It's time the anti farming and anti solo inquisition comes to an end.

I have a Sin. Yes I have used SF. No, I have never done UWSC or any other SC. I use mostly a Rit.
There..got that all out of the way.
I have been lurking the forums for quite some time now. Even before i actually joined guru. I actually think that working with new skills is fun and very enjoyable. However, It is my opinion that the folks who cried so much about SF never have done SC's, etc. These people probably never would have either. Why do they care so much about what other people do? I don't..
For those people, it's usually about dumbing down everything so they can get what they want. The typical leveling of the playing field. For those people an "A" for effort is what they want, I suppose. You get a medal for trying...or in this case, titles, HoM, etc...not for actually achieving. Seems indicative of our culture in the U.S. today.

Let the elites of the game play as they play. And as for the rest of us...Let's try to get better if you want to obtain titles, HoM, ecto or whatever it is you want.

My two cents

Actually, most of the people whining about SF being overpowered were against the dumbing down of the game. Once someone elses playstyle effects yours directly it becomes a problem. Shadow Form as it was dumbed down the game a lot, in fact Shadow Form as it is still dumbs down the game a lot, tanking really, really dumbs down what Guild Wars is.

More QQ... I would have never expected this

this right here invalidates op's point. you say anet wants to provide fun for everyone? how does forcing everyone to roll a sin accomplish this? at least ursan let you play whatever class you wanted. at the peak of sf, the gw mentality was: "sin or gtfo"

Man I remember the days when ANet actually tried to prevent farming, those were interesting times...

Some would consider that we've been off the track for years on end now. I personally feel that if a fraction of a party is able to go into an area and be successful that something is wrong, either with the enemy composition or with the balancing of skills.

Soooo....Which A-Net employee is a reincarnation of Torquemada?

Inquisition = Bad thing. Lots of people tortured and burned at the stake.
Latest Skill Update = Good thing. Fixed a major problem with the game, and the only thing that got burned (sort of) was a GW box.

Seriously, though - restoring Elite areas to the point where they deserve the title "Elite" is much better for the game than leaving them (UW) the joke they turned into thanks to the different "god modes" that were out there.

First year after release, people were solo farming griffs, hydras, troll cave, ethins, avicara and UW with warriors, monks, eles, necros, you name it. And that was before sins were even born. Not to forget rangers who could barrage whole areas on their own. Nobody was excluded, except maybe the mesmers.


EDIT: And nobody cared, because all the cool kids were playing PVP.

I completely agree with you. A Massive Multiplayer Online RPG should be exactly that. Different classes work in different areas for different purposes, players should work together towards a common goal, and playing an online game like a console game killed any type of love I had for PvE in Guild Wars.

EDIT: What I'm trying to say is that people themselves killed the fun of it, and A-Net let this go by un-noticed and are now doing something too late to fix it. Leave the 'I can do this solo' ego at the door when you play an online team based RPG next time. That was directed at the elitists.

exactly, and you still can mostly--but everyone chose to farm with sf/600 instead because it was broken. thats why sf/600 was bad, and thats why sf/600 was nerfed. so whats your point?

God forbid you need to learn a new build.

Hope you enjoy this update, I know I do!

Pretty much sums it up for solo-farmers. Thanks, MMSDome.

Nerf 55 monk build too.

I can take your point with regards to SF, but the 600/smite argument doesn't hold for me. 600/smite is a duo/trio team build and is not invicible like the previous versions of SF.

Did those of us that enjoyed 600/smite duo/trio really affect your gameplay? Personally I didn't make my sin Perma as i enjoy playing with others, and that just so happened to be in the form of 600/smite.

600/smite ran a lot of dungeons, that affected my gameplay quite a bit by reducing those that i could form a group to actually attempt to play it with.

Really? So you were forced to 600/smite or did you hook up with like minded people and complete any area you wanted.

I will say that you may be the first person to actually come closes to answering my question of how others using XXX build may affect someone.
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But there is an issue with general PUGs failing most of the time. Memories of Thunder Keep come to mind way back in the day. I cannot count the amount of Pug fails over that mission.

Well, spirit spamming is still your one-size-fits-all solo farming solution, I can't say that I'm seeing any noticeable difference after the minor nerf.

Other than that, my preferred approach to particular builds breaking 'elite' content would be to adjust that content instead of the builds, since loot scaling already takes care of the normal content. Something like this has been tried on some occassions but I've got the feeling that the applied solutions weren't anywhere near optimal.

