Curse

Maagus · Nov 13, 2005, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antc

Makes no difference to me - i dont PvP that often, unless my guild ask me to bring my monk. So i dont want to get into rank 3+ groups...the point i was making was that players that go from PvE to PvP will struggle to learn no matter how much of a training ground they make PvE, simply because they wont get into a half decent group and will spend most of their time face down in the dirt. The way PvE was before the update already taught the basic mechanics of teamwork if you could be bothered to learn it, how many UW/ FoW groups have you been in that didnt use teamwork? but then on the other hand, how many PUGS bother with ts or vent before going into a mission? Anet can 'tweak' the AI as much as they want....it will never come close to fighting an experienced, coordinated group using ts/vent in HoH.

In my opinion, it haven´t tought them. Many missions are/were so easy - just grab some people and go no matter what skills, firestorm and meteor shower took down most of the enemy group. Simple tank and fire ele was enough. Now people actually have to think and cooperate with other classes (not to be mistaken, I had beaten the game with fire nuker, it is not that it had been for me to get in groups).

Kula · Nov 13, 2005, 10:17 PM // 22:17

My theory is that they had the Nov.11 update planned all along. They just released the horrible 11/10 update first, knowing that there would be a massive uproar. This way when they rolled out the 11/11 it wouldn't seem so bad. Sneaky Anet! /fistshake

OOH, I like this patch. Brings some new life to the AI.

(OOH = On the Other Hand)

Fantus · Nov 13, 2005, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kula

My theory is that they had the Nov.11 update planned all along. They just released the horrible 11/10 update first, knowing that there would be a massive uproar. This way when they rolled out the 11/11 it wouldn't seem so bad.

Yeah, and A-net's CEO is an alien, too. They plan to take over the world with that patch!

Aeon_Xin · Nov 13, 2005, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantus

Nope, you are completly right. I am defending legit farming. Ebaying is not legit farming, it's cheating. I don't respect ebayers and I think they should be removed from the game as quickly and throughly as possible. I think most legit farmers hate ebayers as much as I do. We WORK for our money, they don't. They are too lazy too play the game, but they still want everything basically for free. As I said, they are lowly cheaters, nothing else.

The bad thing is that most measures directed against ebayers will hit legit farmers even more than them.

That's unfortunate yes, and I can't offer a complete solution, I don't know the mechanics of the game, nor could I begin to guess, but I feel that it could have been handled better.

Untill there is a way thought of to nullify buying money on ebay, farming will have to be shut down. There is a certain legit desire to farm, to get the best things, but that's second to the ebay problem, imo. I say desire, not need, sometimes people need to simply save up, go back and do quests to make it fun and not repetative. There is no clause that states that you NEED to get the best things right away, that is why I say a "legit desire". Expanding the PvE as far as quests, or adding coin rewards more often would help.

Nerfing all skills down on all players isn't the answer, but it's the best they can some up with in the meantime, and we're going to have to live with it in one form or annother. Which is why I suggest everyone find topics in the sanitarium that deal with this issue and discuss them levelheadedly, instead of flaming the heck out of this already 69(lol) page thread. Alot of people here say, "I could have done a better job"

To those people, prove it, and come discuss it.

Fantus · Nov 13, 2005, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon_Xin

Untill there is a way thought of to nullify buying money on ebay, farming will have to be shut down.

You don't shut down real life society because there is crime, too. Deal with the criminals and leave law abiding people alone, I'd say. Bots can be dealt with intelligent analysis of their behavior and mass banning of bot accounts. If done properly, the botters will lose money more quickly on buying new GW accounts and botting won't make you real life money anymore.

Unfortunately, A-net throws legit farming in the same pot as the botters and swings the nerf stick in such wide arches that it seem to hit just about anybody (maybe including the botters or maybe not). To me, it's not the brightest of all strategies, but well...

PS: They can't shut down farming, ever. No matter what they do. If you assume farming can only be done with a 55 monk, you are WRONG. If you think, farming can be done only in UW or Griffons, you are WRONG. People will always farm, trust me.

Knight_Shyft · Nov 13, 2005, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Maybe this is over-simplifying things but why not just make it so there is a Minimum Party size? Area's that have 6 as the max, make it so that 4 is the minimum whether you take 3 henchies and yourself or 3 Players and yourself. Solo Farming problem solved & Everyone gets to play their respective class without having to nerf certain builds into oblivion....

