Curse

Ensign · Aug 15, 2005, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Mega

And I'll say again (as I've said 10 dozen times now) I am on a Spirit STRATEGY (NR) team, and we have been beaten by other teams that did not use the same strategy or build as we have.

I've been on a team without any sort of static defense that's held the hall for over an hour.

I've been on a team that's held the hall with henchmen.

I've been on a full team that lost to a pug with a full compliment of henchmen.

That doesn't mean that you should do any of these things and expect them to work. Sometimes the low percentage plays pan out.

But let's go a bit deeper. Running a Nature's Renewal build does not mean running a spirit spamming build. You have likely been getting beaten by Nature's Renewal builds that were not being overt about their NR - they were simply builds that were hardened against the skill.

If you were losing to enchantment and hex heavy builds while running Nature's Renewal, then you can look at differences in player skill. This game isn't just build vs. build, a better team with a strategic disadvantage can overcome it with tight play and good tactics.

So you say you've lost to other builds while running Nature's Renewal? That's great. I've lost to henchies. Both data points are about as meaningful.

Peace,
-CxE

Dan Mega · Aug 15, 2005, 11:04 PM // 23:04

We have been beaten by other teams that have figured out how to beat NR without having to use it.

Linkie · Aug 15, 2005, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Mega

We have been beaten by other teams that have figured out how to beat NR without having to use it.

You really don't get why NR is unbalanced, do you? The problem is that not that we can't beat NR, the problem is that most enchantments and hexes are simply gimped by any NR team.

Ensign · Aug 15, 2005, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Praytell, how exactly would running Nature's Renewal help you beat a Nature's Renewal based team? It's a symmetrical effect. You *don't* drop Nature's Renewal against a Nature's Renewal team. If both teams are prepared to operate under Nature's Renewal the team that *doesn't* drop it is often at a distinct advantage. Hell, in an environment completely flooded with NR the optimal play is to *not* run Nature's Renewal and expect the other team to waste resources on the skill.

But since I have to tell you this I think it's abundantly clear why you're losing. The skill is retarded, but that doesn't mean that spamming it like a retard will autowin games for you.

Peace,
-CxE

Bugeater · Aug 16, 2005, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Wow a well-researched and intelligent OP by Blackace. And all this time I thought you were just a jackass.

But seriously, lets not turn this into another one of a million NR flamethrower threads.

Saerden · Aug 16, 2005, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Mega

I'll give my own take on it. Something is degenerately wrong with the players, not the game, that can't beat a certain build. They're not good enough yet won't ever, ever admit it.

And I'll say again (as I've said 10 dozen times now) I am on a Spirit STRATEGY (NR) team, and we have been beaten by other teams that did not use the same strategy or build as we have.

The opposite is true. Competitive players will use whatever strategy it takes to win. Its not only ignorant and stupid, but also an insult to label us that use this build to win as "newbies" that won't be able to use another build if this one gets nerfed. Just because you aren't truely good enough at PvP to beat certain builds doesn't make everyone else a newbie.

I think this post is the perfect example why we need definitions of "overpowered" in this thread fast. Else people like this will come in and claim that Ensign is a poor player because he cant beat NR. Yes, sure, NR is the "i win" button. ... . Sorry, but as people have pointed out, NR is not overpowered because you cant win against it. IT IS NOT an "i win" button. Instead, its an "i win" button against enchantments and hexes. That is the problem. Having NR wont make you win. Trying to fight it is stupid. Adjusting (hardening as Ensign puts it) means that you throw out lots of options a priori, no need to think about 3s hexes when NR will be out 24/7. Everyone can win under NR, because its symmetric. Its just that it recudes the pool of viable strategies. When you realize that NR is not a skill, but instead a law of nature (its always there), you will realize that "winning against it" is possible, but stupid. Thats why good players dont try to fight it, but embrace it. throwing lots of fun things out the window. And cry "overpowered" on the forums, because they want the fun options back.

Perth68 · Aug 16, 2005, 08:44 AM // 08:44

NR is a broken skill that will be balanced due to its high publicity, I am just worried about all the more subtle imbalances in this game. Hopefully there taking a long time in balancing to play test all of these and we will see substantial improvement in this game soon.

But with everything else: sorrows furnace,chapter 2, planed tourney's, bug fixes (skill descriptions),Auction house, observer mode,balancing, and other various things it would seem that ANet has a lot on its plate. Hopefully it will figure what is truly most important and take care of it first.

Asplode · Aug 16, 2005, 10:17 AM // 10:17

Jesus christ, Blackace, you expect us to have the attention span to read all that?

...I'm somewhat flattered.

