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.