Actually, I MIGHT stay past the 1st month. I was pretty disappointed originally with the game but after my guild had a 20v20 war with the opposing faction over a major rift & we stomped them I kind of saw the light. If something like that could happen on a regular basis it could certainly entice me to stay. Keep in mind though that once SW:ToR releases its lights out for my Rift account. I've already told myself that SW:ToR will hold me for at least 2 years but hopefully 4 or more & I'm determined to stick it out even if it has troubles in the beginning cause imo, if BW can't do it nobody can.
Just cancelled my sub but that's not to say i won't be back.
I think it has great potential and i still can't get over how polished it is for a launch title, but a few niggles here and there have made me want to login in less and less recently.
I'm mostly a solo player. I find the mob density over the top in many areas and the rifts too numerous now. It's just kind of worn me down having to fight mobs all the time just going from a to b. Playing a paladin/reaver probably dosen't help but i enjoy tanks. In gloamwood currently and just riding your mount along the roads between those spiders is a chore. Root, dismount,run, mount, root, dismount, run gets irksome. respawn rates on some mobs is insane also. I've had a few occasions where mobs almost instantly respawn before i even looted the corpse.
Not major problems and i'm guessing it will be tweaked somewhat over the coming weeks, but for now i'm gonna pass. I will definitely be keeping my eye on the game though.
Cancelled my sub 2 days ago. Got to 50, completed more than half the expert dungeons and was not impressed at all. They literally took some boss fights directly from WoW. The gear isnt even a huge improvement, itll just end up being grinding experts for plaques. Then for PvP, itll just be grinding prestige and favor. Just very monotonous and no feeling of immersion and never felt rewarded from anything.
The progression in this game is too fast and too easy and didn't feel rewarded for anything I did for one moment. Didn't have to drive of desire to log in to finish the last 3 expert dungeons. The raid rifts and raid quests (stillmoor and shimmersand) were a joke.
The game was really well made, I was impressed with how smooth everything was and how stuff was fixed immediately but like I said, the content just got stale fast.
52% retention rate based on this poll. Most likely it will be the lower industry standard of 40% retention rate, each month, until the next big thing comes out (~6 months from now). My prediction stands strong with Rift.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Yeah, I'll be staying... for now. Got a warrior to 50 and having fun with a mage, but it's all starting to get a bit familiar with rep and gear and PvP points. Founders pricing is cheap enough that I've decided to shell out for the next 3 months, but don't see myself staying beyond that.
If my loathing to even login today is any indication, definitely not.
I might just be in a funk, but grinding dailies, warfronts, or grouping PUGs for gear just doesn't sound fun. Dungeon grouping just isn't fun in general. World pvp is too uncommon, wafronts are a joke, and I just don't like daily grinding at all.
I feel like every aspect of this game is done the wrong way I guess.
If my loathing to even login today is any indication, definitely not.
I might just be in a funk, but grinding dailies, warfronts, or grouping PUGs for gear just doesn't sound fun. Dungeon grouping just isn't fun in general. World pvp is too uncommon, wafronts are a joke, and I just don't like daily grinding at all.
I feel like every aspect of this game is done the wrong way I guess.
lol the problem is when they leave that stuff out people freak out there is nothing to do at 50. If you think I am lying watch when you get to end game in GW2 or SWToR and that stuff is not there. Just watch man.
Your view on warfronts and world pvp is very subjective and could be server dependent. I got pvp on my server. Last I heard Briarcliff is a warzone.
It all comes down to stability to me. I've only been able to play the game in small spurts before it locks up my system. Trion tech support are trying to help me resolve the issue but so far they've just been going through the motions (i.e. driver versions, background tasks, permission problems) all of which I've already been through.
I think my trial has 20ish days left on it. If I can get the game the run stable in that time, I'll probably stay on for a while longer; if not, I'm outta here.
Why? Loved the game, but hate the new direction since launch. Steadily killing non-traditional class roles to simplify future balance, even then, balance of traditional builds is poor. Renewed emphasis on forced downtime and HP recovery items as main money sink.
Not sure if the entire Ascended Soul, build your own class thing was a bait and switch gimmick, or if they just realized it was challanging to balance. Clear they've decided to use nerfs to render non-viable many builds, rather than actually tune balance rationally.
