Arenanet doesn't know crap about "Diversifying Classes" & "Class Fantasy"

[Dragon Dude.7832]

Warning: I'm not the best at articulation, sometimes I can be articulate but then my mind starts to track off where I'm going with this, there will be no TL:DR, not because I can't articulate one, but if you don't wanna read what I'm putting my kitten heart and mind into, or if its too much rambling for you, I'd rather you not read it. HOWEVER, If somebody else wants to TL:DR it for me, feel free. Just don't try to twist it. I will also be generally using Elementalist, Guardian, and Necromancer as examples, not because they're my mains, I love every single class, played them ALOT, maybe not so much Engineer not since Core anyways. 

 

Bonus Note: I repeat things for emphasis, EMPHASIS, I'm not yelling.

 

Giving more diversity to Classes doesn't mean taking away "key boons" as they are called now, such as Alacrity to multiple classes, a boon that was originally created Chronomancer to create what we call CLASS FANTASY. It doesn't mean generalizing every single spec or class and making them basically play as other classes or its core-self. If you think by giving every class having some way to be capable of what others are doing is diversity in Class Fantasy, you are highly mistaken. 

 

When End of Dragons came out, a lot of the classes were basically taking the idea of High Mobility, and kinda like thief. It worked incredible with Spectre, Spectre felt like Reaper's creepy cousin. If this were Dual Classes, I'd say Specter is the perfect example of a Dual Class. It feels like Thief and Necro properly combined with a slight twist. However, for classes like Willbender, its really basic. The traits do nothing but add simple generic buffs.

 

Willbender for example, has the most generic, un-game changing traits ever. I like the idea of having high mobility, but thats all that Willbender is good for. The traits do nothing to change vastly how you play. On top of it, you don't need to have Willbender do what Core Guardian can already do, which means either DPS, be kinda tanky and/or support or being Condi DPS. An Elite Specialization SHOULD be allowed to be entirely dps, but capable of different playstyles.

 

Yet from what I remember hearing, they said "We don't want specs like Willbender being entirely one role, we kind of want each spec to be capable of filling multiple roles" Which is fine, but that doesn't mean they need to be capable of filling most or all roles. Elementalist has always been the generalist class at its core, but here's the thing about it, unless you were playing Celestial, you weren't doing every role at once. Back in Core, you could choose between to be Zerker DPS, Condi DPS, Hybrid, Support, Support DPS, pretty much all of the above.

 

So when they added Elite Specializations, the original idea was to change the way the Class plays, and I think in other words you could call it a Devotion or Art. A Tempest is Elementalist at its core, but its more devote in a certain area. Elite Specializations in HoT felt just that, Elite, some were overtuned I won't lie, played a Symbolic Guardian Builds + two Auramancers never died in PVP, however I'm talking about Class Fantasy + Mechanics not so much balancing right now.

 

It was kind of braindead, but in its essence it wasn't just oversimplified, it was simple, but not oversimplified. It made you feel "Elite", not to be confused with Elitist Pricks that either nobody likes or some people do. It changed few mechanics, and devoted that Class to a specific area, Tempest while not the best example cause most people just did support since support/healing was seriously powerful back then, still in PVE and PVP could be played as Condi DPS.

 

Then came Path Of Fire. When I first played the Elite Specs it was during the beta of course, at the time I felt they were fun completely overlooking due to the fact the ones I played were OP in the beta, but of course that quickly changed. Weaver as a class fantasy was fun, It was mostly hybrid DPS, which was fine, it fit well into its class fantasy, and although there could've been more hopes for it to be something like Specifically Power/Zerker or Pure Condi dps, it honestly wasn't that bad. 

 

Later on, maybe mid-way through PoF's lifespan, I played Weaver a lot. People could argue that Weavers at the time were kinda op, but even though they may have been or were in top meters, I'd disagree that its op with the amount of buttons I had to constantly be pressing, plus additional buttons once in a blue moon. I think that's what kept me more interested, but maybe what it failed in was the fact unless you were pvping, in PVE you only switched between Fire & Earth, 90% of the time, where as Water & Earth were there for utility reasons. 

