The Sundering of the Community - UB Anet's Double-Edged Sword

With the introduction of Ursan Blessing and the now all too familiar Ursanway has Anet divided the gaming community and changed the game forever?

Before UB the game was fully a game of skill. People had to think up skill bars/builds and employ them to varying degrees of success. Naturally some people were better than others at it. This would especially be most prevalent in the “Elite” areas in particular DoA where for the vast majority of time “The Holy Trinity” was only way to do them. Although other people thought out of the box and used other builds.

Anet, obviously aware of this problem had to come up with a solution and this appears to UB. This enables any person of any profession or skill ability to complete DoA and have fun doing it.

A few weeks back my friend and I had been trying to kill Mallyx using 6 heroes. We tried various numbers of different builds but couldn’t manage to kill him. Then we had the idea to try UB on him and we were instantly amazed at how quickly we scythed through the waves before him. However, 2 UB’s wasn’t enough and done using 2 more. Thus we started the “Mallyx with your Heroes” thread.

At the time my feelings were now that any of the forgotten professions will now be able to do DoA and it made me feel good that I would be able to share it with community. It felt good to go DoA and see it starting to fill up. It felt to know people whose profession were shunned were completing it. It felt good to have people whisper and thank me for sharing it. And it felt good to know people were having fun.

However, reading the boards now and visiting different areas of the game UB is to some people become “The Holy Grail” but to others this ultimate ideal is flawed and simple. It seems like the gaming community is being split into people who like to play using well thought out tactics and skill and those who like theirs to be a kill everything as quickly and easily as possible strategies.

I have been playing games since the introduction of ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. I have played some games where I gave into temptation and turned on “Godmode”. Did I have fun doing these? – Yes, I did. I have also completed games where I resisted the temptation and completed them how they should be. Did I get stressed when playing these? – Yes. Was it as much fun? – No. But, and it is a big BUT when I look back over all the games I completed the ones that give me the most satisfaction are the ones where GODMODE was never used.

Maybe in my advanced years I have got wiser and Guild Wars will always have a lot of people such as teenagers playing it who will be always looking for the fun and quick option. But for me having played UB and enjoyed the adrenaline rush it gave at Mallyx I would choose to use it again very rarely and would rather get the satisfaction of playing and completing the challenges without it.

Would anybody who plays the game want to see missions like THK only become an UB only zone? I certainly hope not. If that started to ever happen I fear a lot of the game community would leave thus encouraging more UB till it spirals to the games death.

Anet in its attempt to appease the forgotten professions has created a massive double-edged sword that on one hand is great fun to play and encourages pugs but on the other destroys the skill and creative abilities of the PvE player. Will this sword hasten the demise of the game?

I think Ursan Blessing should just be limited to Elite areas - where you actually need such an awesome skill.

Why can't those two parties be left alone to play however they wish, without trying to change the other's style of play? If you want tactics, go with tactics. If you want to relax by bashing things, go with bashing. No one's forcing you to group with someone who doesn't share your desires.

And I really hate it when people start throwing out things about any "demise" or "death" or "withering" of the game, and anything in a similar vein :P Don't do it. It's pointless - GW is still kicking strong.

While I like the skill I find myself bored with it at the same time. Button mashing FTL. Yes I have played around and done missions and quests with it but I miss going back to using regular skills. There are places where I just want to go and pay back some of the monsters that gave me grief so many times. Since my primary character is a monk I do like it that I can switch roles to damage dealing.

150 armor ignoring damage every 3 seconds is .. fun =p

Doesn't mean I don't run real builds still. Just kind of fun to go on a rampage sometimes. They already limited it's abuse since we can't use it on heroes. Any pug you run into is already running a cookie cutter build so this doesn't change much if you ask me.

But don't you know ONE skill is going to be the ruin of GW's lmao.

You haven't bought GWEN? You don't have UB??? - kicked from party

If it stays as it is now, soon, very soon, there will be no barrage/pet teams in ToPK, there will be no balanced in DoA, there will be no SteelWall in the Deep, there will be no EoE + Trappers in Urgoz, there will be no 'random' teams for Titan quests, there will be no "5 men Bonder, MM, SS" teams in SF; any new-next-another mission, master quest, elite area will turn into Ursanway fest

Already now all dungeons (at least in HM) turn into UB rush

And for those who defend and love this skill, I suggest making a petition to ANET:

"Add healing to Ursan Blessing ("You and your entire party healed for 500 HP; signet, 1/4 activation, 5 sec recharge"). UB really lacks healing, we are forced to take stupid monks, ffs! Oh, yeah, and get rid off that stupid energy degen, we are losing the blessing when we don’t attack!"

There have been idiots running around forming crap parties and kicking people for ridiculous reasons way before UB. You're not forced to group with them. In fact anyone who would kick someone else for not having UB probably has never been a team player anyway, and their behavior isn't going to improve with the removal of that skill.

