Its been a little over a week, i think its fair to ask the community.
How well do you think the Feb 25th update met the objectives put forward by ANET staff?
[Added a poll - JR]
To be fair I only included statements posted most recently by Anet from the dev update.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Arena...eloper_updates
I suggest that you read it in full, but here are the general points they made.
Shadow Form
More clearly establish guidelines for what is and isn't in-bounds for Guild Wars.
The best team builds for clearing endgame content efficiently should not consist almost exclusively of a single profession. (For example, a 5-Obsidian-Flesh-Elementalist/3-Monk team that can clear the Underworld is fine, but a build like that should not feel like it's a significantly better way to play than using a more balanced team.)
With these changes, we've tried to make a powerful, versatile and interesting skill that can be used well in a few situations but does not overshadow other character types in general usage.
Obsidian Flesh
Due to the Elementalist's numerous tools for energy management, this apparently drastic set of changes does not actually alter this character's effectiveness in solo farming very much, especially now that the character can move at full speed (or faster!). At the same time, due to the presence of skills like Balthazar's Spirit and Mantra of Earth, which provide energy to a character under attack, the changes have little negative impact on Obsidian Flesh tanks.
Spellbreaker
The Spell Breaker change makes the skill consistent with other skills granting spell immunity. It will now prevent spell casting rather than allowing enemies to spend time casting and to pay the costs of a spell only to have it fail. Making this change was more a matter of keeping the game consistent than trying to balance 600-Smite, but we're mentioning it here because it is used in some 600-Smite builds.
Along with all the attribute skill shuffles...
(I personally i have come to believe, the middle ground would be to require an essence of clarity for any of the invulnerability skills to be maintained. Balance builds would be more effective than invulnerability ones under normal circumstances... and people will still be able to speed clear and farm at a small cost.)
Feb 25th update meet objectives?
Mireles
fowlero
"We've reworked Seeping Wound as a skill that makes it easier for an Assassin to catch an opponent, get into an attack chain quickly, and have the potential to kill a fleeing foe. To keep this strong combination of effects in check, this skill now has half range."
It met their objective.
However, anet really should've learnt their lesson not to ever buff assassins. Any meta where they see regular play has never been fun.
It met their objective.
However, anet really should've learnt their lesson not to ever buff assassins. Any meta where they see regular play has never been fun.
FoxBat
I'm not sure if it's bug or intended, but shadow form needs to limit damage packets after buffs (standard/urals), not before.
Reformed
Tell us OP how exactly does mandatory consumable usage, from the standpoint of their being a blight on PvE to begin with, make things any more "balanced"? It changes nothing for the generation of players that think GW requires them to play while simultaneously imposing a tax on casual farmers who want to use these options.
dusanyu
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Originally Posted by fowlero
"We've reworked Seeping Wound as a skill that makes it easier for an Assassin to catch an opponent, get into an attack chain quickly, and have the potential to kill a fleeing foe. To keep this strong combination of effects in check, this skill now has half range."
It met their objective. However, anet really should've learnt their lesson not to ever buff assassins. Any meta where they see regular play has never been fun. |
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| get into an attack chain quickly, and have the potential to kill a fleeing foe. |
Primal rage was killed because it eliminated the need the need for Smart positioning made kiting less effective and made bad warriors good and now they give assassins this??
Hello Anet anyone home?
own age myname
I think they actually did pretty well, besides SF/Obby Flesh still working perfectly fine (if not better, which I'm fine with, I like SCs). They did accomplish their other goals pretty good.
WarcryOfTruth
Personally, I don't believe the goal was achieved. 600/Smiting was targeted for dungeons and the SC vanquishes. While I am not sure of the dungeons, I know that DSC/MQSC are still viable and working. They wanted to slow these down, and it obviously didn't work 
Warvic
No it's not. Some guilds alrdy found a way to UWSC under 30 mins. *sigh* Will it ever end? Not that I care.. I stopped PvE long ago ;D
first Palm strike buff was to strong. Seeping wound is just as strong IMO. But I don't care. I like to gank stuff.
first Palm strike buff was to strong. Seeping wound is just as strong IMO. But I don't care. I like to gank stuff.
Mireles
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Originally Posted by Reformed
Tell us OP how exactly does mandatory consumable usage, from the standpoint of their being a blight on PvE to begin with, make things any more "balanced"? It changes nothing for the generation of players that think GW requires them to play while simultaneously imposing a tax on casual farmers who want to use these options.
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It would be balanced because under normal circumstances balanced builds would be superior to "invinci-bulds" until a consumable is used to allow full maintenance of the respective elite skill.
Cost as a trade off for more efficiency is more incentive for players to used "balanced builds" that cost nothing.
LunchboxOctober
The update just changed how the skills work, and human beings will (as always) adapt to the skills in their present form and figure out efficient ways to use them to clear whichever area they intend.
