So.. I *want* to come back..

The reality is we both know Guild Wars has more than 10 skills with inappropriate power level. MtG's cards are rarely broken simply because they actually CARE about balancing them not only because such physical product is hard to fix later, but also the fact that the entire game is based on the premise of everything being equal between you and your opponent (minus luck of course).

meh, I'm split on the dartboard buffs idea. Most of the buffs break game mechanics such as unyielding aura and signet of spirits and though they are fun as hell to play, it dumbs down the game.

To be honest the game is already dumb. Might as well make it fun.

ArenaNet could just go ahead and nerf them right away, but they don't want to for two reasons:

1. A lot of people enjoy a stagnant game where they never need to change their build beyond an occasional adjustment and more or less just repeat the same thing over and over.

2. Laziness.

With a proper dartboard system, overpowered skills would be nerfed to hell, while other skills get random and sporadic buffs, thus altering the game significantly. These nerfed skills would get buffed eventually, once the cycle returns to them.

Not happening.

If buffs are desired, one first needs to trash pretty much the whole game so that a new desired level of power is created. And after that, you buff/change the crappy skills to reach that level.
Otherwise things will just continue to spiral out of control.

I think the solution to your problem is to continue staying away from Guild Wars for quite some time. Because there will never going to be truly new content (say a big new area) for us to play through, simply because Anet hasn't got the manpower to change that, and waiting for a skill update for months isn't going to make you enjoy the game more.

Or Anet actually might surprise us for the 5th year anniversary update, but even then you can just hop in any time you wish.

I've been playing on and off for quite some time now, and it makes the game far more enjoyable than logging in every night, just to stare at your character desperately trying to find something that is fun to do.

You guys do realize you were going to move on to something else eventually, right? No matter how good this game was. The only reason people still play WoW is because they feel inclined to for spending so much money on it every month. GW is basically f2p after you buy the retail price.

Really, it'd be more sad if you didn't play other games besides this.

And five people dedicated to fix the problems that Izzy and the rest of the main GW crew created isn't really enough manpower. Still no reason why they decided to make the Test Krewe; that was just time wasting.

Would you rather they force you to pay $50 every six months for new content?

don't like it, don't run it. seriously. the only impact SF had on the community as a whole is that ectos and highend items were cheaper. and guess what - it's only bad for the part of the community that run SF. the more stuff they produce, the lower prices they get for it in the market. i agree that this+inflation leads to getting stuff much easier than 3 years ago, but since nothing gives you real advantage over other players, what's the problem?
i've never run a permasin, joining a balanced guild teams or doing doa with a friend and six heroes instead. on a neglected mesmer. and i don't feel that the fun of elites areas is spoiled.
don't get me wrong - i don't defend SF. i believe it should be killed with dozens of rocks and never get up, but not because it spoiled any fun or destroyed the economy; just because it's seriously imbalanced and sins rather weren't designed for godmode.

it's also false that you have to be rt, n or sin to get into a group. just join a fun pve guild that doesn't run speedclears but invite people to balanced events. i've never taken part in any speedclear but DSC and i don't whine, as no one forces me to get a sin.

was it different in 2006? i thought that grind is grind.



+1
i've found lots of similarities in building a deck and a skilltab. that's half the fun from the game. and even though i can run echo/pve skills on my mes and got heroes set to deal with everything in hm, including psycho stuff like aurora glade/eternal grove/jennur's horde, i still meddle my builds, still change them. to keep my game entertaining.
it's the same as if you were playing just one deck, simply because it's powerful. you may win usually faster - that is, if you get good draw - but eventually you'll get bored as hell. changing your own deck or building completely new one is the way to go and it's something you have to do, not wotc.


even though i agree that hoping to play only one game for five years is idiotic, i still enjoy it after being everywhere and doing everything. same as fallout 2, diablo+hellfire and all the good games that i've enjoyed. not that interplay/black isle will release anything new for f2 and not that the fan community released anything interesting since f2 restoration project. so f2 is a static game. but it has dozens of various possibilities which may keep you entertained only if you let them. and there still is some point of randomness, even if you know the game by heart.


my point is: if you run SF or discord all the time and got bored, it's your own fault. if you played long enough and got bored, move on to something else. there still are people playing for years and still enjoying every mission and location they visit.
and don't get me wrong - balances or improvements are all welcome and necessary in some cases, but it's a free mmo game. find a better f2p mmo or embrace the reality of gw. while asking for more and merithorically pointing out what's there to fix, enjoy what's already given.

