[Dev Update] Shadow Form Balance Changes - 2 July 2008

More like game developers hate it. Game developmers are generally not very consumer-centric, which is harming PC gaming as a whole. At least Guild Wars can't blame it on piracy.

Isn't it peer-to-peer, meaning they don't pay for anything beyond getting the matches set up?

They tried a different business model, by most accounts it succeeded. There are several moves that didn't pan out too well, specifically, the added complexity brought by additional chapters, the failure of consumers to realize how the chapter system worked, and the Nightfall power creep that was so bad that A.net even admits it was a screwup.

Their support infrastructure is also much cheaper though. The "instanced everything" layout means they can decentralize the network and outsorce it to cheaper datacenters. GM petitions to not exist, and the game mechanics seem to largely revolve around limiting the need for support.

Ironically I think the addition of a grind was due to players who wanted "actual" reward for grinding, rather than purely cosmetic rewards. That or they confused the good idea of substituting zone runs with Sunspear rank-ups as an idea that would carry over well to all other forms of progression.

The content was balanced against that. With the handicaps removed, the difficulty should have gone up in later chapters. It didn't.

Ursan and "Save Yourselves!"

Perhaps, but you certainly can get away with being an idiot if you have Ursan.

Yes, let's kludge on a fix for one specific skill in a handful of areas when it's overpowered everywhere.

You'd be an idiot not to, how is this a problem?

problem is they couldnt increase difficulty due to the fact that they had to appeal to new customers as well.

Anet COULD have gone round this issue by addopting the same model as MTG and many other CCGs when the skill set is rotated out after a new one is introduced, leaving pvp balanced for it OWN meta as well as taking into account "vanilla" PVE, giving players the option to use skills from other chapters when playing the game could have resulted in different rewards or whatnot.

this is not a new idea its a tried and tested system that works. yes it means that to be competitive (the supposed aim of the game for many players) one would have been forced to buy the corresponding chapters...but people did that anyways and the result is the same.

At the end people who did not buy the new chapters played a balanced version as it "should" (by that i mean original design) be played, it could have remained that way.

Got a link, not debating the point I just want to read it for myself.

No you can't in elite areas. Ursan is not an automatic win. The Celestial Compass was released I wanted one so I HB for several Ursan group in the UW. NOT A ONE of the groups I was in finished the mission because of people making mistakes with quest order. If you don't understand what is going on you are going to make a mistake. It is the same with speed clear teams even more so, you have to know what you are doing.



I am not seeing this outside of elite areas so the reverse argument would work, "Lets nerf a skill that is only abused in a handful of elite areas and upset a even larger group of people but a few hardcore players will be happy." Again they did that for three years with the PvP skill balances, it is how PvE ended up in the shape it is now.


Exactly, if they are farming the end chest they want the quickest build available and they will abuse it (over use it). If they are trying to win a pvp match you want the best build available and they will abuse it. They are the same and now what ANET has to decide is continue upsetting the majority of players to make a few hardcore happy or come up with a way that only hurts the people abusing the skill. In the case of PvP they split the skills so pvp updates no longer hurt the PvE market.

In my case I am tempted to farm the heck out of the UW just to sell ecto to the trader (never sold a single ecto to the trader or anyone else before this) but the nerf killed several of my favorite farms so it is my way at getting back at the people that caused ANET to nerf a skill, the whiners who cried over their e-pen shrinking and the farmers that abused it.

You also have people like this in a screen shot the day after the failed nerf.

[skill]Shielding Hands[/skill] + [skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill]

Say hi.

Except most "55'ers" (technically 105 in this case) like myself prefer to use a staff.

The only thing you have to watch out for are Necros especially The Charr Necros with Lingering Curse as it will remove your enchants and stop most of your healing.I tried this outside of Fort Ranik in HM it wasn't fun.

The only thing they really needed to do to appeal to new customers was let them skip the handicaps. This can already be done, you can max out Factions characters as soon as you exit Shing Jea. That doesn't require that the overall difficulty needs to be lower.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...illbalance.php

It's PvP-related, but the acknowledgement is there:
I'll have to dig up the links for the rest of it, but the gist is that they canned Utopia and started GW2 because the chapter system wasn't working out, largely because it kept making the game more complex and harder for new players to digest. As far as poor education of consumers of how the chapter system works, that's just personal experience, I used to work at CompUSA and the vast majority of people who were only casually familiar with Guild Wars did NOT know that you could buy Factions or Nightfall without buying the original Guild Wars.

Okay, I guess if people can't even read, they can't play Ursan. Either way, the bar for brain cell count needed to play it is really, really low.

All they had to do was limit the number of new skills in each chapter. Prophecies had a lot of skills, and it needed them. But factions and Nightfall HUGELY increased the complexity because they added a large number of skills. Factions/NF/EotN should have added like 10 skills/class and no more.

They basically burnt themselves with too much too soon.

Well, found the link:
http://www.mmognation.com/2007/08/13...d-jeff-strain/

Going off of that, even with the limits, it's not a process they could keep up forever, and breaking off the process would have devolved chapters into little more than map packs. Maybe that would have been a better route to take, but as I said, Guild Wars really tried doing things differently, and not all of it worked as planned.

