Civilized Discussion?

Math talk confuses me x];;...

You CAN gain general exp. in Ursan. It's not extremely hard to run and when you've grasped concepts of how GW works, it can become a good tool to teach people...

But IMO you don't lose skills using it. GW's like riding a bike - it's not because you're using a car (Ursan, runs) that you can't use a bike (normal skills) after. Of course it requires that you have rode a bike before...

I think a lot of people fail to see this. I'm pretty sure that a lot of (but not all) gimmick users are simply the kind of people who are tired of spending time failing with PUGs. They've done the areas so much before that they can afford running gimmicks; they know the patrol routes, skills used, weaknesses, what to kill first and why. Remove the gimmicks and they'll revert to their old builds like nothing ever happened.

Another lot have no experience in there; they got ran all the time, they leeched, they have friends who are good and let them in their groups anyways...

While some, but probably the minority, have a desire of picking up the game and learning it. They don't care for gimmicks much, they're quite where I was when I did ROF - they do with what they have and they adjust in consequence.

The rest are your average players. They don't farm much, they don't have a lot of time to actually get decent skill because they work, go to school, have families. They don't necessary want the best items, max armor and max weapons will suit them. After all, it's max and even if they had 15k armor with obsidian edges, they'd only look better. And they know it. Whether something gets nerfed or not they probably won't notice it right off the bat and they deal with what they have.

Isn't there something that says "don't hate the player, hate the game"? My motto's pretty much "don't hate the game, hate the player".

I'm just having some fun here:

The tour the France is a nice example of both pvp and pve in one (actually there's a pvp part in GW's pve too in the form of titles etc). Cyclists have to beat the environment as well as other cyclist/teams. I can ride a bike, but in no way I have the skills to beat the professional cyclists. I won't even be able to just finish the track with a bike to be honest. Now if tomorrow the organisers of the Tour allow cars to participate, I will not train my cycling skills but I'll drive the car and I'll still be a bad cyclist. Driving my car I will see the traject, but I will not feel the traject in my legs like when I use a bike. Professional cyclists can use a car too, but why not start a career in auto races then and completely throw the cycling sport overboard?

Guild wars is about hundreds of skills, the time to learn them and use them properly. If new and average players just switch to Ursan, they miss out on a lot.

I was in DoA when ursan teams made their debut (discovered by veterans), things went smooth, 2-3 hours to get a full run done in HM. Last weeks, a lot of the groups I was in don't even dare to go HM and we still failed a lot of the time. (I suspect a lot of the veterans were farming UW dry with their sins.)

Just saying, I think new players and average player's skills didn't improve since ursan got to the masses.

That would apply, if PvE was a race, which it is not. Everyone who completes a certain milestone gets the same rewards. Other people getting the same rewards at you at different points in time shouldn't effect your own sense of accomplishment, or the personal value of your achievements.

Well it's hidden in the form of titles, lots of players are title chasing. Driving through the game with your ursan car can get you some titles and trophies fast. There's a pvp aspect in the pve part of the game, but I agree it's not measured like in the Tour. The race to fill HoM is fully going on though.

I don't use UB, but I go HB with UB groups so I'm guilty too. The difference is I completed DoA with real skilled players the first month when DoA was launched and I learned a lot.

Yeah, I agree with you there. They won't because it's offered to them right off the bat - they didn't go through 3 years of Ursan not being around. They don't know how.

I was randomly thinking about something earlier.

The people who fail repeatedly at Ursan are pretty bad, I'm sorry. I'm talking about the people who think that because they're in Ursan they can aggro the entire world without any defense and still pwn the **** outta 50 monsters - and not the groups who fail because they have one guy like this in the group. They wouldn't do better with reg builds... actually they'd die faster because they'd probably rush around as if they were in Ursan still.

Example: A couple months back I met someone pretty cool during a UW run. He was nice, talkative, seemed like he knew his stuff and whatnot. Good candidate to join our alliance.

As we don't play Ursan 24/7 and most of the time we're using reg builds, we sometimes expect people to not run Ursan. So a friend and I are ABing when my new pal shows up - he wants to join as well. Well he was a good ol' mending/HBreeze/HH wammo. He said he even used that in PvE when he wasn't in Ursan, that it pwned everything...

I offered friendly advice, he rejected it completely.

Let's just say I've grown extremely wary about the true skill of people in Ursan... and that he didn't last very long in the alliance.

I don't believe that. I think most people want a reasonable challenge.

