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Let's Talk About PvP Balance


Cal Cohen.2358

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@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:Now why would u quote only part of my post? read below the part about conditions. And if you have to quote from multiple sources be sure to include all those from you quoted

I didn't quote the other parts because I didn't have anything to add.As for your conditions paragraph, I already summed up the need to tone down conditions, so I didn't feel the necessity to quote it.

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I'll try to make this list brief for every profession:

Elementalist

Revert back the changes made to Electric Discharge and Arcane skills. Nerfing core fresh air elementalist was a bad move considering how low sustain core fresh air elementalist has.

Also, rework lightning fields so they apply quickness with blast finishers instead of swiftness. I know this may seem off-topic and something that is more suited for PvE, but give support elementalist more utility than just healing and cleansing.

Engineer

Nerf holosmith's sustain. Reduce the healing from Heat Therapy, reduce the block duration on Photon Wall, reduce the damage reduction on Spectrum Shield, reduce the stealth duration on Toss Elixir S from 5 to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW only. Scrapper is fine for the most part, please don't focus solely on this one elite specialization for the 4th or 5th time in a row.

Core engineer needs to be buffed. Buff the main hand pistol by having the auto attack apply vulnerability if you're using the Explosives specialization since it's called a Fragmentation Shot and can hit multiple targets and reduce the cast time so that it shoot as fast as ranger's shortbow. Buff or rework some of the kit skills, make them more effective like reducing the cast time on Box of Nails, the Tool Kit auto attack and of course revert back the change to Gear Shield's block duration. Make the explosion radius and throw velocity from the Grenadier trait baseline and have it just reduce grenade skills cooldown by 20% and increase the throw range from 900 to 1,200 similar to the old Grenadier.

If you're planning on reworking core engineer, just make it so core engineer is the only one who has access to kits, similar to how scrapper has access to gyros and holosmith to exceed skills. Instead of the kits being utility skills, they are on the toolbelt skills so for example if you swap the slots of the Med Kit and Bandage Self, the Med Kit's healing skill will function similar to other healing skills on the 6 key instead of on the F1 key. This will nerf the elite specializations mostly in PvE, but if you think about it Scrapper only uses 1 kit in both PvE and PvP (Elixir Gun) and holosmith uses 1 kit in PvE (Grenade Kit) and no kits in PvP so I highly doubt this will nerf them greatly. Considering that core engineer relies on using a lot of kits in both PvE and PvP, I don't think this would be a huge issue for the elite specializations, but it'll certainly make core engineer better.

Guardian

Rework the scepter's auto attack. We've wanted a rework for the scepter for years and with the latest balance patch you decided to not rework it, but instead nerf its damage and buff the sword's damage. I get it, you want melee weapons to deal more damage than ranged weapons, but can you get rid of those slow projectiles that are so easy to dodge and replace it with a beam like attack, similar to elementalist's scepter air auto attack or mesmer's greatsword auto attack or even guardian's downed state auto attack Wrath.

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

As for core mesmer, it's fine in PvP if you play power shatter builds, but I think it would be nice if you buff the other mantras like Mantra of Concentration. Buff it so whenever you use it, it gives you and allies quickness instead of just stability and reduce the cooldown from 15 to 1 second like Mantra of Pain. It may not be much, but it could give core mesmer some viable builds for end game PvE content. Restorative Mantra can also provide boons rather than just healing from using mantras.

Necromancer

Rework some of the Death Shroud skills. Life Blast, Doom and Life Transfer are the only skills that most people use. Dark Path is better than it once was, but still mediocre and Tainted Shackles is still a very delayed skill. Also, make the fire condition from the Dhuumfire trait baseline, make Death Shroud overall a hybrid of power damage skills and condition skills. Nobody should be forced to use a trait just so they have a way to reliably apply conditions when using Death Shroud. Core power necromancer builds don't have to use those kind of traits.

Ranger

Ranger is fine for the most part in both PvE and PvP. Soulbeast and Druid are still more dominant than core ranger in PvE so just give core ranger some utility.

Revenant

Revenant is also fine as it is in both PvE and PvP. Sure, some may want to see Facet of Light's healing reduced, but overall revenant is good as it is. Core revenant's Ancient Echo skill could use more useful.

Thief

Reduce the stealth duration on Deadeye and remove the evasion on Dagger Storm. That elite skill should've never been buffed this way.

Warrior

Nerf Rampage and buff Signet of Rage. So many warriors are using Rampage as a crutch skill to CC and kill enemies while having stability. Signet of Rage can be a lot better if it gives 2 strikes of adrenaline every second instead of every 3 seconds.

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@Arheundel.6451 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.

I could have not said it better...it's time to stop nerfing things based on forum outcry and use instead actual metrics like :

-Percentage of players using a certain build/set up-Representation in high tiered pvp matches and wvw gameplay

To nerf something because "Bob" comes to the forum and complain about what killed him....
it's not valid feedback

Although mostly agree there has to be other metrics aside from builds that see alot of play as well. A viable build that's fun will see play often and by alot of players and doesnt necessarily mean its OP and needs changed or what kinda builds would be left in a few yrs lol

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@"Hoodie.1045" said:Why would u talk about classes you have no clue about ? Namely CORE mesmer(this PU garbage is "fine" or this nonsense about mantra of concentration and nothing about dead chrono/IH cmirage) and write a wall about how engineer need buffs ? Btw how this concentration mantra change would help core mesmer? Anything that core has every other elite spec can use, if this change would be good enough then chrono will use it and core would be still irrelevant as usual.If anything all classes need a lot more depth in the changes than just "do this and its fine".

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@Psycoprophet.8107 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.

I could have not said it better...it's time to stop nerfing things based on forum outcry and use instead actual metrics like :

-Percentage of players using a certain build/set up-Representation in high tiered pvp matches and wvw gameplay

To nerf something because "Bob" comes to the forum and complain about what killed him....
it's not valid feedback

Although mostly agree there has to be other metrics aside from builds that see alot of play as well. A viable build that's fun will see play often and by alot of players and doesnt necessarily mean its OP and needs changed or what kinda builds would be left in a few yrs lol

This ^Also how would this keep the game balanced as many people flock to what wins this would mean 1 or 2 things always stay stronger than the others and every class just gets rotated out ever few months because the most played ones get nerfed. This in my opinion would be a bad way of performing balance. It just means a few picks are good every few months while everyone else is trash or meh. That makes pvp very dull.

