Curse

Nathan the Skank · Aug 19, 2006, 09:09 AM // 09:09

I guess this is a little off topic, but are they going to nerf more skills now?

Xenrath · Aug 19, 2006, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Yes, there will always be "skill balancing" especially as more skills and combinations are added, and other exploits/overused builds come along.

I think a lot of PvE people aren't annoyed at the EoE nerf itself, but more that it seems apparent once again PvE players get affected by something which for the most part they've not complained about. I personally hardly ever use it, and agree that some kind of fix was needed as it sounds like it's been nastily abused in PvP, but it's a perfectly valid stance to take to wonder why the other side of the coin has to take a hit too - when typically there have been no PvE complaint threads about it. Alpha testers, well, they've missed an awful lot of bugs/design flaws etc as it is and are only a tiny minority of players who probably represent less than the forum goers do (who in turn don't represent the entire population anyway but that's a different topic)

As for those guys who seem to have nothing better to do than post useless junk like "this thread is annoying/you guys just like to whine" take your own solution and don't read/post in them

Go make threads about stuff you like etc and what you think is ok with the game, nothing stopping you from doing that. You know who you are heh

Amy Awien · Aug 19, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by lg5000

They solved it the best way possible, though, not letting things die before a mission/battle starts would probably have done the trick as well.

That is not true, they solved in the worst possible way. That AB mission was broken due to it's layout. Fixing it by nerfing a skill is the wrong way.

I fear that updates to GW are going to become more and more chaotic, breaking one thing to fix another. Apparantly ANet can not handle/predict the balance-consequences of some of their ideas. That is troublesome.

Anyway, I know what to answer next time a "most useless skill" thread pops up. I just hope there'll be enough skills left to do something usefull.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Extinction tends to happen when the entire race is weakened, not when one drops dead

EoE never did that, you either have no clue at all or you are deliberately misrepresenting facts. EoE doesn't kill, it does ~40 damage, one death by itself isn't going to kill.

Silver_Fang · Aug 19, 2006, 10:53 AM // 10:53

They didnt break anything at all, They just make EoE bomb harder to execute, people are still able to drop a EoE bomb anyway, instead of focus fire, they need to spread damage.

Instead of Bombing Urgoz, peopel just need to degen Ugorz down to 90%

The skill is still viable, they didnt fix the griefing in AB tho. and AB wasnt broken due to the layout, the layout is fine.

Off course PvEer get the nerf for spmething they didnt complain, why would you complain for a skill that help you to speed up the Elite farming? Why would you complain about something that HELP you in farming?

Amy Awien · Aug 19, 2006, 11:06 AM // 11:06

The skill was fine, but that mission was broken. The fixed the mission by breaking the skill.

perfect · Aug 19, 2006, 11:14 AM // 11:14

Everyone needs to swallow the hard truth that PvP is king when it comes to skill balance and this game was designed with PvP as its backbone. Read the title of the game; Guild Wars. Nobody really cares how you kill goblins or how many you kill or how fast.

Perhaps if all PvE ppl want is to kill everything they see on the screen all at once, Anet can make you Super Star Sword! Yeah! You hit one enemy and all 30 of them die! Cool! That will keep you happy then right? What? That sounds stupid? Perhaps thats what EoE previously was. That is not what this game is about, like it or not.

And if you think Anet should just change aspects of the skill for PvP it would be a logistical nightmare trying to make skills embed properly into the balance for different modes. For Example:
Edge of Extinction: Nature Spirit: Does 52 dmg to goblins and bad monsters and kills them all so you can farm, but in Alliance Battles and Fort Aspenwood it doesnt get those npc guys. Reqs Beast Mastery.

Face it, Guild Wars is PvP-intrinsic and always will be, even though the PvP population is smaller, they play this game for a fun, balanced competition of skill. Anet isnt going to say this but its obvious and has been this way since the beginning, so griefing is pretty much useless.

Although Anet was nice enough to throw in a few new items skins to make it up to the PvE guys, fair trade?

majoho · Aug 19, 2006, 11:30 AM // 11:30

^ agreed, at least someone have a balanced view of how it really is.

