It it me or is guild wars losing it's diversity and direction?

[DeceiverX.8361]

Changing a build to suit a fight and completely shutting off a number of builds/concepts from doing anything isn't good game design and shouldn't be called an unwillingness to adapt. That's a meta in a healthy PvP environment, but PvE doesn't change so it doesn't have a meta. Even then, it should only be very minor shifts (run two cleanses and one stunbreak, one cleanse and two stunbreaks, one of each and a nuking/offensive utility, etc.), not changing entire build concepts.

 

Which is for many people and a statistical majority of players (population hours put "hardcore" PvE as the least-played content by an overwhelming margin), an unwillingness to stop having fun which is totally acceptable, and completely contrarian to what GW2's launch principles were.

 

And those principles made a hell of a lot more money than the push for "hardcore" content.

 

Let people have their fun; it's open-world PvE and storytelling FFS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[blambidy.3216]

Shouldn’t you have said this as soon as pof release? I mean it’s a little late to even say something like this since we have to wait for next expansion to determine if there isn’t diversity when arenanet releases new monsters.

 

I mean the mobs in pof are different then hot and tyria. Pof monster usually kill you with burning. As hots kills with poison and bleeding. This is really a post of nagging then facts of the game. There’s so many mobs in the game to put point by point. And the maps do have diversity in mobs.

[lynspottery.6529]

> @"Zenith.7301" said:

> I hate the duration of the current debuffs. I can end a fight in 5-7 seconds but am kept in combat for 10+ seconds because the slow and poison/vulnerability durations are so long....and then some pat has come by or the mob packs have respawned by the time the debuffs wear off and I'm in combat again.

 

This so much. Needless to say, this affect also prevents you mounting up to go on your way. I've been downed then recovered after a bout with a mob like this, but in order to get away, I have to "hobble/shuffly" away (and hope I can get far enough before they respawn) because I can't mount up to go on my way...still in combat which effectively eliminates mounting.

[lynspottery.6529]

> @"Mil.3562" said:

> GW2 has already lost it's direction when Anet decided to go ascended 4 years ago : P

>

> Not just bosses, it is not safe at all to park yourself even in the most remote places or even at some waypoints, if you need to afk for just a minute. Mobs will just spawned out of nowhere and attacked you. I think this is working as intended :/

 

Yes, the first time I experienced this, I started just porting into my guild hall if I knew I only needed a short break. Then I got one of those mistlock sanctuary tomes which allows me to actually log off safely if I need a longer break but want to get back to where I was to continue what I was doing.

[Nokturnal Lunacy.3186]

> @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

> I have really enjoyed some of this game and at times loathed much of it. For me Halloween aka Mad King was fun. And that's where I had an opportunity to look back at the old vs the new.

>

> Mobs are losing their identity. What I mean by this, is every mob has some form of a ranged attack and can be tough in close or far range. I really don't like this particular change to NPC's in general. There should be a diversity of close combat mobs and ranged mobs that don't intermix. This allows player to utilize their weapons/ skills to the fight, if all of the mobs hit hard no matter how you fight them then it becomes a race to do the most damage.

>

> Too much projectile hate. This just goes for mobs and many special abilities that are outright broken. For instance smokescale/ smogscale/ dust lions all have some for of an AOE projectile field that no projectiles can hit them in it (even when your outside the field and not affected by the blind). A veteran Smokescale can one shot a full health character with it's opening attack. The abilities have long durations and little downtime. Dust lions added long duration knock downs to this annoyance. Though to be fair their field isn't as long lasting as the smokescale.

>

> Every awakened undead applies slow/ cripple combo for super long durations. Not to mention the one that bursts out of the ground and can down you in one attack since knock down takes way too long to recover from.

>

> Look at two condi's they buffed torment and confusion, and how many of the new mobs use those particular condi's.

>

> I'm concerned with the constant escalation of damage and health of mobs. And this leads to a massive balance problem with the entire gameplay, Veterans that are worse than champions is now a here to stay problem (you can thank HoT being about group play for that one), but it's not just there you can find basic mobs that put vets to shame, then there's champions that are worse than world bosses. It's really starting to feel like there is no balance or more accurately keeping the mobs in check when it comes to gameplay. I would like to see a return to some semblance of balance and mob type, though at this point we already have had an entire expansion where this was ignored.

>

> I enjoy the game for much of the time I play and this is where I'm torn. If I quit, that's it. I won't come back as nostalgia for the old isn't what I like spending time on.

>

> I do hope this game does get back to basics with less muddying of the water, only time will tell. Better gameplay should be more important than a new shiny.

