Why Guild Wars 2 Especially Needs Low Intensity Builds

[mindcircus.1506]

8 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

The "massive" in MMO means a broad and diverse player base. In order to have the population everyone wants you have to have a mix of low and high skilled players, people who can play hours every day and people who log on for an hour or two a couple times a week. That means developers have to carefully thread the needle between challenging players with more skill and play time, while still accomodating players with less skill and playtime.

In the traditional MMO model, the gear treadmill and steadily increasing level cap actually help this happen.

It seems counterintuitive. Many casual GW2 players praise it for its static level cap and lack of gear treadmill. I'm one. I love that I could take a many year break and come back and not feel drastically left behind.

BUT

In other MMOs one of the main ways players with less time and skill manage content that is still challenging for players with more time and skill is by overleveling and overgearing content. A plyaer can hang out in an zone, doing every possible sidequest, maybe even farming mobs for XP if the game is built that way, until they are significantly higher level than the next area they need to explore. They can go deep into crafting, making the strongest possible armor for their level while more skilled players breeze through content on lower quality drops. They can wait until they are well past the level where a dungeon first opens to them and come back to do it.

GW2, with its downscaling, hard level cap, and lack of loot treadmill doesn't offer these options. That means builds are where players find the ability to scale the game to what they can do. And that's why low-skill, low-playtime players are disappointed and maybe even a little panicked. They currently don't see an alternative way to make their favorite game accessible again.

I have a feeling some of the reaction to the nerf to the "training wheels" builds will die down over time. This is because friendly high-skill, high-time investment players are even now exploring the new stat sets and e-specs. They will eventually find new builds that help them solo very hard content. They will share those with the community, and the low-skilled players will use them to cushion ordinary content so they can play again. Finally, if the HoT pattern is any indication, ArenaNet will at some point realize they're losing a decent portion of their players and adjust somehow. All of these things will help players play at their comfort level again.

IF they are still around.

This moment is a test on patience though. A low-skilled player, excited by all the previews of a new land, suddenly finds themselves having to rethink their builds instead of jumping into the new content they bought. On top of that, the build sites are challenging to deal with right now due to the API being down, so it's even difficult to go look up alternatives. Add to that a handful of players sneering "you can autoattack open world content and do fine" at them, which is blatantly false.

Should these "Low Impact" builds enable an average skilled player to stand in red circles from Desert Bounties solo without dodging, while still outputting enough DPS to solo the encounter within the timer?
Because thats what Condi Renegade was doing.

 

"Easy Builds" have always existed and will continue to do so.

Minionmancer Necro, Bearbow Ranger Power Ranger, Flamethrower Scrapper are all still viable.open world alternatives.
Dire Condi Tempest is still cheap easy mode... Cele Holosmith and Condi Druid can, with average player skill, solo Crucible of Consecration or any number of "hard group events".

 

Reality that no one wants to address right now is even with the nerfs, Cele/Condi Renegade can still solo a legendary Bounty on desert maps.
They are in essence, just down to the level of the other alternatives.

This isn't about training wheels or "low impact" builds.
This is about people being made to dodge.

Edited March 2, 2022 by mindcircus.1506

[Bingus.4236]

8 minutes ago, fixit.7189 said:

ah i recall getting my rl friends to try out GW2...once they were 80, i linked them rotation lists for their profs to help them get better...and after seeing the 20+ button presses you have to do PERFECTLY in order to be a good dps immedietly made them quit. its been stated by anet them selves that the difference between an average player and a good one is MASSIVE. and this patch only widened that margin even bigger. wow. and some of you including anet want to remove the easier to play builds even more? are you nuts? the main issue for this game imo is the fact you have to be a master pianist to be good and that really tends to turn off people big time. all this to please a small minority of players. blah.

 

That's your fault, not the game. You don't need to look at rotation lists for most content.

