Feedback talk:Regina Buenaobra/Journal

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Contents 1 Aion Wings Emote section 2 Newest Journal Entry 3 Were all of the winning skill bars unique? 4 Phishing 5 Fake GW2 Beta 6 Thanks 7 The XTH 8 Thank you for the expansion 9 "New HoH map" 10 My problem with henchmen (yeah i know it's getting old) 11 Henchman Contest Winners 12 Team Arena/Hero Battles Closure 13 PAX East, March 2010 14 Good job reverting the AT to let rawr play 15 At this time, there is no other way to obtain it. 16 Heroes in Guild Halls 17 PvP Henchmen and Heroes in Guild Halls - 30 October 2009 18 Steward's Away 19 The Waiting game 20 Shadow form 21 About those "changes to other prominent farming skills" 22 Nerfing in general

[edit] Aion Wings Emote section

The last sentence in the Aion Wings Emote section of your latest journal entry seems to be incomplete: "Please note that this cross promotion is being driven by Aion, and I will let you know any new info as soon as they tell me and I'm" ... --Silver Edge 03:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Assassinated mid-sentence, perhaps a clue to her assailant... only Poirot can solve the riddle... dun dun duuuun... --Alex Eternal 12:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Whooooops. :S

It looks like the Aion community team hasn't provided any public messaging regarding a blanket solution for all, but I would like to suggest that Aion digital customers contact customer service to see whether they're able to accommodate people on an individual basis. --Regina Buenaobra 16:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Regina. I propably might help to shed some light onto this . . .

I already contacted NC Soft in this issue and got an answer on tuesday from one of the GMs [Incident: 090828-001175]

Not certain if I'am allowed to copy the text completely in here, but you can remove it when you don't find it adequate:

"Hello there David,

Apologies for the confusion. NCsoft will send out digital codes to anyone and everyone that will have purchased digitally up until October 22, 2009.

All of these codes will be sent out on October 23 and will be automatically inserted into your NCsoft Master Account as an unused serial code.

Hope this helps!

Kind regards,

GM Ricardo

NCsoft Customer Support

http://eu.ncsoft.com"

Hope I could help with this information even when I think that October 22, 2009 is a typo.

Cheers, David aka Marek Olivar

There still is confusion about "what to do when someone contacts support for the AION Wing emote". My friends got codes delivered. I am redirected by a GM to the "Billing Team"?? Never heard from them again???

[Reference #090916-002302]. --Silverleaf Don't assume, Ask! 01:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Got mine :). --Silverleaf Don't assume, Ask! 06:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Newest Journal Entry

No offense, Regina, but by your post on your talk page the other day I had assumed you would actually be telling us something new. From what I just read it sounds like all your saying is "Nothing's happened, we're playing Aion and EVE, leave us alone". If that's being more open...then that's just sad. No news on the XTH? Seriously? It's been months. Nothing new about halloween or the "pvp love" update? Come on guys. You can't say you're going to be more open and tell us absolutely nothing. --Karate Jesus 15:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

But, what they can't tell us is exciting! Aren't you excited? -- FreedomBound 15:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

What i want you to say is an date for the Sealed deck Mod and the herobattles-Close, the new sealed deck arena and the delete of heros. You sayed after the herobattle finals in september and this would be tonight?

It looks like you're busy on the other side of the big pond! And it seems I've to take some time off from Aion when Halloween comes along :D (I know what you mean by taking your time, leveling several characters, that's my prefered playing style as well). --Lady Rhonwyn 20:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey Regina. I would like to be one of the fans to thank you for keeping to the ArenaNets deal about being open with their fanbase. People might get up in arms because they don't have exact dates when things will come, but don't worry about that because I think you've done an excellent job in just posting to the community and letting us know what's up. We can definitely tell that you all are extremely busy and pumping out lots of work just to keep us happy, thanks! I'm liking the openness of the staff right now, keep it up! =) --220.235.128.153 15:23, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree! It's about time us perfectly content players of GW spoke up over this horrid (like seriously, guys. horrid.) whining. I appreciate all your work.207.216.104.5 05:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Were all of the winning skill bars unique?

Since the most winner-bars include a rez-signet, we are talking about a seven-skill-combination: Having only 18 different skills, one could create 31824 different bars. But GuildWars offers hundrets of skills. Those statistics are misleading and do not decrease any criticism. The community complained about the fact that most of the bars are copies from popular sources like PvX-Wiki, especially because those bars were made for players, not for henchmen. Consequently, those bars may be popular, but they are rubbish for henchmen which have no idea of tactics and do not communicate with the rest of the party.--aRTy 15:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Most of the builds there are Gimmick builds. - Reanimated X 16:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

General Conditions Originality: Entries must be the submission of the contestant and cannot be taken from any other source.

GvG winners
I Will Win Ff	7/7 equal, 8th stated at optional.
Leet T H E O R Y	7/7 equal, 8th stated at optional.
This Is Trigger	8/8 equal.
Etron In Vitro	6/7 equal, this one is a little personal.
Lulu Xan	6/7 equal, Pin Down & Debilitating Shot are stated at optional.
Tannaros Tower Rush	6/7 equal, Signet of Humility stated at optional, changed the e-management skill.
Il Juliya Il	6/7 equal, changed Veil to Remove Hex.
Bellicus Magnus	6/6 equal, both added skills are suggested at optional.
Luzy Of Fire	7/7 equal, Distortion at optional.
Mala Aurora	6/8 equal, added the popular resto aura and popular hard-rez.
Saint Reapers Sin	6/6 equal, dash at optional, added rez.
Pseudo Antipathy	6/6 equal, added some popular skills.
Zen Si Ert	6/6 equal, both added skills are suggested at optional.
Aria Of Nerf	8/8 equal.
Aurora Alessandra	5/6 equal, one skill suggested at optional. A little more personal one again.

HA winners
Tiny Tina	8/8 equal.
Iarwain De Llanowar	6/8 equal, Savage Slash at "variants".
Adepte De La Guerre	7/7 equal, added skill is personal.
Haldibarn Earendul	6/7 equal, added skill at optional, one personal alteration.
Unfaithful Servant	7/7 equal, 8th skill at optional
Syn Spellstrike	only 4/8 equal, but picked different interrupt and changed rez-signet for hard-rez.
Leet Noobified	7/7 equal, 8th skill personal optional
The Necromaxime	8/8 equal.
Eric The Devistator	8/8 equal.
Our Guild Is Leet	6/6 equal, 7th skill suggested at optional, picked rez-signet instead of suggested hard-rez.
Bacchikoi Bacchikoi	7/8 equal, altered snare-skill.
Der Held	7/7 equal, added popular skill for optional slot.
Pnoy Pride	6/8 equal, altered speed-buff suggested at "variants".
Hi Captain Obvious	7/7 equal, 8th at optional.
Khai Kemnebi	6/6 equal, personal ideas for optional slots.
Noodle Legs	5/6 equal, changed skill suggested at variants, one suggested skill for optional slot.

Sorry for the long post and the fact that I needed some time to create it. But there you've got your Gimmick builds.--aRTy 19:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to disagree with the idea that they're "gimmick builds." In fact, these builds have been such strong staples in the meta over time that calling them "gimmicks" seems almost offensive. 173.19.206.223 19:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If you did the research before you posted, you wouldn't have to deal with the shame afterwards. —Jette 19:52, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Either you didn't notice the irony or I got something really wrong. But whatever...--aRTy 19:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

My best guess would be that Jette is referring to Mr 173. C4K3 Talk 20:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm Khai Kemnebi; I've said it before, 5/8ths of that bar is on just about every working PvP paragon bar in existence. This leaves room for choice of elite, and two optionals (though one of them should probably be an attack). Aevar talk contribs 02:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry man, but there are good working original GvG paragon bars not using your 5/8 skill stuff. You know, they can quite good gank by using an entirely different set up. Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 02:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll prove it to ya. There are only 6 (single, not team builds) paragon bars on PvX that are vetted, all with a ranking of Good.

• Crippling Paragon uses 6/8 of the skills I used, 8/8 if you count the variants.
• Cruel Spear Paragon uses 6/8.
• Conditional Paragon uses 5/8.
• Incoming AB uses 4/8 but lacks a res due to it being AB. So you can pretty much count that as 5/8.
• Toolbox Paragon uses 5/8.
• TPIY Paragon uses only 3/8.

Again, I submit to you that those skills are needed for most PvP paragon bars in order to be competitive. After I chose my elite, there was not much wiggle room for making a decent paragon build for HA. Moreover, when I made the build, I tried to keep it so that it wasn't imbalanced, I tried to be mindful of AI, and I wanted a bar that did not play better than a human; a human running this bar will spike support and pressure targets far better than an AI or better yet, run something else on that human. Aevar talk contribs 03:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That shows how Guild Wars has a large range of great skill to pick from that will all give a different advantage in different situations! But seriosly, ofcourse Paragon bars are similiar, so are Warrior and Ranger bars, it still doesn't take away the point that all nearly all the build posted were not designed to work with AI, but to work for good players. Frosty 03:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Stop defending this abominable move on ANet's part. You're full of shit because you are either defending them purely so you can keep your billion platinum mini or because you have no idea of what you are talking about. You just admitted to using 8/8 of the skills on PvX, a (very bad) website specifically geared towards catering to shitters and heroes, yet -- despite ANet quite clearly stating that meta builds would not be chosen -- your meta build was chosen. Or to be more accurate, your name was drawn out of a hat of 300 other people who submitted the exact same build copypasting off of that crappy fansite. The only redeeming quality this situation has is that your build isn't insanely overpowered on heroes, in stark contrast to the other shitter builds the heroes got, including but not limited to the N/E, Me/Rt and other builds that will cause the situation to be exactly the same as it is now.

ATTN ANET: WE DIDN'T CARE THAT THE HEROES WERE STUPID AND UGLY, THE PROBLEM WAS THEIR GAY, BADLY DESIGNED AI AND SHITTY GIMMICK BUILDS. Congratulations on wasting months of "work" to accomplish ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when a significant percentage of the people who post here would be able to do a better job with 5 minutes worth of access to the skill files in notepad. Enjoy watching what few good players you have still playing your game leave it. If you have any common sense left (which would surprise me at this point), you'll pull the extra heroes "henchmen" you shoved in and let PLAYERS fight PLAYERS in, you know, PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER mode. If you still want to give a few random shitters their pets and tonics, fine, go ahead; I don't think anyone would give a rat's ass at this point. —Jette 04:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not defending Anet, I'm defending myself and my choices. I am saying I did not go to PvX and copy a build and paste it into my submission. I didn't admit to anything, if you read what I was saying and paid attention, you'd see that. I'm also likely to be disqualified and banned for being honest about my account here. Aevar talk contribs 05:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Except the problem is, most of the "winners" of this disaster will say the exact same thing. The excuse that they didn't go to PvX is complete bullshit when you take a look at how similar they are. And Anet's trying to cover their ass by having winners sign a document stating that they did come up with the winning bars themselves even though clearly they didn't. This is just beyond pathetic. And the worst part is, Anet will feign ignorance once again and won't admit that they made yet another mistake (as they are already doing right now). So if they won't admit that they were wrong, how are they ever going to learn? 209.89.252.164 18:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

PvX is a huge database influencing the judge more than the contributor. The highly rated builds represent what the judges are most likely to rate as good as well. In that regard PvX is the #1 source for "accepted wisdom". Considering that nobody can browse through 30k entries in that short time, we have to assume the judges already had a rough idea of what they were looking for in each build. People coming close to the "accepted wisdom" of the PvX had a huge advantage with arbitrary deviations taking the cake. That is not to say, there was any foul play involved. Judges, contributors, result analysts, they all have their ideas on what a worthy winner build is. With PvX being some sort of on-going build contest, it comes as no surprise that judge and PvX arrive at similar conclusions. If the builds were 100% different from anything seen on PvX, then either the judges or PvX would be doing something seriously wrong. That would then provoke the wrath of people saying the winning builds were not good enough.--4thvariety 20:31, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's cool, I'm totally learning how to program. I'll create an army of the undead and DDoS GW2 from the first day it comes out until GW1 is actually fixed. This assuming I don't have to fight a cleric. —Jette 19:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The most annoying thing was that I was actually trying to create a balanced original build. While I don't actually use the builds I created I thought they wouldn't overpower a hero while being fair to use (oh how wrong I was), while all these 'winners' went and copied off pvx. [begin sarcasm] Thanks a lot guys! [end sarcasm]--202.182.65.195 01:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I warned you Regina not to remove Heroes from HA and GVG [1]. It's just a step backwards like when PVP players were restricted to premade builds. And everyone knows those winning builds are not original at all. If you actually followed your own rules, you should be awarding prizes to players that submitted truly original builds. This contest is a joke and is more along the lines of a sweepstakes for the players that ripped builds off of pvxwiki. Loves to Sync 06:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Who cares what Shard's sock "knows"? Backsword 06:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

"I'm not defending Anet, I'm defending myself and my choices. I am saying I did not go to PvX and copy a build and paste it into my submission." Why should you care? In case you didn't notice, noone here gives an atom's ass about who posted the builds and under what circumstances; we give particle accelerators about what A.net did to fuck up PvP system-OWAIT they didn't change a thing! Funny.

