Curse

Akathrielah · Feb 17, 2006, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by deolmstead

While I do think there's an awful lot of cookie-cutter builds out there, whenever I get depressed I watch a [Rift] match. Those guys are breaking all the PvP rules (pets! minions! fire eles! all of which receive much derision and scorn from the PvP "masters") and completely devastating their opponents with it. Yesterday I watched them flawless a rank 10 guild in 3.5 minutes - what was the r10 guild running? Gale warriors, Cripshot rangers, Boonprots - all the standards. Rift does use surprise and confusion, certainly, but with over 200 matches played in this season alone and a healthy amount of buzz about their build, it's not like it's THAT much of a surprise. It's my belief that they just use tactics that the copycats don't know how to counter, and use them well.

The Rifts build isn't running anything new per se, as they had that build since the beginning of the last ladder season (earlier probably), I'm not sure if you've seen the GvG smurf guild - Rifts Want Their Build Back [BoA].

As for the so-called "derision and scorn" I haven't seen any, its a build that runs quite contrary to the standard currently, as it is pure frontloaded offense, and has very low endurance, if you've paid attentioned to their matches. What it does well, is punish hesistation very very well, and it will simply roll over any guild who doesn't know how to make heads or tails of it.

And just because a build is well known doesn't mean it isn't a "surprise" when you have to face it, since most builds are geared towards dealing with one another, changing your build and hedging on a 1/100 chance that you face against Rifts is a pretty poor bet, so when you do face against them, well... If you aren't mentally prepared you are going to have problems.

JR · Feb 17, 2006, 12:55 PM // 12:55

I would say observer mode definately has a hand in this also. People see what certain top guilds are running, and it starts to mirror down the ladder.

I have been saying for a while that the GvG metagame seems to be fairly stagnant at the moment, highlighted by the frequency that we see carbon copies of this build in GvG:

1x Gale Axe Warrior
1x Gale Sword Charge Warrior
1/2x Edrain Mesmer
1/2x Blinding Flash Bots with Heal Party
1x OoB Boon Prot
1x OoB Heal Monk
1x Cripshot runner.

I think this is all going to change bigtime with the skills update though, should be fun.

glountz · Feb 17, 2006, 01:35 PM // 13:35

/Seconded, Red Locust.
I love diversity. It lacks nowadays.
Fault?
A little imbalance, added with people laziness, and we're here.
Anyway, I find that testing and tweaking new builds is difficult. I hope you will be able to get a training arena iin Guild Halls in Chapter 2 to test new builds.

Rieselle · Feb 17, 2006, 02:08 PM // 14:08

This is a big, sweeping, general statement, but I get the feeling that there isnt enough -different- aspects of "skill" in the game. Every team needs good monking, good positioning, good movement, powerful offense, knowledge of the game. Spike teams need good timing. Distruption teams need good, er, distrupting.

Coming from a fighting game background, you'd see players who play a character in a certain style because the player has unique talents. Eg. person A plays a character in a certain style because he has excellent comboing skills. Person B plays that same character in a certain style because he's got great reflexes at dodging and timing hit-and-run.

A guild making the choice of what build to run only really needs to consider whether the build is "good" or not, and the metagame. There's not much element of player preference or talent that might contribute to a real environment of variety.

I dont have really know how to fix this in GW tho. Maybe if the game mechanics were a little more random and mixed up, then eking out that last tiny bit of efficiency wouldn't matter as much, and people can run things based on personal preference. But that would make the game less competitive.

I guess if there were a lot of quirky skills that are heavily conditional, but quite powerful, then we'd see some element of player talent come into the mix. (eg, some skills that require a lot of discipline, that work well when people can form rigid formations and stay together when under pressure, some skills that require lots of quick target switching and movement, some skills that need good observation and patience to interrupt key spells etc)

GW:Factions seems like it might be heading in this direction, hopefully the new skills for the old classes also add a lot of this sort of gameplay, and not just the 2 new classes.