Avarre · Aug 19, 2006, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

EoE never did that, you either have no clue at all or you are deliberately misrepresenting facts. EoE doesn't kill, it does ~40 damage, one death by itself isn't going to kill.

It was a moderate analogy, with a few flaws. I wasn't talking about EoE, but extinction (yes, there is a real world term called that), and how additional deaths bring about extinction when a race is already weak, not when it's at a prime.

Skill certainly doesn't seem broken anyway... eoe bomb is gone, what a loss that will be

Alleji · Aug 19, 2006, 12:40 PM // 12:40

After playing some tombs post-eoe nerf, I gotta say it's awesome. Anet finally put IWAY where it belongs: in a trashcan. Just like pre-apostasy.

WasAGuest · Aug 19, 2006, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfect

Everyone needs to swallow the hard truth that PvP is king when it comes to skill balance and this game was designed with PvP as its backbone. Read the title of the game; Guild Wars. Nobody really cares how you kill goblins or how many you kill or how fast.

Perhaps if all PvE ppl want is to kill everything they see on the screen all at once, Anet can make you Super Star Sword! Yeah! You hit one enemy and all 30 of them die! Cool! That will keep you happy then right? What? That sounds stupid? Perhaps thats what EoE previously was. That is not what this game is about, like it or not.

And if you think Anet should just change aspects of the skill for PvP it would be a logistical nightmare trying to make skills embed properly into the balance for different modes. For Example:
Edge of Extinction: Nature Spirit: Does 52 dmg to goblins and bad monsters and kills them all so you can farm, but in Alliance Battles and Fort Aspenwood it doesnt get those npc guys. Reqs Beast Mastery.

Face it, Guild Wars is PvP-intrinsic and always will be, even though the PvP population is smaller, they play this game for a fun, balanced competition of skill. Anet isnt going to say this but its obvious and has been this way since the beginning, so griefing is pretty much useless.

Although Anet was nice enough to throw in a few new items skins to make it up to the PvE guys, fair trade?

Umm, the title "Guild Wars" refers to the lore of the game, not the current action. The Proph manual and history section even refers to the time when guilds were at war as being one of the worst and least civil times during the history.
The franchise also started off as a role playing game then later added PvP as something for players to piddle in after the story was complete. - Jeff Strain, Gamming Steve interview.
O'Brien in a CGW interview also admits to "now knowing" that many people prefer to stick with the PvE aspects of the game. Unfortunatly, the timing on learning this was just before Factions came out.
So Guild Wars PvP is not "king", it's the spoiled child** and the "sport" of the game, so obviously it will get the press.
As said above, it's less about EoE actually being nerfed, it's about once again a skill rendered useless or forced into a cookie cutter situation* for it to be usefull due to "balance". There is nothing "balanced" about the "balancing" Anet does. Anet breaks skills in PvE so the players playing tag (PvP) can continue to do so and their e-sport can stay in the lime light.

* A necro with minions and death nova or SS necro can take ranger second if they wanted to use EoE. Unfortunatly EoE as a ranger specific skill is now useless as it sits on the Beastmaster line and anyone playing a beastmaster knows, to use the line effectively, almost all your skills must be set to protecting and using the pet as your weapon. Therefore, there is no room for EoE... unless you take a gimick cookie cutter build specific for farming.

** There are hundreds of requests and enhancements to the core game PvEers have been requesting for as long as the game has been out. Auction house, stylist, henchmen controls, pet controls, role playing districts, etc. None of these things have been put in or added, yet everytime something effects PvP negatively we see a quick action. This weekend event for example; Anet knew the EoE bombers would have a field day wiping the map and getting double faction. So, it was changed.

PvE got new items skins... extent finger and swirl. Get a great new skin and want to sell it? Good luck doing so through the spam.

Finally, I personally used EoE while out with henchmen and would use it to soften the massive numbers of foes out there. It would not insta kill all the foes on the map, but it would cause damage to them and after killing about four things, the ones left were left easier to kill... hence, EoE did it's job.

