Why GW2 will fail on Steam without core combat changes. (Alac/Quickness Boons too powerful)

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

The big problem they are going to have is core tyria. Core tyria has not aged well, and is the least interacted with area by the current player base, but will be heavily interacted with by the new players trying the game. The 'end game' being good won't matter if people don't make it there. and the core game also does a horrible job training players in systems and mechanics they will need later. I have introduced many people to the game, and the most common comment is that HoT and further are so different they basically feel like another game entirely due to how much you have to change how you play with the sudden steep mechanics learning curve. If they don;t address this by major work in core tyria to smooth things out and update the experience I suspect many won't make it to end game content or will be scared off by the sudden difficulty spike.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Boogiepop Void.6473

[Keegers.2573]

48 minutes ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

I dont know how to say this but in group content you have 4 slots dedicated to boon classes, the other 6 are usually dps classes. With the exception of  bosses that require a tank type and usually that can be one of the boon classes so you still need 6 dps. Its part of the team dynamic and yes many raid encounters are balanced around dps checks. Can they be done without quick and alac, yes they can. I have been in pugs without alac we still killed the bosses, I have been in pugs were only one group had quick we still killed it. While the optimum raid setup may be x and y class , any class will work. I heal tempest raids 2 weeks ago, I get it the meta is the end all be all to some people. But everything is doable without it. Form your own group if you cant get into one because you are not quick or alac , most groups are just thrown together anyway. I dont want every class to pump out the same things how boring would that be.  And in open world none of this matters.

"Form your own group" is one of the worst arguments for group gatekeeping. Look at the WOW M+ community, any feedback about the elitism and toxicity is met with that. Try creating a new account with low achievement points and getting players to join your pug raid or joining a raid with no LI account. Forcing players to make friends and find guilds to help them learn is a community bandaid fix to a gameplay/design issue. Strikes are supposed to be pushed as the new mainstay content but no matter how hard Anet tries to force players they push away more players than ones that stick around. I guarantee the internal metrics show very little increase in repeated strike activity among players who weren't already doing them.

"Everything is doable" only applies to a certain extent. There is huge difference in meta and non meta, obviously there are players that are in a mix of greens/blues trying this content. I'm not asking for those players to be able to clear everything, I'm wanting the players who have at least full exotics to be able to compete and do content without outside resources. MMORPG as a genre is very easy and made for all types of players. Why does GW2 try to claim to be a casual game but at it's end level have a weird arbitrary 10player content. Either they need to make strikes/raids doable by all players without meta support builds or they need to start addressing how to increase the base skill floor for all players. The easiest way to increase the skill floor is to remove quickness/alac and increase base dmg by a %. If they want to keep the support boons as is, they need to look into ways to balance top end vs low end disparities. 

GW2 is in a weird place trying to fit everyone under a single hat. WOW has 4 different raid difficulties for players of all skill levels, GW2 already has a CM in place, why can't they nerf or adjust combat so the non-cm content can be done by players with low skill level. Take a step away from your place of knowledge/experience and put yourself into the shoes of a new player or an open world player who has been running soldier gear. These players are the majority of players, and they will most likely just quit the game when they realize strikes are forced or they can't do raids... I'm trying to advocate for those players. The game will always be alive and well, but how many potential players will be ostracized by the weird support meta currently in the game. The game is advertised as one where you can use any build and there is no holy trinity... EXCEPT when you get to the real end game content and there is a weird hodgepodge of builds that synergize and boon supports that are necessary to use. This is unlike the rest of the game and it should be addressed. Catering to the raiders/hardcore group never ends well for MMORPGS *cough* Wildstar *cough*. (I really enjoyed W* 😞 ) 

I
 

[captrowdy.9561]

I came from eso. The matchmaking sucked. 4 random people thrown together that maybe will work out. Right now you have to do some basic communication before you begin. You know back in the day that’s how it used to be in mmos. 

[Asum.4960]

23 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

With Anet's recent post talking about wanting to have the perfect Steam launch, it made me start thinking about the current issue holding GW2 back from larger success. The game claims to be solo/"casual" friendly game and in most regards it achieves that. Until we get into the aspect of late game raids/strikes/fractals and the current meta revolving around them. The current boon system is a detriment to the game and kills it for solo/casual players with how necessary quickness/alac is and the massive dps disparity it causes. 
 

