Curse

Sectus · Jun 17, 2007, 02:56 PM // 14:56

So this is the "trial" week for the new skills and Anet will tweak them based on how they perform ingame and on player feedback (hopefully). So this thread is for discussing what the current problems are with the PVE-only skills and how they can be fixed.

(by the way, I'm not trying to complain to Anet and think they made a giant mistake of ever creating the pve skills. It's a good idea and it's nice to see them try something like this, but there are certain problems with the skills which simply needs to be fixed)

As I see it, there's 3 major problems with the PVE skills right now.

1: There's a very large amount of grind to get them at a high level. Sunspear isn't too bad as you get a high sunspear by simply completing Nightfall. The major problem is the Luxon and Kurzick titles. To get the Luxon and Kurzick titles at maximum efficiency (although even *getting* the titles is a ton of work), you need 10 million Luxon or Kurzick Faction.

To put that into perspective. If you were to try to get that faction via Alliance Battles, that would mean you have to win 8000 battles. That is eight thousand battles you have to win! If an ordinary AB lasts 20 minutes, you'd have to spend 2666 hours playing AB (and even more if you weren't winning each battle). Bottom line is: there's a stupid amount of grind to get these skills how you want to use them. And Guild Wars is supposedly about not having to grind a lot before you get a powerful char... this was true back with Prophecies when you only had to get to lvl20 before you were as powerful as you could be. But now these new titles are even worse than the worst grinding in other MMORPGs and they have a VERY noticable gameplay effect.

2: The skills can be used by any class and is sometimes a lot better when not used by its primary profession. For instance, the new Paragon skill is a very handy way to mitigate lots of damage... but why get an unpopular Paragon when you can just tell your Necro to equip the skill without worries?

There's similar problems. Warriors and rangers will undoubtly be far more interested in the Sunspear Assassin skill than their own new skills. The Necrosis skill is a thousand times more dangerous when used by a Mesmer instead of a Necro.

3: All the skills are much much better than normal skills... and they still demand no attribute allocation and they don't even take an elite slot! And there's imbalance between the skills as well. As mentioned in my above note, the sunspear assassin skill is just a thousand times more useful than the warrior and ranger skills. Ritualist probably got the worst deal of the lot with a new spirit which actually seems balanced compared to their other spirits and with a spirit teleport skill which seems like a joke.

Okay, now as for solutions to these problems. I personally think the very best solution would be to re-design the skills. Right now, they're just too similar to ordinary skills but with fewer drawbacks and more power. I was hoping to see more creative skills which could only ever be usable in PvE (for instance, a mesmer hex giving you temporary control over a creature, or turning his next offensive spell against his allies... or a necro minion skill which creates a minion based on the enemy it's created of). But that solution isn't very realistic considering it would take a lot of work to implement than merely tweaking the current skills.

As a solution which would be easy to apply, I think the best solution would be to tie each skill to a primary attribute. This would solve the massive grind problem (although Anet could still make the skills only attainable if you have at least rank 5-7 of the sunspear title and rank 1 of the kurzick/luxon title). It would slightly balance the skills compared to normal skills (since normal skills requires attributes, and right now these don't). And it would solve the problem of other professions using the skills even better than the class the skill was intended for (but it would still allow for the possibility for other classes to use any skill).

As an additional tweak, the skills will definitely have to change their stats a bit as well. I'm not certain how, but comparing them to ordinary skills and make sure they're not obviously better than any other skill would be a good start.

Neo Nugget · Jun 17, 2007, 03:02 PM // 15:02

I disagree on the imbalancing part, but agree 10000% on the kurzick and luxon part

I would make it linked to the befriending the kurzick/luxon quest or something like a quest(s) during that part of the storyline.

Series · Jun 17, 2007, 03:06 PM // 15:06

What I would do?

1. Buff the less desirable ones.

2. Make them only be usable to a primary. Period.

deluxe · Jun 17, 2007, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Well i havent used the skill's much, but the warrior attack skill is the same as cyclone axe, while the other sunspear skills are mainly better than elite's.
So I would make this skill do +40 damage maxed.

Miral · Jun 17, 2007, 03:09 PM // 15:09

my suggestion for faction skills was to make them purchasable in the end-game area where you get an amulet of the mists (3k faction for em is perfectly fine), and then make them gain power based on how many missions you have gotten masters on. theres 12 ranks of allegiance titles, and 12 factions missions, so the scaling should be easy to convert.

