The Problem with this game.

Alright so after taking a 7-8 month break from the game. It gave me a new perspective into what the core problems with the game. I'll concede that the game is already ruined and that now it can't be fixed.

Point 1 Everyone is too mobile. Every class. Some are meant to be more mobile than others but in general there is too much access to mobility in certain specs that I think circumvents how they were originally intended.

Point 2 everyone does too much damage, Every class. Everyone should be able to do good damage, but the amount of damage a skill does should be based on risk and difficulty and that's just not the case in this game.

lastly there is too mush sustain and get out of jail free cards for classes that are over buffed in point 1 and Point 2.

TLDR, Super Mobile, I win button, get out of jail free cards applied to too many classes and spec without any risk whatsoever and extremely low skill floors to pull off. Now you have gw2 a game with great potential destroyed and can never be fixed.

How it got this way my opinion on that. Anet caving to players who want to be god mode without any risk at all just because someone else who played harder than them won. Repeatedly caving to this over and over.. Then permanently breaking every class some way more than others based on which players cryed the most and who yelled the loudest.

They over buffed damaged probably because people thought spvp was boring with the tank metas, plus conditions were buffed overboard.To compensate for the high damage some classes were given the immunity, shields, evades, and blocks to help survive, but it's turned into the most annoying thing seeing people go auto immune at 50% and basically dash away.The elite specs may have given classes new ways to play, but it's completely destroyed the base concept of most classes. Too much was built on extremes.Not much point looking for any semblance of balance, because it's gone far beyond repair long ago starting with the trait revamp on june 23rd 2015.

I agree that the gameplay should be balanced according to risk and difficulty. The abilities themselves are ok, except Weaver which is a headache design.

@Warlord.9074 said:

How it got this way my opinion on that. Anet caving to players who want to be god mode without any risk at all just because someone else who played harder than them won. Repeatedly caving to this over and over.. Then permanently breaking every class some way more than others based on which players cryed the most and who yelled the loudest.

GW2 on a nutshell right here fam

@Rampage.7145 said:

GW2 on a nutshell right here fam

Pandering to the lowest common denominator means more money for Anet. It's that simple.

@Warlord.9074 said:How it got this way my opinion on that.

everytime Anet release an expansion, its only for the PvE players.Do PvP or WvW gets a new mode or is it the same after billions of years after creation. (last one new mode was on PvP turning it into a moba style match which is somewhat ok for me)

now, if there will be another expansion, would you buy that even if there will be no new WvW mode upgrade and just additional class and PvE maps?

think

WvW changes are coming, PvP changes might be on their way(who knows).
Half of people saying there is too much damage, other half saying bunkers are too durable.

Lets say that we reduce outgoing damage and reduce the toughness of bunkers, we're just slowing the game down and many would just find that boring.If you play a glass cannon and you're used to risking your tiny healthpool to one-shot some players and suddenly you can't any more. Or you're a bunker able to withstand decent pressure but now you're barely managing tanking 1v1. Instead of having a wide range and variety between the two extremes, we are now closer with less variance. Instead of being able to be bright white or deep black we're now all similar shades of grey.

If people feel that all classes are now better, with more of everything, then what is the issue? Everyone's been buffed, the game has evolved, if you're no longer happy to play - there are plenty of other titles. Looking at GW2 with rose-tinted glasses "I remember the good days when every fight lasted at least 3 hours. Now the pace is too dam.n fast!" is perhaps not the way forward.

@"Xillllix.3485" said:I agree that the gameplay should be balanced according to risk and difficulty. The abilities themselves are ok, except Weaver which is a headache design.

What you don't like the piano play that Weavers/Eles have?

Mobility has vastly increased - mostly because of speed hacks that get used without consequence.

@"MarshallLaw.9260" said:WvW changes are coming, PvP changes might be on their way(who knows).

Half of people saying there is too much damage, other half saying bunkers are too durable.

Lets say that we reduce outgoing damage and reduce the toughness of bunkers, we're just slowing the game down and many would just find that boring.If you play a glass cannon and you're used to risking your tiny healthpool to one-shot some players and suddenly you can't any more. Or you're a bunker able to withstand decent pressure but now you're barely managing tanking 1v1. Instead of having a wide range and variety between the two extremes, we are now closer with less variance. Instead of being able to be bright white or deep black we're now all similar shades of grey.

If people feel that all classes are now better, with more of everything, then what is the issue? Everyone's been buffed, the game has evolved, if you're no longer happy to play - there are plenty of other titles. Looking at GW2 with rose-tinted glasses "I remember the good days when every fight lasted at least 3 hours. Now the pace is too dam.n fast!" is perhaps not the way forward.

Hammer train best train, bubble train worst train.

@XenesisII.1540 said:

@"MarshallLaw.9260" said:WvW changes are coming, PvP changes might be on their way(who knows).