As i also pointed out most devs probably dont take bob complains about x build so it should be nerfed comments too seriously.

IF its something like perma-stealth deadeye in its previous incarnation where all it had to do was mark you and follow you around for 2 minutes while building passive malice to get the 1 shot then yes thats a problem. Bob should complain about that and so should many other people. There are some exceptions when people are in the right to complain about something thats obviously not fair. IF a build is too oppressing or lacks counter-play or has super minimal counter-play it should be adjusted and people from across the board will complain about it. 5-10 people complaining about something is likely not an issue. A few hundred or thousand complains is probably an issue in some way shape or form.Now bob should probably find a better way to write his complaint thats constructive in explaining why x build should be looked into other than "its op nerf it"

There are special cases to pretend that there are not and that these special cases are not exception worthy is just being ignorant to an obvious balance issue.

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@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

Maybe first.

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.

Secondly,

We need to know what a class and spec are supposed to do, down to the trait line, and what the elite specs are supposed to offer.

We then need to know what you want each class to excel at.

Are mesmers supposed to be good at 1v1 but struggle in Xv1?

Are warriors supposed to be good at Xv1 but struggle in a 1v1?

What is your vision for each class in it's role here? What should a class be strong in.

What is a class going to be weak in?

Then lastly,

Uniformity.

Make sure every class fit's in a grand picture, where one class is not dominate on all the others in those roles. That classes sharing a role in pvp have the tools to contest each other fairly. ( so we dont have the issue like we did at launch where matchups with like mesmer v thief was heavily weighted in the thieves favor) and that every role has a weakness.

Every class should be able to be viable. Every class should be able to compete. Every class should be and have meta builds.

Not for one season these 4 classes are good, then the next season these 3 classes are good.

This is a 7 year old MMO, balance and the ability for every class to perform on relatively the same levels across the board should not be a main concern at this point.

TLDR: Devs need to play the game and get intimate with what classes can and can not do ( When devs are able to understand this the hyperbole influence we see in the forums immediately becomes irrelevent because the people gathering feedback will know, it's hyperbole and ignore it)

Devs need to have a clear vision on the strengths and weaknesses for every class and every role. This way when you do change or add something you don't have horrible launch day OP classes like you have had every expansion OR when you destroy a spec like Chrono and make it a horrible shell of awkward mechanics . You can design classes with the bounds they are given and keep them balanced.

Devs need to make sure every class, with additions and nerfs, stay relevant, and fair.

I don't think this is too much to ask, and in my opinion this would and should be the first thing the pvp (and WvW) team considers when making changes.

P.S. Edit:

I want to stress the importance of the first thing.

The devs MUST know these classes, and what they can actually do. They MUST know what is possible and what isn't.

Hopefully this isn't too offensive to get removed again

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@Solori.6025 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

Maybe first.

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.

Secondly,

We need to know what a class and spec are supposed to do, down to the trait line, and what the elite specs are supposed to offer.

We then need to know what you want each class to excel at.

Are mesmers supposed to be good at 1v1 but struggle in Xv1?

Are warriors supposed to be good at Xv1 but struggle in a 1v1?

What is your vision for each class in it's role here? What should a class be strong in.

What is a class going to be weak in?

Then lastly,

Uniformity.

Make sure every class fit's in a grand picture, where one class is not dominate on all the others in those roles. That classes sharing a role in pvp have the tools to contest each other fairly. ( so we dont have the issue like we did at launch where matchups with like mesmer v thief was heavily weighted in the thieves favor) and that every role has a weakness.

Every class should be able to be viable. Every class should be able to compete. Every class should be and have meta builds.

Not for one season these 4 classes are good, then the next season these 3 classes are good.

This is a 7 year old MMO, balance and the ability for every class to perform on relatively the same levels across the board should not be a main concern at this point.

TLDR: Devs need to play the game and get intimate with what classes can and can not do ( When devs are able to understand this the hyperbole influence we see in the forums immediately becomes irrelevent because the people gathering feedback will know, it's hyperbole and ignore it)

Devs need to have a clear vision on the strengths and weaknesses for every class and every role. This way when you do change or add something you don't have horrible launch day OP classes like you have had every expansion OR when you destroy a spec like Chrono and make it a horrible shell of awkward mechanics . You can design classes with the bounds they are given and keep them balanced.

Devs need to make sure every class, with additions and nerfs, stay relevant, and fair.

I don't think this is too much to ask, and in my opinion this would and should be the first thing the pvp (and WvW) team considers when making changes.

P.S. Edit:

I want to stress the importance of the first thing.

The devs MUST know these classes, and what they can actually do. They MUST know what is possible and what isn't.

Hopefully this isn't too offensive to get removed again

Well said!

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

I wanted to clarify something from today’s blog post while also kicking off a discussion on a topic that’s near and dear to most competitive players: balance.

It’s important to understand that as competitive handles competitive balance, we will continue to primarily use skill splits in order to minimize the impact on the rest of the game. It’s certainly true that not all issues can be addressed through splits, and we will continue to work with the skills team to make sure we are making the right changes for the entire game when splitting is not a viable option.

Mini Balance Roadmap

We have identified the overall power of the game has become an issue and we wish to address this in the competitive game modes.

The next balance update is going to be smaller than usual. We want to make a handful of very targeted changes to address the biggest pain points in the current meta, but we also want to bank some time for bigger plans moving forward. For a future balance update, we are looking at major adjustments across the board. The goal is to re-establish what the overall power level for competitive modes, and then bring everything down to meet that. In true gw2 fashion, everything is on the table.

With that said, we’re not going to nerf just for the sake of nerfing. Every change should make sense, and every change should be working toward a bigger goal. This patch is still super early in development, so I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s definitely something we want to talk about more moving forward. As mentioned in the blog post, we want to keep the community involved early and often when it comes to balance.

So, for the purpose of this discussion, consider these two future updates. First for the short-term: What outliers do you see in the current meta? Then think about the big picture: What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed? Think outside of the current meta and instead about what you want the meta to look like from a power-level perspective. Keep in mind that a majority of changes should be splits, but feel free to also call out issues that you feel cannot be addressed by splits.

