Firebeard.1746

> @"Kaliwenda.3428" said: > GW2 is my main MMO that I'm currently playing like a side MMO in that I log in to do dailies every day and a key run once a week but right now I don't have any other major goals I'm working towards. So my play time is a lot less that it has been in the past. The best thing about it to me is that I don't have to worry about my gear going out of date when I take it easy, that's no small thing in MMO-land. I love this game for many things, but that is one of the top three reasons for me. :) This basically. i'm chasing leggies, but it feels really good to have some characters fully fleshed out for particular roles you can always pick up and come back to. I can do less like I did yesterday, and it doesn't matter.

Some big asterisks though: 1) The /stretch EMOTE is Hilarious and I love it. 2) The sustained rewards would be better if the DRM CMs filled a better niche and the base ones (non-CMs) weren't so crappy. At current mastery levels base rewards (public option) are worth nothing at all and even cashing in the seals, DRM CMs don't really have that great of an ROI in terms of time played (even less if you're picky about faction). 3) DRM CM gameplay would be better if they nuked the blasted timer to allow for sub T4 fractal CM/raid play in PuGs. If they removed the timer or perhaps encouraged less frantic gameplay (something other than the timer for the CM that requires more cooperation over frantic gameplay), it might be better, then as long as you take a healer and pick good strategies, they'll be no where near as frustrating and people would be a little more forgiving in terms of comps and taking randos in their party. A simple example of how to achieve this might be to increase the timer dramatically, but decrease it significantly for each full death. Then on FoR CMs people would just ranged and that would be okay. I'm not a game designer though, just an idea. Also massively long iframes and random invulns are REALLY annoying at current timer levels. During Ryland split phase in snowden drifts it's not uncommon for the berserker elite to get behind Ryland's bubble and you can't kill him, usually because he's fighting an NPC, but during that phase it's more beneficial to fight the elites the NPCs are working on too. The For Boss's 30s invulnerablilities where he's spawning the nuke of all hell while you stand in green is frustrating with such small timers because you think "if I could hit this guy more, it wouldn't be so bad). It honestly feels like some really angry dev designed these to try to make the elitists cry, but all they did was make the community hate the game and make the elitists stick their noses up harder at the rest of us. I like playing the CMs to an extent, but they feel worthless if you don't get 3/3 gold. Sure you get full item rewards at 2/3 but everyone is just doing them for achieves right now and missing 3/3 is toxic (also feels like wasted time). People bail mid boss fight if they miss time and it effing sucks. ALSO, I do better soloing them than in party. The scaling is the nature of the beast, there's so much synergy between players, they have to scale something crazy with more because of top players who exploit synergies, BUT, if I use diviners and a class that can provide a lot of self-boons, my performance is often better than a normal PuG 5-man party and that sucks, an MMO should encourage more cooperation between players/less elitism, especially in content that is designed to be mainly for achieves/LW content, not high-end content. Many raiders hate the DRM CMs, I know the elitists on the forums don't say this, but the pulse of the community is that they're more difficult than even some high-end content, with even less rewards. Not an asterisk at all, but I would say, never use this instancing formula again, EVER. People accidently phase out of the instance on rez because of the overly helpful popup when you rez at portal and it's caused way more resets than I'd like (also, random DCs cause this issue too). Also, making a group is way more annoying than say Forging steel: In forging steel, because people can join in the middle, you just start the mission and let people join you as they come. For DRMs, you have to sit around, doing nothing, while you gather people. Also, making everyone join your instance before you start it is annoying too. I literally couldn't come up with a more annoying instance formula, even if I tried.

> @"Fire Attunement.9835" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > Will we need to keep any of them to craft the final dragon slayer weapons > > I checked on this for you and can confirm that you do not need to keep these weapons to craft any future weapons or weapon sets. > > Thank you so much!

> @"wilykcat.5864" said: > The only nerf I approve is mesmer. I"m still salty both core burn guard and dh haven't been revisited. I feel like almost everyone is getting nerfs except them. And Berserker. Not sure if it's downed state is fixed, but it's kinda op they can just stand right up and keep going after being downed. Honestly, they should remove downstate entirely from sPVP imo.

