Stop the Terrible, Unwanted Updates

CAN A MOD PLEASE MOVE THIS TO GLADIATORS ARENA: GUILD BATTLES PLEASE?

So... I for one am tired of the random updates. 90% of every update is unnecessary, unwanted, and seemingly random. Updates appear to have more to do with "what direction Izzy wants the game to go in" than with what the players want.

I don't remember ever hearing anyone say that they wanted archers to do 150+ unblockable damage at VoD, or that they wished bodyguards did the damage of a level 30 PvE fire boss at VoD. Following its method of complete randomness, Anet makes this update a couple days before the Monthly AT. This, coupled with the horrible "random" selection of all split maps, forces top guilds to run sin split or lose.

Pretty much everyone hated the update, so, in what I can only assume is a pathetic effort to redeem itself, Anet releases an update that seemingly makes the VoD buff for NPCs much less severe. At the same time, however, that fix is made completely irrelevant by the horrible concept of Victory is Ours.

Great! Now instead of archers doing a retarded amount of damage, the team with a one archer advantage at one specific second of a GvG gets a similarly ridiculous damage increase. Anet decides to fix a terrible concept by implementing an equally bad concept that basically does the same thing.

Archers should serve only to speed the game up at VoD by providing a modest amount of NPC support. Every game shouldn’t be decided by who has the most archers still alive. In two top GvGs I’ve seen today a one archer advantage has played a much larger role in the outcome of the match than it should have (rawr vs dR and HGH vs jT).

My suggestion is this: STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THE GAME SO DRASTICALLY! Fix what’s broken, maybe modestly buff unused skills every once in a while, but stop trying to introduce completely broken concepts and mechanics to the game.

No.

If they didn't change things, the game would get boring.

P.S Thanks for giving me a reason to post my 2,250th post.

/signed
This new VoD update is absultely retarded, and essentially shifts the entire meta towards sinsplit. What was wrong about VoD in the first place? Nobody asked for it, and nobody wanted it. VoD was one of the more balanced aspects of GvG - now it's an absolute joke. Eviscerate for 320? Oh okay.

/signed

When splitting is the only option to win, there is something wrong. Or turtling and making sure that your NPCs don't die then wtfpwning with AoE. Which doesn't even work.

First of all, stop trying to flamebait, you're not good at it. Try actually doing a search next time. GWW has a nice little article that I wrote a while ago here.

Now, whether or not I PvP has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion. It just so happens that I know a good amount about PvP, though I hardly actually participate. Participation isn't required to be able to know about and discuss something (look at sports broadcasters).

Ganking and Turtling has always been a part of GvG.

I think it would've been better if you named the title something like "Stop f*cking up VoD"

That way people who have no idea what they're talking about with regards to GvG wouldn't leave stupid comments here.

Sports commentators might not necessarily play the sport, but they have great experience with regards of the history, rules, and strategies of the sport. They've watched thousands of sports games before becoming a sports commentator. So your analogy doesn't work unless you've at least watched a few hundred GvG games.

P.S. Most people that say they know a lot about PvP actually are clueless. The more you learn about something, the less you realize you know. It's simply how knowledge works.

I'll leave it at that to avoid a flaming discussion here, because that's not what this is about. It's about Sapper's complaints about VoD.

Great insight. It's a difficult point to argue against.

I agree because it's Sapper and he's the coolest cat on the block.

Edit: He also has gud ideas.

I dunno. I mean "Go join your kin and run off a cliff" seems to be a valid point against it.

To make it clear, I do see the issue with matches turning into battles based on killing 1 more archer than the other guild. However, in order to fix what was/is broken, they need to figure out what works best.

I actually have watched probably over 100 GvG matches, as well as over 100 HoH matches (not like I count them). I occasionally will only log into Guild Wars to watch a few matches.

The problem is, there was nothing broken here.

Before they started messing around with VoD, matches kept lasting far too long. The first change had issues because the damage increase was too much, expecially with [wiki]Splinter Weapon[/wiki]. The most recent one is flawed because it's all based on a difference of 1 NPC.

Probably the best solution would be to make the required difference larger, say 5 NPCs. That way "Victory is Ours! would only happen if one guild manages to kill 5 more NPCs than the other, which I've noticed is rather rare.

People can make themselves look like fools as much as they want, I'm not going to stop them.

curse you pretty sure you should just say you dont know jack about pvp if you dont participate in it okz? cause then you wont get flamed srsly

I don't think it's just Izzy who's making these skill tweaks.

He shouldn't get flamed anyway.
No human being has the right to insult another just because they think they know more about the subject then they do. ALL people are entitled to their opinion. Having more or less knowledge about a subject does not neccessaryily make your OPINION a divine truth and correct.

As for the OP, my suggestion is to just learn to adapt. Even if you find it a pain in the butt, everybody else has to go through the same thing. The changes to VoD affect everybody equaly. Updates to VoD or skills are going to happen all the time. Learn to deal with it or be left in the dust. That is GW.

Basically, the reason the whole VoD idea was changed was because everyone was getting tired of the "Balanced Blockway" meta. Having these mechanics changed basically opened up new ways to play the game, and the maps also forced you to use some different tactic than having every party member have constant 75% block rate.

You're right when you say nothing was broken, just stale is all.

I have no problem with MOST skill changes that affect the metagame. My annoyance with the ViO nonsense has nothing to do with my inability to adapt. My guild has played a huge number of different builds; I'd even say we're one of the most versatile guilds on the ladder. We can adapt just fine to metagame shifts, but this change... is just stupid.

It may affect everyone equally, but if you GvG then you simply can't argue that it basicly forces teams to play a certain way.

Anet shouldn't be making completely random updates that turn decent game mechanics (the old VoD) into competitions to see who can kill the other team's NPCs the fastest. having extra NPCs at VoD already gave that team an advantage. A damage increase based on a one archer advantage is overdoing it.

The update that made NPCs come out in multiple waves was a great idea, as was the new update to the trebuchets. I even liked the addition of unblockable attacks given to NPCs (as long as the damage they do isn't ridiculous). The old VoD, coupled with these couple changes, is a pretty balanced way to speed a GvG to conclusion... ViO is just unnecessary and annoying.

Like I said before, having more NPCs should be an advantage at VoD, but not an automatic win. Having 5 more archers than the other team at VoD is enough of an advantage. Giving a damage buff on top of that is just too much.

I agree that the blockway meta was boring, but there were already ways to beat it. Also the addition of precision shot and the other unblockable attacks to the NPCs should help shift the metagame without overdoing it and forcing a sin split meta, which is arguably more boring and annoying to play against than blockway.

I laughed.

Pretty sure the sineptitudes didn't have to go through the same thing.

Sapper, it's pointless posting it here. Just a bunch of people who don't know what they're talking about trying to pull their weight because they have opinions too. It's like asking little middle schoolers to go to a literary convention and state their incorrect analysis of novels in front of a PhD in Literature crowd.

His opinion isn't an opinion. It's pure idiocy.

The question isn't about adaptation. I'm pretty sure if Divine wanted to win he'd have [dR] run sin split, and win that way. The problem, though, is that ANet is essentially forcing you to run some kind of dedicated-split build, or lose. This is not what balance is about. Balance is about allowing any build to fare somewhat-well against others. Obviously, speccing against a certain build will do you some good (e.g. Power Block/Divert Hexes against hexes, Shields Up against paraspike) but the point of balance is to give every build an equal chance in most situations. In this case, ANet is failing.

I guess discussing balance on GWGuru is like talking to a brick wall.

/not signed

What's wrong with the updates? The VoD is just one bad update. They have more good updates than bad updates.