 

I started playing Firebrand because of its perma-quickness, and cause the Mantra activation speed was increased, and this was because in PVP and PVE it took far too long to activate them during combat to be useful. I think the reasoning behind this is whether anyone likes it, doesn't like it, or would disagree is that GW2 since the end of HoT and beginning of PoF, REALLY became Zerg Versus Zerg, more than it used to be in Core.

 

In core, I had time to do things, but back then people were much more patient and enjoyed the slower processes, one of the new things of today is Zerging everything because the trend or fad I guess is that people would rather just get to the end of things faster, and games started to condition people to do that, and within just the last 3 years, the conditioning has gotten so strong to the point, that I could complain about ZVZ all I want but it'll never change, so rather complaining about it, I use my effort to help improve onto it.

 

I think the point I'm trying to make here is not another "I'm extremely mad/upset/disappointed in EoD's Specializations" but rather dissapointed in Arenanet that they would fall so low that they call what they think is diversifying classes but rather uprooting and ruining what we call Class Fantasy. Not every class needs what every other class can do.

 

I want an Elementalist that can wield a longbow, and snipe from a far, but not like Hunter or Daredevil, in a magical way that can allow it to be a little more unique, OR maybe not at all. Sometimes a simple Elemental Archer is good enough. What should this spec be capable of? Support? Tank-Support? Tank? Roaming? Group Fights? Hybrid DPS? Condi DPS? Zerker/Power DPS? Maybe all of the above.

 

Here's the thing, they removed Celestial for a reason, because the idea of trying to generalize that much was either too powerful or too weak. On top of it, you had to be on top of your game, bring the A game, and be more than just good at it, you needed to be incredibly skilled, or maybe not skilled at all, and just have great muscle memory. The point is, there's a reason RPGS haven't done Jack of All Trade classes in years. That's why there's MULTIPLE classes to choose from, that's what creates diversity, not allowing classes to be jack of all trades, but rather making a single class, or rather in GW2's case, Spec, i.e CATALYST, just don't.

 

Elementalist was handled as jack of all trades in Core pretty well, I'd agree that Celestial D/D or Staff, Elementalist was op, I won't lie, it had flaws, but the thing about it was because it wasn't done entirely in a single spec/build but rather in a multitude of builds, you can balance it easier without having to nerf some builds...TO AN EXTENT. 

 

I agree with removing Celestial because it was pretty much op back then, it wasn't invincible, it was beatable, but it was pretty op. However, by removing Celestials, and not allowing Elementalist to do everything at once, but rather dependant on your build, is what made it a Jack of All Trades. Depending on the build you could either be a pure condi dps, pure zerker/power dps, a support, kinda tanky, roaming, etc. 

 

So when Catalyst came out, and I heard the whole "steady fight" and all that, I was SINCERELY HOPING that we could become tankier, what I didn't expect was while they weren't by technical definition lying, it was handled in a way that I found stupid. Catalyst had so much potential, If it was just handled differently, I could sit here and talk about the ideas I had for it, so that way no one would ask "Well how were you expecting it" or other ridiculous questions like "No you're just upset/troll" or some stupid thing. 

 

I'm not going to, its a waste of my breath, of course it could be argue'd, that then wouldn't my entire post be a waste of breath? No I wanted to write it, but I'm not going to go on and say I could've done a better job, the truth in that statement is regardless, the point is, I don't want to cause then some how it'll devolve into argument of things that I don't feel like trying to argue, cause no matter how much I try, my point will never get across. 

 

However, if you do wanna see what I wrote months ago, feel free to dm me, and just because I don't entirely remember the rules around here, hopefully I'm not breaking them by letting people dm to see ideas I threw out. 

 

In conclusion, no Guild Wars 2 can't diversify for crap. What they claim to be diversity for Classes is just a disgrace of Class Fantasy, they don't know what they're talking about, and I don't think they understand what it means to have a diverse cast of Classes and their Class Fantasy.

 

P.S I don't wanna see comments that are yelling at me for some stupid crap, or saying some other crap. This is a Guild Wars 2 discussion thread, everything I've said is about Guild Wars 2 and is a discussion. They are simply my thoughts and any rude comments will be reported, not because I'm a tattletale, rather cause I'm worn down and don't wanna hear it. I do have a high tolerance for it however, most of the time I try to get along with people even after an argument. I've been on the internet, I know what its like, I've had arguments that devolved so fast to the point of saying things that shouldn't be necessarily said but still found a way to get a long with people. I also don't appreciate people beating around the bush, cause honestly if you're gonna say something to me, do it. 

