Curse

Str0b0 · Dec 04, 2007, 06:10 AM // 06:10

Paragon is actually worthwhile to play? since when?

arcanemacabre · Dec 04, 2007, 06:13 AM // 06:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redfeather1975

I always thought PvE only skills, and consumables were introduced because the devs couldn't balance PvE to be equally challenging for all professions.
When you are playing PvE and people would rather not have you just because of your prof, things aren't being designed right. Online rpgs shouldn't allow that to happen for as long as it has been in GW. The fact GW isn't pay to play and has no differentiation between PvE rules and PvP rules is probably why PvE is so inconsistent in terms of balance.
Adding PvE only skills and consumables may have been an attempt to correct that without fudging up PvP.

Exactly. The problem is, the PvE skills we have are just lame. I am in favor of the idea behind PvE-only skills, I just hate the ones we have. I mean come on, Necrosis? Real creative. Do damage if target is hexed or has a condition. The only reason it's PvE-only is because the amount of damage is too high for PvP. That's it. Big f-in deal.

Avarre · Dec 04, 2007, 06:22 AM // 06:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Str0b0

Paragon is actually worthwhile to play? since when?

Since the release of Nightfall, oddly.

Kha · Dec 04, 2007, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

3) PvE skills. This is the result of PvE players wanting to have their own skills? Way to go, guys. Can we have them removed now?

PvE skills originally were a way for professions geared more at PvP or affected heavily by PvP skill balances to have a chance at being balanced better for PvE without affecting the PvP realm. This was how ANet "solved" the problem - they added PvE skills. It wasn't about PvEers wanting their own skills, it was about them wanting PvP-oriented professions and professions weakened by constant nerfs to have a bit more usefulness.

Can you really blame PvEers for wanting that? PvPers get their balance from skills changes, and PvEers got a little help against overpowered monsters that lack challenge other than massive damage. If it's anyone's fault for the damage the PvE skills have done to the game it's ANet's for not caring about PvE balance. They were not implemented that well. It's pretty obvious by the fact that immediately upon their release many got nerfed. All this complaining about PvPers ruining this and PvEers ruining that is getting old. So is blaming ANet, but put the blame where it belongs. ANet bit off more than it could chew with the skill system given the numerous balancing of skills and plenty of examples of them not even sure what to do with skills (the Conjure skills for example).

PvE skills aren't even the worst of the problem. They're minor compared to the damage consumables have done to PvE. And the thing is, ANet doesn't care. Their concern about balance in PvE is so minimal. Consumables could've been really cool and great, but instead they're just an easy button way of solving an already easy or fairly easy problem.

Having PvE skills, consumables, etc in the game is not a bad idea and they do not warrant full removal. That is just silly and a close-minded solution to a problem. Something doesn't work so you just remove it? No, you fix it if you want to truly keep your customers pleased. Taking away options doesn't make people happy. What needs to be done is for ANet to care about balance in PvE. What is the point of giving us Hard Mode, what people wanted, and then just giving us tons of cheesy ways to make it Easy Mode? Maybe they gave in to the whining as they focus more on GW2, or maybe they just got tired of PvE after GW:EN and figured it was "as good as it will be".

There are so many brilliant suggestions on these forums of how to solve skill problems, both normal and PvE only, but what does ANet do? They nerf a problem skill into nothingness and on rare occassions make it a little better as they realized they went too far. I'm no genius at skill balancing, but it doesn't take a genius to see the many problems ANet's balancing and "solutions" have caused.

MagmaRed · Dec 04, 2007, 06:26 AM // 06:26

R/W can use SY nicely. Triple Shot, Dual Shot, and Forked Arrow all offer easy ways to build adrenaline fast. Barrage does too, as well as Volley. SY is used on Paragons because of adrenaline boosting skills like Focused Anger. The Leadership attribute allows the Paragon to gain energy from using it, and take some other nice shouts to help the team.

