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Let's Talk About PvP Balance


Cal Cohen.2358

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@"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:It's truly rich.

Warriors, mesmers, thieves, engineers and guardians all pointing fingers at one another.

"You're the one playing the anti-fun spec, not me!"

When in reality, everything - on top of some fundamental changes - needs nerfs.

It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work. This thread is basically people acting like that old meme " Rock is OP, Paper is fine..sincerely Scissors"

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@Solori.6025 said:

@"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:It's truly rich.

Warriors, mesmers, thieves, engineers and guardians all pointing fingers at one another.

"You're the one playing the anti-fun spec, not me!"

When in reality, everything - on top of some fundamental changes - needs nerfs.

It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work. This thread is basically people acting like that old meme " Rock is OP, Paper is fine..sincerely Scissors"

They keep doing it..and nobody knows why...

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@Arheundel.6451 said:

@"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:It's truly rich.

Warriors, mesmers, thieves, engineers and guardians all pointing fingers at one another.

"You're the one playing the anti-fun spec, not me!"

When in reality, everything - on top of some fundamental changes - needs nerfs.

It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work. This thread is basically people acting like that old meme " Rock is OP, Paper is fine..sincerely Scissors"

They keep doing it..and nobody knows why...

Because the devs are not as intimate with all the quirks, and if they were to play even an average group of pvp'ers minus cmc, they would get wrecked.

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Condition berserker has a lot of potential especially with the functionality gained from [King of Fires]. However a lot of it is lost due to the enormous trade-off lost from the 300 toughness lost in berserk mode. In order to increase possible synergy and playability in general I would suggest the following changes:

1) Double the projectile speed on longbow projectiles.2) Change Scorched Earth to cripple for 1s on Critical Hit.3) Make Scourched Earth a Projectile so it can be fired over terrain.4) Make Savage Leap (sword 2) have 2 charges on a higher cooldown (possibly 12s)5) Increase the range on Sundering Leap to 1200 range, and make it a stunbreak or give it 2 charges.6) Change Skullgrinder into a leap finisher from a blast finisher.7) Change Flaming Flurry to start building adrenaline when the skill is first cast instead of after the cast ends. (*The channel is too long for you to wait to have to start building adrenaline again in competitive game modes.)

*With the absence of good hybrid power-condi-toughness gear in PvE / WvW I believe that the 300 toughness penalty in berserk mode is a bit high. I would soften it to 200 and leave the 300 benefit for the defensive grandmaster. But this is not pressing.Thanks for your consideration & good luck with your balance endeavors!

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@Solori.6025 said:It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work.Because metrics can't tell you whether it's fun to play.

Players are very good at identifying what frustrates them. They're not as good at identifying why and even less so at fixing it. But the devs first need to know what isn't fun so they can figure out where to start looking for changes.

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@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:This is great news and very much appreciated. The information you've asked for from us is great, but the way balance has been being handle over these past few years still has me worried and my hopes low.

So I ask you this:I've waited a little while to post on this thread to specifically prove a point. As everyone can see and thous who have frequented the forums know, since the release of POF we've come into a "cry" meta or how I like to put it "When you give a mouse a cookie" affect. What this means is that we've been stuck in an era of classes being balanced based on the vocal minority that complains the loudest on these forums. As I've stated a plethora of times, all one needs to do is look at a balance patch and then look at the complaints on the forums prior to the patch to see what lead to the nerfs, its not hard to see that most if not all nerfs (with a few buffs) to which ever class you'd like to track has a direct correlation with the forums complaints and sadly suggestions (from people whom just don't understand how said class functions) on how to fix a class ( a great example of this is the nerf done to torch for Mesmer). On top of this, if one class is nerfed for being able to do x, y, and z so too should ANY other class that is able to (a great example of this is boon generation and up-time and how Chrono basically got it removed while other classes were and still are able to generate and maintain boons 100x better). My question, well more of a request is to please stop directing balance in this manner, it is far from healthy and creates an unhealthy environment and community (as already evident from the auguring in this thread).

This part applies to everyone, if you're going to complain about a class and/ or request it to be nerfed PLEASE list correctly what you find problematic with the class not just something like "Mesmsers have too much condi/clones/it killed me, nerf, nerf, NERF". Actually list traits, weapon abilities, utilities, etc ( actually show you have a slight understanding of the class you're suggestions nerfs for) and it would also help massively if you'd post your build too. Because maybe you're not using something correctly or not running enough of something else. One site you can use to post your build is:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Lastly to answer some of Cmc's questions and to give some ideas:Sustain is crazy, this includes; healing, boons (generation and up-time), mobility, passives (ie heals, immunities, etc), and active immunities (a few classes are currently able to chain immunities for upwards of 15+ seconds).I would like to see stability work the same way aegis, swiftness, and alacrity does. That it stacks in duration.

Conditions (everyones favorite damage source):The only real way for condis to work as actual dots and not as a burst with a slight delay is to lower the amount of condi clears we currently have in the game. This could go as far as to have condi clears only on heal abilities. For example you have two heals; heal A heals you for 5,000 health and also removes the two highest damaging condis on you, or you have heal B that heals for 3,000 health but removes the highest damaging 5 condis on you. By doing this condis would be allowed way more time to ramp up thus delaying how long it takes for them to burst. On top of this, I would also like to see the availability of condis on each class reduced/ made more unique based on the class and/ or elit spec one is playing. Then have other lower damaging conditions/ non damaging condition (debuffs) that boost the affects of the classes primary condi (sorta like affliction warlock from WoW, but better since this is GW2 ;) )

These are my ideas for now, I truly look forwards to what you and your team plan on doing Cmc and wish you luck! For this is one big leap in the right direction!

(Edit grammar)

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@Exedore.6320 said:

@"Solori.6025" said:It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work.Because metrics can't tell you whether it's fun to play.

Players are very good at identifying what frustrates them. They're not as good at identifying why and even less so at fixing it. But the devs first need to know what isn't fun so they can figure out where to start looking for changes.

........" Metrics, statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work."Fun is subjective, and by asking players to identify what they like and dont you are creating an outlook that is mostly biased.That's not how you achieve balance, and I covered most of that in the first post I made in this thread.

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@Xstein.2187 said:@mortrialus.3062, @"viquing.8254"

Guys, I see it both ways.I actually think Mortrialus's thought experiment of two mirages fighting is of some pretty good use.My only argumentation against it is when you are fighting a mirage, you can't have the same expectations you would have when fighting other classes, and this is likely where a lot of the frustration other people have when fighting mirages come from.

NormalExample: lets say that you are a new player that just switched over to gw2 from a simpler game. You may have god like reflexes and are able to dodge every single attack. However, the reality is that you DON'T want to dodge every single attack. If you even dodge the smaller attacks, you will loose all your dodges/cooldowns and not have them for the attacks that really matter. Therefore, this aspect may frustrate a new player that doesn't have a lot of experience with the game.

The only issue i see with this is that some smaller attacks end up doing alot of damage over time even more so for classes that dont have rapid condi cleanse. Lets say you only dodge the bigger attacks Magic bullet, duelest, staff ambush attacks etc. Its not exactly uncommon for mirage to not get the kill by just simply going into passive staff kite mode either where only the little attacks are dependent on doing all the damage.

Particularly on staff especially those smaller wind of chaos attacks start to add up fairly quickly even just have 2-3 conditions stacking on you really starts to eat your health away pretty quickly meanwhile the mirage has the chaos of its natural evasive and distracting play style to do as it pleases. Should the mirage find itself in danger it may proceed to block, blink, distort, or stealth which gives it plenty of enough time to reset essentially. IH really does not help in this case either where attacks (lets say an ambush attack) may come from different angles and distances (clone/player positions) making a single doge ineffective against them. A single player may dodge correctly for the main casters projectiles but not others which come form the clones which leads to him still taking damage in the end event though he technically correctly reacted.

