Confirmation that the Live Team is going after SF this year

That's missing the point. You don't fail because you haven't gotten better, you fail because humans are error prone and minute errors in UWSC often have a large effect on the outcome.

And I'll happily take you up on that bet, as well. You take a screen shot of ANY zbounty or mission party list at any time and I'll take a screen shot of ToA during peak hours. Now how much do you want to bet? 50k sounds reasonable?

Yet that couldn't possibly be because you associate yourself with people who have similar interests.

I honestly don't know why you believe that to have been my argument. From the get-go, I argued that UWSC was not an overpowered farm (thus, there must have been some other reason I do it now and then?)

I don't understand why you make that the basis of you're judgement, even from the perspective of doing everything "for fun." Is clearing an area as fast as possible bad because it's "over too soon" or something?

UW argument again, do you have anything for outside the UW?

By the way you're on, but I need to know more. How do you propose to compare? Remember that ZQs, by their nature, come twice in one day, and the two groups of players are the same, but they don't congregate in the same area. Do you mind if I screenshot two areas?

It means it's bad for everyone else. Do you agree it is impossible to ignore the fact that Shadow Form exists now?

Everyone on here crys too damm much. Quit worrying about how someone else plays the game or how fast they can kill something and play your own dam game. SF is not the problem, its all the people whinning about it. And no I don't do UW or FoW or any of the "LEET" farming with my sin. I raptor farm or maybe farm a couple bosses who's green is almost worthless. I even used to shadow bomb until all you 12 year old cry babies got to raising too much of a fuss and crying over that.
Wake the hell up and join the real world. Stop complaining that someone else is doing better than you. Learn to find something that your good at and go with it.
Here I have an idea lets remove all skills from the game and you can beat on monsters with your fists, sounds challenging. It would put EVERYONE on even ground and you would have nothing to cry about anymore.
Keep in mind while you are all on your cry-fest some people have done most everything in the game and farming is all that they have left but still enjoy the game.
All that has to be done to fix UWSC and FOWSC is to let Nightmares and Shadow beast attack through SF. And there are a number of skills that make this possible. Or hell we can just nerf the game into oblivion and then nobody will want to play it.

This has to be one of the most ill-informed and unknowlegable posts I have ever read.

had anet removed sweet tooth/drunkard/party animal there wouldn't be as much farming needed. now you have to farm at least 2kk just to buy these titles so that you don't get disadvantaged in gw2

And in saying that you have missed the point. As usual for forum members.

Well please enlighten us with how it is ill-informed and unknowledgable.

I'll answer for him.

You are assuming that Guild Wars is a single-player game that doesn't need balance, because "it doesn't affect you". This argument has been invalid since the original Spirit Bond nerf.

This is where you've made an assumption based on a complete lack of evidence.

HoM benefits will only be cosmetic and optional. You don't have to do anything for your HoM to play GW2. Players in GW2 gain no advantage for the HoM, according to the information that ANet has provided. You just get pixels and shinies, but you don't gain anything stronger or better than someone who never played GW 1. And since there is no specific information on the specific rewards resulting from the HoM, there is absolutely zero evidence upon which to base your assumption.

Only if you let me screenshot ToA and VSF. Furthermore, even if you were to win, you do realize that ZQ farming is still farming, and you're going to get a lot of players who are there for that.

All you are doing is shifting the question. WHY is it bad for everyone else? If endgame PvE isn't completely dominated by farming/title grind, as you say, then it seems like it shouldn't even matter to you.

I'd say by both your argument (doing things for 'fun' rather than farm) and martin's argument (doing known farms are a waste of time and make you a lemming) it's certainly possible to ignore the presence of SF.

Answering for someone else is usually not a good practice to get into. As per your answer, I do play GW mainly as a single player because it is filled with undependable players. And furthermore Anet themselves has stated that it is designed so that a player can complete the game on their own. As far as skill "balance", I will only agree with that side of the coin where pvp is concerned.
It all comes down to the fact that their are 2 types of GW players(other than pvp) and that is Farmers and people who do not farm. Anet has consistently said that they have nothing "against" farming, yet you let a few too many people start complaining on these forums about how someone else is making alot of money "farming" a certain area and it is sure to get nerfed either by class/skill nerf or monster AI/Skill change nerf.
It does not matter what skills you nerf or change someone will find a way to exploit a build that makes a particular area easy. This is the nature of the game and its players.
I started playing this game in Oct '05 and it has changed drastically since then. Some of you would term that as improvement(balance). I find that change is not always a good thing where this game is concerned. I continue to play GW daily and yes I do still love the game. But I still play GW because no other company has tried to compete with it. They all lack in graphics, playability, etc.
Unfortunately there is nowhere other than here (for the most part) for players, who feel like I do, to express their thoughts and opinions about GW and the direction it has gone. And of course as soon as someone comes on here and expresses an opinion that doesn't fit in with those that are shared by all the "Yes-Men"(or women) on here, they get flamed or told they know nothing or even get posts deleted. This forum is supposed to be unbias but it is not, and it is proven time and again. Now the mods can delete this or people can flame it if they wish, but someone needs to wake up and look at things here. EVERYONE deserves the right to say what they feel(with respect) weather you agree with it or not. You all get your say don't you?

