Curse

ockhams · Sep 20, 2007, 02:18 AM // 02:18

be creative. that is the answer for the OP and you.

Thomas.knbk · Sep 20, 2007, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by ockhams

be creative. that is the answer for the OP and you.

I don't think anyone thought of that! Thanks for the input!

Greedy Gus · Sep 20, 2007, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I don't think anyone thought of that! Thanks for the input!

Not that I generally appreciate scrubby people coming in and blaming balance issues on players not being creative enough, but there is some value in that idea. A lot of the current playerbase (even most of the top 100) was never the type of player/team to be very far ahead of the curve.

For instance, we've been running stuff like irresistable blow hammer wars, turning an old evis/prot strike bar into dismember/magehunter, bull's charge rending touch split war, and experimenting with old archetypes for flaggers, water midliners, and monk bars.

90% of the playerbase is going to be behind the curve, and while they can make a post telling you exactly what skills you need to bring on an axe bar, they're going to keep running what was powerful in the past and pointing at balance issues, and not adapting very well until the next big thing hits. Creativity based on a solid understanding of the less prominant skills & the metagame is not always so scrubby as it seems, though unfortunately it's often represented on forums like this by bad players.

Servant of Kali · Sep 20, 2007, 09:13 AM // 09:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by ockhams

be creative. that is the answer for the OP and you.

Considering my GW background I can freely say I'm probably one of the most creative people in this board.

However, sometimes I just wanna open GvG and see what people are running, enjoy maybe in seeing some strategies etc.... but there's none of that. It's enough for me to look at professions used in each team, and I can expect the same battle that was fought millions of times last few months.

Also, as for my creativity, it's a bit difficult to be creative with so many trashy skills ingame.

Let's look at the mesmer. Inspiration line got 20 nerfs by now, 90% of elites are utter trash and not worth even for RA. If i put duration hexes on my skillbar, behold the enemy skills which remove 3 hexes at once. Yeah right, so I can make half of my team go hex but wait, then it's not so creative anymore, I swear I saw that before..

Then look at Paragon... creativity, zero. The class is utter failure when it comes to the design.

Dervish... almost completely 2 useless lines: Earth and Wind. Just look at how many wind and earth skills are used in GvG. Ofc I can be 'creative' and absolutely get pwned to a generic Melandru.

Monk... oh yes I can be smiter or non-LoD healer? Wait, no. Smiting is a badly designed concept because it should be utility+dmg and not pure armor-ignoring dmg which will either be too good or too sucky to use. Healing is a joke, and I can't see the benefit of GWEN heal skills as of yet. Elite skills don't leave much choice either.. I mean, if you want anti-hex elite, your choice is pretty obvious because there's one good choice and others r too trashy. Talk about creativity.

And I haven't even touched Assassin and Ritualist yet.

There are too many generic skills in the game. If there are 10 skills which do absolutely the same, 1 will always be used and other 9 not. Creativity has limits. You can only be creative thus far. After the limit you're sacrificing a lot of power for creativity.

Vanquisher · Sep 20, 2007, 12:18 PM // 12:18

Creativity is overrated. People running bad stuff just for the sake of being unique is dumb.

Bankai · Sep 20, 2007, 01:28 PM // 13:28

I'd like to elaborate on why everybody started laughing on #gwp when Twicky said that Bull's strike sucks now.

It lies in High risk/High reward.

Generally, High risk/High reward is always better than a medium win/win situation. This can be found in the Scythe, which either deals a lot of damage or deals next to zero damage. If you hit sucky on your attack skill, too bad. If you hit high or a crit on your attack skill, the enemy is screwed.

It's the same with Bull's strike. It has a condition that you can fulfill (by using it at the right time), and IF you hit, your enemy is screwed. It's knocked down for 3 seconds, giving you a spike opportunity, AND you deal +something damage. If you hit with Griffon's, you deal +damage, which nobody cares about, and if it's blocked, the enemy is knocked down and gets a little damage. However, since you never know when it's going to get blocked, you're already at a disadvantage. Furthermore, you deal much less damage than you would have if you had hit a fleeing target with Bull's strike. Therefore the Scaryness factor is much lower.

And, ofcourse, Griffon's is useless against warriors and other stuff that's not called 'Monk'.

twicky_kid · Sep 20, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Creativity is overrated. People running bad stuff just for the sake of being unique is dumb.

Agreed

I try to do a lot of test builds with my guild. Most of them fail miserably. So many things have been nerfed to death there are not many choices left.

Its either run something that got over buffed or something that hasn't been nerfed yet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

I'd like to elaborate on why everybody started laughing on #gwp when Twicky said that Bull's strike sucks now.

It lies in High risk/High reward.

