Changes to PvE Skills, and Consumables

Thanks for the compliements. Before I posted the OP I took a long look to see if it was e-peen etc, and I can honestly say it was'nt.

I want people to have fun, I want the whoosh bang pve skils give you. I love playing cop sometimes. so it's not a i'm so leet I dont want anyone else to follow me kinda thing. I just would not have posted if it was,

I did'nt want to spew out a whole load of in game credentials, but it does help people understand that it's not about wanting to deny people fun or their shiny statues.

It's just not. If it's lead people to think this of me, then i'm sorry for my poor articulation of things. I've played the majority of my time making sure unwanted professions can get a boost, showing things can be done with a mesmer, or a Rit or an assasin for example.

What it is, is that I hate to see people excluded from things. I've lost count we've helped out people who have not been able to get teams because they were the wrong profession or had the wrong title. I hate it, just hate it.

And yet what we are seeing here is a worse exclusion, one based on grind, not necssarily skill, of how much cash you have rather than how you play.

Any change, that breaks these exclusions down forever is fine by me

Fix'd

...............

Wow, that came out of left field. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
I like the PvE skills as they are, and have no objections to others using them. I'm not keen on using UB myself, but am glad I have the option of using it when the mood strikes. I found that some PvE skills (CoP, PI in particular) actually made playing my mesmer more enjoyable - she's actually invited to join pugs. I still have the option to leave them off my skill bar if I want the added challenge, but the game is 3 years old, and there is little challenge left anyway.
/not signed

I don't get how this change is supposed to seriously discourage people from using PvE skills or consumables. The best solution would be to create areas in which not everyone can succeed (that is, no PvE skills or consumables, plus better AI), but we know how the general playerbase and Arenanet feel about that.

I fail to see the logic here.
You say the "Ursan-bashers" are lazy, yet you're going for the easier way past the game?
You're also forgetting that the PvP side is what the game REALLY has to offer. The PvE side is just the priliminaries, so to speak.

What's startling in this whole discussion is a general lack of attention to a topic that Racthoh keeps bring up, that is, the poor AI.

Don't any of you play this game to get a challenge from it?

Everytime I see an ele/monk boss, I as the monk prot up my BHA hero, send her in, BHA the caster, and send my H/H team in. Threat gone.

That shouldn't be able to happen. The AI is terrible. If they kept the AI's same HM numbers in terms of stats, but severely overhauled the AI, I'd believe that PvE skills and consumables should be kept as they are. In their current form, they're making PvE so mindless that it goes beyond catering to the 'casual player' and simply rewards a lack of skill.

That is not the responce I expected, seeing how most of my "intelligently stated" arguments are still "you morons" according to the normal responses I get.

1. My lack of attention is due to not having the time to read all of the posts right away.
2. I only want one thing, that is a challenge. Challenges make things fun for me, so go ahead and make the game harder, as long as it is not impossible. Just don't ruin the game for those who like to use certain things, or who are forced to use certain things, such as UB.

I'd sign to making the AI better to make the PvE game more challenging anytime. The harder *for non-UB teams* places shouldn't get nerfed as much, but the easier places should. Instead of nerfing the overpowered stuff, buff the underpowered stuff a bit more.

I think we need to seperate the consumables from the skills first.
Consumables can be obtained by all players, either crafting or paying.
Chipping in on a set, usually 2 or 3K/each is not that bad, the area will cover that cost.

And it's not always needed to pay.
We did a FoW with alliance and two pickups and in the end only one player chipped in on my sets (3 total, all mine).
He gave me a stack of feathers since he insisted on paying and those are the hardest to get.
I declined the other alliance player who wanted to pay.
This had nothing to do with my drop from the end chest, I already told them it was voluntary payment.

I don't think chipping in on some sets is that much of a problem.

Fixed builds are, however, I feel that UB is just a replacement for all the other restictive PUG builds.
I recall all the pure Factions eles that were not accepted in Deep because they lacked some elite.
Same problem, own a game and get accepted. Don't have it, too bad or wait for ages.
Nothing changed there but now the expansion is called EotN and not Nightfall.

