Curse

Kaon · Jan 24, 2008, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Andrew, I too have stopped splinterballs by warding our archers and blinding the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO out of their warriors. However, if the opponent is only semi-good, it won't happen.

AND EVEN THEN. The entire concept of splinter weapon is flawed. If 2 mirrorbuilds with equal morale fight each other in vod they both farm each others archers, it's meaningless grind. Getting a 2-4 archer advantage once meant something in this game, nowadays it doesn't.

Also, here's a pointer for you: it's not about whether a skill is balanced or not, it's about whether it improves the game. I would never call splinter weapon balanced but EVEN if we'd both agree it is, then it would hurt this game to a bad extent and therefore has to be screwed over.

When Mitch' asks izzy: "why did you buff pious assault?" Izzy replies: "abuse it and prove me wrong" then izzy has totally forgetting his job. It doesn't matter whether the skill is balanced, even if it is, it would add NOTHING to the game except another spike skill, which there are plenty enough already (why not just bring back agonizing or critical chop then?).

Andrew, i'll have no problem with you stating your opinion yet you forget you're here as a representative of Arenanet. If you state something that makes you look like (in fact prooves) a bad player or someone that lacks knowledge of the game then you just made a huge mistake. You say your own opinion is irrelevant but of course it isn't. Of course you'll bend things like you think is right, just like Izzy is doing. My faith in arenanets skill balance just took a HUGE blow, especially my faith in you. You've been reading and posting here regularly, which I appreciated incredibly, yet this post, defending a simply retarded skillbalance... It's stupid.

Then again i'll have to reward you with the most epic post of 2008 award. It gave me a good laugh, but it did sadden me immensely.

Neo-LD · Jan 24, 2008, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Have you ever beaten a guild that used Splinter Weapon at VoD? If not, my apologies. If you have, obviously it is possible to win despite your enemies use of that skill, right?

Yeah, by using Splinter yourself. Having no counter to X besides X itself is the ultimate sign of a shallow, broken game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

it's not about whether a skill is balanced or not, it's about whether it improves the game

QFT.

Double Pact · Jan 24, 2008, 10:40 PM // 22:40

About the "healing npcs through splinter" stuff, i think that Zabe, Iotan, Yue, Mitch, JR, etc have already shown the opinion of the community clear enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Oh, and to your original point about being required to take Splinter Weapon, you also have the option to not let their NPC's live through the first 18 minutes of the battle. You could split to kill their NPC's [...]

That's the second thing: Splitting doesn't mean "Send a Ranger and a Warrior and get an amazing, skill requiring 2on2 in the enemy base" anymore, it's rather a "Send two Assasins to wipe their base while we hex the sh** out of their mainteam" now. Sure, you win games against splinter-balanced like that (that's the way the last MAT was won and the next MAT probably will).
This is not a tiny little bit better than boring 8vs8, waiting for VoD to have an archer-kill-race.

moriz · Jan 24, 2008, 10:48 PM // 22:48

the only "good" thing to come out of the pious assault buff is that hammer warriors can now dish out an instantaneous, unconditional deep wound, as well as allow them to compress 4 attacks in the time of 3 (devastating-->pious assault-->mighty blow-->heavy blow). the naturally high damage of hammer attacks can help offset the low +damage from pious assault.

jaeharys targaryen · Jan 24, 2008, 11:09 PM // 23:09

iirc the idea of pious+sword/dagger was being tossed around already, so this could be gud. i'm thinking pious+body blow for downright viable swordspikes w/o the RC rickrolling.

aos was a stupid skill, i'm happy its getting hit more

fear me...finally.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 24, 2008, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Have you ever beaten a guild that used Splinter Weapon at VoD? If not, my apologies. If you have, obviously it is possible to win despite your enemies use of that skill, right? That was my only point. That it is *possible* to heal your NPC's enough that their pressure collapses your opponents faster than the pressure from Splinter Weapon collapses your NPCs. And that the recent change to increase the amount of pressure NPCs cause is an improvement to the situation, albeit not necessarily a solution.

It's also possible to win the lottery, doesn't mean it's very likely to happen though.

The recent change doesn't really change it at all, because both teams will be taking pressure from the enemy npcs and when npcs do more damage there's an even bigger reason to kill them asap, thus more of a reliance on splinter weapon.

Quote:

I did not say it is possible to keep every NPC up when a team is attacking them with Splinter Weapon. I am not claiming to be a godly Monk and I am certainly not saying it is easy to heal NPCs against Splinter Weapon. All I said was, if your monks can keep enough of your NPCs up that the pressure kicks in to the point your enemies' monks cannot keep their Splinter Weapon Warriors or Dervishes up, you can beat that strategy.

So basically if you're better than someone, it would be possible to beat them?

