The Sidenode Paradox

[Zawn.9647]

@"Ragnar.4257" said:This is my explanation for why balance never feels achieved.

Where most people want Balance to be at is that a 1v1 should reach a conclusion after 30-60 seconds. You don't want unkillable bunkers rubbing faces for eternity, but neither do you want fights to be one-shots over in the blink of an eye.

However, the primary game-mode is 5v5 Conquest, with 3 capture-points. This inevitably leads to situations where 1 person is trying to survive against 2 hostiles. Not necessarily to keep the capture-point, but just to stay alive.

You don't want this 1v2 scenario to be an insta-kill on the 1, you want to provide the 1 with the opportunity to stall-out the fight if they play well. Not necessarily to win, but to draw the fight out for another 20-30 seconds either for help to arrive, or to buy time for their team elsewhere.

So, you have to provide the 1 with sufficient survival tools to sustain 1v2 for a short time.

But if you give the 1 sufficient survival tools to sustain a 1v2 for 20+ seconds, then you'll make them basically unkillable 1v1, and violate the initial principal in the first line of this post. This is because the mechanics of GW2 combat do not scale linearly. If a 1v1 would end in 60 seconds, that doesn't mean a 1v3 will end in 20 seconds; the 1v3 will end in 5 seconds, maybe 10s max, because additional players reduce your survival exponentially, not linearly.

However if you don't provide these tools to the 1, then anyone getting +1'd on a sidenode will in most cases insta-die and come complaining that x/y/z does too much damage.

The contradiction between these 2 goals is what gives rise to the constant back-and-forth between "balance is bad, too many bunkers" and "balance is bad, too much damage".

How do you fix this? I don't think you can. It's a paradox.

The only possible way out I can see would be to have another massive cut in damage output across the board (I'm talking 50% or even more), but to COMPLETELY remove healing skills, traits, utilities, combos, etc from the game, outside of a very few RARE specialised healing mechanics (Druid CA, Ele Staff Water #3 & #5, FB ToR etc), which would have 0 baseline healing and therefore require heavy investment into healing stats/traits/gear to do anything at all.

However this would represent such a massive change that it will never happen, and therefore we will be locked in the bunker/burst sidenode paradox forever. Unless anyone else can see a way out?

You just answered yourself. Conquest should go and another gamemode should rise so the game can be balanced... Maybe like WoW where there are ranked arenas for 2v2/3v3 and lots of different game modes por Battlegrounds... Capture the Flag, Conquest, etc

[Tinkerer.2167]

@wevh.2903 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@"Bazsi.2734" said:Imo this "paradox" could be at least softened by making class/elite specialisation roles clearer. Right now everyone can do anything(especially since PoF released, thief cannot play healer but thats literally it, anything else goes), and in this context it is indeed impossible to make sure 1v1-s end, but 2v1-s arent lethal within seconds.

Maybe have unique sets of amulets for each class. Maybe use a system that picking a traitline unlocks(or the exact opposite, locks) some amulets to choose from. The aim is to force builds into a role. For example, a tactics/discipline/defense warrior should lock itself into being a support bunker, so no offensive mainstat amulets for this guy. This could turn out terrible, I'm just trying thinking of a way to really force people into making specialised builds without wiping off build diversity.

Ranger and holo are the only two classes I can think of that do "everything at once". What else does?IMO only engineer and elementalist should do "everything at once", I have no idea why ranger was buffed to the state it's in.Ranger cant team fight

imagine thinking ranger and holo are equal in any way in conquest presence while also thinking ranger can team fight or cleave in anyway possible outside of jacaranda which is an auto ability from the pet .... almost every top player runs try hard holo in duo q for a reason last season, it's retarded.

misha carried helseth all the way to legendary with the shit LOL

you can't do this on ranger, ever, at all