Beta Sprite

Inraged Twitch, on 15 June 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

developers can't win. make it group content and people complain, make it for everyone by being solo, people complain

SpecialK, on 14 June 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

Really?  Do you truely believe that the reason you are not getting the free minis is because you are not loyal enough? How is this the first theory that comes to mind?  Do you watch Foxnews all the time?  Isn't it possible that they simply do not have the data for people that purchased gems in the head start period or the data is not as readily available as purchases after August 28?  I will be honest I have no idea why purchases before August 28th were excluded but I seriously doubt it was due to someone thinking that everyone that purchased before August 28th was not loyal enough.  If I had to guess I would go with a techical reason before a vendetta type of conspiracy.

Desild, on 12 June 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

There is no "way things truly are."  There is no enlightenment, there is no correct answer, there is no collection pot, etc.

These weapon skins are just that, skins.  Although I agree the drop rates are TOO low, you are not missing out on any stats, gear, weapons, or anything else by not purchasing them.  You can acquire all the stat-related items in-game, and the philosophy of "the best gear can be acquired in game" has not been broken once.

People who complain about not getting what they want out of a random box are too entitled.  Yes, I agree a drop rate of 1% is too low.  I also agree that as these skins have no value beyond their appearance, thus meaning you're not missing out on anything.

the butcher, on 12 June 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

I'm glad you mentioned the story.  I forgot it's coming the 14th!  

Syndic, on 12 June 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Oh?
I would actually say it looks like the complete opposite.
The fact that you can get every single thing from the Gem-store box in-game would suggest that they don't feel the need to only make it obtainable via gems.

To be fair, it's also possible that we'll see jorbreakers or large stacks of zhaitaffy as rewards for Living Story stuff later on. For instance, getting a stack of 250 tokens for a mask in the GW1 dragon festival looked pretty grindy until it turned out you could get most of them from quest rewards.

As the title states, this may be slightly crazy. There could be a lot of unforeseen consequences to changes I will be suggesting, but rather than say "This can't work because of that", let's say "perhaps this can work a little different so it doesn't affect that". And please, use your imagination; I don't want to hear "that won't work because of such and such trait", because obviously these changes would require changes to traits as well. In simpler terms: use constructive criticism.

Intro
I don't know about you guys, but to myself and at least one close friend of mine, nec just doesn't feel as "neccy" as before. The necromancer profession feels more like an elementalist with some disease and nastiness applied to them (remember: in the world of the necromancer, disease and "nastiness" are good things). The reason for this is a few things, and I'll try to explain them briefly.

Summaries
1 - Armor: In GW1, each profession had its own specific armor, giving them each their own flavour. In GW2 this becomes much more difficult as all professions share their armor with at least one other profession.

2 - Living up to the name: In GW1, necromancers had a strong bond with death. We required it to cast many of our spells, and whenever it occurred we'd find ourselves a little bit stronger than we were a moment ago. In GW2, our relationship with death is barely there.

3 - General problems with the game: GW2's not perfect, and there are a lot of things that need to be fixed. Some of these things hit necs a little harder than other professions.


Armor
Elementalists were exotic wizards, mesmers were either in underwear or dressed for the theatre, and necromancers... well necromancers were the oddballs covered in the stuff of nightmares. From tongues and tendrils to bondage and fetish to tribal shaman; the necromancer stood out more than anyone else. In GW2, we've lost this, and we now share our aesthetics with other professions. Unfortunately, Anet seems to have almost completely abandoned the style necs had in GW1, and leaving us with few choices if we wish to recreate the unique look necs used to have.

Obviously, it would be very difficult to go back to the old way, and probably a bad choice overall. Each profession having its own armor means either more time spent developing armor, or fewer choices of armor for us, or both. I'm not proposing we go back to GW1's sytem, it's just that I'd like to see some things in GW2 that remind me of elite Canthan nec, ancient nec, or elite Luxon. Yes, we have profane in GW2, but I'm pretty sure we're all aware how horrendous it looks compared to GW1's profane, espeically on males.


Living up to the name
In GW1, we had tons of spells that required a corpse to consume. Obviously, this creates problems and this system won't work in GW2. It creates a strong bond with death, and was an interesting (if incredibly difficult to balance) mechanic. Were we to integrate this into GW2, we'd find necs being ludicrously powerful during huge world events, while feeling especially weak and slow otherwise. The solution? Something crazy.

Seeing as how life force is our one bond to actual death in the game it seems like a good place to start. Let's make the life force bar multi-purpose. Instead of life force being a charge for a 2nd health bar and a set of skills that might be completely useless in some builds, let's allow it to double as a resource and rework a ton of necromancer skills to go along with this. We will also have to make changes to the life force bar so that it registers as over 100%, instead of it just changing how much health the bar has. For example, with 25 points in soul reaping, a maxed out life force bar would read "Life Force: 125%", instead of 100%. The reason why will be clarified below.

The general rule: Weapon and spectral skills charge life force, non-spectral utility skills use life force. Add F2, F3, and F4 button, with each appearing above the 7, 8, and 9 utilities, respectively.

Minions: Doesn't anyone else miss massing minions and steamrolling across the battlefield? I sure do. It was my favourite thing to do in PvE, and it was fun to try to micro-manage as a minion bomber. In GW2 minions are rather ineffective, heavily limited, and often a liability, so let's do away with that. Let's make minions spammable, with their secondary effect being the respective F2/F3/F4 buttons. Let's toss up an example (the numbers aren't important, just the functions).
Bone minion: 10 sec cooldown, costs 10% life force(This cost is the reason why the life force bar should change how it counts, as mentioned above). Raises a bone minion with stats based on your stats, it lasts until killed. Maximum of 2 + X, where X is 1/10th of the number of trait points invested in death magic. For example, 10 death magic would yield 3 max, 29 would yield 4 max.
Hit the respective F# key to detonate either the minion with the lowest health, or the one you are targeting, on a 3 second cooldown.

Wells could be just as they are now, but toned down a bit with an added effect if you have the life force required to pay the extra cost.
Examples:
Well of power's boons last twice as long if you can pay X% life force
Well of suffering would have increased duration if you can pay X% life force
The F2, F3, and F4 keys would allow you to cast utility wells without using life force, in case you prefer to save it.

Corruption examples:
Epidemic also spreads conditions from surrounding enemies to the target before applying the normal aoe effect, at the cost of X% life force, cast with F# to not pay life force cost.
Blood is power also grants 10 stacks of might to allies in X radius at the cost of X% life force. Cast with F# to not pay life force cost.
Corrupt boon: Hit F# to instantly recharge at the cost of X% life force.

Spectrals:
Cast with F# keys to increase potency(life force gain, duration, etc) at the expense of a longer cooldown.

(Of course, all of the above means that necs will need some sort of cap on how often they can get life force from deaths, to avoid necs becoming retardculous during large events)

General problems with the game
I'm not going to say much here, largely because other people have already made very good points on all of the problems I can imagine. I still have a few ideas, though.

Condition stacks - We all know this is an issue. One solution I thought of would be to reduce the # of stacks certain skills cause while buffing those conditions, allowing for the same effect with a greater ceiling. For example, make bleeding twice as strong per stack, but reduce a skill that causes two stacks to just one stack. Alternatively, they could also remove the cap altogether, but I suspect it's there for some programming reason (server strain?) and I honestly don't know a whole lot about programming.

Punishment - Necs in GW1 had a lot of punishment skills. It was something necs and mesmers were both well-known for. In GW2... the nec is completely lacking such things. Punishment hexes have been effectively replaced with confusion, which is very much a mesmer condition, at least in the name. I would suggest Anet just change the name to be a bit more generic, such as "backfire", or "pain", and then add this renamed condition to a few necromancer skills.

Conditions and boons from monsters - One thing necs do really well is managing conditions on allies and boons on enemies. We don't just remove them, we flip them, or we transfer them, and we turn a leg-up into a crippling limp. The problem with that is that it's just not very useful in PvE as most monsters don't bother with these things to any extent worth countering. Protection is worth removing, and some enemies can lay down some hefty conditions, but these things just aren't common enough to care, and you can usually just brute-force your way through these problems. The game needs more condition-spamming enemies, fewer OHKO's(This was really well explained by Kaaboose in another thread a few days ago), and more enemies that depend on their boons. This isn't just about making nec more useful, this is about making the game more interesting and forcing players to think rather than charge at full speed and faceroll.

In closing
I probably forgot a bunch of things. This is why I rarely start threads and even more rarely start ones with an OP this long. But whatever, read through it and tell me what you think. Suggest anything I missed, and remember! Constructive criticism!

PS: I am dying for greataxe to be added for the game and for necs to be able to use it.

personally wish that they bring back the skill name + charging up bar of monsters from gw1.

while having an animation tell is nice, you can only see so much even if the effects are reduced,
especially when they are bunched up and blocking the view together.

https://forum-en.gui.../15#post2147926

Evan Lesh said:

At least it seems like tacit acknowledgement of the issue.

NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED.

The argument is typically this:
To fulfill the amount of gold people order, gold sellers typically resort to botting and stealing legitimate player's accounts.

Both of these obviously hurt the game, and its players.

SE1 is fast, but not very good for gold
hotw1 is about 12-15 minutes
ac is also fast but not very good for gold
coe 1 and 3 can be done by a fast group in 27 minutes but is only really good for gold if you have good RNG.  
TA up/up is also very fast but you need good chest rng for cores/lodestones to make it valuable

Of those choices COE1+3 and hotw1 are the best, since their tokens are also ecto-able.

Eon Lilu, on 12 May 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

I don't necessarily disagree with you in that GW2 could be easier than some other games, but if a 46 second GL kill was so easy it would have been done long ago.  Besides, where is the harm in someone else enjoying the game by competing for the lowest time?  I don't see why this bothers you.

Ruufio, on 02 May 2013 - 02:42 AM, said:

Stopped reading here.

Looks pretty, but that's all I'm certain on this one. I will always be suspicious of Asian MMOs.

Plus, subscription fees = no go.

MazingerZ, on 03 May 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

You are welcome to try and pass it off as true, but I don't see a mass exodus or an uprising of angry customers. I see a small group of pessimists being very vocal. So as much fluff you accuse Colin, I can say the same thing about your ranting.

Soki, on 03 May 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

It's amusing to see you care about a developer's time, yet you're quick to label them as incompetent. You can't have it both ways.

I, on 03 May 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

You're completely ignoring the very fact that MMOs are never finished, they are always in a state of development. You're accusing ArenaNet of actually doing their jobs. Developing the game!