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mesmer is weak but unfun to play against and that's how it was designed


incisorr.9502

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I've been tuning into gw2 streams randomly and like all the popular streams are non-stop hating on mesmers and the argument they constantly make is that it's not fun to play against mesmer even if its killable because everyone on higher elo is aware that mesmer is very killable and how to do so so they retreat to the argument "It's not fun "

like wtf? The entire concept of disappearing, confusing your enemy and illusions and teleports to confuse them even more is not meant to be fun its meant to be trickery. It's the same with thief, saying that mesmer isn't fun shouldn't just stop at mesmer but also at thief or revenant or any class that ganks you. The whole game was not designed around "being fun" in the first place 5v5 with caps means you're gonna get zerged all the time and you won't have fun while getting zerged. There are all sorts of scummy builds because it's a build based game and it allows for cheese and there are no fixed classes. The whole "concept" and idea of trick magic is to make you frustrated in the first place

also mirage being "unfun " is nothing new? i had 300 threads raging about thief and mesmer in the past expansions and most of them (if not all) were deleted and i ended up receiving unjustified warnings for them for trying to explain this very concept of getting ganked and stealth and what not being unfun but now when people are dying cus they're too greedy to put condi removal in their build they start bringing up the point. Like, mesmer barely even been "okay" in duels because before that it was a ganker and roamer class and not a duel class and now that the role has shifted somewhat people are whining?

ranger 1v2ing you with pet isnt fun either, especially with beastmastery traits where the pet ends up soloing people that ignore it

guard's retaliation isnt a fun concept either

neither is scourge's condition spam or reaper's 2 lives + chill procs and unreasonably high damage

LOSING PVP ISN'T FUN LOL

mirage isn't top tier since elusive mind and vigor nerfs which are by now months old, the fact that it's so incredibly underplayed in the top ranks goes to show for it. Portal is good in team environment but the meta has evolved in such a way that portal isn't even that good any more, wasn't last monthly winner a team without a mesmer anyway? yeah

if you want a fun and 'honorable' and fair game you need fixed classes without builds with minor player adjustment at most, that way they can balance it easier and that way you can see whos a good player and not carried by a build

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Yes Scourge's condi output is really annoying, just imagine what the game would have been if Scourges had teleports, high mobility, stealth, condi bursts every 10 seconds from stealth, reflects while evading, casting while evading (without interrupting skills), stun break on evade and spamming blinds on demand, man that would have been really unbalanced, thank god there is no such professions in the game. But I do agree with you mesmer is really weak especially in top tier.

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Mesmer has run off more new players to GW2 than any other profession by far. It doesn't matter what Anet's internal spreadsheets look like in terms of what's "balanced". There's something called common sense and, as we can see after every patch, they do very little internal testing.

You can't have one profession with virtually everything...stealth, most AI, most CC, most scale-able defenses/immunities, lowest cooldowns, lowest cast times, most mobility, highest condi burst, highest power burst...not to mention...the ability to spec for AOE, boon rips, boons, or even support.

Moa is still the most OP CC for a 2v2 scenario. It is the longest CC by far AND has NO counter.

Portal is still the most OP utility for a group that NO OTHER PROFESSION can do. I'm not even talking about the times mesmer had the most OP bunker builds too.

They can also stomp/rez without taking a bit of damage or being CC'd.

No other profession was made so OP that they needed to do THREE separate patches midseason. Even with those patches, Mesmer STILL had other builds they could swap to and be OP. They were also one of the few professions to get a "re-work" since POF.

Imagine any new player choosing a profession other than Mesmer and then facing all that. It immediately gives the impression that the game is whack.

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Imagine coming to the forums of a video game and attempting to seriously reason with people about why they shouldn't expect fun in a video game instead of trying to understand why the prevalence of a certain class is sucking the life out of the players who frankly aren't forced to log in. This isn't work. People don't have to pvp to live, they come here to get challenged.

Challenge is fun to an extent. Sometimes things go past challenge and become frustrating.

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@Airdive.2613 said:

Moa is still the most OP CC for a 2v2 scenario. It is the longest CC by far AND has NO counter.

Can miss, can be blocked, the moa can move and use skills (including the evade one).

Agreed. It has several counters, and even if you get bird'd you can just leap away then immediately evade to take a good chunk of time off of the useless.It's fine as an elite.

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Should Anet make changes based on 'fun factor'?YesShould Anet balance based on 'fun factor'?No! Balancing should never be based on arbitrary decisions.

There is a very subtle but important difference between the two.

