Lets just erase alac and quickness and stop this mess.

[Peter.3901]

Anet, seriously, your balancing team is a disaster, tons of feedbacks and you just do the oposite every update, we got that you just can't deal with balancing, so stop that, please.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Peter.3901

[MedievalThings.5417]

19 minutes ago, Peter.3901 said:

Anet, seriously, your balancing team is a disaster, tons of feedbacks and you just do the oposite every update, we got that you just can't deal with balancing, so stop that, please.

I would sign this with all my alts accounts too if it weren't frowned upon.  So here is my one vote.

[Mauti.3520]

1 second after removing Quickness and Alacrity this forum be like "My class has worse access to Prot/Might/Fury than x - Unplayable, you never listen to feedback111"

[Doggie.3184]

I agree. If we're supposed to live off these boons 24/7 in all content then just ditch them and make AAs and Utility CDs a bit faster in some areas. 

As a Thief one reason I didn't like Deadeye was because D/D was actually fun till you received quickness and it made button mashing way too fast and combos become ackward in timing and extremely clunky + conflicting with each other. I liked the recent DE rework because full malice combos weren't required anymore and it just felt nicer to play that way though the class is kitten again now. Life was nicer when it was just AA > Cloak and Dagger > Stab > Repeat and use Utilities and other weapon skills as needed. Then it became carpal tunnel lightning fast skill spam of 100 keys a second with DE and the absolute nightmare that is Untamed.

Why not allow skills to have some weight behind them, have meaning for when we use them, and do more damage appropriate to their animation instead of going by how fast we can spam key rotations? It'd be much easier to balance the game without these speed buffs messing up skill mechanics and less work for everyone when devs nolonger have to try to figure out how each class will apply them unequally.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Mauti.3520 said:

1 second after removing Quickness and Alacrity this forum be like "My class has worse access to Prot/Might/Fury than x - Unplayable, you never listen to feedback111"

Yes, because people were all about it before Quick and Alac became a group staple.[/sarcasm]

[Mauti.3520]

8 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, because people were all about it before Quick and Alac became a group staple.[/sarcasm]

People are about my class X has worse than class Y in PvE since the launch of the game. Spike Damage and Might+Fury Access on release, also Mobility, later Quickness/Alac, then Unique Modifiers, breakbar potential, Utility to cheese and carry encounters, Stability/Aegis. List goes on and on and on and on.

I personally think the idea of removing Quickness/Alac and things will come back in order is nothing but a tempting illusion. It will just move the focus of balance complaints and also invalidate a lot of specs straight up again (Herald, Scrapper eca.)

[Pomdepin.7068]

I could see a time where making alac and quick some special effects, not boons, and give them to chrono and maybe a few selected classes a little access in counterpart of a lower dps.

Low values and not impacted by the concentration stat. Just a little bump here and there, not a requirement in any group or anything.

Anet went the opposite way and made them boons required to have the best performance. It is a decision which shaped the game as it is now, for better or worse. Really depends on the point of view. It's not guaranteed it would be better without them either.

[cat.8975]

8 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I agree. If we're supposed to live off these boons 24/7 in all content then just ditch them and make AAs and Utility CDs a bit faster in some areas. 

 

You could extend this same argument to literally every boon. If we're supposed to have 25 might all the time, then get rid of it and give everyone 750 power and condition damage. Fury? Get rid of it and raise the base crit chance. Protection? Remove it and increase armor by 50%.

Boons are a fun way to support your allies, and removing them would remove the need for anything but damage and healing. This game does not have and has never had the classic trinity system found in other mmos (dps/tank/heal), and that's a good thing.

[rotten.9753]

8 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I agree. If we're supposed to live off these boons 24/7 in all content then just ditch them and make AAs and Utility CDs a bit faster in some areas. 

You're also supposed to do damage, should we have an auto combat perhaps as well?

[cat.8975]

The real problem boils down to the ways they've been implementing these new boon builds. Several of the changes have disrupted the feel of some specs, which is always going to alienate the people that loved playing them in the way that they were familiar with. It's also a design flaw when you're forced to load up your utility bar with the same class of utilities and spam them off cooldown just to provide a boon, rather than use them for their intended purpose (old quickness scrapper was terrible design). These boons shouldn't be free, but they also shouldn't cost your entire utility budget either. Firebrand is actually a great example of one of these builds done correctly (ignore the silly tomes for a second), as the quickness comes from 1-2 traits, your heal, one utility, and optionally your elite. This leaves 2 utility skills for actual utility, and some flexibility with the elite and your traits depending on how much boon duration you run. I also like that it prods you into using the mantra heal, because while it's fantastic for group support, it's not a very good "oh god i just lost 90% of my health what do i do" button.

tl;dr: Some of these newer builds are too restrictive with how they apply their boons. Let utility skills be utility skills again.

