An Open Letter to ANet - Part 2

Actually, if something is ridiculously hard, then it is in ANet's interests to tone it down. Take Razah for example. Nigh-on impossible to get before Anet reduced his requirements.

However, the question should be: 'Was it too hard to get FoW and all that BEFORE PvE skills?'.

I believe yes, but that's only because FoW is meant to be vanity armour. It doesn't carry any extra bonuses (beyond +1 to epeen)-the sole purpose is as a symbol that you spend way too much time on GW.

Should it have been made easier to get? No, because that would have devalued the prestige value of it. If everyone can get FoW with enough 121212312121231231211121, then it quickly loses its status.

I find it funny that Thizzle keeps avoiding your question.

Anyone that doesn't have a base to their argument and just wants to ramble on about something to feel important will avoid it or any other question,fact,statement that is brought up that has meaning behind it.

Just like the DL,DU argument.

I think it's pretty clear that Thizzle isn't trying to argue a valid point and is just trolling, trying to stir up a reaction.

My two cents.

There has been considerable changes to the game with every additional story line that has come. So much so that I am now dedicated to playing in Presearing. The only part of the game that remains mostly unchanged other than the charr bags and the charr kits.

Interestingly enough when people brought things into pre they went after them and closed the xploits and forced players to go to post or to give up their goods to preserve the integrity of Pre.

I find this ironic.

aka every caster boss since Factions (notably the Naga boss Tin Dao Kaineng, one of the first nasty bosses Factions characters ever encounter)...

Cathetdral Collapse is an environmental effect, not a monster skill (and is still unfair in that monsters never get affected by those). God, do I hate Pyroclastic Shot, though (skills that say "do 80 damage" should not near-wipe a party in one hit. Of course, Cyndr's [flame burst] is just as bad...)

Also Twisting Jaws, if only because the stuff that uses it tends to travel in packs of 2-6...

First of all, to the original poster, I'm going to ask one simple question: why can't you just PvP? Skills are balanced there, and there will not be any PvE-only skills or items. Also, teams will also be balanced. In addition to these, I bet the human players will act much more smarter than any AI's Anet is willing to make for Guild Wars.

Now then, as for the existing PvE-only skills and items, they do make the game easier. That's a fact. However, has any of you, people who are against these objects, played the game from the very beginning or at least before the mission outposts are deserted? Truth is, when we first played the game, whether it was when the first Guild Wars was first released or when we first completed a mission with a party of humans, we ask questions and learn game mechanics back then, and it was fun. Question is, is it still the case right now? Mission outposts are deserted. Hardly anyone is willing to do Hard Mode missions or dungeons. Why? Because they all are not good enough or deserving to do these tasks? That's a definitely no. People nowadays just don't want to do anything, whether it is the pain of failing a mission or disliking the game because not many people are around anymore. These PvE items are just a simple solution for that.

Also, how many of you have played the game for three years now? What about two years? Do you realize how much time you have spent into this game? With these countless hours spent into the game, I bet most of you have already developed enough knowledge to get through various areas. With that in mind, along with the addition of PvE-only skills and items, in your perspective, don't you think you can use it more wisely and efficient than other players? Situation is, the real issue we may have here may have been exaggerated or even converted into a different form to the extend that there's really no available solutions for it. Is that what any of us really wants?

Another point I would like to make is that after playing this game for so long, especially knowing no further updates will be made, aren't any of us bored with this game? This isn't the issue about other people going through areas easily. This isn't the issue about other people getting their shiny gloves or shields. In brief, we don't care about other people to begin with. It has and always has been about ourselves - how much we enjoy the game. If what others do in their instances would have really impact any of us, then I bet a lot of people would've cried the moment when a new FoW armor is crafted. That isn't the case though. In short, whether we are just bored with the game, or we have played it too much, or simply we moved onto another game, it's not a big deal. It's never about Ursan or consumable sets; you wish to play the old days when thousands of players were active in playing. Sadly, that isn't going to happen; not because the game is being dumped down or what not, they simply got bored before any of us did, and they moved on. It's just that simple.

