Content invalidated by power creep

[kratan.4619]

Fortunately, you do not have to play reaper/scourge/whatever and can just play core classes. Or is this just a post about "I don't think anyone else should be able to do it either"?

[Edelweiss.4261]

I don't find much content that I play difficult, but I'm glad for it. I don't care about challenge, I want to have fun. Having to blow my cooldowns on a random mob just sounds wasteful. For me, this would just make core Tyria significantly more tedious and time consuming. Given that recent balance patches feel like unfun nerfs for most classes, I think OP might get their wish eventually. =(

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @"Edelweiss.4261" said:

> I don't find much content that I play difficult, but I'm glad for it. I don't care about challenge, I want to have fun. **Having to blow my cooldowns on a random mob just sounds wasteful**. For me, this would just make core Tyria significantly more tedious and time consuming. Given that recent balance patches feel like unfun nerfs for most classes, I think OP might get their wish eventually. =(

 

So... you want to be able to Auto Attack?

 

Why bother then?

 

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Luthan.5236" said:

> It's normal that this happens. You have players that want new stuff. So elite specs got added and stuff got changed. Might change even more if they make newer expansions in the future. Makes sense to have older content easier - so new players can catch up faster if they want. The latest content should be balanced to the latest strength of the chars/professions.

 

But thats not what happened. While I don't think the OP understand the context of what actually happened, the fact of the matter is Core Tyria suffers from 2 decisions that deeply ingrained in its design, and one counter balancing decision that could address things, but they refuse to reverse.

 

The problem is that Mobs AI isn't that intelligent, and ultimately can't be due to nature of the skill system used on both sides. HOWEVER, its been shown repeatedly that Mobs can be given skills that mimic player combat behaviors, and have been universally recognized as being much harder to fight as a result. But this is criminally underutilized due to the "tank and spank" mentality of Migrant players from other franchises, and they get immediately frustrated when enemies do simple things like evade, block, blind, or change position on their own.

 

There was a point in GW1 where they introduced a couple of very simple combat awareness behaviors into the AI system, and players had substantial difficulty responding to it after years of ingrained training to "disable and unload" against mob groups. GW1 being more traditional "stand and cast" with tab targeting, and straight up trinity, many skills were never designed or tuned to deal with a moving target. Thus when AI did simple things like "move out of AOE circles", or "stop attacking things with retaliation-type effects", or "attack the healer first", Players had trouble coping with the multitasking involved with both attacking and defending at the same time.

 

When GW2 was in beta, the AI displayed a significant amount of evasive behavior when in combat. They move out of AOE circles, ranged mobs will put distance between them and melee opponents, and they'll run when in too much danger. Some of these are seen in a lot of neutral mobs in open world; and its something players forget exist, and then complain about when it happens. And from that feedback they decided to lobotomize the AI, and just have them stand there and take it like good little lambs to the slaughter. To make up for this, mob HP and Damage output has to be overtuned to pose any kind of a minor threat to a competent player.

 

When HOT was built on the mandate to provide "more challenging content", the Devs had the right idea, but then executed it in the wrong order. I was one of many that hated feral Mordrem in the Maag wastes, largely because fighting them was insanely oppressive. Once you learned their weaknesses it became more manageable... but a lot of that was underminded by how Core Skills were set up at the time. Modrem are ultimately vulnerable to various types of hard and soft CCs; but a glaring problem is Core builds had poor access to these due to PvP balance. So we have this issue where we could suppress an enemy, but not long enough to kill it, nor wide enough to deal with a group. The modrem on the other hand had hard CCs in spades, tons of AOE, and way too much HP for their threat level. The net result was a Raid-esque scaling problem where "enough people" can generate the CCs and Damage necessary to suppress a whole wave of mobs before they can get attacks off.... but once one of those attacks get through, the player group's dynamics start to collapse, and the Modrem advantage snow balls as more of them get on the offensive. Players didn't have sufficient build options or skills to deal with that magnitude of reversal; and wouldn't until Especs showed up.

 

 

All of this is important to keep in mind, because the game went out of its way to keep Older zones relevant by using Side Kicking, Drop scaling, World bosses and Living World, all in order to actively get low and high level players to coexist as peers. Most games would have twink/gank dynamic between disparate levels blocks (some as small as 3 level difference), which forces players to follow level progression..... which is why theres such a massive genre wide obsession with "End Game", being at End game, and only focusing on End Game. And to its credit, Side Kicking in GW2 worked brilliantly. At least until Especs gave players too much access to everything, and Core Tyria was never retrofitted to accommodate.

