Astralporing.1957

> @"Armen.1483" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > > > @"Armen.1483" said: > > > How do you know that the gw2 raiding community is low ? > > Well, that's what the devs told us. It's low enough they don't feel justified to make more raid content anymore, at the very least. > > > Any **official **quotes ? Sure. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97028/a-message-from-andrew-gray/p1 Andrew flat out says here that raids attract small audience, and that this small audience is a challenge to devs wanting to support the content. Notice also, that when devs say things on forums that players might not like, they prefer to be as subtle as possible and not close any doors if they absolutely don't have to. So, if a dev on GW2 forum says that "the biggest challenge in creating more (raids) is the small audience they attract", you can safely interpret it as trying to nicely say "there's just not enough of you for us to justify making more raids". This is of course my interpretation - if you want to interpret abovementioned quotes as anything _but_ an admission that raid community is low enough that GW2 devs are uncomfortable with it, then be my guest, but i'd have to say you would be grasping at straws.

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > > @"Aridon.8362" said: > > > I disagree with you. It's not that tedious to learn > > For you. Rather obviously, the current raiders are mostly those that do find it okay. Because those that thought otherwise more often than not never became the raiders in the first place. > > If people aren't willing to learn, there's pretty much nothing you or anet can do to make them want to learn. If you took the effort to read what i said before, instead of quoting it out, you'd see that i do agree with this. To quote my earlier statement: > The raid community doesn't grow not because there's not enough players wanting to teach, or not enough opportunities to learn. It's because learning process itself is too tedious/painful for a majority of players, which results in not enough players being willing to stick with it to the end. So, basically, it's what you said, but with a small (but not unimportant) addition: "If people aren't willing to learn _the content as it is now_, there's pretty much nothing you or anet can do to make them want to learn, _without making changes to the content itself_". > @"Armen.1483" said: > How do you know that the gw2 raiding community is low ? Well, that's what the devs told us. It's low enough they don't feel justified to make more raid content anymore, at the very least.

> @"Aridon.8362" said: > I disagree with you. It's not that tedious to learn For you. Rather obviously, the current raiders are mostly those that do find it okay. Because those that thought otherwise more often than not never became the raiders in the first place. > If it were tedious I'd hear people sobbing in tears on discord You wouldn't, because we're talking about people that _aren't_ raiding. They are **not** on your discord. > In contrast I AM THANKFUL, EXTREMELY THANKFUL, that it's not like wow where you need like 80 tries on a boss in mythic before you're able to kill it. I swear when I did that kitten I was ready to give up at try #40; still was fun though. The challenge is always the beauty. Lol, that only underscores how different the experience of different players is. My anecdotal example is VG, which took our group over 2 months to kill for the first time (and another month before we were able to get to the point where replicating this "feat" became something expected). I don't know when we passed 40 tries, but i'm quite sure that it took us literally several hundred of those before we managed to get the boss on farm status. And that's even when we ignore all the tries that were too short to notice, because something went bad in the very beginning. And VG is not a "mythic difficulty" equivalent - it's the _entry_ boss.

Because they are there.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > GW2 has a group finder, too, so that wouldn't work as an argument though. No, GW2 has a _group_ finder. I was talking about an _automated_ queue system, that, even with it being automated, can guarantee certain minimum level of player preparation. It's of course impossible to guarantee skill level (or just plain not being a kitten), but the duty finder queue can at least guarantee that (for a 4-man dungeon) you will have a tank, a healer and 2 dpses, and that those players will be wearing correct gear for their class and role (as well as having certain minimum gear ilevel for later dungeons/raids). All those things can't be done in GW2 by an in-game system. They can only be filtered for by players themselves (thus the whole killproof LFG requirements thing) > And there also are tryhards in FF14 that try to act as a different role. > I've met some healers, mostly White Mages, who aimed to play as a 4th DPS instead of trying to heal. Like i said, no automated system can guarantee that your party members won't end up being kittens. Still, FF XIV can filter for practically everything that is _not_ a pure human factor. Which is, again, not something GW2 can do. Think how the very same FF XIV instances that are mostly okay for casual players doing story would end up if you could get, for example, a group with no tank or healer, and with every single dps wearing wrong gear (i.e. a party of: Samurai in healer gear, Machinist in tank gear, Bard in caster gear and Black Mage in dex melee gear).

