Were the sustain nerfs *really* needed?

[Puck.3697]

5 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Sure, but they need to have some means of evaluating whether a move is popular or not, and at the bottom line, 'the company can do what they like because it's their product' is never a good answer to criticism.

Tbh I think these nerfs and patch changes with EoD outdid every patch of PoFs era. 

It's about time this game stop having dumb level power creep of sustain and content to be something more then a bad joke as a result of that. 

Sure there will be people who like them less, but I doubt as many as you'd imagine. These changes affect such a small amount of the playerbase. 

To state otherwise you would have to beleive that players mostly all used proper builds and they simply weren't. Most average  players use things like diviner armour on Power scourge with defense runes 

not this exactly but as a example. 

theres a reason the vast majority of players don't make it past 2k DPS. 

ANd before someone says "it's cause their auto attacking" I did over 15k DPS with a auto attack core revenant. I assure you, if you just auto attack you do alot more DPS the. 2k 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Gwaihir.1745]

1 minute ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Sure, but they need to have some means of evaluating whether a move is popular or not, and at the bottom line, 'the company can do what they like because it's their product' is never a good answer to criticism.

He is misusing 'customer is always right' to say that 'anet is always right'. A more meta washed white knight would be hard to find.

[Obtena.7952]

10 minutes ago, Gwaihir.1745 said:

He is misusing 'customer is always right' to say that 'anet is always right'. A more meta washed white knight would be hard to find.

That's just a misrepresentation of what is being said (probably just because you don't like what is being said), I've never said Anet is always right ... that would just be ignorant for someone to say that ... and some MEGALOL points for you calling me a 'most meta washed' player ... that's just ... a...w...e...s...o...m...e.

The fact is that Anet can't give everyone everything they want, just like any other service provider. Anet isn't always right but they ARE in control of the direction of the game and ARE going to run it how they see fit, again, just like any other service provider. This isn't a democracy here, their is a business dynamic between customer and provider. That IS going to underpin all decisions that affect how customers regard the game, as well as Anet's ability to maintain this as a business. 

Again, the question isn't if the nerfs were necessary, it's about the direction Anet want's the game to go. Clearly, they have a problem with class features that mismatch with content difficulty which is actually a REALLY good thing for ANY game dev to be concerned about. 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Puck.3697]

4 minutes ago, Gwaihir.1745 said:

He is misusing 'customer is always right' to say that 'anet is always right'. A more meta washed white knight would be hard to find.

Tbh obtena is as anti meta as it really gets. As much as I disagree with alot of what they write. U can't accuse her of being a meta Knight 

Customer is always right doesn't rly work sadly, because there's thousands of customers critizing the same thing wanting different outcomes. Which means even if they tried they could only ever be wrong. 

Anets direction can only ever be develope the game as they vision and try look for overlaps on feedback which shows a majority opinon and act on those. 

These changes are a good example of this. 

You have people making hundreds of videos saying how amazing these changes are. 

While forum posts dooming the entire expansion based on them 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/5/2022 at 4:23 AM, mindcircus.1506 said:

That's a very different question than the dozen threads on this topic have asked.

And it probably is the right question to ask if you don't like the changes.

 

Unfortunately, however these threads are filled with people acting like children:
Accusing Anet of doing it to sell the Xpac (despite the fact that the vast majority of EoD specs are far less powerful than PoF specs).
Positioning these changes as wholesale attacks against "Solo" or "Casual" players.
Telling Anet that busted specs are needed to accommodate disabled players (desipite having no disabilities)
Telling Anet that busted specs are needed to accommodate "high ping".
Attempting to position builds that were clearly obliterating the dodge mechanic with positive names like "Low Impact".

At no point has someone said "these changes make the game harder, the changes to average open world mobs makes them harder, the changes in the story missions makes them harder. Is this the right direction?", It's a valid topic and feedback on it would be healthy.

What's not healthy s the hyperbole, lies, false rhetoric and mob mentality that has been shown by the vast majority of players looking grind this axe after being made to dodge and work ingame mechanics.

You mean 'low intensity', right?

