PvE Balance - Part 2

Your ignorance is astounding. I will address it, however.

This game is supposed to be fun, I'll agree. The game's not fun anymore; it's not challenging, it's a walk in the park. You spam your bar, the screen fills up with the numbers, and you collect your reward.

The game's not enjoyable anymore ReZDogg. The game sucks because balance is awry.

Most of the people leaving Guild Wars these days leave because this game is dead because they made it so damn easy. It was carebears such as yourself that clamored for easy mode to brush through HM so you could get some titles. That's what ruined the game, that's what made it unfun.

ANet doesn't know much about their game; they're busy making the sequel. When your game balancer says that the most broken attack skill in the game (Wounding Strike) is balanced and that he doesn't want to touch it, you know that your devs are quite out of touch with their own game.

Ontopic:

I seriously desire the removal of consumables. We decided for shits and giggles that we'd do slaver's NM. We blew through Thom/Rand in 9 minutes. I mean...
This is the elite dungeon - this is the top thing. This should provide some semblance of challenge. It took no skill whatsoever.

Consumables negate the purpose of HM by jacking characters up to their AI equivalent, which just then again RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs over game balance some more.

In addition to nerfing Ursan, the deletion or nerfing of consumables would make my day.

But somehow i feel making your day does not equal PvE Balance.

^
Ofcourse it doesn't.

We have alot of enemies to tone down and actually give them a half decent bar that they can handle.

It's a step in the right direction.

Nice way to start a post.

You want a challenge go play pvp. PvE will never be that challenging.


All opinion and limited to you alone, I still enjoy the game.


Great, can I see your source on why most people have stopped playing the game? I was thinking it was lack of new content for over a year that was killing the game.


Some would argue that the most broken attack skill in the game is Ursan Blessing.

Why, how does someone using consets in an instance game affect your game?




Stop being an elitist and if pve has stopped offering any challenge go play pvp.

If you've seen the state of PvP now you wouldn't want to be constantly PvP'ing. That and the fact you can't have people ready for a teamup everytime and everytime.

When people like Ensign quit the game, something is wrong. Alot of high level players quit the game because of the junk that has been going on.

Ursan Blessing isn't really an attack skill though.

Not taking advantage of things and gimping yourself is awesome amirite?

So - after you complete something 10 times (the same freaking way) how will it pose a challenge then?
Pretty much the only thing that can pose a challenge in PvE is new content - everything else is just re-doing the same thing knowing which gimmick to use.

People leave GW because there is nothing else to do.

You're ignoring how easy it is -

If it were balanced (challenging, but not overly so) then it'd be interesting.

I'll stop derailing this thread though

This I wholeheartedly agree with. My guild leader and a large portion of my guild Ursan'd their way through a majority of the game, and ran out of things to do because everything became so easy. My guild leader, who has been playing since launch, had 6 maxed titles before EOTN came out, and in less than a year he now has almost 20. He was already a very good player, and with Ursan he tore through the game. He became inactive because nothing in PvE was interesting anymore.

I did my pvp thing when I was younger, doesn't really appeal to me anymore so I do not look at this game from a pvp perspective.


I have never heard of the guy, sorry. I wouldn't be worried about one top player leaving, doesn't hurt revenue that much. I would be more worried about the number of casual players leaving and in my opinion that is directly related to no new content.


I will have to give you that one. I don't think Wounding Strike is causing that much of a problem in PvE so if they want to nerf it into another useless elite in pvp sounds fine to me.


Yet I do it all the time by playing the way I want to play. I am not going to lie, I like consets for one reason, 7k. I don’t need them to finish the game and consets are quick gold. If other players need them to finish the game or to make the game go quicker that is fine with me. Someone using it in their instance does not affect anyone else, unless they bought the consets.

[Shove]. Also you can auto attack.




They are underused because they were nerfed in PvP because they were overpowered. Ether Renewal was nerfed for a good reason...spamming prots with endless energy just isn't balanced. Shadow Form was nerfed for a good reason...being invincible all the time just isn't balanced.

The rest of the elites are the same way, and if their track record on this is anything, they aren't just going to "lightly" buff them.