So I was thinking about goals people could pursue over actual content in my OP, but a lot of the feedback here is still good.

> @"Abraxxus.8971" said: > My guild tried to fight the Whisper of Jormag twice tonight since it was the daily strike mission, and both times it bugged on the third phase. The first time, all his attacks were going off rapid fire, and the second time, he appeared for an instant at the start of the third phase and then fell through the floor. We just gave up after that. These bugs have been happening way too often. They should have been fixed by now. It's possible to win it when he bugs out, but you need enough healers, at least 3.... And maybe 100% prot uptime....

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > I’d rather they focus on the existing ones over creating yet another system they’ll later abandon. Ouch, this hurt. I was advocating for something with more staying power. Though it is fun sometimes to navigate old content. They're not really building out their existing ones very much -> We haven't had a new legendary in a long time, over a year now, almost 2, we've received like 2 new fractals, but they only matter when they're a daily and most people don't like doing Sunqua. And we've had no new raids (note: not a progression system, it's an end-game activity, which is far different). The only thing they've added is metas in IB. And strikes. Neither of those last 2 things are a progression system. I think we need some end game goals to chase, not necessarily systems.

> @"LucianDK.8615" said: > Sadly no new content beside the mastery track With "meh" effects at that. I was hoping for something huge given how annoying some of the CM bosses were.

> @"Hollowperspectiv.3047" said: > Can we start referring to sPvP as sPvB(Structured Player vs Bot)? I am fighting literal, stop when I stealth, bots no less than an average of 1 per match. Some matches have like 2-3, some none, but at the gold 1 level, it's just not fun anymore. I was always mid plat for years and years, was playing since beta until I took a year off a couple years ago. When I came back, I placed low gold and can't climb out because I'm fighting with garbage Pentium 4 warriors on my team that we're programmed by kitten Doug in his grandma's basement. Please raise the Ranked ranked requirement to 100. Rank requirement # will do nothing for as long as F2P accounts exist, a smart manipulator will just level an extra couple in the background in case he loses some accounts. That's why the PVP rank 20 now doesn't do anything, it's not requiring actual effort from the people who are causing the problems.

> @"kharmin.7683" said: > I disagree. The leveling is fine as it is. Maybe you could help teach your friends to play faster? Shared XP in party for these things wouldn't hurt too much I think. I think telling people to rush, rush in a game is insane.

> @"Linken.6345" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > > @"Neoniac.2813" said: > > > got 1300 gold from ~700 divine envelopes and some other bags i collected along festival with near max mf , it might be your luck > > > > What MF buffs are you using? You're getting double what I am with 900+% MF. > > > > I did 2 other openings with worse results, overall I probably earned about 400 total from the festival. > > Scroll down on this page and you see all the buffs. > > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find > > mainly 4 boosters from black lion chest/birthday and the silverwaste 5 event and meta completion I would guess they used tho. I used all that. FML

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > That's really barely any different from what i'm proposing, but I guess I forgot that people love time-gates. It's vastly different, you seem to think bots will always suck and therefore die out if losing is not rewarded. I wholly disagree and have brought up reasons why. I'm thinking your proposal is going to encourage pro-botting and contribute more to the real problem, manipulation. I already know some people use a targeting hack in PVP. People won't be afraid to use a bot if someone sells it on the dark web. But capping the reward caps the effectiveness of botting, hopefully decreasing the amount it happens, and the same will happen with manipulation tactics too. I'm of the opinion, someone or something will always fly under the radar, and Anet has no desire to police PVP, so they need to kill the infinite rewards we've both identified. It's the sanest solution given their will to actually police things. And if there's another place to get more constant rewards from botting, I bet the focus will go there.

> @"Oxstar.7643" said: > Festivals are about fun, not profit. While you should absolutely be able to do both, if all you care about is making gold then you're missing the spirit of it. > That said, I too am displeased with the festival, but for different reasons. MMO players are usually driven by rewards because of how unforgiving they are with all the time gating, etc.

