ANet: Please stop using unstable magic

[AliamRationem.5172]

Seriously, it was a terrible mechanic 7 years ago and it hasn't improved with overuse.  Can we just stop already?  Get some new material.  Please.

[Tiamat.8254]

What's wrong with it exactly? It's only one zone. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Tiamat.8254 said:

What's wrong with it exactly? It's only one zone. 

It's not only one zone.  They've been re-using this mechanic on champions in every expansion since they introduced it with PoF bounties in 2017.

As for what's wrong with it, a few examples:

Signaler: Get blinded for several seconds for...moving.  In an action combat boss fight.

Phase Shifted: Enemy evades all attacks if you don't stand in a specified zone.  Especially fun if you're melee and the zone requires range or if the enemy is continually moving toward or away from you. 

Survivor:  Passively block for several seconds at random.  Very interactable.

Those are examples of some of the more poorly designed elements.  But just in a general sense, let's assume ANet developers put thought into their designs.  Is tacking on a package of random effects like this in one-size-fits-all fashion helpful?  I'd argue that at best it's annoying to see the same tacked-on mechanics on champions again and again.  At worst the interactions can be obnoxious because they don't take into account the design of the fight.  For example, fighting the Rot Strider champion that covers every square inch of space around itself with area effects while phase shifted forces you to stand in that area if you want any of your attacks to land.

 

 

[ShatteredStars.6548]

You're the only one that has a problem with it.

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 minutes ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

You're the only one that has a problem with it.

Glad you're speaking for everyone, champ.  But this has come up many times before.

[Tinker.6924]

This is unstable magic he’s complaining about

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unstable_Magic_Abilities

And not the zone mechanic from bloodstone fen

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unstable_Magic

I had to look this up ands do some searching on the wiki because I was like WTF is this guy yapping about?

Advice to the OP, when you complain be clear on what you’re complaining about

 

[Sweetbread.3678]

More Unstable Magic abilities, I say! Give Champions clones! Make the boss alternate between Shocking Aura and Magnetic Aura every 5 seconds! Targets that spawn exponentially increasing swarms of Pocket Raptors! A DONT LOOK AT ME aoe that turns everyone into salmon for 15 seconds that taunt every single bird/bear in the zone!

Could be worse. Outside of dealing with the "No Melee Allowed" ring on a sword/dagger Weaver, they're all pretty manageable and add some variety imo. Having kitten that introduces open-world players to actually doing mechanics is probably good; it's already way too easy for a player to just face tank the entire game on a Necro, go into Convergences, and then subsequently kill 5+ people with a meteor because they've never had to deal with an actual mechanic up until that point.

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

You're the only one that has a problem with it.

No, he is not. It's a recurring complaint. One Anet failed to address over the years, because they apparently can't be bothered to finetune older mechanics.

The idea itself is fine. It's the implementation that is the issue. First issue is that some of the unstable magic effects aren't well thought out themselves (random blocking on all attacks, for example, just extends the fight, but does not make it more interesting at all). Second, and much bigger issue is that Anet devs, apparently, just do not consider it at all when designing new mobs that would be using it. Especially the zoning ones ("in/out" zone, or the "melee only" bubble) can interact badly with other mechanics (like occasional reflect bubbles, or putting high damage point blank aoe fields), but there are some other combinations that can on occasion make the fight unnecessarily problematic. Like, for example, the "evade attacks at random timeframes" one coupled with cc phases.

Anet needs to remove the unfun mechanics, and start design new mobs around them, not in complete separation. If they can't do that (and everything so far points out to them being unable to do so), they should just forget about it and disable it completely.

[Jin.8501]

Yep its overused crap

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

They should use them on elites instead of Champions to instead have signature mechanics or something.

If these mechanics exists so champions/bounties don't seem repetitive and encourage people to do them more, it didn't work. Players don't want to go back and fight them.

[SoftPup.3048]

I love the one where you're blinded if you're moving/not moving but the indicator for it so high up I can't even see it on my screen. Makes those enemies a really fun challenge when I waste all my skills doing zero damage!

[kiroho.4738]

23 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Glad you're speaking for everyone, champ.

I agree with them. Unstable magic abilities are a good example for how Anet successfully continued a new mechanic.

Ironically some people complaine(d) that PoF bounties stopped after LS4.

 

23 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

But this has come up many times before.

Is that so? I can't remember a single time anybody complained about an "overuse" of this mechanic.

So feel free to prove your claim.

 

On 8/24/2024 at 7:05 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Get some new material.  Please.

That's something I agree with. Some new unsable magic abilities would be cool. A bigger pool would also make existing enimies with this mechanic more interesting.

