Curse

Andrew Patrick · Feb 08, 2008, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

Andrew I think we all appreciate the attention and pretty quick comments relayed back to the community, but is there a possibility we could get some concrete info on what is actually in plan from Izzy and CO about the upcoming changes concerning VOD...

The designers want to encourage more movement and aggressive play in GvG, rather than an 18minute stalemate at the flag stand. With blockweb + Splinter Weapon Nuke, GvG was essentially a ~20minute endurance match where most of the action took place between 18 and ~21ish minutes.

The designers are looking for changes that make the battle prior to VoD more important/exciting, and in turn, more fun. Though we are aware that balance may have been shifted too far from Flagstand/Morale to NPC advantage. We are evaluating the changes to try to find the right balance between the importance of the flagstand/morale and NPCs.

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 08, 2008, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The designers want to encourage more movement and aggressive play in GvG, rather than an 18minute stalemate at the flag stand. With blockweb + Splinter Weapon Nuke, GvG was essentially a ~20minute endurance match where most of the action took place between 18 and ~21ish minutes.

The designers are looking for changes that make the battle prior to VoD more important/exciting, and in turn, more fun. Though we are aware that balance may have been shifted too far from Flagstand/Morale to NPC advantage. We are evaluating the changes to try to find the right balance between the importance of the flagstand/morale and NPCs.

Thanks Andrew.

While I personally do agree to a certain extent, that GvG as a whole was more geared to stale mates 8v8 because of a redundance of party wide D and an importance on timely interrupts or very aggressive pushes on flag runners to crack such stale mates... I wonder though, concerning what I've mentioned above. What was the point or importance to party wide healing buffs, when in fact Izzy or whoever ever is in charge, was promoting a much more aggressive play style regarding an increased importance regarding NPC's(VOD). The former with no nerfs to party D and buffs to party heal obviously removed the aspect to cause pressure, especially 8v8. So in turn, with no nerfs to party D and buffs to party heals, nerf to the goldy mesmer interupt, wasn't that enough to focus or encourage the meta to shift more split heavy anyways? As of right now it's just ridiculous; one sided to pwning NPC's with more mobile, snared, degen, dmg orientated skill templates, who will reap the rewards!. God forbid a more 8v8 oriented build decides to even attempt to cap a flag, at the cost of either NPC's deaths in base, player deaths holding a base or running flags in... Pretty sure the NPC war is of greater importance currently, and obviously more catered to a play style you mentioned and what I've already echoed above...

I think it's obvious which way things are going, meta wise, map wise, AT wise... I just think it's been a "tad"

over done with most updates as usual, especially on non thief maps...

Andrew Patrick · Feb 08, 2008, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

Snip

I agree with a lot of your points, and as I said above, it is quite possible (probable, even) that the pendulum swung too hard to the other side. We are going to continue to make changes until the designers feel a balance has been achieved between NPCs and the Flag stand.

As for party healing, my guess would be, essentially, with the increased value of splitting, party-wide healing and prot is less of an issue than it was a month or so ago. Back then buffing party-healing would have been extremely counter productive since almost every battle was 8v8 at the flag stand with extremely defensive builds, but with the NPC/VoD changes rewarding a more offensive split-oriented strategy, party-wide skills are, quite often, really only going to be half-party-wide buffs since your whole team won't be in range, lowering their effectiveness and, ideally, keeping them at the "good but not overpowered" level.

Keep in mind, blockweb was not "nerfed" and a team could technically still go into a GvG match with an impenetrable phalanx of Aegis, DA, and Wards. But most don't because more aggressive builds and strategies are popping up that make doing so a not-so-good idea. You can be invincible all you want and it will do no good if the other team can simply walk around you and go wipe your NPCs. I tend to think of ultra-defensive builds as a sort of Armored Personnel Carrier...sure your safe in there, but you aren't exactly doing any good if your enemies are killing all the civilians a block down the road while you hide behind 5 inches of steel.

A build reliant on simply not dying is entirely one dimensional, and GvG is not a one dimensional format, so I am not particular worried about improved party-healing resulting in the return of ultra-defensive builds. Not with the changes to NPC's and VoD...

But of course, these changes are on a trial basis, so if we find the improvement to party healing or anything else isn't a good change, we will likely re-evaluate it.

And on the other side of the argument, if we find the changes to NPCs and VoD made splitting the only viable strategy, we will likely make adjustments to allow both split and 8v8 builds to have their pros and cons.

P.S. All that, and everyone was begging for better party-healing options after the LoD nerf.

Kaon · Feb 09, 2008, 12:58 AM // 00:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The designers want to encourage more movement and aggressive play in GvG, rather than an 18minute stalemate at the flag stand. With blockweb + Splinter Weapon Nuke, GvG was essentially a ~20minute endurance match where most of the action took place between 18 and ~21ish minutes.

