Fundamentally altering professions every few months

Arena Net, you made a great game. Really. All the pieces are there, yet it seems the only enemy you have is yourself. You aren't just tweaking professions every few months, you are fundamentally altering them every few months. It is very jarring to log in, and have such glaringly extreme changes to your profession that you are unable to get back into doing content in raids and fractals until you pour through the math and test what works. I don't know if this is supposed to be the design, but I hate it. Tweaks here and there to duration etc. is fine and expected for an MMO, but massive overhauls every 3-6 months need to stop. If these changes are really truly necessary then the design was awful to begin with, which really is not only disappointing but embarrassing for you. Please either stop this madness, or save these overhauls for huge events like expansion releases. I can't take the heartbreak anymore to log in and have no idea how to play anymore for the 4th time this year. It really really sucks.

Funny, some have posted they don't care for the smaller tweaks and adjustments, and state the game must have the bigger changes.It truly doesn't matter what ArenaNet does; someone will be disappointed.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Funny, some have posted they don't care for the smaller tweaks and adjustments, and state the game must have the bigger changes.It truly doesn't matter what ArenaNet does; someone will be disappointed.

How can i give you 1000 thumps up?

This is how MMOs work. People who like MMO gotta like the grind and to do the math. So devs shoul pump in interesting reasons to grind, and regular big changes to make ppl redo the math. It makes most ppl happy including me. Of course there are outliers like OP, but they should be the minority, because Anet wouldn't do this if it wouln't the right direction to make happy customers (aka money) in the end of the day.

Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Funny, some have posted they don't care for the smaller tweaks and adjustments, and state the game must have the bigger changes.Wasn't that in discussion about power reaper dps? Notice also that in general people usually agreed, that small changes are indeed usually better, and they should happen way more often than every 3 months.Anet on the other hand prefer small changes where bigger ones would be needed, and big ones where there's need of a precise balancing. And they do it so rarely, that the game ends up being unbalanced most of the time.

Just one? omegaLul

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Funny, some have posted they don't care for the smaller tweaks and adjustments, and state the game must have the bigger changes.Wasn't that in discussion about power reaper dps? Notice also that in general people usually agreed, that small changes are indeed usually better,

and they should happen way more often than every 3 months

.Anet on the other hand prefer small changes where bigger ones would be needed, and big ones where there's need of a precise balancing. And they do it so rarely, that the game ends up being unbalanced most of the time.

No idea, as I don't really read Profession threads. I was referring to statements of a general nature, and concerning many aspects of GW2.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

4 overhauls for chrono in one year has been nuts though. Am I crazy

@Einsof.1457 said:Arena Net, you made a great game. Really. All the pieces are there, yet it seems the only enemy you have is yourself. You aren't just tweaking professions every few months, you are fundamentally altering them every few months.

I think one big reason behind this is those new - or now "new" - elite specs from PoF. They really stirred the inter-class and inter-spec balance. I understand that initially ANet wanted to make PoF elites tempting enough to give players (one more) reason to buy the expansion. But in longer run also HoT and core specs would be nice to have some sort of balance.

@Einsof.1457 said:It is very jarring to log in, and have such glaringly extreme changes to your profession that you are unable to get back into doing content in raids and fractals until you pour through the math and test what works.

Yeah. And many times this involves getting new stats, new runes, new sigils, new everything. Really annoying, but on the other hand it is great advantage to owners of legendary pieces.

I get the feeling at times that a lot of people who no longer play think it's ok to still post about OP professions, hoping they get nerfed for their fun and enjoyment, because there is too much of this 'griefing' in online gaming these days. Same goes for the calls to nerf certain farms - How many say that because they have enough gold and want to mess it up for others?Yet again someone posts regarding boon soulbeast and lo and behold the next day ranger soulbeast gets nerfs. The same happened with pets I believe.I quite agree that it's frustrating when you get some kind of play understanding with your class for people to happily come on here and demand nerfs, making your build useless. I am an all or nothing player, I look at my trailblazer set and cry into my peppermint omnomberry bars at the waste of time and effort. It gets to the point that I can't be bothered to keep changing on the bec and call of a few player demands.What makes matter worse is thing gets posted such as 70k dmg on maul for example and while people try to explain how, no one from anet can gladly tell us it is possible to do that without any third party help and just nerf the skill.Oh well take my post how you wish. I'm finding it very hard to keep my interest at the moment.

@Einsof.1457 said:Arena Net, you made a great game. Really. All the pieces are there, yet it seems the only enemy you have is yourself. You aren't just tweaking professions every few months, you are fundamentally altering them every few months. It is very jarring to log in, and have such glaringly extreme changes to your profession that you are unable to get back into doing content in raids and fractals until you pour through the math and test what works. I don't know if this is supposed to be the design, but I hate it. Tweaks here and there to duration etc. is fine and expected for an MMO, but massive overhauls every 3-6 months need to stop. If these changes are really truly necessary then the design was awful to begin with, which really is not only disappointing but embarrassing for you. Please either stop this madness, or save these overhauls for huge events like expansion releases. I can't take the heartbreak anymore to log in and have no idea how to play anymore for the 4th time this year. It really really sucks.

Either you are new since PoF or have a short memory.

With the approach of each expansion, usually within a year of release, highly used specs become ‘adjusted’, usually fairly significantly.

One might call them balances, others view them strongly as being hit by a nerf bat.

Likely more of the highly integral classes will become adjusted over the next 6 months, as we are possibly within the 1 year window of another expansion.

These weren't major overhauls. When Anet changed dervish in gw1, that was a major overhaul. The mechanics actually changed. These are tweaks, some large, some small and i suspect the majority will not even notice them.

