You're dumbing down the game.

[LKEY.9567]

Hello.

I wanted to bring into the matter, the stance from the topic - you are dumbing down the game. 

Guild Wars 2, by far, has the best combat system there is in any MMORPG available. I know, some people enjoy global cooldowns, some people enjoy 10apm gameplay. GW2 has the fast, fluid combat system where you feel like playing "rogue-like". 

I have been playing from around 2018 and have around 4k hours in total. This is the first patch which made me really upset. In the past, I was like, yeah - that's the way, balance changes, game changes. The current patch feel awful due to one thing:

Combat favorites dumb playstyle and low effort builds.

I believe everyone seen this abomination of Rifle Engi. Seriously? You basically autoattack and you are outdpsing majority of the classes, all, you know - all of them beside... Another Mechanist build. I recall you telling us you want to lower to skill floor to have all the content available to all the players. Why do you lower skill ceilling as well?

The combat system of GW2 should promote perkyness, complexity and speed. We shouldn't create the environment where we have two builds which are basically auto-attacking and being the best in slot. But wait. Do you know that both builds belong to Mechanist? But wait, there is more - quess which Best-In-Slot healer build is? You are right - the Mechanist.

We have a situation where all best-in-slot class in every role is one specialization. I wouldn't be that angry if the Mechanist would be the complex and skillfull class. It's not, it's the most boring class there is right now. You just put auto-attack on rifle or mace and you are good, this is what we expect from the most skillfull combat in MMORPG? Reaally?

You may argue that "elitist meta" pushes everyone to play Mechanist. It's not. The current balance forces us to play that. We can not accept the sitation where the dumbest builds are the most rewarding, it's not healthy for the game. If you want to lower the skill floor, sure, go ahead but for the love of Kormir, leave the skill ceiling where it belongs - high.

To anyone who would raise the question "why would you care? play something different". I do play something different but I want to point out the situation where it's unhealthy for the game to have the dumbest builds being the strongest because, why would you polish your skills? Why would you learn carefully your class and practice rotation if there is one person who auto-attack on Rifle and has better results than you without an effort.

Guild Wars 2 has, by far, the best combat system of any MMORPG and it should reward skillfullness instead of being lazy. Don't dumb down the game, make it playful. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultramex.1506]

Just in time for Steam release *Sigh*

[Hotride.2187]

Only a few things to add really:

1. Patches have been low effort for a while now, this is definitely not the first depressing patch. Just look at e.g. the resistance rework.
2. IMO low effort is what the players want at large, at least the last year in wvw roaming I've seen almost nothing but low effort high reward builds.
3. But what do you think happens when you have a hundred hours on a low effort build? You go play something else. If you find that to be low effort too, you go play another game.

So by all means, make everything firebrand level of braindead. See if anyone invests thousands of hours in the game after that. You don't have the endgame content to keep players busy, what you have is build variety and combat - options to experience the content in different ways.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Dawdler.8521]

And it's such a surprise only 8 years after they started the booncreep.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Hashberry.4510]

Is Firebrand brain dead now? 

[Jajo.1428]

Yo, Imma let you finish, but DDO has the best combat systems of all times.

[Zyreva.1078]

46 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

1. IMO low effort is what the players want at large, at least the last year in wvw roaming I've seen almost nothing but low effort high reward builds.

That's largely because those builds are better, not neccessarily because players enjoy playing those the most.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

21 minutes ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

Is Firebrand brain dead now? 

If you mean easy. Yes. Always been. 

[Cyninja.2954]

12 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

That's largely because those builds are better, not neccessarily because players enjoy playing those the most.

This.

Gave power Mech a go today. It was what nearly pushed me off the edge to take another break, and the last one was towards end of HoT.

I get it, the skill level is supposed to get dropped, but this blatant disregard for nearly any effort invested is just ruining this games combat. Ironically this patch hit a few weeks AFTER players already showcased how high peformance can go with low intensity builds.

Now I'm sure there will be fixes and adjustments, but what scares me is how this patch could go live the way it did in the first place. The outset and general idea was okay, but the execution, like having people who have absolutely 0 clue of how this games combat system works have a go at it. Worst of all, there is an abundance of players who do understand the game who could be tapped into to reach specific design goals.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Hotride.2187]

14 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

That's largely because those builds are better, not neccessarily because players enjoy playing those the most.

So so. I'd agree if this was about ranked spvp. But in something so aimless as wvw roaming? It'd be like bringing meta builds in unranked conquest. Some do it, most don't cause its not fun. Especially the best duelists in wvw I usually see roaming on the "not better" builds. Cause of boredom I imagine.

