Curse

coleslawdressin · Aug 01, 2005, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Phades: No offense, but I feel that most of your responses are either too cryptic or vague to be much help. A changed NR has a lot of variables, including also the thing about multiple copies. What is your version of a modified NR and XYZ enchantments?

If all a group has to do to continue to win the HOH is camp the dias and put up a healing ball, those skills need to be changed too, even if it is only in pvp.

Zrave · Aug 01, 2005, 06:34 AM // 06:34

Decided to comment on this whole healing ball breaking discussion:

First of all, Ether Lord does nothing. This is because:

A) The target that you really want to hit is the bonder, who will be protected with spellbreaker or obsidian flesh.

B) In all the tombsing I have done, the average lifespan of ether lord is 3 seconds before being inspired or smited. This means I lost 3 energy (assuming 12 inspiration, which is not your case), and you got 3 energy back for at least a 4 energy deficit.

Second, Wither and Malaise do nothing. This is because:

A) Again, the target you really want to hit is the bonder, but you can't

B) Focus switch, they drop. This might be harmful on the bonder since he'd lose some of his bonds as well. Too bad.

So obviously, the energy degen you want to use is Panic. It hits in an aoe, which due to the constraints of the healing ball, means it will hit at least a few guys. Furthermore, it will splash onto the bonder ignoring his spellbreaker/obsidian flesh. The problem is that the bonder has near infinite energy due to balthazar's spirit, and a few lost pips won't do much. I have screenshots in the HoH maintaining bonds on the entire team and hero, yet my energy was 75/77.

We've been hit with panic several times, and while annoying, it just was not enough to counteract our energy engine. Perhaps it did contribute to some defeats, but wasn't the main factor by any means.

The obvious way to defeat the healing ball is to sidestep life bond entirely and attack only with spells. A strong air spike with perfectly timed rends and perhaps disruption on our ritual spammer will get kills, *unless* it is a 2x1 in the HoH and the other team is focus firing the ghostly hero, giving you 5 triggers of Healing Seed a second. And hence the difficulty of breaking a healing ball, the fact that the other team, rather than help you, more often hurts your chances of winning. Sometimes we'd face two healing ball busters and lose, but it was rare enough, at least back then. Is this what we want the environment to be though?

I think that back then, the main thing holding the healing ball back was the relic map. That, and having to cap the altar. I'll also add that when Balthazar's Aura was bugged and you could stack several copies of it, it was insufficient to bust a healing ball. Sure, that's kinda obvious, but goes on to display why a healing ball is overpowered.

wheel · Aug 01, 2005, 08:38 AM // 08:38

/signed

Xellos · Aug 01, 2005, 11:08 AM // 11:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

MA beats Poison Arrow out badly. For damage it'll break QS if the target is under an enchantment since it can combine with the same buffs except other Preps, and no other prep gives a higher damage bonus than MA.

Guardian and Aegis effect all arrows except Ignite and maybe CG, so it doesnt really make a difference in Ranger Elite bow attacks.

I understand it does more damage, but alot of times moves like protective spirit/guardian/aegis own it. The extra damage wouldn't penetrate prot spirit, therefore making it rather useless, and the other two moves are popular too. What type of enchants other then heal ball are you going to use anyways? I believe that the ratio of enchantments that can hinder melandrus are the ones that generally are used in the first place, because those are the ones worth keeping in this NR spam fest. Now if we went back in the day where healing breeze/attunements etc were still used, you damn well can bet almost every ranger would use MA over most elites.

Kindle Arrows and Ignite Arrows greatest strength is that it bypasses evades/blocks, while Poison only requires 1 shot to be effective for a limited amount of time and also forces the enemy to waste mana to mend. Their solid DPSes, and together, QS/Kindle or PsnArrow/Kindle can outdamage Melandrus alone under the NR stipulated enchants in general.

Oh and we all know Pikachu has taken halls before =D

Odd Sock · Aug 01, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orochim4ru

I said we should lower the energy cost to 15. So we agree, and yet you're going hostile over nothing. I wouldn't mind seeing the energy cost drop to 15, the recharge going up to 20, and the damage/poison removed

Yay, you're entire argument is based around Chillblains being changed. I can also say that Life Bonds will become skills and can be used by rangers and that Lightning Orbs will drop to 5 energy and 0 cooldown. Don't change the rules of the game to bring your points accross. Oh and by the way, no one here (except Blackace) is going hostile on you. We're just tired of hearing your Ether Lord/Rend/Arcane Echo/Chillblains combo that doesnt' work.