Now then, if we subtract all these illusions in front of us, then we should see the real issue here: Anet is trying to make Guild Wars playable even in five years from now. Face it, none of us (in the general sense that is) will be generous or bored enough to come back to Guild Wars then and offer new players the help they needed. The only one is left would be Anet. I guess the solution we have so far is not perfect or perhaps ideal, but what are the responses so far? We get some guy every week coming on Wiki or this forum telling us that developers don't know what they are doing or telling us how Guild Wars is going to die. Hardly anything that's productive is ever being mentioned.

While yes I agree that you're trying to make a point, your entire argument kind of fell apart with this sentence and a half...

Avarre does PvP. He said so in his original post. But thats not the issue. The support for PvP was given up for the majority of support given towards PvE, and no skills aren't balanced in PvP. Not to sound blunt here, but its apparent that you really have no idea what's going on in the PvP world to even make this statement.

The issue isn't whether or not someone should PvP to get away from the PvE skills or consumables, etc. The issue is that the "Toning" down of the game, grind, PvE only skills, etc. have all detracted ANET of the game they origionally designed, implemented, and marketed as completely different than the game we have now.

May I ask where are you getting the fact that PvP was given up for the majority of support given towards PvE? In related to this, I actually have seen that Anet is giving more support toward PvP balance from here.

"Update: We won't be publishing the Hall of Monuments Dev Update until next week, because we have a skill balance Dev Update planned instead, which was deemed as a higher priority. --Regina Buenaobra 19:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)"

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...I_seem_rude.29

Perhaps sklills may have not been perfectly balanced; after all, developers are only humans, and they can only do it so much. From time to time, I still see balance updates for PvP. There's also a problem with lack of programmers in the current game. Perhaps that's the case, but it has nothing to do with my point.

From my perspective, he wanted to turn PvE into a place with balanced teams, balanced skills and efficient AI's, which is a complete clone of PvP; it's just that humans won't be the primary player there, AI's will. So I just asked that why can't he just PvP.

As for the PvE portion of the topic, read the rest of my post please.

....

GUILD WARS

NOT URSAN VERSUS DUNCAN THE BLACK WARZ

GUILD WARS. LIKE MY GUILD SMASHING IN THE FACES OF YOUR GUILD.

NOT URSAN VERSUS DUNCAN THE BLACK WARS. NOT BEARS SMASHING IN THE FACES OF A DWARF WARS.

This man speaks the truth.

Guild Wars = Wars between Guilds. Like, oh I dunno, GvG?

One again, you miss the mark entirely. Just because there are balance updates, doesn't mean the game is balanced. Go play some PvP, or hell, even OBSERVE some PvP and you won't look so uneducated in the matter.

In that case why are the skill balances so sloppy?

Dervsmite only got a soft nerf. It's still viable, you still get a 3 D/E frontline with a Me/Mo buffing them. Wounding Strike is still broken and Attacker's Insight turns energy management problems into "Who needs energy?".

You will always have people with different opinions on balance after a skill update. Some will say its balanced now where as others will say this skill or that skill is way op and so on. This is not the issue at hand. I understand exactly where the op is coming from. He is concerned at the direction that Anet seems to be leaning, and how this might be carried over into GW2.

I use to play DAOC for a long time and they pulled the same things that Anet is doing right now. Making the game way too easy with very over powered skills and devaluing any accomplishments along the way. Alot of the original players got disgusted over the changes and left the game. There was no reason that any of the pve only skills or consumables needed to be in the game. Even with the content of the dungeons of EOTN. So what if you party wiped once in a while, accumulated enough dp that you got kicked out of places? Thats the learning process. All Anet did was remove that learning process and place a Staples "easy" button in the hands of the player. Players may like it right now but imo they are going to get bored more quickly than they would have if Anet would have simply balanced the areas and skills properly.

As far as the titles are concerned they would have been fine if Anet wouldn't have tied skill effectiveness to the titles. Imo all this did was create a time>skill condition, whereas the player needed to grind in order to max out the skill. If titles were left as vanity items (not affecting pve play) then only the people who desired such could have grinded for them. Anet decided that we will let you be a more effective pve player by requiring you to grind your skills over someone else who simply has the basic skill. Thus time>skill.

All in all I would like to see Anet even attempt to answer some of his questions/concerns. It would be very enlightening to see what direction they seem to be leaning towards.