I think there is value in having builds that have a bit more self-sustain than others, as long as that self-sustain is compensated for somewhere else and it doesn't end up becoming dominant in competitive or group instanced play. Sometimes people play to relax, and don't feel like having every battle being a twitchfest of carefully timed blocks and dodges to stay alive. And sometimes, physical or technological handicaps can contribute to this. Even if they can be overcome, people don't necessarily want to be pushing their personal envelope every time they fire up the game. Maybe some people do, but they shouldn't claim to speak for everyone.

At the bottom line, what does it matter to you if someone else running around in open world is using a slightly easier build?

I think some of the backlash here - speaking generally here rather than this specific thread - comes from two sources. The first is that it wasn't as telegraphed as other changes, and AFAIK no context has been given for what future these changes are setting the foundations for, which makes people uneasy about where the game might be going.

Second, and probably more importantly, is how uneven it was. Battle Scars? Was way too powerful. Godlike sustain and competed against the DPS choices in the same tree. It was so good that even condi builds were taking it despite it being power-oriented, and it's still a good choice now, which is generally a good sign that a nerf was warranted. It only got cut in half.

Meanwhile, scrapper barrier, which was supposed to be the compensation for reduced vitality, was cut by two thirds. Invigorating Precision lost 60-70% despite being a grandmaster in competition with potent DPS traits and being on a profession which can have a tendency to be glassy even with the trait. Meanwhile, traits which grant health based on applying boons and conditions, which can contribute just as much to passive sustain if built to do so, have been untouched - all they've hit are the traits that directly link inflicting damage to sustain.

Regarding my response that you were quoting, though, that was a specific response to Obtena's tendency to try to shoot down ANY criticism on the basis of 'it's the company's product, they can do what they like'. Which, as I said previously, is never a good response to criticism. One could respond by pointing out advantages to an unpopular decision or by explaining how some short-term pain is needed for long-term gain, but 'shut up and just accept what the company serves you' is never going to mollify an unhappy customer.

Edited March 6, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Regarding my response that you were quoting, though, that was a specific response to Obtena's tendency to try to shoot down ANY criticism on the basis of 'it's the company's product, they can do what they like'. Which, as I said previously, is never a good response to criticism. One could respond by pointing out advantages to an unpopular decision or by explaining how some short-term pain is needed for long-term gain, but 'shut up and just accept what the company serves you' is never going to mollify an unhappy customer.

Hold on ... there is valid criticism ... then there is just complaining about something that people dislike. 

And to be fair, I LIKE some of these changes, so the LAST thing I'm going to do is feed people with VALID points to criticize them. Again the VALID approach to feedback here is not "I don't like these changes" because the game doesn't cater to any individual player. The valid approach is "These changes are BAD for the game because ..."

Also to be fair, I actually DID mention that in a thread somewhere that the sustain changes (while I DO LIKE THEM) are primarily and more impacting the average or lower- capability players. 

Hot Take: How changes impact the high performance players are not as important a consideration in changing the game. They will adapt. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Cuks.8241]

Quickness scrapper is still going to have 1k+ barrier per second in 10 man scenarios with a minor trait and thief is going to have even higher hps if he chooses to take that trait which could still be very viable for some specialized roles. That just tells you how strong they were. Will this impact some open world builds? Sure. But new builds will arise. I am not worried for either of those, both have plenty of tools for open world and so does pretty much any other profession.

[Puck.3697]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

having every battle being a twitchfest of carefully timed blocks and dodges to stay alive. And sometimes, physical or technological handicaps can contribute to this. Even if they can be overcome, people don't necessarily want to be pushing their personal envelope every time they fire up the game. Maybe some people do, but they shouldn't claim to speak for everyone.

At the bottom line, what does it matter to you if someone else running around in open world is using a slightly easier build

I'm ngl, I have been soloing content and it's no where near a "twistfest". 

This seems like a exaggeration, unless we are talking soloing bounties or extreme targets this game is no where near that point. 

I pretty much just mow content down effortlessly. 

Theres no carefully timed blocks, there's carefully timed dodges, just swing and things die, it's that simple outside of extreme solo conditions. 

People soloing extreme monsters such as bounties are looking for a challenge realistically and looking for this gameplay to begin with not to mention 99% of players don't do these solo. 

None of the open world builds are hard to play either. I just have no experience of this and I've played all proffessions through EoDs story. I've done EoD map completion on several and I've done the HPs. I've done HoT HPs and I've done PoF HPs. 