But you've played this game for 3 years.
With the fact that the AI isn't getting improved - the only thing that might pose a challenge is a new gimmick. And you've seen all the gimmicks already - of course it's going to be easy!
(I didn't run Ursan though GWEN - and the only time I came to a halt was at the MAW-dude. Considering he trashed us - you could say he posed a challenge.
On my second run I flagged the hench at the start - had the necro keep me under PS and I kept spamming Vengeful Weapon on myself.
Down he went!)



I PvE because I feel like an elephant in a coffin when PvPing. That place is so small! And nothing pretty to see!
If I wanted to be challenged - I'd PvP.
But I have other priorities.

One thing I really didn't like was the seperation of PvP and PvE. Not only did having them linked make the game much more accessable on all fronts(as opposed to relearning the game just to play a different mode), but also dumbed down the difficulty on a huge level. All the PvE exclusive skills are simply overpowered. I remember the good old days, when PvE could essentially be considered PvP bootcamp(to a limited extent, of course), when difficulty was actually a factor. I remember trudging my way through the hellish realm of torment, being eaten alive when you made one wrong move at times(and let's not forget Shiro and Lich). When I started up EotN a week ago, I have yet to recieve any of that(in normal mode), it's like they made normal the new hard mode, and dumbed down everything for 'normal' mode.

I make it a point not to use Ursan or Imbagon (or PvE skills in general) in any of my builds, simply because they're not fun to play. It's amusing for 10 minutes, as you watch everything fall down dead, but you quickly come to the realization that skills like that cause the game to degenerate into a 123123123 hotkey fest. And that is not the Guild Wars I remember. Of course, my not using PvE skills is also a reason why I solo the game now, because I can't expect anyone to not bitch and whine when they find out that spamming hotkeys all day is not my cup of tea.

So now, when a new player is done their PvE campaigns, and decide to try a bit of PvP, how do they get along without their precious Ursan or Imbagon?

Yeah that I can agree with but you'd have to agree that doesn't make it right and such a solution will obviously garner criticism from any MMORPG community from all areas.

The obvious problem is that, as mentioned by others on numerous occasions, it has really made a joke of the whole game PvE wise and to be honest I don't view it as a small minority of "elitists" QQing as opposed to fans of this game voicing concern with the quality of GW as a result of UB.

Grind a title, get a PvE skill, mash 3 buttons.

That's GW high-end.

Wether open access to all and an end to class discrimination is worth it is up to the individual I guess.

I say no though.

UB has made PvE a cakewalk and that's your solution?

Such a /fail rebuttal.

It's as bad as the "It's only an option so it's ok!!!" posts.Your solution is to completely ignore the issue others here are wishing to discuss/debate.

At least try to be constructive.

The bolded part is what I'm refering to....that is exactly what heroes are. They don't think about it, they just use a random heal, which is why the N/Rt in Sabway works so well. They CAN'T make a bad choice. I agree that there is obvious utility for a human player, but that wasn't what I was refering to. I know you are microing your heroes, but most people aren't, especially the noobcakes. Which is really what the conversation is about: changing N/Rt so it isn't so damn effective on a hero.

Why would you run a Monk at all? Let alone Monks. Run 2 N/Rt (or E/Rt...) That's exactly the point of the thread. N/Rt is hyper-effective on a hero, you don't need a monk anymore. If you are talking about the Prot line, run N/Mo (or E/Mo...)

The question is: What to do about it?

Nerfing SR (and ER) doesn't really address the problem of hyper-effective Ritualist secondaries. It possibly DOES address dropping one N/Rt for a Monk running Prot, so maybe there's an argument there.

I disagree, ALL primaries should exceed any elite skill in performance, or provide a functionality that cannot be duplicated with spells. However, this is a matter of opinion.

You keep mentioning Monks. They are pretty much irrelevant with the current state of X/Rt, aside from Prot.

Go on...finish the evaluation. Having energy frontloaded is better than backloading it. Run into a tough mob/boss and the N/Rt can collapse. You're specifically banking on your offense winning before the N/Rt runs dry. E/Rt CANNOT, EVER run dry. Even against e-denial. Granted that's rare in PvE, but I've tested that too.

Me/Rt is a mockery build. The energy requirements of the X/Rt builds are so low that you can run it on the worst primary in the game with Mesmer interrupts. You don't need SR/ER.

If you want to address the overuse of Sabway, you MUST address the effectiveness of Ritualist secondary builds. Which means nerfing Restoration. I'd like it to be nerfed in a way that keep it very effective for Rit primaries, but somehow makes it less effective on a secondary.