MirageExample: In Mortrialus's thought experiment, the correct thing for the mirage to do after he stunned the other mirage was to try to bait out the other player's dodge if you knew he had one. In fact, after the stunned mirage was stunned, the other mirage was probably on guard to expect a large attack to dodge anyway. Therefore, if you baited it out with a smaller attack, you could immediately follow up with a larger attack after the dodge and the mirage could perhaps be left defenseless. Mirages are fairly strong against cc, which IMO isn't necessarily a bad thing if it is properly balanced around it. However, what this means is instead of focussing on cc'ing a class like you would most others, you instead need to change your focus to baiting out dodges as that takes away a large portion of their cc damage avoidance, damage, and general damage avoidance all at the same time. (AoE damage is also a mirage weakness)

Aoe damage is most professions weakness how ever i get what you are going for. Aoe damage can destroy the clones etc. As far as mirage's dodging during cc it might not be the problem if they couldnt do damage while doing it. Or possibly if some investment in the traits was required for them to take that action. So long as the current IH exists people will not accept dodging while cc'ed as an ok thing as it allows clones (should they be alive) to deal massive damage as they may not be stunned at the time. When the mirage dodges IH triggers which results in the person who just performed the stun and trying to follow up the stun taking tons of condi retaliation as a reward for attempting to follow up their stun = not very fun and very frustrating.

Either Fix IH or force mirages to take a trait apart from HI to evade while under cc. You really should be forced to choose between both options. All grandmaster traits should have extreme choices like this.

In fact, like my 'normal' example stated earlier, it may actually be better for a mirage to eat a stun or magic bullet 1v1 in the exact same way a wise, experienced player would do to eat a weaker attack. Although this may seem counterintuitive to many players just like eating a weaker attack would seem counterintuitive to non-gw2 players, it is important to know how a class functions and what their strengths and weaknesses are. If class X and class Y have different strengths and weaknesses, you can't expect to fight against both classes the exact same way and get exactly the same results. I think this is where a lot of frustration comes from. It's not like mirages have infinite dodges, therefore, they don't have an infinite amount of ways to avoid cc. Mirages are very strong with dodges. However, a mirage without any dodges left is very arguably much weaker comparatively than any other class without dodges, as it should be.

The last bit of this i dont agree with being out of endurance is simply being out of endurance regardless of which class you are you are all in the same boat at that point i wouldnt say any class is particularly weaker than another once its out of endurance. I would say classes that dont have access to skill or trait tool to replenish endurance be it vigor or something of that nature are the ones are the weakest state when they run out of endurance. Now i dont want to be confused here when you say arguably much weaker do you mean in terms of offensive pressure or defensive sustain.As mesmers still have other defensive tools they can depend on i dont think them being out of endurance makes them overly weaker than the other classes in the game. It can be a bit silly to say im weaker than you when i run out of dodges even if you are out of dodges along with me. Realistically no they both players would be in the same exposed position neither is weaker than the other at least I wouldnt judge it that way. Generally the class thats the disadvantage when it has no dodges is the one who has the least endurance restoration tools. I think we can all agree on which class that is and its certainly not mirage.

Finally, if this was a group fight, that second mirage that got stunned would still be at a disadvantage if there was another class with AoE in the picture since dodging while stun is not exactly the same as blink or another form of stun break. Although you can dodge an attack while stunned, you are a prime candidate for an attack, and especially an AoE attack, as soon as that .75 sec dodge wears out, as you still did not move an inch during that dodge.

This is true but once again this applies to quite a few different classes and mirage is not the only one. Getting stunned in a group fight is generally bad for most professions in the game and a number of them its worse than it is for mirage. Even if you did not move for for thee quarters of a second you still avoided damage which could have been potentially focus fire damage. In this game alot of damage can hit you in three quarters of a second. This also allows a player with quick reaction to activate another defensive tool, a blink, a distortion, a jaunt, etc without taking any damage where as almost any other class would have continued to take that damage for that and what ever other aoe damage is around at the time. If some how for some reason clones magically through the chaos are still up and alive they now also fire off condi dps because you dodged while stunned.

I just think its common for people to say "dodging during cc" for such a short time frame is not that big of a deal and that its perfectly ok. When in truth it really can be a big deal even more so when it comes with potential passive retaliation attacks from other sources sometimes.

Conclusion: the correct way to balance mirage is to use data and statistics. If it is over performing than it really needs to be looked at again asap. However, if it is not over performing than perhaps the bark of the wolf is worse than the bite. However, one thing I definitely would do with mirage is shift the condi damage from mirage cloak back to the player, just so IH isn't so powerful compared to the other traits.

This is half and half.You cant always fix everything by looking at numbers from the profession alone further more who would even gather this data. Its not just about the data the profession puts out its also about the feedback data collected from the people who play as it and play against it. This part is important because without feedback data you can make a problem worse than what it already is which leads to greater retaliation. IF you think its not impossible for a class to get unfun to play against to the point people put strikes against it then you are wrong. Should that happen anet has to forgo data and do something to stop it. CI being disabled was a good example of this.

Chances are if people are saying something is wrong then something is wrong even if they cant point 100% in the right direction of where the problem might be or where you think it might be they know that something is wrong. I wont pretend like mirage is the "only one" because frankly its not but its certainly up there in maybe the top 3.

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@Solori.6025 said:

@Solori.6025 said:It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work.Because metrics can't tell you whether it's fun to play.

Players are very good at identifying what frustrates them. They're not as good at identifying why and even less so at fixing it. But the devs first need to know what isn't fun so they can figure out where to start looking for changes.

........" Metrics, statistics, and
knowledge of how the classes work.
"Fun is subjective, and by asking players to identify what they like and dont you are creating an outlook that is mostly biased.This is only true until a certain majority of people say that something is or is not fun at which point it starts to become less subjective and more factual. Fun is a part of the game. Some people play for fun for some people fun is winning or having a well fought match win or lose. Fun is indeed subjective and it can be a driving force of what keeps people playing the game.That's not how you achieve balance, and I covered most of that in the first post I made in this thread.Its not always how you achieve balance but some times its a good place to start. If some one says something is not fun and some one say something is super fun which do you believe? If a majority of people who main many different professions also start to say similar things do you think all of them are just subjective or does it mean that something is clearly an issue. Do you think that a large number of people would make false accusations on the subject of how fun something is? I would say its its very unlikely.

Simply saying its subjective so your statement does not apply to the input of something is not a good way of really looking at it.What happens if someone says you telling someone something is subjective is also subjective should we just void out your statement too?

As i told some one else its half and halfWhen possible metrics and statistics should be part of it but the other half should consist of client feedback data. Thats why businesses and companies often ask you how a service was to you.Say you order a package.Looking at metrics data tells the sender that the box got from point A to B.It might say how fast it got there and which route it took.

But it does not tell them in the condition of how the box was when it got there or how pleased you were with how fast it got there. Maybe it got there at a bad time leaving your product to sit out all day exposed or maybe it got there quick but not quick enough to your liking.

Subjective feedback is rather important one cannot simply dismiss it as it is a part of balance.

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We Need to take a look at the Overall spec that are just over performing In Spvp and Monthly tournaments.

Spec that get Rewarded for Spamming "evade" NEEDS to be really look into a lot more then what the last patch even touched on. Ambush from Mirage Clones is a major issue with the entire aspect of PASSIVE game play rewarding players for not timing much of anything or being smart with how any of their abilities work. Then we also have the Issues with Condi DD thief and Staff DD thief both spec that can reward for a massive up time on Evade. It Takes FOREVER to push a Staff thief off node let alone even KILL it if the players 0 idea on how to time any of their abilities. This makes for really really boring Games and Duels on nodes.

If we can't stop making these Spec any dumber to understand/play then theirs 0 chances of a competitive scene ever coming back especially if these Balance patches that we wait on for over 3 months don't even address the issue in the first place.