Quote:

And with exponentially increasing damage from your NPCs, the time frame your enemy has to kill those NPCs before their Monks cannot keep up with that pressure is pretty small. So, in that regard, the change to the NPCs is good IMO. Which is what I was trying to convey. Not that the issue with Splinter Weapon is resolved or fabricated by you guys, but that this recent change seems to be a move in the right direction to make it more manageable.

Not at all, there's even more need to quickly farm NPCs now.

Quote:

he has plenty of player feedback at his disposal when making those decisions.

He does, he just doesn't seem to want to use it.

erk · Jan 24, 2008, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Double Pact

About the "healing npcs through splinter" stuff, i think that Zabe, Iotan, Yue, Mitch, JR, etc have already shown the opinion of the community clear enough.

That's the second thing: Splitting doesn't mean "Send a Ranger and a Warrior and get an amazing, skill requiring 2on2 in the enemy base" anymore, it's rather a "Send two Assasins to wipe their base while we hex the sh** out of their mainteam" now. Sure, you win games against splinter-balanced like that (that's the way the last MAT was won and the next MAT probably will).
This is not a tiny little bit better than boring 8vs8, waiting for VoD to have an archer-kill-race.

Late last year in the AT's I saw a guild ([LotD] I think) on Frozen run a 4+4 split with 2 * W, 1* Rt, 1 * Mo in each team of 4. It worked well, at no point did they stop for an 8 v4 confrontation they kept on the move all the time. You don't have to do Sineptitiude for a split build, there are lots of other ways, but you have to have good battlefield awareness to pull it off.

Andrew Patrick · Jan 24, 2008, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Please keep in mind that I play Monk so uh...I am quite, quite aware of Splinter Weapon being a thorn in the side of GvG teams. And I am sorry that I misspoke and made it appear as if I was saying "Come on nubs, just throw some healing skills at 'em and you'll be fine!" With the amount of time I spend in Observer Mode, you don't need to tell me it's not that simple. I was concentrating on the change to the NPCs, and stating that if you can keep the NPCs up (and the likelihood of that, admittedly, drops significantly the higher ranked your opponents are) with the recent change, after a few minutes and a few +10% boosts to their damage, it will be harder for the other team to come back later and wipe them with splinter weapon. Which makes it so if you can withstand the first attack at VoD (again, not likely) you have a good chance at winning. But of course, if Splinter Weapon kills all of your NPCs in the first 30 seconds, that is an entirely moot point, which takes us to...

I talked to Izzy, and he said that Splinter Weapon is being looked at, and is likely to receive adjustments in an upcoming build. Since it is used it many different game types, they are trying to find the best way to achieve the desired effect. He is aware of the concern, both of us (and anyone else who plays GvG or watches observer mode) have seen it's impact on GvG, and it is being worked on.

Riotgear · Jan 24, 2008, 11:25 PM // 23:25

Is he doing anything about the dismal state of party healing?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Jan 24, 2008, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Please keep in mind that I play Monk so uh...I am quite, quite aware of Splinter Weapon being a thorn in the side of GvG teams.

Apparently not..

Quote:

I was concentrating on the change to the NPCs, and stating that if you can keep the NPCs up (and the likelihood of that, admittedly, drops significantly the higher ranked your opponents are) with the recent change, after a few minutes and a few +10% boosts to their damage, it will be harder for the other team to come back later and wipe them with splinter weapon. Which makes it so if you can withstand the first attack at VoD (again, not likely) you have a good chance at winning. But of course, if Splinter Weapon kills all of your NPCs in the first 30 seconds, that is an entirely moot point, which takes us to...

That works both ways, the team with splinter weapon will always have a big advantage, thus everyone brings it, which is bad for the game because it greatly reduces build diversity.

Quote:

I talked to Izzy, and he said that Splinter Weapon is being looked at, and is likely to receive adjustments in an upcoming build.

I'm going to keep complaining about splinter weapon until it gets changed and will encourage others to do the same.

Quote:

Since it is used it many different game types, they are trying to find the best way to achieve the desired effect. He is aware of the concern, both of us (and anyone else who plays GvG or watches observer mode) have seen it's impact on GvG, and it is being worked on.

It will mean that barrage splinter rangers will have to find another build to kill stuff in PvE, whoop dee doop.

Lorekeeper · Jan 24, 2008, 11:33 PM // 23:33

is fixing NPC AI so that it makes a check whether its adjacent to other NPCs just out of the question?

Like the example of the xT vs vVv... at one point xT's NPCs were unable to navigate around the corner AND stay well spaced out... it was just like watching PvE monsters ball up attacking frontline tanks because their AI is so limited they cant move AROUND the obstacle.

