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Class struggle to bring new players into the game(PvE)


Lily.1935

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One of the other main MMOs I play is Elder Scrolls Online.You have classes like Dragonknight, Warden, Templar, Sorcerer, Nightblade, Necromancer.

Some people log in and assume:Dragonknight = WoW warrior tankTemplar = WoW paladin tankSorcerer = WoW MageNightblade = WoW RogueNecromancer = WoW Warlock

I'm phrasing like this on purpose. Stop thinking of WoW everytime you jump MMOs. The above analogies are as wrong there as this mapping of WoW to GW2 is.

Guardian = WoW Paladin tankWarrior = WoW Warrior tank...no... we all know that's not true. And, yes, some players log in and assume that. But then they stop trying to play WoW here, and re-adjust.

Very few people have this issue after a little time in. The game is NOT suffering for failing to be a WoW clone... so... why would it want to try and be a WoW clone.

There's only one "WoW Clone" on the market that did well, FFXIV, and it only did that because of where it differed and when it did so - it focused on story at a time that WoW was massively fumbling with story...

There's no need to expect that new players can only play WoW in every MMO they try. If they're here - it's probably because they didn't want to play WoW in that moment. This game can then try to keep them by... not being WoW...

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@"Kichwas.7152" said:One of the other main MMOs I play is Elder Scrolls Online.You have classes like Dragonknight, Warden, Templar, Sorcerer, Nightblade, Necromancer.

Some people log in and assume:Dragonknight = WoW warrior tankTemplar = WoW paladin tankSorcerer = WoW MageNightblade = WoW RogueNecromancer = WoW Warlock

I'm phrasing like this on purpose. Stop thinking of WoW everytime you jump MMOs. The above analogies are as wrong there as this mapping of WoW to GW2 is.

Guardian = WoW Paladin tankWarrior = WoW Warrior tank...no... we all know that's not true. And, yes, some players log in and assume that. But then they stop trying to play WoW here, and re-adjust.

Very few people have this issue after a little time in. The game is NOT suffering for failing to be a WoW clone... so... why would it want to try and be a WoW clone.

There's only one "WoW Clone" on the market that did well, FFXIV, and it only did that because of where it differed and when it did so - it focused on story at a time that WoW was massively fumbling with story...

There's no need to expect that new players can only play WoW in every MMO they try. If they're here - it's probably because they didn't want to play WoW in that moment. This game can then try to keep them by... not being WoW...

This has nothing to do with WoW. It's about the common archetypes that that these classes represent in general across the fantasy genre. Btw, even Anet claims that elementalist should be good at ranged. Their atrocious balancing has just resulted in almost every good ele build being melee with a toothpick of a weapon, on the squishiest class. I actually like that classes have more options, and I don't mind melee being a good option for ele. However, it should not completely overshadow what is supposed to be the class' main archetype. This goes for all classes.

cx6Eom9.png

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@Ganathar.4956 said:

@"Kichwas.7152" said:One of the other main MMOs I play is Elder Scrolls Online.

I'm phrasing like this on purpose. Stop thinking of WoW everytime you jump MMOs. The above analogies are as wrong there as this mapping of WoW to GW2 is.

Guardian = WoW Paladin tankWarrior = WoW Warrior tank...no... we all know that's not true. And, yes, some players log in and assume that. But then they stop trying to play WoW here, and re-adjust.

Very few people have this issue after a little time in. The game is NOT suffering for failing to be a WoW clone... so... why would it want to try and be a WoW clone.

There's only one "WoW Clone" on the market that did well, FFXIV, and it only did that because of where it differed and when it did so - it focused on story at a time that WoW was massively fumbling with story...

There's no need to expect that new players can only play WoW in every MMO they try. If they're here - it's probably because they didn't want to play WoW in that moment. This game can then try to keep them by... not being WoW...

This has nothing to do with WoW. It's about the common archetypes that that these classes represent in general across the fantasy genre.I don't mind melee being a good option for ele. However, it should not completely overshadow what is supposed to be the class' main archetype. This goes for all classes.

In other words: WoW.

"Common Archetypes?" - that's all basically only as old as WoW.

I mentioned ESO for a reason. Every so often there, we get some of these attempts to map various classes to WoW "archetypes". As ESO is a trinity role based game, they do have an easier time of it... but ultimately it fails to carry over right because... fantasy is just more diverse than that.

Go read something like Andre Norton's Witch World, or Barbara Hambley's Dragonsbane or Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and map the main characters to these archetypes... it won't work. That's just three authors out of so many...

At best you have:

LotR -> D&D's narrowing that down to classes (and think about it - what class is Gandalf... really... answer if you've read Silmarillian: none of them). -> Early video games that were knockoff's of people's D&D dungeon sessions -> Everquest -> Everquest Clone known as WoW -> all these attempts to claim stuff is archetypes.

But even that is not as old as fantasy, and is just one line.

It is most pointedly... NOT the line of Guild Wars 1.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Other issues we see are builds that are just not great in pve that have no right not to be at least viable. Minion Master Necromancer and Turret engineer both come to mind as these builds are extremely popular with new players but once they get into more difficult content they quickly find that these builds are not good and they have to abandon what it was they want to play. The Turrent engineer specifically being really bad is what got my boyfriend to quit the game because that's what he really wanted to play.
  • Make Fan favorite builds viable
  • Offer more viable simple builds across more professions and especially core professions
  • Rework many of the Underused or unused skills.

