[Suggestions] Allow characters to use weapons from unlocked Elite Specialisations when that specialisation is not equipped

[Mik.3401]

4 hours ago, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

Then please explain.

Can you give an example of a e-spec weapon which if equipped on core or another e-spec would have an unbalanced advantage over using that weapon on it's own spec?

I think core necromancer due to its ridiculous sustain would be broken with greatsword for instance. Or Mirage with a shield would be pretty powerful with 2 more evades for free and extra quickness and alac. Also sword elementalist could be a pretty strong duelist in many other ways than now. 
Oh and also trueshoting firebrand or core guard would hurt a lot with the sustain they have, just like the necro example
You need to understand that possibilities for broken combos are endless. Yes- I’d love that to happen too but Anet does not know how to balance a game unfortunately. That would make things frustrating.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Mik.3401

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

15 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

I think core necromancer due to its ridiculous sustain would be broken with greatsword for instance. Or Mirage with a shield would be pretty powerful with 2 more evades for free and extra quickness and alac. Also sword elementalist could be a pretty strong duelist in many other ways than now. 
You need to understand that possibilities for broken combos are endless. Yes- I’d love that to happen too but Anet does not know how to balance a game unfortunately. That would make things frustrating.

Reaper has nothing in it that lowers sustain, it's just it's close ranger nature that makes it risky.  If your worried about sustain with that just wait till you see what they're like with long range weapons.

 

Mirage gets 1 dodge in pvp because it's an enhanced dodge and keeps 2 in PVE anyway. What difference would a shield make except more sustain at the cost of damage?

 

Sword on other specs would be just as shishy, more so as it would lose dual element access. And DPS increase would be balanced by close range.

 

What broken combos?

 

The weapons have to be individually balanced anyway. There is no overpowered weapons and if there was they would be nerf'd

[Dawanarth.4601]

I would see the Underwater weapon as an easier/sooner solution than making a variant of a weapon

- Liberated Weapon

- Underwater Weapon (On Land)

- Expec Weapon Variation

- Normal Weapon Variation

- New weapon

- No weapon (Well that would also be a new weapon i guess)

[Mik.3401]

31 minutes ago, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

Reaper has nothing in it that lowers sustain, it's just it's close ranger nature that makes it risky.  If your worried about sustain with that just wait till you see what they're like with long range weapons.

 

Mirage gets 1 dodge in pvp because it's an enhanced dodge and keeps 2 in PVE anyway. What difference would a shield make except more sustain at the cost of damage?

 

Sword on other specs would be just as shishy, more so as it would lose dual element access. And DPS increase would be balanced by close range.

 

What broken combos?

 

The weapons have to be individually balanced anyway. There is no overpowered weapons and if there was they would be nerf'd

Enhancing sustain can be granted by choosing another core line. 
 

The difference to mirage would be more sustain at the cost of damage exactly - even more bunker potential.

No weaver = extra water / extra Earth for sustain or extra air / fire for dps. Lack of dual skills removes the minimal barrrier from them yes and also gives worse dps but still it makes for a tanky duelist.

Again it is a cool idea but not for this game / dev team

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

 

On 10/21/2021 at 2:36 PM, Xephir.7635 said:

No, this not a good change at all, locking the weapon to a elite spec is what keeps the game balanced, imagine a fb with bow, or a herald with bow, wvw would be so unbalanced and pvp also. This wont work.

 

On 10/21/2021 at 2:31 PM, Mik.3401 said:

This idea looks fun on paper but I think in reality it would lead to big balance problems

 

Both statements here are just...simply not true. It's common for people to throw around the word "balance," but then have no idea what balance actually is.

 

It is in fact, limitations that restrict diversity, which cause balance problems. I've researched, written, and discussed for around 2 years now on an academic level, exactly how this process works, and the intuition shared by the OP and Panda are the right intuition to have about the issue...Restrictions on things leads to less innovation which leads to longer lasting stale meta games because there are less builds to explore to usurp current meta games. Less diversity = Less balance.