The designers are looking for changes that make the battle prior to VoD more important/exciting, and in turn, more fun. Though we are aware that balance may have been shifted too far from Flagstand/Morale to NPC advantage. We are evaluating the changes to try to find the right balance between the importance of the flagstand/morale and NPCs.

Thank you SO MUCH for actually explaining the reasoning behind skillbalancing. <3 <3 <3

Now to react: The solution to "a stale boring 8v8 metagame at flagstand" in Izzy's mind is apparantly not to take down that what makes it so, but to encourage 1 other strategy: splitting. This is doesn't really solve the 8v8 problem and makes people choose between heavy dedicated split and heavy dedicated 8v8. This is why byob (bring your own build; roll 6-7 massive damage characters: rangers, sins, warriors, eles and 1 or 2 monks on Frozen Isle) currently is so powerful.

This change has indeed changed the game more into dividing it up into 2 playstyles, yet it destroyed the ability to adapt ingame. Either it's dedicated split or dedicated 8v8 with the ability to vodcamp. A middle form is hard to find. This destroys strategic adaptability which is/was imo the best part in guild wars.

So instead of forcing the game in such a two-way direction, why not fix the skills that make the game so bad 8v8?

In september and october 2007 this game was in one of it's BEST balance states and metas it had ever been in. Only the prophecies and post-factions metas were better because there was much more build variance and it allowed more build variance. In terms of skill and play adaptability many things were possible and rewarded. Yes people ran only 1 build with slight variations (balanced with ele or paragon variance, sometimes dropping their ranger, and sinsplit) but matches features countless deaths, skill was rewarded, and you could try different strategies. There were still a few flaws that could've been adressed.

Then came one of the worst updates in guild wars history which tore this meta apart.

- Light of deliverance was nerfed, the short term effect wasn't horrible, but after a few months people found a great replacement by the motigon. The worst template guild wars has ever had, ever. I say this from first hand experience, there's probably NOONE in guild wars that has played more builds and designed more builds than I have, and nothing ever came so close to retardation as this. I'm stuck on this role for 4 weeks now and I log on less simply because it makes me puke. This is the first time ever that I don't really enjoy guild wars as much because of the game itself, and not because of guild/activity issues.
- Word of healing buffed to the level of retardation. Pressuring was/is almost impossible. In the old days you could hit a target to 40% hp, and then switch after prot, knowing that you did good damage and exhausted the monks energy pool. Now such pressuring does nothing to the monks energy pool and the only way to kill is make sure the monk is UNABLE to heal it up by shutting the WoH down with pleak/shame/blackout/div/kd. This skill is horrible and together with the next skill on the list the MAIN REASON people stopped dying. Also this buff meant runner monks got MUCH more powerful and ganking without sins suddenly became an almost impossible job.
- Guardian. A 9 (7 on WoH) seconds 5e 1s 2r guardian on BOTH monks? So if we pressure something it's going to receive supercheap some uberprot. If we switch targets we're ineffective because of WoH! Not to mention it stacks nicely with the already broken combination of Great synergy for the monks, horrible synergy for the warriors and the game. Suddenly monks could survive again on their own, collapsing became harder, and again runnermonks got buffed to level of +300% extra survivability against non-sinsplit.

Those 3 skills were what destroyed the game on the 8th of october 2007. Everything bad happening right now can be reverted back DIRECTLY at those 3 skills. You can't suddenly split anymore and collapse on their mainteam because 2 monks are so incredibly hard to kill. This lead the game into a three way choice:

- Spike people down, commonly referred to as "eurospike" it doesn't really apply to the region but it rolls the tongue nicely.
- Pressure with powerleak. Degen obviously isn't possible anymore so the only thing you can do is have a strong mesmer with powerleak and obliterate their monks. This is what most teams did before 08/11 but it just takes a lot longer now.
- Dedicated split (read: sinsplit, as they're almost the only viable characters).

With the current destruction of powerleak and buff to heal party (WHYYYYYYYYY?????!!!!!!!!!!!!) pressure is a joke right now. This means you either have to spike (for strong 8v8 power) or split heavily (byob or sinsplit) and totally dedicate yourself to the matter. The latter is probably preferably as it just got a huge buff and is more fun, but still i'd prefer a metagame that allows for adaptation over it anytime.

Now there is 1 problem that has been here for about a year (unconfirmed) and that is of course the Gole+aegis problem. I don't like this synergy at all because it makes the game so dull and makes anyone who takes something else than mo/e stupid, except in some byob build where you have only 1 monk. We have seen that the game can still be good when this mechanic is still here, but fixing it would be an improvement nonetheless.

