Why is there little, to no variety with Engineers?

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

This.
And solution is simple: if you want variety - make it by yourself. Never ever look and guides. Make builds by yourself, use your brain and imagination, experiment.
Guides are an easy and lazy way. Ignore them. And avoid people who try to force you  to play "optimal" way.

 

Yeah, the famous "use your brain". Because why read guides, threads, patchnotes  and search for cooperation, optimisation when you can just put random gear and traits ? What if actually ... you use your brain the wrong way ?

But if you do it right anyway, if you have knowledge and skill of your class, you'll just find the same build than the "guide" at a sigil/runes or trait close ...
That why reading guides and thread helps, because  1) you don't waste time actually  2) you can ponder or  debate about the best tweak for  different situations,  for example sigil of accuracy or sigil of impact, Bolt to the Heart or Fresh Air, Chemical Rounds or High Caliber, etc.

That is how you use your brain. With builds confrontation, build you didn't think about, theorycraft and benchmarks people did before you ... Not from nothing, expecting you'll do everything better than others.

 

If you want an analogy; it's a bit like people that want to you "think by yourself" rather than quote authors, scientists, authority figures ... How am I supposed to use my brain without any opening, any sustenance ? Why should I think from zero rather than debate with authors, read arguments, counter-arguments, consensus from experts ... ? If you "think by yourself" about the moral, the one guy who have read Kant will just destroy because he already have the arguments; but then the one who have read Nietzsche will also have the arguments to destroy you, and your virtue, etc.

The point is not to adopt the point of view of some one else, but to extend your ideas with knowledge people already have. It's okai if you think differently, but at least you know why, you know opinions from others.

 

Don't get me wrong, and don't take it personnaly neither. I don't want to force people play classes or builds they don't like; or even copy/paste the exact same gear. And there are also players who take guides like the Bible, "OMG we need the exact same team composition otherwise it's blasphemy we won't succed". I don't want neither to prevent people to experiment, change traits or team compo ...

... But we're playing a MMO with other players; with a fragile confidence; somewhat yeah, you want to  look for the optimal solution, you want to share experience with all; so that everyone can participate and succeed in good conditions. Not to do things by yourself, selfishly and with no consideration for others' "work".
It's your own build ? Well okai, it doesn't mean you're smarter or skilfull ...there is no correlation. It doesn't mean either you have more fun than me !? Plus may be your teammates expected you to be more effective, more "optimal", and  that carry  a player with personnal build isn't fun for them.

For example if you use the rune of elementalist rather than lich on scourge ... no one cares, for real. It's just that players have demonstrated one is better than the other against  most of encounters ... May be they are wrong, but then prove it. Don't keep the secret for you.
Same for celestial renegade, celestial scourge ... !? May be!?
FB+Ren was "mocked" at the pof release. Blablabla druid chrono better. Then people (qT to quote only one) showed actually it was more effective, with a stronger tool box to easily adapt to all situations. There is still room for experimentation, but you need confrontation to prove you're right, you need to use same tools, same standards to prove you're right.

 

About the will of variety ; I see it more like different builds for differents situations : Bosses with more or less armor (power / condi), with frequent defiance bar, moving, with trashmobs etc, one trait or one kit could be better for a specigic encounter because it gives more cleave, more range, more CC ...

But Engie doesn't really have this in pve. You're DPS ? Your traits are always the same, same for your skills, for your gear ... you use same specs, even some traits, for both condi and power ... I think it's a bit sad.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[GKC.3851]

Some of the engineer abilities feel downright benched like a kid in a ball game that's only brought out hopefully never. I think battery ram is one of them. There's very few opportunities that you'd want to use it. Back in the day in sPvP it was how you could bunker down on top of a point, but with the removal of all tank gear its just not worth your time. Another would be the wrench kit. You can repair your turrets, which is useless, and you have a channeled block and a small pull. The pull is a long casting time with a large cooldown so there's much better choices in wvw or in raids. The block is OK, i guess, but it takes a whole utility slot for it. 

