SF Argument
Life Bringing
Tbh, since all of you are complaining about UW being so easy, an SF nerf will do "nothing". Absolutely "nothing". Bars will be reverted to obby flesh tanks and times will still be ~25 minutes. See here.
Ugh
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Originally Posted by Life Bringing
And I'm kind of on the fence about an SF nerf. And by "on the fence," I mean Linsey said she didn't want to nerf it so too bad for me. :S
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Now you try to divert the argument against Shadow Form maintainability by pointing out that it takes 16 skills and 2 players to run 600/Smite? Sometimes even 3 players for certain areas?
Originally Posted by Me
I've changed my views from wanting an SF nerf (due to the fact that Linsey said she didn't want to nerf SF) to wanting an UWSC nerf. Changing gate mechanics, NPC behavior, or the addition of skills such as Leech Signet, Well of the Profane, and Signet of Humility might do nicely.
Life Bringing Coney
Without reading this thread I must state, I hate my sin and I hate SF. talk about milk-walking for free self-strokes.
_Nihilist_
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Originally Posted by A11Eur0
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Stop trying to misdirect, please.
Quote: Originally Posted by traversc There are basically no upsides to killing SF, and there are quite a bit of downsides. For one, it would close off UW and FOW to the large majority of players. It isn't easy to get a decent balanced team capable of completing UW HM. As it is now, anyone could easily make an assassin (or necro!) and get into UWSC in less than 10-20 hours flat. First, it wouldn't close off UW and FoW to the large majority of players. Anyone can access UW and FoW. Just because they can't complete it in 20 minutes doesn't mean they don't have access to it.
Second, it might not be as easy to get a decent balanced team together, but you can find them. If SF wasn't around, more balanced teams would be going into both UW and FoW. Hell, even if it was to cause 600/Smite teams or 55/SS teams, or Obsidian Flesh teams to go back in, that's more variety than 7 SF Assassins and 1 Vale Monk or Necro.
Third, sure, anyone can make a Sin or a Necro and get into an UWSC, just not in equal numbers. Your argument is flawed, because the ratio is 7:1. If you don't want to make a Sin, or if you would rather play a Necro, you have less chance to get in because there isn't room for more than one Necro in the SC.
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You're a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing autist.
Originally Posted by traversc
Ecto prices and high-end weapons prices would also skyrocket, making them and elite armor completely unattainable for most players.
Ecto prices when the game launched were ~13k/ea if what my friends who beta'd tell me are correct. Within a year of game release, before Factions had even hit shelves, Ecto was ~9k/ea. I mean, come on. Ecto has no higher than a 4% chance to drop from any Monster that can drop it. WHY SHOULD IT NOT BE EXPENSIVE?
And yeah, High-End Weapons and Elite Armor would be harder to get, but not unattainable. I played for almost 3 years before I bought my first set of Elite Armor. Not because I couldn't afford it, but because I had better things to spend my money on than armor that looked different, but functioned the same, as max AL Non-Elite Armor. They are High-End/Rare/Elite for a reason. You earn them. They are NOT unattainable, they just take effort to get. That's like saying a McDonald's drive thru employee should be able to drive the same vehicle, have the same house, wear the same clothing and jewelry, and have the same posessions as a neurosurgeon easily. One says "Do you want to Super Size your Combo today?" while the other one has to treat and operate on the central nervous system of the human body. Which takes more effort? Which takes more research, training, and commitment? That's the one who earns more, because they have the more difficult task. Life Bringing
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Originally Posted by Tyrael_Eveningsong
Now you try to divert the argument against Shadow Form maintainability by pointing out that it takes 16 skills and 2 players to run 600/Smite? Sometimes even 3 players for certain areas?
Stop trying to misdirect, please. And yet people make more money, faster with 600/smite, and can do more areas than sf. Ghost Dog
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Originally Posted by Life Bringing
Tbh, since all of you are complaining about UW being so easy, an SF nerf will do "nothing". Absolutely "nothing". Bars will be reverted to obby flesh tanks and times will still be ~25 minutes. See here.
That build has SF and two ursans?
Life Bringing
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Originally Posted by Ghost Dog
That build has SF and two ursans?
The SF build used echo to maintain, and you can come up with a better replacement for the 2 ursans?
Ghost Dog
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Originally Posted by Life Bringing
The SF build used echo to maintain, and you can come up with a better replacement for the 2 ursans?
Ok I'm done with this thread, the SF defenders aren't even reading.