I think most all game devs (including Anet, obviously) are realizing the sad, sad truth: easy mode games simply sell more units.

No it doesn't. The reduction of depth in the game either happened or it didn't. There is no perception involved. Just because people perceive something does not mean it is true. The reality is that there have been a ton of changes to the game that have reduced the depth. It has nothing to do with people "getting more experienced". The game is just bloody easier now, and anybody who can't see that either haven't been playing this game for the past 3 years or are clearly showing bad game judgment.

DLDU has been smashed over and over again. Anybody still using that argument is frankly laughed at by the well informed. If you don't use something, the problem is still there. Simple.

Because PvP is also suffering from the same problems that PvE is suffering from...balance and depth gone down the toilet. The splitting of skills has not helped PvP or PvE whatsoever. This is not a PvP vs PvE problem. It is a GUILD WARS problem.

Since I don't pvp, please tell me how this has suffered. I can see in pve with pve skills and consumables, titles etc how it has affected Gw. But how has pvp been changed by these? Just asking.

Only informed one laughing is me. You and others are the ones that dont get it. I never said the skills would magically disappear if you didnt use them. However you have the choice to use them or not to it really is that simple. Hell for all the QQ over it by the ppl in this thread you'd think you guys would team up if you were having such supposed problems finding non-UB teams. I have no problems finding non-UB pugs whats so ever. The problem isnt the skills the problems is the players themselves. You have the choice, how about you know actually using that choice instead of trying to force others to play your way.

You aren't getting it. Saying "don't like it don't use it" is absolutely 100% ignoring the problems stated in this thread. You might as well not even post it as it adds nothing to the discussion. You are either trying to ignore the problem or completely not realizing that there is a problem. Anybody using "DLDU" is the same way. I think others will agree with me.

Im not ignoring the problem I stated the problems long ago. I said what would happen then that has happened for more than 3 years. Just because you and some others dont like to hear the actual truth doesnt mean I havent added to this thread. The problem is with people trying to force there way on others not with the dam skills. If you truelly think they are that imbalanced for you it is that simple to not use them since they are really PvE skills. Not to mention there supposedly is so many here and other forums that ppl claim dont like them that there should be plenty of ppl to find to put non using pugs together.

Is it really that bad for you that others might be enjoying the game more in more ways than you?

Because the way they play has no effect on you at all.

The problems I said would arise but the minority didnt want to see it then. Well I say they asked for the crow then now let them eat it. So go enjoy your monkey see monkey do game as it is make the choice yourself instead of trying to force others into your playstyle.

I dare you, go to ToA and try to find a balanced team in less than 30 minutes, and that it WILL enter UW/FoW and try to kill something. Impossible. We try to play our way, we are forced to play with h/h. Because guildies even if exist (hai), can't be wherever and whenever WE would like. Sometimes they go to Deep/Urgoz/DoA, while I want to play UW/FoW. And I'm stuck with trying to h/h fow or ursaning UW/FoW. That's forcing me to change my playstyle.

I don't think you see the problem.

Anyways, I said I give up earlier...but NOW I give up. Seriously. Give me my damn skill that does 1 billion damage and let me farm the game.

I do PvP. Extensively. Hero and Champion and Gladiator titles and cape trims and all that nonsense.

That, however, is a point which is entirely irrelevant to the actual argument, because as much as it appeals to my egotistical side, removing Avarre from PvE does not make a difference to the state of PvE.

If the teams are balanced, the only variation between the two will be the capability of whoever is controlling the teams. Skill makes the difference. How does that make 'humans [not] the primary player'? It makes them more important than ever, since they're what make the difference between a team of AI against another team of hero/hench AI. As it currently is, humans don't matter much - I can flag heroes, go afk, and still win in most areas.

PvP-problematic changes are a whole different story, one that I didn't go into in my letter because it would have been even longer to get to the same point.