I would stress I hate forced downtime between fights and was relieved that most MMOs have lessened or eliminated that in recent years. Huge step back for Trion Worlds with Rift. Also, once enticed with the freedom to have non-traditional builds for each calling that worked and were fun, only to have them clearly and deliberately killing them one by one, for me was just too discouraging. If I wanted to play the same old, same old classes, there are plenty of other MMORPGs out there that do it better.
The roughly 20 fold increase in end game progression time was icing on the cake. Already had abandoned my Rogue when they nerfed a number of interesting builds into oblivion. Just went through the same thing on Warrior. Tried leveling up a Priest, but at this point I'm a.) convinced that if I find builds I like, they will kill them as well b.) I just can't do the same content over again and I don't want to start completely over in the other faction.
I was going strong with enthusiasm for the game, would have happily paid for a 3 month plan, with the expectation of using those three months. Not anymore.
I got my money's worth from the game purchase, tons of total hours played. However, frustrated to see another team of Devs take a good release and then proceed to kill the game, somehow in the name of saving it.
Overly pessemistic? Nope. Seen it with dozens of MMORPGs the last decade. Even if developers have a good launch and decent first month, they seem to invariably make the same balancing mistakes that hurt the game much, much more than what ever it was they thought to address with the changes.
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The non traditional roles as you call them were a bit too strong and in my opinion they needed to tone them down. For example lets look at mages. Right now the healing mage soul is probably the strongest healing soul in the game. The end result was that mages were getting invites in dungeons only if they were going to use that specfic soul. Rogues had similar problems with their bard souls. Clerics on the other hand have the opposite problem, their non traditional roles are not very strong, thus they end up healing in the majority of cases.
Of course things are not perfect. Rogues need more tweaks to get in line with warrior damage and mages will probably need some toning down after the latest adjustments.
Regarding downtime, I levelled as a druid, killing one target at a time, unless I pulled more by mistake. I hold no sympathy for those who want to pull multiple mobs, kill them and have no downtime before pulling the next group.
With the recent inclusion of dailies for plaques it seems that things are somewhere in between the launch state and the pre-patch state regarding plaque collection. That is, for a person that would play normal hours and was not spending his entire day doing all expert instances available. For somebody that will run two instances per day (one tier 1 and one tier 2) he'll end up with more plaques than even the old system would provide. Keep in mind that those two instances are a minimum of two hours commitment (and I'm being very generous giving just one hour to complete a tier 2).
My general impression regarding PvP the first day after the adjustments is that things are pretty much the same for a healing cleric in PvP. Those individuals (note I didn't say classes) that were owning me before the patch and nerfs are keep on doing so, regardless of the class nerfs in some cases. I get stunned a bit less (thank to diminishing returns and the escape tool in 2mins cooldown) but my job is kind of harder because for some reason people are using healing debuff builds a lot more. Nothing much seem to have changed in the mana drain front, despite the so called nerf, I get drained as fast as i used to (tbh I think I get drained faster now).
I don't know if you would enjoy a healing cleric in PvP. A strong stomach is needed both because you get prioritise and killed/stunned as fast as possible by good teams (warfront list shows who's healer specced etc) and you're very squishy until you raise yourself to prestige 3 and grab yourself some valor gear. After that survival is all about reaction, cleric healers don't have escape mechanisms, all they can do is outheal or dispel the damage done on them and rely on their team to peel their attackers. Against good teams you'll get stunned and killed in under 2 seconds, against average teams you can keep yourself up for 15-20 seconds, against bad teams you'll never die (the whine about unkillable clerics in the forums). All the above are related to end game PvP, early or mid game is different due to other classes lacking essencial skills to counter clerics in some cases and most people having no clue about what they are doing. Not that end game improves that of course.
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I guess I don't even come close to understanding where you are coming from? The whole nerf thing is a big complaint on these forums and from what i've read they mostly seem an important fix in a game genre which requires balance to remain versatile. Can't please everyone, but one lowly opinion does not accurately describe how fantastic a job Trion is doing. Nothing is perfect, and Rift will need more icing and probably cake too to remain competitive later this year and early 2012. But so far they have shown nothing but competence.
lol the problem is when they leave that stuff out people freak out there is nothing to do at 50. If you think I am lying watch when you get to end game in GW2 or SWToR and that stuff is not there. Just watch man.
Your view on warfronts and world pvp is very subjective and could be server dependent. I got pvp on my server. Last I heard Briarcliff is a warzone.
The thing with Guildwars 1 and 2 is that they don't really have any traditional endgame. There are no raids and gear is at about the same level no matter if you did the hardest place n the game or just got some regular gear.