I'm going to take issue with these. You probably know what I'm going to say but I'm going to say it anyways.

LOTS of builds are viable in this game and the reason is because threshold for success is low. Anet can not engineer the meta; it evolves with game content and skill changes. There isn't a path to more viable builds, especially as people demand diversity in an game that has optimized build solutions. That's a paradox. NO one has to abandon builds they want to play. What they DO need to do is play with people that understand and embrace this game philosophy if they want to team with people and enjoy their builds. If people want to be told what to play because of how the game is designed, there are dozens of other games out there they can play to do that. This isn't one of them.

GW2 is successful because of what it does different from other MMOs and also because of what it doesn't do that other MMO's traditionally adopt as their game models. If new players have a 'difficult' time adapting to the idea of a more freeform way to play the game, that's not a problem that Anet needs to solve by appealing to a more traditional approach. I mean, there is a BIG downside to shifting the game in the direction you talk about that you are ignoring; that most of veteran playerbase of the game play it because of the approach that you think should change.

Regardless of how you or I feel about this, first impressions are everything. And if a player starts out with a engineer for example and expects to be a bunker turret type build they'll quickly find themselves to be extremely disappointed. That's the extreme example as I've seen that happen a lot but others are coming out with their experiences with other more common archetypes such as warrior and Guardian tanks which are not served by the system in place.

These builds don't just under preform they far under preform. And for new players that first bad experience with the game turns them away. This needs to be addressed.

And if you think Arena net can't have some control over the meta that's very wrong. They absolutely can and they do and they have.

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@Ganathar.4956 said:

@"Kichwas.7152" said:One of the other main MMOs I play is Elder Scrolls Online.You have classes like Dragonknight, Warden, Templar, Sorcerer, Nightblade, Necromancer.

Some people log in and assume:Dragonknight = WoW warrior tankTemplar = WoW paladin tankSorcerer = WoW MageNightblade = WoW RogueNecromancer = WoW Warlock

I'm phrasing like this on purpose. Stop thinking of WoW everytime you jump MMOs. The above analogies are as wrong there as this mapping of WoW to GW2 is.

Guardian = WoW Paladin tankWarrior = WoW Warrior tank...no... we all know that's not true. And, yes, some players log in and assume that. But then they stop trying to play WoW here, and re-adjust.

Very few people have this issue after a little time in. The game is NOT suffering for failing to be a WoW clone... so... why would it want to try and be a WoW clone.

There's only one "WoW Clone" on the market that did well, FFXIV, and it only did that because of where it differed and when it did so - it focused on story at a time that WoW was massively fumbling with story...

There's no need to expect that new players can only play WoW in every MMO they try. If they're here - it's probably because they didn't want to play WoW in that moment. This game can then try to keep them by... not being WoW...

This has nothing to do with WoW. It's about the common archetypes that that these classes represent in general across the fantasy genre. Btw, even Anet claims that elementalist should be good at ranged. Their atrocious balancing has just resulted in almost every good ele build being melee with a toothpick of a weapon, on the squishiest class. I actually like that classes have more options, and I don't mind melee being a good option for ele. However, it should not completely overshadow what is supposed to be the class' main archetype. This goes for all classes.

cx6Eom9.png

Elementalist favours range. Weaver and Tempest, not so much.

The statement is actually fairly accurate. Staff elementalist gives up less in terms of damage potential than going ranged does on most other professions. Instead of giving up damage for range, switching to staff or scepter instead of dagger is more of a matter of giving up mobility and, for want of a better word, responsiveness (staff and to a lesser extent scepter have several backloaded skills, dagger is better at inflicting damage or debilitating effects immediately) rather than damage potential. Yeah, staff got nerfed... but that's because it was god-tier DPS for a long time, scepter is still being used in at least one raid build, and even daggers are technically ranged (albeit fairly short in range). Core elementalist DOES have a range focus.

Thing is, if that's the hill you're going to die on... if you're talking raid conditions, that usually means you're in a nice tight ball with your subgroup so you can get heals and buffs. So there's not a lot of benefit to come from pulling out a ranged weapon - as opposed to, say, open world events. At the time when staff ele was being used in raids, it was still usually pretty much at melee range anyway.

Similar comments apply to rangers.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Other issues we see are builds that are just not great in pve that have no right not to be at least viable. Minion Master Necromancer and Turret engineer both come to mind as these builds are extremely popular with new players but once they get into more difficult content they quickly find that these builds are not good and they have to abandon what it was they want to play. The Turrent engineer specifically being really bad is what got my boyfriend to quit the game because that's what he really wanted to play.
  • Make Fan favorite builds viable
  • Offer more viable simple builds across more professions and especially core professions
  • Rework many of the Underused or unused skills.

I'm going to take issue with these. You probably know what I'm going to say but I'm going to say it anyways.

LOTS of builds are viable in this game and the reason is because threshold for success is low. Anet can not engineer the meta; it evolves with game content and skill changes. There isn't a path to more viable builds, especially as people demand diversity in an game that has optimized build solutions. That's a paradox. NO one has to abandon builds they want to play. What they DO need to do is play with people that understand and embrace this game philosophy if they want to team with people and enjoy their builds. If people want to be told what to play because of how the game is designed, there are dozens of other games out there they can play to do that. This isn't one of them.