Splinter is nice outside of VoD because it is a nice ward clearer... as far as i know splinter is only a big issue at VoD because we have no control over the horrible NPC AI... which more often than not can get herded into balls and farmed with splinter weapon in seconds. No matter how much dmg you make NPCs do you wont change that... sure... buffing the NPC damage outputs will make fighing at the stand when all the NPCs are alive and spread pretty crazy... but while NPC AI is as it is... VoD basically becomes Hard Mode PvE where both teams try to 'Pull aggro' on the NPCs, ball them up at choke points (there are spots on every guildhall i think) and 'farm' them with AoE.

Without splinter weapon people will just think of other ways of achieving this objective... with meteor shower for example (like iQ).

You might see dervishes becomes very popular again... we all know how effective THEY are at farming NPCs... and access to yet another deepwound in the form of pious assault... yet another unconditional deep wound on a profession well known for its spike ability - AND it got even spikier by being buffed to a 1/2s activation time.

Just like you said how fixing fear me by increasing its cost wouldnt fix the issue because people would find ways to work around the higher cost... the same thing applies to NPC balling at VoD. You nerf splinter weapon but you neglect the real problem behind its power... people will just find new ways of exploiting NPC AI balling at the stand... and to be honest this was always a problem with GvG BEFORE splinter weapon was even added to the game.

Sinful Doom · Jan 24, 2008, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Yeah, by using Splinter yourself. Having no counter to X besides X itself is the ultimate sign of a shallow, broken game.

QFT.

I appologize for slipping this in here but go try Hero Battles where you HAVE to run 2-3 sometimes even 4 characters with multiple shadowstepping skills to have any chance of success...

Wyat Hawke · Jan 24, 2008, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Fixing Splinter won't necessarily be the end of the problem, AoE damage will still be prominent at VoD, people will bring a mind blast AoE-er instead or something alike which only promotes one-dimensionality.

Fixing AI should be done instead, if monsters manage to scatter from AoE in PvE, then how hard is it for the Rangers to do the same in PvP?

But ofc, if this AI fix proves too hard... By all means, nerf splinter down. And buff LoD back please...

Symbol · Jan 25, 2008, 12:14 AM // 00:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wyat Hawke

Fixing Splinter won't necessarily be the end of the problem, AoE damage will still be prominent at VoD, people will bring a mind blast AoE-er instead or something alike which only promotes one-dimensionality.

The only skill of comparable strength on a mind blast bar is Rodgort's, and that skill gets pwned so hard by power leak that it isn't even funny.

Snow Bunny · Jan 25, 2008, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Hi.

Andrew?

Seeing as I monked today for a team playing at approximately the <100 rank level, which to be honest is not that high, I can tell you one thing.

Getting 2000x archers blowing the hell out of your team is quite interesting. Also, this guild (you know who you are and it was ingenious) put splinter weapon on one of the archers and managed to take what was a team with only one DP'd member, and wipe it.

GIVE US BACK LOD.

Lordhelmos · Jan 25, 2008, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Please keep in mind that I play Monk so uh...I am quite, quite aware of Splinter Weapon being a thorn in the side of GvG teams. And I am sorry that I misspoke and made it appear as if I was saying "Come on nubs, just throw some healing skills at 'em and you'll be fine!" With the amount of time I spend in Observer Mode, you don't need to tell me it's not that simple. I was concentrating on the change to the NPCs, and stating that if you can keep the NPCs up (and the likelihood of that, admittedly, drops significantly the higher ranked your opponents are) with the recent change, after a few minutes and a few +10% boosts to their damage, it will be harder for the other team to come back later and wipe them with splinter weapon. Which makes it so if you can withstand the first attack at VoD (again, not likely) you have a good chance at winning. But of course, if Splinter Weapon kills all of your NPCs in the first 30 seconds, that is an entirely moot point, which takes us to...

I talked to Izzy, and he said that Splinter Weapon is being looked at, and is likely to receive adjustments in an upcoming build. Since it is used it many different game types, they are trying to find the best way to achieve the desired effect. He is aware of the concern, both of us (and anyone else who plays GvG or watches observer mode) have seen it's impact on GvG, and it is being worked on.

This is just avoiding the problem the main issue is that

The NPCs at VoD are freaking idiots that clump up and and get their asses kicked by any kind of AoE that gets thrown out there.

You nerf splinter some more, everyone is just gonna delete their rits and suddenly mindblast + rodgorts is going to become overpowered. Then your back to square one with people still QQing.

Why not attack the heart of the problem and tell Izzy he needs to infuse some braincells into those stupid NPC's. I mean lets face it, NPCs suffer from horrible AI, pathing problems, and idiotic choices of positioning and targeting. Now you want to make them even MORE powerful and put more of the game at stake on these stupid braindead idiots than the actual teams in combat?

