Poll on the 10/10 and 10/11 Update

because they havnt made the connection of skill unlocking + use in pvp/pve

I guess because of the "realistic" graphics monsters had to be "realistic" to the point as being as smart as a human, that of which they are not. Therefore....They are not supposed to be smart.

I hope everyone has noticed they run from any consecutive damage attack without almost 3 seconds dividing time or so. Something like that for almost any spell and a skill that does DoT in an area or while active on you. Basically its like guild lord damage over time limited. Except its extreme for ALL monsters. Which really is bullshit

I think I did mention several time before why PVE should not be the same as PVP.

In PVP, is equal number of real people on each side against each other, and they are at the same level of IQ (human IQ).

In PVE, is foes (monsters) are in a large quantity in the area, but their IQ (AI) is lower than human players. In the other hand, human players are in a limited group (max 8), the only way human players can win is their higher intelligence. This is a very fundamental concept of PVE game design.

Also If the monsters will fight like a human player, human player will lose for sure, first is because human players have been outnumbered, second is the human player can not react as fast as the computer, not even mention computer can multi-tasking.

While I understand those who are dedicated gamers are all up in arms over those who are more casual gamers dislike of the changes I find it interesting that there is no room for compromise. You either agree with the changes or you are a big baby boo hooing. Now that's really constructive and mature. Anyway,
it seems there should be some way to accommodate both. Perhaps making more challenging areas/quests for those who want them with killer monsters and wipe them off the map if they sneeze wrong challenges, even giving them uber drops and areas where those of us who prefer pve can play there. I liked the idea someone stated of
allowing pvp players to build their characters there and not have to do it in pve. While I am now coming to understand that you are trying to blend both types of players in this game it would seem that that is not working for the most part, and you are creating a chasm that is becoming unworkable between the two factions. I also highly suspect that since most people have a life outside of GW the casual player will make up more of your sales base.

I also find it curious all this talk about the poll. Every time I have logged on here an looked at it the majority it's been the don't like group ahead.. 35.64% +16.83=52.46 at the time I am writing this are in the camp don't like the update...24.37+17.14=41.51 do like the update where are all these folks getting that the majority is liking it. Not to mention all the complaining going on in the towns on GW. LOL sounds alot like american political spinning to me.

Course your mileage may vary

If thats how you feel about PvE (and I'm not saying you're wrong), then you're talking about PvE in any game like this.

Lets face it, AI is inferior to us and we'll always find ways to beat it. If they were able to make it smart enough that each fight was a challenge then they'd have to do something about things crawling out of the ground every 5 steps in the desert and insanely high health, damage and numbers with mobs.

While I can appreciate a good fight, I dont find it particularly fun trying to get from A to B if Anet makes every single fight take longer. Combined with the fact many areas give almost no decent drops to keep some interest in the battles along the way, all we'll actually end up doing is having long (challenging if they do pull it off) fights with the same mobs over and over again for the sake of it.

I dont see many people saying "LFG to have fun killing mobs". Thats not what keeps players interested. You need a purpose like loot, and you dont want to spend ages getting nowhere fast doing it.

so what you want is basically a shooting gallery where you stand behind a protective wall taking no damage while raining dearh from above in the form of the tripple crown of fire?

firestorm followed by searing heat followed by meteor shower while not getting a scratch

when they fix the rest of the AI so the skeleton rangers follow you around a corner still shooting poison arrows into you instead of the wall what will you do?

so why not just remove the mobs from the game entirely. Just put mobs in the missions. You obviously don't want to have actually have to pay attention while running from A to B so wouldn't it just be better to have nothing out there?

Let's see if I have this straight. Typical tactics. Warrior's draw aggro but don't have the firepower to kill higher level mobs. So .... spell casters do their thing to add to damage. Mobs now break aggro and withdrawl to return in a few seconds to attack casters, not warriors.

So ..... why bother taking warriors in groups anymore. ROFL!

However that is not a plausible argument to keep the AI at a low level. As it currently stands to balance the odds of low computer intelligence against humans they have to stack the odds against you with stronger mobs in greater numbers. It's only this way to counter the limitation of current AI.