However, this topic covers more than just EotN.
To run SY/TNtF on your para you need to have two chapters, Factions and Nightfall. And you need to grind for them, specially SY.
But it's not only PvE skills: SF? Nightfall, AP? Factions, Ebon Dust? NF, VwK? Factions. You want to tank on warrior? A lot of builds require Dolyak Sig. Want to buy prophecies? Ineptitude? Same problem.
A lot of the default builds require having all chapters.
So the only discussion would be on the amount of grind that is required to obtain a reasonable level of a certain rank and not the individual skills.

Getting a track like Norn or Vanguard to max is not that easy but doable.
I maxed all 4 tracks with books, dungeons and a couple of Norn runs and wanted to max them anyway regardless of skill benefit.

In my opinion not owning certain skills because you don't have a certain chapter was always a problem and it's not related to EotN.
So the real problem would be the grind.

Creating a PUG with Ursan is not organizing a group!
It's getting some players together, something everyone who can find the local chat option can do.


Let's get one thing clear.
While I know that FoW and UW required UB a lot of time I think it's not fair to state this was true on all runs. I know we took guildies without UB in our guild groups several times on FoW runs. I can't speak for the other guilds in the alliance, it's their choice.
Also I have hardly seen an Ursan requirement on vanq/mission or NM dungeon in our alliance. If that would become common practice it would be time for me to leave and seek people who share my opinion on that subject.
If players want to use the skill it's fine but don't require it when there is no real need.

Back on subject now

I think excluding players is bad.
Very bad.
I split my guild recently because of an incident which got LotU kicked from SNOW and faced several active players leaving back to the old guild (LotU) because they did not feel at home in SNOW where I rejoined with HML, the new split guild.
One way or the other I was excluding players.
When I would keep HML out of the SNOW alliance I would hurt the players who don't have their friends list filled and are not part of the core guild group.
And by rejoining SNOW I seperated friends. It hurt a lot of players including myself to do this.

However, exclusion works from both sides.
I decided to move back knowing some players were not happy with SNOW.
So in a certain way I pushed them out of the guild.
On the other hand they choose to go back to LotU for their own reasons.
And emotions also played a serious role.

The same is true for the current UB/PvE skill exclusion.
On one side players are forced to play certain builds and use certain consumables.
On the other side it's some players choice not to buy EotN, not to grind the titles and not to use the skills.

A lot of players are not willing to PUG if there isn't some kind of relatively fail-safe way to do things. PvE skills and consumables provide just that.
The average PUG player will always take the least risk with maximum benefit. We can't change that. What you surgest is making the benefit less.
I doubt that's the best solution.
Players just won't team up when the benefit/risk ratio is too low.
They will go solo-farming or something like that when that nets more than doing DoA runs.
It will cause the same abandoned outposts as we've seen before the current UB craze.
Until the next Steel Wall/Trapper/Kaiz/UB build will emerge and start a pull on the area again.

I think he best thing we can do as community is provide an alternative for those who don't want to or can't play certain (PvE) skills or consumables.
Make people aware of alternatives.
Ask A-net to make a week (not just weekend) event with double rewards for players/teams not using PvE skills.
And ask them for better teaming/scheduling options.
Because that's from my perspective the main advantage of UB.
Every non-monk player needs one certain skill, the rest does not really matter.
Compare that to the time it takes to get an organized team together (can easily take 30-45 mins) and you know why UB is the clear winner.

I saw a PvE guild recruiting the other day that required R10 Norn and R8 Lightbringer to join. After I got done laughing, it was a little troubling.

Having said that, making PvE skill users (including Signet of Capture) get nothing out of doing anything is bad. The cure can't be worse than the disease, which I believe this solution to be. Save Sunspear Rebirth Signet!

Then theres always one person that will get pissed

You bring up excellent points, however, I disagree with the AI change because of the way the game is played.

I'd like to point out the fact that the game does not change in PvE aside from a few missions, which is the sense of killing things over and over. To make money, you must kill things unless you like standing around in Spamadan reading through the muck. In missions, you kill things to complete the mission. In grind titles, Vanquisher, Protector, Gaurdian, Lightbringer, Sunspear, Norn, Asura, Deldrimor, Vanguard, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy killing things as much as the next person, but Guild Wars forces extremely repetative gameplay for progress. To make money, there's going to be a best selection of ways, of course, killing things, and all those things are done over and over and over. To bring new characters into the game, you play the game over again and over again through the same linear storyline.

