Meta Boons over-exploited,

[dace.8019]

Two boons have come to dominate the meta. They're so in-demand and prevalent in end-game content they might as well be baseline. Maybe that's a terrible idea? Or maybe it frees up specialisations and play-styles to be more flavourful and not reduced to "It does the boon" or "It does the boon AND damage/heals". 

 

Globally increase skill activations speed by a third. Remove quickness.

 

Globally decrease skill cooldowns by 15%. Remove alacrity. 

 

Fill the gaps in professions/specs this would leave with something else that doesn't modify these stats. This is the hardest part. A few role identities would need to be revised/tweaked. The goal would be for these to feel more less like bots pulsing out these boons and more like the desirable/useful spec/profession abilities some already enjoy eg. banners, spirits, scourge group revives, life-steal, bonus attacks, AoE aegis/blocks, etc. 

 

Free the meta and specs from the chains of these boons and maybe a more interesting game could emerge? Everyone gets to enjoy a sort of perma quick and alacrity this way and we spice it up. 

[LuRkEr.9462]

Every class will be able to provide Alac or Quickness (druid and warrior after June patch) so I don't think this is really required.

Creates alittle skill gap between groups/people as there is some skill to keeping up the boons for most the classes and balancing their dps. 

 

Honestly the only real boons that are in-demand and prevalent in end game content are Stability and Aegis.

[dace.8019]

8 minutes ago, LuRkEr.9462 said:

Honestly the only real boons that are in-demand and prevalent in end game content are Stability and Aegis.

Those are important but have you ever looked at the LFG? Besides a healer, it's either asking specifically for a spec providing either of the boons I'm discussing or just directly using the names of the boons. They don't care half the time what is doing them, so long as the boons are on the bar.

[phandaria.4891]

8 minutes ago, dace.8019 said:

Fill the gaps in professions/specs this would leave with something else that doesn't modify these stats. This is the hardest part. A few role identities would need to be revised/tweaked. The goal would be for these to feel more less like bots pulsing out these boons and more like the desirable/useful spec/profession abilities some already enjoy eg. banners, spirits, scourge group revives, life-steal, bonus attacks, AoE aegis/blocks, etc. 

Free the meta and specs from the chains of these boons and maybe a more interesting game could emerge? Everyone gets to enjoy a sort of perma quick and alacrity this way and we spice it up. 

Once Quick/Alac becomes baseline, the slot will just be replaced with another DPS boon. For example, Banner/Spirit gonna be so in-demand and prevalent, because that's just how it works. People gonna find the most efficient way to do things.

Tiny history lesson, Quickness was limited to Mesmer/Chrono, and having them became a baseline for any end game content. Currently, Quick/Alac is good as it spread to different class and spec. And for some, there is a trade-off in traits and skill choice.

[Katsugankz.7156]

Honestly, yeah. Playing without quickness at least has become incredibly tedious feeling, combat straight up feels better in almost every way with quickness.

I do think that the direction we're currently going isn't a bad alternative. Every class being able to give either quickness or alacrity seems like a nice compromise. 

[dace.8019]

Just now, phandaria.4891 said:

Once Quick/Alac becomes baseline, the slot will just be replaced with another DPS boon. For example, Banner/Spirit gonna be so in-demand and prevalent, because that's just how it works.

I agree and this is why we don't just remove them. We have to give something else in their places. I discussed banners, spirits, group rez, etc., - it could be impactful stuff like all this. Sometimes more contextual. It's very tricky and absolutely the hardest part of this suggestion to make work because it would mean a soft rework for a lot of specs. A lot of work too. 

People will always settle on a meta and that's cool - my point is just how rigidly defined this one is and how it's over exploited and, to a point, over-catered to by ANet. Their idea to fix it is to change the symbol of the profession giving you the boon in the party window. I think ANet can do better than that.

[dace.8019]

3 minutes ago, Katsugankz.7156 said:

Honestly, yeah. Playing without quickness at least has become incredibly tedious feeling, combat straight up feels better in almost every way with quickness.

I do think that the direction we're currently going isn't a bad alternative. Every class being able to give either quickness or alacrity seems like a nice compromise. 

This is another point I raised elsewhere and I agree wholly about - when you're out in the world and don't have quickness (or, actually doing the instanced content without a meta group) it really feels bad. You get so used to quickness. And actually.. yes it feels better with it. Make it baseline, cook it into every skill (diluted of course) and enjoy perma quickness lite even if you're in the remotest corner of a map doing some obscure achievement on the least well regarded espec. Life could be better.

