Incompetence or negligence?

[Krzysztof.5973]

After spending some hours in ToF CM as well as the rest of SotO, I was trying to pinpoint the reason why the quality of the latest strike is so low. 

Just to point few things out

    - “Legendary” ToF CM should have never been a thing.
The CM was not ready for release with its 160 mil HP, later nerfed to 130. It wasn’t the first time when a strike was released bugged and that wasn’t the biggest issue. 

    - So far nobody has done Apathetic achievement.
It has its own title and in current state is harder than the legendary CM. It should have been in place of the legendary CM.

    - “Regular” ToF CM is too hard.
Compared to other CMs, it is not suitable to be running it as a weekly clear which facilitates a terrible design choice.

    - All we got this mini xpack was 2 strikes.
First of them was, to put it bluntly, bad. You simply should not release so little with that quality and then proceed to overtune the other half of your strike content. 

    - Hardcore and dedicated fans welcomed the challenge.
This does not mean you should come up with “Legendary” CM last minute after you clearly screwed up, adding it as a new challenging difficulty. It’s just cowardly and lazy. 

When it comes to the encounter itself:

- Game performance is just terrible, the longer the progression goes on, the less FPS you get. At some point you are forced to restart the client. 

- There’s too much clutter to execute the green regret mechanic easily. Transparency for this mechanic is just terrible. You should turn off player nameplates if your squad plans to go with this strategy. The fact that you cannot, for example disable mesmer clones is just sad. 

- Hunger mechanic with catching the orb - sometimes the orbs just disappear. On top of that, their hitbox is simply too small for a mechanic that is not client-based and can be easily missed due to latency.

- Phase transition problems, which were prevalent in HTCM. If you damage down the boss just right before phasing him, the mechanics will start overlapping each other.

- Random forced re-pulling after a wipe is also back, although in this strike at least the AOEs from despair disappear properly unlike, you guessed it, HTCM. 

- Malice mechanic rarely keeps retargeting someone, giving him the indicators for the add and ends up being on somebody else. 

- Ending it with envy’s flamewall, that might have too big of a hitbox - unless intended. As well as the fact that you are able to avoid it by jumping. 

Going back to my first question, which one is it? 

[maxwelgm.4315]

The way they handled this and had everyone jumping into the legendary title while they released (even at reduced HP) a nearly impossible to complete CM title was a huge letdown when my static realized we likely wouldn't be able to pull off either title anytime soon. There is no in between here going from Dagda to this and even with HTCM we would weekly clear the other 3 strikes when we felt like it - hence HTCM was aspirational to us because there was other content leading to it. Meanwhile Dagda doesn't lead to Cerus at all, it's more like jumping off a cliff. If they only release 2 strikes the individual strikes should have more degrees of difficulty from default, and properly, purposely tailored difficulty instead of accidentally releasing a "legendary" encounter that's still actually easier than your original intention for the CM title.

Edited April 10 by maxwelgm.4315

[Jedrik.3109]

.

Edited April 10 by Jedrik.3109
My opinions are stupid and worthless.

[Cuks.8241]

You really can't do much with 2 strikes however you tune them. 

[maxwelgm.4315]

7 hours ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

I (or anyone in a static) has never needed to restart my client over that fight or any for that matter.

And I still stand by the point that it should have never been nerfed. There should always be a fight that is a 1% that the rest of the community can grind at.  The constant demand that all content be approachable by all is petulant from the community.  And a disservice to the devs by shortening the life cycle of content and always being criticized for how slow content come out. 

I can understand groups getting discouraged and have been around people that feel that way. Honestly that is on us as players though. We should be aspiring to challenge ourselves. Not demanding that the content should be brought down to constantly mindlessly repeatable level. On that note, all CMs being weekly should not be guaranteed.

I know my opinion is antiquated, old fashioned and not what present day gamers want. I know my take will come across derogatory and that I am a toxic moronic person. I am. I know. I have no groups or friends. But I have one sincere belief. In all of you. I believe you can rise. I believe you can challenge.  I believe you can persevere. I believe you can feel the joy of a win. You guys are winners. And if you ever forget remember a toxic kitten on the forums believes and hopefully you can as well.