[fixit.7189]

time to nerf cele stats, it makes the game ez mode with no skill needed. just roll your face across the keyboard and win. if sustain talents are getting nerfed, cele builds should be on the list as well. right?

[Labjax.2465]

I'm not surprised at all cause I knew I was coming back to the same game that was very forgiving in base game zones and then became creative forms of death trap jungle in the first xpac, but it is a bit contradictory. Like I'm pretty sure PoF zones are easier than HoT, but then I've heard the new meta in EoD (haven't gotten around to playing it yet) is overtuned compared to other stuff.

I wish they would make up their minds as to who they are trying to accommodate or not accommodate.

Build is very important as you stated (that and stat choice) and it is kind of deceptive because on the surface, the action style of combat can make it seem as if you can overcome issues by avoiding standing in bad and dodging at the right time, but there are plenty of encounters (at least in HoT anyway) that will just decimate you if you have the "wrong" build and don't use the right ability at the right time. So it's more like a "be prepped in the right way" RPG than it seems and I wonder if there's a disconnect there in how people perceive it because it is so forgiving in earlier zones and there's so much can be overcome just by being assisted in the open world and getting rezzed by other players.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that there's a lot you can overcome by design with open world assistance, but it yo-yos back and forth such that you don't even get proper practice as assisting a group or as solo. Or if you do, too much is put on you to overcome solo because of zones being dead or you playing at odd hours or just having social anxiety or whatever. Like there are events where with a proper group around, you're actually competing to see if you can get a hit in to get participation for the event before the mobs die. And yet on the total flipside, if you do that same event alone, you probably need to have thought about your build and gear and tactics some.

One of the things GW2 does that makes it stand out from other games is the organic way you can flit in and out of local events to help without needing to officially form a group at all, but when that fails and people end up alone, they get told things like that this is an MMO and they shouldn't expect to be able to solo everything when GW2 was (if not intentionally, surely incidentally) drawing in people like them by design in the first place. Edit: So I'm sure people can imagine it's strange if someone feels like the game was made to draw in people like them one minute and then made to exclude them another, like some nerd's idea of a country club.

Also, I firmly believe in the philosophy of usability in design and that generally, if a lot of people don't understand how to effectively use the systems you have presented them with, that says more about your design than it says about them. Effective design makes you feel smart for getting it. Ineffective design makes you feel incompetent for missing details that in the design are supposed to be considered "basic." Combo fields are prob an example of such ineffective design in GW2.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Cyninja.2954]

The main issue here:

Players in need of build help or in need of low intensity builds most often are not capable to design or come up with them themselves.

 

That's nothing to be ashamed of, not everyone has to know every trait by heart or know the foundations of how to come up with builds.

 

Also yes, nerfs of any kind will always get pushback and this is unrelated to player skill. There has always been skilled, or players who believe they are very skilled, complain about obviously needed retuning (aka nerfs).

 

What is an issue is when certain game elements are completely circumvented from unbalanced elements (btw the Skyscale is borderline at fault here in regards to mount movement, a reason why permanent flying will and should never be). There needs to be some balance in that regard.

 

A rune which allows for near immortality by simply running the channeled elite (former Rune of Torment with say Revenant Mallyx elite) is NOT balanced. It might be balanced around a player not playing properly, though still outperforming other builds significantly at his level, but it's absolutely broken in the hands of a player making proper use of the class.

 

No worries though, there will be new low intensity builds shared. Until then, I can just strongly suggest to players: even if you strictly solo and don't group, try to at least join a guild. You might get access to other players who can give advice or even help.

 

Use the current post expansion turmoil to try things you might have never tried. Experiment. Within 1 month it will be back to farm farm farm on the same build over and over for the next 2-3 years until the next expansion, if we are graced with another one.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[anduriell.6280]

17 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

In other MMOs one of the main ways players with less time and skill manage content that is still challenging for players with more time and skill is by overleveling and overgearing content. A plyaer can hang out in an zone, doing every possible sidequest, maybe even farming mobs for XP if the game is built that way, until they are significantly higher level than the next area they need to explore. They can go deep into crafting, making the strongest possible armor for their level while more skilled players breeze through content on lower quality drops. They can wait until they are well past the level where a dungeon first opens to them and come back to do it.