Obviously. But I wouldn't like to look worse than other because I didn't farm 24/7. Of course I will get kicked out of pugs too because "shiny stuff must be better so we take the guy with cool stuff". People new to GW franchise may feel the same and they may not buy GW2 at all. From business side of things, I believe it would be better for ANet to care more for new players rather than veterans, because veterans will play and enjoy the game anyway, while new people will rate it based on first few weeks of GW2. For that reason I won't be buying Starcraft 2 because it's too similar to SC1 and similar strategies exist, so I am already disadvantaged from the beginning. but that's offtopic ;P

like i said, you can remove farming, but remove reasons to farm

I agree with Captain Herbalife here.

Long text following about SF, farming and nerfing PvE skills (sorry need to get something out of my system):

SF is just a skill that makes a certain farming build possible, since that is what we are talking about here.
You can use it or not.
If you use it, you can get things done faster.
Eg. farm more grogs this weekend. Nobody gets hurt (except raptors) and imo a lot of people are happy.
Things get farmed so the price stays low or gets lower so other people can buy the items.

If it is required for a teambuild to clear an area fast for the rewards you are actually working in a team.
You have to work together to get the job done fast or to get the job done at all.
In the old days if you had a crappy nuke/tank/heal build you were also refused in parties and here we are not talking about skills as SF but regular skills!

Sure as new player you are not able to get all the skills at once to make life easy, but yet you can get to them. You might not be able to do all the bonuses with or without heroes. You might need to ask somebody else, a stranger or a guildy for help. But after a while you can start using decent skillbars, farm- and teambuilds and you will have it easier and more player groups will accept you.

If you don't want to use teambuilds that feature SF or any other (farm) teambuild, find other people that would like to do it your way.
The reason other teams might not accept you is because they want to succeed and finish the area/mission in a reliable way with not too much time spend.
Time = money so to speak. Ingame and in real life. Which brings me to another point.

Not everybody has time to play the game 24/7 and need to work, but still people would like to get their hands on a certain item, max titles or finish an area: accomplish something.
Even if SF will be changed, people find other measures to farm.
Like in the day with HFFF and Amatz farm, now you have speedclears of entire areas with teambuilds that work much better and get you your title in no time.

Farming is just a part of the game.
You could even say that ANet put the ingredients to farm into the game.
Set a high goal (very expensive armors or high titles) and give the people the measures (skills/quests/monster builds) to discover a way to get it done fast.
This also invites gold-sellers since there are plenty of potential customers that are frustrated by the lack of cash they can't get themselves.

Then when more people find out how to get things done fast, they step in and say you are not allowed to do it too fast.
Too fast why? By which standards?
If somebody is happy finishing a title in 1 month farming or 1 year without farming, so be it.
I really would like to know *their* reasoning.

Anet needs to understand that there are people that are happy with farming and getting things done fast.
That it actually keeps people playing instead of getting them frustrated and stop playing.
And it seems ANet does and does not at the same time.
Nerfing PvE skills used to farm on one hand, introducing new powerfull skills, making titles account wide, tomes, and adjusting rewards on the other.
A bit of a mixed signal to me.

I'm glad there is something like perma and farm builds so I can achieve my goals.
Doing all the missions and quests over and over again for each character is really boring and time consuming.
You do not need to use farmbuilds OR SF but they sure do make life easier.
All the bitching about 'this skill is too strong ZOMG!' needs to stop.

Play the game the way you like and let others do it their way!

ah geez why doesn't A-net just put the nail in the coffin and shut the servers down and put all their resources in GW2? It's obviously they're trying to make GW die as slow as possible with this "we're going to do this in due time..." mentality and I'm getting fairly annoyed by it. A-net wants to nerf SF/SC's? Fine, makes it easier for me/other players to move on. Clearly all the "nerf SC rawr rawr" people want this game to die as quickly as A-net wants it to. I mean, why keep the servers up for the ~100 or so people who will be left after nerfing the only thing that keeps 90% of GW players interested?