I'm sure that anet is working for more updates. We just have to be patient and wait for another "wow" moment.

Since there are only one or two people working on skill changes you need to make the most of your time.
When a skill becomes "The Skill" leading to it overshadowing all others and allowing one build to be used to the exclusion of all others.

Make a fast change even if its a bad one and do that in days rather than months.
Either revert it to previous settings or make a new change whatever is the quickest.

There are many thousands of players that will unbalance the game again and they are working 24/7 to do just that and the "Balanced game" is a Holy Grail that you will never achieve.

Put the time saved into working on skills that are ignored because they just do not have a decent use in the current game.
That way you can use us to give you feedback on what works and what doesn't, that information can only improve this game and GW2.

We will benefit because we will have to use new builds to beat the game which I for one will find more interesting than just running what everyone else runs.

They have the man-power, they are just way to scared to do anything.

They don't want to pay for you to use their servers. Killing GW1 slowly was their way of telling you.

So, is Shadow Form the equivilent of something like Black Lotus? Only way to fix it is KILLITWITHFIRE!!!!!!!!

Ill echo the OP, except im still playing....but waiting, hoping, longing for a shake up..

Cant bring my self to roll a new toon atm, but was kinda hoping for the shake up to give me a blast of inspiration (pun intended) to really get back at it..

Only Shadow Form isn't considered rare these days.

So im guessing your a codex kinda guy? Randomly mixing up the skills is why Codex is relatively dead and a failure as an updated new area. If they did that to pve there would be relatively no active farming builds spared. Thats like if 2maro they just killed shadowform, 600s and Hundred blades. I mean what would people do? Im sure theres a weaker OLDER alternative like Obby Flesh tank or 55 or Whirling Axe but there would not be any NEW content just worthless pvers running back what they know still works at least a little successfully. We cant drastically change an already dying game, as seen by ursan coming into Pve and many quitting and when it left even more quitting (lol.)

Isn't that more or less explainable, though?

Bad things happen, people who can't tolerate them leave. Those who like these bad things stay.

Bad things get removed. Those who like these bad things get angry and leave as well. People who've left over the bad things are long gone and it's just too late for them to care enough to come back.

Logic.

Granted, bad things can happen in a game unintentionally. The trick is to make sure they get fixed ASAP so that people who'd like these bad things don't have the chance to get into the habit of living with it, and people who hate these stuff don't get too upset.

Again, logic.

I take it you've never played that game then, or at least not Vintage. The "standard" format is somewhat balanced because it leaves out all but the latest few sets (and even of those, only a pathetic percentage of the cards is played). I'm sure GW would be easy to balance if only Derv/Para and Para/Derv characters were allowed in PvP.

One of the problems MtG has that GW doesn't have, is that they can't change cards. In GW skills can, and should, be changed. But GW also has a problem that MtG doesn't have: In PvE, your opponents can't meta against you. If monsters could say "Right, this time I'm going Me/N and fast-cast a Well of the Profane as soon as one of us dies," then SF sins would be a lot rarer, but they can't. As such, it is insane that the PvE-version of SF is stronger than the PvP-version.

good point Nechrond, though i still think that mtg connection is valid. wotc has their way to balance the tournament game - standard is balanced because it uses just a bunch of cards, but it is somewhat stable. as you pointed out, we can't allow only dervishes and paras in pvp, so gw needs alternated skills, not restricted ones. but it's easy to 'restrict'/'ban' a skill in pvp by nerfing it beyond use.
i still think that only superb overpowered aka broken stuff should be nerfed, while useless skills should be buffed to be at least useful in certain occassions/builds, so that the playerbase has more options to choose from and metagame isn't necessarily metabuild. but then what we had so far - nerfs on working skills, broken skills left alone, buffs on stuff to get new overpowered shit, no buffs on the useless crap... totally the other way around.