Curse

The Blood Countess · Nov 13, 2009, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by persuadu

Shadow Form seems to be the new Ursan Blessing, except that only sins can use it. If Anet wanted to make things "fair" (if there even should be such a thing as fair) they need to do one of 3 things:

1) Nerf the crap out of shadow form so you cannot permaform.
2) Buff shadow form so any class can run permaform.
3) Bring back the old school ursan so other classes can have a simmilar advantage as the sin.

The last 2 would bring a lot of gameplay back for DoA and UWSC. Not everyone will be happy, but a lot more would be.

Everyone has the ability to use shadow form.... its really not hard to play the game enough to run perma. The people who only have one level 20 character and don't want to "actually play" enough to run a specific build should not be given things to make their life easier.

If the only reason a person hates shadow form is they dont have a sin its pathetic.

mcsumo · Nov 13, 2009, 06:34 PM // 18:34

I have a sin, but I don't want to be forced to play him as the only viable build to beat some areas. That SF is being used to 'break' so many things in the game now just makes it even worse.

Neky · Nov 13, 2009, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Excuse me for saying this, but all I see here is a bunch of crybabies. You all want something for nothing (Starcraft anyone

) You want an elite area to be cleared in less than 2 hours in HM? "They hit too hard, they this and that..."

ELITE = HARD = LONG
ELITE HM = HARD^2 = LONG^2

Ectos should be expensive. Want that 6k for one? Earn it. Put some effort into it, not just "1-2-3-imma perma, look at meee" stuff.

Joe Fierce · Nov 13, 2009, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by qvtkc

Um... No. The point of the game is not to find flaws in the system, no matter how fun it is to do that, but to construct powerful but not overpowered builds and then use them in a skillful manner. Also, construction and execution can't be equal in difficulty, therefore they should not be equal in importance; how you play your build should mean more than what build it is (naturally, there should be bad builds, what I mean is that taking a good build should not mean that there is a 99% chance of success as long as you can perform extremely simple control inputs).

That unfortunately means that when a build like the perma sin appears, that builds needs to be squashed.

There are no "flaws in the system" the game is balanced the way it is balanced, with counters to every positive and a positive to every negative. This is like:

Telling me not to look for ways to use the queen when I play chess.

Challenging me to a street race in your 85 civic then denying me the right to use my camaro.

Azure Requiem · Nov 13, 2009, 11:09 PM // 23:09

While I really don't care one way or the other about speed clears. Other people doing them doesn't effect my enjoyment of gw. Yes I have a sin among my characters. Have had it before nightfall existed. Yes I do occasionally perma-sliver farm. No I don't bother with speed clears personally.

Now to break this down into segments.

In-game Economy:
Speed clears didn't kill the economy as many suggest. Inscriptions and hardmode did that.

Back in the day that r11 15^50 longsword was worth a lil bit. If it was an r9 its value jumped quite a bit more. Now anything above r9 is merchant fodder unless its a desired skin. Any r9 blue/purple/gold with an inscription slot can be given a perfect 15^50. This is partly what killed green values as well (other part being so many greens having identical stats).

Hardmode just added to this. more golds and more max mods. Remember back when a perfect +30 hp sword pommel was worth 30k. Hardmode even devalued high end NF golds. Colossal Scimitars for example, used to run 300k starting at r12s, Now r9s are only worth roughly 20-25k.

Speed clears did however, stimulate a small easy to farm item for any one. Feathers. Moving on.

Ectos:
Ectos are a crafting material for obsidian armor (most of which looks terrible anyway) and chaos gloves. It was not anet's design to make it a currency item, that came from playerbase and anet has no obligation to care about it's currency value. So yeah don't try to use it as your argument.

Dungeons:
Unless grinding rep, no one wants to spend an hour in a dungeon only to be rewarded with a diamond or onyx. People do dungeons for end chest, and usually only do for certain ones due to what I view as a flaw on a-net's part.

