The Madness That Is Ether Renewal

And this is precisely why people who whine about perceived problems with a game are told that "if you don't like it, don't use it". Quite frankly, the tantrum above sounds like a baby whose rattler doesn't rattle any more.

Let me tell you something. You can always opt out of a game and do something else. You cannot opt out of life and still do something else. That is why I - among other things - vote, demonstrate, write opinion pieces to national media, recycle and do humanitarian work with the resources available to me. There is a reality with real problems that cause suffering and which we can try to set right with our choices. If you cannot see the difference between that and perceived minor inconveniences in the virtual world of a game then come back once you've grown up a bit.

Nobody forces you to play a game. If you don't like it, do something else.

Seems to be a lot of "if you don't play the way I like, I'm taking my ball and going home". Ragefest 101.

So basically, you're a huge fan of dictatorship?

There's a reason customers are allowed to voice opinions and complain about products you know.

Of course they withhold the right to change or not change any aspect of the game, that was never in question. However, ANet is not infallible - they are not The Party in 1984. The game is driven by the community as much as the developers themselves, and that was the point of my post.

As for Jeff Strain's speech, you're drawing too much from it. He was reminding us that the average player will never visit forums, and they are not experts at the game. Even though forums will not be read by the majority of players, ignoring them would be silly. Forum-goers range from players who've just picked up the game, to those who've been playing since beta, and every one of them has an opinion. The hard part is choosing who to listen to, and which suggestions are beneficial to the game. In any case, disregarding one of the few venues where players can communicate back to the developers won't make for a long-lasting franchise.

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If you don't like his opinion, don't read it.

And you want to be taken seriously?

Purposefully ignoring example of logical fallacy, claiming it to be argument and committing classical strawman ad homini on it while maintaining holier than you.

Thats really nice of you, you are sadly in minority, consider this:

* Games are learning experience.

That is, you are teaching someone something.

Games are already pretty screwed (i.e. whole Spend a lot of time, you are guaranteed to be victor; menial tasks are way to go ...) as they are.

They don't really need to teach kids "If thing don't go your way, quit".
They don't need to teach kids "You can ignore problems, it is solution that works."

Because ultimately someone WILL take this lessons to real world. For most of people hunger in africa is as abstract as some videogamewhines. People as whole are unconcerned by what does not directly effect them. No action is taken, problem is ignored because it is much more confortable to pretend that starving people are a-ok. Sad but true. No need to make this feature of human psyche strengthened by game.

Also, i will ask you. How do you view someone who cant follow some principles in game? It does not cost him anything, there are no personal sacrifices, etc. It's just game. But will such person act rightly in real world when it would eventually cost him something? I think he is less likely.

Whole western culture is based on selfish acts and ignorance of cause and consequences, well, it at least seems so. If someone acts selfishly without taking consequences into account in game, where it gives him nothing of real value, how do you think such person would act in real world where there is a lot to be gained by being selfish and inconsiderate of consequences.

Errrr - no. A dictatorship will force you to do something whether you want to or not. In this case, you still have a choice. Play the game with or without the skills you consider "broken". Or ultimately leave the game and do something else......

As for listening to the player base as customers, I agree. Any company that wilfully ignores its consumer base will not last long. However, it is axiomatic that those who perceive some sort of shortcoming are those that are most likely to complain. Product suppliers must balance these overt criticisms against the silent (majority) who may well be content with the product. It's a difficult balancing act

Occasionally, a Ralph Nader may come along, but that's pretty rare!

I know folks don't like the "don't like it, don't play it" argument, or claim it's a non-argument.

What about the "even if it gets nerfed, the next thing will just take it's place" argument?

I think it's an okay argument, PvP has experienced it for years, and Anet could better invest resources in GW2 than trying to "fix" skills in GW PvE. Is the Splinter/Barrage-Pet still not the standard Tombs run build to use for a quick setup and victory? Remember all those nerfs?