They are there to extend the grind.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"TheThief.8475" said: > > A lot of games like ff14, world of warcraft, has some raid/ dungeon bosses for the main story, and a lot of ppl play and is happy with it, so i thought it could aswell work in gw2, but is also true that they did it from the begin, while in gw2 it would be a big change . > FF14 and WoW are designed around group content, while Open World mostly are just fluff and preparation for group content. > GW2 is designed in the completely opposite direction. In GW2, group content is the side of the side dish, while open world zerging and the single player campaigns are the main dishes. > Suffice to say, they usually attract significantly different people. > Just because FF14 players are happy about group content, doesn't mean many GW2 players also are in favour of it. > I myself was bewildered at first, when I first realized that FF14 has group content as part of the (mostly solo) story. Additionally, FF XIV can get away with it due to the existence of the Duty Finder queue system, and every class having exactly one build and role. Also, due to gear progression, every content eventually gets outgeared, so if someone has a problem with some instance, they can just wait till they get better gear. This is not an option in GW2 however.

> @"Linken.6345" said: > OP did you boost your magic find? There are some concerns at the moment that the drop rate might be bugged at MF levels above ~350 or so. The checks so far seem to indicate that at the very least it doesn't get any better at higher MF levels than that, and that it might actually get _worse_. > @"Belorn.2659" said: > I used about 70 stacks of 250, or about 18k in total. I also just opened them directly with no magic find boosters (a bit of mistake but w/e). > Outcome was 3 exotic backpack, and 2 of the Golden Ox Figurine, and zero Ornamental Golden Trophy. > > It was 100% worth it over droobert! Lucky you. More than one person with similar amounts of bags opened claims to not receive even a _single_ 8g figurine. Although their worse results _may_ be connected to the abovementioned wonkiness with higher MF rates. Still, 2 in 20 000 seems to be well within the error range.

Mind you, i am responding based on my very faint memory of this, as it has been ages since i was doing it. Still, from what i vaguely remember, yes, it should be possible. At least, you should probably not worry about sensor ending in the JP proper. I don't remember anything ever ending up there. It's only the plateau after the ship bridge that is suspect.

> @"lummuss.6850" said: > (they have the same chance of being dropped because they are in the rare tab) That's actually a false assumption. Being grouped in the same rarity category does not mean equal drop chances. It just means they are on the same rarity tier drop table. Imagine that the whole rarity category is a list. You roll a certain range (i.e. 1-100) and compare the result with the list: - 1-50: item A - 51-75: Item B - 76-85: item C - 86-92: item D - 93-96: item E - 97: item F - 98-100: roll on higher rarity category list instead. Now, as you can see in this example, items A, B, C, D E and F are on the same list, but the chances of obtaining item A are 50x greater than obtaining item F So, in this case, both backpacks are on a "rare category" list, but within that list the chances of getting exotic backpack are significantly smaller than the rare one. [Notice: the example is a great simplification, of course, but , based on what we've heard in the past, should be a good representation of how GW2 drop system is working]

From what i remember, yes, it _is_ possible the sensor can end up in JP - specifically not in the JP itself, but in the plateau that is accessible only through doing Skipping Stones