[Linken.6345]

So that was  long wall of text ranting mostly about spvp?

[Labjax.2465]

Some of what you said about forums and dealing with conflicts and whatnot, I feel like I could have written it. Can def relate to the frustration.

As far as class stuff goes, I pretty much agree with you, I think. I don't think they have a coherent idea of what they want the classes to be at this stage. Seems if anything the vision is just "mold them more into tools for role-based instanced PvE content." Even if that means gutting the unique feel of classes in the process.

[Westenev.5289]

There are some valid criticisms here, but a lot of fluff and filler (not something you generally want on a quick forum read).

 

I kinda agree that Anet seem hellbent on doubling down on removing anything that makes a class or espec feel powerful (RIP Meteor Shower, Warrior Banners and Signet of Inspiration), but I don't really have a background in PvP to comment there (RIP ventari bunker, I guess?)

Edited July 16, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

It's always a dilemma between diversity and balance.  The only way to have a perfectly balanced game is to have no diversity at all.  All of this homogenization has had the opposite effect of what was intended, with profession representation falling instead of increasing, because Anet removed all of the unique features that made other professions valuable.  Now there's no reason not to run Quickbrand, Healmech, and 3 Condi Virtuoso.  

[Dante.1508]

Totally agree, not much else to say.

[Endaris.1452]

Well, yeah, the HoT specs being created with fun and identity in mind is certainly something really obvious.

Continuum Split is a really cool and powerful mechanic, so powerful and hard to balance that not only did they have to add an asterisk to skills like Mimic (*doesn't work with Continuum Split cause we can't balance that) but also felt the need to put the new trait Stretched Time on a 3 second internal cooldown to make sure you cannot use your class mechanic to generate an excessive amount of boons for your group.

I think in general trying to give more equal options in support roles to core specs via elite specs is a good thing but slapping all that on it retroactively without including the class fantasy in that is pretty boring and potentially harmful to both class identity and balance, especially if said support access comes at a cost (like the increased facet consume cds in PvE on herald).
I would also generally say that a design like for Harbinger or Mechanist does not make for a great elite spec because instead of diversifying (or even transforming) the playstyle of the e-spec, they are mostly just different role lock-ins.
It's like "this can be a powerful critter, a boon support or a condi bomb" and if you don't select the same row in all columns, you're giving up on all the synergy. As a result, there is very little diversity in the builds for the espec other than the one laid out by the three rows of traits.

I feel like that playstyle diversification was well done on specs like Holosmith, Chrono, Scourge or Druid where you had various options that changed your playstyle but not necessarily your identity. Because the identity was baked primarily into the transformed F skills, utilities and weapon. There was never a need to discuss whether Druid is a DPS spec (it is not), what Scourge's and Chrono's trademark features are (corrupting boons, 3 pulse well mechanics+boons), and what kind of spec Holosmith (big AoE power) is at its heart. On the flipside,  almost all recombinations of trait selections were viable depending on your needs, it encouraged experimentation and allowed you to find your preferred playstyle instead of going down the single available road to play a class with a certain stat combination.
I haven't played most EoD specs myself yet but based on the description I think with EoD only Bladesworn, Virtuoso and maybe Specter really succeed in going down that road of using traits to allow the player to tweak and adjust the playstyle that is primarily shaped by the transformations to F skills, weapon and utilities. Overall the EoD specs really put ridiculous emphasis on those oneway roads of a statbound playstyle in traits and it's just not very exciting.

[Bunny.9834]

On 7/15/2022 at 9:04 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's always a dilemma between diversity and balance.  The only way to have a perfectly balanced game is to have no diversity at all.  All of this homogenization has had the opposite effect of what was intended, with profession representation falling instead of increasing, because Anet removed all of the unique features that made other professions valuable.  Now there's no reason not to run Quickbrand, Healmech, and 3 Condi Virtuoso.  

This. Very This. 

