[PvE Balance, does it really matter?]

The key difference between pve and other modes is thatthe inbalance only effects 1 combate, I. E player gainst an npc. An overturned class can ruin gameplay for every player that class comes into contact with in pvp.

[In your opinion, is GW2 too hard?]

@Caitybee.3614 said:I say it's too hard for new players needing to start from scratch. There's so much content and information, it would be overwhelming to a newbie if they discovered how much there truly was. GW2 takes dedication and many hundreds/thousands of hours to complete most of the expansion episodes and regular storylines, as well as achievements, etc.

For players who have stuck with the game for a while and have majority completed story-wise, and unlocking all mounts, it's not hard at all.

Mm, having too much content is a luxury not a sign of difficulty. The trick to not bring overwhelmed is to just enjoy the journey rather than trying to learn everything at once or be an expert ASAP.

[In your opinion, is GW2 too hard?]

For me:

Open world is a slaughter fest if you build for it with a few mobs that make you think. Just about right for open world.

Fractals has a good range of skill levels, so plenty there for everyone.

Dungeons, could do with a difficulty tweak, too much running half way through dungeons without stopping going on.

Pvp, balance is OK in comparison to every other mmorpg, offers a good challenge in the main.

Wvw, is easy if you know when to run your ass off :)

[Fractal elitism on the rise in LFG]

@Vinceman.4572 said:Even in T4 where you can play everything most of the daredevils are just pure garbage in comparison with lots of other classes. That's why even average groups don't like to see daredevils.

That's the issue isn't it, people 'comparing' classes and builds. The reality is that content is years old and any class is good enough if played by a reasonable player.

[What are "casual" and "hardcore" in GW2?]

It's raiding in raid centric games historically that have muddied the waters. Raids requires a very particular playstyle which is heavy rote and simplifed/optimised roles (minmex dps for e.g in fight x). This in conjunction with content and gear races drove behaviours ie you must play to a schedule or your benched, or you can't join our team unless you commit to our schedule, your gear must be maintained at level x. This eventually bled into the concept of being 'hardcore'.. 'I'm a hardcore min maxer'. Says the player in his guild application.

Outwith raiding you will easily see players who minimax but over a period of years - skill wise they end up no different or better/worse than hardcore players who schedule aggressively and put the schedule ahead of much of the other things going on in their life.

That's what it boils down to, how do you prioritise the game against real life, and are you playing/forced to play where the schedule is paramount.

Gw pitched itself very differently, no gear race, and raiding is much more niche, so hardcore gameplay is not rewarded as much, hence its such a great game imo.

[Mounts unhealthy for core player experience ?]

Equality? No, you want stuff other players earned or paid for, for free. Other players having a mount has very little impact on you beyond convenience. Imagine you spent money or months working on a mount, and some other player stamped their feet and demanded 'I want that mount'. If you want equality, apply equal effort or support the game equally.

To put it another way if another player worked hard or invested hard earned cash in the gamefor a mount, and you want it for free, then what you are actually demanding for is inequality so you can get stuff for free.

[Balance Patch Preview - PvP]

On the negative, the level of change in 1 patch here is going to be an absolute *** balance holocaust resulting on broken builds and emergency fixes, its a page 1 of the 'how not to phase in change in a controlled manner' handbook. However I can forgive that because I love LOVE the fact they realise their cadence of changes is far too slow and they are very making moves to address this. I've been banging on for a long long time about how this is the fundemental root cause of all the balancing issues, but it looks like they have software engineers on board that gets this.

[Mounts unhealthy for core player experience ?]

You need to adjust your perceptions op. GW2 is not a race or a competition, someone having a mount that you don't have is not a 'disadvantage' (have you come from a more vertical mmo perhaps?) . They have a convenience you don't have, so you either buy into it or you don't. Not having a mount means less convenience - if you want that convenience, support the game and get it.

[What are "casual" and "hardcore" in GW2?]

Guild wars 2 is a game designed for casual, hence the horizontal development and max gear that is trivially available to everyone. Hardcore for me is playing to the point where it becomes a significant impact to Your home life, and you have the game is high priority in your life.

I have thousands of hours on my main Char alone, I have legendaries, gold, lots of gearsets with which I enjoy minmaxing builds, I enjoy pve and pvp. When the fancy takes me il play a 5 hour stint straight. Despite all this, I'm a casual player beevause I don't prioritise the game over everything in my life, and can happily not play the game for periods if I have other things on.

There are games like wow etc that target and reward hardcore behaviours (raiding and the ever shifting power curve) And there are people who think yhry are more important because they are hardcore and value minmaxing over gameplay, but fortunately some wise heads designed gw2 which I'm grateful for.

[How do you feel about the imminent balance patch, and why?]

@Nether.9741 said:Here is my biggest issue with any Anet balance patch. They get what they want to be done with the game ( am OK with that). But we get screwed.