Take care gamers.

Very few people are actually and legit against the view that aspirational content should exist. FFXIV is probably one of the most popular MMORPG nowadays with a huge crowd which plays both this and that game in fact, and it has several difficulty tiers and several raid and trial encounters ranging from extreme trials to ultimate raids in difficulty. Large number of encounters, large gradient in difficulty, everyone can fit somewhere. What people really complain about in GW2 is precisely that content absolutely cannot be aspirational if there's no path leading to it, then it's just a wall. Also, the life cycle of content in GW2 is extremely enhanced by accessibility and rewards, see HoT metas and HoT/PoF NM raids being done by a reasonable number of players until this day vs "actual challenges" such as Gazed into the Void, or even sPvP tournaments in general that are exclusive and excluding by nature.

If SotO released with 4 strikes and 3 of them had doable CMs that ranged in between Dagda and KOCM/Ankka (with title) difficulty, few people would actually be vocal about having a 4th strike at the legendary Cerus level - heck, the same happened with HTCM early on, nowadays people recognize it as quality content even if they can't pull it off, or at least are not bothered by the space it takes because they have 3 other strikes to do. Lastly but not least, if strikes are not all meant to be done weekly there should be more of them for sure, because that would mean a weekly static group would be locked into the single Dagda CM run and the other 4 "easily weekly" CMs in EoD+vanilla (how many Trials are there in FFXIV even if you only played A Realm Reborn?). Once again, aspirational content is something you aspire to while playing other things on the way, not one of the only two encounters available across a whole year. Anet did mention in one of the last interviews that instanced content players should expect good news from the next expac, but it's been a long 10 years of "next release hype" so I have only a small dose of hopium left that they can release content like Cerus legendary CM intentionally and not by accident and with a better release cadence.

[Nephalem.8921]

On 4/10/2024 at 5:54 AM, maxwelgm.4315 said:

Very few people are actually and legit against the view that aspirational content should exist. FFXIV is probably one of the most popular MMORPG nowadays with a huge crowd which plays both this and that game in fact, and it has several difficulty tiers and several raid and trial encounters ranging from extreme trials to ultimate raids in difficulty. Large number of encounters, large gradient in difficulty, everyone can fit somewhere. What people really complain about in GW2 is precisely that content absolutely cannot be aspirational if there's no path leading to it, then it's just a wall. Also, the life cycle of content in GW2 is extremely enhanced by accessibility and rewards, see HoT metas and HoT/PoF NM raids being done by a reasonable number of players until this day vs "actual challenges" such as Gazed into the Void, or even sPvP tournaments in general that are exclusive and excluding by nature.

If SotO released with 4 strikes and 3 of them had doable CMs that ranged in between Dagda and KOCM/Ankka (with title) difficulty, few people would actually be vocal about having a 4th strike at the legendary Cerus level - heck, the same happened with HTCM early on, nowadays people recognize it as quality content even if they can't pull it off, or at least are not bothered by the space it takes because they have 3 other strikes to do. Lastly but not least, if strikes are not all meant to be done weekly there should be more of them for sure, because that would mean a weekly static group would be locked into the single Dagda CM run and the other 4 "easily weekly" CMs in EoD+vanilla (how many Trials are there in FFXIV even if you only played A Realm Reborn?). Once again, aspirational content is something you aspire to while playing other things on the way, not one of the only two encounters available across a whole year. Anet did mention in one of the last interviews that instanced content players should expect good news from the next expac, but it's been a long 10 years of "next release hype" so I have only a small dose of hopium left that they can release content like Cerus legendary CM intentionally and not by accident and with a better release cadence.

You can play ALL the classes in ff14 ultimates. Cerus cm is so extremely kitten designed that only a very few specs are able to clear it without feeling like you are actively handicapping yourself.

The devs did not playtest this and it shows. I am not even sure if the resistance running out is intended design or a bug. They could have given us portals as SAKs or being on the platform but instead we got mandatory mesmers and scourges again. FF14 fights are not designed around spec gimmicks but we got multiple gw2 fights which require portals or piercing cleave. 

