Curse

Sora267 · May 31, 2008, 04:11 AM // 04:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

God I love Devil May Cry. That is quite possibly the best action rpg ever made. Go away Diablo.

My rule of thumb is that if I can't beat the highest level of a game, it's well balanced. This means there's always room to improve and whip the AI a little more effectively. Games from the Nintendo era fit this fairly well, primarily to satisfy the arcade audience. if players keep dying, they keep pumping in quarters. For better or for worse, games lately favor accessibility - any schmo can beat the game without too much undue effort. This isn't completely bad, players feel ripped off when they can't make any progress in a game they paid 50 bucks for. Anyway, harder modes and endgame content often exist to satisfy the need for a challenge.

Guild Wars doesn't have any challenge left. Any idiot can beat all of hard mode and the elite missions given time. There aren't obstacles to be overcome, the learning curve is a slight downward slope, and there's not motivation to become engaged in the game. For the thick, this is a bad thing.

For the tired old argument of playing with 4 skills/solo/drunk:

Would it be a good game for the Arsenal to play a youth soccer team while hopping on one leg? Would the Tour De France be a better challenge for riders if they had to have flat tires? The biggest part of the fun of a challenge comes from trying your very best to improve yourself. When you add artificial roadblocks, you remove that idea of trying your best.

TL;DR version: Bah, games are too easy today, you kids get off my lawn.

I agree wholeheartedly, especially with the last bit.

Owik Gall · May 31, 2008, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

Alright, well...

Arenanet introduced the different Blessings - Ursan, Volfen and Raven. I am sure they did not even understand at the time what an impact this would have. They were also apparently completely incapable of balancing the blessings against each other, with Ursan by far being the strongest of them all. They have stubbornly refused to change them, with the result being that for all but the very, very, very strongest teams, Ursan Blessing is now the way to beat PvE. Basically, it is a skill that allows every player with even a minimum of in-game skill to beat every area in the game, in Hard Mode as well as Normal Mode. What it comes down to is that everyone plays the same bar (except the monks), and nobody designs their own bars anymore, because why bother when Ursan is so strong?

There is a contender to this that I myself made. Although I have to say that later on I saw similar builds with the same skills as mine. It's basically 'Godmode', only I made it differently and it was purely coincidental (I swear to you all). Here, this is what I had BEFORE they nerfed Steelfang Slash (the bastards...)

[Steelfang Slash][Brawling Headbutt][Flail][Enraging Charge]["For Great Justice!"][Mental Block][Word of Healing][Vigorous Spirit]

This was when there was no recharge time to Steelfang. It worked exceptionally well in the Bison Tournament, and as a matter of fact it worked better to protect myself then Ursan would've. The Mental Block, Vigorous Spirit, and Word of Healing ensures great protection and healing while the immediate and constant KD has no contest. Compared to Ursan, I'd say my build was better. I'll let you all judge for yourself. It's not as effective now since the nerf. DAMN IT!...

But hey, I showed this to you to prove that at least one person thinks outside the box and made a build manually with creativity. Something that you've been asking for when you started this thread. I will assure you once again, I solely thought of this build without looking into previous builds at all. I just read through a lot of skills and did trial and error runs.

Kashrlyyk · May 31, 2008, 05:05 AM // 05:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

When you add artificial roadblocks, you remove that idea of trying your best.
...

No, you don´t and it speaks volumes that you can´t see that. You are still trying your best, but under different circumstances. Try your best using only 4 skills, middle armor or 4 attribute lines, etc. This is the reason, why people play simultaneous chess against several others or why they play chess with a blindfold or etc....

Don´t blame your inability to make yourself a challenge on the people, that only want to have fun and maybe only play 30 minutes a day.

Dr Strangelove · May 31, 2008, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

This is the reason, why people play simultaneous chess against several others or why they play chess with a blindfold or etc....

You mean like making an argument without a clue?

Games like that are a laughable gimmick, not real competition. A game between two grandmasters is competition and challenging, a game where a grandmaster beats the snot out of unskilled people in the park is insulting to the poor schmuck who gets beaten and isn't a serious game for the grandmaster.

Nobody is blaming the lack of a challenge on the unwashed masses. The issue is that Anet seems to have no idea how to integrate both player types.

Foe · May 31, 2008, 05:26 AM // 05:26

boo f***ing hoo, reap what you sow kiddies.