[Suyheuti.1732]

I'm ok with deleting with those two boons. 

Also I think removing group share of these two boons will be more accurate. They should be enchanced to some weapon and utility skills to self generate for a short time. Like Warrior Axe4 or Holosmith Sw3 skills. After that, that will generate for us much smarter and variable playstyles. 

[Coldtart.4785]

I wouldn't say it's a simple enough job to 'just' remove quickness and alacrity but it absolutely has to happen and the sooner work starts on it the easier it'll be.

[Doggie.3184]

9 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

You're also supposed to do damage, should we have an auto combat perhaps as well?

Explain how you came to that conclusion, lol. That's a really weird response. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Doggie.3184]

9 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

You could extend this same argument to literally every boon. If we're supposed to have 25 might all the time, then get rid of it and give everyone 750 power and condition damage. Fury? Get rid of it and raise the base crit chance. Protection? Remove it and increase armor by 50%.

Boons are a fun way to support your allies, and removing them would remove the need for anything but damage and healing. This game does not have and has never had the classic trinity system found in other mmos (dps/tank/heal), and that's a good thing.

The other boons don't completely alter the entire structure of your class and it's gameplay by speeding up all animation and skill spam and make it 10x harder to balance skills because they have to think about them at different speeds now. Like how they been removing traits that lower cooldowns so they can balance them easier...

[Dadnir.5038]

19 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, because people were all about it before Quick and Alac became a group staple.[/sarcasm]

Well... as a matter of fact, yes they were. And if the provider could give strong conjured weapons on top of that it was even better.

At the end of the vanilla game era it was where laid the dividing line between casual groups that were using 1 thief, 1 phallanx strenght warrior and 3 elementalists and the optimized groups that were using 1 portal mesmer and 4 elementalists. All professions beside warrior and elementalist were comparably inefficient when it come to providing might/fury while maintaining decent overall damage output.

Right now, not all professions are equal (yet) when it come to provide both might and fury to their group. So I'd say that the person to which you answer isn't far from the truth.

If there is anything to say it's that the price to pay in order to provide either alacrity or quickness just isn't high enough. And trying to balance this "price" through forcing players to spam short duration boons might be were the balance team go wrong. For me what this game need is a penality to both survivability and damage output for players that want ot play support and an inability to share boon/heal for players that want to play dps/tank (there just shouldn't be any middle ground yet, it seem GW2 is all about this middle ground).

[Dorsai.1458]

I've never played a game where classes matter so little and had no identity.  If the group want's alac, does it matter what class you are?  As long as you can provide it 100% uptime, cool.  People making builds with their priority on boon uptime ...lol.  This game ....turning players into trinkets and buff bots.

Alac and quickness are op boons in a cooldown based game.  If you're gonna have it, make it a self-buff with a CD reflecting it's power.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 hours ago, Dorsai.1458 said:

I've never played a game where classes matter so little and had no identity.  If the group want's alac, does it matter what class you are?  As long as you can provide it 100% uptime, cool.  People making builds with their priority on boon uptime ...lol.  This game ....turning players into trinkets and buff bots.

Alac and quickness are op boons in a cooldown based game.  If you're gonna have it, make it a self-buff with a CD reflecting it's power.

It was always GW2's party philosophy. "Bring the player, not the class." Where most classes could jump between roles and soft play them as the party needed, so you could have a place in the party no matter what concept or theme you wanted to play. It wasn't perfect all the time, but it worked well when combat was more dynamic and reactive rather than just following rotations and the boon stacks. Classes were defined by playstyles and what combos they could lay down for others, not by how well they spam boons. Ahh, fun memories.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Hashberry.4510]

There is this thing required in RL to play team sports outside of friendly local pick ups. It needs organization, authority, team spirit, referees, etc. MMO devs like to pretend they can do without if they just design the right systems. This game just lets group combat rip and pretends the gamers will make it all work, no wonder its such a mess.

Hacking the old combat system is just an example of hubris, if only they would leave it alone.

[Mell.4873]

On 7/20/2023 at 4:49 AM, Peter.3901 said:

Anet, seriously, your balancing team is a disaster, tons of feedbacks and you just do the oposite every update, we got that you just can't deal with balancing, so stop that, please.