"Judges, contributors, result analysts, they all have their ideas on what a worthy winner build is. With PvX being some sort of on-going build contest, it comes as no surprise that judge and PvX arrive at similar conclusions. If the builds were 100% different from anything seen on PvX, then either the judges or PvX would be doing something seriously wrong. That would then provoke the wrath of people saying the winning builds were not good enough." You know what? I wouldn't care if they ripped off builds from PvX to get their shiny miniature or whatever-the-hell-it-was. I wouldn't care if it was just for show, for big flashy display in System Message every 5 fucking seconds.

I do care if it's implanted.

If it gets implanted, it's a whole different story.

You see, I ran many Ranger bars over the past year. I started off with the Original, which is basically a combination of unheard-of skills stuck in a mish-mash. Then I moved on to the PvX, where me and my friends made copy pasta with noobsauce. After a while, I thought "Hey! Instead of X and Y, I can put α and β!", and so I did. Now, tell me this: I ran some builds 2/8, sometimes 1/8, 6/8 and etc. Does it matter? There are a few prime skills that can be found everywhere, and have become staple, sometimes fortunately and sometimes unfortunately. Now tell me this Chapter II: After the PvX stage I ran srs bsns builds, and whadya know? It was a success. Of course, it wasn't like the PvX builds, in which I made whipped noob; it wasn't like the Original in which I made myself a whipped noob. Yet, it was efficient. Hell, it even worked with the AI after some tests and tweaks!

How many of those builds have entered the contest? I can bet a 5 year paycheck that lots. Yet, for some reason, that didn't come into consideration, even though it would be better, balance-wise, if they implanted the srs bsns instead of the PvX.

"Who cares what Shard's sock "knows"?" troll somewhere else please. :) Titani Ertan 21:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Phishing

Too late, i already gave my e-mail and password: Jason@DisneyLand.us - godzillaversusmickeymouse. Oh, i did it again... Yseron - 90.9.120.70 22:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I've got about 4000 emails in my inbox, most from Second Life, so even if I was getting emails from bad people I'm sure I'd probably miss them ^^ I win!!!! ~~000.00.00.00~~ 22:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Fake GW2 Beta

I have sent a email off to dot.tk to remove there use of the free url shorting. It will be closed by Wednesday. --Dominator Matrix 23:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Easy solution. Release GW2 beta. --220.235.128.153 13:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Easier then it looks. They create A+ games so it takes time. Patience is a virtue. Anyways the url is blocked by firefox/google. The url has been disabled by dot.tk this morning, and its been transferred into a park domain. --Dominator Matrix 04:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Patience. It takes time to delicately weave what they have successfully done in Guild Wars, combine it with another Korean Grindfest needle, and then add some WoW brand silk. Give them time to destroy what good they have done in Guild Wars! Titani Ertan 08:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It was a joke. Making jokes on-line is really way too hard. --220.235.128.153 10:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That's like making sarcastic jokes of terrorists the day after 9/11, we've had so much QQ about GW2 it makes no sense. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 10:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It's exactly like that. We're planning a carpet bombing of the offending joker, Chaos. Mr J 11:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

ffffffffffuuuuuu, don't! It's not worth flying all over to Finland! ---Chaos- (talk) -- 12:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It costs more for a B-2 to take off than it does for it to fly around the world. —Jette 17:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

For the somewhat informative journal update. People can QQ below this if they feel a need to complain about everything. You can feel free to ignore them and just read this post if you like. Misery 16:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Misery, you need a carebear name.--Underwood 16:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool story bro. Misery 16:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I want to complain about the lack of terrible new jokes. The terrible jokes are great. But terrible. You see my quandary. -- FreedomBound 16:41, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

<<....nail down (appropriate, in-character) names for the Henchmen.>>

Drat, I was hoping for a henchie named Rolol Lololol Koda Kumi talk 17:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to think you, Regina. I really appreciate the information; even if everything's not finished yet, it's nice to know where you stand, and, consequently, what to expect.

Now, regarding some of the content of the entry itself:

• "Linsey and Robert are working with me to get in touch with all the winners, nail down (appropriate, in-character) names for the Henchmen."

Does this mean that there won't be a Noodle Legs or Rolol Lololol?

• "Syncing Random Arena"

It's still relatively easy. I'm not sure if you were aware of that or not; I just thought it should be brought to your attention.

• "GvG Tiebreaker"

I strongly, strongly recommend reimplementation of something similar to the original VoD. VoD wasn't a problem because of aggressive, overpowered splitting; aggressive, overpowered splitting were problems in and of themselves. Assassins that did huge, fast damage and couldn't be touched due to shadow stepping aren't really very functionally different from elementalists that do huge, fast damage and can't be touched due to Featherfoot Grace. I may be wrong, but it feels to me that the removal of VoD was done in lieu of balancing the game, or those elements of the game which related to splitting in GvG. Unfortunately, as long as those balance issues remain, they will continue to manifest in GvG unless there are major changes to the format itself (unless splitting becomes pointless, basically).

Those are my thoughts, in a nutshell.

Once again, thank you for the update. is for Raine, etc. 17:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Well...it's nice to hear that you guys are doing something.....but, um, I would have assumed that a lot of that has been worked on since April (unless you guys took the summer off), so why is so much of it delayed? Karate Jesus 20:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The XTH

Any news on it, yet? It just seems to be a pretty large "hole" in your list of things that Linsey addressed. Karate Jesus 20:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

XTH can stay dead imho. 1:1 ectos/zkeys ftw. is for Raine, etc. 20:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

When they do have news on it, don't you think they'd be pretty eager to make it known? I.e. you'll know about it when they have something to tell about it? I can't be the only one getting bored of the "are we there yet" comments every ten minutes. -- pling 20:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think they want to have it known....or they would have said something. I also don't care about "in-game economy" bullshit (I always used my keys anyway :/). I'd like a reason to care about the mATs again. Oh, and I figure after...what? 8 months (or something) of time they've dedicated to "fixing" the XTH, I'd like to see something for all that "work". Unless, for once, the conspiracy theorists were right and they just took it down so we'd forget about it. Karate Jesus 20:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Last news we heard was that any real work couldn't be done until the XTH NPC was removed from the game. Since that was only done last month, then they've only had one month to work out the database issues, also squeezing in everything else they've been working on. I wouldn't expect it any time before New Years.--Pyron Sy 21:25, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Pyron, just to point out live servers aren't the same as test servers. Anet could (and probably have) removed that npc from the test servers ages and ago and proceeded with work from there. I think last I heard they were stress testing the new system to see if it holds up. -- Salome 22:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but I believe it was said that as long as people were interacting with the NPC it would still make calls to the database. Since those interacts would disrupt the work that needed to be done, they couldn't work on the database until the NPC was removed. If the work could be done simply on the test servers, there would have been no need to remove him from live in the first place.--Pyron Sy 23:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

From what I understand the reason they removed him, was so that they could commence stress testing, but i could be mistaken. -- Salome 23:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Can I be wrong here too? :)

I thougt they said that they needed to remove the NPC in order to safely distribute the points ... I didn't read that as further testing was needed, but that they just had to take it down to distribute the points, then simply put it back once they were done. And that would be it.

At this point, I just want to know if they are actually working on fixing it at all, or if it's gone, forever.

- Kherec 13:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for the expansion

But that doesn't actually explain why some terrible bars were chosen. There are bars that were chosen that the AI cannot and will never be able to run properly. I've already reported the issues I found within my first couple of hours of testing. This has already been commented on several times and I have posted the bugs, so I will not expand further at this time. Misery 22:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "New HoH map"

Is there any info on this we can get? As I don't PvP often, I'm more interested in any lore value it has, but what would be more interesting for me would be: Are these HoH maps for HA or Tombs? (This is the most important question) There are "two" HoH now... And by lore value, I mean, will it continue the idea of a path heading to the HoH (which the first two and a few other maps of HA seem to show), or will it just be "another map" with no intention of lore value behind it? -- Konig/talk 01:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] My problem with henchmen (yeah i know it's getting old)

My favorite part of all this was the quote: "great, competitive, henchman skill bars". Arenanet doesn't seem to get the idea that henchmen are not supposed to be competitive!!! Isn't that the very essence of Player vs Player or have we forgotten that? Even if you were to bring a shitty zaishen henchmen, (which i also think shouldn't be allowed), that henchman is supposed to fill a party slot and make 8/8 so you can enter; it is not supposed to fill party role. Replacing heroes with hench does disallow you from locking onto targets and macro'ing stuff, but this is typical anet failure in not looking at the BIG PICTURE. The problem isn't the control over the AI. It's the AI in general!

AI has the capability to maintain enchantments perfectly, interrupt 1/2 second casts on purpose, maintain hexes with full uptime on enemies, and detect when a party member they do not have targeted casts an enchantment so it can remove it. they don't lag out, they dont have ping, they're not players.

I'm very disappointed in how this went through. An idea could have been that perhaps the community shouldnt have been allowed to make the bars. But Martin clearly stated that they were not looking for meta or abusable builds. They were supposed to be original. Highlighting a different part of the rule doesnt change the line, "Cannot be taken from any other source."

Removing henchmen/heroes from pvp is not as devastating as killing shadow form or 600 smite. The PvP community is completely different from the pve community. The cries for change are different, and require different types of solutions. This solution, in my opinion, was a complete failure. --adrin 03:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In PvE henchmen can fill the spot of bad meatshields and encourage bringing good players, but it doesn't work in PvP, and now getting a hench over a dropped out party member isn't a similar death sentence. When everyone drops hench will hold halls! ---Chaos- (talk) -- 11:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather ANet just replace ghostlies and GLs with base defenders and get it over with. Brb, pirating starcraft 2. —Jette 11:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You need to change your siggy-pic to one with a hat and eye-patch. ~~000.00.00.00~~ 11:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

A hat requires more artistic talent than a circle does.  :< —Jette 11:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

"You can doo it!" ~~000.00.00.00~~ 12:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

So strong comment, I lol'ddddddddddd ---Chaos- (talk) -- 12:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It would also make me scale the thing down even further, meaning most people wouldn't be able to tell what it was without clicking on it (they may not be able to as it is). I might make one for special occasions or something, but not for ordinary use. You should probably continue this on my talk page if you want to, Regina's space is clogged enough as it is. —Jette 13:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Technically the alot of the "winning" henchmen skillbars aren't actually competitive at all. Both Anet & the winners didn't take into account flaws of the AI. There's winners with Hammer Bash & Magehunters Smash/Devestating Hammer, henchmen will use Hammer Bash ASAP thus cancels out the elite skill. One of the warriors have shock which= 0 energy on a henchman, Warrior henchmen have Frenzy & Rush which mean 40 armour warriors, as the AI can't cancel stances effectively. Some Warrior henchmen have flail & charging strike which means 66% speed warriors. In short except for a few exceptions ALL of the melee "winning" bars are useless for the AI. The original pvp warrior henchmen were probably better because they didn't slow themselves down to a crawl, lose half their armour or spam shock(0 energy indefinitely).(marsc 23:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC))

Yes, but every single one of the ultra-gay hero bars is now a henchman bar. In other words, the update accomplished absolutely nothing. –Jette

23:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Also another problem is Regina in the journal entry claimed they'll tweek the AI if it is needed(and it is). This could be avoided if they chose builds that the AI was competent enough to use. Tweeking the AI would make the contest pointless as the current "winners" couldn't possibly have submitted the best builds if you need to modify the AI just to make them work.(marsc 16:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC))

your argument makes no sense as nobody runs frontline AI. they all run midline hexes and interrupts cuz the AI response time is broken. That's my whole point. You're finding the useless ones and trying to justify the project as a whole. --adrin 18:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Henchman Contest Winners

I was excited about the new henchman skill bars even though I accidentally missed my opportunity to submit my own. That was until I just now looked at the winners (HA here & GvG here). It looks like a copy paste of the HA/GvG/RA meta builds straight off of PvX Wiki. Each format has a Shock Axe winner, with skills in common even in the same positions on the bars. The winning Ranger builds are a Magebane Ranger, a Cripshot Ranger, a BA Ranger, and a Thumper. Not a single ranger build that wasn't taken straight from PvX wiki was chosen. Oh yes, the almost identical Mirror Eles are among the winners of each format too. What happened to the very first condition of the contest, originality?\

There is also obvious class discrimination. 3 Warriors, 4 Elementalists, but only 1 Ritualist, 1 Dervish, and 1 Assassin per format; sure, pass them off as non-core classes but then please explain to me why Paragons along with the other 4 core classes all get 2 per format. Having 3 Warriors allows for representation of each weapon, so having 4 Elementalists should allow for representation of each element right? Well yes, except that neither format has winners of each element (there's no Earth among the GvG winners and no Air among the HA winners). All 4 Paragon builds have Aggressive Refrain, what if we want a Paragon henchman that isn't suicidal?

