Boonball meta is bad

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Hmmmm but then you look at all the spam they added in the past 10 years with aoes boons conditions, and the fact they had 10 target caps around still on some stuff and scorched earth still can hit 25, and ac's can hit 50, makes you wonder about that. 🤔🤷‍♂️

Increasing the boon target cap to 10 players was the dumbest crap ever, and partly why I took  a break from the game. it was a clear sign they only cared about raids, and that messed up 10-person content anyways which is why they got rid of it. WvW was as always colleterial damage.

And as usual it comes to no surprise that attacks that can bypass the normal target cap are broken but they play whack a mole every time. The very brief Sanctuary spam trend was pretty kitten to fight, and it remains quite effective even after the nerf.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sanctuary

But then again this was an actual WvW change though so I thought we were going to good places-- until SotO came along and drove it off a cliff.

Edited November 22, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Mabi black.1824]

9 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sanctuary

Looking at the skill you indicated, I can tell you that any WVW warrior class player would pay any amount in gold or gems to have access to such a skill. it's a lot of stuff. 

Come to think of it this might be a good idea for Anet, so you can monetize WVW better. Selling the skills of other classes, with a countdown then you will have to buy them back. and no more than 1 or 2 at a time. The market would go crazy. That would be fun to see. 🤭

Edited November 22, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[geist.4126]

First time I quit a reset night early. Holy Moms of Butts is that boring to fight.

a) downstates shouldn't be ressed quicker with more people
b) get rid of Necro skills to port downstate people to you
c) revert any change of boon corrupt and boon strip of the last 11 years
d) put boon sharing to a maximum of 5
e) make pulls having a clear LoS mandatory and never unblockable
f) delete Minstrel gear

F that meta. It's a circus and we are the clowns.

Edited November 24, 2023 by geist.4126
revert not reverse

[Burnfall.9573]

 

[SweetPotato.7456]

If it is bad , use some other meta. 

[EyeGore.9254]

Here is the truth of it. Anet has pushed the game in a way that they have alienated a part of the player base that does not like the boon ball. Anet is not dumb. They have made the boon ball for the low skilled players that just want to ball up run over red circles while getting healed. No brains at all, it is just comp up and win. No worries about getting in to downstate and if it does happen no worries, you will get rezed. Basically, god mode for the low skilled. It really is just that simple. 

Game sucks now. Was good and had loads of potential but not now. They don't care about the veteran sharks that actually use all their skills and know how to survive without being carried by boons in large squads.

The purpose of large squads was supposed to be able to give the larger numbers a fighting chance against those that were better players. Turns out having more wasn't enough. So, they have systematically removed the tools to kill the large squads.

Large Aoe target caps - gone mostly. Boon strips way out of balance and can in no way keep up with boon output or sharing. Healing buffed too ridiculous. It is just simple mode for the simple. I'm sorry. We all wanted better, but we have our answer in action or in this case, no action.

If you want to be happier, do YOURSELF a favor. Just quit. There are other games that will not ignore you.

Good luck all.

[Burnfall.9573]

16 minutes ago, EyeGore.9254 said:

Here is the truth of it. Anet has pushed the game in a way that they have alienated a part of the player base that does not like the boon ball. Anet is not dumb. They have made the boon ball for the low skilled players that just want to ball up run over red circles while getting healed. No brains at all, it is just comp up and win. No worries about getting in to downstate and if it does happen no worries, you will get rezed. Basically, god mode for the low skilled. It really is just that simple. 

Game sucks now. Was good and had loads of potential but not now. They don't care about the veteran sharks that actually use all their skills and know how to survive without being carried by boons in large squads.

The purpose of large squads was supposed to be able to give the larger numbers a fighting chance against those that were better players. Turns out having more wasn't enough. So, they have systematically removed the tools to kill the large squads.

Large Aoe target caps - gone mostly. Boon strips way out of balance and can in no way keep up with boon output or sharing. Healing buffed too ridiculous. It is just simple mode for the simple. I'm sorry. We all wanted better, but we have our answer in action or in this case, no action.

If you want to be happier, do YOURSELF a favor. Just quit. There are other games that will not ignore you.