edit: It seems to me that the most effective skills that are popular these days are all pretty "general purpose". I guess it's ended up that conditional skills are too risky and not worth the effort of using. For example, at the moment, Edrain is more conditional than OoB. However, even when using it at its best, EDrain isnt better than OoB. So we have an example of a general-purpose skill being better than a conditional one even when the conditions are fulfilled, which means there's no reason not to choose the general purpose skill. This leads to the current situation where we have a whole bunch of trash skills and only a couple that are considered worthwhile, that everyone uses.
(eg. Gale Axe Warrior)

tomcruisejr · Feb 17, 2006, 06:54 PM // 18:54

almost all GvG builds are derivatives of a generic GvG build. 1 energy denial instead of blinding flasher. 1 necro rotting flesh spammer instead of 1 cripper. yea, its getting boring.

for me, only interesting things in GvG are the "GvG metagame rebels". the rifts, kansas city hot steppers (currently), sna, warmachine (when all guilds were spike), evil, and all the iway gvg guilds (remember the days when people used to say, "iway sucks in gvg", "iway wont bring you to top 500 (or 100)".

anyway, other skills need to be buffed. or maybe other character builds should be made. maybe those unused skills will be used soon by an efficient character build.

cookiemonkie · Feb 17, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

The reason why creativity is at an all time low is because of the skill sets themselves. Certain skills give up way to much against most teams just to have a specialized purpose or can't be used effectively throughout the duration of the battle. Because of that less than 1/5 of the skills are GvG worthy. Of those skills left, you have to balance your team skills and character's attributes and skill combinations and that leaves you with little left to be creative and still effective with.

You'd be crazy not to have a warrior that causes deep wound. You'd be crazy not to use gale or cripple (cripple shot or trap). The skills and conditions are just that potent.

tomcruisejr · Feb 17, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

You'd be crazy not to have a warrior that causes deep wound. You'd be crazy not to use gale or cripple (cripple shot or trap). The skills and conditions are just that potent.

this "craziness" is essential to shift "the metagame". remember, War Machine's "craziness" (using 4 warriors and 2 cripplers as their only offense) during the mixed/single class spike era (think of Eternum Pariah) influenced gvg builds of today.

Red Locust · Feb 17, 2006, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

this "craziness" is essential to shift "the metagame". remember, War Machine's "craziness" (using 4 warriors and 2 cripplers as their only offense) during the mixed/single class spike era (think of Eternum Pariah) influenced gvg builds of today.

No, I think it just took people a long time to realize that "gimmick" spike builds, for the most part, are quite risky and do not hold up against solid pressure builds. Observer mode helped people realize this more than anything else.

tomcruisejr · Feb 17, 2006, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

No, I think it just took people a long time to realize that "gimmick" spike builds, for the most part, are quite risky and do not hold up against solid pressure builds. Observer mode helped people realize this more than anything else.

observer mode helped for sure. but when War Machine was starting to tear up top 20, almost all top level gvg builds were spike based. and maybe those spike based guilds viewed a build which dealt pure physical damage and can split unordinary or "crazy".

same for today. any build that has warriors don't inflict deep wound or has rangers that don't use crippling shot is a "crazy" build coz of the deepwounding warriors/crippling rangers metagame.

Rikimaru · Feb 17, 2006, 08:46 PM // 20:46

There are a lot of warriors in the random arenas right now, so running an anti-warrior build rules. A couple days ago I was using a N/Me that was able to degen a warrior, completely remove their energy and adrenaline gains, blind them, and slow peoples run by 50% pretty much freely. Shadow Strike + Vampiric Gaze was also doing pretty crazy damage to people with my 16 blood.
Basicly I'm just trying to say that it's a good idea to just run an anti-form of one of the dominant builds, and it makes things very easy.
Of course, it'd be nice to be able to just run whatevers fun to you...

cookiemonkie · Feb 17, 2006, 11:09 PM // 23:09

The deep wound and cripple spammer has little to do with it being some gimmick. It simply is that potent, 20% reduction in max health is a back breaker. Which forces teams to have ether prodigy, blind spamming, ward spamming to neutralize that condition. Its simply because it has the greatest offense within this game..... hmm, look at IWAY.

4runner · Feb 18, 2006, 12:16 AM // 00:16

cuase and effect! for every action there is a reaction! Good and bad, positive and negative! To have true balance you must have total chaos!

Buddism!