>

 

This has been brought up numerous times and every time those players that feel the need to defend anet and the game will troll you. Anet lost its direction long ago and then cemented their cluelessness with the release of HoT and the toxic meta is introduced. That was the beginning of the end. I know what i said will be reported and comment deleted cuz we don't have freedom of speech and opinion in this forums so good luck with the trolls.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"flog.3485" said:

> > @Annika.7084 said:

> > > @ThomasC.1056 said:

> > > There're tons of mobs that have insanely OP, or have on-steroids versions of character's skills. That's the only cheap way they found to bring players _challenge_. Heck ! Even a veteran civilian ghost can hit with her bare hands harder than the commander of the pact in full ascended armor and weapons ! (pilgrim ghosts near augury rock)

> > >

> > > What is challenge in GW2 now ? It's really simple. New mobs are made so that you're ineffective 80% (not real figure) of the time. Like those gorillas that have 3 skills that can knock you down for 3 seconds, with a 4,5 sec cooldown. So they're perma knocking you down, and stab is no use. Lions with the projectile denying, so you need to melee them, but you're perma blind. Like those scarabs that can summon their blinding tornado with no CD (I ran some tests, and if it's not "no CD" then it's really short). And the list could drag. Perma condi application, perma boon re-application, perma stun... It feels like WvW !

> > >

> > > Issue is : that's no _challenge_. That's no _fun_. That's **boring**. That's dragging an uninteresting fight far beyond what it should be. These aren't really difficult mobs, yet they become a pain because players are denied their abilities, their hits, their skills because... ? Because otherwise, fights would be done in a matter of seconds, and developpers didn't want that. They didn't want players to clear content too fast. So they create frustration, mistaking it with _challenge_.

> > >

> > > First, they created toys for us to play with. Second, they created toys for us to play against. Third, they created toys for them to play with. And now, they're creating toys for them to play against us.

> >

> > I fully agree with your post. The mobs in PoF especially, gives me no challange they're just utterly boring. Personally I find it to be a lazy way of 'enhancing' combat equipping npc enemies with huge healthpools and infinate cc's, sharpshooters keeping their aim through building and mountains, while having no new tactics just the same old suicidal behaviour. Knocked over, limping crippled, chilled, dazed, blinded etc, waiting for our same old bog cleanses to come out of cooldown only to get a new batch of stacks on you since now there's 3 times as many npc's around you. One has to be into bondage to appreciate this...

>

> I don't know what games you have been playing but your design complaints sounds like any game design whatsoever.

>

> The fact that the player character has a vast array of skills with mobs that will use their own array of skills to try counter you. But generallly speaking, in any other games with a trinity for example, you can yell at your other teammate for doing a poor job at "cleansing" you.

>

> To me it sounds like you just spam your skills, burn your cooldown, without much thought behind it, and then complain that there is too much of obstacles ruining your fun. It is not because you build for some stab that you are going to cc free. It is not because you can build for some condition clear that you are going to be conditions free. And it is certainly not because you build for high toughness and vitality that you can disregard your dodges. What matters is to use your abilities when appropriate and really needed.

>

> Personally my only gripe in PoF in terms of mobs are the Jacarandas with no real animations of their skills.

 

With all honesty, if you know the enemies you don't even need that much. You can stick to your dps rotation and will find very few situations where you'd have to use some utility or skill defensively.

[GreyWolf.8670]

> @"blambidy.3216" said:

> Shouldn’t you have said this as soon as pof release? I mean it’s a little late to even say something like this since we have to wait for next expansion to determine if there isn’t diversity when arenanet releases new monsters.

>

> I mean the mobs in pof are different then hot and tyria. Pof monster usually kill you with burning. As hots kills with poison and bleeding. This is really a post of nagging then facts of the game. There’s so many mobs in the game to put point by point. And the maps do have diversity in mobs.

 

The problems in PoF were mentioned almost immediately after release.

[blambidy.3216]

> @"GreyWolf.8670" said:

> > @"blambidy.3216" said:

> > Shouldn’t you have said this as soon as pof release? I mean it’s a little late to even say something like this since we have to wait for next expansion to determine if there isn’t diversity when arenanet releases new monsters.

> >

> > I mean the mobs in pof are different then hot and tyria. Pof monster usually kill you with burning. As hots kills with poison and bleeding. This is really a post of nagging then facts of the game. There’s so many mobs in the game to put point by point. And the maps do have diversity in mobs.

>

> The problems in PoF were mentioned almost immediately after release.

 

Didnt see the date the post was made till you said it XD.

I still think the monsters are diff then tyria and hot though.

[Gemnaid.4219]

It lost it a long time ago.

