The game is getting easier, and in my mind, it is ruining the game.

[Nilkemia.8507]

How is the game being easier ruining it? How does one even determine that the game overall has gotten "easier"?

Far as I recall, there are plenty of vectors for those seeking harder content regardless. Fractals (higher level ones), Raids, Strikes, even certain open world zones, mostly some of the later Living World ones, but also mostly those in the first expansion. (Especially Tangled Depths.)

Makes one wonder if these people will ever truly be satisfied, or if they'd just rather see the whole game twisted to their vision, and the rest of us driven out.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Nilkemia.8507

[Rogue.8235]

5 hours ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

c) Increase the dificulty of the open world like HoT , forcing people to use Knights/Celectial gear

 

Here's a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.  Passive defensive stats are not necessary.  Balanced traits and skills are, because active defenses, such as evades, blocks, blinds, invulnerabilities, instantaneous or near-instantaneous mobility skills, barriers, and general movement repositioning are how you defend in this game.  That you still think defensive stats are the key to being survivable in this game, 10 years into the game's life, shows you still don't quite get the fundamental concepts of this game's combat system.

The major goal of combat in this game is to not be damaged at all.  Rather than using all the offensive traits and skills you can squeeze into your build, you must balance it with defensive traits and active defenses.  Defensive stats only work if you take damage, which shouldn't happen in the first place.

It is possible to play story, open world (including champions, bounties, etc., without taking any damage in fights.    Your base stats are enough to take the occasional hit, and if you get one-shot you really messed up.  I can regularly do this on my thief, warrior, guardian, necromancer, mesmer, and engineer.  Still mastering the other professions.

 

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

11 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

Here's a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.  Passive defensive stats are not necessary.  Balanced traits and skills are, because active defenses, such as evades, blocks, blinds, invulnerabilities, instantaneous or near-instantaneous mobility skills, barriers, and general movement repositioning are how you defend in this game.  That you still think defensive stats are the key to being survivable in this game, 10 years into the game's life, shows you still don't quite get the fundamental concepts of this game's combat system.

The major goal of combat in this game is to not be damaged at all.  Rather than using all the offensive traits and skills you can squeeze into your build, you must balance it with defensive traits and active defenses.  Defensive stats only work if you take damage, which shouldn't happen in the first place.

It is possible to play story, open world (including champions, bounties, etc., without taking any damage in fights.    Your base stats are enough to take the occasional hit, and if you get one-shot you really messed up.  I can regularly do this on my thief, warrior, guardian, necromancer, mesmer, and engineer.  Still mastering the other professions.

 

I don't know what to tell you .

In the ideal scenario , people should avoid everything like in PvP.

In the real world  , people will prefer to build as tanky as posible and chip away the hp of the mobs .

Some "people on the forums" believe that by introducing hard OW events , magicly people will use LI + BERSKEKER specs ... ofc this is how it happens ...

"Some other" will benefit from hardmode OW in order to take a monopoly and sell the loot if people  cannot do it .

Casuals didnt  problem with the mechanics of Soo-Won (wanted less -15% hp) , in reverse they learned new mechanics (wisp) . As long as people avoid content (Triple Trouble-Soo Won) , people will not learn new mechanics . Thy will need more content /more time  to improve (lets say 6 more years ?)

I mean, uga booga uga (cannot think , because i havent cleared the hardest boss 😛)

 

Edit:The company is tring to push people to use LI builds , with having high HP bosses + no timer (Sunquak T1-3) , but i am teling you old gg , some "dps addon lover"  will 10.000% mess it up 😛 , some crashes while having the addons must happens in specific areas

Edited December 3, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/1/2022 at 1:21 PM, Antycypator.9874 said:

Instanced content is locked behind Killproofs

Nothing is "locked" here -not only training/no-req squads consistently show up in lfg, you're always free to create your training/no-req squad. You don't want to do it because what exactly? It is "locked" how exactly?

[DexterousGecko.6328]

1 hour ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

Here's a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.  Passive defensive stats are not necessary.  Balanced traits and skills are, because active defenses, such as evades, blocks, blinds, invulnerabilities, instantaneous or near-instantaneous mobility skills, barriers, and general movement repositioning are how you defend in this game.  That you still think defensive stats are the key to being survivable in this game, 10 years into the game's life, shows you still don't quite get the fundamental concepts of this game's combat system.