I still laugh at you debating Ether Lord. It's trash, get over it. Not because you like it or have used it to mediocre effects that it's any good. We all have our little favourites, it just takes someone with balls to grow up and admit that it's not all that great. You won't accomplish anything with that skill and Draining/Taping a target from a well prepared team simply won't do anything.

Orochim4ru · Aug 01, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

We're just tired of hearing your Ether Lord/Rend/Arcane Echo/Chillblains combo that doesnt' work.

I never said the combo was the best one. I've stated multiple times that its outclassed... by pretty much anything. The point was that these seemingly worthless skills have the ability to break the ball. I didn't say they would 100% of the time, but they give you SOMETHING. If I design a build that doesn't have heal ball in mind, which my initial one clearly didn't, then cobbling together random all purpose skills that might work shows how a group could get past a ball. This isn't to say i gave the best way, i specifically left out skills to show that a small segment of someone's skill bar could pose a threat.

Now, why did i do that? Because every time someone has mentioned that NR needs to be nerfed, they've brought up the fact that they want enchants nerfed as well, or they want enchant removal buffed. In PvE, nerfing enchants might make a lot of builds simply useless, thus making it harder for new people to play without running boring stock builds. Buffing strips might make enchants useless in PvE too, since the enchant rending mobs have been on the rise, and since they travel in large groups. Jade scarabs in the crystal desert, for example, might become retardedly powerful if chillblains is buffed to an absurd extent.

So, in sum, if anet is reading this, i'd enjoy it if they didn't make incredibly radical changes to the hex/enchant domain of abilities.

Odd Sock · Aug 01, 2005, 09:03 PM // 21:03

You forgot the big thing: no one serious about GW gives a damn about PvE.

Orochim4ru · Aug 01, 2005, 09:09 PM // 21:09

But if GW is to continue producing expansions and keeping their servers up, they're going to need to have a decent pre-game before you get to the pvp, otherwise people will leave (and they do... lots of people leave during pre-searing and never play again).

Thus balance = community +

Odd Sock · Aug 01, 2005, 09:57 PM // 21:57

NERF NR

MSecorsky · Aug 01, 2005, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

NERF NR

Bah. Non-rangers.

JoDiamonds · Aug 01, 2005, 10:02 PM // 22:02

What data is there regarding when people leave the game? How do you know many people leaving during pre-searing and never play again?

Seriously, if you have access to hard data about stuff like that, I'm interested. If it's just that you saw some people once and not later, well, who cares?

Acan Vishnu · Aug 01, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Buffing enchantment removals would be fine for PvE for one simple reason; they can remove some of the anti-enchantment monsters just as easily as they added them.

Orochim4ru · Aug 01, 2005, 10:14 PM // 22:14

true, but that's if they bother to do so, which i personally doubt they'll do. That said, there are limited areas of anti-enchant, but i don't want those areas becoming impossible to have fun in if you're running any enchants.

Quote:

How do you know many people leaving during pre-searing and never play again?

Seriously, if you have access to hard data about stuff like that, I'm interested. If it's just that you saw some people once and not later, well, who cares?

The first time i heard about GW, i was surfing around on penny arcade, while tycho was heaping huge globs of praise on it. In his posts however, he always mentioned people quitting the game during pre-searing, since as cute as the game is, it doesn't really offer a whole lot during that stage.

Examples? i can't give you a demographic, but i know that my brother quit in pre-searing to play SWG, (he's one of the top jedi in sunrunner), my 3 friends that i started playing the game with all quit early in post-searing, and i joined like 5 guilds in pre-searing, and all of them died due to player inactivity (5 people not logging on for like 2 weeks+ in pretty much each of them). Since at the time i had been playing counter strike and natural selection a lot, i didn't really mind, but i'd still log of for a few hours every 2 or 3 days to do another quest, or to go clear beyond the wall.

So yeah, people do leave in pre-searing, a lot of them do. Maybe i'm just incredibly unlucky, but i can see why. Compared to WoW, the start of GW is lackluster, there's a hugely shoddy economy in pre, and there's a VERY limited amount of stuff to do. I personally HATE having to come to old ascalon after post searing, because i find the place visually repugnant. Does this mean everyone leaves in droves? No. But keeping pve, which is required for entering what i consider the meat of the game, balanced cannot hurt retention.

Since expansions are most likely to be sold only to people who currently play, keeping retention high increases the amount of sales of expansion packs, which is good for us as a community.

Phades · Aug 01, 2005, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orochim4ru

But if GW is to continue producing expansions and keeping their servers up, they're going to need to have a decent pre-game before you get to the pvp, otherwise people will leave (and they do... lots of people leave during pre-searing and never play again).