@Cal Cohen.3527 If you really serious about improving this game my recommendation would be as follow:

1: Better and Actual meaningful Balance Notes/Changes that would help solve the issues with certain specs2: Actually READ the Feedback's, Play the Game and TEST out the actual Spec in question about needing nerfs to get an understand of it3: Support the Players making actual Tournaments during Off Season and On Season that are trying to bring players into the game mode

Because other then that NO one wants to take the time in trying to improve in this game mode anymore due to the lack of Support, rewards, team ques and etc. You Guys don't offer any reason for players to actually play as a team to get better/improve unless you assume a Monthly tournament for a Gizmo is enough? We need More stuff like ToL and Monthly tournaments for people to invest into wanting to stick as a team and not a random last min group. Fix the 3 issues I gave you and then Look for a way to make players want to play as a team and this game would be a lot more healthier for sure.

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Tone down Warrior's Cunning a lot - 50% damage increase vs barrier is too much, was amazed this wasn't split for game modes when released.Reduce deadeye ranged damage from stealth.Tone down warrior rampage elite a bit.Decrease staff thief's ability to survive/evade constantly.Tone down condi mirage and condi DD.Thanks!

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@"ZDragon.3046" said:Particularly on staff especially those smaller wind of chaos attacksOn a side note, wind of chaos is the unique skill in this game that you can bait by walking on the opposite direction because the projectile move at the same speed as you. (with 5 shield maybe.)[...big block with nerf mirage evade...]There isn't viable core mesmer build without stealth atm, that mean if tomorrow you make mirage can't evade when he want, welcome to PU mesmer meta should it be burst or condi. Which is basically useless as a change because people will more whine about a "perma stealth mesmer who do damage from nowhere" than about a "I feel mirage can perma evade".If they nerf mirage cloak and PU, welcome to full out of point non-viable mesmer meta who will put burst condi or burst direct damage where people will still cry about how mesmer can do damage.If they nerf mirage cloak, PU and damage output condi and direct damage, welcome to a running gag, solo heal mesmer meta with superspeed who did nothing apart running on the map where people will still cry about how mesmer is "unkillable".And I can probably continue for next 5,6 nerfs if I want.It's fun how we can predict the next 6 months of whine based on current "game improvement suggestions" who will just make the class more or more unplayable while not reducing at all the whine % in this forum.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:The point is to show how fundamentally wrong dodging while stunned is in that it will take an exchange of blows where there should without a doubt be a person with a clear advantage and a clear disadvantage because of how the exchange played out and effectively nullify all of that and put them on more or less equal footing. That's fundamentally bad competitive design.

This is literally all I wanted to get across in all of my screaming off and on regarding this spec on these forums, and I will gladly give up Rampage/Staff/Staff/holosustain/ anything just as vile in terms of skewing rotational dominance if it meant this got addressed.

@"Solori.6025" said:........" Metrics, statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work."Fun is subjective, and by asking players to identify what they like and dont you are creating an outlook that is mostly biased.That's not how you achieve balance, and I covered most of that in the first post I made in this thread.

While I have used this arguing point in the past, this is correct. People will always consider what counters their particular build unfun. I think a more refined approach to it is to aim to balance so that, when people fight any opponent whether 1v1 or in a team setting, their matchup outcome is heavily weighted on strategic choice and smart play moreso than straight up class, weapon range, or damage type advantage.

The former is, essentially, what the intent for class design was for GW2. It appears to have been misconstrued as class or skill omnipotence though, whether by design or by oversight. Those two balancing ideals have a subtle difference that lead to two very different play experiences across the board.

@zoopop.5630 said:

@Cal Cohen.3527 If you really serious about improving this game my recommendation would be as follow:TEST out the actual Spec in question

This is important.

@Meiko Isamura.6352 said:Tone down Warrior's Cunning a lot - 50% damage increase vs barrier is too much, was amazed this wasn't split for game modes when released.Reduce deadeye ranged damage from stealth.Tone down warrior rampage elite a bit.Decrease staff thief's ability to survive/evade constantly.Tone down condi mirage and condi DD.Thanks!

These are the hot button issues right now, plus holosmith and Firebrand.

@"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:It's truly rich.warriors, mesmers, thieves, engineers and guardians all pointing fingers at one another."You're the one playing the anti-fun spec, not me!"When in reality, everything - on top of some fundamental changes - needs nerfs.

This. Let's face it. If you're complaining about mirage cloak, but you dont see a problem with, say, rampage, you're not fully addressing the problem.

@Crab Fear.1624 said:Because the devs are not as intimate with all the quirks, and if they were to play even an average group of pvp'ers minus cmc, they would get wrecked.

Also this. The devs make the game for a living. They dont necessarily have to play it in the PvP Sphere, getting bombarded over and over by some new build that got introduced that makes a class stronger than it should be.. We as players may not be able to understand completely what is leading to what is broken, or what is broken to people who dont play a class in a particular situation, but feedback can shed a light on what is overtuned as long as it is curated properly.

Well, that and getting a group of knowledgeable players together to try out new patch changes before they go live.

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@coro.3176 said:

  • Will you plan to look at
    toning down overly rewarding safe rapid condition application?
    For example conditions that are applied constantly from say mirage (and its staff auto and ambush) or super safe application practices like the more recent dare devil thief which can apply its main damaging condition by simply using skills that evade.

How conditions are applied is a big thing that we're looking into.

That's good! Please remember though, that if rapid condi application is nerfed, then condi cleanse options should also be nerfed to match. It is really frustrating trying to apply my 12s cooldown blowtorch burn when my opponents have ample cleanse on a shorter cooldown via traits and other build options. I imagine if mesmer or thief are nerfed to be more like condi engi, they will face the same frustration.

Thanks

Then nothing changes mate.......

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Xstein.2187 said:@mortrialus.3062, @"viquing.8254"

Guys, I see it both ways.I actually think Mortrialus's thought experiment of two mirages fighting is of some pretty good use.My only argumentation against it is when you are fighting a mirage, you can't have the same expectations you would have when fighting other classes, and this is likely where a lot of the frustration other people have when fighting mirages come from.

NormalExample: lets say that you are a new player that just switched over to gw2 from a simpler game. You may have god like reflexes and are able to dodge every single attack. However, the reality is that you DON'T want to dodge every single attack. If you even dodge the smaller attacks, you will loose all your dodges/cooldowns and not have them for the attacks that really matter. Therefore, this aspect may frustrate a new player that doesn't have a lot of experience with the game.

The only issue i see with this is that some smaller attacks end up doing alot of damage over time even more so for classes that dont have rapid condi cleanse. Lets say you only dodge the bigger attacks Magic bullet, duelest, staff ambush attacks etc. Its not exactly uncommon for mirage to not get the kill by just simply going into passive staff kite mode either where only the little attacks are dependent on doing all the damage.

Particularly on staff especially those smaller wind of chaos attacks start to add up fairly quickly even just have 2-3 conditions stacking on you really starts to eat your health away pretty quickly meanwhile the mirage has the chaos of its natural evasive and distracting play style to do as it pleases. Should the mirage find itself in danger it may proceed to block, blink, distort, or stealth which gives it plenty of enough time to reset essentially. IH really does not help in this case either where attacks (lets say an ambush attack) may come from different angles and distances (clone/player positions) making a single doge ineffective against them. A single player may dodge correctly for the main casters projectiles but not others which come form the clones which leads to him still taking damage in the end event though he technically correctly reacted.

Sorry, I agree that smaller attacks can kill you, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point was that sometimes it is NOT a good thing to dodge every single attack. I can think of many instances on the top of my head where it would be a good thing to dodge a auto attack (you are almost dead and one attack will kill you, the player you are fighting against is mostly using auto attacks only, etc.) However, this doesn't negate the fact that sometimes it is not a good idea to dodge an auto attack or another low impact attack since dodges are a limited recourses. I didn't and would never argue or say that auto attacks can't kill you. That would be crazy. Auto attacks being able to kill you on ANY class does not in any way negate my point.