[Panda.1967]

5 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

It's common for people to throw around the word "balance," but then have no idea what balance actually is.

A lot of the people throwing around the word “balance” also and claiming that Arena Net doesn’t know how to balance simply don’t understand the specific approach that Arena Net has to balance. They don’t balance things the way we as players would like them to. Arena Net has always taken an asymmetrical approach to balance. They targetedly nerf specific builds while buffing specific others. They don’t do this because those builds are outliers, they do it to shift the meta around. They have been doing it this way since the early days of GW1 even.

A build becomes popular in meta, they target the core skills of the build for nerf after a while and then they buff another skill that becomes the cornerstone of the next meta build. They are constantly trying to guide the meta in certain directions, sometimes the playerbase stubbornly rejects the new meta they are trying to direct us to, but usually we end up at it anyways.

There will never be “true balance” in an arena Net game… somethings will always be outright better than others, and that is by design. If the devs don’t want us using certain abilities for a season, they will nerf them to the point of uselessness, if they want us to use a certain ability all the time they will buff it heavily. If they want a certain profession to be top dog for a wile they will make it happen… if we the players find a combination that is insanely strong that the devs were not aware of, they let us have our fun for a short while before they nerf it to oblivion.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Panda.1967

[MatyrGustav.6210]

I personally would love this. My main is Revenant, i like range and the hammer is no good. Simply put, i NEED Bow on all specs.

 

Also would love to run a Scepter/Pistol + Staff Specter.

 

I wouldn't Even mind if we needed to complete an extra long quest to unlock each elite weapon for the base class.

Edited October 24, 2021 by MatyrGustav.6210

[Dawanarth.4601]

Unlocking the weapon when you master the Expec should work fine

As in: First level, you unlock the weapon if you use the Expec

Last level, you unlock the weapon for all

[Mik.3401]

On 10/22/2021 at 10:51 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

 

 

Both statements here are just...simply not true. It's common for people to throw around the word "balance," but then have no idea what balance actually is.

 

It is in fact, limitations that restrict diversity, which cause balance problems. I've researched, written, and discussed for around 2 years now on an academic level, exactly how this process works, and the intuition shared by the OP and Panda are the right intuition to have about the issue...Restrictions on things leads to less innovation which leads to longer lasting stale meta games because there are less builds to explore to usurp current meta games. Less diversity = Less balance.

Core was more balanced and fun than post expansions I think many people agree on that.

The additional builds brought by especs messed things up due to often broken mechanics. Now the idea you guys propose is to give them all the weapons from other specs on top of that. What’s the academic take on this issue?

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

4 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

Core was more balanced and fun than post expansions I think many people agree on that.

The additional builds brought by especs messed things up due to often broken mechanics. Now the idea you guys propose is to give them all the weapons from other specs on top of that. What’s the academic take on this issue?

 

The mechanism of balance, is a very complicated. However...it's not really that complicated with a general understanding of Physics (in particular Thermodynamics) Evolutionary Biology and Complexity Theory. I will explain how it works so that you don't need to go through all the work I did...but having an understanding in those fields helps immensely when trying to grapple with the topic.

 

The first thing, is that Diversity and Balance are in principle, the same exact thing. They are tied to each other because it's a one way, dynamic process...in the sense that it changes through time. Before explaining anything we just need to define what Diversity and Balance are. Diversity is defined as differentiation or heterogeneity, while balance is defined as a system at equilibrium or homogeneity. You've probably heard these terms before from thermodynamics. The connection between Diversity and Balance, is that it behaves exactly like entropy...where a system is always moving from heterogenous state towards a balanced equilibrium state.

 

The best way to understand why this is the case, is to do a simple thought experiment in the form of a simple game. 