I've done alot of the intended solo targets (i.e no bounties which only a handful of builds could manage to begin with) and there's no twitchfest gameplay, there's no perfected gameplay, there's no ultrasweat gameplay present. 

These nerfs simply stopped builds being immortal. 

And here's a thing. 

Asking players to use the bare minimum when playing the game is no extreme measure. 

The concept that "having to dodge" or press a button. Or use a build that makes sense is "too much" is ludicrous 

Yes a games intention should be for you to actually engage with it and not spin around your chair while the game plays itself. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I'm ngl, I have been soloing content and it's no where near a "twistfest". 

This seems like a exaggeration, unless we are talking soloing bounties or extreme targets this game is no where near that point. 

If that's really the only thing you take exception to in that post:

It's... something of an exaggeration. There are times when survival does require playing near-perfectly, especially when playing glassier professions with a higher reliance on evades and mobility for survival. There are times it doesn't. If you're just wandering around most of the open world where there are trash mobs spread out over a wide area where you can take them one by one, you can succeed with basically anything. Even outside of soloing bounties and the like, though, there are regions with multiple veterans and elites that require either a fairly durable build or near-perfect use of damage avoidance to survive.

(Also, it's "twitchfest".)

The overriding point is... as long as sustain-oriented builds involve a fair tradeoff for that sustain, how does some players using them negatively affect anyone else? Let people choose which risk/reward balance they want to have. That can be in the form of changes to traits and skills, or changes to gear, but changes to traits and skills can be done organically on the fly, while for players who don't have full legendaries, changes to gear have a lot more overhead (investing gold and/or other resources in the gearset, having space in your inventory and/or build templates to store it, and so on). If someone decides that they want a bit more survivability, it's a lot easier, especially for less established players, to trade out a few offensive traits and/or utilities for defensive ones than it is to change gear.

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 3/3/2022 at 10:46 AM, Daddy.8125 said:

Ngl teapot and more have spent a year continously stating videos on why these sustain tools needed nerfing repeatively. 

How are we not aware of why this happened? Because these tools were obnoxiously broken in group and Raid encounters and allowed players to ignore mechanics entirely due to the pure sustain. 

They had to be nerfed in PvE to end this problem as Anet have stated they want to make raid and fractal mechanics matter and required to be done properly. They are removing the "cheese strats" 

Honestly this game isn't even hard enough to warrant so much complaining. 

Finish your cause and effect stream of consciousness- nerfing sustain to make the mechanics more of a required focus has unintended consequences in regular PVE where people are by themselves swarmed by mobs without the group sustain to help.

[Axl.8924]

Virtuoso is definitely weaker than previous specs mirage had evades and good damage. Chronomancer could be good support and a decent power DPS option. Virtuoso has a weird delay on shatters and no invulns from what i see. In pvp  i think this class would be a sitting duck literally. The throwing weapons is kinda neat, but it needs a overhaul to some of its mechanics.

 

Warrior:I tried out berserker to compare it to Bladesworn and it felt better honestly in pve to use berserker over bladesworn because of how its built. Bladesworn is clunky and just doesn't feel good to use a lot of times. Some stuff are decent but saber has a lot of not so good feeling moves and dragontrigger delay feels like crap.

 

Ele: Catalyst feels bad man why would i play it over tempest with dagger/warhorn?  got good mobility on tempest with dagger/Warhorn and good damage good sustain. I messed around in open world just really didn't like it at all.

 

Necro: I played this new one less than others so i'm not as good. Harbringer has high dps and more mobile condi. It feels ok honestly compared to other specs which seemed rush and broken, especially bladesworn which i really tested a lot more.

Revenant: I tested both herald and vindicator for the first time ever played vindi in PVE fractals. VINDI jumps feel good and i was able to sustain myself. I wasn't sure about the urns since i'm bad at rev but it feels like it focuses more on offensive than previous spec  with its alliance stance. The actual barrier isn't that high on jumps and its obviously not as strong as herald support wise. It does seem to play more like a actual bruiser straight up.

 

Willbender: I really didn't like it at all like at all. It's a aoe spec that benefits from actual ability for aoes since willbender has aoes its not as solid as dragonhunter i still prefer dragonhunter over willbender moveset i wasn't able to survive long compared to dragonhunter. It felt slow and clunky.I can't remember who i was talking to but he told me to try out certain things for AOE build and using the way it has mobility in f buttons but its not high mobility or anything just a teeny weeny bit of mobility.

