Curse

N1ghtstalker · Jun 21, 2010, 08:14 PM // 20:14

debuff on those goddamn white mantle
those bastards just don't die and in the area you'll only get like lvl 10 henchies?
what good are they?

Mintha Syl · Jun 21, 2010, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

I was just explaining what I believe the other poster was saying...

I know

I used your quote to comment that point, even if I know it's not yours.

Ugh · Jun 21, 2010, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

I think he means the shout has less of an effect with more people in the party. So if the para was alone he'd get the full effect but if he was in a group they'd get less of an effect...which is kind of counter intuitive but might work if done right.

He said, "Have the number of party members that some shouts affect scale with the attribute." If we remove the phrases that are used for detail but are unnecessary for a grammactically correct sentence, we have "Have the number scale," with "the number" being the number of party members affected. So no, his suggestion has nothing to do with scaling the effect.

But both would give much more diversity to paras' skills, make paras better in smaller groups, make paras require a bit more skill, and would be much better balancing techniques than constant nerfs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by N1ghtstalker

debuff on those goddamn white mantle
those bastards just don't die and in the area you'll only get like lvl 10 henchies?
what good are they?

Bringing spirit-killing/stealing skills or some sort of holy damage could help; the rits' spirits of shelter are quite resilient. I think they use some prot, too, so enchantment-stripping could help. Alternatively, just stop attacking a guy once you realize he's taking significantly less damage. Also, bring a way to stop rez skills.

Or, instead of doing any of that, bring shittons of d0mage and blow everything up without using any real strategy or thought, like a true PvEer. They have normal armor in WiK, so killing shouldn't be too hard.

As for the henchmen problem... PUG or go HM?

Morphy · Jun 22, 2010, 09:59 AM // 09:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

Balance is relative.

Two twenty ton weights are in balance just as two feathers are in balance. PvE's balance depends not on the individual power level of the classes, but how their power relates to one another. Something is overpowered when it is vastly superior to everything else, something is underpowered when it is vastly inferior to everything else.

Yes, there has been power creep. But since the average level of power has increased and the new standard has become the norm, the classes now "out of balance" are the ones who have not received such treatment. Ergo, there are only two solutions; nerf the hell out of everything and rework every update in the past three years, or raise the three or four classes currently underperforming up to par. The latter is simpler, easier, and gets people far more excited about the game. It also means monsters of those particular types get far more threatening and dangerous, which helps make PvE play more exciting.

Balance is a situation where people that are better at the game beat people that are worse at the game. What you're talking about has to do with balance (if two things have a different level of effectiveness on a certain level of play, they're imbalanced), but equal effectiveness isn't enough to call something balanced because powercreeping the game to the point where strategic decisions become irrelevant is also bad for balance. Balance in PvE makes no sense currently because the enemies are dumb (which means they are "bad at the game"). If you would balance it out, it would result in battles such as the Zaishen Challenge offers, extremely easy. The PvE AI is simply not suited for balanced battles.

Shriketalon · Jun 22, 2010, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morphy

What you're talking about has to do with balance (if two things have a different level of effectiveness on a certain level of play, they're imbalanced), but equal effectiveness isn't enough to call something balanced because powercreeping the game to the point where strategic decisions become irrelevant is also bad for balance.

Actually, that is the key component of balance. If all classes have ways to contribute to the game, and all monsters they face of any profession can present a credible threat in different ways, that is how strategy, tactics, and skillful play can thrive. Otherwise, the monsters are defeated from the start by their inferior skill bars that present no opposition, and the player and his configured heroes can bulldoze them into oblivion.

That is not, of course, to say the AI could not use improvement. Gameplay would become infinitely better if the AI possessed the ability to detect that they aren't hurting an opponent and would switch to another target, or would assume formations like the Charr rather than being lead around by the nose and grouped together for easy AoE spiking.

But as long as most of the game's skills are worthless, monsters running those worthless skills will never compete with some of the bars people can currently build. Nerfing everything down to the level of skills like Arcing Shot wouldn't work, because it would mean pruning half the game. The occasional nerf combined with the redesigning of large sections of worthless skills, however, can get things closer towards an even playing field.