But you are probably right yeah. For instanced pve definitely; though I assume most players do that for loot/gold.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I normally don't think this kind of thing is that big of a deal, but I think its getting excessive now. I was watching LFG all day today since I do alot of instanced content, and most groups are now labelled, "Engis only". More often than not the only LFG available for a dungeon/Fractal/Strike says (Rifle) Engis only.

 

There was even a raid listing earlier that stated "10 Mach". And if you think its a joke, look at listings and see how many are filled up with the Engi bomb icon.

 

At least for now, T4 Fractals are still attracting other classes, but this is our future. This is literally just the equivalent of open-world PvE bot farming in instances.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Hannelore.8153

[Zyreva.1078]

26 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

So so. I'd agree if this was about ranked spvp. But in something so aimless as wvw roaming? It'd be like bringing meta builds in unranked conquest. Some do it, most don't cause its not fun. Especially the best duelists in wvw I usually see roaming on the "not better" builds. Cause of boredom I imagine.

But you are probably right yeah. For instanced pve definitely; though I assume most players do that for loot/gold.

Well, losing fights isn't fun, even less so when you know you are losing to worse players that you'd easily beat with another build. Additionally roaming often means already being at a numerical disadvantage, so do you really want to have a build disadvantage on top? And many of those playing not so good "skillful" build just resort to ganking outnumbered players and instead of getting carried by their build they are getting carried by numbers. So much about skillful gameplay ...

Dueling is pretty much dead at this point and not just actual dueling but also random 1vs1/even fights between roamers. All the somewhat decently strong builds are super unfun to fight against, so all that's left is farming a bunch of noobs on trash builds or ganking outnumbered enemies.

Edited June 30, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Luthan.5236]

So what do you want? As long as you do not want the mechanist - get nerfed ... I am fine with everything. I play engineer main since release and I'm happy to get some "easier" elite spec. A lot of the previous specs hat pro builds that required a lot of keyboard acrobatics while necro and stuff like that - had been considered easy. (Ranger also has some tanky pet.)

There are different classes and elite specs - and each should have different playstyles. And I think it is okay - balancing-wise - if each class gets an easier to play build/elite spec. Maximizing still might require a lot of effort.

What do you consider a good gap between the ceiling and normal play? I guess it would feel bad if the normal player got only 60 percent of the max and the max would require a lot of keyboard acrobatics.  Make this about 80 vs 100 percent (easy build getting 80 percent of the max) - then it would be fine I guess. The pro groups for  raids and stuff ... still require those best builds. (Though the recent additions might allow for more easier groups - with those changes to raid. But does not affect the pro groups that want to play optimized.)

I still ocassionally enjoy to also use rarely used stuff. Engineer is pretty versatily. Especially when I want to do certain story achievement solo. Where it is not about dps mainly. Though a main problem is - I guess - that in PvE most gadgets and turrets and stuff ... are useless. Cause the enemies just are ... stupid PvE mobs. In PvP ... this could be more useful. (Then again ... it isnt' cause most of the time other things are important.) And I don't wanna talk about turrets ...

General thing of some skills - that make it "easier" to make a build when some skills don't even need to be taken into account when thinking about builds. Cause they are too bad.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Ashantara.8731]

ANet has completely killed profession identity. That's a fact.

To me, that's the biggest part of dumbing down a game: making everything somehow the same, a weird mishmash of "whatever", because "who cares", right? 🤔

[Phil.1074]

1 minute ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

ANet has completely killed profession identity. That's a fact.

To me, that's the biggest part of dumbing down a game: making everything somehow the same, a weird mishmash of "whatever", because "who cares", right? 🤔

 

That's the point. Why should I play ranger when my Engineer has a pet aswell? Why should I play mirrage when I can play Condi-Mech. 

 

The removal of unique boons was a mistake, a big one. The current patch just ruined everything even further. What a shame!

[Zyreva.1078]

11 minutes ago, Luthan.5236 said:

There are different classes and elite specs - and each should have different playstyles. And I think it is okay - balancing-wise - if each class gets an easier to play build/elite spec. Maximizing still might require a lot of effort.

There has always been very easy to play builds that performed decently enough in pretty much any content. And nobody has or had a problem with that. The problem is that anet is trying to basically remove skillful gameplay and make difficult builds obsolete for whatever reason. So everyone is forced into that type of gameplay.

And it doesn't even adress the massive skill gap between players, because it's absolute basics that are lacking. You don't need to be a keyboard acrobat to be a good player.

Edited June 30, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

Stop dumbing down the game and implant "Timer" in CM Harvest Temple ......