/godmode switch, a singe switch can destroy any game

Why would Areanent care? This would just cause more people to be "forced" by the community to buy GW:EN, resulting in a larger profit. I'm not saying its a good thing, but why would they not want more profit?

Karyuu, that’s not my point. I have every skill in game and every campaign. I don't care if someone kicks me from PUG for any reason, in fact, I was kicked from PUGs many times for refusing to play Obsidian Tank and it only made me laugh. But that's not the point

You're right to some extent - the game will not vanish if UB stays or even if ANET further buffs it, but the game will become simpler, less tactical, less challenging, less diverse, more boring, less exiting

That's possible? HAHAHAHA.

I never even seen anyone using Ursan Blessing.. I thought it was a crap skill. Must have missed something.

Hey,
I like to share thoughts about this. Certainly UB is the top of the introduction of godmode into pve - and the final let go of something that could be considered balance in pve.

Consumables (ever tried Essence of Celerity? zomg) and powerful pve skills (UB, There is nothing to fear, Great Dwarf Hammer, Pain inverter) reverted the with the Hard Mode feature newly introduced challenges. Heroes round the whole "I am unstoppable" experience up.

Do i enjoy this?
Sometimes.

But I have the most fun in the game where actually team play (and team builds) still matters = pvp.

Cheers,
Timebandit

Bingo! Here I totally agree with you. Absolutely. I think new chapter (if there will be one) will introduce even more powerfull skill (and nerf UB).

"Buy our new chapter, use Mallyx Blessing skill, add lvl 30 Kuunavang to your heroes! If you pre-order, lvl 30 Shiro with Battle Scars will fight at your side! If you buy via our in-game store you'll get buffed siege devourers, they hit for 2000 now"

/signed

Everyone, agree much?

This is what I am predicting will happen to Guild Wars 2 when its online store goes... online. We'll see stupid things like a Mallyx Blessing, Armor buffs, or an overpowered Hero you can purchase with real money, to fuel Areanet's and NCSofts funding between expansions. I never liked the idea of online stores to buy things in a game. Why should some kid with daddy's credit card have better gear than me, working on minimum wage? Just a prediction, and it already effects most games with ebay gold-sellers, but now it seems you are "forced" to buy "gold."

I've never used UB either, as soon as that Charr quest was out of the way I took it off. Maybe I'll try it now so many people are commenting on it, but I doubt it tbh. I prefer ranged attacks.

Meh, any sort of challenge = bad thing apparently.

UB's most damaging skill is ranged

If not UB then something else - really this has been there from the beginning and will continue to be there till the end. It is more a community issue than a technical one.

Nothing has changed other than you finally got hit by it, some of us have since the beginning. My favorite classes have almost always been the ones no one wants (Mesmer, Dervish, assassin, etc) - luckily I prefer H/H and they do not complain. However that has pretty much locked me out of the higher end areas.

There is no difference between what is going on now and what has been going on other than some of the "wanted" professions are now feeling it whereas the old "unwanted" are still unwanted except that they can now bring a single skill and be wanted.

Diversity of builds has never been a hallmark of any MMO I have ever seen - you either had a "worthy" build or few humans outside of your friends/guild would ever take you. In this particular case an unbalanced PvE skill (which is intentionally unbalanced) is the culprit. I rather expect a good nerf to it, but it will not help any but those in the holy trinity of wanted classes.

This is like people who make 1 million+ a year complaining that everyone else can suddenly afford yachts - it only sucks of you are one of the ones who makes one million+ a year, other wise you finally get to play in the areas you wanted too.

If this gets nerfed to the point that a full team of them isn't desired by the community then you might as well remove the skill. Not that it hasn't happened before, but that will be the case (see a paragon for the same example - nerf them to where a team of them is "balanced" and the individual is highly screwed). It will only be used by those that find the build fun irrespective of how effective it is.

So.... excuse my really stupid question...

But what is all this stuff about Mallyx and "Ursanway"?
And heroes?

Is it two people using Ursan Blessing and a mob of heroes..... or a full team of 8 people or so using Ursan Blessing in Unison? o_0;

And exactly how useful can Ursan Blessing even be considered without a high Norn title?

its just a PVE skill doesnt so its okay

I don't understand why so many people are whining about this skill, if you think its overpowered don't use it? I can see this skill getting nerfed soon because of all the whiners once again.

It's three people with Ursan and 5 heroes killing Mallyx
It's two people and 6 heroes making The Four Horsemen quest a joke
It's two people with Ursan and 6 heroes killing Duncan HM
It's 3 people with 9 heroes finishing Urgoz in 1-2 hours
It's even more then that

And all you need it rank 4-5 in norm, no real need to max it.
And yes, the higher the rank and the more people with that one skill on their bar the more careless the more leeroy-jenkins style you can play

Well, when ANET finally realised that the only axe elite used in PvP was Eviscerate they nerfed it (not sure if it changed anything though). They also came up with a decent sword elite (Dragon Slash and this one is definately used). Eviscerate wasn't overpowered, it was simply 'the best'. Now its just only 'very good'
As you can see, this was done not for the balance but for the diversity

Now compare Ursan Blessing with other 'Form' Blessing skills.. and ask yourself - if you run of of them, what will you run?