That about sums up bull's strike. Its about your taste and preference on that one. My play style is pure pressure with spike pressure added in. My job is pressure disruption. For my role (which is not always joining in on the spike) griffons is a better choice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

Generally, High risk/High reward is always better than a medium win/win situation. This can be found in the Scythe, which either deals a lot of damage or deals next to zero damage. If you hit sucky on your attack skill, too bad. If you hit high or a crit on your attack skill, the enemy is screwed.

Not quite but close. The high risk of a sythe is off set by its AoE. Even though the dmg has a wide range the "high risk" is completely justified by the AoE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

It's the same with Bull's strike. It has a condition that you can fulfill (by using it at the right time), and IF you hit, your enemy is screwed. It's knocked down for 3 seconds, giving you a spike opportunity, AND you deal +something damage. If you hit with Griffon's, you deal +damage, which nobody cares about, and if it's blocked, the enemy is knocked down and gets a little damage. However, since you never know when it's going to get blocked, you're already at a disadvantage. Furthermore, you deal much less damage than you would have if you had hit a fleeing target with Bull's strike. Therefore the Scaryness factor is much lower.

And, ofcourse, Griffon's is useless against warriors and other stuff that's not called 'Monk'.

Bull's strike is more of a snare now a days more than anything. You alternate it after a spike to plant the target. You may not kill the target but it forces the other monk to burn through a lot of energy trying to heal through the dmg (granted of course you hit through all the blocking). Bull's Strike when the enemy is fleeing after being wiped at the stand. Good for split situations. The only reason Bull's Strike does a lot of dmg is because on the increase to crit vs a fleeing target. You can use any skill at that point and still deal just as much dmg. Most people know how to dodge bull's strike by now. For an attack skill the green streak is highly visable.

Griffons on the other hand not only good on "monks." With all the party wide 50% block being layered you easily get an 80% chance to KD. I use it to interrupt targets a lot. When you are hitting a target for more than 5 seconds a SoD will probably be thrown out there. I've used it many times before spikes when I see aegis or DA is in affect. When SoD drops on my spiked target I hit griffons to plant them so the shatter can come in. With shock and griffons I can go for long KD chains when ever I need to. I don't need for my enemy to start running from me so I can KD. In the end its still about taste and preference. They both have their uses and play well in different roles.

Griffons has its uses but if you don't see it on obs mode then its "junk." There are plenty of builds out there right now that will roll a team in 5 minutes but you don't see them on Obs mode. About the only thing I take away from watching obs mode now is splitting tactics. Knowing what builds will stand up to each other in a split.

Redwinter · Sep 20, 2007, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

That being said, I don't believe there is any "skill balance" in GW, there hasn't been one since the beginning. What skill balance means to *me* is taking a good look at the game skill pool, tweaking the obviously useless skills (Protective Bond, Lyssa's Aura..) and giving them some stats which actually make them viable skills. Then, look at underpowered and overpowered skills and bring them to the midline as much as possible. From time to time an unintended skill will prove to be overpowered, no problem, and some will remain underpowered, no problem. Also, skills wouldn't be always buffed by increasing dmg, but in various ways (giving some utility for instance). Now, that's skill balance. What skill balance is not, is when you take 5 random skills per month, change stats a lil bit, and then do nothing for a month. In the meantime, metagame stays bored and everyone uses the same skills because no one in their right mind will use Lyssa's Aura. Skills like these simply AINT designed to be used, they were designed as "design and forget" skills so they fill new-expansion skill quota.

I totally agree on every level here.

If they buff skills that wind up being overpowered, at the very least, it will shake up the meta.

There's countless skills that just aren't even on the radar. Skills so weak that they just can't be considered for even casual builds.

Each update that tweaks the meta helps the 5% of the GW playerbase that is competitive and serious about the game.
We have had many of these.

Each update that gives the casual & creative players more viable skills to work with helps a much larger and less competitive set of the GW playerbase.
Could we please get some more of these?

red orc · Sep 20, 2007, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Lets take another, some would say a more popular, game for example of creativity.
The game is called chess. They have 6 different classes (GW has 10). They have 2 outfits, black & white (GW have many). Each class has one skill only, called a move.
And yet this is considered one of the most creative games in existance.

Creativity is in the tactics of the game and the play skill not the number of skills used.

Redwinter · Sep 20, 2007, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Quote:

Lets take another, some would say a more popular, game for example of creativity.
The game is called chess. They have 6 different classes (GW has 10). They have 2 outfits, black & white (GW have many). Each class has one skill only, called a move.
And yet this is considered one of the most creative games in existance.

Creativity is in the tactics of the game and the play skill not the number of skills used.

Go has only one 'move' (place a generic stone on the board), but the possibilities for the progression of the game are nearly limitless. It's said (more correctly, I'd argue) to be the most creative and complex of games. One of my favorite quotes says "Compare chess to checkers as you compare go to chess."

