Lizardguard.2860

A bit worried about only touching the outliers, and not going over the relics as a whole. If akeem will remain untouched, it would be very sad. Several relics are virtually useless. Regarding pvp, i too hope for some nerfs for that power soulbeast build. Maybe for fireworks relic as a whole, as well, tbh. Fully agree with people here that a new official view of where anet wants to be with builds as a whole would be nice. 50k dps invalidates a lot of content out there. Not just in pve either (but mostly there), but also in pvp, where a grand total of 2 support builds exist? There are lots of things to fix/improve upon, and not a lot of time, before new weapons will shake up and worsen the playing field even more.

Dear Arenanet, dear @Rubi Bayer.8493, Lately, the content added to the game has not always been as satisfying as it used to be, and judging by the comments and reactions in some topics, I'm not the only one that feels this way. But that is not to say there are not amazing tidbits in each update. However... What kept me wondering for a while now is: Why are there no surveys or evaluations of your content? It is so easy these days to reach out to players for informations. And while I'm sure you guys have your systems and stats to gather data, it baffles me to no end why you never actually go and ask your players about your content. Just send an in game mail with a link to a survey. Doing so would increase your understanding of your playerbase (especially those not on twitter or the forums), the issues you're facing, as well as give you new ideas on how to fix them. Additionally, it is really easy for you to reach out to the right players about certian topics. With the achievement system in place, you can easily filter players to your hearts content. Need the opinion of PvE Masters? Well, send a survey request to the accounts who killed ht cm. Need the opinion of diehard wvw veterans? Send the survey to wvw gods. Of course, you can use other stats you already have as well. Need the state of your pvp balancing? Why not send a survey to 250 randomly selected accounts across the leaderboard (those accounts that have the minimum number of games to be listed, not the top 250) and ask them their opinion? Need the opinion on the latest story? Send it to a randomly selected portion of those who completed it. On another front, it would also help with your long lasting issues with communication with your players. The issue is not only you telling us information, many players also do not feel heard, and having a way to give their opinion on something that is known to reach the devs, if only in stats, alleviates a lot of these feelings. Heck, even meowing gacha games do that. So why are there none? - Do you think it would not be worth the effort? I personally think you'd be surprised how much some people would like to give their opinion. Even more so if you give rewards for a completed survey, say 20 gems and one of your precious bag in a bag in a bag. That could also work in promoting your gem store. Its literally a win win. - Do you think too many surveys would push people away? Just limit the amount of survey requests per account to once every 2 or 3 months and noone will bat an eye. After all, you send a mail per character on new story steps for some reason and ignoring one mail is the same effort as ignoring another. - Are you afraid of the data? I hope not, but if you are, it is a lot better to know where exactly you messed up, instead of just hoping to weather the storm. Would love to hear back on this, even though I don't expect an answer. Lizard

Open World Legendary Armor: Sure. The Skins look good, imo. Probably won't get them myself, as I dislike grind and prefer to run my raids for fun. But its not a negative. Easier Skyscale: Sure. Plenty of people suffer for the skyscale. Its a good change and might help newer players. Just make sure its still something people work towards. Its one of the most rewarding things in the game to unlock after all. More Weapon Choices for All: Madness. Absolute madness. Anet doesn't manage to balance existing stuff. Just look at the current mess. It would be a reasonable change, if the weapons would be on a somewhat level playing field, but as is, they differ vaastly in effectiveness. Partly, because it was attempted to balance the weapons specs through those weapons. The idea in general is fine, but it will not work as it is right now, and I fear it will hurt the game. Runes and Relics: Unnecessary. Runes work as they are right now. Focus on the broken kitten, instead of introducing more broken stuff. Please.

HoT, without a doubt. I like the desert maps, but they are not even close to the jungle maps. I like mounts, but they invalidate soooo much of what came before (and sometimes, after). The mastery system that came with HoT is good to this day. Raids still win over Strikes, and always will win, because they are just vastly superior in about every category (lore, map design, encounter design, buggyness, replayability and so on and so forth). Its honestly just an unfair comparison, in my opinion.

Just gonna add my voice to the dissatisfied people, even though i doubt anyone at anet reads up to here, anyway. The changes are weird when you hear it the first time, and then become worse and worse the longer you think about it. Removing the need to use certain skills to apply boons is a ridiculous idea. Thats just how the game works. What you're doing is shuffling around the skills we have to spam. And as it is, that just messes with the identities of the classes. Also, spamming skills can be fun, just look at the old axe berserker. Dumbing everything down is not the way to go, again. Pls take a step back and think about these changes a bit more, before applying them.

