The FOW Problem

Oh god...
It all makes sense now

FYI I haven't logged on in 2 months, I log on every once in awhile to check on stuff and the like, but I don't play anymore, so I really could care less. But, the thing is, I can't stands idiots with little or no money like you shouting "MAKE EVERYTHING 5 HOURS LONG AND MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO GET 100K QUICKLY". And yes, people like you are indeed bad for the game, one way or the other.

Haha Man, kinda funny that the god of gods for dungeons made this thread xD (Didn't read all the posts if this is out of place)

Am happy to say I did the LMoTN title without getting a run from a sin or 600 pair. No fun being run, it's dead boring, and zzzzz sins. So, not everyone does it. I'm ... well, not exactly 'glad' that the service exists for people who are too terrible to do it on their own, but what can you do.

Ah... gottcha... people who actually play the game are bad for the game.

As opposed to people who get run through all the content, then bitch about their not being any content and are bored and quit.


Edit: Actually, don't bother responding to this either. After seeing your posts in other threads, you are clearly just a troll. So, you are going on my ignore list and I won't see any of your bickering and insults. So, save your breath... err typing.

Well, if anything happens to the FoW in similar fashion to the UW, I can bet Domain of Anguish will be next...

I do SC for FOW. I have no beef with SF whatsoever, but without that skill, there wouldn't be a FOWsc IMO. With that said I do think though there will always be groups that find *fast* ways without SF to clear certain areas. New monster skills is probably the only ways I see certain Elite areas being slowed down, or changing up the way quests are done. Then again with certain monster skills people will always find a way to counter them, that is the beauty of GW's to problem solve with your skill sets hehe. Either way I use to do FOW and UW back in the old days the old fashion way with a balance team. I didn't mind it then and on occasions I wouldn't mind it now, GW players (some of them) just got lazy and took the fast route to high end loot items, instead of enjoying the game or comradery of playing with other players.

Y, Hallo Thar!

how is fow a problem?

these areas are what, 4+ years old? and your complaining they should take as long to complete as they did 4 years ago? seriously, stop crying over other people and worry bout yourself

The only problem (and this has gone on since day 1 even before SF) is the constant demand for nerfs. Nerfing SF will not bring the end to all this nonsense and that should worry anyone interested in investing their hard earned cash for GW2. Some of the nerfs were justified but others weren't and has left a very bad taste in my mouth for quite some time now.

DoA won't be nerfed...If anything it will be made easier, not harder. Very few pugs form for DoA, and of those almost none finish. Besides, most guild groups still take ~1h to finish DoA, which is plenty long enough.

I honestly don't see a fow nerf coming. To start, there are only 2 sins that split away and blow shit up, as opposed to uw's 6(could count vale, so 7). Next, there is more than 2 professions being used. In fact, all professions but a paragon and a dervish can be used in relatively easily in fow, and derv can even AoEbomb if it really felt like doing fow. FoW records are also about twice the time that the UW record was, with most pugs getting around 25 minutes. The shard price plummeting is a problem, but nerfing fow honestly doesn't make sense to me, since anet still wants people to pug.

I find it funny how a few people think an area should be nerfed just because they think it should take longer to complete. Don't do SC's then, find a balanced group if you want it to take longer. Just because a run is too fast doesn't mean it should be nerfed. Having these SC's actually gets groups together as well, isn't that what Anet wanted... people being able to get groups together easily?

PuGs naturally go where the pastures are greenest. Right now UW/FoWSC are the best when it comes to rewards versus time spent. Nerf UW so it's slower and less profitable and they'll gradually move on. DoASC, SoOSC and whatever else is on the horizon will eventually fill this void. Then we can see more of these threads. YAY!

Yes, simple area change is needed.

Devs have many nice tricks to ensure party stays together:

* Carry fragile bundle throught enemy spawn: Cant be soloed by perma (loss of enchant weapon), at least one aditional party member needed.

* Door that needs several cooperating party members to open, like in deep, room 3.

* PvE skills! Giving some mobs "YMLAD!", Radiation Field, Ear Bite, Weakness Trap, etc, would help. At ton.

* "Remove enchant if spellfails" skill would work best as it is unlikely to interfere with normal gameplay, but will destroy perma tank, obsi tank (if they finally make effects consistent), SB-ed 600... as pretty much any farming gimmick plays on having spell immunity.

