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Resource mechanics need to go and competitive gameplay will be better for it


Swagger.1459

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I understand the team, long ago, wanted to make each profession as different as possible, but the resource mechanics need to be trashed. It makes gameplay on certain builds and professions unbalanced, not good and not fun inside of wvw or spvp.

You have thief with passive unlimited resource gain to where they can spam skills.

You have a slow casting Necro, with abysmally poor defense utilities and abysmally poor movement skills, and you force this profession to niggle with resources for survival and performance when other professions don’t.

Druid. It was supposed to be a good team healer, yet it’s not good at all for that role. A player on Druid fiddles around with a low quality damage and low quality healing staff to generate Astral force, just to access clunky and low quality heals for movement based combat. It’s super easy to shut down a Druid in Celestial Avatar form that it’s not even funny anymore. Druid healer doesn’t even play a role in wvw group play, but that’s what it was supposed to bring to the table...

When you’re sitting in the back of a zerg spamming hammer skills and running Facets, there’s no real complaint about Energy resources there. But go outside of the zerg to small scale and roaming and it’s like playing skill “whac-a-mole”. I use 1 skill and 3 disappear. I may need a skill I haven’t used prior, but now it’s gone, and 1 pops up that I don’t need at that moment.

I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but there is no balance to be had with these types of designs. This is what needs to be done... Yes, I know, a change would require other adjustments, but the team should start here and start caring about competitive balance for profession designs a bit more...

  • Thief- Get rid of Initiative and put skills on lower recharge timers.

  • Necro- Shrouds are now stances. Stances are maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Druid- Celestial Avatar form is now a stance. This stance is maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Revenant- No more energy mechanics. All skills function on recharge timer only. Facets, and a couple others, exist for a set duration of time.

Again, I know other adjustments need to be made for such changes, but we need to get this stuff under control and make improvements for all areas of the game.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:dood, lol. class balance issues are exactly that. if something is too strong or too weak, it can be looked at. it makes no sense to just scrap everything cuz things are unbalanced. zero logic in this proposal.

Dood. Not sure if you’re aware, but balance starts at the foundation designs of a class system. It’s also pretty funny you saying not to “scrap everything cuz things are unbalanced”, because that’s exactly why things need to be redone.

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GW2 is not balanced on sameness or homogenization philosophy. Its balanced on paper scissors rock philosophy.

Balancing between evasive-dodgy-mobile-stealthy vs tanky-mitigation-recovery types never shakes out in homogenization based games anyhow. In the OPs thief vs necro example, there are lots of necro in WvW blobbing, but when one gets caught out in the open or gets separated from the group its basically a free bag. Even if the thief cant kill the necro due to a skill disparity, they can still run, and deny the necro a kill.

What this means is the answer to getting ganked by thieves is not going to be gained through demanding necro buffs and thief nerfs on the forum, but by logging on the profession/build combo that smashes thieves.

In the many games I have played, and the few I have worked on, people demand homogenization type balance until they get it, then complain about how boring the game has become nonstop.

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the necro one will only work if you give it real defense skills based on your idea it means that the shroud will no longer shield your health which removes 50% of the necromancers defensive power and it literally will now only have conditions to defend itself which simply will not work in any competitive game mode.Also come up with a better skill type than stances lol necromancers are magically themed not monks. skill type classed as "shroud" would sound just fine.

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Druid is the only one on your list that I would actually agree with you on. I've been saying since PoF released that Photon Forge is a much better model of a resource-based transformation than Celestial Avatar form (although currently the risk factor is not punishing enough in PvP/WvW). I would like to see CA form modeled in a similar way. Druid is almost Renegade-tier performance and although you will see some successfully roam with it, it is because of traits (Druidic Clarity, Celestial Shadow, Ancient Seeds) and not because of the actual CA form. The spec needs a ton of attention; the things that make it meta in PvE have no relevance in PvP/WvW.

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I wish people would stop trying to get Necromancer's Shroud removed. I agree that it isn't the most well designed mechanic, and that numerous issues with it hold the class back in certain areas, but it isn't useless and it's far from defenseless.

Maybe I'd be the only one, but if Necro Shroud were removed I'd be done with the class. I like what it is regardless of it's shortcomings and I'd rather see it improved than removed.

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@SoV.5139 said:GW2 is not balanced on sameness or homogenization philosophy. Its balanced on paper scissors rock philosophy.