Dont forget w/n raptor farmers - how long before they get swiped at by anets nerfbat of pain ?
And why is it most of the ppl qq`ing now about sf are the same ppl who qq it was too op - must be bad 1 minute to be gloating about sf nerf then waking up next morning and finding out it still exists

Whenever we want to do dungeons and don't want to/can't run it with 600/smite we only have to ask our guildies and alliance for volunteers to make a team. Did you ask yours?

For the most part i haven't been able to complete most dungeons, and most people just tell me to "get a run" if I try to LFG X Dungeon

I like running things with PUGs, but if none form due to people getting runs there is a problem. I do ask my alliance for help, that is how i completed the dungeons that I do have done.

The problem with easy farming and fast clears of elite areas is the knock on effect for the rest of the gaming community.
Anet obviously have an idea as to how much money and resources is reasonable and also how fast they should be able to achieve them.

They have 2 ways to achieve their ends one is nerfing such builds and the other is to reduce the chances for rarer items and materials to drop.
The better you do and the richer you become the more they apply nerfs so it becomes more difficult for the average casual gamer.

Personally I have no problem with players having unlimited quantities of cash and materials but it seems anet are not keen.

and that is precisely why there was no problem


unlimited quantities of cash do not come from sc... they're already in game and the only place to farm efficiently is spamadan

Build farms that actually works on todays game

- feather farm with solo monk on napui hm
- destroyer farms are easier now with ele
- vaettir farm are easier too
- the old good farms of 55 monk, necro, mesmer, etc
- the SoS spirit farm on almost everywhere (UW included)

I can continue... but of course you want a farm that gives you thousands of ectos... well that just confirm the point that SF and 600 were overpowered... you don't supposed to be able to farm tons of ectos at least not that fast

The reason the nerf was in order was because Balanced teams for anything were diminishing, and little to nobody did Underworld FoW, or dungeons like they were origionaly entailed to be done. EVERYONE was supposed to be given equal oppertunity at something, and speedclears and meta team builds removed that from the game.

You cant get into a UW team if youre a dervish or a ranger or a mesmer...hell it was even hard as a paragon running Imba. Monks were replaced with resto necros for their perfect energy, and it was getting hard for half the classes to even get a team for anything beyond the storyline.

Permaforms started to take over gameplay, and thats why that was removed. 600 and perma stood tall for a long long....loooonnnggggg time, maybe its time we reached out?....some kid did a box burning video he was so mad...

Howabout we suck it up and play the game how it was originaly, where youd figure out what works, and youd build your own stuff.

If you want a farming build, MAKE ONE! it doesnt have to be cut and dry solo, and if you want it to be, then figure out what works, there are still PLENTY of possible builds nobody has thought of, or has touched in ages that could work.

choose man, its not hard, learn something new or QQ about it one or the other.

If you're unwilling to admit that theres something out there, SLOWER but still effective then A-net has proven their point on shadowform and 600/smite.

Youre not supposed to make thousands of ectos a week and QQ over it if you want to, the more you QQ the more A-net has proven that Shadowform and 600/smite were well overpowered in the farming catigory. There are more than 2 professions out there....Sins and monks arent all guildwars has to offer.

There's a reason some developers balance single-player games, you know.

everyoen is fussing about how certain skills were nerfed, personally i cant do really any farmign with SF, and no i wont make a ranger bobby- ilove my sin still, stop complaining use SF on your warrior and QQ less. geez thats what everyone wanted. shadow form was originally suposed to be made to get in do gm then gfet out as the assassin is respectfully known for, how thehell can they do it when the dmg is reduced to 26 max ?

This is a fun thread to read.

And resumes what PvE became - farming and running, running and farming.

All this because of the sake of "economy" and "your playstyle affecting others" and "PvE being a competition".

They changed an entire area to counter a speed clear, but can they make items in prophecies and factions "inscribable"?

No, they can't, because it will piss off people with very rare items even though the items not being inscribable pisses off everyone that gets an item in prophecies/factions most of the time.

They keep nerfing farms/speed clears but can they make the game actually more rewarding for non-gimmick teams?

"Guild Wars...Guild Wars never changes..."

Sums up perfectly.

Bring back the old ursan then!!!!! We wont rank discriminate honest

This is reminiscent of the whole DoA/Ursan mess. Soooo much talk and theory, and yet, the proof is in the pudding. There are still barely any people doing any dungeons even after the 600/Smite nerf. I thought nerfing 600/Smite would bring back lots of people for the so called "normal" gameplay. Where are they? Oh wait...no one wants to do them because the drop is crap for the ridiculous amount of effort required to play them "normally", especially considering how pug unfriendly those areas are.