Some examples:

-Continual adding of new classes and skills hurting balance and gameplay - if your game is good, you don't need to keep changing it.
-No more GWWCs. A lot of top players left because there wasn't much to play for. A competitive game needs some sort of reward to compete for. ATs sort of made up for that, but not really as well.
-The whole fiasco of implementing ATs. For months the ladder was useless and there were no tournaments at all.
-Continual issues with handling tournaments.
-Skill balances not being well done.
-Stagnation of areas such as HA, killing off a lot of the ability of new players to get into guilds through the area, by a whole bunch of stuff (I'm not going into it, look at the HA forums)
-No TA ladder. One of the problems of playing PvP is that getting 8 co-ordinated people together can be hard for a new player. TA was much more convenient and had the potential to be pretty competitive. Instead we got a PvE ladder.
-Very, very slow implementation or complete lack of things such as purchasable skill unlocks, PvP edition, GW voice com, etc.

Look at PvP-related forums to get a better picture.

lol

Imo more monsters like Charrs in EotN. They are a bit challenging. Conjure Warriors, rezmers, nukers and hex spammers. Oh and good monster-only skill that works only when something dies. So it's like a super-soul reaping for Charrs.

Oh, and more double-professioned monsters.

Wouldnt be a problem at all. So because you dont have friends that can be everywhere you are you want things screwed up just so they are forced to be where you are at. Gotcha now I see where you're coming at. You want to form a fast pug thats balanced simple. Type this Free FoW clear for Balanced only.


So in other words you want one of these. They are fun to play with at times but not really my style. More power to you as it wouldnt effect me at all. or if you wanted to use the lower one wouldnt bother me at all because that would be your choice and decision, Instead you want to force everyone to use the lowest one.








If you'd like to see how I'd have the game check out Skye's thread here
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...79#post4045279


You mean look there for a worse picture. See heres the problem once again. You are wanting to force your playstyle on others, its your way or noway. So finally afterall the posts in this thread you finally admit its nothing more than a QQ on the PvP side of the game.

Typically generic troll post, permaban please.

You want creative builds, find a guild that likes to use crazy builds. There is a GUILD in Guild wars after all.It takes up more then half of the title.

The problem is: Anet cannot find a guild for you. You have to do that for yourself. And i know from experience that finding a guild that suits you is BY FAR the most difficult thing to do in GW.

As for Ursan: I personally use it, but only for like 10% of the time. And so does most of my guild. Otherwise i use smite builds, and random monk bars with combinations of heal and protect skills. I have an outfit for HB healing too, but i have my own version of it without signet of lesser energy.

I'm not a regular PvP player and agree with Avarre on about all points.
And while it could maybe indeed be interpreted as 'force your playstyle on others' I don't think it is.
I have seen changes that influenced a lot of people and from the broad game perspective not all of them were good.
I'm still very biased about Ursan Blessing because it 'solved' one of the problems that I think was present before the introduction.
That being teaming with one player and heroes was the most efficient way to play unorganised. Sure heroes have limitations but those go away fast when you can finish doing something instead of waiting that same amount of time to form a complete team.

But that's only one of the many issues with PvE.
I also don't like that the 'skill' part of the game got less and the 'time' part became somewhat more important.
It does not influence me that much but I see it around me.
For example, the lack of balanced mobs and diversity in spawns makes the game static.
While that's good for the regular game (people can learn how to beat an area) it's not what Hard Mode should have been.
Hard Mode should have been about random dual profession balanced mobs with skill synergy.
And not about the same foes + X levels doing Y more damage.
Hard Mode should be about entering an area while not exactly knowing what you will encounter.

But that's the past.
Now we look at the future and that future is called GW2.
And I would not like it if A-net made the same kind of (in my opinion) mistakes they made with GW1.
Since GW has an established community I think it would be wise for A-net to at least consider why certain people think something is wrong.

AMEN TO THAT

Who said ursan is a problem? You said that , for me it's not. It's a solution to mask the unbalance before ursan , however that attempt failed miserably , we can all see that.

A really sensible post that deserves to be quoted. I would add my thoughts but there are enough useless posts in this thread already.

Bravo sir!

*applause* You've summed it up perfectly. I'm not one of those who've played since the beginning; I joined up a month before Nightfall came out. But even I can tell that hey, the GW I started off in is not the GW of now. I liked it better when it was big and scary and you could use almost any skills even if sometimes they sucked or you sucked; now I feel pigeonholed into the skills ANet apparently wants us to use (since those are the ones they buff), and I hate that. I miss the old GW.

(emphasis mine)

Look at your own reasoning.