You PvP, you get titles, you get cool skins, add to the guildhall and similar things. In the second will you also work on your home.
So no, GW2 wont have an endgame from launch but it wont add one later either. It is not gear based so a traditional endgame just don't work.
I wouldn't be surprised if TORs endgame is patched in later, TOR is a lot more like Rift since both games are gear focused.
Of course, I subbed for 6months, excellent game w/ an excellent company. Some may dislike the changes but hey, they are trying and atleast you can see the works and progress.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu, Art of War
Rift is nice but its getting grindy, start doing endless rep grind dailies from day1 as 50 then farm 1000s? of badges/plaques to obtain tier 2 sets. WoW never had dailies or badge grind at that early stage, some people are really not happy about the grinds.yes i will be staying though it feels kinda fresh and yummy got my shiny turtle recently and as a mage im happy with the buffs and nerfs
Rift is nice but its getting grindy, start doing endless rep grind dailies from day1 as 50 then farm 1000s? of badges/plaques to obtain tier 2 sets. WoW never had dailies or badge grind at that early stage, some people are really not happy about the grinds.yes i will be staying though it feels kinda fresh and yummy got my shiny turtle recently and as a mage im happy with the buffs and nerfs
The thing is, you are not supposed to buy all plaque gear with plaques. You are supposed to complete the sets if you are unlucky with drops in certain slots.
Ok lets take paladins BOP/TTT. It was a significant part of the dps and the major part of the survivability of a paladin. Before the balance patch before this one, AP etc was a part of it... At 35th I was doing BOP for 112 damage and heal. The first nerf to it lowered that to 55.
Before the second nerf I was level 50 with good gear specialized for block to make up for some of it with a very tightened template. I was back up to around 110 damage and heal per block.
The second nerf knocks that down to 48 -- but worse still it only applies once per 1.5 seconds... So lets take what was a fairly typical long drawn out fight for a paladin... Say I was fighting 5 level 47 rogue monsters(a lesser invasion squad) on my level 50 paladin -- I have a block of 66%.
The first round I would block 3 of the 5 for 110 healing and damage each time and the second say 4 of the 5 for 110 healing and damage each time. That is 770 healing/dps.
Post nerf the first round it would be applied ONCE the first round for 48 healing and damage and ZERO times the second round for 0 healing and damage.
So 770 down to 48.
That is the kind of nerf that says "Don't bother." There is no way I could come close to taking the level 47 squad now at 50th because I would die first but even if I didnt the time it would take to knock it down goes from about the same time as it takes a dps to kill 2 squads to the time it would take a dps to kill over 3 squads.
----
Yes I did cancel despite liking the game. I just wont deal with a company that does this sort of thing. I would never feel safe in any template I chose (and there really arent any for warriors anymore -- no way I am rerolling mage or something).
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I guess I don't even come close to understanding where you are coming from? The whole nerf thing is a big complaint on these forums and from what i've read they mostly seem an important fix in a game genre which requires balance to remain versatile. Can't please everyone, but one lowly opinion does not accurately describe how fantastic a job Trion is doing. Nothing is perfect, and Rift will need more icing and probably cake too to remain competitive later this year and early 2012. But so far they have shown nothing but competence.
Well, the problem with that approach is that it places PvP as more important than PvE. I've seen this countless times before. Rift is first and foremost a PvE game. PvP was added just to appeal to a smaller demographic, to add to their subscriber numbers. Some legitimate bugs needed to be fixed, but much of the nerf bat swinging was to "balance" the soul system for PvP. At the expense of the PvE aspect of the game, as it turns out.
I've started calling this the Ghostcrawler syndrome. Its when Dev's spend so much time looking at their spread sheets and data mining tools, that they forget what makes a class fun to play. The 1.1 patch has seriously hammered warriors, rogues, and some of the other builds. Once I witnessed the results, I'll be honest... I was half tempted to end my subscription right there. I've seen this all before, in the destruction of the death knight class. If this is just the first step down that endless, all too familiar path, I'm going to find another game.
One doesn't have to please everyone. But nerfing the hell out of the PvE side of the game(which has a much larger population) in favor of the PvP side, doesn't make all that much sense. But few people are as blind to reality as a Dev who is caught up in their Vision... So, this is pretty much par for the course.
