voltaicbore.8012

^ This. As someone who is often (unwillingly) in the role of coordinating social/work-related activities, the absolute last thing I want to do is wait around for a group to fill, a filled group to actually show up, an everyone-showed-up group to actually be ready to participate in the roles they said they were going to fill, and a properly role-filled group to either learn mechanics or learn to push phase. In a difficult single player game, only (a version of) the last bullet point matters; once you learn the fight, you're solid. For challenging tasks in multiplayer games, not only do enough people need to actually learn the fight, you have to wait around for them to show up and be ready to play. There's a saying in Korean thet comes to mind - you don't avoid stepping on dog poop because you're afraid of it, you avoid it because it's gross. Not all of us avoid the harder content because it's intimidating; we avoid it because dealing with groups of players not on the same page is a gross hassle and waste of time. Several streamers (including Teapot) correctly broadcast the reality that a lot of the hardest fights in the game are mechanically doable by not-the-greatest players. Too bad that doesn't prevent just a few such "doable" fights from taking hours to complete, thanks to the inherent crappiness of moving a group of human beings through any coordinated activity.

I think Teapot has been a net positive to the game while he's been here, but I also don't think his leaving (either temporarily or permanently) will really change much. I stopped following him a while back because I couldn't take his relentless optimism anymore, when I myself saw a lot of reasons to be deeply unhappy with the direction of the game. I still watch shorter clips of his stuff from time to time, to keep up with news and developments. I will say this though - he's been remarkably consistent about staying positive for the game. Some detractors might call him too shill-ish, but frankly I think someone being a bit too far on the optimistic end is better than basically having a bunch of people post doomer videos that echo the doomer threads on here/reddit.

You know what, I respect that. Maybe even just a few months ago I might not have felt the same way. I just feel sad that there's a good chance you'll be waiting a long time to get the golem back. I never truly depended on it, but like a few other people mentioned, I had some golemancy-themed asura characters, and the big golem buddy was a big part of why I enjoyed those characters. If I actually needed the golem for combat, I'd basically be unable to use those characters right now. I hope you get your wish sooner rather than later.

I think this is where you're losing people - what a lot of folks are trying to say is that the extent of the adaptation you need to make your thief able to clear story missions is nowhere near as onerous as walking everywhere you once drove your car. As others have (civilly) noted, we're really not sure when these summons are coming back (if at all), so adapting on your character seems wiser than expecting Anet to give something back. That being said, I agree that the fact that we need to make this adaptation at all is a problem. Anet wanted to separate the 6th rune bonus from the 6pc rune sets - fine. What they should have been prepared to do is, you know, actually make the relic system give back the 6th rune bonus. Instead, Anet pulled another Anet and decided to "improve" the system with a bunch of relics nobody really has much use for, and just added a handful that everyone needs to use to make up for lost performance. While SotO has largely exceeded my expectations, I am still very perturbed by the relic system. I still believe it is a terrible precedent for Anet to touch such a core system, to just straight up take away a key piece of gameplay/progress, then force players to grind a half-assed version of that progress back. Yes, they promise they'll be adding more relics back, but even if every single one comes back, I think it's still stupid that they were removed in the first place. Yes, it's true that Anet owns the game and gets to determine how the game works, and we just have to live with it (or quit). Expectations are a real thing though, and just because you have the right to alter your product doesn't mean it's actually a wise decision that your customers have to accept. There's a line somewhere, and if you cross it, you start losing people. The relic system, in my opinion, represents a very large step closer to that line. I'd prefer that they never consider a similar tinkering ever again.

I just got this bug as well, and I'm fully patched.

I agree that many people are too quick to assume that [current bad thing] is going to negatively impact sales on the next xpac, but at the same time that doesn't mean you can assume it won't happen this time, either. After Champions, we were promised an end to the "expansion-like" shenanigans and a return to the more familiar Big Ol 'Expansion format - in addition to returning to Cantha. There were a lot of reasons for people who didn't like Champions to look forward to EoD being different. SotO, on the other hand, is supposedly the first in Anet's new "we're going to do mini-expansions like this from now on" model. Chances are, if you don't like the way SotO does things, you're probably not going to like what you hear about the next mini-xpac either. So while Champions >>> EoD = [bad thing] >>> [hopefully better thing], SotO >>> next mini xpac = [same thing] >>> [same thing]

I share your confusion. Unless I missed it, OP hasn't established any reason why anyone would be more 'forced' into spvp dailies in SotO than they already are now. If anything the new system allows for the complete exclusion of spvp dailies from your own personal list, while not losing any progress relative to someone who does keep spvp in their list. This seems like a giant nothingburger.