GW2, with its downscaling, hard level cap, and lack of loot treadmill doesn't offer these options. That means builds are where players find the ability to scale the game to what they can do. And that's why low-skill, low-playtime players are disappointed and maybe even a little panicked. They currently don't see an alternative way to make their favorite game accessible again.

Short answer : No you are totally mistaken and what you are saying does not reflect the reality. 

Long Answer:  You are describing single player RPGs. Modern MMO design wants you to rush over the story content to reach level cap so you can experience the end game content, where most efforts from the devs are dedicated. 

At that point is where most of the cosmetic and convenience Mtx sells happens. A leveling player does not have time or interest to spend in the gemshop (normally, some exceptions apply). 

So at the end all games play as GW2: End game content with changeling mobs and maps at level cap. You are lucky Anet approaches this as Dynamic meta Events in the openworld while other mmos use instanced content and the openworld  maps are empty. The more Anet pushes instanced content the more the maps will be empty and more players waiting in the eye of the north. 

If you want a relaxed experience you join a meta train or a tag in the map. If not you keep playing by yourself. 

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by anduriell.6280

[Pezz.4758]

5 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Short answer : No you are totally mistaken and what you are saying does not reflect the reality. 

Long Answer:  You are describing single player RPGs. Modern MMO design wants you to rush over the story content to reach level cap so you can experience the end game content, where most efforts from the devs are dedicated. 

At that point is where most of the cosmetic and convenience Mtx sells happens. A leveling player does not have time or interest to spend in the gemshop (normally, some exceptions apply). 

So at the end all games play as GW2: End game content with changeling mobs and maps at level cap. You are lucky Anet approaches this as Dynamic meta Events in the openworld while other mmos use instanced content and the openworld  maps are empty. The more Anet pushes instanced content the more the maps will be empty and more players waiting in the eye of the north. 

If you want a relaxed experience you join a meta train or a tag in the map. If not you keep playing by yourself. 

 

 

Or you know the third option which the empty maps that the devs just can't seem to fix and low YouTube/twitch engagement suggest.

 

Playing something else. 

[KeoLegend.5132]

20 hours ago, wmtyrance.3571 said:

ESO got this right. It's to bad that the devs here listened only to the hardcore player base and ignore the casual players. They would have a bigger population if they had. They could fix it if they really wanted too.

eso DESTROYED its leveling system because everything is so ridiculously easy that you just run on a dungeon, agro everyone, kill, get Skyshards and quest done, then leave and repeat ad nauseum.

 

GW2 for one has some challenge. You can't easily solo a Champ, you have a hard time against an Elite, you can't take Veterans lightly, etc. That makes content actually challenging. Also i love how difficulty slowly ramp ups from lv 1 to HoT and then other expansions. Players NEED to LEARN how to play and get better and better, thats the real progression and im very happy with the current difficulty of the game in Open World.

[Gibson.4036]

On 3/2/2022 at 8:30 PM, Labjax.2465 said:

I wish they would make up their minds as to who they are trying to accommodate or not accommodate.

 

This has been my take over the lifetime of the game since before launch. It often feels like ArenaNet is playing whack-a-mole, trying to please whatever part of the player base they feel is most disatisfied. We had the "Manifesto", then we had ascended gear and "difficult instanced content"  and the challenge of HoT, then we swung back to PoF and "power creep" e-specs, and now we've swung back to "How do we get the majority of the player base into Strikes?" and emphasizing support builds.

On 3/3/2022 at 2:56 AM, anduriell.6280 said:

Short answer : No you are totally mistaken and what you are saying does not reflect the reality. 

