Dissonance of pvp experiences

The more I read the forums, the more I think about how much it's a nightmare for a PvP developer to decide how to balance the game mode. And it's not only due to the intricacies of balance and the different interactions you have in the game build wise, but also because the playerbase seems to be split down the middle in terms of the experiences they have in ranked q's.

Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself a good player, average on a regular day and average + on a good one. I have some 8000 games in PvP and I get put consistently at plat2 season after season. I play thief mostly, but I also play warrior and engi - mesmer when I forget how bad I am on that class. And even though I consider myself average, reading these forums feels like that I'm playing a completely different game mode from other players. You hear things like, "nerf this nerf that" and I go "really? who even plays that?" and general propositions such as "THIS is why the game mode is broken" and I go "what? when was that a problem?".

Now of course, this might be due to a split between NA and EU, but I think it's especially because of the difference between plat1 (and upper) and lower tiers like g3 (and lower). And even though it's sometimes tempting to just commit to a "L2P" narrative, the latter group represents, without doubt, the vast majority of the playerbase. So even if their gripes seem to me ill-informed, should't the developer focus on their demands rather than those of a minority? After all, if the main problem with the game mode is the low population, isn't catering to the minority a sure way to put the nail in the coffin?

TL:DR

Should the developers listen to the minority (p1 and upper) or the majority (g3 and lower) in terms what the game mode needs as balance / content / changes?

@"Ysmir.4986" said:The more I read the forums, the more I think about how much it's a nightmare for a PvP developer to decide how to balance the game mode. And it's not only due to the intricacies of balance and the different interactions you have in the game build wise, but also because the playerbase seems to be split down the middle in terms of the experiences they have in ranked q's.

Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself a good player, average on a regular day and average + on a good one. I have some 8000 games in PvP and I get put consistently at plat2 season after season. I play thief mostly, but I also play warrior and engi - mesmer when I forget how bad I am on that class. And even though I consider myself average, reading these forums feels like that I'm playing a completely different game mode from other players. You hear things like, "nerf this nerf that" and I go "really? who even plays that?" and general propositions such as "THIS is why the game mode is broken" and I go "what? when was that a problem?".

Now of course, this might be due to a split between NA and EU, but I think it's especially because of the difference between plat1 (and upper) and lower tiers like g3 (and lower). And even though it's sometimes tempting to just commit to a "L2P" narrative, the latter group represents, without doubt, the vast majority of the playerbase. So even if their gripes seem to me ill-informed, should't the developer focus on their demands rather than those of a minority? After all, if the main problem with the game mode is the low population, isn't catering to the minority a sure way to put the nail in the coffin?

TL:DR

Should the developers listen to the minority (p1 and upper) or the majority (g3 and lower) in terms what the game mode needs as balance / content / changes?

Majority. I've talked about this a few times in a few different threads. The upper echelon of players don't want their profession's "ruined" so of course they will defend it to the death saying you should balance to the higher tier of play. This might be a good argument if GW2 was an e-sport with lots of high level play and competitions going on. It's not though, it's a casual game and should be geared towards the casual average player.

So why is it okay to balance an e-sport centric game like say, Overwatch, towards high tier play but not GW2? When you have a game that is focused on competitive play almost solely it's reasonable to expect most the players are looking to improve or get somewhat better. With the competitive e-sport scene this gives them an easy to access resource to find out what is currently "best" and what to strive for. GW2 isn't a primarily competitive game though and is geared towards casual so it only makes sense to balance towards that group. It's much harder to access and understand how higher tier play works. Instead of there being a sanctioned "best teams and tournaments" you have to sift through the streams and deduce who is good, who is bad, who is talking bs for yourself.

A lot of players I play with and talk to are just in PvP to have fun and they are not worried about being the best. As you said, if you don't balance to these people then they all leave and all you're left with is the handful of "best" players and the people who try pvp and leave 2 days later. Even if something isn't "the strongest", if most people can't figure out how to beat it, it might as well be.

Both. But focusing on classes that are too strong, so (basically) nerfs only.

Something is too strong at the top? Nerf it. It is unfair when looking at the leaderboard/mATs.

Something is too strong for average players? Nerf it. Those are mostly unkillable bunkers or one-shot machines, which make the game less fun to play.

Only a sith deals in absolutes!

NO.

