Curse

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by aB-

The problem is that ANet has nerfed overpowered PvE skills in the past (ex. protective bond) but don't nerf Ursan? If ANet really wanted to develop the game on the "don't like it, don't use it" argument then why have they nerfed skills only used in PvE? Simply put, the "don't like it don't use it" argument is one of the worst and most lazy excuses not to balance something. I mean seriously could you see ANet coming out and telling people they weren't going to nerf Ursan and if people don't like it just don't use the skill? It would be ridiculous.

why does everyone always cite prot bond as a nerf due to pve overpoweredness?
it was nerfed because it crashed servers.

zwei2stein · Jun 13, 2008, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

why does everyone always cite prot bond as a nerf due to pve overpoweredness?
it was nerfed because it crashed servers.

That and because Erenewal eles could easily maintain it for insane protection in PvP.

It was simply broken skill everywhere.

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

That and because Erenewal eles could easily maintain it for insane protection in PvP.

It was simply broken skill everywhere.

still not a nerf due to pve.

upier · Jun 13, 2008, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

@Upier: 9 exclamation points, must be gettin' angry?

Nah, just watching too much Colbert.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

Up to now, I always thought you are an intelligent person. Now that image was shattered in shards of a broken image.

What I am telling you is that your arguments aren't enough to convince me to back down from my stance that although Ursan isn't good for the game, it does NOT warrant a change, because the game in it's current state would be worse without it then it is with it. If the game were to be modified to reflect the loss of Ursan, then that's a different story.
Ursan was added the negate the moronic choices added before Ursan.
With Ursan gone - those moronic choices are still in place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

OKAY, THE MAIN POINT - WHY ONLY GW HAS IDIOT-PROOF PVE AND OTHER GAMES STILL HAVE CHALLENGING THINGS?

Isn't that great?
That means you have a HUGE selection of games to choose from!

The reason why I support idiots in PvE is simple.
The same reason why I support godly players.
Body count.
I don't need to play with people - but I need people to keep the servers I play GW on running.
That's my main reason why I am thinking of others.
As soon as I stop playing - I couldn't care less about anyone else.

But since A.Net IS the subject in charge - you want the answer to that question from them.
My guess - money.
2 million morons is better then 100k godly players.
(Of course the numbers are COMPLETELY made up - but nobody is going to convince me that there are more godly players out there then there are bad ones!)

Legendary Shiz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Spirit Bond was nerfed for PvE, no?

I can understand, to a point why they haven't nerfed Ursan. It let's everybody participate in high level PvE play, and it promotes variety in professions. Not to mention you still have to grind out a title and actually play the storyline to a point to attain the skill and increase it's power.

It's still broken, but it doesn't surprise me that it didn't get nerfed.

SF should be nerfed, however.

Chthon · Jun 13, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shiro Katagari

[Ursan Rant]

This is one of the better-written Urrsan rants that I've read. But there's a major flaw in your analogy. GW PvE is not a tournament. It is not competitive. There is no leader board.

I agree that Ursan drains the game of all depth for many people who are not me. But I'm not sure if or how that translates into a problem for me.

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

This is one of the better-written Urrsan rants that I've read. But there's a major flaw in your analogy. GW PvE is not a tournament. It is not competitive. There is no leader board.

I agree that Ursan drains the game of all depth for many people who are not me. But I'm not sure if or how that translates into a problem for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

this is why ursan would be a problem in pvp. sure everyone could do it so its fair, but it would kill any chance of build diversity, as anybody who wanted to win would be stupid not to use the very op skill given to then.
in pve you dont play against other people, you play against fixed mobs, so there is no "meta game" and they have no tendencies to run op skills. since build diversity can still exist in pve it really doesnt matter if one skill is overpowered.

i pretty much said this already

kvndoom · Jun 13, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Wow, all threads lead to Ursan don't they? :-\

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 13, 2008, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvndoom

Wow, all threads lead to Ursan don't they? :-\

apparantly
12chars

sixofone · Jun 13, 2008, 07:44 PM // 19:44

did [wastrel's worry] just get buffed as a boss killer?

kostolomac · Jun 13, 2008, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

Now what would I have done? Lessen the difficultly of the normal modes for the other areas (i.e. removing environmental effects in Urgoz + Deep, maybe). Do not touch the difficulty of the Hard Mode areas, balance UB and other overpowered bananas, etc. This way, the elite areas becomes even more accessible in Normal mode, while maintaining the meaning of Hard mode.

I don't care about titles, weapons, or the economy. I just care about the most important aspect - the game - and maintaining it.

I would also remove the enraged skill the most DoA monsters use , and increase the drops of HM elite areas further to motivate people to do HM.
But that brings another issue. From the 10 professions we have , about half are popular in groups.

Quote:

did [Wastrel's Worry]just get buffed as a boss killer?

I used to use that skill for boss farming , but i didn't get much tomes as I hoped , but this buff could motivate me to leave the chaos plains as a farming spot.