> @"The Boz.2038" said: > You said there was a viable power and condi build for each class. To claim that, we first need to agree on what viable means. Not really. The statement remains mostly true even if we limit ourselves to high-end play and meta. Let's look at snowcrows site and meta builds that are there: Ele: 3 tempest builds - Power dps, condi dps and heal, and 2 Weaver builds - Power dps and condi dps Mesmer: 4 Chrono builds - power boon, condi boon, power dps, condi dps, and one condi dps Mirage build Necro: power dps Reaper, condi dps Scourge and heal Scourge Engi: heal Scrapper, condi dps Holo and power dps Holo Ranger: - heal Druid, condi Druid, power dps Soulbeast, condi Soulbeast (and one hand-kite Sb build, we can ignore here due to being really niche) Thief: Boon core Thief, power dps Daredevil, boon daredevil, and power dps Deadeye Guard: power dps Core Guard, power dps DH, condi dps Fb, condi quickness Fb, heal Fb Rev: boon Herald, condi dps Renegade, Alaren, heal Renegade (and handkite Herald, again, ignorable here due to being niche role) War: Power banner Berserker, condi banner berserker, power dps berserker, condi dps berserker, power dps spellbreaker. Notice, that 7 out of 9 classes here have both power dps and condi dps build, as well as at least one support build. The remaining two are Revenant (lacking power build, but having both boon and heal support builds) and Thief (lacking condi build and a more general use support build - the boon thief is very boss-specific) Notice also, that both power herald and condi daredevil builds _do_ exist, they're just not mentioned on snowcows (but do appear in raid category on metabattle). So, we can safely say that there is at least one power dps and one condi dps build for each class that is well _above_ being just "viable".

I usually go staff/shortbow thief, but in reality practically any class/build should be okay. Sure, power dps, and some mobility skills are good, but the special action often is enough, and in most of the challenges you don't even need to attack anything.

