An Open Letter to ANet - Part 2

I should point out that ANET does in fact read these type of well written posts, and does acknowledge well worded responses. The post and previous open letter are both well written, to the point, and very educated. They lack the typical rant style, and instead show a genuine care for the game.


I would like to also point my previous post regarding some of the issues discussed in this very thread. While Avarre's post goes into more detail on several counts, some of what my initial post regarding specific areas holds true.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10204029

This is in no way an attempt to divert attention from this thread, as full attention should be given to this well written, and extremely truthful piece of forum literature. Avarre, as a veteran player and long standing member of the Guild Wars community at large, you have my full support and backing of everything you have mentioned herein, and I wish ArenaNet my best wishes and highest hopes in developing the future of the game I have come to call my own. Guild Wars is my game, and always will be my game. I will never fully turn my back on it, but I may very well turn it off for a very, very long time.

All the well wishes one can conjure,

Rahja (Connor)

Wrong. I still say the majority things the changes are good. And I say, there is a difference in how you define "master a game", when you play Super Mario Bros., a FPS or an (A)RPG. Do you have to master every single skill? Do you have to use the best possible build? How do you define mastering an (A)RPG??

For SMB is was mentioned above, that a flawless run through would be "mastering" it. So run through Guild Wars with no death as fast as possible would be "mastering" it. But wouldn´t a real master do that with just a half full skill bar?? Or a full bar with only 9 in the attributes? Where do you draw the line?

And why can´t you "master" the game for yourself, when others are using Ursan??

That was the dumbest thing said on this thread. Didn't say you were, just the remark.

mmm, guess I missed the part where Guild Wars became a single player game that you needed to modify original concepts in to make fun

Such as Avarres remark about the grind. Its not forced on anyone and you can get enough to use the skills just by playing through the game.

It is getting dumb and dumber! people calling other people names and challenging them to list games and what not, its not even about what OP has posted anymore, its reduce to another pve skills vs no pve skills thread like so many other thread on this forum.

I give up. I seriously give up. This thread has turned to garbage. Nothing will ever be better than Avarre's OP. The end.

Let's see, Proph also took me about a month at start.
Factions would have taken me about 3 weeks but did not like the city area at first.
Nightfall was dead easy.

But, between Prophecies and Nightfall I gained a lot of experience.
I doubt I would have been able to complete both Proph and Fact in 6 weeks and the three chapters in 9.
Unless investing a serious amount of time.

And I doubt you've played all side quests in those chapters.
Are side quests grind?


Nope, the main reason I still play is because I enjoy playing and chatting with others.
Grind for pointless titles? Didn't really happen, I got most of my titles by just having fun with others. I doubt playing with others and achieving things together is now considered grind....
And besides LB on my mesmer I don't recall doing dumb runs over and over again.

Repeating old content over and over again?
Well, done that in the past, again, for fun.
It was a lot of fun monking in THK or Hell's and helping others improve how they played.
For me it was all about finding the best strategy to do certain things.
Why do most teams try X and fail and what are ways to avoid that.

When looking at the skill > time statement that is frequently used in these kinds of discussions, one needs to keep one thing in mind.
Skill is not something you have, it's something you gain by experience.
And experience means doing things and learning from it.

Let's take a sidestep to martial arts.
One might be very talented but it would still require a certain amount of time to gain a certain degree.
One needs to learn the moves and then learn to use those moves subconsious. That takes time and practice.
In a game like Guild Wars you don't need that kind of dedication unless you want to play in the very high end.
But installing the game, beating it and stating that you have mastered it is far from the truth. You've beaten it, not mastered.

When my guild started playing GvG ages ago it was easy.
The leader would give each member a profession and build to run.
With just one question: do you think you understand how to use that build?
After a battle it would be evaluation time to see where things could be improved. Professions, builds and how skills were used.
PvE lacks this mechanism. People only want to beat the content once because they have another goal.
If they fail almost no-one asks why they failed and how to improve.
No, the team falls apart and people look for others that might succeed.
People stopped learning from failure. They don't question their part, it's always 'the others'. Many don't play as a team.

