AN Open Letter to ArenaNet Regarding Ursan Blessing

The only way for the economy to return to normal is for a) Anet to start nerfing all the overpowered builds (Ursan is top of the list here) and b) introduce more, rare weapons after said nerfs take place.

That way you have rare, expensive items that are not easily farmed...just like back in the good old days. More importantly, they should be accessible only to diverse, well-organized groups. Bring back the Pugging! It's what makes games like GW fun, not being in a group just because you bought the expansion and have that one specific skill.

/Signed.

Not to mention that it destroyed the meaning of "Bar comprehension", tried to fix profession discrimination by introducing a PvE's own title discrimination and it's just stupidly imbalanced and skill-less with next to no margin of failure.

LoL, while quite truthful, I find it sad when people take pride in the fact that if you scream louder, you are more likely to get what you want at the expense of others (maybe its the majority, maybe not in this case, who knows for sure). Unlike you, I am unable to embrace that stance, I will just either adapt to whatever changes that occur, or just leave when I cannot stand it anymore. A simple matter of principle really. I am just glad i never recommended this game to certain friends, as this is the one online game I've played so far with the most whiners (Don't know about WoW as I've decided long ago not to play that) and where it seems 'balances' occur through random 'dart throwing' or by whining louder than others.

@ Everyone complaining about the Open Letters:

I quoted the definition of an open letter from wikipedia in an earlier post, but, obviously, none of you read that. An open letter isn't meant to represent everyone's opinion. It is merely a letter that I sent to ANET and then made available for a large audience to read, so that they would know what kind of correspondence is being sent. If you agree, send a letter saying so. If you disagree, send a letter stating your position. OR... you can continue to QQ in your own way about open letters becoming a trend and do nothing about it. They're not a new trend. They've been around forever because THEY ARE EFFECTIVE.


@ Torabo:

I'm not exceptionally happy about lowering myself to these measures either, but it is the only way I have witnessed to be effective with ANET. As you can probably tell already, I am passionate about this issue, and have the initiative to try and do something about it, so I will use any reasonable means available to do so.

All these open letters are just sad. What makes people think that flinging a few "Sincerely"s and "To Whom it may concern"s around are going to make Anet pay any more attention to their wall of text than they do to any other random forum post?

Did you not read the post above you?

This forum post is not what I intend ANET to read... I actually sent the letter to them. The forum post is for everyone else to read and decide whether or not they want to send a letter stating their position.

This skill represented the end of many hours of fun in GW for myself and many other long term players.

The situation has gone unremedied for so many months now that the damage is permanent to the game and the community.

I consider the damage to be retroactive, due the decline in value of in-game titles and items.

At any rate, this game developer has lost my trust and I will never knowing buy another of their products. I believe that the introduction of this skill, and the lack of attention to it will prove the death knell for GW2 as no former hardcore GW enthusiasts will risk wasting their time on hard-won game accomplishments after this debacle.

It saddens me that I believe (without malice I might add) GW2 will have low sales, but I hope I am wrong for the sake of this economic model. Perhaps another company will consider using the model.

Think about it people: The majority of players buying GW 2 will be players that think Ursan's Blessing was cool. And you won't be able to avoid them because the world will be persistent. : )

I've officially given up on you, ANet. Thanks for the good times.

Then so be it! I myself will give up on anet when they stop giving PVE nice skills, or start nerfing them because of eliteist crybabies that think they are so good that these skills arent needed. Anet put these skills in the game for a reason!

^
Did you just call yourself and other players [email protected] or is it just me?

Oh yeah, calling people elitist because they believe something should be nerfed or buffed because it's overpowered or may have potential in being quite powerful is stupid. PvE skills tied to title rank create discrimination after destroying discrimination. Aswell as Ursan giving you a pre-made bar.

/notsigned.

UB doesn't affect me negatively. So... I don't care?

For both ANet, and the pro-UB GW community,

Ursan's Blessing = the triumph of groupthink*

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

If you didn't care you wouldn't have voted/posted. As it is your default pro-UB stance is argued from a purely selfish perspective and therefore has little relevance to the welfare of the community of 'other people'.

I have to repeat it: Warning! These pro-UB people will be the ones buying GW 2!

Ursan blessing killed my PvE experience. Ya it destroyed class discrimination; your mesmer can now play pve. The only problem is that you AREN'T PLAYING MESMER. When I get on my necro, I want to play a necro or play my ranger, assassin etc. I don't want to play a freaking bear. Where is the fun in that... RAAWR I'M A BEAR I CAN PRESS 123... I WIN!!!! < That's what GW turned into. GW should nerf ursan by keeping it in GW:EN but also give more class specific PvE only skills to stop all the whining Ursan lovers who can't play PvE without it. This way they can be overpowered and we can all play our profession.