I agree the spec should be toned down, but I wouldn't go so far as to accuse spvp of driving people away from the game. If spvp is the sole reason you play this game... probably better off that you leave asap. For everyone else, just never going back into spvp and living only in pve-land seems to work just fine. As for attracting the worst kind of player, that makes logical sense, but you have to remember this is GW2 spvp. The worst examples of humanity were already here. The low effort busted specs probably aren't moving the needle on that one.

I found this to be the key. I eventually ran into a number of people who ran enough defenses (and were good enough at timing them) that they could survive this builds spikes and run off. That usually meant giving up the side node to me, but if they could figure out a reset pattern, they could poke me lightly until they got reinforcements to push me out of the area. But as a +1, pretty much a guaranteed down. Then again +1s very often end like that, so not sure that alone says anything special about this fotm build.

This sword/warhorn soulbeast was arguably worse prior to the OWP nerfs that happened a long time ago. If you landed a buffed wh 4, there were a LOT of extra hits. The drawbacks during those times was that sword auto was the only damaging part of that weapon, and I believe warhorn 5 still didn't apply any kind of unblockable at the time. The procedure was ranged poke, then wep swap if you have might-on-swap sigil let smokescale run in first, and channel a smoke assault wh 5 merge (taking in all the might on the smokescale as well) OWP wh 4 merged smoke assault merged takedown (cc) worldly impact jump up and down in toxic manner on dead body (optional). I don't know different the current FOTM "oneshot" soulbeast combo is, but the above procedure is far from "press 2 buttons to win." Steps 3-5 have to happen more or less simultaneously, and you had to be fairly careful not to blow the merged cc on anyone with the standard 6ish stacks of stab on them. All of course lacking the unblockable wh 5 has enjoyed for some time now. Ranger in general kind of needs to snowball you to win, so that means they have to land quite a bit to keep the multipliers (like twice as vicious) to finish the job. I guess the current problem consists mostly of unblockable/lower cd/harder hitting wh 4 and the new sword 2 & 3 hitting as hard as they do? If so, I agree this overtuned FOTM can be put in its place purely with number tweaks. Just remember that a sw/wh ranger is pretty much all offense. If they're running GS on swap for all the utility that sw/wh lacks, that means they are seriously lacking in the ranged department (that means 16s cd wh 4 is their only way to touch you at range). You might die the first few times, but you should be able to find counterplay windows. I quit ranked a loooong time ago though, so I could be totally wrong. EDIT: I just tried a version of this in the lobby, and it does seem quite powerful. I don't recall getting 25 might so easily back in the day, but that could just be me pulling off the listed procedure sloppily. Either way, it was so easy to stack 25 might and down a practice npc. I'll see how it runs in a match, but I suspect I'll have to be careful about almost any 1v1 where the target knows I'm coming. EDIT 2: I ran this in a few unranked matches, and while I didn't get damage leader much of the time, I was usually able to pull off top heal, one of offense/defense, and top kills with ease... on zerker amulet. Part of this could be that I'm picking targets and avoiding most 1v1s when not stealthed - I'm letting another fight play out for a couple seconds, and once I feel I have a window between enemy CDs, I do the mightstack combo, wh 5 + 4, and sword 2 + 3. Usually ends in a dead target. Then again, this is unranked, and people were noticeably bad. I feel like I got away with things I could never do in p1. Not sure I care enough to try in ranked. Either way, there does seem to be a very easy 25 might stack and decent burst to exploit panic dodges/burning of defensive cds. Could probably use a numbers shave on sword 2 + 3. Still make them hit harder than the old versions, but just not quite this hard.

Yeah I'm not happy about the idea myself, but I'm already assuming those stupid things will be in there. Maybe not in the solo tier, but it would be a very pleasant surprise for them not to pop up on higher tiers.