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 7/16/2022 at 12:04 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's always a dilemma between diversity and balance.  The only way to have a perfectly balanced game is to have no diversity at all.  All of this homogenization has had the opposite effect of what was intended, with profession representation falling instead of increasing, because Anet removed all of the unique features that made other professions valuable.  Now there's no reason not to run Quickbrand, Healmech, and 3 Condi Virtuoso.  

It's such a simple and important facet of how humans interact with games that I don't know how this isn't realized.

In terms of difficult and repeating content, people will almost always play towards peak time efficiency.  Unless a game can be somehow proven unsolvable, there will always be one singular best combination when dealing with more or less static encounters that we have all the information going into in advance, or one such method which is easier to execute (also efficiency in the case of time spent learning).

Therefore trying to have multiple classes with different numbers, styles of play, and mechanics yield identical results is more or less an impossibility when trying to force them to all do the same thing in the same way.  The point of having options in the first place is to allow people to change nuances in how they want to approach the game itself.  Since GW2 lacks defined "roles" in most PvE (it's mostly stacking damage and helping other people stack damage with just enough direct support to make things run smoothly), there's always going to be a combination that's either just better or easier to execute, and other players will be judged preemptively based on knowledge of these constructs as well.

This is why all "competitive" PvE outside of very niche audiences like speed-clearing always fails in every single game.  Games like these are solvable, and no amount of development effort will be able to offset human tendencies towards efficient problem solving.

Therefore the solution isn't solvable with raw numbers of performance and never will be.  All changes in design and numerics for PvE will always lead to failure.  The only thing that can be balanced for is non-static encounters (I.E. PvP) and AI/Randomized encounters, and letting players take control entirely over their own agency.

Forcing players into certain constraints of "play the game using X essential criteria" (like "essential boons") defeats the entire purpose of creating those "options" in the first place.  While Illusion of Choice is an important concept in game design, explicitly designing people into making blatantly obvious choices without even room for effective experimentation isn't an Illusion of Choice; it's simply changing the rules and how players interact with the game altogether.

ANet's choices mirror the following example:  If suddenly Magic The Gathering allowed players to arbitrarily start the game with any hand size they wanted and retain that many cards for the rest of their game as their maximum hand size, everyone would likely draw half or more of their deck as their hand and that game would devolve into the "fastest combo wins."  All of the rest of the entire purpose and design choices of the game would be made irrelevant. 

This is the current "essential boons" problem; if they expect certain boons to always be available all the time such that they're so potent players have no choice but to build to provide them to themselves and others, why do they even exist and instead having things like animation speed increased across the board or boss health decreased across the board?  Why do any other option that come at the expense of these "essential boons even exist?  Why do trait lines even exist?  If there aren't actual meaningful choices, then every single other facet of the game is trivialized.

[Labjax.2465]

18 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

It's such a simple and important facet of how humans interact with games that I don't know how this isn't realized.

In terms of difficult and repeating content, people will almost always play towards peak time efficiency.  Unless a game can be somehow proven unsolvable, there will always be one singular best combination when dealing with more or less static encounters that we have all the information going into in advance, or one such method which is easier to execute (also efficiency in the case of time spent learning).

Therefore trying to have multiple classes with different numbers, styles of play, and mechanics yield identical results is more or less an impossibility when trying to force them to all do the same thing in the same way.  The point of having options in the first place is to allow people to change nuances in how they want to approach the game itself.  Since GW2 lacks defined "roles" in most PvE (it's mostly stacking damage and helping other people stack damage with just enough direct support to make things run smoothly), there's always going to be a combination that's either just better or easier to execute, and other players will be judged preemptively based on knowledge of these constructs as well.

This is why all "competitive" PvE outside of very niche audiences like speed-clearing always fails in every single game.  Games like these are solvable, and no amount of development effort will be able to offset human tendencies towards efficient problem solving.

Therefore the solution isn't solvable with raw numbers of performance and never will be.  All changes in design and numerics for PvE will always lead to failure.  The only thing that can be balanced for is non-static encounters (I.E. PvP) and AI/Randomized encounters, and letting players take control entirely over their own agency.

Forcing players into certain constraints of "play the game using X essential criteria" (like "essential boons") defeats the entire purpose of creating those "options" in the first place.  While Illusion of Choice is an important concept in game design, explicitly designing people into making blatantly obvious choices without even room for effective experimentation isn't an Illusion of Choice; it's simply changing the rules and how players interact with the game altogether.

