Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

That's exactly what I was thinking when I read the Update Notes as few days ago. How many times have you guys gotten mad at the Henchies? And haven't you felt just a tiny bit cheesy when you cast an AoE Spell like Fire Storm, knowing it that the monsters were going to stand there like lumps, taking it until they died?

"Hey, there, my Charr buddy, did you notice your fur was flaming and your teeth were melting?"

"Why yes, my stalwart comrade, I did note that uncomfortable fact. But you know, I'm just too dense to up and move my furry behind out of this torrential downpour of spells. I think I'll just stay here and expire."

How fun is it? Sort of like taking candy from a baby, isn't it? I never wanted to feel sorry for my enemies; I just wanted to feel powerful when I smited them. So if the monster enemies are actually more on par with a real player, isn't that a good thing? Doesn't that make accomplishments more meaningful?

And for those who are concerned (I won't say "whining" but others have ) about farming, why in Dwayna's name do you think you should be able to solo some of the highest level areas to farm? How realistic is that expectation? I mean, if you could in the past -- and if that wasn't intended or balanced -- does that mean it should be left for players to do so indefinitely? No criticism for farmers, not at all. But in a game built on strategy and teamwork, like Guild Wars, it simply doesn't seem to me that it's reasonable to ask to play the highest end content as a solo player.

In the end, though, my opinions aside, we tested these changes for some time and the consensus was that they were reasonable and fair. We are most definitely listening to all your feedback and will certainly be willing to consider future changes in the interest of game improvement.

"They'll run fomr ANY AOE damage, from any class, chaos storm, frozen burst, ignite arrows, cyclone axe, B.aura, deathly swarm, any skill that hits more then 1 guy, prolly even hundred blades."


I don't know if that's entirely true.
From my experience, I know they'll definitely run from all AOE spells, and I think traps too.
I'm pretty sure they don't run from cyclone axe (since it's an attack skill and not a spell), and I'm not sure about ignite arrows (a preperation).

If you're right and they do indeed run from all AOE skills and not just AOE spells, then I think they'll only run if it takes more than a second to cast (hence skills like cyclone axe apparently not being affected).

Can anyone say for sure on this?

So you say, but it's easy enough if you're putting in endless hours with a bot to start a build that's the newest farming FOTM, level it up quickly, and farm more. The average PvE player will probably be less inclined to abandon their beloved characters that they've put hundreds of hours into.

Besides, I think you underestimate how much money there is to be made in the selling-online-items market. They'll find a way to make it profitable.

Ok fine if we are gona make them smart, lets have them attack what they need to like have them all attack the Monk 1st and work their way till they finaly get around to killing the warrior last. Come on people really. You cant bring common since into a game considring games arent made to make since. Plus think about all the new players who go to do that fire mission for firespells now where you have to nuke all those earth eles. Impossible now.

Oh plus

Diablo 2
World of warcraft
Final fantasy online
Ultima

Any online game has farmers and none of them have a economy nearly as messed up as Guildwars dose.

GAILE GRAY has graced us with a response.

Do we dare protest her comments? i for one disagree on many points. I will digress until a later time...

exactly...

anet just made those Violating the eula even more money..

the farmers who enjoyed spending an hour gettin 9k off griffons are now done..

which essentually means that platnum is going to become rare...

take Ecto for example, since solo UW farmers are effectively done ecto will come from groups of trappers more than likely. from my own exp as a trapper in a four man group usually there is 0-3 ecto dropped per run... comparatively there are MUCH less trappers and its much harder to form a group of trappers than say for a solo monk to grab a AOE ele and clear ataxx.. meaning all Ecto will come into the economy MUCH slower... hence its price will rise... because there is still a set price for how many are needed for armor, there is STILL people rich enough to buy it for FOW armor, and there is still ebayers making REAL MONEY for plat...

GJ anet... you make me wanna move to india and set up a comp cafe for a lil ebay farming.. Id probably make a lot better money than owning my own construction company and remodeling houses for a living..

Updates can't please everyone, but this sure as hell didn't please many.
Half of my friends are seriously considering quitting because the only characters they liked are the elementalists. One of the gals on my Friends List has 3 elementalists, all level 20 with different attributes in different elements, and she is angry that Elementalists have effectively been nerfed.
Eugh... Now nobody can save me from the eternal torment that is Thirsty River.

