General Question about Play-style...

This is a legitimate question: do the Developers [at least any that have ever commented] have a completely different style of play than the average GW2 player? It seems that the posters here (admittedly, may NOT be average players) seem to think that the balance across classes and between modes is badly skewed. Perhaps we are playing the game differently somehow--over-optimizing? prioritizing speed of completion over other factors? not choosing interesting options?--such that the Devs have a different play experience? Anyone have any idea? Trying to figure out how things like core Necro and Rev (modestly underperforming) can be in the same game with Mirage, Scourge, Holosmith (powerfully overperforming). Thanks!

My personal opinion, my background in MMOs comes from the older more tactical type of team play and cooperation (started in FFXI and CoH).

I see "active gameplay" as an inevitable goal until MMORPG mechanics are completely replaced with action combat gameplay. This has an effect on variety when one considered that, limitations are what create opportunity for varying play. Not saying action has no variety, it's just the shift changes from the variety of skills themselves to more standard high, mid, low and staying out of red circles.

I feel, the devs want to present a style of play that captures the players of your standard RPGs but keep the market for the action oriented player. The action oriented player wants a focus on the variety of challenges and the difficulty of the encounter while the standard RPGer wants variety in skills, effects and visuals. These things can be at odds (such as the over abundance of visuals obstructing the encounters). They are trying to balance something some players don't even realize is being balanced. But they end up just burning both bridges on the extreme ends (the hard core competitive pvper and the loyalist longtime pveer).

Personally speaking, I think those that feel there is a deep chasm between the players and the devs are those extremists on the ends because overall, the game and balance is rather smooth with only a few outliers. Either that, or maybe this era of games has a microscopic grade critical lens held to them than in the past since it's easier to find confirmation bias among the vocal minority that wish to complain but continue to play regardless.

If interested, you can watch the Devs play on the various "Let's Play..." streams offered each week. Might give an idea of their 'style of play'.

Good luck.

Inherently Devs will view their game different due to internal perspective alone. This doesn't necessarily mean they'll play (as in do actions) differently, but how they understand the game is inevitably affected by their knowledge of the design intent. A lot of MMO devs also think its cheeky to hint at a solution to something, and watch the player base try and scour up the answer. Some Devs are good at this, others aren't.

Secondly, you have to assume there is a level of bias in forums, as players who are content with the state of the game (ie are playing it) are far less likely to come to the forums then those who have a bone to pick. Sitting opposite of this are just people who like theorycrafting and discussion; so at least theres some counter argument to the complaints that don't hold up against scrutiny. For its size, this forum is actually shockingly tame and level headed. But you go to almost any other forum for a game over a certain size (somewhere above 300k) with a competitive element (either implicit or explicit), and gradually intensifies as a cesspool of written vitriol, logical fallacies, and over inflated egos. The more popular it is worse it gets.

But no..... if the Devs thought there was a problem with the current set up, they'd actually take action it. The big point of contention tends to be a disagreement on if something is a problem, and why. Theres also a very large range of "player-perspective" with Devs, where some are capable of fully understanding the nuances of Player feedback and complaints, while others go with surrogate methods because that feedback generally can't be trusted at face value. Finding a Dev thats on the same wave length as players are very rare, but when they're involved, you probably wouldn't realize it since it would simply "click".

@"Nerah.8235" said:This is a legitimate question: do the Developers [at least any that have ever commented] have a completely different style of play than the average GW2 player?

It is possible, but honestly, extremely unlikely. The biggest difference is that they are probably more likely to play what they enjoy, rather than being slaves to the meta, since they see the numbers that confirm that...

It seems that the posters here (admittedly, may NOT be average players) seem to think that the balance across classes and between modes is badly skewed.

...the posters here, who are usually the <= one percent most dedicated players in the game, but who also have the unfortunate tendency to use easily skewed measures such as personal perception, are not all that correct about the horrible degree of difference.

Perhaps we are playing the game differently somehow--over-optimizing? prioritizing speed of completion over other factors? not choosing interesting options?--such that the Devs have a different play experience? Anyone have any idea? Trying to figure out how things like core Necro and Rev (modestly underperforming) can be in the same game with Mirage, Scourge, Holosmith (powerfully overperforming).

As suggested, check out the "Lets Play" videos, and see what you think. :)

Remember, though, that those edge cases are also biased by the bandwagon effect: a few significant people say core necro is bad, everyone who listens moves away from it, so the remaining players are not ... so great. Which apparently confirms the statement that core necro is bad, so more people repeat it, so people move away...

That isn't to say it is great or anything, just that there are a bunch of potential sources of bias that can influence perception away from reality, or can magnify the amount of difference involved.

@"Nerah.8235" said:

But no..... if the Devs thought there was a problem with the current set up, they'd actually take action it. The big point of contention tends to be a disagreement on if something is a problem, and why. Theres also a very large range of "player-perspective" with Devs, where some are capable of fully understanding the nuances of Player feedback and complaints, while others go with surrogate methods because that feedback generally can't be trusted at face value. Finding a Dev thats on the same wave length as players are very rare, but when they're involved, you probably wouldn't realize it since it would simply "click".