But that has very little to do with the lack of content in Guild Wars.
And that seems to be your main argument for stating that Guild Wars is a bad game.
The content is still there, the possibility to gain experience is still there.

The only thing that seems to have changed is the way PUG teams play.
A year ago PUG was dead. Now it's alive. Only now those PUG teams also form in guilds and alliances. They are called Ursan teams.
I have a very strong and outspoken opinion on that and my guildies know that.

You're wrong. Can't you tell by the amount of time it took me? Without sidequests, Factions won't last any decent gamers, casual or not, longer than a week.

As a matter of fact, I killed Shiro in 3 days on my Cantha elementalist (second character since my mesmer from Prophecies). So much for PvE content.

I keep forgetting how these features are unique to GW.

NOT.

Because people can't have "fun" and also get good rewards in other games?

See above.

The very little content the game has is still very little, you mean.

PuG is alive because everyone uses Ursan. Am I supposed to tell my friends that?

- "Oh hey, this game is good you know. If you agree to use this overpowered skill you can play with people in a team and steamroll through everything."

- "I thought you tell me the game has 10 classes with tons of different skills to mix&match?"

- "...who cares?"

As I said, my friends are not stupid enough.

Actually, you are by the majority of the community. Go to wherether and you'll see more "Ursanway r10 only" PuGs around. You need to grind a bit more to get r3 in all of the titles, same for r5 for armour and all of the skills' power, you need to grind in order to get this.

No, you are not forced, but you are limited to guildies and H/H if you choose not to grind Norn rank, but the point is that there is still alot of grind in the game.

Maybe because your friends are not my friends?
And I'm not you?

My friends I would recommend GW to won't complete Factions in a week. Not because they would be bad, but because they don't have the time to do it.
There are those things like job, study, girlfriend, wife, houshold and stuff that also need attention. Enabling them to play for a couple of hours a week.
And since they would be new to the game and it still takes time to learn the mechanics they won't be able to complete that fast.

They are also not the people who seek fast reward.
So if something takes 30 mins instead of 15, who cares, as long as you had fun and completed.
If you have highly comptetive friends, like a colleague of mine who used to play high end WoW, GW is not the game you are looking for (anymore).

Maybe I'm getting old and just don't care about achievement anymore....

Because he shouldn't have to if you have half a clue about gaming.

I listened to Obama and Hillary speeches as well, but, I'm still gonna vote for McCain....so what's your point? lol Anet can read and even acknowledge any post it doesn't mean they are going to change their position because of it though.

PvE always has been and always will be Time>Skill, its just not possible build a game that isn't that way without an amazing AI system creating true random yet logical actions for the monsters you fight, changing up who your fighting and what builds they use....

PvP is Skill>Time, that is where it is meant to be and where it should remain.

So basically people who have things like "job, study, girlfriend, wife, hous(e)hold and stuff" that also need attention and can't play much per week don't deserve a better game?

Bioware won't sue you simply because you play Mass Effect for 2 years and still can't finish it.

Trust me. It's true.

We all know that. So what's YOUR point then? Are you just here because you're afraid that Anet will listen to Avarre and those who agree with the letter and NERF your precious Ursan? Seriously?

How cheap.

We voice our opinion IN HOPE that Anet might listen and consider what we have to say. If they take some action, cool. If they don't, fine. There's nothing for us to lose. As customers we speak with our money all the time. Your coming here telling people to "shut up" is totally unnecessary.

Yeah, because skill > time is elitist attitude and it should stay in that god damn pvp! Lemme show those lvl 10 noobs how awesum I am with my eternal blade and fow armar.

If it was to help "descrimination", they wouldn't have made the PvE skills linked to a title. Not to mention needing to own the campaign in order to use them, so you still have campaign discrimination.

And people won't need consumables when they can storm through the areas. Consumables are just more part of the problem.

Then it really makes no sense to provide overpowered skills and other additions that make the grinding for titles go faster.

We already trashed the "don't like it, don't use it" argument into oblivion.

And why is that? Because we don't see a max exodus of people complaining? We didn't see one before all of these additions. The game was still doing amazingly well. And besides, you can never know what the majority thinks.