EternalTempest · Aug 19, 2006, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Rember the orginal response

Quote:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...06#post1856706

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick
Hey guys, I just wanted to clarify something. EoE was not "nerfed" simply because it became a problem in Alliance Battles. From the mouth (or rather, fingers since it was typed ) of Isaiah (The skill balancing king) himself: "we don't want to change this just because of AB. EoE is a problem everywhere it's used: Tombs, AB, PvE [and] Farming."

I have seen first-hand what EoE did on the field in Alliance Battles, Tombs, and PvE and I agree with this change 100%. Yes, this had effects outside of Alliance Battles and even outside PvP, but that was the intention.

No one is trying to "nerf" you, we just want to maintain a game where victory and success is earned by player skill, not a skill.

The ab was the "straw that broke the camels back" but they id'd it as issues elsewhere in the game with this skill, just not high enough priorty untill there about to go to a ab special event and found that it was being used as an exploit. "EoE is a problem everywhere it's used: Tombs, AB, PvE [and] Farming"

And for the recorded - Interview with Jeff Spain - Gw started with PVE.. and PVP was added during development. And this fact doesn't matter at all because the game is BOTH and anet supports both. They did admit about the pve stuff in factions and Gaile has mentioned that Nightfall has a lot of Pve focus (with new pvp stuff as well).

I would go as far to say since the ID'd the issue, that a change was proable planned for a future skill balance but ab + event made them do it early dut to the exploit that was happening.

Amy Awien · Aug 19, 2006, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

... EoE was not "nerfed" simply because it became a problem in Alliance Battles.

In an update two days before a major event ... it is hard to believe that this update had nothing to do with the event ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

No one is trying to "nerf" you, we just want to maintain a game where victory and success is earned by player skill, not a skill.

Woho, that is so below the belt. And it would apply to all rituals, including such rituals as Union and Shelter. Could make it stick for traps also, and enchantments.

I don't have a problem with EoE myself - I've never really used it - I do have a problem with how ANet appears to be breaking one thing to fix a problem somewhere else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Honestly, if you think this is such a big frickin nerf, you either are a EoE farmer, someone who enjoyed edge bombing the Kurzicks in Ft. Aspenwood, someone who fame farms with EoE bomb, or a griefer.

If you believe that my opinion implies I am someone who likes to bring grief to other people, you end up in my ignore list. Goodbye troll.

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfect

Perhaps if all PvE ppl want is to kill everything they see on the screen all at once, Anet can make you Super Star Sword! ..

You have no clue about what all PvE players want, they are as diverse as the PvP people. But, pff, wait, I am not going to waste time on trying to explain this to you.

Loviatar · Aug 19, 2006, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfect

Everyone needs to swallow the hard truth that PvP is king when it comes to skill balance and this game was designed with PvP as its backbone. Read the title of the game; Guild Wars. Nobody really cares how you kill goblins or how many you kill or how fast.

Face it, Guild Wars is PvP-intrinsic and always will be, even though the PvP population is smaller, they play this game for a fun, balanced competition of skill.

Although Anet was nice enough to throw in a few new items skins to make it up to the PvE guys, fair trade?

tell that to JEFF STRAIN who contridicts your idiotic garbage directly in a recent interview.

read it and learn the awful (to you ) truth.

Quote:

Evil Avatar News: Guild Wars seems to be a pretty hardcore PvP type game. How does Factions supplement the core game in terms of additional appeal? Has there been an effort made to entice people who didn't like Guild Wars? Have there been any creative strides toward doing unique PvE situations?

JS: Well, I think Guild Wars has excellent PvP, especially in the online role-playing genre, in fact it’s the only game with well-designed well-balanced PvP; but that doesn’t mean the game is a hardcore PvPer's game. Guild Wars started life as a role-playing game, and we continue to support that very strongly. Our goal was always for the PvP aspect to be played after you’ve built up your character and played through the role-playing content

Stockholm · Aug 19, 2006, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by perfect

Let me explain how it happens in Hall of Heroes.