Pugging? Did smiters booning ursan make more pugs? Go have a look in DOA on a non z-bounty day and see how many people are playing this 'elite' content.

Nerfing the UW. Go sit in TOA and see how many so called 'balanced' pugs are forming to do the UW. About as many as pre UWSC. That as, almost none at all.

And dungeons? Like there was some big pugging craze before some one figured out you could run dungeons. About the only dungeon that really got pugged was HoS. Frankly, dungeons have probably seen more activity since runners came then ever before in the game. And for better or worse, they probably bring back people who'd never have bothered going back to the dungeons after filling their nm and hm books and getting the master of the north points.

Nerf FoW if you want, I don't really care, but you can bet that there won't suddenly be some big explosion of 'balanced' pugs forming to do it. Just as there wasn't pre-FoWSC.

Well of course that's what happens if you block one area the dumb kids will go somewhere else. SF is the problem, they should fix that.

Indeed. And there are many more possibilities, but I'm completely unsure about their feasibility. From the henchmen AI update and Joe Kimmes' comments, we know AI can be updated quite simply, and maybe that's what they should do. Monsters that change tactics when spell fails, wanding while intelligently moving around the target to avoid spells each in turn, spiking (actually this is not mosnter AI but mob AI and I've got no idea whether it's related in GW1), etc.

Any good designer who wants to do that would have to do it very slowly, one step at a time, while at the same time providing some subtle emphasis on the directions where players should go (e.g., a general idea of "balance"). It's completely obvious that the Live Team has nowhere near the resources to do that, and actually GW1 at this point doesn't need it. I doubt that good/skilled players, veterans or other PvPers would come back, unless there's a message from Linsey describing a massive move like this. She's already done "wonders" (players don't see it that way) since introducing the April update and the "PvP love" one (this one not finished yet?) and maybe 2010 will see some bold things happening.

After all, they've introduced titles/GWAMM and Hom, and a few grams of grind (which is actually not strictly needed to get full HoM and GWAMM), and it would be illogical to change the game against this. However nice it seems to skilled-pro-veteran players, this is an ideal that contradicts their business, and hence their existence, pay and job. The recent news of studio closure sort-of puts all this into perspective, ofc Anet is in a relatively good position, but nowhere near what is needed to steer the community one way or another (related note: I read that WoW has 68% market share on MMOs...woaw, just woaw), and I don't think it's in fact what they'd want their game to be. GW1 proposes many ways to play, alas some of them being more difficult (balanced, PvP) because of the pressure of other gameplays (farm, gimmick).

I must be an idealist on this topic, or an utopist that believes he's realistic, but I think the community could do something to change this. I've personally done some zquests with balanced PUGs put together in a few minutes which achieved an amazing efficiency in some not-so-simple HM missions, without each player being amazing him/herself. But well...

*circles on his todo list to go to FoW for his first FoW armor and get SF on his sins* ...

To quote BA's definitive piece on this subject:

Now, if you could just point me to where I can find these guys in FoW...

FoW is a core elite area, UW is a core elite area, UW has creatures with none-core skills. So FoW...

Something like that

Indeed. FoW / UW uses mostly core skillset and professions because that is all what there was when they were created. Otherwise, they would have removed some prophecies-only skills.

Being mostly core does not imply that goal was to create core-only area.

A/Rt/D/P mobs are not out of question.

What he means that they already added some Factions skills to the UW mobs, there is no reason why they shouldn't add some Factions or Nightfall skills to FoW.

"Fixing" areas is pointless. First off, farmers are not a problem, only a symptom. Second, even if they were a problem, that "solution" would not solve it, since they just move on to the next farm. Thirdly, it screws over the area for anyone who wishes to play it legitimately.

Well even though he likely didn't mean it that way, he is actually literally correct on all three points:

• SF is the bane of GW (overly easy farming + dungeon/mission running)
• Nerfing it would solve (almost) all problems
• stfu

I've been playing GW for 2 1/2 years now. I've been enjoying it tremendously. I didn't realize how horrible things were until I joined this forum. All those speed-clears are ruining my fun because... um... It's affecting my... um... uh... It's just ruining the game and needs to be stopped! Nerf SF so I can go back to 2 hours of rezzing party members in UW so they can rage quit halfway thru. Yeah... That's the ticket.

So... you want idiot-proof builds because you don't have a good guild and think PuGs fail. And you are blind to see how this affects the economy for the honest players.