As far as build diversity goes, PvE will still experience skill buffs as buffs don't need to be split for PvE play, which allows PvE players to experiment a bit, which is fun for plenty of folks.

Elitist groups will still be Elitist, and folks will voice their opinions on forums no matter what Anet does, so I think it's in Anet's best interest to invest their resources on their next product, and brainstorm to avoid these problems altogether.

You got pwned there, tmakinen. Deal with it.

My recently deceased father-in-law had this writing on his living room wall:

"Give me strength to change what I can,
and to accept what I cannot,
and wisdom to tell those two apart."

Would you say that there exists such a thing as a perfect hammer? It is a very simple tool of extremely ancient origin, surely by now it should have been advanced to perfection? However, what works for a mason doesn't work a shoemaker and what works for a carpenter doesn't work for a blacksmith. All those people would have an opinion on what works best for them and if they were very single-minded in their profession they might even believe that their concept of a 'perfect hammer' would be the perfect hammer. The perfect hammer doesn't exist, so it's time to learn a lesson. You can either do your job with the tool that is available and tolerate imperfection, or if the tool is completely unsuitable for the task try to find some other tool. You fail to learn the lesson if you demand that the tool should be modified according to your concept of a perfect tool, when other people who are also using that tool have different ideals.

Now substitute the simple tool with something much more complex like a society or a virtual world. The first step towards wisdom is to acknowledge that either of them is not revolving around your navel, and this is the most valuable lesson that an on-line game can teach (since single player games do revolve around the player). Learn to compromise, learn to take things as they are and make the most out of what you've got, and when there are problems change what you can. More often than not the only thing that you can change is your own attitude and actions. That would be a great lesson to be learned for many people.

Uh-huh, I certainly didn't. Sab's attempt at a retort was such a pathetic failure that I didn't even care to reply but apparently there are people who get swayed by logical fallacies, so let's have a look. I read the opinion once to find out what it was about (reading is a necessary requirement of finding out whether to agree or disagree), wrote a reply (because this is a discussion forum) and then I was done with it. Specifically, I didn't keep reading it over and over while complaining how the person should change his/her opinion to match mine. For all I care, s/he is free to keep that opinion, and I keep mine because I find it better. So, the retort should have been: "If you don't like his opinion, don't use it". And I don't

The PvE community had a "huge influence" on the balance of the game?
When did THAT happen?

I think that was addressed a few posts back.
Because GWEN has absolutely nothing to offer outside of Ursan.
Yet, they want it to sell.

It's not like the people that matter in this don't like your opinion - it's just that they don't care for it because it would make them lose money.

Nobody is forcing you to get on these game forums, read my opinion, and post a response to it. And many people HAVE quit the game to do something else because of changes made to it.

I understand your points, but that has nothing to do with what is being discussed. This is a Guild Wars forum for Guild Wars fans to talk about Guild Wars, and that is exactly what people are using it for. People using the "if you don't like it don't use it" argument are still ridiculous.

You're missing the whole point of games: they should not be like real life

In real life, everything is not in cartoon motion (apart from on a Mika album), and you don't have healing guns that magically turn people invincible for a short time.

Neither can you summon spirits that spew balls of what looks like gunk at your enemies (although that would be cool).

The whole point of a game is whether it's fun or not. If it once was fun and then was changed so it wasn't, you're going to want to make it fun again, instead of just accepting it, because you know it can be done.

I think the if you don't like it don't use it argument is = variety.

if you want to play style A you can, if you want to play style B you can i don't think i need to go on until Z.

But when people says don't use it if you don't like it, I think it means that every player have a choice, actually many choices in how you play Guild Wars, because the attributes aren't locked, your second profession is changeable, so instead of wanting to get rid of something that some player thinks is over-powered (to many it might not be, just look at how many players are enjoying Ursan Blessing) why not leave it and use something else that you think are more challenging to your play style.

Lets all go E/Mo smite Pve! yays

If you truly believe that, well, I feel sorry for you.