Games should not be balanced based on the majority or lower skilled players, it should ALWAYS be balanced based on play of the top end players. Catering to the lowest skill level says "it's ok, don't learn or get better, lets just dumb everything down to the point it's nothing more than spam skill play". I see this often where two classes will fight, and one of them will be a pretty hard counter to the other....Yet the hard counter will lose, even though in that situation the one who lost actually had the advantage. The lower the skill level of the players the more RNG the out come is, as it becomes less and less about the ability of the class/build and more about the lack of knowledge of the players and getting downed by skills they had a counter for but didn't use because they don't understand.

As you get higher in the skill levels, the more and more they understand about not just their own class, but other classes as well, as PvP is not just about knowing YOUR class and build, but all of the others as well, what they are capable of doing and their counters. You then need devs who understand this and can see how these classes work when fighting each other when both players know the other class well. Some input from these players would not be bad either for a view point, however the devs should never make a balance choice ONLY on that input.

We need balance around majority and a little minority out into consideration. Also this should be a poll

Balance needs to be made with both in consideration. For actual balance I think it would work best when the majority of the balance focus is on the g3-down BUT with some serious attention to limiting impact an elite player can have to improve the performance of any class in such a way that its NOT possible for them to win fifty and lose one match. I don't care how "skilled" anyone is anything close to the win/lose averages that are some times seen in the top 10 are total bullkitten and only make the games competition look like a big fat joke. Seriously, the game only allows at best duo in 5 player teams. Builds that "skilled" players can use to carry that hard are just NOT balanced! People are either cheating the que system or balance to the top is breaking things horribly. I think its a little of both.

I’d say balance requires you to listen to everyone, but reject opinions your designers disagree with on a design level.

People complain that stealth is unfun so delete stealth. That request doesn’t match with the game design so it should be ignored.

On the other hand, if the designers say “we want to make less bunkers and less one shot builds to bring time to kill towards a happy medium, that perfectly aligns with players of all skill levels complaining that damage is too high or certain bunkers are effectively immortal unless facing extremely high burst.

TLDR; everyone can have valid opinions and should be listened to when they actually make a coherent argument in line with the game design philosophy of the development team.

Game needs to be balanced for a majority - otherwise only a small elite would be left playing. On the other hand: The lower tiered majority might need the stronger elite players as a challenge to look up to and learn from. So everyone's concerns need to be taken into account.

But just please no listening to whining when someone can't 1 vs 3 or when others can easily kill others in 1 vs 3. This is a team game. Someone pwning others 1 vs. 1 very fast might get his skills on cooldown and be an easy target for a team member of the guy that got killed. (Stuff like that is important as well.)

Both should be the aim. Every class should be viable or effective by a average player BUT the classes full potential only being able to be brought out by a skilled player, that's balance to me.Obviously perfect balance is unachievable.

To be honest, "balance" isn't the reason GW2 PvP is struggling.

Most successful competitive PvP games have builds/classes/characters that are considered "top tier" or "trash". It doesn't stop them being successful.

GW2 has higher-level issues around engagement, infrastructure, marketing, retention, testing, release-cycles etc etc. Which particular build is currently flavour-of-the-month isn't really important to this. Players get way too focused on minor balance issues that are nothing compared to, for example, having a clear pathway/tutorial to bring PvE newbies in to give PvP a try, or having well publicized official tournaments, or a matchmaker that doesn't' dump beginners in with legendaries.

I have difficulty agreeing with the idea that the game should be balanced around the majority, or the lower skilled, players. At least particularly for GW2. Why? The majority of GW2 players...don't know what they are doing, how things work, are using nonsense weird builds with no cohesion, and target the exact wrong things that are a problem within the balance spectrum on the game. Their suggestions for "fixing" these things are also nonsensical and way, way on the extreme end of things; i.e "delete [insert trait/skill/class right now!" and that just...no. That isn't constructive, helpful, or in any way the approach that should likely be taken.

While there are for sure players in the upper end of the Ranking divisions that more than likely don't want the cheesey memey boi builds to get nerfed down, I don't think thats what ultimately gets suggested by players actually providing constructive feedback and criticism from that sphere of players; that said builds get "ignored". I also don't think that those builds will get ignored anyway, Cmc seems like he is pretty aware of things considering what I've seen/heard him mention in terms of problematic functions for skills and other fundamentals in the game's mechanics that create issues. We'll see what comes with the balance patch, I'm still skeptical until I see the patch notes.