My point is that if you make things more difficult, yes, at first the challenge will be rewarding to some at first, but it will wear off. Guild Wars 1 is way single track oriented for a harder AI to have a sustained and lasting element of fun.

People will learn how to beat it the new AI because naturally, human intelligence over AI. They will share the knowledge. The challenge will fade replaced by frustration based upon increased time spent to do repetative tasks.

Don't get me in the wrong context here. Guild Wars 2 does need better AI programming, but Guild Wars 1, in my humble opinion, will lose the element of fun very soon after the new AI is put in, only to be replaced by increased demand on time spent and preparation. If you have a walkthrough to beat something, which, undoubtebly, we will, that's knowledge, and with better AI's, those tricks that the walkthroughs will teach us will become knowledge, and knowledge becomes enough to beat the new AI. Knowledge is not skill. Skill will be required in only the elite areas, which will become more time consuming, and turn away many players that have the skill nescasarry, leaving only those who have the time to spend on it and the skill and the will to do them, leaving a very sparse playerbase to communicate and play with.


Additionally, with harder AI, even with walkthroughs, PuGs will die. I won't lie. I have serious doubts that even with walkthroughs, the majority of the Guild Wars community will be able to deal with it. Grouping will be anything but impossible, and we will see a decline in player activity because of this.

All in all, I feel that judging by the way things are now, and the way things may go, that a harder AI, yes, will reward players who want more of a challenge, but will hurt a lot more players who don't have the time or will to complete things in such a repetative style if they are forced to exert a lot of effort to accomplish them. Effort does not nescasarrily mean fun is present, and effort is what the new AI will mean to 95% of the PvE playerbase. Effort, of course, is bad, and I see the decline in playtime so large that the entire community will be effected by it.

In Guild Wars 2? Yes. A new slate demands a higher bar, but raising the effort standard in Guild Wars 1 will cause a lot of the playerbase to decline in play, meaning less business and money for Arenanet and less people to play with, and less to group with. It comes with the upside that there will be less immature and rude folk spamming in local chat, but it comes with a price I don't think any gaming company is willing to pay.

What I would like to see is a PvE skill associated with an attribute instead of a title.I hardly use consumables.

Hmm interesting idea..

Ursan Blessing with.... Strength
Pain inverter with.... Domination
Save Yourselves! with.... Hammer Mastery!

Instead, what I would prefer would be to make the EN PvE skills linked to professions, like the Kurzick/Luxon/Sunspear skills.

It sounds really good

I don't agree with this idea. I hardly see my Air of Superiority as an overpowering skill. A minor heal, double exp, small chance of skills fully being recharged except res signets, conditions removed, it's hardly game breaking.

So why should using this skill cripple my ability to enhance my gameplay in Guild Wars 2? Or any other minor ability, like summoning a Mursaat that will die in one hit.

I think that's just funny. Anyone who would want to join a dumb guild like that deserves it.

I never really gave Ursan a second thought until reached DOA on my Ele. I take things slow and easy and savor my journey through the campaigns. As a result, i didn't finish NF until this year.

When I did I was very anxious to explore DOA because I'd heard so many great things about the area. Very challenging. Great loot. It sounded wonderful. I was majorly disappointed to find that my Ele was absolutely not wanted.

I remember one evening in particular. A ranger was in town asking for a group. Someone told him to "go ursan". He said he couldn't. He didn't have GW:EN. Many people in town told him to scram and outright laughed at him. They said he had no right to be in that outpost if he didn't own GW:EN. I'm sure that player felt miserable and A-net probably lost a customer.

I turned to my guild for help getting a party to DOA but no one was really interested in the area. It was old hat to them. One afternoon I saw a guildie on alliance chat ask if anyone wanted to do a doa run and I piped up. Finally!! He said, great, bring Ursan and come. I told him I only had a non-ursan ele there and he made it clear that I was not welcome to join him.

That was the day that I decided I hated Ursan.

Since then I've come to live with it. I ran my warrior through NF and use her to go into the DOA. I can definitely see that it's a lot faster.

