starlinvf.1358

Condi is a waste of time for "strictly PvE'. 80/20 Zerk/Maruder split and Power damage builds.

You must be asking yourself "what about weaver? its got condi". Weaver is Hybrid. Burn Holo, Firebrand, Condi Ranger, all hybrids. Vipers gear? Got power damage. Zerks anything will knock most enemies down in under 2 seconds. Anything that lives you just unload, kite then unload again on cool down. Simple, cheap, efficient, doesn't require constant upkeep- and nothing like full condi.

You know who went full Condi? Shortbow Renegade. Some of the Highest DPS in the game.... but only if the target stands around and lives longer then a minute. And you need a whole group built around you to be really effective. You go full condi, you go home empty handed.

It smells like Cartoon Planet.

> @"Merlin.4058" said:

> Two people brought this up;

>

> I mean, if the trip up to level 80 isn't fun, why does it suddenly become fun when the difficulty and expatiation is ramped up? I'm not going to play all that time in a class that isn't fun to suddenly be told "Oh it's fun now if you know what you're doing with this high end build that you surely followed to the letter".

>

> I want a Profession that's fun to play for the trip not the ending grind that I'm probably not going to stick around for.

You're operating on misconception. Most games tend to operates on a linear power progression, usually entirely vertical. Guildwars 1 and 2 is designed mostly around Tournament PvP, so the leveling process is incredibly fast, and power designed to plateau once you hit level 80 (which has NEVER been raised, nor the lvl 20 cap from the first game). The entire Core Content block for PvE was created as a way for players unwind between PvP competitive season, and used generate resources for WvW guilds. PvE was never its main focus, but intentionally made expansive and interesting enough to keep players busy either solo, or with guildmates. But one major benefit of how the loot system works, fosters an environment of general cooperation and a lot of Ad-Hoc grouping. This dismantled the problem of kill stealing, and actually benefits everyone when events scale up. Its these factors that ended up causing Open World PvE to explode in popularity, while Anet's Esports aspirations died on the vine due to how they managed it.

The reason I bring this up is because this explains the entire class system design premise, and the majority of its quarks in PvE specifically.

With the pre amble out of the way, the first thing you have to understand about classes and the Especs is that each are design around facilitating certain play styles FIRST, and role fulfillment Second. Core Specs (baseline class) have the capacity to fit any role a team might ask for, but their specific play styles are what create the massive performance gaps. Guardian and Elementalist had dominated the Pre-HOT metas because of how much built-in self sustain and group buffing they had baseline access to, giving them natural force multiplication. Engineer and Memser had strong group utility, but lacked the natural damage output of the above 2. While every other class had most of their power focused internally, but only averaged the same damage output with none of force multiplication, and huge variations in the level of self-sustain. Most classes had a niche they could excel in..... but Speed Dungeons and Open world farming was were the real money was being made. So while Thief could gank in PvP, and Rangers Pet-Tank in open world roaming, if you didn't have access to Front loaded AOE damage, you were severely under performing in the long run.

All of that can be attributed to how poorly PvE enemies perform, and the huge reliance on HP/Damage scaling to make them threatening. We know for a fact that the AI can support a hand full of "intelligent" behaviors- but were all canned in beta testing because play testers couldn't handle (and were getting frustrated with) enemies that moved around, made use of defensive skills, moved out of AOE damage, targeted support heavy players, and ran when getting their ass kicked. What was left is the brain dead AI behavior we have today, and is the foundation for a problem seen in nearly every other game where enemies are easy to bunch up and AOE to death.

Adding to the situation is the game's build system is heavily weighted on multiplicative power amplification, along with a number of steep mechanical advantages. Where this creates issues during leveling is the massively inconsistent value of individual skills, traits and stats, verses a fully synergistic build. The problem is that a lot of classes have their build defining traits in the Grandmaster tier, and requires at least 2 fully unlocked trait lines (along with complimenting utility skills) to have any form of cohesion. Without that, most classes perform extremely poorly, and immediately struggle at the difficulty spikes at lvl 35 and 60, with no clear external indicators as to whats happening. But the difficulty spike is only frustrating due to it being unexpected; and once players finally master dodging, the majority of that threat is marginalized.

Its been quoted by the devs that their internal metrics show that the performance difference between an average player and a competent player is easily a factor of 5 or higher. With a skilled player, this gap increases to a factor of 10. A lot of this comes from being able to run riskier builds without dying, keeping attack rotations going while maneuvering around damage, or being able to shut down/counter an opponent by knowing a given vulnerability. Since specific skills or traits are what enable these strategies and builds to operate, players that understand buildcraft tend to be ahead of the power curve, while players who don't (or stuck in mind sets developed from other RPGs) tend to get frustrated by being far behind it.

Meta builds focus on end game content because its the only part of the game that demands it for a pay off. Its actually less strict then it looks;- But the cultural ignorance that surrounds the Wiki-Warrior (IE people who copy builds or guides on the internet like instruction manuals, but put no effort into understanding the underlying reasoning in HOW it works) is what contributes to the toxic "speed clearing" culture typically seen every MMO's End-game content block. GW2 isn't free of this either; but because the game doesn't actively funnel players into things like Raids and Dungeons as the only path for advancement, a lot players never bother with it. However, because meta builds are specifically focused on end-game content, and meta builds being the only easily found resource on buildcraft, this has convinced a significant chunk of the community that its a divisive line between good and bad. If its not obvious yet.... that notion is false.