I couldn't agree more

That might be a warrantlessly optimistic attitude. Usually, when a game ceases to be fun the one that changed was the player instead of the game. A man cannot bathe twice in the same river and all that. I would hazard a guess that if ANet reseted the game to the exact state in which it was the day Prophecies came out it would cause an outcry of proportions that has never been witnessed before (and we've had some pretty good ones here along the way).

Don't get me wrong. I originally chose GW because of some wonderfully innovative features that set it apart from everything else in its genre. Many of those features have been since diluted by deliberate changes to the game, and I have been annoyed on occasion. However, that is the nature of the beast. If I was unable or unwilling to cope with change I would have bought an off-line game instead. I can still make the game fun for myself, and I don't need consumables or overpowered PvE skills for that, or the buffed Ether Renewal either if it comes to that. If at some point that ceases to be true, I will thank the developers for many fun and memorable moments, uninstall and do something else. As I see it, I have already gotten more than my money's worth of entertainment out of the series. Since I don't pay a monthly fee I don't feel entitled to demand any changes to the game at this point. In fact I'm pretty thankful that the servers are still running at all.

I HEARD USING CAPSLOCK MAKES YOUR VOICE HEARD!1one!11!

Calm down. I think the reason people are using the "don't like it? don't use it" arguement is because gw is an instanced game. It literally has the ability to be single player. Thus, those that H/H most of the time (ie. 95% of the guru community it seems) are the only ones going to be affected by its gameplay.

I do still care about the pve aspect of the game, yet...unless they change ursan (which is THE staple build for elite missions etc) it won't really matter which skills they buff as the majority will continue to use ursan. So for the moment i am passive. But ofcourse if they do something to revert something that was absurdly overpowered such as soul reaping having no timer, then that would be gamebreaking.

QFT. The only thing left in this game fun is playing with guildies, because this aspect of GW is not yet destroyed. But don't worry, they will do something to make us suffer.

Oh, right, and some overpowered pve skills, nerfed pvp skills, elites to cap (all the same, it's just that some elites are faster to cap then in other campaigns) and almost same looking dungeons. Oh and more golds/greens to grind. And titles to grind.

I'm pretty sure you missed everything I said.

ANet have implemented features such as titles, reconnects, and so forth, that originate from the community. While they've taken some suggestions on board, they haven't been taking PvErs' balancing advice seriously until the recent skill split.

they nerfed the shit out of SR already, no need to do so again. seriously.

with ursan: yeah, it's broken, but i still enjoy pugging with it cos it's easy to find a party and i've made friends doing so. I can get by fine without it, I got Canthan Vanq/Guardian and all 3 prot titles without even doing the Ursan quest. I could still do it fine now, but this way it's a bit easier. It helps people with hero set ups as everyone can be regarded as the same primary profession. All in all, this is just another "QQ I'm too good for Ursan" thread.

I don't mind changes. Changes should be made every so often, in only for balance terms, and sometimes it's good to nerf a whole bunch of widely used skills and buff some other ones just to change the meta (as long as they know what they're doing, which isn't always the case).

What hacks me, and most of the people here, off, is the changes that deviated it from the game it was originally meant to be. Like Brother whatshisface said, it seems ANet have deliberately chosen a path that appeals to the lowest common denominator, the one which has trouble breathing with mouths closed and who read the Sun, by introducing skills which require huge amounts of grind (skill > time and all that) and not paying enough attention to the one area of the game that made GW fun and unique (GvG and the amazing PvP system).

Let's put it this way: if GW was good, people wouldn't have left in droves to join Fury, a game that promised to deliver on all the points ANet didn't. Never mind the game was shit, it was the thought of a game like GW in its prime which attracted everyone.

When they said they would seperate PvE/PvP skillbalance I was actually hoping that they would balance PvE seperate from PvP. I don't mind skillbalances at all, only a lot of balances were with no regard to PvE. Anyway, my hope was short lived when I read they were just going to revert some PvE stuff and that's it.

This game is broken. Period.

What really puzzles me is, where did the good, thinking devs gone? Ah yes, GW2.