MirageExample: In Mortrialus's thought experiment, the correct thing for the mirage to do after he stunned the other mirage was to try to bait out the other player's dodge if you knew he had one. In fact, after the stunned mirage was stunned, the other mirage was probably on guard to expect a large attack to dodge anyway. Therefore, if you baited it out with a smaller attack, you could immediately follow up with a larger attack after the dodge and the mirage could perhaps be left defenseless. Mirages are fairly strong against cc, which IMO isn't necessarily a bad thing if it is properly balanced around it. However, what this means is instead of focussing on cc'ing a class like you would most others, you instead need to change your focus to baiting out dodges as that takes away a large portion of their cc damage avoidance, damage, and general damage avoidance all at the same time. (AoE damage is also a mirage weakness)

Aoe damage is most professions weakness how ever i get what you are going for. Aoe damage can destroy the clones etc. As far as mirage's dodging during cc it might not be the problem if they couldnt do damage while doing it. Or possibly if some investment in the traits was required for them to take that action. So long as the current IH exists people will not accept dodging while cc'ed as an ok thing as it allows clones (should they be alive) to deal massive damage as they may not be stunned at the time. When the mirage dodges IH triggers which results in the person who just performed the stun and trying to follow up the stun taking tons of condi retaliation as a reward for attempting to follow up their stun = not very fun and very frustrating.

Either Fix IH or force mirages to take a trait apart from HI to evade while under cc. You really should be forced to choose between both options. All grandmaster traits should have extreme choices like this.

Yes, I said at the end that damage from mirage cloak attacks should be shifted from the mirage cloak attack to the mirage. Regardless of of the choices in the trait line and even if Elusive Mind was beneficial and not a hinderance, IH would still be too powerful of a trait for condi builds that also causes problems with damage avoidance. I believe this is true regardless of the ability to dodge while cced as well. Damage needs to be shifted back to the player and away from ambush attacks (or at least when used with IH). This will help make balancing easier for other builds that don't use mirage and future builds down the road as well.

In fact, like my 'normal' example stated earlier, it may actually be better for a mirage to eat a stun or magic bullet 1v1 in the exact same way a wise, experienced player would do to eat a weaker attack. Although this may seem counterintuitive to many players just like eating a weaker attack would seem counterintuitive to non-gw2 players, it is important to know how a class functions and what their strengths and weaknesses are. If class X and class Y have different strengths and weaknesses, you can't expect to fight against both classes the exact same way and get exactly the same results. I think this is where a lot of frustration comes from. It's not like mirages have infinite dodges, therefore, they don't have an infinite amount of ways to avoid cc. Mirages are very strong with dodges. However, a mirage without any dodges left is very arguably much weaker comparatively than any other class without dodges, as it should be.

The last bit of this i dont agree with being out of endurance is simply being out of endurance regardless of which class you are you are all in the same boat at that point i wouldnt say any class is particularly weaker than another once its out of endurance. I would say classes that dont have access to skill or trait tool to replenish endurance be it vigor or something of that nature are the ones are the weakest state when they run out of endurance. Now i dont want to be confused here when you say arguably much weaker do you mean in terms of offensive pressure or defensive sustain.As mesmers still have other defensive tools they can depend on i dont think them being out of endurance makes them overly weaker than the other classes in the game. It can be a bit silly to say im weaker than you when i run out of dodges even if you are out of dodges along with me. Realistically no they both players would be in the same exposed position neither is weaker than the other at least I wouldnt judge it that way. Generally the class thats the disadvantage when it has no dodges is the one who has the least endurance restoration tools. I think we can all agree on which class that is and its certainly not mirage.

I should have or could have went into more detail. However, what I meant was that mirage has many (both offensive and defensive) traits that are based on dodge. Therefore, when they are out of dodge, these traits become useless. Additionally, some of their damage may come from mirage cloak which you can't use without dodges either. Other classes, besides daredevil-another dodge based class, don't have traits tied to dodge like this.

Take Renewing Oasis for example. If you are a mirage and can't dodge, you get no use out of renewing oasis. However, if you are a chrono, you can use and get healing use out of 'All's well that end Well'. Traits that become useless or you you no longer gain use out of with mirage without dodge include Renewing Oasis, Riddle of Sand, Mirage Mantle, Speed of Sand, Infinite Horizon, Elusive Mind, and Dune Cloak. This is simply because mirage was designed as a dodge based class, like daredevil.

Finally, if this was a group fight, that second mirage that got stunned would still be at a disadvantage if there was another class with AoE in the picture since dodging while stun is not exactly the same as blink or another form of stun break. Although you can dodge an attack while stunned, you are a prime candidate for an attack, and especially an AoE attack, as soon as that .75 sec dodge wears out, as you still did not move an inch during that dodge.

This is true but once again this applies to quite a few different classes and mirage is not the only one. Getting stunned in a group fight is generally bad for most professions in the game and a number of them its worse than it is for mirage. Even if you did not move for for thee quarters of a second you still avoided damage which could have been potentially focus fire damage. In this game alot of damage can hit you in three quarters of a second. This also allows a player with quick reaction to activate another defensive tool, a blink, a distortion, a jaunt, etc without taking any damage where as almost any other class would have continued to take that damage for that and what ever other aoe damage is around at the time. If some how for some reason clones magically through the chaos are still up and alive they now also fire off condi dps because you dodged while stunned.

I just think its common for people to say "dodging during cc" for such a short time frame is not that big of a deal and that its perfectly ok. When in truth it really can be a big deal even more so when it comes with potential passive retaliation attacks from other sources sometimes.

Sorry, I think you are missing my point again. I did not say that getting stunned wasn't a big deal for other classes or that dodging while cc'ed wasn't very useful. I simply wrote this last part to demonstrate that the ability to dodge while cc'ed isn't as good as being able to completely break the stun.

Conclusion: the correct way to balance mirage is to use data and statistics. If it is over performing than it really needs to be looked at again asap. However, if it is not over performing than perhaps the bark of the wolf is worse than the bite. However, one thing I definitely would do with mirage is shift the condi damage from mirage cloak back to the player, just so IH isn't so powerful compared to the other traits.

This is half and half.You cant always fix everything by looking at numbers from the profession alone further more who would even gather this data. Its not just about the data the profession puts out its also about the feedback data collected from the people who play as it and play against it. This part is important because without feedback data you can make a problem worse than what it already is which leads to greater retaliation. IF you think its not impossible for a class to get unfun to play against to the point people put strikes against it then you are wrong. Should that happen anet has to forgo data and do something to stop it. CI being disabled was a good example of this.

Chances are if people are saying something is wrong then something is wrong even if they cant point 100% in the right direction of where the problem might be or where you think it might be they know that something is wrong. I wont pretend like mirage is the
"only one"
because frankly its not but its certainly up there in maybe the top 3.

I know where you are coming from, but it is not that simple. Over the past year it seemed like no one could agree on what was 'not fun' about mirage. You said that being able to use IH while cc'ed was what was bothering you, but not everyone agrees on that. I have seen people say it is just being able to dodge while cc'ed, I have seen people say it is just IH, I have seen people say it is clones, I have seen people say in is to much evade, and before EM got kicked out it seemed like everyone was so sure that EM was what made the spec unfun to fight against. How are you supposed to fix a problem if 1. Not everyone agrees there is a problem, and 2. Not everyone who agrees there is a problem agrees on what the problem is?

"This part is important because without feedback data you can make a problem worse than what it already is which leads to greater retaliation."The problem is taking feedback without any data to back it up is even worse!!!!!

