Preliminary Skill Update Notes: Feb 19

600 smite and Signet of spirits....I can only hope that you lose enough loyal people over this that GW2 goes right down the tubes and forces you into bankruptcy.

Godmode builds nerfed: good, finally
Wars and Rits buffed even more while Dervs/Rangers/Mesmers can't find a place in any PVE HM group: not good, not good at all.

Yes and you,one person on this forum,can speak so condescendingly about our valid opinions? Stop kissing the devs ass and play the game,then maybe you'll actually see why most of us are underwhelmed by this extremely delayed update.

Not impressed by the lack of buffs to mesmers in PvE, not impressed by the hugely long recharge time of SoS (makes it near-useless on heroes IMO as they don't have Summon Spirits, yay for trying to VQ h/h at odd times of the day), and wtf permanent -20 armour if you want an attack speed/adrenaline gain increase on your paragon?! Lame update is lame.

as long as i can agree on it, i still defend Upier's opinion that they've wasted resources.

hammers sucked, but warriors are cool in pve. seriously, the whole class is not only hammers. if you want to run hammer build in pve, you had to deal with it's inferiority, but you could have easily switched to sword or axe.
mesmers, on the other hand, have no attribute line that is useful in pve, especially end-game elite areas with other living people. the whole class is even less appealing than hammer line itself.

There is nothing to understand except SF is broken and has been broken for almost two years and nothing has been done. Its not rocket science.

Now that you say it this way - it makes total sense.
I have no idea what I was thinking. (Knowing me - probably not much.)

in pve? with heroes or a decent monk? seriously, i mean, seriously?
even with other people, usually cracked armor is taken off from my imbagon as soon as it comes up...

This is the strongest example of flattering that i've ever seen.

First, we, the people who criticises, are ALL A.net customers, if a company do not listen their customers, then soon there will be no company.

Second, "They don't have the bigger picture, they don't see all of the changes in action, they don't understand the entire thought process going on behind the stages. Their words count for NOTHING!" Was this whole thing serious?

If we, the customers, are not getting the "big picture" and we are not understanding, then the company got some really big issues in their hands, cause, if the people that are buying their products are not understanding it, the "creators" are not doing it right, and for last, think with me, if the customer's words counts for nothing, then why A.net would even bother showing us some preview or even balacing some skills if they already sold us the game?

Even better, if our words counts for nothing, why Regina would mind giving attetion to your "note"?

Lol Dwarven Battle Stance. That's going to be abused like hell in PvE I think.

That was the complaint. Heroes would be removing the condition every time it popped up, blowing through their energy.

Fairytalish optimism always amazes me. You do realize that mesmers have been crap in PvE for last 5 years and the only skills that ever helped them were PvE only skills and even that only because others can use them too.


So this optimism you base on what exactly, constellation of planets, chinese fortune teller or hansel and grettel?

Arkantos and seven mesmers

lol, rits will deal epic dmg,lololol

What's wrong with Shattering Assault's recharge as it is?

This is fail.

I DO prefer CA than non-removable -20 armor! ... Who was so stupid and told ANet to change this?

Its been mentioned many times. 600/Smite is not as simple as Press skil 1, then 2, then 3. It takes two people to pull off in any situation and it takes three people with very specific roles to become actually invincible. Its a skill players have to learn if they want to do it effeciantly and is an entirley different way of play the game.

But the key part is this: You need a team.

I have been actively developing mods (modifications) for the other games, mainly RTS games. You would be amazed how many design issues can have a mod with merely 3 factions and say 20 different units per it.

Now, take onto GW. Over 1000 skills, dominant pvp formats of 8v8, each of them with very different nature. You have a lot of challenges from designer perspective - not only technical/common-sense balance, but also how the community views the changes and how will the meta evolve. It is often the case when many skills have been changed for good, but people focused only on very limited uses of them, getting an illusion something is vastly overpowered or useless. This has been the case and will be the case after this update as well.