With all this in mind, it is absolutely TRUE that most classes don't actually make sense until everything is unlocked at level 80, where you have access to all your skills, traits, and can directly craft/buy a complete gear set with a properly aligned stat block. On your way up to level 80, if you pick skills, traits and drop/karma gear haphazardly (or picked only on face value), any class will perform very clunky. But with a proper build, meta or non-meta, not only is the performance much higher, but mechanics suddenly start to make functional sense. And its almost always universally more fun to play, because being able to properly understand what you're doing, and being able to adapt on the fly, creates a huge amount of Agency in combat.

Building on this further..... the reason you see this sentiment with the Xpac being kind of divisive, calls directly to what I've trying out line across this whole post. Core Tyria, which is the original Open World maps and Personal Story, have extremely easy enemies. Insultingly easy. It was made this easy for general accessibility.... and has been nerfed to be even easier on at least 5 different occasions, because the playerbase's lowest common denominator still doesn't know theres a dodge key. Most casuals are not "that" bad.... but its still pretty bad. The Xpacs takes off the kid gloves immediately; to where even the preamble to Heart of Thorns (the Dry top and Silverwaste maps, which technically part of Core), will absolutely destroy any unprepared player within 100m of leaving Camp Resolve. But any half way competent player with a decent build only has to worry about getting severely outnumbered. But its in the Xpac maps that things get serious. Enemies are far more varied, and readily compliment each other in combat. AOE attacks and Defensive abilities become more common, the game introduces mobs with specific counters, or can directly counter types of player attacks, everything hits harder, hits more often, and almost always attack in groups.

In order to simply not die, much less kill things, players need a strong understanding of several core game mechanics (such as dodging, debuff conditions, CCs, and Boons), a competent build that gives them the damage and defensive options necessary to be in the fight, exploiting enemy weaknesses while compensating for their own, what order to fight things when they gang up on you, and doing all of this while avoiding ground AOE, heavy hitters, enemy CCs, and not accidentally positioning yourself in spot where they can get chain going on you. Succeed in that environment, and its a thrill of a well earned victory. But if you die, most people would feel cheated and frustrated, not understanding (or even wanting to understand) why their getting their ass handed to them.

The way Especs play into this is how they change the class's MO. In core, each class has some kind of limitation that their play style has difficulty with. Core Necro for instance is very spotty when it comes to fighting groups of mobs, as they don't have a lot of consistent front loaded damage. However, the vast majority of Especs are designed to cover down a class's inherent weakness, either working around it, or directly giving them a solution to that problem. Necro's Reaper spec is a front line brawler with melee cleave, front loaded damage, and a much more consistent attack rate.... things core necro lacks or struggles with. Dragon Hunter addressed Guardian's poor mobility by giving them tools to deal with Kiters, and be able to Kite themselves. Dare Devil gives Thief a versatile melee kit with defense options that don't revolve around stealth. Some simply double down on a class's existing strengths, such as Weaver's increased damage bonuses or Mirage's mobility. Some specs are even drastic changes to a play style... like Druid being a straight up healer, or Holosmith being incredibly streamlined for damage.

I'd argue that the Especs offer so much to build diversity, that game doesn't even really start until you have access to them. And even if you hate the way a Core class works, one of the two especs can potentially be your favorite out of the whole class line up. We're looking at whats effectively 27 classes, with at least 2 viable builds for each.

It really depends on how good you are as a player with certain build types. Thief and Ranger have the highest potential for Kiting, but building them for damage leaves a very small margin of error against the kind of damage Champs put out in POF. Necro, Warrior and Guardian have the best options for sustain at melee range, but their damage to durability ratio varies heavily, and specing too far away from damage actually makes fights harder. Ele and Mesmer are strong damage options, but the way their builds scale when not running pure glass requires a higher level of player knowledge to work effectively. Revs have solid damage output, but all their builds do not afford mistakes well, and hybridizing them is incredibly difficult without a party comp to build them around. Engineers (more specifically Holosmith) are generally solid. But they've suffered a series of serious damage nerfs that leads to many fights now being drawn out, when they used to excel at it.

I've seen people screw up using builds back when they were still overpowered..... But the direction things are heading, a good build can't carry a bad player anymore. And a half way decent player can succeed and improve an any half way serviceable build they come across.

So the real question is, how are you approaching those fights, and what are the things that get you killed the most. That'll arm you with enough information to figure out which builds has a play style you can operate correctly. Thats assuming you're not pulling a Dunning-Kruger, and believing you can beat champs you have no right in believing you could solo. Bounties especially, as their specifically designed around the damage output of 5+ players.

First, before we get any deeper...... Servers no long matter outside of World vs World. They removed the logical barrier between "worlds", and upscaled the game's overflow system to become a unified "Mega server". When a map gets full, the game simply spawns a new shard of it, and sends incoming players to it. When people move off, the shards count down and expire, and move any remaining players to another active shard.