Half of people saying there is too much damage, other half saying bunkers are too durable.

Lets say that we reduce outgoing damage and reduce the toughness of bunkers, we're just slowing the game down and many would just find that boring.If you play a glass cannon and you're used to risking your tiny healthpool to one-shot

some

players and suddenly you can't any more. Or you're a bunker able to withstand decent pressure but now you're barely managing tanking 1v1. Instead of having a wide range and variety between the two extremes, we are now closer with less variance. Instead of being able to be bright white or deep black we're now all similar shades of grey.

If people feel that all classes are now better, with more of everything, then what is the issue? Everyone's been buffed, the game has evolved, if you're no longer happy to play - there are plenty of other titles. Looking at GW2 with rose-tinted glasses

"I remember the good days when every fight lasted at least 3 hours. Now the pace is too dam.n fast!"

is perhaps not the way forward.

Oddly its the scorge train that the problem now. You will find mages with less armor then say a thf more ability to live though any thing then a war due to how scorges can apply high barrier and keeps getting stronger the more scorges in that group. At least with weavers and healing you could of burst them down but because of how barrier works now you can have a perm shield of well over 5k. Its a real problem and it only gets worst the bigger the groups.

Right. Everyone complains about conditions, and such. But conditions are not really the core problem. The issue is when you combine conditions with the points I made in the original argument. It's not condition damage that breaks the game. It's creating pure condition specs combined with high access to mobility, range, sustain, and low risk.

That long range physical attacks should also not have had high sustain, mobility and get out of jail free cards. End result low risk, low skill floor.

You see the commonality here.

jski.6180 brings up warriors. I've always considered warriors to be high risk classes so probably the most easiest class for anet to balance. I do think that there is a case that can be made that warriors being easy to balance makes them seem to be over nerfed most of the time. But I think its not over nerfing its just that other classes are not balanced at all. So balancing one class and failing to balance another makes the balanced class noncompetitive. I don't know who at ANET thinks thats the way to run a game but apparently thats how it works.

I remember ANET saying that the creation of scourge was the most controversial thing they did at the office. Well maybe your company should of listened to the cooler heads and reasonable people instead of making mistakes. That now you have to live with.

Very well written. Clap.

My solution : Disable all Elite specs for PVP/WvW. Disable all amulets or reduce by a metric eff ton. (300/200 instead of 1200/900). Say goodbye to all damage creeps.

I don't think this is the biggest problem with pvp in gw2. I think the biggest problem is the distinct lack of a split in skills between pvp and pve. You're talking about creep that is occurring, but not addressing the giant elephant of a dilemma that Anet faces in balancing classes in the game: pvp vs pve. This has always been a problem, and it's rarely ever addressed in a significant fashion (ie, massive overhaul). Sure a few skills get split here or there, but I don't believe that it's enough. Pve content needs to continue to be more challenging and feature more depth, but that will directly effect the balance of pvp unless it's entirely split. This would require a massive overhaul, and that massive overhaul should have occurred a long time ago. It's never too late, but it would have been much easier back when they did the first combat overhaul then to do it now.

Just look at the current changes to confusion. There was no heads up to the player base that it was coming, it left everyone baffled as it was rolled out, and they then had to change things like what conditions axe applied after the fact. I'm sure this was thought about by the devs for a long time, but the problem is that without communication with the players it seems really reactionary. And the fact that it wasn't rolled out in a polished state and needed to be adjusted after the initial patch makes players feel like it wasn't well thought out. This is a good example of Anet's current approach of piecemeal balances between pvp and pve being a headache for players of both.

Anet has been really hesitant over the years to fully commit to a pve/pvp split across all skills. They avoided it at all costs and only took action when there were a few skills that had overwhelming problems in scaling between the two. I know they want to avoid players having to keep track of a ton of skill and trait changes between modes, but in my opinion it's only hurting both.

(sneaky edit) I now see that they are proposing some more split skills between pvp and pve on the forums. This pleases me, and I hope they continue to re-evaluate and change as time goes on.

@XenoSpyro.1780 said:My solution : Disable all Elite specs for PVP/WvW. Disable all amulets or reduce by a metric eff ton. (300/200 instead of 1200/900). Say goodbye to all damage creeps.

Bit extreme, but oh boy do I love it.

It's not as bad running with a group, especially if you just roam for a bit of fun though.I could care less about solo roaming and 1v1s right now with the way things are balanced.

Even PvP is not that great nowadays, if you are looking for balanced small scale fights.Large scale fights have too much visual clutter and my frame rate tanks more than ever now, but it's still enjoyable when running with people you know too.

ok welp. For PVE if you want to make a creature easyer to kill you lower the creatures HP. If you want the Creature to be harder to kill you increase the creatures HP. This is how you properly balance a game. What instead seems to happen is Anet wants a creature to be easyer to kill so they overbuff players and break PVP balance. They want a creature to be harder to kill so they nerf players and break balance. PVE balance should be done only by tweaking creatures and encounters. But this isn't how anet balances the game and why it has endless wack a mole.