 

I played warr rev and guardian and mes more than others in this beta.

[Puck.3697]

1 minute ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Finish your cause and effect stream of consciousness- nerfing sustain to make the mechanics more of a required focus has unintended consequences in regular PVE where people are by themselves swarmed by mobs without the group sustain to help.

I'd agree, If the nerfs left proffessions that dire in open world content. 

But they do not. 

Open world once again. Is easy, extremely easy. Theres no threat realistically, through story, Events, joining meta groups, the vast majority of HPs and dailies / hearts are completely soloable by any proffession and any build that can do 2k DPS. 

Open world has extremely overpowered stats such as celestial and trailblazer which trivalizes content. 

I have played all 9 proffessions, all 9 new elites and have over 60 characters, these issues people are raising do not exist realistically and this isn't "ultra sweat top level gaming". Im not a veteran of the game. I'm not using top builds they don't even exist yet and have the build creation capability of a Koala bear. 

The nerfs to sustain have not made any of these builds unusuable. Nor weak in open world content. The only justified one we could put forward is the unfortunate DPS loss reaper took with shroud sustain nerfs 

[Puck.3697]

7 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

Warrior:I tried out berserker to compare it to Bladesworn and it felt better honestly in pve to use berserker over bladesworn because of how its built. Bladesworn is clunky and just doesn't feel good to use a lot of times. Some stuff are decent but saber has a lot of not so good feeling moves and dragontrigger delay feels like crap

Ironically I find it the opposite way round 😂

Taking increased damage while enraged, having a mechanic which isn't usuable in alot of PvE encounters and the weird assossiation to fire yet don't use either weapons based on fire was always a weird one for me. 

But each to their own I guess different strokes for different folks 

 

[Axl.8924]

2 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Ironically I find it the opposite way round 😂

Taking increased damage while enraged, having a mechanic which isn't usuable in alot of PvE encounters and the weird assossiation to fire yet don't use either weapons based on fire was always a weird one for me. 

But each to their own I guess different strokes for different folks 

 

 

I don't know if they changed anything since the beta on bladesworn but i remember there was a delay which didn't feel so great to use and i was kinda confused why it wasn't more like holo why they had a weaponset then dragonsaber+ dragontrigger. Don't get me wrong the damage on dragontrigger is massive. I think i was able to pull off 12-15k maybe 20k hits? It hits very hard "IF" you can land with that delay.

[Puck.3697]

2 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

I don't know if they changed anything since the beta on bladesworn but i remember there was a delay which didn't feel so great to use and i was kinda confused why it wasn't more like holo why they had a weaponset then dragonsaber+ dragontrigger. Don't get me wrong the damage on dragontrigger is massive. I think i was able to pull off 12-15k maybe 20k hits? It hits very hard "IF" you can land with that delay.

Dragonstrigger has been seperated from saber, you now can go straight into it from weapons. 

In PvE it does 180k DPS. In PvP it hits 8-14k DPS. 

So they removed the whole 3 weapon bar swap thankfully. It could do with a few more QoL adjustments but it's better then it's betas. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[HotDelirium.7984]

15 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I'd agree, If the nerfs left proffessions that dire in open world content. 

But they do not. 

Open world once again. Is easy, extremely easy. Theres no threat realistically, through story, Events, joining meta groups, the vast majority of HPs and dailies / hearts are completely soloable by any proffession and any build that can do 2k DPS. 

Open world has extremely overpowered stats such as celestial and trailblazer which trivalizes content. 

I have played all 9 proffessions, all 9 new elites and have over 60 characters, these issues people are raising do not exist realistically and this isn't "ultra sweat top level gaming". Im not a veteran of the game. I'm not using top builds they don't even exist yet and have the build creation capability of a Koala bear. 

The nerfs to sustain have not made any of these builds unusuable. Nor weak in open world content. The only justified one we could put forward is the unfortunate DPS loss reaper took with shroud sustain nerfs 

This is probly why they gave us all the jade bot for more vitality. People might be okay in PVE if they have at least ascended everything and infusions and the perfect sigils and runes and traits and food and utility buffs and skill rotations.