Long Answer:  You are describing single player RPGs. Modern MMO design wants you to rush over the story content to reach level cap so you can experience the end game content, where most efforts from the devs are dedicated. 

Well, I have direct experience with this in other MMOs. The level cap and gear treadmill moves forward, and players who weren't doing endgame now do the previous endgame while the skilled players move to the new endgame. Players who can't dungeon along the way, hit level cap then go back and do the "leveling" dungeons.

It has been a handful of years since I played another MMO besides GW2, so perhaps they've all changed this and "modern MMOs" don't work that way.

In that case, go back and read my post as "mmos in the past" instead of "other mmos". The point still stands that the gear treadmill and level cap increases allowed players to adjust the game to the difficulty level they enjoy. And GW2 doesn't have those things.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[anduriell.6280]

1 minute ago, Gibson.4036 said:

The level cap and gear treadmill moves forward, and players who weren't doing endgame now do the previous endgame while the skilled players move to the new endgame. Players who can't dungeon along the way, hit level cap then go back and do the "leveling" dungeons.

It has been a handful of years since I played another MMO besides GW2, so perhaps they've all changed this and "modern MMOs" don't work that way.

Yes that is what i meant, Level cap is the level cap, so we can say until the new level cap comes around that is the end game. All companies nowadays wants players to be in that game state. It makes sense to develop the game just for the end game content as reduce the resources needed to maintain the content.

GW2 does something similar with masteries. You can't get loot in icebrood if you don't have the right masteries. So there is a threadmill of shorts. 
In EoD is present with the jade bot and probably the rest of the masteries as well. 

[Klowdy.3126]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:55 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

The "massive" in MMO means a broad and diverse player base. In order to have the population everyone wants you have to have a mix of low and high skilled players, people who can play hours every day and people who log on for an hour or two a couple times a week. That means developers have to carefully thread the needle between challenging players with more skill and play time, while still accomodating players with less skill and playtime.

In the traditional MMO model, the gear treadmill and steadily increasing level cap actually help this happen.

It seems counterintuitive. Many casual GW2 players praise it for its static level cap and lack of gear treadmill. I'm one. I love that I could take a many year break and come back and not feel drastically left behind.

BUT

In other MMOs one of the main ways players with less time and skill manage content that is still challenging for players with more time and skill is by overleveling and overgearing content. A plyaer can hang out in an zone, doing every possible sidequest, maybe even farming mobs for XP if the game is built that way, until they are significantly higher level than the next area they need to explore. They can go deep into crafting, making the strongest possible armor for their level while more skilled players breeze through content on lower quality drops. They can wait until they are well past the level where a dungeon first opens to them and come back to do it.

GW2, with its downscaling, hard level cap, and lack of loot treadmill doesn't offer these options. That means builds are where players find the ability to scale the game to what they can do. And that's why low-skill, low-playtime players are disappointed and maybe even a little panicked. They currently don't see an alternative way to make their favorite game accessible again.

I have a feeling some of the reaction to the nerf to the "training wheels" builds will die down over time. This is because friendly high-skill, high-time investment players are even now exploring the new stat sets and e-specs. They will eventually find new builds that help them solo very hard content. They will share those with the community, and the low-skilled players will use them to cushion ordinary content so they can play again. Finally, if the HoT pattern is any indication, ArenaNet will at some point realize they're losing a decent portion of their players and adjust somehow. All of these things will help players play at their comfort level again.

IF they are still around.

This moment is a test on patience though. A low-skilled player, excited by all the previews of a new land, suddenly finds themselves having to rethink their builds instead of jumping into the new content they bought. On top of that, the build sites are challenging to deal with right now due to the API being down, so it's even difficult to go look up alternatives. Add to that a handful of players sneering "you can autoattack open world content and do fine" at them, which is blatantly false.