 

 

[Linken.6345]

20 minutes ago, kiroho.4738 said:

I agree with them. Unstable magic abilities are a good example for how Anet successfully continued a new mechanic.

Ironically some people complaine(d) that PoF bounties stopped after LS4.

 

Is that so? I can't remember a single time anybody complained about an "overuse" of this mechanic.

So feel free to prove your claim.

snip

 

 

was not that hard to do.

On 3/1/2023 at 1:42 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I wish they would stop reusing the unstable magic mechanics for open world champions.  It sounded like a good idea, but the implementation is so ridiculously one-sided in how it punishes melee.  

If you intend to keep using this mechanic please do a balance pass and lighten up on the melee hate.

[kiroho.4738]

On 8/25/2024 at 11:35 PM, Linken.6345 said:

was not that hard to do.

Oh okay, with "many complaints" OP means only one thread? I see

Edit: Forget about the "only one thread", it's only one post in that thread complaining about the mechanic. And surprise, it's OP themself who complains.
So these "many complains" are OP and... OP. 😉 

Edited August 27 by kiroho.4738

[AliamRationem.5172]

14 minutes ago, kiroho.4738 said:

Oh okay, with "many complaints" OP means only one thread? I see

Oh so we need to look up every thread that ever mentioned this or anything we say is invalid?  How about you do your own research if it matters so much to you?  Or better yet go gatekeep somewhere else. 🤡

[kharmin.7683]

26 minutes ago, kiroho.4738 said:

Oh okay, with "many complaints" OP means only one thread? I see

It's a merged thread, so no one has any idea of how many threads there were that were eventually merged into one.... which is what the devs have asked for, to have comments in one thread so that they don't have to scour the forums.

[Ashen.2907]

On 8/24/2024 at 2:42 PM, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

You're the only one that has a problem with it.

No he isnt.

[Linken.6345]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Oh so we need to look up every thread that ever mentioned this or anything we say is invalid?  How about you do your own research if it matters so much to you?  Or better yet go gatekeep somewhere else. 🤡

I do find it funny that you the OP is the one I found complaining about it last year too tho 😅

[Hotride.2187]

I like them.

[kiroho.4738]

23 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Oh so we need to look up every thread that ever mentioned this or anything we say is invalid?

Not every thread, just many complains. You know, like you have claimed.

 

 

23 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

How about you do your own research if it matters so much to you?

That's not how it works dude.
You made a claim, so You are responsible to prove it.

If you can't prove your own claim, your claim is nothing but a wet fart and you make yourself untrustworthy.
Who knows what else you made up?

 

23 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Or better yet go gatekeep somewhere else. 🤡

Or better yet, how about proving your made up claim? 🤡

 

23 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

It's a merged thread, so no one has any idea of how many threads there were that were eventually merged into one.... which is what the devs have asked for, to have comments in one thread so that they don't have to scour the forums.

Well, it's not about the amount of threads. It's about the amount of people who actually complained.

Just look into said thread. There is one single player complaining about the unstable magic ability and that is OP themself.
And there is one player disagreeing with them.

In other words, this thread does not prove at all that "many players" complain about the topic. It even shows that OP is pretty much alone with it (in that thread).

 

[Ashen.2907]

At least 17 unique forum users expressed agreement with the  complaint on one page of the quoted thread. 

[kharmin.7683]

That seems rather statistically insignificant to me.  /shrug

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, kiroho.4738 said:

That's not how it works dude.
You made a claim, so You are responsible to prove it.

That's not how it works. You made a claim, that you haven't seen even a single prior complain about it. You got linked one.

So, it's not that there weren't any, you are simply not good at looking (or have poor memory).

It's only after that you shifted goalposts and started demanding proofs of more threads.

Yes, there were a lot more threads about it in the past. I have personally participated in several.

No, i'm not going to bother sifting through the forums looking for them (especially considering how lot of those happened way back). Not going to put the effort to do it just because you either weren;t around PoF times, or weren;t paying attention then.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

That seems rather statistically insignificant to me.  /shrug

Agreed. I only mentioned it because there was a claim that only the OP expressed an issue with the mechanic.

[Malus.2184]

On 8/24/2024 at 1:38 PM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Phase Shifted: Enemy evades all attacks if you don't stand in a specified zone.  Especially fun if you're melee and the zone requires range or if the enemy is continually moving toward or away from you. 

This specific one can be alleviated by people ignoring the weapons of the build they've copied and having a ranged weapon as their second weapon.

Many of my Rev builds recommend staff or dual swords in my second slot and GS in my first, and I never leave home without a hammer instead. I'm better off being able to do things rather than hyper-optimise one aspect.