PvE Balance - Part 2

You are asking me to defend THEIR point.
The question is wrong.

The game changed.
What's wrong with the fact that the subject that has the right to change it - did so?

Yeah Ursan does all that.
Foes dealing damage that is the result of surpassing 16 in a selected attribute IS a gimmick.
And as long as gimmicks like that exist - players will be using gimmicks to counter that.
Just yesterday I wasn't allowed to enter a non-Ursan team on my ritualist because it seemed they wanted to run 1warrior/2monks/1necro/4eles.
GOGOGO the death of Ursan I guess!

The problem with monster skills and monster design is that they force the group to take counters , monster after monster , the team build stops being balanced and becomes a gimmick , thus lowering space for other options which leads to limiting professions. Why would I take build X and profession z when build Y and profession t do the job much better. A bit rearranging of monster groups and their skill bars , and minor buffs to skills to give more variable builds(in my past example it would mean that builds X and Y would be more on the same level) would be nice.

"Your point" has been "they're doing this because they want to". Why do they want to? If you can't answer that, you don't have much of a point, since that's pretty much not what this discussion has been about. We've *known* that they want to - I mean shit, they put the stuff in the game! - but why, especially when it's been shown to be an unhealthy and bad idea?

Because it changed for the worse.

You can't just make a game like GW, with thousands of possibles and choices, and expect it to stay health. You can't just leave it. You have to cater and care for it. What happened was that ANet thought that they could do this to PvE when, in fact, it follows along just as many if not more guidelines as PvP. The only difference is that in one you're never exactly sure what you're going up against, with a foe that adapts and pays attention to what you're doing. In the other, you have set challenges - walls, like I told you before - that always require a certain trick to jump over/around/through them.

And yes, this can provide a challenge: When you're dealing with more damage and tougher beasties, your weakness start to arise. You start to see where your build is weak, what's hitting you hard, what's wiping the group, what's bypassing the enchants/buffs, etc. When on a less stressful setting, you don't notice any of this as much. Your consequences are minimal and don't hinder your success, but when you apply them against tougher monsters is when you start to realize what you may be running isn't as effective as you thought it was.

In both PvE and PvP, you have to balance those gimmicks. But the problem is, as I just mentioned in the previous post, that monsters have to be applied with a different ruleset. Unless it's implemented perfectly, in every sense of the word, the AI will just become lackluster. Even in some of the most sophisticated AI did they show patterns, and this always lead to the players victory. So what game designers present instead are puzzles in terms of stricter settings. And largely, it works. Largely, it's fun. But when you're *forced* to face such harsher circumstances is a bit more of a problem.

This is just how GW PvE is. You can't apply the same guidelines you use in PvP for PvE, since they are indeed two different games. But the same principles apply: some builds will always turn out better and simpler than others, and it's ANet's task to see them put in their place.

Fortunately, ANet is now starting to take note of what's happening to their game. Whether they get it right or not and understand why the direction their heading is not beneficial to the game remains to be seen.

But nonetheless, it's the first step of many.

Then you're build would just be broader in order to "counter more" - but that's a good thing. It's knowing how to compose your build for the area that leads to proper knowledge and skill in PvE. It relies on build>skill, but it's not always so easy to put together the perfect build.

But yes, having a whole area/mission focus mostly on a certain strength does indeed lead to favoring certain professions.

What's good about Guild Wars to begin with is the freedom to have multiple options to play the game, whether it is choosing which campaigns to purchase or hiring a runner for a mission. This was true back in the day when the game was released. What we observe in these threads are people who continue to use the same skill over time argument in which they believe people can only play in certain contents if and only if they have the skill. It is more or less a moral at this point, and more observations are made: these people are trying to be consistent with such argument.

Nonetheless, if they truly wish to be consistent with this argument, then the following points have to be followed as well. To begin with, let us look into Ursan. Ursan is powerful and all, but it is not a god mode. A bad aggro will still lead to a party wipe. Although time will be used to rank up the corresponding Norn title, some skill will be needed to use Ursan properly. In contrast, let us look into that service section of this forum.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...play.php?f=211

People just spent their entire time into farming, and most farming does not require any amount of skill. Then they can just hire a runner to do vanquish or guardian missions for them while they are away from keyboard. Consequently, no skill is being used at all. Does this imply that we have to close down this service section of the forum?

