Shadow Form meets the end

Because if something is better than a BALANCED team, does something a lot more safely and a lot faster than that BALANCED group.. it probably means it's imbalanced.
It shouldn't? You are probably playing with crappy pugs or without a good guild, where you never run anything like Derv-way or use Rangers or other classes at all. The "divine trinity" is pretty slow and crappy in GW, there are better alternatives, but people are too lazy. Can't change that.
No, but the more skills causing problems you fix, the closer you are to the golden formula. That's like a surgery - you have to fix bones, cauterize bleeds, do a splenectomy... each on its own won't help the patient, but if you fix all of the problems one by one, he will eventually be cured.
Yeah, rebalancing every single area in the game, being careful not to screw up either with Normal Mode for lowbies or Hard Mode to make the game impossible (WoH post-buffs in HM and Crystal Desert Monk bosses?)
No? It's because SF uses a different version of the skill. And when it didn't, it was used in RA by crappy people, only to annoy others by being untouchable to 90% of the skills... till you met a W/D or a D/x or a A/D with the touch enchantment removal skill.Oh hell no. Immunities are the worst thing about Diablo 2, except for high-end rune drop rates. Lord De Seis - Immune to Physical, Immune to Magic, Enchanted Lightning, Stone Skin. Fun times.
And you used logic and claimed he's always wrong about everything, every time for his whole life. Yeah.
Tl;dr version is "DON'T NERF MY SKILL, IT'S FINE AND NOT THE PROBLEM!!". Notice that after Ursan was nerfed, there were no overpowered builds, till they buffed SF.

This game is unrecoverable then: there's no developer in this world that will EVER get back and redesign the game mechanics of a 5 years old game just because they work absolutely fine but are a bit simplistic. GW works just like any other RPG of its time. Problems are being fixed like any other similar game.

I've never seen a game offering invincibility as an option instead of a cheat tough.

So, the game is as broken as SF. SF can be fixed, the root problem... not really, not anymore, nor it's worth it.

Get a new game if GW is so unbearably broken for you. Nerfing a gimmick won't eradicate the problem, sure thing, but it's something that needs to be done anyway, it's pretty much the only thing they can reasonably do now.

Woah thanks for getting the Job done Abedeus. Not much to say .

Mister Wrong tell me im wrong ? yeah , thats why ppl call you Failban dude

I guess its better than sitting there , dropping some cheap words and doing NOTHING. Yes , NOTHING with caps because SF abuses root problems and 1 more teaching class for you , if reworking SF takes X work and reworking almost entire game to fix those "root problems" you mention takes 100000X , then reworking SF is not a lazy way out , is the SMART one.

Of course, your supposition ignores the glaring issue that "balanced" does not mean 8 man teams composed of one of each class.

Let me know when Dervway starts running DoA. And according to your logic, ANY build that is better than "balanced" is OP and imbalanced, hence needing a nerf to bring its power in line. Which of course would mean that the whole game would be even more bland and vanilla than before.

Your medical metaphor needs work. What ANet is doing, and you and others are defending is akin to putting calamine lotion on a flesh eating bacteria. It might feel soothing temporarily, but the same problem will keep coming back. Also, fixing ALL problems one by one usually means the patient dies, since the problems you weren't able to fix at the end of the sequence get worse as you focus on other problems.

Right, because WoH will counter SF... Try thinking first. If the problem is an enchant that makes a character "invincible" then add a skill to random mob spawns that defeats it. Doesn't even have to be a player available skill, it could be some "monster-only" skill which ANet has shown no problems coming up with. Heck, with the coming of Dhuum it even makes some roleplay sense to have Dieing Nightmares spawn randomly.

Or a Touch Necro. Or a Rit with Disenchantment. As I said, SF is not used in PvP because of its gimmicky nature, which is a simple fix in PvE.

Your opinion. Without immunities, Hell would be easy. And most builds have ways to counter anything the game can throw at them, whether switching from elemental to physical, life tap, etc. I have had several SC and HC characters that regularly trounced Hell difficulty, without uber rune gear. One man's difficulty is another's boon, hence why basing sweeping generalizations on subjective opinion is a bad idea.

Yes. Thank you for seeing the truth.

Oh no? 600/Smite? Nah, couldn't be. What the argument boils down to is people who hate Sins are mad that Sins gained prominence. And that they were forced to eat the words "if you don't like it, go roll a new toon."

Lol.

Time taken to "skill balance" = in excess of 5 months.

Time taken to add Dieing Nightmare spawns in areas frequented by permasins = one afternoon.

