User:Auron/GuildWarsSucksSoMuch/Title "balance"

If you haven't yet, go read Game updates/20081113. Are you excited? Does it pump you up, knowing that ArenaNet still cares about PvE? Yeah, it doesn't do that for me, either.

I've seen just a ton of "omg i love you linsey omg ur super kawaii desu omg ^^" over this, and I can't fathom why. The update did nothing to improve the quality of the game. The most poorly designed title track in the game, Drunkard, wasn't touched, while tracks that were decently okay (lux/kurz) were overhauled. Great way to focus on the wrong things, ANet.

Let's focus on some of the specific changes in this so-so update. Books were added to the earlier campaigns, to mirror the interesting idea introduced with Grind of the North - a log of adventures, which you can turn in at the completion of this adventure for a hefty reward. However, because this was added to a 3-year-old game, everyone has completed the campaigns already (I'm a PvPer primarily, and even I have 6 or 7 chars that are done with every campaign). So, knowing this, did ANet retroactively include completing the game as part of their book scheme? No, that would make too much sense. My protector/guardian of cantha character picked up copies of Shiro's Return for normal and hard mode, and lo! They were blank. Seriously, ANet? You want me to play through your shitty, non-intriguing, buggy-as-hell campaign on each character, in both normal and hard mode, AGAIN? Are you on drugs or what?!

Yeah, okay. One bad, terribly-thought-out change - typical of ANet. Spending more than 2 minutes thinking of cause and effect is unprecedented, so whatever.

They added a ton of new summons. Cool, eh? Pity they're absolutely useless. Hey guys, check it out! I can summon a war that does less damage than Devona! Or how about a ranger without any interrupts or good damage skills! Or no wait, an ele with zero offensive spells, let alone useful ones like Eruption, Sandstorm or Earthquake! They usually die under any pressure because, for whatever reason, they don't show up as an ally in the party box, so monks don't know to heal them... but whatever, they're super cool, ya?

They altered Kurz/Lux faction gain, but not the actual problem - the ridiculous amount of faction needed for each tier. Oh great, Arborstone now gives 3000 faction for completing it... I only have to beat it four thousand times to get max tier! Naturally, of course, those kind of bonuses are not repeatable. Speaking of repeatable, great job on killing FFF, ANet. I'm glad everyone will like putting up with your terrible fucking design you call Hard Mode because they now have to vanquish instead of micro heroes a billion times for a pittance of faction. Thanks for addressing grind, ANet, you guys are right on! <3

Same shit in nightfall. The problem with title grind is that you have to have fifty thousand points to max the damn title. The difference between getting a bit of title points and getting a tiny bit more isn't the problem. Look at the points rewarded - what a joke! "The Blacktide Den mission now rewards 10 Sunspear title points for each level of completion in Normal Mode and 50 in Hard Mode." Oh okay, so I play for 30 minutes for 30 sunspear points? I'd only have to do that 1666 times on each character to max sunspear title. Great job ANet, glad you knocked that grind down. If you were seriously interested in reducing grind, take the most efficient point-gain method (wurm farming) and increase points rewarded for that, so at least then we don't have to farm as long. Your method of giving a joke amount of points for the normal PvE campaign will always be inferior.

You award more points for random shit in grind of the north... okay, ANet. I guess I can live with that. To be honest, I've not maxed a single track in grind of the north, on any character. It's simply ridiculous. It's sort of like the stupid Nightfall titles, except each track requires three times more grind than a Nightfall title and there is no equivalent of the wurm farm for it. Good job making boring ass PvE require hours of grind for very little benefit, I hope the sheep that enjoy that shit buy multiple copies of GW2 to make up for everyone who enjoyed the whole "skill over grind" thing this game was founded on.

Oh hay, you merged treasure hunter and wisdom title. Grats. Why did that take three years to figure out, and why haven't you done it to drunkard, party animal and sweet tooth yet? Those titles cost literally millions of gold to achieve on one character. For anyone trying to get gwamm on multiple chars, they're going to need to spend tens of millions. Are you really okay with that, ANet? Do you think that maybe stupidass title tracks like that are incentive for people to ebay gold?

Anyway, I like to end things on a positive note, so I'll copypaste my favorite change from this update:

• The monster skills Snaring Web and Corsair's Net are now hexes.
  

They always bugged the shit out of me! -Auron 15:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)