Consensus from who? The Game Devs, the ones that don't actually have to make their own money, but can in fact generate it out of thin bits?
Precisely... Enjoy the petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures on it coming your way.

PS: It's not so much that I have a problem with you, Gaile, or any of the Anet staff. It just seems obvious that if within minutes of the update, petitions have been signed on hundreds of websites about how you guys have tweaked it just a little bit too far, that you have.

Good points generally, but I disagree w/ the notion that a longer casting time spell like firestorm serves as a protection line. Anything taking longer than 1 sec to cast makes it impossible to target the "right" mob you want to scatter ASAP.

I'm also curious about the scattering effect on enemy casting. If mobs are required to break their spellcasting to move out of AoE effect, the aoe spells will supplant mesmer interruption spells (i.e. why interrupt one caster than you can interrupt a whole boatload of them? ).

Yes, Fevered Dream can spread degens fast if the mobs cooperate and are near each other. But for my money Spiteful Spirit may be better, damage wise.

I have to feel sorry for gaile gray being up past midnight to casually observe a forum thread regarding a pve change. Especially how in the past, on these same forums, self proclaimed pve only players boasting that they never complain about anything. It is a change in the right direction, even though there are a couple of flaws. Most of those originate around the long cast times of the one shot aoe spells. I am sure phoenix is crying its self to sleep tonight. Other skills just became very exploitable to produce effects that i doubt were intended or even tested with the effect in mind.

WHAT?!?! D2 was the ultimate in screwed up economies!! Gold had no value at all!!!

I would but IM waiting til she actually reads all 17 pages

Plus what about all these people like me that have been gone and have this stuff stock piled still. I have 20 ectos still and about 500 plat.

I do not belive that conversation would have taken place.

I would assume it would go more like

Charr 1: Graaw
Charr 2: Greeaf

Then they would both run off in to the forrest.

If Anet really wanted to make it realistic they would'nt have a group of 5 tengu mopping about on a beach for 5 months waiting for some random band of travelers to come along to attack.

People dont want realistic, they want fun.

Dear Gaile:

I'd agree wholeheartedly if it weren't for the fact that the highest level monsters are more powerful than we players are allowed to be. Also, there are always more of them than there are of us. No one said it wasn't a challenge.

For the record, I don't farm. I can't solo UW or FoW or even the desert. I have a good time running around in Kryta -- that's about it. I guess if I wanted to spend a lot of time minmaxing, I would do beter. That's just not what I'm about. But, in sticking up for the farmers, it's not nice to imply that your customers are whiners.

^^ funniest post all day! (ShinJin Kahn #414)

"Hey, there, my Charr buddy, did you notice you have backfire on you and when you cast you get hurt FOR A TON OF DAMAGE??"

"Why yes, my stalwart comrade, I did note that uncomfortable fact. But you know, I'm just too dense to stop casting. It just feels soooo good to be damaged this much, considering AOE's no longer work on us anymore."


Great arguement. Let me tell yah.

There are only max 8 players on the map, and countless monsters. The only chance players have is their human intelligent.

BTW, before the patch, those mosters are not just standing there, they are after your monks if they have chance. How many time you have seen Alesia dies in the beginning of the battle, even human monks. And sometimes, even your tanks are blocking, they still can "teleport" (bug) beside your monks and kill them.

I play Video games for that simplicity. If I wanted PvP action... I would go play PvP. I want the candy from the baby. Call me simplistic, or whatever you will... but I dont LIVE GW. I dont care about the spells i dont use. I dont care about Air, or Earth, or Water. I want to Nuke a stupid computer with some of my friends, or with Henchmen. Now I have to sit and plan my day around their days just so we all can plan an attack and get the mission done. Lost its fun and became work. Time for you to pay me to do this tedius task. Im surly not paying ANet for something that aint fun anymore.

It's not "so I say", it's what everyone says... not directed at you but all I heard tonight was:

*cry* "farming has been nerfed" *cry*.

If it now takes, say, 3 times as long to get the same amount of gold, the people selling it on ebay now have to charge 2-3 times as much, and less people will be willing to pay it, cause thankfully our real economy isn't quite as screwed up!

Why are you having to abandon a character? I don't understand why people keep saying this...