Class 1 has skills A and BClass 2 only has skill ATherefore, Class 1 is OP

This is not a valid argument. For example, if class 1 has 1 sec on protection and 1 sec of vigor but class 2 has 60 sec of protection than class 2 would be more OP even though they have less skill variety.

A class could be more fun to fight against if changes are made to the class. However, that doesn't mean the class is OP.

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Finally someone who gets it! Mesmers are not to supposed to be fun for their opponents, only for the player using. And they are totally underpowered too with a kit that doesn't feature enough impacting skills.

I propose the following:

  • Since one of the best ways that mesmers destroy others fun is by making it a fight vs. the UI and through lack of visibility, the following changes should be made:

  • All of your opponents skills should be randomly shuffled around on their toolbar every time you shatter. This really fits with the theme of confusing your opponent and should further destroy any enjoyment of the game. If this doesn't work, then we could have each shatter randomly replace a utility skill with one that isn't selected! Making a player feel helpless is the best way to improve the mesmer's enjoyment of the game.

  • Clones should persist for longer after shattering, and should turn the opponents whole screen pure-white, or randomly blocking off different portions of the viewing field any time they get hit with a shatter. Fighting vs. something that completely destroys all visibility as it currently does removes fun quite effectively. Even moreso with the visual bugs that cause the shattered sprite to persist. Instead of being stationary, the sprite should continue to just run in circles. This will further improve mesmer's ability to ruin visiblity. If that isn't sufficient, they should also leave pink trails behind them that persist for 30s. Perhaps we should also increase the number of clones (see below)?

  • Mesmers need the ability to apply more pressure from out of nowhere, and the ability to just continually apply burst-pressure (as opposed to waiting long times between bursts like a terrible designer would do). They also only have 5-6 get out of jail free options for when the fit does hit the shan...that leaves them vulnerable for a few seconds while they aren't bursting and they sometimes don't disengage properly to get their CD's back.

  • As such, I think that all mesmer skills should instantly recharge by 5s every time a shatter is used.

  • Clones are too hard to generate since they revamped them. Sometimes you need to purposely use a clone skill to get access to one. As such, every 2s another clone should pop up and use whatever skill the mesmer just did. These guys are MASTERS of manipulation, not mere pedestrians. Further, every skill that produces a clone should instead produce 3 so that there can be a full shatter. Perhaps the clone limit should be increased to 6....maybe 9? It should probably be 9 to further help with destroying any visibility and sense of power that other players have.

  • About the lack of defense. I think every shatter skill should now apply 3s of mirage cloak on use. Also, dodges should give mirage cloak that lasts 2s. I mean, only being 33% better than a normal dodge in duration isn't enough. It should be at least 166% better.

I think Anet should stop trying to pretend like mesmer's are not favored. Let's go whole-hog and take away ALL the fun of everyone else so only the favored class remains. That is the best coarse of action, and I demand these changes be made immediately.

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@BlackBeard.2873 said:Finally someone who gets it! Mesmers are not to supposed to be fun for their opponents, only for the player using. And they are totally underpowered too with a kit that doesn't feature enough impacting skills.

I propose the following:

  • Since one of the best ways that mesmers destroy others fun is by making it a fight vs. the UI and through lack of visibility, the following changes should be made:

  • All of your opponents skills should be randomly shuffled around on their toolbar every time you shatter. This really fits with the theme of confusing your opponent and should further destroy any enjoyment of the game. If this doesn't work, then we could have each shatter randomly replace a utility skill with one that isn't selected! Making a player feel helpless is the best way to improve the mesmer's enjoyment of the game.

  • Clones should persist for longer after shattering, and should turn the opponents whole screen pure-white, or randomly blocking off different portions of the viewing field any time they get hit with a shatter. Fighting vs. something that completely destroys all visibility as it currently does removes fun quite effectively. Even moreso with the visual bugs that cause the shattered sprite to persist. Instead of being stationary, the sprite should continue to just run in circles. This will further improve mesmer's ability to ruin visiblity. If that isn't sufficient, they should also leave pink trails behind them that persist for 30s. Perhaps we should also increase the number of clones (see below)?

  • Mesmers need the ability to apply more pressure from out of nowhere, and the ability to just continually apply burst-pressure (as opposed to waiting long times between bursts like a terrible designer would do). They also only have 5-6 get out of jail free options for when the fit does hit the shan...that leaves them vulnerable for a few seconds while they aren't bursting and they sometimes don't disengage properly to get their CD's back.

  • As such, I think that all mesmer skills should instantly recharge by 5s every time a shatter is used.