Navaros · Jun 17, 2007, 03:11 PM // 15:11

The skills don't need any tweaking aka nerfing whatsoever. They are fine as is. They should be way more powerful than normal skills since they are put in to balance out hard mode. Best thing to do is is leave 'em alone.

Miral · Jun 17, 2007, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxe

Well i havent used the skill's much, but the warrior attack skill is the same as cyclone axe, while the other sunspear skills are mainly better than elite's.
So I would make this skill do +40 damage maxed.

I'd rather have it be + 10-30 and lower adrenaline cost to 4 or 5. (for reference, triple chop is 10-30 and 5e cost elite)

Sectus · Jun 17, 2007, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navaros

The skills don't need any tweaking aka nerfing whatsoever. They are fine as is. They should be way more powerful than normal skills since they are put in to balance out hard mode. Best thing to do is is leave 'em alone.

That would kinda break the point of Hard Mode though. If these new skills are supposed to be a lot more powerful than ordinary skills... that basically turns Hard Mode into Normal Mode and Normal Mode into Easy Mode.

Longasc · Jun 17, 2007, 03:18 PM // 15:18

I posted my detailed thoughts about every PvE skill and some general in the "Campfire", as this is a pure PvE issue.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10168955

Critical Agility and the Paragon skill need serious tweaking.

Neo Nugget · Jun 17, 2007, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

I posted my detailed thoughts about every PvE skill and some general in the "Campfire", as this is a pure PvE issue.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10168955

Critical Agility and the Paragon skill need serious tweaking.

I dont see why, if anything make the unlimited avatar skill so it doesn't keep avatars recharged.

Navaros · Jun 17, 2007, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sectus

That would kinda break the point of Hard Mode though. If these new skills are supposed to be a lot more powerful than ordinary skills... that basically turns Hard Mode into Normal Mode and Normal Mode into Easy Mode.

They will not turn Hard Mode into normal mode because for the most part there will only ever be a maximum of two of these skills in a HM party at any one time, because there are hardly any HM players to party with and thus AI bots that are not allowed to use the skills must be used. Two PVE-only skills would certainly not make HM easy, rather it only makes it somewhat balanced due to having to rely on inadequate Hero & Henchmen bots to do HM. Which according to the dev notes, HM was not designed for AI bots to handle. So the PVE-only skills are needed to be strong to alleviate the inability to play HM with other players, as it was designed for.

Normal mode was already easy mode way before the PVE-only skills came out; decent or better players will stomp it all easily with no trouble at all. Therefore making an already very easy mode even easier doesn't really matter.

Divinus Stella · Jun 17, 2007, 04:27 PM // 16:27

The luxon/kurzick titles are poor, its imposing faction farming on people forcing grind.
In my eyes the faction titles are pvp orientated, its just the same as giving pve skills for hero rank.

Perhaps binding their effect to primary attributes would be better so anyone can use them without needing to grind alliance battles or sunspear points.

Engel the Fallen · Jun 17, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

For those crying that the skills are imbalanced, this is PVE, who cares. They make the game fun, and now make the titles mean something. God I hate when people wish for PvE to be like PvP with a perfect balance between players and enemies or whatever. Or want other classes nerfed so their fav classes are more powerful. Just let people have fun.

I agree though the Factions ones need to be fixed though. Lower the requirements, as they are just insane right now. Have them basically match the Sunspear progression. Or really amp up the faction for winning AB. Currently 1 rank in Luxon or Kurzick is equal to twice the max of Sunspear and Lightbringer.

Serenitude · Jun 17, 2007, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Yes, it's funny how the blind eye gets constantly turned in the case of the Dervish. Every time a Paragon finds a way to actually be useful or succeed somehow, the community screams until it's nerfed into useless obscurity. By contrast, a class is paralell introduced that swings a weapon with up to 41 damage at 3 targets/swing, potentially dropping spike/AoE damage with every swing, and now gets permanent Avatars, and the community cries out for?.... Paragons to get nerfed again. What gives? I think the Dervishes should keep their ability - it's PvE, and not hurting anyone. But why attack Paragons AGAIN? Why can't some people be happy that they have anything that's actually effective? Compare a Paragon to a Dervish and it's sad.

Patrick Smit · Jun 17, 2007, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

I posted my detailed thoughts about every PvE skill and some general in the "Campfire", as this is a pure PvE issue.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10168955

Critical Agility and the Paragon skill need serious tweaking.