Summary: Adding mechanics like ViO is yet again (which is what anet always seems to do) a tweak that tries to change or adjust the symptoms of the metagame. But it completely misses the heart of the problem and therefore will not result in a considerably better game.

Zabe · Feb 09, 2008, 11:32 AM // 11:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ec]-[oMaN

How many Gvg's have you played since the update, the effort required to farm npc's with a bunch of splittable, adaptable characters pre vod is a joke. Roll up some better mobile templates with either teleports or mass damage degen and keep running around the map, much talent there. By the time VOD hits you can sit there and dance, tip your cap, threaten a lone guild lord with your split and prevent ancestors/splinter farming while your mass npc's await at the stand. That was a viable tactic before vod was butchered into what it is currently. Even more power to it now.

Just roll up some byob that's what gvg has become.

I have been playing GvG and BYOB'ng after the update. I said it badly. Didn't mean to any kindly promote ViO effect because its just big joke. But you can't deny that the splitting and mobile factory was the point of adding ViO. And still, I don't say its good, because it plain sucks and should have been never put in to the game.

romO · Feb 09, 2008, 10:33 PM // 22:33

The reason that you can't kill is because of Word of Healing? Give me a break; I laughed really hard at that. The skill description is essentially "LOL HEAL", and I've always hated the skill because it doesn't do much of anything. The main reason that people have been running it is because of lack of alternatives, and the key component of the buff that it received was the ability to self-heal. Aside from that, it's just the same as it's always been, another heal which is relatively large but by no means excessive. The efficiency that comes from it is just a bit of conditional energy management, which isn't overly reliable or effective in any situation besides skirmish.

Guardian was buffed to promote more active protting versus passive defense, without allowing it to negate all damage or go on before spikes via a 1 sec cast. Monks, to an extent, should be self-sufficient. I don't quite see your argument there. Is your ideal role for a monk to get popped instantly without any support and have nothing to stop that but kiting?

Kaon · Feb 09, 2008, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

The reason that you can't kill is because of Word of Healing? Give me a break; I laughed really hard at that. The skill description is essentially "LOL HEAL", and I've always hated the skill because it doesn't do much of anything. The main reason that people have been running it is because of lack of alternatives, and the key component of the buff that it received was the ability to self-heal. Aside from that, it's just the same as it's always been, another heal which is relatively large but by no means excessive. The efficiency that comes from it is just a bit of conditional energy management, which isn't overly reliable or effective in any situation besides skirmish.

Guardian was buffed to promote more active protting versus passive defense, without allowing it to negate all damage or go on before spikes via a 1 sec cast. Monks, to an extent, should be self-sufficient. I don't quite see your argument there. Is your ideal role for a monk to get popped instantly without any support and have nothing to stop that but kiting?

Play the game before you reply please. Especially on warrior. You can't be seriously stating that WoH isn't overpowered and neither is guardian. They are the exact reasons things stopped dying, together with the partygon.

tricolorsp · Feb 10, 2008, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Play the game before you reply please. Especially on warrior. You can't be seriously stating that WoH isn't overpowered and neither is guardian. They are the exact reasons things stopped dying, together with the partygon.

ya, remove all the healings and active prots of the game so warriors can kill

Kaon · Feb 10, 2008, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by tricolorsp

ya, remove all the healings and active prots of the game so warriors can kill

Or put them on a level where warriors still have use. Both times when the game was at it's best, monks ran guardian, and that was when it lasted 5 seconds and had about a 40% block. Their heals weren't even close to what we have now. Isn't that enough proof how out of line things are right now?

TheLordOfBlah · Feb 10, 2008, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Play the game before you reply please. Especially on warrior. You can't be seriously stating that WoH isn't overpowered and neither is guardian. They are the exact reasons things stopped dying, together with the partygon.

d shot/chop imo

@ above, im prty sure tricolorsp was joking.. you are probably just bad at warrior.

romO · Feb 10, 2008, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Play the game before you reply please. Especially on warrior. You can't be seriously stating that WoH isn't overpowered and neither is guardian. They are the exact reasons things stopped dying, together with the partygon.

To say that WoH or Guardian are too strong is valid, although I disagree with it (at least the WoH part). To say that they're the reasons that nothing dies is absolutely ridiculous. Casting WoH or Guardian isn't by any means an instawin or instalive button. Might want to play the game before you reply please. Especially on monk.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 10, 2008, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Guardian, especially now PLeak is unusable is way too strong, WoH is a bit too strong as well but it's easy enough to deal with, basically any plock/diversion/dshot/magebane on it generates pressure instantly.