Time taken to add a "monster only" disenchant to areas frequented by permasins = probably a couple days of coding and adding it to mob spawn lists.

It requires thinking outside the box, something you've proven time and again incapable of. But at least you're in line with ANet's methodology of nerf first, don't bother fixing later.

So tell me why I must be continuosly stripped of, say, my Protective Spirit while playing a Warrior, or my Attunement while playing a Ele, just because of some Permasins abusing the area?

Read this: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...0426818p2.html

Here's what your thinking out of the box produced: one of the most abused areas is now a little less abusable by permas, and pretty much a hell for anyone else.

I couldn't agree with you more ... i have failed countless number of times when trying to solo UW because of the nerfs forced on by the overfarming of areas in particular Perma-Abuse

Yeah , lets rework entire game to counter SF , thats the way to go !. Clearly im not the one "inside the box" lmao. If you hit your head against a wall 10 times really hard you will be doing yourself almost same dmg that your words anytime you post.

It boils down to the same thing. You can whine and complain and QQ and say that the game needs fixing. "Don't bend the spoon, bend the world." mindframe, much? It's like a 15 year old complaining that Chuckee-Cheese's arcade is boring and too easy. Instead of taking the 15 year old out of Chuckee-Cheese, you want to revamp it to fit the bratty teenager's wishes.

Shadow Form IS overpowered. Not because of the fact that there are parties of the same class in the group, which people seem to keep referring back to for some odd reason(?). I really don't care if assassins team up by the hundreds in massive hax0r groups. It's all about the fact that they can get the job done in a time frame far, far faster than ANet intended and far, far faster than anyone else. And when I say 'job', I mean any job. The same goes for 600/smite, which is why they're also nerfing that. But that's another thread.

And don't even get me started on the PvP question about why SF isn't used. That was probably the dumbest comment I've seen on this thread. And everyone knows why, methinks. Grabbing at straws can be painfully obvious. If you're getting that desperate for ammunition, just leave the thread quietly. No one will care/notice. :/

Dying Nightmares were meant as a counter to 55-farming, something which they do quite well, and they are balanced because they only take 2 wand hits average to kill them. Not to mention that if they get rend off they'll kill themselves most often. What would prevent a monster frequenting SF heavy areas from hindering other people greatly? "Monster Skill. Removes Shadow Form and deals 100 damage that cannot be stopped by any form of protection if an enchantment was removed" thjat would stop perma in the underworld, and it's probably the only thing that will short of a nerf, a functionality change, or a buff that makes something else better.

They are able to incorporate any class, however. Of course they don't use 8 different classes at the same time.
If he didn't say, "a lot more safely" and "a lot faster," that would be true. But he did, so it's not.

If gimmicks are better than balanced groups, but not so much better that they take balanced groups out of the question entirely, they're not much of a problem.
I don't find gimmicks fun. The longer they stay around, the more bland I find this game.

How would SF come back? Obsidian Flesh? It's possible. But, seeing as it doesn't make you immune to attacks and it's much slower, I doubt it.

Would gimmicks come back and continue to edge out balanced groups? I don't doubt that new gimmicks will emerge to dominate some areas, but an SF nerf should also make balanced groups better than gimmicks in other areas (and hopefully closer to the efficiency of gimmicks in the gimmick-dominated areas).

UW is not the only area where permas are a problem.

lol

Or it could be any of the other reasons already listed.

And while we're pulling generalizations out of our asses: All your argument boils down to is people who are terrible at GW and can't actually get anywhere in the game without OP bullshit that gives them invincibility. And, they're insecure about their incompetence so they feel the need to conceal it by copy/pasting a build off wiki and 1-2-3ing their way through the game until their e-peen gets big enough to impress other online players.

(And yea, I know you were joking, but I reacted anyway just in case :P)

I want a SF nerf, and I have never dominated in high-end PvE. In fact, I don't even have a character that is of most of the classes that typically dominated high-end PvE. If I had been around back then, I would have been saying that they were overpowered.

Nor am I a rich player. I don't have a single character with elite armors. I possess only 3 ectos. The only thing I've ever had of any real value is the scythe from Dhuum I got a couple days ago that I had no use for. And you know what I did with it? I customized it anyway, and am now trying to think of a use for it, because I like the spikes on the end of the handle that match my dervish's elbow spikes. I couldn't care less about the in-game economy, and I have no vested interest in it.

Please, stop saying SF doesn't affect other people. It does. It forces each and every player in the game to make a choice:

Either use a SF sin, or suck. Refusing to make the decision is to choose the latter.

