Petition Against Update (LONG)

This is a copy of the letter i sent to ANet regarding the update, and they suggested i posted it here to gain favour with everyone before they will take action, so please sign and comment, thanks..

This is a serious question not just an unthought up comment. Prior to the release of GWN ANet decided to make a few major game changes, and you know what im talking about, the destruction of AoE. I just want to know if you thought about all angles of the decision you were making. The opinion i am getting is that you want all players to take up PvP play and not do PvE. I personally do not like PvP, and i LOVE PvE, but i have noticed that pretty much everything has been ruined. Just some of the things i am disapionted in.

Spells:
Shield of Judgement, exactly what does this spell even do now, there is no point in bring this as the only elite in you skill bar because to be honest, it dosnt do anything now. 1 Hit and all the enemys run away and dicontinue attacking. Seriously, what is the point of this skill in PvE now?

Spiteful Spirit: Pretty much a 2nd grade spell while used against 1-3 enemys (which it still works on IF you are the only player in the party) and is only useful against large numbers. But now, as soon as its castest, the enemys run away, making this another useless spell, but to make things even worse, enemys run away from the tank and progress on to agro the caster. When you were designing Guild Wars im pretty sure your intentions were not to have casters taking all the damage.

Simpathetic/Ancestor Visage: Once again, as soon as this spell is casted, they ememy stops attacking, making the spells totally useless. Why would someone bring this spell in their skill bar, when again, it does nothing.


Its not just those spells, as a matter of fact its not just AoE spells, i tried to just make a different build, so what did i do? I casted insideous parasite, but again, as soon as it is casted the enemy stops attacking. Fair enough that you want the enemys to have a bit more AI, but as i know through other online games, its not always about whay you want but what your players want. There is no point in bringing out skills that no longer have any effect other than in PvP because you made a change to the AI, if you wanted to stop 2man UW (which is a great love of mine, i play necromancer) then instead of Universally changing the AI, why not add harder things in there, like when you added nightmares, that stopped ALOT of people from farming. I play my Necromancer about 99% of the time so im not to familiar with the effects of this update on other characters but i am devistated whith them on my Necromancer. But i know it hasnt just affected me in my farming time, i no longer can find myself a spot in alot of missions because Necromancers (other than BiP and MM) have become an unwanted class due to their lack of effectiveness) Please, im asking you on behalf of the entire Guild Wars PvE community, to re-think some of these changes and implement other changes to filter out farmers rather than nerfing the game altogether.

Thanks for reading,
Peter Smith

SV's entire point is that it removes adrenaline build up in a single hit. That's all you need to reset the group. It should be more than enough time to break the group's back in the time it takes them to gain adrenaline.

2man UW is dead now, and it's probably not going to come back Those skills are still very useful, it's just you actually need a full group to apperciate their use. And yes, I did a bit of 2-manning back in the day.

But they arnt usefull, try casting any of the ones i said, the moment u cast them they run, with a full group, get the tank to agro then cast any of them, it does nothing anymore, basically no point.

Holy Crap!

You Found Three Spells With Balance Issues In Pve? Quick! To The Izzymobile!

Guild Wars is, and always was primarily a PvP game.

Whining about 3 skills that mean you cant solo areas that you were never meant to makes me laugh )

If you dont like PvP at all, and all you like doing is soloing things, i suggest you maybe play another game such as Oblivion or NWN.. both offline games and cant get nerfed!

Seems more like your only focused on the update because farming took a hit. There is more to PvE than just farming. Personally i'm glad they updated the AI. It made it harder for those who actually want to PLAY the game. Personally I get tired of enemies clumping together making it an easy kill. Sorry your cookie cutter builds got screwed but guild wars is a game and farming is a very small part of it, i'm talking tiny small.

Nice one, JR. I'll be sure to write that down, or !setinfo it, or something.

As to the many hundreds of complaints about the update... I know you think the spells are crap now, and I know you think 2-man UW farming is dead. Well I, for one, don't care what you think, because you're wrong. People have already proven that you can still dual-farm UW. People have already found new and better uses for these spells and others. If you'd take some time to read the forums instead of writing letters and petitions to get the game reverted to a previous state, you'd know that. Just because some of you are too closed-minded to understand the uses of the skills, that doesn't mean the update was a bad thing. Use some brainpower and figure out how to fix your problems, without trying to get someone else to fix them for you.