Zelc · Aug 16, 2005, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

I think this post is the perfect example why we need definitions of "overpowered" in this thread fast.

There has been one

. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0&postcount=41

Tuon · Aug 16, 2005, 11:32 PM // 23:32

you guys have yet to explain why enchantment removal isn't supposed to be worse than enchantment generation. I compared it to healing vs dmg. Every team has a monk. Every team should have enchantments. If there's a problem with healing balls, modify map victory conditions a little. In any case you have energy denial.

I think the only reason NR is so strong is because it (theoretically) affects both sides

Tuon · Aug 16, 2005, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asplode

Jesus christ, Blackace, you expect us to have the attention span to read all that?

...I'm somewhat flattered.

you shouldn't be. It's very easy reading.

Aug 17, 2005, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuon

you guys have yet to explain why enchantment removal isn't supposed to be worse than enchantment generation

If enchantment removal is supposed to beat enchantments, that means that when youn remove them you have to gain an advantage. The issue comes from 3 sides: Enchantment stacking,recharge timers on enchantment removal, and options for what to remove.

The first dictates that any single-target enchantment aka spot removal will fail against teams that load on enchantments. Being that this is usually going to be everyone, and especially monks thats a problem. This wouldnt be THAT bad a problem if the other 2 issues werent present, as you could spot remove enchantments on Rangers, Warriors or other targets not likely to be buffed with defensive enchantments and instead deal with offensive enchantments. Wonderful, since necros would usually be dealing with Warriors and Rangers anyway.

However, this goes along with the second problem. Recharge timers. The recharge timers on just about every piece of spot removal is so horrid teams just bring Rend and hope to bust through. Most of the time spot removal is used is for the secondary effect, like Shatter/Drain/Inspire/Strip/Chilblains. So with this, they would have trouble lowering the recharge timer of all of them. They continously run into Guardians/Rof/Aegis/Boon traps and end up being a waste of time.

The last issue is just a combination of the first two. What do you remove? Your horrible recast timers would be a non-issue if the enchantments you wanted to remove didn't come up just as fast as you removed them. Nothing is going to compete with a mid-level enchantment like Judge's Insight from a monk popping it on all the time. You cant stop Bip or Orders, and these are spam enchants that you would never be able to fight anyway. So your only hope is fighting those long cooldown enchantments like Conjures, which end up being covered anyway by something Aegis which puts you back into square one. You lose vs anything that doesn't have an obscenely long cooldown, and then the ones you have an option of beating get covered by the ones you lose to. Efficient system of counters right?

Dzan · Aug 17, 2005, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Another M:tG analogy.

Counterspells, aka Permission Decks are only viable when the counterspells available in the environment are cheaper than the average spell in the environment. Example: if all your counterspells cost 4 mana and you opponent's spells are 2 mana he is at a distinct advantage, assuming mana is equal for both players.

How does this relate to Guild Wars? Any removal, to be worth something, has to at least as efficient as the thing its countering. If healing wasn't more efficient than damage, no one would play monks, for instance. If every spot anti-enchantment spell has a 15 mana cost and 30 second recharge time; but every enchantment costs 10 mana and has a 20 second recharge time, who do you think will win in the long run?

Also, spot removal of enchantments in GW... sucks to be honest. In Magic the Gathering, you don't have to counter every spell. You only have to counter the ones that actually threaten your game plan. In Guild Wars, when you Shatter Enchantment, you don't get to pick which of the 6 enchantments the guy has on him you want to Shatter, you only get to pick the most recent one. This means you don't have the luxury of just Shattering the one's that bother you: you have to kill as many as it takes to get to the important ones. And as we've already established that, from a cost perspective, is a losing battle in the long run.

So where does that leave us? Spot removal is pretty awful, and mass removal, in the form of NR, is good that it makes enchantments and hexes worthless.

In Magic, the solution was to make all removal better than all threats and to make the game a battle over resources rather than a threat race (not to say that you can't play and win with aggressive strategies or combos, but I'm making a general point). This won't work, because the only real resource in GW is energy, and two energy denial builds going at it might not pass the "is this fun?" test that a good game should have.

edit: I also want to add, the reason the "resource fight" in Magic works is because there are multiple resources: mana, cards in hand, time and life. You can usually trade one for the other, which creates interesting strategic interactions. In GW, we only have one real resource, Energy. A few necro spells let you trade Life for energy, but for the most part, Energy is the only resource. Only having one resource to battle over makes the strategic interactions significantly less interesting.

One way to solve it, in my mind, is to give spells more alternative costs, beyond mana. Life sacrifices are a good start but there are others. Mark of Protection is a good example. With that spell we begin to see Time and "cards" becoming a resource. Building on that is the way to go to create real strategic choices in a resource war.