Amn_En_Tarsath · Nov 13, 2005, 10:50 PM // 22:50

I just came back from the Fissure of Woe. We've been down there for two reasons. First one was to get one of our guildies the Fissure Armor and the other reason was to put atleast some effort into adapting to the new situation. Starting with the basic believes and prejudices probably a large scale of the community feels:

Nukers are History
Crowdcontrol is dead
Farming is dead
The game became too hard

Some of our members (including me) designed their builds to adapt to the new situation - and to see how the game now feels and developes during a long time session like the clearance of the "Fissure of Woe". Yet we still partly employed the old scheme of bringing a tank.
I was playing the tank, an Elementalist/Monk (Geomancer). Not something you see a lot around in GuildWars do you? Well, pre-patch Eletanks did quite well for us and out of a habit the choice for our tank was the elementalist again. A minor skillchange was made on my side - i brought Ward against Foes.
The rest of the team was well mixed, we even brought a Necromancer (Blood... but not only blood) and an interrupter/trapper Ranger. Too summarize things up... our teambuild was unlike those all of us have seen trying to rambo a mission. Ah forgot to mention... no warrior.

We went in.

In a short time we did a quick setup of our basic enchantments and started to engage the combat. Me, being the tank, ran ahead of my team and right into the crowd. The initial combat behaviour is still the same as it was pre-patch. All of the foes started to attack my avatar. As soon as they were standing around my Elementalist Tank i casted Ward against Foe.
Only then the rest of the team engaged into combat. A single Arrow with the "Ignite Arrow" Preperation was enough to spoil the whole idea of tanking and transformed the combat into a match of pinball.
We then stopped applying said preperation and engaged the next combat. I was again running ahead, gathering aggro and keeping it focused onto myself. One of the other elementalists engaged into combat, casting a single firestorm. The result was to be expected, the mobs started to scatter immediately and then engaging another target at will.

Observations so far:

Area of Effect Spells DO break Aggro. The enemies will engage different targets
The enemies will run a long distance if the caster follows them
The effect of "Ward against Foes" was minor - not enough to justify it
The loss of Damage Output and the continued pursuit are prolonging battles

Deriving from said observations there are several assumptions that jump and wave around and beg to be looked upon. Which are:

Area of Effect Spells lost a large portion of effectivity
A slow down of 50 % is not enough to put the Fire Spells back into use
Tanks are obsolete as soon as the first AOE Spell is out
The running enemies will run into the opposite direction of you. Unless you try and circle around them pre-combat this will result in them running into follow up mobs. -> Continued Pursuit will end in too much aggro and a wipe of your team.

Some of the believes about the new patch are simply wrong and not justified. However some of the advices from the want to be "Professional Gamer" Crowd are just as wrong. Just bringing Snares won't put the time based AOE Spells back into use unless their effect is greater than a slowdown of 50%. Thinking outside the box also won't do the trick.
While the game not really became harder, it became more tedious to play. Pre-patch it would take us about one hour to reach the Forgemaster and actually be able to craft some of his goods. Post-patch though, the same trip took us a whooping 3 hours (to give the devil his due, we've been afk once during said period - ranging from 20-30 minutes). Looking back at our teamspeak communication i can really say it was slow but steady draining energy from us.
We started with our typical jokes, having a great time playing the game. It quickly became frustration as no matter which action we did, it allways managed to end in utter chaos. And finally, i could hear my guildies yawn and moan (mostly about the update itself, though the occasional "crappy loot!" was in there too).

Things to try yet:
Barbed Trap around the tank... everytime... yawn.
Echo Spiter (the new Echo Nuker?)

So finally, and to finalize this post - my comment on the situation.

GuildWars consists of several pillars, all trying to carry the heavy weight of a great game.

The pillars are:

Tactic (also: Adaption, Changing the odds to your favor while fighting)
Strategy (also: Planning ahead, knowing the battlefield, Crowd Control)
Chaos (also: Randomness)
Friendship (also: Basically having a good time with human players)
Atmosphere (also: Graphics, Sounds, Leveldesign)
Change (also: Constant evolution or degeneration of the gaming state)

Every player has his own opinion about how those pillars should be placed (how much weight they should carry). For some people, there is nothing like Friendship and if all the other pillars crumble, those will still be playing the game. Others love to see a constant flow of changes, while yet another crowd will probably love the Randomness of the Chaos Pillar. And then there is the huge crowd of those that have several favorites amongst said Pillars. Why am i stating this thing about the Pillars?