> @"Rockets.3652" said: > I just have a very simple question, do we have to wait for another 3 years for this to be implemented? Oh, an optimist.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > Considering that it would require from them to log in and play daily for over 4 years just to reach the current cap, no, that's not really lazy. That's dedicated. > > So you are calling "dedicated" a player logging in daily for 4 years to finish the daily AP, then logging out, and NOT a player that finished every piece of content the game has to offer. Yes. Because the first person plays the game every day, while the second doesn't want to anymore. Sure, the veteran player might have been more dedicated _in the past_, but that's already in the past - it's clear that second person does _not_ want to be so dedicated anymore. > A player that logs in for Festivals and new Episode releases and finishes every single achievement provided by them, for 4 years shows much more dedication than a player simply logging in for the dailies for 4 years. But a way less than someone that does all those things _and_ logs in every day. > > In the end, the cap was introduced because a certain group of players _wanted to put less effort into the game_. If that's not a desire to be lazy, then i don't know what is. > > Because they already put more effort than other players in finishing the rest of the permanent achievements first. Sure. And then they decided they prefer not to have to put too much effort in order to retain that advantage. They asked for a cap because they _decided they would rather be lazy from that point on_. > Now players who are too lazy to finish the permanent achievements want the cap lifted so they can reach what those other players have, without putting any effort. If that's not a desire to be lazy then I don't know what is. Again, with the (false) assumption that all people that ask for cap removal don't do the permanent achievements. > > You are not gaining APs from dailies now. > > Exactly. So I don't lose anything now. > > > You would be gaining APs from dailies from that point on. That's not a loss. > > But I'd "lose" all the AP I would've gotten if the cap isn't removed. That "loss" can be blamed only on introducing the cap in the first place. Yes, you could have obtained all those APs, but as you said, you didn't _because the cap was not removed earlier_. It's the cap itself that prevented you from gaining those APs, not its removal. Again, it's like blaming your employer for a pay raise because by doing that they made you suffer a loss for all those years of your work at your previous wage, and saying you'd be better off without that pay raise, because then there would be no "loss" for you. > To stay with the game we play, when they added collection/wardrobe achievements, they retroactively awarded those points to those that had unlocked the items/skins/achievements in the past. So there is more than enough precedent for retroactively giving achievement rewards. I agree. Unfortunately for you they can't do that, because the dailies are _not_ tracked in any way. They simply don't know how many dailies you've done after you've passed the cap. As such, they cannot retroactively reward you with AP for them. Just like in the case of wardrobe, when they did _not_ unlock skins for objects you've obtained at some point, but deleted before wardrobe update happened. And like in case of the exotic trinket collection they didn't retroactively unlock the items you've obtained in the past, but (again) lost before the collection was introduced (i.e. i have salvaged Sam barely a week before the collection happened - and they did not unlock it for me). So, there's enough precedense for not giving rewards retroactively if they cannot track your past eligibility for them.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > And you don't need over 4 years to obtain 15k AP from non-daily sources either. > > If that was the case people wouldn't complain they can't get achievement rewards they want and ask for the cap to be removed. You are making an assumption here that everyone that asks for the cap to be removed is doing that because they want a specific reward. This assumption is not true. > > In the end, no, people getting AP from dailies alone are not going to obtain them faster than those that will do other things as well. > > Which is irrelevant anyway. The truth remains that getting 10 AP from dailies will be faster than getting 10 AP from anything else. That's a clear demotivation for doing anything other than dailies. You still ignore the existence of timegate, which alone is enough to make sure people interested in specific rewards will try to go for other AP sources as well. The people that won't go for other sources would most likely not go for them either way. > > > I have mentioned this in my previous post if you haven't noticed. > > I didn't notice no. You simply said it demotivated you from logging in. Removing the cap will do the exact same as I said: > > > How much this is going to motivate anyone is up to the player in question, but in my opinion it's gonna play the exact same role as for those players that stop playing the game because they can't earn daily AP anymore. Pray, tell me how exactly a mechanic encouraging me to log in daily is going to discourage me from logging in daily, because it seems to be completely counterintuitive to me. > And I don't see how the addition of the cap demotivated you and your friends from playing the game. I play the game for the content it provides, not the daily AP. See how that works. Removing the cap would not remove any content from the game, so i don't see why it would affect you at all. > Meanwhile, the removal of the cap will allow players that haven't done much (if any) of the permanent achievements the game has to offer, so they haven't played the game itself as much, to reach any kind of achievement reward just by logging in every day and playing for 5 minutes every day. And that's not lazy by your standards? Considering that it would require from them to log in and play daily for over 4 years just to reach the current cap, no, that's not really lazy. That's dedicated. Besides, anyone dedicated enough to keep logging in daily for many years is almost certainly invested enough to play way more than that. > You have a very weird definition of the word lazy. Someone logging only for holidays is someone that already finished most of the other permanent achievements, right? So a player that invested thousands of hours in the game, doing every single piece of content the game offers is lazy by your standards because thanks to the cap they don't have to login daily for 5 minutes to play the game again and again. In the end, the cap was introduced because a certain group of players _wanted to put less effort into the game_. If that's not a desire to be lazy, then i don't know what is. > No you got it backwards. I will be losing the AP because of the removal of the cap, not it's addition. Right now I'm not losing anything because the cap exists, if it is removed at an arbitary moment in the future, that's when I will lose all those AP. I can't lose something that isn't there to begin with, only way for me to "lose" anything is if the cap is removed. You are not gaining APs from dailies now. You would be gaining APs from dailies from that point on. That's not a loss. Seriously, it's like claiming that you don't want your company to offer a pay raise for everyone, because you have worked in that company for 8 years and that pay raise would make you "lose" money retroactively for all those past years. At this point even people that say that a discount for GW2/expansion (or adding HoT into PoF for free now) means they lost they money they've spent on it have a stronger argument than you do. This kind of "logic" just doesn't hold water.