I'd referr you to the dismal state of game balance throughout season 1 and most of season 2, and then tell me devs will take action immediately when there's a problem.

Some devs are legit players and do well, some, not so much... Sadly not all devs are involved in the balance process... And their feedback to the players is cryptic at best, so it's hard to know what they intend and in turn give proper feedback about their actions.

Also no matter how encyclopaedic a dev's knowledge is of the game, internal testing pales when compared to live. That's why you'll never see a balanced post-expansion meta. Because 1 million players will always out-think a few dozen internal testers.The problem is that the balance team self-restrains in several ways, which 9/10 times results in a poor balance. A good example is their indecisiveness towards skill splitting between game modes, which inevitably ends up with half-baked balance for PvP resulting in unnecessary nerfs in PvE, creating an overall negative result. (just look at Scourge balance for a textbook example. Their first changes did nothing to resolve the dominance in PvP while nerfing it incredibly in PvE, and making it worse in WvW)

Couple this with their inertia towards scheduling patches, and you get a game that has barely cogent balance patches, with cryptic reasoning where players find it hard to even understand why would some stuff need changing, nevermind how to give feedback on it, and disturbingly long stretches of time with those poor changes in effect.

@Nerah.8235 said:Anyone have any idea? Trying to figure out how things like core Necro and Rev (modestly underperforming) can be in the same game with Mirage, Scourge, Holosmith (powerfully overperforming). Thanks!

Simply put, professions are not balanced.

They are trying to balance for 3+ things yet skill splits are limited to numbers tweaks.

@"starlinvf.1358" said:Inherently Devs will view their game different due to internal perspective alone. This doesn't necessarily mean they'll play (as in do actions) differently, but how they understand the game is inevitably affected by their knowledge of the design intent. A lot of MMO devs also think its cheeky to hint at a solution to something, and watch the player base try and scour up the answer. Some Devs are good at this, others aren't.

Secondly, you have to assume there is a level of bias in forums, as players who are content with the state of the game (ie are playing it) are far less likely to come to the forums then those who have a bone to pick. Sitting opposite of this are just people who like theorycrafting and discussion; so at least theres some counter argument to the complaints that don't hold up against scrutiny. For its size, this forum is actually shockingly tame and level headed. But you go to almost any other forum for a game over a certain size (somewhere above 300k) with a competitive element (either implicit or explicit), and gradually intensifies as a cesspool of written vitriol, logical fallacies, and over inflated egos. The more popular it is worse it gets.

But no..... if the Devs thought there was a problem with the current set up, they'd actually take action it. The big point of contention tends to be a disagreement on if something is a problem, and why. Theres also a very large range of "player-perspective" with Devs, where some are capable of fully understanding the nuances of Player feedback and complaints, while others go with surrogate methods because that feedback generally can't be trusted at face value. Finding a Dev thats on the same wave length as players are very rare, but when they're involved, you probably wouldn't realize it since it would simply "click".

Can vouch for this. Warframe is strongly PvE oriented and people are still at each other's throats over exclusive items and generally just being fine with the status quo when anyone on the outside could point out how very wrong some things are with the game. People will throw a hissy fit over something seemingly innocuous but be completely fine with a broken or pointless mechanic either because it doesn't really affect their game play experience in any way or they see the topic as an opportunity to call the critiquing poster out on being bad, usually both. Mostly, the "f%$$ you, I got mine" and "you're a n00b" mentality dominate most discussions over there. And let me remind you it's a 99% PvE game.

Mind you - those mentality's exist over here too, but to a much lesser extent because GW2 is generally much better about these things. And GW2 has actual competition in other MMORPGs, so that's saying something. But it should go without saying the chance of getting the negative mentalities skyrockets by a few factors when discussing a game's PvP elements.

I have yet to play a game where the devs, as a group, are anywhere near the bleeding edge of character/group performance. Then again, with as many hours as some seem to work, when would they have time?

Compared to other mmos our toons are far more powerful. Devs have a hard enough time balancing normal toons I can't imagine trying to balance these god toons. I did give up on pvp in this game because mmo fights are supposed to last longer than 3 seconds, pvp here seems more like a FPS than mmo. Its very unsatisfying to jump on one toon and kill without a challenge and jump on another toon and get killed without a challenge.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@"Nerah.8235" said:

But no..... if the Devs thought there was a problem with the current set up, they'd actually take action it. The big point of contention tends to be a disagreement on if something is a problem, and why. Theres also a very large range of "player-perspective" with Devs, where some are capable of fully understanding the nuances of Player feedback and complaints, while others go with surrogate methods because that feedback generally can't be trusted at face value. Finding a Dev thats on the same wave length as players are very rare, but when they're involved, you probably wouldn't realize it since it would simply "click".

Way to totally confuse what I wrote and infer a bunch of stuff anecdotally about how trash devs are, and state a bunch of things that are obvious now, but probably wouldn't had been on a consumer base level just 3 years ago. I'm not sure why you started out on a contrarian note when I wasn't even implying Devs are always right....