Hammering SR does not address this. The Me/Rt shows that. Does Soul Reaping help or make the N/Rt stronger. Of course. But even knocking it to zero isn't enough to solve the problem. And since reducing it to zero isn't a realistic option...SR will still generate enough energy to drive N/Rt all day long, even in a reduced form.

I agree you'd have to hit both at he same time.

This goes to the point above. Granted it's not truly random, but let's agree that they make suboptimal decisions. That's why 8 heals on the bar works for heros. They can't mess it up. A human obviously would makes better choices, and the utility would shine in this case. It doesn't shine on heroes, which is why you can lose a slot or two and still have an effective hero bar.

Don't take that out of context...they seem to run the mesmer interrupts and ER very well. I wouldn't stick something else on the bar an expect them to run it though.

Talking bets on weather they make ANY changes to SR? I bet they leave it as is, sadly.

Negative. Leech Sig interrupts anything. It only gets energy if it interrupts a spell...which is the real reason it's there, granted. But the interrupt affects everything.

It just needs to be tuned down for Rit secondaries.

Agree.

Agree. The minion animates would all have to be lowered. The problem is that there is only one possible tier to drop them to:

Bone Fiends - 15e
Vamp/Shambling Horrors - 10e
Everything else - 5e

This constrains changes to SR. You can't really drop the minions spells any more than this without causing problems at the lower end. And therefore, you're limited in the degree to which you can reduce SR, without major changes or wonky exceptions.

As far as reduction strategies go, that's exactly what I was thinking. You could immediately cut SR in half and half the minions costs and break nothing.

You could reduce to one-third but then you have to do two additional changes to keep MMs viable:

1) Lose the timer
2) Keep minion triggers for the MM (JUST for the controlling MM - the 'sharing' effect is obviously Imba and really needs to be removed)

I agree.

I want the clock remove for reasons other than raw energy. I want the flow to be predictable so a human MM can actually play tactically, rather than wondering if casting spell X is going to crunch the blue bar unexpectedly.

I've NEVER said SR wasn't hugely powerful. I do however question weather even knocking it down to 1/3 is going to affect ANYTHING in PvE. The N/Rt will still blow doors down with that degree of SR, and there isn't anything else abusing SR.

I get the feeling that people think nerfing SR will fix everything in PvE and Roses will bloom. Despite it's effect, it really isn't causing any actual problems. If you're going to nerf it, it's purely on principle. THAT'S why I'd prefer to leave it until it causes a specific over-energy issue. (N/Rt doesn't count, it's requirements are too low for ANY nerf of SR to be effective)

I agree on principle that SR is crazy strong, but it's a pointless change if it won't have any actual effect on PvE (which it won't)

Again, not me.

-------------

FYI: I spoke with Ensign yesterday about this very issue, and his response was (and I quote): "The only thing broken about SR in PvE is the sharing effect."

The problem is it doesn't even pose a challenge the first time anymore. I know relatively new players FARMING elite areas nowadays.

I also hate the idea that PvE has never been challenging and that PvP is supposedly "the place to go if you want a challenge". Thats a load of garbage, especially for people who actually want challenge in their games instead of mindless grinding. I remember when Thunderhead Keep Bonus was hard as crap...10x harder than anything today. The reason its easy today is not because Thunderhead Keep got easier or because the players got significantly better, but because of the arrival of serious power creep and inbalances of things such as Ursan.

People need to start looking at Guild Wars in a different way. Look at it from Anets point of view...I honestly believe they don't feel a thing if people leave the game. Every single player can leave now and Anet would not lose a penny. Guild Wars was meant to be a normal video game with PvP until the next purchase arrives...it sells once and the company gets profit.

This style of marketing plan is really starting to show in the downgraded quality of their game. Since there is no monthly fee, there is no consequences when they make horrible changes to their game (like they have done over and over for the past 2 years). All Anet needs to do is make sure the players buy the next game (Guild Wars 2). How do they do that? HoM is one major incentive! How can we be sure people will use the HoM? Giving them overpowered methods to fill it is a way!

Ursan Blessing might as well read: "Target player using this skill has their probability of buying Guild Wars 2 raised from 50% to 90%. This skill also reduces some other players probability of buying Guild Wars 2 from 90% to 50%, but those players are less so who cares. This skill cannot be nerfed because balance does not matter in our marketing plan".