To me it makes much more sense to improve the AI and reduce the number and strength of mobs where ever possible. It makes for a much better game. I don't want a dumb opponent that I can guarantee to beat with the right setup. That applies for PvE more so than PvP. Beating a poor PvP opponent at least leaves with the knowledge I bested someone. Who gives a monkeys if you beat a poor computer opponent. Yawn!!!

Don't be rediculous. I'm just saying people dont play the PvE game for drawn out PvP type fights with every spawn they come across. It works the same in every MMORPG around. Mobs are there to give xp, drop loot, provide something to do along the road etc.

As I said, making them more challenging is fine, but it needs to be in balance with their numbers, strength and the reward.

Sounds like you had never died in PVE before the patch. Just try to remember how many people get stuck in Thunderhead Keep, and how many foes you have seen are level 28.

Something I consider a fundamental flaw with MMORPG design. I don't want this type of grind battle. I want knife edge battles. But I agree with the following part.

I would much rather fewer, cleverer battles than a wall to wall grindfest.

Sorry to double post.

That’s my whole point. The foes are lvl 28 because they’re stupid. If the AI was better they wouldn't need to be as strong. I have died many many times in PvE and will do again. If the increased intelligence means that further balancing is needed to the mob sizes and strengths and to the costs and stats of AoE attacks so be it. Much better that than keep the AI dumb.

I have seen good arguments saying AoE attacks are now weaker and good arguments saying if used in a certain ways are now stronger. Time will tell and hopefully ANet will make the appropriate stat adjustments. But please, please don't roll back to dumber AI.

Actually, I do not get your point. That is what I have understood so far; you want low level and higher AI foes, but bottom-line, do you want all the foes to be killed easily or not?
BTW, most of time, all the foes are not group together and let you nuke the crap hell of them before the patch, they are standing in different areas, and one Fire Storm, and Meteor Shower can not cover them all in one battle, even for those ones been cover, in high level, one Meteor Shower won’t kill them.

I remember before this patch, Anet already increased the AI for most of the foes. For example, trolls were not only argo the Warriors any more, but they are also argo the monks and eles.

This patch (Nov. 10th) had been implemented poorly; my point is not about if the AI should be increased for the monsters or not, is about Anet didn’t actually have proper test for this patch (Nov. 10th) before it had been released: First, so many players are upset about this patch (see the poll and the petitions). Second, there was a patch (Nov. 11th) right after that to adjust the AI issue in the previous patch (Nov. 10th)… If the developer need to release a new patch the fix the previous patch in 24 hours, it is quite screw up.

*sigh* it's like people are too busy vrying about the update to even formulate a decent strategy about the whole thing.

First thing, not all AoE spells cost a lot of mana. For example, let's take the W/Mo, since it seems to be the popular build. First of all, use Symbol of Wraith, to make the enemy run, then use protector's strike or Bull's Strike to pull out the extra dmg.

Second of all, scattering a group of enemies doesn't necessarily aggro a bigger group if you pull em away from other enemies. This leads to my third point.

Use slowing/crippling skills!!! Come on, how hard was it to think of that? Imagined Burden or trap the enemies that you pulled away from the larger groups with Barbed Trap to cripple em, then use Meteor Shower to cause massive dmg and knock em down to slow them even more.

Personally, I think a lot of people are blowing this update way out of proportion. GW is a game that makes it easy to adjust and change your build to suite your battle. The world isn't over if the build you are using isn't completely dominating anymore. Maybe this is your chance to see that some of those skills that you blew off before (ex. most stuff in air/water/earth magic) do have some use.

Be realistic please. How much time to do long missions like THK with brilliant strategies like these?
I'm talking about occasional pug players, wich are the biggest percentage.

True, that's why we have a poll here, and hope Anet reads.