Boo-hoo, "lern2GW".

Sorry but a letter compalaining about 3 skills isnt going to get much attention.
Have you looked at all the skills? About 50% of them are pretty much useles as well.

FYI, Anet have never as far as i know gone back on a skill or AI update. This is here to stay, get used to it or get out.

Can we get all these farming whinge threads put in one section? That way I can just avoid them all.

they need to make the damn camera not auto center! thats the only part iof the update i despise. damn camera pisses me off now.

Go play another game, there seems to be no point for you playing this game anymore now that you can't use those 3 spells the way you did.

Life's a bitch.

I wish they would finally fix Lively was naomi the AoE rezz skill DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for more than a year now, restoration rezzes now i think (or my teamates have a verry acurate rez timing with the activation of the spirits ability)

How can they leave a floude skill in for sooo long, I mean its A.net not FC(FunCom)
Either do someting about it or drop the skill and make flesh of my flesh just that little more usefull to compensate.

You can complain about the aoe damage of ss, or soj. But yet you don't complain about the Spirit Bond nerf. (Bah was really bad they killed the fun out of being an invincimonk taking on 20 creatures at a time).

Anyways if u still want to uw, you can still solo it. Proven in the farming thread. Mind you that I tried both solo options (sv+famine, ss+55) and they still work, but really slow :S

People come up with new farming build -> Nerf Bat kicks in -> People come up with new farming build -> Nerf Bat kicks in -> People still keep coming up with new farming builds...

Just adapt, and learn to use the new NF skills/new AI to your advantage.

Umm, GW is not a primary PvP game, it's both a PvP and PvE game. Every Dev and serious player can see that. Factions was primarily PvP and is probably why it still gets ripped by so many people... I find it odd that daily I hear over and over "Wow, NF is so much better and more fun than Factions"...

anyway, on topic:

Sorry, I can't support going against the update. I so far have loved everything about it (except that camera and the Maple Story looking damage numbers). The AI is vastly improved, though it still needs some work making some mobs act like they should (ie, bugs still sometimes act like an AI human.. they shouldn't be that smart). I am loving that when you hex a "human mob" they react to that hex. AI Human monks flee when attacked, just like I do when playing a monk. It's wonderful and we are finally seeing the signs of some PvE challenge.
I had several farming builds (based off cookie cutters) that were utterly destroyed with this update as well. A small price to pay for such a wonderful game play enhancing update though.
If farming is what this is truely about, I can say that farming is not dead, it's just different. I already have several non-cookie cutter farming builds working as fast as ever (and no I will not post them anywhere); but anyone can find some working ones in the forums even here.
If we are afraid of money issues, then lets all request Anet into making the rewards for the Challenge Missions better and actually worth the time. Then we can have players grouping up and playing these missions while earning some good cash.

Originally PvE was just meant to be a place for people to 'learn to play' Guild Wars, learn all the skills they could... then take their knowledge into PvP battles.

Many people (including yourself) think there should be equally as much to do in PvE as PvP, so Anet introduce titles and such to 'grind' towards.


Face it now, or in 2 years time.. Guild Wars is and always was intended to be a PvP based online game.

NO guild wars was for both PvP and PvE. even the box says so.

now on to the OP.

/not signed.

not signing for the reasons you have stated, as there is far more than just the skills that were screwed up. now if you had included all the other reasons might have held weight, but theres no merit for it just for those 3 spells,. srry

/signed

breaking 'meteor shower' so they run away...ok

but melee skills getting affected so you have to chase them? thats just plain stupid

lol, untill they learned what people wanted. Even O'brien in the CGW Factions interview stated that they (Anet) learned.. as in, they grew up as a company and adapted. Alex Weeks, Gaile grey, Jeff Strain and the list can go on; has continously said GW is now a PvE and PvP based game.

Time for the PvE and PvP "mainly" ideals to get with the times and accept GW is growing up.

Also, grind is a term used to gain something that is not fun to gain. I don't consider getting titles grind at all, I find them fun and entertaining and something I do not work for, rather gain as I play and enjoy my time in game.

GW PvE or PvP is only grind when you do not enjoy that aspect of it. I consider the PvP side of GW horrid and grindful, whereas the PvE fully enjoyable and entertaining. This shows how fluid and good GW is becoming as it can handle both such different game play styles.