-- Kirbman 03:53, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

/sigh...can you not read previous posts before you make a new section?-- File:User Shewmake 1.jpghew 03:54, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you should try reading my post before saying that it should be under one of the previous posts. I'm assuming you're thinking that it should be under the "Were all of the winning skill bars unique?" section but if you read it you'll realize that that topic is only part of my post. -- Kirbman 20:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you should try to trim down your posts without repeating what's already been said then? As far as class discrimination, it's kind of a mirror of how many builds got submitted probably... — Poki#3 (talk) 20:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Team Arena/Hero Battles Closure

Can you tell us whether or not SD will be added to the game when HB/TA are removed? It would be nice to know. Karate Jesus 20:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

And will there be an in-game announcement concerning this? I think it would be appropriate considering how many players aren't aware. Karate Jesus 20:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

just Login announcement ? M3G 13:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully they remember to remove the TA and HB Zaishen quests from the Zaishen Combat cycle when TA and HB is removed. --Silver Edge 20:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like they're not announcing it..... Karate Jesus 20:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think they should... there are alot of lovers of TA and hardcore fans of HB, many people don't actually check/post on wiki either. Nikdanbro 20:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PAX East, March 2010

I think you should start planning now. :) This might not be a part of your convention rounds come spring, but I think it is important to get out to the East coast USA. I know quite a few people on the east coast would be able to make it to Boston for this, it is a little bit closer than Washington state. I figure if we can drum up support now you can make plans if you haven't already! PAX East Registration Page - - Obie Quiet 19:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Good job reverting the AT to let rawr play

If you procrastinate and don't have things go your way... Don't you usually get punished for that? Or is rawr still above the rules? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.186.64.24 (talk) at 21:28, 24 October 2009 (UTC).

Agreed. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.233.200.222 (talk) at 12:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC).

OR maybe the AT actually IS screwed up? ---Chaos- (talk) -- 17:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

If you had a project due... let's say in 4 weeks... But you chose to do it the 2 days before... You are required to use the library and cite several sources. You must go to this specific library. The last two days you decide to do your project... The library is closed for maintenence. How would your unfinished project be treated?

You fail because you are retarded for leaving it to the last minute. King Neoterikos 10:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I would assume a lack of response is an acknowledgement that the leniency by anet was wrong.

ATs are a joke.--Underwood 08:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] At this time, there is no other way to obtain it.

I really hope every part of that is true, in which case, yay! XD Rose Of Kali 11:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

"At this time" means just that. If everyone gets one on Halloween, or if everyone gets one a a reward at the end of the last halloween quest (whenever it goes live), the statement only available via contest "at this time" would still be true.

That's my point. It implies that the contest reward very well may not be the only way to get this, eventually. Yay! Rose Of Kali 22:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Heroes in Guild Halls

it would be cool if heroes can be taken into scrimmage matches aswell, since they are fun to do InfestedHydralisk 17:34, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

somehow i dont see that ever happening. -- Salome 18:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't, we have lost an amazing testing utility. Misery 18:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for being dense but with the removal or Heroes from all forms of pvp now,I'm kinda curious what would be left to test with heroes in a pvp setting? -- Salome 18:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not specific hero testing, it is skill testing in a controlled environment. Rather than needing multiple real people you can test anything that requires multiple people with just two, such as the functionality of "target other ally" skills. It also allows you to nail down specific AI bugs by forcing actions to create situations, Mr. J and I used forced actions to confirm a few things when testing the new henchman bars, such as enabling GoLE to confirm that the BSurge henchman casts no skills while it is active. Misery 18:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Aren't you in QA? >_> Misery 18:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I am in QA, I should have elabortaed a bit more in my previous question. With the isle of the nameless being present and the removal of heroes from general PvP, what is the need for heroes to be in scrim matches? However upon further inspection, it seems that the new henchies have not been added en'masse to the GtoB outpost, which does seem a bit of an oversight. -- Salome 18:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a lot harder to test the functionality of, for example, "Brace Yourself!" when you are relying on the Master of Hammers to knock you down instead of having a friend do it on demand. There are about a million and one examples where two people with heroes could test something that one person in the Isle of Nameless with heroes or two people without heroes could not test. Misery 18:27, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. It provides a place to test the AI in a controlled environment. There is absolutely no reason why heroes should be excluded from the party in a guild hall or from scrimmage matches. I believe the aim of this update was to remove hero usage in rated matches, but the solution for GvG had a negative impact on good features. To be fair, it probably was just an oversight. Mr J 18:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Misery, it was a valuable testing tool, especially when you needed a better environment than the Isle. I know I've been itching for a PvE scrimmage match capability, it would help test PvE changes, ideas and the likes more effectively than running into an explorable. Alas, missed opportunities number 2476. ~~000.00.00.00~~ 18:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Hasn't Regina already said Joe is working on this? I'm sure that even if he figures out a way to do this, we still wont be able to scrimmage. I'm pretty sure he'd have to make it so that you can't enter a PvP match with heroes, which would include scrimmages. Karate Jesus 18:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers guys, as I said at the start I was genuinely interested in the utility of it. I'm quite fortunate in that I rarely need heroes to help me test things as I have an active friends list, but I know that's not the case for everyone, thus why I was curious. Hopefully anet will rectify this then and as Mr J said, hopefully this is just an oversight. -- Salome 18:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Still can't test how the AI applies Balthazar's Pendulum with an active friendslist. And while you could find a spot in PvE to recreate every possible situation you want to test, a lot easier to get a friend and heroes (or a few friends) to bring bars full of knockdowns and do them one by one to see how it works. Before you ask what we could possibly be testing, when is anti-KD applied? Do they cast it during timed KD spells like Lightning Surge? Do they use it whenever a hammer starts wailing away on someone? Do they attempt to use it at all versus ranged KDs such as Gale and Signet of Judgment? What about Scorpion Wire? While everything I just mentioned can be tested elsewhere, it would be very, very messy to test that "live" in PvE. Hope you can see where I am coming from. Misery 19:02, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I honestly was curious. With the seperation of many skills into PvE and PvP counterparts and the removal of heroes from pvp, I was curious as to its general utility in a pvp only testing environment. When checking PvP AI, I was also curious as to its utility in PvP due to me not knowing if the general AI of heroes is coded in the same manner as the more static bars of henchies and if both would behave in the same manner if given identical bars? I can see now that it would have utility in certain PvE related instances and I do see the value of it. Thanks for clarifying it for me, it is much appreciated. :) -- Salome 19:20, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The AI is the same for heroes, henchmen and hard mode monsters. Misery 19:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, I was saddened by this, too. Not only does it severely limit controlled testing, as Misery has well pointed out, it removes an aspect of the game that my small guild enjoyed. We often would fight 8 vs 8 scrimmages with unique builds or combinations of builds comprized of 2 or 3 people to a team and heroes filling out the other slots, coming up with ideas for full human teams. As it now stands, unless I want the cookie-cutter henchmen builds (and only one of any one type at that) in my team, I'm out of luck. Now I know that someone will likely read my reply and, stating the obvious, tell me that gimmicks were a main reason that heroes were done away with in PvP in the first place. It doesn't change the fact that you do run into such things played by full human teams (good to be prepared by having tested possible counters, right?), that scrimmages are meant for testing in a PvP setting, and that it was just darn fun! Oh well. 4.88.50.197 19:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we need to be able to bring heroes into the guild hall even thought they won't be allowed to fight there. That is where most PvE players prefer to set up their heroes' gear, and it will get very annoying very fast to have to add them back in after every time we stop by our halls. -- Kirbman 21:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PvP Henchmen and Heroes in Guild Halls - 30 October 2009

Thanks for the quick response to player concerns on this issue.

It is especially helpful to see information like this when ANet doesn't yet know how or whether the relevant issues will be addressed. I prefer to see shorter and more frequent bursts of info rather than fewer, more thorough posts.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Steward's Away

Ok, interesting. Question, are the Skeletons in UW a permanent feature now, Regina? ~~000.00.00.00~~ 02:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

And why the Steward still comes back? I thought the event was over.... - J.P.Talk 02:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

And who said the Steward is returning as part of the event and not some new feature to the Underworld or something else? Maybe we'll see Thorn's little cottage with a bunch of candy men. -- Konig/talk 05:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Because they just didn't finish it on time for Halloween. Their initial notes were talking about a series of a new quests for Halloween, no hints about anything that extends past it. But I guess the deadline has been extended a little bit now... Rose Of Kali 14:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

On a minor note: there are plenty of people standing around the Voice of Grenth waiting for the quest to update. People aren't aware it's going to be days, not hours, before it's ready. You might want to get someone to look into a way of informing people... ~~000.00.00.00~~ 00:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The Waiting game

Hi Regina, any known day about when Dhuum is finally going to wake up? or in other words when will the waiting game quest continue? i would love if you announce it now so ppl could actually prepare for it MarioDX 18:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You're (or at least should be) preparing for it now. The Reapers will call you when the time comes. — Poki#3 (talk) 18:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I've had this question since the first time I read the quest dialogue: how the f* are we supposed to prepare for this? O_o Other than the obvious max armor/weapons, are we supposed to buy out every skill in the game, or what? Rose Of Kali 18:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe they want us to sign our characters to work out? i heard the new "Bear Club for Men" has opened up. now seriously Regina ask the team and post you answer here, ppl wanna know

I'll give you an answer: "When it's done". Have some suspense and patience man... And Rose, have some imagination ^^; — Poki#3 (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The smell of public annoyance in LA has the nasty ability to dumb down immersion. Rose Of Kali 22:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes... Personally I prefer the smell of mahogany in my Guild Hall, and try to avoid the more crowded places if I can. — Poki#3 (talk) 23:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok seriously, what is going on with the quest? MarioDX 12:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind waiting, not for the sake of waiting anyway. I found it quite fun the way it was called The Waiting Game ... what spoils the fun for me is the fact I'm scared that I won't be here to do the quest. Not knowing when it is, or for how long it'll be available, means I'm fretting (and I assume others may be too) for that fact. Not for actually being forced to wait.

If someone had said "the quest will, we won't say when, but it'll be available for a whole week to finish!" then I wouldn't complain, or fret much. But right now, I don't know if it'll be available for a weekend, or worse, just a day (like Mad King's appearance at the end of Halloween) ... or anything really.

- Kherec 13:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

hey Regina? do you have an answer? MarioDX 16:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

He is now awake and waiting for you after completing the UW quests... -- Sparafucile 15:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Shadow form

"This was not an attempt to address all of the concerns about Shadow Form Assassins. That will happen in the next major skill update, which will include big changes to Shadow Form and may also include changes to other prominent farming skills."

I'll believe it when I see it. You (Anet) have shown time and time again that you "think" you're fixing things, but in reality you don't do anything to actually stop the problem, just make it slightly harder to do (oh noes, I have 1 second to push this button instead of 2 seconds but I can still be permanently invincible lulz!!). I have absolutely no faith that permanent invincibility will ACTUALLY be stopped... and EVEN IF IT IS... it's much too late. This has been a problem for nearly a YEAR now. A YEAR to fix the OBVIOUS broken game mechanic of "permanent invincibility." It's too little WAY too late. You've already lost at least one customer for GW2 right here. I refuse to buy any future NCSoft games, including GW2, and will be sure to discourage everyone I know irl and on every message board I attend from purchasing GW2 or other NCSoft games because of how terrible and slowly game "problems" are treated. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 173.79.39.237 (talk) at 05:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC).

Such anger. It's a game. I remember when games didn't get "fixed," at all. In fact, that wasn't that long ago, you should remember it too... (Satanael | talk) 08:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

On a vaguely related note, Regina, I was wondering about that little bit you posted on your blog as well. I've never much cared about SF one way or the other, but I have always cared about the playability of GW for people who want it to be playable the normal way. Sure, the addition of Dhuum has significantly slowed down SF groups, but did the team seriously consider the doability and playability for other classes? For balanced groups?

For people who want to play UW the normal way (and those still exist!) it already took some time, and the way some of the quests work (or work after the recent updates) hasn't made this easier. Now that we need to beat Dhuum too before we're done with the UW I expect it to take significantly longer than before. It sounds like a good challenge and I'll be giving it a go, but I get the feeling that while the update was well-intended it wasn't entirely well thought out in some respects. I guess right now the wait is for all the community feedback to come in- and I'm sure the feedback from the "normal" players will be interesting to see. :)

On a more light-hearted note, does this mean we can expect to be running into Menzies in FoW in the future? ;) -- Elv 11:52, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Strong builds will always exist. Full time computer game players will always profit above average. The problem is that nerfing farm builds unfairly targets those who haven't completed farming based goals that the game offers. SF provides invincibility only under certain conditions and has a limited damage output. It is useful, yes, but do you want all useful builds removed from the game to make it a place where only the worst freaks can reach their goals? And actually most of them have already reached them, so do you want to get rid of the normal casual farmers by making things hard to the extreme? If you look at the skill list of the first printed GW manuals and compare it with today, you would think it's another game. "Normal" players get significantly less drops, affront more intelligent foes and even if they succeed after a year to get their character "Ursan" or "SF" ready to make some money they have to restart from 0, finding what is used after the nerf, getting ready to use it, to finally see the skill nerfed before they can even start using it... Permanently changing the game according to the "needs" of the 10hrs/day player is unfair to all the others. At least the daily changes caused by PvP is over now. Changing and discussing the rules all the time may be fun, but doesn't make the game better. When have the chess rules be changed last time? In GW the Queens would have been nerfed already 10 times :) --- Marcus The Cube

None of that simply addresses the fact that perma-invincibility is simply wrong and should not exist under any circumstances. God mode is bad especially when that god mode only applies to 1 profession. -- Salome 13:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Funny how people who do nothing but farm never complain with the truth. We never see a farmer coming here to say...

