those more difficult parts of PvE can be overcome if you just take a little time to build your toon and your heroes to form a team that is fit for a specific task/mission/quest.
I won't say PvE is too easy, but it's not that hard either. To me, it's enjoyable. Yes, I admit most of the game is easy to me now, having played it for 3.5 years, and even my girlfriend who has just started playing a few months ago is pretty darn good at it (amazes me really, as I remember having difficulties with a lot of missions the very first time), but then again, she mostly enjoyes quests, and dislikes missions, so I help her with that, and 2 players with 6 heroes that are selected and given builds that are most effective for a certain mission make it a lot easier than the early pre-hero days. Now you can pick up heroes pretty early on in the game (Koss, Dunkoro, Sousuke/Jin, Melonni, Olias, Zenmai) and when you reach level 10 (which can be done in a few hours just doing quests) you can go get MOX and go to EotN and get Vekk, Ogden and Gwen. Voila, 4 level 20 heroes, 2 level 15 heroes, and some others you might need to level a bit. Bring Ogden as a healer/protter, Vekk as a nuker and Olias as a MM plus 4 henchmen = win. After doing that for some time, you gain more heroes which you can build and tweak some more, along with the occasional elite skill, and stuff just gets easier, which is good, as the missions and quests should get harder as you progress, which imo they do.

Long story short: PvE is not hard at all, but should give the starting player enough of a challenge to keep it fun. And I think it does.

Yay to less nerfing.
Nay to suggested changes.

Striken7 · Nov 10, 2008, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Frequent skill changes are vital for GW because it automatically seperates those who are good at the game and those who are bad.

Good players: Read the skill updates, learn how the new descriptions act and interact, and discover new builds and strategies that are equally as good or better then their previous builds. This allows them to gain an advantage over Bad players, both by developing better farming builds sooner, and also by discovering better PvP builds sooner. By the time the Bad players read about in Guru/Wiki, the Good players will have had their fun and the next update will be on the way.

Bad players: Make whine posts on Guru, either before or after quitting.

And the best part about it, is that a vast majority of skill changes have no effect on PvE whatsoever. Everyone can still finish all the campaigns with any build (or no build at all). The only area where the subtle changes in skills are actually important is in PvP and let's face it, if you can't bother learning all the changes, you don't belong in PvP anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

Can you please point me to any sort of doc (official or not) that explains how to start playing, how to get in PvP, what's a build, how to create your own build giving some examples of skills synergies and offers some good suggestions on what basic build to use at start up time and how to grow?

People who can't learn these things for themselves by simply playing the game are Bad players.

Test Me · Nov 10, 2008, 05:08 PM // 17:08

You can't actually think I was suggesting all that, can you? I was just being absurd to try to prove a point.

PS: Still curious about that guide/link I asked in previous post. Genuinely curious.

MStarfire · Nov 10, 2008, 05:10 PM // 17:10

tl;dr. gbtwow.