The majority doesn't just know about all these additions, they just don't care. All of these additions have been aimed at a minority of players that are impatient, only care about themselves getting the "phat loots", and don't understand the need to become better at the game.

That's not how it used to be. What was wrong with it before?

I think its obvious.

Some people who played a LOT didn't excell in GWs thanks to intelligence handicap.

Now, we can't have those people fail areas after playing for years while newbies can rock'n'roll throught em. It makes them feel bad.

Answer is obvious: Put there some grind to that makes em better at guildwars! That way not only they can do stuff, they can also become elitists and make that stuff standard for doing everything. No longer will those pesky newbies rock n roll areas! Now they must grind like all other decent human beings to r10 to join our new elite.

We cant have someone who just finished campaing and bought 8 skills do some elite stuff, now can we. Nono, we have to make sure they have to grind up. Othwerwise, where is the fun? Without spending time they just cant have fun! Were doing it for them!

GWs sucked obviously because ulike other RPGs stuff does not blow up when you look at it after you played long enough. Its what RPG is about. Roll Playing for rolling opoents over. Now its fixed in GWs. Now if only minion limit was removed, soulreapign resored and got some buff like 2 enery per point. And "Kill em all" skill with 5e, 1/4 cast, no reachrge thatkill eneverytinhg inside aggro range ... meh, its too weak, whole radar range. maybe drop energy cost to 1. And make it instant. OFC, it shuld be ballanced by being usable only by people who have 10 million XP. (no, 5million. I only have 5. I should be able to use it too, damn it, i played for 3 years!)

/sigh.

i agree with the OP that adding pve skills that completely ignore the profession and attribute points system is a not so good idea. but i wouldn't put it quite so melodramatically. people tend to look at the old days through rose tinted glasses, pve 'skill' in the old days used to be about exploiting game mechanics and googling cookie cutter builds.
the leet pugs used to farm sorrows furnace with the gear trick or farmed tombs with pet barrage or whatever was the quickest and easiest way to make a lot of gold. its not really that different from r10 ursan groups. except that now its an official exploit, even easier and works everywhere.

Ugh so what if it would be our fault ?

What if anet kept on making the game harder and harder for the veterans (look at DOA).

Of course the "new" people don't stand a change. They have nowhere near enough knowledge to tackle DOA, but at the other hand they can enter DOA. (so what I'm saying is: they completed NF, so they have the "right" to do the area(well according to anet at least, why else would they make it a requirement to have completed NF first ?))

Shouldn't we help them, instead of letting them die out there ?

I mean, the area is that hard due to US. The smallest thing we can do is help em... they have as much right to do the area as we do.

If we would help them, they would at least stand a chance.

The only thing that is helping the "new people" is guildwiki and PVXwiki.

If someone asks for help to you what do you ?
a. redirect him/her to guildwiki (I'm guilty to this one, and i think most people here are)
b. actually help him/her

What do they learn from guildwiki:
-which tricks they can use to win (taking path Y avoids mobs , if you kill monster X first mob Z wont show up etc etc)
- what skillbars they can use

But will they now understand HOW to play GW ?
According to me they don't.
They don't learn WHY they are using those skills.
At best they know in witch order to push the numbers.

Problem is: in the elite areas, there is but one skillbar: the cookiecutter one. (for the new people !!!!)
Always was and assumably (unless anet comes up with some genious idea) always will be.
Cookiecutters builds never were very custimisable and assumably (unless anet comes up with some genious idea) always will be.
Cookiecutters builds don't contain all the proffesions (unless...).

Guess what anet did have an idea of how to fix it, mabye even to fix entire PVE.

Problem is,... it is called PVE skills. Like it or not it was anet only chance to make everyone happy.

The other options would be: most people would never complete the elite areas. (Some here seem to find that ONLY the ELITE should be able to complete the ELITE areas. Aside from it being twice the word elite, I see no reason. I mean you also have ELITE tome, ELITE skill, ELITE armor etc. /sarcasm
The way I see it elite means it is endgame, and is completed AFTER you complete the campaign. Completing the campaign shows that you have enough skills to complete the ELITE area, IMO)
-the veterans helping the new people, but we all know that will never happen.
-anet making elite areas less hard, but that would give the same complains as adding PVE skills.

