Curse

Asyntyche · May 15, 2008, 10:19 PM // 22:19

ok, seems like most people here agree that the new classes were a bad move. but i'm thinking that part of the problem was that the new skills added at the time (for core classes) didn't have enough focus on allowing the new classes to be countered (ability to remove weapon spells for example).

(although i'm not familiar with all the skills, so correct me if i'm wrong)

The Meth · May 15, 2008, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asyntyche

ok, seems like most people here agree that the new classes were a bad move. but i'm thinking that part of the problem was that the new skills added at the time (for core classes) didn't have enough focus on allowing the new classes to be countered (ability to remove weapon spells for example).
(although i'm not familiar with all the skills, so correct me if i'm wrong)

Thats kind of the problem, though weapon spells aren't the best example.

Weapon spells are actually decently balanced at the moment, the counter to them being interrupts and the fact that they are unstackable and generally pretty short lived.

The bigger problem is with, for example, paragons. Yes they have a few necro hexes that will counter, but bringing a skill that is completely wasted if the opposing team doesn't have a paragon is a bad skill when you can only have 8 on a bar. Not to mention as soon as its on, the opposing team can just remove it.

Assassin shadowsteps and 1-2-3 spike are designed to kill an enemy before they can react to it with no warning. The 'no warning' part is particularly troublesome, because with assassins able to spike down anyone in casting range single target protection (the bread and butter of PvP) fails, because you can't predict what will be hit next. Teams end up needing to instead deploy large amounts of party-wide protection or 'defensive webs' which instead slows the game down into a stalemate.

Dervishes are bad because they are just another warrior. You can't have two professions designed to do exactly the same thing, or one will end up better then the other and be the only one used. There is only one way to smash someone's face in melee combat, trying to do it with two different professions is stupid.

Age · May 15, 2008, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlamingMetroid

The six core classes were created to fill all of the MMO roles, so when new professions were introduced, they broke the game because there wasn't any room for them. Hopefully GW2 will equally distribute role positions for each class, or leave room open for new classes to enter.

Yeap the Faction classes killed the best of GvG.

Trylo · May 15, 2008, 11:19 PM // 23:19

soo... how much QQing would pursue if anet started a proph + core skill only pvp weekend?

which in turn would show people (like the OP) what gvg was supposed to be.

Riotgear · May 16, 2008, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

The 'no warning' part is particularly troublesome, because with assassins able to spike down anyone in casting range single target protection (the bread and butter of PvP) fails, because you can't predict what will be hit next.

The typical gank class puts a tremendous tactical burden on everyone else, and gets powerful escape tools that minimize the burden on itself. They're virtually impossible to balance in PvP. Either they can escape reliably and are near-untouchable, or they can't and their otherwise-flimsy defenses cave in. Either they can kill things practically on command, or they can't, in which case the counterattacks will wreck them.

Gank classes have been either completely dysfunctional or absurdly overpowered with no middle ground in every MMO I've seen them in, because just about every aspect of their class has those characteristics.

Someone used the term "melee mesmer" to describe what the Assassin class could have been, which I think is the best real objective: A melee class less oriented around killing things and more oriented around disrupting the flow of combat.

DreamWind · May 16, 2008, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trylo

soo... how much QQing would pursue if anet started a proph + core skill only pvp weekend?

which in turn would show people (like the OP) what gvg was supposed to be.

The problem is they would have to revert all the skill balances that have happened since then as well. (Which is never going to happen).

Krill · May 16, 2008, 09:43 AM // 09:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

It's not scythes, it's the energy pwered scythe skills, be sure you understand that.

Yup.

[way of the master] + [wounding strike] + [Eremite's Attack] + [mystic sweep] or [crippling sweep] makes me cry.

Not to even start with the various native derv spike builds with repeatable +40+ attacks and instant deep wounds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper Cutter

That may just have been because it hadn't caught on yet, since iirc the original thumper build was made of Core and Prophecies skills...