I agree that the class specific PvE skills should ALL be tied to the classes primary attribute. Make SY last a set time frame, and then a little more based on how many points in Strength. Look into Critical Agility for a good example of making a skill useful for 1 class, but usable for all. There are only 20 skills to change in this way. Luxon/Kurzick and Sunspear skills for each of the 10 classes.

Avarre · Dec 04, 2007, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

PvE skills originally were a way for professions geared more at PvP or affected heavily by PvP skill balances to have a chance at being balanced better for PvE without affecting the PvP realm.

Then explain why Paragons (TNTF), Monks (SoL), and Warriors (SY) all extremely strong PvE and PvP professions, received the most incredibly powerful PvE only skills? Skills like Cry of Pain and Necrosis are practically repeats of nerfed standard skills (Spiritual Pain and Discord respectively). The 'PvP geared professions' benefited the least out of the addition of PvE-only skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

Can you really blame PvEers for wanting that? PvPers get their balance from skills changes, and PvEers got a little help against overpowered monsters that lack challenge other than massive damage.

Yes, I can. PvE design is terrible, shifting from synergy to simple boosted stats. This is another thing that needs fixing and I have said as much for a great deal of time.

However, that doesn't mean I have to approve of skills that destroy the concept of skill over time. Consumables and PvE skills are both part of this progression. They, and PvE design, are a result of ANet cheapening the game to pander to the larger audience. The mass PvE audience. It's quite obvious if Anet had not decided to please this larger PvE audience, a great number of changes in game design would not have happened.

Skills and setups are supposed to be balanced. As soon as you add restrictions to where they can be used to compensate for increasing their power, you deviate from that idea. PvE skills don't add options so much as reduce the number of relatively viable options. You see far fewer builds nowadays than you would before, because of how design and balance are no longer parallels.

PvE skills were not needed in the original concept of Guild Wars. They were not needed in Prophecies, which general opinion seems to consider the best chapter. They are only used as a band-aid fix to poor design and to appease complaints.

Supporting these kind of changes is essentially supporting the erosion of the concept that made Guild Wars unique.

pumpkin pie · Dec 04, 2007, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Might i have the code to your Paragon Build please Toxage?

Savio · Dec 04, 2007, 08:00 AM // 08:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by arsie

Save Yourself doesn't make a Paragon much stronger, except for the energy return from Leadership. Save Yourself just impacts on the party less when being used by a Paragon.

Paragons maintain SY better, and the energy gain from SY is better than their usual choices because SY has no recharge time.

The rest of your post is also wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

PvE skills aren't even the worst of the problem. They're minor compared to the damage consumables have done to PvE.

All consumables do is reduce the time needed to do an area, or at least make it harder for you to lose. (Well, there's the bit with skill recharge, but that's not the only reason you use consumables.) Imbalanced PvE skills eliminate the necessity of a good team or good builds. I would think the latter is a worse problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Then explain why Paragons (TNTF), Monks (SoL), and Warriors (SY) all extremely strong PvE and PvP professions, received the most incredibly powerful PvE only skills? Skills like Cry of Pain and Necrosis are practically repeats of nerfed standard skills (Spiritual Pain and Discord respectively). The 'PvP geared professions' benefited the least out of the addition of PvE-only skills.

To add to this: If your group is anything decent, you're already going to have a Paragon and Monks, and probably a Warrior or two. Even if you didn't have those professions in your group for some reason, you'd make room for those overpowered PvE skills. However, you're not going to go out of your way for Cry of Pain or Necrosis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagmaRed

Make SY last a set time frame, and then a little more based on how many points in Strength.

A proper nerf would include adding a recharge and decreasing armor.

Kha · Dec 04, 2007, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Then explain why Paragons (TNTF), Monks (SoL), and Warriors (SY) all extremely strong PvE and PvP professions, received the most incredibly powerful PvE only skills? Skills like Cry of Pain and Necrosis are practically repeats of nerfed standard skills (Spiritual Pain and Discord respectively). The 'PvP geared professions' benefited the least out of the addition of PvE-only skills.

