Carighan.6758

Without meaning ill... that doesn't look good as a set IMO. It looks as if someone made a disco-version of the Power Rangers 2017 movie outfits. :joy:

That being said, now that autologin is no longer a thing, can we have the old login screen back? :heart: Pwetty pwease? :heart: For those who don't know it, this was the old screen: Importantly, it had a chroma hash for your password, a really neat thing to double-check whether you typed it correctly before hitting enter.

Yeah but did you expect anything else? Guild Wars 2 is, by and large, old by now. Yeah there are juggernauts of near-endless life such as WoW, but in the grand scheme of MMOs it's nearing the EOL where the playerbase shrinks considerably and the game is put on minimal-team life support to keep the remaining players happy with small tidbits. Meaning, the fact ANet has someone working on this at all probably means this is as much explorative work for whatever comes next - say, a Guild Wars 3 - as it is an actual update to GW2.

The things I want are mostly large underlying changes: Remove item stats flat out. No replacements. Skills simply do what is said in the tooltip, and that gets balanced. We'd still have oodles of character customization via traits / skills / weapons / runes / sigils.Speaking of runes, with the stats removed collapse the number of runes significantly, going for actually interesting bonuses. Make some class-exclusive to facilitate stronger interactions.Change underwater breathers to use a special type of rune which - as usual - breaks your 6-set bonus for a new, underwater centric, effect.Reduce elite spec power to the overall power of the main specs. Make them actual sidegrades.Collapse many traits, no more unneeded choices just to power up the same thing with 6 traits.

Implement a user-customizable spell fx show/hide filter This would allow us to clean up the often very confusing combat. Not upscaling effects on large enemies has helped a lot already, but the biggest hurdle - the mess of colors and circles and areas whenever 2+ players are firing off their skills - remains. Such a set of options should ideally offer the following options: Show: effects are shown in fullHide: effects are not shown at all! Area-circles still show up.Simplify: effects are reduced to vital components, compare the simplified Chronomancer clocks versus their full designsBlend: effects are made 80% see-through. They show their full effects but in virtually invisible so that even if a lot are stacked it's not overbearing.Further, these options are offered for the following sources of spell effects, leading to a set of dropdowns: MyselfPartySquadPlayer AlliesPlayer EnemiesPowerful Enemies (bosses, legendaries, champions)Everything elseA modding API There are a plenthora of requests related to UI and simple interface changes which get thrown around a lot. On top of more complicated ones like build templates. On the other hand we have mods such as arcdps already providing optional build templates but they feel very "hacky". I would say the best way to go about this would be to once make the big effort of creating a robust in-game API for mods to latch onto, and control what they can or cannot do. Keep it to cosmetic and non-combat changes. Hide parts of the UI, re-do parts of the UI whole, add signifiers which make certain situations easier to notice (this also helps vision-impaired players to navigate the mess of colors combat can often be!), such stuff. The old launcher with the pretty dragon and the chroma hash! Pweaaaaasseeeeeee?

No it's because they're wells. See, what the Necros use isn't reaaaally a well. Obviously *theirs work underwater, because duh!

I sincerely want an underwater expansion full of water-only zones. I :heart: the way GW2 does underwater, by far the best implementation of any MMORPG I've played. So I'd be stoked for exploring that as a big deal. Plus the massively reduced design space of underwater weapons and skills could seriously help the balancing effort.

For diving in the cold waters of the Shiverpeaks!

That is, I think, a much much bigger issue in recent fights, especially story bossfights. The "what the?"-element of not understanding what is even happening. For a game which - uniquely! - displays text under enemies describing key elements of them, and for a game priding itself on CC-relevance for bosses in PvE and on its elements of counterplay, story bosses in particular are left unexplained to a trial&error approach. And I mean, sure, it's unlikely I'll be here more than 2-3 times tops, if even that. I get it, not worth the developer time. But then I'd prefer if they just transplant and mix existing game elements and also transplant and combine the descriptors from the outside mobs. Or, even better, have earlier situations where abilities get "demonstrated", the Vale Guardian is a perfect example of this other than the color-confusion.