Good luck all.

this

Don't forget to add upcoming MMO'S to 2024 New Year shopping list 

[Dawdler.8521]

49 minutes ago, EyeGore.9254 said:

Here is the truth of it. Anet has pushed the game in a way that they have alienated a part of the player base that does not like the boon ball. Anet is not dumb. They have made the boon ball for the low skilled players that just want to ball up run over red circles while getting healed. No brains at all, it is just comp up and win. No worries about getting in to downstate and if it does happen no worries, you will get rezed. Basically, god mode for the low skilled. It really is just that simple. 

You are describing the hardcore pro fight guilds as well. In fact it’s a more accurate description for them than it is for a random low skill zerg.

[XenesisII.1540]

2 hours ago, EyeGore.9254 said:

Here is the truth of it. Anet has pushed the game in a way that they have alienated a part of the player base that does not like the boon ball. Anet is not dumb. They have made the boon ball for the low skilled players that just want to ball up run over red circles while getting healed. No brains at all, it is just comp up and win. No worries about getting in to downstate and if it does happen no worries, you will get rezed. Basically, god mode for the low skilled. It really is just that simple. 

And all they've done with that is basically made the super groups stronger, because there's three tiers of groups, the pugs that don't make use of the boon ball, the low-mid tier guilds that try to copy the boon ball but still get one pushed by the group above, and the super guild/groups that feed on everything below them. As much as they like to think they're helping the general masses with the boon spam, it's only lifted general groups up a bit above pugs, and allowed the super groups to abuse it. The worse part of this is it gives the players/commanders the impression they can now tank and sustain longer in spots like the super groups, so they don't move as they should, they don't actually learn to be better players, they only believe the game should now carry them by adding even more firebrand and support players to the stack.

Had about an hour worth of fights in smc last night, it was fun, because none of the super groups were involved, compared to homebl which had a super group chasing down pug defenders for scraps. 🤭

Quote

Large Aoe target caps - gone mostly. Boon strips way out of balance and can in no way keep up with boon output or sharing. Healing buffed too ridiculous. It is just simple mode for the simple. I'm sorry. We all wanted better, but we have our answer in action or in this case, no action.

On that note, maybe they should just do away with 5 targets down to just 1(except for stability and swiftness maybe), that includes damage and boons and heals and barriers etc, make all stun breakers aoe 5 targets, then we'll get back to using personal skill for survival, organized target calling, movement and positioning being the most important aspect of combat, actual front line back line pick combat formations again. 🤷‍♂️🤭

Edited December 6, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[Hesione.9412]

At this point, they might as well just give everyone permanent swiftness, regen, stab, aegis, ... Would at least even the playing field.

[joneirikb.7506]

17 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

And all they've done with that is basically made the super groups stronger, because there's three tiers of groups, the pugs that don't make use of the boon ball, the low-mid tier guilds that try to copy the boon ball but still get one pushed by the group above, and the super guild/groups that feed on everything below them. As much as they like to think they're helping the general masses with the boon spam, it's only lifted general groups up a bit above pugs, and allowed the super groups to abuse it. The worse part of this is it gives the players/commanders the impression they can now tank and sustain longer in spots like the super groups, so they don't move as they should, they don't actually learn to be better players, they only believe the game should now carry them by adding even more firebrand and support players to the stack.

So at this point it's a "Win harder/Lose harder" kind of mechanic? If you're winning it snowballs you, if you're losing it snowballs you. That's generally considered to be pretty crappy design, but no one is surprised by that at this point. But it makes sense, as those kind of mechanics tends to be popular in PVE, especially for low-skill players. Either they stay ahead and win, or they die quickly and can reset. Like a shark, gotta keep swimming or you drown. So this might as well just be ANet's continued focus on PVE slowly creeping over into WvW/PvP and there's really nothing that will ever be done about it.

The little I've played mostly been roaming with guild, so haven't really seen much of the boonball (why I don't comment much on it). But at this point, I can't help thinking that the game should have been split, one for PVE and one for PVP/WVW, and make them 2 separate games. The negative side of that, would be that the WvW part probably wouldn't make enough money and just die off.

[XenesisII.1540]

5 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

So at this point it's a "Win harder/Lose harder" kind of mechanic? If you're winning it snowballs you, if you're losing it snowballs you. That's generally considered to be pretty crappy design, but no one is surprised by that at this point. But it makes sense, as those kind of mechanics tends to be popular in PVE, especially for low-skill players. Either they stay ahead and win, or they die quickly and can reset. Like a shark, gotta keep swimming or you drown. So this might as well just be ANet's continued focus on PVE slowly creeping over into WvW/PvP and there's really nothing that will ever be done about it.