Global warming doesn't affect me. So I don't care. Wait, why the temperature outside is 50'C?

Let's see

Con UB player only buys GW2= failed game, servers close within 6 months
Pro UB players only buys GW2= game is a success

PS. Above (my) calculations are from HOW MANY USE UB IN GAME Pure speculations, so don't try and be smart and ask for hard facts since non exists out side A-Net.

I mentioned no 'calculations' but I offered my opinion that sales of GW:2 may be low because of disappointment from old/long term players over UB. Perhaps this anti-UB population isn't big enough to dent sales... I hope not, but they have definitely lost me.

I won't be buying GW:2 because my faith in Anet as game designers is gone because of Ursan's Blessing.

My faith in the potential GW:2 community, who, presumably liked Ursan's Blessing and the way it affected GW:1 is nonexistent.

Global Warming is RL, ie, a real problem to be concerned about. People who don't care about Ursan don't care about something that's fictional...

Believe it or not, there is a difference...

I find this QQing about UB quite funny. If you dont like it, don't play it. Simple... right? /duh

ANet should post the stats on the amount of people actively playing UB vs the amount of people on this forum crying for the nerv.

It would also be interresting to see how many people actually bought GW:EN specifically for UB...

Another *Cry* Ursan thread?
/closed
PLZ

The reason it doesn't affect me is because I proactively surround myself with good people and quality players . People can do something about their situation, I'm guessing most choose not to. Guru is a very small part of the GW community.

As for you, Einstein, I didn't say I'm pro-UB. I'm rather neutral - I prefer not to use it, but I understand that it can be a useful tool for some people in certain situations. See above response for why I'm more apathetic about its existence. My suggestion is that if you do a lot of pugging but hate UB, find a guild that suits your playstyle. If you really are "too good" to use UB and therefore have the need to complain, make something work for you. The reason it probably hasn't been nerfed by now is because of how many people that play GW who don't visit these forums and can have a use for it.

So simple, yet it makes so much sense..

If you think you're too good to use UB, don't use it.

/notsigned.

/not signed

I dont understand the complaining that seems to be coming from the Hardcore Elitist PvE crowd and a few PvP people as far as I can tell, which is really confusing, about this PvE skill that is too powerful???

What I get when I read is many people are upset because they feel that Ursan Blessing provides too easy of a way for people to play the game. Well, guess what, if you look at what goes on in GW you will see that the vast majority of players are not hardcore. Do you see groups doing dungeons in GWEN NM or HM, very few except for the few farming teams you see doing the end game dungeons. Alot of people paying for dungeon runs is what you see. Why, because most GW players dont have 2+ hours to sit around trying to form a group that will successfully be able to beat a dungeon. Ever try a PUG only to fail half way through. Very frustrating, which is a big part of the reason that you dont see many PuGs in the harder areas of the game, or you see people forming Ursan Groups because they dont want to waste their time in a Fail Group.

Also, for those that think Ursan is too powerful or whatever, there is nothing forcing you to use Ursan. My guild does UW, FoW, DoA without Ursan because playing Ursan is pretty boring, and I like to play mesmer. Let me be the first to say though that I would never go into HM UW or HM FoW with a non Ursan PuG because they would fail and it would be a huge waste of time. at least 33% of the Ursan PuGs ive been with failed.

The people doing Ursan are not stopping anyone from forming other types of teams, I see people forming balanced non ursan teams all the time, feel free to join one.

Also Nerfing Ursan will not help the game in any way. What you will see is what there was before Ursan, and that is a bunch of farming teams. 2man, 5man, whatever. It was like pulling teeth to find a PuG to even do Forgemaster.

Ursan has been good because now at least you have 8man teams there doing the missions to do them. Not a bucn of hardcore gamers making money of of noobs charging for spider runs, or whatever. I would actually like to see Ursan buffed to the point where people could do GWEN dungeons with it. Then at least people would play instead of paying for a run. Its really hard to find a PuG dungeon, (and I really wish I could because my guild and alliance doesnt do GWEN dungeons), because of everyone just paying some stupid 2man or 3man team for a run. Also its something that any character can do. Before Ursan you had certain team configurations that were populare in some areas and if you didnt have an ele, necro, or whatever then you couldnt get in a group cause everyone was doing the same crap.

