Cpt Crunch.7058

Thank you very much for the recent informative replies. I try to submit as many bugs as I can but time and time again it's disheartening to hear so many others go through problems every time there is a release at which point bug reports, while valuable, are too late. I was hoping for the possibility that as a community we could insist on having large patches be on some test servers so that many of the easily identifiable bugs and crashes can be resolved before they go out to live, or to see how massive changes (like the proposed profession balancing) to the game will work out before it goes onto the live server. I have seen that Anet has used test servers in the past, would be nice to have them available more often.

For some time now the player-base has asked for a reduction to all the power creep damage in the form of skills doing less damage, less healing, less condi spam, less cleansing, less boon uptime and less stacks of certain boons like stability and might. Aside from the fact that the proposed reductions seem to go too far, and other underlying issues such as condi spam, cleansing, and stealth up-times not being addressed... What I do not see mentioned a lot is the current philosophy of having different cooldowns, cast times, channel lengths, charges, etc. between the different game modes. Skills should behave the same across all game modes. This leads to a build up of muscle memory from which the player can draw on and play effectively at high levels. Otherwise what it seems is going to happen is that PvP, WvW, and PvE might as well be released as 3 separate stand-alone games because nothing that works the way it does in one game mode will work in the others forcing the player to have to memorize 3 rotations and timings... for each build... for each profession they play. A player who normally does one game mode should be able to step into other game modes and have a firm grasp on how their chosen profession handles, minus a few minor things here and there, based on the knowledge they've acquired in other game modes. What I see with these splits is that players will focus more on their preferred game mode and might just kill the desire to try out other aspects of the game. Could it be possible to make changes to healing, damage, condi, cleansing, and boons without affecting drastically how one game mode works, feels, and handles compared to the others?

I am sorry but I have found no such existing test server, at least not one visible to the public. And if I could join the testing group, that information is not easily accessible or is rather well buried. If there is such a way to test already, but it is impossible to locate, then it does no service to those that also want to test but can't find it. Maybe you could point me to where it is? Maybe that post can be requested to be stickied to the forums for others to see?

Using warclaw to get into SMC does not require a large population, seeing that assets were misplaced in EBG does not require a large population, seeing that the recipe for Amalgamated Draconic Lodestones is bugged does not require a large population, playing with Banner's and finding that they are bugged does not require a large population. The majority of problems can be found by a single player just trying stuff out. But all these headaches can be avoided for the player-base at large thanks to those that find them before the changes go live. Now imagine if with the recently proposed profession changes players can hop into WvW, PvP, and PvE and see how these changes work before it is pushed out onto live. Obviously the more players that join in, the quicker things will be found and tested. But still, it doesn't require a large number of them. And like other things players that test things tend to acquire experience on how to test or where things are most likely to break or be broken. It doesn't take that much time. It also creates a community of testers (maybe even their own sub-forum) where they can bring things up to the devs or coordinate amongst each other for content that requires a number of players like raids, strike missions, meta events, etc. The incentive to try out new content before everyone else is an opportunity many will jump to, and while yea some do it to post spoilers, that is something that is already done now while content is live. Those that want to be spoiled go and read said spoilers anyways. Yes, some issues do require server load in order to pop up, but the number of problems has been reduced to simpler server fixes. Also I am sure the entire development team isn't needed for bug hunting otherwise these quick patches that come out every hour or two after a major patch wouldn't happen so fast. They are minor fixes that only take a short while to get around to, and those small fixes can be pushed to live without having to go through a public test server. No need to put the fix there first, wait for testers and feedback, fix again, wait for more feedback and so on.