The little I've played mostly been roaming with guild, so haven't really seen much of the boonball (why I don't comment much on it). But at this point, I can't help thinking that the game should have been split, one for PVE and one for PVP/WVW, and make them 2 separate games. The negative side of that, would be that the WvW part probably wouldn't make enough money and just die off.

Well anet has always had these snowball/prey on the weak effects in wvw, the orbs and bloodlust, the 2v1 they screwed up majorly when the two biggest bully the weakest, now boons. To fight those group you need to be equal or greater sized and you need to be fully comped, or you might as well get off the map.

I often think of a comparison between pve and wvw. Wvw is like open world, everyone can be there, everyone can do something, whether your solo or in a group. Then you get raids, the organized comped groups, put together to tackle harder challenges, boon balls are the wvw equivalent x5, only pve raids are actually separate instances, and boon balls well they're allowed to run rough shot over all of wvw whenever they want (fortunately they mostly run in prime time).

Which is why back in the day they should  have went and made a separate instanced battleground instead for gvg's, they've had the arenas, but they've always had some problem with them, and of course get cut off from wvw rewards, as much as they will tell you it's not about the rewards it's about the fights! Even though they usually spend two hours farming weaker pugs and groups than them, instead of setting up gvg's every night.

Now they're going to get guild hall arenas with wvw stats next year, let's see if they bother to make use of it, or if it's another misguided use of dev resources. 🤷‍♂️

Edited December 7, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[Sonork.2916]

So players who take time to organize cohesive groups, where everyone in the group has a role, like providing stab, heals damage, strips or other utility.  Shouldn't be rewarded for doing so?   The good guilds aren't just throwing a bunch of random players together and rolling everyone cause "boons."  People complain of the boon-balls but to do it well you actually have to organize 20+ people, get a driver to lead the group, make sure each group has the boons/healing/stab/dps support required, probably get the players into voice comms and have them make callouts during a fight + more.    

i guess I'm not sure what other group meta people would rather have.   

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Sonork.2916 said:

So players who take time to organize cohesive groups, where everyone in the group has a role, like providing stab, heals damage, strips or other utility.  Shouldn't be rewarded for doing so?   The good guilds aren't just throwing a bunch of random players together and rolling everyone cause "boons."  People complain of the boon-balls but to do it well you actually have to organize 20+ people, get a driver to lead the group, make sure each group has the boons/healing/stab/dps support required, probably get the players into voice comms and have them make callouts during a fight + more.    

i guess I'm not sure what other group meta people would rather have.   

Or how about you take the time to do all that and then take the time to fight groups of the appropriate skill/size/comp for your rewards? Everyone else has to fight a constant uphill battle against those groups for theirs, fighting in a boon ball is ez mode.

The reality is these groups are always looking for weaker opponents, everyone runs from the stronger ones, the actual top strong ones have to sits in places because no one wants to fight a stronger boon ball. That's why you got Indo slumming it in smc sometimes, where he lets the opponent keep smc, but he's running train tracks around it farming for kills instead, or he goes to the borderland and faces a group once, and they run away to another map because there's no chance so why bother.

Not healthy for the game mode when these groups just chase content off a map. How about we go back to non spam mode, and let the actual player skill and communication be the advantage of groups, but naw we know groups don't want to give up that one huge advantage they have catered to them by anet.

P.S I have no problems with organized groups, I have a problem with the combat system evolving into boon spam, support spam, and the counters being nerfed practically every patch the last two years.

Edited December 7, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Bring back Edge of Extinction from GW1 and boom, problem solved. Plus lulworthy stuff will become avaliable.

[Hyperballad.5693]

2 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

So players who take time to organize cohesive groups, where everyone in the group has a role, like providing stab, heals damage, strips or other utility.  Shouldn't be rewarded for doing so? 

That's the whole issue in a nutshell with today's meta; every player has one singular role.

During core (and HoT to a certain extent), players had to consider:

- water regroups
- timed leaps and weapon swaps (melee)
- pick teams (thieves/mesmers primairly)
- awareness to float from melee to 900 range, either to avoid bombs or assist pick teams with downs, and to avoid being picked yourself (casters)
- stab rotations
- down calls / banner placement
- avoid red circles (what a concept)
- I'm sure other old-school wvw'ers can name more

Players just had more personal agency in general. My point being, GWEN comps were not perfect, but they were driven by coordinating all the tasks I mentioned above. That coordination is what drove the meta and allowed smaller groups to take on larger groups and was also the deciding factor in gvgs. If I were to just sandbag on guardian and play a singular role like firebrand today (providing stab), most fights would be lost due to lack of dps.