It's a book from 1868, I think we're okay discussing it in public by now. :tongue: Not as bad as Joko, who is also a joke (hur hur) of a character, or - and this is a far bigger problem IMO - my own character. Now, you may wonder, "Why would someone mind their character being a central plot device?!", but I don't mean that I am a part of the story, I mean that I am the part of the story. Which is alright, up to the point where I have to - whether I want to or not - accept that there's a million+ like me. I group with some of those and do the instances together! :scream:

Important to note though is that Diablo is a 1-few single- or multiplayer game. Not a 50++ MMORPG. In something like GW2, I expect the developers to have put significant thought into how screen effects work in large groups of players. Becaue well, massively multiplayer.

The worst part is, someone suggested I try FF14 for an example on how this could be done better. I started it, and didn't understand what the point was, even my simplest spell effects were garish as hell. But (take not ANet!), it has options! I can seperately set spell effects to full, reduced or none for me, my party, friendlies and enemies. I can see things during combat!!! Modern technology is fascinating!

No no, you see, this is a huuuuge technical challenge. Totally can't be done! :joy:

Honestly for me, hyped as I was, the class just feels... disjointed? There's many elements which I feel would individually be enough for a classes' "thing", if fully developed. Instead a ton of half-developed ideas like kits to swap weapon skills, toolbelt skills as secondary effects for non-weapon skills, autonomous pets, throwing out potions as a way of supporting, laser weaponry... they're all thrown in there. But nothing feels thoroughly designed. And the class just becomes annoying to play in the end :(

I agree. I'd scrap item stats, but keep sigils/runes. I would maybe consider splitting sigisl into mainhand and offhand sigil and only allowing one of each type on 2H, but not sure on that. In that case, the mainhand could always be one which functionally makes you stronger ("You deal 5% more damage" / "You proc an area heal" / etc), while the offhand could be something which only indirectly gives your attacks more use ("Your AoE skills have a 15 units larger radius" / "when your heals heal only other targets, you also heal yourself for X" / such stuff).Runes are interesting as a choose-your-own-setbonus, though I'm not sure keeping them as 1-6 sets is sensible if they only have stats before the 6-piece. Since stats are being removed, it should all be something like: Rune of the MirageYour damaging ambush attacks summon clones after the attack connects.1 or 2 runes: 1 clone3, 4 or 5 runes: 2 clones6 runes: 3 clonesYes, there are runes which don't improve anything, but that's a reality once stats are removed, I could however mix&match this. I would however massively curb the amount of runes and sigils available, with the removal of stats 90% or so lost their reason to exist in any case. Make it an effective choice between 3-4 runes and 3-4 sigils for each class, that amount can realistically be balanced, too! The other big area I'd love a removal of options from is traitlines. Or well, not the lines, but the individual traits. My ideal design would be this: For each class, identify 5 "aspects" of the class. For example for Mesmer it'd be conditions, interrupts, avoidance, reflection and boons.For each aspect, 1 traitline exists to enhance this aspect. Within the traitline the layout is non-standardized. But, most are entirely passive, giving a collection of passive benefits which directly enhance the aspect of the traitline and that's it. Some miiight offer a choice, like the Daredevil line giving you a 1-out-of-3 choice for your dodge type. But it'd be the only thing you choose.You then pick which 3 out of the 5 class aspects your character should focus on. This in turn defines your build, instead of needing to list all picks, you say "Mesmer, Domination/Illusion/Inspiration".Elite specs bring in a whole new aspect, so naturally they're the traitline which also enhanced that aspect. These will again have few if any choices, but will have slightly more passive effets, and in fact in the traitline-UI list the skills they add as skill buttons for convenience. Example Mesmer again, Chronomancer is the "time-dilation"-aspect of the class, Mirage would be "burst".

It's a core design flaw. In PvP it always feels "cheap" if a Thief gets you, due to the excessive target-lock-breaking and the mobility.In PvE, the class hence suffers from being a "PvP class". The underlying basic design idea back at launch was cool, focus on stolen skills and a ton of versatility. They just never followed through with actual class-design.

Hrm... considering this... you might be right. Post-HoT player power exploded, so that nowadays even open world zones need to throw multiple veterans at us to even make us care enough to use any skills. An overall nerf to player power might be better than a buff to specific other elements.