I mostly agree with Kusandaa. I haven't played Guild Wars for 3 years, but nearly 1 and half so far. I still remember how good it felt to finish Nightfall for first time, with really abd builds and getting max armor at second last mission or so. Nowdays, if I ever make new character I usually get max armor as soon as possible, and know where to get good elite skills. I still today favour my very own build over ursan, mostly because smashing same buttons is really boring. Some people like it, so I do understand why so many enjoy using it. After all, it works. However, I wouldn't mind about Ursan, or any other "imbalanced" stuff, if they wouldn't affect my gameplay. Nowdays, if you go to DoA or some other elite area, it is (nearly) impossible to get group where they would LET me be something else than ursan. When I say "Can't I just use normal builds?" I usually get replied how slow it is to do without ursan.
However, in the otherhand.. You are not required to to use anything imbalanced to accomplish same things that were able to do years ago. It's just how it's "faster and easier" with them.
I'm not very good in PvP. I don't actually do anything else than AB, which doesn't always require that much skill. However, just like in PvE, it feels great to do something because I know how to do it, I know what to do in what situations and use my very own builds, that I have self made, and not copied from PvX.
I think I better quit my stupid rant now, because I don't think I'm getting to anything with it, just wanted to be part of this rather interesting discussion.

Saying that people who run ursan don't learn anything about the game is naive. People who want to learn in the game will learn about it even if they run ursan. I never paid much attention to KD's and weakness , after I used UB I understood how powerful they are. People who don't want to learn anything will just find some build on wiki or make one that will do the job for them and probably never change it thinking that if the build worked they know the game.
What really helped when I was beginning to play the game was asking myself why and how a build works , fail or wins. If a newbie just finds a build with "how to use" , he won't learn anything.

I also ask myself, "How, why and where a build would work". I also think like you. New players should try things out and learn the game instead of just looking up builds. This however will never happen. The player base has aged and have grown less tolerant with insufficient skill bars. If you are to experiment you would be told to find a guild and do it with them. Since it's "common knowledge" that the majority of players are bad it's really hard pressed to find yourself a decent guild to be with. I guess this is where heroes are needed and why they are widely used. Adding heroes to the game was the single best addition to the game for me. I loved the idea.

The problem with this comparison is that it assumes that skill>time excludes learning/adaptation as a skill. The purpose of the original skill>time mindset wasn't that players wouldn't be worse off new than old, but rather that the game would not mechanically reward a player strictly for time spent playing the game. The level cap, for example, was kept at 20 to prevent a level 30+ character from wiping out a level 20 or so just by looking at him/her. The idea isn't that time shouldn't improve your skill, it's that time shouldn't make up for a lack of it. UB (and all PvE skills with rank based improvement) go against this design philosophy because they replace knowledge of an area and of the appropriate skills needed to best that area with time spent grinding mobs to increase the power of overwhelming skills. Moreover, raising rank does not require the diminution of power in other areas as speccing in multiple attribute lines ordinarily would, which means that a person with max rank using the same PvE skill as another person without max rank is inherently superior to the lesser ranked individual, rather than possessing different strengths and weaknesses (as with ordinary differences in attribute rank).

That could be seen as the skill in Skill > Time, but @ the end of the day u could argue that Time > Skill. The time it takes for one to make that adjustment could be where the one w/the higher skill (aka, he who adjust quicker/better) beats out the other one who adjusts worse/slower (aka, he takes more time, thus supporting Skill > Time).

^^Just an interpretation, as you said you'd like to see from us responders.

And why would that even matter?
You complete something in PvE by:
1. failing and learning how to do it
2. wiki the area
3. listen to the 1 guy in your party that did it before

The only reason why one would need skill and a better understanding of the game is to face the unexpected. Which happens in PvP.
Not in PvE.
So if you Ursan PvE and complete it - you have learned everything you need to know about PvE.

The point most whinners miss in every whine thread like this though is Anet NEVER SAID Skill>Time for EVERY CHAPTER/Expansion, JUST Prophecies box ever said that and if you just play Prophecies that's exactly what you'll get. If you combined ALL the chapters an expansions that's your own fault for ruining your game not Anets. Go back and read ALL your box covers and flaps you'll see that Prophecies was the only one that said anything about skill>time.

Also, remember this one very important point ALL CHAPTERS are INDEPENDENT of one another and STAND ALONE, which means you do not have to have or even play them all as one. No one forced you to buy or play Nightfall or GWEN or even Factions, but, 3 of the 4 you can certainly play without any of the others, so, if you want your skill>time don't play anything, but, Prophecies.

Guild Wars is Guild Wars. The original idea was skill > time, which was a great idea. Generally when you start a game off as a skill > time game, you keep it that way, so you don't screw people over who bought Guild Wars because of the skill > time aspect. No, I'm not saying change is a bad thing. But when you start a game off as skill > time, then let it grow into time > skill, you'll piss a lot of people off, which game companies do not want to do.