The only reason WvW still uses worlds, is it being a major organizational unit in match making. But this too is going away in favor of Guild Alliances, as the "world" unit is currently too inflexible, and too easily prone to population shift. So conceptually, the only division that exists on the PvE side is between NA, EU and China regional servers, as they correspond to physical locations for consistent performance.

Moving on.... what you're seeing is NOT a "low population" problem. The way the game's content is structured and released lends toward a problem of "map popularity" getting the majority of activity. The issues you're seeing in LFG are a specific problem of the Raiding and Fractal community being very hostile toward Pugs, and instead favor "static groups" of regulars they play with. Thus the only people advertising in LFG are Fractal Daily runners (which are the most casual of the bunch, but only focus on Challenge modes for the bonus loot), PUG raids which may or may not be properly organized, and Raid Sellers. Dungeons have not been popular in years, as Anet has been using reward systems to lure players into Fractals and Raids..... with the subsequent community barrier for entry causing many to give up on it entirely.

Open world Pugs don't bother with LFG outside of scheduled/opportunistic world events, because there is literally no other reason to call player attention to it. Thus most just wander around soloing stuff until an event worth doing pops up, and to which they join as an ad-hoc participant. World boss and certain Meta events require certain tasking..... and its in those events you're more likely to see Commander tags, squads, and sub-groups actively organize for the sake of success.

We're coming off the tail end of a major Holiday festival, and a week away from a new Story chapter drop..... so most people are on break, or moving at a relaxed pace, in preparation for next week's hardcore AP and rewards farming. When that content block goes live, 90% of the player base will be funneling into that map, spawning multiple shards to handle the load. It'll peak for about 2 weeks or so, and once novelty wears off, and people got the skins they've wanted, they disperse back to their normal farming routines. That will NOT change the LFG situation, since thats caused by different factors... but the other popular farming maps will get their populations back to normal.

> @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > Magika logic

> >

> > https://magicka.fandom.com/wiki/Spells

>

> I've been meaning to buy that game. Is it good?

The game itself is a parody of the entire fantasy genre.... so expect everything from stupidity to blissful camp. Mechanically its by far one of the best magic systems every thought up for an action game..... but its design also makes it one of the most chaotic systems to use under pressure.

Spells are cast by invoking a sequence of spell elements (11 total, and 3 of which are combinations of 2 elements), which outputs 1 of 2 types of spells based on how its constructed. Each spell element has a set of traits associated with it, such as damage type, and both constructive and destructive interference with other spell elements. When casting spells, you have different buttons which control how the targeting behavior works, which also factors into how the spell is cast. Increasing the number of spell elements (up to 5) increases the magnitude of the spell. Mixing elements dilutes the effects based on the ratio of compatible elements and the casting type. Some effects interplay as well. So hitting someone with lighting when they are wet increases damage. But water and lightning are opposing elements that cancel each other during spell creation.... however, you can combine fire and water first to get Steam, which can wet the target, and then add lightning to that to get a spell that wets and hits with lightning.

https://magicka.gamepedia.com/Spell_Combinations

The second type of spell output is what people normally associate with "spells", known as Magkics. By arranging elements in specific patterns, you can cast very powerful spells that are greater then the sum of its parts. Like lighting storms, volcanic fissures, or just causing a Rain shower. However, these types of spells have to be obtained through the course of a game by finding scrolls or books on the maps or via drops.

What separates Magika from most games is the that its EVERYTHING has friendly fire. Enemies included. This was intentionally done for Coop play, because you have to be a lot more careful in how you cast spells (which is hard considering since AOE is everyone's go-to for damage spells), but you can actively support and heal each other by casting defense spells with allies in the effect area/path, divide up spell duties where one wets all the enemies while another positions for a strong lighting beam, or cancelling effects to save other players (such as using water to put out players that are on fire, just in time to get zapped by enemy lightning). This game is famous for being able to suss out friends who lack situational awareness, or are so single minded they don't realize how much collateral damage they're creating until someone dies (if even then). We're talking MarioKart/MarioParty levels of "you know who your friends are, when....". Despite how it sounds, the game is waaaay better in coop BECAUSE of it.

For anyone who remembers Richard from LFG (who is a total dick, btw), they were making a video game for the comic some years back. To quote the developer about how Richard, who both canon OP and an alignment of "chaotic asshole", has the strongest abilities of his party; but also does ridiculous amounts of collateral damage with no regard for other people....... **"With great power comes no responsibility"**. That phrase is Magika Coop in a nutshell.

I highly recommend the game just to experience what its like. But a minor health warning. Do no play if you suffer from a condition known as "stupid fingers".

To build on whats been said in the thread so far, Necromancy's social standing falls into this purposeful blind spot shared with a modern Mortuary, or Undertaker in older times...... As in People don't like to think about, but their services are important to the flow of society.

The day to day job of a Necromancer revolves around caring for grave sites and shrines, handling services and rituals involving the deceased, investigating super natural phenomena, and laying the smack down on those that would cleft the delicate order of the Cosmos in twain!!!!! Humans have long feared death, and the very subject makes most uneasy. Nobles in particular exist in a perpetual state of denial, actively avoiding conversations involving anything perceived as being uncomfortable or offensive to their sensibilities.... face to face. Behind people's back, Nobles gossip like its their job. For some, it probably is their job.

