PvP: 50% reduced damage done, 30% reduced healing done - better gameplay??

So what do you think would happen if we were to cut damage by half for pvp, just with nothing further, and also reduce healing by like 30%.Better pvp? Worse pvp?I am pretty new to game and i was really surprised when i found out there seemingly aren't reductions to dmg done in pvp coz its so easy do more damage than i have life.

There are already like a million threads about it. Check them out before posting new one.

But none of them come across quite like I.

I'm not into PvP in this game because I don't care for it here, but I do dabble in WvW. It seems interesting to me how easily some people can kill others. I ran into a deadeye that tried to insta-kill me from stealth. The combination of stealth and an insta-kill option is a sign of a poor combat system. Now I have a guardian in celestial gear so I actually didn't die. Still took about 80-90% of my health but I was able to reheal and take the next shot. The problem is, he's invisible again so I don't actually get to fight back. He tried a few more times before leaving me alone as also others arrived of my side, but it's that I have extra health and toughness that I survived that. Most other players would've been insta-killed I'm sure. I mean I think it's thieves and mesmers mostly that have an incredible advantage with high burst capabilities and stealth.

Now for me it's WvW and I just go there for some rewards (getting the triumphant armor sets) and the proverbial sh*ts and giggles. But to me there are certain things that are sure signs of a poorly balanced PvP situation and stealth, especially perma-stealth and being able to disappear out of combat and still be able to do a lot of damage in a very short amount of time are just combinations that are not conducive to a properly competitive game mode. And there are more examples so don't think I'm just singling these out.

At the same time I know this is an MMO and it seems to be part of that genre that there is nowhere near a proper PvP balance. So it's my conclusion that PvP balance is not actually a goal of MMO makers. I will say that with GW1 they did a lot better of a job at it and that's probably the one example I can bring forward that had a lot more balance, but then it didn't have stealth as far as I remember. Damage was also not as big and I do believe healing was nerfed in PvP. In fact there were a lot of skills that worked differently in PvP than in PvE and some skills were PvE only. Not saying it was perfect but it was a lot fairer than GW2 will ever be.

So what I'm saying is that maybe you're barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe what you want will never happen because it goes against the goals of how MMOs tend to work because the goal of actual class balance is sacrificed for other goals. But it does mean I do not take PvP very seriously in MMOs and I honestly kind of laugh at the people who do, because it just seems so obvious to me that the balance people seek is not what MMO PvP is about. Or in other words I think you're kidding yourself if you think that they want to really balance PvP.

@Crackmonster.2790 said:So what do you think would happen if we were to cut damage by half for pvp, just with nothing further, and also reduce healing by like 30%.Better pvp? Worse pvp?I am pretty new to game and i was really surprised when i found out there seemingly aren't reductions to dmg done in pvp coz its so easy do more damage than i have life.

We already have a very real and tangible experiment in what 50%+ damage reduction would look like for all the classes in SPvP. It's called Boonbeast and it's a build live right now that people can play. It's one of the most obscene 1vx side noding specs to ever exist and what makes it survivable is it's access to permanent uptime of 33% damage reduction and extremely long busts for 66% damage reduction both Power and Condition damage. It's an unkillable monster, 1v1, and 1v2 it's baiting you into it's win condition since even then you'll still be unlikely to take slam down the kill to make the time investment of two players remotely worth it. Now imagine you've turned literally every single class and build in the game into Boonbeast.

Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

pvp really isn't that bad. take away ez 25 mites and some coefficients and were good to go.

@Zoid.2568 said:Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

You seriously think multi minute slogs of fights like the Ham Bow and DD Ele era were involved skill? It was an endless slog of attacks, none of which felt impactful or particularly changed the directions of the fight until after literal minutes of throwing ineffectual attacks someone finally dropped dead.