 

You have a 10 slips of paper, each with a random number written on it, and each given a color. You throw these slips of paper into a box. One by one you start picking out slips of paper at random...and you follow this rule : If the piece of paper you picked is a higher number than the previous papers you've picked, change the color of the previous papers, into the color of the highest number. If the piece of paper you picked is a lower number than any of the previous papers you picked, change it's color to the color of the paper with the highest number.

 

https://imgur.com/Ch9vn1Y

 

The system begins in a maximally heterogenous state, where all 10 colors are represented. As you reveal the number under each slip of paper, players migrate to the paper with the highest number...this begins the evolution of the system toward a single color...the color that has the highest number. This experiment is clearly a direct analogue to player classes, builds or skills, and as players determine which classes/builds/skills are "the best" players migrate to those builds, until the game comes to equilibrium, a completely homogenous state.

 

The consequence of Diversity and Balance being the same dynamic mechanism, has many serious consequences. To understand these consequences, means trying to probe exactly how to change the behavior of the system and whether its even possible or not.

 

First Consequence

The first attempt one would imagine doing to make the system balanced is to give every color the same number...that makes sense...but then you realize, that by giving all colors the same number, you are essentially just making them all the same color...meaning that the colors aren't actually different. This consequence spells out another principle...That in order to get perfect balance, means a complete sacrifice of diversity. This principle is illustrated in this comment that you can read here, and was more formally shown by another forum goer that the process is isomorphic.

 

In other words...it's impossible to balance the game if you want to have choices. And when you think about that it makes obvious sense...Two things that are actually different can't ever be the same...because if they were the same, it would just be the same object. 

 

Second Consequence

Since the above is true...then how exactly do we stop the game from collapsing to homogeneity...The intuitive answer is "Well we could should just remove the highest number." And that sounds like it makes sense but it's also wrong. You can imagine taking away the highest number in this game, and then allow the system to evolve again...this time the system will collapse to homogeneity faster in 9 steps instead of 10 steps. You can imagine continuing this operation of removing the highest number in the game, until you have close to no elements left, and the system will every time, approach equilibrium faster and faster then it did before.

 

What ends up being the case, is that the opposite operation is what makes the entropy of the system take longer... which is to simply add more stuff to the system. The more colors you add, the longer it will take for the system to collapse to equilibrium...11 steps 12 steps...100 steps etc...

 

This also makes sense when you think about it right...a highly complex system will take a much longer time to reach thermodynamic equilibrium...simply because it has more stuff in it...and that lines up with real physics.

 

Third Consequence

Probably the most important consequence, if the above two weren't important enough, is this central idea...that time is somehow playing a big part of this. This is where it can get pretty complicated...and in order to understand this requires looking into Complex Systems Theory and Computational Complexity. Where, one can look at the act of flipping numbers in this system as a computation of some kind...in order to make sense of how this system is evolving, means picking up a piece of paper, looking at a number, and comparing it to all the numbers that came before it. This takes some finite amount of time, called computation time. How much time and how difficult is it then, to look at a number and compare it to other numbers? In this system it doesn't take that long...but imagine in systems where there are many parameters...hundreds of thousands of elements, and different interaction between those elements... Thus the time it takes to compare elements is dependent on the systems complexity.

 

Complexity is the core actor of this mechanism...because complexity in itself is strange...and it's like trying to understand why a simple system can behave in a complicated way...while a highly complicated looking system behaves rather tame and linear. The simple answer is that, the number of elements in a system isn't the only factor that determines how complicated a system is...but the relationship between these elements. Together, these two things constitute a "configuration space" in which every configuration a system can be in, has a number of possible states in the order of n^k where n is the number of elements, and k is the number of relationships those elements have with each other (known as the dimensionality). Because n is polynomial and k is exponential, the systems complexity heavily depends on the number of relationships the elements have together...so when k is high, introducing a single element boosts the systems complexity incredibly. 