This post is intentionally starting a broad discussion as a jumping off point into the new communication of the Systems team, but keep in mind that in the future our posts are generally going to be more targeted at specific issues as we won’t have as much time to handle giant discussions.

I wanted to keep this initial post fairly short, so please ask questions about anything that is unclear. Otherwise, let’s talk balance.

cmc

Why even make this thread and pretend that you're listening when you're just gonna do the usual tired thing of nerfing thief despite it being backseat in the meta while ignoring the worst offenders like condi mirage, fireweaver, or soulbeast?

I made a thread about condi mirage and you people banned me from the forums about it. Yet having 20 different posts complain about thief is fine? You just nerf the least played professions because that generates the least backlash.

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@"Hoodie.1045" said:

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

I'm going to step in on this one just because I see this complaint a lot. As the saying goes be careful of what you wish for. This goes back to my first post on page 7 about understanding the impact ideas/changes would have on a class. So if Mesmer was to go down to two clone (which as you'll soon see why a lot of Mesmer mains want) you'd have to adjust (buff) the damage output of both shatters (their primary source of burst damage) and you'd also need to adjust (buff) the damage output of a plethora of weapon abilities, traits, and utilities. This would then make it extremely more easy then it is currently for a Mesmer to burst as well as allow them to burst faster. Because now the Mesmer would only need 2 clones to get "max" payout on their shatters (decreasing the investment needed for max damage). Though yes, you could also nerf shatter damage on top of this, but then that would not be proper balance because that'd just be making the class unplayable (Chrono in its current state is a great example of this and how it lacks burst to deal with the high sustain in the current meta). As for mantras, I'm sure most people would rather just see them made into something else (well at least mantra of pain) as insta cast damage/affects (just like damage immunities) is just not a healthy competitive mechanic.

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@"sinject.4607" said:Why even make this thread and pretend that you're listening when you're just gonna do the usual tired thing of nerfing thief despite it being backseat in the meta while ignoring the worst offenders like condi mirage, fireweaver, or soulbeast?

Because a team with 2 thieves win 2 consecutive mAt with no difficulties ?Because thief had 2 S tiers build (before last fix.) which ins't the case for other class ?I mean I don't know well other class but reading something like "thief is backseat in meta" seems kinda inapropriate atm.

@Jojo.6590 said:

@"Hoodie.1045" said:

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

I'm going to step in on this one just because I see this complaint a lot. As the saying goes be careful of what you wish for. This goes back to my first post on page 7 about understanding the impact ideas/changes would have on a class. So if Mesmer was to go down to two clone (which as you'll soon see why a lot of Mesmer mains want) you'd have to adjust (buff) the damage output of both shatters (their primary source of burst damage) and you'd also need to adjust (buff) the damage output of a plethora of weapon abilities, traits, and utilities. This would then make it extremely more easy then it is currently for a Mesmer to burst as well as allow them to burst faster. Because now the Mesmer would only need 2 clones to get "max" payout on their shatters (decreasing the investment needed for max damage). Though yes, you could also nerf shatter damage on top of this, but then that would not be proper balance because that'd just be making the class unplayable (Chrono in its current state is a great example of this and how it lacks burst to deal with the high sustain in the current meta). As for mantras, I'm sure most people would rather just see them made into something else (well at least mantra of pain) as insta cast damage/affects (just like damage immunities) is just not a healthy competitive mechanic.

This, that's pretty much why I said whiner in this forum never has long terms view of what they ask for. The more mesmer is less glassy IA dependant, the better mesmer will be efficient and the more whiner will cry.

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I am a year old player (so a new thing ^ ^) so I will tell you from an unscientific and less technical point of view than my older colleagues. I started PvP 6 months ago and I quickly became hooked. I liked to see my class in this new day, to develop it, to improve my build but also my reflexes .... The good time of the unconsciousness ... I started to climb in stripes and there, a ditch is created. Despite all my efforts and ingenuity, my ranger (soulbeast) was rowing, there were always classes with overpresented specialization that did better with less. It was not a technical gap, but a favoritism of pure and simple skills. I had the impression that certain classes had been specially set up for PvP. The war that did not compromise, the necro that you eat before the nerves, the mesmer who had to spammer, the guards who burn you on the spot ... I went through lots of emotions (fury, determination, hatred, indifference) I was looking for advice, but players are jaded to talk and not be heard, thesame messages will come back as long as they will not be listened to. I discovered a community in love with their game that is experiencing an old and painful break but they are retained on the game only by the threads of glorious memories. The new ones are not his threads, the new ones will not accept this stagnation for long. Gw2 is a game full of potential and a community full of hope and ideas. I am happy to finally see that there is a team that is serious about the changes, but we do not dazzle the impossible. There are serious cancers in this game now. And one of these first sources is that a player can no longer play a class he likes to be able to perform in PvP, he must take a path drawn, Op class, because they have everything for her without too much effort, identical builds. Each class is not equal in PvP and it's intolerable, because it's the essence of the game to have fun with what we want to interpret. It should not be the skills of a class that makes a player good, but rather his experience and knowledge of that class, the rotations and the dynamics of PvP. PvP has become elistic and amputating originality.Ps: Sorry for the mistakes, it's a translation. French servers are ignored.

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@Jojo.6590 said:

@"Hoodie.1045" said:

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

As the saying goes be careful of what you wish for.

Yeah, I was thinking about that myself yesterday.

In particular, I was considering this universal idea we all have that "power creep is too high, tone everything down." Well... the truth is that if things went back to a bunkery meta or even a "slow" meta where it took considerably longer to finish fights, people are going to get bored. Aside from popular complaint, the high DPS values keeps players more mentally stimulated as every moment is dangerous and needs to be paid attention to. If we go back to Scrappers vs. Druids on nodes, people are going to get bored really fast.

It's very true in life that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. And sometimes people wish for things that sound good, but they don't really understand the full realities of what they are wishing for. Regardless, if the Arenanet team is aiming at reversing power creep, it needs to be done not only to DPS, but also defensive skills. I agree that DPS values and Defensive spam are both out of control, but it needs to be dealt with carefully.

Someone in this thread I believe it was, had mentioned something like: "If you go back and watch old ESL games from Core or HoT, it's actually boring compared to what the game plays like now." I went back and watched a few old videos and you know what? He was right. The game is actually just a lot more interesting now,

Something to consider @Cal Cohen.2358

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@Psycoprophet.8107 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.