 

If that's what you believe then I don't think you understand the boon system or the implied role compression that goes along with it. 

I don't see how Quickness, let alone Alacrity, is mandatory to a point where they "kill the game for solo players".  

They are a good rally point for a group role, along with what's implied with them. If you remove them, you got people looking for Might's and Fury's etc., rather than Quick and Alac's. I'm not sure what you think that would solve (or why these are so problematic currently). 

 

For solo play, there are plenty builds and specs without Quickness or Alac that perform better than many with. The biggest part about any solo build is maximising Might, Fury and Vulnerability. That's where the vast majority of disparity between good and bad solo builds comes from.

 

Quote

Look at the current EoD endgame meta and how much attention that has gotten. Optimal builds are pretty much required and groups are having to engage in gatekeeping behavior of manipulating map population to be able to do the event and succeed. There is a huge difference in dps between even the same spec/gearing of when you have quickness and alac vs when you are boonless.

If you want to squish the difference between skill floor and ceiling looking at boon uptime and the basic requirements of these two boons is the main place to start.

That's just blatantly false. What's required for the DE Meta is between 5-10k DPS per player. Optimal builds are capable of reaching 40k DPS, and doing the pre-events grants all participating players a +25% Damage buff total, plus extra Power and Condition Damage from the Jade Overcharges. They are not required in any shape or form.

Players Auto atacking or skill clicking anything off-CD with non-sensical builds for ~3k DPS and getting mass downed by the first clearly telegraphed attack of the boss won't suddenly be super charged by just those two boons. Especially not compared to Might and Fury.

 

Quote

The timewaste of creating and looking for groups that fit within the specific meta of GW2 is currently killing the in game LFG system.

 

The LFG system is alive and well. The biggest problem with it is that GW2 has conditioned it's players to never have to group since pretty much all OW content, at least pre EoD, could be solved by just throwing bodies at it. No grouping, no organisation, no communication. 

So when content requires a group (such as instanced content), you got thirty+ players watching LFG, too shy to make one, for every one person taking things in their own hands and creating one (something apparent when esp. multiple non gated groups pop up on LFG at once, and all fill in literally seconds at once). 

Staring at LFG's and not finding a group doesn't have anything to do with boon roles, but with too few people stepping up to make groups. 

Heal + Quick + Alac + DPS as baseline isn't rocket science to look for - and that's Anet's vision for roles in organised group content going forward.

 

Quote

If I look back at the launch of GW2 before HoT, you were able to take 5 berserkers and get through most of the dungeons/fractals. If you tried to do that now in strikes/raids you would fail miserably.

...

If you wanted to try running a strike or raid without your quickness/alac buffs you would be in for a bad time. 

...

Being gatekept out of raids/strikes will be the major quit point for the majority of new players. 

Back at launch there were metas and gated groups all the same (I vividly recall 5 Warrior's or gtfo for dungeons meta, or have X AP gates). 

Likewise, you can take off-meta, chill and casual groups through all of Raids, Strikes and Fractals all the same now. But you actually have to do it. Back then more players simply still made alternative groups - not yet having been conditioned to shy away from that by playing a largely grouping free Game for years.

People need to stop sitting on their butts and complain on the forums about how "content is gatekept" by Meta builds or KP requirements, when all that people can and are gatekeeping is their own groups. 

If you don't want to partake in that, make your own groups as well and have an awesome time with that, connecting with like-minded players. 

Quickness and Alacrity isn't the culprit here, at least not anymore. And contrary to what you say, "sprinkling it around some more" was exactly the solution to that.

 

 

/E:

That said, Boons in GW2 clearly weren't designed with 100% uptime in mind and anyone playing since launch knows how incredibly sparse and short lived boons where then. That's not just Quickness and Alacrity though, by any means. Perma 25 Might (that's not a significant group effort and sacrifice, including blasting fields, etc.) or perma Prot is just as insane.

I disagree though that this will be a major quit point for players - being bored oneshotting mobs that haven't kept up with years of powercreep in core Tyria for hours and hours as first game experience is a much more likely culprit here.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Asum.4960

[ugrakarma.9416]

thanks gods theres no matchmaker in pve, look hows pvp one is working great lmao.