ANet's choices mirror the following example:  If suddenly Magic The Gathering allowed players to arbitrarily start the game with any hand size they wanted and retain that many cards for the rest of their game as their maximum hand size, everyone would likely draw half or more of their deck as their hand and that game would devolve into the "fastest combo wins."  All of the rest of the entire purpose and design choices of the game would be made irrelevant. 

This is the current "essential boons" problem; if they expect certain boons to always be available all the time such that they're so potent players have no choice but to build to provide them to themselves and others, why do they even exist and instead having things like animation speed increased across the board or boss health decreased across the board?  Why do any other option that come at the expense of these "essential boons even exist?  Why do trait lines even exist?  If there aren't actual meaningful choices, then every single other facet of the game is trivialized.

What it leads me to think is that Anet should be focused more on raising the skill floor and less on spreading boon application evenly across classes. In most areas, this game is loosely tuned enough that if the skill floor is high enough, it's going to be downright hard to fail (with the exception of deadly mechanics). Maybe that's a corny way for a game to be, but all the controversy about people not being good enough... as far as I can tell, it's generally not about someone doing, ya know, 25k dps when they should be able to reach 36k dps. It's pretty much always about someone doing <5k dps or whatever. Like this extreme of poor contribution that makes even loosely tuned content somewhat hard to beat.

And like... if you have more people doing alacrity or whatever, but the dps are still doing <5k, the alacrity ain't gonna help them much. So...

[Xenesis.6389]

They have no respect for class boundaries, nor do they care anymore.

I weep seeing the spec made for alacrity have it's boon spread on other classes with better access while also it's support nerfed.

I weep when I see group stealth given to another class that has better cooldown and duration and extra buffs.

I weep when group portal is given to a thief, the highest stealth class in the game.

I weep when they bluntly nerf mirage to one dodge, but make another spec with one dodge and a load more options for it.

I weep when they gave a better blink to mechanist.

I weep when they gave specter better wells than chronomancer, and then half nut try to change chrono wells and not even touching the first well trait(btw all's well that ends well trait originally gave alacrity.. then they changed it to heals... then they butcher a grandmaster trait for interrupt builds to put alacrity back on wells........ wtf?)

I weep because they don't care about anything other than pve and their now obvious bias.

[Dragon Dude.7832]

On 7/15/2022 at 9:40 PM, Linken.6345 said:

So that was  long wall of text ranting mostly about spvp?

I won't lie, I've played tons of pvp in my day for GW2, but I'm by no means a PVP player, I'm full blown PVE. But yea It kind of is a long wall of text ranting, but also sort of meant to be a discussion.

 

On 7/15/2022 at 10:00 PM, Labjax.2465 said:

Some of what you said about forums and dealing with conflicts and whatnot, I feel like I could have written it. Can def relate to the frustration.

As far as class stuff goes, I pretty much agree with you, I think. I don't think they have a coherent idea of what they want the classes to be at this stage. Seems if anything the vision is just "mold them more into tools for role-based instanced PvE content." Even if that means gutting the unique feel of classes in the process.

That's fair, you probably could have written it, honestly I thought I wrote it so bad, I was legit afraid of hundreds of replies backlashing at me cause that's what I'm used to on this forums, but I finally stopped procrastinating and it turns out I was wrong, no backlash here.

 

See, when I think of an Elite Spec, I expect something new, and innovative. I don't mind Willbender playing like Thief, but it needs a twist. I think it would be kind of cool to emphasis on its teleportation capabilities but to activate those it kind of requires certain combos to be activated. So it'd be a fast, heavy hitting, powerful Guardian, but with a lot less sustain, thus making it much squishier than Normal Guards, which right now it isn't really that squishy, it kinda is but meh.

 

The way they described and originally had implied what Willbender was supposed to be, made me think of a Shaolin Monk, Fast, Quick, and Powerful. And honestly it just feels like core guardian.

 

On 7/15/2022 at 11:04 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's always a dilemma between diversity and balance.  The only way to have a perfectly balanced game is to have no diversity at all.  All of this homogenization has had the opposite effect of what was intended, with profession representation falling instead of increasing, because Anet removed all of the unique features that made other professions valuable.  Now there's no reason not to run Quickbrand, Healmech, and 3 Condi Virtuoso.  