THIS, above all else, is why Core Specs need a massive ground up overhaul. Increasing the functional capacity of Core specs opens the door to address a multitude of issues all over the game. Retooling Especs so they aren't so heavily power loaded, Updating Core to contend with Especs in PvP/WvW, Updating Core Tyria to take advantage of the stronger combat dynamics (adding more challenge back, while also developing a better learning curve for players), Fixing the power dynamics problem between Classes in Core, and laying down a frame work to make the system more adaptable and resilient to future updates.

 

Theres such huge disparity between Pre-HOT content and Post-HOT content, if I hadn't been there myself all these years, I too would assume all that old content was meant to be skipped/forgotten. And frankly.... the fact this continually posed a problem for so many MMOs, is Reason Enough to forcibly change that trend. Given the level of we wax nostalgic about "the old days", and how "everything was better" (even though it wasn't), preserving the relevance of old content has nothing but benefits to the player base.... even if we don't utilize it all the time.

 

[Obtena.7952]

I don't really get this complaint ... Core OW game was a roll over festival as far back as I can recall, if you knew how to play and optimal builds. Sure it's gotten easier, but it's not like it was ever a challenge so there really wasn't some level of difficulty to maintain there.

[FrigginPaco.4178]

Another thing to consider is that GW1 had to make a Hard Mode that was completely opt-in, but applied to the whole game.

 

HM also had other implications like new forms of content for GW1 like Vanquishing, Faction Farming via that same Vanquishing, HM story mission completion, generally more threatening combat that heavily influenced players to prefer to band together instead of using Heroes (customizable companions) or Henchmen were less reliable than actual players when you crossed into Hard Mode.

 

GW2 has challenge motes, but not an entire mode that covers the whole game and makes it harder. Imagine if you could do Hard Mode in Queensdale. I don't have the formal plan for how this would look, but what I'm saying is that these types of concerns were addressed by an setting that effected the entire game. Frankly, I feel like GW2 is populous enough to withstand a splintering in that sense, but the developers and many other players may not think so. That being the case, the jury is out on this one.

[Dante.1508]

Disagree completely i still mostly play in tyria even after all these expansions because tyria is the most friendly place to play.. Hot is a living nightmare and Pof needs more waypoints..

 

Power creep is exactly right at the moment, and easy content isn't bad at all.

> @"Edelweiss.4261" said:

> I don't find much content that I play difficult, but I'm glad for it. I don't care about challenge, I want to have fun. Having to blow my cooldowns on a random mob just sounds wasteful. For me, this would just make core Tyria significantly more tedious and time consuming. Given that recent balance patches feel like unfun nerfs for most classes, I think OP might get their wish eventually. =(

Totally agree.

[Hashberry.4510]

The nerfing will continue until morale improves.

[Hugs.1856]

In pve, the real issue is with the disparity of skills rather than the raw numbers of power creep.

 

When you have a factor 10 difference in dps between hardcore and beginners, How do you balance fun encounters for everyone?

 

If the gap wasn't so wide, you'd just have to give the mobs the same tools as the players, so _relatively_ speaking, there'd be no power creep.

 

Expansions have to sell so you're bound to have this super powerful tools in hot and pof.

Also, giving more tools to each class, isn't bad in itself, provided there a good trade off to make sure you don't have apex builds.

 

But I think they should find a way to bridge the gap of efficiency between players as well as design encounters that don't rely heavily on dps checks or boon output.

[Arzurag.7506]

> @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> Game is super boring now with how insanely power crept the classes are.

>

> Playing my engineer I remember pulling an enemy to me and crow bar him into pistol 3 4 to condi bomb. Now its boom boom scourge gg all condi debuff is on 5 targets aoe. No skill. Spam f1-f5 and profit.

>

>

> Remember when you had to set up bulls charge to hit hundred blades? Lol jk berserk arcing slice x 2 and cleave for massive amounts of damage that cant all be dodged.

>

>

> Even in pve. I did world completion.... honestly I preferred doing it on core necro rather than this scourge/reaper power creep that invalidates literally every event/part of the map besides world bosses (arguably even those too).

>

> Just zoom through 50 mobs at a time with reaper. Blow up 50 at a time with scourge condi bomb...

>

> Please nerf all damage done by players in game and on elite specs by 15-20%.

>

> And maybe add more veterans in core tyria. Atm it is a joke. My mount ability one shots mobs up till lvl 10. Then I 2 shot things until level 40 with my reaper shroud auto....

>

>

> I feel power creep has seriously ruined all game modes and worry it will get worse.

 

I don't complain when I steamroll everything in my path in a starting-area, when I'm on my max-level character, fully equipped with ascended gear.

 

 

[Metasynaptic.1093]

I'm fine with more power creep. Bring it on.