These are some personal thoughts when reading through your notes. As other have pointed out, I like the increased communication. I just don't like the direction, the balance is headed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I agree with the removal of unique precision buffs. I disagree with putting some of the resulting precision in traits. It cuts down on reasonable options in that build tree. I also disagree with the removal of the squad wide buffs. If precision is a problem, make it a 10 man power or ferocity buff. I agree with more sources for a basic boon like fury. I disagree with a trait that just autogenerates fury on 5 people. I agree with more 'random' might uptime from classes. I disagree with dps builds upkeeping 25 might on their own or spread between two of them. I disagree with whatever the heck you did with banners. I... just disagree with the changes to the fractal potion. This only becomes relevant for people who go for the higher tier fractals anyway, and at that point, people understand what is happening. Its even worse that the 'offensive' potion is now giving you a defensive stat. To the above: I agree with more random access of vitality in the game to help out some squishier classes like ele. I disagree with it being on an offensive buff potion. I also disagree with the 'add vitality to stuff' mentality within fractals. I disagree with turning weaver away from their intended glass cannon nature. it doesn't need might and fury application, it needs more damage. make it worth taking a selfish build. (like virt right now) The barrier share is a cool and welcome idea, but its not what weaver needs for organized play. I disagree with catalyst beginning to define meta. It might have defined some speed running compositions, but your average joe maybe saw an underperforming quickness catalyst here and there. It might have needed a nerf. But it did not need a delete. I agree with removing too long aftercasts to cull stow weapon abuses. I agree with some of the mechanist polishes. I disagree with its overall dps for autoattacking. Seriously, this class did not need buffs. It still needs nerfs. Same with Guardian. It did not need buffs. Buff other classes for a change. I don't know enough about the mesmer changes to comment on them. Same for Necro. I'm a druid main, but I don't know enough about these changes to comment on them. I dislike untamed, considering its 'thing' only works on one weapon set instead of all weapons. I didn't really play ranger much since the patch, sadly, as both druid and slb just feel sad to me atm. (and yes, i know slb numbers don't look *that* bad rn) Don't know enough about rev. (Alac removal was questionable) From what i heard, thief in wvw got rather worse to deal with than better. But I might be wrong there. I disagree that warrior doesn't have many utilities to increase damage output. The utilities were called banners. And you butchered them. Imagine running around WITH 0 SKILLS. Seriously. Let me say that again, because i think its one of the main sources of disdain for the patch. The banners as they are now are unwieldy, unsightly and laughable. I hope you're revisiting them asap. Also, 5% crit chance in arms? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for reading :)

Ah, sry for the double post but... I just wanted to voice once more that I'm not a fan of neither the removal of 10 man benefits (both spirits and banners gave those classes something unique that kept them viable even if subpar in damage) nor the removal of very profession specific buffs like spotter/pinpoint and so on... Breaking everything down to just damage... it won't benfit the game. I would have much preferred to get more of those buffs. Give em to each class. Make them more unique. Make these things viable in other gamemodes too. Well. I guess that opportunity is gone now. Bit of a shame, imo.

Yes, I appreciate the effort. I understand that stuff in development takes a long time. But even agreeing with an overall nerf in pve (the numbers were frankly getting ridiculous), the recent big patch still leaves several things very broken. Rangers are sad, warriors are sad (and there are possibilities for viable builds on untamed and bladesworn), eles... eh. Any eles still here? Ah ye, crying over there. The idea on alac + quick on chrono is cool, but the execution was meh. Heck, even the state of holo compared to mechanist is just sad. In short order, mechanist got best in slot for heal, dps and alacdps. Thats not good. And all of that is not even mentioning wvw and pvp. We'll be reeling for a while from this hit.

Virtuoso looks fine to me. A bit sad to see no traits yet, as those are arguably even more important than its weapons or utility skills. Pistol necro could be really cool. Looking forward to its skills. I know fishing has its own dedicated Thread, but since this is gameplay here, i have to mention again that i´m not looking forward to fishing. Since people are talking about the leggy here (even though its kinda offtopic, but there has not been a dedicated thread for that, i believe?) I´m as disappointed as most of you guys. If all the weapons will have the same footfall, you will see these tracks EVERYWHERE. And hey, i like Aurene. She´s pretty, she´s powerful and so on... But one or two leggies would have been more than fine. This... just, nah. I liked some of the sneakpeaks at terrain. Looked like you had lots of ways to make use of glider and mounts. Really hope they continue to integrate past masteries like jumping shrooms and updrafts where they fit. Which brings me to the last part: Masteries. I´m a bit sad that this xpac doesn´t seem to have such a clear direction in masteries as the last two had. (that said, HoT wasn´t that clear either, but still, i feel it was clearer than what we have so far) Turtles, boats and fishing all seem to be so independent from each other. Anyway, thx for the stream. Had to edit it with the following (i forgot those parts): Challenge Mode Strikes. kitten, yes. I hope they´re not too easy, but I´m defenitely looking forward to those. Giving Elites more abilites over veterans: Very good. As with everything, gotta see if you actually notice the difference, but the concept is very very good imo. Hopefully you can add this to some old opponents as well.

That would certainly be interesting and welcome. With anets track record of dead gamemodes, I´ll believe it when i see it tho 😄 I always kinda liked the idea of stronghold, personally.