Monks are Prot/Heal.
Ritualists are Damage/heal.

Monks are more effective at Protting.
Ritualists are more effective at Healing.

Miraculously, I am talking in an 8 player setting, which you sorta have to talk in if you're going to talk about balancing. N/Rt is superior at keeping your allied Monks energy bars up.

Enchant removal says hai.

EDIT: Tho obviously this depends on what you're fightin in PvE since for some reasons mobs are easy and a ton of them don't have any lololo. Or any good ones.

You do if you want the best healing options.

I bet they remove the timer, let it effect everthing, and knowing their PvE history so far probably make it 2 energy per rank.

Heroes only use it to interrupt spells.

Wasn't talking about you, was talking about someone else who shall remain nameless.

Ensign is a great guy and all, and he's usually right, but he isn't perfect, and I think since he obviously quit a while ago, he's a bit out of touch with stuff. Not saying i'm any better here, but if you don't think having near infinite energy is imbalanced then I dunno what to tell ya. ;p Imbalances in PvE don't matter as much, but that doesn't mean they aren't imbalances.

It's always surprising how long people can continually argue in the same circle and never break stride.

Before I note a few specific rebuttals I wanted to make, I really must take a moment to thank everyone who has so far flamed this thread as a big, elitist nerf qq. I get a very good laugh everytime I come across one of those posts in this thread, because anyone who would say such a thing obviously did not bother to read the first half of my PvE balancing suggestions; trust me, the same people were calling me a joker for my "ridiculous buffing" over there. In all honestly, my intention with posting here was to communicate with ANet; your illogical argumentation and poorly thought out fallacies are as insignificant to me as the wake of a speedboat brushing against a destroyer.

Now that that has been said, I also wanted to state that the concept of Monk's advantage over Rits being Protection Prayers is quite wrong. Weapon spells are Ritualist's version of prot, and they're better because they can't be removed. I was tempted to put that in all caps, but for now I'll leave cruise control off.

Yes, Monk's are better at quick, active prot... but this is not a necessary part of a build already consisting of a good deal of passive defense (party wide evasion, party wide armor buffs) combined with active healing; with Weapon of Remedy on the bar, you've got condition popping on top of Reversal of Fortune. Find me a good Monk from Guild Wars who doesn't think that Reversal of Fortune is one of the best skills in the game, and I'll stop thinking Weapon of Remedy is a cornerstone Ritualist prot.

I appreciate the laughs, and you could maybe try to argue about WoR, but a simple glance at a few of the game's better available Weapon Spells solidifies my argument. Come on now guys... Weapon of Warding isn't a prot? Lol.

I feel like squashing this argument.

In a disagreement, if you feel that the other party's argument is automatically invalidated by your entitlement to a certain privledge or power, it is YOU who have become the elitists.

Also, to be horribly blunt: No. I have played an extensive amount of PvP, and it is now so abysmally imbalanced that there is no fun left in even attempting to discover success. How much exactly would you appreciate it if the tables were turned, hmm? PvE were much more difficult, and you post here on guru trying to alert others to the issue; the majority reply to you with something along the lines of "Stop whining and if PvE is too hard for you go play Random Arenas" ?

This is simply not a valid argument.


Finally, I just want to add that this is a game with an update system built right into the core design of the whole thing. Please do not whine at me if you do not appreciate the idea of your favorite skills being changed; this is simply a FACT of life for every player of Guild Wars, and it has been since the beginning.

Don't think many get it, the argument is that someone using an elite skill in an instance game such as Guild War does not affect someone else style of play. So how does something like Ursan Blessing affect me since I don't use ursan blessings? Someone please provide one example.

When a hardcore player (or elitist) tries to force a game change to increase difficulty based only on their perspective that may become a problem. The casual customer probably doesn’t even realize when a skill is buffed or nerfed but since a large number of these players use Ursan Blessing to grind titles a nerf or buff might be noticed by a large customer base. I like GW I also like what ANET has started, I don't want to see them change a game for a few elitist that may cause them to loose customers. Since GW is an instances game one customer running a build that they like does not affect another customer's game. (news flash, if you are posting on a forum you are no longer a casual player thus you and I are?)

