The infinite many problems with the most recent design changes and philosophies revealed by Anet and Gw2 for EoD.

[HotDelirium.7984]

12 hours ago, George.9745 said:

They doubled the cost, limit them on dropping 10/week only if you buy the new xpack. Removed them from a popular game mode (check lfg at any time there are always parties for CMs + Tier 4) and called it "spread the love". If it's a little nerf and can't see past it and the direction they are going with the game. Not my fault. Bb

See the forest for the trees. In a game where you make so much gold to then never use your money to buy anything from the gem store.....what did you think would happen eventually after they reevaluated strategies to stay profitable for the long term? You not liking it is one thing but the gross hateful sentiment out there is pretty inappropriate. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[vares.8457]

28 minutes ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

They are giving rewards a little nerf they aren't coming for your children lol

It’s definitely worse! Now more players will have access to MCs, what a terrible thing to do! 

Edited February 13, 2022 by vares.8457

[Barraind.7324]

  

41 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

more players will have access to MCs,

 

How do you figure that?

 

You think more people are going to do the new strikes than will do fractals? Its incredibly rare to see lfg's for the "hard" strikes as it is, you can find CM fractal groups going all day. 

[vares.8457]

4 minutes ago, Barraind.7324 said:

  

 

How do you figure that?

 

You think more people are going to do the new strikes than will do fractals? Its incredibly rare to see lfg's for the "hard" strikes as it is, you can find CM fractal groups going all day. 

More players are doing strikes than fractal CMs. I do CMs regularly. 

[Imba.9451]

10 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

More players are doing strikes than fractal CMs. I do CMs regularly. 

Then you should know that it`s not hard to find a fractal group at all. Especially if you play HFB or alac.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

2 hours ago, George.9745 said:

They doubled the cost, limit them on dropping 10/week only if you buy the new xpack. Removed them from a popular game mode (check lfg at any time there are always parties for CMs + Tier 4) and called it "spread the love". If it's a little nerf and can't see past it and the direction they are going with the game. Not my fault. Bb

"doubled the cost"

You can use the PvE Mystic forge  conversion and leave the fractal one , if it feel very expesive for you .

The extra 1x Mystic Coin + 1x Ecto , might suite you better ( wait a sec..)

 

"limit them on dropping 10/week"

Plus 20x monthly from the achivemenets + 30x from doing daily the Ley line Anomaly = 90Mystic Coin monthly , without bying any extra from the AH. 

 

" you buy the new xpack"

F2P accounts , dont have the acess to Fractal Masteries for the extra rewards (so they already are making -6-10g lesss money) .

 

"can't see past it and the direction they are going with the game"

Oh i am sorry ..

You missed the point that new Legendaries will HAVE 6 FORMS , per weapon ?

I wonder what mats will be needed as a progression ... Maybe they will forced to join the 55k ULE groups , instead ?

Edited February 13, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

11 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

So because game wasn't dumbed down further for you, you don't care about end-game being made unrewarding?

Nice logic.

You can already make 35-38g .

And in some dailies CM you can complete the instance in  10-14min (Sunqua - place you in the last boss) .

Or you dont have to wait for dialogues to trigger likein theObservatory .

CM => skip time . It you dont like it , you can ask the devs to remove these shortcuts

Edited February 13, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[LSD.4673]

5 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

You can already make 35-38g .

And in some dailies CM you can complete the instance in  10-14min (Sunqua - place you in the last boss) .

Or you dont have to wait for dialogues to trigger likein theObservatory .

CM => skip time . It you dont like it , you can ask the devs to remove these shortcuts

You can also make shed loads of gold and MCs with bots and login scripts. But Anet's really taking the time to look at the state of the game and has decided that actually it's the small portion of the playerbase who've worked hard to get to the point where they actively (not passively) farm T4 CMs; and that they are the problem...

[Linken.6345]

11 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

"doubled the cost"

You can use the PvE Mystic forge  conversion and leave the fractal one , if it feel very expesive for you .

The extra 1x Mystic Coin + 1x Ecto , might suite you better ( wait a sec..)

 

"limit them on dropping 10/week"

Plus 20x monthly from the achivemenets + 30x from doing daily the Ley line Anomaly = 90Mystic Coin monthly , without bying any extra from the AH. 

 

" you buy the new xpack"

F2P accounts , dont have the acess to Fractal Masteries for the extra rewards (so they already are making -6-10g lesss money) .