  • Clones are too hard to generate since they revamped them. Sometimes you need to purposely use a clone skill to get access to one. As such, every 2s another clone should pop up and use whatever skill the mesmer just did. These guys are MASTERS of manipulation, not mere pedestrians. Further, every skill that produces a clone should instead produce 3 so that there can be a full shatter. Perhaps the clone limit should be increased to 6....maybe 9? It should probably be 9 to further help with destroying any visibility and sense of power that other players have.

  • About the lack of defense. I think every shatter skill should now apply 3s of mirage cloak on use. Also, dodges should give mirage cloak that lasts 2s. I mean, only being 33% better than a normal dodge in duration isn't enough. It should be at least 166% better.

I think Anet should stop trying to pretend like mesmer's are not favored. Let's go whole-hog and take away ALL the fun of everyone else so only the favored class remains. That is the best coarse of action, and I demand these changes be made immediately.

Hear Hear.

@Xstein.2187 said:Should Anet make changes based on 'fun factor'?YesShould Anet balance based on 'fun factor'?No! Balancing should never be based on arbitrary decisions.

There is a very subtle but important difference between the two.

Class 1 has skills A and BClass 2 only has skill ATherefore, Class 1 is OP

This is not a valid argument. For example, if class 1 has 1 sec on protection and 1 sec of vigor but class 2 has 60 sec of protection than class 2 would be more OP even though they have less skill variety.

A class could be more fun to fight against if changes are made to the class. However, that doesn't mean the class is OP.

[Ednamode]What are you talking about.[/Ednamode]

I can't make heads or tails of what your point is.

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@"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:[Ednamode]What are you talking about.[/Ednamode]

I can't make heads or tails of what your point is.

Hi AzureIf it's ok, I'm going to use a quote from you that you just said in another thread to help you understand what I mean.

Azure"That's fine too, but still make thieves be able to 1v1 with less access to stealth. If you're going to make the core mechanic for deadeyes more difficult, they should have more access to active defenses that allow them to contest you without relying on stealth."

Many people believe that stealth is not fun to play against. Therefore, some may just jump to conclusions and say dead eye is OP. If you think deadeye is OP then you specifically want nerfs. If you just think dead eye is not fun to play against than you want changes with compensations to maintain balance, such as providing deadeye with more defenses in place of having less access to stealth.Same thing with Mirage.

The second part of my post is a fallacious argument I have seen not only the first responder use in this post, but third as well.I can add it to your post as well that you just created about false arguments if you want.

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@Slapinator.4196 said:Yes Scourge's condi output is really annoying, just imagine what the game would have been if Scourges had teleports, high mobility, stealth, condi bursts every 10 seconds from stealth, reflects while evading, casting while evading (without interrupting skills), stun break on evade and spamming blinds on demand, man that would have been really unbalanced, thank god there is no such professions in the game. But I do agree with you mesmer is really weak especially in top tier.

Yeah, in fact the most OP abused duo in all tournaments and in high elo matches is Firebrand paired with Mirage yeah, must be that... or maybe not?

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So do you balance around fun or statistics?

If we balance around fun here's a list of unfun things:Holo, CC and insane damage for no damage trait lines.Soulbeast, damage, sustain and generally too many boons.Mirage drop target and condition output.Firebrand sustain, Core guard burst damage, DH layers of defence to peel back while they output damage.Spellbreaker full counter and CC chains.Scourge sheer condi spam, 1 button 4 conditions. Reaper goes shroud and you randomly get hit with a bunch of procs.Thief evade spam and DE stealth spam.Ele sustain for years.Rev extreme burst damage.Damage in general being so high.

I mean that's a lot of stuff there that while some of it may be balanced within the meta is certainly annoying to fight if not downright unfun depending on your class and build. Heaven help you if you want to play something fun like an interrupt build, support scourge/chrono or anything that an elite spec is advertised as but really isn't.

Yet isn't the game supposed to be fun?

So do we balance around fun or not? Can you balance around fun when your player base is, and I'm being as nice as I can, a bunch of ultra casuals?

If something isn't represented very well I wouldn't nerf it just yet or at least delay sorting out the "unfun" aspect for a proper change that doesn't depreciate the classes usability when it's not considered strong enough to be represented well.

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@Xstein.2187 said:

Many people believe that stealth is not fun to play against. Therefore, some may just jump to conclusions and say dead eye is OP. If you think deadeye is OP then you specifically want nerfs. If you just think dead eye is not fun to play against than you want changes with compensations to maintain balance, such as providing deadeye with more defenses in place of having less access to stealth.Same thing with Mirage.

Got it, I think..?

Mechanically frustrating to fight is separate from being overpowered, that much is correct.