 

Well that's because Arenanet's definition of Diversity is just wrong. Let me put it to you this way. Someone creates an RPG, it has three classes, Mage, Warrior, and Rogue.

 

Now he decides he wants to be a little less basic. Now he has 6 Classes | Warrior, Healer, Rogue, Hunter, Mage, and Warlock. Now he decides he wants to be special and go more into both class fantasy and have more classes, but rather than just adding a ton of classes, he does a system called SUBClassing.

 

Subclassing in WoW has always been specializations, I.E A prot warrior was a Knight basically. Guild Wars 2's way of doing that was with Builds done by Regular Specializations.

 

Then came Elite Specs, Elite Specs changed the Class's usual way of playing, and allowed it to do something new. Now in a nutshell, and to not drag this on, an example of how its poorly being handled, they're essentially letting every class play somewhat like thief and call that "diversity"

 

On 7/17/2022 at 11:03 PM, DeceiverX.8361 said:

It's such a simple and important facet of how humans interact with games that I don't know how this isn't realized.

In terms of difficult and repeating content, people will almost always play towards peak time efficiency.  Unless a game can be somehow proven unsolvable, there will always be one singular best combination when dealing with more or less static encounters that we have all the information going into in advance, or one such method which is easier to execute (also efficiency in the case of time spent learning).

Therefore trying to have multiple classes with different numbers, styles of play, and mechanics yield identical results is more or less an impossibility when trying to force them to all do the same thing in the same way.  The point of having options in the first place is to allow people to change nuances in how they want to approach the game itself.  Since GW2 lacks defined "roles" in most PvE (it's mostly stacking damage and helping other people stack damage with just enough direct support to make things run smoothly), there's always going to be a combination that's either just better or easier to execute, and other players will be judged preemptively based on knowledge of these constructs as well.

This is why all "competitive" PvE outside of very niche audiences like speed-clearing always fails in every single game.  Games like these are solvable, and no amount of development effort will be able to offset human tendencies towards efficient problem solving.

Therefore the solution isn't solvable with raw numbers of performance and never will be.  All changes in design and numerics for PvE will always lead to failure.  The only thing that can be balanced for is non-static encounters (I.E. PvP) and AI/Randomized encounters, and letting players take control entirely over their own agency.

Forcing players into certain constraints of "play the game using X essential criteria" (like "essential boons") defeats the entire purpose of creating those "options" in the first place.  While Illusion of Choice is an important concept in game design, explicitly designing people into making blatantly obvious choices without even room for effective experimentation isn't an Illusion of Choice; it's simply changing the rules and how players interact with the game altogether.

ANet's choices mirror the following example:  If suddenly Magic The Gathering allowed players to arbitrarily start the game with any hand size they wanted and retain that many cards for the rest of their game as their maximum hand size, everyone would likely draw half or more of their deck as their hand and that game would devolve into the "fastest combo wins."  All of the rest of the entire purpose and design choices of the game would be made irrelevant. 

This is the current "essential boons" problem; if they expect certain boons to always be available all the time such that they're so potent players have no choice but to build to provide them to themselves and others, why do they even exist and instead having things like animation speed increased across the board or boss health decreased across the board?  Why do any other option that come at the expense of these "essential boons even exist?  Why do trait lines even exist?  If there aren't actual meaningful choices, then every single other facet of the game is trivialized.

A lot of what you say is pretty much true, but the point is even if the mechanics are similar, the illusion and display of it at least looking different would help the feel to it, be somewhat different. 

 

But making Elite Specs feel just like a power-up isn't fun at all, so much missed opportunity for Jade Spheres on Catalyst for example. Hell, I'd be fine with flashy visuals at this point, like some real flashy kitten. 

 

On 7/18/2022 at 10:07 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

They have no respect for class boundaries, nor do they care anymore.

I weep seeing the spec made for alacrity have it's boon spread on other classes with better access while also it's support nerfed.

I weep when I see group stealth given to another class that has better cooldown and duration and extra buffs.

I weep when group portal is given to a thief, the highest stealth class in the game.

I weep when they bluntly nerf mirage to one dodge, but make another spec with one dodge and a load more options for it.

I weep when they gave a better blink to mechanist.