YOU want to do FoW/UW a certain way.
OTHERS want to do it a different, easier way.
So YOU want to force THEM to change THEIR playstyles to suit yourself.

If your friends/guildies aren't available to do what you want, your way, when you want to, then either get more friends/guildies, or just grow up and realize that it's not all about you.


Disclaimer: None of my chars even have UB, but this QQing is ridiculous.

I've been playing GW almost since release 3 years ago, give or take 2 weeks), though by now I've given up the game for various reasons which I will not bother listing as they are not important.

I feel that some (if not most) of the discussion in this thread is due to misinterpetations. Please as I go ahead, OP, correct me if I'm wrong here.

Disregarding PvE and PvP this is about the fact that GW has changed over the 3 years. Originally Guild Wars targeted those who wanted something of a MMORPG where skill was more of the essence than the time spent in game. The Guild Wars slogan was originally "You're skill will be your legacy", something which Guild Wars lived up to during the time with only Prophecies.
I will not bother going into each single change and try to tell what lead to what, but now we have Ursan and inbalanced PvE skills which have removed the skill aspect from PvE in it's eintirity, and the OP gave a quite to the point summary of what heppened to PvP.

There is no question if the change has occured, it has. It is no arguing saying Ursan is worthless, it doesn't matter if it is or isn't. It doesn't matter if the PvE skills are inbalanced, they are there any way. To summarise the whole issue in a single sentance:

3 years ago Guildwars was appealing to one public, whilst it nowadays is appealing to a completely different one.

The OP states that these changes are fine if Anet has changed their aim towards this new audience, but he wants Anet to say so if they have. I guess that is what most of us beterans wonder. Will GW2 go back to what we liked about the early GW or will Anet keep aiming towards the new audience. Either way is fine but if Anet has decided to leave the Skill aspect which the entire game built upon once, they could at least confirm that they are.

In the end it is probably a question of economics, Anet might just aim for the larger audience, I don't know which that is but they do so it doesnt matter. We are not asking for the game to be reversed 2 years, that will not happen. The PvE skills will never be removed and GW will not be the same game it was a long time ago. All we want is Anet to be clear and honest to us who have been loyal and sticked to their games for 3 years now.

I was going to write up a long design critique of Guild Wars as a spin off to this thread, but I can't be bothered.

Here's the summary:

Balance Mechanics
See: Soul Reaping, Expertise, recharge modifiers, and to a lesser extent fast casting.

When you have skills balanced around energy cost, recharge and cast time you have to be REALLY CAREFUL about the ability you give people to mess with that.

For example: If you took Expertise out of the game and just dropped the cost of range skills to compensate it wouldn't have much of an effect on the class at all. Expertise has however been the source of a lot of gimmicky builds and imbalance.

Likewise, the Necro class is balanced around Soul Reaping, but when they start using that to pump out skills from other classes (N/Rts to be more specific) it breaks the game.

Stacking
Enchantments, hexes and conditions rely on stacking. It's a bad mechanic that promotes extremes in either direction - all or nothing. You either have to overload your opponents removal capability, or not bother bringing any at all. This has been the main weakness of the Necromancer class, and why it has struggled to see play outside of hex builds/abusive builds.

Domination/Water hexes are good examples of hexes that don't rely on stacking, and are generally a lot healthier for the game than alternatives.

Random Chance/Luck factor
40/40 sets, Catapults, probably more that don't immediately come to mind.

It adds very little to the game, and as far as PvP goes it's actually a negative. One of the more minor points, but worth mentioning.

Dumbing down the game
Ursan template should have been designed to improved players, but doesn't even give you a full bar of skills. Interrupts and KDs with meaningful recharges, for example.

It should have been created as an easier way to get through areas - but not neccesarily faster than a good team using regular bars. It would be healthier as a useful addition to a regular group, rather than people taking full Ursan teams and steamrolling areas. In this way it would have helped compensate classes that aren't optimal in PvE (Assassin, Mesmer).

Coupled with this, making it scale with rank turned it from a useful tool to help new players into a mindless way for hardcore players to grind harder faster and stronger than ever.

Hard Mode / Elite areas = just bigger damage numbers.
Instead of just making numbers bigger, try mixing mob capabilities. Create mobs with a more even balance of professions. In that kind of environment teamwork and communication would be more important. It would be harder to spec against a specific area or mob type, and give more of a challenge.

