Curse

Blue Steel · Aug 25, 2005, 07:25 PM // 19:25

I have no problems with nerfing at all, so long as it is an effort to balance. Nerf the 105 monks, buff everyone else so any profession can solo the UW, its all the same to me, but there should be balance in the force. Every profession ought to be equally viable, every skill ought to have its place in some circumstance. There should be regions that one profession dominates and others where some other profession or skill is critical.

The exploitimonk build must be fixed so that there is balance and everyone and their dog doesn't play an exploitimonk on the side and so that normal healing monks can occassionally buy a superior monk rune at the trader.

The most expensive items in the game are the ones with no penalty to offset their bonuses. Look at superior vigor, superior absorption, and superior monk runes. In the case of superior monk runes, they were supposed to have a penalty, but a shamelessly copied skill exploit turns that penalty into a second significant benefit.

Here is my list of nerf suggestions for the sake of better balance (flame away):

(1) Add penalties to vigor and absorption runes (not health like other runes, since that wouldn't make sense, but an energy penalty: no penalty for a minor rune, -2 energy for a major vigor rune, and -3 energy for a superior vigor rune; same with absorption)

(2) Fix broken skills - this is in the works and doesn't need to be belabored, but some skills are used by everyone (protective bond) to compensate for actual skill at the game, and other skills are never used by anyone under any circumstances and ought to be (and are being) improved.

(3) Add some farming dungeons intentionally for solo farmers. Soloing is great fun, and though team play is also great fun, most teams are terrible and it is time consuming when people want to just find a true challenge for 1 or 2 level 20 characters at the same time. As the game is now, party size in PvE only goes in one direction: it rachets to bigger and bigger party sizes until level 20 players have to play with parties of 8 to get a challenge. Couldn't there be some end game randomized dungeons that could be tackled by 2 ascended characters together with challenge and difficulty, but not in a way that requires one specific build? It would be great if there were a dozen different dungeons with entrances that only allowed parties of 1 to 3 people, and that favored different professions and that each had different, unique drops. Then every profession is viable in the "farmers' market," and the challenges are plentiful. And there would be an incentive to play the less popular professions, because the dungeons that can only be soloed by mesmers (or best soloed by them), would have drops worth a lot more because the supply would be lower.

Those are my radical suggestions. I think they would dramatically improve the PvE end game, and add some variety to the professions people play and the skills they use.

ifuwerepbandj · Aug 25, 2005, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Definately a radical take. The normal take is somewhere along the lines of "OMFGZZZ SOLO MONKS RUIN MY LIFE AND KILL ALL MY CHILDREN!!!!!!!!" Thank You for posting a coherent and intelligent thread.

Now on to your idea. I love the idea of dungeons designed for 1,2 and 3 man teams. That would cut down on people getting free rides through areas and increase the ability of buddies to do missions together without griefers ruining a good time. I pretty much agree with everything in your post, not much for me to say.

-malachi- · Aug 25, 2005, 07:38 PM // 19:38

(1)Interesting take, but most people already have at least a major in pvp, and superiors are fairly easy to get with faction. If everyone is using them there is no real balance issue IMO.

(2)They are working on that, nerfed the spirits hard, but hey now new team ideas will get a go at hoh, tired of spirit spam and spike teams personally.

(3)I like the idea of 1-2 people areas, it was fun to run around by yourself in presearing, be nice to be able to do that sometimes in the postsearing.

curserwigger · Aug 25, 2005, 07:43 PM // 19:43

I think you have some great ideas here. I guess we will have to wait until the weekend to see what changes they are making and then move on from there. Since the support team and developers listens to the community ideas like these will be taken seriously. I can't wait to see what they are going to do with this weekend update as well as the summer update.

RyuuTenshi · Aug 25, 2005, 08:01 PM // 20:01

One question. What's nerfing mean? I'm kinda new to the forum and I see this term a lot.

ifuwerepbandj · Aug 25, 2005, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Nerfing = one thing that was overpowered is made less-powerful (ie. spirit spammers can no longer spam as many spirits), or an area that was originally easy to farm for good items/gold is "nerfed" and no longer has as good of drops or is made harder.

tuskenraid · Aug 25, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Wow... that's a lot of really great ideas. I'm impressed with how well thought out that is and how much fun that sounds like. Don't know if I totally agree with the penalty for Vigor runes.... maybe absorption, but not Vigor. Anyway... loved the rest of it and I really hope this thread gets some more support so that Anet will take a look and consider it.