I weep when they gave specter better wells than chronomancer, and then half nut try to change chrono wells and not even touching the first well trait(btw all's well that ends well trait originally gave alacrity.. then they changed it to heals... then they butcher a grandmaster trait for interrupt builds to put alacrity back on wells........ wtf?)

I weep because they don't care about anything other than pve and their now obvious bias.

I know, as much as a PVE player I am, Honestly, the difference in what classes can and can't do, shines much more in SPVP. 

 

To be honest, at this point I'm out of words, because for one, I'd just be complaining at this point, its not like its going to change anything, and for two what could I say that would actually be persuasive enough to at least get a different result? Hell I didn't even like the direction they went for the Story, don't get me started on that, it pissed me off.

 

Suddenly the Commander is this jerk-off who's tired of everyone's kitten and around him? What the hell is this? The Commander is meant to be Wise, and Better than that. BUT that's a subject for another thread so best not to get into that.

[itspomf.9523]

On 7/18/2022 at 11:07 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

I weep when I see group stealth given to another class that has better cooldown and duration and extra buffs.

 

Shadow Refuge called, it'd like to have a word (commander).

 

On 7/18/2022 at 11:07 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

I weep because they don't care about anything other than pve and their now obvious bias.

 

Ah, I see you're a competitive player.  I shall enlighten you by saying that ANet's current bias is, in fact, raiding, which is not part of the core PvE gamplay, but carry on.

[Xenesis.6389]

11 minutes ago, itspomf.9523 said:

Ah, I see you're a competitive player.  I shall enlighten you by saying that ANet's current bias is, in fact, raiding, which is not part of the core PvE gamplay, but carry on.

They're still both under pve....

You just got an entire expansion dedicated to pve...

Core is still getting stuff, you just had world bosses revamped...

You have living story season 1 redone...

Fractal improvements...

What has wvw and spvp gotten?

Crickets.

It's obvious they're trying to push 10 man end game content now for their steam release.
Shadow refuge... yeah I'm sure zergs will drop their scrappers for thieves now... 🙄

Thanks for enlightening me I guess.

[itspomf.9523]

I mean, sure, yeah, if you count 10-man instanced content focused around being punishingly difficult as somehow part of core, open-world PvE gameplay.  Or, you know, the fact that the game is about the open world content and its story, and PvP and WvW are separate game modes outside of that.

Though I guess you could also call Fractals "PvE" by that standard.

But such glaring omissions aside, how would you propose going about making a "pvp-dedicated" expansion?  What would that even be?  Let alone why, when competitive players were very vocally against the newer PvP maps that were added?

And let's not forget the fact that WvW and PvP have reward tracks that allow them to unlock content simply by playing their respective modes -- which, in PvE, often requires completing dozens (sometimes more than 60) separate achievements to acquire, and often necessitating literal weeks of gameplay to do so.

It's pretty hard to argue that competitive modes "don't have anything" when they are is by far one of the fastest ways to unlock content without ever having to play a single story instance to do so.

I also find it rather telling that your original post was about mesmer, yet you quickly evade to evoking scrapper (as though thief was ever being used in zergs and not shunned to be a roamer and decap like it has been relegated to for years) when all I had originally done was to point out that other sources of group stealth have existed since launch, rather than somehow being class-exclusive, but again, do as you will.

[Xenesis.6389]

3 hours ago, itspomf.9523 said:

I mean, sure, yeah, if you count 10-man instanced content focused around being punishingly difficult as somehow part of core, open-world PvE gameplay.  Or, you know, the fact that the game is about the open world content and its story, and PvP and WvW are separate game modes outside of that.

Though I guess you could also call Fractals "PvE" by that standard.

So what's your point here? Why are you trying to separate core from raiding? Core just had an entire expansion released for those players, is getting upgraded world bosses, is still getting living story. To say "core" isn't getting focused on is laughable. They sure aren't in the same boat as pvp or wvw which have been without content and major changes for near 5 years.

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But such glaring omissions aside, how would you propose going about making a "pvp-dedicated" expansion?  What would that even be?  Let alone why, when competitive players were very vocally against the newer PvP maps that were added?

Who asked for a pvp dedicated expansion? 