I don't think the 8 skills should be changed. The game would be ruined if they did. What should change is the number of viable skills. Shake up the meta!

wuzzman · Sep 20, 2007, 06:01 PM // 18:01

the so called "pvp experts" reap what they sow. Wanted to pick and choose what they wanted to play against and this is the meta ya'll get:

block
block
block
VoD
"ARG GANK GUILD LORD"
roll die to determine who wins.

Mirage Isnt Emo · Sep 20, 2007, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Pretty sure protective bond was one of the most overpowered skills that have ever been in this game.

twicky_kid · Sep 21, 2007, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mirage Isnt Emo

Pretty sure protective bond was one of the most overpowered skills that have ever been in this game.

In PvP far from it.

Mirage Isnt Emo · Sep 21, 2007, 04:14 AM // 04:14

You cant make it pvp usable without it being the bread and butter of every 55. The skill itself has no potential of being a pvp skill in any way. Pretty sure this twicky guy is bad from some of his posts... No warrior takes out bulls strike...

Bankai · Sep 21, 2007, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

Lets take another, some would say a more popular, game for example of creativity.
The game is called chess. They have 6 different classes (GW has 10). They have 2 outfits, black & white (GW have many). Each class has one skill only, called a move.
And yet this is considered one of the most creative games in existance.

Creativity is in the tactics of the game and the play skill not the number of skills used.

Comparing GW to Chess is just as horrible as the Burger analogy used yesterday in some Gwguru thread.

yesitsrob · Sep 21, 2007, 06:13 AM // 06:13

Obs mode imo is kind of funny. It's ammusing seeing guilds climb into top 100 running blockway, then losing every match when they stop running it because they are a) bad and b) everyone else is still running blockway.

Guild Wars is about the worse competitive game there is right now. Wii Sports on the other hand owns. To make things kind of interesting I wouldn't mind seeing some form of limited formats, but considering pvp is dead, and i don't think even anet will kid themselves otherwise, then why bother.

They're unlikely to balance the skills properly, for real balance they'd probably have to change the mechanics of things like echos.. and then all the pve'ers who don't even use paragons because they are all terrible at GW will start complaining about anet nerfing skills they didn't use anyway.

Hexes On Jade, Blockway, Recall ganks, Spirit Spamming rits, SBRI - there's utter shit all the time. Won't change.

Servant of Kali · Sep 21, 2007, 07:54 AM // 07:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by red orc

And yet this is considered one of the most creative games in existance.

Not at all. I'm a chess player and chess isn't that creative at all. If you look at the games of top players you'll see a lot of standardized stuff and not that much of uniques.

Chess is good because it does offer a lot of possibilities with 64 pieces, and because the sides are more or less equal. That being said, chess is very good at creativity

ieces ratio.

But overall chess is not *that* creative IMO. Take Age of Empires/Kings. Games like that are IMO way more creative, they offer more moves. Guild Wars is more creative because it allows of more things to do and freedom of movement is greater.

yesitsrob · Sep 21, 2007, 08:11 AM // 08:11

Age of Empires had lots of options... most of which were totally not viable on a competitive level. 1v1 you either Hun Feudal Rushed or Aztek DA Rush - 2v2 it tended to be Huns + Mongol wars... The Byzantines are to AoC what Gladiator's Defense is to Guild Wars... pointless pretty much. Or at least that's the mess it was in when I stopped playing it seriously. AoM was even worse on a balance level where it took them about 3 months to nerf free animal armies. It's significantly worse for balance than GW is. In fairness though, at least those took micro and skill to actually pull off. Oh and sorry Vikings on water map, or lose.

Zabe · Sep 21, 2007, 09:16 AM // 09:16

That is a fact that ANet will never do a proper balance what competitive players would want, just simply because they would need to design half of the game again. And about creativity, I would like to see more like, different builds in obs. Really, it is tactically creative when you play balanced builds. But watching a 20-25 mins long match when the last 7 minutes can be the ones where the action is? I could with same job do something else there. Like you would be watching ice hockey game where they would put farm players to play for the first 55 minutes and for last 5 minutes the good players to get some action in the rink.

wuzzman · Sep 21, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Blockway is what the players wanted, block way is what they get. Anet always hestiated before removing alternatives because Anet actually values alternatives unlike players. And alternatives doesn't mean back breaker instead of devastating hammer.

And even if you do remove Para's from the game people will just bring another blind bot. Now it be Blind/Blockway ^_^. To add some comfort, back in the prophericies meta every match lasted to VoD. And that was when VoD was 30-45 minutes ^_^. Honestly the only guilds team rolling people back in those days was Evil, WM, and IQ.