GW2 is successful because of what it does different from other MMOs and also because of what it doesn't do that other MMO's traditionally adopt as their game models. If new players have a 'difficult' time adapting to the idea of a more freeform way to play the game, that's not a problem that Anet needs to solve by appealing to a more traditional approach. I mean, there is a BIG downside to shifting the game in the direction you talk about that you are ignoring; that most of veteran playerbase of the game play it because of the approach that you think should change.

Regardless of how you or I feel about this, first impressions are everything. And if a player starts out with a engineer for example and expects to be a bunker turret type build they'll quickly find themselves to be extremely disappointed. That's the extreme example as I've seen that happen a lot but others are coming out with their experiences with other more common archetypes such as warrior and Guardian tanks which are not served by the system in place.

These builds don't just under preform they far under preform. And for new players that first bad experience with the game turns them away. This needs to be addressed.

Nope, first impressions aren't everything, I'd say especially in rpgs where you gain power/options as you progress. In this context it seems to only be true if you expect games to copy each other ideas for the classes/playstyle -way to go against any originality at all and encourage the spam of wowclones, as if there's not enough of them already.Bunker turret/minion builds -that you try to push for so hard all the time while pretending it's "for the new players that desperately need them"- play themselves and shouldn't be a thing in a pvp game that wants to be an action mmorpg. If someone comes into the game with a wrong idea about it then the only thing left for them is to adjust their expectations.

And if you think Arena net can't have some control over the meta that's very wrong. They absolutely can and they do and they have.

You've wanted "viable builds" and these builds are viable, they're just not meta. You might just not understand the difference between the two.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Other issues we see are builds that are just not great in pve that have no right not to be at least viable. Minion Master Necromancer and Turret engineer both come to mind as these builds are extremely popular with new players but once they get into more difficult content they quickly find that these builds are not good and they have to abandon what it was they want to play. The Turrent engineer specifically being really bad is what got my boyfriend to quit the game because that's what he really wanted to play.
  • Make Fan favorite builds viable
  • Offer more viable simple builds across more professions and especially core professions
  • Rework many of the Underused or unused skills.

I'm going to take issue with these. You probably know what I'm going to say but I'm going to say it anyways.

LOTS of builds are viable in this game and the reason is because threshold for success is low. Anet can not engineer the meta; it evolves with game content and skill changes. There isn't a path to more viable builds, especially as people demand diversity in an game that has optimized build solutions. That's a paradox. NO one has to abandon builds they want to play. What they DO need to do is play with people that understand and embrace this game philosophy if they want to team with people and enjoy their builds. If people want to be told what to play because of how the game is designed, there are dozens of other games out there they can play to do that. This isn't one of them.

GW2 is successful because of what it does different from other MMOs and also because of what it doesn't do that other MMO's traditionally adopt as their game models. If new players have a 'difficult' time adapting to the idea of a more freeform way to play the game, that's not a problem that Anet needs to solve by appealing to a more traditional approach. I mean, there is a BIG downside to shifting the game in the direction you talk about that you are ignoring; that most of veteran playerbase of the game play it because of the approach that you think should change.

Regardless of how you or I feel about this, first impressions are everything. And if a player starts out with a engineer for example and expects to be a bunker turret type build they'll quickly find themselves to be extremely disappointed. That's the extreme example as I've seen that happen a lot but others are coming out with their experiences with other more common archetypes such as warrior and Guardian tanks which are not served by the system in place.

These builds don't just under preform they far under preform. And for new players that first bad experience with the game turns them away. This needs to be addressed.

Yes, it needs to be addressed with player education, not changes to the game. Underperformance ... that doesn't even mean anything. How are you defining what is and is not underperforming? I have YET to play and MMO where there isn't a range of performance across classes and builds ... the only difference is that GW2 doesn't prevent you from being successful using a large range of those ... and other MMO's (at least the one's I've played) DO. That's Anet's 'sell' and if they aren't pushing that message to new players, they should be. Play How You Want is a MASSIVE sell to people this game attracts.

You are advocating that ANet reduce performance range of builds ... when it doesn't need to. The game is already designed to accommodate that large range.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

You are advocating that ANet reduce performance range of builds ... when it doesn't need to. The game is already designed to accommodate that large range.

I most certainly am not. Please keep your accusations to yourself and address what's actually there and don't make up a fantasy about what you want me to say to support your argument.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:

You are advocating that ANet reduce performance range of builds ... when it doesn't need to. The game is already designed to accommodate that large range.

I most certainly am not. Please keep your accusations to yourself and address what's actually there and don't make up a fantasy about what you want me to say to support your argument.

You keep talking about builds being "viable" and then as an argument compare them to meta builds, so that's not exactly a "fantasy" from my perspective either.

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@Lily.1935 said:

You are advocating that ANet reduce performance range of builds ... when it doesn't need to. The game is already designed to accommodate that large range.

I most certainly am not. Please keep your accusations to yourself and address what's actually there and don't make up a fantasy about what you want me to say to support your argument.