You don't believe me? Look how many types of builds that were once deemed 'not fun' are now nerfed out of existence to the point where they were no longer viable.Look what happened to EM.They perhaps could have taken the route to make the builds viable, yet fun, but they didn't.Instead, they were thrown out and this has happened to almost every single build like that that I can think of.Anet has NEVER had a reputation of fixing 'fun' while maintaining 'balance'.

Balance? That is all numbers. Fun? Yes, that is where the forums come in.Balance and fun are not the same thing.

However, it is also not that simple.A long ass time ago I used to play Yugioh with some friends every once in a while.Probably of no surprise, I liked to come up with decks that would turn the opponents strengths into weaknesses and it pissed the hell out of them.It likely used many cards that many deemed unfun.However, you know what? I had fun playing it and there was some people who had fun playing against it.There have been many cards banned for many reasons: too powerful, not enough counterplay, too many option, etc.However, I have never, ever seen a card banned or limited because it was too 'unfun' to play against.

Yes, fun is in many ways a compromise because not everyone does agree with what is fun and what is unfun.However, there is a quote I like that I have mentioned in these forums multiple times before by Ben Franklin:

"Democracry is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"

This is the problem with the forum if you push everything to as simple terms as just 'voting' or stating subjective opinions on what is fun and the devs simply responding to that is simply wolves pushing out the lambs who have different ideas of what is fun.And to do that while being blind to what the problem even is or when the players can't agree on what is making something 'unfun'?

sorry, I have to go pretty soon and get ready, but I'll talk to you latter.

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Also one thing I want to mention:Revenant is the only melee-only class in tpvp. That means:I cant switch to a range weapon because hammer is very slow (Coalesence of ruin is bugged (main dps skills))With all the evades and blocks , its sheer impossible to land a hit ...and shortbow is only for renegade;(which is very clunky: skill2-nevery hits moving targets, skill3- reversed shotgun O_o which is not autotracking or auto-targeting ... impossible to land , skill 4 not allowed to shoot behind )axe is gapcloser wich brings you in melee range again.The class lacks in variety of range dps, condiherald with mallyx is good for grp support and condi resistence and cleansing; I dont think rev lacks in condicleansing options if you go mallyx/herald but the core lacks in more cleanse options.And the most disturbing thing on Kalla is that every skill does the same action which is avoidable and counterable by the same action from my enemies- why?Every other Legend has unique skills with different actions and results; if you go kalla -summon a ghost(high energy cost)-long cast time- which is cc-able-or ppl just stand outa range. Can we have some mesma like skills for kalla summoningsRevenant still has less utility skills -1(in all Legends) then every other class, thats unfair. -.-And isnt it time to allow revenant getting their race and deluxe version skills,too?!?!Also charged mist can realy have some higher Energy threshold like 30 .... or more energy because its realy difficult to land the legendswap in a chaotic pvp situation... and i think for a grandmaster trait it should be rewarding! Other classes dont have this downsides of their traits ...

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@Xstein.2187 said:

@Xstein.2187 said:@mortrialus.3062, @"viquing.8254"

Guys, I see it both ways.I actually think Mortrialus's thought experiment of two mirages fighting is of some pretty good use.My only argumentation against it is when you are fighting a mirage, you can't have the same expectations you would have when fighting other classes, and this is likely where a lot of the frustration other people have when fighting mirages come from.

NormalExample: lets say that you are a new player that just switched over to gw2 from a simpler game. You may have god like reflexes and are able to dodge every single attack. However, the reality is that you DON'T want to dodge every single attack. If you even dodge the smaller attacks, you will loose all your dodges/cooldowns and not have them for the attacks that really matter. Therefore, this aspect may frustrate a new player that doesn't have a lot of experience with the game.

The only issue i see with this is that some smaller attacks end up doing alot of damage over time even more so for classes that dont have rapid condi cleanse. Lets say you only dodge the bigger attacks Magic bullet, duelest, staff ambush attacks etc. Its not exactly uncommon for mirage to not get the kill by just simply going into passive staff kite mode either where only the little attacks are dependent on doing all the damage.

Particularly on staff especially those smaller wind of chaos attacks start to add up fairly quickly even just have 2-3 conditions stacking on you really starts to eat your health away pretty quickly meanwhile the mirage has the chaos of its natural evasive and distracting play style to do as it pleases. Should the mirage find itself in danger it may proceed to block, blink, distort, or stealth which gives it plenty of enough time to reset essentially. IH really does not help in this case either where attacks (lets say an ambush attack) may come from different angles and distances (clone/player positions) making a single doge ineffective against them. A single player may dodge correctly for the main casters projectiles but not others which come form the clones which leads to him still taking damage in the end event though he technically correctly reacted.

Sorry, I agree that smaller attacks can kill you, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point was that sometimes it is NOT a good thing to dodge every single attack. I can think of many instances on the top of my head where it would be a good thing to dodge a auto attack (you are almost dead and one attack will kill you, the player you are fighting against is mostly using auto attacks only, etc.) However, this doesn't negate the fact that sometimes it is not a good idea to dodge an auto attack or another low impact attack since dodges are a limited recourses. I didn't and would never argue or say that auto attacks can't kill you. That would be crazy. Auto attacks being able to kill you on ANY class does not in any way negate my point.

MirageExample: In Mortrialus's thought experiment, the correct thing for the mirage to do after he stunned the other mirage was to try to bait out the other player's dodge if you knew he had one. In fact, after the stunned mirage was stunned, the other mirage was probably on guard to expect a large attack to dodge anyway. Therefore, if you baited it out with a smaller attack, you could immediately follow up with a larger attack after the dodge and the mirage could perhaps be left defenseless. Mirages are fairly strong against cc, which IMO isn't necessarily a bad thing if it is properly balanced around it. However, what this means is instead of focussing on cc'ing a class like you would most others, you instead need to change your focus to baiting out dodges as that takes away a large portion of their cc damage avoidance, damage, and general damage avoidance all at the same time. (AoE damage is also a mirage weakness)

Aoe damage is most professions weakness how ever i get what you are going for. Aoe damage can destroy the clones etc. As far as mirage's dodging during cc it might not be the problem if they couldnt do damage while doing it. Or possibly if some investment in the traits was required for them to take that action. So long as the current IH exists people will not accept dodging while cc'ed as an ok thing as it allows clones (should they be alive) to deal massive damage as they may not be stunned at the time. When the mirage dodges IH triggers which results in the person who just performed the stun and trying to follow up the stun taking tons of condi retaliation as a reward for attempting to follow up their stun = not very fun and very frustrating.

Either Fix IH or force mirages to take a trait apart from HI to evade while under cc. You really should be forced to choose between both options. All grandmaster traits should have extreme choices like this.

Yes, I said at the end that damage from mirage cloak attacks should be shifted from the mirage cloak attack to the mirage. Regardless of of the choices in the trait line and even if Elusive Mind was beneficial and not a hinderance, IH would still be too powerful of a trait for condi builds that also causes problems with damage avoidance. I believe this is true regardless of the ability to dodge while cced as well. Damage needs to be shifted back to the player and away from ambush attacks (or at least when used with IH). This will help make balancing easier for other builds that don't use mirage and future builds down the road as well.

In fact, like my 'normal' example stated earlier, it may actually be better for a mirage to eat a stun or magic bullet 1v1 in the exact same way a wise, experienced player would do to eat a weaker attack. Although this may seem counterintuitive to many players just like eating a weaker attack would seem counterintuitive to non-gw2 players, it is important to know how a class functions and what their strengths and weaknesses are. If class X and class Y have different strengths and weaknesses, you can't expect to fight against both classes the exact same way and get exactly the same results. I think this is where a lot of frustration comes from. It's not like mirages have infinite dodges, therefore, they don't have an infinite amount of ways to avoid cc. Mirages are very strong with dodges. However, a mirage without any dodges left is very arguably much weaker comparatively than any other class without dodges, as it should be.

