Any news on a possible major balance patch coming soon?

[Swagger.1459]

@Valelutra.9128 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Valelutra.9128 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Valelutra.9128 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Valelutra.9128 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:“The next one is a bigger release. Not just tweaks.”

I could have sworn we were promised frequent tweaks rather than large sweeping patches months apart.

“We're planning many changes of this nature, as well as re-works and more.”

And

“Future Balance Cadence

This patch is unusual in that it’s more about establishing a new paradigm than it is a regular balance update, and the result is a giant set of changes. Moving forward with competitive balance, we want to make smaller adjustments more often. The specific cadence for balance will always depend on our overall release schedule, but ideally it will be closer to every 4-6 weeks, while still having the opportunity to make minor tweaks outside of the regular balance update. The goal here is to have better flexibility to fix problems in a timely manner.”

And

“Since March 6, the ArenaNet office in Bellevue, Washington has been closed, and our studio staff are working from home to help minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We’re prioritizing the health and safety of our teammates and making it easy for everyone to practice responsible social distancing.”

The team was planning reworks, and more. And depending on release schedule, a 4-6 week “Smaller adjustments more often” cycle. Then we had Covid, which shut the studio down on March 6th. And as you know, everyone got screwed over and still are screwed.

Covid is serious and real. Time to be patient.

I get that Covid is serious and real, but even when my office is closed, I'm expected to do high level work. It's annoying and I don't have a lot of the tools that I had at the office. But, I am still expected to turn out a similar product as before. And, that's not always easy when you don't have access to the same software environment. And, for many of those difficult things we are also expected to communicate any delays or ways we are having to work around standard procedures. Yet, I feel that very little of that has been done by Anet. Other than gem store items and PvE material, we have not really been clued into progress and how things have been impacted. According to prior statements, they were planning on making balance patches a more common thing, but that has not happened. If it's due to covid and issues updating skills while work from home, then at least tell us something. Acknowledging what all has been impacted so expectations can be tempered seems like a prudent thing to do. Other studios seem to have far less trouble keeping their communities up to date on what's happening. Additionally other studios have pushed out multiple pieces of content as well as balance patches while still in lock-down. But then again this lack of communication seems to be a common thread for Anet for a long while, so we shouldn't be frustrated with anyone other than ourselves for believing them when they said that they would update things more frequently.

“Since March 6, the ArenaNet office in Bellevue, Washington has been closed”

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/101122/a-message-to-our-community-about-covid-19

On March 12th an expansion was hinted at.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/100141/looking-ahead-to-spring-summer-and-the-future

We had 2 new LW episodes released since March. This was after the studio was closed. And 8 game updates in that time frame.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/100269/game-update-notes-march-17-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/101443/game-update-notes-march-31-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/101711/game-update-notes-april-1-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/102666/game-update-notes-april-14-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/103747/game-update-notes-april-28-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/106458/game-update-notes-may-26-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107604/game-update-notes-june-9-2020

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/108337/game-update-notes-june-23-2020

Obviously Anet has been doing stuff since lockdown...

From Ben P.

“The next balance patch is being worked on now. I can’t say when it’ll be out. But not too much longer.”

“The next one is a bigger release. Not just tweaks.”

Think Anet is doing great under the circumstances of a world wide pandemic. Time to be patient.

Wow that’s A lot of links that basically say what I said before, pve and gemstore have recieved updates. Good for them! Their teams seem to still be functioning and better than what one might expect, but what about those of us who don’t care as much about pve?

Pretty sure this is the wvw portion of the forum. We’re also talking about balance updates. They previously spoke of more balances more frequently. When cmc came onboard they also mentioned increased communication. So, that’s what seems to be missing. Are the devs for skill balancing being used elsewhere? Is it that it’s too hard to change skills outside of the office? Because as far as it’s been communicated they have different teams doing different things in the company. So it should make sense that if one set of teams is still functioning wouldn’t it make sense that the other should also still work? But instead we have a stale meta with a ton of lag and no way of knowing unless we catch a dev in a twitch stream whether anything is even in the works. The biggest thing which A TON of people I know complain about is the lack of communication. You repeating “be patient” is the mantra that people have been saying well before covid so idk why you would think that would change anyone’s mind.

There were 2 living world releases, 8 updates in total, an expansion in the works, a large patch coming as per Ben’s statement... all in the matter of a 4 month period of lockdown. People are getting infected all over and death due to this is real. Normal life has changed immensely, and Anet employees aren’t A.I. who don’t need to sleep or manage their lives and families around the pandemic... There is a real world out there beyond Tyria, and being negative to the devs won’t make things go faster.