The only thing I fully agree with Avarre at is the CR part.

sidenote: if anet wouldn't buff the monsters to a zillion health, but would give them PVP worthy skillbars, then even less people would be able to do the area without PVE skills...

Ok Ok I have nowhere near the knowledge to know this...
but according to me monsters with alot of health just take long to kill, monsters with PVP worthy skillbars would take even longer and assumably give WAAAY more trouble then the "buffed" ones.

and another sidenote: cookiecutters builds don't take more or less buttonmashing then UB.

I assume most of you remember the old angelic bonder for the deep HM ?
You had to hit ONE skill on recharge. ONE !!!

And the monks in your group don't have much work either, mainly hitting ONE skill on recharge too. (seed of life)

PS:
Yes I use UB (but TNTF/SY even more)
Yes I agree that PVE skills destroyed alot of the fun in PVE.

But I find anet did the right thing.
And IMO, it is our fault. (so also mine)

I agree with wazz. I (a begginer here) stood for hours in ToA just trying to get some info besides wiki and cookie cutter builds , however i get laughed at , and the fact that I don't play the holy trinity or imbagon made the search for groups even harder.
Also , getting help from an veteran is less likely to happen than getting a cristalyne in Kourna.
Now 2 cookie cutter builds replaced all other , to me that's good.
If I had a choice between standing in a outpost praying for a group without class discrimination , and abandoning my class for an hour or two to finish the job , I would choose the second.

I am in agreement with wazz, i agree with most of what you said except I don't use Ursan or PvE skill, cos I don't like them.

Kostolomac, most players are evil/ignorant/impatient (take your pick lol), you are a beginner, I already play for 31 months people still discriminated against my newly created survivor necromancer who do not have elite skills yet, cos I choose not to capture any yet until she successfully complete the survivor rank 3)

Player: Ping bar please
Me: ping
Player: Sorry, NO.
*kick*
then player advertise again: Fast mission group, lf players with elite skills....

I proceed on my own to complete the mission (Naphui Quarters) and got myself the master rewards without heros, hench only also without elite skills :P lol

PS: i remember it was a Slayer of All 10 player lolololo too.

Not exactly, as long as you don't overdo it and chose wisely in which skills to give to the foes. Yes, AI is superior in interupting, ... which could be a pain, unless you limit the amount of interupts you give them.

Of course you'll have to bring more to the fight than just some tanking ability and pure DPS (preferably AOE) for the rest. Mesmers or rangers could actually go and shut certain foes down while the rest kills off others.

Would it be harder ? not realy, at least not any harder than DoA without PvE skills/consumables.

Would it require more skill / gameplay knowledge ? Yes, of course it would, but then again no one is holding anyone back to learn to play better in PvE.

you want another bush?

on topic

To be honest not many are looking at the majority. The majority still enjoy the game immensly. unfortunately, high-end gaming requires them to have to have that dreaded skill Ursan.

depends on who is "We".

But it didn't do it the way that veterans wanted.

Veterans wanted smarter mobs. Mobs with smater skillsets (and secondaries). Random spawns. Puzzle-like patrolls.

Not imba buffed mobs.

If it was done the smart way, everyone could stand chance as they could set foothold in area without wiping on first mob.

There are a lot of problems.

You need newbie smart enough to listen to you. Then you need him to be able to cooperate.

That is insanely hard.

First, people who don't have much experience, they can finish NF with trash builds and trash tactics. Stuff that "Works". Chancing to new stuff is scary. I have seen it tons of times. Even smallest requests to skillbar changes are at best ignored.

Then, they likely met semi-bad player who showed them ropes and froze their progress by making stupid but very beliveable statements (monk shall have only healing or prot and such.). Advice that was good asnd worked well at L10 is bad at elite areas. And don;t get me started about refuting bad wiki information. You just cant compete with that authority, result is that you are labeled as noob and not listened to.

Some very good advice goes against common sense. They might get to think that YOU are bad player. There is very little you can do after they decite that.