The last bit of this i dont agree with being out of endurance is simply being out of endurance regardless of which class you are you are all in the same boat at that point i wouldnt say any class is particularly weaker than another once its out of endurance. I would say classes that dont have access to skill or trait tool to replenish endurance be it vigor or something of that nature are the ones are the weakest state when they run out of endurance. Now i dont want to be confused here when you say arguably much weaker do you mean in terms of offensive pressure or defensive sustain.As mesmers still have other defensive tools they can depend on i dont think them being out of endurance makes them overly weaker than the other classes in the game. It can be a bit silly to say im weaker than you when i run out of dodges even if you are out of dodges along with me. Realistically no they both players would be in the same exposed position neither is weaker than the other at least I wouldnt judge it that way. Generally the class thats the disadvantage when it has no dodges is the one who has the least endurance restoration tools. I think we can all agree on which class that is and its certainly not mirage.

I should have or could have went into more detail. However, what I meant was that mirage has many (both offensive and defensive) traits that are based on dodge. Therefore, when they are out of dodge, these traits become useless. Additionally, some of their damage may come from mirage cloak which you can't use without dodges either. Other classes, besides daredevil-another dodge based class, don't have traits tied to dodge like this.

Take Renewing Oasis for example. If you are a mirage and can't dodge, you get no use out of renewing oasis. However, if you are a chrono, you can use and get healing use out of 'All's well that end Well'. Traits that become useless or you you no longer gain use out of with mirage without dodge include Renewing Oasis, Riddle of Sand, Mirage Mantle, Speed of Sand, Infinite Horizon, Elusive Mind, and Dune Cloak. This is simply because mirage was designed as a dodge based class, like daredevil.

Finally, if this was a group fight, that second mirage that got stunned would still be at a disadvantage if there was another class with AoE in the picture since dodging while stun is not exactly the same as blink or another form of stun break. Although you can dodge an attack while stunned, you are a prime candidate for an attack, and especially an AoE attack, as soon as that .75 sec dodge wears out, as you still did not move an inch during that dodge.

This is true but once again this applies to quite a few different classes and mirage is not the only one. Getting stunned in a group fight is generally bad for most professions in the game and a number of them its worse than it is for mirage. Even if you did not move for for thee quarters of a second you still avoided damage which could have been potentially focus fire damage. In this game alot of damage can hit you in three quarters of a second. This also allows a player with quick reaction to activate another defensive tool, a blink, a distortion, a jaunt, etc without taking any damage where as almost any other class would have continued to take that damage for that and what ever other aoe damage is around at the time. If some how for some reason clones magically through the chaos are still up and alive they now also fire off condi dps because you dodged while stunned.

I just think its common for people to say "dodging during cc" for such a short time frame is not that big of a deal and that its perfectly ok. When in truth it really can be a big deal even more so when it comes with potential passive retaliation attacks from other sources sometimes.

Sorry, I think you are missing my point again. I did not say that getting stunned wasn't a big deal for other classes or that dodging while cc'ed wasn't very useful. I simply wrote this last part to demonstrate that the ability to dodge while cc'ed isn't as good as being able to completely break the stun.

Conclusion: the correct way to balance mirage is to use data and statistics. If it is over performing than it really needs to be looked at again asap. However, if it is not over performing than perhaps the bark of the wolf is worse than the bite. However, one thing I definitely would do with mirage is shift the condi damage from mirage cloak back to the player, just so IH isn't so powerful compared to the other traits.

This is half and half.You cant always fix everything by looking at numbers from the profession alone further more who would even gather this data. Its not just about the data the profession puts out its also about the feedback data collected from the people who play as it and play against it. This part is important because without feedback data you can make a problem worse than what it already is which leads to greater retaliation. IF you think its not impossible for a class to get unfun to play against to the point people put strikes against it then you are wrong. Should that happen anet has to forgo data and do something to stop it. CI being disabled was a good example of this.

Chances are if people are saying something is wrong then something is wrong even if they cant point 100% in the right direction of where the problem might be or where you think it might be they know that something is wrong. I wont pretend like mirage is the
"only one"
because frankly its not but its certainly up there in maybe the top 3.

I know where you are coming from, but it is not that simple. Over the past year it seemed like no one could agree on what was 'not fun' about mirage. You said that being able to use IH while cc'ed was what was bothering you, but not everyone agrees on that. I have seen people say it is just being able to dodge while cc'ed, I have seen people say it is just IH, I have seen people say it is clones, I have seen people say in is to much evade, and before EM got kicked out it seemed like everyone was so sure that EM was what made the spec unfun to fight against. How are you supposed to fix a problem if 1. Not everyone agrees there is a problem, and 2. Not everyone who agrees there is a problem agrees on what the problem is?

"This part is important because without feedback data you can make a problem worse than what it already is which leads to greater retaliation."
The problem is taking feedback without any data to back it up is even worse!!!!!

You don't believe me? Look how many types of builds that were once deemed 'not fun' are now nerfed out of existence to the point where they were no longer viable.Look what happened to EM.They perhaps could have taken the route to make the builds viable, yet fun, but they didn't.Instead, they were thrown out and this has happened to almost every single build like that that I can think of.Anet has NEVER had a reputation of fixing 'fun' while maintaining 'balance'.

Balance? That is all numbers. Fun? Yes, that is where the forums come in.Balance and fun are not the same thing.

However, it is also not that simple.A long kitten time ago I used to play Yugioh with some friends every once in a while.Probably of no surprise, I liked to come up with decks that would turn the opponents strengths into weaknesses and it pissed the hell out of them.It likely used many cards that many deemed unfun.However, you know what? I had fun playing it and there was some people who had fun playing against it.There have been many cards banned for many reasons: too powerful, not enough counterplay, too many option, etc.However, I have never, ever seen a card banned or limited because it was too 'unfun' to play against.

Yes, fun is in many ways a compromise because not everyone does agree with what is fun and what is unfun.However, there is a quote I like that I have mentioned in these forums multiple times before by Ben Franklin:

"Democracry is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"

This is the problem with the forum if you push everything to as simple terms as just 'voting' or stating subjective opinions on what is fun and the devs simply responding to that is simply wolves pushing out the lambs who have different ideas of what is fun.And to do that while being blind to what the problem even is or when the players can't agree on what is making something 'unfun'?

sorry, I have to go pretty soon and get ready, but I'll talk to you latter.

This reminds me of Nilfgard in Gwent - a faction which garners excessive hate due to all its archetypes having the theme to kitten up your opponent's game plan in the most annoying way, while beating them.

Particularly Assimilate decks, one of my favourite archetypes to play (for anyone who doesn't play Gwent, this deck plays your opponents deck/faction against themselves, while having cards that buff and have synergies through playing opponent's cards), which a number of people find "not fun" because apparently it hurts to lose to your cards played against you, especially if they manage to get certain synergies off.

It's hilarious fun for the player, and by extension Assimilate mirror matches often end up some of the funniest and creative.

Sure it's not directly comparable, but it can be related that a number of players don't find it fun to, in a broader sense, have their game plan disrupted and pushed to improvise. The key here is "is it still possible to win" - and that's where there is a difference between subjective "fun" and balance. Because while there are many vocal complaints about various aspects of the game - eg dying to condi - I guess there is a population who don't mind or even enjoy going up against some of the supposedly "not fun" factors that get highlighted on this forum.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Solori.6025 said:It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work.Because metrics can't tell you whether it's fun to play.

Players are very good at identifying what frustrates them. They're not as good at identifying why and even less so at fixing it. But the devs first need to know what isn't fun so they can figure out where to start looking for changes.

........" Metrics, statistics, and
knowledge of how the classes work.
"Fun is subjective, and by asking players to identify what they like and dont you are creating an outlook that is mostly biased.This is only true until a certain majority of people say that something is or is not fun at which point it starts to become less subjective and more factual. Fun is a part of the game. Some people play for fun for some people fun is winning or having a well fought match win or lose. Fun is indeed subjective and it can be a driving force of what keeps people playing the game.