My guess is, this is the problem. The biggest minds of GW - those, who knew it all the way down and from the inside, are somewhere else. We are left with inexperienced devs lacking the level of knowledge to alter the skills in a way that will not destroy the balance.

I don't really mind PvP being cut off from PvE, i always wanted it. But, as someone already said, wanting to be cut out from PvP balance DOESN'T MEAnNwe want to be cut away from ALL BALANCE.

Although I wouldn't necessarily describe the large majority of the playerbase with such ... scornful terms, I agree with you, at least in principle. However, there is another, very utilitarian point of view. Bills must be paid to keep the servers running, and for one, I haven't given ANet any money for a good while. So if ANet hands out bread and circuses to make the unwashed masses flock in to keep the boat floating then more power to them. As long as I am not forced to use the shortbus version it's all fine and dandy. I don't mind if others gain an 'unfair advantage' over me when bear-rampaging through explorables as long as it doesn't happen in my instance.

Well, I really don't care if you find me ridiculous.
IMHO there is NO problem in the first place. And like I said before: I still haven't seen ONE good argument why there should be any problem at all... What on earth does it matter if player A uses Ursan and player B doesn't? What do ursan haters care if others are ursan lovers? What difference does it make??? What exactly IS the "problem" you are talking about? Read the next two quotes. That just sums it up for me.

QFT. thank you two for explaining my thoughts so clearly. I often get swept away ranting too much :P

It's not an issue with the players using the skills. They're not even part of the issue. The problem is the introduction of ridiculous PvE grind skills shows the developers are more than willing to abandon their original game design if they think they can make a profit.

This erodes confidence that they will produce quality games in the future.

I am in the same boat with you. Changes to the game really killed it for me, but I don't agree that it is "the nature of the beast". There are many online games that have stuck to their original formula and kept their playerbases. Guild Wars has done a 180 from its original formula.

Usually the main reason for leaving a game is boredom. From my experiences, I have seen an unusually high number of players leaving Guild Wars because of changes made to the game rather than simply getting bored. From that experience, it leads me to conclude that Anet isn't doing something right in that area, even if they have done some other things right.

A lot of people have done just that. Some people are simply pointing out possible reasons why. Perhaps making PvE too easy is one of them?

You don't see a problem?? Are you serious? Well then honestly there is nothing I can say to you to make you realize there is a problem.

Let me just say this. A lot of people liked the original idea of Guild Wars. A lot of people gave Anet money because they liked the original idea of Guild Wars. Now that original idea has completely changed, and some people that gave Anet money and liked the franchise how it was really hate what happened. As Avarre brilliantly stated....it erodes confidence in those players that anything quality will be released in the future.

You read my mind. What concerns me greatly is if this shall be repeated when GW2 becomes no longer as profitable as it once was

Do remember that players themselves never actually requested imbalanced skills in PVE, they were just tired of getting the nerf stick all the time since they were happy and enjoying themselves playing with the previous skills. Neither were PVE skills or something like Ursan Blessing ever requested, we just wanted a seperation to our skills so that PVP nerfs wouldnt affect them.

When Ether Renewal was nerfed at first (10s to 7s), I dont think it had anything to do with PVP because back then, Ether Prodigy was the elementalists chice of elite for GVG, and in HA it was either twin attunement air ellys or GoE Erathquake / Aftershock.

Ether Renewal was mostly used for farming, and they nerfed it because of that. Now for some reason, they buffed up this skill for PVE and farming, after years of complaining.

Many people (particularly monks and ellys) hated the Mystic Regen nerf for farming even more then Ether Renewal, yet that was left untouched. No big deal, they just went back to using healing breeze instead.

Solo farming has taken huge hits with nerfs over the last few years, mostly due to balancing the skills for PVP play. While I would like to see a lot of the skills restored for solo use, they dont need to be as overbuffed as Ether Renewal has been.