[ugrakarma.9416]

6 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

Roles and matchmaking

Because of the boonmeta we can never have a matchmaking system in the game. I know Anet said they don't want one, but lets look for a moment at the other competing MMORPGS on steam and how they compare to GW2. I will focus on the main 3 of steam currently; Lost Ark, FFXIV, and ESO. All of these games use a matchmaker for the majority of their content, why would a casual player play GW2 endgame content when they could jump straight into the content in the other 3 games with minimal delay. The timewaste of creating and looking for groups that fit within the specific meta of GW2 is currently killing the in game LFG system. Most the players I know organize outside of the game in different discords as is, how is a new casual player supposed to break into these areas easily and experience the content. This will be a major quit point for the majority of new steam players. 

If I look back at the launch of GW2 before HoT, you were able to take 5 berserkers and get through most of the dungeons/fractals. If you tried to do that now in strikes/raids you would fail miserably, while the increase in build variation is nice, they have consequentially ruined a groups ability to just hotjoin and go. Look at Lost Ark, difficulty of content and current calls for nerfs aside, you can join the Abyssal Dungeons/Raids (hardest available content) in matchmaking and you can complete all of the content without a bard or paladin (support class). If you wanted to try running a strike or raid without your quickness/alac buffs you would be in for a bad time. 

I love Guild Wars, I've been playing since Prophecies launch, every expansion, every living story. I want this game to be a huge success, but the current Boon meta is holding the game back. We as a community need to stop pushing this elitist idea that having boons and the current support classes makes the game skilled. The fun of the game for solo/casual players is completing all the content of a game at their own pace of how/when they want to do it. Being gatekept out of raids/strikes will be the major quit point for the majority of new players. 

TLDR: Quickness/Alac are game ruining buffs and should be removed if Anet wants GW2 to succeed on Steam.

The problem is the philosophy that "everybody does what they want", the boonspam is the salvation for bizarre hybrids that result from that philosophy. it's a comfortable position, you can balance any spec, just adjusting the boons output, the skills and playstyle became mere "decoration"., give alac spam, them magic is done: the spec become meta.

 

Particularly, I like well-defined roles as opposed to "I want to be a support warrior and use staff to dance like a ballerina", but forced roles summed up with the taste for bizarre hybrids will have a uglier result, due to an inherent entropy of this model. I would take me away from the game forever.

 

For example, my playstyle is simple, all i want is to be a heavy warrior or guardian with a greatsword doing damage. But due to the forced hybrids, the meta warrior for some time was sword + torch, and now is the bannerslave. For guardians it's this weird thing of summoning books and spamming magic. Luckily, Willbender came, and finally a heavy class that satisfied me, I don't know how long, if the devs heards the forums willbender will be nerfed or turned into another bizarre hybrid (a dancing ballerina who applies boons).

Edited March 23, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[LucianDK.8615]

Joined 3 organized groups today. The lead sorting quickness and alacrity. All map parts on high.   3 successes.

The meta quite beatable. Just dont join clear trashgroups and expect to succeed without someone trying to sort people to subsquads, due to 5 man boons now. Especially if many doesnt have full contribution, or map areas below high, or not stacking protocols.

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

18 minutes ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

I came from eso. The matchmaking sucked. 4 random people thrown together that maybe will work out. Right now you have to do some basic communication before you begin. You know back in the day that’s how it used to be in mmos. 

The reason ESO matchmaking is hot garbage is the same reason GW2 endgame is a mess: The game doesn't teach players how to play from min to max level while also telling/expecting them to make their own builds when there is rules that must be followed in endgame builds that they are not taught. 

I can queue up in FFXIV and as long as I don't get a lowbie dungeon everyone can perform at a minimum level, the DPS that do less dps then the tank is something that rarely shows up unlike in GW2 or ESO. FFXIV FORCES everyone to do group dungeon content in order to progress the story, you are forced to learn to perform at a basic level.

These "freeform" build MMO's always sucker all the casuals in with promises of freedom and refuse to break that illusion until they hit endgame and want to put their foot in the door and finally learn that there is a gangly endgame meta that has been twisted and turned by years of half assed balance updates and forgotten class visions.