Once again, I have not called anyone names, nor have I said that the devs suck. So I don’t know why you’re reading criticism as negative. I have only really done two things.

First I highlighted the fact that there are multiple teams of people working on GW2 content. It is not a monolithic entity. As a result the success or failure of one group of devs does not always impact the other teams. So I asked why certain teams have been able to put out their content while others have not? If it is due to the fact that those devs assigned to competitive balance are busy trying to help the other teams just to keep the main content going unlike during normal times, that’s fine but we have no way of knowing that unless it’s said.

Second I highlighted the disparity of communication and missed goals. In a normal work environment, a company is supposed to communicate to their customers about delays to service that was promised. This should normally come through standard channels where the company typically announces such things. Anet can and does do this sometimes. This time however, without a conversation through a less official channel we wouldn’t even know that there is a balance patch in the works. And this is month past their usual every three month balance patch. (Not to mention that they alluded to having mid sized but full balance patches more frequently than previously.) Now this isn’t a normal work environment, instead it is a covid work environment, where delays are a normal thing. And once again their pve teams understand this and have communicated about voice acting among other things. So it is worth highlighting why pvp/wvw aren’t afforded the same courtesy. Communication takes a fraction of the time of development, but for some reason it is not done.

Now once again I’ve not ascribed any negative qualities to specific people, I have only highlighted decisions being made that I find to have negative outcomes, which is what constructive criticism is supposed to do. I would like to see change occur and Anet will not know they are doing anything incorrectly if no one speaks their mind. Would I like a balance patch to happen sooner rather than later? Sure! But would I also settle for communication on a platform other than twitch about delays to things they said they would do? Yes! I would be a bit chagrined that my preferred game mode is being disproportionately affected by Covid, but I’d be much less frustrated.

Anet has put out content and has communicated. Giving them a hard time is being negative. Wait like the rest of us, and maybe learn to be patient and understanding because harping on them won’t speed things up.

Wow, how is asking for someone to communicate in a normal channel in a timely manner giving them a hard time? And it’s something they said they wanted to do previously? And it’s not like devs are so hindered that they can’t access the forums for announcements. I seriously don’t understand this mentality.

The devs have been communicating, but you’re just not paying attention.

[Apokriphos.7042]

Patch notes posted in profession forums.

[Jski.6180]

I cant believe they are bring back the old scorge to wvw its such a bad ideal and it kills it for any type of real "fun" combat. Why is it ok for one class to have such a grip on 10 target game play.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Putting the upcoming patch notes in the Profession tab is sneaky lol. I want to point out though that I had a thread on the warrior forum suggesting that Brave Stride give stability on movement skills! Anet does listen sometimes it seems.

[XenesisII.1540]

Well they unscrewed chrono giving them back the self shatter.But then...

Chaos Vortex: Increased the number of targets from 5 to 10.So people complain about condi mirage so they decide to buff the staff ambush targets..... ok.... 10 targets is this suppose to be useful in a zerg now? you know where there's a ton of projectile hate? I mean there's a reason why pewpew rangers haven't been acceptable to zerging for 8 freaking years, it's freaking projectiles and lack of ground aoes, good solution for mirage. Oh wait it's a raid change huh where they use axe instead haha, thanks I guess!/keeps shoveling dirt into the mirage grave

Flip flop on scourge shades again.Thanks for looking into the boon balling.Thanks for looking into immobilize spam, I'll continue to spam abuse it!

[RisenHowl.2419]

This is an awful balance patch that kills build diversity. Any melee based builds are back out, you can't melee push 20 scourges again. And nothing about immob spam... why?

Who has such a hard on for pirate ship meta?

[Stand The Wall.6987]

the scourge change was a pve and pvp based decision. cuz if they played more then 2 hours of wvw they would realize how dumb it is to bring back 10 target shades. its even stronger now with f1 on half the cd it used to be. what a duck fest.

ye a random pic of ducks cuz i can and i will.

these ducks were not given. they weren't even acknowledged.

[Kurowolfe.7124]

"Look at all those chickens!"Well, we got a balance patch coming soon, regardless of how bad or good it is. It seems rather bad for me overall, but again, low expectations and such, and I can't tell until we get a chance to try it. So no matter, I'm okay with a shake-up, good or bad.