No one should be forced to use a particular class or suck. No one.

Trash SF and everyone sucks.

But the reality of the situation is that you are getting the surgery under the US health care system.
Oh ... and you don't have insurance.

It is 2010 and SF is still alive and well so nexts month balance that happened last year.

2012 is the year of the SF nerf, I bet.


Really, though.. it's been what, 3-4 months as they've been saying, "We're gonna nerf SF......next month."

Eesh. If they're not working on the skill balance, what are they doing?


*ponders* Poker, I bet.

So SF users dont suck ? yeeeeeeeee , they are pro players lmao.

Yeah , SF is your fail/safe option that is so fair ..... that only 1 class have it , pretty balanced for sure.

Ohh that's what the guy meant with "sucking"?
In which case the guy doesn't need SF trashed - the guy needs to learn how to play the game.

If on the other hand the issue is how much easier and faster things can be done with SF and how in comparison running non-SF options sucks, then trashing SF will mean that everyone will be on a level that currently sucks. And for a game that currently lives of heavy ass grinding and farming - that's an interesting road to take.


The argument rather was that in the surgery-analogy fixing SF equals fixing ONE bone. Fixing other skills would mean fixing the other bones. And to fix all bones, you'd need to fix ALL skills.
The bleeding can represent heavy ass grind that is in the game.
The splenectomy can represent the shitty AI.
Other necessary procedures would mean other changes that need to happen.
The lack of insurance would mean that the individual needs to put in resources to have the procedures done.

So, given the resources A.Net has - they can only afford to fix a few bones. And to make matters worse - it's those bones that are actually preventing some massive bleeding from occurring (I mean, if you remove the best farming tools - the people farming and grinding will need to step up and take this to a new level since the tools for it are that much worse).

So unless additional changes are done to the game, fixing SF will probably mean that the game will be worse off than before.

That's why I advocate the introduction of cheats in GW.

Why learning to play the game decently? Give us the /beatmission /getloot commands!

Now THAT would be fair!

I would argue that the introduction of cheats is as good for the game as is creating titles that require you to open 10k high end chest. Or consume 10k minutes worth of booze. Or 10k sweet points. Or 10k part points. Or 10 mil Luxon/Kurzick faction. Or ID 10k golds. Or whatever the max for the Z-title is. Or ...
Both options are completely out of touch with the game.

If one side of the coin is being listened to by giving it the nerf of the farming tools, than it would make sense the the OTHER side that requires you to resort to these farming tools is ALSO being listened to.
But no. I guess GW is a MUCH better game now that it requires thousands of hours of very dedicated play to reach a level where one can say one completed the game.

Stop catering to farmers.
And farmers include title grinders.

Done all my titles. Abused the hell out of ursan and SF. Made the cash I need and bought the things I want. Do w/e you like, I'll be afk in my gh as usual

I maxed all the titles you mentioned by... guess what? playing the game. Never "farmed" in the strict meaning of the term. It took 4 years for me. I enjoyed it. 4 years of enjoyment. Ever seen me complaining about GW being "dead" and having nothing more in the game to do? Of course not: I haven't burnt all I could experience in the game in a couple of months.

Sure, that required hours dedicated play. Isn't that the one and only definition of "passion"? Again, guess what? Probably titles and "hi-end items" were meant to show that: how much dedication a player had put into the game, and a reward for his or her dedication. I never considered myself a skilled players just because I have 32 titles on my main. I'm just a passionate and dedicated player, nothing more. Reaching this level in a zap doesn't make anyone a skilled player. Yet it doesn't even show dedication. So, what's the point? Show off?

We could argue about this for years, sure. You can say an open end on this "hi-end" content is fine because everyone is allowed to experience it. Well, they are not. You're not "doing UW" while doing speed clears. You're basically skipping it to get the chest in the shortest ammount of time. All speed clears are good for is to hoard loot. Not surprised that developers disprove it. On the contrary, people interested in playing the UW are now facing a much increased difficulty. That's to slow down greedy people's speed clears. So the other side of the coin could be people like who enjoy playing with friends and don't care much about how long it takes to clear an area. Thanks guys, UW is now simply irritating because of you.

I don't see anything wrong in the developer nerfing something that allows playing this game in a way it wasn't designed, expecially when this way is so clearly broken, so clearly different from the game design, and so widely abused. It's their choice to do so. "No one will play those areas again without gimmicks" you'd probably say. I say... So what? GW is a game, you're not forced to play it. If people find playing this game as intended boring or inaccessible.... it's probably time to move on and find a new game.