Quickness especially has been in the game since launch so you are essentially asking to delete a core part of GW2. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Dorsai.1458]

17 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Quickness especially has been in the game since launch so you essentially asking to delete a core part of GW2. 

I don't want them to get rid of it or alac ...I think they should only be self-buffs with CDs preventing 100% uptime 

[Abdiel.3051]

21 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

This game does not have and has never had the classic trinity system found in other mmos (dps/tank/heal), and that's a good thing.

If that's the case than can you explain why I'm seeing the acronyms dps, tank, healer, in the description of some groups in the LFG window right now? And also, why did a commander ask me to tank on a strike yesterday? I guess they were just an idiot.

Just because the game refuses to acknowledge these role doesn't mean they do not exist. One of GW2 many flaws.

[rotten.9753]

12 hours ago, Dorsai.1458 said:

I've never played a game where classes matter so little and had no identity.  If the group want's alac, does it matter what class you are?  As long as you can provide it 100% uptime, cool.  People making builds with their priority on boon uptime ...lol.  This game ....turning players into trinkets and buff bots.

Alac and quickness are op boons in a cooldown based game.  If you're gonna have it, make it a self-buff with a CD reflecting it's power.

Every class can output other boons as well, not just Quickness or Alacrity, does it mean there was so little class identity since ever? ANet is giving other classes more tools, so you don't have to take specific classes. Aegis on Scourge? In 2012 this would be a travesty. Maybe you don't remember well those times, but 10 years ago no one would even bother taking necro to any content. Necro used to have a lot of identity, but was virtually useless in a team content.

Another thing, it's not like you play Alac Tempest the same as Alac Specter, they are completely different and give Alac mostly just by playing and performing DPS rotations.

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 7/20/2023 at 1:19 AM, cat.8975 said:

You could extend this same argument to literally every boon. If we're supposed to have 25 might all the time, then get rid of it and give everyone 750 power and condition damage. Fury? Get rid of it and raise the base crit chance. Protection? Remove it and increase armor by 50%.

Boons are a fun way to support your allies, and removing them would remove the need for anything but damage and healing. This game does not have and has never had the classic trinity system found in other mmos (dps/tank/heal), and that's a good thing.

It's a big problem in the competitive modes because skills can't be balanced for builds that are trying to do other stuff than share boons or deal peak DPS, which tends to be most functional builds.  Quickness reduces combat clarity and Alacrity makes cooldown trading much more difficult to achieve and promotes omniblobs, while also impacting skill uptime on skills which also provide the aforementioned might/fury/quickness/protection.

Another problem is boons are just inducing a soft-trinity by forcing their use in optimized ways with optimized damage and utility output.  It's not Healer/Tank/DPS, but a short list of builds providing boon coverage and high damage.  It boils down to the same thing where people can't play creatively and makes for extremely disparate performance benchmarks that makes PvE impossible to balance.  Playing even the most selfish-DPS-trait minded options in the game pales in comparison to stat-stick power.

Boons shouldn't be sharable outside of effects boons like Stab/Aegis/Swiftness that allow for in-the-moment support like negating a hit for an ally or letting people catch up to a runaway enemy/disengage (though so many sources of 50% mobility and superspeed are their own issues), and even those should be on defensive trait lines on otherwise support-oriented skills.

Once you can give an entire party most of an armor set's worth of stats, the individual contributions of that player's build don't actually mean anything, or frankly, are just eclipsed by the presence of the supports spamming the boons.  I.E., you can be the best <role> in the world but still *need* a player doing some specific types of action in their respective role in order to more or less function relative to everyone else.

[rotten.9753]

16 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Explain how you came to that conclusion, lol. That's a really weird response. 

You're expected to have those boons permanently but you're not expected to get them for free. You're also expected to have 25 might/fury (which are btw the same damage increase as quick/alac), protection, regen, vigor, etc. You are also expected to press buttons to do damage. All of this is a part of skill expression and making anything baseline simply removes that expression.

[Doggie.3184]

3 minutes ago, rotten.9753 said:

You're expected to have those boons permanently but you're not expected to get them for free. You're also expected to have 25 might/fury (which are btw the same damage increase as quick/alac), protection, regen, vigor, etc. You are also expected to press buttons to do damage. All of this is a part of skill expression and making anything baseline simply removes that expression.

You're still not making any sense and bringing up things I never said. I suggest re-reading everything.