• "I like a game in which someone who can only play one hour per day makes ten platinum per day and I make 100 platinum, regardless of who's more skilled, so I can inflate prices way over the reach of the majority of players as I and my hardcore farmers friends can buy desirable items for unrealistic prices"
• "I like how I can beat the hardest areas of the game by using a team build in which no one has to think in order to accomplish anything, rather repeat the same steps over and over. I like how casual players who are just trying to have fun in those areas don't even understand what we're saying when we ask for specific team roles, and how we kick them from our groups when they don't have the exact build we want"
• "I like pushing prices up by using items like ectoplasm as money; when we artificially increase their value like this, we keep those items outside the reach of casual players and so we know we're really 1337 when we wear our FoW armor dyed black with Chaos Gloves"

No, instead farmers come here and say "think of the poor casual players who wouldn't waste their time farming, rather having fun who won't be able to grind as much regardless of how I grind much more, so I end with far more gold anyway and so won't be able to buy all the stuff I they want but can't have since plenty of prices are artificially increased". Erasculio 13:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Casual or not, ArenaNet will have a tough time making a relentlessly honest inventory of the current player base. Those people playing the game do have fun, no matter how silly "Invincibility Grinding" appears to the rest. The problem are not the people whose only motivation has become greed and the pursuit of 10.000:1 dropchances in endchests. The problem remains with the rest, those people who feel disenfranchised when they see ArenaNet dangling a carrot in front of their face they know has insane requirements only this other group of people can meet. Lashing out on forums is the natural reaction to that in 2009. But new bossfights and new endchests are just the thing to excite anybody really. But when people find out that the chest at the end of a dungeon is basically worthless because any decent item's drop rate has been reduced to zero in an effort to stop 7 minute speed clearers from killing the rarity of said skins, then people just leave. Why play that? Sure, kill Dhuum once with the guild, but the replay value is zero except you are into those final three titles that only 6000 platinum can buy. We do not need THE ONE way to play a dungeon and tear the community apart over what exactly THE ONE way is. We need incentives to deviate from farmgrinding. Show a regular non-farmgrinding player that his non-self-destructive efforts are treasured just as much. That no caste of supergrinders is making all skins but a few dirt cheap. That "normal" players are rewarded and that the game actively tries to connect them to other players for meaningful non-class-discriminatory play. The Zaishen Quests showed that this was possible. Look at all the weird missions people are playing again. Buying weapons with Zaishen coins is great. I want that 38 Gold Crystalline, because it tells people that I did play with other people fair and square to earn that. Find me a gold item that can communicate the same thing! You want SF gone from UW? Remove the chest, remove the ectos. You want people to play UW and get killer rewards? Make it a Zaishen Quest: Defeat Dhuum, Bonus: Have no class twice in your team. Bonus 2: Do it without PvE skills. Bonus 3: HM ladies! You might still want to bring the right skills to this "elite" area now, but at least there is going to be more than one gimmick build. At least it is no longer about smashing my head against a brick wall in eight minute intervals for half a year. At least the normal people (not the casuals!) are no longer confronted with some extreme players ruining any reward-balance there might have been beyond the non-grindy titles. Do not nerf to kill builds and annoy people! Incentivice diversity. If sologrinding is too effective and becomes too dominant, then reward other things more.--4thvariety 14:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't read that last WoT, but I would like to add to the "casual" playerbase complaint. I've never used godmode sins, I made one, but I've never used it, go figure. I've tried getting into competent player groups yesterday (with a necro), groups where most players have completed UW before, where newbies actually listened to instructions (OMG can you believe it?), and we even used full consets, personal cons, team management, and anything else you can think of for an average balanced team who has a clue, and we were unable to finish 4 times in a row, after spending a few hours on the whole thing. The vast majority of party search is for the new "mobway" which is still full of assassins, and is still by far the fastest way to complete UW. Yes, you made it harder for speed-clears, but it just slowed down everyone, and assassins in godmode are still by far the prevalent group. The same people are still making all the ectos and all the new minis/scythes. And even if you "fix" SF in the near future, as promised, this will make UW such a pain in the ass (5 hours for a small chance of paying off? nty...) for everyone, that anyone who had a stock of ectos (again, your godmode farmers) will become instantly several times richer, and others will be even more pissed than before. Way to go. :/ Rose Of Kali 15:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I hope they do merely change the functionality of Shadow Form as opposed to just nerfing it so it doesn't work, replacing a bad skill with a good one is better than just replacing a bad skill.--Orry 16:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe that people are actually complaining about ANet creating a challenge for us, that's absurd. Kali, were you around or do you remember when Tombs first came out? It took months before people thought to use rangers to clear it. For the longest time the most common team build was to bring 5 echo nukers and just outblast the place, sure it took 2+ hours and hardly ever worked, but that was the only way people could figure to do it at all. In the first couple of days after Tombs came out, nobody could figure out a quick and easy way to clear it. Dhuum has been out for how long? You're right, maybe nobody has figured out a reliable, quick way to clear UW yet, but that's why it's called an elite area, and figuring that out is part of the fun of doing it.

I speak as a casual player, whose greatest achievement is having enough 4 year-old characters to have gotten almost a complete set of minis without buying any of them. I have never farmed anything, and don't care to. If ANet wants to make UW harder for farmers, and that ends up challenging me as well, I say bring it on. If given the choice between chess and checkers, I will take chess every time. If given the choice between a rubik's cube and a form board, I'll take the rubik's cube every time. Thank you ANet, for giving me a challenge that doesn't take 30 seconds to figure out. I'm glad that I can go to UW now and not have to conform exactly to some well established team build from which no can deviate if they want to play. I can now show up with the character I want and the build I want, and people will be willing to try it. (Satanael | talk) 17:52, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Rofl... First of all, don't compare 2 hours to 5 hours+fail cus some reaper somewhere died. Second, people HAVE figured out the "new" UW: it's called "mobway" and consists of a buttload of sins, again. Third, Tombs was new, UW is far from it, and got hardly changed. Last, how many "balanced" groups enter the UW now for every "mobway" group? I just wonder how long it will take before people figure out the "next best thing" to clear UW after SF gets nerfed, it'll just go from one thing to another (like Obsi-tank, for example), unless they change more than spawn locations and adding some skeles. Rose Of Kali 18:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Mobway is just what they have figured out for now, just like the 5 ele builds at tombs before they figured out BP. At some point some genius will figured out a better way to clear it, and that will become the build du jour. So you're right, it will just move from one thing to the next, but that's the nature of the game, and can't be changed. With 1300+ skills and enough time, someone is going to figure out the "best" way to clear UW no matter what, and people are always going to levitate to that.

All I'm saying is that the intent was just to mix things up a bit, give us a puzzle to figure out, and it seems obvious to me that it was successful in that regard. It won't take 5 hours forever, so just relax and try to be that genius that cracks the puzzle for everybody. or if you don't like puzzles, then wait for somebody else to figure it out, I bet it won't take that long. (Satanael | talk) 18:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You say it like anything that is better than mobway isn't going to have groups consisting of permanent invincibility, which is as far away from reality as it can get. Optimism only works if it actually adheres in some way to reality, not building sand castles in the air, nor making presumptuous and ridiculous claims. Pika Fan 19:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Post SF-nerf, what exactly would that permanent invincibility be? The truth is, I have no idea what it would be, but I don't think "permanent invincibility" is a forgone conclusion. There are a lot of possible builds out there, and believe it or not, it is possible to beat even the toughest areas without SF or some similar super-armor skill. (Satanael | talk) 06:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

"Possible" and "reasonable" aren't the same. Having to spend several hours more on something is not reasonable, when it can be done much faster with a broken gimmick build. Thus, we have the "gimmickers" and the rest who don't even bother. Because of all the gimmick builds, some areas have been made tougher to counter the gimmick farming, but all that did was put the non-gimmickers further and further out of play in such areas, and inflate the prices of the farmed items. Rose Of Kali 14:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The game rule changes are extremely unfair as they punish only those that haven't had the chance to use these "strong" skills. So it's not a surprise that primarily those that have full stacks of ectos because of using these farm methods advocate for stopping that abuse as they are afraid that the economy will devaluate their precious items if also the mob starts to farm them... Marcus The Cube

Let's be clear here, there is absolutely possitively no possible way to prevent people from coming up with "gimmick" builds. All they are doing there is finding the most efficient way of going through an area. You can not force people into balanced groups. So there will always be the choice between going with the gimmick build and getting it done in 5 minutes, or going with a balanced group and taking your time.

As you say, the balanced groups right now take a long time, a very long time in some cases. But that won't last forever either. Even the balanced groups will find better ways of doing it. Even if you are not putting together a gimmick team, you can still choose some skills over others, and that means you can find a better way of doing it.

All I'm saying is that yes, the way people have been doing it lately doesn't work without taking too much time, so try another way. Figure it out, that's the point of the game. That's why we play GW, which forces us to be strategic about our skill choices, and not WoW, which let's us bring every skill with us wherever we go.

You have to remember, this place has been up for less than a week. You have to be patient. I virtually garauntee that in a month's time, even the balanced groups will have figured out how to beat Dhuum in a reasonable amount of time. (Satanael | talk) 18:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Virtually guarantee? Really? I realize that there's always a more efficient way of doing something. The problem here is that there is one way that does it EXTREMELY efficiently, while any other way if basically a waste of time, because some reaper or the Iceman will get killed for their own stupidity, and all the people who just spent several hours trying this, ragequit and don't want to return anytime soon. The problem here is that this area puts a glaring emphasis on the differences between gimmick and not, and this problem was repeatedly "solved" not by weakening/removing the gimmick, but by making the area harder and harder, so that it's becoming harder for the gimmick, but... Eh, whatever, you shoul've gotten the point by now. Rose Of Kali 19:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Have to agree with Rose here. Just ran two unsuccessful tries through the UW. Let me make one thing very clear here- I was on an experienced guild team, running a balanced build. None of us were new to the UW and I don't think we had any "bad" players. The problem is that while the new version of UW slows down the gimmicky invinci-team, it makes it near impossible for any other sort of team to play it (we wiped thanks to NPC deaths both times, and both times from the new and insane damage spiking some of the foes come with). I don't have a problem with gimmicky builds per se, but I do have a problem when it's really the only way to efficiently play anything. If the difference between gimmick and non-gimmick becomes several hours of playtime (or simply success vs failure), then the gimmick is overpowered. The solution to that in not to make the area harder or make it take longer, because that does not by any means solve the problem at the core: the time difference. It remains the same, or it grows, or it turns into success/failure.

Regina proudly commented that perma teams took 85 minutes to clear the UW now, which I'm sure is wonderful if that was the only effect of the changes to UW. Unfortunately it's not only significantly increased play times for any other teams, it's also made it an insane amount harder. Frankly, the UW didn't need to be harder (FoW however could do with a little more spice), and the only significant result I see so far is that people are feeling more forced to resort to the gimmick, rather than trying something else.

I'll be giving this a few more tries, but thus far I've not even come anywhere near Dhuum. If ANet's trying to tackle the issue of speed clears, it's going to need to take a completely different approach than the current one. This one only punishes the people trying to play something non-gimmicky, it doesn't do much for improving the game. -- Elv 19:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

As much as i do agree that its alot harder to complete, having spent a couple of days completely dedicated to the task with no luck so far, I would add that it is an elite area, and therefore intentional difficult, and that it has been far easier to find people willing to join a 'balanced' group than before. Tidas 02:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a difference between intentionally difficult and virtually impossible without a gimmicky build, though. DoA was a big failure in that respect, because it's very unfriendly towards certain professions. UW was still difficult but a lot more doable, and required less rigid standards of what you brought into it. (Which, in my opinion, made it more fun- you felt free to actually try things.) It may now be easier to find a random balanced team (I usually play in guild groups, so I couldn't say), but what does that really mean if none of these teams has any real chance of success? Nothing- absolutely nothing. Suppose there used to be 10 balanced teams going per day, and it's 50 now. That sounds great, but not if you realise that the success rate might have been 50% before, and less than 2% now. I think 5/10 successful teams beats 1/50 successful teams. I wouldn't even want to try going in with a random team now; the likelihood that people will rage or run into time constraints before the end is far too high. Did I mention that the NPCs in UW just love to launch kamikaze attacks onto the new and "improved" mobs, making their survivability practically 0? -- Elv 08:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read most of the discussion, but I can already say that Rose is right. Basically, take what I told Cyan: "Yeah, I forgot that when I select a Hard difficulty, and then I cheat my way through it, it's no big deal. I mean, why actually make something a challenge if you can Gameshark your way through it, right?". Making Hard difficulty INSANE, but still not dealing with Godmode, destroys the casual player and rewards the farmers and abusers. Fixing an entire game around an imbalanced skill is just retarded at best. You can say many things about SF, and imbalanced is certainly one of them. As Shard also said, the process of clearing UW and then killing Dhuum is long and unfair for the average team, so it basically leaves many teams no choice but to use Shadow Form. Congratulations Anet, you got what you wanted: embracing gimmicked grinders instead of casual players. Many of my friends already left GW and you a long time ago, and even talked to people buying your game in video stores, telling them about the true state of the game now. One of my friends even told me when reading some Feedback on GWW: "Even if they do fix SF now, it's too late. Their snowball is a mountain now." And he's right - that's what happens when you let the problems slip between your fingers, and you deal with other problems in a retarded way. Sooner or later, a chunk of casual players that will try to play the game will face the wall you built so nicely over the last years, and they will quit. Is that really what you want? I can guess there is a 99.8% probability no one from A.net will even see this, but that's not big of a change too, huh? Titani Ertan 05:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

While it's sad, I've to agree with Rose & Titani. Anet only enforced the use of Shadow Farm with the lastest UW update. M3G 09:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I read the whole discussion but I still have to disagree, I think all these updates to the Underworld are good and all in all, helped the game:

Before Dhuum came out, I've seen about 1 or max 2 groups trying to enter Underworld and they usually ended right at the beginning anyway, because there were not even 8 players willing to join the party, everyone was just looking for UWSC.