Balancing between evasive-dodgy-mobile-stealthy vs tanky-mitigation-recovery types never shakes out in homogenization based games anyhow. In the OPs thief vs necro example, there are lots of necro in WvW blobbing, but when one gets caught out in the open or gets separated from the group its basically a free bag. Even if the thief cant kill the necro due to a skill disparity, they can still run, and deny the necro a kill.

What this means is the answer to getting ganked by thieves is not going to be gained through demanding necro buffs and thief nerfs on the forum, but by logging on the profession/build combo that smashes thieves.

In the many games I have played, and the few I have worked on, people demand homogenization type balance until they get it, then complain about how boring the game has become nonstop.

Gw2 professions aren’t balanced period. The devs have a hot mess on their hands, and finally 7 years later the team might be doing something about it. The original profession designs are part of that mess, but I’m not going to dig in to old design quote right now.

So you must think Warrior, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian are homogenized?

I’m reading through this thread, and I’ve read many others, and most of what I see is people who don’t care about balance. And if some of you think resources are ultimate class defining things, then some of you are sorely mistaken. And I came from a game where the core designs were the same, yet had way more roles to play, more unique builds to play, more balance... and a heck of a lot of other stuff, so don’t think if things were changed that professions end up being homogenized. And some of y’all claim to want balance, yet those peeps don’t want to change anything really, besides some inconsequential numbers and stuff.

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@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:I wish people would stop trying to get Necromancer's Shroud removed. I agree that it isn't the most well designed mechanic, and that numerous issues with it hold the class back in certain areas, but it isn't useless and it's far from defenseless.

Maybe I'd be the only one, but if Necro Shroud were removed I'd be done with the class. I like what it is regardless of it's shortcomings and I'd rather see it improved than removed.

What are you even talking about?

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@Swagger.1459 said:I understand the team, long ago, wanted to make each profession as different as possible, but the resource mechanics need to be trashed. It makes gameplay on certain builds and professions unbalanced, not good and not fun inside of wvw or spvp.

You have thief with passive unlimited resource gain to where they can spam skills.

You have a slow casting Necro, with abysmally poor defense utilities and abysmally poor movement skills, and you force this profession to niggle with resources for survival and performance when other professions don’t.

Druid. It was supposed to be a good team healer, yet it’s not good at all for that role. A player on Druid fiddles around with a low quality damage and low quality healing staff to generate Astral force, just to access clunky and low quality heals for movement based combat. It’s super easy to shut down a Druid in Celestial Avatar form that it’s not even funny anymore. Druid healer doesn’t even play a role in wvw group play, but that’s what it was supposed to bring to the table...

When you’re sitting in the back of a zerg spamming hammer skills and running Facets, there’s no real complaint about Energy resources there. But go outside of the zerg to small scale and roaming and it’s like playing skill “whac-a-mole”. I use 1 skill and 3 disappear. I may need a skill I haven’t used prior, but now it’s gone, and 1 pops up that I don’t need at that moment.

I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but there is no balance to be had with these types of designs. This is what needs to be done... Yes, I know, a change would require other adjustments, but the team should start here and start caring about competitive balance for profession designs a bit more...

  • Thief- Get rid of Initiative and put skills on lower recharge timers.

  • Necro- Shrouds are now stances. Stances are maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Druid- Celestial Avatar form is now a stance. This stance is maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Revenant- No more energy mechanics. All skills function on recharge timer only. Facets, and a couple others, exist for a set duration of time.

Again, I know other adjustments need to be made for such changes, but we need to get this stuff under control and make improvements for all areas of the game.

In short, I think you're suggesting re-designing the game into Rockem Sockem Robots, you will know what class you are by it's color.

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@Swagger.1459 said:

@"SoV.5139" said:GW2 is not balanced on sameness or homogenization philosophy. Its balanced on paper scissors rock philosophy.

Balancing between evasive-dodgy-mobile-stealthy vs tanky-mitigation-recovery types never shakes out in homogenization based games anyhow. In the OPs thief vs necro example, there are lots of necro in WvW blobbing, but when one gets caught out in the open or gets separated from the group its basically a free bag. Even if the thief cant kill the necro due to a skill disparity, they can still run, and deny the necro a kill.

What this means is the answer to getting ganked by thieves is not going to be gained through demanding necro buffs and thief nerfs on the forum, but by logging on the profession/build combo that smashes thieves.

In the many games I have played, and the few I have worked on, people demand homogenization type balance until they get it, then complain about how boring the game has become nonstop.