"And haven't you felt just a tiny bit cheesy when you cast an AoE Spell like Fire Storm, knowing it that the monsters were going to stand there like lumps, taking it until they died?"


I don't think anyone here is complaining about the fact that enemies now run from AOE spells.......
The problem is that they now immediately run from AOE spells, often times before the spell is even cast.

Yes, it's cheesy that they used to stand there and take 10 seconds of AOE damage, but I think it's equally cheesy that they now preemptively flee and take 0-1 seconds of AOE damage.
Can't there be a middle ground here?!
Why can't they flee after maybe 2-4 seconds (depending on the enemy and level) or something like that?

LOL, so this is how they think that the farming will stop, i have to say well done now its much harder to farm , or maybe we are smarter and find another way to farm :P LMAO, Its a cat and mouse game now. Good luck ppl and good luck Anet

ever PLAY d2?

gold was to repair... it was considered the rivet not the dollar... in place of no dollar a SOJ ( stone of jordan ring) was brought forth ( it was a useful item) THEN when the SOJ became useful for bringing the diablo clone RUNES became the dollar..

it had flaws but the players made theyre own dollar not out of something that had a limited use but something that effected gameplay...

stone of jordan gave you a +1 in skills..
and you could wear two

Runes could be used for making runeword items, Bnet saw this trend and added MORE runeword items to increase the consumption of runes making them sought NOT just for theyre trade value but for theyre usefullness.



Frankly I thought it was a good avenue.. it allowed new players to use theyre runes to trade for better stuff... OR make it themselves... the SOJS economy was tough since GETTING one was the hardest step but once you HAD one you could trade it easily for an item worth even more..

GW is based deeply in plat. and traders have limited quantities of items such as runes ... IMO it wouldnt be a bad thing for superior runes to become scarce and become tradable in theyre own right. since 1. you CAN salavage them at the cost of destroying your armor. 2. theyre invinite in use.. you can wear it or sell it for plat...

having an inventory of more than 100k is useless IMO ( and yes I never get above 100k) BUT having materials or runes that can gain in value or loose in value OR be used on your charicter does make a lot of sense..

monsters dont fear platnum.. they do fear that 16 axe mastery...

Edit: sorry they also fear a lvl ONE fire storm now.. thanks anet..

yeah but its going to take alot longer to do some of these missions and the challanges in the desert sure farming is impacted but so are some of the things you must do to progress in the game. I wouldnt like to be a new player (such as my dad ) who has to go do the challanges now with no nuker. He will as a W/N now have a very hard time. Its not only not fair to those who farm but its not fair to those of us who enjoy having fun our selves and seeing other people such as my father have fun playing the game as well.

That part I'm just surmising from what people are saying about their farming builds. As I've said, I don't farm, so I can't really relate. But since the best farming builds seem to come and go with regularity as Anet nerfs their skillset, it seems like players who build characters to farm might have to start from scratch.

But hey, that's just my guess. Enlighten me if I'm wrong.

Speaking for myself, I might abandon my Fire Ele for the simple reason that I liked her the way she was. I wasn't sold on the idea of Eles in general -- the idea of using fire appealed to me all on its own. I don't want to reallocate points so that she's a useful character using some other element. I liked what I had. Call me simpleminded if you must. But I only have a few hours a week to play this game, and it's not so I can come home from a stressful job to do more work.

Yes, I did. I don't think ANet want the Ecto to be the GW equivalent of the D2 SoJ.

Ok, just tested it, they dont run from cyclone axe, or any other attack(ignite arrow) but they do run from anything classed as a spell that hits more then 1 target even if it's onyl single use (fireball, meteor).

Frozen burst has 3/4 cast time but stills triggers them to run cos it's a spell, so i'm still not sure if it has anything to do with cast time

Speaking of D2 -- remember those little Carvers and their stupid resurrect Shamans? I hated those guys more than any other monster. Why? Because they ran away when you hit one of them. They would run away, then run back, you kill one more, wait for them to flee then return, etc.

Just my luck that my ele just got transformed into a f------ Carver generator. Grrrr.

Sorry, I know that was off-topic.

I was waiting to hear some official word from Anet about this update before I came out of lurking, and wow...