I could have not said it better...it's time to stop nerfing things based on forum outcry and use instead actual metrics like :

-Percentage of players using a certain build/set up-Representation in high tiered pvp matches and wvw gameplay

To nerf something because "Bob" comes to the forum and complain about what killed him....
it's not valid feedback

Although mostly agree there has to be other metrics aside from builds that see alot of play as well. A viable build that's fun will see play often and by alot of players and doesnt necessarily mean its OP and needs changed or what kinda builds would be left in a few yrs lol

We are all here for the fun..but one sided fights are not so fun for anybody, I believe we can all have fun while leaving the broken stuff out of the game....sadly some people "having fun" means steamrolling everything in front of you without any chance of losing but that's not pvp, every player on every class is entitled to have fun but while doing so we must make sure all other classes have a way to stop you in their own way somehow

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@Arheundel.6451 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.

I could have not said it better...it's time to stop nerfing things based on forum outcry and use instead actual metrics like :

-Percentage of players using a certain build/set up-Representation in high tiered pvp matches and wvw gameplay

To nerf something because "Bob" comes to the forum and complain about what killed him....
it's not valid feedback

Although mostly agree there has to be other metrics aside from builds that see alot of play as well. A viable build that's fun will see play often and by alot of players and doesnt necessarily mean its OP and needs changed or what kinda builds would be left in a few yrs lol

We are all here for the fun..but one sided fights are not so fun for anybody, I believe we can all have fun while leaving the broken stuff out of the game....sadly some people "having fun" means steamrolling everything in front of you without any chance of losing but that's not pvp, every player on every class
is entitled to have fun
but while doing so we must make sure all other classes have a way to stop you in their own way somehow

I agree 100% but most players dont share ur view here. If a players build loses to another build a few times especially if it's a nerf bandwagon class like thief its automatically deemed not fun to fight against and is unfair and OP. Thief for example is a archetype that's designed to use sneaky unfair type playstyle but with counters available for other classes to balance it out but having counters doesn't change how the people feel who don't like the thief's playstyle and wont make them like fighting them especially if countering them means slightly changing their build, guess it makes more sense to make major changes to a whole class playstyle than it does to change a build slightly to counter it lol. Honestly seems like for the last while the community stance is if it kills me its OP lol and that's sad.

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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.

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.

You said it yourself : "nerf x class because y reason while I am playing broken z profession" is not something the devs listen to. Players here tend to forget how frustrating it is to be at the receiving end of their own class ...while they complain about the frustration of being themselves at the receiving end of some other matchup...like "it's fun to hardcounter others...but I don't want to be hardcountered and what hardcounter me is clearly OP"

I stand with what @Solori.6025 said : " you cannot balance an effective balance process on player's feedback" , a feedback based on emotions and self-preservation is not something to be ever taken seriously.

Left out the part where i said devs should be able to filter through that and find the constructive feedback which tends to be a bit more well written from an un biased standpoint.Sorry to say i dont agree metrics an data only get you so far and dont create a perfect balance you may stand where you like but ive played enough games to know how balance can fail based on only data and metrics alone which leads to periods of "balance and imbalance" if something is balanced for someone its likely not balanced for someone else and thats always going to be a thing. IF something becomes too imbalanced for a majority despite the data saying its doing fine and players decide to strike against it then it means something was over looked that the data alone could not reveal. Its happened in the past it will happen in the future.

I dont discredit the use of metrics and data for balance i welcome its use. I just dont think it should be the main and only source for balance.

As far as him referecing that the devs need to understand flawlessly the potential of what the professions can and cannot do ill go into detail why thats not possible in most cases.

Even if the devs do play competitive when exploring design and balance work they can't expect how thousands of players will take that content and explore it and build onto it. The minds of a few dozen or hundred cant simulate the results of how thousands will explore it.That's how obnoxious builds and skill abuse/tactics even pop up to start with it's because players come up with ideas that the devs never considered during balance and design.When you design something it's very easy to get tunnel vision on finite limits that only you see through your eyes but when you give it to hundreds if not thousands of other people they may not see anything of what you see and take it in a completely different direction. In some cases the direction ends up being very unbalanced.That's why I said it's impossible for devs who design and balance the game to fully understand the game it happens in every single game I've ever played. The only way you could make this happen is to cut a massive amount of content out of the game and make almost everything play the same way with the same rules and finite limits where it cant be changed.

Guild wars 2's profession system is far too vast for that despite how much of a down scale is from the original guild wars. There are too many build options too many build stat factors and too many different mechanics for anyone to expect the devs to be able to predict every single possible build outcome, play style, and expect broken things not to pop out of the woodworks with each balance pass or new content addition.

All of this also adds whole new level to metrics and data that would need to be analyzed when trying to balance the game off that alone that would possibly work against itself in some cases. For example some tools/traits/skills are not or rarely used right now but might not be used till something new is added in the future. But because the data in the past implies it either wont be used or wont make a factor how could you balance for it off that alone? Your data shows that its not a problem now but it becomes one when you add new content or change existing content in some way.

Trust me going off data alone is simply not always the best way. Data is and can be a good source of information but so can the people who respectively play the content.

After 6 years it doesn't seem to me they did a good job in filtering constructive feedback, they still tend to overnerf things because of uproar on the forum. The last example of what I am saying is
whey they disabled Chaotic Interruption
, they did not solve the problem with mirage
(mirage cloack applied to clones)
, they simply reduced the build options for mesmer mains.

I would argue to say not all of it was constructive feedback so im not sure thats a fair assumption to make.A large portion of poor balance choices were made because of all game modes being tied to one another or design changes being made blindly with what seems like no input at all or opposite imput from what people suggested.

This is what ive mostly seen over the past 6 years. Not them following the general "nerf x thing cause its op"

-They go and nerf the most used pets on rangers...
but they do nothing to solve the problem with the other pets non hitting any moving target or having stupid CD and cast times

Maybe they thought the most used pets were too strong and wanted them to be leveled with the other pets. Not ever balance direction has to be up in some cases its down. Every profession catches this karma from time to time and we never understand why it happens. If only 2 pets out of the several dozen are the only ones being used what would the data then suggest? That those 2 pets are too strong or that all the others are just too weak? Which side to you pick now? If feed back was ignored from players how do you know the result would not have been the same based on the data alone?