If I fail at PvE then I am not the targeted customers, difficulty is base on the target customer. Kind of likes specs on a computer, do you target the extreme high-end computer (thus limiting the number of customers) or do you target the mid range computer (still limiting the number of customer but offering a quality that appeals to gamers)? If PvE balance is changed to satisfy less then 1% of the customers what happens to the other 99% of the customers? ANET has decide how hard or how easy to make the game based on the targeted customer.

Simply stating that it is not a valid argument, sound like I read that some where before. It is a service industry, if you wish to continue playing any MMO consider other customers (especially less skilled customer that make up the majority of the customers) before changing something that may affect their satisfaction. If the only people that bought this game was the elite players ANET would have went bankrupt a long time ago. Next time try, "If PvP is too easy so go play PvE." would be a better counter to the arugment since the argument concerns elitist feeling the game is to easy and wanting it changed.

My favorite skill is [spell breaker] or [protective spirit] well I like [Flail] too and [spiteful spirit] of course [volley] or [apply poison], really I don't think I have a favorite. And what if ANET changes a skill, same thing I been doing for 3+ years, change my builds (something I enjoy) and just roll with it.

SR probably won't ever be touched again.

Before all the nerfs to Spirits and SR itself, it was a huge problem.....back when it triggered off all spirits, etc. All these arguments claiming it's overpowered in PvE are silly. I'd like to see a real reason why it should be considered overpowered In PvE.

The N/Rt's from Spiritway are the most obvious form of "abusing" SR but really, it's not overpowered. Untill you realize that what's overpowered in PvP isn't always overpowered in PvE, you're not gonna get anywhere. N/Rt's with infinite energy in PvP means there's no point in trying to pressure the healers, something that's bad for PvP cause it kills pressure builds. That changes the game in a negative way. N/Rt's with infinite energy in PvE are a different thing. In PvE, you have tons of opportunities to regain energy. Whether you're just jumping to the next mob or decide to make a temporary retreat, a primary monk will almost always have a full energy bar when you get to the next group. You don't get opportunities like that in PvP, and if your tries retreating you just might end up eating a crapload of snares.

N/Rt's are still used in Sway teams, but they're not really a problem.

Ursan is the only major problem In PvE. It created the first true "x Way" build in PvE. It made Norn title equivalant to HA's Hero title, except that an r10 Ursan is often more stupid than an r1 Hero. Now if Ursan dies, all it's fans will go back to complaining that pug's are only running accepting Tanks/Fire Ele's/Monks. That right there is also a bit of a problem in a weird way. Part of it is something you can't fix though: ignorant players.....the ones that think Warriors are only good at tanking and that Fire ele's are the best source of damage. The "tutortial" start areas of each chapter are really bad at teaching new players the basics of creating and using effective builds. I still find it surprising that there's not a single example of a good build for each class found ingame. Not everyone will visit forums or PvXwiki. Other things to blame are "elite" areas with retarded designs....yes I'm talking about DoA. Gotta love how one inexperienced player can make the entire team's hours go to waste just because they triggered something they didn't know about and spawned a ridiculously huge mob that makes you go "shit shit, screw tactics....fire missiles!"

Besides stuff like Ursan and "SY", It's pretty hard to figure out what should be considered a problem in PvE. There's no clear focus of what the Devs want it to be. It's not like PvP where there's a clear line there telling you what's just fine or what's going overboard and creating problems.

Wow! Such heated discussion and argument over something no one can do anything about. Face it folks: They are starting over with GW2.

Your arguments are like fighting with your ex-wife over private vs. public education for your kids...and you never had any.

It's over...let her go.

I'll give you one.

I rarely use Ursan, as I prefer to use a proper build to win PvE. That being said, Ursan affects me, because teams are able to run Ursanway and roll through FoW or UW or DoA (or even the Factions elite missions) in a FRACTION of the time it takes me with a balanced team. Because of the speed, it devalues Ecto, Shards, Armbraces, and the DoA specific greens. Because I personally keep the majority of my wealth in Ecto and Armbraces (I spend it if it's gold >.>), as the value drops (due to Ursan), I lose money.

This is best shown with SF farming UW. Ecto has gone from ~5k each, to ~3k each. This devalue, although I don't do SF farming (I did, but got bored), affects me because my ecto are suddenly worth 60% of their previous value. To date, this has cost me at LEAST 500 plat, and that's without me spending a single cent - that's just from ecto getting over farmed. I also know of a lot of players who have lost millions of plat because of this.