_Nihilist_
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Originally Posted by Life Bringing
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600/Smite doesn't circumvent game mechanics to the extent of Shadow Form. Nor do all 600/Smite builds use Spell Breaker, which only grants targeted spell immunity, not immunity vs. attacks. And I've never seen a SF bar that requires two skillbars or more to work.
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You're an elitist. First of all, barring a large part of the game from the majority of players is an insanely bad business decision and will never happen.
Secondly, this game is at an end, so there's no harm in letting players get cool items. There is just no benefit in nerfing SF to anybody, period.
If anything needs to be nerfed, it's the 600/smite dungeon runners making 100-200k per hour.
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600 / Smite is another build that I want nerfed. If nothing else, nerf till a real team can match its kill speed. After all, why bother about doing CoF the front way when you can just hire a runner, let the run pay off the cost, finish faster than you would otherwise and still be able to go AFK during the run?
Third, sure, anyone can make a Sin or a Necro and get into an UWSC, just not in equal numbers. Your argument is flawed, because the ratio is 7:1. If you don't want to make a Sin, or if you would rather play a Necro, you have less chance to get in because there isn't room for more than one Necro in the SC.
My argument is flawed because there aren't as many slots for necros...? How is that even relevant? My argument was that anyone can make a new character and get into UWSC in less than 10-20 hours. Quote:
Thommis HM is accessible to competent players without Shadow Form. I can H/H it. For the not-so-good players, it's extremely difficult. I'm sitting in this (kinda bad) PvE alliance where the players were discussing the recent Thommis ZQ and commented how "fun" it will be.
That's not the point. You can't ignore the fact that no matter how you choose to do Thommis HM, you're doing it so much slower than someone can via VSF. Why would anyone spend an hour to do Thommis, possibly risking deaths and wipes, when they can finish in 10 minutes with VSF? Have you tried getting a team together to do Thommis HM without using SF? If there were no SF, then you can get other human players. Thommis HM might be extremely difficult for not-so-good players, but - pardon the arrogance - for someone as accomplished as me at dealing with HM dungeons, I can compensate for subpar builds. A couple at least. I've gotten PuG teammates who don't have good builds or good heroes. Then I tell them to drop heroes and I bring henchmen. I don't have to ask them to change builds, but I can still finish [insert area]. If there were no SF, VSF will probably drop off the radar, and PuGs will probably move on to Obsidian tanking to do Slaver's HM. That's OK. Doing Duncan HM for example via Obsidian tanking isn't all that much faster (if it is faster at all) than doing it via balanced builds. If you can get players to trust you, you'll also be able to get people to do balanced with you. With SF however, nobody would want to balanced because it is simply so much faster with Shadow Form. You write that these PuGs are "farming" and not "playing" PvE, which is why you can't find PuGs for anything other than SC. If you say this ... then you're wrong. I spend a fair bit of time doing Slaver's again and again and again, and sometimes when I pass by Umbral Grotto I see some lonely person going "LFG Forge" for example. Why would anyone want to farm Forge? Nobody would, this is "playing" PvE. Whenever there's a Thommis ZQ for example, you might see "Spirit spammer LFG Thommis". Do you think he's farming instead of playing? Before I learned to H/H Duncan HM, I would also pass by Umbral Grotto looking for a team to do it with. Again, "playing" PvE, not farming it. Groups exist, although they are rare. They were rare before SF. With the advent of SF though, it's gotten so hard to get a team, you might as well buy a run ... or teach yourself to H/H it. Quote: |
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Umm, any profession can maintain SF? Monks are the fastest at pits and mnts? Necros can do chamber really fast? Eles outclass all the sins(except chamber)? Mesmers can do pits and chamber? Even if everythign resorts to 600/smite, warriors and the like will still be discriminated against. They have no benefit over a caster, and quite a few drawbacks.
Originally Posted by A11Eur0
You're the accusers of the invincibility of SF: name me the areas that have absolutely zero counters to SF either in the form of PBAoE, signets, non-targeted enchantment removal(and no, I don't mean chilblains).
I'm sure I could come up with an area if I cared enough, but whatever - let's try a different question instead. Name me areas where the counters to SF actually exist in sufficient quantity / danger to actually kill you, through a Monk two aggro screens away casting Heal Party. Verily. We play to maximize profit. But look at VSF for example. You spend maybe 5 minutes to put together a team, and then clear Thommis HM with minimal difficulty after ... maybe another 5 minutes.Quote:
Ask yourself what the motivation behind "farming" PvE is.