Speaking as someone who plays Warrior religiously with, against and arguably somewhat as a player on a plat2+ level (mind you I haven't done Ranked in a long time because of other reasons relating to the pure and utter worthlessness that Ranked is these days), I do have to say please by all means smash the crap out of the issues with Spellbreaker and other things. Warrior has been flooded with so much Might generation over the years with Magebane Tether and now with Tactics, the passives need to either be turned into more actively used mechanics or rebalanced to not be detrimental to both the user or the opponent depending on the circumstances, Full Counter needs to not proc Adrenal Health even if the actual attack misses or is negated in some way (invuln/evade) like any other burst skill. Eviscerate gets evaded? No Adrenal Health. Full Counter gets evaded? Adrenal Health still procs. Shouldn't work like that.

With that being said, I just don't have the confidence in the majority of GW2's playerbase to feel like they understand fully the problems in PvP balance. I see more "this class is too OP" threads than I do "Boon generation and uptime is a problem and is one of the main reasons for power creep" (paraphrased) and that, to me, is enlightening as to what the majority of the playerbase doesn't see. It really hasn't been "this single class is an issue" its really just everything...everything has been a problem but people like to believe their class is fine, that it is somehow exempt from these problems. Its not, you're not special, it is very much a part of the problem. Some classes might be less of the issue, but they are still an issue because of the wider spanning issues with power creep and balance which encompass all classes.

I think of it like this; there is a forest and it is on fire, there are parts of it that are a blazing inferno and other parts which aren't nearly as engulfed in flames. Do you just go "Naw, its fine, don't need to worry about it"? No...its still on fire and is part of the problem.

devs should look at bigger games

I played dota 2 for 3 years playing no other game, in this 3 years they achieved pretty good balance, to the point where they could add new items and mechanics and not breaking the game

they pretty much aimed for all skills tiers, I remember when a hero had over 60% winrate in the lowest tier with almost no use in the pro scene, the hero still got nerfed

the nerfs are like 90% based on the pro scene, which is huge, and the audience doesn't want to see the same pick/bans for more than 3 months

I believe they have clear data of what is dominating every tier and go for the nerf for that specific hero/item/comp

thinking about gw2 i think the duo fb/scourge would have been severely nerfed after being dominant for 3 MATs

I think overall that's a pretty good approach on how to balance any game

When a hero was underperforming for a long time, this hero had buff after buff until it made to meta pro scene, if the hero was to dominant they would nerf the numbers, if the hero got completely useless after the nerf they would rework some of his skills

neither. devs need to know watdo.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:neither. devs need to know watdo.

Sure, to a certain extent. The devs balancing for PvP should know the ins and outs of how PvP works at a higher level. However it is unreasonable to expect them to catch everything or even most things, thats where the community comes into play to help find and experiment with things to see how that all plays out.

Keep in mind, not once has the meta ever been predicted or dictated by the devs themselves, sure the changes they've made with successive balance patches have affected the meta but that is all a reaction to what the players themselves have done. It isn't possible to 100% predict what a change will do to the balance of the game until it finds its way onto the live server environment and players get their hands on it.

Do you think the more competitive games like Apex, DOTA, LoL, Overwatch, etc have devs playing in ESL or in whatever the highest division is for those respective games? Highly unlikely, but they are likely aware of how things work within those environments and have a more than functional understanding of it. GW2 has had this issue where PvP was sort of an after thought and they wanted to, for some reason, avoid splitting skills too much between the modes (PvE and PvP) despite that being something that worked well for GW1 in the past to help keep things in line on the PvP side of things. Now that things are more separate, one team for PvE and another for PvP (this was apparently not the case for a while), Cmc and his team are likely able to better focus on PvP changes especially considering his more extensive knowledge and experience with PvP.

Like I said in a previous post, we'll see what the balance patch holds when the notes are posted. I remain reasonably skeptical but cautiously hopeful.

Balance the builds that make the majority farms the minority. As it should be the other way round.Fixed.