Having a spread mechanic every 3 seconds sucks when it leaves behind a field so you cannot even spread in melee range. FF14 had a fight like that. the boss had such a giant hitbox so that you could place the aoes "outside" while still being in melee hit range. Either nerf cvirtu and scourge into the ground -> 30k dps range or stop designing fights that are extremely punishing towards melee builds and reward line piercing or ranged cleave.

The wall animation and hitboxes are not synced so it causes a boonsteal despite dodging it. Another fun "mechanic".

Edited April 12 by Nephalem.8921

[Nimris.3781]

19 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Either nerf cvirtu and scourge into the ground -> 30k dps range or stop designing fights that are extremely punishing towards melee builds

or maybe instead of literally destroying 2 specs for no reason, nerf real culprit that is portal?!

how did you even reach a conclusion that "if mesmers are mandatory because of portals, we should utterly gut their dps to make them unplayable" ?!?!

[Nephalem.8921]

4 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

or maybe instead of literally destroying 2 specs for no reason, nerf real culprit that is portal?!

how did you even reach a conclusion that "if mesmers are mandatory because of portals, we should utterly gut their dps to make them unplayable" ?!?!

Cvirtu is fine? Have you checked the playrates of cvirtu in strike cms? It is 40% and higher there with ht cm being kinda the only exception. Wouldn't surprise me if it had 50%+ in cerus cm.

[Cyninja.2954]

Okay lot's to unpack, let's look at a few different issues.

1. Fight design overall

I agree in most points to what was written so far, Krzysztof.5973  gave a good summary of some of the issues which make this fight very niche. We are currently in a situation where the fight design limits class choice more than need be. This can be easily solved via giving players the correct tools to succeed at a fight.

Best examples: MO in Wing 4, SH in Wing 5, Deimos normal mode in Wing 4, Cairn in Wing 4, etc. All of these fights give unique effects which need/can be used to succeed at the fight without making certain classes mandatory (and sure, raids are dirt easy by now, but this is about design principle). If a fight is designed with a lot of movement involved, give players something to compensate for that, otherwise classes which are superior at providing these tools will bully out other classes (in this case portal).

The other options are less interesting combat designs via avoiding certain mechanics or spreading out utility to more classes (which usually goes hand in hand with power creep and loss of class identity)

2. Difficulty and repeatability

This fight is not at the level where it is accessible to a larger player audience or where it will see repeat clearing per week. The limit here is likely KO CM, and even that is probably to difficult for the vast majority of players. A good solution is likely Mai Trin CM or Ankka CM.

Why is this an issue now and less with HT CM? As was pointed out already and as I have pointed out in other threads: lack of content. At 2 strikes per year, this level of difficulty is to high. Even at 4 strikes in 2 years (which is about what we got with EoD, it was 5 strikes over 2.5 years approximately if we consider development time etc.) this will not work given the back-loaded nature of the content delivery. Most players won't wait for the next 2 strikes to release if the first 2 are not good.

3. Race to first clear, visibility, etc.

I liked this aspect and wish it were repeatable. This result might best be attained via achievements tied to a fight. I read a good point on this a while back: In WoW and other MMORPGs, the difficulty in the race to world first is highly affected by gear level, which eventually outpaces and makes fights easier (especially with far higher and faster power creep). It's thus not a big issue when the first clear takes a few days.

In a game where players go in at max power level, a few days of progression is interesting to watch, but this also means that any power scaling to make the fight easier will take a LONG time before it kicks in or balances the fight downwards.

The best approach here might be to release fights at a high level, then nerf them down. I believe this is what was done incorrectly or not enough for Cerus CM and I myself was surprised at what level the fight was left even in the "regular" CM.

4. Bugs, other issues

Again, lots of bugs. No reason to get into all of these, most have workarounds by now or have been sort of fixed. Still rough.

Kill credit for this fight is not okay, aka: there are seller which clear the fight, then invite the buyer last minute into the instance for credit on the clear. I was surprised at how many players had the "legendary" achievement already.

Now to be clear: I am fine with players selling achievements or clears, but then let them be good enough to do so with the buyer present in the instance. Having someone join for the last 10s of a fight is gaming the system more than I personally agree with.