Trust me, I've seen some dumb stuff in Observer Mode and real games. You can't deny seeing NPC's march out with fubar'ed aggro and patterns. Sometimes even when you have NPC advantage, your NPC's march out ant line into already positioned archers of the enemy team and die one by one like lemmings walking off the edge of the cliff, all with NO player intervention.

Sometimes you can even screw with enemy NPC's while they march by flatbowing them to mess up their positioning -all so that your NPC's reach the flagstand and setup first. Then even when the other team has NPC advantage, they still get their NPC's wiped because of the split caused by idiot AI and bad aggro patterns. I mean you can get one cripshot and pull the entire NPC army of the other team into the obelisk stand with a longbow at Isle of Meditation because they are just that stupid. Then all of a sudden the NPC advantage of the other team doesn't mean shit because you already pulled all their archers and bodyguard into the obby stand where they just die in nukes + splinter. What difference does NPC advantage make when the NPC's aren't even smart enough to make it to the flagstand on time? What can the other team do to prevent their NPC's from aggroing like mindless idiots? Absolutely nothing.

The problem with VoD is that NPC's are retarded idiots. No matter how many times you nerf splinter, that isn't going to change unless you guys do something about it.

Andrew Patrick · Jan 25, 2008, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Hi.

Andrew?

Seeing as I monked today for a team playing at approximately the <100 rank level, which to be honest is not that high, I can tell you one thing.

Getting 2000x archers blowing the hell out of your team is quite interesting. Also, this guild (you know who you are and it was ingenious) put splinter weapon on one of the archers and managed to take what was a team with only one DP'd member, and wipe it.

GIVE US BACK LOD.

Was that directly after VoD, or a few minutes after? The designers are obviously still assessing the change, so I would like to be able to share specifics.

Also, is it on Obs mode? If it is you can PM me the guild names if you don't want to post them here, and I will FRAPS it to show the designers.

I have sent suggestions regarding improved NPC pathing in the past, but I will send that again.

Kaon · Jan 25, 2008, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Please keep in mind that I play Monk so uh...I am quite, quite aware of Splinter Weapon being a thorn in the side of GvG teams. And I am sorry that I misspoke and made it appear as if I was saying "Come on nubs, just throw some healing skills at 'em and you'll be fine!" With the amount of time I spend in Observer Mode, you don't need to tell me it's not that simple. I was concentrating on the change to the NPCs, and stating that if you can keep the NPCs up (and the likelihood of that, admittedly, drops significantly the higher ranked your opponents are) with the recent change, after a few minutes and a few +10% boosts to their damage, it will be harder for the other team to come back later and wipe them with splinter weapon. Which makes it so if you can withstand the first attack at VoD (again, not likely) you have a good chance at winning. But of course, if Splinter Weapon kills all of your NPCs in the first 30 seconds, that is an entirely moot point, which takes us to...

The point is though that the npcs damage really only hurts the game. As i posted earlier it makes getting correct agro (the warrior needs to get it instead of monks/mesmers) much more vital, and agro is quite a random thing. Next to that you say it stops splinterteams from coming back into the game by wiping all your archers at 20:30minute mark. I don't know but this has NEVER happened to me, ever. And i do play a lot

. What it does do though is give teams that dont carry it a hard chance to fight back even against 3-4 archers.

In vZ we often ran vodcamp builds against sinsplit and then just overpowered them with sheer 8on8 power in vod, this was the easiest and most effective way to deal with them. Now such a strategy would be MUCH harder to pull off. I'm not in favor of basecamping but sometimes it's the only viable option against mobile teams (see iQ vs EvIL game 3 GWFC).

Also, continueing on the splintering debate: By far the best and most effective way to deal with it is splitting 5-3 in VoD. This forces the opponent generally to send their ritualist back to base (not always it depends on their build) so the vodstand is usually without splinters then. Sink's been doing that for months now and it happens in many many games.

This leads to a tip for noobs on how to beat strong teams (see Planet Unicorn vs vZ in November final for practical use) just split the opponent till vod, you don't need to accomplish anything, just make sure you don't lag behind in vod. Then in vod you force their splinter to split in base, and meanwhile you have an extra splinter (like on your ele for example) in the mainfight and you just farm their npcs. vZ was almost chanceless against Heyy before teh match even started.

*snipped by myself for the topic's sake*

Rohan · Jan 25, 2008, 01:11 AM // 01:11

Fix the NPCs AI and then splinter won't be as much a problem

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Tommy is pretty horrible.

I lol'd

Lordhelmos · Jan 25, 2008, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Oh how about ancestor's rage and splinter weapon on the Guild Lord during VoD?

Cyclone Axe = Meganuke