Because ANet failed at what it did. Like I said, they didn't care about balance. They responded with the community's desire to help weaker PvE professions by telling the community that they were looking into fixing these things and PvE skills would be the first step. And then they added them. That's when things went wrong. Telling us what they are doing and actually doing it ended up not being the same thing. I can't explain why they chose not to balance the skills well because there is no logic to it I or any other player can understand other than they didn't care. Like I said, just look at the fact that a lot of skills (TNTF and SoL for example) got nerfed. They couldn't even balance skills for PvE...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Yes, I can. PvE design is terrible, shifting from synergy to simple boosted stats. This is another thing that needs fixing and I have said as much for a great deal of time.

I've played this game for over 3 years - I know very well of the lack of synergy. The problem again is that ANet has tried to give the best of both worlds, the casual players and the more hardcore, and can't find a balance between them. You can't blame the PvEers though as much as you want to. This isn't about the masses just wanting to be idiots in PvE. It's about ANet marketing the game as more casual and then deciding to balance a lot of things for the more hardcore and to balance skills for a lot of high-end PvP. When you change how you want people to play your game, of course the customers are going to react. It's also ANet's problem of adding professions that created imbalance when they already couldn't fully balance the whole primary/secondary system. Obviously ANet invisioned a lot more than they were able to handle with the system and all the skills from the start.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

However, that doesn't mean I have to approve of skills that destroy the concept of skill over time. Consumables and PvE skills are both part of this progression. They, and PvE design, are a result of ANet cheapening the game to pander to the larger audience. The mass PvE audience. It's quite obvious if Anet had not decided to please this larger PvE audience, a great number of changes in game design would not have happened.

Skills and setups are supposed to be balanced. As soon as you add restrictions to where they can be used to compensate for increasing their power, you deviate from that idea. PvE skills don't add options so much as reduce the number of relatively viable options. You see far fewer builds nowadays than you would before, because of how design and balance are no longer parallels.

This isn't about approving of skills that destroy the concept of skill over time. I have never defended that and I never will. Did you not read anything I said about ANet needing to care about balancing PvE too? What I have defended is allowing a seperation of skills between PvP and PvE through the use of PvE only skills. They don't cheapen the game. They cheapen the game when they bring imbalance. It's like that for any skill. The way ANet has added these skills though is pathetic.

PvE skills could add options - they don't. Why? Because PvE skills are all grind. Save maybe the Sunspear ones because generally playing through NF you will usually get to rank 7, they are only beneficial to the hardcore players that have the time to work on getting the skills to their full potential. Other players that do use them are working with subpar skills. It isn't the fact that they are PvE only skills that cause this problem. It is the fact that they are poorly implemented. Skills are balanced for PvP and only rare, RARELY, balanced for PvE. How is that fair to non-PvPers? Where is the balance when your whole skill system isn't focused on being designed for what you are doing? Sure some skills are nerfed because they truly were overpowered for both PvE and PvP, and monsters use the same skills to so they are also affected, but don't forget that monsters don't play by the same rules.

You see fewer builds because PvEers are tired of skills being nerfed and generally stick with more flavor of the month builds because there are less and less balanced skills in the game. Also take into account that players as a whole have become smarter in the game and understand what to use better, regardless of how many people like to say that PvEers are mindless idiots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

PvE skills were not needed in the original concept of Guild Wars. They were not needed in Prophecies, which general opinion seems to consider the best chapter. They are only used as a band-aid fix to poor design and to appease complaints.