"WHAAA CASUAL PLAYERS CANT PWN CHAR ITS SO HARD WHAAAA"

Edge Martinez · May 31, 2008, 05:31 AM // 05:31

PvE is just boring now. I couldn't agree more with the OP. Ursan has to be ANet's way of thinning out the playerbase for some nefarious purpose. There's no other reason to throw such a twinktastic skill into the game.

Of course I don't have to run it if I don't want too, but then I'll get invited into how many PUGs? Maybe a few if I'm playing a hb monk... so I can heal the Ursan's.

Hell, why not do an update to Ursan so they recieve health too with every hit? It's possibly the only way to take it one step further than the worst idea ever.

strcpy · May 31, 2008, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Games from the Nintendo era fit this fairly well, primarily to satisfy the arcade audience. if players keep dying, they keep pumping in quarters.

You ought to go back and play some of those games now - they weren't really as hard as you remember (or at least they aren't for me). Years of gaming reflexes make the games fairly easy now. Games today are MUCH less newbie friendly.

There are exceptions, but then I worked until I had to start gimping myself in those too. A great example is Contra - it got boring when I beat it with the normal gun and no deaths. Then there were the games that required luck to get through some point too, but I don't think that we want that now. Even then I didn't have near the hours invested in beating Contra as I do in GW.

My bet is if you put what time you have played into one of those games that you have in GW it would have become trivial faster than GW ever has. I've been playing GW about 1700 hours now and I don't even log on every day. You can't expect *any* AI environment to remain challenging yet beatable with that amount of time put in and for the three year crowd I'm on the low end of hours. Even DMC in DMC mode eventually became quite beatable and in far less than 1000 hours of gaming.

GW isn't any easier then it ever was, it is just that after a few hundred (or a few thousand hours) it is nearly impossible to make something you will find challenging for long. The Domain of Anguish is an absolutely perfect example - even pre-nerfs to the area most of the top end PvE guilds were blowing through it. It was only a matter of time before others started too also. THK is no easier than before when it was considered impossible to beat with hench - yet now we know stand here, move here, basically every move to make (much as I did with Contra back in the older days).

Until or unless you (and the others) get over it *all* online games that you spend thousands of hours will end up this way for the same reason - there is no way to make the game so hard that a multi-thousand hour vet with an equivalent guild can not learn to blow through fairly quickly and still have it beatable. You can think I'm full of it yet note that all the examples given you didn't put near the time in before you quit - you will be disappointed for the rest of your gaming career.

upier · May 31, 2008, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

It did.

Ahh then I didn't miss it.
And you are just simply wrong.

If you have skills that are balanced for the (PvP) set of rules - and those rules do not apply in PvE - then these skills can NOT be balanced in PvE.
It doesn't matter if they are more fun or better for the game or whatever you want to throw in there.
Balanced - they are not.

Greedy Gus · May 31, 2008, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moloch Vein

It is true that many PvE players asked to be "cut away" from PvP balance. That doesn't mean they asked to be cut away from all balance.

What is "PvP" balance? It seems to me that it would be actual balance, as you're allowing all the skills to be fair game and measured against each other with intelligent use on each side. This is a pretty common phrase I see primarily pve players use: "xxx skill was a perfectly fine skill that got changed because it was exploited in pvp". I'm puzzled by this, because people seem to truly believe it even without any positive or negative context implied. Can someone mention to me any occurances of skills that were perfectly balanced but needed to be changed because of a pvp exploit? Or even what 'pvp exploit' means, if it isn't the true value of skills or attributes?

Players complained every time skills were affected by actual balances, and now complain when actual balance is thrown out the window.

flclempire · May 31, 2008, 07:22 AM // 07:22

I see no difference between the Ursanway and the generic ranger/aoe ele with some super tank to aggro groups. The ursan method just makes things a lot simpler, finding groups, not having to worry about 1 idiot who doesn't know how to use his skills to the best of his abilities, ect. The fact that good pubs are impossible to make makes ursanway a necessity imo. I think anyone going through the game without cookie cutter groups can appreciate the break in lameness.

Cyb3r · May 31, 2008, 07:42 AM // 07:42

hehe yeah DMC 3 rocked (even on pc where the controls where a pain (no kidding)) and indeed the hardest difficulty mode was a heck of alot of fun, heck even made me replay the game

(ok at some times replace fun by frustration by bad controls for the pc version (played the same level on a PS2 of a buddy and was ten times easier thanks to decent controls)) but still the game was and remains great

zwei2stein · May 31, 2008, 07:42 AM // 07:42

Lets see ...

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