This would also have the side effect of making the Mesmer a more valuable PvE class. For example in a standard PvE mob with four copies of Blinding Surge a Mesmer is going to be overwhelmed and useless to stop it, but against one or two copies they can provide valuable shut down. The same goes when facing mobs with one or two monk characters.

Classes
Need varied and specific roles. Overlap means one will be strictly
inferior. Inferior classes generally need gimmicks to see play.

See: Warrior vs Dervishes and Assassins.

Streamline processes for balance updates.
Automatically generated patch notes, using the in-game skill descriptions, would also be automatically localized. There would be some additional work when changing the actual mechanics of a skill, but for simply tweaking numbers it's that simple.

You could then do a number of things to streamline the process for balance updates:
- Automatic mail outs to relevent people when skills are changed.
- Create an XML database back-end that would update wiki/skill pages
automatically.

This would allow the designers to change any problematic skill whenever neccessary, without having to faf around with nonsense that means nothing to the players.

Confusion with PvP/PvE skill divide.
This badly needs to be more intuitive, and less clunky. It was a nice idea with horrible implementation.

An alternative, though impossible now:

With EotN you should have increased the level cap in PvE to 30, working retroactively so most people would hit it right away. Keep the cap on attributes at level 20 to 12, but raise it to 20 or higher at 30.

You can then have these skills balanced for PvP at an attribute level of 12 (excluding runes), but they can go nuts after that. This effectively splits the skills in a way that doesn't add any extra garbage to the game and is very intuitive.

Titles
Should have been account based, not character based. We realize you badly wanted to give people lots to do untill GW2, but getting Koabd on one character is enough of a challenge.


Not very well written, as I did mean to write it up properly - but you get the point.

My Two Cents.

Background. I started to play Guild wars about a year ago. I read in gamer about a strange new game that was the rage. Guild Wars.

I bought Prof. PreSearing Was Beautify and I got a Black Dye and sold it for 50 gold Woot!. Got ripped off. But I did not know the difference.

the New Players that are buying this game Do Not Know The Difference.

When I started playing before Gwen the game was hard city. I got the collector armor and worked through the game to the final mission.

It took me a week to complete the mission Hell's Furnace the final Mission to THE TITLE: PROTECTOR OF ASCALON!

Let me explain. To complete the mission you needed the help of 7 other real people. MMORPG! So we needed to be balanced. My monk was not. I have to Cap elite skills and then go back and join another group.

While fighting some of use were Killed off. I would Run like mad to stay alive then res everyone one at a time. Then hand out candy canes to eliminate the dp. Eventually with TEAM work I finished the mission.

Flash Forward to the last festival. I heard that they added weapons at the end of Prof. So I decided to get me one for free.

I get to hell's furnace and join a group of 3 other players. The other 4 were hero's. We got into a strong battle, one person got killed so I went to res them and to my surprise one by one the other 2 left me there with 4 hero's.

I was like WHAT THE HECK??? What was that? I found myself yelling out loud. What the heck how stupid is that. I have a res. I have candy canes - I stocked up before I joined the party. No dp to be had. Just group together and kill them one at a time. We had 3 monks myself included and 2 hero's.

So what happened? Now this is a change. Huge change. People die once and leave? there were 7 player's/hero's left.

Never before would I have thought that i could have done Hell's Furnace with 3 Hero's and 4 henchies. I would flag the Hero monk that I brought and He would res me when i died. I used a candy cane and got rid of the dp. And went on to complete the mission in less than 2 hours by myself.

What took me a Week to do the first time with 7 real people took me 2 hours by myself and I got a max damage sword to boot.

So my answer is that there is NO challenge to the game whatsoever left.
Everything is beatable in 2 hours or less By Yourself.

This is no longer the ground breaking MMORPG but rater they need to rename it to SSOPEWT. Sadly Singlplayer Offline Patheticly Easy Waist of Time.

My beloved game. Am I to blame. I bought GW:EN and have hero's.