BTW, I think the other reason for this patch is because Anet may not have enough resources to support the whole infrastructure, due to GW is a free on-line game (no monthly fee like WoW etc), so they are using this patch to piss off some of the players in order reduce the amount of people log in. Reason for this accusation is I have not log in at all after test the Nov. 11’s patch, and most of my guild mates had not been logged in at all. Well, this is just my very personal view, and do not have any thing to support it. And I just want to blah it out that is all.

well my only gripe is the fact that the mobs aggro other mobs when using aoe skills, or those darn henchman aggro everything in site.. Help 60dp!!!!

Good point. They already have your money .... what can you do about it?

Just a side note... peeps who vote, please remember the poll was on the update before they patched it....

I wasn't too keen before the patch, but now am mostly cool with it...

/back to whatever, lol

Well if your blind enough to not see that a warrior can be far more than a tank, then sure why the hell use warriors all they can do is tank right? Tunnel vision is never the best way to start an argument or even uphold one. A warrior can virtually keep one or two units pinned down indefinatly, then deal large non-scatter AoE single damage. Also a warrior will be able to outlast most casters and will be able to pull a group out of a tough situation, be it by running or taking the beating while the casters move around avoiding, lets say, berserkers. Warriors have alot of purposes beyond just being tanks... thank you for stereotyping 1/5 of the game.

As for the money and what not issue, no company does self destructs, that is just pointless and will end up costing more money. Anet may have made money and done what? Payed off their debt and given a stable salary to the people who made the game. They have nothing to gain in losing players, and the only reason to say such a thing is to make yourself feel justified.

As to the player base, I have seen no noticable decline. FoW and UW pugs have gotten actually good and some missions (like THK) have actually become interesting again (gasp! I can't wall the stairs and nuke anymore!). The negative change from this is some bugs, such a chaotic running and the large entropy increase but those things get fine tuned (like faction). The other negative? All those cookie cutter just got thrown out and see real variety ... heck I even recruit the reaper while in UW now because people finally realise how potent a level 30 water mage is Oh wait... that last bit is positive...

I vote to change it back and have good reasons IMO and my belief is as ALLSTATE put it at end of his/her post :"a company that continues to aim at the veterans of the game.". i am really begining to believe this from the changes i see on every update.
i have had GW for a couple months or so now and everytime i try to work my way up to certain things in the game an update comes along and changes everything.
one example is the priests that had the upgrades and skills to unlock using faction points for certain items, i had like 480 faction points at the time and just before reaching 1000 faction points almost enough to trade for something an update comes along and removes them.Hrrmmmzzzz! wonder why?, I bet Vets got the better deal on that while it lasted.

another example:i remember when Ectos,Shards,and Materials were allot cheaper,i wanted Fissure armor for my characters also just like the Vets had. now prices of the items you need to get Fissure Armor have sky rocketed now that i am starting to make the Plats they did everything goes up in price. Ectos and shards have almost doubled in price superior vigor and absorbtion have tripled
Bet those veterans got that stuff cheaper.Prolly half the cost we pay now.i hear ECTO Drops are really scarce now wonder how often they droped a few months or so back.

No Offense to the VETERAN's of the game my problem is not with you heck i admire alot of the veterans in some ways it just seems that every goal i try to accomplish in the game it gets pushed further and further back due to updates that seem to be in the Veterans favor.

those are just a few and there are alot of other reasons that make me feel its becoming a Veterans game.

makes me want to start repaying monthly/yearly again for my Planetside and other SOE games again.

I have spent several days working on building around the update with lil sucess. Every AOE spell has been made useless. Might as well Remove them from the game.Henchies are worse then ever how can ya fight if its nothing but a scramble?
Why can't we compromise here. Let the monks have zelots and sheild of judgement because the monk has to spend extra energy to do any dmg. neither is a high dmg spell. and 2 out of 4 leave us at 50% of our former funtionality. Whit a a smite monk without aoe skills??
As for the mages let them have malestorm and firestorm back neither has truely high dmg and its only a chance to be hit in the aoe. I have noticed the mosters running from even burst spells. So that deminishes the elementals power even more. Allow the burst spells to work as well.
As for the rest of aoe spells i suggest a 2 second reaction delay on enemy and henchies with fighters ignoring aoe effect bacause its their job to fight up fron not run away. This will give us some protection as well as a lil functionality of what aoe spells make them run.
The game can be hard enough and i understand why you did this but ya went to far. If you want to regulate the trade market put in a wepon mod trader and add sheilds to armorer. This will keep everyone competitive with the traders.
I made a solo monk to fund my pve characters because the market is out of control and people using the money to sell on ebay is rediculious. If ya make these changes i think you will find the game to have both increased difficulty for the players and a better more regulated market as well as everyone being satisfied with at least half the aoe working for both monk and elementals.