However, after these updates that made UWSCing significantly harder and added new content to the Underworld, the situation changed, these days when you come to Temple of Ages, you will usually find about the same number of Mobway groups as Normal teams easily forming their party, I am not saying this will not change over time, but at the moment its true.

I agree that Underworld is now more difficult for everyone and takes long to complete, but well, it was never meant to be some easy area and it always should be one of the hardest areas in the game even before this update, and 3 hours for completing the hardest area in the game still seems very reasonable to me.

I'd also like to say an example of my own self, honestly, I am not any hardcore 1337 farmer nor PvPer, I just play the game for fun and do anything that seems like a fun or a good challenge of skill to me. The Underworld always seemed like such a good challenge to me, but because of the Shadow Form UWSC, I wasn't able to ever find a serious group of players (they just usually left after capping a spider in Vale heh). After this update however, non-UWSC groups became possible to make because even players who don't use perma sins want to fight the newly added God Dhuum and have their chance of dropping some of the rare items from the end chest. Additionally, even permas are now more likely to join a normal group because the time of UWSC is (according to Regina) about 1,5 hour being roughly "only" twice as fast as a normal group (it was about 2 hours against 10 minutes before the recent UW updates!) and some of them prefer working with a normal team (more fun) even at cost of a bit more challenge (the difference is a bit more acceptable). So although I am not very experienced (I NEVER completed UW before this update), I am now able to find a group easily and eventually win about 50% of time even with a non-perma character (ele,necro,para,whatever..).

My main point is that these updates were in my opinion certainly not a bad step as everyone seems to think, yes it maybe could be even better, but don't say it was bad, because it was actually very good ;)

On a last note, to the topic of Shadow Form, we all know this skill was a bad idea, but now it could make actually even more harm if it would be removed, I don't say I agree with that skill, I also think it certainly should be significantly nerfed , but nerfing it to death could be a bad idea and make things even worse (no news either). Anet has recently shown very good attempts to effectively reduce the overpoweredness of Shadow Form at least in UW and therefore I trust them on the line:

"This was not an attempt to address all of the concerns about Shadow Form Assassins. That will happen in the next major skill update, which will include big changes to Shadow Form and may also include changes to other prominent farming skills."

All I can say is good job so far, keep up the good work. I am looking forward for that update.

Btw long wall-o-text is long, but I just wanted to share my point of view with you, so any comments appreciated! ;)

***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 12:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I read your first few lines, and I knew you were wrong. Making an entire elite area harder, when it's already "balanced" around an overpowered skill is wrong. You need to check your numbers again. They're wrong, and so are you. Titani Ertan 13:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If they would just make it harder it would be wrong.. but they added super expensive rewards for the completion, so making the area harder was also reasonable. ***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 14:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. They just awarded speed-clears, while not fixing the reason why normal parties couldn't complete it in reasonable time. Titani Ertan 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Who decides what a reasonable time is? Tidas 14:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

A reasonable time is reasonable. Game balancers should know what that is. Titani Ertan 14:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Common sense? You shouldn't have to be in a dungeon for 5 hours. Even WoW raids aren't that long. On the other hand, you shouldn't be in a dungeon for 7 minutes, either, which is the problem with SF and ursan before it. Reasonable is 1-2 hours, depending on how much content there actually is. Given that UW has only a handful of quests, an hour is plenty of time. All of UW should be balanced so that a relatively balanced team can beat it in a little over an hour without serious problems. The dungeon shouldn't be balanced around shadow form beating it in an hour (which it currently is). -Auron 14:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yet in terms of content I never reach the point in a uw run where it feels like we are just doing the exact same thing over and over, ignoring Dhuum of course, which for me it would seem the only way to make it faster would be to make it so even balanced groups roll through every single enemy, which would defeat purpose of it being difficult. Tidas 14:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

What I understood from what you said was "UW shouldn't be balanced because that won't be difficult". Stop being bad and come back. Titani Ertan 14:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Define balanced in terms of PvE, forgive me for being so bad but I've completely lost sight of what you hate about the new uw, you want it to be easier? Or you just want it to be equally difficult but without the enemies using monster skills? Yes the skeletons were brought in for the sole purpose of stopping permas, but its not like they cause other groups any great problems. Tidas 14:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Want it retarded way? Fine: SF. Bad. UW. OP. More challenge=Dhuum? No. More challenge=more difficulty? No. Balance UW around balanced teams? Yes. New SF? Plz. Do. You. Under.-Stand. Titani Ertan 14:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Sf bad, agree. I am looking forward to a new SF. What my retarded self fails to grasp is how you want uw balanced around balanced teams. Getting rid of the skeletons and dhuum along with the rest of the update just because it made uw harder? Tidas 15:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Like you balance anything else. Titani Ertan 15:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Entering UW and actually having a remote chance to finish it are different things. Recognizing a problem does not require a solution, it can't preclude anyone from stating that there is a problem in the first place. You can't say AIDS doesn't exist just because it can't be cured. Problem 1: UW is impossible for most "balanced" groups, unless they have much previous experience and very powerful builds to begin with, which is not as common as it may seem. Groups that can finish any other elite area without much difficulty, even in HM, simply choke in the "new" UW, which was updated to simply counter 7-minute speed clears and nothing else. Problem 2: the "new" UW can still be done by permasins (mobway) in 20% of the time than any "balanced group" could ever hope for, making it the build choice of the day. The majority of permasins that join balanced are the ones who don't have enough experience and are easily exposed and kicked from mobway groups, but still want a cut of the cool new stuff. Problem 3: the newest update made problem 1 more apparent and problem 2 slightly slower to farm, but hasn't fixed anything. Problem 4: permasins are still the vast majority who can earn the rewards given by the endchest and get the shots at the new drops. Problem 5: all these "balanced" teams that form every minute in ToA are simply the rush for new content that will die off exponentially in the next 2 weeks or so, because virtually none of them stand a chance of even seeing Dhuum. Rose Of Kali 15:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

There are only 2 REALLY hard things in UW right now: this and this. Respectfully because it requires a 2 and (practically) a 3 way split. Splitting isn't the bad thing on itself, since balanced groups should be able to split a bit, but the game throws too much at the players. 1 healer (assuming 2 healers in the party) can't heal multiple elementalists and skeletons, with the presence of 2 boss-like mesmers. In the other example, groups spawn all over the place, and don't give any time to react. You have to scatter and draw the fire on multiple people, risking much and still not ensuring you won't accidentally let something through. The opposition you encounter during those quests is just too big. I did it with a guild party, with a Shadow Form tank that took it upon himself to secure one side, while the rest of the party battled on the other side(s - Wastes was still nerve wracking, but scattering 7 people to cover 2 spawns is still manageable somehow). Aside from that, the time spent doing UW comes from the size of the area, running back and forth to do quests one at a time, and sometimes from the big numbers of foes that you have to kill in order to get from point A to point B safely - not from being overly difficult. — Poki#3 (talk) 20:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) The first part you described is exactly the "overly difficult" part for most players, especially coupled with NPC's who die like flies as soon as they're aggroed, and cause the entire thing to fail. Running around isn't so bad, the Reapers can teleport the whole party, but the "sheer number of foes" is quite annoying and time consuming, it's hard to find paople who can willingly dedicate a minimum of 4 hours straight, and this just becomes tiresome in addition to the difficulty and high chance of failure on the mentioned quests. Rose Of Kali 20:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought this entire halloween/dhuum fiasco was the shadow form nerf. I remember Linsey saying they were trying to end UWSCing without hurting SF itself. Apparently we've switched tracks. Let's hope the nerf satisfies everyone so we can end the cry-baby warfare over this. And so I never have to see another "i'm gonna force the entire world not to buy GW2 becuase GW1 made me so mad ;_;" post. Humans aren't idiots, just because it took a year doesn't mean the possibility of an appropriate nerf is crossed out. Furthermore I can't believe you're here spouting your ragequit angst after the Dhuum nerf... "Wow, they just totally destroyed the Assassiconomy like I demanded them to. My ectos will double in price. Not only that, but they're going to nerf Shadow Form again and this time with actual players giving actual input that will actually be listened to! I'm never buying another NCsoft product ever again!" I really hate resorting to this but I think QQ sums things up perfectly. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 21:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict*4)Sorry for the late reply but I was PUGing UW all the day and didn't have much time to discuss :P

So I herd a reasonable time is reasonable.Well I think a reasonable time is something else for everyone so we can't ever agree on that.

On Auron's comment, I think you are mostly right, however balancing UW into a one-hour thing would be in my opinion terribly hard right now, it would either make the permas do it in ~30 seconds or if you would like it balanced for really everyone, that would require the entire anet team working hard on it for a very long time and I think there are far worse issues to spend their precious time in (like fixing the Shadow Form itself finally). What they did is not a way to 100% fix this, thats for sure, but I also think it's better than to do nothing at all.

On one of Titani's comments,"What I understood from what you said was "UW shouldn't be balanced because that won't be difficult". Stop being bad and come back." From what I understood, he meant that the only fast balance to fix to UW right now would be making all foes level 1(3 in Hard Mode) and the only real fight here being the Dhuum. And all in all, I'd like to quote Tidas's reply:Getting rid of the skeletons and dhuum along with the rest of the update just because it made uw harder? that is exactly the point, do you really, HONESTLY think that UW would be better if they would revert all the updates? Well, if you do, you have surely not been there.

And finally to Rose, I agree on some parts and disagree and others;

Problem 1: Well,I would really believe what you're saying here unless I wouldn't face the truth myself, which I did. As I maybe already said, I am just some everyday guy who surely don't have loads of previous experience but more like only common info (don't take all quests from Reaper of Labyrinth..), I am not using any super-imba-powerful builds, I went there with my primary char (Elementalist with 446HP - heck yeah, I use 2 super runes) and brought a single bar like Searing Flames or Blinding Surge (which I started using about 2 weeks ago), I also did not bring any Overpowered PvE skills with me, just random fire/air damage skills.I have not yet completed DoA/Deep/whatever (no people ever come here) so I unfortunately don't have much to say on the last part.

Problem 2: I mostly agree with this.However if what Regina said is true, and assassins need at least about 75mins now, its really not 20% but more like 40%.Mobway is still the build choice of the day, but before the update, UWSC was the only build ever playing here, not only best build choice of the day.The second part is usually true just as you say.

Problem 3:(I assume by newest update you mean only Dhuum) Well, yes, just as you're saying, but while it didn't really fixed anything, it made speed clearing at least more comparable to normal teams. Srsly, 12 mins against 2 hours seems worse than 75 mins against 3 hours to me (just my opinion, you may have a different one if you think 3 hours is not reasonable time).

Problem 4: True, but they said they will fix this issue in their next big skill update, they already confirmed this was not meant to fix everything in Guild Wars, its more like a quick emergency fix while figuring out how to fix the issue more.