5. Balance, nerfing of classes, etc.

I am always astonished how players pile on the "flavor of the month" class to nerf, as if rotating best in slot classes has never been a thing. Right now it's cVirt (and agreed, it's far to strong), in the past it was other classes and in a few patches down the road it will be other classes yet again (not even going to mention cScourge which was used with trailblazer gear to get the actually hardest achievement in the game currently, doubt that is going to change players minds about cVirt).

This will ALWAYS be present until content is not designed around top tier output (and even in lower content certain class favoritism will exist). One way to combat this is as mentioned above: provide specific mechanics with fights. Another is for players to multi class as to be able to adapt to what is needed more freely.

 

[Nephalem.8921]

27 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

5. Balance, nerfing of classes, etc.

I am always astonished how players pile on the "flavor of the month" class to nerf, as if rotating best in slot classes has never been a thing. Right now it's cVirt (and agreed, it's far to strong), in the past it was other classes and in a few patches down the road it will be other classes yet again (not even going to mention cScourge which was used with trailblazer gear to get the actually hardest achievement in the game currently, doubt that is going to change players minds about cVirt).

This will ALWAYS be present until content is not designed around top tier output (and even in lower content certain class favoritism will exist). One way to combat this is as mentioned above: provide specific mechanics with fights. Another is for players to multi class as to be able to adapt to what is needed more freely.

 

Cvirtu is not flavor of the month. More like flavor of the last 2 years with small extremely busted scourge phases and scourge had an extremely op 9 month phase before eod. And then a month or longer period of 49k dps in soto. And then slb which is dominant in fractals for 5+ years and even able to do a couple speedrun records in raids and strikes.

Scourge was always an issue design wise. that thing shouldn't be able to do dps at all.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 minute ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Cvirtu is not flavor of the month. More like flavor of the last 2 years with small extremely busted scourge phases and scourge had an extremely op 9 month phase before eod. And then a month or longer period of 49k dps in soto. And then slb which is dominant in fractals for 5+ years and even able to do a couple speedrun records in raids and strikes.

Scourge was always an issue design wise. that thing shouldn't be able to do dps at all.

Sure, that's the last 3 years in part. How about before, what about after?

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity (and yes this is overall popularity and I could make an effort to sort only by dps classes and also sort for only specific content, none of which would affect my argument)

We had Rev dominance as renegade for a long time (now herald), we've had Firebrand Dominance, we've had Mechanist even if not for that long, warrior was a staple and fixed slot due to banners for the majority of the games lifespan. Scourge has been a thing since basically 2018.

Most of those classes were dominant through far more content releases than we see now too. Sure a class which fits ideally into a certain design cycle and the 2 fights which come with it will dominate.

That doesn't change or in anyway make my argument void: a best in slot will always exist. The only question is basically does a player agree with the current op class or not.

At best one could argue that such shakeups should happen more often, but even that would not invalidate what I am saying, it would merely cycle the classes on top more often.

[Nimris.3781]

2 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Cvirtu is fine? Have you checked the playrates of cvirtu in strike cms? It is 40% and higher there with ht cm being kinda the only exception.

yeah virtu is fine. why it has high playrates? because its easy to pick up as alt character and anyone can do decent dps with little practice, hence high playrates. easy classes will always be very popular, thats not a rocket science.

virtu also has strong cc, aoe pull, some party utility, overall its well rounded dps that has some strong sides and some weaknesses. compare it to condi mech which has 0cc, 0 party utility and despite doing good dmg on paper is considered useless.

(portal thats obligatory for few fights aside) virtu is fine. dps specs that are considered useless should have their cc/utility improved and you would see more variety

2 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Wouldn't surprise me if it had 50%+ in cerus cm.

yeah, couse portals + simple rotation. world race had plenty of virts because it is safe pick, but that has nothing to do with actual balance

[rotten.9753]

On 4/11/2024 at 9:08 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

The devs did not playtest this and it shows. I am not even sure if the resistance running out is intended design or a bug. They could have given us portals as SAKs or being on the platform but instead we got mandatory mesmers and scourges again. FF14 fights are not designed around spec gimmicks but we got multiple gw2 fights which require portals or piercing cleave. 