Sure, I possibly could make 7 perceptive, smart and willing newbies to use good builds and tactics and beat DoA. I have done similar things, but i had authority to begin with.

It is just not worth it with random people. Damaged nerves, and psychical trauma ... its just too much to handle and still have fun. And people dont like being comanded much. So its not fun for newbies to listen to some random bossy person either.

They could've made the Normal modes of the elite areas easier. This would not only provide them access to the area but to prepare them for the real deal in Hard Mode. The fact that they made HM easier shows that their not catering to the "woeful pugger" but more to an annoying, whiny, "gimme it nao" crowd.

Lack of resources I think is to blame for that. From what I've read on Regina's wiki talk page, it sounds like they barely have enough as it is.

Yet the game itself isnt the one making the grind, Thats a whole different issue and its been ingame since shortly after the start of the game. Players making a force on grind to be in there groups to be a certain rank or even a certain class are plain and simple retarded always have been and always will be. That is where the beginning of the nerfing started the push towards a 1 type of trinity play.

And your point. I didnt say that. See above. However since you didnt really thrash it at all it stands as a truth. You may not like it but it is in fact a truth.
Unless your gonna try to claim someone is holding a gun to your head to play a certain way.

Hold it right there. Yes that argument was thrashed. Continue thread.

If it wasn't for the optional grind in the game, enhancing the power of these skills we wouldn't be having this problem. Tell me, in what online game will people not use the higher ranks of a title that enhances a skill to their advantage? Not even me or anyone else. Why? Because you want the best of the best.

The players decide on what they want in their groups, but you could actually find people who didn't run Ursan and will accept a balanced gameplay then.

I would rather have trinityway, as there are enough variables for it, PvE skills or not. At least that build is around many skills and not 9.

And stop with the DLDU stuff. It ruins the thread further.

I do agree with zwei2stein's posting, while I still understand why wazz made his comment.

You need a group who respect your authority or is willing to take a risk when introducing a 'new' kind of play.
That won't happen very often in PUG groups.
They know failure and PUG seems to be about avoiding failure as much as possible.

Then there is the problem that you can give someone a build but they might not be able to play it.
Back to my GvG days, it would take a couple of practice rounds to master a new build.
When the entire team build was new it was not only learning to play the build, but also learning to play as a team again.
Again something that's not possible in PUG groups.
And even with some new guildies.....

Consider a past event involving a new guildie.
He started to ask for help on a specific mission.
My first reaction: what is going wrong?
No solid reply.
So I asked: How do you think you can improve the team?
Again no solid reply.
So I asked: If you want me to help you, which profession should I take best?
Same silence.
He just had no clue about why he failed, how to improve and how I could be of best help.
I want to help other players but when you are about halfway a game and you don't have a clue what you are doing I'm not going to waste much time on you.
Specially not when you claim that you want to finish the game that same day....

That guildie was gone quick.
He got some help from me and others in the guild but in the end the only thing he seemed to want was for others to play his game.
I don't want to be responsible for such a player walking around in endgame content....

to the OP.. Well stated I agree with 100% of your post

/signed


I read most of the replies on this... not all. specifically the last 10 or so pages, but one thing I would like to comment on is the people saying anet shouldnt cater to the veterans, using that as an excuse to make PvE ridiculously brainless.

There was NO guides or ursan or SY or TNTF or consumables when guild wars began... and Im willing to bet (because I wasnt here in the very beginning) that some PvE was hard (THK) and alot of people had to do it over and over. So PvE wasnt brainless or super easy, people had to develop their skill and experience to beat some areas. So why are people saying If Anet makes it like that again they are just catering to the veteran players? Because it will be easier for the Veterans to complete and harder for the newbies (this is not a derogatory term) to do?

Well thats how it was in the beginning.. Sure anet botched it themselves by not putting any effort into enemies in NF or gwen and just giving them alot of hp and energy and way overpowered skills. But none the less, PvE has now become brainless, and a grind fest.