Why the paragon one is already optimal, or you think it needs improvement?
Think it will do great in hardmode.

icymanipulator · Jun 17, 2007, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Necrosis: Make it AoE or drop the damage significantly and make it shadow damage. Make it less spammy if thats a huge problem.

Cry of Pain: Maybe add in a "disables targets skill" as well as the single target interrupt...I don't think they will be making it an AoE interrupt it would be too similar to Cry of Frustration.

-Byron- · Jun 17, 2007, 04:44 PM // 16:44

1) Primary only. There is one current paragon build that has the potential to give an unstrippable 93% damage reduction from all sources + offer periodic healing to counter degen. Ridiculous.

2) Kurzick and Luxon are too difficult to attain. The NF story campaign will take you to R7 Sunspear, which is usable for any of those skills. I'd say do the same with Kurzick and Luxon, except make them linked to a different title so as not to trample upon the hard work people have put it for the current titles.

3) Give rangers and necros better skills. They sort of got left in the dust when compared to paragons and monks.

As for the paragon skill deserving a nerf...I trust you haven't felt what most PVE paragons have felt since the beginning of Nightfall. Anet have said they want the paragon to be a passive support character, and this skill fits very well. Finally paragons have found an integral role into a team.

Longasc · Jun 17, 2007, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

Why the paragon one is already optimal, or you think it needs improvement?
Think it will do great in hardmode.

No, it is not optimal. It needs to be nerfed, which would be tweaking in my opinion.

Most P/x or x/P can provide constant flat 35% damage reduction plus healing. Permanently.

Why do we need a hard mode, when we get such skills. The game does not get better when it gets easy as hell! This is short-lived fun.

Also, Byron's posting made me shiver:
"There is one current paragon build that has the potential to give an unstrippable 93% damage reduces from all sources + offer periodic healing to counter degen. Ridiculous. "

Yeah...

Aera Lure · Jun 17, 2007, 04:53 PM // 16:53

These skills are amazing: Intensity, Elemental Lord, Critical Agility, "There's nothing to fear!", Eternal Aura. Those classes gain skills that pretty much deserve to be on a bar at all times under most circumstances.

I'd like to see the other skills brought into range with these. Not a nerf to those necessarily, since that is annoying as hell, and they are PvE-only and skills more powerful than elites was the point, but rather buff some of the others too so they have ample consideration as must-have skills on a bar. At least try to bring them all to around the same level.

My thoughts on a couple of them are in Longasc's topic referred to in the link above.

Sectus · Jun 17, 2007, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navaros

They will not turn Hard Mode into normal mode because for the most part there will only ever be a maximum of two of these skills in a HM party at any one time, because there are hardly any HM players to party with and thus AI bots that are not allowed to use the skills must be used. Two PVE-only skills would certainly not make HM easy, rather it only makes it somewhat balanced due to having to rely on inadequate Hero & Henchmen bots to do HM. Which according to the dev notes, HM was not designed for AI bots to handle. So the PVE-only skills are needed to be strong to alleviate the inability to play HM with other players, as it was designed for.

Normal mode was already easy mode way before the PVE-only skills came out; decent or better players will stomp it all easily with no trouble at all. Therefore making an already very easy mode even easier doesn't really matter.

Saying everybody plays Hard Mode using heroes/henchies is vast exaggaration. For instance, almost all the time I've pesonally been playing hard mode it's been with 1 or more human players. Just after the pve skills was released me and a friend did a little test and tried to vanquish a kurzick zone. It was very noticably easier. It felt even easier than doing Normal Mode back when Factions was released.

And I personally care if "easy mode" becomes even easier. I don't like to see the game be turned into a joke and you can just tap one key to see all enemies drop like flies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Engel the Fallen

For those crying that the skills are imbalanced, this is PVE, who cares.

And there's no such thing as balance for PvE? With imbalanced skills you encourage monotony and you'll see people only use the same 1 or 2 builds. This was already the case with builds such as SF eles or SS necros. And these new skills might just make that problem worse.

Another possible problem with imbalanced skills is that it can potentially make the game too easy. And some of these new skills definitely make the game noticable easier. People playing for a challenge (such as me) gets rather disappointed seeing the game gradually lose its challenge.

Ideally, I think the pve-only skills should have been designed to be fun and creative (for instance, a minion skill letting you create a minion version of monster would be fun), instead of overpowered versions of ordinary skills as they are now.