I mean if were gona lay on self-responsibility...let's lay it on thick.

Edited March 7, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[mindcircus.1506]

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You mean 'low intensity', right?

Sure

 

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there is value in having builds that have a bit more self-sustain than others, as long as that self-sustain is compensated for somewhere else and it doesn't end up becoming dominant in competitive or group instanced play. Sometimes people play to relax, and don't feel like having every battle being a twitchfest of carefully timed blocks and dodges to stay alive. And sometimes, physical or technological handicaps can contribute to this. Even if they can be overcome, people don't necessarily want to be pushing their personal envelope every time they fire up the game. Maybe some people do, but they shouldn't claim to speak for everyone.

There are lots of these builds already in the game.
Bearbow Ranger, Flamethrower Engi and Minionmancer Necro all fit the bill. I cooked up a similar Mechanist build last night.

Even Shortbow Rev still fits the bill.  It's just not a "No Dodge" build anymore and while a bit less powerful than before is still more powerful than the other builds  like it.  Every class can have some kind of "low intensity" variant. You just need to spend the requisite 15 minutes to work it out.,

 

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think some of the backlash here - speaking generally here rather than this specific thread - comes from two sources. The first is that it wasn't as telegraphed as other changes, and AFAIK no context has been given for what future these changes are setting the foundations for, which makes people uneasy about where the game might be going.

CMC stated multiple times that passive sustain was on their radar and that these traits were overperforming and being looked. He also expressed his personal distaste for these traits. 
And suddenly, this community who pours over every last thing the developers say, and examines hype peice videos frame by frame in order to win arguments with each other just magically didn't hear him?

This wasn't about surprise or timing. I knew it was coming. Anyone who played Condi Rev with an open mind with regards to it's performance compared to other classes new it was coming.

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Meanwhile, scrapper barrier, which was supposed to be the compensation for reduced vitality, was cut by two thirds. Invigorating Precision lost 60-70% despite being a grandmaster in competition with potent DPS traits and being on a profession which can have a tendency to be glassy even with the trait. Meanwhile, traits which grant health based on applying boons and conditions, which can contribute just as much to passive sustain if built to do so, have been untouched - all they've hit are the traits that directly link inflicting damage to sustain.

This is a myopic view of balance that doesn't take into account many factors. Did Scrapper need it's barrier generation toned done without Shredderr Gyro?... no. But it sure did with.
The sustain on these classses and builds was lowered to match the sustain traits on the new specs.
That's it.
Full stop.
The power trait nerfs hurt harder due to the fact that condi damage is constant and power is not.
Of course they are not done at this point. Predator's Cunning is still busted and Condi Soulbeast is still an outlier. But if you think they won't get to it....

 

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Regarding my response that you were quoting, though, that was a specific response to Obtena's tendency to try to shoot down ANY criticism on the basis of 'it's the company's product, they can do what they like'. Which, as I said previously, is never a good response to criticism. One could respond by pointing out advantages to an unpopular decision or by explaining how some short-term pain is needed for long-term gain, but 'shut up and just accept what the company serves you' is never going to mollify an unhappy customer.

I have seen about 2 posts by Obtena in the past year.
When the forum upgraded it's software and finally gave us the ability to put people on ignore, the absolute first thing I did was list the biggest three trolls, and people who argue in bad faith on this forum and block them.
Astralpouring was first, Obtena was second.
Best QoL the forums ever gave me.
 

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Tbh even without the jade bots and In blue gear you can do the vast majority of the content. Lol. 

Self responsibility? You don't need self responsibility. There are builds I could do the content afk with 😂 

Like people acting like guild wars 2 open world content is hard 🤦

It's not. Not before not now. 

If your that geared u could do it blindfolded with a rotation done with only pressing buttons with your nose tho. 

 

For the Nth time, this is propaganda coming from people who don't think ArenaNet should pay any attention to open world balance considerations.

Sure, for a lot of the open world, that is true, but sticking to zergs and designated easy traversal areas is misrepresenting the situation. There are open world areas which pose a higher threat level than most fractals, some strikes, and even some raids. Furthermore, the price for failure is higher: you have waypoint fees (while in instanced content, you respawn close to the combat area for free), and then you usually have to hike back to where you were, and whatever you were doing has either reset or outright failed by the time you get back. Sure, if you're running around in a party of five you can probably trivialise anything that isn't a designated group event... but open world is balanced to be played solo outside of the aforementioned designated group events.