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I guess I don't even come close to understanding where you are coming from? The whole nerf thing is a big complaint on these forums and from what i've read they mostly seem an important fix in a game genre which requires balance to remain versatile. Can't please everyone, but one lowly opinion does not accurately describe how fantastic a job Trion is doing. Nothing is perfect, and Rift will need more icing and probably cake too to remain competitive later this year and early 2012. But so far they have shown nothing but competence.
Well, the problem with that approach is that it places PvP as more important than PvE. I've seen this countless times before. Rift is first and foremost a PvE game. PvP was added just to appeal to a smaller demographic, to add to their subscriber numbers. Some legitimate bugs needed to be fixed, but much of the nerf bat swinging was to "balance" the soul system for PvP. At the expense of the PvE aspect of the game, as it turns out.
I've started calling this the Ghostcrawler syndrome. Its when Dev's spend so much time looking at their spread sheets and data mining tools, that they forget what makes a class fun to play. The 1.1 patch has seriously hammered warriors, rogues, and some of the other builds. Once I witnessed the results, I'll be honest... I was half tempted to end my subscription right there. I've seen this all before, in the destruction of the death knight class. If this is just the first step down that endless, all too familiar path, I'm going to find another game.
One doesn't have to please everyone. But nerfing the hell out of the PvE side of the game(which has a much larger population) in favor of the PvP side, doesn't make all that much sense. But few people are as blind to reality as a Dev who is caught up in their Vision... So, this is pretty much par for the course.
And this is where you're wrong. This patch has been primarily a PvE adjustment with some minor PvP changes (like the mage ability to not interrupt casting if not facing target).
Warriors needed to be adjusted in terms of dps in accordance to the other clases, otherwise there was no reason to get anything but warriors in your dungeons for dps. For the same reason mages were raised in dps and rogues are about to follow in following patches.
In the same page, tanking classes were adjusted to bring in line with the other callings. Simply put, warriors were a bit too good compared to clerics and rogues. Healing also had a similar issue. Mages were the best healers hands down with bards the best offhealers-buffers, while clerics had no real place besides the perception that they were good healers from people who knew little. Now mages and clerics are a bit more in line, still due to the changes more mage and rogue healers will be included in raid compositions.
When you've played the most powerful class for some time it is natural for the adjustments to hurt. On the other hand those who were underpowered don't have to scale so huge a difference any more. Looking at PvP in general, most of the crying is from people who thought that were good, but in actuality were just playing the FOTM class and build combo. Now that they need to adjust to a more level playing field, they can't cope, especially when they now start get beaten by people who never stood a chance before.
I'm sorry tha some people can't adjust not playing the FOTM class any more and will be leaving the game due to that, but the alternative would be to alienate the rest of the classes waiting for some actual balance.
I dont think I will stay passed the free month from where I bought the game. Even though I bought collectors edition I just dont see the fun in it passed level 50. And even if you make another class you still have to do the same quests over and over.
Some classes are way over powered yet they only neft some classes, unbalanced I think.
Wish they would make a more dynamic content and quest system.
Yes; it's enjoyably. I already signed up for the six month founder's plan, which ends up costing ten dollars a month. something kind of casual is exactly what I want right now; I wore out the serious raiding five or six hours a day part of me on WoW. A few hours every other day or so is plenty; knit or read or play a different game or visit family the other days.
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I guess I don't even come close to understanding where you are coming from? The whole nerf thing is a big complaint on these forums and from what i've read they mostly seem an important fix in a game genre which requires balance to remain versatile. Can't please everyone, but one lowly opinion does not accurately describe how fantastic a job Trion is doing. Nothing is perfect, and Rift will need more icing and probably cake too to remain competitive later this year and early 2012. But so far they have shown nothing but competence.
Well, the problem with that approach is that it places PvP as more important than PvE. I've seen this countless times before. Rift is first and foremost a PvE game. PvP was added just to appeal to a smaller demographic, to add to their subscriber numbers. Some legitimate bugs needed to be fixed, but much of the nerf bat swinging was to "balance" the soul system for PvP. At the expense of the PvE aspect of the game, as it turns out.
I've started calling this the Ghostcrawler syndrome. Its when Dev's spend so much time looking at their spread sheets and data mining tools, that they forget what makes a class fun to play. The 1.1 patch has seriously hammered warriors, rogues, and some of the other builds. Once I witnessed the results, I'll be honest... I was half tempted to end my subscription right there. I've seen this all before, in the destruction of the death knight class. If this is just the first step down that endless, all too familiar path, I'm going to find another game.