Come to think of it, would it be so bad if as a class special element, Revenants would not have gear stats? We could equip whatever, the stats are ignored (only runes matter). Stats would be entirely attached to Legends, and we'd be balanced for that amount of stats, so basically we have Zerker in Shiro, Viper in Mallyx, etc? Plus, it'd be a unique perk: You don't need to get pricey gear, you always have the correct one anyhow.

Difficult to say what I'd do. Because, sadly, I feel the game has bigger issues than even the design of an entire class. Issues which I'd like to see resolved first: The overall problem of having 15000 knobs where I can customize my character, yet 99,9% of combinations make no sense for any given context. If the game wants to be an optimization puzzle, then they ought to look at something like SpaceChem or Factorio as to how these are best done. However, I feel this is instead meant to be complexity for the sake of showing off, "Look how many things you can customize". What it however results in is an endless amount of ideas going to waste on underpowered traits / skills / items / sigils / runes, ideas that if merged, boiled down and optimized could give each class a strong identity. If only for - an important aspect - a lack of options in some areas.Combat is such a mess of graphics and effects that trying to do any meaningfully complex combat implementation beyond 2 participants is a wasted effort. Until this is resolved, I think I'd prefer a WoW-like "stats determine the outcome"-game, simply because what GW2 tried to do isn't what the graphics designers want. Clearly.WvW as a whole is a mess because somewhere between short TTLs, small maps and characters ridiculously overloaded with skills, items and options, the devs lost what made DAoC's RvR so good. Nevermind the fact that we don't have a Darkness Falls, so population balance will always be a problem. Even with the announced alliance-change. Elite specs as a whole are an undercooked concept. To use words which won't get me infracted. Some had elements where you give something up for what you gain. Most are flat upgrades. On the whole, HoT elite specs trivialized all previous PvE and broke the TTL balance in PvP/WvW, which also exaggerates the visibility/fx issues. Nevermind what PoF specs then did.Now, assuming all that gets resolved, I would rip out ~75% of our utility/healing/elite skills. On the whole I'd retool core Mesmer into a heavily CC and offensive support centric build which debuffs enemies to take more damage, hurt themselves, restrict their ability to punish my team mates and take action at all. In return, I have neither offense (I cannot kill my enemy) nor defense (if alone, I'm a support, I'm a free kill). In a group I become a serious threat even though I don't actively muck with combat, because I cost the enemy so much time either via attacking me, or suffering through all my CC and debuffs.Clones still exist, shatter is a goner, F-skills create or swap with clones including an auto-fire skill which on a short CD swaps you with a clone if you hit 0 health. In return, the class has virtually 0 defensive ability, as said above. Find the real Mesmer or blast him with AEs and if team mates cannot help them they're an easy kill. I would then retool the Chronomancer into a variant which sheds the CC (entirely!) and replaces it with defensive support via buffs. So it's both a debuffer and a buffer, but it loses the ability to prevent action entirely, in all forms. It's a heavy power tilt, the enemy is weaker and we are stronger, but if someone wants to do something a core Mesmer can stop them, a Chrono cannot.Their core mechanic would be a time-dilation aura around themselves which is always active, giving a "mini quickness" (not stacking) to allies and "mini slow" (not stacking) to enemies. Mirage I'd scrap in its current state. Replacement unclear but I would not salvage a single mechanic. All gone. Including the theme, but to be fair there isn't one.

Frankly, kit-swapping is annoying as a game-mechanic. It's basically conceding that your limited 10-slot hot bar doesn't work, but instead of actually fixing it by giving your players 5-10 extra slots, you make them swap between multiple sets of them without showing them the off-cooldowns. This is... bearable... for a single weapon. Add a bunch of kits to a class which already has more slots via toolbelt, and I keep wondering why I have 50 weak skills instead of 10 strong ones if the game is designed around a 10-slot hot bar. Engineer could be a great class. In another game.

Nevermind the fact that WoW actually does balance patches. Frequently enough so they deserve a category name. As in, balance might actually shift/move over time. An absolutely crazy concept after 5+ years of GW2, where "glacial pace" is putting it mildly.

