Curse

IlikeGW · May 13, 2008, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Some large repairs for rit/para/monk, then a little bit of love toward everything else.

Rework ursan at the same time so these whiners shut up, even though it will probably be used no matter how much it gets nerfed because the team synergy gives it power, not the skill.

idicious · May 13, 2008, 05:45 PM // 17:45

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Originally Posted by X3R0

I would like to see Ursan buffed by giving warriors and other professions more energy, and give casters more armor while using Ursan. Also yes on the no minion cap.

I so hope that was scarcasm .

Surena · May 13, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

The division is bad, it'll make transition between the two modes totally unattractive. Expect less influx.

Nerf PvE skills a lot please and shoot the bear before introducing more powercreep.

I am curious if GW2 will face the same split or if it won't due to lesser skills and professions. Let's see.

Tyla · May 13, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

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Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Does anyone even use motivation anymore?For the effects in which the anthems do, they have an awful long recharge time.

Song and Ballad of Restoration can keep up AR. Motigon is still cool.

Mewcatus · May 13, 2008, 05:53 PM // 17:53

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Originally Posted by King Symeon

1. That link doesn't work.

2. People who think Ursan and PvE skills are bad for the game and don't use them are already at a disadvantage, because using them makes everything easier and faster, maximising profit.

Now you're suggesting that people who want skills in PvE to remain linked to PvP, or at least not be buffed/reverted - often the same people who hate Ursan/PvE skills - should be further marginalised by being forced to either sacrifice profit for a better game, or play a ridiculously easy and boring game with overpowered skills.

This would cause many players to stop playing PvE or quit the game entirely, because all resemblance of a game that once rewarded player skill in both PvE and PvP would be lost. In short: terrible idea.

Apologies, changed it.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10287497

How are players marginalised ? Everyone gets to play the game they want to play ? Profits for players still remain the same, only difference is, there are more builds out there which are better for farming.

With the toggle, Players can still earn as much as they currently were, when the PvE/PvP split did not exist. Just that now, Players who are intent on using the PvE rules set, might earn more.

Since UB builds are already aknowledged as the best way PvE wise, bringing other non UB builds up to the same level, just provides more variety for farming.( Unless you are arguing on the grounds that the reversions done will significantly outweigh present ones. )

Thus, the only way profits you mentioned will be sacrificed, is if you decide to benchmark yourself against others. Say a PvE rule based Skill system player against a PvP rule based Skill system player.

Of which, leads me to deduce that, you are actually a dominator. You fear that others will have a far easier time to catch up with you, one way or another. You are indeed threatened that others can make more profit then you.

Chthon · May 13, 2008, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sab

As for PvErs, I don't think anyone here is even pretending that they want a balanced game.

Nope. I want a fun game. It is a game after all, and I want to enjoy it. I want to see as many viable build choices as possible. The more the merrier. I don't much care for the current state of affairs where each class is trending towards just 1 optimal build for the whole class (imbagon, god-mode dragon slash, DB/MS, etc.) or is just flat-out inferior to every other class (mesmer). I want to see every skill line for every class have a viable build that I'd be happy to play and happy to let into my parties -- and two or three would be even better.

And that IS balance. "Balance" in PvE isn't about balancing skills; it's about (roughly) balancing classes and, to a lesser degree, skill lines so that each one is fun, able to overcome the monsters in any given zone, and roughly equally-desirable to any other when "competing" for a place in a party.

And that calls for buffs. Lots of buffs even, because there's a huge dearth of viable build options out there. Nerfs are rarely called for in PvE because they are only needed when you have one build so outperforming everything else that it cuts into the others' ability to get parties. Which is why Ursan is just about the only nerf I could agree with for PvE reasons. (And I'm still a little unsure that Ursan is really diverting people who would otherwise be available for parties in elite zones instead of merely importing a bunch of "noobs" who wouldn't play those zones at all without Ursan...)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

The only thing that [removing the soul reaping timer] accomplishes is more energy, which is not needed at all.

Apparently, you did not read. Let me repeat myself, this time in bold so you can't miss it: Removing the timer isn't about making SR more powerful, it IS about fixing a whole bunch of problems caused by the timer's extremely poor design.

Now, here's a list of things removing the timer accomplishes aside from increasing the energy gain:
1. First and foremost, it makes the necromancer class more FUN to play.
2. It makes SR intuitive again.
3. It fixes the problem with SR punishing you for playing well/rewarding you for playing poorly.
4. It fixes the problem with what should be consistent being totally random. This, in turn, makes playing necromancer less frustrating. It also makes "energy management" possible again, because you finally know how much energy you're going to have for each fight. (Though you'd need to be able to plan for and spend down a pretty sizable amount of energy -- and all the idiotic "I couldn't run out of energy if tried" comments posted on the topic make me think that many, even most, people were never using SR to its fullest before it got nerfed.)
5. It fixes the timing problem where you get a corpse but no energy to exploit it with. (If combined with Carinae's suggestion, it also fixes the converse problem of energy with no corpse to exploit, and fixes the problematic energy-sharing ability that powers Sabway.)
6. It fixes the anti-synergy between the minion cap and SR, and makes Shambling Horror finally not a monumentally stupid skill to bring because it won't screw up your SR when it chain reacts.