One doesn't have to please everyone. But nerfing the hell out of the PvE side of the game(which has a much larger population) in favor of the PvP side, doesn't make all that much sense. But few people are as blind to reality as a Dev who is caught up in their Vision... So, this is pretty much par for the course.
And this is where you're wrong. This patch has been primarily a PvE adjustment with some minor PvP changes (like the mage ability to not interrupt casting if not facing target).
Warriors needed to be adjusted in terms of dps in accordance to the other clases, otherwise there was no reason to get anything but warriors in your dungeons for dps. For the same reason mages were raised in dps and rogues are about to follow in following patches.
In the same page, tanking classes were adjusted to bring in line with the other callings. Simply put, warriors were a bit too good compared to clerics and rogues. Healing also had a similar issue. Mages were the best healers hands down with bards the best offhealers-buffers, while clerics had no real place besides the perception that they were good healers from people who knew little. Now mages and clerics are a bit more in line, still due to the changes more mage and rogue healers will be included in raid compositions.
When you've played the most powerful class for some time it is natural for the adjustments to hurt. On the other hand those who were underpowered don't have to scale so huge a difference any more. Looking at PvP in general, most of the crying is from people who thought that were good, but in actuality were just playing the FOTM class and build combo. Now that they need to adjust to a more level playing field, they can't cope, especially when they now start get beaten by people who never stood a chance before.
I'm sorry tha some people can't adjust not playing the FOTM class any more and will be leaving the game due to that, but the alternative would be to alienate the rest of the classes waiting for some actual balance.
Notice my avatar? I'm just about as far away from an MMO PvP player as its possible to get. ^^ I still play FPS PvP games, but I want nothing what so ever to do with MMO PvP. Thus, the changes in that area are of little concern to me. What annoys the hell out of me is the 25-30% self heal nerf in the reaver soul line. Not to mention they have added at least another 50% to stealth detection range on NPC's...Without telling anyone of course. I've come to expect this type of behavior from Blizzard over the years, but I've been expecting better from Trion.
The soul system is a great idea. But it seems that they are going to spend years playing nerf and buff games with it. Mainly to please the PvP brigade. Or the raiders, who demand that everyone use this or that build, to appease the great god, damage meter... ^^ Any way, I've seen countless games start down this path, so I really shouldn't be surprised. If they continue, I'll just find another game to play. This is about fun after all, and I really don't consider having to deal with an endless stream of nerfs fun.
Comments
Actually, I MIGHT stay past the 1st month. I was pretty disappointed originally with the game but after my guild had a 20v20 war with the opposing faction over a major rift & we stomped them I kind of saw the light. If something like that could happen on a regular basis it could certainly entice me to stay. Keep in mind though that once SW:ToR releases its lights out for my Rift account. I've already told myself that SW:ToR will hold me for at least 2 years but hopefully 4 or more & I'm determined to stick it out even if it has troubles in the beginning cause imo, if BW can't do it nobody can.
Just cancelled my sub but that's not to say i won't be back.
I think it has great potential and i still can't get over how polished it is for a launch title, but a few niggles here and there have made me want to login in less and less recently.
I'm mostly a solo player. I find the mob density over the top in many areas and the rifts too numerous now. It's just kind of worn me down having to fight mobs all the time just going from a to b. Playing a paladin/reaver probably dosen't help but i enjoy tanks. In gloamwood currently and just riding your mount along the roads between those spiders is a chore. Root, dismount,run, mount, root, dismount, run gets irksome. respawn rates on some mobs is insane also. I've had a few occasions where mobs almost instantly respawn before i even looted the corpse.
Not major problems and i'm guessing it will be tweaked somewhat over the coming weeks, but for now i'm gonna pass. I will definitely be keeping my eye on the game though.
Cancelled my sub 2 days ago. Got to 50, completed more than half the expert dungeons and was not impressed at all. They literally took some boss fights directly from WoW. The gear isnt even a huge improvement, itll just end up being grinding experts for plaques. Then for PvP, itll just be grinding prestige and favor. Just very monotonous and no feeling of immersion and never felt rewarded from anything.
The progression in this game is too fast and too easy and didn't feel rewarded for anything I did for one moment. Didn't have to drive of desire to log in to finish the last 3 expert dungeons. The raid rifts and raid quests (stillmoor and shimmersand) were a joke.
The game was really well made, I was impressed with how smooth everything was and how stuff was fixed immediately but like I said, the content just got stale fast.