 

In analog you can think of the above like this : a game with 5 elements and a dimensionality of 100 (5¹⁰⁰) is going to be a more complicated game with a larger configuration space, then a game with 1000 elements and a dimensionality of 2 (1000²). Guild Wars 2 right now, falls into the category of having thousands of elements, where a large majority of elements do not interact with each other, therefor the configuration space is not as big as it "looks."

 

Conclusion

So I don't have enough time to really finish this post neatly, but essentially, a lower configuration space, leads to approaching a homogenous state faster. High configuration space, is the key concept here behind why systems are diverse to begin with, and why highly diverse systems take a longer time to approach homogeneity. And how to achieve high configuration space is about relationships between elements, rather then the elements themselves... Opening up weapons to other specs, increases the configuration space,  which in turn is what makes diversity collapse to homogeneity take a longer period of time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Panda.1967]

17 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The mechanism of balance, is a very complicated.

There is a lot to unload in your post... but I'm going to rebuttal with something very simple that you have completely overlooked. Your whole post focuses on balance in the moment, which emphasizes (1 = 1), but it ignores balance as a whole (1+2 = 3). When it comes to balancing a game where choice matters you can't focus on balance in the moment, since balance in the moment removes the impact of choice. Balance as a whole however allows for choice to matter and yet remain balanced.

It is easiest to look at it as a series of simple mathematical expressions.

Choice 1: 3 + 7

Choice 2: 9 + 1

Choice 3: 5 x 2

These 3 choices are all different but balanced. The reason for this is because as a whole each choice has a value of 10. When you look at it in the moment however you only factor the first or second value of each expression... 3 does not equal 9 nor does it equal 5... in the moment these choices are not balanced. For proper game balance it doesn't matter if A = X so long as A+B = X+Y.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

10 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

There is a lot to unload in your post... but I'm going to rebuttal with something very simple that you have completely overlooked. Your whole post focuses on balance in the moment, which emphasizes (1 = 1), but it ignores balance as a whole (1+2 = 3). When it comes to balancing a game where choice matters you can't focus on balance in the moment, since balance in the moment removes the impact of choice. Balance as a whole however allows for choice to matter and yet remain balanced.

It is easiest to look at it as a series of simple mathematical expressions.

Choice 1: 3 + 7

Choice 2: 9 + 1

Choice 3: 5 x 2

These 3 choices are all different but balanced. The reason for this is because as a whole each choice has a value of 10. When you look at it in the moment however you only factor the first or second value of each expression... 3 does not equal 9 nor does it equal 5... in the moment these choices are not balanced. For proper game balance it doesn't matter if A = X so long as A+B = X+Y.

 

Hi Panda.

This is a great response...but believe me I didn't overlook it. Your argument is a very common counter argument, and somewhat of a misconception (but a totally valid misconception to have). The concept you are talking about is called Coarse Graining, All the components in your example sum to 10, and thus the sum is an effective and approximate theory of the constituents. The example you gave in your comment, is a decent representation for what coarse graining is, and I'm going to link the Wikipedia article here for everyone to get further reading on the subject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coarse-grained_modeling

Coarse Graining

Even though its a misconception, which I'll explain why it's a misconception in a bit, this is currently the way, that most if not all companies balance games currently. They use coarse graining in order to understand, the balance of a specific build or class, by approximating their performance in some environment. You can imagine the above as say...the comparison between a Condi Mirage, and a Condi Scourge in PVE...The DPS they output, is the coarse grained model of their constituent components (their skills and traits), and the devs will balance these skills and traits, based on how much DPS the classes output until those are equal, so in large part Coarse graining allows one to ignore what the constituents are doing...so long as the desired output of the system is met.

The above is as of right now our currently understood best way to understand complicated systems like gw2...we approximate them, with a less accurate model of the game. This itself is a big topic that involves how chaos theory works (and alot of other things)...but this is where that subjects enters. Approximation of the theory, leads to chaos, meaning unpredictable system behavior. The less accurate the model, the more unpredictable and useless the model becomes when trying to predict what the system will do. 