Personally, I hate playing with 8 people. As a mesmer primary it is a chore to get into a group in the first place, and when I do, I pretty much have to take what I can get with the other players (not always a good thing). I miss being able to run around by myself, like in pre-searing, or the fun of grabbing one other person and going beyond the wall to hunt charr. That was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, after lvl20 unless you are an "uber" build character, which not all of want to be, it's pretty much impossible to go through areas to get stuff without a larger group.

I'm totally behind you on this one.

Koroh · Aug 25, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

The idea of small group areas is fantastic!

I can understand why ANet has upped the group size progressively through the game, but to be honest the requirement for a full team of 6 or 8 people just to pass some missions can be a real pain. It's currently much easier to get a runner to do the mission for you at a cost of 2p than it is to put together a decent group of 6-8 people to attempt a mission. Even worse, an experienced solo runner probably has a better chance of pulling it off!

I'm not sure how easy it would be to scale the difficulty of a mission to the size of the group, but since this game is heavy into instanced adventuring so I'm sure it could be done.

I play in a very small guild and generally only have one or two of my friends on at a time. An 8 player mission is great if you're in a big guild, but several times I've turned the game off because my only option was a PUG. Anyone who has played a PUG has experienced the joy that comes from watching a group that took 15 minutes to form destroy itself in a mere 5 minutes. One person drops in the first couple fights, and the rest of us realize that we're missing a key ingredient like a competant nuker or healer. Go back to town, rinse, repeat.

Henchmen would be a good solution if they were a little tougher, or at least did competent damage. Right now I'd take one player over 3 henchies.

But I digress... woo hoo small group areas!

Koroh

Chillin-N-Killin · Aug 25, 2005, 08:16 PM // 20:16

nerf = fix, repair, total screw things up

j/k on last comment

Racthoh · Aug 25, 2005, 08:47 PM // 20:47

I don't agree with the absorption/vigor ideas.

They would only hinder warriors and to some extent rangers. Bad enough playing as a warrior with 20 energy, but knowing that unless I strap on the gladiator's set I'm limited to skills with a 10 energy cost. That or I use an offhand with +energy but the sacrifice of 16 armor for -3 damage? Ditto for +50 health, just not worth it in the end.

Many will argue that a warrior should be wearing gladiator's regardless but I prefer the extra AL against spells provided by my wyvern ensemble. Even still for +50 health and -3 damage, I would have 22 energy at my disposal. Not enough to use some skills from the only secondary that warriors have.

I particularly like the 3rd idea, and the second one is being implemented this weekend which we informed of through an IGN interview.

sixdartbart · Aug 25, 2005, 09:07 PM // 21:07

I think that you have some very good ideas here, The alternate types of dungeons is a great idea as I'm sure everyone will agree that a required team of 8 players that all know what they are doing and will all get along can be more challenging to come up with than the actual battles in fow. I think as you can already see in some of the previous posts here that you will never get people to agree on the rune penalties because if it doesn't directly affect the current build they are useing it's ok to change and if it does well you just can't change that. And on that note the superior absorbtion already carries a bit of a penalty 80k to 100k a peice. In the spirit of full disclosure I play a Warrior that is struggling to get all the extra energy that I can "so you just can't change that".. LOL

Blue Steel · Aug 25, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

I don't agree with the absorption/vigor ideas. . . . Bad enough playing as a warrior with 20 energy, but knowing that unless I strap on the gladiator's set I'm limited to skills with a 10 energy cost. . . just not worth it in the end.

This is exactly my point: I think there should have to be some consideration as to whether or not you want to use a superior absorption or a superior vigor. A penalty to balance it out and add some variety. You have to weigh the option. Maybe you want to use both and heavy armor and go with only adrenaline skills? Maybe you want to use minor absorption and vigor so you have more energy for a few energy skills, including some with high energy requirements. It makes the gameplay deeper if there are less options that are "no brainers." There shouldn't be any "no brainers." Right now, if you can afford those two runes, you would be a fool not to use them. But if they had penalties like everything else, there would be situations to use them and situations to not use them.

No skill should be a no brainer, no profession or build should be a no brainer, and no rune should be a no brainer.

Soul Shaker · Aug 25, 2005, 11:01 PM // 23:01

I don't agree with 1 like a lot of us..but the rest are good. Warriors have low enough energy as is, no need to kill that too.

SOT · Aug 26, 2005, 12:39 AM // 00:39

Exploiti-monks exist in your head.

Legendary Battousai · Aug 26, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

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