Shiro Katagari · Jun 13, 2008, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shiro Katagari

[Ursan Rant]

This is one of the better-written Urrsan rants that I've read. But there's a major flaw in your analogy. GW PvE is not a tournament. It is not competitive. There is no leader board.

I agree that Ursan drains the game of all depth for many people who are not me. But I'm not sure if or how that translates into a problem for me.

When I did the rough draft of my post in notepad, I saved it as 'Ursan Rant'. I'm nothing if not honest.

Perhaps the analogy didn't carry across as well I as would have wished. I mean PvE is competitive only in as much as we're all doing the same thing as each other working towards essentially the same ends (quests, missions, xp, loot). I'll try a slightly more direct approach:

Nothing anyone else does ruins my game of Guild Wars. It may ruin my metagame, if I get into the economy side of the game, but the game as-written is all mine to play as I like (God bless Heroes and Henchies!).

I don't dislike Ursan because it ruins MY game. I dislike Ursan because it ruins THE game - the PvE side, anyway. The PvE game used to be about taking the skills for your professions and selecting a complimentary handful of them as dictated by the challenge you would be facing. Certain builds proved effective in many scenarios, and many players had skills and styles that they favoured.

Now it's easier - not *better* or *necessary*, just *easier* - to stick one skill on there and forget the others even exist. And people funnel themselves down the path of least resistance like cattle to slaughter.

Ursan stops people trying. Whilst Yoda might approve ("Do or do not - there is no try."), I miss the State of Play that encourages people to try new things. Not 'allowed' them, as it is now, but encouraged them. There's no encouragement not to be a Care Bear. There's no encouragement to experience the wealth of playing styles the game has to offer. You can do it if you want, but there's no reward for it - indeed, you'll achieve less, since Care Bearing your way to victory is cheap, painless, faster and easier.

I won't deny that my dislike of Ursan is somewhat selfishly motivated - just because I want other people to understand what a deep, multi-layered game Guild Wars is doesn't mean they have to accept it - and I'm pretty sure most other people's real concerns over Ursan are along the lines of 'it upsets me that so many people are missing so much of the game', but this is how things are. If you're not a Care Bear or a HB Monk, then you're going to have a hard time getting into a PUG.

And as an aside, do you think Ursan will continue the way it is? Of course not. There isn't a Community Rep or a Dev in ANet who isn't aware of the controvesy over Ursan - but the skill is so ubiquitous, so heavily and passionately debated in forums, that any change to it runs the risk of causing uproar across the community as a whole. We - all of us, the haters and the lovers - have made Ursan into almost a diplomatic incident. Anything ANet wants to do to the skill now has to be positioned very, very carefully to the community. But do something about it they will, of this I have no doubt.

Personally, I'm predicting the massive nerf/partial rebate approach from them (Machiavelli, how we miss you...)

Peace.

Kalendraf · Jun 13, 2008, 08:19 PM // 20:19

E-Drain has needed a fix badly in PvE, but unfortunately, this wasn't the fix it needed.

The entire line of energy theft skills should be reverted back to their pre-nerf forms for PvE. Back when GW debuted, E-Drain & E-Tap did a straight 1-to-1 energy theft, and as a result there were some builds with them and other pre-nerfed energy-killing skills that allowed some very specific energy denial mesmer builds to actually work in PvE! Unfortunately, all the core skills of those builds were nerfed into oblivion because they were deemed too strong in PvP.

With the split between PvE and PvP, there is no good reason not to revert those skills back to their former incarnations to allow e-denial to actually be viable again in PvE.

DDL · Jun 13, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shiro Katagari

Ursan stops people trying. Whilst Yoda might approve ("Do or do not - there is no try."), I miss the State of Play that encourages people to try new things. Not 'allowed' them, as it is now, but encouraged them. There's no encouragement not to be a Care Bear. There's no encouragement to experience the wealth of playing styles the game has to offer. You can do it if you want, but there's no reward for it - indeed, you'll achieve less, since Care Bearing your way to victory is cheap, painless, faster and easier.

There we go: I totally agree, there is nothing to encourage them but...the fact that playing with a melange of complementary skills cleverly chosen to effectively combat the predicted environment (or even a nice range of skills chosen to effectively combat anything) is...fun?

Personally, I really, really like tweaking my bar to try new things, new combinations, new synergies with my teammates. Many others do too.

Play with those people: they are awesome.

Achievement in a virtual game is entirely in your own head, so doing it in a way that makes YOU feel good is all that actually matters.

I mean, effectively we can rephrase your statement to read:

Quote:

Ursan stops SOME people trying. Whilst Yoda might approve ("Do or do not - there is no try."), I miss the State of Play that encourages ALL people to try new things. Not 'allowed' them, as it is now, but effectively enforced them. There's no direct, gameplay-mandated enforcement on people to try to get better. There's no necessity to experience the wealth of playing styles the game has to offer. You can do it if you want, but you can get fugly chaos gloves a lot quicker as a bear.

It's fine: people who want the easy route to victory just want to GET there.
Let them: they don't stop you doing what you want.