 

"can't see past it and the direction they are going with the game"

Oh i am sorry ..

You missed the point that new Legendaries will HAVE 6 FORMS , per weapon ?

I wonder what mats will be needed as a progression ... Maybe they will forced to join the 55k ULE groups , instead ?

To bad you need 50 to get all the weekly clovers when you can only get 90 a month tho.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Linken.6345

[Naxos.2503]

I think for now I'm with Teratus on this. The biggest issue for me is skill effect cap back to 5. I'd have rather they kept the cap to 10 if you slot in the correct trait, because then you atleast specialize into buffing, and it plays into build variety. 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Naxos.2503

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

 

 

21 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

You can also make shed loads of gold and MCs with bots and login scripts. But Anet's really taking the time to look at the state of the game and has decided that actually it's the small portion of the playerbase who've worked hard to get to the point where they actively (not passively) farm T4 CMs; and that they are the problem...

 

And let the "small hard working elites"  get 60-90 mystic coins from the CMs + an other 90 from from the login+lay line+weekly Strikes ?

Noone stops those players from leaving their comfort zone and try something new  ...(where i have heard it ?).

 

As far as bot and scripts i dont really know what to tell you 

There are also the AH barrons , that bought 10.000 Coins when the Dev thread came up and inflate the price to 2g :  P

But causals , being casuals sold their daily ones and the price is dropping :  P 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[ugrakarma.9416]

8 hours ago, Nochtum.5893 said:

This is a big issue and I belive it needs to be resolved. By removing the X coins from log in reward, and keep them in frac CM and also maybe add them in DRM or spread them out.

the DRM lmao. it must better if DRM is removed of the game.

Edited February 13, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Ashantara.8731]

Here a readable version for everyone who, like me, uses the dark forum theme and cannot read black letters on an anthracite background:

On 2/12/2022 at 7:43 AM, Shenkopp.6317 said:

Priorities: Using logic and common sense, the main goals of the company are to make money. This is done through player population and ingame purchases. More players, more purchases.

TLDR: Make all game modes good, don’t nerf any of them. Nerf boon uptime in general to promote actual player decision. Promote player retention by giving incentives like dailies and lowering time sinks.

Anet is contradicting themselves in many ways by PvE manipulation and hurting the way players play the game. People will continue to play games that they have a reason to. The best proven ways are through daily content (hence why daily rewards are a thing), battle passes (or loot), and PvP/competition. Anet has clearly dropped the ball incredibly when it comes to PvP, and here is why they are doing it to PvE as well.

Removing mystic coins from CMs makes players play the game less. People have less reason to log on and play daily with much worse rewards, and player count also drops as the portion of players who only play the game for CMs stop playing. Removing coins from CMs does not increase player count in any way, and does not sell more loot.

Scenario 1: I log on daily to do CM’s and T4’s to convert my 300 of my daily fractal relics (a huge majority of the relics I get a day) into 2 clovers. Over 1 week, that's 14 mystic clovers, saving me 28 coins. In fact, if I generously give myself 1 mystic coin a CM, thats 3 mystic coins for 21 a week. I net almost 50 mystic coins in profit a week of savings from doing fractals and get 14 clovers. With the proposed changes, I get 10 mystic clovers, saving me 10 mystic coins, netting 4 less clovers and 39 less mystic coin value a week. NOTE: CMs + T4s seem to take 1 hr on average, thats 7 hours a week. Kindof a lot of playtime.

As you can see from scenario 1, the logic for not playing fractals is quite apparent. I would argue a lot of players will stop playing fractals and stop playing the game for this reason. So why would Anet want to intentionally hurt their player base?

Because New content. New content sells their expansion and gets them money. New content is also a way to hopefully attract new players and returning players to play their game again. So how does removing loot from CMs make players play strikes more? There is no daily loot from strikes. You get 10 mystic coins a week. If you play all the late game PvE content a week, thats well, 10 mystic coins a week…. Who cares about the additional mystic clover recipes, I can only buy 5 clovers a week if I count coins from playable content. Cool! Now you can spend your magnetite shards on clovers, oh wait, you make 39 less coins a week, so just kidding you cannot use that recipe.