Things being hard does not mean anet is rejecting the casual player and only catering to the veterans... it means theres some hard shit to do and some easy shit to do... If you want to do the hard stuff, attempt to get better. Dont just give the newbies builds they can run by rolling their face on a keyboard. e.g. (kinda bad but its the only one I could think of.) What if Xbox live made it easy for everyone to be good at any type of competitive play, the people who were actually good wouldnt like it and the people who were bad wouldnt know the difference, or get better. Here in lies one problem... newer players dont understand any mechanics cause they will just mimmick wiki or be a bear. Challenges keep things interesting and make you improve. lack there of makes a game get boring soon.

Now with the PvP/PvE split... anet has "balanced" fewer skills than before the split.. and with this last up date it shows they have no idea what they are doing.

They no longer have an excuse for not nerfing or buffing something in PvP because of PvE or vice versa... yet they continue to miss the point..

Their community relations is deplorable, and it shows.

/signed.

- I enjoyed reading it.

Imo, everyone playing GW.

I agree that it is hard to help the "newer" people as most of the time they refuse your help.
Heck, I'm on the same boat as you, I also don't feel like going into a discussion if I find someone is using a wrong skillcombination.
But that is min or less to core of the problem. We all had our fair amount of ****** in PUGs. We all tried to help them and got "spiked".

Problem is, if we don't help them who will ?
You seem to agree with me that wiki can be -wrong- at times.
I'm not gonne say I know everything better, and I understand someone will believe the wiki and not a wild stranger.
But the "wiki knows all" mentality has grown over time (well this might be not true, but I remember my "noob" days, those days people tended to explain more and redirect to wiki less then these days. This could also be only what I see, I have no numbers).
I'm fairly sure people used the wiki on a fair lower dose. People tended to play together more (and that way lissen to each other more).

-lissen to each other, help each other, learn from each other- was a mentality I played with those days, and a fair enough amount of people I met too. Nowadays ... (I don't PUG that much anymore, if I PUG it is the elite areas or HM point farm) I don't see that mentality anymore.

Re-installing that mentality would be a fair enough start.
Yeh it looks inpossible to me too. But it is the only way to get rid of the cookiecuttersbuilds, and in the long run mabye even PVE skills.

The level of "skill" between "ELITE"and "newer" people has become to big.
Helping each other would make the gap smaller.
If we destroy the reason why we have PVE skills, we might get them removed in the long run.
I know the chance this all turns out this way is nihil, but at best we can learn out of OUR mistakes for GW2 .
Anet is trying to please everyone and will always continue to please everyone.
We can't blame them for it. We can blame ourselfs for it though.


What you say looks like a chalenge to me.
And it would be fun to do that with a group of people but... I have to disagree everyone would have a good enough chance.

It would require people to coordinate.
Imo, it would only work for guild/allaince/friends groups.
IMO PUGs would fail even more.
People would be doing the opposit of each other as they don't know what the other people are gonne do.
If you know how mobs gonne react, you can plan out a strategy before it happens (mostly done at chokepoints, like the cave thing in gloom and etc) , if you don't... then it gonne be a mess.
If something "random" happens at a choke point, it mostly results in a party wipe with a PUG.


I agree, and I'm not asking for people to go bossy in PUGs even more.
But I'm asking to help people out.

If a guildie QQ's on gc that he got himself killed at gate of madness, don't redirect him to wiki, but warp to the gate of madness and join his group, mabye even guide him trough the entire mission.

If you see someone complaining in an outpost that he just can't complete some quest, join his PUG and help him. Don't redirect him to wiki.

The times i help someone out (witch are almost none excisting. Again I'm not any beter then anyone. I'm part of the problem) I tend to ask why he has a certain skill on his bar and then suggest an alternative.

For instance (just making this one up):
Why did you put mending on Koss ?
"the other guys answer"
Hmm well I dunno if that is gonne work.
I would use mending refrain.
(err tons of emoticons used along the way. It seems the more emoticons used, the less "attacked" someone feels.)
"the other guys answer"
Then I either continue to explain why I would take mending refrain (for instance koss is using WY and he could keep mending refrain up on himself and other people in the party and etc.)
Or I drop the subject.

And I agree with you zwei2stein, going bossy and saying; "OMGOSH KOSS USING MENDING LMAO WAMMO" (and some typos along the way)
Isn't gonne help anyone.