You don't need to be a student of gaming industry or even read (not only scientific) articles on the theory and practise of game design, community communication and it's perception of the mechanics to at least understand that it's not as simple of a task to address issues of everyone in a timely manner. I will go even further, it's impossible!

It's as much a matter of constant and frequent changes, as of their quality. Quite often, broken but hasty update can be better on a short-term than bigger update, trying to address a lot of things at once. But, you have to also take the specific of pvp and pve gameplay here, too. More casual PvE players usually enjoy more stagnant game and often play just a one build with few alterations, outside farming and speeding. But, abusive speed clears evolve under a week after the latest pve balance changes!

Why? Because it's not so much a matter of the skills itself, but the game pve level and monster design. This is the complete lack of randomization and unpredictability (yet designed in such a way that you don't just zone out till you get the 'most favourable' set of enemies or dungeon/area shape), which allows for 'specialist' builds to be way better than all-rounded builds designed to cope with many different challenges, but with none as good or efficient as specialist build. Specialist builds introduce grind and hostile economy, not to mention invite bots! That alone has a very harmful effect on the gameplay of all players, but we went a little offtopic in this paragraph.

Onto PvP, now. There is pretty much nothing you don't know about this already, but to sum up a few points:

- you need frequent changes of the meta as much as quality balance updates to attain a moderately balanced environment
- technical aspect is as important as communication and testing feedback with the hardcore community, provided you don't listen to overly biased parties which only see the end of their own nose
- pvp skills should never suffer from a nerf/buff because pve skill was changed for the sake of keeping it simple and not introducing another skill with two descriptions ; vice-versa shouldn't happen also, but unfortunately does (poor Mesmers ... *sigh*)

Words count for as much as they are true or false, as much as they reflect the reality or biased, skewed, limited view of the things by a player. Developers know and understand much more, but in this case this extra knowledge means that they can't judge and adjust skills as swiftly as the players on their place would (assuming 'players on the place of developers' would have the knowledge of a player and not a developer), what naturally creates endless arguments like 'developers don't care', 'they are busy with gw2', 'gw is dead', 'they suck at balancing the game', 'lol woot I'm already getting old and there is still no kind of update', 'what, are they that blind to not see THIS?'.

And you know what, I could jump on the bandwagon with the rest of you and criticise for the sake of criticising. But instead I chose to defend them. I couldn't care less for accusation of flattery, really. It's very easy to get lost in the arguments and view everyone disagreeing with your point of view as your enemy, with 180 degrees different opinion. The reality is that our opinions, in fact, are very close, except the different life experience when it comes to the subject. Believe me, I was no less irritated than you waiting so long for the update notes, and the update itself still isn't there.

To be more precise, they still have a lot of work ahead of them, when it comes to balance. What they got my praise for, was for their courage to turn some things upside down - I still remember the balancing debacle of Nightfall or EOTN, which were pretty much ignored for a long part, inviting a question like 'what, buy your new game or no 'game' for me? you got to be kidding?'. More interestingly, I share that point of view, too ... but for the sake of this discussion, it's not important.

They basically still need to redesign Necromancers, Mesmers, Dervishes and Paragons in pve, as well as revisit all of the other classes in pvp, to a lesser or bigger extent. Personally I think Eles in pve need some changes too, as well as Monks, but drastic changes won't come there until they redesign the entire pve itself (including hardmode). Just remember that it's not just a matter of balancing the core class, but taking into accounts all possible secondary professions. Some professions rely more or less on the secondary profession choice, be it pve or pvp and that will never change.

I just wished they brought Assassins, Ritualists, Dervishes and Paragons down in line with other professions, by simply giving them very similar total number of avaible skills. Limited pool of skills invites making them overpowered, what in turn results in other professions with bigger skill pools making use of those badly designed skills.

this balance it's not right for new players

Elaborate on this one?

Yeah, totally ignore the people that actually log in and play GW every day. Nobody really matters except the handfull of people that got a "TK" badge.

Awesome idea...