I would argue there are far too few and soon to be even less ways to get mystic coins, that will only increase the price. Especially as demand rises with EoD. Funny enough, Anet mentions being careful about mystic coin prices. Oh but they just injected millions through return toos, and were totally okay with coin prices rising +1g when hackers affected the market. Infact, mystic coins hovered around 1g for a while as Gen 2 legendaries were being released. If anet truely is careful about balancing mystic coins in the market, then clearly they planned for mystic coins to be roughly 1 gold in gen 2 recipes. Which makes sense because they would be roughly the same cost as gen 1s. Look how that worked out! And now they plan to cause them to rise even more! Clearly mystic coin prices are not that relevant to the “economy” because they contradict that statement with actions they do all the time.

Now you can make less coins, and by extension less clovers, and therefore less gold a week. Oh now you also have less content to play, because the majority of your gold comes from just logging in weekly to do some strikes. Explain to me how this decision makes sense, and promotes the priorities of the company in any way. People want gold, now with EoD, late game PvE makes you even less. The problem was never mystic clovers, ask any veteran. Coins can be sold, clovers cant, liquid gold is always better than account bound. So why are they removing ways to make liquid gold, and adding ways to convert stuff to mystic clovers. I can convert mystic clovers at any time through the forge. OH yeah, now doing this conversion only saves you 1 coin as well, so you’re using more coins on average too. More demand, and less supply means coins are going up! That means it will be even harder to convert liquid gold to coins!

Hopefully you are seeing the long list of holes that all point to this being a bad decision. In general, Anet is going to get players to stop playing their game. OH BUT fractal gold is so much better than strike gold and raid gold! !!! people play fractals all the time but not strikes and raids!! If we release more strikes people won't play them!!!! YES TRUE.because fractals have a DAILY REASON to keep playing the gamemode. I will log on to play my daily content and get my daily gold because its efficient and no one has infinite time. I don't play strikes because the daily loot is garbage! Garbage. I don't do world bosses, I don't do dungeons, I don't do 95% of the content in this game because the loot is garbage. If you want players to play content, you give them an incentive to play.

The last thing you want to do is remove the reward from the end game. Hell, sitting in drizzlewood is profitable, because it generates clovers, and now it will be even better because coins will go up! Why lower the loot from any game mode? It would only lower the player base and thus go AGAINST the companies priorities. If anything, every game mode and every meta and every boss should all be driven to give similar loot tables. To have similar gold per hour, to have similar time investments, to have similar daily advantages. That's how you promote good healthy content. If you want strikes to be played, give them daily content, why are coins gated weekly? Makes no sense. Reward players for playing the game, thats how you get and keep players.

If I have to play 15-25 hours a week of WvW to get 300 skirmish tokens, I better be getting hella gold from that. If I play 20 hours a week of WvW I get like 60 tokens because the majority of the tokens are on the back of the skirmish chests. That's the best example of BAD loot systems. This does not reward players for playing the game, it promotes unhealthy amounts of gaming, and disincentives players to return daily. If I can only play 10 hours a week, that makes getting 1000 skirmish tokens for armor take months. Not including the poor gold per hour.

I understand there’s some hidden “economy” that “matters” to Anet, but it's a free market. Let the prices pick themselves, give the players liquid gold and let play time decide what's worth it and what's not. Supply vs demand, gold per hour, basic concepts. Why step in to lower one game mode's gold per hour, and not touch any of the other ones? In PvE diversity is your friend, you want as many game modes to play and as much content to play and for it to be fair to keep your game being played by as many people as possible. Player count = more money. Fortnite is a free game and Epic made a lot of money because of player count. If you want players to buy gems and expansions or whatever, then get and keep more players, that's the best way to do it.

Part 2: Since class balance also relates to player count.

PvE class balance. Here is an example of where diversity isn’t always a good thing. I don’t understand what the point of changing specs and target caps are. I think Anet is completely missing the ball. Here’s why.

"Generally, this’ll mean that for each subgroup in a squad for strikes or raids, you’ll want a healer, a source of quickness, and a source of alacrity, though we expect expert theory crafters to find ways to combine some of these roles!" - Anet