You are holding halls, there are 8 people on the team who must heal themselves and the ghost on the altar. There are 2 other teams hellbent on killing you. Probably at least 1 of them is an Iway with EoE that they put down in the last minute, it is usually about 42dmg or so but sometimes more. When both teams rush you, you cannot sit on the stairs because of AoE and no room to kite damage and too far to heal your ghost. With 16 players all attacking the 8 on your team you will take dmg, your teammates will not all be at full health at all times. Iway runs in and starts whacking away, they have no monks so they start to getting very low in health. Suddenly EoE is up across the room, the Iway lets 7 of its players die and 300+ dmg in 1 second, which will kill some players on the other teams which causes a chain reaction and does over 600 dmg to everything. Then a necro who was sitting at the top of the stairs with their ghost walks down and claims altar unopposed.

It was a cheap trick, plain and simple.

Sounds like smart tactics to me, How come Anerf hasen't changed that before,( was it the Dev's team that was doing it) Why not bring Rit that can kill the EoE spirit with one spell?

EternalTempest · Aug 19, 2006, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

Sounds like smart tactics to me, How come Anerf hasen't changed that before,( was it the Dev's team that was doing it) Why not bring Rit that can kill the EoE spirit with one spell?

Rit's a campaign class tied to factions, as you get more chapters, you will not be able to depend on getting a specific class in a party vs the core jobs which you will always find.

Stockholm · Aug 19, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by EternalTempest

Rit's a campaign class tied to factions, as you get more chapters, you will not be able to depend on getting a specific class in a party vs the core jobs which you will always find.

You can allways try to find a secondary Rit

Amy Awien · Aug 19, 2006, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

...
read it and learn the awful (to you ) truth. ...

The really upsetting in there is that they claim they started GW as a role-playing game. There is no noticable role-playing in GW and I always thought that was by design.

Legendary Shiz · Aug 19, 2006, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

Sounds like smart tactics to me, How come Anerf hasen't changed that before,( was it the Dev's team that was doing it) Why not bring Rit that can kill the EoE spirit with one spell?

It's not that there weren't ways to counter it that it got nerfed, it was just the amount everybody whined about it because they didn't know how to counter it.

twicky_kid · Aug 19, 2006, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Shiz

It's not that there weren't ways to counter it that it got nerfed, it was just the amount everybody whined about it because they didn't know how to counter it.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.

This is absolutely correct.

You should probly do search through the forums and see other builds people are complaining about.

In the next balance update I expect thumpers and touchers to be nerfed. They can nerf both without destroying any skills. All they need to do is lower the expertise for 2nd class skills. Instead of a 3% per attribut maybe 1.5-2%. If they do that they can kill both thumpers and touchers without changing any skills.

Anything that is overused or people complain about they will change.

Tortoise · Aug 19, 2006, 05:11 PM // 17:11

1. 'Anet just cares about money, that is why they're always catering those annoying PvP-ers' or 'face it: Anet will always shaft PvE as soon as the PvP-ers start whining'

I don't wish to make this into another PvE vs PvP thread. It's a silly topic. Anet's actions have always supported the claim that they support equally. Face it: GWguru and GWonline are mainly PvE forums. Though a lot of people here might be of the opinion that Anet always tends to the need off the PvP-ers you will get the exactly reverse idea when you go visit a PvP forum (aka Guild-hall.net). Yes, believe it or not but most PvP-ers also consider themselves ignored by Anet.
I'm not gonna give the entire list of complains but as an example: Alot of PvPers are annoyed they are forced to diss out 50 euros for an expansion in which the only PvP content is a couple new skills and two new PvP modes that are too random for actual serious play to be possible. If you compare the content PvE got with factions (Cantha) with the content PvP got (AB and Aspenwood (which you weren't even able to play with a PvP character up until two days ago) you should at least be carefull to state that Anet gives PvPers everything they want.

In the end you simply have to face that Anet has catered to both a bit and that the simple fact that you feel ignored is due to them being unable to cater to all needs, not due to some preference they have. If you're gonna say that Anet favors one above the other then you should do your research first: give us a list of demands of the PvE-ers, a list of demands of the PvP-ers and then compare what they have gotten. Since most people here have absolutely no idea what most PvP-ers want your views are biased.

