Balance Update/Specialization Changes

Arena Net,

I would like to at least see the upcoming balance changes before they are (hopefully =) ) released this Tuesday. If the community wants to make opinions on balance changes, as long as they are constructive and hold valid arguments, why not let them?We haven't even heard speculation on what you plan to do to the different specializations. Have you guys given up listening to the community when it comes to balance? I understand that most conversations on balancing and how things should be done in the game are hardly civilized, but that's how the internet works sadly. A single official forum post and a diligent forum moderator should be able to handle anything that gets out if hand however. (PS: you should make some player forum moderators because there are really awesome and professional people who play your game, you probably wouldn't even have to pay them).

We who play this game and care about it want to make your job easier, who better to ask about the specializations then the people who play your game almost daily?

The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

"I'm losing interest in the game as it's not as fun for me now, please change it so I can keep giving you money" is what it really means though. Which for obvious reasons companies do listen to. It is after all the playerbase that make an mmo what it is. Otherwise it's just a big empty single player theme park. But yeh, individual demands don't outweigh general consensus.

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

The Players are the most important people you should be listening to if you want to balance a game. Listening doesn't mean to do everything the players say but to think about it. Some players actually think as well and some even have a point. Player feedback is the single best source of information you can get for balancing, I doubt anyone on the team has played GW2 for as long as all people giving feedback combined - it's an enormous mass of valuable information that should never be disregarded. Yes many players just want buffs for their own class and nerfs for everyone else but even those often point out actual issues, often exaggerated but still issues.If they didn't listen, what should they base their balance changes on? Statistics? Their own idea of a "good build"? Have you seen the suggested builds in sPvP?I agree with the OP, communicating with the community is incredibly important especially when it comes to balance. Unfortunatly anet doesn't want to deal with "toxic threads" even though most balance and feedback related threads on this forum so far where really reasonable and even quite detailed in feedback. It's really sad to just watch all those threads disappear with no sound from anet.

The last time we had a balance patch that was expected to shake things up even moderately we got a few days warning of the general overview of what was coming. Since we didn't get that this time expect nothing significant to change at all.

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Im not saying take everything that everyone says and do it. I'm saying that there should be discussions and debates on why or why things would or would not work. If one constructive comment out of a thousand comments helps improve the overall game, why not take it and use it? Use everything to your advantage and use the playerbase to make your life easier as a developer. You can't think of everything and you can't do it all by yourself, the game is too big and has too many minor details.

@Interpretor.3091 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Because you'll waste literal days digging it up from all the nonsense, which, let's face it, most of the player "suggestions" are. The vast majority of the comments lack the in-depth analysis it would take to make them actually constructive. That's not me trying to offend people by the way, it's a natural thing. I understand your point, but I don't believe what you're proposing would actually help the devs.

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Interpretor.3091 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Balance discussions are mostly contained in several key threads run by several key people. Those can be read in, like, 30 minutes per class to mine out general ideas or at least become aware of problems precieved by playerbase. So yeah. "Literal days".

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Salty much? What an awful post. Almost everything you listed here was good for the game. The only thing I might agree on is the NPE. Even that's more of a mixed bag.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

You think townclothes and personality removal was good for the game? How so?

How is no april fools joke good for the game?How is the crap clogging inventory and being complained about on a weekly basis "good for the game"?

Please, enlighten me.

I am not salty, I just showered and don't plan on exercising.

So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

No april fools joke? Lol. I'm pretty sure that the creative team that made Super Adventure Box and brought it back to the game new and improved for the community,(which btw was suggested by the community on these very forums), would more than likely want to take turns punching you in the face for that comment.

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

Are you just joking?

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Interpretor.3091 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Some comments may be nonsense, but it's still a comment on the state of the game, whether it is ill-informed or not. And you don't think that the players who are top 250 on the Spvp leaderboard, or clear raids every week, or have done fractals every day since they have been released, post on these forums and try and make constructive comments? They do, but honestly we have no idea if Anet is reading or even seeing any of the stuff that they post. Everything is so spread out, we just need an official forum post on each of the sub-forums for people to make suggestions on.A mod could create a post, on the warrior forums for example: What could we do to best balance Spellbreaker? Sure, you will get inexperienced players and players angry at getting smashed by a strong class making their comments, but then you will also get actual Warrior mains who have 1000s of hours experience who will state their opinions and give actual, beneficial insight on what could be done. Those are the comments you need to look at. It would also solve the 'issue' of sorting through random posts on the forums looking for good ideas, because everything would be consolidated into once place.Believe it or not, the literal definition of a forum is a court or tribunal, a place for public assembly. It should be a way to communicate with the developers, and honestly, for an MMO we don't see very much of it, especially when it comes to balancing specializations.

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

Dead serious, any of the warrior classes are broken in wvw as they are effectively immune to both power and condition damage.

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People want to argue and discuss classes in the game, it's right here in this freakin post and it's not even what the post is about. Arguments are good, they lead to ideas and ways to solve problems in the community. Sure arguing over something, especially over the internet, is never fun. But if we want to improve things around here we need to start by talking about what has people so upset at the game.

@Wintermute.5408 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Interpretor.3091 said:

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

That's assuming someone sends the link to the appropriate threads to the devs directly. In practice you'll need a person monitoring the forums - which they probably have anyway - but it's not as condensed as you make it sound. There are usually lots of threads, especially right after patch, from people complaining about their class being nerfed. Very little of that is constructive. And besides, you can't expect players to have quite the same insight into the game and the direction the game designers want for every specific profession. Even worse, you can't expect players to think through the changes they are proposing. Meaning even the most constructive feedback might end up not being helpful at all. I understand you mean well, I just doubt it would end up being helpful. And I can't help but think if it was many developers would actually do it. Blizzard for instance encourage players to give feedback during their PTR cycles, but very rarely ask for or adopt player designs. They just use the player feedback to gauge the rough reaction to the upcoming changes without pushing said changes to the live servers.

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

Endure Pain literally gives you a few seconds of immunity to power damage. And Berserker's Stance? We wouldn't be able to do anything if not for Berserker's Stance. Again - are you just joking?

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

Wow why did they have to remove the dislike button?

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:Dead serious, any of the warrior classes are broken in wvw as they are effectively immune to both power and condition damage.

This is the greatest display of ignorance in regard to balance that I have ever seen.

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:The players are the absolute last people you should be listening to, because players' idea of balance always boils down to "buff things I play, nerf things that beat me".

Blasphemy. I'm more of a "Buff the things I play, and don't nerf anything except aggro in certain areas in PvE like PoF being mega aggressive."

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:So long as warrior stances get nerfed, I don't care what else changes.

The forums are bleeding nerf spellbreaker/warrior tears right now for skills that have been in since GW1 while so much other actual fixing needs to be done. I expect warrior to have the most changes because of crying, if it doesn't then I will be surprised.