I mean how long should a fight last? Even pure 1v1 fighting games like Street Fighter rounds typically last like 25-40 minutes at most. In MOBA games individual fights only last 10-20 seconds. GW2 fights range from 10 seconds to stalling out indefinitely.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Zoid.2568 said:Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

They had way more skill than the builds now. If you landed you impactful skills you'd get the kill, otherwise you wouldn't. It led to great mind games of skill stowing and so on to bait dodges to get that one hammer f1 or fire grab to land.

@Ryan.9387 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"Zoid.2568" said:Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

Lolno

You could eat four Pin Downs and Earthshakers over the course of the fight before the fight ended and still potentially win. Because combat back then was an amorphous blob. Go back and watched duels between top players (Many of which are the same as today) from 2012-2015. Fights literally last 2,3,4 even 5 minutes at a time. There's no such thing as "Oh you ate earth shaker and so you died." You had to eat two or three or even four earth shakers. Then you died. Or you were playing goofy Yolo stuff largely considered unviable like Glass Greatsword+Hammer.

Yeah we don't exactly want people sitting in point for 10 minutes either like in HoT

Some bunkers ACTUALLY work right now even though there is a lot of damage (Guard/ele + their elite specs). GW2 has a good chance of coming back actually. It's just Mesmer's z-axis teleport that needs to be nerfed and I think the game might be balanced after.

The best balancing point is probably pre-HoT 2015, but like not many people know what that is like. And I highly doubt ANET knows to apply some principles into the current state either.

It might be time to bring back Soldiers amulet for example but see here's the thing, people get bored of spamming defensive mechanics over and over and watching point. That's why having more damage might actually be good because nerfing damage just makes evade spam even more annoying than with a burst meta. In a meta with more damage, there is more back and forth and possibly more adrenaline. It's still going to be hard to watch and yeah it's not going to be enough to make anybody take GW2 seriously again, but more damage is the lesser of evils right now. Not the patch where ANET blew it and lost it's e-sports potential by giving EVERYBODY disgusting amounts of evade spam/defense mechanics/effective hp.

@DonArkanio.6419 said:There are already like a million threads about it. Check them out before posting new one.

To be fair, theres plenty of suggestions for all topics that have all been ignored and dismissed.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Ryan.9387 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"Zoid.2568" said:Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

2012-2015 builds required more skill.. Its not about the damage, it was about having skills for certain situations rather than 1 skill packing everything..Even something as simple as might stacking required effort, this is why fights lasted longer, because people actually had to generate might during the fight instead..Builds and classes also had set ups to run by if they were to be effective too, Kit condi Engie for example had to magnet pull to crowbar bash, had to throw wrenches through fire bombs to stack extra burning or magnet pull people into prelaid bombs and so forth, couldnt just press 12345 and cycle what ever came off cooldown to get a kill, you actually had to preplan your attacks back then and know your rotations.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Ryan.9387 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"Zoid.2568" said:Yes. Longer fights and more skill.

Defensive amulets like soldiers, sentinels, as well as celestial being best in slot for several builds made combat a skilless slog. You can eat several "High impact" abilities and literally shrug it off. All combat was a long grind with tons of fights stalling out for minutes on end. There's no such thing as eating a skill shot leading to your death. With meta builds almost everything was a gradual whittling down of your opponent until someone finally dropped dead. It wouldn't be until the third earth shaker you were in trouble.

Even something as simple as might stacking required effort, this is why fights lasted longerFights lasted longer because purely defensive amulets were in the game and all the garbage passive saves like Defy Pain where much more omnipresent with far shorter cooldowns. There was a glut of them, at least twice as many as there are now.

75% of what people perceive as power creep is the culling of primarily defensive stats from the game. 25% is ACTUAL power creep.

Builds and classes also had set ups to run by if they were to be effective too, Kit condi Engie for example had to magnet pullI remember old Skyhammer. No thanks. Though I can see why Engineers would be nostalgic for it.

If we ask where the damage and the sustain comes from, we realize boon access is a big issue.

