Reikou.7068

To be fair, you aren't getting any of this in ranked PvP either. Cross-tier matchmaking and infinitely expanding search range NEEDS to go. Match quality needs to be prioritized over short queue times. Matches need to be worth playing, or population will keep going down the gutter.

In the current state of the game, I would say add surrender button. This phenomenon of AFK is because Match quality is so bad at the moment, at least on NA. Its quite easy to see the writing on the wall even like 1 min into each match. I really do not blame players for not wanting to waste their time "playing" under such conditions. Fix matchmaking. No cross-tier matchmaking, and infinitely expanding search range. Increase queue times if needed, but I think that match quality needs to be prioritized. The game itself needs to be worth playing, or population will keep going down the gutter. Yes, it will expose the game as dead, especially at higher or lower MMR extremes, but at least you have the potential to increase population eventually.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but based on your posts, your argument is basically the following? "The changes anet have made to the game are bad because of my personal opinion. This trumps argument that the changes made to the game are good as evidenced by increase in player population because I said so."

I think one point you are forgetting here is that people are online at those specific times looking to play AT. If there was no "event" like an AT for players to gather around, and you just have random LFG spread over the whole day, I really think that you would just never get enough players together. Also remember that you need at least 2 groups, 10 players for a match. I challenge you to try to put together 2 groups simultaneously for dungeons or other similar dead-content. Unfortunately I do not think the current population is enough to support your proposition. One similar thing that can be done though, is to have solo-queue-only, BUT with limits on matchmaking as I've said since day 1. Bronze vs Bronze teams, Silver vs Silver, Gold v Gold, Plat v Plat, with no crossover. This would be a systematic way to create teams and opponents "around your skill level," would be far easier for players to engage with, and while not ideal, would be more realistic. The only thing is that it would really expose the lack of playerbase for PvP in this game.

Realistically its because they need to go through the software dev process of identifying issues, planning changes, designing them, then developing them, followed by internal QA and then release. The entire process probably takes like 1-2 months depending on how big the patch is, so they will alway an be slow regarding game balance because it takes said 1-2 months to release a fix for any balance issues identified now. They *could* by pass this by doing a hotfix or something, but I doubt they would do this unless it was gamebreaking or something, and lets be real, anything PvP is not considered gamebreaking by anet.

Just have the max number of conditions that can be applied to a player limited to 5 at once or something. Any combination is ok, but any new condition coming in after the 5th is ignored.

Well, generally, more "choice" and more options is always a problem when it comes to balance. Alternative would be to have specific locked builds for each class or e-spec. This would make balancing far easier at the cost of "build variety"

amazing balance. amazing game. all is vain.

so remove rewards for losing, and double rewards for winning, or even triple or quadruple rewards for winning.

For you D/P Daredevil demo, you could have burned some dodges, and also spammed heartseeker for slightly faster. However, to achieve this speed, D/P Daredevil needs to burn; 1) All dodges 2) All initiative Basically leaving it a sitting duck. Slightly offtopic, but the problem with thief, and the reason I think the latest iteration of D/P thief wasn't as oppressive as Willbender is not only mobility, but basic combat ability. Not only in pure AoE Presense, but also due to the initiative system. The core issue with how initiative is currently designed is the following; 1) Make a skill "balanced," in terms of animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "balanced" initiative cost, the skill becomes overpowered because it basically has no cooldown for a short period of time. 2) Make a skill "balanced," in terms of animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "underpowered" initiative cost, the skill becomes underpowered because its too expensive to cast. (Current situation with Scepter/Dagger 3, and Shortbow 5) 3) Make a skill with sub-par animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "balanced" initiative cost, its basically a useless skill to use, because, well, its basically its a sub-par skill in combat. tl;dr with the initiative system, thief can only really ever be overpowered or underpowered. Never balanced. And a lot of the recent changes made to D/P thief has pushed it further into the underpowered category. This perspective is from a thief main, so probably biased.

I've had worse losing streaks. It happens. Chances are you're high enough MMR that you're constantly pulling some tryhard duo queue or something on the other side.

The current rating system that gives MMR based on personal rating vs enemy team average would actually benefit from removing matchmaking completely, making it a complete random arena.

Been saying this exact thing for a while now. I do not understand why rank point gains and losses are given based on individual rating, not team average. It just seems like very strange logic.

I had this suspicion as well, and made sure I did not have Shadow Arts or Specter traited when I tested this.

I just tested this interaction, and it does indeed work. Rot Wallow Venom from Specter Dark Sentry trait triggers Leeching Venoms Life Siphon from Shadow Arts. Here is the relevant combat log evidence for this; https://imgur.com/a/Q888kDx You can see another Specter giving me barrier, which provides the Rot Wallow Venom via Dark Sentry. You can also see my attacks via Trick Shot. Finally you can see the Leeching Venoms damage output.