You're on, especially since there was recently a Duncan ZQ, and the screenshot I got from that was lolwtf. There were more people there than I thought there would be.

Do you want to post your screenshots first? Since I'll be using the one from the Duncan ZQ.

ZQ farming isn't necessarily farming. I don't do ZQs for the ZCoins.

Endgame PvE isn't completely dominated by farming / title grind. Again, I don't title grind, yet I challenge you to say I'm not an endgame PvE'er.

Explain why it's possible to ignore the presence of SF.

Someone should make a summary post that explains why you can't ignore Shadow Form.

Oh and by the way, I still think ANet should buff "You Are All Weaklings!" to insta-kill every enemy in an AoE, and make FoW armor 50g each.

I don't see why people are making a big deal about this one way or the other.

I mean it's about time, but really there has always been, and always will be an "invincible" farming build...

600/smite could be considered the next "SF" build and most ppl might QQ about that after this happens, and when that's nerfed, we'll QQ about something else.

What will really happen is that now assassins have to actually have some degree of skill to be of any use now not to mention more variety in what builds to use other than SF their way to the top.

Ever consider the thought that people are leaving due to their maxing their goals alot faster now due to the UWSC? I personally know a couple of people who no longer play because they now done what they needed to do now and UWSC greatly speeded that up.

Also another person has now "realised" its as broken as hell now he's got whats he's wanted, how convenient. He's proberly in this very thread, crying for a nerf

So anyone answer me this, people wanna spend 100's of hour's to max titles in preparation for a game that is yet to have a concrete realease date, could be a complete flop, and have no idea what type of reward is going to be given for maxing these titles.

Could be just a little emote at the end of the day, im guessing its going to be an reward the doesn't put any new person to gw2 at a disadvantage.

So people, don't claim the time spent doing the UW in a non-broken way doesn't justify the time spent, these same people are currently more then willing to farm their asses off this moment of time for unknown reward(s) in gw2.

Yeah yeah... Those who bother with UWSC are hardly a majority. What keeps 90% of GW players interested is not SF 600 etc but spamming in Kamadan. First of all SF is pve only so you can exclude pure pvp players from your numbers. Then several pve players does not farm, there are RPG players as well, there are people who do not have factions, some still do not know how to use perma (not a joke...) etc. I was in more than 16 guilds and hardly more than 10% of people were using SF in every of them including some SC ones. It is quite typical on this forum to assume that "I do this so all others do this as well" which almost never is true or even close to it. I am afraid that numbers are more close to 5% than to 90%... On the other hand I understand the frustration and ANET should not allow SF in the first place. If you give something to the people and then take it back you create a really bad attitude and they should know about it and more carefully balance/create skills in the future. Regardless how OP nerfed skill is some people will quit just because of frustration. I guess we have to live with it. The question is whether it is worth to keep it in game with those people or not. In my opinion if all those uw permas leave the only difference will be in TOA...

600/Smite just got kicked square in the jim-hangdangler with this month's update. :]
It's no longer 100% invincible, and really the only places it still works flawlessly now is Shards and the Cathedral that I know of.

Go ahead and post your screen shot and give me a week or so to find a better one.

Btw, you do realize you are being entirely facetious. Do you honestly believe that people were there to "have fun"?

Most people were there to finish up their EOTN title (e.g., title grind).

I already stated, because you don't care about farming, your mindset dictates it isn't important for you to do things efficiently.

heh, i wanted to play "the game as it's supposed to be played", spent half an hour on my ele looking for DoA Zbounty quest, didn't even get an invitation (some kind person told me that they only look for bip,bonder and tank).

so what's there else to do than SC ;P

don't take this the wrong way i love perma SFs, shows how the player can create invincibility e.t.c. and its great being ran by them. but would be nice to see whether they open up another route for soloing, would be nice to see another proffesion get this kind of treatment, maybe some players would look into the shadow arts line of skills without shadow form?

Yes.

What's the point of posting the screenshot if it's just a target for you to beat?

And how many of those players do you think would have been satisfied with a free run?

Since you basically cherry-picked your screen shot with no regard for the point being made, it shouldn't be possible for me to beat it anyway?

At any rate, one of us has to post first, and since you already have yours, you might as well. (I probably won't be able to get a screen shot until this weekend though.)

Probably quite a lot because they can't find teams to do it otherwise and they're tired of PuGGing teams that fail (which is why some people charging 20k / run (<-- LOL) actually got a full team.