You can fix frustrating gameplay by making it less punishing to the opponent though (by nerfing.). That is where my opinion differs.

What matters is context. If the gameplay you intend to fix can only be fixed by changing a core mechanic that would strip the class in question of most of its defenses, then you need to add something that gives the class access to defense in some other way that allows it to remain viable.If the gameplay you intend to fix can be fixed by a numbers adjustment then that's fine.

What people find mostly unfun, I'm assuming, is anything that leads to them taking a hell of a lot of damage while their opponent seemingly remains immortal. I don't particularly think that's true in the case of DeadEye. It was in the case of DD condi, but not so for DE. The thief has to expose itself to attack and has the lowest base health of all classes, which is, imo, more balanced than being able to continue attacking in a channel by dodging something that would have interrupted you (without having to cancel the skill), or by dodging to avoid a burst even through you got stunned, not to mention that the DE has to trade in contesting the point to do damage because of its squishiness.

I don't think it's the same with Mirage. DE has to trade contesting the point (which is what pvp is centered around) for damage that can be reflected, and still has to manage incoming damage while it does so.

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No, balancing should not occur based on fun.If thats the case than everyone for the next expansion will just rout for the most bland, dull elite specs in existence.Will it be unfun to play against? NoWill it be fun to play? NoWill it be competitive since people will not be arguing for it to be nerfed due to its 'fun' factor? Yes

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@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Many people believe that stealth is not fun to play against. Therefore, some may just jump to conclusions and say dead eye is OP. If you think deadeye is OP then you specifically want nerfs. If you just think dead eye is not fun to play against than you want changes with compensations to maintain balance, such as providing deadeye with more defenses in place of having less access to stealth.Same thing with Mirage.

Got it, I think..?

Mechanically frustrating to fight is separate from being overpowered, that much is correct.

You can fix frustrating gameplay by making it less punishing to the opponent though (by nerfing.)
. That is where my opinion differs. What matters is context. If the gameplay you intend to fix can only be fixed by changing a core mechanic that would strip the class in question of most of its defenses, then you need to add something that gives the class access to defense in some other way that allows it to remain viable.If the gameplay you intend to fix can be fixed by a numbers adjustment then that's fine.

Yes, that is what I am talking about. Of course you could fix any class or skill that is 'unfun' to play against by nerfing it. However, that doesn't mean that ONLY nerfing it is the correct thing to do. Lowering the amount of stealth on dead eye would not strip it of most of its defenses (after all, you can decrease stealth by incremental amounts). However, dead eye is not taken in high level play with a lot of stealth, so why would you not compensate for lowering the stealth even if its only a partial amount? Whether of not the 'unfun' skill looking to be changed is counted as a 'core mechanic' is irrelevant. What matters is how the finale produce is balanced on the whole. If dead eye stealth is nerfed a little, other areas should be buffed a little (or even more since its not in high end pvp content that much). If stealth on dead eye is nerfed a lot, other areas should get buffed a lot. Same with Mirage. What matters is the finale product. The reality is that mirage currently IS balanced a lot on the ability to use mirage cloak.

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@Xstein.2187 said:No, balancing should not occur based on fun.If thats the case than everyone for the next expansion will just rout for the most bland, dull elite specs in existence.Will it be unfun to play against? NoWill it be fun to play? NoWill it be competitive since people will not be arguing for it to be nerfed due to its 'fun' factor? Yes

Why would a class fun to play against automatically not be fun to play? You can have a class that is exciting to play and yet fun to play against at the same time. Fighting games do it all the time.

I have a hard time understanding you, I think.

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@Xstein.2187 said:

Many people believe that stealth is not fun to play against. Therefore, some may just jump to conclusions and say dead eye is OP. If you think deadeye is OP then you specifically want nerfs. If you just think dead eye is not fun to play against than you want changes with compensations to maintain balance, such as providing deadeye with more defenses in place of having less access to stealth.Same thing with Mirage.

Got it, I think..?

Mechanically frustrating to fight is separate from being overpowered, that much is correct.

You can fix frustrating gameplay by making it less punishing to the opponent though (by nerfing.)
. That is where my opinion differs. What matters is context. If the gameplay you intend to fix can only be fixed by changing a core mechanic that would strip the class in question of most of its defenses, then you need to add something that gives the class access to defense in some other way that allows it to remain viable.If the gameplay you intend to fix can be fixed by a numbers adjustment then that's fine.