True, but I don't think the original thumper build with tiger's fury and ferocious strike was nearly as effective as the current mixed martial builds (e.g. sway, critical scythe etc.).

-Pluto- · May 16, 2008, 09:56 AM // 09:56

As much as there are some annoying mechanics introduced in the expansion classes... I always have to remember that necromancers are probably just as poorly designed as anything that came after, from a pvp stand point. If we remove the expansion classes from pvp, can we remove necros too? (only being a bit facetious here)

DreamWind · May 16, 2008, 10:04 AM // 10:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Pluto-

As much as there are some annoying mechanics introduced in the expansion classes... I always have to remember that necromancers are probably just as poorly designed as anything that came after, from a pvp stand point. If we remove the expansion classes from pvp, can we remove necros too? (only being a bit facetious here)

I would agree with you except for the fact that Necros existed in a time when the game was at its balance peak.

Shadowspawn X · May 16, 2008, 11:05 AM // 11:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoogi

Game was way more balanced then.

The game was broken as heck back then, GW has never been more balanced. All this romanticizing about the past is not accurate.
Spirit spam (I'm talking laying down 5 copies of QZ at a time), air spikes, a year of IWAY, .25 sec ranger interrupts and out of control smite was not balanced. This embellishment of the past where there was a golden age of balance is a myth. Now we have balance on a much more complete scale. The new professions had to go though the same breaking in phase as the core six because the core six took forever to balance as well.

DreamWind · May 16, 2008, 12:12 PM // 12:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X

The game was broken as heck back then, GW has never been more balanced. All this romanticizing about the past is not accurate.
Spirit spam (I'm talking laying down 5 copies of QZ at a time), air spikes, a year of IWAY, .25 sec ranger interrupts and out of control smite was not balanced. This embellishment of the past where there was a golden age of balance is a myth. Now we have balance on a much more complete scale. The new professions had to go though the same breaking in phase as the core six because the core six took forever to balance as well.

Hmm...I don't really see where you're coming from here. The time period I am talking about is roughly before Factions came out, not at the beginning of Prophecies. Things like spirit spam and air spike were already nerfed. Iway was still played some but not overpowered and not dominating. Dual smite hadn't come along yet.

I agree with your point that the core six did have to go through balances, but many people agree that there was a balance PEAK in Guild Wars with the original classes. Many people also agree the 4 newer classes have yet to be balanced, and may never be because the mechanics behind them don't really belong in Guild Wars.

I don't know...maybe I'm wrong about all this. Maybe I just miss the Koreans or something. I do know games back then were so much better to watch than todays games.

DutchSmurf · May 16, 2008, 02:05 PM // 14:05

Just before Factions came out the game was 'balanced'. Balanced as in everyone ran the exact same game, skill for skill. The condition/pressure heavy meta that came after that was far more fun.

samcobra · May 18, 2008, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Scythes are imbalanced. Shadow-stepping is relatively imbalanced. Spirits in general are imbalanced. Spears and chants and party-wide shouts are imbalanced.

kvndoom · May 18, 2008, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcobra

Scythes are imbalanced. Shadow-stepping is relatively imbalanced. Spirits in general are imbalanced. Spears and chants and party-wide shouts are imbalanced.

Therein is the big problem... each new class introduced a new mechanic, and none of those mechanics were good for the game.

Assassins: teleporting. no further discussion needed

Rits: spirits were already part of the game, but Ranger spirits helped or hurt your opponent as much as your own team. Spirits that benefit only the caster's team, and longbow-range turrets, just bad, bad design.

Dervishes: Autoattacks that hit up to 3 foes. no further discussion needed.