Ether Renewal has become far more then a useful solo elite now, it can provide imba party support on E/Mo's, with far better energy management then soul reaping ever had. That is broken. However, a simple stoneflesh aura and mystic regen revert for PVE wouldnt affect much other then solo farming.

It seems that the forum majority arent keen on changes like these and continuously use the 'lern 2 adapt' rule after skills are nerfed. But it was never about learning to adapt, it was about having skills that players used to enjoy using and found fun in PVE nerfed for PVP balance. Anet misunderstood this desire and just provided us with imba ridiculous PVE only skills at first, and were then faced with more QQ's, particularly after the WY and LoD nerfs. Then the forum majority would just say 'Lern 2 adapt nub or use PVE skills instead'.

It isnt about adapting, it is about having fun in the game. There were plenty of active guilds in the game that were made up of farmers, I were in a huge farming alliance back then, and believe me they hated PVE nerfs. They just didnt post about it on forums like I do. However, stuff like imba PVE skills and UB arent what we wanted, we just wanted the skills back to what they used to be before getting nerfed all the time.

GW is not about idea but about game you are actually playing and although you are fully entitled to your opinions and tastes still i can't understad why you can't play gw like you once was ? No matter how bad you dislike the changes i dont find any of them mandatory or forced on players. I don't have to use PvE skills, consumables, heroes etc..at the end of the day it is still my character with 8 skills slots just like in old days.

Well it can also be percived as broadening of the game design to give people more choices and let players to decide what they like and how they wan t to play the game as i don't see the changes having mandatory impact.

While that is an apt quote, your analogy and further arguments are flawed.

You assume things cannot be changed when the exact opposite is true. Guild Wars is malleable, and the community plays a large part in shaping the game. Tying this in to something else I responded to, many changes today derive from our complaints. Of course, there are things that simply cannot or will not be changed. Here I would agree that the criticizer should move on to a different game. However, even if the complaint will not have an impact on the current game, good suggestions are useful for ANet's future developments (i.e. GW2).

We are arguing about balance - something that is always changing and something that should demand constant input from the community. As an example, it's been clear for a long time that the devs cannot manage a good PvP update by themselves. Last year they decided to implement top GvGers' suggestions almost verbatim. The devs recognized that the players know the game much better than they do, and while balance updates are still lacking, each update they roll out addresses more issues than if the devs did not listen to complaints at all.

PvE balance (with the emphasis on "balance") is something they have failed to address entirely. The skill split and the resulting skill update did nothing but set a precedent that they are willing to stoop down and eliminate a part of what makes Guild Wars unique. This further distances the part of the community that enjoy the original design and discourage those players from considering their future games.

This is absolutely within ANet's power to change, and the fact that people are becoming more vocal about it gives me confidence that something might be done. Until then, or until the devs release a statement "tough luck, this is how it's going to be", people will speak up on the hope that their opinions will be taken as seriously as the ones that turned the game into this mess in the first place.

Actually, they aren't. You just completely missed the point. What I was saying was that the ideal game is not a well defined concept. Even you cannot argue that every member on these forums agree on where the game should be going, much less the player base in general. It is simply impossible to modify the game so that everybody would be happy with it. That's the part you should just accept. The part that you can change is how you play (or don't) the game yourself.

I really have to ask

Did anyone...and I mean...anyone...honestly expect PvE to actually get "balance" here? If so, I really have to laugh at you. Basically, PvPers have called what was gonna happen if things split, and hey guess what it happened, and what they called, happened.

PvP balances fixed broken things, whether you like it or not, Soul Reaping, MM, Paragons, and such, all were (and still are) broken. And some of those are even worse in PvE. If SR is good in PvP with a limited number ofpeople, how good is it when there's like 30 monsters? Way better.

Basically, balance has always been for PvP. That's the way it is, because money & prizes are on the line. And it's people fighting people. If something becomes broken, it becomes frustrating, frustration leads to quitting. In PvE, there's a lot less people who become frustrated at something being broken, because monsters almost never use the broken stuff to their full potential. Players do.