The major goal of combat in this game is to not be damaged at all.  Rather than using all the offensive traits and skills you can squeeze into your build, you must balance it with defensive traits and active defenses.  Defensive stats only work if you take damage, which shouldn't happen in the first place.

It is possible to play story, open world (including champions, bounties, etc., without taking any damage in fights.    Your base stats are enough to take the occasional hit, and if you get one-shot you really messed up.  I can regularly do this on my thief, warrior, guardian, necromancer, mesmer, and engineer.  Still mastering the other professions.

 

How many hours do you have in the game to get to the point where you go through the entire story and not take any damage? And what percentage of players do you suppose can do the same?

[Rogue.8235]

2 minutes ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

How many hours do you have in the game to get to the point where you go through the entire story and not take any damage? And what percentage of players do you suppose can do the same?

I have about 3k hours played since pre-launch.  One of the first, and hardest, things I learned about GW2 combat is that it's not like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, GW1,, or most any other MMORPG's at the time.  It's action-oriented,. skill-based combat.  Meaning, you have to constantly move and time your attacks and active defenses as the situation changes.  I'm a very casual player, but I'm able to learn encounters and use my skills, and any introduced mechanics, as needed.  The times that I die are because I either messed up my skill/dodge usage, or in the case of story bosses, I didn't utilize the special mechanic of the fight properly.

That you can move and attack simultaneously indicates that this isn't a combat system where two combatants just stand there bashing each other until someone wins.  

It doesn't take long to be able to play to the advantages of the combat system if you actually adapt your playstyle to the game, rather than relying on habits that are suited for other games.  I don't play other MMORPGs the way I play GW2.  Actually, I play each of my games differently, according to the specific mechanics of each game, because they're different.

 

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

In the ideal scenario , people should avoid everything like in PvP.

From the beginning of the game, in the starter areas, you are introduced to slow, highly telegraphed attacks that are easy to avoid simply by moving (WASD).  Throughout the game, mechanical difficulty increases wherein you have to use dodges and, later, defensive skills.  Damage avoidance has always been a fundamental skill in this game, which is why a lot of players struggled during the betas and pre-launch.  It was new to them (and me), until the player base figured out that dodging was key.

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

In the real world  , people will prefer to build as tanky as posible and chip away the hp of the mobs .

I'm sure some do, like yourself.  However, I don't know if there is such a significant number of players in the game that prefer defensive stats over all other ways to gear/trait/skill for combat.  It's a massive stretch to imply that such a sizable portion of the player base shares your mindset that defensive stats are preferable to all other methods of gameplay.

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

Some "people on the forums" believe that by introducing hard OW events , magicly people will use LI + BERSKEKER specs ... ofc this is how it happens ...

I have no idea what "LI" builds are.  Berserker stats is not necessarily the best way to play the game.  I use all sorts of other stat combinations specific to each build I play.  I craft my own builds (at least 3 per profession) and use stat combinations that I, personally, believe to be the best for that particular build.  That you are propping up berserker stats, then arguing it's deficiencies is, by definition, a strawman argument.

I never said everyone must use berserker stats.  Only that active damage mitigation is how the combat system is designed.  It's not problematic to play the game as designed.

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

"Some other" will benefit from hardmode OW in order to take a monopoly and sell the loot if people  cannot do it .

I'm not sure where you're going here.  I'm simply stating that the game is designed to be played actively, with active damage mitigation and active damage avoidance.  Nothing about a hardcore mode.  These are fundamental basics of the GW2 combat system.

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

Casuals didnt  problem with the mechanics of Soo-Won (wanted less -15% hp) , in reverse they learned new mechanics (wisp) . As long as people avoid content (Triple Trouble-Soo Won) , people will not learn new mechanics . Thy will need more content /more time  to improve (lets say 6 more years ?)

The thing about mechanics that are specific to a single fight is that they aren't required knowledge elsewhere in the game.  Because of the active combat system, GW2 must inject new mechanics to make a fight difficult, requiring players to skillfully adapt to new and changing circumstances.  This isn't an MMO where you simply get bigger stats to defeat new "challenging" content.  Rather than increasing numbers, difficulty scales with actual skillful use of active mechanics.  

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

I mean, uga booga uga (cannot think , because i havent cleared the hardest boss 😛)

I have honestly felt like this before when I'm unable to identify what I'm doing wrong in a particular fight.  What I do is just go into the fight, knowing I'm going to lose, and only pay attention to the mechanics being employed.  It's a slow process, but a methodical one, full of thoughts like "djkla;hsjkoahgrhawigop23905t7awhg"

It's not a bad thing to feel negative emotions, those things happen from time to time.