Frankly, I can't think of a redesign of the Elementalist which would be all of: EngagingFun (personally, for me)Mechanically soundDone in the current specialization systemThe latter is the important part: The current spec/gear/sigil/rune/trait system is bogus. IMO. It prevents actual multi-role / role-swapping classes because if nothing else, your gear is forcing you into a static setup, you can't swap that mid-combat. But, if I had free reign, and assuming someone removed stats from gear (which would be one of the biggest boons possible for GW2's combat system, IMO), I'd make the Elementalist the pseudo-equivalent of bard classes from many other RPGs: a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. However, and this is important, there needs to be a clear distinction from how the Revenant with their legends would work. Revenants pick two roles, are really good in both, but can only be in one at a time. Four roles they don't have access to.Elementists would fill all roles to a degree, always have access to everything quickly (just need to swap element), and are in fact encouraged to swap around frequently. They don't "play the tank for a while" the way Revs would, who swap to Jalis to tank, Eles off-tank while still doing all their other stuff. They're just never the best at anything, other than, well, doing everything at once.

Not only that, the game needs some underlying changes to make this work. But I agree, it could work. One big problem though is that unlike many other MMORPGs, the gear-stats we get aren't locked based on our profession. A jack-of-all-trades would ideally get something like Celestial and be balanced around that. Can't have this in GW2, if we were balanced to work in all Legends based on Celestial, we'd be massively OP if we say, take Viper and run around only as a DPS setup. On the other hand, this means if we're balanced based on gear picked for a specific role, we're rubbish at all other roles. I could see this work if each legend has incredibly powerful passive effects and stat-bonuses attached just to being in the legend, and in turn our base power is correspondingly weaker. Granted, in effect that's just a very indirect way of making our gear matter quite a lot less to our final balance, but hey, it'd work. Posted about this before, too. But I can't see ANet make it happen, I feel for as much as the revenant is clearly intended as a jack-of-all-trades char, they're "scared" of implementing it like that, too.

This so much. On the other hand, it'd be a first for this game. That's one big issue, marketing for new expansions, balancing, system changes, QoL... little is ever communicated beforehand. Ever. It's as if even the devs don't know what features and changes they may or may not have ready tomorrow. Just look how many crucial changes are missing from every set of patch notes...

Unlike quite a few in this thread I think many of the underlying concepts are quite valid for a class. I'd keep most of them. That being said, I'd make massive reworks to how traits/scaling works to enable actual non-hybrid-but-role-switchin play, something clearly indicated by the current setup of invoking these legends, but never implemented well. Passive bonuses of invoked legendFirst of all, each legend needs to enable you to fulfill its primary role even if you lack the gear for it. To that end, they should all give massive buffs to you whenever they are enabled. These are very distinctly not obtained through some trait, but part of the base legend. Examples: Ventari gives you 600 healing power and 300 Concentration and your your autoattacks produce the healing AE pulse of the Ventari tablet around you with a PPM (procs-per-minute) of 30 or so.Shiro grants 300 Power, Precision and Ferocity and your non-autoattack weapon skills cause bonus power damage to targets affected by damaging conditions from you.Mallyx grants 300 condition damage, Precision and Expertise and causes all your attacks to inflict Bleeding of varying duration based on their cooldown.Kalla gives 300 condition damage, expertise and power and allies taking damage around you further give you +allstats, stacking, for a medium duration.And so on. The idea being that even if I am a power DPS Revenant, should I switch to Ventari I'm an "okay" healer. Likewise if I go Mallyx I'm an "alright" condition damage dealer. To balance this, overall base scaling of Revenant has to be lower than other specs, though IMO I'd do this via traits: Revenant would not have minor traits, flat out. As so much power is passively baked into the legends, there's no need to bake passive power into the traitlines. Energy income and expenseTo go with the above change, I'd use energy more as a "role commitment" mechanic, to curb the flexibility the inherently strong legends offer. So it'd work like this: Weapon skills no longer cost Energy.Utility skills have very low CDs, if any. It's all just energy cost, always.Energy regen starts at +0 when you enter a legend, then every 3s, increases by 1. So you need to stay 15s in a legend to get full regen.However in turn, you enter a legend at full power, able to go wild for the first few skills.Obviously this change requires a do-over of all energy costs and CDs.