> @"Neoniac.2813" said: > got 1300 gold from ~700 divine envelopes and some other bags i collected along festival with near max mf , it might be your luck What MF buffs are you using? You're getting double what I am with 900+% MF. I did 2 other openings with worse results, overall I probably earned about 400 total from the festival.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > What am I missing on my Restored Boreal Staff's description that says it is required? I mean i did craft it a LONG time ago, so maybe the change wasn't retroactive, but are you saying that the weapon description should be saying it's used for the illuminated version? i'm not seeing it. > > Okay, so it was shortly after Drizzlewood came out, _after_ the Bjora Marches fiasco (which was about the Boreal weapons). I salvaged all mine back then. > > So they did not changed anything about those retrospectively? :s Ouch. Well I crafted mine before drizzlewood I believe, and I've noticed that when they change items, it acts like an ENTIRELY different object, like you can't stack them. Like the Winterberry pies from exploration contracts before they were tradeable aren't tradeable, so it's POSSIBLE they did change it, but my item is so old that it didn't get the change. I guess I could do a BLT search just to see.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said: > ANet has made it a custom since Bjora Marches (or was it Drizzlewood?) to either mention in red letters in the weapon's description if it's required for later tiers _or_ to make them re-acquirable through other means (or both). > > I doubt we will need them. Many players, including myself, have complained in the past about the space they take up in their storage, so it was changed. What am I missing on my Restored Boreal Staff's description that says it is required? I mean i did craft it a LONG time ago, so maybe the change wasn't retroactive, but are you saying that the weapon description should be saying it's used for the illuminated version? i'm not seeing it.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > Okay, fair. You do get XP in most games. I don't even know how to respond to that. I've been absolutely destroyed. > The next time someone throws in any competitive game, i'll be sure to let everyone know they shouldn't be upset because they still get XP. I appreciate the advice, and i'll let you know how that works out. Lol you sound just like the manipulating trolls. Me and OP don't feel that way. it sucks losing, regardless, getting that 1/3rd of what you could have gotten if someone actually played fair (and tbh, it REALLY sucked when I was earning ascension, I've never been more furious at any entitled brat more in my life being told "lol free leggies" as they literally made me play more matches than I needed to). But sure, I guess getting nothing makes it suck less? Lol! The manipulators and you are deluding yourselves thinking normal people play for just free rewards. Anyone who knows the game knows it's not worth it, and in reality, you'd only be playing to earn legendary amors, because you can literally do a lot of things for better reward. The PVP neck and ascension are all tied to victories, so those griefers make earning those ridiculous and awful. BUT I think we've come to an interesting conclusion: botting in some scenarios is still free stuff. People manipulating are doing so for free stuff. Maybe the real answer is to cap rewards for the season and tie most of them to climbing the PVP Pip rewards once, then absolutely nothing after. You could up the ticket and ascended shards to compensate for people who want to grind the armors, but the devs could cap and time gate the gold, much like they do with other sources. Interestingly enough, I don't believe map bonus rewards are capped, so if someone wanted to bot, they could do that instead. Other things that should be done: if F2p players are allowed to play ranked, they only play with each other. I think they shouldn't at all be allowed in ranked so bans are more meaningful. And yes, bans. I can tell you though me and others in NA have seen the same bots, over and over, and reported them, over and over and nothing has been done. Permanent PVP bans instead of whole account bans, so the person is still stuck with the grisly choice of starting over from scratch or just accepting what they've done and moving on.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > It's the core issue. If the ELO system actually worked and wasn't being milked, people would have 50/50 win rates and not be crying. > > I'm like 80% sure Gw2 uses Glicko > > > You still get rewards from reward tracks. It's not 0. I'm specifically saying winning gets you literally 3x the gold (10 pips as opposed to just 3). > > > > I see what you're saying there now. Point still stands, as taking away the participation award will hurt the bot's bottom line. > > > You're still COMPLETELY ignoring my comment about ELO. There is a massive issue if people are having huge loss streaks. Even if everyone is just auto'ing, at some point, if the elo system ACTUALLY WORKED, those people would eventually be matched together and get the 50/50 win rate, bots or no. The REAL issue is manipulation. Or perhaps a broken elo system (i think it's the former). > > > > Also, why are you admitting that people are manipulating matches in their favor and then saying that taking away loss rewards is healthy for the game? Basically, you want only a few people to actually win anything, reading between the lines here. Who's going to put up with that? I'm not. I'm done, that measly 3/pips per win can go eff itself while I WvW