Now, you may say that money isn't everything, or that cheaper ecto means others can buy FoW or Chaos Gloves, but really... for MYSELF, and others who have decent amounts of ecto, this hits really hard, as we are losing money left right and center.

^Did A.net swore a vow or signed a pact that ectos and armbraces will have the same value forever? Everything in GW is losing value slowly , ursan just made it faster.
@thread: ursan (not because of the economy) and imbagons need to die , seriously. SR needs a little tweak. And many other skill changes are needed if we want to move from the holy trinity if ursan is removed.

Just look at the MM.
The MM should be held back by the lack of corpses. That doesn't happen in PvE.
So to have such offensive (and especially DEFENSIVE!) power at one's disposal by using TWO freaking skills is just insane.
Actually our view of MMs is horribly broken. We consider anyone that runs around with a max number of minions an average MM. Insane again.
A person that has 10 minions should be considered good and a person that can keep them alive should be considered godly. And an average MM should be running around with 5ish minions.
And what would set the average players apart from the gods would be how good they are with e-management. Currently everyone can be a god. And that's Ursan.

And that's why you can kill off SR. The concept of blood is to insane to ever work - so it doesn't matter if it stays dead - while curses resemble the Illusion line. Well in a way that actually works and has normal skills that surpass the mesmer's elites (in PvE of course). And it's because of that that there is no reason whatsoever why curses couldn't be fulled by GoLE.

MMs are to powerful to even suggest that SR should exist because of them.


They don't stack. So the fact that they can't be removed matters very little in PvE - because ench removal just doesn't happen that often.
In a game that breaks all game rules - there is just 1 prot that is really needed.
[protective spirit].
And the ritualists don't have a comparable skill.
When you are getting hit for 400 damage - it doesn't matter that your 50% chance to block can not get removed.



That's the problem - we have various similar concepts - and then there is a different way of balancing them.
You have enches and weapon spells. Because WS can't be removed - you can only use 1. But then - pretty much all of PvE lacks decent ench removal - which in effect causes that enches ALSO aren't removable. Yet they do stack.
Or look at spirits and minions. Since spirits don't require a corpse - they are immobile and there can only be one copy of a spirit active.
But because minions do require - which should be the balancing aspect - you can have as many as you want. And all of a sudden - corpses are abundant in PvE.
And then you have SR trigger on effects such as dead - which won't happen that much in PvP - and in PvE everything is dying all the time.

If you plan on an event to balance something in the game - and then that event isn't programed into PvE - then that thing isn't balanced.

I actually wrote my MAW-story in the previous post just because of this.
I didn't Ursan and the game wasn't a challenge. Even the first time.
There is nothing you can do about that - you are too good for GW PvE.
But here is the thing - I don't play PvE to be challenged.
And I am pretty sure there are many others out there like - although because of different reason. I like to look at the environment, some just want the pretty things or virtual gold.
I don't see where the idea that if a person isn't challenged - there is something wrong came from.

No, they don't just care because there is less of them.
They care less because even out of the people that dislike the current game - the 50% chance pf purchase means that every second player will still get it.
People who are pissed about "the baddies" are most of the time just pissed. We don't SHOW how pissed we are - outside of yelling here.
Quit.
In masses.

PvE, like PvP, must be balanced around the very highest tier. You have to look at the top players and how they push the skillset and balance around that.

...made me lol.
True tho.

Agreed.

As a farmer and one that has ran an assassin, terra, and monk for the speedway groups I can tell the amount of ecto they are getting is nothing compared to the farmers. For one simple reason the speed clears don't clear, they target specific groups that are only quest related. A 600 / Smite team will get more ecto then these guys.

You had 500k+ in ecto? Well if you had bought it when ecto was 20k each that wouldn't be so bad but since you are not complaining about a 92% lose in profits I am going to guess you got it later. I am really confused here but I think we are suppose to spend it, unless you know something I don't and plan on retiring in the game.

Again Ursan Blessing (I think we agree here) didn't cause ecto to drop in value. Over farming combine with the Z-keys title and constant favor caused the recent price drops.

Ecto is not the answer to my one question and before someone says they are causing the value of rare equipment to drop by farming the end chest, go read the Z-chest thread.