In contrast, many other people actually care about the journey, not the destination. These people still exist, and they're still playing GW, so don't worry.

Turbobusa · Jun 13, 2008, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Simple enough:

1st year:
Main attract is skill > time, they act in this way, nerfing things that make PvE too easy, and PvP abuses. Guild wars is a fine game and the reputation goes in this sense.

2nd year:
faction, NF. Big increase in the number of players, mostly pve. Powercreep.

3rd year:
Those players are now the majority.
They are a business, they act in the way which will get them money. Making PvE easy pleases the casual gamer, you tell your friend that you are a uberpwnzorz worriar, he buys the game, and so on.
I see no other explications.

Before they fixed many things very rapidly, now it is barely once every two weeks. If something is broken in between:"meh we'll let the kids have fun for a while and we'll find an other way around to fix it partially"

Call the whinebulance I'm having an attack.

Sleeper Service · Jun 13, 2008, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

Up to now, I always thought you are an intelligent person. Now that image was shattered in shards of a broken image.

OKAY, THE MAIN POINT - WHY ONLY GW HAS IDIOT-PROOF PVE AND OTHER GAMES STILL HAVE CHALLENGING THINGS?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

I once had Assassin and it was pretty leet. Then the nerfs came (mystic regen, Lotus skills) and before GWEN I deleted it. Now I made him again, so it's kinda remaking.

source: Did you make an Assassin just because of the perma SF farm?

you delete a char because of nerfs (wow), remake it due to BUFFS and then have the balls to complain about the buffs making pve "idiot proof"???

the madness! it spins!

DarkNecrid · Jun 13, 2008, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Man, this topic is so stupid.

DDL, that's not how game design works. Everything you just said basically completely negates the idea of challenge & difficulty, the basic foundation that makes most (read: all) games work.

-_-

DDL · Jun 13, 2008, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

DDL, that's not how game design works. Everything you just said basically completely negates the idea of challenge & difficulty, the basic foundation that makes most (read: all) games work.
-_-

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Are you finding <INSERT GAME HERE> too hard? Did you forget to set the difficulty to <EASY>? Well there we go then.

Most single player games have a selection of difficulty modes, none of which FORCE you to do things you're unable to (unless you're really REALLY bad): you can simply make the game easier and do the stuff you can't do at a higher difficulty.

Even then, you get people who simply cannot hack it at the easiest setting (so they use cheats) or people who find even uberdeath mode easy, so they use limitations (nothing but pistols, etc etc).

Now here in GW we have what is essentially, from a PvE perspective, a single player game with optional co-op, with two fixed difficulty levels. Just two.

But we have THOUSANDS of skills, and thus millions of potential skill combinations. You can choose from an almost unlimited range of 'perceived' difficulty levels within the two fixed ones. That's...kinda the whole beauty of the thing.

Look: I don't know how to say this any more clearly. OTHER PEOPLE PLAYING THE GAME ON "EASY" DO NOT MAKE YOUR GAME EASIER. OR HARDER. OR IN FACT ANY DIFFERENT.

You basically want to stamp on other people's fun because you think they somehow demean you? That's what I'm getting, here.

Plus ultimately remember: it's not a subscription game. They don't need to keep you around if you really don't like it. The pressure is entirely different. All they need to do is keep you interested enough in GW2, and their economic model stays the course. If they start dumbing stuff down for the tail-end of GW to attract idiots who otherwise would be put off by the level of skill required..then so be it. The money they bring in will ultimately benefit you in the form of GW2, if you haven't left in elitist outrage.

At the end of the day, DO STUFF YOU ENJOY DOING. Whining about everything is just miserable and pointless.

DarkNecrid · Jun 13, 2008, 09:15 PM // 21:15

The thing is, normal is easy, and now hard is easy. There's pretty much no difficulty at all.

It isn't whining, it's a formal complaint. Get over yourself and grow up.

EDIT:

Quote:

All they need to do is keep you interested enough in GW2

Which probably isn't going to happen if they aren't keeping me around.

Striken7 · Jun 13, 2008, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

1st year:
Main attract is skill > time, they act in this way, nerfing things that make PvE too easy, and PvP abuses. Guild wars is a fine game and the reputation goes in this sense.

2nd year:
faction, NF. Big increase in the number of players, mostly pve. Powercreep.

3rd year:
Those players are now the majority.
They are a business, they act in the way which will get them money. Making PvE easy pleases the casual gamer, you tell your friend that you are a uberpwnzorz worriar, he buys the game, and so on.

Quoted for truth.

Anet is changing the core design of the game to make more money. Sucker in a sizable base of customers who want to play a game one way (call them the first generation), then one year later, use their money to begin re-designing the game to attract a new slew of customers who want to play a completely different game (second generation).

Sure its good for business now, after all they've already got everyones money, but I bet Anet has alienated more then enough players that they will struggle to pull the same stunt for GW2 (the second generation GW players will become the first generation GW2 players; I hope they enjoy their 1 year before the shit hits the fan).