-They nerf sustain of eles using healing amulet...but do nothing to solve the dependency of ele on healing power..and so on for every other profession.

Most other professions dont play the same way that ele does. Ele has always been a bit of a different beast in itself. Once again some times the direction is down and not up. Do you nerf how healing stats work with ele or do you just buff how healing power works on everyone else and ignore the ele. Based on the data alone which direction do you take. Without player imput how do you know the result would have not been the same?

Up to this very moment, the devs have proved to be unable to discern constructive feedback from simple blubbering , they still nerf things for the sake of nerfing in order to please the angry mob on the forum, they never think why something is never used..they only care to "fix" what get overused for lack of other options and that tend to leave things in the gutter after they're done...only to come back later and overbuff something and bring the class back to relevance .

I point to my first statement again. I highly doubt its been specifically 6 years of only following constructive feedback anything i would say its been more so 6 years of not following feedback with a few niche case exceptions from time to time. We wouldnt be in this problem now if devs had listened to players years ago who wanted balance, numbers, and mechanics to be split between game modes years ago. They chose not to follow that advice that landed us in the mess we are in now.

In an ideal world you'd be 100% correct but in this world maybe it's better for the devs to stick to metrics because it seems to land better balance decisionsThere is no proof of this. But we can wait and see i guess. The fact that they are finally splitting pve from pvp and wvw means they are fianlly taking players advice now that they realize how much balancing 1 or 2 professions in 1 or 2 game modes can ruin it in some form or another in the other game modes. This is likely not a metrics decision alone.

Like ive said ive seen games where devs have streams with the players and share the data that they look at when balancing something and have watched them creat imbalance based on those numbers with changes they think will help even the numbers for all players involved a good many times.

In an ideal world the devs would allow players to beta test upcoming balance patches before they go live for a weekend or a week (they did this before HoT released twice and once or twice before PoF released)Doing this would let them get both data and feedback that could help everyone in the long run but of course this is not something they do.

Ok so if I understand what you're saying : balance decisions based on metrics alone tend to get rid of outliers but not explain why the outliers exist in the first place and here is when the player's feedback is required. Fair enough but again that feedback has been given in the past and openly ignored or partly acknowledged by the devs who simply got rid of the outliers as per request of the forum.

Some times yes in some cases balance choices made on metrics alone can get rid of some outliers but like a coin every tool has two sides. IF metrics show that something is not being used and a totally new mechanic or change enters the game that when combined with that skill/trait/perk which data says "is weak or underused" makes that same skill/trait/perk very over powered how could the data alone have prevented it from becoming such an outlier.

Outliers will always pop up over time because its not possible for devs to find them all during internal design and testing. There is no such thing as outliers not existing they will always exist and via popping up and vanishing as changes come in the future. I have yet to play a game where something if not multiple things were not inherently broken at any given time.

In some cases Outliers are so extreme that short term action is required to remove them or fix them. These would be the "niche" cases i spoke of. Now one thing i will say is that i dont always agree with anets methods of fixing a solution for the short term and then leaving it that way for a long period of time after which its seen as "fine or ok" be it something thats heavily used or not.

In the end decisions based on metrics would fail eitherway , I stand corrected but my points mostly remain , the devs do tend to nerf things for the sake of nerfing while not fixing any problem, taking the ranger as an example here : they keep nerfing the most used pets but
the other pets simply can't reach the target because of bad coded AI and pathing issues on top of lack of raw stats

Nerfs happen. To everyone i don't think they nerf something just for the sake of nerfing it i would like to think in most cases there is always a reason for it even if they don't communicate or properly communicate that reason. I agree with you that some ranger pets are bad but most pets with beast mastery will reach their targets just fine. Even if we go on on your idea thta the pets cant reach their targets would the data suggest that the pets or bad or that player mobility is just too good? Do you make the pets even faster to compensate this or do you just cut everyones mobility by perhaps increasing how conditions like cripple and chill work against mobility?

In this instance the devs have listened only to the feedback on the forum asking for nerfs apparently confirmed by metrics...which funny enough on the other of the coin tell us what is not being used and the devs should ask themselves...why

In some case exceptions changes need to be made more harshly. Depending on the topic and whats involved yes nerfs are handed out after complaints are issued. In alot of these cases though there is something wrong that should be changed. How quick or how much that thing changed depended upon what game mode it was breaking and then there is the limitation of how much you can change it with all game modes being tied together. Which as i said landed us in this whole mess. Even if they had split pve completely from pvp and wvw years ago people would still complain about major issues that became imbalanced. The biggest difference would be the wider range of options anet would have had to tackle the issues which could have saved some professions from becoming dead in some game modes to this very day.

This is the first time im mostly looking forward to nerfs in pvp and wvw because as he said the general direction is down. IT was a nice refreshing reminder that not always is the case that the weak stuff needs to be moved up some times the top end things can be moved down to make the unused tools usable again. Everyone talks about power creep in this game and its nice to see that they might be trying to for once de-power creep the game for a change.

There will likely be more even more imbalance for some professions before reaching better balanced state for everyone unfortunately as only so much every goes into any balance patch.

People don't really get super pissed at nerfs, most know that buff/nerfs are a cycle in every game instead people get pissed when the profession playstyle get removed enitrely, because they remove the very reason they picked that class. For example if you nerf warrior ability to stick to melee fight better than any other classes..you'll will anger many players who picked warrior for that reason alone abd they're right to be angry, players tend to spend money and time on a character, a dev cannot just drop a balance bomb and delete all of that like it never existed.

Another example that hit closer to home for me is ranger longbow recent nerfs, by all means I advocate for dmg nerfs for the sake of balance but....the devs cannot go and follow the outcry on forum asking for the "complete" removal of dmg from longbow because the class is supposed to be a ranged DPS whether people like it or not, as I expect people on a thief to backstab me for god knows how much or get cleaved to death by a warrior who I have left too close...people should expect to be sniped to oblivion by a ranger or get chewed on by a pet.

Apply balance nerfs where necessary..but don't destroy entire class concepts for the sake of pleasing the angy mob and that's what I call "nerf for the sake of nerfing"

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@Psycoprophet.8107 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.

