Will the Skyscale Fireball skill ever be changed to prevent semi-afking/leeching events and metas? [Merged]

[Zalle.5468]

I'm kinda tired of having a handful of players sat on Skyscales every time a meta is up shooting fireballs and getting full participation from doing none of the work, it almost feels insulting. I think they could make the skill not give participation/not get participation if you are mounted, this would force players to dismount if they want to get rewards from the events they're tagging. They could also disable the skill entirely in areas outside of SotO where it's needed for some of the map metas like Amnytas or eastern Inner Nayos. If that option is too radical (understandably so) they could tie the fireball to the dismount skill outside of SotO, allowing players to still tag an event from far away and forcing them to dismount afterwards.

Also had someone earlier tell me "I do it because I'm handicapped stop judging others how they play", which is fair. I just don't want to see someone that's completely out of danger, providing near to no damage, no CC get full rewards like the rest of us... I've never heard of anyone say 'Ah kitten, I almost had full participation in that event but my hand cramped so I couldn't get it" because of how low the participation requirements are. You get just as much for sitting back on a Ranger with a longbow, auto attacking and sometimes using abilities than the Weaver breaking their fingers trying to do their rotation. You can also create even more relaxed builds by slotting in some gear with Vitality and/or Toughness on top of your usual damage stats

This isn't rage posting btw I just really wish ANet would see this and consider changing how the fireball works

[Futa.4375]

I do it exclusively in SotO metas because they are incredibly boring, repetitive and uninspired. I will keep doing it until I have all the currencies I need for legendary armors, then I will forget about these metas and maps forever.

That's coming from someone who absolutely never leeched any event, ever. That's how unfun SotO is. And EoD to an extent but I never went back there anyway. Also, they should have seen this coming from far away but they never seem to see things coming.

[Omega.6801]

The fireball should have never been a thing and will probably never go away. It's much worse than the turtles in Gyala where people also never dismount and instead chose to camp the stupid mount. Combat mount were a mistake that can never be undone.
But Futa here also makes a good point. Much like with the Gyala Delves meta, I see more Skyscales in less engaging metas and I also feel more inclined to just afk on the side in boring metas like in SotO. The SotO metas are just huge HP-sponges which either do nothing or insta kill you with mechanics you can't see due to screen clutter or bad telegraphing. That's just not very interesting. So making more engaging metas that are still easy enough to follow would probably also help.
I think Chak Gerent may be a good example. Powercreep aside, it has mechanics that are worth paying attention to but not all of them just kill you. It moves around every now and then but not all the time and it never felt like a HP-sponge, not even on launch. It felt hard until they nerfed it but not tedious. Same with Soo-Won. The fight takes about the same amount of time like Knaebelag, but it never feels boring.
Since the fireball will never go away and since restricting its use will probably also not happen, the only path left is making it the least attractive option. Either, and preferably, by making ground combat the most fun, after all this has alwys been the games strength; or be shooting people out of the sky or something, but that currently isn't really working as it should either since the mobs that should do that also carpet bomb players on the ground and in turn make it fun for no one.

[Zalle.5468]

2 minutes ago, Omega.6801 said:

Since the fireball will never go away and since restricting its use will probably also not happen, the only path left is making it the least attractive option. Either, and preferably, by making ground combat the most fun

I'm hoping I can command a Drakkar meta once spears are actually released and not see a dragon for once, it'd be nice methinks

[Parasite.5389]

are they stealing your loot? or in any way preventing you for completing the event normally?

no... then it's not a problem

Edited July 2 by Parasite.5389

[Sobx.1758]

11 minutes ago, Parasite.5389 said:

are they stealing your loot? or in any way preventing you for completing the event normally?

no... then it's not a problem

Pretty sure the problem is it impacting the time and in some cases success rate of the events because the person hovering in the air and sometimes pressing "2" wants a no effort loot for themselves.