In the case of a Noble being a Necromancer, the default state of uneasiness is high just because small talk would be difficult when Family, Work and Weather are the 3 things the conversation gravitates toward. But given the Noble's culture in DR, and how it revolves around status, propaganda and political maneuvering... its entirely reasonable for a Noble to pursue Necromancy, while avoid being a social pariah, by way of charm and conversational skills. Avoiding topics that make people uncomfortable or depressed, while also spinning the nature of their work as something they'd find endearing if not inspiring- such as bravely facing off against spooky ghosts, enacting justice on any who would disturb the peaceful rest of those who've passed on, and selectively softening details while embellishing the heroics. Dressing nice is also not mutually exclusive for the profession. One can also play the allure of a secretive life; outwardly sparing others from the gory details, but also becoming intriguing due to how little is known about it. A simple offer to join you on your routine would be enough to disarm most who had entertained the thought of prying further.

Such a person would have to be very careful about how they navigate conversations.... But one could still realistically operate in noble society. After all- with all the power and fear that surrounds evil necromancers, who better to restore order then one who wields that power to protect life from the darkness? And as a bonus, no one would ever ask you to do party tricks with your magic.

What if E part of a split personality in another character? But who would be the Edward Norton to E'sTyler Durden ?

> @"JohnWater.5760" said:

> > @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > Guild Wars: Gauntlets and Grimoire - Coming to iOS and Android this spring.

>

>

> Wiki: "Foci are primarily used by scholar professions and are characterized by having powerful defensive skills and utility"

> Grimoire would be offensive instead.

> Some RPGs grimoire is a weapon, nothing unusual. Some movies and tv shows too.

>

> List of RPGs with Grimoire:

> Aura Kingdom

> Eden Eternal

> Final Fantasy

> A lot...

But thats being a little dismissive of how the mechanics and lore in THIS game operate. How do you separate it from Staff, which is 2 handed, highly associated with magical classes, and lacks the benefit of a physical application? What makes it different from the 1h magical weapons? You also still haven't pitched a hook beyond "other games have it, so why not?"

It would be like trying to separate Shurikens from Short Bows, since the Short bow's abilities have already been shown to go beyond physical limitation. Even the difference between Short bow and Long bow is pretty minimal on paper. But has managed to get away with it by using the conceptual difference between Pistols and Rifles, and applying it to the bows in order to give them a personality. Something else thats been bothering me is why all your examples feel like weakly repuposed ideas, when both of these feel like they should have more leverage thematically and mechanically. I think its partly because you've overreached by trying to get every class have something, which exhausts the creativity in order fill the quota.

See..... gauntlets I can totally get behind, because theres enough (as in a few decades worth of pop culture exposure) examples of unconventional uses in stories and games, many of which people are familiar with at this point. This affords it a very strong identity that easily separates it from other blunt melee weapons, with minimal convincing, and even comes with expectations of entire fighting styles built around it.

Grimoire doesn't have that; and most easily looked up information immediately found is either "Spell book" or describing what Foci already represent in this game. So it raises the question of what physical structure does a Grimoire have other then "Spellbook" or "Scroll" that can conceptually separate it from Foci? And since we're here....... What can simply having the Foci go Main hand (or even 2 hand) "NOT DO" that the Grimoire can? As presented so far, its incredibly bland/generic; and is the main reason why I'm criticizing it so hard.

Just think of the many ways we could use a Hoop to design attacks in Melee, Ranged and Magical contexts, all while having a very distinct physical profile. Pole Arms and Whips can as well. Giant Fan is another one that comes up rarely, but could work here as well.

> @"LadyKitty.6120" said:

> > @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > Even just a renaming would be flogging a dead horse.

> > We're done guys, totally done.

>

> Sad to admit but that's becoming a very true statement. Sometimes there's no LFG raid squads in either region and NA rarely has anything but raid sellers in LFG (on some rare days it gets a bit more active at NA primetime). EU still has somewhat active (though way less than before) LFG between afternoon and midnight EU time.

I would attribute that to everyone simply sticking to static groups. Way less overhead, and player weaknesses are known ahead of time. The entire concept of Raids as we think of it is antithetical to Pugs.

Raids are very community driven, despite the amount of mechanical work that goes into them. If the community isn't willing to cooperate, either with the game or among themselves, the whole thing rapidly falls apart. The Raid community shutting out new players is whats causing the stagnation. New players unwilling to conform their culture is whats causing them to shut people out. Raid culture being judgemental and unwilling to foster a stronger community dynamic is why new players are unwilling to conform. When Raids were new, the raid community had an incentive to be welcoming and willing to invest in training up new players. Once static groups stabilized, all that incentive was lost, and its been nothing but entropy ever since.

Not all players are cut out for raid content.... but a lot more ARE then is actually participating, because the Raid community has no interest in helping to lower its barrier for entry. To quote House Stark's family motto.... "I got mine"

With any luck, once shes a bit bigger, we can have a straight up Shadow of the Colossus/God of War 3 "wild ride" across the back of a giant beast.