The community has no idea what they want. Meanwhile, I can't find a pug to play the dungeons, guildies make every excuse not to help (for good reasons, the drops SUCK), runners got nerfed, and I'm stuck with grinding annoying dungeons solo with H/h for two gems at the end.

The more caving in to whiners by Anet, the more my game becomes a ghost town + Solo fest. So much for the purity of "balanced" group play.

I think that has something to do with the fact that there is more than one person in the community. Each person probably has a good idea what they want.

I agree everything is too much effort for too little...but thing is why do the drops suck? because everything was overfarmed to hell, and everything was buffed so as to detract some runners and make it harder...Now that the runners are gone, the items are all overfarmed and underpriced, and not worth the time...Well lets say this then...Oh well?

New weapons would be nice, i would love to see them, and it may spark up dungeon delving again.

in the case of the lack of people, its not going to magically fix its self, i want to know how many people stopped playing the game over this nerf.

get through the fallout maybe theyll have something going on then.

And if your guild never helps you or does anything with you...then what the hell are you doing there? they have a friends list, put your friends in there and find another guild.

If you dont want to then thats your choice. My view is if you cant get help, or nobody is willing to put an hour or two aside to help someone and maybe have some fun rather than sit around...the guild isnt worth being in.

Find a niche and stick with it, then spread out from there...hell you may even be the one to find out a new farm build.

No hes actualy correct there, the stuff you want usualy isnt what you want after it happens, hence the 600 nerf, OH NOES! WHERE ARE THE RUNS! I didnt think of that :O uh oh ima go QQ to people

People bitch for what they THINk they want and thats that. they get what they wantand they dont like it all because they know NOTHING of game mechanics or realise even how much they rely on specific things they whine about, because they dont understand where the massive amounts of traffic is, and all that put togeather means they know nothing of what they realy want...well not want what they need

True enough but what I was getting at was common to every game I have ever played esp this kind of game is money and the limiting of it.
You begin almost all games poor in money and materials this encourages play.
By the end of said game you have more than you can possibly use.
A Skilful player does way better than average in this respect.

Nearly always I find this triggers something in the game company and they act to limit this success.
Unfortunately this can sometimes affect the less skillful or beginer players badly.
I think we have seen this in the complaints about chests and the supposed high end content of eye which for the most part isn't startling in the quality of drops.

I couldn't care less if players have trillions of platinum and billions of ectos as long as I as a casual player can still expect a fair quantity of goodies.

Then there will be no reason to use dervishes, mesmers, necromancers, ritualists, assassins...

Ursan was in some ways the most balanced and least balanced the game has ever been. It removed most class differences, but the ones that remained became that much more important, and there were several classes that were superior to other Ursans in every way.

Now, if the old Ursan had removed ALL class differences, then there might be an argument, but the old Ursan did not make the game balanced. Not even close.

How does removing all reason to play a certain class NOT affect someone's playstyle? If that doesn't do it, then what would?

Most players, to at least some degree, like playing stuff that is good relative to what else is out there. Unless they are intentionally making a joke build, they will always try to make sure their build doesn't suck at whatever it is doing (whether they succeed or not is a different story).

Therefore, if something is so good everything else sucks by comparison, then yes, it is affecting their playstyle. The fact that elite skills are better than non-elite skills affects the playstyles of people who would otherwise not take an elite skill, for example, because it puts pressure on people to use an elite skill.

How many people do you know of with access to good elite skills that don't use them?

600/smite dominated gw? LOLS i only seen it being used for dungeons,nic and maybe farmed in uw. i dont see how that can dominated all of gw. and for all those who wined about not being able toget groups for dungeons due to 600/smite poor you. Not all of us are lucky to have a active or large allaince. Nor have the time to spent 1hr+ in hours and $$$ in cons or even deal with idiots who afked/left in the run. I used to do cof but not for money but for fun. i enjoyed slapping on a hero or grabing a friend and running it. I dont see how that would or could hurt others.

And for an end note. If gettting runs were so bad then the servies offered thread on our guru wouldnt be in use. xD and this is my opnion as i see it.