I'm all for low intensity builds, but to be fair, most games now seem to be moving into a scaling world. Levels and leveling are there to train you on the class, slowly building up numbers, and sprinkling in abilities and passives. The level of power is decided by gear instead of levels. Over leveling content is fading away. I would say all games should (and many have) adopt a LI build that doesn't compete at the top level, but can complete general content with little effort (look at WoW trees, offering passives and active abilities in the same rows to avoid extra buttons). People putting in more effort should be more powerful, but people playing LI builds should be weaker, they should be the base. That said, some things in OW/general content are allowed to require more skill.

[mindcircus.1506]

2 minutes ago, Klowdy.3126 said:

I would say all games should (and many have) adopt a LI build that doesn't compete at the top level, but can complete general content with little effort (look at WoW trees, offering passives and active abilities in the same rows to avoid extra buttons).

Don't Flamethrower Engi, Mininonmancer Necro and Bearbow Ranger (or any number or similar builds)  already fulfill this role?

[Klowdy.3126]

1 hour ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Don't Flamethrower Engi, Mininonmancer Necro and Bearbow Ranger (or any number or similar builds)  already fulfill this role?

That's what I was saying, many games do have these builds. My point was mostly to not seem so counter to the OP, since I don't disagree with them, but the body of my post could seem negative. 

[mindcircus.1506]

2 hours ago, Klowdy.3126 said:

That's what I was saying, many games do have these builds. My point was mostly to not seem so counter to the OP, since I don't disagree with them, but the body of my post could seem negative. 

The point is they are already there.

And the OP knows it.

[Klowdy.3126]

58 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

The point is they are already there.

And the OP knows 

I'll keep that in mind.

[Raffrey.5271]

Some say everyone is equal. I disagree.

Sure, every class has access to dodge, block, boons, buffs etc. I just want to say, if you're among the majority that lives in NA or EU, you're lucky. Enjoy your low ping. But remember, somewhere out there, some people play this game with 400 ping (maybe more?). 

World boss, Tequatl the Sunless. Remember how it can slam the ground and create a shockwave? If you're the ones that can jump over the wave, great! But I, for one, have to jump into the wave from afar to successfully dodge it. That took me more than one year to figure out how to do that, and time it well.

Not only that. Due to high ping, every attack has a slight visual delay and lands slightly earlier. The window for me to dodge/block/react to any attack closes faster. Making this game slightly less forgiving towards me. 

Those nagging about how easy this game is... you know, you have raids. Want to feel challenged? You can try to eight-man it. Or five. Not enough? Enable that CM. Let open world PvE be chill and easy.

Every class should have high sustain, above mediocre damage output, builds. 

Low intensity builds should flourish.

[mindcircus.1506]

29 minutes ago, Raffrey.5271 said:

Some say everyone is equal. I disagree.

Sure, every class has access to dodge, block, boons, buffs etc. I just want to say, if you're among the majority that lives in NA or EU, you're lucky. Enjoy your low ping. But remember, somewhere out there, some people play this game with 400 ping (maybe more?). 

World boss, Tequatl the Sunless. Remember how it can slam the ground and create a shockwave? If you're the ones that can jump over the wave, great! But I, for one, have to jump into the wave from afar to successfully dodge it. That took me more than one year to figure out how to do that, and time it well.

Not only that. Due to high ping, every attack has a slight visual delay and lands slightly earlier. The window for me to dodge/block/react to any attack closes faster. Making this game slightly less forgiving towards me. 

Those nagging about how easy this game is... you know, you have raids. Want to feel challenged? You can try to eight-man it. Or five. Not enough? Enable that CM. Let open world PvE be chill and easy.

Every class should have high sustain, above mediocre damage output, builds. 

Low intensity builds should flourish.

Every class should have a build that can ignore game mechanics and autoattack to win....
...because your internet sucks?

[Raffrey.5271]

27 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Every class should have a build that can ignore game mechanics and autoattack to win....
...because your internet sucks?

Just because you can enjoy the game with no connection issue, developers should try to make the game as hard as possible?