Problem 5:This may, and may not become true, I already said I don't think it will be like this forever, now there are two ways: 1.: Assassins have taken over the Underworld. Any other living creature has no chance to survive here. 2.: Humans will find some kind of viable build and there will be both Normalways and Asaways living in peace (not very likely IMO). Some other builds like Ritway and such also have a small chance of proving useful now.To be honest I don't think there is a big chance to beat Assassins , but now there is at least some chance. Bringing up a tactic to kill Dhuum easily could, for one example, change the effect of this update greatly.The last sentence is already quite answered in problem 1..I was writing this while Poki's and below comments weren't there so I won't comment them.. yet :P ***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 22:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Try again. Titani Ertan 19:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Man, you guys are pansies. You think UW is hard? Go watch some bullet hell videos on AdobeFlashTube. That's hard. Better yet, play a real man's game, like the Playstation 2 or Magic. –Jette 12:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

And you're bringing Bullet hell shooters into the equation because...? Mokou, smite him for me will ya? Aya, you can take pictures. — Poki#3 (talk) 23:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

No Touhou allowed in my Guild Wars, thanks. elix Omni 21:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] About those "changes to other prominent farming skills"

Sounds like a pretty obvious reference to 600/smite. Please remind the devs to kindly bear in mind that PS and SB are vital staple skills in many, many non-farming contexts. These skills should probably not be messed with, or, if you absolutely must, messed with in an extremely cautious manner. I would much rather see the smite components of 600/smite nerfed into the ground, since no one uses those in non-farming contexts. -64.131.162.104 19:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean Holy Wrath? ~~000.00.00.00~~ 19:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

PS could be nerfed to end after X attacks. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 23:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be pointless. PS is an anti-pressure skill, not an anti-spike skill. So, in order to keep that role, it would have to have a relatively high incoming attack limit. The thing is, it has a five-second recharge. So, really, it'd still be easy to keep up during the early part of a SoA (the only time you need PS up; SoA easily kills even large packets of damage after a short while), if not indefinitely.

I think the best way to kill 600/smite would be to make PS, SoA, and SB easily interrupted in PvE, and then to nerf Mantra of Resolve. Even then, it'd still be possible with Protective Bond, but runs would go from 2-man to 4-man. is for Raine, etc. 00:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

i would rather do something with HW and retribution instead of those skills InfestedHydralisk 00:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I was just responding to the "nerf PS" comment - I'd also much rather see HW/Retribution nerfed. is for Raine, etc. 02:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

For me PS is what you put on yourself before running into a huge boss. Without having a further look at the builds (I don't really PvE), I'd suspect that doing that would just lead into reverse builds etc. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 09:59, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

[2] ---Chaos- (talk) -- 12:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

a good nerf would be to have holy wrath end when the maintainer hits 0 energy. thats the strongest thing with it. but they're not going to nerf 600smite until they take care of shadow farm. --adrin 12:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It'd just be maintained by several targets with insane energy management. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 14:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Please stop trying to defend the death of EOTN. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 21:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You guys fuckin suck dude. i realise im gonna get into trouble with the whole NPA and shit but seriously. People spend HOURS every day farming so they can get the ridiculously overpriced crap on the market. the price is NOT gonna go down on the crap. way to keep the rich rich and poor poor. fuck you too ANet. Btw, i MAXED my asuran AND delver rep on SoO and Boggy farms. And i have NEVER ONCE even SEEN a frog scepter or BDS drop. Ive done this shit so many times its fucking mindnumbing and i still dont get shit out of these runs. Just because they can farm doesnt mean that theyre breaking the economy. So your gonna add 2 new minis and a new scythe that are worth like a thousand ectos each and no way to farm the ectos or anything worth that ammount of ectos. Your gonna make it so people have no way to earn this insane ammounts of money that people demand for high end gear. So noobs can stay noobs, and never have anything nice, and the elites can stay elites with all their elitist gear and shit. I personally have 5 or six sets of chaos gloves and more than one obby armor in my HoM but god fucking damn. stop stomping on the little people for fucks sake. their just trying to make a little money so they can have nice things. Jesus titty fuck. Heres an idea, instead of pissing players off and fucking with them by taking away any means to make money, why dont you spend a little less time introducing super expensive epic crap into the game that is just gonna make MORE money circulate around and introduce a REAL gold sink into this game instead of a piss-ass excuse for a gold sink like ectos. specially when people have 5-6 even 7 stacks of ectos just laying around from raping UWSC for days weeks and almost years on end. Make some of the elite weapons BUYABLE. make some obby armor that ACTUALLY LOOKS GOOD so that people will WANT IT instead of just getting it cuz they dont know what the fuck else to do with their shit ton of money. Ban me for NPA or w/e if you want but jesus fucking christ ANet. stop sucking the fucking fun out of EVERYTHING in this game. it USED to be really fun. i think im just gonna start maintaning my own WoW server and playing that. GG. Btw im starting a boycott on GW2. not gonna work but hey. i can try. Briar 20:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The above is a perfect example of how it's the players who are the most "hardcore" who complain about nerfs to farming, not the casual players. For the "little people", the less farmers out there earning 100k per hour and pushing all prices up (isn't it funny how everything expensive belongs to the player-drive market, not the fixed prices set by Arena Net?), the better. Erasculio 21:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Erascululio you need to learn to read dude. The people that are rich are ALWAYS gonna be rich. i have money and i know how to be smart with it so im gonna stay rich. its the poor people that are gonna get fucked over by this. Theyre gonna be left with no way whatsoever to make any money at all and theyre never gonna have anything nice because yes, there are more people like me, and yes, we do have reserves of cash for a rainy day or if we happen across something that we want. But the people that are just learning to perma or just starting out with cool and exciting farms are now immediatly gonna be fucked over and have to find some other way to make some money. This is just ANet taking another kidney shot at people that are trying to get more into this game. ANet doeesnt give a shit about the non-hardcore players. we who spend hours per day doing the same mindnumbingly stupid activities for shitty and stupid drops that in all honesty really dont look that good. I already have money. ive already attained every financial goal i wanted in this game. But because of nerfs to things like SF and dualmonk farming and stuff like that, now no one else will be able to reach my levels of wealth because they have no build and no place to farm. its fucking ridiculous how many cheapshots ANet takes at the little guy here. Briar 21:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's very kind of you to bitch and moan on behalf of the little guy, but I think he'll be perfectly happy without UWSC. Also, "cool and exciting farms" made me lol. elix Omni 21:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever seen a noob in his first SoOSC? i have. And i can tell you first hand. When your just starting a farm. it is in fact new and exciting. Briar 21:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a new one, lol. What are you, some kind of Robin Hood? Anyway, just stopped by to say that Anet did not implement these high-end drops/armors to be farmed; that is something the community brought into itself. Y'know, characters were designed to be these epic heroes, Warriors of the light, powerful Magi who could control elements, etc. What has the community turned them into? Friggin' farmers. -- Large 21:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC) And meanwhile, hardcore farmers like you would still farm ten times more than the other players, get ten times more gold and thus continue to inflate the prices outside the range of anyone who joins the game this year. There is no point in pretending this is a race in which the casual players can reach the hardcore farming-obsessed players - that is not going to happen. Arena Net has to nerf farming as much as possible and then wait until the gold held by those farmers is being slowly consumed, only then would casual players have easier access to some rare items. Ideally, they would drop the price of ectos by forcing the trader to sell it for 500 gold, which would solve a significant part of the problem, but of course that's something they would have to do without any prior warning.

Regardless, notice how those who are complaining are not the "little people", rather those with "5 or six sets of chaos gloves and more than one obby armor". That does speak wonders about who a nerf to farming would hurt...

(And hey, if we nerf Shadow Form everyone who's farming will have to start a new farm, which would be "new and exciting", right? So I guess everyone wins.) Erasculio 21:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Erasculio, are you a little person? :D Briar 22:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

As in, if I have five pairs of Chaos Gloves and a set of FoW armor in my HoM? No, I don't. Erasculio 22:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you ever want to stop being a little person? Have some nice things to make you e-peen feel big and manly? :D Briar 22:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really, no. I already have almost all the items I want, and the few I don't have I'll get eventually by just playing the game. My time playing GW is too limited to waste it farming; I would rather play to have fun instead. Erasculio 22:25, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Both of you please note that players can buy almost all skins for weapons and armors in exchange for Zaishen Coins. It is hard to get any more casual than that. Briar should really consider if he honestly believes most people take elusive drops that seriously. In my guild people seem more disgruntled about the time requirements of DoA or UW and less about the drop-rate of the endchest. Although those dangling carrots with their next to nothing chance get mocked quite a bit. It is like playing the lottery, just don't. I am also done with the casual vs. hardcore debate. That split is a lie. In reality there are people driven by greed and players driven by entertainment. With content updates greed players get new loot and impossa-grind achievements, while the entertainment crowd gets new quests and festivals. Hopefully some day we get a dungeon managing to get both sides together again, but for now Mobway greed-grinding has UW in its grips. Take out SF, drop 1.000.000 ectos, same problem, different day. Laid back people also know that a common skin can look far better on your character than the most expensive rarest skiped axe with dangling chains. Canthan Fire-Staff? Total beauty. Would not trade that for any other skin. Take out the obsession of wanting something rare and pricey to compete with other people suffering from inferiority complex and you will find, the Barbie doll gameplay of GW is very extensive and very affordable. Golddrops can't purchase having fun playing the game.--4thvariety 22:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

"players can buy almost all skins for weapons and armors in exchange for Zaishen Coins" - uh, how? That would be extremely cool. Erasculio 22:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It isn't really, since you can't change gold into silver. :\ Vili 点 22:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so that works for PvE characters too? I thought it was only for PvP characters. My, this is an extremely cool piece of news, thanks : D Erasculio 22:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Bah, it is for PvP characters only. You people suck D : Erasculio 22:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It does not work for PvE characters, but it is in the game. PvE players simply take their "awesomeness tax", i.e. Xunlai Tournament Points (hopefully they work again soon) and trade those Zaishen Keys for money with which they buy anything they could ever want. Red items for PvE players is simply the final frontier. A lot of people would be far happier with that than with grinding gold or getting lucky drops. There has to be no conflict between grinders and what you call casuals. The mindsets are so insanely different that it takes a weird MMO community for them to clash in the first place. My point being ArenaNet is doing the right things, some dots are simply not connected yet. It is hard, if not impossible trying to speak for regular players in the middle of an Ursan or SF flamewar, driven by people mistaking an RPG for an Economic Simulation. On a cynical day I might suggest to make one in 1000 green drops sparkle like the divine aura does. Could you imagine the forums the day after?--4thvariety 22:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think anyone who is expecting the XTH to come back and is waiting for this to happen is just deluding themselves. It was fun while it lasted, but I think it's day has come and gone. There is absolutely NO reasonable reason why anyone needs to have 30 stacks of ecto in their inventory. I agree that if Anet would just force the trader price of ecto to 500g ea for an extended period of time, a lot of the disparity between hard core farmers and the casual player would cease to exist. However, I don't see them doing that, so the next best option would be to remove the "god modes" from the game and bring things back to a reality based system. I know... flame away. I do think that changing the UW is a good FIRST step, and I think the Live Team sees it as just that. I welcome changes that bring back some challenge to PvE play. -- Wyn talk 23:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Reset. Lol i liked the guy that brought a PVP ONLY FEATURE into this conversation about PVE ONLY FARMING. that made me chuckle. Briar 23:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a PvP only feature. There is only what players want and what they accept and what is placed outside their range for no reason. ArenaNet said skins were PvE exclusive for years until they noticed not even the PvE players were that jealous about it. They fixed it, it was great, the next step is already there. We should not dismiss that option when flaming about improvement of rewards. I also don't believe what Wyn said to be true about the benefits of trashing Ecto prices. Randomized rare drops make possession an expression of time spent until beating the dice-roll. Trade is using substitutes for that expression of time spent to enable transfer of ownership both sides agree to. Constant Ecto drop rates mean players can make the rarity of an item and the amount of Ectos interchangeable. Hence players trade one for the other. Gold for the most part has lost that ability since 100p roughly equal 5-10h which is nothing compared to the time you'd spend until some items drop. On top of that, people competing for scarce items drive the perceived value up and far beyond the 100p somebody at ArenaNet once thought of a sane limit (Note, you were right, it's just people are insane). Nerf SF and you only drive up perceived Ecto value and criple the ability of people to harvest time they then channel into the thing they really want (some rare drop). Griffons, Ectos or Bracelets are only proxy-items for the real item people want. People farm these proxies because others will accept them in trades and people find it easier to grind them, than to find a group raiding a dungeon → hence solo-farming dominance, no down time! The question at this point is, whether farming people would not be better served if they had a way to directly chase these items by other repetitive tasks tying them to the rest of the population. Wouldn't it be better to allow people to directly go for the items behind the curtain in some way. Because in all honesty, some of the “casuals” do not play less, they play differently. Less time spend solo-farming means less money. People playing more socially, more entertainment oriented and less inclined to repeating one thing over and over for the sake of cutting down the time requirements on items are getting the boot. They are not the little people! They are not the casual! They are simply not the ones grinding one spot for a week, because they rather help guildies, grow Twinks and do all sorts of crazy stuff. The game simply has no way to measure these efforts and reward them. The game heavily gravitates towards solo-farming. --4thvariety 23:57, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem with your theory "Trade is using substitutes for that expression of time spent to enable transfer of ownership both sides agree to." is that the people who have done nothing but UWSC for the past 6 months and have 30 stacks of ectos in their inventory are the only ones that can buy things like a req 9 BDS. There quite honestly is not anything in this game that is worth more than 200k, with the exception of the tournament reward minis, yet I see these outrageous prices being charged for stuff, and I see them all, as the Administrator of Guru Auctions, it blows my mind what some people ask for stuff. Those kinds of prices are just ridiculous, and do place ownership of those items out of the reach of probably 75% of the player base. The only reason they are that expensive is that people DO have these stacks and stacks of ectos from playing in god mode. The fact that running dungeons has become so easy due to the perma SF should mean that there are more of these rare items available, and yet after over 2 years, they are still just as expensive as ever. -- Wyn talk 00:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Im sorry i didnt even read most of what you both posted after me, i stopped at "No such thing as a pvp only feature" Uhm... Try the insanely awesome skin of the meditative staff? not to mention the rest of the tolkano weapons? And also, hows about the fame, glade, codex, blah blah blah titles? which btw are harder than hell to work with because if your not already rank 4 or higher you CANT get into a decent group doing anything better than randomway in HA. >.> which is totally irrelavant to the SF conversation its just another pet peeve of mine.