What I mean by that is I have a few account and lots of builds which patches break and again that is OK too)What is not OK is that they usually cost me gold to get them playable again competitively in WVW. I should not have to pay for Anets constant changes.Some games like Star Treck Onlne give you a re-spec token to fix an issue that the balance pass causes.

I understand that Anet needs to balance the game for competitive play, but it should not cost me for them to do it.

*Note The scientific way to fix a problem is not to make tons of changes. But few at a time. and see how they interact.

Your note is 100% correct, and well established in software engineering to boot, big changes breaks stuff, are out of date (I. E based on game state that is months old) and allow 0 capability to react quickly to emerging issues.

[Strictly pve solo]

I play condy Weaver and pretty much slaughter everything with no risk. To answer your question though op, play the build that you find most enjoyable and tweak it until it works for you - and resist copg pasting meta builds, it sucka the joy out of mmorp, and definately don't get in the trap that's its all about dps (raids are different), it's not. It's about fun.

[How to address power creep without gutting individual skills and traits.]

Imagine a see-saw that has a pile of fragile plates on each side which you are trying to balance without it crashing into an unbalanced mess

Option 1: change 20 things on 1 side, and 30 on another. Do this once every 3 months. Get the brush ready.

Option 2, change 1 plate on each side and repeat carefully and regularly.

Guess what our current patching model looks like, that is the issue and allways will be. Until things change.

[Any change to get the Celestial amulet un-nerfed in PvP by now?]

@"bluberblasen.9684" said:maybe rework eles so they dont need all stats. ..." the problem is ele "-> NO! the problem is anet / devs and their " so called balance"

[ x ] bring back old cele amulet

+1, the issues just now are burst, cele is the opposite of a burst build. Ele has lowest defense to boot and gains relatively little from toughness and hp.

[How do you feel about the imminent balance patch, and why?]

Big patches creates power issues. Change a hundred variables and you get a million variations etc.yesterdaya weak build becomes today's problem, and so it begins again.

[1 Shot out of stealth is a toxic/unhealthy mechanic]

There's a lot of noise around this topic re overpowered builds etc but the fundemental issue is that in pvp a fight where 1 player spends a significant time invisible and as a result has control of engagement is poor gameplay. , this creates 2 sets of behaviours 1) invisible guy is constantly seeking deadly from invis and 2). Non invis player has to spend significant game time trying to find a target to engage and avoiding this deadly from an invisible player.

Poor gameplay pure and simple - invis should be a pve concern only, or a long cool down get out of jail free skill in pvp.

[1 Shot out of stealth is a toxic/unhealthy mechanic]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@saerni.2584 said:People have been complaining about stealth attacks since the beginning of the game.

This isn’t “new.” This has been going on since the game came out. Sure the balance may have shifted on damage and sustain but the ability to use hard hitting skills (for that meta) from stealth has always been there.

I really wish people used the forum search engine and saw how long the same arguments have been made ad nauseum.

Stealth will not be seriously nerfed/changed/removed from the game because it is a core game mechanic and Anet can’t change core game mechanics with significant design impact on the rest of the game without significant effort.

Reducing the stealth duration on specific skills is easy. Making some of kind cap on the overall duration is much more likely to require redesigning entire professions and rebalancing the entire game.

It's the archetypes design. Go to bdo,eso or archeage's forums, the rogue archetypes in those games all produce these very same types of threads and about the exact same aspects lol. It's a staple in the mmo genre and it's not gonna change unless anet decides to either not have a rogue like class or do a rogue type class that doesn't fit the current archetype which at that point is it still rogue like?

Ofc it can change, its simply another balancing activity. People get desensitised to stuff, but when you do The first thing is to consider is the experience from a new player perspective, and this is where the flawed concept stickks out like an ugly wart. The experience where you are fighting an opponent who is continually dropping out of the fight and going invisible while potentially bursting you is flawrd in pvp and a kitten gaming experience.

Just because other games have let pve concerns like this bleed into pvp does not mean it should not or cannot be addressed.

Theres a reason literally all mmo have the exact post complaints about the same class archetype and why their more predominant. The archetype isnt liked by anyone other than players that play it. If u changed it to a point the threads discontinued I guarantee what ud have left wouldn't resemble a rogue class. People need to exept such a archetype exists or play a game that doesnt have a rogue like class.

There is a reason, ita consistently a problem in every single mmo that let's invisible bleed into pvp.

[1 Shot out of stealth is a toxic/unhealthy mechanic]

@"Alin.2468" said:If you only knew how easy it is to know where a thief is, as long as you have teamwork through voice chat... Back in the good old days if a thief left far, that person would tell in voice chat "thief left far, incoming mid". If thief would not appear mid, then "incoming close", because even Shadow Arts and "permastealth" build were not exactly permanent, so it was really easy to guess the next step with communication.

However, we like to play alone, and we want to know every step of every player, without even doing some efforts in teaming up and communicating the information that truly matters. It's our fault for voting to play alone,in 2016, and for accepting to play alone out of fear so we would not get demolished by teams who coordinate in free voice chat (Discord, Teamspeak, Mumble).