I stand by what I said then. Since you also acknowledge "fun" being subjective. That you can't use that feedback then as a starting point in balancing talks .

That's not how you achieve balance, and I covered most of that in the first post I made in this thread.Its not always how you achieve balance but some times its a good place to start. If some one says something is not fun and some one say something is super fun which do you believe? If a majority of people who main many different professions also start to say similar things do you think all of them are just subjective or does it mean that something is clearly an issue. Do you think that a large number of people would make false accusations on the subject of how fun something is? I would say its its very unlikely.

Simply saying its subjective so your statement does not apply to the input of something is not a good way of really looking at it.What happens if someone says you telling someone something is subjective is also subjective should we just void out your statement too?

As i told some one else its half and halfWhen possible metrics and statistics should be part of it but the other half should consist of client feedback data. Thats why businesses and companies often ask you how a service was to you.Say you order a package.Looking at metrics data tells the sender that the box got from point A to B.It might say how fast it got there and which route it took.

But it does not tell them in the condition of how the box was when it got there or how pleased you were with how fast it got there. Maybe it got there at a bad time leaving your product to sit out all day exposed or maybe it got there quick but not quick enough to your liking.

Subjective feedback is rather important one cannot simply dismiss it as it is a part of balance.

And once again, I covered this in my first post, people seem to gloss over the bolded part of "Knowledge of how the game works"....Or from my first post in this thread"Devs should have an intimate understanding of what EVERY class is capable of.When I say intimate, I mean like this class shows up in your dreams intimate.Too often we have seen knee jerk fixes or changes to a class that don't make sense to the people playing, and sometimes these changes are contradictory to the way the class functions or even what the balancing "idea" for that patch tried to achieve.The Devs first and foremost need to play this game, and understand it to the level that people who have been playing since launch do."

If you are relying on players to identify, WITHOUT BIAS the things that make a class over-perform you have set the ground for failure. Plain and simple. Even in this thread, you have evidence of that. No one want's to be nerfed further and everyone is pointing fingers at everything BUT what they have.This is why I said those 3 things are needed.Too many times player X throws out hyperbole to get player Y's class nerfed.It always goes like this " Bob plays a class (We'll call it class X) and wants to feel powerful, and be powerful, but bob gets killed by Tim on class Y. Bob could either, go into the game and make class Y and figure out what the strengths and weaknesses are, OR, he could complain about the class. Clearly Bob is a pro and class Y is just broken. So he makes a thread ( OR post in a thread with a dev asking what's fun or not) and decides to complain about everything he doesn't like. Citing that other people don't like it either. For added effect, Bob wiki's every skill and throws them all in, complaining about every effect Class Y has , then going through all the traits and doing the same. Bob creates a franken build that realistically CAN NOT EXIST. Then to put the final touches he creates scenarios in which no class could actually perform. Bob writes this as fact, and everyone that plays class X like bob agree's. This franken build to them exist in reality, and it does exactly what bob says.Tim and the other people playing class Y try and tell bob what actually happened but then it devolves into a shouting match where insults like " you main the class so you don't get a say" come in.

This entire scenario, if we just stuck with player feedback. Would end up ( and has ended up) with a class being stripped of multiple tools it needs to function at a competitive level across multiple builds. It generates dead builds because they have been cried about repeatedly.

This can not continue, and is unhealthy.The Devs MUST know how to pull apart fiction from fact.The devs need to play this game first, The devs must understand this system and game first, the devs need have to have every statistic, and metric first, before gathering feedback where players can't even be bothered to complain about specific aspects of a class and create these out of reality things and then complain about it.

Edit: ALSO if they devs understood how this game worked, how classes worked, and how they fit in the grand picture of this game. We wouldn't have things like Launch day scourge, deadeye, mirage, spellbreaker, holosmith, weaver, renegade, etc. This is more than a numbers game, I acknowledge that. But changes like these tell me that in a grand picture for balance their was little or no vision. That needs to change like yesteryear.

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Reaper/Necro traits Relentless Pursuit and Speed of Shadows are very similar, being traits that deal with movement impairing conditions.I would like that Speed of Shadows remain as it is, giving this option to Core / Reaper / Scourge.

Relentless Pursuit however, should be changed to something that fits a Reaper more.

Personally I think 7 seconds shroud cooldown need to return on Reaper because it offers an extra depth and versatility to our play-style.I can choose to camp in shroud, or flash in and out of shroud with the 7 seconds CD.It reduces reliance on wurm/spectral walk as the main defensive measures we have to take for the current 10 secs shroud CD.This opens up more viable utility choices.

And if anything helps a Reaper pursue a foe relentlessly, it would be the synergy a 7 seconds shroud CD will have with Reaper Shroud 2 Dash.Not to mention a possible traited FiTG for high stun-break access and stability up-time.Very crucial for a melee bruiser.

It has been 2 years since we lost the 7 seconds Shroud.And Reaper has never been as fun without it.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:

I want you all to focus on splits because those are the changes we can do with no impact on the rest of the game. If a split makes sense for PvP or WvW, we can just do it. Functionality changes require larger discussions about the impact on the whole game. We are starting discussions internally about things that are not addressable with numbers changes, because there are things that need a functional change but need to change for the sake of competitive modes.

For sPvP, have you consider a change in the stat budget through amulets? I know this puts WvW aside (or at least it would requires more work) but capping the main offensive stats to lower numbers while having the defensive ones remains the same would necessarily tone down the global power level but keep the power ranking of individual skills. A skill designed as powerful would remain powerful but would give more reaction time to the defender who could survive a bit longer. I thought it was the original idea of having separate modes : balancing the game mode by adjusting the stats and keeping a global balance for skills.

Amulet stats are absolutely something we are looking at.

If we're at amulets, would you consider adding some of the removed ones back?

Settler's Amulet for example was removed at the sime times as Celestial in an effort to kill off the bunker meta (eventhough this amulet never really made it into high tier play).

Condition builds were initially meant to outlast opponents but many of the things that'd enable this playstyle (such as Settler) have been removed from PvP, which is one of the reasons why there are hardly any viable condition damage based sidenoders right now. Adding them back could help build diversity.

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@Solori.6025 said:

@Solori.6025 said:It's why a wonder, why would a dev ask for subjective feedback instead of forming more non biased opinions through metrics,statistics, and knowledge of how the classes work.Because metrics can't tell you whether it's fun to play.

Players are very good at identifying what frustrates them. They're not as good at identifying why and even less so at fixing it. But the devs first need to know what isn't fun so they can figure out where to start looking for changes.

........" Metrics, statistics, and
knowledge of how the classes work.
"Fun is subjective, and by asking players to identify what they like and dont you are creating an outlook that is mostly biased.This is only true until a certain majority of people say that something is or is not fun at which point it starts to become less subjective and more factual. Fun is a part of the game. Some people play for fun for some people fun is winning or having a well fought match win or lose. Fun is indeed subjective and it can be a driving force of what keeps people playing the game.

I stand by what I said then. Since you also acknowledge "fun" being subjective. That you can't use that feedback then as a starting point in balancing talks .

That's not how you achieve balance, and I covered most of that in the first post I made in this thread.Its not always how you achieve balance but some times its a good place to start. If some one says something is not fun and some one say something is super fun which do you believe? If a majority of people who main many different professions also start to say similar things do you think all of them are just subjective or does it mean that something is clearly an issue. Do you think that a large number of people would make false accusations on the subject of how fun something is? I would say its its very unlikely.

Simply saying its subjective so your statement does not apply to the input of something is not a good way of really looking at it.What happens if someone says you telling someone something is subjective is also subjective should we just void out your statement too?