 

12 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Sure

 

There are lots of these builds already in the game.
Bearbow Ranger, Flamethrower Engi and Minionmancer Necro all fit the bill. I cooked up a similar Mechanist build last night.

So only some professions are allowed to have them, then?

 

(I'd also question Flamethrower Engi, since that's usually Flamethrower Scrapper and that's one of the ones that got hit hard.)

Quote

CMC stated multiple times that passive sustain was on their radar and that these traits were overperforming and being looked. He also expressed his personal distaste for these traits. 
And suddenly, this community who pours over every last thing the developers say, and examines hype peice videos frame by frame in order to win arguments with each other just magically didn't hear him?

This wasn't about surprise or timing. I knew it was coming. Anyone who played Condi Rev with an open mind with regards to it's performance compared to other classes new it was coming.

Not everybody pours over every single thing, and yet people knew that the firebrand, scourge, and renegade nerfs were coming.

Now, nerfing the true 'godmode' builds like condi rev and scourge? Sure. But I don't think Invigorating Precision thief was ever that strong. 

Quote

This is a myopic view of balance that doesn't take into account many factors. Did Scrapper need it's barrier generation toned done without Shredderr Gyro?... no. But it sure did with.

Scrapper, with or without Shredder Gyro, was a bit of a "you feel like you're invulnerable until something manages to do a smidgeon more damage than your sustain, and then you feel like there's nothing you can do to change that" build. Addressing Shredder directly, sure, it's really good when you're surrounded by lots of weak mobs. Against one or two strong mobs, it barely does anything. Your argument is essentially condemning scrapper for what it can do in its best-case scenario, but if you "balance" something to be average in its optimal conditions, you end up with something that is mediocre, or outright garbage, everywhere else.

Quote

The sustain on these classses and builds was lowered to match the sustain traits on the new specs.
That's it.
Full stop.

It's actually not. Let's look at one of the sustain traits on the new specs, shall we? Restorative Strikes on Untamed converts 10% of your strike damage into healing. Unconditionally. You can be using any weapon, you don't need any boons on you, you don't need to crit, it doesn't matter, it's 10% strike damage to healing.

Compare to Invigorating Precision. That's 6%... if you have 100% crits, and if you have Fury. There is no "lowered to match the new specs" there. Invigorating Precision is significantly weaker than Restorative Strikes even under ideal circumstances, while Untamed has no conditions to get its sustain. And that's not the only such ability on Untamed, let alone Ranger as a whole.

I could keep making such comparisons, but I think the point has been made.

Quote

The power trait nerfs hurt harder due to the fact that condi damage is constant and power is not.
Of course they are not done at this point. Predator's Cunning is still busted and Condi Soulbeast is still an outlier. But if you think they won't get to it....

People thought that ArenaNet would get around to rebalancing the professions that were hit especially hard by the CC nerfs in competitive too. It's been two years. People are still waiting.

Now, maybe if the patch notes had come with a bit more explanation about the thinking behind it and future plans, people might have more faith in "they'll get around to it", but maybe not. They did say that they'd look at the professions and weapons that were hit harder than others by the CC nerfs in 2020, after all.

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[mindcircus.1506]

1 minute ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

(I'd also question Flamethrower Engi, since that's usually Flamethrower Scrapper and that's one of the ones that got hit hard.)

Flamethrower Core Engineer can currently solo a desert bounty and Crucible of Consecration comfortably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jvnExN2N00
(Not here to self promote, salient footage starts at 5:30)

 

And this gets to the crux of a few of your comments.

You don't balance professions by saying "Profession 1 and Profession 2 both do X, they must do this in a numerically similar fashion."
You say: "Profession 1 does X, Y, Z,  and Profession 2 does X, A, B" and you adjust holistically.

Now as to where that leaves Warrior and Thief?
If all that these professions had to keep them on the same level as Core Flamerthrower Engineer pressing 11111 was one busted Trait (Makes Right, IP) or one busted rune (in the case of Condi Dareveil), then the conversation isn't "Were the sustain nerfs *really* needed?".
It's threads in the Thief and Warrior subforums that says "Is this profession actually viable for fun Open World play ?".and you attempt an honest open discussion on the topic without the rancor, false rhetoric and propaganda. Maybe somethings using something everyone else isnt or has come to a solution.