Now in raids and fractals they typically have very dedicated roles. It's not common for groups to run around with a half healer, a half tank or a half hand kite. If its your role they want you to do it until the raid wipes. It makes it so much easier to manage with, but much of the engineer kits run off of large variety. That's fine to bring out in the open world PvE but then everything is. Nobody is going to judge you if you're running nonsense during world bosses. In fractals and raids people certainly do. The engineer role builds are out there but they're rare. Most of Engineer just exists for a game that just isn't a thing anymore.

[Bomboed.5697]

10 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

What if actually ... you use your brain the wrong way ?

This is a part of the game. Mistakes are part of discovery.
This is a game. And games are about fun. Not about "optimization". If you are playing a "wrong" build that is by fact less effective and less powerful than builds from guides, but you have fun playing it - you are doing it right.
If you play "optimized" build, but it leads to having an urge to come to forum and complain about lack of variety of build - it means you are not having fun.
Fun is the only thing that matters in games. If you think that something like effectiveness and optimization are more important that fun - than the game is not the game for you anymore. The game becomes a job.

However, optimization can be a part of fun for some people. But this kind of people will never complain about lack of build variety. They don't need variety, because it contradicts to their goal and source of fun: finding the best and the only build to "rule them all"

[draxynnic.3719]

31 minutes ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

This is a part of the game. Mistakes are part of discovery.
This is a game. And games are about fun. Not about "optimization". If you are playing a "wrong" build that is by fact less effective and less powerful than builds from guides, but you have fun playing it - you are doing it right.
If you play "optimized" build, but it leads to having an urge to come to forum and complain about lack of variety of build - it means you are not having fun.
Fun is the only thing that matters in games. If you think that something like effectiveness and optimization are more important that fun - than the game is not the game for you anymore. The game becomes a job.

However, optimization can be a part of fun for some people. But this kind of people will never complain about lack of build variety. They don't need variety, because it contradicts to their goal and source of fun: finding the best and the only build to "rule them all"

I'd note that it also tends to be the players who really enjoy optimisation that add new builds to the meta, since they (as opposed to people who just pick up someone else's build without really understanding how and why it's put together) are usually the ones who are able to put together builds that are both new and mechanically favourable.

Most of the builds also aren't intended to be straitjackets. If you understand how it works, you can figure out how best to tweak it to fit your playstyle or to adjust to the situation you're going into.

And sometimes you can just go kitten it and play something that's suboptimal but fun in an environment where it doesn't matter too much.

PS For all that, I think engineer does have a problem where a lot of builds end up being samey. Most builds nowadays are pretty much grenadier builds, holoforge builds, the support scrapper build, and the occasional flamethrower... and combinations of the above. GKC is right in that a lot of skills feel 'benched' - and when you've got a lot of utility skills that simply aren't viable on the profession that is probably most defined by utility skills, this narrows the available space for build crafting significantly.

Edited September 12, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

This is a part of the game. Mistakes are part of discovery.
This is a game. And games are about fun. Not about "optimization". If you are playing a "wrong" build that is by fact less effective and less powerful than builds from guides, but you have fun playing it - you are doing it right.
If you play "optimized" build, but it leads to having an urge to come to forum and complain about lack of variety of build - it means you are not having fun.
Fun is the only thing that matters in games. If you think that something like effectiveness and optimization are more important that fun - than the game is not the game for you anymore. The game becomes a job.

However, optimization can be a part of fun for some people. But this kind of people will never complain about lack of build variety. They don't need variety, because it contradicts to their goal and source of fun: finding the best and the only build to "rule them all"

 

 

Fun is also about success in good conditions, good atmosphere.

In Pve fractals, raids, strikes etc if you want these, you need some optimisation, some cooperation, you need to adjust to some standard and trust other players; to no surprise them with kitten and fail instance or oblige them to carry you for an hour.

 

Plus I don't say mistakes or experimentations are outlawed. On contrary; but this is false to consider guides, benchmarks etc as the "lazy" way. On contrary, it is  the constructive way, the smart way. You use all their experience to shape yours.

By looking fo others experiences an advices, by using the same tools, you know you're may be doing mistakes, you know where is the fun actually; otherwise how could you ?

You can do you're own build ; but at least you know why or how it is different, you know what other people can expect from you; you're not in the ignorance and the vainglory and you can actually judge if you have more "fun" or not.