Another point people made is that mobs are being too predictable. Do we all want to get better AI that performs the way we want it for Guild Wars? Of course, but think realistic, will we ever get them? No, we won't. Guild Wars has reached the dead point where no new contents will be made. In short, can we drop these perfect solution arguments? Nonetheless, what we have is a bunch people who wish to make the game unpredictable for everyone even after three years of playing. It is possible after all. All we have to do is close down both Wikipedia sites along with all the fansites. I doubt anyone will remember everything these sites stored. With these information being inaccessible, the game will become unpredictable, and thus it will become challenging.

Of course, these solutions aren't ideal, because people will still be able to share knowledge among them or perform services; hence, the game will no longer be challenging. In other words, let's forbid players to team up with each other or even to be able to talk to each other. In the end, we'll have Guild Wars, a very challenging online game where people cannot talk to each other or anything; you guys are just online, so you can show off your ability to do certain things ingame.

But that exactly applies to WoW high end areas:A:"but it's about gear and lvl not competence" B:"if you are competent in game you would have right gear and level". The same goes with GW these days: how can anyone show their competence if is hadicapped from starters, not to mention room for improvements.

Listen i'm not delusional:Before bears took over the slavers i started group for Duncan. I decided to do it with anyone who is willing to go, so here comes necro guy, he pinged his build - and equal to the task i would call it nothing indicatitng that he doesn't have a clue excpet it was only prophecies and eotn skills b/c that chapters was all he got and it's fine be me. So here comes another player and ask him to ping his necro build and they saw he didn't have Signet of Sorrows ( which was necro gimmick for beating Duncan those days) - "what no SoS ?" "lol" "noobs" everyone left..the poor guy didn't have a chance to say that he doesn't own nightfall, not to mention if he is skilled enough for this dungeaon or not. PUG mentality as its finest ? Yes, but strongly encouraged by game design that makes this guy skillset totally sub-par to one with SoS in clean effectivness. What's wrong with this situation ug mentality -yes , bad game design -definietly.

That's not my reasoning. My is : pve was imbalnced before pve skills or cons were introduced, so just removing them will be going from imbalance to ..imbalance which is bad move no matter what. Second, if game is to be balnced it has to be decided first whether skill>time is in place or GW is turning time>skill wow style, then work on balance can begin without risk of confusing turnarounds.

I am having serious trouble understanding this.
It's their game.
They can do whatever they want.
So why are you asking "me" why "they" want to do something?

So? Does that make their decision any less legitimate?

I suggested:
To which you replied:
Which basically means that the player can learn how to counter it.
Yet now - you are suggesting that they:
And considering that they didn't do that for the last 3 years - it would mean that they need to start at the beginning.
So how is that different to:
?

Because Necros "totally suck" without Signet of Sorrows, right?

No matter what you do, people are going to think that some things are totally essential (Searing Flames, Monk healers, tanking!) and some things are totally the suck (Paragons (lawl), non-Monk healers, Mesmers). This happens in WoW, GW, L2 - any online RPG. It even happens in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The only way you can truly "kill it" is by having everything entirely the same, with only one skill bar available, and only one profession.

Is this your first online game?

I can't argue with the legitimacy since it's in the game. What matters, though, is why. When you add something to your game, you have to ask "how will this help the overall game?" And if ANet has a good reason, I'd like to hear it. Seeing as their stepping back from some of the changes, the reason must not have been good.

How is remodeling it different than paying attention and balancing overpowered builds? Because it doesn't need to be remodeled, they just need to pay attention to what happens in it. Metas can't exist in PvE as much as they can't exist in PvP.

The way PvE is modeled is fine. Besides needing a few touch-ups in terms of difficulty scaling and, of course, fixing all the overpowered crap possessed by the players, overall it provides a depth and challenge not seen in any other game.

Just because you ignore the problems that doesn't mean that they aren't there. Pve was awfully imbalanced before introducing "owerpowered crap" so removing it will be switching from one imbalnce to another but one that suits to your personal taste.

You just pretty much ignored what I stated above. The "imbalance" existed only in the minds of PUGs. Besides helping out the Mesmer and taking a look at e-management primary attributes, PvE was fine. Nice try using my quote against me, though.