Gw2 professions aren’t balanced period. The devs have a hot mess on their hands, and finally 7 years later the team might be doing something about it. The original profession designs are part of that mess, but I’m not going to dig in to old design quote right now.

So you must think Warrior, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian are homogenized?

I’m reading through this thread, and I’ve read many others, and most of what I see is people who don’t care about balance. And if some of you think resources are ultimate class defining things, then some of you are sorely mistaken. And I came from a game where the core designs were the same, yet had way more roles to play, more unique builds to play, more balance... and a heck of a lot of other stuff, so don’t think if things were changed that professions end up being homogenized. And some of y’all claim to want balance, yet those peeps don’t want to change anything really, besides some inconsequential numbers and stuff.

No.

What I am saying is:

The game is balanced on hard counters. Your reply indicates a lack of understanding of what this even is. Furthermore it attempts to misrepresent what I posted. Having no answer for my post, the OP create a weaker position then attack that instead.

The OP is asking for homogenization. Sometimes called "fairness balance" - and in every single game I have seen go down that road, once the game is homogenized the same audience who demanded it hand over fist now complains that it sucks because the game is now boring.

GW2/ANet/NCsoft, please do not listen to the calls for homogenization or fairness balance. Keep striving for hard counter balance, or paper/scissors/rock balance. Uniqueness is far more important than fairness, as long as hard counters and counter play exist. Simply adjust for where these do not exist or too much of it exists. Tweak the current system rather than reinvent the wheel.

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@Swagger.1459 said:I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but there is no balance to be had with these types of designs. This is what needs to be done... Yes, I know, a change would require other adjustments, but the team should start here and start caring about competitive balance for profession designs a bit more...

  • Thief- Get rid of Initiative and put skills on lower recharge timers.

  • Necro- Shrouds are now stances. Stances are maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Druid- Celestial Avatar form is now a stance. This stance is maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.

  • Revenant- No more energy mechanics. All skills function on recharge timer only. Facets, and a couple others, exist for a set duration of time.

Again, I know other adjustments need to be made for such changes, but we need to get this stuff under control and make improvements for all areas of the game.

I came into this thread thinking it would be preposterous, but these are 100% solid suggestions. Great job, Swagger! You can be my dev any day!

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I disagree so hard that I think we actually need the opposite, every class should have a mana mechanic. Right now it is so easy to just spam skills on every cooldown and win most fights this way, with only a mediocrum of counterplay. Many of the builds and playstyles that are possible in GW2 are not possible in other games because of something called mana management, which only applies to a few classes here.

It's also the main beef that people have with GW2's gameplay versus GW1's.

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i would need more explanations of what is meant with necro not having defense possibilities?

the necro fullfills high defense strength by kiting, boon corrupt, using fear and the shroud at the right time.we got 2 teleports which can be used in kombo or for safety or for quick escape to a higher grounded position.

the key is kiting and loading lifeforce up again to go over into pressure attack on the enemy again. in a classical close combat barfight (block and burst) the necro is a easy target and im glad that it is this way. gw2 is a rather pokemon type of combat design. not every pokemon can fight the same way like the others.

have a look at the necros skills and dont just think of attacking with them but how you can use it for defense. your problem is getting close combat burst, how will you counter that?

i just started in spvp season and i have so much fun that my trend is spvp being my gamemode until christmas.

i believe in this:

@Hannelore.8153 said:I disagree so hard that I think we actually need the opposite, every class should have a mana mechanic. Right now it is so easy to just spam skills on every cooldown and win most fights this way, with only a mediocrum of counterplay. Many of the builds and playstyles that are possible in GW2 are not possible in other games because of something called mana management, which only applies to a few classes here.

It's also the main beef that people have with GW2's gameplay versus GW1's.

a sustained fight should be decided by whom used his resources best.

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@Svarty.8019 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but there is no balance to be had with these types of designs. This is what needs to be done... Yes, I know, a change would require other adjustments, but the team should start here and start caring about competitive balance for profession designs a bit more...
  • Thief- Get rid of Initiative and put skills on lower recharge timers.
  • Necro- Shrouds are now stances. Stances are maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.
  • Druid- Celestial Avatar form is now a stance. This stance is maintained until downed or manually exited. That’s it.
  • Revenant- No more energy mechanics. All skills function on recharge timer only. Facets, and a couple others, exist for a set duration of time.

Again, I know other adjustments need to be made for such changes, but we need to get this stuff under control and make improvements for all areas of the game.