~Serge
Blades of Valor, FFXI/FFXIV Linkshell
www.BladesOfValor.org
waiting for this game to get a bit cheaper i am skinto at the moment
52% retention rate based on this poll. Most likely it will be the lower industry standard of 40% retention rate, each month, until the next big thing comes out (~6 months from now). My prediction stands strong with Rift.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Yeah, I'll be staying... for now. Got a warrior to 50 and having fun with a mage, but it's all starting to get a bit familiar with rep and gear and PvP points. Founders pricing is cheap enough that I've decided to shell out for the next 3 months, but don't see myself staying beyond that.
If my loathing to even login today is any indication, definitely not.
I might just be in a funk, but grinding dailies, warfronts, or grouping PUGs for gear just doesn't sound fun. Dungeon grouping just isn't fun in general. World pvp is too uncommon, wafronts are a joke, and I just don't like daily grinding at all.
I feel like every aspect of this game is done the wrong way I guess.
lol the problem is when they leave that stuff out people freak out there is nothing to do at 50. If you think I am lying watch when you get to end game in GW2 or SWToR and that stuff is not there. Just watch man.
Your view on warfronts and world pvp is very subjective and could be server dependent. I got pvp on my server. Last I heard Briarcliff is a warzone.
It all comes down to stability to me. I've only been able to play the game in small spurts before it locks up my system. Trion tech support are trying to help me resolve the issue but so far they've just been going through the motions (i.e. driver versions, background tasks, permission problems) all of which I've already been through.
I think my trial has 20ish days left on it. If I can get the game the run stable in that time, I'll probably stay on for a while longer; if not, I'm outta here.
Im takeing a break until some key features im waiting for are ingame, its a good game all in all.
Canceled today.
Why? Loved the game, but hate the new direction since launch. Steadily killing non-traditional class roles to simplify future balance, even then, balance of traditional builds is poor. Renewed emphasis on forced downtime and HP recovery items as main money sink.
Not sure if the entire Ascended Soul, build your own class thing was a bait and switch gimmick, or if they just realized it was challanging to balance. Clear they've decided to use nerfs to render non-viable many builds, rather than actually tune balance rationally.
I would stress I hate forced downtime between fights and was relieved that most MMOs have lessened or eliminated that in recent years. Huge step back for Trion Worlds with Rift. Also, once enticed with the freedom to have non-traditional builds for each calling that worked and were fun, only to have them clearly and deliberately killing them one by one, for me was just too discouraging. If I wanted to play the same old, same old classes, there are plenty of other MMORPGs out there that do it better.
The roughly 20 fold increase in end game progression time was icing on the cake. Already had abandoned my Rogue when they nerfed a number of interesting builds into oblivion. Just went through the same thing on Warrior. Tried leveling up a Priest, but at this point I'm a.) convinced that if I find builds I like, they will kill them as well b.) I just can't do the same content over again and I don't want to start completely over in the other faction.
I was going strong with enthusiasm for the game, would have happily paid for a 3 month plan, with the expectation of using those three months. Not anymore.
I got my money's worth from the game purchase, tons of total hours played. However, frustrated to see another team of Devs take a good release and then proceed to kill the game, somehow in the name of saving it.
Overly pessemistic? Nope. Seen it with dozens of MMORPGs the last decade. Even if developers have a good launch and decent first month, they seem to invariably make the same balancing mistakes that hurt the game much, much more than what ever it was they thought to address with the changes.
Ticked at trion for coming so close, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I respectfully disagree.
The non traditional roles as you call them were a bit too strong and in my opinion they needed to tone them down. For example lets look at mages. Right now the healing mage soul is probably the strongest healing soul in the game. The end result was that mages were getting invites in dungeons only if they were going to use that specfic soul. Rogues had similar problems with their bard souls. Clerics on the other hand have the opposite problem, their non traditional roles are not very strong, thus they end up healing in the majority of cases.
Of course things are not perfect. Rogues need more tweaks to get in line with warrior damage and mages will probably need some toning down after the latest adjustments.
Regarding downtime, I levelled as a druid, killing one target at a time, unless I pulled more by mistake. I hold no sympathy for those who want to pull multiple mobs, kill them and have no downtime before pulling the next group.