All of these are good points and I'll admit to being a mediocre player myself. I can't help myself to get past another 'baseline' problem with balance. GW2 metagaming. Until this is straightened out, balance is never going to get better with this population. The top tier players can literally beat this 'majority' with nothing but an off hand weapon and clever use or profession mechanics. So the metagame is how they 'keep each other honest' by being completely dishonest and 'gaming the game' as hard as they can. Admittedly, I don't really have an answer for this as I completely stopped caring ages ago. Perhaps solo queue only during seasons and increasing the frequency of ATs (for team play;and lowering their payout slightly)? We have a 'leaderboard' that should denote individual skill, but we all know it's really 250 examples of the same couple dozen people abusing the system. Or I'm totally wrong and this entire post only reflects how little your average player cares anymore. Have a swell day.

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@"Ysmir.4986" said:The more I read the forums, the more I think about how much it's a nightmare for a PvP developer to decide how to balance the game mode. And it's not only due to the intricacies of balance and the different interactions you have in the game build wise, but also because the playerbase seems to be split down the middle in terms of the experiences they have in ranked q's.

Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself a good player, average on a regular day and average + on a good one. I have some 8000 games in PvP and I get put consistently at plat2 season after season. I play thief mostly, but I also play warrior and engi - mesmer when I forget how bad I am on that class. And even though I consider myself average, reading these forums feels like that I'm playing a completely different game mode from other players. You hear things like, "nerf this nerf that" and I go "really? who even plays that?" and general propositions such as "THIS is why the game mode is broken" and I go "what? when was that a problem?".

Now of course, this might be due to a split between NA and EU, but I think it's especially because of the difference between plat1 (and upper) and lower tiers like g3 (and lower). And even though it's sometimes tempting to just commit to a "L2P" narrative, the latter group represents, without doubt, the vast majority of the playerbase. So even if their gripes seem to me ill-informed, should't the developer focus on their demands rather than those of a minority? After all, if the main problem with the game mode is the low population, isn't catering to the minority a sure way to put the nail in the coffin?

TL:DR

Should the developers listen to the minority (p1 and upper) or the majority (g3 and lower) in terms what the game mode needs as balance / content / changes?

Even if this game was e-sports ready, balancing according to the high-end players is still a bad idea. The high-end merely just want balance to go their way and benefit them so they can keep their spots and not rock the boat too much, despite their insistence to the contrary. Balancing for low-end isn't good either since they're newer players, but it brings people in. It's bad either way. I say all this because balancing according to the players, who are generally biased, leads to disaster. People need to understand that developers are the ones in charge of this game, they set the tone and the agenda of how they want the game to function. I also find that a lot of players generally don't look at the game as whole, but merely look only at their class of choice. An example of looking at this game as whole is powercreep. Damage and boons have crept higher and higher in the game since 2015, really ballooning with the release of HoT. As a result, pvp in this game has become a glorified faceroll, one-shot affair driving people away.

@JTGuevara.9018 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@"Ysmir.4986" said:The more I read the forums, the more I think about how much it's a nightmare for a PvP developer to decide how to balance the game mode. And it's not only due to the intricacies of balance and the different interactions you have in the game build wise, but also because the playerbase seems to be split down the middle in terms of the experiences they have in ranked q's.

Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself a good player, average on a regular day and average + on a good one. I have some 8000 games in PvP and I get put consistently at plat2 season after season. I play thief mostly, but I also play warrior and engi - mesmer when I forget how bad I am on that class. And even though I consider myself average, reading these forums feels like that I'm playing a completely different game mode from other players. You hear things like, "nerf this nerf that" and I go "really? who even plays that?" and general propositions such as "THIS is why the game mode is broken" and I go "what? when was that a problem?".

Now of course, this might be due to a split between NA and EU, but I think it's especially because of the difference between plat1 (and upper) and lower tiers like g3 (and lower). And even though it's sometimes tempting to just commit to a "L2P" narrative, the latter group represents, without doubt, the vast majority of the playerbase. So even if their gripes seem to me ill-informed, should't the developer focus on their demands rather than those of a minority? After all, if the main problem with the game mode is the low population, isn't catering to the minority a sure way to put the nail in the coffin?

TL:DR

Should the developers listen to the minority (p1 and upper) or the majority (g3 and lower) in terms what the game mode needs as balance / content / changes?

It did start with HoT, thats where the power creep began but it wasn't nearly what it became with PoF. The power creep and boons really got exacerbated and blown up with the release of that batch of Elite Specs and the subsequent balance patches since then.

High potential achieveable for best players, but without cheesy or unfun mechanics that can be frustrating for newcomers and a majority of players.