PuppyEater · Jun 22, 2010, 10:45 AM // 10:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by aspi

Reading all this makes it pretty clear balancing is a very hard part of the game. I don't envy the test krewe or Anet.

Why pity anet? They dug their grave the second they tried stacking more cards on the house with Factions and it's been downhill from there...

AlsPals · Jun 22, 2010, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by PuppyEater

Why pity anet? They dug their grave the second they tried stacking more cards on the house with Factions and it's been downhill from there...

Lol, they got Proph so right...who thought it could go downhill?

Skyy High · Jun 22, 2010, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Hey, I didn't see anyone on any forum think for one second that adding 2 professions and hundreds of skills to the game with each chapter was untenable before Factions' release. Hell, it was a big issue that there were something like 50 repeated skills in Factions, because I guess we just didn't get enough skill bloat already? It's all so obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't change the fact that not a one of you predicted it beforehand.

Besides, after they fixed sins and rits after Factions' release, the game was pretty well balanced. The Factions world championship is often cited as the best tournament in GW's history. Nightfall was really the straw that broke the camel's back, as it took much, much longer to tone down all the really OP-ed stuff that was introduced then (and a lot of it has never been toned down, leading to overall power creep in all chapters as skills were buffed to compensate).

Countess Marie · Jun 24, 2010, 03:41 PM // 15:41

The thing about balance, is it's kind of a one time thing. You have to start with balance. The lack of insight when it came to creating new professions new skills, and the way secondary skills work with primary attributes can not be fixed by a skill rebalance. Do you really want them to nerf everything that's overpowered and make everything that's underpowered overpowered?

If they make a subtle change, 90% of the community will not notice it, so at this point they are just dropping weights on either side of a scale.

It's only a short term fix. You don't want every class to be the same, do you? The problem, I believe, is that Guild Wars has certain roles in high-end pve. And those roles are played best by certain classes. There's really no way to change that unless you make the classes ineffective at doing what they do best.

You know? Make it so Mark of Pain can't kill. Make it so Shadow Form has a hit limit. Change UA back... do you really want to see them make changes like that?

Beyond that, I don't see how they can balance pve, and even then there is no real promise that the 'underpowered classes' will get play.

It's a design issue. It was inevitable. Ten classes is just too many.

-CM

Eluvatar · Jun 24, 2010, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

That is not, of course, to say the AI could not use improvement. Gameplay would become infinitely better if the AI possessed the ability to detect that they aren't hurting an opponent and would switch to another target, or would assume formations like the Charr rather than being lead around by the nose and grouped together for easy AoE spiking.

true, although all of the unbalanced builds in the game have nothing to do with tactics nor AoE skills, any noob could do ANYTHING in NM with a poor (no runes or weapons just a skill bar) setup and still kill everything without much trouble and it still has nothing to do with bad AI and is neither caused by unbalance but purely a side effect of the type of game guild wars is, at this point the only way to nerf allot of builds is to remove synergy between them which is what makes guild wars such a cool game, example: a manly spike uses at least 4 skills to preform, first you need a war with 100B that same war must also have Whirlwind attack, then you need a necro with MoP and a Ranger (or /ranger) with EoE to realy make the spike work, somtimes you will even want 2 wars and dmg buffs on your nec, to nerf this they would have to remove some synergy from the skills which is what is currently destroying guild wars.

Chthon · Jun 25, 2010, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eluvatar

true, although all of the unbalanced builds in the game have nothing to do with tactics nor AoE skills, any noob could do ANYTHING in NM with a poor (no runes or weapons just a skill bar) setup and still kill everything without much trouble and it still has nothing to do with bad AI and is neither caused by unbalance but purely a side effect of the type of game guild wars is, at this point the only way to nerf allot of builds is to remove synergy between them which is what makes guild wars such a cool game, example: a manly spike uses at least 4 skills to preform, first you need a war with 100B that same war must also have Whirlwind attack, then you need a necro with MoP and a Ranger (or /ranger) with EoE to realy make the spike work, somtimes you will even want 2 wars and dmg buffs on your nec, to nerf this they would have to remove some synergy from the skills which is what is currently destroying guild wars.

You neglect to mention the key part -- and the only truly broken part -- a Shadow Form sin to make a huge ball of monsters in the first place.