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > You are again ignoring the fact that people going for other APs would do the dailies as well. Those choices are not in any kind of competition with each other. > > I'm not really ignoring anything. The fact is 10 AP from dailies is considerably faster than 10 AP from anything else. 10 AP, sure. It's not so clearcut if you look at more than one daily, however. It doesn't take a year of logging every single day to obtain your first non-daily 3650 APs, for example. And you don't need over 4 years to obtain 15k AP from non-daily sources either. On top of that it's not like doing non-daily achieves stops you from doing dailies. In the end, no, people getting AP from dailies alone are not going to obtain them faster than those that will do other things as well. They won't even come close to that. Ultimately, the truth is the exact opposite to what you say - restricting yourself to dailies alone is the _slowest_ method of obtaining APs. > How much this is going to motivate anyone is up to the player in question, but in my opinion it's gonna play the exact same role as for those players that stop playing the game because they can't earn daily AP anymore. I don't see why it would do that. > > > Why? You keep claiming that but i have not seen you present any argument for that so far. > > For the same reason you and your friends stopped playing when they introduced the cap. Why did you stop playing when they introduced the cap? I have mentioned this in my previous post if you haven't noticed. If you go and reread it, you will see how there's no relation between what i said and your "conclusion" whatsoever. > > If anything, now you can work less and get the same, because the existence of the daily cap allows you to take it slower - you _will_ reach the cap at some point anyway, by which time you will catch up all those that worked harder than you did. > > There is an assumption here that there is a cap in achievement rewards. Where is that assumption? What i said holds equally true whether there's a cap on rewards or if the rewards will keep being added. > Second, getting to the upper limit of that cap will take years, while the rewards will appear sooner thanks to all those actually playing the game and not being lazy. Not sure how that relates in any way to what i said. > > > What about them? Sure, you would not regain them,but at least you would be able to earn new ones. > > So you want Arenanet to give their most loyal, veteran players a giant middle finger just because you are lazy... amazing I want to do exactly the opposite. Removal of cap would benefit the veterans the most after all. And it would benefit the non-lazy ones the most. Those that only log in for holidays would not benefit all that much from it, after all. > Two and a half years of dailies is almost 10k AP that I'm going to "lose" if they remove the cap without compensation :) good suggestion indeed. Yes, but that would not be dure to removal of the cap, but _due to it being introduced in the first place_. And in the next two and a half years you will be going to "lose" not 10, but 20k if the cap is not removed now. In a way, you "lose" 10 ap every single day. So, as i see it, my suggestion is better than yours in that regard.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > It would still be limited - not by cap, but by a timegate. > > The timegate is irrelevant since in order to get 10 AP without dailies you'd need way more time than earning them from the dailies. You are again ignoring the fact that people going for other APs would do the dailies as well. Those choices are not in any kind of competition with each other. > > Why? Removing the cap would incentivize the veteran players to log in more often than just for holidays and for a week for each story patch. > > At the same time it would de-incentivize veteran players from staying online anymore after they get their daily fix. Why? You keep claiming that but i have not seen you present any argument for that so far. IMO the people that would not be doing the other achievements if the cap was gone would be those that either have already done them, or gave upon them long ago. I don't see how (non) existence of cap would change that. > > Yes. That is completely fine. Obviously the one that works more _should_ be ahead. Notice also, how this statement of yours is in direct conflict with the one when you claim removal of cap would demotivate players from doing other achieves. What you mention here is a clear argument for why it _wouldn;t_ do that. > > There is no conflict in my two statements. Removal of the cap will indeed remove a good motivation for doing any achievements outside the daily, due to the higher effort required to earn them compared to the daily. That doesn't mean -everyone- will stop doing the other achievements and even if a single person continues to do both daily and permanent achievements, Arenanet would need to create more rewards for them. > > > For all of them the moment they reached the daily cap market the point at which their motivation for continued play started to go down. > > What you are saying here is that the removal of the cap (so extra AP for 5 minutes every day) will motivate you to play more of this game? By now it's probably too late for that - i'd want to see more (for example, a good expansion) than just that. It was however one of the things that did demotivate me in the first place. Once i stopped doing dailies, it was much easier to skip logging in every day. Once i stopped logging in every day, it was much easier to give up on other, subsequent things. All those other things will be easy to catch up later, after all. Except, of course, the moment i started thinking that, it started to be easier and easier for everything to be relegated to the "i can always do it later" category. Of course, it wasn't the only reason - for example, the achieves in subsequent LS chapters becoming more and more grindy definitely didn't help there. But it _was_ one of the reasons, and definitely not the least important one. Sure, perhaps it would have been different if the game was doing a better job of offering a lot of _other_ meanigful and interesting things to do daily, and a change to that would probably be a far better idea. It's just the latter would require a vastly greater effort (and resources) to implement than the former. > Plus you do understand that the moment the cap is removed the gap between those that finish permanent achievements and those that don't will start increasing and increasing? You might not want the Radiant/Hellfire sets personally but there are others (including in this thread) that do want to remove the gap so they get access to the achievement rewards. Access will become slower and slower the more time accumulates. Well, if someone wants to get to the rewards faster they can always work on their permanent achievements more, can't they. If anything, now you can work less and get the same, because the existence of the daily cap allows you to take it slower - you _will_ reach the cap at some point anyway, by which time you will catch up all those that worked harder than you did. > By the way, I reached the daily cap about 2 and a half years ago. Suppose that they remove this cap as you propose, how many AP will they give me if that happens? None i guess. From what i remember, unlike with most repeated achievements with a cap, they do _not_ track dailies, and as such they do not know how many APs have you missed. So, you would not get any APs retroactively, but would only be able to earn new ones from that point on. > And all other players who reached the cap years ago? You are talking about the "injustice" of some veteran players having access to unavailable AP (which weren't a large amount anyway) so what about all those missing daily AP if the cap is suddenly lifted? What about them? Sure, you would not regain them,but at least you would be able to earn new ones. (and btw, we may disagree on what constitutes "a large amount", because i think that around 5k AP - 5095 according to wiki - would definitely qualify.)