WTF? I am tired of these crack heads who think SF got nerfed. NO it didnt. It just got changed and is still the best spell in the game. Sins continue to rule. The doa speedclear times with sins being the key part STILL is back to amazing 50 minutes. UW times are nearly back to old times with SINS being the key. And now, with SF better than spellbreaker, the sins are RAPING plains again for ectos! Remember when plains was being hosed by the ecto farming sins???? Ectos dropped into the 3k-4k range. Duh.... I LMAO at the people saying they were going to make a fortune holding ectos on the other side of the nerf. A 20% drop is just the start. 4-5k will be here soon.
Like the OP alluded to, gw has become a witchhunt with a bunch of numbnuts at gw headquarters who dont know a thing about the game. The only class that got killed was monks and 600 which has been around for years and years and was not that big a deal. They listened to a bunch of petty (imo), jealous (imo), idiots (no question on this one), aka Test Krewe, who suggested absolutely the wrong changes and screwed up royally.

Well good luck finding your balanced group, cuz you wont. You have better be a sin or use x/sin using SF or you are not getting into the uw/fow/doa groups. The same with dungeons. I pmed a good runner yesterday about getting a run. He was a good 600 and guess what, he is still running. Yeah, but the price went from 20k a run, to 40k a run. So who really got screwed? The new player who now can /fail with pugs which will not form anyway because hours to make a pug sucks, /fail with his heros and be a solo player with some ai helping him (real fun...), or he can walk away disappointed because prices doubled and he can not afford it.

GW did not nerf the sins. GW did hose the monks. GW royally hosed a bunch of new/begginer players into thinking that this was going to level everyone out and be a better place. No, SF still rules the field. The inquisition was a good metaphor in my opinion. Convert to x/sin or get tortured playing this game. I liked playing with 2 or 3 good friends or playing solo and coming and going as I pleased with real life time constraints, but I am not going to do the sin route and I am not going to mess around with boring parts of the game an idiot can spirit spam. That is not my thing.

The patients at the insane assylum should have let GW die a happy place where people had options to play solo, duo, trio, full party. Now they force everyone into sin, sin, sin for the elite areas (not the low level farms a monkey could do).

Well, I refuse to play sin. So screw this game. Coming soon to high end guru is my entire collection of stuff. I will vote with my feet and hit the door. I may be only one guy, but I spent probably 300 dollars on gw accounts and expansions. I will NOT be buying gw2. If there are a just a thousand guys like me...well, this screw up of a nerf just cost them 1/3 a million dollars. GG Test Krewe.

Here is an idea.. revert the game back to 2 years ago. It was a much better game then. This monkey facking around with skills is ridiculous. GW2 is going to be botted all to hell anyways. This bot used in pvp is sure to be moved into pve at some point if it already hasnt, and the current game is like any other in the end of its life cycle... botted, hacked, and not supported. The techies say unless they rewrite the game engine, the bot is easily ported over into gw2. What are the odds they rewrote the game engine and not just the same engine with pretty new content? Screw it, I am not sticking around long enough to find out. I am giving myself 30 days to sell off all my stuff, put some shinies in my HOM, and get the hell out. Dont hold the door open for me. I choose the solo route. I dont want your help.

CYA.

Wait, you're telling me i wasn't affected, when I quite clearly recall being affected.

Okay then.

Exactly! How dare those 2-3 people exercise their right to choose another option?!

The only threat to cooperative game play is uncooperative people. You can't nerf those... at least not legally.

{edit} OP. I may be wrong but I think the analogy you were drawing would be The Crusades. That whole "convert or die" mentality. I'm assuming that's the comparison... Not the actual process of murdering people. And I also think those that thought you were making the "murder" comparison aren't really that dumb. I think they're just being smart-asses. And I think we all know it. Sad, little bitter people... My favorite toys.

No one actually "farms" dungeons. The only good stuff in those dungeons are the end chest gold weapons, and those are still ridiculously expensive. The problem is that those stuff are so ridiculously rare, most people won't get them in their entire GW playing lifespan. As for the gems, they're already worthless LONG before dungeon running became meta, simply due to how little use there are for them in relation to how much the chests spit them out.

Because my guild actually do OTHER stuff that I like? Namely UW where the drops are NOT so crappy. Instead of telling me to guild hop, maybe what you should do is petition Anet to implement a guild formation system where I can actually SEE the activities of the guilds before I join.

This is exactly what I mean by community don't know what they want. If you want this much emphasize on guilds, make Anet change the guild system so that its more efficient. If you want the game to be based on AI, get Anet to get rid of the heroes limit and implement more flags so that I can spread them out better.

If you want the game based on random grouping, get Anet to implement Pugging bonus, better party search systems, increase drops to a level that is sufficient for the average joe, and buff "balanced" builds.

As of now, EVERY ONE of the options are limited in some way.