Yes, that is what I am talking about. Of course you could fix any class or skill that is 'unfun' to play against by nerfing it. However, that doesn't mean that ONLY nerfing it is the correct thing to do. Lowering the amount of stealth on dead eye would not strip it of most of its defenses (after all, you can decrease stealth by incremental amounts). However, dead eye is not taken in high level play with a lot of stealth, so why would you not compensate for lowering the stealth even if its only a partial amount? Whether of not the 'unfun' skill looking to be changed is counted as a 'core mechanic' is irrelevant. What matters is how the finale produce is balanced on the whole. If dead eye stealth is nerfed a little, other areas should be buffed a little (or even more since its not in high end pvp content that much). If stealth on dead eye is nerfed a lot, other areas should get buffed a lot. Same with Mirage. What matters is the finale product. The reality is that mirage currently
IS
balanced a lot on the ability to use mirage cloak.

Then add defense to Mirage somewhere else if you need to modify mirage cloak. o-o Just because the class is allegedly mechanically busted doesn't mean it deserves to be banished into obscurity. If I stun you though, you shouldn't be able to avoid the burst UNLESS you commit to a defensive option with a CD.And if an attack is coming, you should have to stop your attack and block it UNLESS, you commit to a defensive option that allows you to continue attacking, with a CD.

Having those key mechanics tied to dodge, when endurance is so plentiful and people don't have to take EM to avoid bursts, is borderline silly IMO. But at the same time don't kill the class. Just make it have to be more careful.

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even if you balance around statistics, mesmer is severely under-represented on high level /in top ranks

@Slapinator.4196 said:Yes Scourge's condi output is really annoying, just imagine what the game would have been if Scourges had teleports, high mobility, stealth, condi bursts every 10 seconds from stealth, reflects while evading, casting while evading (without interrupting skills), stun break on evade and spamming blinds on demand, man that would have been really unbalanced, thank god there is no such professions in the game. But I do agree with you mesmer is really weak especially in top tier.

necro has 50% more hp and protection, unlike mirage. It also has boon corruption and unblockable attacks and better aoe. That's the other half of the untold story in your post

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@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@"Xstein.2187" said:No, balancing should not occur based on fun.If thats the case than everyone for the next expansion will just rout for the most bland, dull elite specs in existence.Will it be unfun to play against? NoWill it be fun to play? NoWill it be competitive since people will not be arguing for it to be nerfed due to its 'fun' factor? Yes

Why would a class fun to play against automatically not be fun to play? You can have a class that is exciting to play and yet fun to play against at the same time. Fighting games do it all the time.

I have a hard time understanding you, I think.

No, I agree with you, you are correct that that it's not necessarily the case that a class fun to play against means unfun to play. My bad.That was a bad assumption on my part.But thats the other problem, its arbitrary, and if you just nerf based on fun or not fun than you will ultimately likely nerf classes that aren't in high end content to begin with, discouraging the player base of that spec.Is it fair that an entire elite spec is simply thrown in the trash because the majority of players say it is unfun to play against?Or is it better to try to change what is unfun about it and then balance it out so it is viable?How would you feel if they just removed a bunch of stealth from dead eye and didn't change anything else?For many dead eye players, they would no longer see the game as fun. However, the players that fought dead eyes would.We need to focus on the MAX happiness as a whole of the entire player base, in contrast to MAX happiness of just the largest sect of the player base.

A famous quote is, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch". You could just let the wolves decide what to have for dinner, and let the lamb die or go hungry. Or instead you could find a balance in something that they would all like to eat (or part of it they would like to eat). If Anet just balances based on fun judged by the masses, then they are essentially saying long live the wolves, out with the lambs, which is fine when you are a wolf, but what will happen when you become the lamb instead?

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@Xstein.2187 said:

@Xstein.2187 said:No, balancing should not occur based on fun.If thats the case than everyone for the next expansion will just rout for the most bland, dull elite specs in existence.Will it be unfun to play against? NoWill it be fun to play? NoWill it be competitive since people will not be arguing for it to be nerfed due to its 'fun' factor? Yes

Why would a class fun to play against automatically not be fun to play? You can have a class that is exciting to play and yet fun to play against at the same time. Fighting games do it all the time.

I have a hard time understanding you, I think.

No, I agree with you, you are correct that that it's not necessarily the case that a class fun to play against means unfun to play. Thats a bad on my part.However, thats probably more of a personal problem on my part. I tend to like some types of game play that others my not find fun.But thats the other problem, its arbitrary, and if you just nerf based on fun or not fun than you will ultimately likely nerf classes that aren't in high end content to begin with, discouraging the player base of that spec.Is it fair that an entire elite spec is simply thrown in the trash because the majority of players say it is unfun to play against?
Or is it better to try to change what is unfun about it and then balance it out so it is viable?

That is literally all I want.Glad we see eye to eye.

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