> @"Melech.4308" said:

> > @"Xar.6279" said:

> > Current "raids " are fine for average PvE players which likes to do same things over and over again. For some reason it's not boring for them. Their main reason is to do anything together and socialize meantime with others. It can be "raids" but they will be fine with any PvE content. Like dungeons, fractals or even open world stuff.

> >

> > But current "raids" in Guild Wars 2 have nothing to do with real raiding experience which is focused on progression. And very organized group content.

> > That's why most of the real raiders quit gw2.

> > You can't keep raiders interested when there's just 3 bosses per year and game is missing meaningful rewards.

> >

> > IMO word "Raid" should be renamed to something else. Why?

> >

> > - Real raiders feels cheated by ArenaNet.

> >

> > - Average PvE players don't like this word. They don't like raids from other mmorpg's so they avoid this content in Guild Wars 2.

> >

> > It would be healthier for both groups.

>

> "Super Strike Missions"

> "Voyages"

> "Adventures"

>

> Any of these sound better?

Or go with something more descriptively accurate...... Like "Breaking and Entering", "Burglary", "Homicide and/or Assassination", or "Grand Theft Larceny".

Guild Wars: Gauntlets and Grimoire - Coming to iOS and Android this spring.

But on a serious note...... Grimoire is just a word used for magic books and scrolls that Teach you magic and artifacing. But the professions already operate in a way that any weapon is entirely usable as a magical focus, and requires no other special properties. A good chunk of Focus weapons are also modeled as scrolls, books, artifacts, and keepsakes to keep with the flavor of being a strictly magic user tool, but can turn any martial weapon into a magical one by virtue of their profession's training.

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:

> > > @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > > > @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:

> > > > No, boring and unoriginal. It would be just one more “something that looks mostly human but with a slight difference.” If they’re going to add a new race I’d prefer they add from this game world’s existing lore, such as Tengu or Skritt, rather than shoehorning in a race from other game’s lore.

> > >

> > > where Skritts in GW1 lore?

> >

> > No where that I know of. However they are unique to this game unlike Orcs which are in multiple games and books.

> >

> > My objection is primarily relating to the lore of the game not being mixed in with the lore from other games. With unique races the story that this world has to tell is not a tired copy of other stories from other places. It homogenizes the stories when each game world has its Orcs, it’s Elves, etc instead of having their own unique races and unique stories.

> >

>

> skritt are akin to dumb skavens arent they?

They're almost the polar opposite. Skritt are highly social, and capable of nth level organization that can put many militarizes to shame. They've evolved a high speed communication method through high pitched sounds they make (which keeps hinting back to them being more related to bats then rodents). This enables them to utilize both a form of swarm intelligence and distributed memory, with more members resulting in greater bandwidth, processing power and information storage. A decent sized Skritt Scratch (what they name their homes) can rival the intelligence of individual Asura, and can even figure out some of their technology. But unlike Asura, they do so with none of Ego stroking and frequent in-fighting that are commonly seen in Asuran Krewes.

Prior to being forced to the surface by the Destoryers, both races were constantly clashing for territory in their native subterranean homes. Body for Body, Asurans are stronger and have access to better tools. But Skritt reproduce quickly, substantially outnumber them, and operate almost like a hive mind in battle. Large enough Scratches had even been known to go on the offensive, raiding and even utilizing stolen weapons, gear, supplies with respectable proficiency. Its why Asura spend so much effort to try and keep their numbers in check.

Their background quirks is amusingly similar to 40k Orks- except instead of their gestalt "wut mek dem Ork teknologee wurk" by literally willing it to be true, Skritt are like a Cel Processor network where more individuals raises the intelligence of the whole group; allowing them to tackle a wide variety of complex problems. There are few Dynamic events, and at least one Personal story chapter, built around this premise of them being the smartest thing in the room.

But the main reason this is rarely seen thus far, is largely due to the sheer number of threats they face in the Surface world that keep their numbers heavily suppressed. They're commonly hunted down for being a nuisance, when out and about, their hunting groups tend to be small, and their penchant for shinnies leads them into comically dangerous amounts of life threatening situations. But there are exceptions. Skritt employed for Pact Operations display higher then average intelligence for individual skritt; which seems to afford them an uncharacteristically large amount of self control and risk awareness. Skritt teams have also shown an impressive level of resourcefulness when things get dicey. Some organizations (see Lion Guard, and even Asuran Krewes) use Skritt as a form of cheap labor, scavenging parties, or personal assistants (both with or without fair compensation).

I'm actually surprised to have never seen any mention of theorizing a way to create a Skritt "Think Tank" to aid in researching. I'm speculating the logistics to support a scratch of a large enough size or do that is slightly past practical. But despite that, I await the day to come across a lab (probably old inquest) operated by a large group of Skritt, doing legit experiments on other "test subjects" for once.

Anyone brought up the death of Owl yet?

> @"Xar.6279" said:

> > @"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

> > > @"Lord Rhett.9360" said:

> > > In what game are raids focused on "progression"?

> >

> > some people think that a perpetual, meaningless geargrind is 'progression'

> >

> > Probably the same people OP called 'real raiders' or that gw2 raids are not raids.