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > So what? It's not like doing dailies when they still gave AP prevented them from doing those other things as well. > > Then why do they need the cap removed, if they can do the other achievements as well? The same question can be asked about the existence of _any_ source of APs. Well, until there's only one source left anyway. > > > Both things together make it so the old veterans can retain their advantage while at the same time putting in far less effort than those chasing them. > > From my answer to @"Ayrilana.1396" > > The better option for unavailable achievements is to provide a new way of acquiring them. An increase of the daily AP limit up to the amount of unavailable AP is one such proposal that appears often on the forums. Like @"Ayrilana.1396", i doubt they could easily introduce a "selective" cap, different for each person. So, that option is out. And sure, the reintroduction of historical achievements in some way would be good - but again, i do not believe they would ever do that for all of the missing ones. Especially considering some of those that were _not_ part of LS1 > > That takes care of your issue of "injustice". But I doubt the reason many are asking for the removal of the cap is because they can't "compete" otherwise. > > > Why would it demotivate others? > > Because there would be a choice: play 5 minutes and earn 10 AP, or play 2 hours and earn 10 AP. Without a cap you can repeat the first as many times as you want, removing motivation from doing the second. It would still be limited - not by cap, but by a timegate. You can't do the dailies more than once within a day. So, it's really not a choice between 10 AP done one way, and 10 AP done the other. I's a choice between 10 AP for less effort, and **20** AP for more effort. You still have motivation to go for other APs. You even touch on it further down in your post. > > > People that would do dailies only would always remain behind those that would do the dailies and _other_ content. It's not exclusively one or the other. > > You are still thinking of this as if it's about a competition. No. The reason why this cap was introduced in the first place was due to thinking about it as if it's a competition. > As for remaining behind, that's another reason why removing the cap is pointless and those asking for it maybe haven't thought about it. Why? Removing the cap would incentivize the veteran players to log in more often than just for holidays and for a week for each story patch. > A common reason for the removal of the cap is to earn achievement rewards without completing achievements. Let's take 2 players, Player 1 wants the cap removed so they can get the rewards they want by finishing the dailies and Player 2 that plays both dailies and finishes the permanent achievements. If the cap is removed Player 1 will get access to the current achievement rewards, at a slower pace, but they will earn them. But, when they reach the reward they want, Player 2 would already have access to a lot of NEW rewards. And given how Player 1 isn't finishing as many achievements as Player 2, the gap between them with a cap will increase as time goes on. At some point Player 1 will calculate that it would take years to earn the latest rewards available to Player 2. Yes. That is completely fine. Obviously the one that works more _should_ be ahead. Notice also, how this statement of yours is in direct conflict with the one when you claim removal of cap would demotivate players from doing other achieves. What you mention here is a clear argument for why it _wouldn;t_ do that. > The removal of the cap is a short term solution for those that want Hellfire/Radiant skins, but that assumes nothing they want will be added on the achievement rewards in the future. Without a cap the gap between players who finish permanent achievements, and players who don't, will widen year after year and make situation worse, not better, for those that are asking for a cap removal. It's not really about the hellfire/radiant. I want the cap removed, and i have already obtained full hellfire set i wanted (and obtained it long ago). I just realized at some point that APs from dailies motivated me far more than just the daily 2 gold. As a result, i stopped doing dailies shortly after i've reached the AP cap, which contributed significantly to my lessened time investment in game overall. This is also true to all players that pushed for higher APs from among the circle of my personal friends. For all of them the moment they reached the daily cap market the point at which their motivation for continued play started to go down. Basically, by the point you've reached the AP cap, the remaining daily rewards are not going to motivate many players anymore. By that point 2g is completely trivial. APs however always had some worth, and, in fact, the worth of every single AP point becomes _higher_ the more APs you have. And dailies are something that stimulates players' continued (and daily) interest in the game. Just look again at the original reason why the cap was introduced. Basically, it was introduced, because a certain group of players wanted to be able to have a _lower_ investment into this game. They wanted to have _less motivation for playing_. And that's exactly the kind of reasoning i am strongly against.