 

[robertthebard.8150]

7 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

99% of the content in this game is easy and if you are willing to learn the game mechanics the game becomes very easy. Problem with this community is that there is a good portion of players that are unwilling to improve in any way, shape or form. Why should my squad suffer because someone does not put effort into improving? If I can finish the content faster by asking for minimum requirements, I will. 
And to even suggest that asking for KP is preventing anyone from completing the content because some commander made his own LFG is just delusional.  

How, exactly, is your "squad" going to suffer?  Why isn't your "squad" already full for the, to use your numbers here, 1% of the content that you feel is hard enough to require KP?  I mean, maybe it's because I belonged to a progression raiding guild, that raided across multiple MMOs, but if we had to PuG in someone that didn't know the content, we certainly never suffered for it.  Then again, we had a good enough handle on the content that we could short man it if we had to, so having an extra body was just a bonus.  I can't count the number of times I've seen groups requiring this kind of thing that were closer to needing to be carried than experts at the content.

[Krzysztof.5973]

6 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

How, exactly, is your "squad" going to suffer?  Why isn't your "squad" already full for the, to use your numbers here, 1% of the content that you feel is hard enough to require KP?  I mean, maybe it's because I belonged to a progression raiding guild, that raided across multiple MMOs, but if we had to PuG in someone that didn't know the content, we certainly never suffered for it.  Then again, we had a good enough handle on the content that we could short man it if we had to, so having an extra body was just a bonus.  I can't count the number of times I've seen groups requiring this kind of thing that were closer to needing to be carried than experts at the content.

As I said before, I could describe the lower end of the community with cute colorful words, expressing my displeasure with their inability to control their own characters... Let's just say there is too many of them that is simply incompetent. All I want for my squad is to have a fast, smooth run where we don't have to lowman everything because some pug is incapable of pulling his own weight. 
I only use LFG as a last resort when we are missing somebody and all our friends are busy. No need to take a jab on me.
You really don't need much for the "1%" but since open world/story content is incredibly easy on top of the current balance, even the slightest ramp up in difficulty (like raids or strike cms) causes in these lower-end players to riot and throw a temper tantrum if some commander even suggest a change in their build. 
And I have no idea what MMOs you played, but in this game a single clueless player can cause a wipe on half the bosses in raids. 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

This topic has got a little off topic but I strongly agree with the OP. I enjoy exploring the PvE world and it's more fun if there are challenges, areas you tread carefully and fights only only take on if you have some help. A few months ago we manufactured that by going into zones where we were slightly under leveled but Arena have made that difficult with all the experience boosts (the new adventure guide achievements primarily), you now hit level 80 so fast and then there aren't any higher level zones.

I would love a personal difficulty toggle so you could add a bit of difficulty back into PvE. Either that or some sort of rebalancing. (I could love to be able to turn the achievement guide off too.

[robertthebard.8150]

12 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

As I said before, I could describe the lower end of the community with cute colorful words, expressing my displeasure with their inability to control their own characters... Let's just say there is too many of them that is simply incompetent. All I want for my squad is to have a fast, smooth run where we don't have to lowman everything because some pug is incapable of pulling his own weight. 
I only use LFG as a last resort when we are missing somebody and all our friends are busy. No need to take a jab on me.
You really don't need much for the "1%" but since open world/story content is incredibly easy on top of the current balance, even the slightest ramp up in difficulty (like raids or strike cms) causes in these lower-end players to riot and throw a temper tantrum if some commander even suggest a change in their build. 
And I have no idea what MMOs you played, but in this game a single clueless player can cause a wipe on half the bosses in raids. 

So, my takeaway from this post probably isn't what you wanted it to be.  On one hand, you claim to never use the LFG tool unless you have to, and on the other, you rage about all the incompetent players.  I think I've used the LFG tool twice since I've been here, maybe.  I have no idea what the ratio of elite, adequate and incompetent players is.

Then maybe you should also be correcting a lot of posts in this thread as well, because to read the thread, you'd think that your closing statement is just made up.  This is far and away from the only MMO with a "if you make a mistake the party wipes" mechanic.  It's pretty common, in top tier content.

Closer to "on topic" however; if no changes had been made to the game from the time I started up to now, the game would have still gotten easier.  It would have gotten easier because I became more familiar with the mechanics and the overall combat, not to mention any gear optimizations that I would have been making compared to what I didn't do on my first character.  It's inevitable that that's going to happen.  This is true on my current account and would also be true if I started a new account, because the age of the account doesn't matter, the experience of the player does.