Because i feel like one of the pillars has been taken out of the PVE - Game completely. To be exact, the Pillar of Srategy is gone for me. While probably everyone is right in his opinion about the game, the update did only hit those that preferred a calm playing style planning ahead their steps(well and the farmers... but who cares about those?

Just kidding...). Yes i do understand those that say "Whats the matter? Nothing has really changed for me!". This is because you have chosen one of the other pillars and this does not affect you at all. But do you understand me as well?
YOUR playing style is not MY playing style. And judging from this thread there are several others thinking alike. While i don't want your way of playing to be ruined (why should i? if you prefer let's say... chaos [Leeroy Style, aggro everything and try to survive] thats fine for me), why do you insist on mine being destroyed? Did us strategians really have such a bad influence on the game that we got a huge hit against our forehead? Obviously... we did.

While the basic idea of the patch was great, the outcome was disastrous - to some. I don't know the numbers and you do neither. I even doubt that Arena.net knows those yet. There will either be an increase in Player numbers or a decrease in the very near future.

For me... the other pillars can barely hold the weight of the game..

One final OT Statement

A.Net... get decent Beta Testers. This is not the first patch that came out with severe problems and bugs. Those of the kind it takes one wonder "how in the name of all nine planes of hell did they miss out THOSE?". This is only partly directed at this update. It is moreover a common thing i've seen amongst many of the patches lately. I'm not speaking about Balancing and stuff like that... but patches obviously breaking stuff.
I would understand if the bugs where in parts that should not have been affected by the change. But the thing i want to point my finger upon here is... the bugs occur in the parts they actually changed and tested.

So please... get some decent Testers. Or if i'm doing them wrong... let them actually TEST things before you release them.

Fantus · Nov 13, 2005, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight_Shyft

Maybe this is over-simplifying things but why not just make it so there is a Minimum Party size? Area's that have 6 as the max, make it so that 4 is the minimum whether you take 3 henchies and yourself or 3 Players and yourself. Solo Farming problem solved & Everyone gets to play their respective class without having to nerf certain builds into oblivion....

6 people leave town, 5 log out, one left. Happy soloing.

Really, people should stop thinking that introducing limitations would make this game any better.

Knight_Shyft · Nov 13, 2005, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantus

6 people leave town, 5 log out, one left. Happy soloing.

Really, people should stop thinking that introducing limitations would make this game any better.

They're going to limit the game anyway.OBVIOUSLY People bail, Henchie appears in the empty spot, Problem solved. I would rather have something like this instead of what we've got now. Works to solve another problem in the process, 1/2 assed lamers that bail in the middle of a mission.

Aeon_Xin · Nov 13, 2005, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantus

You don't shut down real life society because there is crime, too. .

Hhmm, curfews. They're not jsut for teenagers, whole cities have recieved them. Declare martial law, military in the streets, that's been done too.

Shutdown was the wrong term.

You can hinder farming enough so that farming for ebay wouldn't be profitable.
Like you(someone anyway) said, bots can be caught, but there are sweatshops to contend with.

glenn_rolfe · Nov 13, 2005, 11:03 PM // 23:03

I have no idea why you would spend hour after hour farming for ectos and shards and fellblades. But I accept tha you guys do.

But noone can ever convince me that making monsters having smarter AI is a bad thing. The smarter, the greater the challenge, the better.

Fantus · Nov 13, 2005, 11:06 PM // 23:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight_Shyft

They're going to limit the game anyway.OBVIOUSLY People bail, Henchie appears in the empty spot, Problem solved. I would rather have something like this instead of what we've got now. Works to solve another problem in the process, 1/2 assed lamers that bail in the middle of a mission.

Great idea. Your tank drops due to an err=7 and gets replaced by Little Leroy Thom Jenkins. Or, particulary after the update: Your water ele drops out and gets replaced by the new "Miss Aggrocontrol" Cynn. People are going to love this.

EVERY single try to hit the solo farmers A-net made so far has made the game worse. Particularly including the 11/10 patch which was not only a very lame attempt to stop soloing (my monk is still laughing her butt off while farming just like before) but ruined the game for countless people who never had anything to do with farming. Read the post about the "new" Fissure of Woe strategies. Gosh, I am going to miss these organized runs, too. Strategy and tactics replaced by the new Leroyism... Very nicely done, Anet!

AllState · Nov 13, 2005, 11:14 PM // 23:14

The ANet peeps can say what ever they want, this is still nothing more then an update to stop farming, not to improve AI. That is just their cover story so the people who play that don't farm don't get even more pissed

& by the way Anet, I can still solo the UW, so U have FAILED

Knight_Shyft · Nov 13, 2005, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantus

Great idea. Your tank drops due to an err=7 and gets replaced by Little Leroy Thom Jenkins.