It obviously would be new maps, or new systems, or just add something to existing systems, heck even a reward upgrade. But no, I understand, this would take away development time from the real part of the game, right, got it. These people don't deserve content, they only pay for the expansions and gem store like the rest, but, no, certainly don't deserve anything beyond that, got it, no problem.

And as for the vocal that have problems, why doesn't anet, I dunno, work on fixing said problems? instead of completely ignoring that section? Instead it's left to rot for long periods, players start getting frustrated and voice those opinions, but yeah let's stop making them content that'll show them! Oh btw you're a cornerstone now six months before expansion, expansion releases, six months after, crickets, thanks? You argue as if pve doesn't have people vocally against some pve content, hmmm how many complained about the new map meta I wonder.... anet better stop making map metas now!

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And let's not forget the fact that WvW and PvP have reward tracks that allow them to unlock content simply by playing their respective modes -- which, in PvE, often requires completing dozens (sometimes more than 60) separate achievements to acquire, and often necessitating literal weeks of gameplay to do so.

You mean the same reward tracks that require you play the pve content to unlock in the first place? or you could wait 6 weeks on dungeon rotation? Also most of them are for dungeons or living story, not fractals, not raids, not strikes. They're not skipping any content and are in fact barely rewarding despite their name.

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It's pretty hard to argue that competitive modes "don't have anything" when they are is by far one of the fastest ways to unlock content without ever having to play a single story instance to do so.

Unlock what content? The only thing that's faster to unlock is elite specs if you have heroics. Heck we didn't even have the new stats on wvw accessories until last week. Whew boy, that was super fast.

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I also find it rather telling that your original post was about mesmer, yet you quickly evade to evoking scrapper (as though thief was ever being used in zergs and not shunned to be a roamer and decap like it has been relegated to for years) when all I had originally done was to point out that other sources of group stealth have existed since launch, rather than somehow being class-exclusive, but again, do as you will.

How did I quickly evade to scrapper, it was in the same post..... .. .

Mesmer was the main stealther for zergs, thieves were used for smaller groups if a mesmer wasn't around, but mass invisibility and veil were used quite often. You only drop veil these days for pugs around you, or if you need a quick stealth to reposition.

Now please stop, before you fall over that ledge behind you. Pve is anet's focus, it will ever be their main focus, yes even the core stuff, not sure why you're going through all this trouble for a distinction.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[Dragon Dude.7832]

On 7/24/2022 at 2:25 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

They're still both under pve....

You just got an entire expansion dedicated to pve...

Core is still getting stuff, you just had world bosses revamped...

You have living story season 1 redone...

Fractal improvements...

What has wvw and spvp gotten?

Crickets.

It's obvious they're trying to push 10 man end game content now for their steam release.
Shadow refuge... yeah I'm sure zergs will drop their scrappers for thieves now... 🙄

Thanks for enlightening me I guess.

 

On 7/24/2022 at 3:17 PM, itspomf.9523 said:

I mean, sure, yeah, if you count 10-man instanced content focused around being punishingly difficult as somehow part of core, open-world PvE gameplay.  Or, you know, the fact that the game is about the open world content and its story, and PvP and WvW are separate game modes outside of that.

Though I guess you could also call Fractals "PvE" by that standard.

But such glaring omissions aside, how would you propose going about making a "pvp-dedicated" expansion?  What would that even be?  Let alone why, when competitive players were very vocally against the newer PvP maps that were added?

And let's not forget the fact that WvW and PvP have reward tracks that allow them to unlock content simply by playing their respective modes -- which, in PvE, often requires completing dozens (sometimes more than 60) separate achievements to acquire, and often necessitating literal weeks of gameplay to do so.

It's pretty hard to argue that competitive modes "don't have anything" when they are is by far one of the fastest ways to unlock content without ever having to play a single story instance to do so.

I also find it rather telling that your original post was about mesmer, yet you quickly evade to evoking scrapper (as though thief was ever being used in zergs and not shunned to be a roamer and decap like it has been relegated to for years) when all I had originally done was to point out that other sources of group stealth have existed since launch, rather than somehow being class-exclusive, but again, do as you will.

Guys guys guys GUYS Calm down, no need to get your testes in a twist!

 

We're all on the same side here! Pve, Pvp, WPVP, it don't matter, you're missing the point of the post!