I don't want you say anything and there isn't any accusation ... you've already said what is needed for me to make this point. What you are asking for is Anet to do would result in EXACTLY what I'm saying here because there is no other way for Anet to do what you want done ... if you think there is a DIFFERENT approach for Anet to give us more viable builds WITHOUT reducing the range of performance we have with builds be can be successful with, you better explain yourself pretty fast and do it well. No one is that clueless ... we know you are talking about balancing builds to a higher standard of performance. This WOULD result in a very significant performance difference gap between have and have not builds. The fact remains that it wouldn't change people's ability to play the game and succeed.

There isn't anything fantastical about recognizing that 'more viable builds' means making more builds perform in a narrower band of performance range ... and we all know you mean specifically in the 'meta' performance range. Looks to me like you don't actually know what you are asking for if you don't realize this ... or your just being difficult on purpose to avoid a real discussion. You're throwing around lots of vague terms, then you dismiss people when they point out what's wrong with your thinking? You must take us for fools. I don't expect that tactic to work well for you at all.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

You are advocating that ANet reduce performance range of builds ... when it doesn't need to. The game is already designed to accommodate that large range.

I most certainly am not. Please keep your accusations to yourself and address what's actually there and don't make up a fantasy about what you want me to say to support your argument.

I don't want you say anything and there isn't any accusation ... you've already said what is needed for me to make this point. What you are asking for is Anet to do would result in EXACTLY what I'm saying here because there is no other way for Anet to do what you want done ... if you think there is a DIFFERENT approach for Anet to give us more
viable
builds WITHOUT reducing the range of performance we have with builds be can be successful with, you better explain yourself pretty fast and do it well. No one is that clueless ... we know you are talking about balancing builds to a higher standard of performance. This WOULD result in a very significant performance difference gap between have and have not builds. The fact remains that it wouldn't change people's ability to play the game and succeed.

There isn't anything fantastical about recognizing that 'more viable builds' means making more builds perform in a narrower band of performance range ... and we all know you mean specifically in the 'meta' performance range. Looks to me like you don't actually know what you are asking for if you don't realize this ... or your just being difficult on purpose to avoid a real discussion. You're throwing around lots of vague terms, then you dismiss people when they point out what's wrong with your thinking? You must take us for fools. I don't expect that tactic to work well for you at all.

Redoing the function of skills, even if it might bring specific builds in line with existing builds is a lot of work. Its not about if they can do it, arena net most certain can. The matter is are they willing to put in that effort to do that? And my argument is that the effort to do that is worth that extra time spent to do that. There is no requirement to weaken existing builds or whatever you believe I'm saying because its not saying these builds have to usurp those builds.

I use turrets as an example because I've seen them work in far faster paced games than GW2 and be quite effective. I'm not asking arena net to make every build a speed running build, but rather bring up the utility of these skills so players can take these builds and feel like they're at least contributing significantly to their group. IF in this example all of your DPS was coming from turret engineers they would fail to hit the enraged timer for Many if not all of the raid bosses. And their support elements aren't even like a semi viable option when looking at what is available. And this problem doesn't just end in raids which I feel they'd be best in currently due to the fact that you're fighting in arena. In dungeons turrets do far too little in these situations too. Minions is better off here as you can run most dungeons with a full minion team and do fine but turrets aren't even up to that task.

As for the other builds I was talking about, looking at the tanking roles. I have a lot of issues with the way tanking works in GW2 and I don't expect it to necessarily be resolved. There isn't really a way to pull aggro like in other MMOs and the Aggro system is so simplistic in GW2 to the point of being a non mechanic. This isn't the fault of the players but the Devs themselves. Now should they redo existing raids to use an aggro system that better suited to a threat system using taunt and threat generating skills so Warrior or Guardian can build for it? Probably not. draxynnic.3719 made a pretty good point about that about that being better suited for future raids.

I enjoy the boon bot Classes that support and buff. I'd never remove them from the game and I personally don't feel they need to be tied with the tanking role to be desired. I enjoy the variety of DPS builds we have now and I don't believe old builds need to be deleted for new builds to come into play. Taking a look at Diablo III, another game that is similarly limited in builds like Guild wars 2 is and the players have created a tier system for the viable builds from S to D and anything at a B or above is quite viable in that game up to like Greater rift 90. And you know what? The developers absolutely manufactured most of those builds. It was even said as much in interviews.

As for Arena net manufacturing builds they absolutely do no put out new skills or rebalance skills with no awareness of the meta. Arena net was fully aware of the Dominance of Chronomancer early in the raiding community. And they were afraid to nerf it. They build Chronomancer to do their job as a support and how the class played was absolutely planned. What wasn't quite planned was that they'd become the primary tanks. I suspect that role was intended for the Scrapper and Reaper to which they couldn't fill that role because of Chronomancer's strong enough survivability in conjunction with their alacrity and boon potential. Instead of removing chronomancer's Ability to share alacrity they nerfed it first to 33% then to 25% and also converted it from a generic buff to a boon. They chose not to remove the quickness alacrity build from the chronomancer, rather tempering it over the years to be better in line with what they wanted for these encounters.

NOW lets look at a build arena net DID kill completely! The Minion Master Reaper build. This build was Similarly way too good at the time and pushed the necromancer into High DPS with minimal effort. And Suggestions by the community to weaken the build were made. Such as putting a hard cap on the number of Jagged horrors one could have at any given time instead of the 30+ the build was known for thanks to the aid of the druid and chronomancer. It was an extremely fun build and the necromancer community loved it. What did arena net do with it? They changed it so the Jagged Horrors would die after 30 seconds and as a result Reaper was almost entirely removed from raiding and fractals baring their Epidemic use. Arena Net wanted the boon chrono for the game and kept it alive. They didn't want the Minion master for the game and they killed it.