None is "teaching" anymore. They have to learn it themselves (by trail and error) or use wiki.

They gonne use wiki. And you can't really blame them for it.

Personally I think if they would have made the normal modes of elite areas easier, people would complain it is to easy
or
that the "balance" (there is a beter word for it but can't come up with it) between drops in NM and HM and the toughness of NM and HM wouldn't be "balanced enough".

And if they would "balance" it out to a "fair" level, everyone would go for HM.

Look at the deep. None did it on NM, everyone did it on HM. Better drops !! (and it was easy enough).

Something should be made clear. This thread is not about the majority and minority. This thread is not about veterans and newbies. This thread is not about casual players and hardcore players. I don't know why people keep bringing it up.

This thread is about the depth of Guild Wars turning to crap and Anet not communicating with the players, and I honestly don't know how anybody who has played this game for any amount of time can argue those points.

Well DreamWind it's because DEPTH has an INDIVIDUAL perception as well. Each person has their own perceptions and I myself don't see any issues with depth of the game when I do play the boring PVE (only because I've played it so much already) it's not depth that is boring cause challenge is still there. Fact of the matter is some places have already improved with challenge after these last updates to PVE. I've never reached a point where I find the game is no longer challenging because I don't use UB or SYS when I play and I just find groups that don't want to use it or maybe only 1 or 2 people want to there's no arguing so that it's fun for everyone. For me it's not how HARD it is to do something in the game, but, that I am SHARING my TIME and EXPERIENCES with others while playing the mission or whatever. Far too many people forget to just have fun an enjoy the ride. So, the depth is still there for most of us, just the handful that wants everyone to play their way instead of the way the game IS NOW INTENDED to be played.

No it wasnt. As Ive said noone is holding a gun to your heads. Well if they arer then you have other serious problems. You have a choice and option to use or not use it. Yes the truth always ruins threads around here.

As far as HT builds you are more than welcome to use whatever the hell you want once again you have the choice. Ofcourse players want whats best to use, but it also doesnt mean that they will use or not try and use other stuff. Once again brings us right back to the ability to have to the options to do what ever they want to do.

You are being restricted from play by a particular part of the community over a skill which is enhanced over rank. You have no choice at all if you wish to PuG.

Let me explain depth in avarre's pool analogy. ANET didn't make the pool more shallow than have you grown out of it. Maybe the depth for you is gone , but for many other players it's still here , like me, i still find depth in the game. You want ANET to change the game according to some very subjective wishes.

So , 5 professions (I never saw a team build that requires more than 5 different classes) will do elite areas , while the other 5 play with marbles in the outpost waiting ANET do change some skills so that the team build changes , hopefully allowing some other class be in the team. Very nice , very very nice of you.

I dont think so.

See, newbies suffer a lot in elite areas: DoA is bacronymed as Death On Arrival for reason.

It is because mobs to inhuman levels of damage. And is inhumally resistant to damage too. Result is that life expectation of caster upon agroing is in seconds. Squish! Wipe and retry.

Now, what happens if mobs are "smartened". They now do something akin to normal damage. Life expectation of party members is increased dramatically.

They are now given time to attune with rest of party. Time to react and act.

Now, mobs are not as hard on first sight, as conditions, hexes and all kinds of pressure take time to act. Becuase mobs now kill trought pressure.

Let party face 4 of improved mosnters at entrance to area ... party wins, ofc. Bolstering their confidence providing positive feedback ... Next group is harder, more monsters. We have just added learning curve to elite mission. Players now can have at least some feedback, except "were dead".

Eventually party will reach groups it can't handle yet. Important part is that that group is not first one party meets.

Randomness strenghtens this as there wont be gimmick to kill group A, B, C ... no cookie to bake. Players simply must learn.

Don't overestimate randomness effect on dificulty! Its is mostly something to kill gimmickness and keep people awake. I am confident that if something becomes FUBAR in mission, random mosnter spawn would be last thing to blame.

Say, that cave example: would it be any different if margnotie groups were comming? No. Party would still need to excercise similar amount of coordination, produce same kind of protection and offense. Party would still need to coordinate attacks. It will be very different gameplay experience but challenge would remain similar.