Personally I wish they would just revert Shadow back to an unmaintainable immunity with no restrictions just so I could go back to boss farming on my Ele, but I know that won't happen.
And Balancing skills around the use of cons? They've been doing it for several updates now. Look at Hundred Blades, Ether Renewal, and other powerful skills that have received updates since EotN. They can't be maintained on their own. Yes ER can have it's recharge reduced with one of many effects in the game available, but in a drug-free Tyria it's going to need other skills to consistently maintain. I think it's terrible that some skills (not all, most balanced skills work the same without cons, just a little faster) have to be balanced with effects that can affect how powerful or preferable a build can be.
Now if only they would buff Tactics stances so they can be maintained with Dwarven Stability at max rank. But again, I know it won't happen.
Personally I wish they would just revert Shadow back to an unmaintainable immunity with no restrictions just so I could go back to boss farming on my Ele, but I know that won't happen.
And Balancing skills around the use of cons? They've been doing it for several updates now. Look at Hundred Blades, Ether Renewal, and other powerful skills that have received updates since EotN. They can't be maintained on their own. Yes ER can have it's recharge reduced with one of many effects in the game available, but in a drug-free Tyria it's going to need other skills to consistently maintain. I think it's terrible that some skills (not all, most balanced skills work the same without cons, just a little faster) have to be balanced with effects that can affect how powerful or preferable a build can be.
Now if only they would buff Tactics stances so they can be maintained with Dwarven Stability at max rank. But again, I know it won't happen.
sonofthort
I'm really a fan of the new shadow form. The thing I like most 'bout it is that now any class can use it effectively, so that sins no longer have an uber advantage for farming builds. Also, I don't think speed clears are that big of a deal. Obviously, they take alot of skill and team work and coordination, and most pugs can't pull it off. To me, this is balance. Honeslty, there is always gonna be something in the game that is more powerful than other options, but eventually you just have to accept that this is what the game is, and stop trying to balance everything.
coil
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Originally Posted by Warvic
No it's not. Some guilds alrdy found a way to UWSC under 30 mins. *sigh* Will it ever end? Not that I care.. I stopped PvE long ago ;D
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if their attempt was to kill "speedclearing" lol @ that and good luck to them. a couple years too late for that.
if it was to slow stuff down & shock the meta for a day, they've accomplished that. but, imo, they're a couple years too late for that as well.
Gregslot
Yes, it did... you are just looking at 3 skills, how many skills did they changed?
And Obsidian Flesh can be used in PVP now by the way (at least in RA), really awesome to see casters frustrated that they CANT cast spells on you... go try it yourself.
And this update changed many other things, they REMOVED some PVP/PVE split if you havent noticed, wich is a big thing.
PVP and PVE are crawling with new builds, new roles and new ideas.
And guilds will allways want to "SC" the high-end areas because that is just like farming with 8 people. And there will allways have farming builds, farming groups and etc, so the term "SC" will allways be present because it is a consequence of farming.
This update was awesome and i am having way too much fun with my casual PVP.
Go Go Go spirit prot in FA.
And Obsidian Flesh can be used in PVP now by the way (at least in RA), really awesome to see casters frustrated that they CANT cast spells on you... go try it yourself.
And this update changed many other things, they REMOVED some PVP/PVE split if you havent noticed, wich is a big thing.
PVP and PVE are crawling with new builds, new roles and new ideas.
And guilds will allways want to "SC" the high-end areas because that is just like farming with 8 people. And there will allways have farming builds, farming groups and etc, so the term "SC" will allways be present because it is a consequence of farming.
This update was awesome and i am having way too much fun with my casual PVP.
Go Go Go spirit prot in FA.
Terrible Surgeon
With any skill update there will be happy and unhappy people and that's all that can be said about the recent update. As far as the update making the game more balanced I think it did in PvE because speed clears made a lot of the aspects of the game very dull and required a low level of skill from players[600/smite DTSC groups]. As far as the effect the update had on PvP it was actually very small in my opinion. Primal rage and Backbreaker were the two biggest changes i saw. A lot of people were crying over the change made to Seeping Wound but in actuality it adds another dimension to the pvp areas. For example, I saw a sin in GvG [A/P] running a fun build with seeping wound that was very effective as a member of a hexway team. All in all, if the update affected your game play drastically i think you need to learn to play more than one build and one profession and learn to play PvE with other people instead of solo speed clearing everything.... Good Job ANET!
Del
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Originally Posted by fowlero
"We've reworked Seeping Wound as a skill that makes it easier for an Assassin to catch an opponent, get into an attack chain quickly, and have the potential to kill a fleeing foe. To keep this strong combination of effects in check, this skill now has half range."