I've said this same thing elsewhere, but I'd like to reiterate my agreement with it here. If something as recent and high-tier as legendary runes was just... forgotten about, this suggests at worst rank incompetence, and at best a studio distracted by other matters. While I have no solid evidence (other than Anet hiring for a UE5 position) that side projects are firing up again, I just can't shake the feeling that we're all going to have to re-live that period of Anet failing at both side projects and managing GW2 properly. I still haven't made my peace with Anet taking away a core element of builds, and regurgitating it back on us as "new content," but I've just given up and accepted that this poorly-considered decision is just going to be another burden we bear for actually liking this game. I just hope it's the last time they feel safe doing it.

As much as I hate to admit it (because I know the frustration of trying to scratch a halfway decent spb with a condi soulbeast), this is pretty much the right call. Spam the few things that can interfere with the warr, or move. Of course this doesn't help when there's really no better place on the map for you to be, but at that point your team is probably going to lose anyways.

All with the added benefit (for Anet) that they've managed to lower the bar for release quality. I think the most positive thing I can say at this point is, I sincerely wish to be proven wrong.

Yeah I remembered those, but decided not to muddy the analogy any further. If I'm remembering right, the weapon swap in ESO also swaps the entire 6 slot skill bar, no? So it's basically fewer skill slots than GW2, and weapon skills compete with utility skills for the same 5 (swappable) slots. I stuck with the light/heavy attack breakdown as those are the "always on" skills when you have a weapon out. Either way, I feel like too much of the balance in GW2 has accounted for a weapon swap with CD, and I don't think the ESO analogy holds up in terms of combat/build style. It might all be a moot point anyways, since OP seemingly abandoned the idea a few posts back.

Well each weapon only really has two attacks in ESO, and it's entirely controlled by the left mouse button (with right mouse being block by default, if I'm remembering right). Even with zero swap CD you have fewer weapon abilities than you do on a single weapon set in GW2. It's a far, far cry from 10 skills requiring ~10 buttons (or less if you use some unholy shift/ctrl additions).

This is also a primary cause of concern for me. I think it's entirely possible that this idea will lose steam, the studio will have another "change of direction," and they'll hurriedly wrap things up in a grotesquely incomplete manner just to move on to the next Big Idea. Yes, this is pretty pessimistic, but frankly I think it's justified given the history of the game. I'm pretty sure that instead of a full price expansion that shows clear signs of rush/compromise/we-just-gave-up-to-laumch-it once every few years, we're going to just pay 5 bucks less to to see the same rush/compromise/we-just-gave-up delivered on a more regular basis. I love this game and feel fully stuck here by sunk cost, but I have zero faith in the management behind the product.

lol I even threw in an actual, honest-to-goodness response to Obtena, just to "give them a chance" to address the actual issue at hand, instead of the usual useless Obtena-brand pedantry. Oh well.

Not sure this qualifies as REALLY GOOD, but one such explanation I've seen (though not yet in this thread) is the all-or-nothing nature of reverting arc divider back to it's pre-2019 form of doing one massive strike. In competitive nodes, a single blind, or single stack of aegis is enough to negate the capstone attack of the power GS berserker spec, which to add insult to injury isn't just a single button press with CD but instead requires a much higher level of commitment from the warrior (resource buildup, berserker status window, and CD). On the flip side, defending against the last 2 hits of the 3-hit arc divider could be done with movement instead of burning a dodge. Rather than getting deleted in a small window (which was exactly the sort of thing the Feb 2020 omeganerf was designed to prevent), there's always a reasonable window for counterplay on the 3-hit arc divider. As much as I personally preferred the 3-hit arc divider in all 3 game modes, I can also see that perhaps Anet wants arc divider to be that all-or-nothing sort of move. I think that if Anet truly does think this, it's not the right call. In my opinion, bladesworn's dragon trigger already occupies the "extremely high commitment" niche for warrior... except they're unblockable, apply cc, and can ignore blind as well. As arc divider requires relatively less commitment, I think the 3-hit version of arc divider was a more intelligent tradeoff; a good proportion of the damage can be counterplayed, but a persistent berserker still has a chance of at least pushing some of the remaining damage through. The only circumstance I think the one-hit arc divider feels good is in pve, where blind and aegis are far less of a threat. If Anet wants to make arc divider shine only in pve and be reduced to merely situational in spvp and wvw, I guess they've succeeded there.