Another good thing about Ursan for Anet is that Ursan helps them succeed in their original goal of making a MMORPG that you wouldnt have to be hardcore to play. Nerfing Ursan would backfire on Anet because they would be saying if you want to play this game in its entirety you have to be a hardcore gamer, you have to be willing to sit for 4+hours to be able to play in the high end areas of the game and close the door on the vast majority of GW players. Not a good thing to do with GW2 around the corner if you plan on keeping your current GW audience. Also I think that most people that post about games on sites like this are at least a little hardcore, so keep in mind that the posts suggesting an Ursan nerf probably only represent a very small percentage of the entire GW gaming community and for every post suggesting a nerf there are probably 90+ casual gamers that would be against it.

Read my avatar for details.

i dont see how ursan has ruined the game or economy...

if anything ruined the game and economy it was inscriptions and duping.

ursan made the game somewhat enjoyable again. i've done FoW and UW and DoA long long ago the hard and extremely time consuming way. didn't really enjoy myself because it took hours and hours to do it. and let's be honest, drops arent that good if you do it one time.

here comes ursan and now i can do all these areas quickly and actually turn a profit without losing my soul and livelihood by spending all day and night in front of the computer.

this isn't an MMO. we're not supposed to be doing things for hours, the little message in your chat box is your first clue.

if some of you honestly think it's healthy for someone to spend 8 hours trying to complete DoA instead of 2, you need psychiatric help. who wants to spend 4-5 hours in UW or FoW for 3 shards and crap gold drops. And let's not forget that most people in GW aren't uber l337sauce players who can play with their eyes closed, so in general add an hour or two for pugs.

other threads complain about the grind that GW has become thanks to Ursan and the rep title tracks. and yet i'm pretty sure GW was a much bigger grind before ursan.
----
oh and edit

i think all people who joined guru (which most likely means got the game) after EoTN was already out last year should just never post in this thread. you dont even know what the game was like before ursan so your opinion is worthless.

and for everyone who complains about the economy, if you joined after inscriptions were in the game, you should just not post either. the only time the GW economy was actually "flourishing" was during factions.

You res the thread to not sign it.

Nice logic there, buddy.

So you're saying that grinding for drops = fun?

Personally I find doing the same area over and over mind-numbingly boring, and I seriously don't give a sh!t about drops unless they happen to be some item I need.

Nothings wrong with the economy, the price of things should be reasonable.

The initial price of things in this game is what gave rise to farming and placed all the emphasis on farming to begin with. Before it was Ursanway it was 55, then 55/SS way, then 600 smite, etc. etc. Thats all people were doing in UW and FoW, it was hard to find a group actually doing UW or FoW just to do it before Ursan. Ecto had dropped not only because people farmed the hell out of it, but because guess what, if you dont want fow armor or chaos gloves its not good for anything. So unless you want to waste alot of time accumulating ecto, shards, and gold, or just gold to buy all the stuff you will need for crafting it for a video game skin, you are not going to buy it. People didnt buy it and the people with stockpiles of it using it as currency saw it start to drop and started cashing it in at the rare material npc, and the price dropped. Serves them right, playing the game should be about playing the game, not accumulating in game gold. What is in game gold good for anyway.

One thing I hope to see in GW2 is less emphasis on in game gold, and farming. They should make elite armor and weps to be got by anyone who wants it doing quests and random drops from certain chests at the end of dungeons etc. playing the game so the price of things doesnt get so ridiculous to begin with.



Seriously, how much should ecto cost? How many hours should one have to play the game to be able to get a certain armor skin? The ridiculous cost is the main reason the vast majority will not buy it anyway.

The thing is, you are currently talking about doing DoA, FoW and UW - three areas in the entirety of three campaigns and one expansion. People are complaining because of the rest of said three campaigns and one expansion being made boring and stale by Ursan Blessing.

Also - I've been playing GW since Factions, so I do know what it was like before Ursan came out, thank you very much.

So you grind to counter out grind anyway?

Ursan should be changed. Not because of other changes made (like your mention of SF), but because it changes the game in ways that make the game worse. Economy is not, and should not be a reason to change anything alone. It can be a factor, and should be a factor in changes, but not the only one.

Yes, I want Ursan changed (not necesarily nerfed). No, I don't like your method of requesting this change.

I have not seen a change to Ursan suggested that I agree with yet. Best I can come up with (which may have been suggested and I didn't see it) is to make Ursan Strike only hit once.

Not a good assumption to make, I had GW in 05 but didnt join guru till 07. I used to read stuff here way before that, but in 07 finally saw somthing I thought I should post about.