[flog.3485]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > > @Annika.7084 said:

> > > > @ThomasC.1056 said:

> > > > There're tons of mobs that have insanely OP, or have on-steroids versions of character's skills. That's the only cheap way they found to bring players _challenge_. Heck ! Even a veteran civilian ghost can hit with her bare hands harder than the commander of the pact in full ascended armor and weapons ! (pilgrim ghosts near augury rock)

> > > >

> > > > What is challenge in GW2 now ? It's really simple. New mobs are made so that you're ineffective 80% (not real figure) of the time. Like those gorillas that have 3 skills that can knock you down for 3 seconds, with a 4,5 sec cooldown. So they're perma knocking you down, and stab is no use. Lions with the projectile denying, so you need to melee them, but you're perma blind. Like those scarabs that can summon their blinding tornado with no CD (I ran some tests, and if it's not "no CD" then it's really short). And the list could drag. Perma condi application, perma boon re-application, perma stun... It feels like WvW !

> > > >

> > > > Issue is : that's no _challenge_. That's no _fun_. That's **boring**. That's dragging an uninteresting fight far beyond what it should be. These aren't really difficult mobs, yet they become a pain because players are denied their abilities, their hits, their skills because... ? Because otherwise, fights would be done in a matter of seconds, and developpers didn't want that. They didn't want players to clear content too fast. So they create frustration, mistaking it with _challenge_.

> > > >

> > > > First, they created toys for us to play with. Second, they created toys for us to play against. Third, they created toys for them to play with. And now, they're creating toys for them to play against us.

> > >

> > > I fully agree with your post. The mobs in PoF especially, gives me no challange they're just utterly boring. Personally I find it to be a lazy way of 'enhancing' combat equipping npc enemies with huge healthpools and infinate cc's, sharpshooters keeping their aim through building and mountains, while having no new tactics just the same old suicidal behaviour. Knocked over, limping crippled, chilled, dazed, blinded etc, waiting for our same old bog cleanses to come out of cooldown only to get a new batch of stacks on you since now there's 3 times as many npc's around you. One has to be into bondage to appreciate this...

> >

> > I don't know what games you have been playing but your design complaints sounds like any game design whatsoever.

> >

> > The fact that the player character has a vast array of skills with mobs that will use their own array of skills to try counter you. But generallly speaking, in any other games with a trinity for example, you can yell at your other teammate for doing a poor job at "cleansing" you.

> >

> > To me it sounds like you just spam your skills, burn your cooldown, without much thought behind it, and then complain that there is too much of obstacles ruining your fun. It is not because you build for some stab that you are going to cc free. It is not because you can build for some condition clear that you are going to be conditions free. And it is certainly not because you build for high toughness and vitality that you can disregard your dodges. What matters is to use your abilities when appropriate and really needed.

> >

> > Personally my only gripe in PoF in terms of mobs are the Jacarandas with no real animations of their skills.

>

> With all honesty, if you know the enemies you don't even need that much. You can stick to your dps rotation and will find very few situations where you'd have to use some utility or skill defensively.

 

True. But not everyone will be able to maintain a high dps rotation with optimal stats nor everyone would want to achieve that. Especially when it comes to PvE. My perspective is very casual so personally I might need to rely on more utilities.

 

Anyway....Why was this thread necro’ed ?

[flog.3485]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> Changing a build to suit a fight and completely shutting off a number of builds/concepts from doing anything isn't good game design and shouldn't be called an unwillingness to adapt. That's a meta in a healthy PvP environment, but PvE doesn't change so it doesn't have a meta. Even then, it should only be very minor shifts (run two cleanses and one stunbreak, one cleanse and two stunbreaks, one of each and a nuking/offensive utility, etc.), not changing entire build concepts.

>

> Which is for many people and a statistical majority of players (population hours put "hardcore" PvE as the least-played content by an overwhelming margin), an unwillingness to stop having fun which is totally acceptable, and completely contrarian to what GW2's launch principles were.

>

> And those principles made a hell of a lot more money than the push for "hardcore" content.

>

> Let people have their fun; it's open-world PvE and storytelling kitten.

>

>

>

>

>

>

 

You are kinda right, but it feels like, to some people, that equipping a stun break, taking some condi clear, is already a major hindrance that is already being called out for bad game design.

 

It should be good game design as well to take a more defensive traitline with a different weapon whenever necessary. Changing an entire set of armor with different sigils and different trinkets shouldn’t be required however.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"flog.3485" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > Changing a build to suit a fight and completely shutting off a number of builds/concepts from doing anything isn't good game design and shouldn't be called an unwillingness to adapt. That's a meta in a healthy PvP environment, but PvE doesn't change so it doesn't have a meta. Even then, it should only be very minor shifts (run two cleanses and one stunbreak, one cleanse and two stunbreaks, one of each and a nuking/offensive utility, etc.), not changing entire build concepts.