PvE skills were not needed in the original concept of Guild Wars. Then players started to learn how to play the game. Then players started to come up with powerful builds. Then skills started to get nerfed. Things change. The game evolves. Are they really needed? No, but so aren't a lot of things and they still get added/changed. The point is a lot of people were tired of skills getting changed because the high-end PvPers deemed them overpowered for what they were doing. And ANet was kind of enough to provide the PvEers with a solution. It failed. We both agreed that it failed, but your whole argument is that they would always be a failure regardless of how they were implemented. That's such a narrow-minded view of PvE skills. PvE skills weren't about adding overpowered skills to make PvE easier; they were about adding skills that helped fill gaps in professions that if used in PvP would be overpowered. ANet didn't do this. They didn't give us true solutions to balancing out the professions in PvE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Supporting these kind of changes is essentially supporting the erosion of the concept that made Guild Wars unique.

Supporting bad changes and concepts ruins the whole "skill over time" foundation. Supporting changes and concepts that you don't agree with doesn't necessarily. I guess we just see it differently though - maybe I'm too focused on what they could've been and you are too focused on what they are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savio

All consumables do is reduce the time needed to do an area, or at least make it harder for you to lose. (Well, there's the bit with skill recharge, but that's not the only reason you use consumables.) Imbalanced PvE skills eliminate the necessity of a good team or good builds. I would think the latter is a worse problem.

Yes, consumables reduce time. Yes, they make it harder for you to lose. They provide weak builds and teams with a crutch - a very strong crutch. It's really just like having PvE skills. They eleminate the necessity of a good team or good build too. You just need something to "get it done" which is what you are suggesting you will also need with the help of overpowered PvE skills. I'm not talking about something like using Golden Eggs - who cares about that. I'm talking about the armors, celerities, etc that GW:EN provided. Why they are more of a problem is that their effects are near permanent and infinite. The only counter to them is running out or not having the money to buy them, which generally given their duration isn't really a problem of over using them and those that do can most likely afford to make more and more and more. So yes, consumables are more of a problem.

upier · Dec 04, 2007, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Playing a Paragon doesn't make me feel dirty. But playing in a Monk/Warrior/Necro/Paragon team does slightly.
But I quiet that little voice in my head by saying that the game is supposed to be this easy because I am such a good player ....

Avarre · Dec 04, 2007, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

Gigantic wall of text

I don't see a single point in here that supports keeping the current set of PvE skills/items in the game.

You explain why PvE is broken over and over. We know. The first step is to begin the reversion to the original concept so ANet has a solid grasp of what their actual goal is. It's no good considering what PvE-only things could have done when it's clear their implementation is not beneficial to Guild Wars as a whole either in method or effect.

Your definition of PvE skills is basically a tool to destroy the depth of the game by blurring profession roles together. This is not necessary. Proper PvE design to create roles for classes is necessary.

prism2525 · Dec 04, 2007, 09:27 AM // 09:27

rarely used my para at all (he's one of my mules) but seeing this i'm kinda interested to try it out lol.

Lord Sojar · Dec 04, 2007, 09:30 AM // 09:30

My para is naked and is a birthday present spawning device. Her name is Countess Xenon if any of you ever want to...i dunno....slip her something to end her misery.

PARAS ARE SOOOOO BORING TO PLAY.

arcanemacabre · Dec 04, 2007, 09:32 AM // 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

It's no good considering what PvE-only things could have done when it's clear their implementation is not beneficial to Guild Wars as a whole either in method or effect.

I would support differently functioning PvE skills (skills like "Hide" in Gwen's story, or "Form up and advance!" in Saul's story - skills that affect the AI) that are not linked to titles above having none at all. Though I would also support having none at all above what we have now.