>

> What? By progress I mean progress. So killing some bosses for the first time and figuring out their mechanics on your own. Without using guides because there's none of them on internet yet. This is real raiding experience and its totally different than killing bosses with guides.

>

> This kind of raiding actually don't exist in gw2. So it's not raids anymore. Its some kind of 10 man dungeon, but certainly not "raid".

So the only real raiders are the ones making guides? I'm ok with this. As a Non-real raider I like the fact that nothing changes so the guides don't get out of date, and I don't have to change my build for no reason. Win Win for everyone.

just as general advise: Ele and Guardian have among the highest potential for Cele gear, since they're design makes use of, and scales well, with all stats across most of their skills and traits. Engie is decent second. Thief used to be high on that list, but upcoming changes may knock it down hard. Necro changes may also shift back in favor of Cele; but that call is harder to make until they actually implement something.

Ranger is weird because it should be good as a hybrid, but its terrible scaling always works against it.

Type of salvage kits used also matter. Higher grade kits have higher rates of "up tier". You also gotta keep in mind that UIDs have a % rate to up-tier when you open them as well, so that might also be a factor in their salvage tables.

I like how this argument got out of hand, and tried to say I'm wrong "because PvP" without even thinking about the math of the skill itself.

> @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> No thank you. I like having each festival have their own things. If there is too much crossover then they will lose what makes them feel exciting.

Unless its a good cross over. The problem is ultimately those are hard to find. But when they happen, it changes everything.

The OP is close, but still misses the mark in a major way. The Disparity between PvE and PvP/WvW is largely boiled down to PvE encounters not valuing skill (as in play/counter play), and mostly skewed in favor of overwhelming damage. This is VERY clearly seen in the level of frustration voiced by PvE-exclusive players when Mobs have the ability to mitigate damage output for more then a couple of seconds, be it invul, blind, blocks, movement speed, or teleports. HOT and POF mobs are most notable for the fact that they actually pose a real threat to players, and many players go out of their way to avoiding fighting them (unless overwhelmingly stacked in their favor).

The need for splits is a direct result of the sheer difference in how players approach AI Mobs, verses how they approach other players. Many PvP skills are heavily toned down, because the durability threshold of players is significantly lower then most Mobs. Most normal mobs have around 12-15k HP (and average armor), while Vets have somewhere around 75k-100k (and upward). When the average player build can drop 20-30k damage up front, thats lethal to other players, but just a chunk of damage against non-trash mobs.

What exacerbates this issue is how defense doesn't scale symmetricly in these encounters. The attack patterns of mobs are part of the problem, since they front load a lot of damage into single hits (in order to make then threatening), but gaining multi-hit and AOE rapidly scales out of control (since the per hit damage is pretty similar in a lot of cases). Increasing the number of mobs in a fight multiplies this effect even further, since player defenses are optimized against specific types of attacks. So mixed attack patterns become a major problem, as defenses are a resource quick to exhaust, and taking hits (even for tanky builds) doesn't sustain for very long.

In essence.... much of PvE is designed around a "Tank & Spank" style combat, including HP pools and damage scaling. But then in the Xpacs, it does this thing where mobs scale up massively in their damage output, the variety of attacks and defenses, they group up more, and their compositions start complimenting each other...... but the foundations of Core Mob design still govern how they balance them. Because now matter what skills the Devs give them, the AI still operates on a very narrow minded set of rules that inhibit their dynamics. And players LIKE IT this way, because it makes them predictable and easy to react to. PvE-exclusive players openly admit (and love to play as a victim card) the fact that other players are incredibly adaptive, often unpredictable, and regularly utilize overwhelming force; and they absolutely despise that...... If those were AI Mobs, they'd be decried as being unfair, bad design, and overtly punishing, because they simply got outplayed or made a poor decision during the engagement.

I've long been an advocate for PvE mobs displaying more Player like skills and behavior..... but that has to be very finely balanced on the fact that Players in this type of game are on a power fantasy trip, and expect to have the advantage in most scenarios. Enemies that can be ground through like hamburger feeds into this notion even further. So anything that takes significant effort to fight, but doesn't give some major validation (be it reward, or achievement) at end, they simply view it as being not being worth the frustration. If all enemies are like that, they accuse the game of stacking against them.... again, out of frustration.

But when your entire combat system is designed around a PvP foundation, with very tight thresholds to avoid snowballing, its nigh impossible to keep that system in harmony with an encounter design that favors almost the exact opposite. A lot of players like the fact that GW2 stacks so much in their favor.... but paradoxically lament a feeling of dissatisfaction with the hollowness of the victory. But the moment you face them with any sort of challenge that demands effort, they cry foul and demand the rules be changed. Even though GW1 had similar issues.... the number of factors in play were much lower, and a lot less complicated.

But "solving" this, if you can even call it that, is beyond impossible without having to rework the entire catalog of PvE content to a completely new paradigm. Players will always take the path of least resistance whenever possible. But with all the content being brain dead simple, and players ultimately having no fear of doing grossly inefficient tasks with a low enough investment cost, they will systematically fall back to the most profitable, easy farms they can find, IN ORDER, until its no longer worth the effort at all. Given this set of circumstances, the amount of past content that would need to be updated, and the limited resources Anet has, I'm now completely in favor of them Considering a GW3 in their not so distant future. Take everything learned, and try to get a fresh start from a better design position, and a more usable platform (ie revamped engine), and cut the baggage of legacy system that has grown as far as it could.