Fun chatting. I'm out.

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

16 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

CMC stated multiple times that passive sustain was on their radar and that these traits were overperforming and being looked. He also expressed his personal distaste for these traits. 
And suddenly, this community who pours over every last thing the developers say, and examines hype peice videos frame by frame in order to win arguments with each other just magically didn't hear him?

This wasn't about surprise or timing. I knew it was coming. Anyone who played Condi Rev with an open mind with regards to it's performance compared to other classes new it was coming.
 

Not that I disagree with the nerfs to passive sustain, but it rang a little hollow when they introduced mechanist at the same time.

[Tails.9372]

19 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

CMC stated multiple times that passive sustain was on their radar and that these traits were overperforming and being looked.

Overperforming in what regard? Taking IP over NQ for power based thief builds was about as much of a tradeoff as taking trailblazer over vipers for condi based builds and arguably more justified too since (amongst other things) the sustain on the former requires the player to take action while the sustain on the later one is an actual passive.

19 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

He also expressed his personal distaste for these traits. 

Which seems to be what this really is about and perfectly explains why they didn't bother to address these changes in their class balance section summary.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Tails.9372

[itspomf.9523]

On 3/3/2022 at 1:04 PM, PixelHero.5849 said:

What I feel should have been done is adjust the general numbers down, then adjust the strength of the other, non-sustain traits UP.  Allowing those who chose to go for sustain significantly underperform relative to those who opt for other choices.  This widens the band of options available to users of all skill levels, expands decisions made during build theory, fixes the problem for elite group content (where they don't need the sustain choices, and would always take the higher damage option), fixes these classes soloing hard content (can't complete in the time), and addresses the "braindead-choice" problem by making them significantly weaker, casually encouraging players to develop their skills to the point they can drop the crutches and play their character to the full extent

 

 

Or we could not try to pretend everything is Raids.  A lot of players were happy just faffing around in open-world content and occasionally doing story instances or the necessary strike mission that came along, but suddenly expecting players who have spent an entire decade at or around the same "skill level," if you want to call it that, to suddenly scale a veritable cliff and be on par with raiding builds and parties is, frankly, asinine logic.

 

Why is it fair to unilaterally punish a group of players for not min-maxing into DPS?  Moreover, doesn't that take away options, if "significantly weaker" performance is the trade-off? 

 

If we go that far, then prefixes like Cleric's, Harrier's, or Apothecary's should be more desirable to mitigate this effect, but are already significantly weaker by trading DPS for durability, which would only punish players further.

 

The real problem is expecting others to play on your level.

 

And I think that's where a lot of the recent arguments are coming from:  an entire class of casual players, many of us solo, have essentially been told "you don't get to do this anymore."  I've been playing this game for the last 10 years, and I promise you I'm still quite terrible.  There's a reason I ran Invigorating Precision on my thief, and it wasn't to abuse "sustain," but to keep myself alive and enjoying the game in content which has grown increasingly more punishing over the last 7 years, starting with Heart of Thorns, which is the first time we saw such a chasm driven between the player base over the subject of "skill."

 

They walked back on that in Path of Fire and preceding Living Story content, after realizing how negative an impact heavily-interconnected and map-spanning meta-events had on the community, then suddenly reversed course with Icebrood Saga, once "high-skilled" players started complaining that open-world content wasn't hard or engaging enough for them.

 

And yes, I do feel that since the Skyscale and beyond, ANet has focused far too heavily on catering to players who want more difficult and challenging content (be that "strike missions as a gateway to raids," or merely increasing game difficulty as a whole) and adding progressively more involved achievements, collections, and content in general, which has been a significant turn-off for myself and others.

 

I'm here to play a game and have fun.  Emphasis on playing a game and having fun.  Forcing the "git gud" mentality into the game hasn't worked in the past -- just look at the popularity of Dragon Response Missions in Icebrood Saga amongst casual players, or how Heart of Thorns got nerfed as a whole because of the huge change in difficulty -- and it very clearly isn't working now, with what I'm seeing from people who bought End of Dragons and have been struggling through the "Dragons End" mission.