or do just about anything else for better reward. The only thing that profits off of the "participation" award is bots. > > > > Your solution, at best, ignoring reward track MIGHT get bots out of the scene, but people will whine here about manipulation, OR just stop playing altogether as the same 5 people keep winning everything. > > Just trying to give ideas relevant to the topic: bots. Not Match Manipulation. > > I understand those topics are somewhat entwined, but getting the bots out would hurt Match Manipulation if anything. > Ever since DuoQ came back, Match Manipulation hasn't really existed. There's metagaming; which, is arguably the same thing if not worse. If people are using bots to manipulate, they're 100% intertwined. I actually believe they are, as you mentioned, it's using a common Elo system. i don't think it's that bad. I think that they're giving the bots an AI that is beneficial to the real player, so the bots may not even see the bad win rates you expect (the bot will play better when it matches with the manipulator). And the bots cover a large spread of the ELO (at least up through gold). If they were that bad, you'd expect them all to bubble down. I revoke my previous statement about your solution helping it at all. I think that the bots are part of the manipulation. > And that's pretty sad really. Like... Do you know what you get from winning Ranked matches in pretty much any other game? You get rating and the win. That's your reward. > Do you know what you get for losing? Nothing, because its a loss. > As it should be. False, HoTs gives you credit just for playing particular class/character types in matches, Paragon had similar quests, Spellbreak you still get XP. It's getting less and less common in PVP games to give ABSOLUTELY nothing for a loss. I think 80% of our games are decided before we even get in, giving nothing is really stingy in that context. It was very rare when I was PVPing they I felt I was actually having an impact. I had many matches where my team mates were so crappy, even if I was the only player playing well, I knew we were going to lose and vice versa, where I knew I was crap related to my team mates and the enemy but we still won somehow.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > Just climb the fractal ladder, losing in SpVP IS NOT more efficient than doing just about any meta and/or fractals. Just selling the mats of even the worst LW metas is probably more efficient than 3/pips per game, especially if you're a filthy casual and can't finish the track that season. > > Well botting anything is free money. bots basically give players infinite time to earn things. Even if the returns are bad, it's still worth it if you don't have to do anything. it's free money. > > I honestly don't know what you mean. It's just one of, if not the best way to get gold with little-no sorts of limitations/diminishing returns. You could really grind it all day if you hated yourself enough, or if you were literally inhuman(AKA bot) Maybe not the best g per hour, but it certainly isn't trash money by any means, and like you say; for minimal effort, which is perfect for bots. > > > No, people are cheating. I think that's the real problem. Maybe the matchmaker is bad. Hypothetically if there's a large enough population and a decent elo system, people should be hitting 50% win rates and these streaks of losses wouldn't happen that cause people to get so upset. The REAL issue is manipulation and if wins are more incentivized, you'll see more of it. > > > > I'm not saying that people aren't. I was just trying to stick to the topic. It's the core issue. If the ELO system actually worked and wasn't being milked, people would have 50/50 win rates and not be crying. > Match manipulation is an issue, but if winning gave more pips and losing gave no pips I don't feel like that would have any sort of effect on Match Manipulation. The high-rated players that actually do that aren't doing it for the gold from pip chests. They're doing it for titles and high leaderboard spots that will boost the value of their account in terms of real money. That, or for clout. Nobody is match manipulating for pips/gold from games. > > The incentive is already there, and DuoQ's made it 60-IQ easy to do anyway. > > > You think 3x the pips isn't worth it? > > > > I don't know where this number is coming from. > If the pips gain for winning was even doubled, if you got 0 as a base gain for losses, it would still probably be an overall loss in gold per hour for a bot with a slightly below average winrate or a player barely trying and pulling about the same amount of wins. You still get rewards from reward tracks. It's not 0. I'm specifically saying winning gets you literally 3x the gold (10 pips as opposed to just 3). You're still COMPLETELY ignoring my comment about ELO. There is a massive issue if people are having huge loss streaks. Even if everyone is just auto'ing, at some point, if the elo system ACTUALLY WORKED, those people would eventually be matched together and get the 50/50 win rate, bots or no. The REAL issue is manipulation. Or perhaps a broken elo system (i think it's the former). Also, why are you admitting that people are manipulating matches in their favor and then saying that taking away loss rewards is healthy for the game? Basically, you want only a few people to actually win anything, reading between the lines here. Who's going to put up with that? I'm not. I'm done, that measly 3/pips per win can go eff itself while I WvW or do just about anything else for better reward. The only thing that profits off of the "participation" award is bots. Your