> @"Moradorin.6217" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > Along with removing daily AP, all of the AP tied to unavailable achievements should be removed as well. This way those who actually care to compete are on even ground as every AP is obtainable. It'll be an actual achievement system. > > > > Given how they never removed achievement points even when they replaced an achievement with another one (remember Drakkar?) it's quite likely that they do not want to mess with achievement point totals in any way. Probably due to the problems it would create with rewards. The better option for unavailable achievements is to provide a new way of acquiring them. An increase of the daily AP limit up to the amount of unavailable AP is one such proposal that appears often on the forums. > > Im pretty sure I recall various things having the repeatability of AP giving activies caped from patches after release more than once. As far as I know they never rolled back the AP some people got from repeat grinding before those patches. Actually, it's the opposite. In every single case where a previously infinitely repeatable for AP achievement got AP capped, it _did_ affect the APs of people that were originally above that cap. Starting back with the first case of such an adjustment - the salvager achieve, where some people were put back by as much as 20k AP due to this change.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Moradorin.6217" said: > > I don't think it makes any sense to remove a large motive for people doing daily content to please people who dont actually login daily and like play... > > What's stopping those who login daily to finish the other achievements available in the game? Nothing. They _can_ do the other achievements. So what? It's not like doing dailies when they still gave AP prevented them from doing those other things as well. Also, notice how those players that asked for a cap are on top of leaderboards due to having access to APs that are not available anymore. As such, with the cap, they can feel completely safe as long as they won't stop playing (at which point they will probably not care anymore anyway). Keeping their position doesn't require that much of an effort for them - and as such, the only way the top results can change is when someone eventually drops out of the game. Both things together make it so the old veterans can retain their advantage while at the same time putting in far less effort than those chasing them. > Why give a motive for players that login once a day for 5 minutes (all it needs to get the 10 daily AP nowadays) and demotivate the players that play for hours in a day to earn the other, much harder to acquire achievements? Why would it demotivate others? People that would do dailies only would always remain behind those that would do the dailies and _other_ content. It's not exclusively one or the other.