Coming up next: let's ask from Anet to modify the mini-map so it would show us not only the allied members, but also enemy members. This way we would know precisely where the thief is and can approximately anticipate when and how enemy will strike. Anet, please include this in the next announced 800+ modification patch.

Lol get over yourself. This is a casual game, always has been, and that means the vast majority do not play iin premade groups with vc. That aside, arguing that vc makes up for the poor gameplay that invisible gives indicates a. Shallow understanding of what makes for a good. Game.

[1 Shot out of stealth is a toxic/unhealthy mechanic]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@saerni.2584 said:People have been complaining about stealth attacks since the beginning of the game.

This isn’t “new.” This has been going on since the game came out. Sure the balance may have shifted on damage and sustain but the ability to use hard hitting skills (for that meta) from stealth has always been there.

I really wish people used the forum search engine and saw how long the same arguments have been made ad nauseum.

Stealth will not be seriously nerfed/changed/removed from the game because it is a core game mechanic and Anet can’t change core game mechanics with significant design impact on the rest of the game without significant effort.

Reducing the stealth duration on specific skills is easy. Making some of kind cap on the overall duration is much more likely to require redesigning entire professions and rebalancing the entire game.

It's the archetypes design. Go to bdo,eso or archeage's forums, the rogue archetypes in those games all produce these very same types of threads and about the exact same aspects lol. It's a staple in the mmo genre and it's not gonna change unless anet decides to either not have a rogue like class or do a rogue type class that doesn't fit the current archetype which at that point is it still rogue like?

it can change, its simply another balancing activity. People get desensitised to stuff, but when you do The first thing is to consider is the experience from a new player perspective, and this is where the flawed concept stickks out like an ugly wart. The experience where you are fighting an opponent who is continually dropping out of the fight and going invisible while potentially bursting you is flawrd in pvp and a shit gaming experience.

Just because other games have let pve concerns like this bleed into pvp does not mean it should not or cannot be addressed.

Say it out aloud 'a fight where 1 player can continually dissappear for long periods of time mid fight then rejoin at will'. Awful right.

[GW2 Stealth : Extremely poor implementation respect to other MMOs]

@Avatar.3568 said:Gw2 stealth is working in the way it is intended, classes that do use stealth would just die in seconds without stealth, if you implement the stealth mechanics from other mmo's mesmers, thiefs, rangers and even engis would die pretty fast. It's there last return and stealth makes them not unkillable or unlocatable, used skills are still visible, if you auto attack and your attack chain starts you hit an stealthed dude.

Stealth in gw 2 has a big learning curve

The skill curve is irrelevant, the issue is that a player should not be able be in stealth for a significant % of time, it's poor gameplay. If they have to be on stealth for significant periods of time then fix the root cause.

[GW2 Stealth : Extremely poor implementation respect to other MMOs]

Aoe should break stealth as a minimum and you should only be able to stealth for a few seconds and then have a cool down of 5-10.

[Positive Feedback Thread / Things we like!]

Maps are gorgeous, gw2 shows you how artistic talent beats higher number of pixels on screen.

Build diversity - compared to any other aaa mmorpg gw2 has an almost limitless number of viable build variations that are a lot of fund and don't consist of spamming a rotation (outside raiding at least)

[The new 15 vs 15 SPvP will be useless to "most players" if it doesn't have a "queue"]

I'm excited about 15 v 15, it's offering a middle ground between wvw and spvp. Wvw style skirmishes but with balanced team size and spvp skillets rather than having to deal with stupidly high glass dannon builds in wvw, or having to ride 30 miles to get back to the battlefront.

Its a different game mode, and that's something we desperately need.

[How do you feel about the imminent balance patch, and why?]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:The volume of changes they hint at is the OPPOSITE of what they need to be doing

And what exactly should they be doing, according to you?

Its well known in the dev profession that small frequent changes work and large broad changes actually indicate an immature development pipeline.

An example of good practice would be to initially split all skills for pve and pve but keep both pve and pvp skills identical for that first drop. Patch that out first to live, test the split In Isolation without having to firefight new balance issues and lay the bones for quick future changes while getting past the heavy lifting.

2 weeks later patch in a small set of skill changes - low risk now, the heavy lifting has already been done, just tweaking numbers.

Same 2 weeks later

..

As things mature go to 1 week patches

And so on for ever with a model where you can react quickly. And incrementally clean up issues without the big bang high risk mess.

[We Able to get Balance Patch Notes Before the drop happens?]

Test server would be a smart move.

Big bang changes never solve all problems and allways cause new ones, it's symptomatic of long development to live lead times. This balance patch has the same issue, and so the core issues with timely balancing management will continue and we will move on to the next set of broken builds.

[60 Keys, Only Commons...]

Never buy a roll of a 50 sided dice if you are going to get annoyed if your exact number doest come up, and 50 times (or more) it never will. Much more fun to roll the dice when you get a free roll, like level 10 reward, or if the cost is meaningless to you.