Thus balance = community +

People are leaving the game as it is, regardless of the pvp, becuase they never did pvp or went very far past pre-searing. There are some who have also left after playing the pvp. Arguing to do nothing, like you are, because things appear to be fine and all counterable. This does not addres the fact that public opinion of the game has little to do with what to do with the balance and that things like NR, in its current form, is nearly unstopable due to the combinations available. In addition to it being difficult to stop, it also renders alot of strategies obscelete. Tactical play still exists to a degree, but the sway of tactics over strategy within this game is very small at best and usually requires a mistake on the part of the opponent.

The thing you have to understand is that this is not a flavor of the month arguement, but a realization of the foundation for what is accepted within the game has flaws.

Rayea · Aug 01, 2005, 11:34 PM // 23:34

weeel....i didnt get most of this post, since it is dealing with PvP (which i KNOW i suck at)

*passess round band-aids, anticeptics and pain killers*

now, i did understand that folks are upset about this 'spamming' of the skill in question. you mean when there are more than one of the spirit, yes? ether droped by one side or both?

how about a fix that no mater how many times you cast NR, your team can only have one on the field?
cant remember where i saw this done, but it was like some kind of summon, and if you cast it again, the old one died or faded away and the new one took over.

might be useable, maybe with more fixes.
but then there could only be ONE not many, no matter how many rangers cast NR.

*puts on the red-shirt of Flame Drawing and sits in a bucket of Dry Ice to wait for the inevitable lol*

Orochim4ru · Aug 02, 2005, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Arguing to do nothing, like you are

I dunno how many times i need to repeat this: i'm arguing for small, non-drastic changes. I WANT enchant removal buffed if NR is nerfed, but i don't want it buffed so hard that PvE becomes too hard, or that enchants are still as unplayable as they are now.

Should PvP become totally unbalanced, hardcore players will leave, should PvE become boring, no new players will get drawn in. I don't see why you're arguing against striking a balance.

Quote:

how about a fix that no mater how many times you cast NR, your team can only have one on the field?
cant remember where i saw this done, but it was like some kind of summon, and if you cast it again, the old one died or faded away and the new one took over.

Doesn't matter how many are in play, NR is devastating as soon as it hits the floor. Its post-creation effect is just rubbing salt in the wounds.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 02:41 AM // 02:41

The problem is it cant be fixed with a bandaid and will just change how its abused. This causes more time to be wasted trying to work around the problem instead of fixing it direcltly.

The pve is the pve, there really isnt anything that is going to change that. What the pve represents to a pvp player can be changed. Adding more pve doesnt do anything in the game setup as the actual geography is about as meaningful as every city location without skills in it. That is part of the reason for the map travel feature within the game. The only point of real interest seems to be just outside of lion's arch in the form of ascalon settlement. There are sprinkles and hints of other things of interest, but they are essentially limited, in large part, to the arena based towns and dragon's lair. The real problem with the pve side being linked is that there is no reason for a pve character to engage in pvp. It does not change that character's pve experience nor does it advance or shape the pve world beyond the pre-searing. That also happens to be the one mission with a glimmer of interesting play options within the pve, but it is still segemented into a remedial arena endurance death match.

Advocating the bandaids is no better than arguing to do nothing, because the problem is still there. Stating that there are other issues elsewhere doesnt help alot, because many of the encounter issues that lead to the overpopulation of anti-enchantment monsters draw from the same pvp imbalances. Also, trying to create misdirection towards where focus should be applied is counter intuitive as many pve redesign and added content solutions have alot more involved work rather than reworking the values on a spread sheet and looking at variable outputs.

Orochim4ru · Aug 02, 2005, 02:56 AM // 02:56

So then if changes to values or "bandaids" (which i assume is the term you're using for the buff removal/nerf NR changes, if i'm wrong correct me) can't help, then you're basically asking for the game to redesign itself, which has happened multiple times, and people have been getting the bad end of redesigns and leaving since beta came out.

If there's a credible alternative, some realistic and well planned out revamp, then i'd be fine with it. If you've got one, tell us. SWG got hit with a huge combat revamp, and droves of people left. The game almost feels empty now due to such changes, which is why i'm advocating small changes, as opposed to large ones.