[Krzysztof.5973]

28 minutes ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

So, my takeaway from this post probably isn't what you wanted it to be.  On one hand, you claim to never use the LFG tool unless you have to, and on the other, you rage about all the incompetent players.  I think I've used the LFG tool twice since I've been here, maybe.  I have no idea what the ratio of elite, adequate and incompetent players is.

Then maybe you should also be correcting a lot of posts in this thread as well, because to read the thread, you'd think that your closing statement is just made up.  This is far and away from the only MMO with a "if you make a mistake the party wipes" mechanic.  It's pretty common, in top tier content.

Closer to "on topic" however; if no changes had been made to the game from the time I started up to now, the game would have still gotten easier.  It would have gotten easier because I became more familiar with the mechanics and the overall combat, not to mention any gear optimizations that I would have been making compared to what I didn't do on my first character.  It's inevitable that that's going to happen.  This is true on my current account and would also be true if I started a new account, because the age of the account doesn't matter, the experience of the player does.

I've been raiding in this game for 7 years, doing every possible activity in raids from teaching to challenge runs. The trend on the forums is to talk out of your (*insert kitten here*), especially in the instanced content section. If I engage with somebody it's either to have a nice conversation with somebody or have a good laugh. Couple frogs in here are not worth engaging since it's a waste of time. 

When it comes to difficulty, I've realized that majority of the 'loudest' crowd on the forums simply lacks perspective to even begin the conversation about difficulty/rewards. Too many people just brush off power creep since HoT. This game can be accessible, don't get me wrong but it has gotten too far. 

[Val.7826]

On 12/1/2022 at 5:34 PM, Khisanth.2948 said:

That isn't much of a change. My characters have been reaching lv80 at around Battle of Claw Island which is lv60 since pretty much release.

Well, depends on how and what you play, and if you play since release you probably already know how to optimize level up and you have a "big" exp bonus from achievement points passive, plus, maybe you use to consume exp buff items or maybe do crafting. Before the adventure achi add, just by completing 1 map of every level range depending on what level I was, + story, I didn't reach lvl 80 before Battleof Claw Island, playing casual, I use to be often around the right level, usually a bit lower.

[Astralporing.1957]

16 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

How many hours do you have in the game to get to the point where you go through the entire story and not take any damage? And what percentage of players do you suppose can do the same?

I wasn't a very good player when HoT launched, and the difficulty of its content forced me to abandon my previous defensive gear setups and go full zerker. The defensive gear did not make the difficulty easier - quite the opposite, it made sure that i wasn't killing stuff fast enough to survive and always ended up getting overwhelmed. Cranking it even higher will not push more people into defensive builds - it will just push more people into not playing the content.

[Dr Meta.3158]

54 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I wasn't a very good player when HoT launched, and the difficulty of its content forced me to abandon my previous defensive gear setups and go full zerker. The defensive gear did not make the difficulty easier - quite the opposite, it made sure that i wasn't killing stuff fast enough to survive and always ended up getting overwhelmed. Cranking it even higher will not push more people into defensive builds - it will just push more people into not playing the content.

Thats quite interesting. I find it harder to survive in berserker stats than optimizing lets say 60% offense and 60% defense vs 100% offense and 0% defense. This game often has diminishing returns the more you try to push in one direction and rewards you for balanced stats. The only time I go into an extremity is in instanced group content where my defenses are taken care of by someone else.

[Hashberry.4510]

The expansion zones, with a few exceptions, are approaching the same problem core had. Small groups are powerful enough to overwhelm content with out any downside to zerging. Less stuff  where a mindless zerg will trap you and help fail the objective unless the map sorts it out. New players won’t learn kitten as usual.

 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

4 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Thats quite interesting. I find it harder to survive in berserker stats than optimizing lets say 60% offense and 60% defense vs 100% offense and 0% defense. This game often has diminishing returns the more you try to push in one direction and rewards you for balanced stats. The only time I go into an extremity is in instanced group content where my defenses are taken care of by someone else.