I don't mean to offend but my jaw dropped when you said these are tested changes. The monsters and henchmen now have the exact opposite problem they used to have. Instead of standing in a firestorm and dying, they run for the hills at the first sign of splash damage. Improving AI would get them to step out of things like firestorm, maelstrom, etc. Not make them run nearly out of sight because they were hit by a fireball. While skill capping in the Frozen Forest, I kept 90% of the enemies at bay by just alternating between fireball and phoenix. I saw an Avicara Fierce setting up to bombard me, one fireball and he's off to the horizon, with my warrior henchmen in pursuit. A pinesoul turned his attention to me, one phoenix and he starts running in circles. Then a Siege Golem got off a deep freeze. My henchmen all slowly tried to run away, getting cut to pieces since they wouldn't fight back. Then after going to fight some ice imps, my caster henchmen actually ran into a maelstrom instead of out of it. I honestly can not see how all this can be seen as an improvement.

When I first saw the update, I thought, "Hmm, Firestorm and Meteor Shower may be useless now, but I don't use them so what do I care." Then I went to try out the changes and I was shocked. All monsters and henchmen running away at the first sign of damage? They don't even make serious efforts to attack, their highest priority is now to flee.

The AI has gone from one flawed extreme to the other.

Thank you, ArenaNet! I have waited this so long.

Maybe improve it a bit and make monsters to re-group if they get separated too much? How about "focus target" feature too?

PvE is (or was ) so easy that I just farm all day and don't bother playing in groups. Now farming is harder so I have to adapt new situation and go to groups, I guess.

If you all went and actually tried to fight and made new builds instead of complain about a percieved issue, you'd be done already.

anyone who says farming is impossible now, must be someone copying someone else build+farming spot, because i have no trouble at all farming like i have been for the last couple months, yeah, stuff is running around a bit, and it has been making me laugh on several occasions, but that is really the only effect, instead of making 5k in 30 minutes, now i make 5k in 32 minutes, and i can sell the rares alot quicker, and probably for more money(gold, not cash, screw ebay) so i say GO ANET!!!!! they know what they are doing, guildwars is awesome, and if you have a slight amount of intelligence you can still play it just like you were before, if not, then buy all your stuff from me from now on, i generally have an auction in the sell forum, go buy some of my crystallines or something

EDIT: they dont run from hundred blades or cyclone axe, but when i do putrid explosion i swear they almost left my aggro circle completely, was funny as hell

Seriously not trying to flame, but if you guys actually stepped out of your positions at ANet and became a player of this game, you'd understand why some of these updates actually make people quit playing. I don't need to give specific problems, because the players are already posting everywhere.

After my guild GvGed tonight, in less then 3 matches, we all just stopped playing because of how rediculous a certain ranger build is (save the debate for the ten other threads about it). Then we enjoyed reading all the threads about how terrible the update was to PvE. Other nights, we stop GvGing because of the rediculous amounts of smurf guilds we face. Win or Lose, its still a loss because 1.) wins for +1 rating aren't worth your time, 2.) when you lose, you lose 20+ points.

Let's not forget the fundamental problems with the current GW Ladder, Smurfing, Tanking Ratings. In any other game, a player playing for another competitive team that is not his own, is called Ringing, a huge form of cheating. Smurfs, Pug groups, ruin the ladder, plain and simple.

Perhaps if you guys would stop working on Chapter 2 (new profession/skills)and focused your attentions at the problems at hand, it would be better. Because obviously in the current state of the game, you guys can't balance anything. Which explains why FOTMs last longer than a month.

all i know is, if the World Of Warcraft update and the Guildwars one come out at the same time for purchase. . . . and theres more stuff that follows the lines that this one dose. Then i will be ditching Guildwars. This game was made (correct me if im wrong) so that you could get all the way throught it along the way upgrading your items and then go and fight in PVP alot after you beat the game or hell even before if you wanted to. They have no made the good items unatainable by normal means. Which means people since they cant afford it in the game with game money some if not most will go to ebay and weight their options. I hate to see that. I hate to see a game that when i bought it i thought it would be Better then wow a game that i weighted from its previews at E3 to be able to play only to be lost to one of the main elements of fighting which is someway to burage large amounts of enemys when out numbered with large amounts of damage to even it up so you could win.