[Omega.6801]

5 minutes ago, Parasite.5389 said:

are they stealing your loot? or in any way preventing you for completing the event normally?

no... then it's not a problem

They're not stealing anyones loot. They're stealing people's time and in some very rare cases can make events fail. Also one can make an ethical argument about "same rewards for same effort" being "just". But that falls appart since the participation system in GW2 is kinda broken anyways. OP adreses this by offering "You get just as much for sitting back on a Ranger with a longbow, auto attacking" as an alternative. However, the sentiment remains, it just feels off when you run around, do mechanics, kill minibosses, die, respawn etc. and you know, the player shooting a fireball at maxrange, out of danger, every five seconds will get the same rewards, the same chance at the big roll item and so on.

If you want to be very pedantic and play this game in terms of "gold per hour", which is anyone's right to do (not my cup of tea, but to each their own), they are diminishing ones return, not by decreasing the "gold" part of the equation but the by increasing the "hour".

[Parasite.5389]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Pretty sure the problem is it impacting the time and in some cases success rate of the events because the person hovering in the air and sometimes pressing "2" wants a no effort loot for themselves.

here the thing, OP is complaining about them "Stealing" participation, so clearly the events are succeeding.

whats probably happening is a small group is late to the meta, coming in on their Skyscales and firing a couple of fireballs before they join in, and they're getting salty

[Zera.9435]

Yeah they kinda wrote themselves into a corner with the combat mounts. Aside from skyscale and turtle, all the other mounts dismount you when you use the combat skill. SotO and EoD metas made combat mounts a requirement. This makes it so we can't offer suggestions like 'using the fireball dismounts you' because that would make SotO metas impossible to do.

Ideally, they'd make it so the fireball's damage scales contextually, so that it does its intended damage against things like Heitor's gate or the tentacles at Amnytas, but basically 0 against anything else. That would probably be too much work for them to do, though, so I doubt they'll make any changes. The only reason I think they would be able to do this is because they already contextually disable mounts.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

They could reduce the participation effect of sky scale fireball damage outside of Soto maps by a factor of 2, 5 or 10? With the right number it would be hard to get participation while solely mounted.

[Obnoxa.6702]

Add one more to the headcount of people who would like to see mounted combat reduced outside of Soto zones.

[Healix.5819]

Fireball is just obvious. They could entirely remove it and nothing would change. Look around and you'll notice far more leechers either just auto attacking or standing around doing nothing, as participation only requires 1 hit for full credit.

[Batalix.2873]

This thread is giving off major leopardsatemyface vibes.

Of course, a good number of threads do when players realize a lot of the changes and new features they asked for were, in fact, bad game design.

For the record, I was against this sort of cheap Skyscale pandering from the beginning.

Edited July 3 by Batalix.2873

[Ultramex.1506]

I'm starting to think Anet just introduce combat skyscale so they can sell the Xpac but didn't think about the long term effect. Wonder what else are they gonna let fester? they didn't do jack to botting. Maybe when there are only about 8-9 peoples fighting the boss while everyone else sit on their skyscale, that is when they do something about it.

[Gop.8713]

What I don't understand is if we disable fireball, how is it better to have those same players pewpewing on ranger, or with turrets or minions or w/e afk solution you'd like on other classes . . ?

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

We should spent some resources first , on the afkers that don't do anything , that destroyed the Convergences ... so people dont need to tell us to join Private Groups as a solution  (like Marrionete+ first EoD strikes).

Spoiler

(iam guessing there another door have closed , after the Li builds + high hp bosses so casuals bored and use the LI builds) . Slowy we ticking away all the boxes , so people wont moan that the "company didnt do that for 10 years , or listen to me :P"

Fireball combat can wait

Spoiler

( forcing people to l2p their , to get ready for Raids ... now that the expansion is near  we will see more threads about Skyscale )

 

Edited July 3 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Zalle.5468]

5 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

What I don't understand is if we disable fireball, how is it better to have those same players pewpewing on ranger, or with turrets or minions or w/e afk solution you'd like on other classes . . ?