I wonder how long the company would survive off nothing except purchaces made by the test krewe. Just a little something for you to think about while you puff on your pipe.

Old players have spent the past two years abusing SF to get super rare items and FoW with extra cheap ectos. It already takes double the effort for a new player to earn just as many ectos as someone would have this time last year.

Now with even less/more difficult venues for earning money its going to be almost impossible for newcomers to get into the high end market.

Regina, seriously...

"we’d like to establish clearer guidelines for ourselves and for players as to what is and isn't acceptable"


Something "isn't acceptable" when

A) ANET make the skills, lady, we just use them
B) it's been in the game for literally YEARS!
C) No mention of the original invinci-monk (55hp) at all. I wonder if that has anything to do with one of your own people having made the first invincible character....
D) which then makes your meally mouthed prattlings ring utterly false.

GG Anet. Hell, half of all I do nowadays is DTSC or VSF, aside from grinding Nick's drops. Why? Because it's fun and failing at DoA, or UW or FoW in a balanced team (I don't do speed clears, I suck as perma, IMO) has ZERO appeal. I'd rather go play something else. But, if I do that, don't expect me, or the legion of others like me, to come back to GW2.

Queue mass exodus of casual players, Queue the abuse of some other skill/build by the HC crowd, Queue the ANet QQ and subsequent nerf, Queue the death of Guild Wars.

How, in 4, nearly 5 years, haven't you observed the endless cycle of meta/ nerf meta/ new meta/ nerf meta/ new meta/ nerf new meta until almost every skill is pointless, then you have to buff them insanely, restarting the cycle? Rebalancing pvp is great, but Anet sucks at PVE balance, always has. Just leave it alone already, the economy is utterly ruined already (precisely because Anet sucks at balancing, and left SF and 600 so long), so how can it possibly make a difference. New players buying this game should take one look at the update history, one look at guru auctions, log off and never log back on. You've made it pointless for them to even try.

i try, i don't know english very well: i can understand but when i have to explain my ideas comes the problems xD

new players will play, for make a fow, or the chaos glover, many more hours then the old players: the speed clears lead down the economy of the game, the ectos, the obby shards, the weapons, all. return now at the prices of prophecies before the greens, have no sense for me

Come on.
You needed a team to CoP spike everything in sight.
You needed a team of Ursans to blow the whole map up.
You need a team to enjoy the benefits of SY!.

Some things are just too good.

It's not matter of the changes itself, but their perception. I guess Anet could improve this area, but seeing most posts in a thread such as this kinda defeats more open communication of players with the developers. Countless suggestion topics over Sardelac were never commented on by game devs or PR staff, when you send in a support inquiry you always get to talk to a bot or helpless support staff member with no idea on the mechanics of the game ... better yet, you get advised to post on the fan forums instead. Well, guess what, cycle repeats.

Perhaps Runic or Blizzard can afford more straight communication with the players around their concerns, but this is Anet. Different customer policy, different view of the things. Not necessarily worse or better, just different. Each game requires different way to manage it well, even if I disagree with approach of Anet in this case. Perhaps they just want to avoid flame fests or getting players hope too high up. When you compare their communication on these boards around GW issues compared to the feedback and attention players get in case of GW2, you can pretty much tell what their focus is.

So to say, appreciate what you get and don't hope for more. The problem of GW business model is that they have more incentive to 'boost' the new content to give incentive to buy it, while neglecting the previous installments of the series, even if all of the skills, professions and mechanics introduced need the same quality balancing approach and attention. To be more precise, they have even less incentive to bring more stuff or refine the actual content of the GW game.

They have to maintain it as best as they can in order to create and not lose revenue (as well as to boost gw2 sales and maintain their reputation), but you see, it seems like the new GW dev team got thinner or more silent as of late. Perhaps bad reception of the microtransactions contributed to it (not so much rants over forums but actual number of people which paid for the service), because it looks like the original plan was to introduce updates which basically pay for themselves. I guess they shifted resources and attention to more profitable, long-term areas of the GW franchise development after that. They are a commercial and certainly not a charity company, so I guess they know best what maximises their income?