The best choice I an think of is making each blessing skill require circumstances given by other blessings and profession in orden to work.
Currently the blessings cal deal the following conditions:
* Ursan deals weakness.
* Volfen deals deep wound.
* Raven deals bleeding, blindess and crippling.
If you change the skills so...
* Ursan deals cracked armor and deep wound.
* Volfen deals crippling and weakness.
* Raven deals bleeding and blindness.
Each one will deal two conditions.

Now, make the two first skills of each blessing deal damage ONLY if the enemy is under a condition dealt by each one of the other two blessings:
- Ursan Strike:
Always deals cracked armor and 10..50 blunt damage .
Bleeding enemies receive 30..100 extra blunt damage.
- Ursan Rage:
Always Knocks down foes.
Weak enemies receive blunt damage.
- Ursan Roar:
Deals Deep Wound to Knocked down enemies.

- Volfen Claw:
Always deals Bleeding and a few slashing damage.
Enemies under Cracked Armor receive much more slashing damage.
- Volfen Pounce:
Deals 60..100 slashing damage to Blind enemies.
- Volfe Bloodlust:
Deals weakness.

- Raven Talons:
Deals bleeding and 10..50 piercing damage.
Crippled enemies receive 10..50 extra piercing damage.
- Raven Swoop:
Deals 60..100 piercing damage to Deeply Wounded enemies.
- Raven Shriek:
Deals blindness.

And ta-da! No more Ursan-Monk only teams.

I've said it before: the one thing one'd need to do to ursan is make the knock-down single target instead of AoE.
Because what makes Ursan so uber isn't the damage output, it's the damage mitigation through knockdown.

Make Ursan Strike deal PHYSICAL damage, so armor will reduce the damage.
Make Ursan Strike an attack skill, not a skill, so things like Empathy will trigger one it, and Clumsiness will interrupt it.
Make Ursan Strike only hit once - like the other 2 Blessing's damage skill.
Make Ursan Rage single target.

Currently, most of the counters to physical damage dealers is ignored by Ursan. Blind and hexes that make you miss are ignored. The damage is insane, so lower it. Look at Raven and Volfen to see what a good damage skill looks like. They are less powerful than Ursan for damage, but not underpowered.

/not signed

I honestly havent found a good reason to change Ursan Blessing in any post in this entire thread.

Its as simple as this, no one is forcing anyone to use it. If you dont like it dont use it. It has actually made the game better as I pointed out in my earlier post.

Ursan is not the reason there aren't many regular groups in FoW, UW, or DoA. Before Ursan there were mainly just a bunch of farmers at ToA, not many people did DOA because they just are not hardcore enuff to devote 7 hours or so to doing it. Only a small percentage of GW players are hardcore, and GW was marketed as a MMORPG that the casual gamer could actually enjoy. Ursan actually made that possible. Also pointed out in earlier post. There is nothing stopping the hardcore that may want to devote 6+hours to doing an elite zone without using Ursan from doing it. Also, if Ursan is changed there will just be less people there doing them. They dont have the time to sit infront of a computer for 6 hours to do an elite zone and they arent hardcore enuff to think that would be fun. So basically, you will still need to be in a guild that does that as an event because a change to Ursan will not make it easier to PuG, there just wont be PuGs or very few pugs doing non ursan teams and bunch of 2 man farming teams in FoW, UW, and DoA, which is exactly what it was before Ursan Blessing.

The only people that are upset about it are the people that either farmed or ripped someone off and stockpiled a few hundred ecto as currency. Thats a crazy gamble anyway because anyone should know ecto will only drop because only a few people are hardcore enuff to even attempt to get FoW armor or Chaos Gloves so not many are going to buy it. Besides ecto hasnt dropped that much since Ursan. It was well on its way down before Ursan, and the people running ursan for farming will just go back to farming an earlier way if its nerfed and they will still stockpile ecto doing it, and ecto will still drop because they will end up selling it to the rare material npc because not enuff people buy it. If the price of ecto dropped enuff to where the casual gamer might think it reasonable to attempt to get FoW armor or chaos gloves there would be more demand for it and it would be easier to sell to people in game. Thats where it should be anyway.

1. It doesn't reward skillful play. You can literally smash your head on the keyboard and come out with good results.

2. What's a skill-bar? Oh, that thing that replaced those eight boxes at the bottom of my screen because I put Ursan on skill one, hit skill one, press skills one to three. Pre-made skill bars.

3. It is powered on grind. This grind has a benefit to this skill, like the other three reputation titles and power skills and your own player capability.

It is also severely imbalanced. Oh, and I only have two hundred thousand, just for the record. I've not got FoW armour and I only have a few vanity items.

The DL;DU argument is also negated here. If you're joining PuGs you have no choice but to grind. By the way, if it is only for helping the casual player, why is it powered on grind? Why is it just a paper Warrior with no counters?