[Ashen.2907]

Remove all sources of healing in the game and instead have characters recover 2k health per second automatically.

Remove damage from weapons and have foes suffer 15k damage per second for being in a PC's presence.

Remove dodging from the game and just have characters automatically evade one attack every 5 seconds.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Zera.9435]

I like the idea of just globally increasing base attack speed and decrease skill cooldown. To hell with boon upkeep.

[Ashen.2907]

Just now, Zera Allimatti.2541 said:

I like the idea of just globally increasing base attack speed and decrease skill cooldown. To hell with boon upkeep.

Why not just ignore boon upkeep then? Most content doesn't need it.

[Khisanth.2948]

5 hours ago, dace.8019 said:

People will always settle on a meta and that's cool - my point is just how rigidly defined this one is and how it's over exploited and

You would have a point if ANet not for the fact that ANet has started to make it possible for more classes to provide them.

The rigidity does not come from the design but from player mentality. Fortunately that also seems to be changing since I've been seeing LFG looking simply for the boons and not for the profession..

5 hours ago, dace.8019 said:

This is another point I raised elsewhere and I agree wholly about - when you're out in the world and don't have quickness (or, actually doing the instanced content without a meta group) it really feels bad. You get so used to quickness. And actually.. yes it feels better with it. Make it baseline, cook it into every skill (diluted of course) and enjoy perma quickness lite even if you're in the remotest corner of a map doing some obscure achievement on the least well regarded espec. Life could be better.

Making it baseline will not change anything in the long term. After the initial change it will seem nice. After a while you get used to the new normal. Welcome to the life of someone constantly seeking higher highs, more thrilling thrills, faster speeds, etc. 

[Ashen.2907]

21 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

You would have a point if ANet not for the fact that ANet has started to make it possible for more classes to provide them.

The rigidity does not come from the design but from player mentality. Fortunately that also seems to be changing since I've been seeing LFG looking simply for the boons and not for the profession..

Making it baseline will not change anything in the long term. After the initial change it will seem nice. After a while you get used to the new normal. Welcome to the life of someone constantly seeking higher highs, more thrilling thrills, faster speeds, etc. 

Bingo.

 

This person gets it. Just artificially inflating numbers without any effort of the player's part only serves to create a new baseline with less player engagement with their character's performance.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Astralporing.1957]

9 hours ago, LuRkEr.9462 said:

Every class will be able to provide Alac or Quickness (druid and warrior after June patch) so I don't think this is really required.

Creates alittle skill gap between groups/people as there is some skill to keeping up the boons for most the classes and balancing their dps. 

It's not "a little skill gap". Boons are one of the reasons of why the gap between the top and average players is so big. It would be fine if full buffs increased your dps by ~20-30%, but it's more like + ~100-200%. It's way, way too much.

Let me put it that way: with full buffs being a decent + 25% increase instead of what we have, the gap between average and top players would decrease from x10 to ~x4. Which would be way more manageable and easier to balance.

Quote

Honestly the only real boons that are in-demand and prevalent in end game content are Stability and Aegis.

If you think those are only real boons in demand, try missing uptime on Quickness, Alacrity and Might.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

At times I miss how the game was during the first few days after launch: 

Boons were not permanent, so it mattered when you gave what, getting maximum stacks of for example might need some actual coordination, and combofields were actually important and useful.

 

I'd say make it impossible to 100% maintain all boons so their uptime becomes way more limited, but greatly improve their effects. 

Make it so giving out boons becomes a tactical decision that rewards giving them at the right moment. 

In the same vein, Make Combofields & Finishers Great Again!

Edited April 24, 2022 by Wielder Of Magic.3950

[Chaba.5410]

I honestly don't understand the why behind this post. You just don't like seeing requests for certain roles in LFG? Everyone play DPS role? How is removing quickness and alac supposed to remove roles?

Edited April 24, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[mungozen.2379]

11 hours ago, dace.8019 said:

Or maybe it frees up specialisations and play-styles to be more flavourful and not reduced to "It does the boon" or "It does the boon AND damage/heals

That depends, are there any builds that are locked behind group support via Quickness or Alacrity that also have a Pure DPS role they could also be fulfilling?

I agree with the sentiment that having 100% uptime on Quick and Alacrity is really not that great.  Will players care if they are doing less DPS but providing Boon Support to the group they are in?  What will be the metric for a great Alac/Quick provider?  At least with the Tank/Heal/DPS Trinity there is skill involved, but Quick and Alac support so far has proven to be; build it the right way, and you have 100% uptime.  Pretty boring.