I came into this thread thinking it would be preposterous, but these are 100% solid suggestions. Great job, Swagger! You can be my dev any day!

pay swagger money

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I can certainly see where Swagger is comming from with this argument, I think it is a fair discussion to at least open up and talk about. I'm on the fence of it myself, because as noted it really is a question of balance versus variety. A game does not have to become stale if you streamline mechanics more (not entirely, necessarily). At the same time, with a few notable exceptions GW2 has mostly handled these issues pretty well throughout the years.

If anything, I would be more inclined to adress another but similar leftover from vanilla and that is stat holes. With all the new specialisations comming in it feels like stat holes have really played out their role (and why Anet are reintroducing them to some specs is a bit mind boggling). They have always locked down (only) some classes into specific stats and more with recent additions of specs there have come to be glaring balance issues with stat totals where certain classes not only can choose alot more freely between how they want to build but also seems to come out with good margins regardless how they build whereas other classes are not only locked down to certain combinations through bases to cover (or restricted to highly gimmicked builds if not) but also seems to have constant stat-deficiencies no matter how they build which makes them even more boring to build around and even more restricted to picking up very stat-generous gear. Where you, for example, in the past may have been forced to juggle between, let's say, vitality and toughness to find a middle ground, classes with that deficiency now just seems to perform better on celestial no matter what you want want to do with them. So, even their somewhat gimmicked builds are restricted. That's pretty dull.

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@SoV.5139 said:

@SoV.5139 said:GW2 is not balanced on sameness or homogenization philosophy. Its balanced on paper scissors rock philosophy.

Balancing between evasive-dodgy-mobile-stealthy vs tanky-mitigation-recovery types never shakes out in homogenization based games anyhow. In the OPs thief vs necro example, there are lots of necro in WvW blobbing, but when one gets caught out in the open or gets separated from the group its basically a free bag. Even if the thief cant kill the necro due to a skill disparity, they can still run, and deny the necro a kill.

What this means is the answer to getting ganked by thieves is not going to be gained through demanding necro buffs and thief nerfs on the forum, but by logging on the profession/build combo that smashes thieves.

In the many games I have played, and the few I have worked on, people demand homogenization type balance until they get it, then complain about how boring the game has become nonstop.

Gw2 professions aren’t balanced period. The devs have a hot mess on their hands, and finally 7 years later the team might be doing something about it. The original profession designs are part of that mess, but I’m not going to dig in to old design quote right now.

So you must think Warrior, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian are homogenized?

I’m reading through this thread, and I’ve read many others, and most of what I see is people who don’t care about balance. And if some of you think resources are ultimate class defining things, then some of you are sorely mistaken. And I came from a game where the core designs were the same, yet had way more roles to play, more unique builds to play, more balance... and a heck of a lot of other stuff, so don’t think if things were changed that professions end up being homogenized. And some of y’all claim to want balance, yet those peeps don’t want to change anything really, besides some inconsequential numbers and stuff.

No.

What I am saying is:

The game is balanced on hard counters. Your reply indicates a lack of understanding of what this even is. Furthermore it attempts to misrepresent what I posted. Having no answer for my post, the OP create a weaker position then attack that instead.

The OP is asking for homogenization. Sometimes called "fairness balance" - and in every single game I have seen go down that road, once the game is homogenized the same audience who demanded it hand over fist now complains that it sucks because the game is now boring.

GW2/ANet/NCsoft, please do not listen to the calls for homogenization or fairness balance. Keep striving for hard counter balance, or paper/scissors/rock balance. Uniqueness is far more important than fairness, as long as hard counters and counter play exist. Simply adjust for where these do not exist or too much of it exists. Tweak the current system rather than reinvent the wheel.

As I correctly stated, you are the type of player who doesn’t want balance.

I like how you avoided the question btw. It’s because you know they aren’t homogenized, and you can’t argue otherwise.

So if we follow your lead, I want my next engineer elite to be like Ironman, with a nanotech suit, so I can fly around wvw and spvp and pew pew players! And in the event that I cross a group, I also want this spec to summon a robotic Ironman AI army to fight back! That will be unique!

Oh, and since you like “hard counters” and “rock, paper, scissors“ balance, then this Ironman engineer should be able to fly at heights of 1,800 feet, so a LB Ranger is designated as the “hard counter”. Is that good for you?

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SoV.5139 said:

@SoV.5139 said:GW2 is not balanced on sameness or homogenization philosophy. Its balanced on paper scissors rock philosophy.