[anduriell.6280]

 

2 minutes ago, Raffrey.5271 said:

Just because you can enjoy the game with no connection issue, developers should try to make the game as hard as possible?

Yes? Otherwise what is the point of a end game new expansion in your opinion? 

Edited March 4, 2022 by anduriell.6280

[Raffrey.5271]

1 minute ago, anduriell.6280 said:

 

Yes? Otherwise what is the point of a end game new expansion in your opinion? 

So, from your point of view, open world and end game content are equal?

[anduriell.6280]

5 minutes ago, Raffrey.5271 said:

So, from your point of view, open world and end game content are equal?

Open world is end content in this MMO. what you call call "open world" is instanced 80~100 peeps end game content. 

This can(could) be the equivalent of a +80 mystic raids in WoW

If you agree with that then there is not "open world thing"  in gw2 and at the end you are playing instance content with many people . Do please appreciate the miracle GW system devs have done in this game.

And I really mean I miracle here as you can get up to 180 peeps doing weird stuff in wvw.  

<swearing in +18> Anet really have some genius bar going on in there, shame it does not shows in the pve/PvP scene. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by anduriell.6280

[Raffrey.5271]

2 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Open world is end content in this MMO. what you call call "open world" is instanced 80~100 peeps end game content. 

This can(could) be the equivalent of a +80 mystic raids in WoW

If you agree with that then there is not "open world thing"  in gw2 and at the end you are playing instance content with many people . Do please appreciate the miracle GW system devs have done in this game.

And I really mean I miracle here as you can get up to 180 peeps doing weird stuff in wvw.  

<swearing in +18> Anet really have some genius bar going on in there, shame it does not shows in the pve/PvP scene. 

Well, if you want to put it that way...

From your perspective, 80~100 people doing Shadow Behemoth is mostly same as 10 people group fighting Qadim the Peerless? That the only difference between these two, is group size? 

If, seriously, that's what you mean, I have nothing else to say. It has become sort of like, "my red is not your red" stuff.

[Labjax.2465]

42 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Every class should have a build that can ignore game mechanics and autoattack to win....
...because your internet sucks?

I mean, this is already what a lot of people are doing, regardless of how well it works for them. Idk about the auto attack part, but in large group events, people ignoring mechanics and getting rezzed is common. Case in point, was joining in on some champs in PoF today (side note: mounts are awesome, I was hesitant to buy, but it's been fun) and had to learn on the fly about with some of the champs having stacks you need to cleanse on the nearby orbs. I saw people getting frequently downed, most likely because of not even noticing the mechanic. Idk what the git gud braggarts think is going to be lost if some of those kind of people are more useful in group events. There are two ways they become more useful, either they get easier spec options or they become better players and if my experience doing progression raiding in another MMO for a few years is any indication, some players are virtually immune to improving past a certain threshold. There are those like myself who first came into raiding not understanding DPS at all and later became effective enough I could top the DPS charts on some occasions. Then there are those who you can try to teach and they just don't care I guess, or it's just not in them to put the intensity of reaction times and rotations into practice effectively enough. Do you want to be carrying those people all the time in open world or do you actually kind of want them to fail so you can feel superior?

[anduriell.6280]

4 minutes ago, Raffrey.5271 said:

Well, if you want to put it that way...

From your perspective, 80~100 people doing Shadow Behemoth is mostly same as 10 people group fighting Qadim the Peerless? That the only difference between these two, is group size? 

If, seriously, that's what you mean, I have nothing else to say. It has become sort of like, "my red is not your red" stuff.

If that is your understanding fine. 

How would it fare  Qadim  against 80 peeps? so stop whining about difficult content in an 80 peeps instanced content,

Do you get my drift? 

[Gibson.4036]

24 minutes ago, Raffrey.5271 said:

If, seriously, that's what you mean, I have nothing else to say. It has become sort of like, "my red is not your red" stuff.

After much back and forth, I’m coming to the conclusion that this is very much the case between the various populations of the game.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Gibson.4036