Edited March 23, 2022 by TheSeraphim.7413

[ScottBroChill.3254]

That whole 5 man berserker team was possible because the only role was dps at the time. Kinda made things one dimensional. I will agree about the boon meta though. We are at a point where 100% uptime is the baseline. Anything that is required to be up 100% of the time should just be standard at this point because everything will be balanced around that. Aegis was done kinda right in this regard. It's a really powerful effect for just 1 hit, so it's use is impactful, but it doesn't alter the way your character fights and doesn't cause balancing issues in such a big way. When playing ele, with sword and hammer you can really feel that they are meant to be played with these boons. The amount of actions you have to perform in a certain timer to get benefits while trying to combo a bunch of stuff becomes a very tight window with longer cast times and longer recharges that slow down your rotation or not having access to certain skills in time. This may be against the popular opinion but i feel like quickness and alacrity would be much cooler if they were just self applied boons, kinda like how impossible odds use to be. But I guess that would cause balance issues with certain weapons being able to more damage on a new espec causing another balancing dilema. What a pickle. 

[Darklord Roy.2514]

4 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

I'm saying that quickness/alac are the main causes of dps disparity in players and they are also the main issue when trying to group with players for content. Everyone wants their alac/quickness boons because playing without it feels bad and content is balanced around having these boons. The entire endgame dps parse pretty much revolves around 2 boons. 

Mechanist healer does 10k dps on Mursaat Overseer while doing alac, 25 might, fury, protection, etc.. Remove alac and you still got a class that can pump heals and boons to compete with other supports. Alac/quickness is a gatekeeper boon that makes different support builds not work. Why would i bring another healer when I can bring a healer/alac and have an extra dps

Since everyone else is mostly tunnel visioning on your comments about matchmaking and the boon situation as a whole, allow me to do the same with your point on quick/alac and say that I completely agree with you. The state of the nearly everything in the endgame has gotten to the point that playing without those two boons feels like playing in slow motion, INSTEAD of it feeling like playing in super fast motion when you get them. Quickness and alacrity have just become the norm for playing in group content and it honestly does feel like quite a hit to new players when you think about how few builds actually have consistent access to one or both of those boons.

 

New players shouldn't be restricted by these 2 things when nobody cares nearly as much about other boons. Nobody worries about might stacking or prot or resilience, it's all on the quickness and alacrity train for everything and new players don't want to be backed into either playing a class with those boons or being completely alienated from the endgame.

[Tatwi.3562]

Allow me to add the following to your list:

1. Spell Effect Overload. How long have people stated, over and over again, that there are so many player spell effects over lapping that they literally can't see the boss "tells", ground zones, or other mechanics? Pretty much a decade. People with low-end computers (a large percent of Steam users) and other new folks who feel this way might bounce right off GW2's end game content.
2. Overlapping/Chain AoE Ground Effects - "Don't stand in the bad". Back in WotLK WoW I healed something like 1,100 random five man dungeons on my Shaman. I also healed most of the raid encounters for friends and co-workers. That was a long time ago and I haven't any interest in that type content anymore. But that experience gave me a point of comparison between the story and boss encounters in GW2 to those an another popular game of the genre. The biggest difference is also the most annoying and absolutely the opposite of fun: In GW2 the ground is constantly covered in overlapping effects, such as knock backs/downs, AoE damage, DoTs, and confusingly, areas where you are supposed to stand, but you can't because they are being overlapped by effects you can't stand in. Waaaay too much randomness and chaos to really learn the encounters beyond stuff like "jump over the wave" or "get behind the pillar". The rest is often a wacky spam fest that other folks who have done this type of content in WoW will likely not appreciate either. In short, GW2 encounters are spastic chaos and, in general, aren't fun at all, especially when compared to those I enjoyed in WoW. In shorter, ArenaNet stinks at encounter design, at least when compared to peek WoW.

[Kalocin.5982]

Seems like a lot of us old players are coming out of the woodwork, that confuse emote somehow makes you want to punch someone. As a Prophecies player, my perspective is that there's nothing wrong with GW2's systems but there is a lot imbalance over unbalance. From their recent blog post I'm a bit hopeful with bringing ignored old weapons and builds (etc) up to par. Fundamentally the largest issue is that builds and weapons themselves need to be stronger, stats need to influence less. Buffs can be amazing but what's nerfing alacrity going to do to a dude with full soldiers on a necro using sceptre as a reaper.