Elemental Swords pre-overfarming - 100k + ecto, depending on how low the req was. NOTE: Req 13 and 12 were still really popular as caster weapons.

After overfarming - ...anyone still buys those, except for req 9's?

So if you get a nice Elemental Sword and hope to sell it for a lot, prepare to be disappointed.

So it boils down to greed. I think I understand fully now. Thank you!

Yeah. If you are so greedy that you want the shortcut to fortune, then yeah, you probably do need SF.

Unless it's changed since I last did a FoWSC (which admittedly was quite a while back) let's see.

Assassin x3
Warrior x2
Necromancer x1
Ritualist x1
Monk x1

5 classes out of 10.

Pretty sure Elementalists could replace some of the Assassin roles at some point aswell, although I'm not sure if it's still possible. Rangers can also take over the Ritualists role too if needs be.

That boosts it up to 7 classes out of 10 leaving out Paragons, Dervishes, and Mesmers.

well i think fowsc is at least better than uwsc.

fowsc IS op but uwsc was sick.

its when a single proffesion rickroll over all other in a certain portion of the game and its barely worth playing anything else in that portion.

and i agree that 6/10 IS better hitrate than 2/10 proffesions

consets mad the thing even stranger with now being perma with any secondary prof you like (i bet they even didnt need the vale necro if they ran the A/N variant.)

its basicly a skill that was suposed to be used as a backup skill if you got in trouble, but people got it perma and suddenly a-net could simply not remove it since about 90% of the factions characters (not really but it felt like that :P) was assasins.

its a skill that makes you immortal against everything except 1% of the skills and still gives you the ability do dash out lot of dammage.

so im not against fowsc where you atleast have more proffesions to choose from and actually gives different roles to different characters.

any other person from any other game would stare at your screen and say "wtf why arent you even taking a single dammage if it is such a hardcore area as you say?"

I think you'll find that it's the people who get bored and bitch and whine that get us the new content. It's a bit like meta changes in PvP; without a new meta there is no new challenge to compete against. People stay on because changes are going to have to be made and they hold out for them.

People who "actually play the game" are neither here nor there. They aren't particularly good and they aren't particularly bad, at least in PvE.

At the end of the day its the age of the game that is failing us here. You can't expect a 4 year old game to be receiving the same amount of new content or dedication that it once had when it was alive. It's dying out so let it go peacefully, and appreciate the fact that people are actually trying to improve it ever so slightly.


p.s. make SF a stance

because sc's killed ele swords...no, eotn killed ele swords, along with many other "rare" skins.

para and dervish are core to fow physway which is still very quick (sometimes better than a pug sc [and it doesnt use SF]) and "fun" cuz youre bashing stuff to death. and for mes', get in a friend group and go me/n mop....not really hard and just as fast.

again i fail to see what the "problem" is with a 4 yr old area besides those people that are too morally superior to try a new build crying about those that can successfully make a build more efficient.

ummmm
first of all, ever hear of dwarven stability? it was already pointed out IN THIS VERY THREAD. to YOU.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...1&postcount=48

make it a F O R M skill. Shadow FORM. durrrrrrr

Are you kidding me? DoA is the best farm in the entire game. So many times better than fow/uw that it's ridiculous. The problem is that all the problems that pugs have in fow are a thousand times worse in doa. Pugs can't ball well, spike well, heal well, or follow instructions. There's a reason pugs don't do doa, and it's not because of lack of profits

DOA is not profitable enough - pugs who get runned only do it for the Hall.
DOA has no 'elite' skin drops either
DOA gems fell from their starting 50K+ each to now 2-5k each

Contrast this to:
FOW/UWSC which has some really rare drops.
Quicker.
Shards/Ectos have certainly dropped in price but not by 10x factor, and are always in demand.

Verdict: DOA is not good enough moneywise unless you belong to a guild which does quad-runs in HM and does not fail. Oh, and I bitched Mallyx over 100 times already...

Invinci builds, SF included, destroyed it. It made those areas with swords too easy.

It has nothing to do with greed. It's all about elite standing and feeling special.

Wait, you're saying this makes farming a bad thing?

People generally make money from farming, or from getting lucky in this game.
Not everyone has amazing luck, so farming is the only good answer to make money fast.