I have to agree with like over half of the people here...this update is a completely horrid idea. If Anet did so much testing, why didn't the gaming population (who actually play this for stress relief and fun, not as a job) get any say or time to test it? We're the ones that play this, that pay for it, and we're the ones suffering. My very first character was an ele...and I very much love her! I enjoy fire nuking, it may be a "noob" build, but it's something for me that brings a lot of entertainment. I rather like the idea of the two Charr sitting there chatting being too dense to move...it was something I could sit back and laugh at... I do PvP now and then, and I adapted my ele for that...and honestly it just isn't fun. I go in for a few rounds, find that you deal with too many idiots and arrogant people, and I leave again to go back to nuking things. I have other characters, and I could adapt, but I don't want to. I don't have the time nor the patience to spend that much frustration on a game that I bought for fun and just, as I've read before, to nuke things picturing my boss in their place. I know that the players don't have much say in what actually is implemented in a game, but at least give us the credit of knowing what we like to play, and don't force us to play the builds that you think we should. This is a pretty low blow, considering I was up way past my bedtime just last night celebrating over chapter 2 coming out...now I realize that I just lost my main enjoyment out of the game. As has been repeated over and over...if I wanted a smart opponent, I'd pvp!!!! But I don't smart enemies, I want something to drop my nukes on. Simple as that.

henches have now turned into the pet AI with a flee function. they literally copy everything you do immediatly. soon as i stopped attack they started following me and not attacking even though they were getting pummeled.

plz to force me into pugs. i loved them they way they used to be.

Agreed. I'm running into the same problem
My fire elementalist is toast (I'll be switching elements ASAP), and my warrior does nothing but chase fleeing enemies around.
Too much damn fleeing going on.

And good point about the henchie AI. Now henchies have a whole new problem: too much damn fleeing!

This is a thread and a half

I really like these types of updates - It renews the challenge.

Like mozes parting the waters.

Like someone with a heavily contagious disease running through a crowd.

OK, i just woke up and am digesting this thread for breakfast with coffee.

I have one small request for ArenaNet, if they happen to see this post....

Can you PLEASE buff the monster drops now that farmers are almost non-existent?
Give us at least some fun back.

To be honest, I laughed at the poor Hydras running away from Balthazaar's Aura, coming back to attack, taking damage, running away, coming back again... It was amusing. I can still kill 'em I'll just have to make adjustments to my strategy.

I don't farm because I need the money. I don't do it to sell rare items (read any of my auctions and I let stuff go really cheap). I do it because I happen to enjoy it. Just fighting and killing monsters, that's all. And then when a Guildie comes online and needs help, I'm there. It's just how I pass time. I've beaten the RoF missions twice now, and don't do much PvP, so to enjoy the game I play solo and beat stuff up.

I was discussing with a co-worker about this. I think Smiting was added to Monks in GW to make them more than 1-dimensional (do some damage and not just heal), but its obvious flip-side is that Smiting became too powerful in some ways. Without enchantment stripping, a monk can be practically invincible. Well, we've known that for months. A major update in September addressed that. And to be honest, I have NOT seen the shortage of PVE healing Monks in the past 2 months that I saw pre-September patch. It's still not perfect, a lot of people still stand around hollering for a Monk for 20+ minutes. But it's better than it was.

Reducing Smiting efficiency will not necessarily convert Invincimonks to healers, though. Those people created their Monks for the sake of farming and earning gold. They didn't make those characters to be healers in the first place. The times I've grouped with 105/55 Monks in missions, I've found many of them to be LOUSY healers. They never practiced it because they didn't need it.

And how many times does someone forming a PUG actually specifically request a Smiting Monk?

I know this was mainly to slow down the botters / sweatshoppers hunting the Griffons outside Augury. I noted somewhere that that seemed to be the most overfarmed area inthe game right now. Sorrow's Furnace may see more farming, but that's TEAM-based farming. To my knowledge, nobody's solo'ed SF yet. If they have, I know they'll never post their build online.

It's not the end of the world. Enemies behave differently, I'll adjust and find new ways to kill them. Farming is what I do to enjoy this game. It's like chess. Adjusting strategy on the fly. In 2 weeks or less, a new mega-farming build will pop up. It always does. I made my desert-hunting build by studying enemy behavior and studying the Skills page to see how to counter and overcome it. The answers are all there, you just gotta put them together.