Moving on.

Monster AI is just acting more intelligently now. If you want to use AoE then you have to do what we do in PvP - snare/KD the groups so they cannot run out of the AoE. Not too complicated but it does require some addition thinking on the part of the player . . .

[QUOTE=X X X X X X X]
Spells:
Shield of Judgement, exactly what does this spell even do now, there is no point in bring this as the only elite in you skill bar because to be honest, it dosnt do anything now. 1 Hit and all the enemys run away and dicontinue attacking. Seriously, what is the point of this skill in PvE now?

Yah seriosly, whats the point of a spell that causes damage and then stops them attacking you............... WHATS THE POINT OF AGGRO CONTROL, .

Uh wait......

I dont think they mean for casters to be able to stand there immune from most attacks either, try kiting, and it means when they do hit you, they still take damage.

Does pacifism do nothing?



Teamplay = BODYBLOCK = AOE still effective, hell you can bodyblock with henchies.


Not played a mesmer ever have you.....

Sorry but you cant blame anet for half of the pve community being clueless on how to use builds effectirbly, which half are you?



O'RLY

OH NOES, thinking outside the box, you know its perfectly possible to beat the game without actually using a tank/nuker/monk....

/notsigned

Just because 3 skills were nerfed doesn't mean its the end of the world, sure 55 is harmed, same with 2 man uw farming, but its not dead!
Think for once man, get off ur butt and invent new builds there is over 300 new skills!

/not signed

Try playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

And if you still want to solo or duo farm, adapt and learn what skills and/or build could effectively do that.

It is obvious from your post and your examples of skills that you are just mad that you ( you,not everyone) cant farm as easily or at all anymore in the places you used to.

Like has been said people make farming build>nerf>faming builds>nerf it is and will always be an ongoing neverending cycle.

What is the fun and learning in just standing there as a caster and letting the tank take the heat while you wave your wand around and see the monsters kill themselfs like idiots.
I play monk and an ele as casters a lott, i also experience this and i get mad and run like hell but i still like it.

If you had spitefull spirit on you , you WOULD stop attacking, if an ele was to use MS you would run out of it , same with any AOE you would try to get away from it to stay alive , would you not?!
The AI is now trying to do the same things humans do and its all for the good.

There are some bugs in the new update or simply things that have to be tweaked and im sure Anet knows about it and are seeing what and how they should change this to correct it.

(Example ,something that happend to me, a group of 4 enemies was suppose to attack this npc as soon as I ctrl spaced they ran and never stopped running.After waiting a few minutes for them to come back, they didnt, I went to go look for them and they were still trying to run, but had ran into a wall.)

People are complaining about this update as they were with most updates , the UI one is a recent example i think a high percentage of people complained (me being one of them) about it, but now they have adpated to it and you dont hear anyone complain anymore, cause it wasnt a update that would kill you.

All , every single one of the skills have a use no matter what someone says, its the build or sutation that makes it be the most useless skill or the best skill in the game at that moment

Dont you LIE! please dont , give your point and suggestion just dont lie to make it more dramatic.

Nobody has been playing mission except those in elona and even there almost everyone has made a group with heros+henchies or friend.
So of course you havent been able to get a group cause nobody has been making one.
About MM and BiP its simply because people know these work and are afraid of trying something new cause they dont know how effective it can be.
The same thing could be said about smite monks in PVE .
If i was to go smite and get in groups and say i was smite i would get kicked out of almost all of them because people want a healer or protector.


After all this remember a simple thing, they are still AI they can not think of new things by themselfs.If you use a skill and you get reaction A then probably when you use that same skill again against the same mob you will get reaction A again, unless Anet has given them a option out of reactions A ,B and C but the still have a number of options ,unlike humans, that can think on their feet


omg that was a long post, sorry for the long post -_- ill go jump of a building now.

what those three skills were nerfed? I was just looking at them to unlock them for pvp because unlike pve anet seems to have nerfed human IQ and now I keep running into really really stupid people who does not realize you can run away or stop attacking As for farming being nerfed, I'll borrow a popular quote from wow forums:
L34rn 2 play Ur class n00b!

At the beginning of the sentence, you say that Ancestor's Visage does nothing and you later contradict yourself by saying it makes the enemy stop attacking. Then you you ask why would someone bring that skill--perhaps you should bring it because it makes the enemy stop attacking?