The developer from the balance team said that the designers didn’t intend for the resistance to run out, but they like how the players are handling it. This implies that the original approach was probably to burst them down with power classes or to have dedicated DPS players focus on them. It appears that the designers don’t see anything wrong with mesmers being essential in their content, which speaks volumes about the topic.

[rotten.9753]

6 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

yeah, couse portals + simple rotation. world race had plenty of virts because it is safe pick, but that has nothing to do with actual balance

Nothing to do with actual balance? You can't have a class with 100% dps uptime dealing same damage as other classes that needs to be in melee range. Golem doesn't care but actual encounters do. The simplicity of virt is just a cherry on top.

[Nimris.3781]

7 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Nothing to do with actual balance? You can't have a class with 100% dps uptime dealing same damage as other classes that needs to be in melee range. Golem doesn't care but actual encounters do. The simplicity of virt is just a cherry on top.

first of all, virtu also has skills that require melee or work better in melee. f5 requires melee, dagger 2 loses some dmg on range and there is always this focus 5 that throw axes on invisible targets or adds, doing less dmg than it should (specially if casted in range). it feels like people are not aware of that, but virtu is not doing benchmark dps in 1200 range.

second of all, there are other dps classes that can deal near benchmark dps in range (sometimes 900 range) but the reason they are often not chosen is either having low cc/no utility/being very squishy or are just too complex to play for 99.9% of players

virtu is solid spec and is just a safe pick compared to other classes. its not the virtu balance issue, its other classes being only good on papar and useless in real fight.

like you said "Golem doesn't care but actual encounters do". tell me, if something (condi dps) is doing 40k+ on golem, but loses plenty of dmg if target moves, doesnt bring cc (which is required for encounter) and doesnt provide utility to justify bringing it, where the problem lies?

[rotten.9753]

3 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

first of all, virtu also has skills that require melee or work better in melee. f5 requires melee, dagger 2 loses some dmg on range and there is always this focus 5 that throw axes on invisible targets or adds, doing less dmg than it should (specially if casted in range). it feels like people are not aware of that, but virtu is not doing benchmark dps in 1200 range.

I know it loses its performance when not in melee range but it's not 0 damage, is it?

3 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

second of all, there are other dps classes that can deal near benchmark dps in range (sometimes 900 range) but the reason they are often not chosen is either having low cc/no utility/being very squishy or are just too complex to play for 99.9% of players

Those classes need to be rebalanced with virtuoso as well. Even if, for example, the weaver had better utility, a ranged class would still be preferred. Balance should focus on actual new encounters, not just the golem, and not on deprecated content like raids with their static bosses. If the new content is designed with a lot of movement, a ranged build cannot deal the same damage as a melee build on the golem. Otherwise, melee builds won’t be chosen by anyone who doesn’t want to hinder their team.

3 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

like you said "Golem doesn't care but actual encounters do". tell me, if something (condi dps) is doing 40k+ on golem, but loses plenty of dmg if target moves, doesnt bring cc (which is required for encounter) and doesnt provide utility to justify bringing it, where the problem lies?

The problem lies in the balance and the lack of communication between content designers and the balance team. The balance team balances based on the golem numbers, while content designers create new content that isn’t centered around the golem at all. This is one of the reasons why the virtuoso hasn’t been nerfed yet - because it remains balanced when used in Special Forces Training Area.

[Nimris.3781]

5 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

I know it loses its performance when not in melee range but it's not 0 damage, is it?

and is virtu the only spec that has non 0dps in range?  afaik at least half of condi specs can do decent dps in range, sooo where is the problem with virtu? or is half of condi spec the problem?

5 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Those classes need to be rebalanced with virtuoso as well.

so you want to gut virtu so its unplayable, and improve badly designed specs at the same time, cleary not biased, lol.

6 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

If the new content is designed with a lot of movement, a ranged build cannot deal the same damage as a melee build on the golem.

this is so archaic point of view, plenty of games went through this with simmilar results. if you apply on dps any sort of "tax" (like good utility + ranged = cant do more than 38k bench) you end up with everyone stacking top dps anyway and forcing all utility on supports (we have seen it with e.g cFB). and devs at some point realize that they should just improve spacs that bring nothing to party and everyone will be happy.