 

I have full berserkers as a Scourge now but in game they were never given any direction to know that's bad. Easy solution would be give a pre-set build but viper's is hard to get fully for someone just starting. I think we've gotten past stats needing to be marketed, or at least condi being more than power.

 

All that being said, I think stats need a major nerf, and all the damage needs to be baked into weapons and traits like the OG Guild Wars. Yes you do more damage with vipers but only 10-20% more than the kitten with power.

 

Why this matters is because they can actually release harder content, and your dps shouldn't be tied to your gear or stats but rather just hitting 111. A proper weapon balancing would make weapon power be spread across just spamming 1 too, hopefully.

 

How in practice does that work? Well anyone can join and it's a lot easier to deal with "they do 20% less damage" vs like, two people with full proper builds. The disparity is insane. You can have old school build wars, I grew up in it. However someone with lv 20 and basic gear with no upgrades would still relatively do well in any mission content in GW1, even with bad builds they weren't totally useless if they brought res signet but I digress. Long story short, the balancing issues aren't related to buffs but rather it's not easy for a standard player to have any information or easy access to succeed in the way that the community and Anet has been making content.

[Jheuloh.4109]

39 minutes ago, Kalocin.5982 said:

Seems like a lot of us old players are coming out of the woodwork, that confuse emote somehow makes you want to punch someone. As a Prophecies player, my perspective is that there's nothing wrong with GW2's systems but there is a lot imbalance over unbalance. From their recent blog post I'm a bit hopeful with bringing ignored old weapons and builds (etc) up to par. Fundamentally the largest issue is that builds and weapons themselves need to be stronger, stats need to influence less. Buffs can be amazing but what's nerfing alacrity going to do to a dude with full soldiers on a necro using sceptre as a reaper.

 

I have full berserkers as a Scourge now but in game they were never given any direction to know that's bad. Easy solution would be give a pre-set build but viper's is hard to get fully for someone just starting. I think we've gotten past stats needing to be marketed, or at least condi being more than power.

 

All that being said, I think stats need a major nerf, and all the damage needs to be baked into weapons and traits like the OG Guild Wars. Yes you do more damage with vipers but only 10-20% more than the kitten with power.

 

Why this matters is because they can actually release harder content, and your dps shouldn't be tied to your gear or stats but rather just hitting 111. A proper weapon balancing would make weapon power be spread across just spamming 1 too, hopefully.

 

How in practice does that work? Well anyone can join and it's a lot easier to deal with "they do 20% less damage" vs like, two people with full proper builds. The disparity is insane. You can have old school build wars, I grew up in it. However someone with lv 20 and basic gear with no upgrades would still relatively do well in any mission content in GW1, even with bad builds they weren't totally useless if they brought res signet but I digress. Long story short, the balancing issues aren't related to buffs but rather it's not easy for a standard player to have any information or easy access to succeed in the way that the community and Anet has been making content.

 

Validating your statement:

I'm a salty old veteran hailing from Guild Wars 1 days, I got the game as a Christmas present in 2005 when I was 12 and kept it close ever since.

 

You mention that Guild Wars 2 gives players little to no guidance on how to perform; I would accuse Guild Wars 1 of having the same problem. While the numbers are smaller in Gw1, the potential for crushingly bad builds is a lot higher.

 

Guild Wars 2 indirectly addressed this by limiting the range of options from "Literally any 2 class combinations" to "A handful of weapon and utility skills." In both games (up until the past couple years) ArenaNet just assumed most people would figure things out through their own curiosity, rather than needing to be explicitly taught these things.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Jheuloh.4109

[Kalocin.5982]

21 minutes ago, Jheuloh.4109 said:

 

Validating your statement:

I'm a salty old veteran hailing from Guild Wars 1 days, I got the game as a Christmas present in 2005 when I was 12 and kept it close ever since.

 

You mention that Guild Wars 2 gives players little to no guidance on how to perform; I would accuse Guild Wars 1 of having the same problem. While the numbers are smaller in Gw1, the potential for crushingly bad builds is a lot higher.