 

8 hours ago, Healix.5819 said:

Fireball is just obvious. They could entirely remove it and nothing would change. Look around and you'll notice far more leechers either just auto attacking or standing around doing nothing, as participation only requires 1 hit for full credit.

You run the risk of getting hit with a stray and dying during a big event if you're just not paying attention and auto attacking. You're also providing more damage and possibly CC by just pressing "1" on whatever weapon than you ever would on skyscale, granted you have any meaningful damage stats

[zeyeti.8347]

16 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

are they stealing your loot? or in any way preventing you for completing the event normally?

no... then it's not a problem

We will see if you find it great once failing a recent meta, then questioning why did this squad failed , then  you look in the skys and see 15  players afk fireball , so you have your answer...

Having some commanders literally saying in squad message "if i see one afk fireball spitting for more than 10 secs i'll ask everyone to report him and kick him of the squad !" means this is a problem

If it doesn't involve a mechanic using fireballs (and i can only count a  handfull of meta requiring the fireball...) people should have a 10 secs warning and forced dismount once entering battle with a fireball , and if they fall to their death would be even funnier or justy make a big moving aoe around recent meta bosses (convergence included) that copy paste the puzzle jump behavior of "non fying area".

the most raging thing is when you actually see those afk complaining a meta failed while delivering 1.5k dps with fireballs...

Anet can remove this mechanic and allow us to use the glider attacks instead in metas , at least you do not fly eternaly and will be force to land at some point.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

 

2 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

We will see if you find it great once failing a recent meta, then questioning why did this squad failed , then  you look in the skys and see 15  players afk fireball , so you have your answer...

the most raging thing is when you actually see those afk complaining a meta failed while delivering 1.5k dps with fireballs...

I don know i have seeen multipic , people saying that people should Waypoint if fully dead in reddit . The major problem is the afking .

For some reason we see more afkers currently  in areas that offer the OW legendary compared to other Gold-money-maker meta , which is strange...

Maybe we should offer the OW Lenedary some alternate ways that involve PERSONAL participation (like Latterns) , so people cannot benefit from afking (of get boycoted...so they get inot...WvW)

 

Also lets buff the dps , by 500 dps more to reach the general Casual pds ,  if the damage of Skyscale is low

 

Spoiler

(If people get fixated on nerfing Skyscale , there will be less focus and threads on trying to push the LI builds into casuals once again.  Its the first line of defence

And now that the "Devs "accidentaly put too high HP "everywhere" , it seems now that also nobody loves it too(second line)  ....Cheeky Devs:P)

 

Edited July 3 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Gop.8713]

2 hours ago, Zalle.5468 said:

 

You run the risk of getting hit with a stray and dying during a big event if you're just not paying attention and auto attacking. You're also providing more damage and possibly CC by just pressing "1" on whatever weapon than you ever would on skyscale, granted you have any meaningful damage stats

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

[QueenKeriti.5176]

39 minutes ago, Gop.8713 said:

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

We have been complaining about that, too 🙂 Anet needs to force dead players to WP much faster, the way they do in WvW, rather than letting dead players mooch and scale the boss for the entire meta. 

Edited July 3 by QueenKeriti.5176
Commas

[Gop.8713]

Well if it makes you feel any better the fully dead don't scale events, but still not seeing how it's better to have a player flying back from a wp than pewpewing on their skyscale . . ?

[Zalle.5468]

1 hour ago, Gop.8713 said:

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

It promotes activity. No one wants to WP back and still getting rewards for being dead during 85% of the boss/meta exposes bigger underlying issues with the participation system such as how low and not updated the requirements are for getting Silver or higher in events

[Gop.8713]

And how does eliminating the fireball pewpew address those underlying issues . . ?

[Palador.2170]

Small question, as someone that does sometimes fly in with a skyscale and lob a fireball or two before landing: 

Do you consider it a problem if the person fireballs, then lands and joins in normally? Or if they land the skyscale and keep launching fireballs from on the ground?

I have a couple of characters that I'd consider "not that great", and like that I can at least use skyscale to bridge the gap, somewhat.