Where do the buff and nerf numbers come from? Where is the hidden menu?

How does Anet decide to shave 33.879% here and boost by 300% there?Is it like baking biscuits from scratch without a recipe?Does someone log in and beat up a golem while a guy with a calculator and a clipboard guesstimates some adjustment?

Where is hidden menu?

Sometimes, in the balancing patch notes, it will include phrases such as "we responded to feedback from the community", but I have found that some of the "responses" seem to be answering to no one. What I mean is sometimes the "balancing" fixes things not really an issue with the community here at the official forums.

Should we just go to reddit to communicate with the PVP team? Is that the secret menu?

No idea and I doubt theyll ever tell us. Some speculate they take the numbers from certain end game raiding guilds, but theres no way to confirm that. I find the idea of 'feedback from the community' personally a bit laughable. The forums are filled every day with posts about buffing X and nerfing Y. Sometimes because its a valid reason, others because of knee jerk reaction because they lost to said other profession with no bit of objectivity.The exact numbers on each balance patch does seem a lot of times to be completely random and not always with reasoning.I agree with you, it seems if you want to get a Devs attention, that its more reliable to do so via reddit. The forums have a fair share of bad posters, but also some really great exchanges of ideas and suggestions, but feel like they are largely ignored.

They have a spreadsheet with coefficients. The problem is that the spreadsheet doesn't take into account of:

• skill animation/cast time
• travel speed (how hard is it to hit)
• chain skills (a weak skill on the spreadsheet may make a profession really OP if it allows the profession to chain invul, block, evade, heal)
• how cross professions interact (like how Ele is top DPS in raid, but only when they have all the support and perfect buffs in Raid)

The result:

• many skills are good on paper, but people say it's weak because you just can't get it to hit (Weaver's skill)
• many skills are ok on paper, but hit way too hard due to the scaling doesn't take into account how much perma-might the profession has (Holo)
• many skills are balance on the damage side, but is so annoying due to spreadsheet not taking into how OP it is after all the traits (Full Counter)
• I could go on, but you get the idea.

There is no substitution for fast and frequent balance patches.

Two devs duel at mid on Forrest and that is how they decide their balance and their numbers. They showed this is how they do things, I am not joking.

@Khailyn.6248 said:No idea and I doubt theyll ever tell us. Some speculate they take the numbers from certain end game raiding guilds, but theres no way to confirm that.There is an actual dps meter in the dev tools. It was shown once long before we had 3rd party dps meters and people wondered why anet didn't release it to the public. I think they said something about technical limitations.

@"Sunshine.5014" said:They have a spreadsheet with coefficients. The problem is that the spreadsheet doesn't take into account of:

• skill animation/cast time
• travel speed (how hard is it to hit)
• chain skills (a weak skill on the spreadsheet may make a profession really OP if it allows the profession to chain invul, block, evade, heal)
• how cross professions interact (like how Ele is top DPS in raid, but only when they have all the support and perfect buffs in Raid)

The result:

• many skills are good on paper, but people say it's weak because you just can't get it to hit (Weaver's skill)
• many skills are ok on paper, but hit way too hard due to the scaling doesn't take into account how much perma-might the profession has (Holo)
• many skills are balance on the damage side, but is so annoying due to spreadsheet not taking into how OP it is after all the traits (Full Counter)
• I could go on, but you get the idea.

There is no substitution for fast and frequent balance patches.

AS for things like weaver (Honestly sword weaver is a great example) things can hit if you learn to play it. I use imobs or other combos to nail my hard hitting skills, so those were taken into account for. If I don't play it well, then it's damage is crap as you described, which is the opposite of your point that they only spreadsheet damage check it. As for them "ignoring traits making things OP", that's also looked at. They specifically hit traits this last balance patch to nerf the one shot mesmer builds quite a bit, and I see very few of these around. On your note of "how class professions interact" I don't see why you would bring up raiding in a PvP forum, especially when our balance is different not only in terms of goals, but literally having balance splits, they do look at this. Firebrand scourge combo was rampant last season, and has fallen down because together they were too strong, and it was addressed in the last patch. I fail to see how basically any of your points hold true.

To respond to the original poster about "Where the secret menu is", it's posting with an understanding of what makes things too powerful. What traits, skills ect are too much. A post along the lines of "Mesmer is too OP, nerf it all." is pointless and brings nothing to the table but salt, and will be ignored. If you try something like "Mesmer traits that synergise with imob are very strong, and don't give players a chance to react to an instant burst", then some actual discussion can happen, and you can look at fixing that, vs just complaining that mesmer too OP and maybe you don't know how it works, and maybe you just need to learn. Maybe it is broken, but we can't tell or discuss anything about it with a "Mesmer too OP' and no other information post. Hope that helps you sort out why a lot gets ignored. Complaints are not useful, but conversation is.

One of the things that most of us don't get is that ANet has to balance the game for the entire community. They have to cover those that eke out every extra bit of possible DPS with skill-canceling, expensive food, and highly-synergistic rotations/builds and for those that just want to finish the stories without wiping. The same skills have to work for the highly organized GvG community and the roamers in WvW. And for the top and bottom of the leaderboards in PvP.

By mathematical certainty, if ANet does everything right to balance the game for everyone, some people are going to be upset and some are going to be confused, to the point that no explanation from ANet is going to help.

So your best bet is to pick specific changes and ask about them. See if anyone in the community can offer an explanation as to why it might make sense and consider whether that's reasonable from the point of view of others that play differently from you. Even if it still makes your (gaming) life more difficult. This turns out to be incredibly difficult: less-skilled players have trouble seeing what is even relevant at higher-levels of gameplay and skilled players have trouble seeing why the game isn't as easy for everyone as it is for them.

tl;dr start with specific criticisms and find out how other people see the same thing, across a spectrum of different playstyles. Armed with those details, offer a constructive critique for ANet to consider and perhaps address.

They just arbitrarily pick numbers they think sound good. That's what balance is to this dev team.

@Lordrosicky.5813 said:Two devs duel at mid on Forrest and that is how they decide their balance and their numbers. They showed this is how they do things, I am not joking.

But the question is... does the winner get the changes he wants? Or does the winner get nerfed?

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Lordrosicky.5813 said:Two devs duel at mid on Forrest and that is how they decide their balance and their numbers. They showed this is how they do things, I am not joking.

Considering how mesmer always seems to wind up on top, I'd say the winner gets the changes he wants lol.

Where do the buff and nerf numbers come from? Where is the hidden menu?https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRzPG-QIMfeKGMNtd_qsB2SfTwBdRGQUSwXSYNpHbaFcGsXQ2DV