I could have not said it better...it's time to stop nerfing things based on forum outcry and use instead actual metrics like :

-Percentage of players using a certain build/set up-Representation in high tiered pvp matches and wvw gameplay

To nerf something because "Bob" comes to the forum and complain about what killed him....
it's not valid feedback

Although mostly agree there has to be other metrics aside from builds that see alot of play as well. A viable build that's fun will see play often and by alot of players and doesnt necessarily mean its OP and needs changed or what kinda builds would be left in a few yrs lol

We are all here for the fun..but one sided fights are not so fun for anybody, I believe we can all have fun while leaving the broken stuff out of the game....sadly some people "having fun" means steamrolling everything in front of you without any chance of losing but that's not pvp, every player on every class
is entitled to have fun
but while doing so we must make sure all other classes have a way to stop you in their own way somehow

I agree 100% but most players dont share ur view here. If a players build loses to another build a few times especially if it's a nerf bandwagon class like thief its automatically deemed not fun to fight against and is unfair and OP. Thief for example is a archetype that's designed to use sneaky unfair type playstyle but with counters available for other classes to balance it out but having counters doesn't change how the people feel who don't like the thief's playstyle and wont make them like fighting them especially if countering them means slightly changing their build, guess it makes more sense to make major changes to a while class playstyle than it does to change a build slightly to counter it lol. Honestly seems like for the last while the community stance is if it kills me its OP lol and that's sad.

That's a general problem with players these days..they don't play PvP to challenge themselves..they play PvP to satiate their ego....although let's be mindful as I have said professions should have a way to counter you somehow always and if that's not possible than nerfs are necessary..in adequate measure

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@nightwind.6048 said:Buff chronomancer please

Now nearly every elite specs have at least one viable build in sPvP except chronomancer.

This also left mesmer players have very few options while running for sPvP.

we have alot of options, just all of them bad.you have trash condi mirage, alot of them out there from axe, pistol, torch staff whatever, all bad.you have power mirage -> its in OK spot tbh, just too many other stuff is too overpowered, + its fun to play.core 1shot shater -> its meh, can be fun depending what you like, i play it alot and then get bored and move on to different uild.3-4 different playstyles. wish they made chrono support viable tbh, along with some nerfs to broken specs we could have 3-5 playstyles .

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@Arheundel.6451 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.

You said it yourself : "nerf x class because y reason while I am playing broken z profession" is not something the devs listen to. Players here tend to forget how frustrating it is to be at the receiving end of their own class ...while they complain about the frustration of being themselves at the receiving end of some other matchup...like "it's fun to hardcounter others...but I don't want to be hardcountered and what hardcounter me is clearly OP"

I stand with what @Solori.6025 said : " you cannot balance an effective balance process on player's feedback" , a feedback based on emotions and self-preservation is not something to be ever taken seriously.

Left out the part where i said devs should be able to filter through that and find the constructive feedback which tends to be a bit more well written from an un biased standpoint.Sorry to say i dont agree metrics an data only get you so far and dont create a perfect balance you may stand where you like but ive played enough games to know how balance can fail based on only data and metrics alone which leads to periods of "balance and imbalance" if something is balanced for someone its likely not balanced for someone else and thats always going to be a thing. IF something becomes too imbalanced for a majority despite the data saying its doing fine and players decide to strike against it then it means something was over looked that the data alone could not reveal. Its happened in the past it will happen in the future.

I dont discredit the use of metrics and data for balance i welcome its use. I just dont think it should be the main and only source for balance.

As far as him referecing that the devs need to understand flawlessly the potential of what the professions can and cannot do ill go into detail why thats not possible in most cases.

Even if the devs do play competitive when exploring design and balance work they can't expect how thousands of players will take that content and explore it and build onto it. The minds of a few dozen or hundred cant simulate the results of how thousands will explore it.That's how obnoxious builds and skill abuse/tactics even pop up to start with it's because players come up with ideas that the devs never considered during balance and design.When you design something it's very easy to get tunnel vision on finite limits that only you see through your eyes but when you give it to hundreds if not thousands of other people they may not see anything of what you see and take it in a completely different direction. In some cases the direction ends up being very unbalanced.That's why I said it's impossible for devs who design and balance the game to fully understand the game it happens in every single game I've ever played. The only way you could make this happen is to cut a massive amount of content out of the game and make almost everything play the same way with the same rules and finite limits where it cant be changed.

Guild wars 2's profession system is far too vast for that despite how much of a down scale is from the original guild wars. There are too many build options too many build stat factors and too many different mechanics for anyone to expect the devs to be able to predict every single possible build outcome, play style, and expect broken things not to pop out of the woodworks with each balance pass or new content addition.

All of this also adds whole new level to metrics and data that would need to be analyzed when trying to balance the game off that alone that would possibly work against itself in some cases. For example some tools/traits/skills are not or rarely used right now but might not be used till something new is added in the future. But because the data in the past implies it either wont be used or wont make a factor how could you balance for it off that alone? Your data shows that its not a problem now but it becomes one when you add new content or change existing content in some way.

Trust me going off data alone is simply not always the best way. Data is and can be a good source of information but so can the people who respectively play the content.

After 6 years it doesn't seem to me they did a good job in filtering constructive feedback, they still tend to overnerf things because of uproar on the forum. The last example of what I am saying is
whey they disabled Chaotic Interruption
, they did not solve the problem with mirage
(mirage cloack applied to clones)
, they simply reduced the build options for mesmer mains.

I would argue to say not all of it was constructive feedback so im not sure thats a fair assumption to make.A large portion of poor balance choices were made because of all game modes being tied to one another or design changes being made blindly with what seems like no input at all or opposite imput from what people suggested.

This is what ive mostly seen over the past 6 years. Not them following the general "nerf x thing cause its op"

-They go and nerf the most used pets on rangers...
but they do nothing to solve the problem with the other pets non hitting any moving target or having stupid CD and cast times

Maybe they thought the most used pets were too strong and wanted them to be leveled with the other pets. Not ever balance direction has to be up in some cases its down. Every profession catches this karma from time to time and we never understand why it happens. If only 2 pets out of the several dozen are the only ones being used what would the data then suggest? That those 2 pets are too strong or that all the others are just too weak? Which side to you pick now? If feed back was ignored from players how do you know the result would not have been the same based on the data alone?

-They nerf sustain of eles using healing amulet...but do nothing to solve the dependency of ele on healing power..and so on for every other profession.