Overall, skill > time was great, and slowly changing into time > skill was unnecessary, for 2 reasons:

1) Skill > time suits Guild Wars more
2) Slowly changing to time > skill pissed off a lot of people

Wasn't pve meant to be a training ground to make the step to pvp after? If you only play ursan sorta speak, you still have to learn a lot of skills and tactics. Mind you that pvp is hard if you come from pve, especially if the game is out for 2-3 years. If you only know how to play ursan, you can multiply the hardness of that learning curve several times and the training ground is alrdy small in factions and nightfall. PvP needs new blood I hear, so a bunch of bears that can't play much else if they arrive, won't help imo. They'll return to pve after they got killed several times in random arenas or whatever. They got used to winning and having an easy game.

So if you ursan pve and you complete it - you have played through pve in easy mode and had an easy time with one godmode build.

PvE can be a challange, DoA hard mode when it got released for example. I saw a few elitists pvp players make a fool out of themselves there.


It's a challenge to find an ursan who can pull with a bow in DoA these days. Pulling is basic skill.


But why it matters the most, if they don't go to pvp, you're stuck with a bunch of bad players in pve that populate elite areas thinking they're leet while in the meantime missing out what the game is actually about, hundreds of skills and the skill to play with them in pvp or pve. Zorian explained it better what Anet's original idea was all about:

This is largely true but I think the core of your confusion, not to mention the reason it is so often discussed, is that initially Guild Wars marketed itself as a game that directly went against such MMORPG distinctions, trends, traditions and generic gameplay.
That was the initial mantra of Anet and the core philosophy they wished to market to the gaming consumer.

There are a plethora of MMO's of the type you speak of but the whole point is Guild Wars marketed itself as being the opposite.A game where the casual gamer was on the same level as the 24/7 player.

Since release this has become a vastly different game in this respect and there in lies the point of on-going contention and discussion regarding the skill>time topic.

Guild Wars was originally designed and marketed as not conforming to past MMORPG mechanics or play styles.As such it's gone from initially being different and original in what is a saturated genre to now mimicking the majority in order to retain customers.

Bolded the keyword.
Past tense.

And who cares if PvE is full of shitty players that think that they are the next best thing since sliced bread?
I have ways of keeping them out of my instance. And that's pretty much all that matters.

Skill is time & Time is skill.

You're not automaticly good at the game, you need to learn the skills, maps, tactics.

No such thing as skill>time.

I liked that fact and that's one thing that kept me going further in this game - I have technically no advantages over others.

However, I noticed in this thread - or was in another? - that someone said something about needing titles to be more effective. Here's my point of view on this.

To get a NF character through NF itself, you need at least R7 SS because of the quest. IMO that's one requirement ANet should've never implemented.
EDIT: To all you lore specialists, if you are viewing this, does it actually make sense, story-wise, that I need to be a Sunspear General to advance... while by then I could have gone and killed The Lich in Prophecies AND Shiro in Factions? Just bust through the frontlines, after all you killed something 10 times as strong.

PVE skills, if they had been well implemented, should have been tied to a already-existing attribute, ie. Necrosis in blood or curse magic. Same damage, same recharge, everything - just change the attribute link. I don't know a lot of builds who require such skills... EXCEPT primary-profession based skill. I think I can safely say that in PVE, there's not a lot of ele builds which require Eternal Aura (dervish - only affects dervs skills) or Seed of Life (monk - healing determined by Divine Favor). Intensity, due to it's long recharge and little duration, IMO isn't worth it at all, even on an ele's bar.

But they went on the bigger picture: you now need a requirement for elite armor sets in EOTN. Luxon and Kurzick skills are more effective with respective titles, and Norn rank powers up Ursan.

IMO, view "grinding" for armor like farming for materials. If you want the armor you'll work for it. Anyways, getting to R5 Asuran, if that's the one you want, is pretty easy: beat EOTN with a book in your inventory, cash in the points. If you want a second set of armor, Deldrimor let's say... you'll work for it because you want it and not because you need it. You have max AL armor, it should technically be enough. If you want stuff, work for it.

They do NOT have any advantages over other armors. And as I've said, if you want more armors you'll work for them as they are there for pure aesthetics purpose only.

Norn is another case 'cause it DOES give an big advantage over the others. Ursan is extremely OP'ed, requires little to no skill to run once you're mastered basic skill such as aggroing, pulling and walling (which a lot of people fail at, mind you) and has become the standard in PUGging because of that.

Change "skill" for "attack", lower health and armor bonuses (or make everyone having the SAME AL, let's say 70 - yeah I know warriors and para have 80AL but for the sake of it, let's put it at 70 for now since it's exactly between 60 and 80), tie it to a primary attribute: no more whining. Still effective, not OPed...

It shouldn't be past tense imo but you're right.

I care, cause we have a small guild of real life friends who can't play hardcore all the time. And since playing with 7 heroes is still not possible, I have to go with a pug to do the elite missions sometimes.

But I know what you mean.