[Dante.1508]

You meta people are crazy.. You have to ruin the game more and more..

I miss tyria where everything was base casual and fun. I just finished Icebrood completely solo, my hands hurts from all the twitch mechanics the devs throw at us these days, the upkeep on boons and skills is over the top.

Again when is enough enough for you people.....

[Mrs Lana.2506]

39 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

You meta people are crazy.. You have to ruin the game more and more..

I miss tyria where everything was base casual and fun. I just finished Icebrood completely solo, my hands hurts from all the twitch mechanics the devs throw at us these days, the upkeep on boons and skills is over the top.

Again when is enough enough for you people.....

The best part is if you don't like it you don't have to play it. You're entirely capable of making your own group that doesn't have requirements - everyone is.

On that same point, no one is required to play with people who aren't willing to contribute to the group.

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

You meta people are crazy.. You have to ruin the game more and more..

I miss tyria where everything was base casual and fun. I just finished Icebrood completely solo, my hands hurts from all the twitch mechanics the devs throw at us these days, the upkeep on boons and skills is over the top.

Again when is enough enough for you people.....

Why are you so nostalgic for a time when everyone was new and hadn't yet gotten a solid handle on the combat mechanics? That's a learning phase. Maybe the game isn't so much "ruined" as it is that you simply enjoy learning phases more.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[TexZero.7910]

7 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If you think those are only real boons in demand, try missing uptime on Quickness, Alacrity and Might.

Come the next major balance update the only boons lacking any real significant aoe coverage will be aegis and stability.  It's already been stated that quickness, alacrity, might and fury will see expanded coverage.

 

Time to bring aegis out of it's holy ground too so you can apply it with classes other than chrono/guard with relative ease.

[Asum.4960]

18 hours ago, dace.8019 said:

Those are important but have you ever looked at the LFG? Besides a healer, it's either asking specifically for a spec providing either of the boons I'm discussing or just directly using the names of the boons.

The misconception here is that this is a happenstance that Anet needs to fix - rather than the result of an active effort by Anet to streamline grouping by establishing and proliferating those specific overarching roles of Healer, Quickness, Alacrity and DPS. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Miss Lana.5276 said:

The best part is if you don't like it you don't have to play it. You're entirely capable of making your own group that doesn't have requirements - everyone is.

On that same point, no one is required to play with people who aren't willing to contribute to the group.

It would have been that way if Anet wasn't balancing more and more content around that very permaavailability of all relevant boons. And if boons offered a much smaller boost to effectiveness. Then there would indeed be a choice to be had. Now you have a "choice" to either adapt, or "you don't have to actually play that content, it's optional".

Edited April 25, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Ombras.2853]

“I don’t want to play specs that share boons, and I don’t wanna spend my time on the lfg looking for them”.

Maybe the intent of the thread is entirely different from what I just wrote, but it sound exactly like that.

[Hotride.2187]

Kinda pointless to have boons that everyone can bring and encounters are balanced around bringing the boons.

One of the main points for me in WoW raiding was looking at the group, seeing what I had to work with and adjusting the parties to get the best buff sharing. Was it necessary? No. Was it a lot of knowledge? No. Was it something to do on top? Yes.

And then they simplified the whole buffing out of existence. Though thankfully also removed classics waiting for / "gathering" of global buffs like in the DE meta...

Seems a lot like what I'm seeing in gw2 pve, but with way more impactful buffs. Whats the point if everyone can and must bring alac and quickness? Why do I have to be the qfb, but swap traits, runes, sigils and utils in case someone else is doing quickness (cause e.g. they cant swap)? And fb is probably the easiest to swap from quickness to pure dmg...

But also kinda w/e to me, pve is a source of gold for me. Its also casual enough to be fun while doing.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Astralporing.1957]

18 minutes ago, Ombras.2853 said:

“I don’t want to play specs that share boons, and I don’t wanna spend my time on the lfg looking for them”.

Maybe the intent of the thread is entirely different from what I just wrote, but it sound exactly like that.

That's pretty much a desire shared by like 80% of players of all MMORPGs out there. Possibly more than that, even.

I mean, there's a reason why in other games tanks and healers are always the hardest to find. And why players generally hate having to wait for those roles to show up.

The truth is, next to noone actually likes playing support.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Astralporing.1957