No...the reasons are terrible. They aren't even real reasons and have no place in this thread. Saying "don't like it don't use it" or "it doesn't effect me" or "I am having fun with it leave it alone" has no place in this thread. They are all either selfishly motivated or COMPLETELY sidestep and ignore the legitimate problems being brought up. They add ZERO. NOTHING. They might as well not even post anything at all. This thread should be about the entire game health, not any one individuals complete disregard for anything other than their own experiences.

Now that just sounds like some Anet apologist. "If Anet comes out and says it or makes a change to their game then that is their choice and theres nothing we can do". Yea it is their choice...but we can do something about it if they slowly destroy their game over the course of years. We can post about our frustrations (as many have done) and we can not support them any longer (as many will do).

I will not be a person who sits here and says "OH Anet did it to their game so it must be the best decision!" LoL. Anet has made so many errors with Guild Wars that can not be defended. They have the right to completely take the game offline too! Does that make it correct?

Uh...no. Skill was promoted far more over dedication (or just about anything else for that matter) at least until Nightfall came out. See Prophecies box and ads for references.

I see this posted a lot and it aggravates me that it keeps reappearing. "Removing Ursan will not solve the problems because the game was inbalanced before!!"

NOBODY is suggesting that removing Ursan or PvE skills will somehow miraculously fix Guild Wars. We are suggesting that removing/fixing them is the FIRST STEP in the process. If Anet is hesistant to fix these problems, you can be damn sure that nothing else is going to get done. If the BIGGEST offender in possibly the history of Guild Wars is just "getting looked at", then you can be damn sure that none of the other less inbalanced (but still inbalanced) stuff will even be touched.

Guild Wars has always had inbalances, but it used to be a lot LESS inbalance. If you have a chance to move to a period of LESS inbalance, than you take that chance. You don't sit and say "oh changing things will still leave us with problems". Of course it will. But you fix the major problems at hand to start then work your way to the rest.

The problem here is that Anet's history of doing this is ridiculously slow (or nonexistent), and that is why many people who actually care about playing a balanced game have left Guild Wars.

^ursan isn't the biggest problem of pve , from the player side maybe , but looking at the whole picture it isn't. Saying that it is the biggest problem is simply your opinion (maybe for others ,but that doesn't mean it's true). You said it yourself , if it took A.net that long to even look at ursan , what chance it is that we will actually see them do some real balancing. And yes , I would rather have a skill that can be abused by anyone , rather than a minority who picked the overpowered profession at the selection screen. PvE got seriously imbalanced the moment A.net decided to put skills on the monsters that can't be used by players or in pvp , and their analogy that a powerful class in pvp isn't equally powerful in pve.

One of GW's largest problems, is also its greatest achievement.

Its a well known fact that people will sit down and play 1, 2 or even 5 hours straight of GW. This has nothing to do with grind, its just that its so very easy to lose yourself in the game and the fun of it that time can just fly past.

That becomes a problem only after you've gone so far into the game that there is no more "First Time Events".

Once you are playing the game for a second, third, umpteenth time it nolonger has that timeless quality. Infact it becomes the oppisite as you start to take notice of how long a mission takes, how much time each part of a dungeon takes...

The more you become aware of times passing the more players are driven to shorten that time. The game becomes more about efficiency over fun.

The more you think about the game rather than play it the more you can pick it apart and find all of its flaws.

You just described the average gamer, Which is the problem every MMO has to deal with. GW has to balance keeping to the original philosophy of the game, versus keeping the one-button monkeys satisfied. It's a problem when you are free-to-play. The only way you make money is to sell games. Put win buttons in and yeah, they kill the original idea on the PvE side. However, more of these "win-monkeys" will buy the game than those looking for the skill>time, unfortunately. More people are goal-oriented than journey-oriented, a sad thing in a game with the letters R-P-G in its description. As to those of us lamenting the direction the game took, well, we bought the game, already.

Now, if someone like IGN or MMORPG came out with a review that gave them buttsex over the game as it is now....but seeing that the game scores regularly over 8.0 in player satisfaction, I don't see that happening.

At least they said they "are looking at Ursan." If they were the "We want it that way so shut up" types, they wouldn't bother.