I lold so hard that the room service checked in to see if I'm ok. @Briar- Thank you for the great joke, it was all good fun, especially when you played the part of the overzealous princess. Loved it, giving you a 10/10. @4thvariety- You did great in overturning the conflict, and making the crowd see the topic in a completely unrelated and wrong way; you were just marvellous! 10/10. Ok, show time is over; we can all be back to order again. Titani Ertan 05:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

My question is. why? The farmers will still find ways. Ecto prices and black dye prices will still be high. If you nerf every skill to death. It won't change much. There's always ways. -- riyen ♥ 06:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Short Version: @Wyn: People grind ectos, value goes down, hence really rare items cost more and more ectos. Just like gold in Griffon farming days. Only difference: ArenaNet artificially keeps price of ectos up instead of trashing them to 100g. As long as Ectos enter the economy at a faster pace than the items people want to buy with them, prices will increase. Basic economic law. Many items also exist for the sole reason of not everyone having them and keep people believe in a fake scarcity of resources situation. Another basic economic thing. Feeling of Entitlement → desire of ownership → descent into grind → removal of grind by Anet → E-Drama.

You see, nerfing skills is useless, it's like taking the bottle away from an alcoholic. People basically hate the fact they grind ectos to get what they really want. As a result you get high tension in farming groups and monster flame if an established method of gaining a rare item by means of farming a proxy is destroyed. Sure, you tell me now you have fun, but go to the mirror and say: “I farmed ectos for two years to get a line of green text and a glow-in-the-dark texture.” Feeling good, yet? Solution: Shift the desire of ownership away. Because people will still feel entitled to own that rare item reflecting their oh so rare snow-flake of a personality.

The problem now is merely how the game rewards certain activities over others. By a factor of five and more!!! Farming solo gets you ahead faster than playing socially. Exploiting a dungeon as a team gets you ahead faster. Playing the same thing over and over gets you ahead fastest. Power-Trading earns you the most money and for that to work YOU MAY NEVER lower your prices. Screw that gold economy! Extend the Zaishen Coin economy! The players who spent time to complete 20+ titles on their characters need an extension to the reward structure of their gaming style more than those who are beyond redemption anyway. SHIFT THE DESIRE.--4thvariety 10:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Wise words. Rose Of Kali 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Can I buy your writer and director? They deserve more. 19:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Nerfing in general

Overall I fully disagree with those frequent rule changes.
Using the same logic I wonder what moves the Queen in a chess game would be allowed to do after the 500th nerf...

Either a game allows farming or not. Either a game gives incentive to farm solo or not. This is primarily determined by the loot drop behavior and not by the skills.

The GW world has always been a solo farm area. Teamplay has always been strongly discouraged by the games' loot scaling. Fine. But once that decision is made I don't see any good thing in removing skills that save those solo farmers time when doing their repetitive thing on and on and on and on and on... It's cruel to want people to waste even more of their time for that and of course primarily claimed by those that have already got the loot they wanted the "easy way" as they are afraid others may also get "rich".

Would you really like the game to nerf the farm builds in order that people have to sit 2 hours on their PC to get one ecto? Would that really make you happy?

You think you can get integrity by changing the rules weekly? Hmm, would you really like to have a guess each time when you step on a pedal in your car what will happen?

All this from a point of view of a regular GW player, casual player that would like to earn some money ingame must feel like a ping pong ball...Marcus The Cube

Tell me when Chess starts having a few hundred differently moving pieces and will allow both players to pick and chose whatever they want with relatively small restrictions, and THEN I'll let you use that comparison. — Poki#3 (talk) 11:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You know what's the problem with GW? It allows boards to look like this:

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

edit: You are in a pretty bad shape if you say GW has always been a solo farm area. Do your homework and come back. Titani Ertan 11:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

If skill selection is supposed to be a meaningful element of the game, then some skills always have to be more powerful than others. Same goes for strategies and tactics. People will weed out beginners for lowering the team's chances of winning, the same is done with skillbars. A natural selection process starts and players will pretty soon have found out what is best and all tend to use that. The Chess example is insofar botched that only the black player is allowed to stampede over his enemy with a full set of queens. In PvE that is considered normal. In PvP both sides can get anything and in contrast to chess each queen has its counter. The farming problem arose from the fact that killing monsters with fewer people on the team yielded a higher “per capita” income. That basic idea rooted at the bottom of GW principles will always lead to the same result. Play solo, get the most. Only if quest rewards (Gems in DoA), or Dungeon Chests are the target do players group. EotN dungeons saw the rise of a new type of farming. Solo-farmers taking people with them to make more money on their run. Why not sell that “lottery ticket”, i.e. dungeon chest, to other people while you are at it? For some time Ursan teams were doing pretty well and a lot of people were able to play that. So many in fact, that Ursan got nerfed to hell and back. What followed were speedclears of UW and FoW based around SF. Fewer people did that, which lead to fewer very rich and more average poor players. If that gap is to be closed, then playing like an average player has to have its advantages. Still, that would offend the greedy player with his extremist builds and the average player probably does not care that much.--4thvariety 12:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. But, let me ask you something, have you ever, in PvE, used Feedback? Have you ever, in PvP, used Forceful Blow? That's exactly my point. Why should you use those skills? There is a difference between viable skills, overpowered skills, underpowered skills, and simply horrible skills. A Game Balancer's job is to change that. Titani Ertan 12:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

"Would you really like the game to nerf the farm builds in order that people have to sit 2 hours on their PC to get one ecto? Would that really make you happy?" Actually... yes. -- Wyn talk 13:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, I very much used feedback :p on the topic of solid state game balancing and suggested introducing a certain flux to keep mainstreaming at bay: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:User/4thVariety/Variable_Skill_Strength_%28Death_to_PvX_Wikis%29 But in all seriousness, if enemies would not cheat with their energy, the game would be totally different. Because enemies cheat, we know better than to wait until they exhausted their resources and then attack (compare RTS games). No, we have to enter the storm so to speak, which makes for better gameplay honestly. It enables enemies to put up enough pressure with their tiny builds. Even to the point that people feel a tank is a good idea and if the tank's aggro explodes, things get very dangerous. If enemies had limited mana resources, we would have a tank drain them and the rest of the team could wipe them. There would be energy exploits left and right. The problem with forceful blow is mainly the weakness of conditions in general. Which is due to their strength. Because conditions are strong, teams will bring adequate resources to remove them. All attributes at 1 effectively removes one person from the game. At five adrenaline quite a bargain. But can you really turn that into a gamewinner? Probably not because the other team will raise hell not to fall prey to that. Forceful Blow, its true weakness comes from its strength. As for the job of the "game balancer", I am pretty sure his job is to be the fall guy no matter what. 4thvariety 13:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You missed the point. Really, the point knocked on your door, breathed into your nose, and you just ignored the point and slammed the door at points' face. Read what I wrote again... and understand that I am not discussion specific skill changes.

You're wrong. A Game Balancers job is to do exactly what his name suggests: BALANCE a GAME (see why they call him that?). When the gap between overpowered skills and viable skills grows, it's the GAME BALANCERS job to notice and address that, in any form or shape. When viable skills diminish and become horrible skills according to metagame, it's the GAME BALANCERS job to . Seriously, I'm giving you the point on a platinum platter. Titani Ertan 13:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know, weakness doesn't reduce all attributes to 1, it reduces all attributes by one. This means that if you had 14 hammer mastery without weakness, with weakness you have 13. The rest of your argument relating to Forceful Blow kind of become meaningless after that. Misery 13:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, weakness also reduces weapon damage and can make a martial mob quite harmless with something as cheap and lasting as Enfeebling Blood, which makes it one of my all-time favorite skills in PvE. Pretty worthless against casters, though. Rose Of Kali 14:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The discussion about the "Skill Balancer" job and his work and responsibilities is kind of mot, since the person with that title is working on GW2 full time. Oh, and we REALLY, REALLY don't need another topic about "Balance". Really. As far as farming, where where you when this happened? (I direct you to the "Loot now scales according to party size." line.) That basically made solo-farming obsolete... Do you have any idea what kind of backlash that got? Every forum was ablaze. I remember people talking, that farming was THE ONLY THING that kept them playing Guild Wars and now when they don't have that they won't play anymore. It was such a mess that this had to happen the next day. The community needs more fixing then the game. (and that's why I have my hoped on GW2, because it'll allow the community to create itself anew) — Poki#3 (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Lol wow, I didn't even know about those updates. The main thing that Anet needs to do with GW2 is to start it right from the beginning, so that at most they might do small tweaks, because indeed radically fixing such issues after the fact is playing with fire. Rose Of Kali 16:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

@Titani: How on earth is a skill balancer supposed to rebalance a skill which main objective does not even make sense in PvE? Same goes for Forceful Blow. If you got 1319 skills, some of them are bound to be rock bottom bad when looked at from the end-game perspective. But different tiers of skill powers, allow for the game to have an increase in the skillpower over the course of the game, which is the only power gain a GW character will know. You accuse me of "slamming the door into skill balance's face", but in reality all I ask is that people acknowledge that beyond levels 1-20 there is a somewhat meaningful power-progression of elite skills you acquire. Forceful Blow is part of that, but it comes at a cost: the skill will appear useless later on when the player finds an even better one. I admit, the elite-skill power-progression and distribution in Factions is not the strength of campaign #2. But I ask that people at least try to perceive the game beyond simple complains of player beyond the 500h mark. @Poki: The whole loot-scaling thing only showed that greedy people will go for the flame-fest, if you take away stuff from them. Back then, as today, I say the reasonable thing is not to gimp them, but to find ways of rewarding the rest MORE. Do not lower the existing drop rate people are used to, when entering UW alone. Instead raise the drop rate for people operating in close proximity to each other. But that would be more complicated programming work. "Each opponent dying in your aggro range drops 40% more loot (Effect Stacks)" is a totally viable option. All it takes for Anet is to find the nerve to go up against the very vocal solo-grinders and speed-clearers again. But with grinders being very in the face of ArenaNet and "normal players" not accessing the feedback channels to express any lingering gratitude really, the game is between a rock and a hard place.4thvariety 16:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How is a Game Balancer supposed to balance skills and game mechanics? Learn what Balance means before telling me it's impossible. One of the main reasons Anet failed and continues to fail is because they just can't accept the fact that they rushed Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North productions, creating a huge batch of skills not being tested or even looked at. Titani Ertan 16:14, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

@4thVariety: Sorry, I'll disagree with you on that one, at least in the current state of things. Virtually anything that you're going to add to better non-farmers will backfire, and the farmers will exploit it to get at least double the intended amount. Furthermore, there are things called "Power Creep" and "Inflation". Nerfs are a necessity, and giving more won't make anything better in the long run. Increasing Ecto drops by 320% is a horrible idea. — Poki#3 (talk) 17:20, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How does having hindsight improve the game? If Anet thought all those games were perfect then why are we still getting constant updates. I also want to point out that at the time of the Factions release the whole concept of balance was a big unknown. Even top guilds were wondering, if balance should mean that people with only one campaign are still be 100% competitive in PvP compared to people owning both campaigns. Over time it became clear that this is not an option. I also did not say balance was impossible. I only pointed out that balance is more than a perceived equilibrium of power between over 1000 items. Balance can also mean the acquisition of skills is tied to a progression of power vital for the first game experience of completing a chapter for the first time. You learn Flare before you learn Fireball and later you learn Meteor Shower. Those skills will never know balance in any true sense, they were made for progression! ArenaNet experimented a lot with progression. Prophecies had a manually crafted skill progression. You really had to go to the toughest places to get the best skills. Factions was somewhat all over the place and some people never changed their build throughout the game. Nightfall restored the skill progression in part with the elite skills; although the strongest skills were placed around the third act of the game to allow for brutal environmental effects in the fourth act to still be a challenge. EotN sadly replaced skill progression with grind, because after a test run in nightfall, people really liked it. Titani's comments all boil down to "I hate you" and "I want it to be someway I can't describe myself". Even if you do describe it, you fail to recognize the whole the suggestion would tear into other parts of the game. The reality is that ArenaNet did something with GW for which there was no precedence in computer gaming. It is easy critizising some failures after playing the game for an insane amount of time. Now imagine creating that without the benefit of thousands of hours of playing the game. THAT is what Mr. Game Balancer had to do. @Poki: I am with you on the "trying to exploit" thing, but I still believe it can be done. Mainly because the regular players reaping the rewards of a 320% increased drop rate simply do not have as much time as the hardcore grinders. That in itself lowers the drop-rate in the same breath. On the other hand the grinders would not earn more than before. Hence the gap would be closing since normal players would now get as much as grinders. The inflation would accelerate but in contrast to now inflation would no longer widen the gap. How you play no longer is the issue in determining how wide the gap is, only time spend would be. Which is ok with Anet now. But you are right, it has to be one exploit free miracle of an upgrade. But ranged triggers are in the game, so there is hope. On top of that, ArenaNet really already tried all other approaches I can think of. So there aren't that many option left and just doing nothing is certainly not one of them.4thvariety 17:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Any idea what "increasing drop rate if in close proximity of other players" would do for Mobway? *laughs* I'm sorry, good try tho. Rose Of Kali 17:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me tell you a story. I played during Prophecies time, and there was no need for the word "Balance", because Guild Wars was balanced. Top guilds got where they got because they were good, people completed Ring of Fire islands not because they randomly pressed buttons for best result, but because they knew what they were doing. Me and a friend managed to get really pr0 and finished some of the game with him bonding me and I damaged everything, and so we got past the desert with that kind of tactics. It was fun, I found people I can talk to about stuff and learn from them. That's pretty much what makes MMORPGs so fun, compared to a Korean Grindfest (they're not really MMORPGs). People actually played the game and knew what was going on, and it was all fun and games and blah blah blah. I even played high-end PvP for a while, and the best part was that after the games, both teams sometimes talked to each other about what they did and how they could improve themselves.