Here is a clear fundamental misunderstanding of the game's balance and what is wrong with the game. I ask, what theory crafting is going on here? The problem was always how boons lead to undiverse team comps. Well now, you still have 2 healers, 2 quicks, and now you have 2 alacs too. That's even less diverse, that sounds like 1 less dps class (the most flexible class). OH BUT NOW you can play ele quickness and necro quickness! Woo! How is that any different? How is that theory crafting? Picking a different class isn’t theory crafting, it's brainless. If you want to promote good build craft, you make a universal change to boons. You don't make them available to more specs. Who cares that warriors bring banners, who cares that firebrand has quickness. The problem is that boons are broken and sought after, and no matter what class brings the boons, they are going to be meta. Crono, Engi, Ele, Necro, Firebrand, quickness is still quickness, and it's broken. What makes warrior more of a banner slave than firebrand a quickness slave? Renegade an alac slave? The group needs what it needs as far as i’m concerned 6 people in every team comp are all boon slaves. If the group needs a power dps, then the warrior can play power warrior. The problem isn't that warriors are the only class that provide banner boons, it's that your boons are permanently up, and so powerful that people get upset if you don't have them. If you want to build diversity and theorycrafting, you make boon uptime low as hell, make players decide when and how to bring ig. quickness into specific situations. That's good player decisions. That's interesting gameplay that makes communities challenge themselves. That's content that can be balanced around groups with no boons. Then CMs for players who can find unique ways to combat situations with the boons. Player decisions shouldn’t be, which class do I play quickness on. What kind of decision is that? It should be how can I provide DPS here, Heals here, Quick here, Vigor here, etc. etc. How can I clear this boss effectively?

 

[Tiviana.2650]

We discussed last night , do they even play this game? Its a slog now to get coins and clovers, and they want to cut off a source. I get wanting to promote the new strikes , but at the expense of CMs is not the way to do it. This change will cut off many people from getting legendary which is already a grind and a half to get for anyone with a job that cant devote all day playing this game. They act like mystic coins drop by the bucket load last night I got one from CMs, one. 

[Tiviana.2650]

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I have some news for you ... you don't have a better view of the bigger picture than they do. 

You know people said the same in blizzards defense when they did this. Sometimes game companies make bad choices. Not everything these game companies do is healthy for the game, or the players. 

[Obtena.7952]

7 minutes ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

You know people said the same in blizzards defense when they did this. Sometimes game companies make bad choices. Not everything these game companies do is healthy for the game, or the players. 

Sure ... but we have to be aware of their reasoning and not just dismiss it as 'bad choices.

I think if Anet is basing that choice on driving traffic to Strikes (which I think it was pretty clear on their news it is), it's the right choice. It simply depends on what their goals are. They are putting some big bets on Strikes ... so they are going to make the changes that give them the win there, even if it costs them somewhere else. LIke, I mean, let's start with the real truth: 

How is Anet going to move people from Fractal to Strike CMs? If they don't change the reward structure, they won't. Frankly, I don't think we should be able to play to earn MC and clovers ... it's the mess that gets us here in the first place. They should have just nerfed the whole thing and give gold.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Tiviana.2650]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Sure ... but that's THEIR choice to make and I think if Anet is basing that choice on driving traffic to Strikes, it's the right choice. It simply depends on what their goals are. They are putting some big bets on Strikes ... so they are going to make the changes that give them the win there. 

They are betting on the wrong horse and really dont know their players then. Strikes are not popular they are in the same boat as raids, although i can join a raid easier than getting a strike together. There are a great many players that lump strikes into the same category as raids and refuse to do them.   It may be their choice and yes they can run the game into the ground if they want, its their right. But its the right of the players to point out when something  is not good for the game. Give strikes its own system or make it a second source for an already low source of MC's. RNG already makes the coins rare to get , if you are lucky you get a few, many times you get zero. 

[ugrakarma.9416]

19 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Sure ... but we have to be aware of their reasoning and not just dismiss it as 'bad choices.

I think if Anet is basing that choice on driving traffic to Strikes (which I think it was pretty clear on their news it is), it's the right choice. It simply depends on what their goals are. They are putting some big bets on Strikes ... so they are going to make the changes that give them the win there, even if it costs them somewhere else. LIke, I mean, let's start with the real truth: 

How is Anet going to move people from Fractal to Strike CMs? If they don't change the reward structure, they won't. Frankly, I don't think we should be able to play to earn MC and clovers ... it's the mess that gets us here in the first place. They should have just nerfed the whole thing and give gold.

Right reasons don't necessary make right decisions.

Specially if the strikes have good audience, why need "change something"? just leave as they are.

Which benefits have bring the die-hard speed cleaners guys to Strikes? they realized that strikes aren't toxic enough?