Guardian should probably get a scaling block % again, or a slightly increased recharge (4-5ish).

romO · Feb 10, 2008, 01:17 AM // 01:17

I agree with you there, Mitch, but I don't know that the block % on guardian is the real problem. No matter what it is, you don't want to be swinging into it, especially if there is Aegis or ward present. So hitting something like the recharge or duration might be more effective.

zergtrader · Feb 10, 2008, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Or put them on a level where warriors still have use. Both times when the game was at it's best, monks ran guardian, and that was when it lasted 5 seconds and had about a 40% block. Their heals weren't even close to what we have now. Isn't that enough proof how out of line things are right now?

and im pretty sure some offense was buffed since 2005

I Angra I · Feb 10, 2008, 01:53 AM // 01:53

I like the idea of putting more emphasis on dynamic split play, but I don't think the reward being a huge % damage buff at VoD is the solution. Sure it promotes split play, but it's still also promoting stalling for 18 minutes, waiting for your 140% damage to guarantee wins. The reward should be something that helps pre-VoD also I think. Maybe like giving some morale back for X amount of npcs killed, or even a full morale boost with recharged sigs for a large amount of npc kills pre-vod.

ChopChop · Feb 10, 2008, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by zergtrader

and im pretty sure some offense was buffed since 2005

not by much, the standard axe warrior bar is pretty much the same, eviscerate even took a slight nerf.

zergtrader · Feb 10, 2008, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChopChop

not by much, the standard axe warrior bar is pretty much the same, eviscerate even took a slight nerf.

not just wars but damnage all around eles para splinter/ar npc damnage etc..

Almighty Zi · Feb 10, 2008, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChopChop

not by much, the standard axe warrior bar is pretty much the same, eviscerate even took a slight nerf.

I think what he says is partly true when you consider paragons have replaced mainly defensive stand eles.

Kaon · Feb 10, 2008, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

I agree with you there, Mitch, but I don't know that the block % on guardian is the real problem. No matter what it is, you don't want to be swinging into it, especially if there is Aegis or ward present. So hitting something like the recharge or duration might be more effective.

That's exactly my point, you don't want to be swinging into a guardian because it saves so much damage. This means you need to find another target to pressure. Which can then also get a fast cheap guardian. This is annoying but wouldnt be much of a problem if it didn't synergize so well with WoH. The moment you target switch all your damage was almost useless because of a cheap WoH. When frontline pressure can be healed up and protted agianst so easily there's something wrong.

This is proven by the state of the game. Before november 2007 stuff died really fast, 90% of our matches ended at 8minutes. After it we actually went to vod a couple of times, and when people started bringing partygons thing got even worse.

If you don't think WoH or guardian is the problem, then what do you think caused the sudden change from massive death to massive being alive? Right now you could buff LoD to it's old level and in 8v8 it's still 3times better to run WoH and partygon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zergtrader

and im pretty sure some offense was buffed since 2005

Only a very little bit. But the defense these days is twice, if not three times better. Oh and it's 2006, not 2005. The first 1.5 years izzy only nerfed offense.

deya · Feb 10, 2008, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The designers want to encourage more movement and aggressive play in GvG, rather than an 18minute stalemate at the flag stand. With blockweb + Splinter Weapon Nuke, GvG was essentially a ~20minute endurance match where most of the action took place between 18 and ~21ish minutes.

The designers are looking for changes that make the battle prior to VoD more important/exciting, and in turn, more fun. Though we are aware that balance may have been shifted too far from Flagstand/Morale to NPC advantage. We are evaluating the changes to try to find the right balance between the importance of the flagstand/morale and NPCs.

Indeed the game would be a lot more fun the way you explained, you lads are just fixing the wrong parts of the problem right now. I'd like to get explanation why a few skills are still untouched:

GoLE (This is a seriously problematic since you can just cancel those 10energy spells as long as you want to avoid beeing intterupted and hoping for fast cast)

Ward against Melee is just a bit too powerful, should prolly give it a little bit higher recharge, as for now - it's many times only skill keeping things alive.

Aegis, this skill would be fine without GoLE acting as uninterruptible cover, but for now it's just mindless 50% permanent block for your team.

Splinter Weapon, nuff said. With some higher recharge this skill could be still usable but balanced.

Ancestors Rage, 5nrg 1/4s cast for a huge damage spike AoE, this skill is so much better than any other pure damage skill.

If you guys nerfed passive blocking skills and VoDrampage, things would be a lot more interesting. People should rely on active defensive skills like Guardian/SoD and kiting which makes the game a lot more challenging - more fun to play.

Btw. I'm saying this like "pre-latest-update" cause IMO VoD used to be fine in last mAT