All the skill balance separation accomplished, was exactly what was intended. Throw random stuff at the PvE side to keep them happy to make up for a lack of content, and enjoy the new found flexibility in PvP balance since Izzy can finally do his job without having a bunch of people who can't seem to grasp how SR or Paras are overpowered breathing down his neck.

But we can have ideal game - game made for ourselves. Guildwars used to be that game till about 1 year ago. There can be another ideal game, made for other kind of gamers. Guildwars 2 (for example).

If, some people are unhappy with game they are playing, why should they settle for something that is band aided together rather than something engineered from bottom up to be to their liking. Why remake GW.

This is it. IMBA stuff has no point in existing. GW partially converted to diablo 2 does not work. Same as grind titles: GW partially converted to ever quest does not work either. It works as GW. Thats what it was designed to be.

Should devs want to create hybrid of GW/EQ/D2, they need to make new game with that vision (which is what they are doing). But here is gist of problem: They might have vision but they can't follow it properly. They break stuff that didn't really need fixing. They can't decide what kind of game they want to make. Not exactly traits you want from your MMO developer.

Current situation is like FPS developers trying to please RPG fans by adding +1 UZI and stuff like that to game instead of making action RPG, while that action RPG is in production.

Ursan and PvE skills do not broaden the original game design; they represent a complete U-turn from it. The original game design was about player skill being more important than time spent (grind), and equality of PvE and PvP.

- PvE skills encourage grind to maximise their power.
- PvE skills make players far more powerful in PvE than in PvP.
- The PvE/PvP skill split also makes players more powerful in PvE than in PvP.
- This means that PvE rewards players more for the time they've spent grinding than for their skill.
- It also means that PvE is less challenging, therefore requires less skill.

And before someone starts rambling to me about how I can choose not to use PvE skills to make it more challenging: that doesn't change any of the things I've just mentioned. The original design has been violated - that is a fact.

And you completely missed my point. What's happening is that the devs are moving the game towards a brainless spamfest, and the part of the player base that would like to see the old GW ideas restored is here complaining. No one is asking for a *perfect* game where *everybody* is happy. That's obviously impossible and anyone who's given any thought to this subject would've implicitly acknowledged and accepted that. However, what you need to accept is that many changes are player-driven, and as players, anyone with an opinion is going to share it because it might just get something done.

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No one expected PvE to be as rigorously balanced as PvP, but it wasn't unreasonable to expect certain glaring imbalances to take modest hits.

But it's you who are missing the point: no changes made to pve gw are mandatory, so no one is forced to grind etc. It's impossible to make changes appealing to everyone but in my opinion it's far better to leave it in hands of the players whether thay like brainless spamfest and grinding or challenging skill tweaking then to make change that affects everyone no matter if they like it or not.

Making something challenging for yourself makes the challenge boring. They are the same enemies with the same builds and comparable AI. I would rather have the difficulty made for me instead of making it marginly difficult myself, because I still have control over stupidity.

WRONG!!!

Ether Renewal was nerfed due to dual smite ele's being everywhere in PvP. The only real PvE nerf for a skill was the prot bond nerf.
Wrong again. It started with factions where players were forced to grind reputation points to proceed further in the game. It has only gotten worse since with the providing of skills/items linked to the grind.
This is the part you and others do not seem to grasp, so I'll quote again someone else who has said it:

But it's PvE we are talking here. I agree, i totally fail to grasp how exeactly things you mentioned have impact on my gameplay, why should i care if player A is brainless skill spammer and player B is masterfully skilled, they both playe in their own instanced world, kill some computer mobs, such things does not affect me at all. In no way i see game design violated. I don't fell less rewarded in pve then those who have maxed pve skilles simply because i don't even compare my pve experience with others people experince. In my opinion anyone can play in pve the way one wants.

and btw even in begining of prophecies it was alwayes more then just skill in pve simply because they were elites to capture and capping them can easily be called mini-grind : going over and over for already completed mission waitng for a certain boss to spawn [This means that PvE rewards players more for the time they've spent grinding than for their skill]