Staves and wands from dungeon end chests, many look very nice but are primary attribute only. While the only true universal staff in my opinion looks like garbage (it being only truly universal staff is probably only reason for its high value). Wands are the same, except the only true universal actually looks decent. No reason to list them as you know which items I am referring to). This leads to most dungeons having no real reason for people to bother with them.

This created the demand for speed clears / dungeon runs to fill dungeon guides.

Seriously anet remove diamonds and onyx from end chests, trash golds at least have potential to be worth the time via mods/wisdom title.

Ah the fun topic,
Grouping:
So many whine that SF and other popular builds prevent them from grouping, I see many in this thread alone, so clearly there are enough like minded people to group with yet you don't. How come? Because it is easier to complain than to act? Because you don't really feel like dealing with afks, prick attitudes, dcing etc. Ponder on that fora bit.

Meta. This term dictates what people have to play apparently. If someone doesn't wanna use a build you want them to, they don't get to play with you. "But meta builds are efficient and proven to work." So you want people to play a build that is efficient, that may not be fun for them just so they can group? Yet you don't want others to be allowed to run SF, 600/Smite, whatever farm/group build your favored character isn't a part of? There is a term for this. Hypocrite.

Solutions:
Non-existent. To fix these issues would take effort anet removed from gw when they decided to drop gw additions and move on to gw2. No matter what they do people will whine. People whined about uwsc, it's not as doable as it was due to the new skeles but people still whine about it.

Nerfing skills won't help. Never has before, as many point out, something else will replace it. And then you will get more whining to nerf next build. And the cycle starts again.

In conclusion, its a game. Especially PVE, if someone is having fun and not bothering you get off your ego and do whatever it is you do in the game that keeps you playing it.

ps: Take the time to look beyond the e-peen items that speed clears farm like eblade, bds, etc. Most of the easy to get skins look a lot better anyway. Quit being a lemming.

Joe Fierce · Nov 13, 2009, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

Grouping:
So many whine that SF and other popular builds prevent them from grouping, I see many in this thread alone, so clearly there are enough like minded people to group with yet you don't. How come? Because it is easier to complain than to act?

Nerfing skills won't help. Never has before, as many point out, something else will replace it. And then you will get more whining to nerf next build. And the cycle starts again.

You my good sir, should get out of my head.

byteme! · Nov 14, 2009, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

Grouping:So many whine that SF and other popular builds prevent them from grouping, I see many in this thread alone, so clearly there are enough like minded people to group with yet you don't. How come? Because it is easier to complain than to act? Because you don't really feel like dealing with afks, prick attitudes, dcing etc. Ponder on that for a bit.

DING DING DING! Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner. Post of the effin year.

Martin Alvito · Nov 14, 2009, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

Ectos:
Ectos are a crafting material for obsidian armor (most of which looks terrible anyway) and chaos gloves. It was not anet's design to make it a currency item, that came from playerbase and anet has no obligation to care about it's currency value. So yeah don't try to use it as your argument.

You're an idiot.

What ANet intended is irrelevant. All that matters is the behavior that follows from ANet's design choices. Ectos and armbraces have value because they let players safely transact business on items worth over 100k without requiring an intermediary. Everyone can agree that they're useful (and will be tomorrow), they're plentiful and they stack.

The value of the currency doesn't matter. But the resulting prices derived from the currency do. Players that play the game convert their time into in-game cash. Some activities are more efficient at doing this than others.

When you have hyperinflation, this devalues time spent playing the game. When you devalue time spent playing the game, people quit playing. This is very basic microeconomics (marginal effects).

Someone like upier likes the current inflationary regime because it rewards him. He can't farm the game efficiently, because that requires skill. But if someone creates an easy, semi-efficient cut-and-paste wiki farm, he's better off because he saves time. However, since someone like upier is farming a specific goal, making his life easy just makes him quit playing sooner. Once he's got GWAMM, he's out of goals and he's gone.