 

Yeah, I always go full zerker or full vipers because I find it easier to kill stuff than using defensive gear. I am talking OW here as well because I use it as a training ground for instanced content. If you can dodge fine and not die in OW with the gear, you can survive better in instanced. I rarely hybrid as well if the build I use doesn't call for it. The only recent time I did hybrid was with the condi virtuoso build because it called for different condi pieces instead of just vipers, but it is still just dps and no vit in the end.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Thats quite interesting. I find it harder to survive in berserker stats than optimizing lets say 60% offense and 60% defense vs 100% offense and 0% defense. This game often has diminishing returns the more you try to push in one direction and rewards you for balanced stats. The only time I go into an extremity is in instanced group content where my defenses are taken care of by someone else.

It's the exact opposite, actually. Most of the time you are heavily punished for going hybrid. Say, when balancing dps and defence, you will not end up with 50% of each, because the scaling is generally not linear. When you shift glass build from "offense" towards defense, initially you will end up with big dps decreases for very small defence gains. By the time your defence gets big enough to equal your offence, both will be relatively low. And by the time you get to some high levels of stat-based defence, your dps will be near ground levels.

There are some builds that can achieve balance at somewhat higher levels, by the virtue of using celestial stats, and using a build that requires all stats (so, usually a power/condi hybrid that achieves higher crit chance and higher level dps from some specific traits/runes, and from being able to self-boon), but they are generally also inferior to specialized builds.

That's also because this game's susrivability relies heavily on active defences - dodge, movement and skill usage - which are for the most part completely not dependant on your stats. The only thing that is dependant on stats is healing (but healing power is generally known to have the worst stat-to-effectiveness scaling out of all stats. To get something out of it you need to have a lot of healing power, or there's not much point). Unless you have massively invested in Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power (and probably in Concentration as well), you will still get most of your survivability from abovementioned active defences, and not from stats. Besides, to get most out of stats you need to match them with correct traits/traitlines. If you do not have corresponding traits selected, investing in certain stat groups is often just not worth it. This is as much true with defensive stats as is it with offensive ones. And there's just so many traits you can select - you have to choose, you can't just pick half of one traitline and half of another, or half of each of two mutually exclusive traits in the same traitline.

I know that there's a lot of people that do genuinely think that "balanced builds" are good, but it's just not true, and for the most part is just a result of most of the game population having no real idea how their builds compare to each other (and to the peaks of what is possible).

Hint: when devs once revealed that there's 10x difference in dps between top and average players, they were not joking or exagerrating. And running hybrid builds by a large part of this game's population is one of the major reasons for that disparity.

 

[Dr Meta.3158]

24 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It's the exact opposite, actually. Most of the time you are heavily punished for going hybrid. Say, when balancing dps and defence, you will not end up with 50% of each, because the scaling is generally not linear. When you shift glass build from "offense" towards defense, initially you will end up with big dps decreases for very small defence gains. By the time your defence gets big enough to equal your offence, both will be relatively low. And by the time you get to some high levels of stat-based defence, your dps will be near ground levels.

There are some builds that can achieve balance at somewhat higher levels, by the virtue of using celestial stats, and using a build that requires all stats (so, usually a power/condi hybrid that achieves higher crit chance and higher level dps from some specific traits/runes, and from being able to self-boon), but they are generally also inferior to specialized builds.

That's also because this game's susrivability relies heavily on active defences - dodge, movement and skill usage - which are for the most part completely not dependant on your stats. The only thing that is dependant on stats is healing (but healing power is generally known to have the worst stat-to-effectiveness scaling out of all stats. To get something out of it you need to have a lot of healing power, or there's not much point). Unless you have massively invested in Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power (and probably in Concentration as well), you will still get most of your survivability from abovementioned active defences, and not from stats. Besides, to get most out of stats you need to match them with correct traits/traitlines. If you do not have corresponding traits selected, investing in certain stat groups is often just not worth it. This is as much true with defensive stats as is it with offensive ones. And there's just so many traits you can select - you have to choose, you can't just pick half of one traitline and half of another, or half of each of two mutually exclusive traits in the same traitline.

I know that there's a lot of people that do genuinely think that "balanced builds" are good, but it's just not true, and for the most part is just a result of most of the game population having no real idea how their builds compare to each other (and to the peaks of what is possible).

Hint: when devs once revealed that there's 10x difference in dps between top and average players, they were not joking or exagerrating. And running hybrid builds by a large part of this game's population is one of the major reasons for that disparity.

 

I haven't experienced that at all but hopefully you figure something out. Maybe check out Lord Hazen on YouTube. His builds are a little too defensive for my tastes but he can also solo a lot legendaries and meta events with his builds.