 

Guild Wars 2 indirectly addressed this by limiting the range of options from "Literally any 2 class combinations" to "A handful of weapon and utility skills." In both games (up until the past couple years) ArenaNet just assumed most people would figure things out through their own curiosity, rather than needing to be explicitly taught these things.

GW1 had it's problems but it was never gear/stat related, unless you wanted to 55 or whatever. The difference of course was back then you could henchmen/hero and probably make something functional to get through things, and ofc google when it failed. That's not really a check when it's 50 others+. Guild Wars 2 originally was fantastic about this, it just never kept up with it's own systems by properly balancing all weapons to be useful.

 

That being said, yeah, both games are bloody terrible at guidance So I say, stop relying on the community to make people learn how to play.

[Jheuloh.4109]

Just now, Kalocin.5982 said:

GW1 had it's problems but it was never gear/stat related, unless you wanted to 55 or whatever. The difference of course was back then you could henchmen/hero and probably make something functional to get through things, and ofc google when it failed. That's not really a check when it's 50 others+. Guild Wars 2 originally was fantastic about this, it just never kept up with it's own systems by properly balancing all weapons to be useful.

 

That being said, yeah, both games are bloody terrible at guidance So I say, stop relying on the community to make people learn how to play.

 

Disclaimer: After about level 16 I PUG'd through the story missions lol. My perspective is driven by the unpredictability of rando's.

 

Stat-wise, yeah, unless you were going for a 55 monk or some other really artificial play the range of stat variance between characters (after factoring in gear, runes, and +Damage abilities) was something like... 2x? 3x?

 

Whereas ArenaNet is on record as stating the gap between high and low performing players is something to the tune of 6x. If someone said 10x I'd believe them.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

Everyone seems to be focusing on the matchmaker aspect. I don't care if the game has matchmaking or not, but the quickness/alac requirements make it take longer to find groups in LFG. You can still have challenging content and specialized builds, but right now the baseline of requiring quickness/alac is ruining the experience.

It's not about quickness/alac specifically. It's about buffs being way too strong. proper buff setup can easily double or triple your dps, which is absolutely insane. It should probably be toned down to offer much more modest increases (no more than 20-25% in total when all buffs are considered). Although that would require massive rebalancing (scaling down) of all the content in this game. Still, that change alone would likely help in reducing the gap between the average and top players from ~10x to ~3-4x, which would massively help with balancing the content for more than one group of players.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Jheuloh.4109 said:

Whereas ArenaNet is on record as stating the gap between high and low performing players is something to the tune of 6x. If someone said 10x I'd believe them.

Actually, Anet did say 10x. And not between high and low performing players, but between top and average ones.

[Cyninja.2954]

9 hours ago, Boogiepop Void.6473 said:

The big problem they are going to have is core tyria. Core tyria has not aged well, and is the least interacted with area by the current player base, but will be heavily interacted with by the new players trying the game. the end game being good won't matter if people don;t make it there. and the core game also does a horrible job training players in systems and mechanics they will need later. I have introduced many people to the game, and the most common comment is that HoT and further are so different they basically feel like another game entirely due to how much you have to change how you play with the sudden steep mechanics learning curve. If they don;t address this by major work in core tyria to smooth things out and update the experience I suspect many won't make it to end game content.

 

Very well said. 100% agreed.

 

Everyone is so fixated on endgame and if new players will like it, they are forgetting where the most players are being lost: right after trying a new MMO.

 

I am actually happy to see the studio go back to reintroduce (and hopefully rework) season 1. Not because Season 1 was such great story telling or amazing, it certainly was not and there is a lot of rose tinted glasses being worn here. It's because it gives the developers a possibility to allow for a cohesive story and maybe introduce some elements similar to EoD Seitung Province.

 

Core Tyria has aged poorly and playes very different from anything beyond HoT. Let's see how the developers approach this issue.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[lezbefriends.7516]

It won't "fail on Steam," but it will be called "dead" by people analyzing Steam metrics to align with their message.

[Erise.5614]

Agree. Intro experience is a huge deal. I'm actually super happy they put the new LWS1 free. Hopefully LWS2 will follow so people have a smooth experience into HoT and into current endgame content. From there on out it's already a much better situation.