> >

> > Which is for many people and a statistical majority of players (population hours put "hardcore" PvE as the least-played content by an overwhelming margin), an unwillingness to stop having fun which is totally acceptable, and completely contrarian to what GW2's launch principles were.

> >

> > And those principles made a hell of a lot more money than the push for "hardcore" content.

> >

> > Let people have their fun; it's open-world PvE and storytelling kitten.

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

> You are kinda right, but it feels like, to some people, that equipping a stun break, taking some condi clear, is already a major hindrance that is already being called out for bad game design.

>

> It should be good game design as well to take a more defensive traitline with a different weapon whenever necessary. Changing an entire set of armor with different sigils and different trinkets shouldn’t be required however.

 

I think many people, myself included, are more upset that some configurations lack any coverage whatsoever to certain styles of play without being locked into a specific traitline or utility skill. Most notable was the thief prior to HoT, where its only not-terrible condition cleanse at the time was by taking the SA line for SE and thus being forced to camp stealth to remove a condi bomb. It's been since resolved with changes to PR, addition of EA on DrD, and buffs to SoA's cleanse, but for many builds, they still have this kind of problem. Or electing to use a weaker weapon/kit which has the same weaknesses as any other/the stronger ones. A lot of classes have previously felt this if not playing the FoTM build. It's those kinds of non-options that I think are definitely justifiably bad game design. The same is said for powercreep - why choose any other stunbreak over the one with the much-lower cooldown? There are a lot of skills and concepts as a whole which struggle to find viability due to these deficiencies.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"flog.3485" said:

> > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > Changing a build to suit a fight and completely shutting off a number of builds/concepts from doing anything isn't good game design and shouldn't be called an unwillingness to adapt. That's a meta in a healthy PvP environment, but PvE doesn't change so it doesn't have a meta. Even then, it should only be very minor shifts (run two cleanses and one stunbreak, one cleanse and two stunbreaks, one of each and a nuking/offensive utility, etc.), not changing entire build concepts.

> > >

> > > Which is for many people and a statistical majority of players (population hours put "hardcore" PvE as the least-played content by an overwhelming margin), an unwillingness to stop having fun which is totally acceptable, and completely contrarian to what GW2's launch principles were.

> > >

> > > And those principles made a hell of a lot more money than the push for "hardcore" content.

> > >

> > > Let people have their fun; it's open-world PvE and storytelling kitten.

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> >

> > You are kinda right, but it feels like, to some people, that equipping a stun break, taking some condi clear, is already a major hindrance that is already being called out for bad game design.

> >

> > It should be good game design as well to take a more defensive traitline with a different weapon whenever necessary. Changing an entire set of armor with different sigils and different trinkets shouldn’t be required however.

>

> I think many people, myself included, are more upset that some configurations lack any coverage whatsoever to certain styles of play without being locked into a specific traitline or utility skill. Most notable was the thief prior to HoT, where its only not-terrible condition cleanse at the time was by taking the SA line for SE and thus being forced to camp stealth to remove a condi bomb. It's been since resolved with changes to PR, addition of EA on DrD, and buffs to SoA's cleanse, but for many builds, they still have this kind of problem. Or electing to use a weaker weapon/kit which has the same weaknesses as any other/the stronger ones. A lot of classes have previously felt this if not playing the FoTM build. It's those kinds of non-options that I think are definitely justifiably bad game design. The same is said for powercreep - why choose any other stunbreak over the one with the much-lower cooldown? There are a lot of skills and concepts as a whole which struggle to find viability due to these deficiencies.

 

You'll find the same in each and every game. It is the natural result of skills being different from one another. And it's actually fine. Even the weaker skills or traits have their niche uses which an experienced player can utilize in the right moment. It's the best you can hope for, really. Perfect balance, where everything is equally viable, is just an illusion, unless all skills are carbon copies of one another.

[DeceiverX.8361]

It's not that I'm upset about not having perfect balance - trust me, I know it doesn't exist - It's just that the discrepancies between what works and what doesn't are massive.

[DeadlyBanana.3841]

I experienced POF before and after I got my "meta" warrior build. My build before hand was a full zerker gear greatsword warrior with custom core speciazations. Then I left PoF content got my viper ascended gear and started doing cms with a meta build. When I came back to PoF I just deleted enemies. I remember how much of a problem I had dealing with Jackanandras for some reason and today I went back and slaughtered a bunch of them out of spite. What build I enjoyed more? My own core warrior build ofc, I had a lot more fun with the way it played. However in the current content it simply didn't work.

 

You shouldn't need a meta build and full ascended gear to be able to do basic open world content tbh. Leave the challenging parts for raids,cms and content that is designed to put your skills to the test. Not all content needs to be challenging and not all content needs to be casual. Distribute the difficulty according to the player base you are aiming the content for. Open world has always been the casual players domain.