When rare drops are actually considered "rare", they sell for a lot. The only people that will buy these rare drops... are people who farmed and got the cash to pay for it.
Since, in the end, things are going to have to be farmed, no matter what, buy somebody, isn't it generally more logical to farm the high-end item? This makes the rare drop a lot more common, but isn't that better for everyone? Everyone that wanted one anyways.

This boils down to nothing more than the elitist players wanting to keep their haves from the have nots. Any avenue that allows other players, whom are undeserving in their eyes, to attain items they've played to get needs to be shut down. Period.

They cry about balance and PUG's, but at the end of the day every counterpoint is based around either a crafting item's worth (shards, ecto, etc), an item used as currency's worth (ecto) or a once rare item only the hardcore player has attained. It has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with keeping themselves on a pedestal over the average GW player, who are inferior to their obvious talents.

The only balance they're worried about is their gold balance.

If all the sc boys hit FOW now instead of UW wont that drive down the prices of shards to the floor as well as elf tonics and obsidian edges? That will make FOW armor easy to afford for the masses and make some rare items cheap so everyone can afford them. That sounds like a good thing for most people. The new fowsc'ers will only quit when it is a bad deal for them. Sounds like a win-win for everyone to me. Non sc'ers get cheap fow armor and cheap toys, sc'ers get to make profit until the excess is gone and they move elsewhere. I fail to see any losers here unless you look backwards at people who paid more in the past for some items. But you never evaluate finances looking into history, only forward, that is economics 101. I dont sc, never have sc'd, have no flipping clue how these guys are even doing it. But objectively, looking forward, it seems that there are no losers. Sc'ers win, people who want FOW armor/skins win, and anyone with some item to sell wins as this will create and/or free up extra money for people to buy stuff from others.

Trickle up economics 101. It worked in the roaring 80's/early 90's in the real world, it will work here too. (think of time spent playing as a tax and relate that back to the real world economics.) The "time tax" on sc'ers is lowered, so they earn more: a win. This drives fow item prices down making it more affordable: a win. The extra money earned by the sc'ers and money saved by people who now can buy FOW armor/toys cheaper is spent on other items in the economy from hero gear to rare weapons. So anyone who finds or has an item for sale can more easily find a buyer: a win. Anyone who can play the game, find an item to sell (fow or not), will win (think entrepreneurs). If you sit on your butt and do nothing but whine that everyone is making money except you... you lose (think welfare recipients). That is economics 101, trickle up, real world analogies. The only losers in a SF world (assuming that is what they are using) are the people who do not play the game, do not find items to sell, and just sit around whining. You do not have to be doing speed clearing to benefit. All boats will rise in a rising tide. All you have to do is stop expecting welfare checks to be sent in the mail cuz it isnt gonna happen.

As one further anecdote, I never made so much ectos trading as when ecto prices crashed and went to 3-3.5k each. The exact opposite occured when uwsc was killed and ectos went to 6-6.5k. Trading became tough as people stopped spending. Think about it, when taxes are high (time spent to make money is up because uwsc is harder) people do not spend. When taxes are low (time spent to make money is down because there is something to speed clear) then they go out and spend, baby, spend.

I say hurry up and speed clear all you want! I want to save money buying cheap fow armor so I can stop slumming in my consolate docks armor. I want you to earn lots of money and feel very rich because I have some nice rare weapons to sell you. You earned it, and I have some bling for you to buy. ;-)

I am sure there are some people whom this applies to, but for the majority I don't think it is the concern. Many people, myself included, couldn't care less about the value of ectoplasm, nor how much money SF users make or how fast they grind their title tracks. In my case, I don't have a long list of personal achievements to complain about others reaching them easier than I did. My concern here is not other people's gameplay, nor is it how other players are affecting mine. It is about the the game. I want the game to resemble what it was in its days of greatness, at the least. Of course there was always the potential for it be something much greater. The mere existence of a PvE invincibility button means that Guild Wars can never return to such a status in my eyes. This game is no longer Guild Wars, even if elements of its original state remain.

Your own argument is also very easy to fire back; is the sole concern of the SF defenders not simply the rate at which their stacks of ectoplasm accumulate? Almost every point made seems to revolve around SF being 'ignorable' - if you don't use it, why care? Can't you just play the game how you like it and leave others alone? How does it affect your gameplay? - Aren't these all just an attempt to drive attention away from your precious method of gaining wealth?