Zelc · Aug 17, 2005, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

edit: I also want to add, the reason the "resource fight" in Magic works is because there are multiple resources: mana, cards in hand, time and life. You can usually trade one for the other, which creates interesting strategic interactions. In GW, we only have one real resource, Energy. A few necro spells let you trade Life for energy, but for the most part, Energy is the only resource. Only having one resource to battle over makes the strategic interactions significantly less interesting.

Note that recharge times are sort of like card advantage in that since you have only eight skills. Card advantage is good primarily because it gives you more options, and every skill that is unusable or recharging takes away from your options. Time is kind of like cast time and, in the case of (de)buffs, durations (which also has impact on cast time since you'll be casting the shorter (de)buffs more often, triggering the cast time). A skill that randomly disables another of your skills for X seconds for energy, life, or reduced cast time could be very interesting.

Makkert · Aug 17, 2005, 05:39 AM // 05:39

May I add to Zell and Dzan: you inditified life, energy, recast. How about bodies? they can be exploited (compare to gy in mtg). only thing, this resource is hardly manageble in GW, altough possible as the minionmaster build showed us.
Signet is another that comes to mind. For the ranger maybe the range-attackspeed tradeoff, similar for warrior. attackspeed can be crippled by necro's, boosted by war/rang. Maybe i'm going a bit to far with this all, but they are manageble in variable degrees.

Aug 17, 2005, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Yes all those are resources, but Dzan probably should have said that of all resources Energy is the one that really matters above all else. Energy Denial has a ton of strong options under it's belt, and cooldown and cast time options arent as diverse, or in some cases worth playing with.

Pyxis · Aug 17, 2005, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Excellent Post Blackace, I like your new demeanor. Anet should be honored to have such well educated fans as those that have posted in this thread (excluding myself of course). I hope they eventually listen to you guys and see that following your free expert advise will secure a long shelf life for their game, and ignoring it will continue to drive people away. Kudos to Ensign as well.

Makkert · Aug 17, 2005, 05:19 PM // 17:19

The thread is going slightly of topic (and yes, i'm also to blame), so here an attempt to turn back to 'balance'.

source:http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

Quote:

Am I required to buy the new chapters in order to continue to play Guild Wars?

No. Every purchase you make in the continuation of the Guild Wars saga will be your choice. If you purchase new chapters, you will gain access to new regions of the world, new skills and abilities, new items, new professions, and much more. And of course such a purchase will support the continued development of the game. However, if you choose not to purchase a chapter, you will still be able to play the chapters of Guild Wars that you own, and you will have common areas in which you will be able to play with and against your friends who have purchased the other chapter(s).

Is it me, or am I the only one fearing severe balance issues on the possibility of adding new proffessions?

Every proffession has it's niche, and own interactions with the other proffessions. I simply don't see how they can add a proffessions without stepping on balanceproblems. (drawing the line with mtg: if there was ONE thing that hasn't changed over 10 years, it is the amount of colors able to play)

Theos · Aug 17, 2005, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

The thread is going slightly of topic (and yes, i'm also to blame), so here an attempt to turn back to 'balance'.

source:http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

Is it me, or am I the only one fearing severe balance issues on the possibility of adding new proffessions?

Every proffession has it's niche, and own interactions with the other proffessions. I simply don't see how they can add a proffessions without stepping on balanceproblems. (drawing the line with mtg: if there was ONE thing that hasn't changed over 10 years, it is the amount of colors able to play)

I personally see the classes as your cards, the colors being more what they actually do (melee, anti-whatever, disrupt etc...). I may be crazy, who knows. If they add new classes they would add more "cards" to your whatever color deck you make.

Example: They add, lets just say, an Assassin.
This would be clearly melee or short ranged, and one could classify it as anti caster and maybe anti melee, clearly not a tank or what not. So it will and could be countered with a ranger, or dibilitating mesmer, or just the brute force of a warrior. Judging by the name it would have to be sneaky, so if caught off guard it could be destroyed by any elementalist.

Now all the above comes from my own views, I have played MTG since Legends and I have seen things change time and again. I would maybe think of it as T1x new cards always coming in, just without the going out that occurs in mTG.

IPlayGuildWars · Aug 17, 2005, 07:04 PM // 19:04

To the person who said Affinity ruled the T2 block until it got banned, and every deck HAD to pack anti affinity or it simply wouldn't be viable, you forgot one thing.

No matter how much artifact hate there was, Affinity was still dominant.
I guess that's how it is in Guild Wars.