But unlike GW1 when they started GW2, GW2 is has gone on for waaaay too long, and created too heavy of an investment from players into their accounts, that we're now facing an EverQuest 2 situation. We NEED some kind of fresh start... but no one wants to give up what they already have. As much the new Competitive teams can work to at least bring some of the biggest issues in line..... the simple fact of the matter is that the game is currently being design backwards from the way it should see things. They started on PvP, but eventually went all-in on PvE...... thats not something you easily come back out of. PvP adapts, so it never has to worry about keeping old content around if its not actively helping. PvE is the exact opposite- and players expect it to always be its best version for all eternity. FOMO killed what benefits LS1's format offered. But POF has become a reminder that what players "want" [a bubble of comfort, but constant change] is fundamentally a paradox.

The first thing to understand is that Benchmarking are fundamentally synthetic, is NOT "real world", because of a need for a "Control sample". The way benchmarking typically works is by artificially loading the hardware with something easily repeatable and stable, because its the only effective way to recognize anomalies. But the flaw in this is the stability of the loop itself..... which is compounded by all the testing software using similar, if not identical methods.

Real world is lot less consistent. The irony here is that well optimized software can either exacerbate a hardware flaw, or completely cover it up... depending on how the hardware flaw behaves. But one thing most under-optimized games tend to have in common is the low efficiency, sometimes roundabout way they accomplish their tasks. A memory leak is situation where a program fails to free up memory when its no longer used; But its entirely possible for game to use a ton of memory poorly, and not be a memory leak. That conceptual difference is critical to understand what I'm about to say next.

Programs, games in particular, do have a habit of loading a system in a consistent way during execution. But 2 different programs typically won't load the same hardware in the same patterns. In the past I've played 5 different game (4 of which were MMOs) that operated in such an inefficient manner, that it could consistantly find hardware flaws that get past benchmarking tools. Even compound issues could be figured out through trial and error. For instance... a memory stability issue persists when swapping channels, but swapping the stick order can clear it up. Swapping back to original order, in the other channel, and it breaks again. And this does make sense, since the OS is more likely to allocate lower memory space first, and eventually the game eats its way into the higher memory space through demand. Since the flaw only manifests with the game using those flawed blocks in a given way, unless you isolate the block and more thoroughly test it, its hard to understand what exactly is wrong, and what the game is doing to trigger it. But the fact putting a different stick clears the problem, and putting the old one back consistently leads to the problem, is pretty clear indicator that something is wrong with the stick (or the stick in conjunction with other hardware elements).

One of those games could also suss out bad PCI bus clocks (especially bad overclocks), noisy Power supplies voltages, and created a lot of exposure on CPU Parking behavior. But the reason a lot of people have trouble understanding and accepting issues is largely due to this stigma of a singular source of fault. "This only happens with this one game, so it HAS to be the game's fault", despite the reality of situation being completely different. What about one game having the same issue across multiple computers that are all different? Well..... thats still a crap shoot. There is a very good reason a lot of support forums ask for an extensive list of hardware when looking into wide spread issues. People tend to focus on CPU, Ram amount, GPU and hard drive size as being the only thing important, as those are "over the minimum requirements".

But I have seen multiple cases where "wide spread issues" actually landing up with a common factor (thats not the game), and would probably had never been found if not for ONE person having gone stupidly deep into troubleshooting. Planetside 2 had on/off issue with a "No damage bug" that only developed over long play sessions(1-2 hours), but seemed to have no common factor. The Devs were of no help, since they could barely observe it, but couldn't figure out how to recreate it. More over, it seemed to be a client side issue that was impossible to get metrics on, since they had no idea what look for. Everyone first assumed it might be a memory leak (because of long play sessions)..... but Dev telemetry didn't support that hypothesis. And because it seemingly appeared and disappeared between patches, they hadn't been able to figure out what they're touching that sets its off.

It wasn't until a player found his way into one of the most insane theories I had ever seen until that point, had stumbled on the common factor almost on accident. In hindsight, I wished had documented it for posterity, since finding all the scattered posts between the forums and reddit are painfully difficult now. In fact, I'm mostly going off memory from around 6 years ago.

The Clif's notes version is this...... Essentially when the game sends data packets to the server, it time stamps everything to help account for latency and secure them against man in the middle hacks (which was an unrelated exploit to this story). Damage is validated client side, and literally tells the server if its hitting things. Damage packets get priority in the data stream, so they move to the top of the queue to be sent to the server. Incoming damage is below that, and movement updates below that. Interaction (using terminals) is somewhere near the bottom. The game also has an internal 500ms delay built into the event resolution process... but I can't remember if that was implemented before or after this bug. Anyway, all of game's event handling and time stamping operates off of an internal time counter hooked into a system clock source. Windows has multiple API hooks to access one of many timing and time services, that are driven by 4 or more clock sources available from hardware. The one we're dealing with here is HPET (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer). When HPET is enabled on the system, and used as a time source for the game, it eventually suffers from serious enough clock drift that damage packets start expiring and get dropped by the system. Since this all is happening client side, it does lend credibility to why it nigh impossible to capture in server metrics, but also raised the question as to why "only" damage packets being affected. Some theories where proposed by the community, but (as far as I know) the Devs never weighed in on it.