And having a singular role is also just flat-out boring imo. I can join ANY group running today on a firebrand, not equip weapons or any utilities besides "stand your ground," camp my courage book, and w-key on the commander while watching youtube on my other monitor. Minstrel gear and over-powered specs/traits do 99% of the work.

So no, I don't think simply being "organized" with minstrel gear and over-powered specs that perform one singular role should be the deciding factor in fights. It should be coordination and skill. Being able to stay on tag and w-key in the tankiest gear possible, with every boon, ignoring all the game mechanics, requires little-to-no skill, awareness, and the bare-minimum of coordination.

It's a pathetic shell of the what the game used to be, and the main reason why most of the old-school gvg'ers quit or just cloud these days. Or they've endured the trash meta due to friendships and guild comradery, which I totally understand.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Hyperballad.5693
misclick

[ArchonWing.9480]

Yea, the two are hardly comparable.

Consider the Core frontline guardian. The current mace/shield/staff version still existed in its current state, but the weaponsets are more flexible with greatsword combined with gs warriors for a more mobile train, or using hammer with hammer warriors for a stronger cc train. Nowadays the game says you are stupid for even trying anything besides pure support. There was even a little while in HoT when "radiant frontline" was a thing. Dps frontlines. Imagine that.

Not gonna lie, I didn't even buy PoF and basically quit the game  until 2019 because I'd rather stick to Dragonhunter and I knew that once I'd give into that, then I would have to deal with this Frebrand nonsense if I wanted to continue to remain effective to the team . Well, since they forced mounts on us, I did get PoF, and lo and behold, DH is 6 feet under (along with boon rip in general) and I got the glorious alternative of Willbender which you all love. 🙂

There's a huge difference between the game telling you to get on sensible builds and organizing, and there's whatever the heck this 80% minstrel garbage is. The fact that a lot of people also want to destroy CC so we can fight in even more slow motion and afk during fights does not bode well.

These complaints are not just from never beens that have fed the WvW community bags for 10 years and  can only post out of context crappy Youtube videos as arguments  but rather people that have succeeded in some degree and realized how hollow it is, and it has no reason to be so bad.

Edited December 7, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[joneirikb.7506]

Basically why I keep missing back to Core for WvW. The original classes/balance was actually built with PvP in mind, and you could notice it. Zerg-busting was a thing and it worked great, really rewarding organization and skill both. And I can't remember a single time since they started changing balance toward PVE in 2015 that I've liked in WvW, and that includes all elite specs, gear stats, runes, sigils, food etc.

[Sonork.2916]

4 hours ago, Hyperballad.5693 said:

It should be coordination and skill. Being able to stay on tag and w-key in the tankiest gear possible, with every boon, ignoring all the game mechanics, requires little-to-no skill, awareness, and the bare-minimum of coordination.

The higher up groups running the "OP" builds and doing well in the "boon ball meta" are generally both coordinated and skilled.  These groups will have a driver, make calls, pushes maneuvers and pay attention to all the games mechanics.  The lesser skilled groups who haven't organized their party/players and just zerg together get run over by these better organized and managed groups.

People who think there is no skill in the higher level groups are very mistaken.  Obviously WvW is not numerically balanced.  Any group containing double or more players then their opponents will generally lead into "W key pushes" that will simply roll over smaller groups or swashes of unorganized players.  Though smaller bomb groups 5-10players still exist and can be effective depending on the situation.

All the things you wished people still considered still exist mostly.  They've just changed as the game has changed.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Sonork.2916

[zengara.8301]

3 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

The higher up groups running the "OP" builds and doing well in the "boon ball meta" are generally both coordinated and skilled.  These groups will have a driver, make calls, pushes maneuvers and pay attention to all the games mechanics.  The lesser skilled groups who haven't organized their party/players and just zerg together get run over by these better organized and managed groups.

People who think there is no skill in the higher level groups are very mistaken.  Obviously WvW is not numerically balanced.  Any group containing double or more players then their opponents will generally lead into "W key pushes" that will simply roll over smaller groups or swashes of unorganized players.  Though smaller bomb groups 5-10players still exist and can be effective depending on the situation.

All the things you wished people still considered still exist mostly.  They've just changed as the game has changed.