2. @tomcruisejr, twicky and others, reasoning away the EoE problem in HoH.

I'm sorry but you have no clue. I gave you a situation, you fail to adress it. Stating to simply nuke the spirit is failing to see the point. For your ease let me summarize it again:

2.1 You cannot put a guy on the ranger dropping the EoE. Why? Because you need all your resources elsewhere: either interupting/stopping interupts or trying to hold out against two teams.

2.2 You cannot kill the spirit. Why? Because you won't be in range of it. By the time you get in range the bomb has exploded. Heck, even if you would get magically past all the defensive traps in time you won't be able to kill it in time unless you can one-shot it.

2.3 You can't Heal party it. Why? Because any decent EoE bomb will kill everything in its range in less then 2 seconds. Heck, I've known EoE bombs to kill everything even with two people spamming heal parties and getting three of them off.
Once again you seem to fail to realize that in most cases there will be 22 to 23 people dying there. A full edge bomb in an HoH situation will hit for 1000+ damage. Yes, if you can magically pull off 8 Heal parties during the edgebomb you'll be able to barely survive. Then again, if you can pull off 8 heal parties durnig one edge bomb you're just facing the most horrible bomb the world has ever seen. (oh and yes, we ARE talking about Iway bombing).

2.4 The suggestion to kite outside of it's range when we're talking about altar situations is laughable.

2.5 During all of this I have never suggested any of you is unskilled. Leave the insulting comments aside and try and comprehend the situation for a change.

To summarize: your counter would have to be something that is able to stop the shutdown the effect of the spirit in a timeframe off less then 3 seconds without you being forced to be in range.

Neither of you seems to have faced a decent bomb in an HA holding situation.

Oh, and Twicky, don't be silly. If you hold halls for 6 hours two days in a row you would have at least earned 1720 fama points and you'd be rank 7 in two days. Not rank 3. Oh and btw: I searched for 'putrid build'. Nothing came up... The only thing I can think of are builds that used the pre-nerfed putrid from one year ago.

3. 'Why must this nerf also affect PvE, we have done nothing wrong!!'

The nerf affects PvE due to a number of reasons but most important: because EoE was overpowered in PvE as well. Noone in it's right mind can ignore the strength of EoE in PvE. If you can kill off every enemy in radar range with one skill slot then a skill is seriously overpowered.

I know alot off PvE-ers have trouble with the concept of balancing in PvE but it is one of the things that keep GW healthy. It's time to face the truth: EoE was ridiculously overpowered in PvE. Perhaps even more so then minion masters or AoE nukers used to be.

4. 'They killed a skill to a fix a mission'

No they did not. They didn't kill a skill. They fixed it so it is still a viable option but not ridiculously overpowered. Every suggested 'fix' to the griefing problem has severe consequences which everyone here seems to forget:

- Changing NPC race -> would kill the use of EoE more then this change. At least now EoE is still an option that can add some more strategic depth into the game without causing harsh unbalances.

- Taking action to griefers -> how would you recognise a griefer or an afker? and what would your punishment be? Once the system is known (and that won't take long) it wouldn't be too hard to grief/afk in a more complicated way. The only thing 'taking action' does is creating a snowball effect in which you constantly have to fight the griefing with new measures and the griefers constantly re-invent themselves with new forms of griefing. This ends up causing normal players harm while leaving the griefers largely unaffected.

An example: it has been suggested that to stop botting all NPC merchants should just ask an easy random question before allowing access to the trade screen. It is thought this would solve the problem since obviously bots won't be able to reply. For human players it would just be a minor annoyance.

The reason this won't work is simple: all a botter has to do is add some lines of codes that will allow their bots to make random replies and then check if it can sell stuff. No matter what your questions are or how many replyes are possible the bot will end up being able to sell his stuff. The problem would still exist and the only consequence it would have is that every normal player is faced with an unnecessary question every time.