And then ask yourself what the motivation behind "playing" PvE is. What you are describing here equals "farming" PvE. The problem is that farming completely took over PvE and we are pretty much unable to play the game for any other reason than maximizing our profit. Most of us farm PvE these days. I am currently having the BIGGEST issue playing an Inspirational Curser, despite this being probably my favourite combo in the game. And my problems with it do not come from the fact that I'd be unable to complete what I want - they come from the fact I am trained to believe that I should run something just because it's faster even though I don't enjoy it even remotely as much as I'd enjoy the above mentioned mesmer. Simply put - why would you want to play something sub-par? Because you'd be having fun. And the simple fact that you are not performing on the top level does not matter because the game is designed to allow people to win despite failing. Quote: Against that, you could put together a full team of 8 human players with all the most powerful, arguably imbalanced PvE skills like Save Yourselves! and Ether Renewal. You'd clear Thommis HM with no difficulty alright. But you will take longer than 5 minutes. A lot longer than 5 minutes. What gives? Why should VSF be so much faster than anything else you can do, and requiring so much less effort? Why should 600 / smite be able to clear CoF faster with just one source of damage than another team utilizing 6 different damage sources? I believe that farming should be possible, but anyone farming is aiming to maximize drops, not to maximize kill speed. If someone 600 / smites CoF and earns 10k gold from his accompanying "passengers", well and good, but he should do it slower than another person doing CoF with 7 other players who are actually wading into the fight. An example of a balanced farm run: the E/Me Sandstorm + Earthquake + Aftershock build to farm Ectos off Smite Crawlers in the UW. Can you do the run faster with 8 players? Yes you can, for obvious reasons. But you get less Ectos per player, which is why you go it solo. An example of an imbalanced farm run: VSF. Properly executed this is by far the fastest way to clear Thommis HM. It has enough redundancy to be faster even with 6 players instead of 8, for example. Shadow Form is the cornerstone of a lot of farming runs, so it is the automatic target for nerfs. Quote:
Still, I am willing to look past it because it's this speed that enables to counter some crap that was put into this game. There are certain things in this game that demand a LOT of money and time. And the normal speed of gaining money/or other things isn't sufficient. So this improved speed helps negate the failure of the above mentioned out of touch with reality crap that A.Net put into this game. Tone down some of this crap so that it will be achievable by normal play and the crutch function of farming is no more. The problem is that I don't see this happening. I don't see A.Net lowering the max level for Luxon. I don't see them lowering Lucky/Unlucky. Chests. Zpoints. .... And that's why I'd rather have this stupid crutch in the game. This isn't game theory and what is good for Game X. This is just looking realistically at GW that we have now. Quote: No offense but I think that's a really weak argument. Let's accept that maxing all these stuff is crap to begin with - I don't agree with that statement, but you proposed it and let's accept it. Now ask the obvious question: do you think it's a good idea to meet crap with more crap? I don't. What's more, grind in GW is a lot less significant than other MMOs. You do not have to grind higher levels, or to grind more powerful weapons. What do you need to grind that could affect you? Luxon, Kurz, Lightbringer, Sunspear, EotN title tracks, etc. Not all that important, and they've gotten a lot easier to max with update after update making it easier. You get to, what, R6 Norn just completing the campaign? Also, even without maxing all that you are still plenty effective. What's even more, the places with most Permas - VSF, UWSC, etc - have nothing to do with maxing those titles. Do you think people do VSF to max Deldrimor, or to farm Voltaic Spears? I cannot believe your argument that removing this "crutch" would also mean less farming. If everyone could just walk to the nearest merchant and buy a set of Obsidian armor for 500 gold, then yeah there would be no more farming. But there would also be no game. Agree? I certainly think so. Quote:
No. Absolutely not. Is adding a fast way of making money to be able to max Lucky, a title that takes 4 years of AFKing the Rings OR demands massive amounts of keys - an amount that isn't obtainable though normal play - a bad idea? No, I currently don't believe that it is. Considering that there are ... what ... 7 or 8 PvE areas in the whole game where a player can obtain Luxon points and the titles maxes at 10 mil - is having a way where you can obtain those points much faster a bad idea? I don't believe it is. Being able to open 10k chests faster? Have an easier way of obtaining 10k sweet points? Yes, this kind of crap IS completely optional. But once you reach a certain level - it's also ALL there is left. As you said - FoW for 500g would mean no game. And that's what i feel should be changed. Give us an initiate to actually "play". And the best way to do this is is if "playing" the game enables you to reach certain goals. Currently, it does not! You NEED massive amounts of farming - and SF, being broken that it is, makes this process faster. (If on the other hand they decide to fix these issues, nuke it away!) Quote: And that's one title. How much gold does your average player have? How much does normal play net you? The problem is that wasting a million is out of touch with how much you earn by playing the game. You NEED something broken to compensate for it. And SF is currently that broken winner. Quote: Quote: If it's 600/Smite teams that start SpeedClearing (I'd prefer that the SpeedClear nonsense was eliminated, but saying it's not), you can 600/Smite with nearly any profession as the 600 Tank. Hell, set up correctly, a WARRIOR can 600 Tank, it just takes skill and patience. It doesn't hurt other professions nearly as much as Shadow Form does, nor does it abuse game mechanics as much as SF. |
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Your argument seems to be, "but you need power farming to get to all the Voltaic Spears and Obsidian Armors, so don't nerf farming".