Anyways, i'm all for new suggestions.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Let me use an example im a bit more familiar with than the swg one you provided. I avoided that game personally, no fault to those that tried to of course. For the first ~6 months of planetside people began noticing problems with the balance of weapons between the 3 different factions. (I dont know what happened prior to that time, as i was not in the beta) There was also one side that was consistantly losing every day, which indirectly supported this sentiment. Later the player base basically proved that their weapons were mathmatically inferior based around the mechanics of the game. While this occured the representative of the development team in more than one instance stated that the game is as intended and that our numbers were wrong. Although it didnt explain why near stationary targets could begin to move and outrun projectiles that were supposadly faster than their max speed.

The development team, as the game reached month 7, began "small changes". By this time the community began to shift away from the "weaker" team or quit altogether due to frustration and the dislike for a monthly fee as their game cards expired. These changes did not address the basic and fundamental game issues causing the problems, while at the same time began adding spins on content. Each side began to have more flavor and diversity with the performance of vehicles and they added more vehicles. Unfortunatly, when adding these new vehicles and doing some small fine tuning to the weapons, created situations where the weapons could not strike a target that it was intended to counter. The projectile simply did not fly far enough, this was partly due to the guidance mechanism for it, which was causing the initial speed problem. The thing had problems (even visually) tracking a target while changing elevations. There were other problems within the elevation changes that caused high speed ground based travel to incur damage while even making the slightest changes in elevation. This was otherwise known as unarmored units dying while walking down stairs, but could jump from the roof of a building and live. They continued to make bandaid changes to reduce the bad side of the effects while not addressing the real issue of the elevation code. Many times breaking other aspects of the game while making these adjustments in "small changes". The game prediction code also had issues with high speed objects that changed elevation rapidly causing many different warping effects, which was not addressed for around a year and still only used a work around to fix it and still existed in other areas of the game. There were many other oversites such as over powered combinations working towards the primary playstyle of the game defeating all others for different reasons, in addition to flavor mechanics creating artificial crutches on weaponry over distance and the weaponry class was designed to operate at a distance competing against others of the same class. These things were also brought up by the community and largely ignored for many months. There were even basic damage to clip to time spent reloading calculations that went ignored for months or longer in some cases close to a year, with the little changes still leaving it sub-par after it was addressed.

Months would pass while many issues were ignored or only given a band-aid, while the development team (who many of the lead designers were continually cycled out to other jobs) continued to release buggy and incomplete content, some of which was pay for content. Durring the testing phases, most of the problems and bugs were found from the player base and would continue to be problems for months to a year or more before it wold be addressed. Many of the changes ended up being word for word suggestions for a fix from the playerbase, but unfortunatly many of those people who were working for change ended up moving on from the game long before the changes came to be. This is the problem with "small changes".

Things such as changing the mechanic of the melee animation in conjuction for the timing of skills and movement is something that would require alot of reworking of the basic game functions and could likely cause some unintended side effects. Changing the refresh time on enchantment spells is not something that would require alot of reworking. Setting the value for remove all enchantments upon effect from 1 to 0 is not something that would require alot of reworking. Doing both internally and reviewing the ability to heal versus the ability to damage then implementing other fixes to compensate would take some time, but is not on the same level as the first example. Addressing a fundamental issue of unlimited reuse and redundancy of skills is something very basic to the core of the game, but needs to be changed, opposed to making a bandaid fix that would limit just one spirit out at a time in the same area of effect and would most likely require more coding to sort out all the contingencies. This would be instead of changing the values of the refresh times for the skills that make the afore mentioned skills potentially abusive. In reality both probably need to occur, but doing one then evaluating the change then doing the next is acceptable opposed to the long silence and possible change after the community has splintered or moved on.

Rayea · Aug 02, 2005, 10:20 AM // 10:20

actually, the band-aids were for the victims of the flames and rants, not the game ^^ along with the antiseptics and pain killers.

kk, so having one there in the first place is bad as it is now.
what abot something in the script? i dont know that much about scripting, tried to learn it for ATS crafting on Nwn and saw my brain melting outa my ears just reading how to make ore rocks drop gems or ore...owww.

i was thinking about it and thought, since everone says PvE dosent matter (actually, it does to a lot of us, but since your going on about what this spirit is doing to your PvP, i will not comment on that part) how about a 2 part script that changes the spirit only when it is used in an arena or PvP match?

a bit like a dual poison. part of the code is in the spirit, part of the code in the area. only when the two come together does the spirit change is behaviour. that way, it leaves it unchanged for PvE purposes, but sorts itself out for the PvP section.

(you will have to work out exactly what the change is yourselves, i am still trying to get this picture of what my brain thinks a healing ball is, and its just one huge dogpile of players squashing the poor monk at the bottom in a pile lol)

*gets back in the dry ice bucket*