As much as I know ranger is not allowed to have nice things, OP 's idea implies that a certain amount of deep planning went into this. Now that is the real conspiracy theory there, not the nerfs. Nerfs, we've lived with for a long time. But deep, cunning planning about the future of this class? Nah.

As poor as many folks rate Anet's communication history, I see that as a lesser problem compared to flat out poorly planned/implemented decisions. Frankly I think the thirst for more direct interaction wouldn't be nearly as intense if stuff like the 6th rune bonus change properly accounted for the impact it would have on legendary rune holders in the first place. The spvp forums would be far less motivated to call out cmc directly if stuff like the elementalist's passive-auras-forever stuff didn't launch in the first place. For me, communication is a nice thing to have, but not really a dealbreaker. It only seems to be in great demand when things are going wrong at a more fundamental level with the game. One might argue that more communication could help prevent such controversial decisions in the first place, but as a few others have mentioned, I think Anet already hears what the community has to say on a broad level. A simple "hey we're listening" might only make things worse, as that changes the situation from "are you even listening to us?" to "so you heard us but are now just ignoring us." And if you want something that goes beyond "hey we're listening" from Anet, it runs into all the problems with unjustified accusations of promises made then broken, etc. that others have already pointed out. TLDR; make game good, then have to talk less to players about it. Anet is too busy succeeding, and we're all too busy having fun.

This is not a compelling argument at all. It is entirely possible to release the same product for all your customers, and also to have that product be an unfinished, immature mess. A restaurant can attempt to sell every single one of its customers raw uncooked meat; the fact that such a dangerous meal exists and is "meant for everyone" in no way implies that it's finished. Whatever your opinion of the "new feature" and their compensation for it is, I think it's indisputable that the development process behind it is extremely shabby. If we believe them that they didn't even realize the impact it would have on legendary rune owners.... lolwut? How is such incompetence even possible? I'd understand if a change they made broke old, abandoned content like dungeons. But legendary runes aren't nearly that old, and they are an important element of the legendary armory, which is in turn both fairly new itself as well as a vital component of GW2 living up to its commitment to doing things differently than all the other gear treadmill games. On the other hand, if you think the "oh snap we didn't even realize this would slap legendary rune owners in the face" thing is just a corporate lie, that's even worse. It's beyond incompetence, it marks a shift into territory where they feel safe taking away longtime features and forcing players to grind it back... and be happy to call that new content. For once, I truly hope that this "feature" truly was the result of rank incompetence, and not outright disrespect for the consumer. As I stated earlier, I haven't made any of the legendary runes yet, but have completed just about the rest of the legendary armory. I can easily imagine a future where Anet, from time time when it suits their inability to release meaningful features, can simply take something from any aspect of the armory, trickle it back to us slowly via a new meaningless grind, and call it an "update." I mean, the 6th rune bonus has been part of the core game for almost the entirety of GW2's existence; if even that is not sacred from such shenanigans, then nothing is.

Initially I wasn't going to preorder, but I've wanted to interact with the Wizard's Tower for so long, Anet hooked me and I bought the most basic version of SotO. I regret doing this, though. Their handling of relics (which represents a brazen betrayal of one of GW2's core attractions) and the new "fractal" seem to affirm that something is (again) going wrong at the studio, on a similar level of dysfunction that we saw leading up to the layoffs.

I haven't gotten around to making legendary runes, but have filled out the rest of the armory and fully agree that the "compensation" currently on offer for the relic situation is insulting. Also I think it's time to stop excusing the dev team. I really don't think the suits know or care about the gameplay at this level. I'd bet good money that the only corporate directive was "make a product that really keeps players logged in," and what the dev team came up with was "let's just take away what players have and make them grind it again."

The desperation you speak of seems much more to apply to GW2 than to BDO. BDO's most recent "expansion" is similar to what they've always been able to put out, and you're still completely missing out on the other two dream horses even if they give you one of them for free. GW2 on the other hand, once it gives you a skyscale, it's yours. There's really no other acquisitive hook left, no "two more skyscales to farm." And while BDO is just doing what it's always done (overpriced shop, baiting weebs, lame but consistent content), GW2 very much gives the impression of shrinking in ambition. Which is a complete shame. In my opinion, as a consumer experience, GW2 not only utterly destroys BDO, but most other competitors in the genre. It pains me to see games more willing to nickel-and-dime players enjoy more stability.