What's your point?

I've already told you what screenshot I'm using, so you post first, or you could wait until you have a screenshot with more people to post. Or you could say you have a screenshot with some distinctive things and then I post first, up to you.

I dont think they should nerf raptors if they do the only think I think needs to be fixed is uwsc and maby make uwsc easier for other groups its impossible to do uw without a perma.. least from my xp it is. cause its the "hardest" thing/area in the game and 2-3 people can solo it with 1 type of build, doa is good cause it takes 3 diffrent builds to do and its not as uber hard as uw or as easy with perma.

The question was rhetorical. People aren't there "for fun." They're there to finish up their EotN title and honestly most people don't care how it's done.

No u post first.

Btw, it's hardly fair anymore, considering Aion just came out. How about this: I'll post first if you find another screen shot from after this date. Otherwise, you post first.

Perhaps.

What's that got to do with the issue at hand?

You didn't take a screenshot from before the Aion release?

If you want a screenshot from after the Aion release, OK, but it'll take a while since I have to wait for the next ZQ that can't be H/H'ed - I suspect that for easy ZQs there're lots of people doing it still, they just H/H it and so don't show up on party search.

When you find it, let me know, I'm looking for a challenge.

Let me rephrase, "can't be H/H'ed easily".

Where do these magicians find this miraculous ability to read 1000's of minds and learn how people like to play or why they play??? lol Why don't YOU just state YOUR opinions with "YOU" don't play for fun and YOU are just there to finish up your EotN title and YOU don't care how it's done? Stop speaking for 1000's which you have no clue how they think and why they play. It just makes you look dumb and childish.

WTS double standard.

You realize that's exactly what I did? Don't interject if you're not even going to bother reading more than a post.

When I see ~500 people at a time in ToA daily, I have no clue and I'm just making things up? I'm "dumb and childish"? Grow up dude....

@Jeydra:

Here ya go. There were 6 districts and I got into d4. If you can find a better screenshot, great. I'll honor our bet, but I think you're being dishonest if you say this screenshot doesn't prove the point.

I'm done.

That's going to be hard to compare since you didn't screenshot everyone ...

But here you are - the screens from Duncan + that from the ZMission on that day, think it was Borlis Pass. There were a lot more people doing Rand / Thommis / Forge than normal, which is to be expected since I too needed Rand + Thommis before I could do Duncan that day.

Counting everyone not looking for VSF and ignoring the ambiguous "BIP LFG", there are 54 people doing the Duncan ZQ that day (at that time) and 15 people doing the Borlis Pass ZM for a total of 69.

EDIT: Forgot to attach.

Do you owe me 50k or is it the other way round? Because, truth be told, I think you owe me 50k - if you count everyone in your screenshot that are doing UWSC, plus those that are ambiguous, you have less than 40 people in those screenshots, which is well below the 69 that I got, unless the 11 groups that are seeking a party but not screenshotted have an average of like 3 people per group.

Some people are saying the shadow form nerf is coming next update.

And is that October or November? The wording of the last Dev Update would seem to suggest November, but it may refer to PvP balance changes only.

Not sure, it's all talk atm though. Will definitely be a shock to people who haven't been keeping updated, though.

Welp caught him in his lie this time because you can't see 500 people at a time in TOA the districts don't even hold anywhere near that many. And I'm sure he's going to come back and say he went from district to district COUNTING them and CHECKING EACH NAME to be sure they weren't someone he already counted in another district. lol Grow up yourself dude. lol roflmoa )

i cant even start to explain how wrong you are my friend UW is no where near at the difficulty of DoA not only can a perma not survive most DoA areas without a bonder there are monks in every group on monks that heal in UW are smites...the mobs are much larger hit through shadowform in all of the areas gloom,veil,foundy,and city and are in general much more difficult than UW which IMO is a joke

So when we were developing UWSC, we couldn't finish before we added in the perma, right? The original 3x Ursan, 3x Mo, 1x Obs Flesh, 1x R group failed every time until we got smart?

No, it just took an hour. We eventually got the time down into the high 30s with 3x Obs Flesh and no Chamber sin. Adding the sin to clear Chamber (rather than having the big Vale/Chamber/Mountain party do it) saved about ten minutes, and the abuse of PvE skills to clear Mountain solo saved about as much.

You can do it without perma. It just takes a bit longer. We were under 30 minutes with Obs Flesh and a stupid inefficient Vale/Mountain team. It would probably take 25-30 minutes, rather than 15, to complete a UWSC abusing Obs Flesh with everything people have already figured out.