PvE balance should be balance based on your targeted customer, period. The difficult level has to be set to them, trying to set it to hardcore players will only alienate the largest part of your customer base. Example: As a hardcore farmer I do with one or two character what the targeted customers does with eight. If ANET increases the difficulty level to keep me from farming they have also increased the difficulty level for the targeted customer. The targeted customer now finds it impossible to complete the game. What will they do then? They don't come here and post on the forums, they un-install the game and when future Guild War products comes out they will not buy it. What will I do, I simply adjust my build or tactic and keep right on farmer.

I asked for one example of how someone using Ursan Blessing affects someone else that does not like it and does not use it. Please give one or more examples.

so i heard they had difficulty settings. What you're saying is bad game design, sorry. Normal Mode should be for the targeted customer, yes, but Hard Mode should be yknow, actually hard. If it alienates people, then that's fine, there is nothing you get in hard mode that you can't get elsewhere except for titles. woooo some text.

The game has always been completable. Normal Mode has always been completable. hard mode should only be completable by people with the skills to do so, because it is supposed to be hard.

You do not make a higher difficulty setting and then make it piss easy. That completely destroys the point of the higher difficulty setting.

Also, if you happen to like PuG'ing you're doomed to run UB. Face it, it's just better if it's changed from its current state.

This.

If you're not balancing around the maximum potential of the player, there's no purpose in improvement, and no reward for skill. This makes a shallow, boring game.

Some of the most timeless and appreciated games are those with unreachable skill/power ceilings (StarCraft), or at least extremely high (Diablo II, albeit gear based). Just two examples among many, where the game encourages the player to play more and constantly develop by rewarding them for doing so.

I don't see how this is arguable, especially in a game that involves multiple players. If you want a flat game with a simple level required, play a single player game.

As for someone else using Ursan Blessing to grind a title in Hard mode (woooo some text - we agree here) doesn't affect me. Someone else using Ursan Blessing to complete the game in hard mode, doesn't affect my game.


Hard mode to me just equals a better farm, doesn't matter what level the charr is, it is still the same AI controlling it. If ANET wants a hard mode develop a different AI, change the builds, and improve the equipment and give them ever advantage possible because more levels doesn’t work (of course that is just my opinion).


Yeah I miss people saying things like "GLF Mesmer Sorrows furnace", wait I was dreaming that. Ursan Blessing didn't change pug mentality, it just caused the builds to change just like ever other nerf and buff. Fortunately there is a way to sort out the groups I don't want to pug with, they say stuff like "GLF W/Me R9+ UB with cons". If you like to pug then it is only going to get worse, no matter what they do to Ursan Blessing, because the number of people playing is decreasing and that is most likely caused by no new content.

Please someone give me a reason how someone else using Ursan Blessing affects someone else game, one example.

The game is less hard, for that person. It defeats the purpose of the difficulty level.

You do not add an i win button to the extreme level of something. Sure, not everyone may take it, but it still makes the purpose of adding the extreme level of something completely pointless.

Just because Ursan Blessing doesn't affect your (this seems rather selfish and had nothing to do with the thread at all) game, doesn't mean it does nothing bad for the game. It does.

More over, this is a balance thread. It isn't about whether something affects your game or not, it is about whether it affects the game as a whole.

Nothing anyone ever does affects your gameplay. That's not to say that it's not a problem because it doesn't affect you, but that you can't use that argument to justify game decisions. If I excuse Ursan because "it doesn't affect me", then I've excused any overpowered thing ANet can introduce. Skills that kill mobs in one hit, skills that give players a million K in a second, skills that give a billion health a second - *all* of those things are excused with the "it doesn't affect me" argument.

"Don't like it, don't use it" isn't a valid argument here.

OH POOR you're losing really a lot of MONEY, in a short time you won't have enough to buy food for your children

OMG what kind of things people writes on forums ... wake up, this is a videogame, it's made to have fun.

Do like me: I play with a friend, we got 20+ titles together, enjoyed a lot of things in this videogame, have a lot of fun talking in teamspeak.
And we don't play ursan, because with 6 heroes in the team we found ursan underpowered compared to the regular ranger skills, but sometimes if we want to join a PUG we also do ursan.

I had more money, simply because I farm or spend some more time in game for Kurzick title, instead he just collects the ordinary drops, and also doesn't like to spam in the trade chat and so he keeps the stuff for himself.

When we completed Legendary Vanquisher, guess what I did?
With the low price of ectos, I bought 210 ectos and 210 shards, we went to FoW and crafted our armors
Now we're both totally pennyless, but happy for the enjoyment this game gave us, and will continue to play and enjoy.