 

I have for example some gear/build a bit different from the SC/LN guides, because I'm not very familiar with the class itself or on my own experience I have better result with my own character. I play  (rarely in fact) hybrid weaver in fractal, the gear and food are different from the "raid guide" because I have compared both and I have more ease with runes of balthazar rather than flame legion because of exposed debuff, sigil +10% CD rather than vipere, etc... Same with my chrono that I play with a lot of BD. May be others, by laziness to change runes and sigils mostly or lack of experience.

But at least I know why. I can explain why I thonk it's better or easier, or not, for this or that situation, rather than "I don't know, but I do it myself *proud*"

Edited September 12, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Bomboed.5697]

7 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

On contrary; but this is false to consider guides, benchmarks etc as the "lazy" way. On contrary, it is  the constructive way, the smart way. You use all their experience to shape yours.

Only in ideal world.
In real world most people blindly copying builds from guides. And if there are low number of builds in those guides - they complain about lack of variety in the game.
Unfortunately, this is true for a lot of games.
Guides are lazy, because they narrow peoples view of the game and discourage them from experimentation.

For example, when vanilla WoW was released it was a different time: there was not guides, not databases, no build editors. And there was fun. Because people were experimenting by themselves. They were playing suboptimal build because there was no such a thing as "optimal" build.
Now we have WoW Classic. Exactly the same numbers, skills, talents, abilities as in vanilla. But there is no fun. Because there is no experimentation and discovery. Everybody know everything, because everything can be found in guides. There is no need to experiment, because somebody already experimented before you. There is no journey to a result - there is only a result, that you just need to copy and paste.
 

22 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

you're not in the ignorance and the vainglory

This is a game. Being in ignorance and the vainglory is not exactly a bad thing, because it helps people to have their own experience, their own journey.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

52 minutes ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

Only in ideal world.
In real world most people blindly copying builds from guides.

 

There are i-diots and fanatics everywhere.

Personnaly I prefer to play with fanatics who did research, training and have the same standards and tools than me, even if they just copy/paste build or compo even if they don't undestand the key points; rather than with 4 or 9 players who do random stuff without any regard for the needs or the roles of others nor their effectiveness.

56 minutes ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

This is a game. Being in ignorance and the vainglory is not exactly a bad thing, because it helps people to have their own experience, their own journey.

 

Ignorance and the vainglory not exactly a bad thing !? ... depends of your valors ...

Plus why humility and knowledge could not correlate with their own experience ? This is an assertion I don't undestand. like if you read or use the experience, the point of view of someone else ... then it's not "your own"  anymore.

 

It doesn't work like that. Your experience is also made by the observation of others players, by discussion, confrontation (verbal and technical) to enrich yours by new valors, new standards, already known experimentations, new tools, new openings ... 

Or you mean I have to close my eyes in pvp, not look at other's gameplay and build and do my own stuff; same in pve ? Okai, if you want, but then you play in unranked and open-world.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

Now we have WoW Classic. Exactly the same numbers, skills, talents, abilities as in vanilla. But there is no fun.

 

Because it is the same players, because they don't want neither lose time with "newbies" and because, despite people could say, the gameplay and mechanics is also archaic and tiresome; like the ghost thing to go to your body or the loot stealth etc.

Players already have the experience of WoW, (or) the experience of other games, they don't have time to waste anymore in random sh*t, they have nothing to discover; that why there is no fun. It's not the fault of guides. Like it's not the fault of guides if old members don't want to lose 2 hours anymore for fractals.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Bomboed.5697]

4 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Plus why humility and knowledge could not correlate with their own experience ?

Depends on how you get this knowledge. If you get knowledge during your own experimentation - then you have fun. Because this is how games work. Games are not only about results, they are also about process and journey to these results.
When people blindly copying builds from guides they deprive themselves from journey part of fun. Yes, they get results. Yes, they please other people they are playing with, because they become "optimized" and predictable. They suit standards of other people at cost of their own pleasure.
That is how jobs work. That is how games should not work. We have enough of that "be humble, have humility" in real life.