So to say arena net doesn't have control of the builds that come out doesn't align with the history of the game. And Necromancer was eventually hit with an Epidemic Nerf as well. But this time rather than Killing that skill entirely like Arena net did with the MM build, they weakened it enough so it was still very good in specific raids, open world, fractals and dungeons. (Not so much dungeons as condi lags a bit in dungeons but that's a topic for another day). Arena net does have intimate understanding of these builds and do have general ideas of what they want to come of the game. There are absolutely surprises and over preforming builds as well as underperforming builds. However arena net does have suspicions on how they will be played and can balance and plan for that.

Arena net Can, and does have the tools and ability to bring these builds into viability. But it is asking them to take a long hard look at these old skills and to really ask what they want for them. I KNOW for a fact arena net have deleted builds from their games. They did it in GW1 and they've done it in GW2. And they themselves have admitted as much.

From my perspective as someone who has been trying to recruit new people into the game and being confronted with the same complaints over and over and over again, and also not being the only one who's experienced this issue with recruiting and seeing some of the responses by people in this very thread saying that this was how they felt I can only see it as an Issue that should be addressed.

Why you guys are so fervently against Arena net taking a look back at old skills and attempting to bring them in line with new skills or finding ways for specific classes to fill a typical roles Makes so little sense to me. I don't want Alacrigade or boon chrono or quickbrand to be deleted... I don't even want them nerfed. I want under utilized abilities and skills of specific classes brought up in their usability.

Your guys's scarcity mentality is weird. There doesn't have to be a scarcity of builds at all times, that's a result of poor balance. THinking that something has to get worse for something else to get better is insane. And that line of thinking is not how I think nor is it how you should think either because its not true.

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@Lily.1935 said:Your guys's scarcity mentality is weird. There doesn't have to be a scarcity of builds at all times, that's a result of poor balance. THinking that something has to get worse for something else to get better is insane. And that line of thinking is not how I think nor is it how you should think either because its not true.

I think the problem is that you're comparing to the builds that are considered to be the best at a very specialised role (usually DPS at the expense of everything else). There's ALWAYS going to be that one build that benches just a little bit better, whether it's a difference of 1% or 20%. Minionmaster - or whatever - is not going to be among those ranks unless it's the best at a particular role than anything else necromancer has to offer... which DOES, unfortunately, mean displacing something else. There can only be one build that is the absolute very best at a particular role that a given profession has to offer.

And if a build with decent all-rounder capability is out-DPSing a dedicated DPS build, then there'd be something off.

None of which is to say that underperforming builds shouldn't be brought up, or that future encounter design can't be tweaked to introduce new roles. But comparing to meta builds is aiming to be the best at some very specialised roles, and that generally calls for specialised builds rather than all-rounders. All-rounder builds are for open world, solo, and to a certain degree, competitive.

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@Lily.1935 said:Redoing the function of skills, even if it might bring specific builds in line with existing builds is a lot of work.

NO kidding ... and it's a lot of work that Anet doesn't need to do because the game content is designed to match the wide range of performance in the builds that exist. Talking about underperforming builds doesn't even make sense to begin with. You tell us what an underperforming build is ... then we talk.

There doesn't have to be a scarcity of builds at all times, that's a result of poor balance.

Except that's not true ... there IS no scarcity of builds. There are LOTS of builds you can play and be successful with at ANY time. And that's not a result of poor balance .. it's the result of intentional game content design that allows it. That's the whole problem with your mentality ... you can't explain what you mean when you throw around terms like 'underperforming' and 'viable'. We have to guess .. then you dismiss what we say. We can only assume you are referring to meta as your threshold for what is and what is not. So here it goes ...

You said I'm accusing you ... well, now you will be right. I'm going to accuse you of using the 'difficulty' of new player experience to push meta think into the game. No thanks ... we don't need that. Dozens of games already do it ... and better than Anet ever could with GW2. If you want to be told what builds you should play as a consequence of game design, go play those games.

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@"Lily.1935" said:"Minions are passive play"

That's not actually the norm from my experience. Same with Turret builds. there's too much to respond to individually for me at the moment, but I may come back to it. I stand by what I said though.

It's literally the build used to AFK-farm, not even botting, just being afk here and killing mobs. Yes it's against ToS but the simple fact it works kinda kill your point...

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@"Lily.1935" said:---Snip---TLDR:

  • Redo the Aggro system so
  • Make Fan favorite builds viable
  • Offer more viable simple builds across more professions and especially core professions
  • Rework many of the Underused or unused skills.

I'd have to say, it depends on the "new player."

I would think if a veteran MMO player is coming into the game, they would spend time online figuring out the professions. I know when I've looked at other MMOs, I spent considerable time reading up before even downloading the game. So the things you complain of really shouldn't be a surprise. Plus, they can start the game with one expectation ("I'm gonna be an Auramancer") only to discover by the time they are ready for end-game activities, the meta has shifted away and their goal is no longer valid. Remember when Renegade was worthless? And now how many "nerf renegade" posts do you see?