That's pretty much a weakness of all MMO games, especially the ones in which your performance is determined by your items (and not just skills). Some games out there have so much content that the new players will literally never be able to compete with the long-established players and will be put at a permanent disadvantage. In case of GW, the entire economy works like that, even if the entire focus is on looks and bragging rights. PvP has a steep learning curve (virtually no means of development without good guild tutoring you or bunch of friends willing to improve with you), but I still find it to have much easier entry level to the top, if you are committed enough.

I'm glad someone else caught that but I think it was just an extremely poor choice of words. I wonder if they are planning to go door to door and rap knuckles with a ruler those who dared to use builds over the years that aren't "acceptable"...LOL

I don't blame the anet for changes, but players who wanted the nerf of SF, and which now since it goes to touch every invulnerability pull you back, saying the perma is so, the 600 is 2, Obsidian flesh is difficult and slow..

they fault!

Nevertheless the gw market will rise, will rise, will rise to impossible and unpredictable

Except they clearly have had no real business plan from the start. Releasing 3 SEPARATE campaigns that introduced new classes and more skills in each one,thus overly complicating it entirely. 4 Classes that they constantly have to define their role as,in comparison to the core classes. New skills that caused the power creep that has essentially created this problem in the first place, so they can either show us their customers they have learnt and can fix this,or lose us for GW2 (which a lot of people are on the fence about).

Now so far we have receieved promises (being kept 'in the loop',content updates quarterly etc.) and most of these got scrapped or just faded into nothingness. As a business they haven't managed to get a clear business strategy or how to maintain their game.

is Test Krewe an official part of ANet, getting paid and stuff?
aaaand if not - couldn't one of their members focus on collecting data and PR rather than 'balancing the game'?

meh... idk if i will like this update...

WTB: ele buffs

No, they are volunteers. It's basically what the alpha test was but with a new name.

I guess that's where they need to improve upon. This tactic pretty much reminds of the entire NCSoft strategy, which certainly isn't pro-customer.

Technical problems? Too bad.

Banned account? You certainly botted, now go pay for next account.

What, you don't like the changes we've made? Too bad, but we don't have time to discuss these things with you in a comprehensive fashion, so you understand them. Just so you know, your 'feedback' is very important. If it's too important, you get banned from our forums.

Sounds a bit like overexaggerated rant, but the 'quality' service European players were getting (along with what happened to NCSoft West branch) speak louder than words, I guess.

The question is, how much influence NCSoft has or hasn't, when it comes to community relations strategy of the Anet itself. The next question, what is the NCSoft's impact on the business model as well as game design and content.

Well, I guess we will never get to hear the answers for these.

that's why i've tried to contact the TK over two months ago, but got answered 'TK member list is secret, no one will ever get in touch with them unless they decide so, as you never will have the need to talk with them' or something along there lines. a secret society or a group that voluntarily tries to improve the gameplay for the whole playerbase?


edit:
and a month ago i've asked on wiki (don't remember what was the actual reason, not getting a headsup for updates anyway) about the TK and got answered:
if it's ANet's stand, it's a fail.
if it's TK's stand, it's a complete fail.

Wholeheartedly agree.

I have been doubting their business and design strategy since Factions, but from retrospection, Nightfall and EOTN brought much more problems, along with GW2 development announcement.

Perhaps it would've been different if they had past experience with developing and maintaining MMO, as well as if they were more financially independent.

I don't know what they are passing in the negotiation table with the NCSoft in terms of GW2, but I hope they will take these and other lessons to heart as well.

3 independent campaigns - I know a lot of people which only bought 1 or 2 campaigns + EOTN. Perhaps expanding upon Tyria and bringing more end-game content would be much better for pve as a whole, but separate campaigns were highly accessible and catered to many tastes of potential players. There was a players' boom both after FA and NF (especially NF) and for some reason pve mentality changed a lot, especially with the introduction of heroes.