Thank you for your time,

Saider Maul

-----Opinions-----

The update has the correct idea but was poorly implemented.

AoE farming was imbalanced.

AoE non-farming was not imbalanced.

ANET did the right thing.

I never cared much for the underworld/fissure (and hence never played in them).


-----Facts-----

I have 7 lvl 20's (one of each class and 2 warriors).

I have two account's and run myself to droknars.

I cannot think of a better fix to the problems that existed.

I still have many places I can farm with other builds.

Smite farming is still possible, however takes longer.

I smite farm with both W/Mo and Mo/W.


-----Conclusion-----

I believe that this path is probably a preperation for things to come in the expansion. ANET has been very good to me throughout my relationship with them, and for that, I have a great amount of respect for anything they do. They are good company with excellent customer service, and really listen to your feedback. I wish there were another way to fix the problems, but as stated above, I cannot think of one. This is how it must be.

-Jodie

Its obvious Im seeing this differently, this patch has made AoE farming a snap, all you need to do is have 1-2 AoE spells to keep the monsters in a panic vs fighting, then you can just take'em down with a few standard spells. Ive already seen builds like this used in the Furnace and with fewer members than before the patch which means more profit. Oh, and Im not a fan of the change, PvE was already to easy.

turn back the update now. monsters are suposed to be dumb. ^^

very well stated...

What makes you think that using something like imagined burden before using meteor shower will make a mission take that much longer? If time is that much of an issue for these "pug players" then they probably won't make it to or even try to deal with missions like Thunderhead. Besides, what's wrong with skills like Phoenix that cause massive dmg in one strike? Whether you want to admit it or not, missions that are as hard as thunderhead keep require strategy before they are attempted whether the enemies will run from AoE skills or not, the only difference is that the strategy is now a bit different. It still takes just as long to implement.

Besides, maybe now groups will start to aknowledge the importance of rangers, necros and mesmers instead of trying to gorge on just tanks, monks, and nukers...

Ok, first of all, a smite monk without AoE skills is a smite monk, not a solo monk, which is the point of the update.

Second of all, you say you need a solo monk because the market is out of control. Have you ever thought that the imbalance of funds was due to the ease of attaining funds through solo farming? Ever wonder how those people on Ebay get so much money? I personally wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they solo monk to earn it. Even if they don't the fact that there are so many solo monks around earning lots of cash while other people who are starting out or choose to go with another build are s.o.l. To put it simply, I think solo monks are a large contributing factor to an imbalanced economy, if any in guild wars (which I don't really believe to be a problem), and by making a solo monk to try to earn money, you are simply hurting the economy more.

Finally, even if farming is supposed to be legitamate and is not the cause for any economic instabilities, this game is meant for group battles. Therefore, it was not meant for people to prosper by going solo. Why do you think that so many professions are designed to be complimentary? GW is a game that is meant to be played in teams, even if your team is a bunch of henchies (which btw is smarter now as well, even though no one bothers to mention it).

long story short, this isn't the end of GW and the game isn't really any harder than before...

There's a lot of talk about solo farmers being the downfall of the GW economy because of the extra cash they make...but somehow, I doubt that many farmers can generate nearly as much gold as runners.

There was somebody on these forums (too lazy to track down the thread) talking about the easy 30k per hour they make by running people through the Elona Reach mission, and I can't imagine making nearly that much farming.