Well there is one area left for the Purest! WOOT. Presearing has not had the effects of the game changes. It is left alone. Still need to partner with others for Northlands. Still titles to get - some very hard to achieve, others a matter of grinding - drunken - LDOA

Well there is my 2 cents. Way to many powerful changes. Skills attached to titles is bad. titles going into the hall is good. Weapons for the hall is bad. Playing with real people is now pointless.

permapre

Another thing people seem to forget is that many GW buyers wanted a MMO without fees and discovered the "awesome" features of having a bar of only eight skills and a level cap of 20. I know i was somewhat dissapointed at first because GW wasn't the Diablo2 replacement i wanted but something different. So the grind skills really made the game more rewarding for me since i enjoy grind when it's not too extreme. And in GWEN, the power increasing grind is very limited.

Well, your post is somewhat confusing to read but I can tell that - even though you only started playing a year ago - you do perceive a few of the things that went wrong with this game; most of all, the feeling of accomplishment that you got when completing a mission with a TEAM is but an extremely rare and fleeting occourance.

Good posting there, JR.

I'm going to give my opinion on two parts I think could use a different viewpoint.

Ursan alone is not that good.
It functions best with consumables and when moving with a team together.
A good team using regular bars can beat Ursan because Ursan can't solo and is not that usefull in a split situation.
The problem is, there are not that many non-guild/friends teams that can execute this kind of playstyle. Or maybe they are able but don't trust the others that they can work it out.
One of the hardest things in UW PUG groups: do you trust each individual member to stay clear of the reapers until told to take a certain quest?
Most PUG builds are braindead to make sure every member can play their build with minimum risk.

I would not call assassins inferior as is.
They are inferior because of the way PvE functions and the lack of competent players.
Before I deleted my assassin I had a great time playing with teams that would support the role of the assassin. To take out a single vital foe while the rest would focus on other foes.
That was only possible in specific situations, most situations allowed the warriors to tank and nukers to nuke everything including the vital foes.
Since tanking and nuking seems to be the preferred way for PUG teams and A-net's way of making things harder is to add more foes doing more damage it's not strange that a class like the assassin is seen as inferior.

Thanks, JR!!

And I think that's why a lot of us want to know what ANet's plans are - not only for "fixing" GW1, but for GW2. Are the design elements that have come to be commonplace in GW1 the way they are thinking of having GW2 operate? (i.e., imba mobs and skills? rank vs. attributes? class-less skills?)

I still play GW1 PvE, and have put in over a thousand hours, so I've more than gotten my money's worth from it. But, given the current state of the game, and the way things are shaping up, I'm not likely to invest in GW2.

Stop being idiots with DLDU arguments.

the thing is that most players are going to use it because it's available.


Manitoba, if you're not doing a damned excellent job of trolling on purpose, you're quite apparently an idiot.

Here's the thing everyone - judging by what we've seen ANet do with their current game, there are no indicators that they will deviate from that course with Gw2 and make it a stale WoW-lite with no replayability and imbalanced bullshit. It won't be fun, pvp will suck, and it will be yet more money wasted that could have been better spent on a dozen jamba juices.

So for manitoba and all the other fools arguing with Avarre, keep that in mind.

I think what it al comes down to is the Vets (myself included) are actually somewhat bored and simply wish the game was more like what it was when we began playing it. I've just come back from a two month Oblivion break and discovered that GW is still a blast to play. I'm currently Vanquishing each chapter, then I'll return to each to do the missions later. No PuGs tho.

I do agree that some of Anets design changes have been questionable. I feel tho, that the game is not evolving, its more dragging onward. If you stop and think about it, Prophesies missions were far more involved and interesting than the later games. I miss those missions like: run from that HUGE Charr group, gather the crystal pieces, hold out till the gate opens, missions like these were fun. Factions had a few decent ones and NF was BORING!

The only major evolutions I have witnessed were the Weapons and Armor getting inscriptions. PvE only skills were the answer to QQing about players own inability to improve their play style and actually TRY to do anything beyond steamrolling over everything.

Oh well, I do and don't agree. Some things I've scratched my head over, most have been just, "oh cool" moments. As for Ursan, the most debated skill in GW history. Those who over use it will be eventually pay hard. They will end up with an uncreative and one dimentional play style and when the need arises, they won't be able to adapt to anthything else. Let them have it. Ursan is just a silly kids toy.