Most other professions dont play the same way that ele does. Ele has always been a bit of a different beast in itself. Once again some times the direction is down and not up. Do you nerf how healing stats work with ele or do you just buff how healing power works on everyone else and ignore the ele. Based on the data alone which direction do you take. Without player imput how do you know the result would have not been the same?

Up to this very moment, the devs have proved to be unable to discern constructive feedback from simple blubbering , they still nerf things for the sake of nerfing in order to please the angry mob on the forum, they never think why something is never used..they only care to "fix" what get overused for lack of other options and that tend to leave things in the gutter after they're done...only to come back later and overbuff something and bring the class back to relevance .

I point to my first statement again. I highly doubt its been specifically 6 years of only following constructive feedback anything i would say its been more so 6 years of not following feedback with a few niche case exceptions from time to time. We wouldnt be in this problem now if devs had listened to players years ago who wanted balance, numbers, and mechanics to be split between game modes years ago. They chose not to follow that advice that landed us in the mess we are in now.

In an ideal world you'd be 100% correct but in this world maybe it's better for the devs to stick to metrics because it seems to land better balance decisionsThere is no proof of this. But we can wait and see i guess. The fact that they are finally splitting pve from pvp and wvw means they are fianlly taking players advice now that they realize how much balancing 1 or 2 professions in 1 or 2 game modes can ruin it in some form or another in the other game modes. This is likely not a metrics decision alone.

Like ive said ive seen games where devs have streams with the players and share the data that they look at when balancing something and have watched them creat imbalance based on those numbers with changes they think will help even the numbers for all players involved a good many times.

In an ideal world the devs would allow players to beta test upcoming balance patches before they go live for a weekend or a week (they did this before HoT released twice and once or twice before PoF released)Doing this would let them get both data and feedback that could help everyone in the long run but of course this is not something they do.

Ok so if I understand what you're saying : balance decisions based on metrics alone tend to get rid of outliers but not explain why the outliers exist in the first place and here is when the player's feedback is required. Fair enough but again that feedback has been given in the past and openly ignored or partly acknowledged by the devs who simply got rid of the outliers as per request of the forum.

Some times yes in some cases balance choices made on metrics alone can get rid of some outliers but like a coin every tool has two sides. IF metrics show that something is not being used and a totally new mechanic or change enters the game that when combined with that skill/trait/perk which data says "is weak or underused" makes that same skill/trait/perk very over powered how could the data alone have prevented it from becoming such an outlier.

Outliers will always pop up over time because its not possible for devs to find them all during internal design and testing. There is no such thing as outliers not existing they will always exist and via popping up and vanishing as changes come in the future. I have yet to play a game where something if not multiple things were not inherently broken at any given time.

In some cases Outliers are so extreme that short term action is required to remove them or fix them. These would be the "niche" cases i spoke of. Now one thing i will say is that i dont always agree with anets methods of fixing a solution for the short term and then leaving it that way for a long period of time after which its seen as "fine or ok" be it something thats heavily used or not.

In the end decisions based on metrics would fail eitherway , I stand corrected but my points mostly remain , the devs do tend to nerf things for the sake of nerfing while not fixing any problem, taking the ranger as an example here : they keep nerfing the most used pets but
the other pets simply can't reach the target because of bad coded AI and pathing issues on top of lack of raw stats

Nerfs happen. To everyone i don't think they nerf something just for the sake of nerfing it i would like to think in most cases there is always a reason for it even if they don't communicate or properly communicate that reason. I agree with you that some ranger pets are bad but most pets with beast mastery will reach their targets just fine. Even if we go on on your idea thta the pets cant reach their targets would the data suggest that the pets or bad or that player mobility is just too good? Do you make the pets even faster to compensate this or do you just cut everyones mobility by perhaps increasing how conditions like cripple and chill work against mobility?

In this instance the devs have listened only to the feedback on the forum asking for nerfs apparently confirmed by metrics...which funny enough on the other of the coin tell us what is not being used and the devs should ask themselves...why

In some case exceptions changes need to be made more harshly. Depending on the topic and whats involved yes nerfs are handed out after complaints are issued. In alot of these cases though there is something wrong that should be changed. How quick or how much that thing changed depended upon what game mode it was breaking and then there is the limitation of how much you can change it with all game modes being tied together. Which as i said landed us in this whole mess. Even if they had split pve completely from pvp and wvw years ago people would still complain about major issues that became imbalanced. The biggest difference would be the wider range of options anet would have had to tackle the issues which could have saved some professions from becoming dead in some game modes to this very day.

This is the first time im mostly looking forward to nerfs in pvp and wvw because as he said the general direction is down. IT was a nice refreshing reminder that not always is the case that the weak stuff needs to be moved up some times the top end things can be moved down to make the unused tools usable again. Everyone talks about power creep in this game and its nice to see that they might be trying to for once de-power creep the game for a change.

There will likely be more even more imbalance for some professions before reaching better balanced state for everyone unfortunately as only so much every goes into any balance patch.

People don't really get super pissed at nerfs, most know that buff/nerfs are a cycle in every game instead people get pissed when
the profession playstyle
get removed enitrely, because they remove the very reason they picked that class. For example if you nerf warrior ability to stick to melee fight better than any other classes..you'll will anger many players who picked warrior for that reason alone abd
they're right to be angry
, players tend to spend money and time on a character, a dev cannot just drop a balance bomb and delete all of that like it never existed.

This is a double edged sword thought. What about someone who plays the profession who needs to keep away and over time warrior gets several buffs which allows them to stick and disregard the avoidance tools. Then couldnt you say people have a right to be angry in that case as well. Its not always the side that gets nerfed some times its the side that gets buffed that counters the opposite play style which could also involve players who have spent money and time on a character. As you said a balance bomb. goes both ways. Some times its not just the class getting nerf its other classes getting buffed while some classes dont change at all.

Another example that hit closer to home for me is ranger longbow recent nerfs, by all means I advocate for dmg nerfs for the sake of balance but....the devs cannot go and follow the outcry on forum asking for the "complete" removal of dmg from longbow because the class is supposed to be a ranged DPS whether people like it or not, as I expect people on a thief to backstab me for god knows how much or get cleaved to death by a warrior who I have left too close...people should expect to be sniped to oblivion by a ranger or get chewed on by a pet.