ALL of the above are problems with SR that need fixed. Removing the timer fixes them. That's what's important. The increase in energy gain is totally secondary, and, if it turns out to be problematic, could be counteracted by a more elegant nerf directly to the energy gain.

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On the topic of removing the minion cap:

1. First and foremost, it would make the game more fun. If you ever played with a huge minion army back in the day, I probably don't have to convince you of this. If you never did, then I hope you'll get a chance to soon.

2. Just to be clear (because there was some confusion in the other thread), the minion cap was a solely PvP-motivated nerf. It came directly out of the whining from the Factions preview weekend that they would be too powerful in AB. I cannot recall ever hearing a single person back in Prophecies complaining about MM's being too powerful or making PvE too easy or ruining the game or any other such nonsense.
(Ironically, it turned out to be a stupid nerf from the PvP standpoint too. Instead of becoming "a step above Guild Battles" like it was intended to be, AB ended up "a step below RA." And we don't exactly make balance changes around RA, do we? Moreover, after a few weeks, intelligent ABers realized that the dominant strategy for AB isn't to engage to opposing team at all, but rather to mobilize and capture unguarded shrines. Slow-moving MM's are terrible at that, and the only thing they can do well is distract any idiots on the opposing team from doing what they're supposed to be doing.)

3. There's two major reasons that unlimited minions would not turn into an Ursan-grade steamroller:

A. The minions have stayed pretty much the same, but the monsters have gotten a lot stronger. I think a lot of this "oh no, it'll be a steamroller" panic comes from memories of steamrolling lvl 24 dwarves in Sorrow's Furnace. Well, since then, the average end game monster has increased in level to level 28, monsters have benefited from power-creep among skills, monsters have gained more cheesy monster-only skills (enraged anyone?), and, on top of all of that, there's Hard Mode. In short, monster damage has increased enough that minions only survive one or two attacks from many of the tougher monsters, while monster armor and life have increased enough that, without damage buffs, minions can barely scratch the tougher monsters.

B. There's no way to heal an army that big. Verata's Sacrifice was nerfed to dust, remember? The life sacrifice on BotM scales with the number of minions healed, so you'd kill yourself instantly if you tried to heal an old-school 50+ minion army with BotM. Even with AotL, the life sacrifice required for an army of that size would be too risky in terms of getting spiked out or accidentally/lag-induced hitting the skill twice in a row. Feast for the Dead has never been viable because the recharge is so long that the heal/sec can't keep up with minions' natural degen. Having more minions around doesn't fix that. Even if the hard cap is removed, the lack of a decent minion heal is going to impose a soft cap much lower than the size of the minion armies of old.

4. To add some variety and make MM more interesting, I'd like to add a couple places where the player is forced to choose between army quality and size.

A. I would like to see Verata's Sacrifice returned to it's pre-Factions state, but with an additional effect of doubling your life sacrifices for its duration to prevent VS and BotM from working in the same build. That would make things a bit more interesting by giving players a choice between a weak heal that could potentially support a larger army, but doesn't do much against monster damage; or a stronger heal that can do better at keeping up with monster damage, but couldn't be used on a large army.

B. I would leave Order of Undeath exactly as it is. The life sacrifice would get prohibitively big with a large army. So the player would have to choose between a small army that could use the nice buff from OoU, or a larger army that couldn't. (@ Arcane: The recharge on Vampiric Horror is too long to build a large army out of solely, or even mostly, vampiric horrors, so the size limit would be enforced another way.)

5. MM is often criticized as a "braindead" activity. Removing the minion cap would help fix that. Presuming an adequate supply of corpses, you've got to be pretty terrible not to be able to maintain 10 minions. (Though I do see people who somehow manage to fail at it...) In this way, the minion cap forces everyone to play at the lowest common denominator. Remove the cap and suddenly skill matters again. When being good at MM means you have twice as many or four times as many minions as someone who's bad at it, suddenly there's an incentive to learn how to play the build well. Similarly, trying to find a way to balance strong skills with scaling life sacrifices (BotM, OoU) against a larger army is a wonderful build-design challenge that should keep us busy in the necromancer forum for months, and will probably lead to several very different families of "good" MM builds instead of the one we have right now.

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A general comment on this thread:

I don't think this was meant to be another thread for debating the merits of doing the PvE/PvP Split. There's already a thread for that; it got closed; you can petition the mods to reopen it if you feel you have an important comment to add. I think posts in this thread need to start by accepting that the PvE/PvP Split is going to happen, getting over it, and then thinking about what we want to happen to PvE. There's 3 or 4 pages of comments/complaints (and thinly-veiled comments/complaints) on the merits of the PvE/PvP Split that I really think ought to be deleted or moved to the other thread.

GloryFox · May 13, 2008, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Thank you Chthon, the intent of this thread was to make comments about what you would want to see changed or reverted back for PvE "FUN" play. You have very valid points and I hope others can read your post with an open mind.

lyra_song · May 13, 2008, 06:52 PM // 18:52

I would like to see Avatar of Grenth back to its old form...now that was fun and hax.

Nightmares Hammer · May 13, 2008, 06:55 PM // 18:55

I agree, Chthon... The point of splitting PvE and PvP was to restore changes that damaged variety in PvE.

arcanemacabre · May 13, 2008, 07:13 PM // 19:13

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