As far as the comments along the lines of "make the AI better", I have to disagree. Rachtoch (I hope I spelled it right) I've never met you ingame, but I've read a lot of your posts and can see that you are one of the more talented PvE players in the game, however imo the AI does not need to be better. The AI will never be but so good. It's AI and technology hasn't evolved yet to create a robot that good. If you want a faster, better, stronger opponent, play PvP. The monsters you face there are a much harder challenge!

The AI in Guild Wars is nowhere near the limits of AI today. For whatever reason though, Arenanet hasn't put more resources into developing better AI.

Delete Ursan, remove consumables, nerf SY! to +20..40 AL, rework TNtF! completely, CoP needs a second look at - x...80 damage maybe?

Do that and you'll have hordes upon hordes of PvEers complaining, mainly to you for coming up with such an extreme idea. Don't change anything, if you don't like it, don't use it, if you must use it, use it and don't like it. Just stop QQ'ing about such stupid things.

And I would bottle their tears and bathe in them as a fountain of youth. I would be laughing like crazy if I ended up with 100 different QQ messages over night.

This suggestion is stupid.

The majority of Ursan head rolling PvE morons have already achieved their monuments via Ursan. Your suggestion would only prevent the current population from playing Ursan, which would have negative affects across the board. Let's be honest not many people are currently playing Guild Wars due to lack of new content. Nerfing Usan would decrease the population, which could cause inflation, make groups even harder to form and Guild Wars even more of a solo game.

Why do you care how other people play the game? Who are you that you have the authority to determine how other people should play Guild Wars? Do you think you are some kind of higher being?

Your playing a video game. There is NO skill involved in Guild Wars PvE. Unless you count staying in range of monks and not over-extending skill, but anyone with the intelligence of monkey can do that.

If consumables were nerfed then we would have even more inflation then we due now due to the loss of a gold sink.

You fail to understand basic economics. Your suggestion would have a negative impact on the game.

Good Day Sir.

I must apologise for misunderstanding the intent of the OP ... i read it as an "e-peen" post, but i see by the above it was not intended that way.
So for that, i apologise at my aggressive reply.

With that said, i still do not agree.
Primarily because with any rewarding like the ones you and others propose, you are exactly promoting the thing you dislike ... segregation.
By rewarding players for running with no pve skills and no cons, you will again be creating an enviroment where a select group of players will group together and exclude others.
Things will simply return to what they were with the holy trinity, or something very close to it, and will not allow off classes such as sins, mesmers etc to join.
The basic underlying problem is not the skills or the AI or anything in game really.
The problem is the players, and will always be the players.
I had a professor once who used to love to say, "Society as a whole would be MUCH better off without people."

While some (myself included) enjoy taking time to develope or test builds that others create, sadly, the larger percentage cannot be bothered.

Now here's the rub ... Is Anet in business to satisfy the players that enjoy taking their time in every facet of the game?
Or is the larger game market geared toward hit n run style games?
Where does the money lie?

So to hope that they stay altruistic to the original design and intent of the game, would probably result in their loss of mass market appeal.

The simplest solution is the same answer as the source of the problem ...
it lies in the players.

If forums such as this can help promote grouping of players that adhere to a different style of play, then organizing these players will be much easier.
What a solution such as this requires is dedication and a spearhead to take the lead on such a venture.
If a group of core players that feel strongly about the style of play were to join together and use their time to organize the players who wish to experience the game in its "traditional" form, i think it would resolve many of the issues raised by cookie cutter builds, overpowered PVE skills and consumables.

Better yet, use the "Guild" in guild wars, and use the multitude of forums surrounding GW as a Billboard to advertise it. Call out to players that dont want to use Ursan to run FoW. Give them a place to turn.

I am sure a strong concerted effort to band players together that refuse to allow PVE skill bars in their guild and pugs would soon become popular.

Yes, you are basically doing the same thing the Ursan and Trinity Pugs are doing, but at least it will resolve the issues many seem to face that do not want to use these classes or skills.

As i said .. the solution lies within the players, not Anet.
Petitioning them over and over will not resolve the issues ... only compound the problem.
The old saying, "you cant make all of the people happy all of the time" is basically the position they face.
Who should they appeal to?
1,000 core players who havent spent any real money on GW in years or 10,000 new players who havent purchased all of the games yet?