While I simply can not agree with most of the things you said - for instance if people find enjoyment in opening chests, it doesn't matter if the title would max at 1k instead of 10k or the fact that such heavy grinding is actually the way the game was intended to be - I do agree with the assessment that GW is just a game.
So why not just move on if you disapprove of SF?

Because:

A) I don't disapprove SF just for the sake of it. I couldn't care less about SF myself. I don't use it. Other people do? Fine with me. I'll keep on playing my game, they'll keep on playing their. Incidentally, my way of playing the game is much closer to the way it was designed and meant to be played, so that saves me a lot of moaning for nerfs, since they rarely affect me.

B) Anet didn't care either, as long as SF was "just" a formidable farming tool. Now it's being abused like hell. They had a game in mind, they DESIGNED it and running it is NOT how they meant us to play THEIR game. That's a fact. It's THEIR game. THEY decide what is allowed and what not. And, quite frankly, who right in their mind could ever believe SF was even just "ok"? How could people think that blanket protection against 3/4 of the sources of danger was "normal"? I can't think of any other online game with a "Almost God Mode" enabled, without it involving hacks of any kind. But hey, this is Guild Wars, a game whose PvE is being bashed for being "easy as pie", yet no one actually plays it (and probably ever has) and most of the players resort to cheat-like gimmicks to win. How ironic.

It was just a matter of time, you knew it, SF abusers knew it and have exploited it as much as they could. Well, it's probably almost over, hope for them it was fun and fine while it lasted. They surely got the best out of this, I wouldn't even dare complaining, after 1 year and half of hoarding.

tl;dr -> ANet IS going to nerf it. So, I don't care if they nerf it either. I just can see the point they're trying to make and it's fine with me, just like SF staying. I'll keep on playing my game like I did in the last few months. Which is exactly the same way I've been playing it for almost five years now.

The problem is, SF abusers are grasping at straws trying to JUSTIFY the existence of an abuse that should never have existed at all, because they feel like ANet is taking their toy away.

And this is the issue.
Fixing SF isn't the same as fixing the game.
It's gesture.
It's like giving a homeless guy 5 bucks.
It's a sign that they care. Just not enough to actually do something.

If the idea behind trashing SF is to fix the game - then were they doing for the last 3 years? Why is GW2 coming out? Why is the team that works on GW as small as it can get?
They are making a point. They are not fixing the game.
And at this stage, that's just a waste of resources.

So what's over/under on a the nerfs coming before Feb.28th?

At first I was all about no nerfs. Now I jus want the damn thing to come so we can move on to bitch about something new, lol.

Leaving SF in the game is like giving this homeless a kick in his face. Who cares? Even 5 buck won't help him much. So, let's do nothing. While we're at it, let's set him to fire.

SF is here. Nerfing it won't solve a thing! So, let's alter the whole game and make it a hell for anyone who doesn't play SF. Look at the UW, that's exactly what happened here.

You can't expect such a common abuse to widespread and the company not doing a thing just because it's a waste of resources. It's been a bigger waste of resources trying to alter the environment to let SF stay in my opinion: if I were ANet, I would have just blown up the skill a month after its introduction. There you go, cheap and easy. Way better than introducing enchantment removal anywhere and adding new enemies all around. What for? Not to lose those abusers threatening to leave if they ever had their toy taken away?

I never thought trashing SF would fix the game and I agree it's a waste of resources. Yet they have nothing to spend those resources on. Actually, GW itself is a waste of resources, since they obviously have little income from it compared to the expenses. So, all they can do is maintenance. Fixing issues. Removing abuses. BINGO. They see SF as an abuse (and wonder who doesn't...) and they're nerfing it. Call it a gesture. It's better than "GW is going downhill, let's give it up and see how down it goes" to me.

You're being optimistic if you expect a substantial overhaul in any game, let alone a 5 years old game in this late stage of its lifespan. Most of the issues observed won't ever be fixed, since are basic faults that are hardly addressed by gaming companies. Ever played Quake? Quake had one of the most simplistic AI ever seen in a game. People complained. Quake 2 addressed some of those issues, making the sequel a better game. It's called evolution. Current AI is fine: it's simplistic, yet above average when compared to lots of other games of this kind. GW at least has scattering mechanics, targeting priority and some form of reaction to reactive hexes (eg. a caster not using spells if Backfire would kill him). All these were improvements introduced in the last few years.