As i told some one else its half and halfWhen possible metrics and statistics should be part of it but the other half should consist of client feedback data. Thats why businesses and companies often ask you how a service was to you.Say you order a package.Looking at metrics data tells the sender that the box got from point A to B.It might say how fast it got there and which route it took.

But it does not tell them in the condition of how the box was when it got there or how pleased you were with how fast it got there. Maybe it got there at a bad time leaving your product to sit out all day exposed or maybe it got there quick but not quick enough to your liking.

Subjective feedback is rather important one cannot simply dismiss it as it is a part of balance.

And once again, I covered this in my first post, people seem to gloss over the bolded part of "Knowledge of how the game works"....Or from my first post in this thread"Devs should have an intimate understanding of what EVERY class is capable of.When I say intimate, I mean like this class shows up in your dreams intimate.Too often we have seen knee jerk fixes or changes to a class that don't make sense to the people playing, and sometimes these changes are contradictory to the way the class functions or even what the balancing "idea" for that patch tried to achieve.The Devs first and foremost need to play this game, and understand it to the level that people who have been playing since launch do."

If you are relying on players to identify,
WITHOUT BIAS
the things that make a class over-perform you have set the ground for failure. Plain and simple. Even in this thread, you have evidence of that. No one want's to be nerfed further and everyone is pointing fingers at everything BUT what they have.This is why I said those 3 things are needed.Too many times player X throws out hyperbole to get player Y's class nerfed.It always goes like this " Bob plays a class (We'll call it class X) and wants to feel powerful, and be powerful, but bob gets killed by Tim on class Y. Bob could either, go into the game and make class Y and figure out what the strengths and weaknesses are, OR, he could complain about the class. Clearly Bob is a pro and class Y is just broken. So he makes a thread ( OR post in a thread with a dev asking what's fun or not) and decides to complain about everything he doesn't like. Citing that other people don't like it either. For added effect, Bob wiki's every skill and throws them all in, complaining about every effect Class Y has , then going through all the traits and doing the same. Bob creates a franken build that realistically CAN NOT EXIST. Then to put the final touches he creates scenarios in which no class could actually perform. Bob writes this as fact, and everyone that plays class X like bob agree's. This franken build to them exist in reality, and it does exactly what bob says.Tim and the other people playing class Y try and tell bob what actually happened but then it devolves into a shouting match where insults like " you main the class so you don't get a say" come in.

This entire scenario, if we just stuck with player feedback. Would end up ( and has ended up) with a class being stripped of multiple tools it needs to function at a competitive level across multiple builds. It generates dead builds because they have been cried about repeatedly.

This can not continue, and is unhealthy.The Devs MUST know how to pull apart fiction from fact.The devs need to play this game first,
The devs must understand this system and game first
, the devs need have to have every statistic, and metric first, before gathering feedback where players can't even be bothered to complain about specific aspects of a class and create these out of reality things and then complain about it.

Edit: ALSO if they devs understood how this game worked, how classes worked, and how they fit in the grand picture of this game. We wouldn't have things like Launch day scourge, deadeye, mirage, spellbreaker, holosmith, weaver, renegade, etc. This is more than a numbers game, I acknowledge that. But changes like these tell me that in a grand picture for balance their was little or no vision. That needs to change like yesteryear.

It goes without saying this is true but devs cant perdict what players will do once they get their hands on the content or how they will adapt to playin it after the fact. It is impossible for them to know every possible result because they are a group of a few hundred and we players are up in the thousands if not hundred thousands. We will try combos and playstyles that they would have never considered which may lead to unexpected or abusive mechanical tactics that will not be healthy for the game.

To say tha the devs must understand the system without fail is simply not plausible as new content is added.The devs should not be doing balance on what they think is fun they how ever should mind how other players feel about that same content even more so in compeitive modes.Im sorry but if something causes major frustration because its not balanced then its not ok i dont really care how subjective you think it is. Fact is a game should not cause frustration to a person or a majority of people and once that starts to happen it means there is a problem that needs to be addressed.To ignore feedback and subjective feeling from the clients you provide a service too is very ignorant and what leads to the game gettin to the state its in right now.

Players time and time again have told anet things they liked and did not like only to have the opposite happen in terms of balance in one mode or another. Players often came up with very creative and possibly balanced solutions to frustrating issues only to have anet ignore them and the problems remain problems for 6 months at a time.

Its not so much pulling apart from the fun factor. When i say the devs must consider feed back data from people because its important it means just that. I dont mean the devs should be biased and design or blanace things based on how the feel when they play the game themselves. IF you dont agree the devs should listen to the people who play the game at all then you cant expect the game to ever be balanced.

Im sorry i just wont agree with you no matter how you put it because when you say data is the only thing that should be looked at wont solve the problem. 1 patch you are on top because data said you were doing bad next patch you are trash because data said you were doing good. Data will be smothered by people who flock to what wins and works in the same way it is now by your above example of player x says player y's main class should be nerfed while player x's main class is still obviously broken but they defend it anyways.

Regardless of how you "subjectively" think it should be done i don't agree. ITs a half and half situation for the best results. Devs are human beings and know how to read quality statement when they see it. Simply saying "nerf x class because y reason while im playing broken z profession" is not something they probably pay attention too.

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@viquing.8254 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said:Particularly on staff especially those smaller wind of chaos attacksOn a side note, wind of chaos is the unique skill in this game that you can bait by walking on the opposite direction because the projectile move at the same speed as you. (with 5 shield maybe.)This is not plausible while fighting a mirage if you actually want to fight the mirage lol. You pretty much just told me that i should run / move away from the mirage 's auto attack and while it is slow it aint that slow. Will catch a player running with swiftness while the are in combat the only time it does what you said is when you are near the projectile max range limit. Like this is not even a real......... plausible wait of baiting not if you want to fight and assuming the mirage does not chase you at all.[...big block with nerf mirage evade...]There isn't viable core mesmer build without stealth atm, that mean if tomorrow you make mirage can't evade when he want, welcome to PU mesmer meta should it be burst or condi. Which is basically useless as a change because people will more whine about a "perma stealth mesmer who do damage from nowhere" than about a "I feel mirage can perma evade".If they nerf mirage cloak and PU, welcome to full out of point non-viable mesmer meta who will put burst condi or burst direct damage where people will still cry about how mesmer can do damage.If they nerf mirage cloak, PU and damage output condi and direct damage, welcome to a running gag, solo heal mesmer meta with superspeed who did nothing apart running on the map where people will still cry about how mesmer is "unkillable".And I can probably continue for next 5,6 nerfs if I want.It's fun how we can predict the next 6 months of whine based on current "game improvement suggestions" who will just make the class more or more unplayable while not reducing at all the whine % in this forum.

Im not sure where you are pointing at with all these nerf assumptions.And lol really "big block with nerf mirage evade......" nice way of shoving words in someones mouth if someone else was to read this how would they even know what text you are referencing replying to while making such a blunt statement.Cant deal with you anymore. I dont think you are someone i can have logical conversation with.

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Hope I’m not too late on this discussion.

I’m a long time theorycrafter and been going at it since gw1.

The major issue I would like you guys to focus on is the traits. The way the traits are mapped out are a mess, with no clear cut vision, and a fundamental philosophy should be established for every traitline.

Consider that we have minor and major traits. Major traits when picked, should drastically change your style of gameplay. Right now we have a lot of major traits that simply do not change how you play your class.

For example, if I have a trait that “inflicts vulnerability on shroud attack 1”, well my class already functions by using shroud and auto attacking with it, so this trait doesn’t CHANGE how I play the class. Likewise, other traits like “+7% damage” don’t change how i play... stat boosts like these should exist only on the minor traits that help to improve the classes particular traitline to better enable it at using that particular Traitline.

The way I see it is that build diversity is the key to balancing the game. When there are builds that people gravitate towards, there should always be a build that can keep that build in check. Having build diversity starts by having every trait able to drastically alter the way you play a class.

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