I don't want to say that it is bad to look at guides and take advice from other people. No, it is absolutely okay.
I want to say that most people have wrong perception of guides. Instead of  "this is how you could play to be better" they see "this is how you should play, otherwise you are bad and wrong". This is a lazy way. But it is also an easy way, and also a popular way because of that.
If people can't perceive guides as advice and suggestions instead of strict orders and instructions - then it is better for them not to look at guides at all, because they deprive themselves from potential fun.

[RobinotX.1604]

I think using guides as a guide that is fine. You can alter somethings to your own playstyle. You can lets say take a Snowcrow build but not be perfect in executing it. THen it is better to do something you can do better than something where you fail much more.

 

[GKC.3851]

6 hours ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

Guides are lazy, because they narrow peoples view of the game and discourage them from experimentation.

Not always. Ironically sometimes it's too much choice. It's difficult to understand what actually is optimal already but as you keep adding choices people tend to seize the default orthodox. The fun phrase is known as analysis paralysis.

 

Personally i love a little bit of improvisation but people tend to get so pissed when they're involved.

[meowmi.4916]

I miss the core (pre-HoT) Engineer days.  Using bombkit didn't look like an oversized cake. 🙂

[Bomboed.5697]

8 minutes ago, ampy.1387 said:

I miss the core (pre-HoT) Engineer days.  Using bombkit didn't look like an oversized cake. 🙂

Bomb Kit really is an abomination of design. It could be so cool theoretically, but someone decided that it is a good idea to make all kit skills to have the same animation and this animation is the worst in the entire game.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Bomboed.5697 said:

Bomb Kit really is an abomination of design. It could be so cool theoretically, but someone decided that it is a good idea to make all kit skills to have the same animation and this animation is the worst in the entire game.

Still doesn't match the weirdness of grenades creeping from throwing one grenade (what you'd normally expect) and two on a trait (vaguely plausible if you're throwing with both hands, but are grenades really something you want to do that with) to chucking out handfuls of three at a time by default.

 

And people resist changing that mechanic so hard, even if doing so could allow the relevant traits to be rebalanced to be useful without the assumption that you're generating three explosions with every attack.

[Dakiaris.2798]

Honestly I would just like to see a whole rework for all weapon kits they have all felt janky since launch and they have had minimal changes due to a.net being more focused on e-specs.

 

I mean really think about it they said we would at the very least get legendary effects applied to our kits..... 9 years and counting and we still don't have a single legendary effect on the kit itself only the toolbelt skills.

 

They seem like they just don't know what to do with kits and honestly I say scrap them along with the toolbelt and rework the kits to be the class mechanic with the toolbelt skills coming in as new utility skills to replace them.

[Random Wax Orc.7695]

Kits are still in utility skill slots, so less variety... choose one or the other.  A Variety of Elite Mechanic Bar Skills were eaten by the mostly useless Function Gyro.  Turrets were simplified to remove variety (i.e. overcharging options).  Weapon selection and lack of swap were design decisions to limit variety.  Elixir Bombs were removed from traits because they were a viable choice.  Traits were merged in such a way that limit variety... if you choose Grenadier trait you get forced aggro on heals - sneak gyro dispelled by heals, BRILLIANT! :p  Heck, the new Rev elite gets the devastating "Rocket Jump" fix that Engineers have been waiting for... tell me why Rocket Jump is so useless for CC?  Where are all the hard CC options for EACH one of the kits?  Why can't Engineers put kits and gyros on the Mechanic Bar, like a class mechanic?  Why can't Engineer use the weapon swap key to do something like switch to kits as well as switch back from kits?  Oh, right, then Engineers would have variety and be harder to auto-nerf.

 

Engineer is an overly curated class that replaces a plethora of choices with a limited number of gimmicks... which get easily nerfed because they are an easy well defined target to complain about if they are effective.  Heck, Lake Doric is the only map that was changed to stop afk farming... because it was the Engineer afk farming map.  No other class that can afk farm has elicited that response from Anet.  I don't approve of afk farming, but it is pretty clear that Fate's Razor hangs over petulant Engineer builds.

 

I am waiting for the new Engineer elite before buying EoD... because if Anet isn't going above and beyond for Engineer this time around, both Core and the new Elite, I am going to revolt.  Dual Mace is a necessary but insufficient step in the right direction.