It met their objective. However, anet really should've learnt their lesson not to ever buff assassins. Any meta where they see regular play has never been fun. |
Darcy
I don't think that ArenaNet was overly concerned about the Factions speed clears. Drazach Thicket and Mount Quinkai are hardly "elite" areas. Their main goal with nerfing the 600/smite teams was to prevent the dungeon farming as these are "elite" areas. As of now, Mission Accomplished.
Arduin
Well, I actually stopped caring about any 'balance' or 'imbalance' in PvE. Does that count?
Arkantos
They tried majorly toning down Shadow Form - failed.
They tried nerfing 600/smite - As far as I know, it worked. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
They tried nerfing OF - It's now being used in speed clears. If anything, they buffed it.
They tried making useless skills, well, useful - It somewhat worked. Some skills still suck.
Overall, it wasn't nearly enough.
Yes, they're a couple of years late on killing speedclears, even though speedclears aren't a couple of years old.
They tried nerfing 600/smite - As far as I know, it worked. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
They tried nerfing OF - It's now being used in speed clears. If anything, they buffed it.
They tried making useless skills, well, useful - It somewhat worked. Some skills still suck.
Overall, it wasn't nearly enough.
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| if their attempt was to kill "speedclearing" lol @ that and good luck to them. a couple years too late for that. |
Riot Narita
I don't do SC's. I've never played 600/smite, and I don't play an Assassin.
So the updates to Obsidian Flesh and SF felt like buffs for me personally. Obsidian Flesh farming builds seem better with the movement penalty removed (Hello Vaettirs, its been a long time), and I can now perma-SF on any character that has decent energy management... if I can find a use for that.
I can't comment on the effects on SC's etc, but from what everyone says, it seems they didn't go far enough.
So I suspect there may be a few more tweaks coming to tone them down some more. If they do that in the same way as the first round, it'll be win-win in my opinion - SC's slowed somewhat (but not totally destroyed), and more options available to non-assassins.
So the updates to Obsidian Flesh and SF felt like buffs for me personally. Obsidian Flesh farming builds seem better with the movement penalty removed (Hello Vaettirs, its been a long time), and I can now perma-SF on any character that has decent energy management... if I can find a use for that.
I can't comment on the effects on SC's etc, but from what everyone says, it seems they didn't go far enough.
So I suspect there may be a few more tweaks coming to tone them down some more. If they do that in the same way as the first round, it'll be win-win in my opinion - SC's slowed somewhat (but not totally destroyed), and more options available to non-assassins.
Phineas
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Originally Posted by WarcryOfTruth
Personally, I don't believe the goal was achieved. 600/Smiting was targeted for dungeons and the SC vanquishes. While I am not sure of the dungeons, I know that DSC/MQSC are still viable and working. They wanted to slow these down, and it obviously didn't work
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But, OT, Anet will claim that the update did what they ultimately wanted it to until such time as they patch it with the next thing they wanted to do, so a poll would only really reflect the thoughts of the players and thus is not an accurate indication to the question posed.
MithranArkanere
Well, I no longer see so many assassins with obsidian armor and chaos globes spamming for SCs around, and I came back to the game after login in only in festivals and a few weekend events for a long time, so it worked.
There are still some SCs out there, but I hope they check them too.
There are still some SCs out there, but I hope they check them too.
Arduin
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Originally Posted by The-Bigz
Before, or after? I screenshotted for epic lulz later on in life when looking back at Guild Wars.
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Perkunas
If their objective was to clear Bergen Hot Springs of Monks, they did a good job of that. At this moment, I am the only person in American district, and the International district is empty too. Another ghost town has been created.
Morphy
Their objectives were flawed so whether they were executed properly or not is irrelevant.
JR
Added a poll, on request of the OP.
Gill Halendt
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Originally Posted by Morphy
Their objectives were flawed so whether they were executed properly or not is irrelevant.
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The update has indeed met its objectives. Though I believe they were not the ones people expected. It has made "invulnerability" harder to achieve. It's still available, but now requires some tought, effort and ability. Not much, but surely less /faceroll than before. More in line with "normal" play.
Also they managed not to upset anyone, by just pleasing no one. They gave a sign they care to detractors, while still not killing farming.
Kopa The Demon King
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Originally Posted by Reformed
Tell us OP how exactly does mandatory consumable usage, from the standpoint of their being a blight on PvE to begin with, make things any more "balanced"? It changes nothing for the generation of players that think GW requires them to play while simultaneously imposing a tax on casual farmers who want to use these options.
