All effects that provide a percentage reduction to incoming damage have been standardized to stack multiplicatively.

[lodjur.1284]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Great, so what is your issue then? I don't really get your outrage over the change if you 'mention multiple times' the amount of reduction with additive methods is unreasonable 

Well it has the potential to be, at least in WvW there are currently no builds that can abuse it, same in sPvP and afaik in PvE too.

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That doesn't make sense to me ... what are you finding that Anet are 'not doing'? that causes you to make a few threads about the same issue? Did I misinterpret your complaint here?

If they had appropriately buffed a certain number of traits for the builds most affected, especially if those builds aren't using multiple traitlines for it, but where all the traits are from the same line.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, lodjur.1284 said:

Well it has the potential to be  ...

Yes, the potential to abuse additive damage reduction modifiers is an obviously valid reason for this change (and it's not just the potential ... additive damage reduction modifiers WERE being taken advantage of in ways Anet likely didn't want). So again .. the outrage is?

Quote

If they had appropriately buffed a certain number of traits for the builds most affected, especially if those builds aren't using multiple traitlines for it, but where all the traits are from the same line.

See, this is the problem. How do you justify buffing builds most affected by additive damage reductions if the reason to change them to multiplicative is to fix those same builds so they aren't the most affected? You don't see the contradiction there? That's just an unreasonable way to think. 

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[lodjur.1284]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yes, the potential to abuse additive damage reduction modifiers is an obviously valid reason for this change. So again .. the outrage is?

The outrage from me at least, is that the Earth traitline got hit very hard by this change, especially on tempest.

Tempest was never absurdly tanky to a degree where it would warrant a nerf.

It isn't about that they changed this, this should imo have been the case since launch, any kinda reductions dealing with stuff like damage taken, cooldowns, resources etc are much safer to keep multiplicative. That doesn't mean one should just change them without any other changes.

It is about how changing it without any kinda surrounding changes, especially after 9 years, in a minor patch, is kinda strange? Surely it could've waited til they had to time to look over various traitlines

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

See, this is the problem. What is the reason to buff builds most affected by additive damage reductions if the reason to change it is to fix those same builds so they aren't? You don't see the contradiction there? That's just an unreasonable way to think. 

If you pick Earth traitline, you get 2 minor traits that synergize poorly now, whereas before they synergized well. The best trait in the line also no longer has synergy with those. There are many ways that this could've been avoided

1. Buff the numbers so they end up similar to pre-patch, this would require more than doubling these traits

2. Rework one or both of the damage reduction modifier traits as to not have an internal anti synergy within a traitline on minor traits.

 

This build was never getting close to 100% and was never absurdly tanky. Just normal tanky. There is essentially no way that Earth was the intended target, if there even was one. Presumably we will never know tho as Anet isn't in the habit of releasing something similar to balance manifestos with reasonings behind every single change. 

 

Assuming any specific build is being targeted it is definitively something along the lines of the 100% damage reduction herald builds that have at various points been possible (in PvE only, due to the traits required being much weaker in WvW/sPvP (and also boonrip existing there and those builds not really achieving much)). Tho my personal theory is that some new elite spec we will get to see soon would've had the potential to reach 100% with old math, but that's purely speculation. 

 

Not only that but the entire change feels very lazily done, roughly half the tooltips now instead say how much incoming damage is left, some of them incorrect numbers (hardy conduit claims you still take 61% damage, even tho it should be 60%, unless they stealth nerfed it from 40% to 39% protection) most traits say you take reduced damage. The change feels unfinished and as if it was something planned for the next balance patch a few months from now that was just thrown in there.

 

Had the change instead been accompanied by reasonable traitline changes (like merging stony flesh and geomancer's training into one damage reducer just as an example), all tooltips being correctly changed, ideally at the same time as a balance patch, then I would've been happy about the change even, as it is in the long run one that needs to be done. But 9 years post launch it could certainly wait until the next balance patch, even if the next balance patch would be end of dragons. It was not a pressing issue at this particular moment in time.