 

9 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

I came from eso. The matchmaking sucked. 4 random people thrown together that maybe will work out. Right now you have to do some basic communication before you begin. You know back in the day that’s how it used to be in mmos. 

Yeah. No. Old school MMOs sucked. Pretty hard. Take off those rose colored glasses. Managing a squad is quite a mess.

When people like me ask for updates to LFG we aren't even talking about completely auto filling. Just more tools. I'd be super happy about a tool where people can self claim certain roles they are able to play and I can set up the roles we're looking for. Getting rid of those dps players joining for a dudu slot and similar. So much wasted time with pointless communication. My problem isn't having to talk or set things up. The problem is how much time is wasted with miscommunication because the tools do not give me the necessary information. Even just displaying builds would help to determine whether this player can fulfill that role. Instead of having to hope they run the meta build for their class. 

 

[lezbefriends.7516]

A certain Bethesda game is getting by with some of the most polarizing combat ever in a game, so I think GW2, which is lauded for its combat, will do just fine.

[Erise.5614]

12 minutes ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

A certain Bethesda game is getting by with some of the most polarizing combat ever in a game, so I think GW2, which is lauded for its combat, will do just fine.

I mean. There is a big problem with the discrepancy of a good build and team setup vs a suboptimal one. It's very easily an order of magnitude in damage output. That is not ideal. It drives a massive wedge between people who understand the entire system vs people who only understand certain parts of it (aka, the majority). Content can be viewed as trivial and insurmountably hard at the same time and with the same level of skill playing your character. Actually using your skills, dodging, etc. 

This large a gap makes balancing and creating content very difficult and poses a serious problem for transitioning from early game leveling into the end game. 

I'm not entirely sure what would be the best way to approach this. Reducing boon effectiveness could help. Ingame trait builds could help too. As it stand there are several traits that are straight up newbie traps. A way to get any stat yellow gear for free would be good too (soul bound, non salvageable, obviously). Just so people can try it out more easily different combinations and then replace parts one by one with exotic and then ascended. 

The issue isn't the form of the combat but that transitioning into proper endgame content is a very, very steep curve basically requiring out of game tools and websites. Which can be reduced with a couple of smaller changes too. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Wintermute.5408]

16 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

Look at Lost Ark, difficulty of content and current calls for nerfs aside, you can join the Abyssal Dungeons/Raids (hardest available content) in matchmaking and you can complete all of the content without a bard or paladin (support class).

Did you really just compare the difficulty of GW2 and LA raids. No, you can't "just jump in and do a raid" in LA. At some point voice communication becomes mandatory there.

[kharmin.7683]

16 hours ago, Keegers.2573 said:

I'm saying that quickness/alac are the main causes of dps disparity in players and they are also the main issue when trying to group with players for content. Everyone wants their alac/quickness boons because playing without it feels bad and content is balanced around having these boons. The entire endgame dps parse pretty much revolves around 2 boons. 

Mechanist healer does 10k dps on Mursaat Overseer while doing alac, 25 might, fury, protection, etc.. Remove alac and you still got a class that can pump heals and boons to compete with other supports. Alac/quickness is a gatekeeper boon that makes different support builds not work. Why would i bring another healer when I can bring a healer/alac and have an extra dps

Maybe you should re-title your thread to reflect this?  Your seemingly main complaint has little to nothing to do with the Steam release; rather, it seems more of a complaint about quickness/alacrity.

[kharmin.7683]

14 hours ago, Boogiepop Void.6473 said:

The big problem they are going to have is core tyria. Core tyria has not aged well, and is the least interacted with area by the current player base, but will be heavily interacted with by the new players trying the game. the end game being good won't matter if people don;t make it there. and the core game also does a horrible job training players in systems and mechanics they will need later. I have introduced many people to the game, and the most common comment is that HoT and further are so different they basically feel like another game entirely due to how much you have to change how you play with the sudden steep mechanics learning curve. If they don;t address this by major work in core tyria to smooth things out and update the experience I suspect many won't make it to end game content.

Maybe.  Seemed like a lot of new players that entered with the EoD expansion used their level 80 boost and went straight on from there.  Heck, Anet even put in a training ground area in EoD, probably in anticipation of this.