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pumpkin pie
what was the objective beside wanting to nerf some skills? Because, seriously, no one can cast a vote if the objective weren't even clear in the first place.
frankly I don't seen any changes to the game what so ever
frankly I don't seen any changes to the game what so ever
afya
no, SC is still all around tyria. Some may say "Well anet tried their best but ppl figure out workaround, not anet's fault", but all we want is result, not process.
jazilla
This is my theory: Smite/600 has been around for a long time and they never thought about nerfing it. In August of 2009, DTSC and other areas fro using Smite/600 started gaining mass popularity, which just so happened to coincide with the announcement of the Test Krewe. They didn't even start thinking about nerfing Smite/600 until that time when you could start farming faction with it. ANET has always been pretty swift to get rid of the builds that could get faction with a distinct advantage. Until that started happening they didn't care that people were running others through dungeons for tons of money and they left it alone for years. I think ANET's agenda for changing things and what is important to them is seriously different from what the players hold dear to themselves.
FyrFytr998
I agree with Jazilla. 600/Smite probably would have been left alone if it had just maintained its status as a "loot farming" only build. Once it gained popularity with the speed clear and dungeon running groups, it put a big fat target on itself. Even then though, only half the build was nerfed to promote team play instead of Smiting with a Hero.
Now that it's said and done, I think they did cover most of what they wanted to achieve. They made farming still possible although slower, and they handled the absurd SF SC times.
I only wish ANET would throw us a bone now, and get rid of the Skeletons. Doing so wouldn't shorten the newly nerfed runs all that much.
Now that it's said and done, I think they did cover most of what they wanted to achieve. They made farming still possible although slower, and they handled the absurd SF SC times.
I only wish ANET would throw us a bone now, and get rid of the Skeletons. Doing so wouldn't shorten the newly nerfed runs all that much.
Mireles
Thanks JR for adding the poll. I must say very surprising results. almost a 50/50 yes and no.
GODh
I think the only goal achieved is driving most pve-ers away and turning GW into a pvp-only game... i wouldnt be surpised if the rest of the pve community will follow too, because for hardcore pve-ers there isnt much left to do (only some grinding... the hard way).
Mireles
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Originally Posted by Phineas
But, OT, Anet will claim that the update did what they ultimately wanted it to until such time as they patch it with the next thing they wanted to do, so a poll would only really reflect the thoughts of the players and thus is not an accurate indication to the question posed. |
That the point of player polls... Put some numbers in-front of Anet, make peoples opinions measurable. They will be more likely to consider this communities opinion.
And who knows maybe pigs will fly and we will see a real response to the results.
Fay Vert
If the objective was to nerf SF and OF, then I wouldn't have chosen to buff them!
Failnet earning their name hard.
Failnet earning their name hard.
Mireles
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Originally Posted by Fay Vert
If the objective was to nerf SF and OF, then I wouldn't have chosen to buff them!
Failnet earning their name hard. |
If it took you 5 months to arrive at this conclusion... and didn't see that all that needed to be done was have a monk bonder on SF sin, to make it better than it was before... because of the lower energy cost...lowered recharge... pretty much easier to maintain all around....during those 5 months they didn't see this...? well.... it may be time to go back to grade school math or get a new TestKrewe.
Del
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Originally Posted by Mireles
I don't know if its so much ArenaNet, than it is the people that they chose for the TestKrewe.
If it took you 5 months to arrive at this conclusion... and didn't see that all that needed to be done was have a monk bonder on SF sin, to make it better than it was before... because of the lower energy cost...lowered recharge... pretty much easier to maintain all around....during those 5 months they didn't see this...? well.... it may be time to go back to grade school math or get a new TestKrewe. |
Mireles
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Originally Posted by Del
more evidence proving the test krewe is just a pariah for anet's screw ups, thanks a ton! Honestly, if the test krewe was aiming to nerf sf, do you think that would have been their decision? of course not, as soon as i saw it i figured it was better than before. so either they weren't aiming to destroy it, or anet just said "thanks for your input, however, we're going to buff sf". don't blame the krewe, it isn't as if they have the final decision on any of this.
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I mean when you had to nurf seeping wound the weekend after update... it doesn't look like alot of testing went on.
And i don't think Anet ignored the testkrewe... it would of been totally pointless to form them other than for free labor....
long story short... somebody wasn't checking the math
Phaern Majes
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Originally Posted by Mireles
Thanks JR for adding the poll. I must say very surprising results. almost a 50/50 yes and no.
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Yes, The Feb 25th Update met most of its objectives.
No, The Feb 25th Update didn't meet enough of its objectives
Really just a glass is half-full/half-empty distinction. Both agree that some objectives were met and that some weren't.
afya
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Originally Posted by Mireles
I don't know if its so much ArenaNet, than it is the people that they chose for the TestKrewe.
If it took you 5 months to arrive at this conclusion... and didn't see that all that needed to be done was have a monk bonder on SF sin, to make it better than it was before... because of the lower energy cost...lowered recharge... pretty much easier to maintain all around....during those 5 months they didn't see this...? well.... it may be time to go back to grade school math or get a new TestKrewe. |
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| We didn’t want to simply nerf Shadow Form and cause a mass migration to another overpowered build, only to nerf that after players start using it. |