You can imagine the above statement in the following: The Devs (and benchmarks) use PVE Golems, to balance (or measure) classes in the game with a single DPS output number. For PVE Golems...this is a somewhat accurate model for that. However in SPVP, the model is no-where near accurate enough. So the act of coarse graining the game where the model is DPS on a PVE golem, is only as predictive as that particular model. Everything else is an approximate theory, and so trying to make predictions based on that model are going to be...inaccurate...subject to chaotic behavior.

The two arguments are at the core of what the current...and I truly mean current debate about physics right now (and not Pop science... I mean what people in LHC and all those guys are arguing with each other at their desks)...is Quantum Mechanics fundamentally random, or is it a coarse grained approximate theory of smaller, lower level physics. Does Quantum Mechanics actually describe the world? Or are our models not good enough to describe the world. The reason I've even studied gw2's balance/diversity topic to this degree, is because of how closely related it is to fundamental physics...to me that is pretty fascinating.

 

The Misconception

Now, I said that your statement is a misconception (or rather a common argument used against it), and I will explain that now... that coarse graining a system, is not a true model of that system, and that when the systems parts are analyzed in totality and in fundamentality the system as a whole will be Isomorphic and invariant to trivial transformations.

------------------

Point 1

For example, we could compare three kinds of stats in the game with one another.

1000 Power 

1000 Condition

1000 Mobility

The above should really make you ask a number of questions and observations. The first thing you should notice is "1000 mobility? What the hell is a 1000 mobility?" You can see that the above is a coarse grained model of what power is, what conditions is, and what mobility is that must have component (and diverse) parts. However this particular coarse graining is a poor description of this system, and any changes I make based on this model only (and ignoring it's constituent parts) will be approximate if at all accurate, if I were to think that 1000 mobility, is somehow equal to 1000 power. 

You can imagine, that I could break down for example, that 1000 mobility, into it's constituents...meaning I would have to pinpoint every skill, and every interaction that skill has (basically every configuration in which "mobility" is there in a configuration space) and in order to truly model mobility to compare it to power and conditions, requires knowing that complete configuration space...in theory, it can be done...maybe not by me, but by a super computer that could calculate and keep track of all those states. Say you did the same with Power and Conditions, and now this super computer which is able to keep track of those states, will have a complete understanding of the system...and they can then do the operation mentioned in my first post...going through one by one and picking the highest number via a sorting game.

To reiterate the point being made in very more formal terms: A set is going to be isomorphic to a set of itself...meaning that the entire system is invariant to transformations, so long as those transformations are within the set...so adding things, and taking things away changes the set...while transformations of the constituents within remain symmetric where inverse operations can always be done. It is our lack of knowledge and locality within the system that allows diversity to have any meaning to it. because locally (coarse grained), it doesn't appear isomorphic. You can imagine that if we were a supercomputer that could understand the entire system...then the game would be easy to us. Because we aren't practically capable of truly understanding the system and only capable of coarse graining it, this is what makes the game possible as a game that we can play.

------------------

Point 2

The second way to think about the misconception is directly using your example: 

Choice 1: 3 + 7 = 10

Choice 2: 9 + 1 = 10

Choice 3: 5 x 2 = 10

The above example, is a description of diverse constituents of a coarse grained model of a system. One would assume Choice 1,2 and 3 are different right? But now imagine the following

Choice 1 (1+1+1) + (1+1+1+1+1+1+1)

Choice 2 (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1) + (1)

Choice 3  (1+1+1+1+1) x (1+1+1+1+1)

So what I did is I took your theory and I coarse grained it, where all the components that you thought were different are actually all just the same components. This is at the heart of what coarse graining is actually doing...and it's just trying to break down things into more fundamental things...on a number line this could technically go on into infinity, and this is why coarse graining is not a true theory of that system, because it could continue on into infinity, where no party can agree on which coarse graining is valid...and no party can agree on whether it's homogenous or heterogenous or fundamental. In order to have a theory at all, it must have fundamental constituents. The games evolution in my first comment, is a game being played at its most fundamental constituents, where the parts are different and still lead to a homogeneous meta game. Even if you coarse grained that game, that coarse grained theory also follows the same evolution…just at a smaller scale.