6 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

The problem lies in the balance and the lack of communication between content designers and the balance team.

there is really no need for this communication. balance team should do proper job at balancing classes so nothing stands out too much, while fight designing team should do their job, creating intresting fights. good (bad) example is Kanaxai with its milion of spread mechanics, whoever though its gonna be fine should be fired and its not related to balancing at all, its just bad desing at its core.

6 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

The balance team balances based on the golem numbers

they really dont, at least not exclusively, else we would have power mech or scourges doing 42-43k and deadeye, tempest, druid, holo etc. cut down.

sadly what balancing team doesnt do much is changing utility and as a result specs that were blessed with decent utility in the past are always good, while classes with zero utility are only good on paper.

[rotten.9753]

9 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

so you want to gut virtu so its unplayable, and improve badly designed specs at the same time, cleary not biased, lol.

Rebalanced doesn't mean what you think. If the content where balance actually matters makes melee classes possible to do damage during 80% of the encounter, how can you make them more attractive? Make more builds ranged?

9 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

this is so archaic point of view, plenty of games went through this with simmilar results. if you apply on dps any sort of "tax" (like good utility + ranged = cant do more than 38k bench) you end up with everyone stacking top dps anyway and forcing all utility on supports (we have seen it with e.g cFB). and devs at some point realize that they should just improve spacs that bring nothing to party and everyone will be happy.

What do you propose instead if we want more builds diversity? And not diversity of virt/scourge/tempest/willbender.

9 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

there is really no need for this communication. balance team should do proper job at balancing classes so nothing stands out too much, while fight designing team should do their job, creating intresting fights. good (bad) example is Kanaxai with its milion of spread mechanics, whoever though its gonna be fine should be fired and its not related to balancing at all, its just bad desing at its core.

Well, he left the company and is still praised by a lot of players. He has been imitating FFXIV but in FFXIV there's no problem with class stacking and melee builds are fine.

9 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

they really dont, at least not exclusively, else we would have power mech or scourges doing 42-43k and deadeye, tempest, druid, holo etc. cut down.

Sadly the do, otherwise they wouldn't be nerfing builds with 0.1% play rate just because they are good on stationary golem and unusable everywhere else except MO.

 

[Nimris.3781]

3 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Rebalanced doesn't mean what you think. If the content where balance actually matters makes melee classes possible to do damage during 80% of the encounter, how can you make them more attractive? Make more builds ranged?

hmm, i would say there are at least few options not sure how many i can get off the top of my head

• definitely dont make fights overloaded with constant spread mechanics, especially prolonged ones
• make proper intermission phases where boss is invulnerable and party is tasked with something else ( not killing adds while hitting boss...)
• include cleave mechanic during encounter (defiant adds - so no pull), every range is weak on heavy aoe, unlike melee that often deal 80-100% dps in aoe (bladesworn, lol)
• create mechanics that require cooperation of party, not just pure dps on adds  (e.g bouncing ball around room, but cannot be done by supports only)
• also increase base cd on mesmer portal to 5min, introduce trait in support traitline that reduces it back to say ~90s or 120s (so dps cant pick it) that conflicts with something usefull.  (or dont introduce trait and make it weak in combat, just like it happened with Epidemic - this would be healthy for game in the long run)

i have seen plenty of clever or fun encounters in WoW that did not favour anyone, so generally speaking its all about design and how far dev imagination goes. if encounters are all about "hit boss-> spread-> spread-> hit boss-> hit add-> spread->spread " than obviously range will be favoured, but thats not range balance issue, its lazy/poor dev issue.