I would rather have every class be at least close to equally overpowered rather than having the choice you made at the profession screen almost not matter at all because the must-have skill is something that overrides everything but your attributes and armour. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but they can at least try rather than throwing their hands in the air and giving up.

And, besides, do take note of the 'almost' part: some classes are still better at ursans than others - primary and weapon attributes as well as armour ratings still matter, so melee classes (who can put runes on their weapon attributes), and those with Ursan-friendly primary attributes. Mesmers, on the other hand, still get engine gored as Ursans because they don't fit in any of those categories - and they're seen as the profession that needs the most help in the first place.

^^ i don't know, mesmers are always teh secondary class for almost every ursan i see out there...

i'm thinking mesmers are simply underrated. they have the same armor as eles and necros, but are free to go with any melee secondary class that they want... without sacrificing the mantas and the stances for higher defense.

warrior for sword dps, dervish for aoe dps, assassin, rit for splinter weapon and the other weapon spells or even monk to support healing when needed.

When I reach the end of threads concerning how easy/broken/whatever the game is, although well written and with some relevant concerns, I can only read:

"Those people shouldn't be able to get X title, y armor, z weapon, cause they don't deserve it but I do!! And I want to show my gosuness!!!"

I dislike ursan - I don't go and play it. I think that skill is broken I don't use it. That player has that title - who the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO cares? Ditto for armors, weapons, whatever.

Sure games with auto-win buttons suck, but I won't be playing them.

People want recognition in GW? Play PvP and make money. Instant recognition. (and Anet make sure you get replay function for PvP in GW2, much better shot at esport that way).

Yes. Ursan is too powerful. Loot for teams, rewards for HM/dungeons/elite areas suck. Improve those 2 and I will be an happy man - Ah give mesmer some love too, they aren't bad just not that good either, and I will be happy.

Keep the good things of GW in GW2 (non-item based,max level cap, limited number of skills, small amount of grinding, no waiting in queues for whatever, max equipment easy to get, ability to play several characters instead of focusing on one, refundable attributes) and improve the wrong (multiple starting areas, too much low-mid level content, crappy loot, remove the need for heroes by scaling the enemies according to number of players) and I will be an happy GW2 costumer.

Maria: Probably so they can put up one of the long-lasting stances beforehand, and possibly also to use Inspiration to quickly get their energy back up when Ursan does drop.

But, like many things Mesmer, there's no incentive to do that as a primary Mesmer. All you lose from doing it as a secondary Mesmer is the ability to put a minor rune of Inspiration in - where for most other professions you could have put a minor rune of a weapon attribute or a useful primary attribute in instead.

UB is not a biggest problem simply beacuse it is a consquence of confusion within both devs and comunity regarding orginal concept of GW wich has transgressed towards WoW style over the years. So "fixing it" is just not making game balanced it is just chosing personally suited imbalance. But such position is in fact pro-ursan argument because if balancing the game means only chosing between diffenet imbalances preferences. And everyone is entitled to have such preferences "I prefer UB imbalnce over the one that was befoer it" or vice versa.

That's is your opinion, but it's still that you just ignore how the game real looks like and how it eveovlevd over the years.

Friggin word bro.

But we are dealing with a GAME.
Something that should bring us fun and enjoyment.
So why the hell would it be wrong to state that this is what the current game delivers?
If the game isn't delivering that - you can always quit.
Yes - you CAN also express your opinion that something should be different - but at the same time means that the people that disagree with you also have the right to say so.

Saying that you are having fun in the current game does add something to this discussion. It shows that the problem certain people see as game breaking or whatever ISN'T regarded as such by all people.
And considering how far from being balanced PvE is (or ever was) - I'd say that the argument that people are having fun actually matters!

The bolded party screams why this isn't something that we can have a discussion about.
I am certainly not A.Net and I guess you aren't either.
A.Net hasn't given a reason yet - so EVERYTHING is just PURE speculation.
So unless A.Net comes out guns blazing - we can just leave the "why" behind for now.

As long as the AI is as dumb as it is now (combined with the current party build and their skillbars) - there won't be much depth to this game. Or do you consider slapping PS on the aggro-holder deep?
The only thing that will change is what skills will be used to nuke the hell out of them.