> @"aspirine.6852" said: > It's a bit of discrimination against the oldest players. Which is quite ironic, because it wasn't done with new players in mind. It was done solely because a very, very small number of players at the top of AP leaderboards kept complaining that they still have to keep putting effort in doing dailies to retain their leading position.

> @"Hannelore.8153" said: > I've done alot of testing recently and it seems you only need about 2k/sec sustained DPS to clear enemies comfortably in open-world. The same damage is effective against enemy players in WvW unless they're specifically built for bunkering (sustain). Clearing a dungeon with that DPS (per player) is even slightly faster than it seems designed for, with a full party at least. > > This is also about the DPS you see from players in PvP outside of bursts, with a few exceptions. > > It seems to be about the average DPS output of a character with only a single damage stat (Soldier's, Dire's, etc.), and almost all the game seems to be balanced around this, which means that almost every stat combo is viable in any content including competitive. This is of course excepting the support builds like Nomad's, which were meant to be carried by other players in exchange for heals. > > Stat combos like Berserker are just more efficient damage-wise; in anything but basic PvE they always made you a liability because if you don't dodge or manage your blocks and other defenses properly, its easy to go down. Thus associated with skill. > > So what's the deal with Fractals and raids? Its simple, the enemies are built differently. They're built to literally be tanks. > > They were mostly created with the powercreep in mind as new encounters were designed over the years, so they feel horrible if you aren't pulling in 5k/sec from your whole group minimum, and you really need at least a few players doing 10k+ sustained to not feel like you're playing in molasses. This is with permanent Quickness, 25 Might, Fury etc, on T3/T4 Fractals mind you. > > Raids are even worse, the whole concept of Enrage Timers is essentially all or nothing. > > Judging the game by content that was intentionally made for powercreep isn't particularly wise. We're talking about encounters that were designed to fail if you don't come at them with an "all-in" approach, and that's not a good benchmark. That's exactly what i have been talking about. Since the freeform system creates such massive discrepancies in ability between players, it also results in the content that cannot be balanced for too large group of users. Open world is meant for everyone, which means it needs to be balanced so low, that anyone (even a bad player) running a proper build and gear can literally autoattack to victory. While being semi-afk at that. On the other hand any content that is to present even a sliver of challenge for the top 10-20% of players has to be balanced to be miles above of what an average player can achieve. And it goes on and on, because the same happens when we jump from top 20% to top 10%, and from top 10% to top 1-2%. Thus, Fractals and Raids _have_ to be designed completely differently than OW. It's because they are meant for players on a level that is so far away from what the average playerbase represents they might as well be playing a completely different game.

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > > @"Danikat.8537" said: > > **highly problematic.** > > > > For who? Them, or the people around them. Everyone > I guess why should we say it’s problematic? Because it makes balancing much, much harder. It is, remember, one of the causes for the massive dps discrepancy between top and average players. Not the only one, of course, but still very impactful. And this negatively impact all players, both those that fall for those noob traps, and those that actually do know better. Like i have been saying in countless theads before: freeform build system is something that looks very good on paper, but it is also something that can be utilized well by only a relatively small minority of players. For everyone else it is either flat out useless (because they will be following someone else's advice, thus missing the whole point of such a system), or an active hindrance that drags them down. It is a system that is well-designed for a relatively small game aimed at niche target group of players. In an AAA game with mostly casual audience, however, it turns into a major catastrophe. To put it a little bit differently, to show where the issue is: Making a system that offers players a multitude of choices that are impactful balancewise (with most of them being bad) ensures that some players _will_ pick bad ones. If the game will avoid it by guiding you towards the right ones, then the choice is only an illusion, and there's not much point to it. If the game will _not_ tell you which choices are good, though, you will end up with a lot of players that picked poorly. And then the game will need to accomodate those players with bad choices - which, consequently, will pull even the "good" players down. In the end, everyone loses.

> @"Danikat.8537" said: > I don't know the numbers of course but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of players actually do use those sets "no one" uses. That's actually part of the problem. A number of players that use those stat sets with full knowledge of what they are (and aren't) good for is very small. Most players that do use those do that simply _because they don't know better_. Basically, those stat sets are a massive noob trap, being utilized mostly by players that lack enough knowledge to make proper use of them. And in this context the fact that those stats _are_ used, and quite often at that, is highly problematic.