3 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

What do you propose instead if we want more builds diversity?

i would definitely start by making every spec doing bare minimum, meaning spec without cc is unacceptable. doing cc is basic way to contribute to party, spec doing no cc will always be looked down on. (and giving it insane dps will make it even worse)

after that i would give a bit of other utility to specs without it, like condi cleanse, boon strip, barrier, aoe pull/push, superspeed, etc.  obviously you dont want to go too far, but having any sort of party utility would be welcome on some specs.

in my eyes, you can split spec performance to: (1) dmg related,  (2) cc/utility provided,  (3) others/unique (e.g) portal/stealth.  specs should be 'equal' to some degree in each category, like (1) each spec have their niche in dps (like pierce, melee cleave, strong aoe, good burst, good dps on range etc.),  (2) provide some utility to party like barrier, stabi, cleanse, strip or w/e - everyone something, not few specs everything.    as for (3) it can be considered as bonus, but this unique utility should not be dps related.

on a top of that all specs should fall into certain range of complexity, meaning too hard spec should be made more accessible (higher entry dps) e.g mirage

and ofc there will always be meta and top players will always stack classes so we shouldnt consider cm cerus as issue, because if we kill virtu, scourge, they will stack something else

4 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Well, he left the company and is still praised by a lot of players. He has been imitating FFXIV but in FFXIV there's no problem with class stacking and melee builds are fine.

not sure who is praising him, afaik silent surf is considered worst cm and as fractal is hated as much as solid ocean or aquatic.  i have not played FFXIV, so cant say much about it, i know that their combat is more static, so maybe that helps? class stacking is always a thing in high-end pve, especially if you can swap classes as easily as in gw2.

4 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Sadly the do, otherwise they wouldn't be nerfing builds with 0.1% play rate just because they are good on stationary golem and unusable everywhere else except MO.

playrate is tied to more than just dps, thats why virtu/scourge is popular. low playrate cannot justify high dps, or you will end up with top players stacking top spec, even if it is horrible to play. as a good example, mirage was nerfed not long time ago and it has that 0.1% playrate because its insanely hard to pull off, but you could occasionaly run into mirage enjoyer destroying everyone in dps doing easily 20% more than second person in arc. this was bad, and imo they should make mirage easier to pick up so average player can still do somewhat fine (not 50% dps of alac support) while skill cap remains high so dedicated plaeyrs can still enjoy it

[Blueberry.8095]

On 4/12/2024 at 5:08 AM, Nephalem.8921 said:

The wall animation and hitboxes are not synced so it causes a boonsteal despite dodging it. Another fun "mechanic".

Oh my lord, I hate this freaking wall and its hit box that appears 30 degree to the left of the arrow indicator so much!
Like, can it sync please so I don't feel deceived by the indicator?

[rotten.9753]

On 4/14/2024 at 3:35 PM, Nimris.3781 said:

not sure who is praising him, afaik silent surf is considered worst cm and as fractal is hated as much as solid ocean or aquatic.  i have not played FFXIV, so cant say much about it, i know that their combat is more static, so maybe that helps? class stacking is always a thing in high-end pve, especially if you can swap classes as easily as in gw2.

I'm talking about Cameron Rich, even if he did not design that fractal personally, he was the lead of the team responsible for that fractal. Class stacking doesn't matter if the difference is small enough, with cvirts the difference is definitely large enough.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Nimris.3781No kp.me account and no Strike logs in over 6 months but you play slb and cvirtu in fractals. No wonder you are in denial.

The best cleaving spec for high hp targets is also cvirtu thanks to piercing line cleave. And without immob you would just pierce them with cvirts. much safer than power build burst cleave.

Increasing portal cd with a cd reduction trait would be the worst change. would make hchronos mandatory. The bouncing ball would make cvirtu and scourge mandatory because they can dps at range.

But what if bosses could be moved? Then you could move them for higher melee uptime but that's so 2016 design apparently. And i mean properly moving like in wow or ff14 and not stuck in animation 70% of the time like sloth or deimos.

The fast wall requires a dodge jump and a blink or portal to deal with. Nothing in this game should require dodge jump. Will never get fixed anyways. The intern forgot to make the boonsteal dodge able but it is a trigger line without elevation because good devs. Dodging prevents dmg, jumping the boonsteal. But lets be honest, the devs did not plan that far ahead and most likely had no working strategy for that mechanic themselves. They just thought that it might work out and players will find a way. Half true. Requires dodge jump and a portal...