In any event, easy farms SHOULD be inefficient. Bad players can graduate from easy farms by putting some effort into the game and sucking less. Remove the incentive to leave easy farms behind for more complex activities, and there are two bad consequences. First, people never improve at the game. Second, the grind necessary to buy really nice things becomes prohibitive, because any chimp can get currency in a hurry.

If you want to make everybody happy here, you make the items that upier wants (title track consumables) more readily available. ANet's actually done a very nice job of that this year with Nicholas. Prices on sugar, booze and party points are 25-50% lower than they were a year ago. But evidently this isn't enough for some people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

Grouping:
So many whine that SF and other popular builds prevent them from grouping, I see many in this thread alone, so clearly there are enough like minded people to group with yet you don't. How come? Because it is easier to complain than to act? Because you don't really feel like dealing with afks, prick attitudes, dcing etc. Ponder on that fora bit.

Once again you display total ignorance of basic economics.

If SF makes it more costly for these people to group...that's an externality. You know what you have to do to fix an externality? Internalize it. You know how you do that? You need an external authority like a game developer (or a government) to make changes.

They have a collective action problem, because that form of play isn't the standard. You don't, because SF play is. They want the game designers to reverse that situation. They have every right to identify the cost that's being imposed on them, tell you about it, and request a design change to fix it.

DreamWind · Nov 14, 2009, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Fierce

There are no "flaws in the system" the game is balanced the way it is balanced, with counters to every positive and a positive to every negative.

LoL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

Nerfing skills won't help. Never has before, as many point out, something else will replace it. And then you will get more whining to nerf next build. And the cycle starts again.

Nerfing stuff that is clearly overpowered is the first step in achieving a game where many viable builds all have equal potential (which is what we want). No nerfing SF won't solve everything, but it is the obvious first step. If you are arguing that we shouldn't nerf SF because another build will come up, you don't have an argument.

UnChosen · Nov 14, 2009, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Nerfing stuff that is clearly overpowered is the first step in achieving a game where many viable builds all have equal potential (which is what we want). No nerfing SF won't solve everything, but it is the obvious first step. If you are arguing that we shouldn't nerf SF because another build will come up, you don't have an argument.

Then they should do the latter first before the former...If they didn't do anything to help DoA after they slaughtered it with the Ursan nerf, I doubt they'll do anything with UW or dungeons. Or the many other pug unfriendly but gimmick friendly areas in the game.

Regulus X · Nov 14, 2009, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Caligo · Nov 14, 2009, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

If SF makes it more costly for these people to group...

How is it more costly? They are not losing money by not using sf/joining sf groups. They are just simply not making as much money as those who do. Sounds like a case of 'Wahh... If I can't have it, neither should they!'.

N E D M · Nov 14, 2009, 09:52 AM // 09:52

those who do not have factions cannot shadow form. (for those who claim anyone can use SF)
inscriptions killed item value - true
100k was an intentional limit for characters to be able to carry.
1000k as storage limit also intentional - nothing was intended to have value over 100k. (can't really fix these things, just hope this is not a GW2 problem)ectos are a crafting material - true (to use as currency is foolhardy, i lol when ecto prices fall)
armbrace - due to the large number of duped braces that remained in game after the big ban, braces should be practically valueless(well far less than the 300k or so they are at) - however the dupe remains largely unknown among the average player (less of the player base uses guru than it seems). If I would guess maybe 5% of players visit guru it would be a high estimate i think.

The answer to the QQ is clear - MAKE SHADOW FORM into a F O R M skill, like dervish avatar skills. seems like a no- brainer

just for starters, can deal with the next problem when it arises.
for those who say "600 smite just as bad" - no its not even in the same category- 600 smite never cleared all uw in <20 minutes.

bla bla said it all before

t00115577 · Nov 14, 2009, 10:04 AM // 10:04

Everyone knows GW is broken. They will never nerf speed clears, just accept it and come play Aion like the rest of us

Abedeus · Nov 14, 2009, 10:48 AM // 10:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neky

ELITE = HARD = LONG
ELITE HM = HARD^2 = LONG^2

Nnnnno. You might then say that leveling in Aion is hard, because it takes long to grind mobs.