NeverAlive · Dec 04, 2007, 10:18 AM // 10:18

agree with most of what kha said. people use these builds because it does the job effectively. since we talking about pve here, and farming is a major part of pve. i always wondered about this certain monk build since i started playing.... its the infamous 55 monk build. i was relatively new when i learned there is such a build that allow you to SOLO HM, not to mention the loot!! i thought... oh well, they will get nerfed. so i didn't make one for a very long time. one day i decided to look at some of the farming builds and come across them again, guess what! this 55monk build has been around for a very long time and even official wiki has a page about them. that practically is anet saying go ahead and use this imba build. isn't that weird? even now i think it is. so i made my own 55 monk, he could also do dual monk farm with 600/smite. farming has never been so easy.

the point is, even if you only own one game which gives u 4 character slots. you are allowed to create more than one characters. if u think monk is imba, making all the money and so on so forth. make urself one. para pve imba, go make one. they already give u slots to do so. and don't expect anet to fix all these balances. they don't care about pve that much, they also don't care about graphix glitches. there are bugs existing for a very long time that hasn't been fixed. some of these things are just never going to get fixed. just check the bug forum of guru. what u can do however is to try to get the best of it.

Kha · Dec 04, 2007, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

I don't see a single point in here that supports keeping the current set of PvE skills/items in the game.

You explain why PvE is broken over and over. We know. The first step is to begin the reversion to the original concept so ANet has a solid grasp of what their actual goal is. It's no good considering what PvE-only things could have done when it's clear their implementation is not beneficial to Guild Wars as a whole either in method or effect.

Your definition of PvE skills is basically a tool to destroy the depth of the game by blurring profession roles together. This is not necessary. Proper PvE design to create roles for classes is necessary.

Gigantic wall of text eh? Obviously you didn't bother to even care what I said in the first and second post and are just stuck on your own viewpoint for the sake of being stubborn. I made it clear that the original concept of PvE skills was a good and balanced one, but as we all know it failed, therefore understand what I am supporting before you have to argue with me. Don't try to twist my definition of PvE skills into something else just because you don't like them. YOUR definition of PvE skills is a tool to destroy the depth of the game by blurring profession roles together, not mine. Don't argue with someone if you can't even get what they have to say right. That's just disrespectful.

bpphantom · Dec 04, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

Well, not dirty no. She makes me feel kinda funny in my pants though.

gene terrodon · Dec 04, 2007, 05:51 PM // 17:51

A PVE player asking for a skill nerf is like a me living in Phoenix and turning the heat on.
There is no need.
The only reason a skill should be changed at any point is to balance PVP or if a skill is so powerful (Ursan Blessing) it changes the way the game is being played.

Avarre · Dec 04, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

Gigantic wall of text eh? Obviously you didn't bother to even care what I said in the first and second post and are just stuck on your own viewpoint for the sake of being stubborn.

Obviously.

Quote:

I made it clear that the original concept of PvE skills was a good and balanced one, but as we all know it failed, therefore understand what I am supporting before you have to argue with me. Don't try to twist my definition of PvE skills into something else just because you don't like them. YOUR definition of PvE skills is a tool to destroy the depth of the game by blurring profession roles together, not mine. Don't argue with someone if you can't even get what they have to say right. That's just disrespectful.

Read what you wrote.

Quote:

PvE skills weren't about adding overpowered skills to make PvE easier; they were about adding skills that helped fill gaps in professions that if used in PvP would be overpowered.

'Filling in the gaps' in professions is most notably in Cry of Pain and Necrosis (recreations of Spiritual Pain and Discord) - essentially trying to provide disruptive classes with direct damage. This was never the class role of either, and giving them these kinds of skills proves that to be successful, their actual class role has to be abandoned (though this is significantly less true for the Necromancer).

Other professions got skills that were directly in line with their current skills. It was largely these two that got skills that were outside their normal bounds - efficient direct damage skills that turned them into cheap DPS/nuker characters if used in that manner.

None of that, however, is really relevant to the topic of Paragons, which are overpowered due to two main reasons in PvE. One being PvE skills that make Paragons too good at their job of passive party support, and the other being Paragon design as a whole (a somewhat larger problem).

Lima · Dec 04, 2007, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Never played a paragon, assassins are dirty though. Bangin your head on the keyboard for kills isn't classed as skills