Eluvatar · Jun 25, 2010, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You neglect to mention the key part -- and the only truly broken part -- a Shadow Form sin to make a huge ball of monsters in the first place.

thats weird I thought shadow form was nerfed... although it was many of the old runs are still possible although much harder for everyone then before and at this rate shadow form is not a problem, nor in my eyes are most speed clears, I think atm DwG is way OP and needs to be nerfed, hell I even use it on my ele for fun and it works great at blowing up WiK stuff.

Del · Jun 25, 2010, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eluvatar

thats weird I thought shadow form was nerfed... although it was many of the old runs are still possible although much harder for everyone then before and at this rate shadow form is not a problem, nor in my eyes are most speed clears, I think atm DwG is way OP and needs to be nerfed, hell I even use it on my ele for fun and it works great at blowing up WiK stuff.

SF got buffed. less energy, more easily maintainable, and requires only minor build adjustments to be just about as godmode as before

Xiaquin · Jun 25, 2010, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

SF got buffed. less energy, more easily maintainable, and requires only minor build adjustments to be just about as godmode as before

One look at other skills in the game that block spells and you realize it's still overpowered. I don't think I've ever played any game in history that lets you do what SF allows. It's not as bad as before, but still ridiculous. Still funny to see someone bring it in JQ, though.

UnChosen · Jun 25, 2010, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xiaquin

One look at other skills in the game that block spells and you realize it's still overpowered. I don't think I've ever played any game in history that lets you do what SF allows. It's not as bad as before, but still ridiculous. Still funny to see someone bring it in JQ, though.

Actually ALOT of games in history does what SF does....they just do it differently. Who needs to block spells when there are dedicated tanking classes that takes like 1 damage for every hit out of its 10000+ HP and ridiculous amount of armor. A lot of MMORPGs even need a "no mobbing" clause to prevent people from gathering every monster on the map to kill with one spell/skill.

Other games have casters that can cast some sort of "barrier" spells that prevents every non-boss monsters from even getting close, so they can just stand there all day spamming one spell.

Just saying....

toocooltang · Jun 25, 2010, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Actually high end pve (doa) is pretty balanced right now. There are multiple doasc caster spikes and the changes to SF and sliver armor have added a little bit of time to the average doa runs. Now you can do doa without sf in an amount of time pretty close to the average doasc (~10-15 minutes)

belshazaarswrath · Jun 25, 2010, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xiaquin

One look at other skills in the game that block spells and you realize it's still overpowered.

I think Obsidian Flesh is a pretty cool guy. eh blox spells and doesn't afraid of anything.

Obsidian mixed with sfa and kinetic armor can pretty much mitigate anything.

Xiaquin · Jun 26, 2010, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

Actually ALOT of games in history does what SF does

I have mostly played single-player RPGs and free MMOs. I've always seen spell blocking as something that contains a drawback, can't be maintained forever, or is costly (if it exists at all). Combined with the potential for general damage reduction, SF is still a bit crazy to package in one cheap skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

I think Obsidian Flesh is a pretty cool guy. eh blox spells and doesn't afraid of anything.

Obsidian mixed with sfa and kinetic armor can pretty much mitigate anything.

Keywords: "mixed with". SF is sort of all-inclusive. You also pay 5x the cost, 2 energy pips and can't attack with OF. I was just comparing 1:1 on skills.

belshazaarswrath · Jun 26, 2010, 02:34 AM // 02:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xiaquin

Keywords: "mixed with". SF is sort of all-inclusive. You also pay 5x the cost, 2 energy pips and can't attack with OF. I was just comparing 1:1 on skills.

Yea but obsidian gives you a decent sized armor boost. It also doesn't limit the damage you deal besides stopping you from attacking. In my opinion they are both damn exploitable.

Fahhhh · Jun 26, 2010, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

I think Obsidian Flesh is a pretty cool guy. eh blox spells and doesn't afraid of anything.

Obsidian mixed with sfa and kinetic armor can pretty much mitigate anything.

Was just about to say OF does about the same thing SF does. Nerf SF out of play and we'll see OF tanks. Nerf OF out of play and we'll be back to warrior tanks