Then there are the MMO newbies, who don't care about such things. Nor should they. This game allows you to change your build fairly easily (excluding some expensive gears of course). By the time they get things figured out, they can adapt. Heck, the game even encourages you to grow and change the way you play, by unlocking trait lines as you level up and then offering different elite specs, which again change the way you play.

I just don't see the problem.

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@EMIXAM.5034 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:"Minions are passive play"

That's not actually the norm from my experience. Same with Turret builds. there's too much to respond to individually for me at the moment, but I may come back to it. I stand by what I said though.

It's literally the build used to AFK-farm, not even botting, just being afk here and killing mobs. Yes it's against ToS but the simple fact it works kinda kill your point...

Pretty sure she knows that, but she just doesn't want to admit it because it's obviously undesired in this type of game. She enjoys builds that play themselves (like bunker minion/turret builds -hence the completely unneeded change to the aggro system in raids btw.) despite trying to claim they're not really passive.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1310451/#Comment_1310451

@"Lily.1935" said:I mean, I ran a bunker Necromancer in PvP with minion. All I did was sit on points and not die while people tried to kill me.

Don't get fooled by the claims it's "for the new players and their expectations about the classes", it's literally just trying to force the passive builds into the game and get them near the meta builds' performance. Luckily there's absolutely no valid reason to do that and I don't think there's a chance of anything like that getting into the game.IIRC, there was also a claim comming from her (in this thread, I think?) that you can't get event participation with minion builds... needless to say that's just a lie as well. So much for this whole "it's for the new players" facade. This build is already perfectly fine/viable for new players in most places.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:You have less of your total power invested into those minions, since the GW2 necromancer always at least has weapon skills while the GW1 necromancer is basically just there to babysit the minions, but that was something ArenaNet was fairly upfront about - no more builds where all you do is shepherd minions.

That hurts my heart. And I'm not sure its entirely true either. We very easily could make minions a lot better and interactive without making them overwhelmed.

And being viable in a solo build in an MMO and not the argument. Never was. Its about how well these builds transition into late content. Such as raids, fractals, strike missions and dungeons. Which minions do not translate well. And turrets are worse.

New players and many long term necromancer players don't want to "take a couple minions on their bar" we want to be able to summon a mass of minions to overwhelm our enemies. And have these builds be good. And only once in GW2's lifespan did that happen and Anet nerfed that build into the ground when they only needed to put a limit on it not kill it.

The number one reason I didn't make a necromancer until a few months ago, was because I hate how this game has them. I hate EVERYTHING about the guild wars 2 necromancer, I was a necro in guild wars 1 and I ran a minion build and loved my undead horde and dark spells battering enemies. I can't do that here. I can't even play a true necromancer by the theme of what a necromancer is; Staff sucks, daggers suck and those are some Iconic weapons for Occult classes. Its a shame that in terms of occult power, and darker magics Rev>Necro in terms of theme and even application. Reaper never gibed with me, Scourge made me laugh when it came out because its literally the pocket sand meme blown to extremes.

Do I think they need minions? Given how people complain about ranger pets no. At least not as we had them in guild wars 1. Id much prefer them function like ESO's necromancer if they had to be changed, this way they themselves were an attack that also empowered us. The biggest issue I have beyond that is that curses and hex's don't exist and spiteful spirit was turned into a trait? I loved that skill. Unless End of Dragons brings me a ritualist/true necro/darker spec that is more about the roots of necromancy and focused on Dhuum and or grenth I likely will not touch my necromancer. Again. At this stage im not sure what I should be playing because Im worried about the upcoming nerfs, and Im worried about what cheesy E-specs im in store for. (PoF to me was.... well ... I like Spellbreaker, I liked the idea of renegade and that was it.)

Im also a tank in most games, at least now that im an adult. My favorite class fantasy is shapeshifting, I loved being a bear-druid in WoW when I tried it and I loved Demon hunters metamorphosis. Do I believe we will see these things? No. Not at all. I think we will get more of the same, with it being flashy and needlessly overtuned with it having some gimmick that is fit for the type of people guild wars 2 seems to want rather than what we have. Personally There is a high chance that and this is why E-specs alone wont sell me this expansion EVEN THOUGH CANTHA is where I started, and my favorite region outside of the shiverpeaks. The high chance is that they will be a lot like PoF and it will be something like "Warrior gets imperial guard, gets pistols and is pew, pew." Or "Revenant becomes Togo." of which would likely make just ignore the class specs for the expansion (Not like I haven't really done that since HoT. PoF really sucked in my eyes.) So new players have to deal with coming into and seeing a community who hates itself, with people who never agree, in a game where it in of itself doesn't know where it wants to go or what it wants to be? If I were a new player and walked into guild wars 2, had no investment from the first game/launch Id likely get to 80 and then quit. Hell I might not of even got to the end because the core tyria world is horribly boring and Im not about to buy an expansion based on core once so ever. (Most people assume expansions are just more of the core experience.) So I don't think the steam launch will be successful at least not what anyone is expecting; I likewise think that we as a community with continue to dwindle until something is done. There is so much work that needs to be done, so many things need to be addressed and until they are even with an expansion...just seems bleak.