[Dr Meta.3158]

3 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

 

Yeah, I always go full zerker or full vipers because I find it easier to kill stuff than using defensive gear. I am talking OW here as well because I use it as a training ground for instanced content. If you can dodge fine and not die in OW with the gear, you can survive better in instanced. I rarely hybrid as well if the build I use doesn't call for it. The only recent time I did hybrid was with the condi virtuoso build because it called for different condi pieces instead of just vipers, but it is still just dps and no vit in the end.

I usually go berserkers if I'm doing general open world and story events just to go fast. If I'm doing anything difficult I switch to a hybrid setup otherwise the dps loss from constantly dying and rezzing after running out of active defenses makes it inferior to the sustained moderate dps from hybrid and out sustaining incoming damage.

[Zera.9435]

Look dude there are plenty of ways to make the game artificially hard. Don't use 'meta' (whatever the kitten that means) builds, and focus on healing others instead of doing damage to anything. Better yet, don't use weapons or armor.

[LadyKitty.6120]

As to why defensive stats are usually bad for solo gameplay (esp. on power builds that need 3 stats to be efficient vs condi requiring 2), the reason is very simple: sustain.

Having vitality for big health pool doesn't help if it leaks faster than you can fill it. If dries up faster than you can kill the enemy, you die. Having a bigger pool simply takes longer to dry but if dps loss is greater than the added pool size, it just means a more likely slow death.

You can try to fill it with heal skills and healing traits but that requires specifically investing in healing power (further losses to damage) and healing traits+skills (usually mutually exclusive with damage traits). By the time you've reached enough healing to outheal all damage to big health pool when eating most attacks, you have no damage left. Toughness isn't that good either as it only works against power damage, not against condis. 3rd option would be mixing damage stats and healing power with something like Zealot's (Power+Prec+Healing Power) or Plaguedoctor's/Shaman's (Condi damage+Vitality+Healing Power and Concentration on Plaguedoctor's, use runes+sigils+traits for condi duration). Those stats actually balance sustain and damage.

So, usually best options for getting stuff killed is either going full glass cannon and obliterating everything before it kills you (requires actively evading and blocking hits) or investing a lot in Healing Power and healing stuffs and kill stuff slowly. Latter option has one problem, though: if there's a timer (often the case with champs and story achievements), you mightn't have enough damage to kill stuff fast enough.

Ofc there's another thing to improve survivability on most classes: "Convert outgoing damage to healing/barrier"-traits like Invigorating Precision on thief and Parasitic Contagion on necromancer. But for those to be effective, you need to optimize rest of the build for maximum damage. This is in fact the best way to reach essentially godmode on most classes. Warrior is kinda exception as it gets healing from applying Might when using Tactics (Mending Might-trait) and/or last middle trait in Strength which thus benefits from Sigil of Strength and food like Fried Golden Dumplings.

Also, having some kind of access to Protection-boon obviously helps IF the DPS cost is less than -25% damage for perma-Protection.

[Hindenburg.3415]

Sure , game is "easy" but when Anet releases something even mildly challenging people ignore it because it's "inefficient" or start gatekeeping it by demanding 50kp for Vale Guardian who can be killed by group of new players after 2-3 tries.

[TOAD.4718]

I enjoy the game. Of course I wasn’t here at the beginning but as a new player I enjoy it. I don’t feel it’s too easy but I don’t feel it’s hard either just a nice casual pace. I can pick it up for a few hours and play it during the work week and then go crazy on the weekend and still feel I’m accomplishing SOMETHING but not necessarily blowing through content.

[sasya neko.1985]

you have raids, that's your difficult content.

leave the OW alone, i enjoy it now .

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, sorudo.9054 said:

you have raids, that's your difficult content.

leave the OW alone, i enjoy it now .

It always amazes me how certain people are fine with having both harder and easier instanced contenet, but then they try to privatize(?) OW with claims about it needing to be made specifically according to their needs. How about having a range of different difficulty content across the game, with kind of logically increasing difficulty as you go through the released content?

12 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

Sure , game is "easy" but when Anet releases something even mildly challenging people ignore it because it's "inefficient" or start gatekeeping it by demanding 50kp for Vale Guardian who can be killed by group of new players after 2-3 tries.

How is it "gatekept" when it "can be killed by a group of new players after 2-3 tries" combined with the fact anyone can make their own group for any content at any time with their own requirements or lack of them? Please guide me through the logic of what you've just said in your post (preferably while keeping in mind what I just wrote).

Edited December 6, 2022 by Sobx.1758