What are you smoking? No seriously, my drug dealer doesn't sell me drugs those powerful....

Consumables aren't meant to be used in every instance. If you need consumables for every instance you should probably go learn your ABCs.

Consumables are designed to be a cushion for bad players to help them do Hard Mode and feel special inside. And to be a gold sink.

Consumables are also cheap. I don't know where your getting the how much cash you have.... It has been said one million times before buy low sell high. Or if spamming trade it difficult for you, then you can become a mindless farming zombie. Or if pressing keys is difficult for you, go spend Mommie's money and support some Chinese family.

I understand your point, there was no class which suffered exclusivity more than the mesmer. In addition, there are the many instances where normal players who don't even have ursan are denied party entry. This phenomena can be traced all to the beginnings of Prophecies where party entry meant having an elite at a certain area or mission. The only refuge now for players who want to play the game for a fun challenge, is to develop a friend's list of open-minded people. Don't for instance, befriend someone who works two blue collar jobs. In that case, I don't blame them for resorting to using only ursan as their means of playing and thus enjoying the game. But I understand your dislike of exclusivity, I myself suffered it when playing my mesmer and assassin, and have also helped people of those classes through missions.

I guess you just want to troll and didn't bother reading or understanding the posts. We don't want to use consumables but with the new Ursan builds in order to find a pug in any elite area you are told you must bring a conset.

Personally I don't want to bring and use a con set. I don't need them to complete the areas. Oh my, that might actually add a half hour to our completion time. So since I refuse to use one for fow I can't find a pug.

Con sets are expensive. I could buy one in town for 7k or craft them myself for about 6k if I bought all the mats from the trader or I could spend time farming the mats. It's a waste of money imo.

It was a figure of speech, but the very idea on punishing someone simply because they are using PvE only skills or comsumables is ignorant thing to do.

You may not like the current system or how people play the game, but I should not have to suffer because of your dislike.

maybe you are bitter because of ursans blessing, but I don't use that skill, yet I do use other PvE only skills, so why should I be punished? Why should I be punished if I use a consumable the benifits the entire party?

I am sure what you have done in the past was noble, but to introduce an idea like this one is honorless.

Oh goodness. If you're going to troll, troll eloquently and skillfully. Don't be a moron; have some background in your arguments before you spout fallacies.

Ursan speeds up the rate at which high-end areas can be run, aye? Why do people run high-end missions; so that they can possibly attain higher-end items. The 'hot item' changes with time, but the fact that there will always be items of greater value remains the same.

With Ursan, the availability of such items grows greatly, due to the absolute drop in time required to attain these items. Thus, the market is flooded with them.

Consumables barely make a dent in the profits reaped by using them in such high-end areas. Ursan and Consumables in fact contribute to the lack of high-end items by making them less valuable by pure availability on the general market. Thus, the stripping of consumables would in fact, NOT contribute to any sort of inflation.

As it were, if you read any of this, Toxage, you're wrong.

k guys we're gonna nerf consumables, hope you didn't stock up on them in order to play the market.

I.E.

snow bunny, you're wrong.

exactly

the people who stocked up on em would be out big time cash

Do you know how many you'd have to stock up on in order to play the market?
Study consumer-trend economics please.

Punished how? you could argue you are being punished for playing in normal mode because in hard mode the drops are better, you get tomes, double gem drops, lockpicks and XP. You are being rewarded for a greater challenge not punished.

Running no cons and pve skills is a greater challenge, so why not reward that also? All the suggestion was, was to extend the principles introduced in hard mode. Make the game harder, get better rewards. Nothing more, nothing less. I fail to see any lack of honor in this?

Honor is seeing the average player who has little time to farm, whatever money they make on a run is used up to pay for the next one, Of being unable to get a team, or being pressured into a play style that forces him to pay to play. Honor is saying this is wrong and having the guts to stand up and say it. Honor is also admitting you were wrong to judge someone and not then pretend it was something else.

I don't hate Ursan, I hate the exclusion, and negative impact it and it's ilk are causing. Thats a subtle difference.