And as it is now/has been in most cases the party is forced or chooses to restart the mission since they are now shorthanded. While this isn't always the case, the majority of the time this is exactly what happens.

Quote:

Or, particulary after the update: Your water ele drops out and gets replaced by the new "Miss Aggrocontrol" Cynn. People are going to love this.

I guess I should have been more specific but I was giving simple input as to a possible replacement not addon to the current disaster that we're all having to deal with.

unienaule · Nov 13, 2005, 11:17 PM // 23:17

The people who want to feel good about themselves can say whatever they want, this is still nothing more than an update to Improve AI, not stop farming. That is just their cover story to complain about an update.

And by the way, I can still play PvE just fine.

Fantus · Nov 13, 2005, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight_Shyft

And as it is now/has been in most cases the party is forced or chooses to restart the mission since they are now shorthanded. While this isn't always the case, the majority of the time this is exactly what happens.

New players would do it. Most experienced players don't stop a run when a player drops. Lately, we had 3 people drop on a FoW run. Yes, we did Forgemaster quests nevertheless. Why should you abort when you just as well can go on? Also, it would stop people from INTENTIONALLY doing quests with less than a full party to increase challenge. We do that quite often.

Limitations are bad, bad, bad.

Good solution: Leave the farmers alone. In contast to Anet's uncontrolled usage of the nerf stick (aka 11/10 patch), farmers don't hurt anyone.

Lord Necromonger · Nov 13, 2005, 11:25 PM // 23:25

Well, based on the 3 hours of play since the new patch I have done in various areas. I would have to say that I like the changes. Anything that ups the difficulty level without going overboard is fine with me. I love to see new challenges in game that I already love to play.

Not to mention that it has dropped the price of the Superior Fire Runes from 76k to 9k. Yeah for me. !!!

Guardian of the Light · Nov 13, 2005, 11:33 PM // 23:33

I think this whole update has hurt too much and I don't know whats holding Anet back from changing/removing it.

Results of the Update

1. Monsters running from AoE is an factore from PVP it does not belong in PvE

2. Water Eles, Earth Ele, and knockdown Air Eles can't slow monesters enough for the Fire Ele to be effective in PvE now and if Anet Doesn't something Fire Eles will be gone forever.

3. Every Level of PvE is affected (in a bad way) by this including Solo AND team farming

4. The Largest Outrage and action against a single update has arrived and already 1000s of pentions and threads have started. I pridict if this issue doesn't resolve more hurtful to anet actions will result.

5. Prices on certian items are showing sky-rocket effects

Is all this wroth making the Henchies and Monsters "Smarter"

Theos · Nov 13, 2005, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guardian of the Light

3. Every Level of PvE is affected (in a bad way) by this including Solo AND team farming

Really? Boy what my guild does must not be farming then... who'd a thunk it? Team farming is not harder, unless your incapable of overcoming the weakening of... oh 4 skills in the Fire Elementalist line.

calamitykell · Nov 13, 2005, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

How about Chaos Storm, Energy Surge, Panic, Shatter Hex, Signet of Weariness, and Cry of Frustration.

They don't run from one-shot AoEs like Fireball, why would they run from my Shatter Hex? or Cry of Frustration? or Energy Surge?

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

Air: Chain Lightning, Lightning Touch, Thunderclap, and Whirlwind.

Chain Lightning and Lightning Touch are one-shot AoEs. Whirlwind is a one-shot AoE KD. Unsure how Thunderclap is affected though, but I imagine they don't run just because they're knocked down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

Earth: Aftershock, Crystal Wave, Earthquake, Eruption, and Grasping Earth.

Aftershock, Crystal Wave, Earthquake, Grasping Earth are all one-shot AoEs and no-shot AoEs, thus unaffected.

Eruption is affected, I believe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

Water: Deep Freeze, Frozen Burst, and Maelstrom.

Deep Freeze and Frozen Burst are one-shot AoEs and both snares.

Maelstrom is affected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

Regardless if they are slowed or knocked down, it is still AoE and enemies still run like pansies.

Except they don't.

I said, originally:
So no, it didn't screw up a lot more than I think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by id0l

You sure about that now?

Yep. I'd think you're pretty sure it didn't screw up a lot more than I think, as well. I appreciate your concern for my confidence though.