Sure, the extra gold the farmers make is a contributing factor to inflation - but at least that's somewhat balanced by the increased supply (and as we all know, more supply tends to lead to lower prices) of weapons, runes, upgrades, ecto, and shards that they inject into the economy. Runners, whether they be "standard runners" or "mission runners" are probably more of an economic threat than farmers.

If this latest update has (as it's been reported) made running even easier due to the AoE effects, I don't think the economy's going to make any vast leaps ahead any time soon...

This statement represents one of the most idiotic standpoints of today's GW player!!!

How much time SHOULD a mission take to complete? What is wrong with a mission taking a few hours to get finished? Hey guys, the PVE part of GW is a game to be played, and the name of the game is to battle through missions and quests. Ok, there are the side things like searching for nice creature drops, but primarily, the PVE part of this game is all about building up your character by performing quests and missions. Why is everyone so interested in reducing the quests and missions to take as little time and effort as possible? I mean, come on, the missions ARE the predominant part of the PVE part of this game.

My friend got to the Iron Mines mission last night, and so we started to form a group to do infusion+mission+bonus. A ranger joins the group and after finding out we were not intending on running the infusion part, he replied "no one fights this mission". WTF???? Is that the general belief these days?

And what is this BS about it taking too long to perform missions without a fire nuking elementalist? I've played all the missions at least a few times without any fire elementalists, and if the team plays well, they don't take significantly longer than with a fire nuker.

BTW, last night I met an elementalist playing air magic, not because of the patch but just because it was more fun for him. I made the same move with my elementalist, to air+earth, months ago for the same reason. But I felt always a bit wierd entering parties as elementalist, since most PUGS expect the elementalist to be a level 16 fire nuker. And playing air elementalist without AOE is a lot of fun and a lot of help to a group, e.g. with weakening and blinding spells as well as direct damage spells. Thankfully the recent patch will allow for a more "guilt-free" move from fire to air elementalist.

Oh please, no one at Anet take this guy seriously!!! Hello, there ARE people out there who play this game without running! There ARE people out there who see it as part of the game to fight from point A to B. How about this suggestion: instead of removing mobs outside of missions to make life easier for runners, how about a new patch that makes running completely impossible?

Anet should seriously consider a patch where a person's character gets fatter the more they run. Then we can easilly recognize the characters that run the game, i.e. the fat ones, from ones who play out the PVE fully.

Edit: on second read, perhaps GWGuru meant his response in a sarcastic manner. If that is the case, please excuse!

One thing i want Anet to do is make sure these low levels in the Crystal desert get taken care of. They keep thinking alot of us are going to just help them to the next point which i think is a waste of everyone's time Anet needs to add Level REQ to each town to stop them. Lowest lvl seen to date in desert was a lvl 6.

I think many of you have either seen them around or got bugged to get them to the next place. Even if they finished the game already with a previous character i see them capable to do it again. So if Anet does anymore updates thats what i would like something done about.

Not all of them are pests, and those that are you can just ignore.

Alof of them are in it for the unlocks, or just something to do with another charachter.

Let people play the game their own way is my way of thinking.

Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on your viewpoint. It could be argued that the reason why skills have to be unlocked is because you need to earn them, not have them given to you on a platter. So it could be argued that running a character through the game to unlock skills is a major no-no.

It all depends on your viewpoint. My opinion? Thumbs down on the runners.

To comment on that, don't group everyone in the same category. My Monk henchhiked (new GW term, maybe?) through most of Kryta, got to ToA so I could have 7 henchies, hiked down to Fisherman's and Sanctum, then went through Sanctum Cay mission to get to Amnoon at level 9. I henchhiked from Amnoon to every town / outpost except for Thirsty River, and monked every mission except Elona (after grouping with total idiots to beat Dunes, I needed a break so I paid a runner. I had to monk Thirsty, but 5 of our 6 were guildies, so it wasn't too painful). I fought for and bought the items to get all collector's desert armor. I Ascended at level 17, and beating the doppleganger bumped me up to 20. I beat Dragon's Lair with all henchies and got to Droknar's yesterday. Henchhiked to Iron Mines and Port Sledge and there I am until I get to play again this weekend.