"The scales can only take so much".

I don't mind having a large number of skills *as long* as they remain versatile, useful, and balanced. I'd much rather have 10 new unique and finely balanced skill as opposed to 100 "meh" balanced and more indifferent skills. It all depends on how good the creator is and how much the game can handle, you know?

Well, there's that, it's kind of annoying that a lot of skills look like they were only made to fill a quota without getting thought out much (lol Factions duplicates), but the problem is that from a customer standpoint, it makes the game much harder to get in to.

The skill limit might have kept this in check, but let's face it: Having access to a wider range of professions and skills is going to give you a pretty big lead on anyone without that kind of access. Even if the skills are of equal power, the synergy of them makes go farther.

Guild Wars' biggest problem has always been the continually-rising barrier to entry. Other MMOs have used obsolesence and mudflation to keep things in check, Guild Wars unfortunately never had the groundwork to that.

Nerf Factions and Nightfall...then I shall be pleased

Remove the classes, remove the skills, leave the areas *ding*

Chronos, you have the right Idea, Guild Wars was at its best with just Tryia.

Guild Wars has progressively just gotten easier, and easier. Now a day’s all u need to make a few bucks is just to be lucky. Have a friend take you to Uw for your first time, "Yeah, we just completed all the quests", and guess what? Yeah you guessed it, first timer gets the Eternal Blade.

Guild Wars no longer rewards you for your knowledge or skill with in the game. You just have to be lucky. Take me back to Ji Barrage Fow Runs, or the 5 man F.A. runs. Give me my pet corpse, and take me back to the year 2005, and I'm a happy camper.


Don't get me wrong I love guild wars, I play it daily, But I’m just sick of no Challenge.

Guild Wars is just Title Grind House till GW2!!!!!


GG Anet

You're soooo right...let's create BALANCE by removing VARIETY. Let's remove the jade brotherhood and kournans and the titans from the game. Let's make every and any opponent we face in any of the three campaigns either a charr or a grawl. Let's make every part of the game the same...boring...experience...as to remove any sort of surprise and not give people what they want. Why? Because A-net doesn't want the average person to play GW2. Yes they're employing the most clever marketing technique, catering to the elite. A-net doesnt need 4 million+ people playing GW2. They'd be just as happy w/ 4 thousand.

/end sarcasm

Stop complaining about PVE. If you nerf Ursan, nerf every other farm build out there. Remove the resistance to spells from [Obsidian flesh] and let's make prot spirit a maintainable enchantment like its relative [protective bond]. Face it, if you feel the only way to balance PVE is by COMPLETELY removing the group aspect and variety involved, then remove the solo aspect as well so no1 will ever give a damn about PVE.

GW PvE was never meant to provide infinite challenge to everyone who plays it. It's just impossible to do that and quite immature to put the blame on A.net for not making the game "challenging" for everyone who buys the game.I don't want to insult anyone , but A.net never stated that pve will give players years upon years of challenge to overcome, pve is just a storyline that was meant to be completed with 7 other people (at least in the beginning). They tried to give us more with titles , but we all see what happened.

well.. i want to know how the nerf to shadowform fixed the economy? ectos are still 3.7k each.... tell me how it is fixed? LOL

with regards to GW, solo, pve, et. al... plz take a look at World of Warcraft and come back here and tell me that GW is far more superior. Because GW is superior. We have henchmen and heros for starters. I don;t want to play a game that forces you to be ultra good at solo or have to find noobs to group with. Give me Alessia and Orion any day.

once again less QQ. you people are the ones ruining the game. not ANet.

be happy for what you have and what they give us and don;t complain too much or you might get what you ask for. nerf to shadowform yet no fix to the economy and now a broken skill to go with it. hope you are all happy.

^
Don't tell anyone but...

There is a new build to solo those guys utilising the ability to permanently maintain Shadow Form.

Oh yeah how can you ruin a game by changing a farming build utilising a skill that gives you godmode?

Agreed. They nerfed it in the wrong way.

I say they should remove the 50% penalty. And reduce SF but just a wee little bit.

Just kill it. There is no excuse for having a skill that allows godmode.

Shock and traps goes through it, so it's not 100% god mode.

But it is basically 2 elites combined, besides health drop.
-Mist form
-obby flesh

Workarounds. Either way it still allows you to effectively farm nearly all areas of the game.

I've been playing sin sinced factions came out and i like the proffession, I never really cared about farming techniques and so on...

I say good riddance to all the Perma farmers!

You are absolutely correct, It takes 2 other skills and a special enchanted weapon just to keep it up and its still able to be knocked out.
Anet obviously intended for it to be that long or they would have never reverted it in the first place, and when they did nerf it, they did not touch the duration. It's far from godmode!

Not for nothing but couldn't you fit in [I am Unstoppable] and [Dash].

The former makes you invincible to Shocks knockdown, the latter will let you run through traps untouched.

That leaves 3 skills for damage.

You don't really need to bring these skills.

You can easily avoid all the enemies that have "shock" and most of the time you will be able to walk past the traps without triggering them.

yeah that's probably true but I was just making it more god mode/newb friendly.

i don't need to farm i just enjoy the random pve drama

How ppl still care about that? didnt even once try perma sf and glad bout it