With the recent inclusion of dailies for plaques it seems that things are somewhere in between the launch state and the pre-patch state regarding plaque collection. That is, for a person that would play normal hours and was not spending his entire day doing all expert instances available. For somebody that will run two instances per day (one tier 1 and one tier 2) he'll end up with more plaques than even the old system would provide. Keep in mind that those two instances are a minimum of two hours commitment (and I'm being very generous giving just one hour to complete a tier 2).
My general impression regarding PvP the first day after the adjustments is that things are pretty much the same for a healing cleric in PvP. Those individuals (note I didn't say classes) that were owning me before the patch and nerfs are keep on doing so, regardless of the class nerfs in some cases. I get stunned a bit less (thank to diminishing returns and the escape tool in 2mins cooldown) but my job is kind of harder because for some reason people are using healing debuff builds a lot more. Nothing much seem to have changed in the mana drain front, despite the so called nerf, I get drained as fast as i used to (tbh I think I get drained faster now).
I don't know if you would enjoy a healing cleric in PvP. A strong stomach is needed both because you get prioritise and killed/stunned as fast as possible by good teams (warfront list shows who's healer specced etc) and you're very squishy until you raise yourself to prestige 3 and grab yourself some valor gear. After that survival is all about reaction, cleric healers don't have escape mechanisms, all they can do is outheal or dispel the damage done on them and rely on their team to peel their attackers. Against good teams you'll get stunned and killed in under 2 seconds, against average teams you can keep yourself up for 15-20 seconds, against bad teams you'll never die (the whine about unkillable clerics in the forums). All the above are related to end game PvP, early or mid game is different due to other classes lacking essencial skills to counter clerics in some cases and most people having no clue about what they are doing. Not that end game improves that of course.
I guess I don't even come close to understanding where you are coming from? The whole nerf thing is a big complaint on these forums and from what i've read they mostly seem an important fix in a game genre which requires balance to remain versatile. Can't please everyone, but one lowly opinion does not accurately describe how fantastic a job Trion is doing. Nothing is perfect, and Rift will need more icing and probably cake too to remain competitive later this year and early 2012. But so far they have shown nothing but competence.
The thing with Guildwars 1 and 2 is that they don't really have any traditional endgame. There are no raids and gear is at about the same level no matter if you did the hardest place n the game or just got some regular gear.
You PvP, you get titles, you get cool skins, add to the guildhall and similar things. In the second will you also work on your home.
So no, GW2 wont have an endgame from launch but it wont add one later either. It is not gear based so a traditional endgame just don't work.
I wouldn't be surprised if TORs endgame is patched in later, TOR is a lot more like Rift since both games are gear focused.
Even though my Reaver build was hit with some nasty nerfs, I'm staying for at least six months.
It's been my experience that mmo's need at least 3 and really 6 months to hit their stride..for better or for worse.
Of course, I subbed for 6months, excellent game w/ an excellent company. Some may dislike the changes but hey, they are trying and atleast you can see the works and progress.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu, Art of War
Rift is nice but its getting grindy, start doing endless rep grind dailies from day1 as 50 then farm 1000s? of badges/plaques to obtain tier 2 sets. WoW never had dailies or badge grind at that early stage, some people are really not happy about the grinds.yes i will be staying though it feels kinda fresh and yummy got my shiny turtle recently and as a mage im happy with the buffs and nerfs
The thing is, you are not supposed to buy all plaque gear with plaques. You are supposed to complete the sets if you are unlucky with drops in certain slots.
Ok lets take paladins BOP/TTT. It was a significant part of the dps and the major part of the survivability of a paladin. Before the balance patch before this one, AP etc was a part of it... At 35th I was doing BOP for 112 damage and heal. The first nerf to it lowered that to 55.
Before the second nerf I was level 50 with good gear specialized for block to make up for some of it with a very tightened template. I was back up to around 110 damage and heal per block.
The second nerf knocks that down to 48 -- but worse still it only applies once per 1.5 seconds... So lets take what was a fairly typical long drawn out fight for a paladin... Say I was fighting 5 level 47 rogue monsters(a lesser invasion squad) on my level 50 paladin -- I have a block of 66%.
The first round I would block 3 of the 5 for 110 healing and damage each time and the second say 4 of the 5 for 110 healing and damage each time. That is 770 healing/dps.
Post nerf the first round it would be applied ONCE the first round for 48 healing and damage and ZERO times the second round for 0 healing and damage.
So 770 down to 48.
That is the kind of nerf that says "Don't bother." There is no way I could come close to taking the level 47 squad now at 50th because I would die first but even if I didnt the time it would take to knock it down goes from about the same time as it takes a dps to kill 2 squads to the time it would take a dps to kill over 3 squads.