My bet is that just because strikes are cheaper to develop. But this a entropy, less content, will wont "bring more", will bring less something.

i wonder if they even still have some "instanced content" team, is problably just one guy at this moment. this game is going to semi-maintenance mode.

the DRM's and champions fiasco spelled disaster. i expect a dark future for gw2

Edited February 13, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Cuks.8241]

I never understood these all or nothing balance patches from Anet or any other developer. Why not go easy on the balance changes and see where it takes you and further adjust (well the answer is probably because it's easy for them). Reduce the gain from fractal CMs to 1/2  or 1/3 of what you can get now and redistribute to new strikes and raids or whatever you want to promote. This way the overall gain stays roughly the same depending on how many players play those modes. Tweak if required. And this way you promote multiple modes and give people more choice.

Those new strikes better be good. If they are good and they actually continue to develop them this wont be such an issue. If its just another disposable mode that will be replaced by something else in 6 months this will suck.

[LSD.4673]

20 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I never understood these all or nothing balance patches from Anet or any other developer. Why not go easy on the balance changes and see where it takes you and further adjust (well the answer is probably because it's easy for them).

It's gotta be a "corporate culture" thing. One team (or in Anet's case, one guy) works on something, and gets given the go ahead to implement whatever the changes are at a certain time...then he gets pulled off it and put on a different task. All the player feedback is meaningless because the higher ups have decided "no, this is the important thing that needs working on". Then much later down the line, another guy or another team gets allotted a time to work on something in a specific timeframe. And the cycle continues...

 

Balance is an ongoing thing in any online game. Especially in an MMO. Yet with GW2, it's a fire and forget "magic bullet" that never hits its target. Like the good ol' changes to CC skills the other year...

[Sugar Min.5834]

"Generally, this’ll mean that for each subgroup in a squad for strikes or raids, you’ll want a healer, a source of quickness, and a source of alacrity, though we expect expert theory crafters to find ways to combine some of these roles!" - Anet

 

Unless ANet truly balance the classes, the word is balance NOT NERF, no matter how you craft and combine those roles, players will still only want the same few ANet's pet meta classes that give the most effective heals, quickness, alacrity or dps in their squads. Who cares about the rest that can provide those boons too? So, what's the point?

And when someone successfully crafted a build and many begin to enjoy playing that class, WHAM! comes the nerf hammer. I have lost count of the number of fun effective builds ANet has killed over the recent years and hence killing the player base with it.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Mil.3562

[ugrakarma.9416]

59 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

It's gotta be a "corporate culture" thing. One team (or in Anet's case, one guy) works on something, and gets given the go ahead to implement whatever the changes are at a certain time...then he gets pulled off it and put on a different task. All the player feedback is meaningless because the higher ups have decided "no, this is the important thing that needs working on". Then much later down the line, another guy or another team gets allotted a time to work on something in a specific timeframe. And the cycle continues...

Thats explain too much inconsistency on projects.. for example the strange release of "Long Live the Lich" full of bugs, and a "feel" of a rushed map/events on that episode(the map seems "incomplete"). Then the developer of roller bettle says good bye.., after, things back on trail again and going well til DragonFall.

 

Then after DragonFall(Ls4) they come with IBS instead of expansion, its was "polemic", but ppl get used to it, and IBS was fine til DrizzleWood Coast, then suddenly after "Jormag Rise" they come with that freak Champions.... under excuse of "we need rush things to release EoD". 

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

Right reasons don't necessary make right decisions.

I think the point here is that there isn't a right or wrong and certainly if there is, the average player won't have the tools to measure that.   Whatever these decisions are, someone will win, someone will lose. 

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

They are betting on the wrong horse and really dont know their players then.

What is that claim based on?

[George.9745]

7 hours ago, Mil.3562 said:

"Generally, this’ll mean that for each subgroup in a squad for strikes or raids, you’ll want a healer, a source of quickness, and a source of alacrity, though we expect expert theory crafters to find ways to combine some of these roles!" - Anet

 

I really doubt there will be theory crafters if they keep going like this. People who come with builds for endgame are also attracted by the fact that endgame is worth doing and u actually get rewarded for improving and finishing. Some ppl who crafted builds for snowcrows already announced that they are leaving because they don't feel like they are also a target audience for the game. And they are 100% right. Why play a game and invest time in it if it doesn't give u anything in return? Anet can keep it's roleplayers in Lions Arch who afk whole day cuz fractals are too hard, raids are too hard, dodging is hard, memorizing a rotation is hard and so on.