[Obtena.7952]

I do see your point here. There is some truth to what you say ... stacking  small reductions in this multiplicative scheme provide little reduction and to be fair, specifically for Earth and Frost Aura on Ele, they should get revisited. On the other hand, it would be atypical and unlikely to introduce a change like this and not see it's impact in the game before making a decision on how to make a change to these low value reducers. 

The truth is that neither way is ideal. Multiplicative reducers favour fewer and higher value reducers. Additive schemes give more ability to fine tune, but enable scenarios that are unacceptable and even absurd (like negative damage reductions!). It's a complex problem, but the starting point has to be eliminating the absurd and unreasonable. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[lodjur.1284]

5 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I do see your point here. There is some truth to what you say ... stacking  small reductions in this multiplicative scheme provide little reduction and to be fair, specifically for Earth and Frost Aura, they should get revisited.

Ye, I think particularly for earth it's an issue because it by itself provides 3 different sources that now all synergize with each other poorly. This also means that all 3 of the minor traits in earth are pretty terrible (outside of the normal cooldown reduction of course).

 

Retribution has a similar issue, but the actual damage reduction trait is already rarely taken and the minor one isn't really possible to have very high uptime yourself outside of renegade anyway (due to a rather poor rework of Retribution, where they, I assume missed to change the vigor on dodge to Resolution on dodge) hence I think it's a smaller problem as it affects balance less, from a design point it's still rather poor to have internal anti-synergy within a traitline tho.  

5 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

On the other hand, it would be atypical for introduce a change like this and not see it's impact in the game before making a decision on how to make a change to these low value reducers. 

I sadly doubt they will look this over particularly much, if I thought it would be fixed within a month or two, I probably wouldn't have bothered creating this thread to be honest. I hope to be wrong tho

5 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

The truth is that neither way is ideal. Multiplicative reducers favour fewer and higher value reducers. Additive schemes give more balance, but enable scenarios that are unacceptable. It's a complex problem. 

From a balancing perspective one could now in theory create much more interesting and individually powerful damage reducing traits as the risk of them stacking and getting 100% (or even something like 80%+ starts getting pretty silly if the uptime is high), which is very good, the potential lack of follow up (which is sadly what I believe will happen) is what is the to me most upsetting part. 

 

A change I regardless of lack of follow up I thought was very good was the resistance no longer providing damage immunity change, but I had quite high hopes that Anet would see that resistance is now a very safe boon to give out quite freely, yet no new sources have been added and outside of Pain Absorption getting 1 extra sec of it, no old sources of it got buffed. Similar things is the reason for my lack of faith in reasonable follow ups to "system changes".

 

So like I said I think it was a needed change in a long term perspective, but wrong time and patch for it

[Jski.6180]

Well what else is added that we need to change over to multiplicatively from being addedted? Should hp boost be multiplicatively, should boon duration be multiplicatively, should crit chase be multiplicatively should condi duration be multiplicatively. Ture be told i have no ideal if any of these are multiplicatively or addedted! My point here is somthing like all of these effects you see a number the game has a UI that tells you what going on out side of combat. If anet truly wants to go this path they need to out right tell you your dmg -% as part of the UI right now this is all hidden.

Anet is getting away with nerfing these added dmg reduction by hiding them from there player base. If my trait reads -10% dmg when with in a range but it dose not give -10% dmg reduction then Anet UI is lying to there player base. At least when it comes to dmg boost effects you see a number changes on your skills that at least gives you an ideal of what going on. But when it comes to dmg -% effects you have no ideal till some one else uses a skill on you and even that dose not tell you the true story of what going on in combat and what your build is doing.

We are now in a game when the boon protection reads -33% dmg taken it dose not mean that making the over all game play and UI much less fun to play and realy over all makes anet comes off as being much less trust worthy.