A 25 might stack is a ~35% damage boost in pvp (2050 power -> 2800 power). At the defensive side a high 33% damage reduction uptime via protection is pretty common on certain builds. I am a necromancer main. Corruptions only have minor impacts these days. The boons are instantly reapplied. Corruptions are a joke in smallscale environments. In pre HoT times the meta necro corrupt build (signetmancer) had 3x 2 corrupts and you could shutdown your opponent with that. That's what corrupt boon alone does today (2x 3 corrupts on a low cooldown) and the skill has a very minor impact.

I don't think that healing is the issue. The healing itself in this game already is pretty low.

You have to tweak other things as well, likr protection and toughness. Otherwise classes that dont rely as much on healing skills to stay alive like eng and boonbeast would be immortal

Just cutting damage in general is a really bad balance idea, imagine all bunkers now able to stay alive for 5 minutes during a 1v2 or 1v3 and never losing a node? I agree that theres a lot of damage in pvp right now but I do not agree that you just half all damage in general and reduce healing a bit without looking at classes specifically

@KrHome.1920 said:If we ask where the damage and the sustain comes from, we realize boon access is a big issue.

A 25 might stack is a ~35% damage boost in pvp (2050 power -> 2800 power). At the defensive side a high 33% damage reduction uptime via protection is pretty common on certain builds. I am a necromancer main. Corruptions only have minor impacts these days. The boons are instantly reapplied. Corruptions are a joke in smallscale environments. In pre HoT times the meta necro corrupt build (signetmancer) had 3x 2 corrupts and you could shutdown your opponent with that. That's what corrupt boon alone does today (2x 3 corrupts on a low cooldown) and the skill has a very minor impact.

I don't think that healing is the issue. The healing itself in this game already is pretty low.

I don't think corruption has little impact, I had a core necro corrupting my boons on revenant giving me 20s weakness everytime. Considering Revenant relies on high damage and has close to no condi cleanse this corruption build rendered me almost useless

Anyone remember the times before PoF dropped and core builds were still running about?

I do.

If Anet can have crap like Core Guard and Thief, they can most certainly adjust damage and defensive skills accordingly, so the other core stuff can keep up. Bring me back to those times where I can actually utilize all three specs in a class instead of seeing something like Revenant having literally one viable spec and a non-existent core class.

@Crackmonster.2790 said:So what do you think would happen if we were to cut damage by half for pvp, just with nothing further, and also reduce healing by like 30%.Better pvp? Worse pvp?I am pretty new to game and i was really surprised when i found out there seemingly aren't reductions to dmg done in pvp coz its so easy do more damage than i have life.

No one would die. SPvP will be much worse. Also, technically this would be impossible.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Crackmonster.2790 said:So what do you think would happen if we were to cut damage by half for pvp, just with nothing further, and also reduce healing by like 30%.Better pvp? Worse pvp?I am pretty new to game and i was really surprised when i found out there seemingly aren't reductions to dmg done in pvp coz its so easy do more damage than i have life.

sounds like the bunker meta all over again

super long games where no one dies and you actually have to play the objective -- but maybe that's not a bad thing because lately it seems most games are people chasing everyone around the map and forgetting that points exist after the initial capture.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

I mean how long should a fight last? Even pure 1v1 fighting games like Street Fighter rounds typically last like 25-40 minutes at most.

wat.

unless you're talking FT5 or 10, no single SF game will last 25 minutes...

All the people in here only paying attention to the 50% reduced damage and ignoring the healing reduction as well...That being said, healing is super high and could do with a 50% reduction on top of damage, now people won't be full healing every time they pop a heal skill and nobody gets one shot. People will still die in reasonable time and if they don't, then nerf some of peoples ability to block, evade, blind, reflect, etc.

I see Invulns and Blocks, aka scaling defenses as a way bigger problem than healing (and I don't think the value loss of absorbing less damage by just lowering incoming damage would be enough), as well as some specs spamming out Prot and Stab like it's nothing.Agree with damage needing to be tuned down.

@Cicada.6298 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

I mean how long should a fight last? Even pure 1v1 fighting games like Street Fighter rounds typically last like 25-40 minutes at most.

Oops! I mean individual rounds usually last 25-40 SECONDS. Ha. A bit of a difference there.