Just wanted to add for additional clarity, playing the same game again, this time with a coarse grained theory.

https://i.imgur.com/8LkPWap.png

I wanted to follow your example as close as possible, to show that even with good intentions, where a completely heterogenous system and balancing all classes where all classes consist of balls that add up to "100" The game still collapses to a homogenous state, in which all players are playing the class with "77." You can even map out that evolution as you would in the first post...which I did here :

https://i.imgur.com/TU48fpl.png

Essentially, what is always happening, is that every evolution is an attempt to get the best ball at all scales. Every ball has a number which depict if it's the best among the other balls...and so every circle has it's best ball, but only one circle has the best ball among all other circles...This is the Invariant nature of heterogenous systems and how the process of optimization always pushes it towards homogeneity. 

Conclusion

I'm going to conclude this, by presenting you a video of two physicists, one you probably already know (Sean Carrol), and a computer scientist Stephan Wolfram, arguing about this very topic. You'll find that the conversation perfectly illustrates the talking points brought up above. It's not exactly easy to digest if you don't have a good understanding of physics...but if you do, it will make the above a bit more easier to digest in a shorter period of time. 

Cheers,

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Marika.5726]

On 10/25/2021 at 5:11 AM, Panda.1967 said:

 

It is easiest to look at it as a series of simple mathematical expressions.

Choice 1: 3 + 7

Choice 2: 9 + 1

Choice 3: 5 x 2

These 3 choices are all different but balanced. The reason for this is because as a whole each choice has a value of 10. When you look at it in the moment however you only factor the first or second value of each expression... 3 does not equal 9 nor does it equal 5... in the moment these choices are not balanced. For proper game balance it doesn't matter if A = X so long as A+B = X+Y.

But in a game, it may be true that A+B=x+y, but if A>>x or B>>y, then x+y has a lower perceived cost (in-game), so that will be the chosen path by many rational players, will it not? Each choice has a value of 10, true, but to get to 10, first you have to get 9 vs getting 3, or to get 7 vs, getting 1.Which is easier? Time and material costs matter, so the end results nay be the same, but the paths to them are not equivalent, nor are they equal. Are they balanced? No, in one sense, and yes, in another. You're looking at the aggregate equations, like fluid dynamics or thermodynamics, but in either one, the path taken by the individual matters. And in the case of an intelligent agent, it will see costs differently for each path, even though the aggregate cost of each may be the same. I'm not explaining this very well, but I hope you understand the idea.

[LucianDK.8615]

Think people doesnt understand why this is a bad idea.

The scourge offhand torch is the best offhand we have. Give that to Harbinger and its a major boost upwards. Likewise Harbinger pistol to scourge.

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

On 2/15/2022 at 10:07 AM, LucianDK.8615 said:

The scourge offhand torch is the best offhand we have. Give that to Harbinger and its a major boost upwards. Likewise Harbinger pistol to scourge.

Translation: These weapons are unbalanced.

Fix : Balance them with elite specialist traits.

[Katary.7096]

On 2/20/2022 at 12:58 PM, ShadowInTheVoid.9183 said:

Translation: These weapons are unbalanced.

Fix : Balance them with elite specialist traits.

Elite specialization weapons are allowed to be better than the average for that profession because you only get to use them if you pick the corresponding elite spec, there is a "cost" that you have to pay to get access to them, which can justify their higher power level. They are only "overpowered" in a world in which you get to use them without any requirement.