Honestly my husband and I are thinking of rounding up a couple friends and completing DoA using Ursanway only to get them out of the way. Been there done that and not inclined to keep doing it old school with all my charactors.

DoA is just to time consuming, cookie cutter and not worth it in the long run.

As for everywhere else I much prefer a strategic build that hubby and I can come up with our hero's. To each his own tho, if people wanna play it constantly more power to them, it doesn't effect myself or those I play with.

A good skill that will be turned down by the community itself....sad if you ask me.

Ursan blessing is a horrible departure from what Anet is supposedly going for.

A game of skill? UB is so overpowered that players can just spam the same one or two skills and kill just about anything very quickly.

A game of strategy through builds and team composition? UB is the same build, all the time. For everyone.

Using UB with 7 h/h is one sort of overpowered thing. Grouping where half the party (or more) has it is insane. I was in a group where 5 people were running Ursan blessing in FoW. Monsters died so incredibly fast that half the time my target exploded before I could even finish that Ursan skill. We didn't have to pull, we didn't have to play smart, and our monks had very little to do since monsters died before they could hurt us. We actually only needed one monk. The other monk might as well have been running UB as well.

Because when I join a group (PUG or otherwise), a large percentage of people use Ursan Blessing. So if I'm not using it as well, what does that mean? It means I don't contribute much to the team. It means I end up cheerleading for the UB players. It means my build becomes stupid, weak, and useless, relatively speaking.

QFT, the mods closed the last thread, but yet again someone starts another one up yet with another whinge about UB, it only takes 20 or so ppl to voice their opinion about something, and you can bet ANet are watching, with the next update they go and nerf it.

The Norn are all about how powerful the Bear is, and yes i admit the Bear is strong, but only for it's strength to be taken away by our community is just sad.

Well i'm here to save the bear.

Whos with me?

Save the bear.
Save the bear.

People can be three-year Guild Wars vets with massive experience and excellent builds, and they're now weaker than a group of bewildered noobie spammers.

WHY ON EARTH is this okay with people???

but we are Norn, we do not need "massive experience" and "excelent builds", we do it our own way for we are Norn, all hail the Bear.

I'll back you up on this one!
SAVE FRIEND BEAR!
SAVE FRIEND BEAR!


Those who want to use the skill to make the game simple and overpowered..... can do so.
Those who want to use proper skills to play the game more creatively..... can also do so.

The Power (of choice) is Yours!

Okay explain to me how peple have the power to choose what builds others in one's group are using. And don't say that a person just shouldn't group with anyone using UB. It's extremely common and groups are hard to find.

I'd definitely choose my earth build over Ursan Blessing any day. A game's about having fun. If people have fun with Ursan, who am I to condemn them? It's a PvE only skill. No harm can come from it.

Herohench! =P

Or Guildies.
Or Friends-listers.
Or just ask and see if anyone in the area is NOT using Ursan Blessing.

The options are there.
And besides... why should you care so much what THEY are using? Shouldn't you be focused on what YOU are doing more?

Imbalances in pve are worse for the game actually than in pvp, since the community for pve is so much larger, and dont even try to kid yourself that imbalances anywhere dont have a negative effect.

I'll be sure to let you know when Koss complains about my Air of Superiority.

Guildies, friends-listers, and pugs alike all use UB regularly. As time goes on and people have higher Norn ranks, it's being used increasingly. I expect this trend to continue. Soon it will be common to see r 7-9 Norn people using UB.

And like I said, yes I care about what they're doing. Because if a large chunk of my group is using AB and I'm not, I end up playing the weakling with little to contribute.

From what I can tell.... A-Net unfortunately agrees with you.

On the flipside, I believe people should basically be allowed to play as they want to play as long as it doesn't directly influence the experience of other people.
And no... it doesn't. What you need to remember is that just because most people doing a particular mission or quest end up being Ursan Blessing users doesn't mean they'd still be there trying to do it with ordinary skills otherwise. You're not necessarily losing anything NOR gaining anything by their presence.

But then people like you come along and QQ about the way OTHER people play the game because you don't want to play that way..... and A-Net make changes.

Unjust? I think so.


And therefore the only remaining difference between Guild Wars and the real world is that Guild Wars gives you the choice. In the real world it isn't always an option to betray your principles and get rich from it....
If your Guildies are using it too extensively.... perhaps you should ask them whether they'd be willing to do a few things with you WITHOUT bringing Ursan Blessing.


And for what it is worth.... I don't use Ursan Blessing, and there are still plenty of others likewise who don't use it out there.