Giving up while we wait for GW2 to show up is plain non-sense. Trashing it WON'T fix the game. But letting it stay hardly did, so "a sign they care" is welcomed here. Any defense to SF is absurd: it's a thing any gaming company would have nerfed or prevented.

Even money on the "Over". 100 to 1 odds on the under sir! I just checked with my bookie in Vegas.

I got a better chance of finding 100K in gold nuggets in my basement than us getting the update this month. Their silence is damning.

Let's face it, SF won't/can't be killed

The idea isn't to sit around and wait.
The idea is to look at the game and see we've been though this before. They could take a hard realistic look at the game and maybe look past the skills that are currently casing the problems. Maybe they could look at the fact that they turned this game into a massive grindfest and now they need to support this. Maybe they could look at what is causing the players to focus so much on the grind and fix that. And once that issue is resolved, then there is next to 0 reason for them to pretty much balance the whole game around farming.
And then they can easily smiter's boon the whole farming experience.


Or does anyone SERIOUSLY expect we won't have the same kind of problem again in a few months after SF is trashed?

Probably, but not of this magnitude.

Anyway, I agree this is just ONE step and hopefully more are to come. But they have to do the biggest one to start moving.

Just to refresh peoples' memories.. Running an A/E Perma requires all of the GW Chapters + EotN, and is most likely the reason it has stayed in the game so long. If ANet give it the nerf then I think they've decided either (a) box sales are not worth pursuing at this point; or (b) to introduce skill changes that result in another multi-product game-beating build.

Tell me what skills from Prophecies an Assassin needs, I could have sworn there were none, even the elementalist skills come from Factions and EotN, and you don't need the eotn skill so long as someone else has an essence or you buy from another player.

I see failNet still listen to the minority QQers.... it's been 18months since i played this game and nothing has changed with failNet.....

I think it's funny that in their PAX video (I think, one of the gaming convention videos) they said SF was their #1 priority and they were going to fix it before the end of 2009. Lol, just lol.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...views/20100219


theories how exactly will they touch SF?

25e 5s 90r is my bet <.<

I'm just glad that Anet decided to stall for this long after they announce the possible nerf.

Since I am nearly 100% sure they won't do anything to fix all the problems that SF and 600/Smite are hiding, namely pug unfriendly design, bad effort/reward ratio, useless/underpowered classes, over-the-top damage forcing tanking, etc....I decided to take some of the advice from here and truly abused these skill like mad for a month straight (whereas before it was just a nice pugging tool for me).

Now once they nerf the skills and if pugs dies off like it did with Ursan/DoA it won't screws me over by forcing me to beg for guild help...since I already got every single little thing and can quit easily . Bring on GW2!

I hope Anet learned something from this. They should design GW2 to be COMPLETELY SOLOABLE from the very beginning unless they plan to truly support grouping to begin with.

None of this H/h but not in end game and "soloing is bad" but no efficient group mechanism BS.

And get rid of the 300 damage monsters unless they intend to implement pug friendly tanking skills.

And if they want to make the game based on guilds, don't make it so people have to guild hop constantly to find a good one. Implement a guild statistic system in the next game please, with guild size, approximate activity, age, most active areas, etc. So that I can do click an join instead of the current "post (spam) and wait and hope for the best" method.

See ya all next game

I'm glad SF is coming to an end. People have abused it for ages. It's basically god mode. Unable to die for a few seconds unless you have a previous degen on you. That's pretty lame.

Makes farming a joke.

I heard a lot of people will quit GW when SF gets nerfed. Good! That way the people with the money will be people who know how to do real farming instead of using an imba skill to get all their profits.

However this thread was made in November. Still looks like they are working on it.

I can't wait to say bye-bye to imba sins.

I am curious as to what you define as "real" farming exactly. They're nerfing 600/smite, Obby flesh and SF in one fell swoop. This leaves SOS spirit spam, 55 hp, 105 hp dervish and possibly VwK Rt/Mes, all of which are proven to be suboptimal to the three build concepts getting the axe.

I might well be leaving something out, hence curious. What do you call "real farming" exactly, that makes one a better player than the countless lemmings abusing admittedly overpowered game mechanics.

Oh rly ? please enlighten us , if OF , SF and 600/smite are out of the way ( wich i dont think is going to be anyway ) what will be the next problem ?. And please , tell us WHAT problem that could be that implies a bloody broken skill ....

Nothing , yes. Because theres no skill combo that is more overpowered and broken than those they are going to rework.

PS: You still speak like they are going to smitterboon SF and they said is going to be a func change ... if you think this is going to change nothing .... why you care ? .