Im not saying they got these tweaks and rebalances right, but lets not over dramatise things either.

Problem is that they seem to have this mentality that there should Be only one build for certain Job, like what they did with Warriors PS and druid(so only druid can easily keep 25 stacks of might) and now only fb can keep permanent quickness for party and renegade alacrity. Those 2 were options before patch alongside chrono but now those 2 are only option.

@santso.9201 said:Problem is that they seem to have this mentality that there should Be only one build for certain Job, like what they did with Warriors PS and druid(so only druid can easily keep 25 stacks of might) and now only fb can keep permanent quickness for party and renegade alacrity. Those 2 were options before patch alongside chrono but now those 2 are only option.

I feel like it is the exact opposite. They wanted more options. So they nerfed ps and buffed the might share of druid. ( a tempest could also upkeep might).

They nerfed chrono so fb and Ren could be taken while not completely killing the class (in contrast with what people would have you believe)

@Randulf.7614 said:These weren't major overhauls. When Anet changed dervish in gw1, that was a major overhaul. The mechanics actually changed. These are tweaks, some large, some small and i suspect the majority will not even notice them.

Im not saying they got these tweaks and rebalances right, but lets not over dramatise things either.

No It was my main and yes I noticed and yes for the main part I found it annoying.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@daw.4923 said:dunno,if this game had BALLANCE team from start,you whoud get BALLANCE changes in minor tweaks +-5% like blizzard does. sadly this isnt case,so after 3 years chrono get random 100% nerf on boonshare,condi berz gets nerfed......,random changes to 5 years old traits/skills.

@Einsof.1457 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

@daw.4923 said:dunno,if this game had BALLANCE team from start,you whoud get BALLANCE changes in minor tweaks +-5% like blizzard does. sadly this isnt case,so after 3 years chrono get random 100% nerf on boonshare,condi berz gets nerfed......,random changes to 5 years old traits/skills.

@Einsof.1457 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

Agreed on Blizzard.

Agree on chrono but:

• 2 complete reworks in 1 year is already a lot
• some people consider major changes to gear and runes/sigils a huge enough change to be called a rework. Especially in chronos case we're most components we're among the most expensive or time consuming to acquire (minstrel, SoC, Leadership runes, etc.) and good for only 1 role

Not everyone has full legendary gear to easily adapt to such changes and as such frustration after such a year is understandable.

2 overhauls, 27 overhauls... again, it really depends on the issue the studio is trying to address. Whether I agree or like the changes, whether you do, whether anyone does... that isn't a determining factor. Our opinions are influential at best. Because balancing is one of the hardest things a gaming company has to do to keep their product going.

I think everyone forgets that boonshare chrono and chronotank strategies were invented by players, extracting the most efficient benefits they could by putting what was then a terrible DPS class into a no-DPS role, because it covered so many other major needs (tank, boons, CC, skips, other utils). We fractaled & raided without it and we can fractal & raid without it again.People also forget that what brought us here in the first place was a major overhaul that benefited chrono, helping them become competitive in DPS.

tl;dr tweak or overhaul and anything in between... it's all about the needs of the game, based on the professional assessments of the devsWhether we agree or not is a different story.

Small changes/tweaks are fine if you balance things regularly. If you take 3 months to put out a balance patch, it better be more than small changes/tweaks, though.

@Einsof.1457 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

Apparently, the first three didn't fix the problem ANet spoke of in these patch notes...

Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity. However, the power these two skills allowed chronomancers made them a one-stop shop for every boon in the game, which was crowding out other potential roles in raid compositions.

@Einsof.1457 said:Please either stop this madness, or save these overhauls for huge events like expansion releases. I can't take the heartbreak anymore to log in and have no idea how to play anymore for the 4th time this year. It really really sucks.

Just curious -- what classes do you play where you've been shafted four times in 2018?

@Einsof.1457 said:Arena Net, you made a great game. Really. All the pieces are there, yet it seems the only enemy you have is yourself. You aren't just tweaking professions every few months, you are fundamentally altering them every few months. It is very jarring to log in, and have such glaringly extreme changes to your profession that you are unable to get back into doing content in raids and fractals until you pour through the math and test what works. I don't know if this is supposed to be the design, but I hate it. Tweaks here and there to duration etc. is fine and expected for an MMO, but massive overhauls every 3-6 months need to stop. If these changes are really truly necessary then the design was awful to begin with, which really is not only disappointing but embarrassing for you. Please either stop this madness, or save these overhauls for huge events like expansion releases. I can't take the heartbreak anymore to log in and have no idea how to play anymore for the 4th time this year. It really really sucks.

There is a problem with this. People want balance ... how do you think they are going get it? I mean, consider that even with these significant changes, we don't get much 'balance debt' paid off. Imagine the changes that would have to happen for REAL balancing to happen.

@Edelweiss.4261 said:Small changes/tweaks are fine if you balance things regularly. If you take 3 months to put out a balance patch, it better be more than small changes/tweaks, though.

More like changes every 3 months are just plain bad. If you do small ones, any balancing will take ages. If you do bigger ones, you will likely overshoot and won't be able to correct the issue for the next 3 months. Both mean the game ends up being unbalanced most of the time, just for different reasons.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@Einsof.1457 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Sometimes a tweak is the right response. Sometimes overhauling is. It really depends on the issue that ANet is trying to address.

Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity. However, the power these two skills allowed chronomancers made them a one-stop shop for every boon in the game, which was crowding out other potential roles in raid compositions.

thank you im glad someone read that part of the notes.

Everyone wants 'balance' ... no one wants to pay the price to get it.