Seriously? Read (or re-read) second paragraph of my third post... The point is that if players who go on the public test servers find the broken things before it gets pushed out to live, then the rest of the player-base doesn't have to suffer through those crashes and other such things. On your end you would have a smoother experience playing because you are less likely to crash while loading, deal with broken meta events, get stuck on dialog during quests that for some reason or another doesn't want to advance, etc. Honestly, the more I read the responses here the more it seems like playing through broken content, having the game patched every hour after a realease, not being able to load into maps (or like WvW during server reset on tuesday), and not be able to complete story missions must be super enjoyable... as if it were a some kind of "feature" you really look forward to or something :confused:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" *Reposting from WvW forum because many of the changes to WvW are similar or identical to PvP and it seems Anet is doing a disservice by splitting these discussions up Community asks for less damage, less healing, less condi spam, and less cleansing in order to address TTK. Something around 15-20% (not the usual "cut everything by half" crap you always do). And what do you give us instead? An entire rework of how WvW and PvP combat works!!! I am all in favor of skill splits between the game modes, like the amount of damage/healing done, boon duration and stacks. Some of these are ok. They try to address those concerns.But you are changing the mechanics and feel on many skills as well by changing cooldowns, available charges, cast times, and so on. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN! Currently the only game modes I am playing are WvW and PvE and this is due to how in PvP nothing works the way it does in the other two game modes. Having to learn rotations and timing for a separate aspect of the game is severely off putting. With this patch you further entrench this philosophy and I for one ain't going to be learning 3 separate rotations..... per build.... per profession I play.... It's just plain stupid as hell! The idea of making certain CC skills be focused more around the CC aspect, and other skills around damage is good. But as others have stated, there are no strong skills meant solely for high damage. Take Revenant sword skills 3-5 for example. Sword 5 has mobility so it can have its damage reduced no problem, Sword 3 had mobility and 1.5 sec of evade so it too can have it's damage reduced because as your current design ideas go you shouldn't be able to do it all. But Sword 4? That skill has all its damage and the immobilize effect occur within the time-span of a single dodge, and its highly telegraphed! That skill should stay as it is so you know skill is rewarded either for the player moving out of the way or for the Revenant trying to land it. The immobilize can have its duration reduced maybe but it too is part of the reward the Revenant has for getting it to land. Furthermore, -50 endurance for Mirage in only PvP/WvW is so unbelievably short sighted. And again, it's such a massive change to how it plays in one game mode versus the others. I understand you want the spec to have a drawback SO MAKE IT ONE FOR ALL GAME MODES! And something not as ridiculous as -50 endurance, maybe cut endurance regen by 50%, or increase the cost of the Mirage Cloak dodge to 55 endurance points so the player has to wait for that extra endurance tick to dodge again in order to avoid the dodge/clone-gen to Shatter spam. Maybe you forgot that axe is the weapon conferred by the Mirage specialization and it is a MELEE weapon thus the ability to stand face-to-face is paramount for that weapon skills to work effectively. Unless of course what you want to say is that no Mirage should ever play as melee again, at which point just give us a new weapon for the elite spec, something that would actually work and wouldn't be contradictory to the way you want us to play the specialization.... Also, Prime Light Beam for Holosmith is an elite skill. Reducing the power coefficient from 3.00 to 0.01 essentially just make it into pure CC which makes it into a regular skill, definitely not something worthy of being called "elite". Tl;dr: Adjust TTK with less damage, less healing, less condi spam, and less cleansing. Split skills here and there to address boon duration and stacking. LEAVE MECHANICS ALONE!!! Cooldowns, cast times, charges, etc. should be the same across all game modes!

I came to the forums to express my frustration at this because I am one of those players. I would gladly go through new content and changes to the game in order to find if there are any bugs, crashes, and so on. I can't promise to go through everything but I will go through what matters to me most and hope that others that join in do the same. Enough players have come to the forums asking about this that I am sure there are enough testers out there. Also, not everything that is done needs to be measured with in-game rewards. In this case the reward in intrinsic. It is a value added by the player performing the task and the satisfaction it brings that other's would not have to go through the hardship and that the player-base as a whole benefits from the few that actually do. Given the massive changes that are proposed for all the professions, would you rather be able to see how the changes play out on a test server or would you rather have the changes go live immediately onto everyone with the next patch 4-6 weeks out? Assuming that Anet actually changes their patch release time-table as they suggested and don't stay with the current 4 month wait between patches. Is it an enjoyable experience to have to wait for so long for things that could have been discovered within a week on a public test server? Even if you accept it, do you wish that onto everyone else? There would also be little to no delay between patches, except maybe the next patch. As a new patch is put on a public test server, most of the design team is free to move on to the next content patch, yet a small window remains open where things can be spotted and fixed. For example, take the recent patch that broke EBG with various tower walls missing/moved and the fact that now you were able to get into SMC (again) with the warclaw. Players would have spotted those things immediately much the same way it was spotted within minutes of it going live. So essentially players ARE testing things already, but they are doing it a live version of the game where such consequences become a detriment to all. And yes, there are some players that go onto public test servers to see if they can find some way to break the game in order to use to their advantage but those players are few and such secrets don't stay that way for long. Additionally, for the in-game economy to be affected there has to be one first. This game sadly doesn't have an economy. A global tradepost with simple supply and demand doesn't cut it. Not enough crafted items are time gated and everything seems to be account bound. The only things traded are materials. If anything a public test server could help stabilize prices because you would no longer have the few players that can login right as a new patch hits find what the desired crafting materials will be and quickly hyper-inflate prices. For example, the recent Icebrood saga patch brought the illuminated boreal weapons that require Destroyer Lodestones. And due to what I just mentioned lodestones went from an average of 55s to 90s on the first day. This happened precisely because crafting recipes aren't known ahead of time which makes for a great opportunity for a few players to affect the market drastically. Also, the problems with crafting the Amalgamated Draconic Lodestone in the Mystic Forge would have been found rather than leaving players confused.

Community asks for less damage, less healing, less condi spam, and less cleansing in order to address TTK. Something around 15-20% (not the usual "cut everything by half" crap you always do). And what do you give us instead? An entire rework of how WvW and PvP combat works!!! I am all in favor of skill splits between the game modes, like the amount of damage/healing done, boon duration and stacks. Some of these are ok. They try to address those concerns.But you are changing the mechanics and feel on many skills as well by changing cooldowns, available charges, cast times, and so on. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN! Currently the only game modes I am playing are WvW and PvE and this is due to how in PvP nothing works the way it does in the other two game modes. Having to learn rotations and timing for a separate aspect of the game is severely off putting. With this patch you further entrench this philosophy and I for one ain't going to be learning 3 separate rotations..... per build.... per profession I play.... It's just plain stupid as hell! The idea of making certain CC skills be focused more around the CC aspect, and other skills around damage is good. But as others have stated, there are no strong skills meant solely for high damage. Take Revenant sword skills 3-5 for example. Sword 5 has mobility so it can have its damage reduced no problem, Sword 3 had mobility and 1.5 sec of evade so it too can have it's damage reduced because as your current design ideas go you shouldn't be able to do it all. But Sword 4? That skill has all its damage and the immobilize effect occur within the time-span of a single dodge, and its highly telegraphed! That skill should stay as it is so you know skill is rewarded either for the player moving out of the way or for the Revenant trying to land it. The immobilize can have its duration reduced maybe but it too is part of the reward the Revenant has for getting it to land. Furthermore, -50 endurance for Mirage only in PvP/WvW is so unbelievably short sighted. And again, it's such a massive change to how it plays in one game mode versus the others. I understand you want the spec to have a drawback SO MAKE IT ONE FOR ALL GAME MODES! And something not as ridiculous as -50 endurance, maybe cut endurance regen by 50%, or increase the cost of the Mirage Cloak dodge to 55 endurance points so the player has to wait for that extra endurance tick to dodge again in order to avoid the dodge/clone-gen to Shatter spam. Maybe you forgot that axe is the weapon conferred by the Mirage specialization and it is a MELEE weapon thus the ability to stand face-to-face is paramount for that weapon skills to work effectively. Unless of course what you want to say is that no Mirage should ever play as melee again, at which point just give us a new weapon for the elite spec, something that would actually work and wouldn't be contradictory to the way you want us to play the specialization.... Also, Prime Light Beam for Holosmith is an elite skill. Reducing the power coefficient from 3.00 to 0.01 essentially just make it into pure CC which makes it into a regular skill, definitely not something worthy of being called "elite". Tl;dr: Adjust TTK with less damage, less healing, less condi spam, and less cleansing. Split skills here and there to address boon duration and stacking. LEAVE MECHANICS ALONE!!! Cooldowns, cast times, charges, etc. should be the same across all game modes!