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Yes I did cancel despite liking the game. I just wont deal with a company that does this sort of thing. I would never feel safe in any template I chose (and there really arent any for warriors anymore -- no way I am rerolling mage or something).
Well, the problem with that approach is that it places PvP as more important than PvE. I've seen this countless times before. Rift is first and foremost a PvE game. PvP was added just to appeal to a smaller demographic, to add to their subscriber numbers. Some legitimate bugs needed to be fixed, but much of the nerf bat swinging was to "balance" the soul system for PvP. At the expense of the PvE aspect of the game, as it turns out.
I've started calling this the Ghostcrawler syndrome. Its when Dev's spend so much time looking at their spread sheets and data mining tools, that they forget what makes a class fun to play. The 1.1 patch has seriously hammered warriors, rogues, and some of the other builds. Once I witnessed the results, I'll be honest... I was half tempted to end my subscription right there. I've seen this all before, in the destruction of the death knight class. If this is just the first step down that endless, all too familiar path, I'm going to find another game.
One doesn't have to please everyone. But nerfing the hell out of the PvE side of the game(which has a much larger population) in favor of the PvP side, doesn't make all that much sense. But few people are as blind to reality as a Dev who is caught up in their Vision... So, this is pretty much par for the course.
How was your mitigation compared to cleric and rogue tanks?
Also, you need to keep in mind that a company has to choose between
pleasing the people who complain all the time about any kind of change or
adjusting the game so the long term balance is better.
What would you choose? Keep the unbalanced classes happy or adjust your game to be pleasing for those who will stick ith it in the long term?
And this is where you're wrong. This patch has been primarily a PvE adjustment with some minor PvP changes (like the mage ability to not interrupt casting if not facing target).
Warriors needed to be adjusted in terms of dps in accordance to the other clases, otherwise there was no reason to get anything but warriors in your dungeons for dps. For the same reason mages were raised in dps and rogues are about to follow in following patches.
In the same page, tanking classes were adjusted to bring in line with the other callings. Simply put, warriors were a bit too good compared to clerics and rogues. Healing also had a similar issue. Mages were the best healers hands down with bards the best offhealers-buffers, while clerics had no real place besides the perception that they were good healers from people who knew little. Now mages and clerics are a bit more in line, still due to the changes more mage and rogue healers will be included in raid compositions.
When you've played the most powerful class for some time it is natural for the adjustments to hurt. On the other hand those who were underpowered don't have to scale so huge a difference any more. Looking at PvP in general, most of the crying is from people who thought that were good, but in actuality were just playing the FOTM class and build combo. Now that they need to adjust to a more level playing field, they can't cope, especially when they now start get beaten by people who never stood a chance before.
I'm sorry tha some people can't adjust not playing the FOTM class any more and will be leaving the game due to that, but the alternative would be to alienate the rest of the classes waiting for some actual balance.
I dont think I will stay passed the free month from where I bought the game. Even though I bought collectors edition I just dont see the fun in it passed level 50. And even if you make another class you still have to do the same quests over and over.
Some classes are way over powered yet they only neft some classes, unbalanced I think.
Wish they would make a more dynamic content and quest system.
Yes; it's enjoyably. I already signed up for the six month founder's plan, which ends up costing ten dollars a month. something kind of casual is exactly what I want right now; I wore out the serious raiding five or six hours a day part of me on WoW. A few hours every other day or so is plenty; knit or read or play a different game or visit family the other days.
Notice my avatar? I'm just about as far away from an MMO PvP player as its possible to get. ^^ I still play FPS PvP games, but I want nothing what so ever to do with MMO PvP. Thus, the changes in that area are of little concern to me. What annoys the hell out of me is the 25-30% self heal nerf in the reaver soul line. Not to mention they have added at least another 50% to stealth detection range on NPC's...Without telling anyone of course. I've come to expect this type of behavior from Blizzard over the years, but I've been expecting better from Trion.
The soul system is a great idea. But it seems that they are going to spend years playing nerf and buff games with it. Mainly to please the PvP brigade. Or the raiders, who demand that everyone use this or that build, to appease the great god, damage meter... ^^ Any way, I've seen countless games start down this path, so I really shouldn't be surprised. If they continue, I'll just find another game to play. This is about fun after all, and I really don't consider having to deal with an endless stream of nerfs fun.