Before Shadow Form was maintainable, there were plenty of things that could be farmed with it. It just involved using a build that was capable of blowing shit up before SF dropped, or farming where you could Shadowstep behind a wall/obstacle so that you couldn't get hit when it did drop. When this was going on, there was no damage reduction limiting the amount of damage you could do, and SF lasted longer (per single cast) than it does now.
Way to be RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing ignorant. SF was ALWAYS maintainable. It has never NOT been maintainable. People were using SF to farm uw long before eotn, cons, etc. You're also wrong about SF lasting longer. When the skill was released at the beginning of factions, SF lasted for 5...17...20 seconds, it now follows a 5..18...21 progressions, so its actually lasts longer now than before.
AtomicMew
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Originally Posted by Unreal Havoc
What's even sadder is the pure abuse someone can get just for even attempting to create a balanced team for UW HM. Sadly with the general PuGs mindset this is something better left to Guild groups. And people wonder why PuGs are so bad these days? |
You're assuming that if SF gets nerfed, people will continue doing UW. That's completely wrong. UWSC is barely a decent rate of income to begin with. UW balanced is not something that can compete in terms of economy.
I don't get it. If you can't farm, then you don't get VS's and FoW armor. Objectively, nothing about you has changed. So you don't have prestige armor, but you don't need prestige armor to be effective. Is there a reason why you should have VS's and FoW armor? And if there is, is there a reason why you should be able to farm them so much faster than you would otherwise?
Approach this from another angle as well. Suppose ANet made it possible to farm 10 ectos / hour. You'll still need to work for FoW armor, but you get it really fast. Is this balanced? What about 15 ectos / hour? Where do you draw the line?
And yet another angle: what are you going to do after you have the VS's and FoW armor? As you said, there's nothing to do other than get VS's and FoW armor and maxed Sweet Tooth. What next? Quit?
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The same way that he is able to get into "playing" teams now. They have to become players. They have no choice. If they do not become players, they can't get Thommis HM done (unless they H/H). This will be especially pronounced on ZQ days.
You seem to think that the spirit spammer will be able to get into "playing" teams now. Maybe. But the point is there are very few, if any, playing teams right now. That's because most players simply hitch a ride on VSF runs. Think about it. The whole point of getting more humans is to finish the area faster. But you finish the area fastest by getting a VSF run, and it is so much easier to get a team for VSF. Why would anyone want to "play"? I'm not referring to you, the player. You've already decided to "play". But you can't find anyone else who also wants to "play". There simply aren't enough players.
On the other hand, if Shadow Form gets nerfed and you can't VSF anymore, then anyone who wants to get the ZQ done must either H/H or pick up more humans. Suddenly the player pool multiplies. This is easy to see if you look at a ZQ where there's no such tool to farm and it's moderately hard to H/H - say, Gyala HM. Try getting a human team to PuG Gyala HM and to PuG Thommis HM, and the difference is leagues wide.
You cannot ignore the fact that Shadow Form exists, no matter how much you want to.
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Nerfing UWSC with no compensatory mechanism would completely screw up everything. It would make people who are already rich insanely rich further polarizing the community between the elite (cf elitists) and non-eiltes. Basically, that would kill any faith I have left in A.net.
How do you think the super rich got super rich in the first place?
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Originally Posted by Life Bringing
Way to be RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing ignorant. SF was ALWAYS maintainable. It has never NOT been maintainable. People were using SF to farm uw long before eotn, cons, etc. You're also wrong about SF lasting longer. When the skill was released at the beginning of factions, SF lasted for 5...17...20 seconds, it now follows a 5..18...21 progressions, so its actually lasts longer now than before.
No it wasn't. Before the PvE / PvP skill split, Shadow Form wasn't maintainable.
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