That's the way GW is meant to be played, shame for the a$$hole$ who cry every day for the unbelievable "money" lost because of the evil ecto farmers and ursan.

There are people who don't play in guilds, and therefore they need to join a PuG if they wanna do certain elite missions etc. Right now its hard for them to join groups if they are casual players who don't have rank 10. It's just like the rank discrimination in HA. So even if Anet wants to protect the casual player, they should nerf it.

And what darknecrid said, this thread isn't about how something affects you...

I can't help but notice the irony that what benefits you is 'the way GW is meant to be played' but anything that damages the older players, and the way they played GW for years, is 'boo hoo it's just a game'.

By the same logic, I could argue for the removal of all PvE skills because 'it's just a game, why should you care', but I think we both know that kind of logic is bad.

[QUOTE=DarkNecrid]The game is less hard, for that person. It defeats the purpose of the difficulty level.

You do not add an i win button to the extreme level of something. Sure, not everyone may take it, but it still makes the purpose of adding the extreme level of something completely pointless.

You’re right, I will change ever post I have made to state, Give one example how another customer running Ursan blessing affects another customer's not running usran blessing?

Exactly, balancing a game based only on elite or hardcore player (something some in the industry have stated should never be done) affects everyone. If hardcore / elite players can not stop and take a look around and realize there are more players then just themselves instead of whinning the game is to easy (opinion base) then ANET may listen to a vocal minority. Which resulted in PvE skills.

My suggestion on how to balance these PvE skills is I want the title part completely removed from the skills and go back to skills being tied to a profession and attribute. As it is now the title skills allows player to have more then 2 professions since a skill like "Radiation Field" should be a necro hex tied to curses. Usran Blessing should be limited to warriors and tied directly to the strength attribute. Those are my suggestion but how would that affect the game? As a hardcore player wouldn't affect me but what affect would it have on other players?

The "way it's meant to be played" is not what benefits me, read please before posting.
To me the game is not stacking pink pixels.
As soon as I had the opportunity to enjoy something new, like a nice skin armor, I shared all my virtual gold with a friend, no matter if now we're both pennyless.
With ectos at 10k, simply we would have continued playing the game as we have done and will do until we like it.

For me PvE skills are nearly useless, I have only 1 in my standard bar which is vanguard assassin and only if I play BHA, if I play splinter barrage not even that, and as I told you we got 22 titles together with my friend, and I have 29 titles total.
A.net created PvE skills, they're nice because they add variety, if they remove we just have less variety.


Now you have to explain me your idea of something that "damages old players", especially referred to someone who feels himself "damaged" because HIS stacks of pink pixels have lost virtual value.

To me, someone who thinks like this is a pure idiot, not an older player.

Ummm...ok I'll just go ahead and say it. You invested in a material with no set value, and the ability to fluctuate in price at any given time. It's not like gas here which steadily increases in price. Ecto has just as often a chance of dropping as it does of skyrocketing and all that bull on how its the SF ruining the economy isn't that clever apparently. Ele's and 55/ss can also farm plains and hell, the 55/ss combo can clear the whole damn UW. So saying your investment was ruined because of some assassins, then you have to realize the opposite argument, who bought the ectos? You did? Who should have been aware of it's fluctuations? You should have. Remember ecto used to be 15k and then it dropped to 5k after a while, and people got pissed as shit. Now it drops 2k and everyone's throwing just as big of a bitchfest. Here's a tip, sell your ecto and buy something w/a more stable value...Z-keys for example.

You sir, don't have a clue.
Avarre IS one of the original 'Old School' players you keep hearing about in these threads.
I tend to believe everythng he, Fenix, Rahja, and most from dR...law, SMS, TAM, GR, DVDF and Rare have to say.
We have played from the beginning, we have tried (and yes, failed a few times) using the skills available.
If ANY of those people say a skill is broken....you better believe it IS broken.
Experience over want.
It is not greed speaking in these folks posts...but dissapointment in a game that took a down turn for the lesser variable.
fenix has saved his items and ectos for YEARS.
Why?..Because he can..and it's his fun to collect things.
But you better believe he got them the hard way..not handed to him on a silver plate .
May I recommend sir, you click on any one of their names..and review past posts they have submitted on this forum..you may learn to think before you spout.
~Peace
Trubby.