Not everyone who speeds through the game doesn't know how to play it.

Good points but.

My opinion, let people play how they want.

This also isnt just aimed at you but alot of posters, hell even me sometimes, who think that the game should be played X way.

I love the fact that this game allows for so many styles of playing.

Annoying pesterrers (word?) are going to be annoying and pestering no matter what, dont get them confused with all runners.

And as to the earning the skills part just remember, they had to earn the gold to get run. (unless they begged and moaned in which case no sensible person should touch them).

I don't entirely agree. Earning the money to pay for a run is no where near the effort of earning skill unlocks through playing the game without running. Anyone who played the game at least for a while and has a higher level character has enough money to get run anywhere.

And it could be argued that earning skill unlocks by playing the game rather than running is preferred (e.g. by Anet) because along with this comes the experience needed to know how those skills can be properly used. It could be argued that what is totally annoying to players like myself, who like to play in PUG groups instead of with only henchies all the time, is to get into parties with people that really don't know how to play their character class. It could be the case that Anet wishes to preserve the sanctity of the PVE game as it was designed, and not let it degrade to the running-only mess that it is rapidly becoming, for the sake of the game and for the sake of players like myself. So it is a matter of viewpoint. Anet makes the final decisions, and it seems that they are not shy about taking actions through upgrades and patches.

My monk (2nd charachter), was run to droks and the desert. And i know that im definatly better than average.

People dont know how to play their charachters because they dont take the effort to learn all the little tricks.

Peoples level of skill is not affected by running.

This is my point, running the game is playing it, but not just to YOUR style.

I agree i like to fight later missions, but some i dont so i get run, let people be.

As has been said, don't nerf farming, nerf the reason. What's the reason? Why do people need (or just want) lots of gold?

Mostly for 2 things:

High-priced armor
"perfect" weapons and items

But Anet wants you to play, not farm. Fair enough. Then there should be a reward for PLAYING that overrides the reward for FARMING or buying gold off ebay. In other words, make the above items available inexpensively for people who actually accomplish something in PVE.

After beating Hell's Precipice, instead of being carted back to Droknar's Forge, you gain access to an area where you can have Fissure Armor crafted, for the SAME price as Droknar's. It's a reward for PLAYING the game, not for gathering an insane amount of gold / ectos.

War Camp cannot be accessed by anyone who hasn't beaten Hell's (it breaks the storyline anyway). Sorrow's Furnace bosses no longer drop greens. Instead, after you've beaten all the quests and Final Assault, you gain access to an area where you can buy green items at a REASONABLE price. A reward for PLAYING, not FARMING. Sure there will be those who just buy them and sell to people who don't want to do the missions, but then they have to weigh the high cost of not playing versus the low cost of playing. In War Camp the "LFG Farming" seems to outweigh the "LFG questing" by about 10 to 1. Was that the original intent of incorporating green items?

Finishing all the Titan Quests and reporting back to Glint opens up a new area where you can buy perfect weapon upgrades, at LOW cost. Again, a reward for playing, not for money. Yeah it can be abused as above, but the glut will drive prices down, reducing the need for lots of gold.

While they're at it, block access to Droknar's from Beacon's Perch. Removes the need for lots of money early on for runners / Forge armor, and keeps the level 2 players with Elites and Forge armor out of Ascalon Arena.

And close off the Temple of Ages to Sanctum Cay run also. A 20 minute run allows you to skip 1/3 of the entire game (Maguuma). People want to reach the desert, let them work for it.

Shortcuts, e-penis statistics, and vanity are what drives the Guild Wars economy. Drive people to earn their keep and offer desirable rewards for playing instead of farming, and maybe, just maybe farming won't be such a huge thorn in the side.

Well that would be because, lets face it the most annoying, pointless missions and quests are in the Maguuma area. And if i can get my level 9 from Lions Arch to TOA to Sanctum just using henchies then as far as I'm concerned thats easily effort enough to get to sanctum.