The way this guy found this was noticing PCI bus errors on his system around the same time the bug was active on his client. Don't ask me how he thought to look, or why he was looking... but I don't think anyone would had thought to even check that. He narrowed down the issue to HPET and found a way to check for drift issues using Wintimertester (which I think came from an audio enthusiast forum trying to figure out DSP timing problems for high end audio systems). HPET has been kind of notorious ever since, as I've seen it come up occasionally in other game forums dealing with FPS issues. Disabling it leads to an FPS drop..... But in PS2's case, it also mitigates the No Damage bug and other dsync issues almost completely. Not all systems were affected by this; but a number of popular motherboards were found to be a trend in this issue, but not entirely consistent. Prior to this discovery, there was community lead research that suggested overclocks may be contributing to the rate of decay. But since underclocking wasn't enough to extend playtime by significant amount, and affected FPS in some systems, it wasn't considered viable as a work around. In hindsight, since HPET works off a chip in the south bridge, it sort of makes sense... but wouldn't be particularly useful.

Keep in mind that popular benchmarking software never came close to discovering any of these kinds of anomalies under their most brutal stress modes, since they probably aren't even looking for them. On top of which, not that long ago it was discovered GPU manufacturers were doctoring drivers to give better Benchmark scores; something that compromises the integrity of Benchmarks and methodology. Benchmarking and Gaming performance were never easy to begin with...... but with the level of trust and quality from once highly regarded studios completely tanking, even seasoned gamers are having a very hard time navigating the seemingly endless stream of issues to get a proper handle on whats going on with hobby. Gaming as an industry has become worth too much money, and its attracted all the problems that come with it.

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> Depends on how you define "often", but they tend to run a discounted price at least twice a year.

>

> To my knowledge the expansions have never been discounted in the Gem Store itself.

They've never been sold in the Gem store. Closest being a deluxe upgrade for existing owners for like $15 worth of gems iirc

If you really want an analysis, its mainly the gaming culture exists today. Everything about guilds in this game (outside of WvW upgrades) revolves around personal rewards.... and thats the critical flaw in the system. Raids have decayed into this state just as rapidly, as its devolved into a weekly Routine thats only really done because the rewards are capped... and not doing them is simply giving up potential resources. We have things to spend them on- but theres an upper limit where we don't have any more "want" that the rewards were being used to push us toward.

Without that artificial driver, players have no reason to congregate on a regular basis. WvW doesn't suffer from this, as theres a level of social dynamics that makes the activity itself worth doing for its own entertainment. But it took bolstering the internal reward system to stop feeling like a Net Loss, because PvE rewards have stronger psychological hooks that were overpowering the social aspect of that game mode. Instead WvW's current state has an entirely different problem in that nothing is supporting social dynamics.

Expanding guild missions to Raids is pointless, because it doesn't address the underlying problem; and in reality is more likely to increase Guild toxicity over time, once individuals get bored with "helping the guild for personal benefits", and going back to the current "I got mine" attitude. Making the game harder to force group play won't work either. WoW Classic's spiral into "just like retail" took less then 3 weeks to happen. Nearly everything was meticulously recreated to reflect the actual state of the game in 1.2, EXCEPT Player attitudes are vastly different then they were back in 2005. Players were initially more cooperative, and displayed a level of empathy no longer thought possible. But as more and more people starting hitting the "end game" stride, the community began to break down. Apathy is growing, and no would expend effort unless it directly and immediately benefited them. Competition for farming spots started getting heated. Etiquette once at the forefront, steadily fading in favor of opportunistic behavior. Not everyone is a jerk. But there used to be a clear difference between Classic and Retail that everyone was hoping for; but now that difference is barely noticeable.

Gamer's attitudes toward Guilds has changed massively in the last several years... even in the last few years. Reduced to just another social circle of "acquaintances", organized by how much benefit you gain from them. Not a lot has been done to understand this new dynamic. And even among the strongest "guilds" floating around operate as if they are simply a Fanbase for some central personality that everyone rallies around. On its face this sounds like its always been..... but I mark the difference as Guild "Leaders" used to (and had to be) competent leaders. Where as now, they are handled more like Celebrities.

But since you're still caught up in the excitement of leveling a Guildhall (an easy goal to establish for the guild to focus on), you're blind to the destination you're heading to. I'm part of a 9 Guild Meta-Guild, with each guild hall maxed out. A grand total of 2 dozen players still play on the regular, and most of them are part of the same Fractal/Raid static group. We still do guild missions weekly to cap out favor.... and the only reason for that is to keep making Guild Banners.

Ultimately theres nothing stopping you from succeeding in leveling the guild hall. But theres no reason to be in a rush to get there. Maxing out a Guildhall doesn't improve your guild beyond personal benefits to each member. In fact, the Guildhall itself is, by design, just a money pit.

Sometimes it is.... but probably not

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia