Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by eyelolled

Originally posted by kristov

Overall i agree with the idea that its about freedom to choose and there are builds are arent optimal.

 

Generally speaking I also agree its up to you to have the skill to choose - but at the same time I also know that the game is probably only 50% properly balanced at this point and to not give any blame or expectations to the developers to continue to fix the issues is pure stupidity.

 

They will nerf/buff abilities ad naseum like every other game - and there will always be a group of people who proclaim everything is perfect and that its your own fault for being stupid in your ability. Things will change - there ARE OP builds and most assuredlly builds that suck balls - part will be because if player choice, some will be because of shoddy broken/bugged abilities and other will be because the devs havent properly balanced things. Thats the way of games with a multitude of choices.

 

In the end - my point is quit blaming this one dude for not being smart enough or lacking a life enough to spend hours (days?) reading forums trying to figure out the game because the devs failed to properly find an effective way to explain the game and how it works to the average player.

 

long story short - this game isn't balanced, and there are going to be alot of FOTM builds

Long story short balance is a myth...

 

It was said that players are supoosed to try to "break the game"  but within limits. There are limits to dps,mitigation, and healing output. If a build goes beyond that limit there will be changes.

 

I don't think we will see any changes until a good portion of the population are in ql10 gear.

it's not balanced, meaning some people are going to be unhappy. People that want to play their character the way they want, not look up a FOTM build online and play the game the way weak game design dictates. If people are unhappy, then people complain and the developers nerf to create balance.  Different people become unhappy and they complain.  If someone "breaks the game" as you put it, then they'll nerf it and people that had portions of their build nerfed are going to be mad. It's going to happen, there is no doubt of it.

Originally posted by eyelolled

People that want to play their character the way they want

And people are free to play their character the way they want.  They just have to recognize that if they WANT to play a weak character, then their character is going to be weak.  

Like i said in my earlier example, If i WANT to equip 14 shotgun skills while wieling Pistols and an Assault Rifle, I CAN do that. But it's going to suck.  This has nothing to do with balance whatsoever.   You are free to play whatever you WANT.  But you have to deal with the consequences of doing that - meaning you'll need to group up with people to get stuff done.  Nothing really wrong with that - if you design your build to inflict a lot of Weakness but not take advantage of it, that build will suck for soloing, but if you team up with someone whose build is designed to take advantage of Weakness, it'll be awesome.   There is no ONE solution.

And I honestly have no idea where this "you must look up a FOTM build" crap is coming from.  There is a difference between learning what abilities are good (important) and jsut copying stuff someone else did.   This game encourages learning and experimentation.  As part of that you will discover many things that simply don't work.  The pre-built decks are out there to give some ideas, but the majority of players have said that those decks aren't as good as things you can come up with yourself.

It just takes thinking and a bit patience.  If the OP's build isn't letting him succeed in BM, the solution is simply to step back and try some different things.  Maybe get some more gear, maybe get a few different abilities.  This is normal and EVERYONE goes through this.  Even people with good builds constantly work on bettering them. 

Every character has access to the exact same skills and gear as every other character. So if you want to be the exact equal of someone else.. you're free to be that.  100% perfect balance.   Personally I think balance is stupid and prefer to play my own way.  But if that's what you want, nothing is stopping you.   

Originally posted by shadow9d9

Penetration heals mobs in blue mountain.. look in the bottom right when attacking a mob.. it shows you this info.  Use a different non penetration spec for that zone.

Originally posted by Hexcaliber

Originally posted by shadow9d9

Penetration heals mobs in blue mountain.. look in the bottom right when attacking a mob.. it shows you this info.  Use a different non penetration spec for that zone.

Well that’s fucking retarded and very poor design, go in with blood and swords and your solo build is pretty much focused on proccing off  penetration, blades have the highest pen in the game, and the majority of passives affect pen its damn near impossible to not pen the mobs. Switching to as build focused on blood won’t work as a support role it doesn’t have the dps.

 

Well.. sadly.. if this is how you feel, TSW is probably not the game for you.  If you read up some on the overall design of combat in TSW, this type of thing is supposed to get more and more frequent as your progress further into the game.  The goal is specifically to make people adjust their builds.  If you're not comfortable being asked to switch away from penetration, or from something else, you'll probably get more and more annoyed as the game goes on and you start to hit more and more such limitations.

You call it "retarded" and honestly, i can see why you do.  I think that it's actually quite progressive and interesting.  I run a build that runs on weakness.  I fully expect that at some point I'll hit a zone where weakness is bad.  So i'll change my build to adjust.  I've already run into a few mobs that i couldn't kill because they had high magic resists.  So i died and came back with a build that had melee attacks.  I've run into several instance mobs on which using "Hinder" was bad.. this precluded me from using one of my most powerful combos.   Next time i ran the instance, I had a backup plan to replace that combo with something else.  I've run into mobs where my melee-based resource builder sucked balls due to most of the fight beind ranged.   After doing that instance for the first time, I immediately started saving up APs for a alternate builder that was range-based. 

Again, i can totally understand why one would be annoyed that their character is suddenly totally gimp.  But the entire game is designed around people having to adjust to this on a regular basis, so if it bothers you that much... it's proabably not the right style of game for you.

Just my opinion though... maybe the game WOULD be better if casting ANY of the 525 abiltiies in game would just take 10% of any mob's HP and then everyone would be equal.  I don't think so, but hey, maybe.

Originally posted by tokini

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by tokini

saddening to read this thread, makes it apparent the direction things are going, FotM builds, gear checks, etc., all the stuff a game touting freedom of choice should avoid.

Freedom of choice does not mean that "doing stupid shit = win anyway", although if that is what you are looking for, you should check out GW2, basically every mob is a zerg and no matter what you do or how bad you are, the result if the same.

 

Freedom in TSW is about being free to choose the way in which you succeed or fail.   It's entirely up to you what gear you run, how you get that gear and what build you work.  There are a thousand different builds and gear combintations that will succeed in the game.  But with freedom, comes also the opportunity to fail.  There are also a thousand different builds and gear combinations that will result in you failing.  But, guess what?  There is a further freedom in being able to experiment, to change, to improve - and ultimately - to go from failure to success.

 

THAT is what freedom in TSW means.  Freedom doesn't mean that you'll be awesome regardless of how bad you play and how bad the build is.

 my idea of freedom is that anything, played optimally, will succeed. what is the point of choice if i cant use a certain build because, even if played optimally, it just wont work?  gw2 is no different - there will be gimped builds, worhtless builds, and strongest 'must use' builds.  ive grown weary of games that say you have 3 talent trees, or 8 'souls' to mix and match, or skill wheel, or decks, out the wazoo but only 1 or a few are truly worthwhile, so maybe its just me

 

You could play with 7 active healing skills set just that pure healing no dmg at all that would be your freedom of choice but don't expect to kill anything with that.

I do not understand your argument you have hundreds of different builds which will perform differently well depending on the situation there is not just 1 dps 1 tank 1 heal 1CC etc skill there are hundreds of different choices and you can build them together however you want.

The only way there could be worthless or gimped builds is if you suck (like i mentioned 7 active healing skills no dps at all and try to solo...)or if you use the wrong kind of build sometimes an AOE build will work sometimes you need a single DPS build and maybe sometimes an CC build but what kind of build you put together is up to you.

Funcom said from the begin that you will need to adopt to the situation the skill system allows the game to be that way if you have other games where you only have 1 class you need to design the encounters doable for all classes but not in TSW here you need to adept to win or give up to the pressure and go bk to other games yet again your freedom of choice .)

Originally posted by Doomedfox

You could play with 7 active healing skills set just that pure healing no dmg at all that would be your freedom of choice but don't expect to kill anything with that.

What would be the point of that if they are all attached to the same timer...?

I can only see three possible utilities as well; self-heal, direct-heal and AoE-heal

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Doomedfox

You could play with 7 active healing skills set just that pure healing no dmg at all that would be your freedom of choice but don't expect to kill anything with that.

What would be the point of that if they are all attached to the same timer...?

I can only see three possible utilities as well; self-heal, direct-heal and AoE-heal

Why would they be attached to the same timer?

Besides i only used this as an example to show that his argument that all build if played correctly should be viable is not true since you could build a pure healing class with no dps but obviously could not solo with it.

I thought i made that clear in the follow up point and apologize if i was unable to get my point across.

Perhaps with his current attitude people would rather not group with him. 

It also sounds like his gear isn't meeting the requirement for the next area and he should go back to savage coast redo quests and maybe run inferno a bit.

Originally posted by arieste

...   Personally I think balance is stupid and prefer to play my own way   ...

Balance is what allows a player to play their own way not the other way around. 

When they get to the more difficult challenges, people's average builds that might have managed to get them through, will be insufficient and they will be looking for how to fix them.  FOTM builds is just the way this game is going to work.

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by Hexcaliber

Originally posted by shadow9d9

Penetration heals mobs in blue mountain.. look in the bottom right when attacking a mob.. it shows you this info.  Use a different non penetration spec for that zone.

Well that’s fucking retarded and very poor design, go in with blood and swords and your solo build is pretty much focused on proccing off  penetration, blades have the highest pen in the game, and the majority of passives affect pen its damn near impossible to not pen the mobs. Switching to as build focused on blood won’t work as a support role it doesn’t have the dps.

 

Well.. sadly.. if this is how you feel, TSW is probably not the game for you.  If you read up some on the overall design of combat in TSW, this type of thing is supposed to get more and more frequent as your progress further into the game.  The goal is specifically to make people adjust their builds.  If you're not comfortable being asked to switch away from penetration, or from something else, you'll probably get more and more annoyed as the game goes on and you start to hit more and more such limitations.

 

You call it "retarded" and honestly, i can see why you do.  I think that it's actually quite progressive and interesting.  I run a build that runs on weakness.  I fully expect that at some point I'll hit a zone where weakness is bad.  So i'll change my build to adjust.  I've already run into a few mobs that i couldn't kill because they had high magic resists.  So i died and came back with a build that had melee attacks.  I've run into several instance mobs on which using "Hinder" was bad.. this precluded me from using one of my most powerful combos.   Next time i ran the instance, I had a backup plan to replace that combo with something else.  I've run into mobs where my melee-based resource builder sucked balls due to most of the fight beind ranged.   After doing that instance for the first time, I immediately started saving up APs for a alternate builder that was range-based. 

 

Again, i can totally understand why one would be annoyed that their character is suddenly totally gimp.  But the entire game is designed around people having to adjust to this on a regular basis, so if it bothers you that much... it's proabably not the right style of game for you.

 

Just my opinion though... maybe the game WOULD be better if casting ANY of the 525 abiltiies in game would just take 10% of any mob's HP and then everyone would be equal.  I don't think so, but hey, maybe.

I'd rather choose my custom deck because I want to not because a zone dictates it. So I agree where you say the game might not be for some. Still I can see why people are so frustrated finding that out. In my opinion I would rather have the choice. So far I like every part of the game with the exception of the combat. animation looks geriatric, movement while fighting (camera) is clunky another story,  so when I finially found something that appealed to me I get pigeon holed into using a cap gun, 3 slash blade build (example) it is like someone stated 'retarded". I like the idea of that skill wheel system but to me it feels like a roulette wheel you don't know what your going to get until you waste your points, as alot of points and skills are sometimes just repetitive or plain crap. To bad though I found things quite innovative.

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Originally posted by heartless I've really ran into an issue during the "Scavengers" quest in the Blue Montain. If you haven't done this quest yet, prepare to ragquit a few times.

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So much rage. I tried 3 different builds before I managed to leech the quest completion off a group that ran in to do it.