[Nimris.3781]

31 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

No kp.me account and no Strike logs in over 6 months but you play slb and cvirtu in fractals

check   93g7

i was messing with settings and broke something so account name doesnt work, but since i am mostly playing with static/guild, i left it like that.  and yes i dont really like strikes, i didnt even do normal soto strikes once as i dont like this content. maybe if you search 2years back, there might be few boneskinner logs...?  that is if anyone uploaded

also i am currently moving away from virtu to harb, because harbinger is simply put better for condi fractals, lol.   but i still like my slb...

51 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Increasing portal cd with a cd reduction trait would be the worst change. would make hchronos mandatory

this is heavy nitpicking. than dont put this trait or w/e... generally speaking the idea is to discourage abuse of portal for dps uptime etc. while still keeping it as option for niche scenarios. put it on 3-5min cd and i can guarantee you no one will bring virtu/chrono for portal. (or make this trait rival quick and alac, lol)

58 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

The bouncing ball would make cvirtu and scourge mandatory because they can dps at range.

that was just a simple example for something more than braindead dpsing adds, also did you miss part where i mention "make proper intermission phases where boss is invulnerable and party is tasked with something else". no need for virtu if he cant hit a boss (e.g intermission in mai trin strike with bombs, or OLC and doing cc on correct boss - yes i do watch streams and know how it works, despite never doing this bosses myself)

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

But what if bosses could be moved?

this is one out of milion of options to solve the issue and should work as well. again, i am pointing out that currently game is well balanced and when class-stacking happens, its bad design of encounter, not one spec being op. you may argue that some specs feel weak, but nerfing well rounded classes will not magically make useless builds good (and i am not talking about dps here but utility, dps wise game has never been so well balanced)

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

The fast wall requires a dodge jump and a blink or portal to deal with. Nothing in this game should require dodge jump. Will never get fixed anyways. The intern forgot to make the boonsteal dodge able but it is a trigger line without elevation because good devs. Dodging prevents dmg, jumping the boonsteal. But lets be honest, the devs did not plan that far ahead and most likely had no working strategy for that mechanic themselves. They just thought that it might work out and players will find a way. Half true. Requires dodge jump and a portal...

should i again repeat myself that this is just a very good example of terrible fight design, bad mechanics and plenty of bugs that pretty much force players to circumvent it via portals or other simmilar shenanigans? this is what happens when you throw bunch of random stuff into fight, hoping players find way to avoid it.

devs should design boss fight that is engaging, well thought out and doesnt limit you everywhere or use cheap tricks to kill you and you will see more class variety

[rotten.9753]

8 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

should i again repeat myself that this is just a very good example of terrible fight design, bad mechanics and plenty of bugs that pretty much force players to circumvent it via portals or other simmilar shenanigans? this is what happens when you throw bunch of random stuff into fight, hoping players find way to avoid it.

 

What about XJJ, KO, OLC and CO? All of those still promote cvirt and similar builds.

[Nimris.3781]

15 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

What about XJJ, KO, OLC and CO? All of those still promote cvirt and similar builds.

OLC dosent really favour virtu, you can play plenty of specs there with a great results, i dont see any issue here

KO does favour virtu by a lot due to hitting 2 targets at once with pierce, this should be solved by better fight design, nerfing virtu dps wouldnt change much unless you remove pierce from spec without touching dps

XJJ favours mostly ranged, this is common on fights with a lot of movement, not related to virtu

CO, no idea i have not done Soto strikes even once.

 

there is a long list of reasons why class popularity looks like it currently does.   cm strikes with a lot of hp/long phases favour condi specs, majority of condi specs are ranged.    strikes involve a lot of movement and power specs are often animation locked/stationary in melee.   strikes often require plenty of cc etc, not all specs can provide that.   strikes are often single-target with occasional adds so heavy aoe on melee classes is not needed.      also people dont like swapping every boss, they pick what is good everywhere and easy to play

nerfing virtu/necro by 2k will change nothing because of the design of fights and nerfing them by 20k so they are unplayable will be even worse, as we will be left with specs that bring nothing beside dmg.

 

Edited April 17 by Nimris.3781