Paragons: shouts and chants existed too, but they were primarily in a line (tactics) that really sucked anyway. And they weren't an energy engine, which was a horrible design decision. Anet learned absolutely nothing from Soul Reaping and Expertise abuse. I'm not totally sold on Spears being bad for the game. A damage-oriented ranged weapon isn't necessarily bad, but their imbalance comes from my final point, which in itself has caused much of the grief that we've seen over the last couple years:

There never, ever, ever should have been any viable IAS in Guild Wars besides Frenzy.

erk · May 18, 2008, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Best you can do is lobby A.net for a class limited version of your favorite PvP, most likely a tournament GvG series of some sort. The new classes are more powerful for a reason that's been stated time and time again, upgrade sales.

In WoW they do it by raising the character level cap by 10 for each new chapter you buy, in GW the do it by introducing more powerful classes and skills for the old classes, it's that simple, it all comes down to a sales strategy.

DreamWind · May 19, 2008, 02:44 AM // 02:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

The new classes are more powerful for a reason that's been stated time and time again, upgrade sales.

In WoW they do it by raising the character level cap by 10 for each new chapter you buy, in GW the do it by introducing more powerful classes and skills for the old classes, it's that simple, it all comes down to a sales strategy.

What works for WoW is not going to work for most other games. Most games that follow the "we are trying to make money instead of the best product" philosophy are doomed to failure. I cannot count the number of games that went down the tubes because of this strategy.

I don't personally think Anet intentionally made more powerful classes strictly for sales though. They knew that any PvPer was going to have to buy the expansions for the classes/skills regardless of how good they were, and any PvEer was going to buy the expansions for the new content regardless of how good it was.

Zui · May 19, 2008, 04:43 AM // 04:43

The new classes made the game worse (although this is somewhat of an oversimplification of the issue). There has been a lot of discussion as to why this is on these forums in the past, and I'm sure you can find those threads using the search function.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

[In reply to Shadowspawn X's post] Hmm...I don't really see where you're coming from here. The time period I am talking about is roughly before Factions came out, not at the beginning of Prophecies. Things like spirit spam and air spike were already nerfed. Iway was still played some but not overpowered and not dominating. Dual smite hadn't come along yet."

The smite he is talking about would be ether renewal smite (at least that's what I thought when I read it). It was nerfed long before factions came about, and since the other builds he was talking about were also nerfed before Factions, it makes logical sense that he was including ether renewal smite in that same list.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Just before Factions came out the game was 'balanced'. Balanced as in everyone ran the exact same game, skill for skill. The condition/pressure heavy meta that came after that was far more fun.

I'll agree that the heavy condition/pressure meta was very fun to play in, and was some of the best times I had playing Guild Wars. Although, I also found the state of the game just before Factions came out to be a very good time for the game...

Ahh, if only ANET hadn't squandered the potential of their game...

erk · May 20, 2008, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

I don't personally think Anet intentionally made more powerful classes strictly for sales though. They knew that any PvPer was going to have to buy the expansions for the classes/skills regardless of how good they were, and any PvEer was going to buy the expansions for the new content regardless of how good it was.

Classes are major new content from both a PvP and PvE perspective. Sure the storyline, maps, quests, are the PvE main draw cards.

From a PvP sales perspective:
Factions - AB, Battle isles/new halls.
Nightfall - Hero Battles, new halls.
EoTN - we can pretty much forget about for PvP changes.

But the Factions/Nightfall new classes and skills were the main PvP reasons to own those two chapters. If you didn't have the new classes/skills you would get pwned by them, that's a pretty good reason to buy them!

As I mentioned before there is a good opportunity for A.net to do something fun in the way of a special tournaments for say for "retro" GvG lovers, which does something like restrict the professions played to Prophecies etc.

Personally I would love to see some matches where you could only use skills from your Primary profession, so secondary skills, if you carried them, were disabled.

urania · May 20, 2008, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Nightfall - Hero Battles

one of the best additions to the game ever made.

*sarcasm*

Akaraxle · May 20, 2008, 07:00 AM // 07:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

one of the best additions to the game ever made.

*sarcasm*

Ohi Karla, herd u wuz pro hiro badles playa amirite?