  1. Current class balance/design is really bad, the feb patch in my eyes just took so much away and gave nothing back. Some specs/classes just feel horrible. Do they work? Sure. But rule of fun/cool first and balance second as its IMPOSSIBLE to balance an MMO.
  2. Future specs MUST be thematically cooler than what we've gotten~
  3. We need something new outside of some dumb mastery and some specs, something needs to give. End of Dragons better have more to it than that.
  4. STOP.IGNORING.YOUR.GAME..MODES.
  5. Road-map.
  6. You need to work on making the new player experience better, its not good and its dated. The whole game is at odds with itself.
  7. PvP needs new maps, WvW needs more maps, Strikes need more(Already feels abandoned kind of.) and Visions do as well. Fractals ... dont let us sit for another year before the next one.
  8. Talk to us, be vocal tell us where you wana go. Stick too it. Dont fold.
  9. more creativity.
  10. FIX.THE.LAG.PLEASE. The performance alone will keep people from investing/sticking with the game as is. Steam launch will be a mess if you push it out in its current state~
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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Redoing the function of skills, even if it might bring specific builds in line with existing builds is a lot of work.

NO kidding ... and it's a lot of work that Anet doesn't need to do because the game content is designed to match the wide range of performance in the builds that exist. Talking about underperforming builds doesn't even make sense to begin with. You tell us what an underperforming build is ... then we talk.

There doesn't have to be a scarcity of builds at all times, that's a result of poor balance.

Except that's not true ... there IS no scarcity of builds. There are LOTS of builds you can play and be successful with at ANY time. And that's not a result of poor balance .. it's the result of intentional game content design that allows it. That's the whole problem with your mentality ... you can't explain what you mean when you throw around terms like 'underperforming' and 'viable'. We have to guess .. then you dismiss what we say. We can only assume you are referring to meta as your threshold for what is and what is not. So here it goes ...

You said I'm accusing you ... well, now you will be right. I'm going to accuse you of using the 'difficulty' of new player experience to push meta think into the game. No thanks ... we don't need that. Dozens of games already do it ... and better than Anet ever could with GW2. If you want to be told what builds you should play as a consequence of game design, go play those games.

I feel like I've had this exact conversation before years ago about a break bar system over the 5-25 Stun system Arena net used to have for bosses. People were fervently against that too. I wasn't the only one to suggest that change and I'm not the first or last to bring up this problem.

Funny thing is, I don't even want to play a tank which is one of the pillars of the argument. I'll admit that I do want to run a turret engineer, but that's more a curiosity for me than anything, I'd probably still prefer the complexity of the condi Kits holosmith. I do want to run a minion master build, But BOY is the type of build I want to run on minions extremely different than what people are accusing me of wanting. And my specific minion desires are fairly irrelevant to the conversation. I think I brought them up once, but no more.

Builds are crafted by the devs to some extent. You can choose to believe in the illusion that they're not but good developers can make it seem like it was your choice and not something that's been partially or mostly planned. Arena net has planned our builds out before, and Does it today. I don't want arena net to completely plan our builds out. Absolutely not. They do have builds in mind when they introduce specific skills, specs or traits, these builds might not manifest as they expected but the core of what that build is most often does.

And I do play those games. They're Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2, Diablo III, And Magic: The gathering. All of them have specific builds in mind and offer some level of construction of those builds with minor variation between specific details of those builds.

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@"Sobx.1758" said:Pretty sure she knows that, but she just doesn't want to admit it because it's obviously undesired in this type of game. She enjoys builds that play themselves (like bunker minion/turret builds -hence the completely unneeded change to the aggro system in raids btw.) despite trying to claim they're not really passive.

Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

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@"draxynnic.3719" said:Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

And I do think Criticism of this idea of mine is absolutely fair. It is a difficult thing to implement and absolutely wouldn't work in all current raids. It being implemented in Future content, future strikes, raids, dungeons(wishful thinking) would probably be better. I would like to Divorce the role of Boon Chronomancer and tank. I still very much want the Chronomancer to exist for the game, as I think its an outstanding build and unique in its own right, however I want a tank designed to hold Aggro to be its own distinct role that say, Scrapper, Warrior, Guardian, Reaper, Revenant could all do without being required to also fill the party buff role.

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i would love an aggro rework.first of all: how does the mob know who has the most toughness? he shouldn't even know that!instead the mob probably knows the classes if he's of a higher intellect and the distance if he's of lower intellect.so the basic aggro should be "closest enemy" for biests and any type of low intelligence mob + any higher intelligence mob that simply doesn't care, maybe because arrogant, maybe because ego, maybe because lazyness, whatever. the smartypants on the other hand should solely look at the class, light armor > medium armor > heavy armor and then inside the armor class low hp > medium hp > high hp, so that ele is the first target as long as nobody attacked.starting from there damage sets aggro and overrides basic aggro (first hit -> aggro). certain skills can create aggro, especially skills that annoy or anger the mob, or take it away, especially stealth and retreat skills. aggro can never go down to 0 again unless the fight stops, so you can not fear mobs unto bypassers ...then there are ccs which have an effect on top of their current one:soft cc:

  • provoke creates a huge chuck of aggro -> basic tank condi
  • fear takes aggro away -> obviously
  • torment creates aggro additional to the damage -> great synergy as they get more dmg following you, also more of a provoking skill to cause unreasonable pain
  • cripple creates aggro -> great synergy when they try to follow you
  • confusion takes aggro away -> confusing someone calms them usually so a calming skill
  • weakness takes aggro away -> another calming skill

hard cc:

  • daze takes aggro away -> another calming skill
  • pull creates aggro -> basic tank condi
  • launch creates aggro -> hard cc without creating distance, so an annoying/provoking cc
  • knockdown creates aggro -> same as above
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@draxynnic.3719 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Pretty sure she knows that, but she just doesn't want to admit it because it's obviously undesired in this type of game. She enjoys builds that play themselves (like bunker minion/turret builds -hence the completely unneeded change to the aggro system in raids btw.) despite trying to claim they're not really passive.

Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

These changes don't exactly make the aggro system more active. All it will do is pigeonhole builds into their forced roles even more because the proposal was to give "+aggro/-aggro" to the certain skills, which means all you'll absolutely need to do is equip them depending if you want to tank or not, because otherwise you won't reliably hold/drop aggro at all. Nothing about this idea sounds good, it won't really make anything "more active", it won't help build/role diversity, it's just another "I want it to be like in another game". For no good reason at all.

Apparently current aggro system is too boring and "not active enough", but pushing minions to deal meta-level damage (in the same thread btw) is perfectly reasonable and something we want in the game, ok.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

I would like to Divorce the role of Boon Chronomancer and tank.

"because I want it" is not exactly an argument.

I still very much want the Chronomancer to exist for the game, as I think its an outstanding build and unique in its own right, however I want a tank designed to hold Aggro to be its own distinct role that say, Scrapper, Warrior, Guardian, Reaper, Revenant could all do without being required to also fill the party buff role.

With your change tanking would be more limited than it is right now and -again- repeatedly spamming "generate aggro skill" isn't exactly any more "active" or needed than the current system. Just because something's "meta" doesn't mean you absolutely need it to easly complete the content which has been pointed quite a bit by now. If you want to be a meta slave then it's on you, not on the game design or apparent lack of diversity in builds.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Pretty sure she knows that, but she just doesn't want to admit it because it's obviously undesired in this type of game. She enjoys builds that play themselves (like bunker minion/turret builds -hence the completely unneeded change to the aggro system in raids btw.) despite trying to claim they're not really passive.

Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

These changes don't exactly make the aggro system more active. All it will do is pigeonhole builds into their forced roles even more because the proposal was to give "+aggro/-aggro" to the certain skills, which means all you'll absolutely need to do is equip them depending if you want to tank or not, because otherwise you won't reliably hold/drop aggro at all. Nothing about this idea sounds good, it won't really make anything "more active", it won't help build/role diversity, it's just another "I want it to be like in another game". For no good reason at all.

Apparently current aggro system is too boring and "not active enough", but pushing minions to deal meta-level damage (in the same thread btw) is perfectly reasonable and something we want in the game, ok.

current aggro system is the worst i've seen in games so far. trigger certain HPs with a zerker build and watch the HP guy fight a 1v1 with some NPC around. attack a mob and watch it run over to this other guy with high toughness. run peacefully past people fighting and get attack for wearing some toughness. i hate it. it's not about make it like some other game, if you see a glasscannon thief attack an awakened and the awakened suddenly turns around to you peacefully standing nearby even though it deals relevant damage to the thief and can't even outdamage your regen kills a lot of the immersion and fun in this game.

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@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:Pretty sure she knows that, but she just doesn't want to admit it because it's obviously undesired in this type of game. She enjoys builds that play themselves (like bunker minion/turret builds -hence the completely unneeded change to the aggro system in raids btw.) despite trying to claim they're not really passive.

Eh. She's proposing changes to the aggro system in raids to make it MORE active. At the moment, it's pretty much "whoever has the highest toughness gets the aggro" (which is pretty much forcing the boss to hold the idiot ball and generally attack the PC that's hardest to kill) so that all the tank needs to worry about is surviving and moving the boss to where it needs to be moved. What she's proposing there is to make holding aggro require active skill use rather than simply being gear-based.

Which is a bit harder to do than in some games because GW2 was never designed with the concept of aggro management in mind, but things like taunt and fear and so on could probably be set up so that they influence aggro.

These changes don't exactly make the aggro system more active. All it will do is pigeonhole builds into their forced roles even more because the proposal was to give "+aggro/-aggro" to the certain skills, which means all you'll absolutely need to do is equip them depending if you want to tank or not, because otherwise you won't reliably hold/drop aggro at all. Nothing about this idea sounds good, it won't really make anything "more active", it won't help build/role diversity, it's just another "I want it to be like in another game". For no good reason at all.

Apparently current aggro system is too boring and "not active enough", but pushing minions to deal meta-level damage (in the same thread btw) is perfectly reasonable and something we want in the game, ok.

current aggro system is the worst i've seen in games so far. trigger certain HPs with a zerker build and watch the HP guy fight a 1v1 with some NPC around. attack a mob and watch it run over to this other guy with high toughness. run peacefully past people fighting and get attack for wearing some toughness. i hate it. it's not about make it like some other game, if you see a glasscannon thief attack an awakened and the awakened suddenly turns around to you peacefully standing nearby even though it deals relevant damage to the thief and can't even outdamage your regen kills a lot of the immersion and fun in this game.

So what you're saying is you want to include significant toughness in your build and then... not get hit? I don't understand this approach or how it helps create any immertion at all, but maybe that's just me.

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