Balancing between evasive-dodgy-mobile-stealthy vs tanky-mitigation-recovery types never shakes out in homogenization based games anyhow. In the OPs thief vs necro example, there are lots of necro in WvW blobbing, but when one gets caught out in the open or gets separated from the group its basically a free bag. Even if the thief cant kill the necro due to a skill disparity, they can still run, and deny the necro a kill.

What this means is the answer to getting ganked by thieves is not going to be gained through demanding necro buffs and thief nerfs on the forum, but by logging on the profession/build combo that smashes thieves.

In the many games I have played, and the few I have worked on, people demand homogenization type balance until they get it, then complain about how boring the game has become nonstop.

Gw2 professions aren’t balanced period. The devs have a hot mess on their hands, and finally 7 years later the team might be doing something about it. The original profession designs are part of that mess, but I’m not going to dig in to old design quote right now.

So you must think Warrior, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian are homogenized?

I’m reading through this thread, and I’ve read many others, and most of what I see is people who don’t care about balance. And if some of you think resources are ultimate class defining things, then some of you are sorely mistaken. And I came from a game where the core designs were the same, yet had way more roles to play, more unique builds to play, more balance... and a heck of a lot of other stuff, so don’t think if things were changed that professions end up being homogenized. And some of y’all claim to want balance, yet those peeps don’t want to change anything really, besides some inconsequential numbers and stuff.

No.

What I am saying is:

The game is balanced on hard counters. Your reply indicates a lack of understanding of what this even is. Furthermore it attempts to misrepresent what I posted. Having no answer for my post, the OP create a weaker position then attack that instead.

The OP is asking for homogenization. Sometimes called "fairness balance" - and in every single game I have seen go down that road, once the game is homogenized the same audience who demanded it hand over fist now complains that it sucks because the game is now boring.

GW2/ANet/NCsoft, please do not listen to the calls for homogenization or fairness balance. Keep striving for hard counter balance, or paper/scissors/rock balance. Uniqueness is far more important than fairness, as long as hard counters and counter play exist. Simply adjust for where these do not exist or too much of it exists. Tweak the current system rather than reinvent the wheel.

As I correctly stated, you are the type of player who doesn’t want balance.

I like how you avoided the question btw. It’s because you know they aren’t homogenized, and you can’t argue otherwise.

So if we follow your lead, I want my next engineer elite to be like Ironman, with a nanotech suit, so I can fly around wvw and spvp and pew pew players! And in the event that I cross a group, I also want this spec to summon a robotic Ironman AI army to fight back! That will be unique!

Oh, and since you like “hard counters” and “rock, paper, scissors“ balance, then this Ironman engineer should be able to fly at heights of 1,800 feet, so a LB Ranger is designated as the “hard counter”. Is that good for you?

All false. Mostly strawman arguments here from your own imagination, as you cannot address the real points I made without exposing your own position, which is derived from multiple logical fallacies.

To reiterate, my position favors diversity over balance. That does not mean what you said, which is not wanting balance at all. Given a choice between diversity and hard counters vs homogenization and sameness, the market (not just me, but the ENTIRE MARKET) chooses the former over the latter. 20+ years of MMO aggregate data and 30+ years of competitive game aggregate data shows this to be factual. This is street fighter expanding beyond Ryu and Ken as player avatars. This is different races having different advantages/disadvantages in Starcraft 2. This is different classes having completely different class mechanics in GW2.

Homogenization, making everything like everything else, limits diversity, or eradicates it completely when perused as an extreme - and even then only achieves balance in a scenario with one class where everyone can play all combos on the same character. The minute you have two different classes with different ability sets, homogenization will fail to achieve any sort of balance, as one platform of different abilities will always have advantages and disadvantages when compared to another platform of different abilities. In these games, there ends up being one META choice, and everything else ranges from viable to trash tier, but is never META itself in any situation.

Resource mechanics need to stay. All game play is better for it, including competitive game play. Games which do not foster enough difference in play between the classes play like Gauntlet with better graphics. Any two avatars have the same control parameters. The elf shoots twice as fast but for half damage each hit compared to the wizard, so their DPS is the same. Folks like yourself fall for the illusion of choice and claim there is no homogenization in that scenario, but the rest of us who understand game systems objectively observe what is really happening there. Video game developers worth their salt avoid this scenario at all costs. Lack of diversity lends itself to rapid boredom, and increased net loss attrition of the player base.

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