Elite = difficult.

Elite HM = difficult^2 but =/= poorly designed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by t00115577

Everyone knows GW is broken. They will never nerf speed clears, just accept it and come play Aion like the rest of us

Maybe when they increase exp gain, so I don't have to grind 2 more levels just to get another instance.

MithranArkanere · Nov 14, 2009, 11:00 AM // 11:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

The problem is that areas such as these (UW, FoW) are incredibly hard and long to do without some form of gimmick (Shadow Form, SpellBreaker). If you have ever tried UW without using a gimmick (eg going "balanced"), you would know that it takes several hours to complete. It's unprofitable, and would scare away most people from even attempting it, rendering the area another dead zone.

Believe me, I believe more than anyone that there should be no skills that give you invunerability, but the sad fact is that many PvE areas are so poorly designed (see: Domain of Anguish) that these skills are actually essentital to being able to complete these areas in a reasonable amount of time. I do not think ~10-20 minutes for an elite area is "reasonable" but I also don't think 4+ hours on it is fair either.

Fact of the matter is, if you want to change these skills you are also going to have to change these areas. Which is why I believe Anet hasn't nerfed skills such as Shadow Form already.

One reason Sorrow's Furnace, Slaver's and the Anguish are better designed than the Underworld is that your progress is saved, and you can make each mission separately of you don't have time to make them all.

Time is one of the most important things here. Not everyone has 3..6 hours to complete an elite area, but everyone has the right to complete all of them.

So, to go around that, all that is needed is some way to save progress, probably by talking to a Reaper and leaving.
The next time you talk to the Voice of Grenth, you pay the fee to go down there again, and go back to an Underworld where current missions have been completed, and monsters related to completed quests are no longer there, although other may respawn., and you have to pay the fee to go down there again.
All that would be needed is checking that everyone else in the team has the same completed objectives as you.

Abedeus · Nov 14, 2009, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

DURR DURR

Solution - restore SF to the way it was before. Duration was 5...17, recharge 60 seconds. PROBLEM SOLVED.

DreamWind · Nov 14, 2009, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

Time is one of the most important things here. Not everyone has 3..6 hours to complete an elite area, but everyone has the right to complete all of them.

Your post was solid until the bolded. As soon as that came you lost all credibility.

Tom Swift · Nov 14, 2009, 02:57 PM // 14:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure Requiem

snip.

Only really intelligent post in this thread so far

Xenex Xclame · Nov 14, 2009, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by N E D M

those who do not have factions cannot shadow form. (for those who claim anyone can use SF)
inscriptions killed item value - true
100k was an intentional limit for characters to be able to carry.
1000k as storage limit also intentional - nothing was intended to have value over 100k. (can't really fix these things, just hope this is not a GW2 problem)ectos are a crafting material - true (to use as currency is foolhardy, i lol when ecto prices fall)

I want SF nerfed just like any other whiner as we are more commonly being reffered to.Not having factions is one of the most stupid reasons to use as a reason to not being able to use it,anyways.

There is no reason for us to believe that 100K was the what Anet decided should be the limit of money we could have at any one point or other,its simply what they decided to put the limit at.They could have just as easily made the limit 532889100K it would really say that thats how much money they thought we should have.

100K was the decision to put the limit on because they thought it would't affect most people.They could have made it 10K but that would have been stupid,only been able to buy 7 keys before having to take out money again.

About 1000K being the intentional limit on account money I call BS,if that was true Anet would have never released 5 of a kind polar bears in a game with millions of the game sold, what did they expect the owners of those bears would not sell them for more then 1000K?

I guess its also stupid to use gold as a standard in the real world after all its price also falls and rises.How stupid of us.