[Discussion] Guild Wars unintelligent bug fixes

For anyone who follows the Guild Wars updates, there are surely times where you have seen a bad or completely unintelligent bug fix.

So feel free to discuss these oddities and if you have any of your own all I ask is that you list the bug fix as it was listed in the wiki (link if you want so others can see what happened during that time) and your reason for why it was an unintelligent bug fix.

November 16, 2007 (2007-11-16)

• Fixed a bug that allowed players to exploit their pet's corpse.

Players exploiting pet corpses? A pet is a living creature, just like players, henchmen and heroes. It's logical that they leave a corpse when they die. So why can't a MM get a minion from it, use [skill=text]Necrotic Traversal[/skill], [skill=text]Putrid Explosion[/skill] or any other Necromancer skill on the pet's corpse? To me it sounds like a mistake on ArenaNet's part. What's next, are they going to stop allowing players, heroes and henchmen from leaving corpses too?

What does everyone think of that "fix"?

It reduced Heroways efficiency so they could not let their pets die and raise minions to provide them energy.

Good fix.

It sounds better to call it a bugfix than a nerf.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...archid=2181780

all i'm gonna say. you can dig thru and read.

It was a blatant lie. That was never a bug; it was an intended feature until the HA losers started bitching instead of thinking of a counter.

Read previous update.

On previous update, pets no longer left corpses, and they could no longer be exploited for raising minions.

However, after this *rule* change, there remained a way to still raise minions.

Then, this patch was added that *fixed a bug in new ruleset*, under which corpses were no longer exploitable.

Yes - this was bugfix for the changed ruleset.

Lack of reading comprehension, quoting things out of context, random selective whining.

No - read the previous update. They changed the rules. Under new rules, exploiting a pet's corpse was a bug.

A bug that went on for an incredible amount of time then, such that it wasn't really a bug but rather an accepted and indeed, in some cases, relied upon game feature.

incredible amount of time? did you even read his post? look how close together the updates are.

Antheus said it all. New rules were made, there was a bug in the new rules, hence that update to fix the bug.

the pet leaving an exploitable corpse is a classic.

the soul reaping 'fix' has been an unfinished eyesore that anet is trying to forget ever happened

the time when spiteful spirit fluctuated between 10 and 15 energy in several alternate updates

I'm sure I'll think of others

The sign fix that came a couple weeks ago in its own update

seriously, did anyone actually care?

Heh you can kill an animal and exploit the corpse but not your pet.....

i think its an ok fix...i really think its just being used as a way to nerf the over powered heroway by stopping the herowayers from creating a minion army off of pets

Exploiting Pets' corpses doesn't really affect me but I used to do it when I started the game so it's sad that it's gone, but I'm not going to fight for it to be back because it's not like it broke the game for me.

Please keep to the topic. No religious or personal attacks/bashing/commentary thank you.
Keep it civil and polite and on-topic.

What I think of this "fix" is that it's classic ANet problem-solving: instead of dealing with the cause, work on the effect. Pet corpses were nerfed -

(yes, nerfed, because it is absolutely ridiculous that an untamed animal leaves a corpse, but a tamed one does not)

- because of Soul Reaping problems. But Soul Reaping problems were only a symptom themselves, having been singled out by ANet as the issue behind the unlimited energy of spiritway. Instead of hitting the spirits (the cause) with a well-deserved, player-advocated, and - as I believe the OP would state - a logical nerf of "no Soul Reaping from things that are already souls," ANet decided to change a game mechanic in a way that had not been seen outside of the difference between preview event and game retail versions of attributes. Granted, you can't please everyone, and each nerf is bound to create a round of QQing, but there is a certain point to the argument that "this is not the game we bought." It's not something I'd trash my necro over, but it was - for some people.

Anyway, I find it incredibly ironic that the creative use of established constraints is more likely to reap nerfs than praise from the game developers. When it's something useless like Echo Mending, it gets made into a skill, but when people actually find ways of making that skill useful, it gets nerfed. True, some things actually "break" the game and make competition unfair, but the vast majority of things ANet has "tweaked" in terms of skill use did not fall into this category. Jumping the gun and "fixing" something without letting the players work out counters stifles creativity.

I think Ensign said similar and more things in his great post on how nerfs are responsible for the current state of the game, but I don't PvP much, so I don't have the link saved

Pets leaving corpses is logical. The change, however, was not and will never be.

Balance isn't based on lore, logic, or 'what makes sense', it's based on making things even.

See, this is the problem with PvE + PvP.

In PvP, balance is king. A fair playing field is essential for the survival of the game, so all efforts to ensure it are justified. (Minus, of course, the efforts that nerf too many things across the board and result in stale formats, but still...)

In PvE, however, immersion is king. Players need to "believe" the game world, and such internal inconsistencies as pet corpses may annoy some players enough to break the suspension of disbelief. Even if consciously the player does not mind the change, understanding why it is implemented will affect the player on the subconscious level, because the out-of-game concerns (reasons for the nerf) will infringe on the world the game is attempting to create around the player.

Now, I'm not saying that PvP and PvE need to be completely separate. I believe GW is so successful precisely because the two are so intertwined, and anything other than the current setup will make GW2 less successful. But, as an (amateur) author who cannot help but look at things from the "immersion" perspective, I believe that both sides of the GW coin need to be looked at for internal consistency.

(This is where I go on a rant about NPC speech typos and improper genders, and eventually walk off into the distance, muttering incoherently )

Good reason to separate PvE and PvP!

added putrid explosion recharge = gg

Yeah I really wish PvE and PvP would be seperated...

Remember EoE before the 90% requirement? It was epic.

Hope GW2 is separate, I really hate how PvE things get Nerf because of CRY babies in HA, PLEASE separate the skills for PvP and PvE, the best one was Rit with exhaustion.