The game was not about progression, it wasn't about how much domage you can stuff into 8 skills and then pack 2 monks and gogogo. It had a meaning, in RA it was truly random where you met random builds. Everybody tried anything, and sometimes it worked out. Even though I know what you would think that way, it wasn't.

I eventually left, because well, I don't need to give you a reason, but it wasn't in any way a GW related problem, as it was the best game I have ever, ever played.

Notice the past tense. Was.

Factions came out. PvE skills came out, mostly untested. Powercreep was invented, along with Shadow Steps, Ritualist Heals, how obsolete Ritualist Spirit Spammers were, and many more problems. I think that at that point, A.net knew they screwed up, mostly after some of the players lost the excitement of new content and inspected it. They told them the problem. "oshit", A.net said, "we really screwed up this time." "Yeah, but we get a fucking huge batch of money!" "Fuck, you're right! Hey, let's try heroin!!!", so things slipped, and so the streets were littered with crap already.

Only 6 months after Factions came out, which is 1/4 of the time it took them to release Prophecies, Nightfall, an almost equally big expansion came out. It provided an enormous amount of content and skills. Oh guess what? Most of that content was untested. While A.net was doing a huge delve into the unknown, the least they could've done is check community response. They didn't.

Searing Flames was introduced, and people said "Oshit, this is some pretty OP stuff." And so, Searing Flames was a must in any team, no matter which. Look at what Auron did. Speedclears were a gimmick (which was also a new term), and people found new and exciting ways to destroy the ladder with their own OP shit that took no tactics. "Fuck this", my friends said, and some left GW. They sometimes told me what happened, but I really didn't believe them; I knew NCSoft and ArenaNet had a good first go at Prophecies, so why would they fuck up their game so hard later on? Was it the heroin perhaps?

One way or another, Guild Wars' first non-campaign Expansion came out, and again, it only took A.net about 5 months to test a flood of new content. Oh guess what? They fucked it up. Again. At that point, I rejoined GW, and I was literally at shock. I didn't believe how much it changed.

Compare the first paragraph to what there is today. I didn't even mention PvE only skills, heroes, titles, Red Resign Day, [rawr] and many many many others. You know what? Fuck this. I don't know why I give a damn any more; A.net completely fucked their game, didn't even listen to the players when we pretty much punched them in the face with a giant stamper saying that, and they also completely ignored what one of their own founders said: "When you update your game, you will get a lot of shit from your playerbase, containing flames and how bad you are for what you do. But don't worry, people do that because they love your game and only want it better", or something around that lines. Well, apparently, A.net decided that they only address Korean Grindfesters as players. You know what? "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" any more. Titani Ertan 18:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) @4thVariety: You're wrong. If you give 3 times the Ectos to normal players, farmers will also get AT LEAST 3 times the Ectos. (They'll just switch from speed clearing, to hardcore nuking) Inflation will cause the prices to plummet. Ectos will be in a bigger crisis then the Dollar has ever seen. You cannot do something that will effect both. You have to buff "normal play" or nerf "farming". In both cases you'll have exactly the same result, except for the fact that the first example causes a decrease in the item value and is harder, while the second causes an increase in value and is easier. — Poki#3 (talk) 18:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

As is Mobway players do not gain that much, only the solofarmers of said team do and they would get the shaft in my scenario. The idea is to close the reift between solofarmers and teamplayers. That is the most important rift. Even if solofarmers turned into teamplayers all of a sudden, they would not earn more. Right now they make 800% of what a member in an Ursan team made in the past. They will defend that with their teeth, so there is no way lowering their income. Raising other players income is the only option left. Mobway is a glorified lottery ticked for the UW/FoW chest which in itself has a 0% chance of giving you something useful. Only if you do three runs a day you might see something in a year. @Titani: Sry, dude, it's Friday night, there is a party I need to be. I'll answer another time. Promised 4thvariety 18:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The amount of badness here is overwhelming, and I had to fight my urge to post a very large copypasta of my own for a substantial amount of time, during which I got EC'd and more badness entered this page. So, now I'm going to to discard my old troll post and tear your pathetic walls of text into tiny pieces.

"How does having hindsight improve the game" Gee, god forbid the developers learn from their mistakes. That would be awful!

"Factions release the whole concept of balance was a big unknown. Even top guilds were wondering" No. Shut up. You have no idea of what you are talking about. Most guilds knew exactly what balance meant, and that's why a large portion of the "elite" playerbase quit after the factions championship.

"You learn Flare before you learn Fireball and later you learn Meteor Shower" terrible terrible terrible terrible. If you really think that balance can actually be boiled down to this, in any context at all, you should really not talk about balance.

"Those skills will never know balance in any true sense, they were made for progression" Ahaha...no.

"Titani's comments all boil down to "I hate you" and "I want it to be someway I can't describe myself"" Again, no. Titani didn't do a great job in telling you why you're being quite silly, but he never did this.

"But different tiers of skill powers, allow for the game to have an increase in the skillpower over the course of the game, which is the only power gain a GW character will know" Again, you have no idea what balance means, or how the game actually works. The only power gain a GW character knows does not exist. The only power gain a GW player knows is the increase of his own skills over time, not how deep into the game he has gotten.

"It is easy critizising some failures after playing the game for an insane amount of time. Now imagine creating that without the benefit of thousands of hours of playing the game. THAT is what Mr. Game Balancer had to do" I'll give you this one, because, really, I agree with it. Though you do conveniently forget to mention how easy it is to fix a game after many decent players have explained (in rather graphic detail too) how to do so.

"As is Mobway players do not gain that much" You best be joking. What is your definition of much, anyhow?

"he idea is to close the reift between solofarmers and teamplayers. That is the most important rift" Why? In a game where everyone is farming, why does it matter if one group makes more than the other? Comparing cat shit to dog shit doesn't make any of them less shit.

"800% of what a member in an Ursan team made in the past. They will defend that with their teeth, so there is no way lowering their income" Have you heard of power creep? It's mostly a PvP concept, but it applies here as well. The whole ordeal goes for something like this: X profession makes 3e/hour solo farming, Y profession makes 4e/hour solo farming. Prof X is buffed, now making 10e/hour. Y whines like a crybaby, they are buffed to make 20e/hour. X whines, and so on and so forth. The ideal measure against this is to not buff X in the first place, or not to listen to Y if the buff is necessary, but right now, GW is way, way beyond that. Everyone is crying their eyes out just to stop the power creep. The game didn't need Shadow Form, it was better off without SF. The same goes for all the PvE skills, all the insanely-difficult-can't-beat'em-without-pve-skills type of bosses (re:Mallyx). But they added them in anyway. I'm not against variety or new content, but I do have a problem with it when it breaks the game due to terribad design.

"You accuse me of "slamming the door into skill balance's face"" He's right.

"but in reality all I ask is that people acknowledge that beyond levels 1-20 there is a somewhat meaningful power-progression of elite skills you acquire." From a deathly PvE perspective, I'll accept that this is partially true. Is this a good thing? No. Is this a necessary part of the game? No. Does it support balance in anyway whatsoever? Also No. Have people argued against it? No, just because we had better things to argue about.

"If skill selection is supposed to be a meaningful element of the game, then some skills always have to be more powerful than others" This premise is wrong. This is how you may see it, this is how Anet may see it (I really have no idea how they made some balance decisions), but this is wrong. The order in which you acquire skills has -should- have nothing to do with how they are balanced. This isn't some JRPG where you have to get Ultima to beat the superduper boss in the end. It is what it has devolved into, in way, but that's not okay.

"All this from a point of view of a regular GW player, casual player that would like to earn some money ingame must feel like a ping pong ball.." FYI, anyone who enters UW with SF on his bar is not casual. Anyone buying dungeon runs is not casual. Anyone grinding for fissure armor is not fucking casual.

"No, we have to enter the storm so to speak, which makes for better gameplay honestly" Do you honestly believe that? Do you? Mindless monsters with more brains than brawn, do you really believe that offers you good PvE experience? Tell me this, in your opinion, was Hard Mode well designed?

"Now imagine creating that without the benefit of thousands of hours of playing the game" Funny thing, balancers are expected to play the game they balance, if not on a competitive level (though the better balanced games do have those kinds of balancers) then on a frequent basis, to understand what they are working on.

tl,dr: Lrn2balance. NuVII 21:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

ITT: tl;dr and trolls trolling trolls. –Jette 22:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I aspire to be as short as you, Jette. NuVII 23:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Build creation, build selection, strategy, execution, and luck. That is what wins matches. Different PvP modes require different approaches making different skills more or less viable. All I hear is people saying that having acquired a high degree of execution skills entitles them to be insurmountable by any other factors. Such behavior (and patches enforcing that) threaten PvP, as it creates a barrier of entry which most people don't care about, making the most simple PvP modes the most played. Because it is hard for players to carry that sort of entitlement into a random match. The same goes for PvE. SF is a balanced skill. The player has to do a certain twisting of fingers to achieve a reward state of invincibility. If anything the concept of achieving that on your own might be flawed; as a team certainly not. The question is whether you are willing to subscribe to that solo-invincibility design as well as the resulting (un)social gameplay and money distribution in the game. Sure, the player is skillful in maintaining this combo and managing aggro, but is the resulting disengagement in social gameplay really that beneficial to GW? Gold and rewards are an encouragement to play GW in a certain way. tell them what they are doing is right. ArenaNet wants to keep the game alive, its player happy and sell more copies. From that point of view a skill is only negative when it impacts social environment of GW in such a matter that more player leave than new ones enter. SF driving people apart is more problematic than its invincibility. hence my suggestion of including designs to bring poeple together again; even in the pursuit of grind and wealth. As for PvP, next time you loose to “a noob” playing a skill you had no chance against, don't come flaming into a forum, feel happy for keeping the game alive. Execution can't and should never be everything. Better luck next time. After all, “being curb-stomped” is not a game you buy at retail for $50. ANY player deserves his chance. Even if some “pros” have to swallow a few bitter pills as a result. That is balance, not Izzy tweaking a few numbers until they reach some equilibrium in favor of execution only.4thvariety 12:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) "Balanced skill. A skill requiring you to press a button in order to execute." — 4thvariety dictionary ...
Go PvP for 10 seconds, and you'll know you're wrong. In case you're retarded, I'll tell you that you're wrong: You're wrong. I don't need to tell you why. It's now obvious to me that you disregard any previous comments anyone in this topic made. Titani Ertan 13:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

@ 4th, if you want to be taken seriously, I suggest not saying things like SF is a balanced skill. Also, it is true that a mixture of builds and strategy/skill wins matches, this is true anywhere, but in GW builds make the team more than strategy/skill, meaning that a bad team with good builds can easily beat a good team with average builds. That is not balanced, and you can say it is until you're blue in the face, but the fact is that you're wrong. Pros swallow bitter losses to pros. In baseball, would you expect a major league team to lose to a peewee team, because the peewee team had much better equipment? Would you say that is a fair judge of ability? Not at all. It shouldn't be execution only, but execution should be a larger part than it is. -- Tha Reckoning 13:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok guys... I think this has become enough of a wall of text. I can pretty much guarantee that Regina is A) not going to want to read this, B) not going to want to respond to this, and C) would like this discussion to go elsewhere. Please stop bloating staff talk pages (especially during a long holiday weekend, where they are NOT going to be around) with these endless discussions. Either come up with suggestions for how you would like things changed, and put them in the Feedback:Game suggestions area, and discuss them there, or take it to a fansite forum someplace. This page is for addressing Regina, regarding the content of her journal page. -- Wyn talk 13:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Why would devs read their talk pages when they're amazing tl;dr's full of arguments? ---Chaos- (talk) -- 15:14, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better if we moved this to Marcus' talk page? Erasculio 15:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)