I'd also like to mention, I don't like Imbagon etc. but I still abuse them. Why? I'm gimping myself if I choose otherwise. Is that a good thing? No. Why choose less when you can have a maximum benefit? There is no reason not to.

Finally, I would like to point out that people defending it arealso only defending it because they want easy titles, fast. Hard mode and the likes were never ment to be for the casual gamer. They were ment for people with a little more time on their hands, or a casual gamer who decided to come on for a tad longer. If hard mode was ment to be easy, it wouldn't be called hard mode. Running this skill is doing nothing more than dumbing down a difficulty level because you're either too bad or too lazy to take part in it so you bum this skill just for your titles.

its sad really
ya... we all know its gona get nerfed cuz of the QQing half of the player base, really don't care gw1 died a long long time ago, because Anet gives into whiners. the people saying hard mode was meant for this not that... stuff like that, how the hell do you know? to me hard mode was a sad attempt at "adding new life" to the game without really adding anything new, like titles where. but then that might just be me.

when they nerf the hell out of ursan what are you all gona QQ over next? kinda interesting right?

lets make a deal, you can all QQ over gw1 till you get your way, but you let Anet run gw2. sound fair?

1. My guild mate explained how to nuke in a fow group as an ele , the only difference than ursan is to wait for the sign to start rolling the head.

2. I agree with you on that one.

3. I agree with you on that one too. I would personaly tie pve skill power to the advancement of the story with the appropriate faction.

Using the "it's not skillful" argument is kinda void after factions and especially NF , pugs don't want skillful players , they want players that can run the bar they give them.
Also variability that many advertise before Ursan was nonexistent in a pug.

@MithranArkanere: nice idea

if you want to be rewarded for skillful play - play pvp. GW pve was designed to be friendly and fun for everyone. the popularity of ursan and other "easy button" skills should be proof enough of this. the vast majority of players don't want pve to be super hard. they want the game to be fun, not frustrating - and the high-level areas of the game can be quite frustrating unless you use some "easy button" builds.

i have never used ursan (except in the mission that requires it). i mainly play pve on my ele, and i have no trouble kicking the crap out of stuff without using ursan. not every class can do that though. i like the fact that ursan puts every class on an even playing field. how often do you see "GLF mesmer and assassin!"? never.

the complaint that i most often see about ursan is that someone doesn't want to use it and therefore can't get in pug groups, and is considered discrimination. i find this argument hilarious because non-ursan pug groups are already quite discriminatory:

1) ohai holy trinity! you are already discriminated against just based on your profession.
2) your group will probably want you to run a specific skillbar, especially if it is in an elite area. too stubborn to change or don't have the skills? le punt!
3) you want to play an MM, but there is already an MM in the group. guess what - you don't get to play what you want.

those are just a few examples. with ursan, you can throw together a random group of players and still be strong. ursan is undeniably the best thing that ever happened to the pug, and all you have to do to get it is one little quest.

however, the fact that you must have a high rank in the norn title to make it really good kinda sucks. i hate the title grind in EotN as much as the next person. i don't like it, but i accept it because it is clear that they are not going to change it - and everyone else could use to do the same and save themselves some frustration.

anyways...quit QQing about ursan already, people. if you don't like it, don't use it. play with your guildies or h/h so you can do whatever the hell you want (i do!). ursan is no different than any other powerful skill in the game, and you are not gimped if you don't use it.

This has been discussed before many times now. Better use the search:

http://www.google.com/search?&q=nerf...wa rsguru.com

I've been to DoA and ToA on multiple occassions to test this theory out, and surprise surprise... The responses I get for trying to form a non-Ursan party can be boiled down to 3 categories:

1. gtfo nub
2. lrn 2 play (which is supremely ironic)
3. Good luck. I sympathize with what you are doing, but I'm going to be like the rest of the sheep and run Ursan anyways.

1000 apologies, almighty guru keepers of wisdom. Had I but known that joining a forum earlier on in my GW experience would make all the difference in my arguments... I've been around since longer than EotN, and quite long enough to see the impact it has had on the game. Thanks for turning a thread about bar discrimination into one full of "/age" discrimination. I seem to recall GW being "skill > time"...

I find it highly amusing that you can so effortlessly make patently false statements. Will you please provide screen shots with proof that everybody who has ever complained about Ursan is guilty of these charges.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't see myself "QQing" over anything else. Ursan is really the only thing that bugs me about PvE.

As for your deal, I propose an addendum: I'll "let ANet run GW2" as long as they don't include anything as imba as Ursan.

Such an insightful contribution to an otherwise decent discussion...