A lot of genuinely skilled players, left the game years ago, because lack of skill (they increased CD on most skill, lowered DPS, which means that beforehand, when the guild I ran with, could kill 80 players with 20 players, now would not be able of doing so, because both sustain and dmg output has been decreased, which means your DMG is useless in smaller groups, vs bigger groups, because they don't die, no matter how on the same spot your entire DPS group bombs, but the bigger blob now, can throw random damage, and out DPS your sustain.) I don't want a straight up "Roaming game", those always dies out, for good reason. Nobody wants to be jumped by a bunch of Thieves or Mesmers and not have a counter to that, and I specifically don't think anyone wants to be part of a gank-like game, those kinds of games always becomes very empty super fast....again, super good reason for that.

But, to say that today, as it is right now, is based on skill, is not true either.. I have not read most posts here, but based on previous posts, it does seem like people want to have the PoF feeling again. Where you could out dps your opponent, if you pressed the right buttons, bombed in the right spot. And you could spam the sustain, if you did it correctly, so there is no down time for smaller groups to instantly die to a bigger group that does not even try to CC players. (Obviously strips being lowered, is a big problem aswell)

 

.....Basically, they decreased both the DPS output, the Sustain and Strips. Which results in lowering the entire skill ceiling, so the best player, and the worst players are not that far apart. Which in theory of the players who wanted that to happen (less sustain, less skill output), should have made you "need to know when to heal and/or damage" (which to be fair, I think kind of worked, in some 1v1 situations? But obviously based on "strong builds" like condition builds, balances are not made for 1v1 situations, and therefore I don't think it did much, other than just change what you played, rather than the entire fight.) Should also have worked in PvP situations, but PvP in Gw2 is capture flag, and zoom around to 2-3 shot enemies), but in practice, based on how Guild Wars 2 WvW community works, basically mainly community fights/roaming, just resulted in, more numbers = more skills to throw = the stronger enemies with less people, simply don't have that much sustain to sustain random wells thrown at them, nor same number of skill to throw back at the enemies since the damage is lowered but so is the sustain = bigger means more wins. in conclusion, less skills required overall to win, just mainly numbers.

Edited December 8, 2023 by zengara.8301

[Leger.3724]

I like people continuing to push their narrative boonball BAD because spamming!

As if their zerg didn't spam their kitten and the one trick pony builds aren't spamming their skills.

Almost like there are fundamental flaws with the combat design of this game going back to pre-launch.

9 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Bring back Edge of Extinction from GW1 and boom, problem solved. Plus lulworthy stuff will become avaliable.

Yeah. They should just copy GW1 combat and port it over. That would be better pvp than what you see in spvp and wvw.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, zengara.8301 said:

....Basically, they decreased both the DPS output, the Sustain and Strips. 

lol compared to what? Your “20 vs 80” glory days? DPS, sustain, boons, everything is at absolutely insane levels due to elite specs.

No, the reason your “20 vs 80” lost was due to the “80” actually learning how to deal with it while the “20” kept doing the good old stack and push.

Even Red Guard eventually fell to the cloud.

If anything the boonball meta has over the years made the “smaller” groups far stronger again.

[Aeolus.3615]

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

lol compared to what? Your “20 vs 80” glory days? DPS, sustain, boons, everything is at absolutely insane levels due to elite specs.

No, the reason your “20 vs 80” lost was due to the “80” actually learning how to deal with it while the “20” kept doing the good old stack and push.

Even Red Guard eventually fell to the cloud.

If anything the boonball meta has over the years made the “smaller” groups far stronger again.

Red guard i knew was just pure mass abuse of  minsterll blobbers nothing else.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Aeolus.3615

[joneirikb.7506]

1 hour ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

Red guard i knew was just pure mass abuse of  minsterll blobbers nothing else.

Did Red Guard actually stay around long enough for Minstrel gear to release? Don't remember how long they played, but decently sure they where most known before HOT, when Minstrel stats came out?

[cyberzombie.7348]

On 11/12/2023 at 5:16 AM, Ferus.3165 said:

It's unbelievable how seemingly noone realises just how bonkers overpowered healers are in this game. Not only are they so tanky that you need several glass cannons to even kill them but they heal everyone around them for absurd amounts

Tbf,  people have brought this up in the past.  Though every retort sums up to 'we would be free kills.' Which falls flat when this game's combat was never designed around tanking damage.