Timer increase excitment ....

Slap that boy a 30min , like Soo Won

 

for kitten sake old gg ...stop meshing with traditional things ...

Edited June 30, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Luthan.5236]

10 minutes ago, The Urps.8379 said:

That's the point. Why should I play ranger when my Engineer has a pet aswell?

Pet has more options - for the ranger. (Different type of pets and Mecha is required to use the trait line even for adjusting the skills of that "pet".) Happy to have some tanky golem now though. But yes: This would not have been needed. And there are a lot of things that feel like they wanted to adopt a similar thing as in GW1 - but instead of a secondary profession the elite specs mirror mechanics that another core professon has. (I think necro one got elixirs or so - that the engineer has.)

They should have made towers more interesting - instead of adding a golem. Maybe. Maybe sub-classes/professions. (Or each core trait line getting sub-trait lines to chose from.)

Boon stuff also leads to other problems. When everyone expecting you to play something specifig (Those "best" builds. And now when they see a mecha they think you are playing full alacrity stuff - cause it is possible and the metabuild lists this. When I just want to use my casual dps/toughness mix and let the pet tank and to casual PvE open world most of the time. 😄) The mech could as well have been designed with only offensive stuff in mind. Leaving other stuff to other classes.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Labjax.2465]

9 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

There has always been very easy to play builds that performed decently enough in pretty much any content. And nobody has or had a problem with that. The problem is that anet is trying to basically remove skillful gameplay and make difficult builds obsolete for whatever reason. So everyone is forced into that type of gameplay.

And it doesn't even adress the massive skill gap between players, because it's absolute basics that are lacking. You don't need to be a keyboard acrobat to be a good player.

Yes, this is something I've seen brought up multiple places. People don't take issue with changes that make it generally easier to contribute effectively, they take issue with changes that remove or reduce possible ways to eke out maximum effectiveness requiring higher skill. It's like that coveted concept in games "easy to learn, hard to master." It should be easy to learn to bring people in, while being hard to master, so there is something to improve upon if you so desire. And as long as content is not balanced around expecting the best of the best, you aren't cutting people out by doing this. In fact, stuff like CMs seems to be with the express purpose of giving the "hard to master" desiring people an outlet more balanced around how they play, while still having regular version for "easy to learn" play. Granted, it's not gonna be 100% binary the line between the two, but yeah, something like that.

[Knighthonor.4061]

NO THEY ARE NOT DUMBING DOWN THE GAME!!!!!

 

YOU ARE JUST GETTING SMARTER

[dace.8019]

Just pick the easiest boonrole spec, join the group full of the same, faceroll the content and you too can catch up on your netflix backlog while being an elite GW2 player.

[Woof.8246]

Teapot should question his team mates , about how they felt yesterday when they played RIfle Enginners.

Did feel better , when they had more time to watch out the surroundings instead of their UI ?

Is the instance ground , too rocky?

Regardless of that  they say , it should get nerfed

Edited June 30, 2022 by Woof.8246

[Randulf.7614]

Can’t wait for my bearbow elementalist for the next elite spec

[Urud.4925]

An easy build to play, like a Mechanist, shouldn't deal more damage of a difficult one, like core engi (yes, core, but remember how the purpose of the class balance we had a couple of years ago, was to make every build viable, even the core ones?), just to remain on the same profession. We also had LFG with 10 Scourge (for the boneskinner) in the past, remember? These are things that can be changed with a patch. The Mechanist could be nerfed.

 

I think the point of the OP was more general: increasing the boon's stacks, removing retaliation (that eye of Mordremoth in the Dragon's Bash was a nice challenge years ago), giving us more HP with the jade bot first, now with the anvil (not much, but bit by bit... my thief has 3k more HP than 2 years ago, and only the standard jade bot lv3. New/core players don't have these boons). The gameplay is getting more and more reliant on keeping boons up all the time, maxing out minions/bots, remembering to claim the offensive and defensive boons on the map, than... playing skilfully. People are still one shot during meta, because they don't see a dark green pile of junk. Keep providing HP and boons, and people would care about mechanics even less than now. We always look for a way to "cheese" some achievement, because it's often possible. We are too powerful!

 

We had a huge nerf years ago, in PvP, because we had too much power creep, and now we are bringing even more power creep into the game (mostly in PvE). I'm not crying or particularly worried, the game is still fun, but it's a clear shift. Keep in mind: an easy game will attract more players, but the retention will be lower in the long run.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

I don't understand, is this a "you're dumbing down the game" thread or a "nerf engi!" thread?