Balancing for the average casual is a terrible idea. Lets take shiroglint revenant as an example: 1400 rated revenants die to ranged autoattacks, plat3/legend 1 revenants wreck face. HARD.If you want the average causal to be viable with shiroglint, you'd need to buff it. But that would turn top tier revenants into absolutely unstoppable beasts, which would result in casuals blowing up the forums with complaints so.... I think good balance is impossible without taking the most skilled part of the playerbase into account.

PvP is broken because of certain professions/builds having ability to outperform rest of,well anything ever made,with ease.

But what people need to keep in mind is that structured pvp was never meant to played 'solo' as 1 vs 1 .Its team game.

I do not consider myself good player,but i am not bad one neither.Long time ago when i actually cared about this game,I managed to get Diamond in 30 games,i cant remember what tier.

I shine in organized teamplay,because i am really willing to listen,and i don't have 'attitude' towards leader,who's trying to get us to win and improve our gameplay,but i never played in premades in this game,because i do not play when other people do.Most of the time i play during late night,and early morning,when there's barely and people doing anything.

What i gathered from my experience is

1) Most people NEVER pay attention to map.2) They fight midroads,instead of fighting on capping spots or nearby,UNLESS you gotta stop enemies reaching capping spots3) 4 players chasing one or two players,while leaving capping spots unprotected4) 4 players chasing one guy,and literally not letting go until target is dead (3 minutes later)5)Ignoring capping spots completely,like whole point of game is to kill opponents.

If you go into Spvp with teamwork mentality,you will just end up disappointed,because people simply do not give a sh.They just want to kill red/blue,no one gives a F about what should be done in Spvp,and that's the main reason people complain on the forums.

I can bet anything on 90% of those topics about how bad pvp is,are made by same people who keep repeating mistakes i mentioned above.

Damn,writing this just reminded me how sad i actually am,because this game is never going to have actual teamwork,unless you are in top organised pvp guilds,which are non existant,because no one focuses on pvp only anymore.

@"Ysmir.4986" said:The more I read the forums, the more I think about how much it's a nightmare for a PvP developer to decide how to balance the game mode. And it's not only due to the intricacies of balance and the different interactions you have in the game build wise, but also because the playerbase seems to be split down the middle in terms of the experiences they have in ranked q's.

Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself a good player, average on a regular day and average + on a good one. I have some 8000 games in PvP and I get put consistently at plat2 season after season. I play thief mostly, but I also play warrior and engi - mesmer when I forget how bad I am on that class. And even though I consider myself average, reading these forums feels like that I'm playing a completely different game mode from other players. You hear things like, "nerf this nerf that" and I go "really? who even plays that?" and general propositions such as "THIS is why the game mode is broken" and I go "what? when was that a problem?".

Now of course, this might be due to a split between NA and EU, but I think it's especially because of the difference between plat1 (and upper) and lower tiers like g3 (and lower). And even though it's sometimes tempting to just commit to a "L2P" narrative, the latter group represents, without doubt, the vast majority of the playerbase. So even if their gripes seem to me ill-informed, should't the developer focus on their demands rather than those of a minority? After all, if the main problem with the game mode is the low population, isn't catering to the minority a sure way to put the nail in the coffin?

TL:DR

Should the developers listen to the minority (p1 and upper) or the majority (g3 and lower) in terms what the game mode needs as balance / content / changes?

I don't think the statement "Delete Mesmer" is controversial. I'm sure everyone on the forums would agree with that sentiment.

It's not an either/or situation. They should listen to both, but should err towards listening to people with more experience playing the game.

Just dont listen to noobs, ez. They will get farmed by anything anyway when someone competent plays it. The nerf threads became a meme anyway and several of them were trolling, so I wouldn't take those too seriously.

I honestly dont see PvP getting a resurgence of serious activity no matter how they balance it, so figure you may as well balance more towards the top end of the playerbase: but not by what they "say", by what they "do".All players (top included) are biased and will make suggestions vas on that bias, but the devs should be able to see what the top players are playing/not playing (traits, skills, etc), and simply buff what isn't used and nerf what is.

As for new/less experienced players: well they are all going to quit sooner or later (or just switch to AFK mode), as the population, matchmaking, TTK, stealth spam, condi spam, evade spam, 500-10, high ranked duo, metagaming slaughterfiesta is the antithesis of a fun experience.