 

 

[meowmi.4916]

On 9/13/2021 at 6:42 AM, Bomboed.5697 said:

Bomb Kit really is an abomination of design. It could be so cool theoretically, but someone decided that it is a good idea to make all kit skills to have the same animation and this animation is the worst in the entire game.

 

It gives me anxiety lol and I can't stand the way it looks.  It actually makes Engineer feel super clunky and slow.

[Loules.8601]

On 9/14/2021 at 4:55 PM, Random Wax Orc.7695 said:

Dual Mace is a necessary but insufficient step in the right direction.

I think it’s a MH mace at max. 

[Kodama.6453]

9 hours ago, Loules.8601 said:

I think it’s a MH mace at max. 

At the same time it is the minimum.

With our very small pool of weapons, an offhand mace won't do us a favour. There is literally just one single mainhand weapon to combine it with: pistol

As a mainhand, we can at least combine it with pistol and shield.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Random Wax Orc.7695]

On 9/23/2021 at 7:23 PM, Loules.8601 said:

I think it’s a MH mace at max. 

 

You may very well be correct.  This is why I am not pre-ordering EoD until I see the Engineer Elite.  The difference between Standard and Ultimate is the price of a AAA game, and that will be going elsewhere if Engineer is just given Mainhand Mace with AI pet Golems.  Engineers have a negligible pool of weapons to choose from "because of kits", so all Elites are expected to default to kits unless Anet ends the no weapon swap" kiddie pool of weapons" of Core... unless Anet actually breaks all the rules for Engineers, like they are claiming to do for Elites in general.

 

Things Anet could do:

Give Engineer weapon swap

Give Engineer global access to all their Elite weapons

Move Kits out of Utility Slots to un-nerf Engineer access to other slot skills

etc

 

Most of Engineer issues stem from design decisions that include an intentional downside.  No other class has this issue to such a degree.  Even the processing of skills is different on Engineer, so that while "playing the piano", some of the keys get queued to proc, some of the keys only proc when there is no queue, some of the keys interrupt all or some of the queue, and some of the keys get interrupted if anything is queued up after them.  This is really noticeable on a slower system, and especially when the windup for an interruptible skill lags... and there is nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, and pray.  I can't keep track of it... but when a skill goes off that I pressed 10 second ago, and the string of 4 skills pressed after that were half interrupted during that 10 seconds, preventing any skill synergy, I just cringe.  The windup animation and the proc of the effects are often out of sync, so "getting good" at "the how and when" each skill needs to be triggered is not an option... and it is overly complicated and inconsistent, which is apparently a design decision for Engineer.

[Stalima.5490]

I believe part of the problem is that we still have a few trait lines that do not make a lot of sense, for example the inventions healing power trait when regeneration is actually fairly limited on engineer now, the tools being extremely limited on what can be used with it viably and many may argue with me on this but firearms is also a bit weird, basically, the entire set of mandatory traits is based upon bleeding:

 

inflict bleed on critical hits

increased critical chance on bleeding foes

increased bleeding duration

 

now this seems pretty sound as it has this excellent bleed meta surrounding it but wait... how does an engineer get half decent bleeds exactly? When you answer this question you will actually realize that this trait line is busted, firstly the pistol of course but only on it's least powerful ability, the auto attack, the grenade kit? but that's more of an explosives user surely? The toolkit gives next to no bleeding, the rifle gives very little and not something that can be built around, the elixir guns bleed is just worse than the pistol and again is the auto attack, beyond this you are looking at that laser disk from Holosmith.

 

When you realize just how inaccessible bleeding actually is to the engineer outside of the bleed on critical trait which is nerfed into oblivion for pvp you realize that It makes so little sense to have an entire trait line devoted to a condition we can barely even access or build around properly which easily accounts for why explosives builds are usually the go to in pvp.

[Mell.4873]

I think the main problem is the same problem ele has, there is a lack of specialisation. Now I don't think that's a bad thing but all the elite specialisations don't really add the core engineer gameplay rather they take away from it. I mean kits and turrets are the core thing engi does and I guess finishers for gadgets. 

We got a tank spec with another mechanic the competes for utility slots and dps spec that tried to replace the burn rotation from before.

What would be better is an elite specialisation that gave a second utility bar or something. Something that involves a weapons swap mechanic so kits are better.