solution, at best, ignoring reward track MIGHT get bots out of the scene, but people will whine here about manipulation, OR just stop playing altogether as the same 5 people keep winning everything. > > I'm too lazy to do the actual math, but if you want me to, i'll try. > > > > > Modern bots in WoW are far more effective than human players, and if someone implemented one in GW2 they'd probably have a ridiculous win rate. This game has such a high skill cap, you're basically telling noobs to try the game mode and waste their time and maybe encouraging pro botting. It'll completely destroy the population, not just the bot population. > > Why should we assume something like that is going to happen when it hasn't happened already? Literally nothing stopping anyone from making a bot like that right now or at any other point before now. > I actually think it has, there's been instances in matches where the players have felt hyper-coordinated to the point they're melting everyone almost instantly after a single CC goes off from one of them (players instantly swap to the same target, etc). Other players I've talked to have noted players switching targets to something way out of camera and the rotation speed not being fast enough for a human player. I just think most people who play PVP just aren't paying enough attention to mechanics because of how hectic it can be and lots of people are not super experienced with the game. As a side note, there are maps in the rotation that regularly drop Shiny baubles as bonus rewards on a rotation, that requires no start up and I'm sure has better ROI in terms of time. It's an average of 2 baubles per reward for the high level ones (check out the weekly map bonus reward rotations, but some of it backloaded on the 10x drops). Anyone can always sell mats, That's no start up cost either. ranked PVP for gold is really just an inexperienced player's go-to because it's obvious and in front of you. Guildies say it's 14g/hour on a good VB map when it drop baubles (not sure if that rotates). Spamming strikes is supposed to be 20g/hour average. It takes 18 matches, with a 100% win rate (which is unrealistic for most people) to get 29g from pips (34.4 if you count match rewards). I can get 4 matches/hour if I'm spamming SpVP. So it works out to 7g/hour WHEN YOU'RE WINNING 100% of the TIME. There is nothing more profitable about ranked. I want to make it really clear. WAY LESS so if you're losing. And even less gold if you're not playing on the top pip chest and still working up. Long story short, taking out the participation rewards will punish real players who actually are still trying and getting screwed by the idiots driving this game mode further into the ground. There is a somewhat strong argument for it killing botting, but it will hurt the game mode EVEN more. And really the strategy would only work for as long as ELO is broken. I think with an average win rate, it's probably not even competitive with T1 fractals if you have the mastery.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > > @"Sunit.1698" said: > > > @"Huskyboy.1053" said: > > > I don't know if there are all that many bots, a lot of them are just PvE players. I always ask people if they are a bot before I report them no matter how bad they're playing, and I almost always get a sarcastic or sincere response. So frankly I think the issue might be more that PvP is pulling in a boatload of really bad players who are only there for the rewards. The nice thing would be for Anet to nerf rewards for people who lose. > > > > They are bots, I'm serious. You probably play around reset where I don't find that many. I play OCX time on weekdays and every match has at least 4-5 bots. And that's the least, may be more if the time clashes with any metas like auric basin or TD. > > It's a mixture of both honestly. I'm in a bunch of PvE guilds and we always point people to Ranked PvP as the best gold per hour in the game especially if you sprinkle in other dailies with it. Just climb the fractal ladder, losing in SpVP IS NOT more efficient than doing just about any meta and/or fractals. Just selling the mats of even the worst LW metas is probably more efficient than 3/pips per game, especially if you're a filthy casual and can't finish the track that season. > > Bots are programmed with this in mind too. It's why you'll find them in Ranked, but little to none in Unranked. Well botting anything is free money. bots basically give players infinite time to earn things. Even if the returns are bad, it's still worth it if you don't have to do anything. it's free money. > > Like they said, nerfing or removing the rewards for losing in Ranked is actually the best way to get rid of both bots and bot-like players. No, people are cheating. I think that's the real problem. Maybe the matchmaker is bad. Hypothetically if there's a large enough population and a decent elo system, people should be hitting 50% win rates and these streaks of losses wouldn't happen that cause people to get so upset. The REAL issue is manipulation and if wins are more incentivized, you'll see more of it. > Could also buff the rewards for actually winning and doing well in Ranked, while participation awards belong in Unranked if anywhere at all. You think 3x the pips isn't worth it? Modern bots in WoW are far more effective than human players, and if someone implemented one in GW2 they'd probably have a ridiculous win rate. This game has such a high skill cap, you're basically telling noobs to try the game mode and waste their time and maybe encouraging pro botting. It'll completely destroy the population, not just the bot population.