I can´t say much about its usability yet. 2 Player mount can be a fun gimmick depending on what the second player can actually do from the top of the tortoise. However, you completely sold me on the animation of the thing. The walking of this thing looked AMAZING. It remains to be seen if its gonna be something actually useful.

I´m not sure why everyone seems to be excited about this tbh. I might be as wrong as i was with mounts, sure. But fishing in and off itself... I dunno, its standing somewhere, waiting for a mouse click to happen. And when you have one fish, you probably gonna need like 1000 of them. Fun? I just cannot even imagine this to be fun. Maybe if you can spawn some bosses this way, it could become fun but with the ability to just fight them underwater.... Feels unfitting. Happy to be proven wrong, but defenitly not excited for this particular feature.

Absolutely fascinating read. We´ve just had this somewhat broad topic in software architecture class as well. This absolutely made my day, and I´m so happy about Anet opening up more. Thank you for this!

Hey there, If you want to, you can add me ingame. I should be around tomorrow towards the evening and maybe i can help you out with some of your problems. Unrelated: Wiki is indeed a valuable source for this game, and while it sucks to have to look at it now and then, its also unrealistic to expect everything to be displayed at a glance. Try using the chat command /wiki "Whatever you want to look for" ingame, maybe this will help you already. For the Mastery points, asking in map chat for help often does the trick, if you cannot handle some bosses on your own. Maybe checking out some dedicated solo PvE builds might help as well. Most jumping puzzles are objectively easy, just a few are either long/hard, so if you have a hard time with one, just move on to the next, or find a freindly mesmer who can help! Regarding Fractals: This might be an unpopular opinion, but don´t worry too much about fractals. If you wanna get into high end pve, i´d rather go to strikes and raids before going to fractals. both are more fun and easier to gear for imo. You can drop ascended stuff or currency to get ascended stuff there, without needing ascended equipment.

I agree with a relocation of pinpoint distribution though. Then again, i don´t have a lot of knowledge when it comes to engis and their traitlines. only looked at it a few times now in preperation for playing heal engi.

I don´t see why everyone is having issues with the quickness duration on scrapper. If you´re running wells and a bit of boon duration, you have no trouble upkeeping quickness. Remember that the healwell gives superspeed on cast as well (if you wanna run it, its not even necessary, you could run the med kit and still upkeep quickness...) and some toolbelts give superspeed too. As long as you keep spamming stuff, you should have no issue there. Anyway, i guess we´ll see that soon enough. My Scrapper is so ready for raids ^^

I agree with this. You could just make it like the new engi trait, give tempest the ability to apply alac with every application of an aura, like 1 or 2 seconds each. Would be even better if you could combine it with rr alacs, aka, make it 10 man, but not 100% uptime.

First of all, a big THANK YOU to listen to some feedback. It really feels good to have concerns adressed and in such timely manner as well. All i can add is what others have already written and suggested, some of which is easy to change, some of which you can keep in mind for the next balance patch: 1. Soulcleave nerf feels a bit heavy, it probably kills of rev heal in raids. Maybe try 0.75 or 0.5 icd. (it used to be 0.25, and the nerf was good, don´t get me wrong). 2. Banner warrior feels very awkward with such low amounts of Precision. Dps Warri feels awkward in general. Some people suggested moving the banner trait into tactics, since this would make thematically sense as well as split up the build paths of banner and Dps Warri. No way ever is banner Warri taking tactics over discipline right now. Therefore BS and DPS Warri still play much the same and both are sad. 3. Power Soulbeasts feel bad. Maybe consider nerfing sustained damage instead of the class defining burst. Also the cooldown increase of OWP hurts not only power, but the already rather weak condi slb as well in addition to screwing the previously pretty smooth rotation. Nerfing the on-hit damage of dagger and maybe sword in addition to only a light touch on sic em (like down to 35% maybe) would probably have led to a more positive response from the community in that regard. 4. Heal Eles feel bad, since heal scrappers have gotten quickness (which was a really good change for PvE at least), and mirages have gotten alacrity (?), while the Eles get nothing. Many agree that Heal Eles would have deserved the Alac more. 5. Revenants Legend Mallyx Utility skills needs to be looked at with the resistance changes. A skill that literally kills you whenever it should be the most effective is a huge feels bad. As an additional remark, i feel like Elementalist as a whole could actually benefit from a bit more love from the balance team. But once again, thanks for the update from you guys. It is really appreciated. Lizard

Overall very enjoyable.I have to admit i was doubtful about the mounts. But hey, they are awesome.I haven´t yet tried most of the specializations, but the thief one feels weak (maybe i just suck) and the ranger one kinda strong.I know most people didn´t like Tangled depths, but I would have liked another map like that. Other than that, the maps are great, only finished two of them so far though, there´s just so much to do. EDIT: I just remembered one more thing: The Private instances should be more lenient with the area restrictions. Jumping in the wrong direction with the mount can lead to an instant kick.