Lol, you're still wrong. I can play the market simply by buying 5 at 7k/ea and selling in a diff timezone for 8k.

Stop trying.

Was wondering if you noticed the spelling error.

'Stop trying'. You didn't actually argue anything except that it'd suck for people trying to make a profit on trading consumables. You ignored the primary argument because you can't prove otherwise. Consumables, combined with ursan, undoubtedly increase the availability of high-end items and thus continually contribute to the depreciation of said items.

i.e. ups, you're wrong

Yeah I'm typing here between GvGs, please excuse the error, sir.

I came into the discussion only on the issue of removing, i.e. nerfing, them from the game, pointing out a key problem. I'm yet to hear a valid response.

There is a reason I think people overlook here. All one needs to notice is Anet's joke on April fools in the update notes. They know people abuse Ursan. They don't care either. They wont ever fix it nor change how consumables work either. One might ask why? It sells EotN expansions to people. They are not in this to make you feel good inside. They have your money already. Its not like they lose a subscription if you quit.

I too had the fun in trying to find a group to get my armbrace from DoA. I dont have a high Norn rank so that was out for me. Luckily I have a guild with people I play with on a daily basis. I use consumables as well to vanquish mainly because theres a lack of interest in most people I know to do the same and the hench just dont quite cut it in some areas.

How do cons break the game? You have to pay for them. They don't come cheap. Skill points, expensive materials, etc.

If you do not enjoy being in an ursan group, make a balanced team of your own. Join a guild of likeminded individuals who will clear these areas without ursan. SY and TNTF, seed of life...they're not broken either. SY! doesn't affect the character using it. Thus, even if they're d-slash spamming it, the warrior or para using it won't get the armor boost, thus will pull aggro and die first, stopping the SY! chain. TNTF...huge energy cost. Works for paras with a bit into leadership, but still pretty expensive for a para shout. Seed of life...doesn't last long AT ALL. It's a clinch thing and only works if one character is being spiked, or if you have a bonder.

Almost seems you never played a SY/TNtF para.
I have no problems with energy at all except when under e-denial.
Seed of Life does not last long, true.
But it's an awesome skill when used right.
And that's not when a character is being spiked and also not the best when using a bonder.

The bottom line is that "Elite Areas" are supposed to be Elite. And by Elite I mean difficult, hard to finish, a struggle and should leave you with a feeling of achievement.

With Ursan and consumables they are no longer Elite, they are transformed to Very Easy areas/missions at the click of a button.

I know it's fun to URSANCON rampage through elite missions and get your reward at the end but it defeats the object of having Elite Areas or Hard Mode entirely. While I don't fully agree with the OP's suggestion, I do agree that something needs to be done to put a stop to this abuse of the Elite Areas and URSANCON Vanquish teams.

Ursanways do require a good portion of knowledge into the game; for example, Ursanways require the team to target the monk first as well as not to aggro so much knowing that Ursanways aren't god mode. Of course, when team members are low on health points or out of Ursan due to e-drain, they'll need to kite away from the mob to be healed. Nevertheless, I guess that isn't enough for you.

However, in comparison, cookie-cutter builds require no knowledge into the game. What we'll have is an Obisdian tank aggroing everything on the map, then a bunch of Elementalists just randomly nuke the mobs. First of all, the idea to allow one to aggro everything on the map corrupts players. Do you know how many times I came across players who would just do that because they think they are the tank? Secondly, random nukes is clearly a bad playing habit; as we all know, it is probably the most efficient to kill the monk or what is the most threatening to the team first, but what we have here is a corrupted idea in which players should just randomly target their foes. Lastly, normally when the tank breaks the aggro, the backline spell casters should be able to kite away to avoid being killed; by sitting back nearly always in this kind of build, do you know how many of them don't even know that they can run away if the tank dies?

Ursanways may seem to be an easy button for you, but face it, it does help players learn their basic fundamentals. However, in contrast, cookie-cutter builds will corrupt people's basic fundamentals. To make the situation worse, cookie-cutter builds dominated every areas into the game previously, and it still dominates a selective few areas even with the existence of Ursan. My point is, if we go by your logic into nerfing Ursan, then we should also nerf cookie-cutter builds. Don't you agree?