@Warlord.9074 said:ok welp. For PVE if you want to make a creature easyer to kill you lower the creatures HP. If you want the Creature to be harder to kill you increase the creatures HP. This is how you properly balance a game. What instead seems to happen is Anet wants a creature to be easyer to kill so they overbuff players and break PVP balance. They want a creature to be harder to kill so they nerf players and break balance. PVE balance should be done only by tweaking creatures and encounters. But this isn't how anet balances the game and why it has endless wack a mole.

Yes it's true to some extent. But you also have to figure in complexity of mechanics. The health and damage of a boss is not the only thing that makes it difficult. Mobility has been added to classes that traditionally had very little for that exact reason. There is no reason why they should nerf a boss's mechanics to require less mobility just to ensure that pvp remains balanced. The more obvious solution is to make that mobility skill have a much larger cooldown in pvp. This way it's far more risky to use it because it won't be available for the next encounter. The same can be said for the added complexity of cc bars and whatnot. And this is all good for pve. Complexity and depth is what makes a good pve encounter. No reason to strip the game of those things in order to make pvp better. All that is really required is a wider gap split between the way skills and traits work in pvp and pve.

I suggest reading that recent forum post the devs made discussing possible changes to the pve/pvp skill splits they are planning. They are actually on a good start. They want to fix things like passives and instant casts, as well as number changes on some skills. I think it's a good start, and if you think you have some more to add it's probably a good time to do it.

I dunno about the mobility thing, two of the three most ubiquitous classes in WvW right now are actually pretty slow moving.

I also dunno about "everyone" doing too much damage I think most of the big damage is coming from just a few builds. Most builds for most classes don't do enough damage to justify their squishiness.

In terms of sustain they clearly overshot with firebrand sustain and didn't really consider what barrier spam could mean on top of heal spam.

How the game got to exactly where it is now is a POF specific balancing issue. The release of spellbreaker, scourge and firebrand into WvW completely changed the meta. I won't pretend to know their motives but I think they just kinda designed the new elites thematically around the desert theme of POF and didn't think too much about WvW balance or PvP balance for that matter.

@Israel.7056 said:How the game got to exactly where it is now is a POF specific balancing issue. The release of spellbreaker, scourge and firebrand into WvW completely changed the meta. I won't pretend to know their motives but I think they just kinda designed the new elites thematically around the desert theme of POF and didn't think too much about WvW balance or PvP balance for that matter.Spellbreaker and Scourge were designed for PVP and WvW, their whole thing is about countering boons (which are rampant in PVP/WvW but largely a non-issue in PVE).

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Israel.7056 said:How the game got to exactly where it is now is a POF specific balancing issue. The release of spellbreaker, scourge and firebrand into WvW completely changed the meta. I won't pretend to know their motives but I think they just kinda designed the new elites thematically around the desert theme of POF and didn't think too much about WvW balance or PvP balance for that matter.Spellbreaker and Scourge were designed for PVP and WvW, their whole

thing

is about countering boons (which are rampant in PVP/WvW but largely a non-issue in PVE).

The basic effects of the skills were designed around PvP/WvW and boon negation/conversion etc but the area control they offer was clearly not tuned at all for what PvP/WvW are about and that's why Spellbreakers and Scourges are so insanely broken. It seems to me to be a result of an attempt to design around themes and aesthetics rather than thinking about how they were actually going to functionally effect gameplay.

I don't think boons as a whole are a problem in the game. Boons like resistance became part of the ecosystem implemented as a band aid for bad class and game design. Resistance is there to band aid conditions specs. On its face it acknowledges there must be a problem with conditions and our game design. We implement resistance mechanic rather than to just address the reason why it is that we need resistance.

For some reason the goal of the company was to retrofit pure condition specs into a game design that originally wasn't mature enough or designed to have them. Remember max 25 stacks and condition damage at launch wasn't a serous thing. Also very little built in condition cleansing and mitigation built into classes still to the day. Taking the game into that direction was fine, but it went way to far. It seems to me that every time we get the game to the point that conditions are somewhat balanced, the developers say no no we cannot have condition balance we must push the envelope even further with conditions they must not be balanced.

@Warlord.9074 , boons arent a problem themselves, the issue is how Anet wants the spam n stack boon system to work rather than clever usage wich leaded to a bad design of the counter boon gameplay as well.

I don't have a problem with boons per se but they can become ridiculous when it's super easy to spam them and/or when major boons like stab prot resi and quickness can be essentially infinitely maintained.

Similarly I think condis can be ok but I wish they were more oriented towards disabling and debilitating rather than doing enormous damage on top of being disabling and debilitating.