[Puck.3697]

30 minutes ago, fluffdragon.1523 said:

And I think that's where a lot of the recent arguments are coming from:  an entire class of casual players, many of us solo, have essentially been told "you don't get to do this anymore."  I've been playing this game for the last 10 years, and I promise you I'm still quite terrible.  There's a reason I ran Invigorating Precision on my thief, and it wasn't to abuse "sustain," but to keep myself alive and enjoying the game in content which has grown increasingly more punishing over the last 7 years, starting with Heart of Thorns, which is the first time we saw such a chasm driven between the player base over the subject of "skill

Alot of arguments are coming from severe exaggeration of the situation. 

That's the issue here. Select forum users have decided to over exaggerate the situation to a point no one can litterally understand what they're referring to. 

Here's the facts. 

- open world content is still faceroll easy. 

- everything dies in seconds to any build able to do more then 5k DPS. 

- there are still after nerfs still 0 sustain issues. 

If people are gonna seriously attempt to screech that soloing is now "too hard" "everyone's dying everywhere" and "it's too harsh" then yeah people will argue with you. Because it's quite clearly untrue. 

 

[mindcircus.1506]

2 hours ago, fluffdragon.1523 said:

They walked back on that in Path of Fire and preceding Living Story content, after realizing how negative an impact heavily-interconnected and map-spanning meta-events had on the community, then suddenly reversed course with Icebrood Saga, once "high-skilled" players started complaining that open-world content wasn't hard or engaging enough for them

Let's be honest about the reason for the pivot in content you are talking about.
This had absolutely ZERO to do with any request from any player or group of them. Pinning this on airquoted types of people you don't like is a big part of the problem around here.

The transition to harder content happened at the beginning of Icebrood Saga. For the many months prior to this, under the direction of Mike Z, this company was catering exclusively to the "chill open world experience". We were fed an unending stream of weak and often bugged community driven events like Boss Rush or Fractal Rush.
There was zero content in this game for anyone else being worked on.
This culminated in the release of Grothmar Valley, an episode/map that was widely praised by the casual community.
A map with no ambient threat other than a few devourers and a laundry list of grindy achievements to create the content to keep players happy.

The result of  only catering to portion of the community who desire an easier game was the single worst financial quarter this company had seen.
The results of this single minded focus put Anet and Guild Wars firmly in the sights of parent company NCSoft, who sent Game Director Mike Z packing without so much as a goodbye and lead to Adrew Grey's "mea culpa" post on not paying any attention to the more invested players in this franchise.
You know the post ...that came one business day after the NCSoft quarterly financials were released.

The proper play was obviously to make changes in the content and try and reclaim lost players and attract new ones. This gave us the shift in content to the mix of increased difficulty and repeatable instances of Icebrood Saga.

Which...oddly enough... worked...the revenue started going up.

The damage done by Mike Z to this game is incalculable. Your comment here with it's fingerpointing at other players rather than facing of the objective truths of the business behind the game is ample evidence of that.

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Alot of arguments are coming from severe exaggeration of the situation. 

That's the issue here. Select forum users have decided to over exaggerate the situation to a point no one can litterally understand what they're referring to. 

Here's the facts. 

- open world content is still faceroll easy. 

- everything dies in seconds to any build able to do more then 5k DPS. 

- there are still after nerfs still 0 sustain issues. 

If people are gonna seriously attempt to screech that soloing is now "too hard" "everyone's dying everywhere" and "it's too harsh" then yeah people will argue with you. Because it's quite clearly untrue. 

 

Lots of truth here. People sensationalizing the effect of a change does not help any discussion about the changes and their impact. 

The majority of who this ACTUALLY effects here are people that were bombing out in OW using these OP'ed passive sustain traits to ignore game mechanics. At first I thought the biggest impact was low skilled players ... but I don't think that's exactly accurate anymore because many of these traits required people to be skilled in play to use them effectively anyways. I mean ... Looking at Invigorating Precision ... if you aren't criting, it ain't healing. That still requires game knowledge to use effectively. 

Therefore, I'm going to conclude these nerfs were more significantly impacting people who would take advantage of these traits to perform exceptional OW or group encounters. At least that's EXACTLY how I abused almost every one of the traits that were nerfed.