I mean this is a ok example but i dont think anyone argued that the complete removal of damage from longbow should be a thing. Maybe it would be more appropriate to ask that the damage be shifted off the autos to the skills which are key things you generally want to avoid more than auto attacks. Of course the removal its damage should not be a thing thats just understandable anyone who says that is just not someone that should be taken with even a grain of salt.

Apply balance nerfs where necessary..but don't destroy entire class concepts for the sake of pleasing the angy mob and that's what I call "nerf for the sake of nerfing"

^ as i said i think this rarely happens im not sure ive ever seen it happen. Not every change anet has made that ruined a class was because someone said "nerf something" in most cases if someone is saying something should really be nerfed within good reason it means something about that is over-performing in some cases it is damage.

This is why they seem to want to tone everything down overall which is good. Most professions and specs have way too much of alot of things right now. This applies to everyone in some form or fashion some more than others. Alot of this imbalance comes from ties to pve where things could not be nerfed down or buffed in one mode or another. I think people thinking their professions getting nerfed for the sake of nerfing is silly. No it happens for a reason in most cases and the player of that profession should know exactly what it is assuming they play more than one profession in pvp or wvw.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Hoodie.1045" said:

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

As the saying goes be careful of what you wish for.

Yeah, I was thinking about that myself yesterday.

In particular, I was considering this universal idea we all have that "power creep is too high, tone everything down." Well... the truth is that if things went back to a bunkery meta or even a "slow" meta where it took considerably longer to finish fights, people are going to get bored. Aside from popular complaint, the high DPS values keeps players more mentally stimulated as every moment is dangerous and needs to be paid attention to. If we go back to Scrappers vs. Druids on nodes, people are going to get bored really fast.

It's very true in life that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. And sometimes people wish for things that sound good, but they don't really understand the full realities of what they are wishing for. Regardless, if the Arenanet team is aiming at reversing power creep, it needs to be done not only to DPS, but also defensive skills. I agree that DPS values and Defensive spam are both out of control, but it needs to be dealt with carefully.

Someone in this thread I believe it was, had mentioned something like: "If you go back and watch old ESL games from Core or HoT, it's actually boring compared to what the game plays like now." I went back and watched a few old videos and you know what? He was right. The game is actually just a lot more interesting now,

Something to consider @Cal Cohen.2358

You bring up some good points.I dont want things to go back to the HoT meta but i also dont like this meta which almost invalidates conditional defense options or stats like toughness and vitality etc because the damage is that high.

For example if i take tons of toughness i dont expect anyone to pretty much 100-0 me in 1.5 seconds. that simply should not be a thing in the game if they knocked me down to a modest 30% of my hp ok thats fine im low but i have a chance to do something but getting 1 shot when you invest in toughness is not healthy for the game. Right now as of the current time if you dont have tons of evades, blocks, or invuln you can spam your best defense is being offensive which makes no sense.

Damage needs to be lowered so that properly invested defensive stats can be relevant. Things like invulns/blocks, possibly some evades in some cases need to be reduced so that people simply dont stack defensive which still leaves us in the same situation more or less stats ontop of them.

You are right its going to be a tricky balance.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Hoodie.1045" said:

Mesmer

Nerf the number of clones mesmer can have active. Ever since mirage was released, clones have made fights such a visual mess.

As the saying goes be careful of what you wish for.

Yeah, I was thinking about that myself yesterday.

In particular, I was considering this universal idea we all have that "power creep is too high, tone everything down." Well... the truth is that if things went back to a bunkery meta or even a "slow" meta where it took considerably longer to finish fights, people are going to get bored. Aside from popular complaint, the high DPS values keeps players more mentally stimulated as every moment is dangerous and needs to be paid attention to. If we go back to Scrappers vs. Druids on nodes, people are going to get bored really fast.

It's very true in life that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. And sometimes people wish for things that sound good, but they don't really understand the full realities of what they are wishing for. Regardless, if the Arenanet team is aiming at reversing power creep, it needs to be done not only to DPS, but also defensive skills. I agree that DPS values and Defensive spam are both out of control, but it needs to be dealt with carefully.

Someone in this thread I believe it was, had mentioned something like: "If you go back and watch old ESL games from Core or HoT, it's actually boring compared to what the game plays like now." I went back and watched a few old videos and you know what? He was right. The game is actually just a lot more interesting now,

Something to consider @"Cal Cohen.2358"

You bring up some good points.I dont want things to go back to the HoT meta but i also dont like this meta which almost invalidates conditional defense options or stats like toughness and vitality etc because the damage is that high.

For example if i take tons of toughness i dont expect anyone to pretty much 100-0 me in 1.5 seconds. that simply should not be a thing in the game if they knocked me down to a modest 30% of my hp ok thats fine im low but i have a chance to do something but getting 1 shot when you invest in toughness is not healthy for the game. Right now as of the current time if you dont have tons of evades, blocks, or invuln you can spam your best defense is being offensive which makes no sense.

Damage needs to be lowered so that properly invested defensive stats can be relevant. Things like invulns/blocks, possibly some evades in some cases need to be reduced so that people simply dont stack defensive which still leaves us in the same situation more or less stats ontop of them.

You are right its going to be a tricky balance.

The thing to realise is bunker wars happened because of power creep to defences during the power creep of HoT. Remember Tempest healing was bonkers without investment, Chrono had a very low cool down on shield block which lasted longer + distortion on Well of Precognition, quickness increased revive speed which was given out like candy and we also had much more heavy duty amulets like PVT, clerics etc and many classes had low cool down reset potential on top of non invested and effect healing.

If you reduce damage and sustain at approximately the same rate base health becomes easier to deal with, what this means is the wealth of highly offensive amulets there are become easier to pick on at least some classes so long as it's that tipping point which can secure kills over more defensive options. Bunker wars is always a fear of a major patch but at the end of the day the game can't really go on with this moronic "buff underwhelming stuff instead of nerfing" prerogative we've seen so far and even propagated by people who should know better.

Here's a great example of just how ridiculous power creep has become:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22For_Great_Justice!%22https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=%22For_Great_Justice!%22&oldid=748786

Gone from 25s per one use to 25s CD and 2 charges for pre loading.Gone from 3 might for 25s to 12 might for 15s where 50% might duration will carry that to almost perma 12 might.

Edit: The game needs nerfs and it needs to go back to a healthier state closer to pre Heart of Thorns.

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