Dervishes get a major turnaround in Guild Wars

@ShivanSwordsman

Their excuse is that they know how capitalism works. You can use any business model you wish as long as it's legal and profitable. As an individual customer, you have the right to boycott the purchase of goods or services.

However, this doesn't mean that you should expect all of them to be identical. If a philanthropist donates a million dollars to charity, you shouldn't expect him to donate that same amount to you - you're not owed it and you can't hold all people to the same standard. You can go around complaining about rich philanthropists and insinuating that all philanthropists should be like him, which is what you appear to be doing now (That's fine though - you're entitled to!).

To put things in perspective, Blizzard made 4.5 billion dollars of profit last year (including Starcraft 2 sales, of course); even if you deduct this, I wonder how much money Anet made off Guild Wars in the same period? End result - Blizzard gets money, Anet gets your goodwill. (Un)fortunately, most people usually prefer money.

I just want to state that the above post is NOT an open invitation to Mr Tempes Magus to re-post his entire socialist manifesto and apologise to the entire thread for this eventuality.

@ShivanSwordsman

I returned tocheck my HoM progress and try the WiK content, an I remembered why i left in the first place: lack of content updates.

In the last few years, only the WiK and Hearts of the North content have been added, while multiple sets of cash shop costumes have been added priced at half and expansion each.

@Locus

True, but Anet stands at the top of the standard with folks like Valve. Unfortunately, the end result is that trash pots like Activision/Blizzard will always get the most money, even though for all intents and purposes, they say that the money is being used for content updates and to make the next game.

Most people by now know the drill: WoW gets a content update every 3 or 4 months, with fruity little events in between, everyone pays out the mouth for their crack addiction, and Activision? They take the exact same engines and code, stick it into the next game, and change the art a little. Boom, another billion dollar baby made on the cheap.

The sad thing is, thanks to these sheeple, the demand from developers for me to pay for the right to play the game I already bought will exist, and continue to flourish. People like Cryptic will kick you in the nuts telling you Champions is a Free to Play when it's more of an overglorified trial where you stay forever nerfed. Basically, they'll take whatever shoddy cut-corners they have to in an attempt to swindle more cash, and people will buy into it.

The easiest way to sum it up is that FFXIV sold. The Final Fantasy that told you that it had a fatigue system where you could EXP for 8 hours till the next week, and you paid to play it. If it weren't for folks like ArenaNet, I'd likely have quit gaming entirely. They keep my spirits high, and life looking a lot less bleak. Heck, I tried to wait till the 7 Heroes patch to start playing again. I failed that wait miserably as you can guess.

@ShivanSwordsman

You may be pleased to know that FF14 triggered a massive karmic backlash that they're paying quite dealy for.

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/02/04/square-enix-profits-plun ge-76-on-discerning-consumers/

Capitalism does have its balancing aspects after all, see? Judging from the posts in 2ch (which I read regularly), the FFXIV thread seems full of depressed and hostile players, and few people bother to defend it. Lodestone commenting has decreased to 33% of what it was from November, and one famous FF14 blog of someone devoted enough to get rank 50 in Botany recently shut down in a torrent of hateful vitriol because the author couldn't take any more of the game (She went to play MHF).

Fortunately, I have a fantastic linkshell of Japanese friends in 14, which is the only reason why I'm still playing. They do believe that the game may eventually get better and they're surprisingly indefatigable.

@Locus

I'm glad for that, Locus, and maybe they might make the game worth a flip. Who knows. Honestly, I still miss FF11, even though it was grindy, and searching for a party was a snooze fest. My only hope is that this fatigue thing dies very, very quickly. I believe it started with Dungeon Fighter by Neople, and now Nexon injects it into every game they have.

I can see a fatigue system being used to keep people from rushing to the end game, but really, I see no use for months and months later. I'd probably be playing Vindictus or DFO right now if not for those systems. I was excited for Continent of 9 (C9), and Elsword, till I heard they both had the Fatigue System. It's soul crushing to lose a good EXPing party because someone runs out of fatigue, not because they're bored.

I hold no ill will for the players of FFXIV, save for some frustration over their service. Whilst they do deserve what they bought into, my deepest hopes are that Squeenix learns and never, EVER does this again, and maybe keeps several companies from thinking fatigue is ever a good idea.

@ShivanSwordsman

Oh I knew exactly what I was buying when I bought FF14. I had played the beta, after all. I was planning to pay 15 bucks a month for a pretty Japanese chatroom where I could brush up my Japanese. (this is what I ended up using FF11 for). Good thing I ended up getting it for free!

Any "game" content is therefore entirely a bonus. :P

If it helps, the game has gotten quite a bit better, but combat is still horribly boring, there's still a bunch of bugs and there's still no content. Give it another year and maybe you can recoup your losses.

@DevilSei

The good news is that it was said that it would come after dervish update and before Winds of Change, so the sooner we get this update, the sooner we can get Embark Breach/7 heroes.

proof:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Feedback_talk:Game_updates/20101214&diff=2200125
and
http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Feedback_talk:Game_updates/20101214&diff=2200403

@10thDoctor

Warriors definitely need an update. Especially Tactics needs some massive unnerfing...

@10thDoctor

To be fair the GW1 (aka Live Team) are solely focused on keeping people interested in GW1 till GW2 comes out so the team isn't one big group doing two things at once. :)

@10thDoctor I have a warrior / dervish, *most* of the use I've found is just getting the rather extreme damage of the scythe combined with the innate armor piercing of of the War main attribute, Strength.

I combine the following buffs:
I am the strongest (norn) + Signet of Strength + Aura of Holy Might (Dervish skill, sunspear rank based) + Asuran Scan (Asuran)

since I am the strongest and Signet of strength don't wear off and are based on the number of attacks / swings I pre-load them before a fight. Charge into the middle of a pack and hit Aura of holy Might for an AOE and a damage buff to scythe hits, pick a target, hit them with Asuran Scan for a damage buff just on them (which stacks with the Aura) then I use Power attack (Strength based attack).

In Normal mode on soft targets it's a triple damage strike, 200 damage or so. Hard targets (warrior mobs) fare a bit better (130 damage or so), and no I don't have Asuran or Norn rank maxed on my warrior, they're only at about rank 3 so I'm not even close to the top of the damage potential, since it's an energy based build I run with Warrior's Endurance for my elite, since Scythes are a multi-hit weapon on adjacent mobs to your target, it's possible to get WE to proc 3 times in a single swing if the pack is thick enough.