Higher difficulty asked for more powerful, specialist builds, established player base asked for quick money making methods for the newcomers, titles suggested that it's about getting it fast and done. PUGs died, old mentality died. For many reasons I liked Prophecies very much just because of the player's mentality. PvE was a joke, except for the immersion and storyline, and I liked that. Plus, the PvP wasn't THAT evolved to force casuals to form imba builds. Times of jumping with random guildmates onto Guild War and winning half of them are gone for good. Well, I guess they will have to address these and other issues for upcoming GW2, bringing BOTH more content and replayability for hardcore, as well as casual base.

TK should and has to be independent (at least in theory), but lack of communication and transparency certainly invites creation of influential lobbying group, either within or outside the TK.

I guess even more room for improvement in this one

This isnt about Ursan, CoP or SY. Its about the fact that shadow form allows anyone to mindlessly solo many, many, maaaaaany places in the game. Its about the fact that shadow form is so easy that it dominates every single elite area in the game except for DoA. And even then they can complete places like gloom with a single hero.

600/Smite would never dominate the elite areas. It always has and always would exist as a side option to the main farming builds. Its interesting to play and often not as profitable as other teams.

Theres no need to nerf it.

You're just saying that because you're bitter they realised it needs nerfing too. 600 Smite is just as bad. It allows you to 2 man LOTS of areas in the game. Not as many as SF, but that's why SF is getting nerfed too. 600 Smite needs it because it's too strong as well.

Guild Wars is a team game, as hinted by the name, NOT a solo/2 man game.

Trio strip mined the Foundry while most teams were struggling to Vent the hackneyed searingway build. It was also the premier dungeon running tool before SF became the mainstay and was seeing plenty of UW use. It's also one of the fastest if not the fastest way to build allegiance rep in the game at the moment. Nobody is going to argue that it isn't more complicated to use than SF (I hope) but to ignore the fact that it along with OF would fill the vacuum left by SF is just disingenuous. Anet got it in their heads that after years of fostering this type of play it's no longer acceptable. Better to just wipe the slate clean and come up with the next big thing than bring up another generation of invincis they will just have to nerf again in 6 months when we get another 50+ page Guru thread.

I read those and I liked what I see. I'll definitely being testing out the hammer and some of the tactics skills. I'll also probably finish a campaign with my Rit, who I put away as soon as I hit 20. The only thing I think may be dubious is the rework of Blood Magic, but I'll wait until it comes out and give it a shot.

To all those bitching, don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. Really won't miss any farming elitists if you don't come back for GW2 Seriously, I think these changes are a step in the right direction. But then I haven't been using over powered builds to farm galore.

I agree completely. Stop whining guys. At least they have a new skill update, which they havent had for PvE since September. There are also some pretty cool changes, and I like most of the changes I see. Do I think that after 5 months, more attributes should have had reworks? Yes. But I do like what I see. SoS was overpowered and needed a nerf so there is no reason for anyone to be QQing about it. Honestly, to those of you who are farming elitists and who are whining about the farming aspects of this update, please just stop playing and make the rest of us happy already.

While I don't totally disagree with how most people are interpreting this, I think their thoughts are, basically, we want to nerf SF everywhere but Raptor/Green farming. My guess is they are shooting for a duration that will cover most green farms and Raptor farms, but keep it low enough to prevent dungeon running and maitainability.

I also believe they are shooting for something similar in the 600/Smite, except they are probably looking at a time standpoint. What times are acceptable to finish HM content and what will slow this down to those times. My guess is it will revolve around Spellbreaker.

Actually, I think SF, OF and SB will all get very similar treatment. A little longer duration, a lot longer recharge or some disabling effect. SB would also become self-target only, so you couldn't just add one more monk. OF will last long enough for a tank to gather aggro and the group to pick off a couple enemies. They will force players to use these skills just for the initial pulls and give them enough time to eliminate a couple key monsters, before they wear off.