You probably discredited yourself to Arena Net when you make such blatant self-contradictions near the start of your letter.

QFT! just because the AI actually have brains and have figured out that it hurts to stand under a firestorm, doesnt ruin a game. It adds an extra level of difficulty, which 90% of the worlds gamers love. This game was never intended to be solo'd.... hence the name.

With all due respect, why do people assume the moment someone bemoans such a change they are immediately called a noob?

By all means, when someone bemoans such a change, why do people say, play the game the way it is meant to be played when they are doing such? Its not like they are breaking the game or hacking it in such a way its not playing the game the way it is meant to be.

/not signed

This is getting ridiculous.

Speaking from a mesmers point of view. You just use this skill for farming. If you used this skill on quests and missions where plenty of strong warrior monsters are you'd realise this skill is actually favorable for warrior/paragon shutdown.

/signed i also had a lot of homework and family members to look after

I, for one, think having to relearn your tried-and-tested character once in a while is fun. ANet hasn't made anybody more ineffective, they've just made a few have to rethink their builds and playstyle. If you rely on only one build for your character(s), what fun is that? None.

Does one realize if I wanted to chase fleeing monsters into other groups I would be playing WoW?

How exactly is tacking on a bunch of skill specific reactions making the AI smarter? Yeah, sure SoJ was ridiculous when they would just pummel themselves to death against it. But if the AI was actually even half-way "intelligent" with all the built in advantages beasties have, such as extra levels and near instant reaction times, then not even War Machine would stand a chance against it. The conspiracy theorist in me just thinks this is a way to promote heroes, who have the same built in insta-react timing and nerf a couple old skills. Anyone checked yet to see how many Nightfall AoE skills don't trigger a Brave Sir Robbin?

Casters getting agro? Ever hear of a little something called kiting? How about snares? Anti melee hexes?

OMG my favorite skill, Ether Lord, is useless in PvE!!!!!

someone change the whole engine back, please! ether lord needs to be buffed!!


not all skills are meant for pve. there are a variety of builds that don't use your suggested nerfed skills.

/signed

Ya i think Alton Brown deserves his own talkshow now, no he's funny. Rachel Ray is still ok by me though.

*looks around*

oh wrong forum.....

/not signed

These skills are still viable as DEFENSIVE skills. -.o

Just cause you cant farm with it, doesnt mean its useless.

Yeah, by this point in time it's gotta be EXCESSIVELY obvious that this is conversation is going to be brought up again and again. Another thing: if you want to be taken seriously by anyone or if you feel very strongly about a subject, take a great deal of care when you word your argument. Not to nitpick, but you misspelled alot of things, and it detracts from your argument, which is shakey already. The nerf bat will always hit Pve, and people will always work around it. Always. And if you can't figure it out yourself, that's why God gave forums a search button.

So you want to undo the ENTIRE update because you dont like 2 or 3 spells?

Im finding an issure there, considering the rest of the update added a tremendious number of excellent benefits.

Im actually sick of how many threads there are about "undo the update", "take back the update", "the update sucks", blah blah blah blah.

My main is an ELE right.

Most of the complaints have been that AoE have been effected and completely ruined the game.

Now you would think that my being an ELE, I would go along with this and winge and cry with the rest of them....

....but NOOO!

IVE NOT NOTICED ANY DIFFERENCE!!!!!!

If a skill has changed, then use a different skill.

If AoE has been effected then I cant say ive noticed, so maybe your all really bad at your characters.

You cant undo the entire update and I seriously doubt their going to role-back the entire thing just for a few skill changes.

Just suck it up and change your skill-sets.

PvP is just an advanced form of PvE if my PvP build is not going to work for PvE i scratch it If my Pve Build is not going to work in PvP i scratch that too. I play pve as if i would plat pvp it helps me kill more efficiently and faster too. people will move away from an aoe or stop hitting it its going to kill them or make them lose adren so why shouldn't monsters? Make your pveing more like pvp and you will do better. heh I'm kinda rambling time for bed night night all

/notsigned

While farming has gotten more difficult, GW was not created for farming. Farming is just something players came up with to get gold faster. I think a revert just because certain farming builds got nerfed cannot be justified.

And how would those of us who have no interest in PvP do that?