> @"TheDestroyer.4701" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > I casually explored this game as an alternative to my MOBA addiction. > > Been there, brother. I've been clean of it for 6 months, but the itch is there, and it got really bad recently. Well Paragon pulled me back in for a bit, and sometimes, I miss LoL, but the pull just isn't strong enough for me. Losing just hurts too bad.

> @"Huskyboy.1053" said: > I don't know if there are all that many bots, a lot of them are just PvE players. I always ask people if they are a bot before I report them no matter how bad they're playing, and I almost always get a sarcastic or sincere response. So frankly I think the issue might be more that PvP is pulling in a boatload of really bad players who are only there for the rewards. The nice thing would be for Anet to nerf rewards for people who lose. Or match people of equally bad skill level together... Just sayin'....... If this were really the case and the elo system ACTUALLY worked, everyone should still have at least a 50/50 win rate. But that doesn't happen in practice, people notice the bad players when they have bad loss streaks. I had some A-hole I called out for manipulation say something like "It's NA lol" and another say "Free leggies lol" When the reality is you progress 3x faster by winning on leggies and cash, that's why people cheat. I say the opposite: nerf rewards for winning, tie increases to participation like WvW, and whenever someone is caught cheating, nerf the hell out of their rank rewards. That way, no one has an incentive to cheat. I think the real issues are: 1) Bad elo system/matchmaker 2) Manipulation 3) Population 4) Cheating In that order. If there was less crap, I'd still be playing this game mode, but the reality is people are cheating and they are NEVER punished anywhere severely enough to actually stop it. And what's this crap of having F2P accounts in ranked? I'm sorry, but I think that's stupid. There's literally no cost to making a smurf account to throw your direction. And all you need is 2 separate AIs: a good bot for when it's on your team, a bad bot for when it's not. On #4 I've seen footage of people cheating -> Using move hacks, and then you have WP's description where they found a way to unnaturally inject game mechanics to their favor, so it'd be even harder to detect.

It might cheapen the Jahai episode just a little. When Braham muttered that comment about "Those who pass are A Star to guide us" or something like that I literally almost cried.

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > > I was shocked when i figured out the IB saga was closing in April, then someone told me that EoD is coming soon after that. i asked for sources and they couldn't give any. So I'm curious if anyone here can fill me in on release timelines as my google searches haven't turned anything up. Are there any hints in streams I missed? > > ‘Soon’ is a relative term. We haven’t really gotten anything definitive, there is an announcement that development is ongoing, that it will come out ‘after’ IBS, and a trailer. Nothing else has really been said. How soon that actually is.... well that’s anyone’s guess, > > Speculation is end of summer beginning of fall. But it’s just that.. speculation. I Should have clarified, the person talked in definitives: May or June. I was being ambiguous because I don't believe it XD. I mean it'd be cool, don't get me wrong....

I was shocked when i figured out the IB saga was closing in April, then someone told me that EoD is coming soon after that (May or June). i asked for sources and they couldn't give any. So I'm curious if anyone here can fill me in on release timelines as my google searches haven't turned anything up. Are there any hints in streams I missed?