I know they have private test servers, but private test servers under some idealized conditions don't help anyone otherwise there wouldn't be this many issues time and time again. In fact it just leads to making the judgment that things were tested thoroughly enough which leads to complacency which is where we are now... and will be again in the future.

Every time there is a large patch there are problems. The constant disconnects, the errors, crashes have become what I dread the most. Please, for the love of this game, add some test servers and stop using the entire player base as a test bench. If a living world episode can cause this much of a headache imagine what will happen when the profession re-balance patch goes live. Just one server.... is it so much to ask for?

Currently the effect from the rebreather is disabling the polysaturating effect underwater. Don't know if it affects only the purple or all the variants.

Addressing IH, MC, and Ambushes:It seems the biggest problems players face with Mirage are related to Infinite Horizon, clone ambush attacks (condi specifically), and the fact Mirage Cloak can be used while CC’ed. Unfortunately these are all elements which define the feel of Mirage. Any attempt to remove or alter them substantially will be met with fury by Mesmer mains, especially after what has happened with Chrono over the past year. The future for Mesmer from our point-of-view appears to be very bleak. Therefore, as some Mesmer mains interested in healthy play for everyone already mentioned, is to make Infinite Horizon into the minor grandmaster trait and remove ambush damage from clones, but keep the animation and the invuln from Mirage Cloak. This would put Mirage in a much better position as to how it should be balanced, from the perspective that the specialization makes the Mesmer into a capable point-blank combatant. This is why Mirage Cloak when CC'ed and IH protecting clones (a long standing problem for Mesmer in general as no other profession's special mechanic gets shut down the same way) paramount to its identity. Most suggestions offered by players might address the current problems with Condi Mirage, but would literally destroy any viability for Power Mirages thus further pigeon-holing Mesmer into 1 specialization with just 1 build. From here each of the grandmaster traits can take the Daredevil approach as Anet seems to want to do and act as modifiers to how Mirage Cloak and/or ambush function. Additionally, since IH would become the new minor grandmaster, movement speed bonus gained from Mirage Cloak could also be removed thus rewarding good positioning and situational awareness. Here is an example of how the new grandmaster traits could work: -Grandmaster Trait 1: Player ambushes no longer cause damage or condis (but can still afflict CC’s), instead ambush attacks from clones now have damage, conditions, and CC reintegrated. Maybe even decrease endurance regeneration by 0 to 25% depending on hard the clone ambushes would hit now. -Grandmaster Trait 2: Clones lose ambush animations but retain the invuln from Mirage Cloak, the players own ambush attack has increased direct damage/condi application. Maybe with a modified (more beefy looking) animation. -Grandmaster Trait 3: Clones lose ambush animations and invuln from Mirage Cloak. Instead player’s Mirage Cloak duration is increased from 0.75 to 1 second, player gains 100% Superspeed for 3 seconds (non-stacking) the moment Mirage Cloak is activated, and one condition is transferred to the clones (or maybe a bit of barrier, the point is that this grandmaster should enhance the players defense but at the cost of being able to protect the clones) Before anyone starts comparing hard numbers to some random arbitrary crap already in-game, let me state that numbers don’t matter at this point, they can always be adjusted, I just want to draw attention to the concept. Each of these grandmaster traits are viable regardless of whether the player is power, condi, or trying out a funky support role. It gives the Mesmer options as to how they wish to approach combat and opens up interesting combinations while maintaining the idea that there is a price to pay for everything. It also rewards players fighting against the mirage for being flexible with their own strategies on how to approach while retaining the surprise that something called an ambush should cause.Additionally, the first changes that should be addressed for proper balance should be the duration of boons, the number of stacks, and how often they can be supplied…. for everyone. This alone is going to change the game drastically, and it is at this point that further balance to mechanics (again, for everyone) should be examined. Even then, usually the mechanic itself could stay but what needs adjustment is numbers. A note on mantras:Mesmer mains have already mentioned that Mantra of Distraction makes sense for it to be insta-cast and insta-hit given its purpose. If the daze duration is an issue then lower to 0.5 or 0.25 second as it is used more to stop a cast rather than to lock down an opponent. Mantra of Pain on the other hand is busted. Insta-cast makes sense, the problem is that MoP is also insta-hit with 1200 range. Make it into a fast moving projectile, or make the damage occur after a delay with a decent telegraph as someone suggested, that way there is actual counter play to its use. A note on condi stacks:Most of you have some really wonky math, bad enough that you shouldn’t even use numbers in your arguments because all it does is cause you to arrive to erroneous conclusions and it just hurts any argument you try to make. Using axe 3 as an example, it applies 3 stacks of confusion from the player with each stack doing 149 base damage to players on skill-use, it then applies 1 stack of confusion per clone (with a reduced damage of 50 base damage to players on skill-use) for an extra 3 stacks if you have all 3 clones up. In total on the UI you would read 6 stacks of confusion, yet if you combine the 3 stacks due to clones you will see that they sum up to the intensity of a single stack of the player-caused confusion. So in a way you have 4 stacks of “player” confusion, not 6 stacks…. Consider the number “bloated” and part of the “misdirection” aspect that Mesmers are known for. The same thing happens with torment from axe ambush, the swirling axe projectiles, and scepter ambush. The only ambushes that do not split condi’s between player and clones are greatsword, sword, staff, and underwater weapons with trident and staff being the only ones that apply damaging condi’s. Look at the actual numbers, and stop counting “stacks”. A note on staff auto-attack and its ambush:Staff ambush doesn’t track like other projectile skills so you can side-step out of the way, so idk, maybe don’t stand in its path? Not knowing how to keep moving and applying principles of angular momentum, similar to how it is done with various elements in PvE combat in open world and fractals, is not a reason why mechanics need to be eliminated. Wish I didn’t have to say it but this is definitely a “learn2play” situation here. Also, staff auto-attacks only do good (not obscene!) damage by stacking condi's when the Mesmer is standing close to you so that the orbs bounce between you and the Mesmer, since they don’t bounce between clones. Look at where the orbs go, they will go right to the real Mesmer and give him away. You can also step away and cut down on how much condi’s are stacking. Or use one of the billion AoE and cleaves that every profession has to pop those 3k health clones. Again “learn2play”. Message to Anet specifically:Stop “adjusting” things by taking a sledgehammer to it. Recognize that small changes are better than drastic large ones. For example, halving the radius of Holographic Shockwave actually reduced the area the skill covers down to 25% of what it once was (A = pi*r^2 in case you forgot). This has had the effect of destroying the feel of that skill for both the player using it and as the one defending against it (it just ain’t something to take seriously anymore which isn’t fun) while still not addressing the underlying issues such as the range of the forge auto-attacks, damage and/or boon generation from forge skills, or their sustain through vigor uptime and heat therapy. A good solution would have been to just lower the damage (a bit! Not by a ton as you usually do) on Holographic Shockwave and exempting it from being able to reveal stealthed players when traited. This would go a long way to making it fun to deal with (and use!) rather than something blatantly oppressive. I believe that if boons, their supply, duration, etc. are addressed first, it will be found that some or all of these problems (again, for every class) will also disappear, or at least be in a position where actual balance is manageable. So before you bring down the wrecking crew on every class, let’s do this first. Additionally, on the idea of creating drawbacks for choosing a specialization, you can always take the route you took for Revenant. You created a drawback by giving core a mechanic that makes it more appealing and something to be lost upon specializing. It fits both the idea you have in mind while also addressing the weaknesses core suffers from the power creep brought on by HoT and PoF. Bad example of drawbacks would be what you have done to Scrapper and to Chrono. The changes you made are not fun or exciting. Plenty of posts already explaining why so no need to reiterate. Admitting to mistakes is not a weakness but rather a sign of growth and would do wonders towards restoring engaging gameplay and trust among the playerbase.