A truly sad state of an update with out any real though of what effects it has in the game.

[Kodama.6453]

3 hours ago, lodjur.1284 said:

It is about how changing it without any kinda surrounding changes, especially after 9 years, in a minor patch, is kinda strange? Surely it could've waited til they had to time to look over various traitlines

To be completely honest with you: Anet doesn't seem to care so much if skills and/or traits are underperforming after some fundamental changes they make.

We can list you tons and tons of examples for this being the case. Like the Feb2020 patch, which left plethoras of skills in a useless state for PvP/WvW, since there are many hard CC abilities which had other downsides to balance out their damage, but now with the damage removed, there is no reason to use them anymore. Or turrets still being in a dead state after they changed them to receive condis (but still can't benefit from boons).

That's just how it is. Anet is not going through skills individually and buff stuff which might get hit by a general change to the game. You probably shouldn't expect buffs to these traits for quite a long time.

[Jski.6180]

10 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

To be completely honest with you: Anet doesn't seem to care so much if skills and/or traits are underperforming after some fundamental changes they make.

We can list you tons and tons of examples for this being the case. Like the Feb2020 patch, which left plethoras of skills in a useless state for PvP/WvW, since there are many hard CC abilities which had other downsides to balance out their damage, but now with the damage removed, there is no reason to use them anymore. Or turrets still being in a dead state after they changed them to receive condis (but still can't benefit from boons).

That's just how it is. Anet is not going through skills individually and buff stuff which might get hit by a general change to the game. You probably shouldn't expect buffs to these traits for quite a long time.

And if the GW2 community tells anet nothing about there views on these things anet will just keep doing things and over all kill there game. This mind set of anet will do what anet will do so get over it is the worst point of view in a living game. Its complete defeatism and shows the doom of the game.

This update is not a pve update at all as mobs in this game often do not hit hard enofe to one shot ppl unless that was part of there timing during a boss fight this is a pure spvp and wvw update. This general change is not truly general because of this and now we have an effect that comply throws off every text in the game that talks about dmg -% we would be better off if every thing went back to just saying take less dmg or dmg reduction effect with no % and have a general dmg -% icon that shows up when you look at your def on the hero window.

[Esorono.1039]

I have decided to do some actual testing, and I have found that some tooltips are not accurate, Tempest's Hardy Conduit changing protection's defense from 67% to 61% is not accurate. And it does in fact actually does make protection better by a rather decent amount.

Also my theory that the damage reduction was more of an armor based damage removal was proven false when I actually put Illusionary Defense under a microscope and found out doesn't actually work at all despite it saying it is a 95% damage resist per stack up to 5. There is no difference between damage taken with 0 or 5 stacks. I suggest everyone to do testing and some number crunching so we can find more inconsistencies with these changes.

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

And if the GW2 community tells anet nothing about there views on these things anet will just keep doing things and over all kill there game.

Let's not be naïve here. Anet doesn't make changes like this  knowing everyone will love their change and praise their work ... yet they do them anyways. So that should tell you what kind of result to expect by simply complaining about changes we don't like over and over again. 

The value here isn't complaining. It's explaining why the change has created a problem. In this case, making stacked reducers scale multiplicatively renders low value reducers to be ineffective in that stack. This is a problem because there are numerous choices with low value reducers that essentially become worthless choices because of overlapping boons, notably protection. 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Jski.6180]

23 hours ago, Esorono.1039 said:

I have decided to do some actual testing, and I have found that some tooltips are not accurate, Tempest's Hardy Conduit changing protection's defense from 67% to 61% is not accurate. And it does in fact actually does make protection better by a rather decent amount.

Also my theory that the damage reduction was more of an armor based damage removal was proven false when I actually put Illusionary Defense under a microscope and found out doesn't actually work at all despite it saying it is a 95% damage resist per stack up to 5. There is no difference between damage taken with 0 or 5 stacks. I suggest everyone to do testing and some number crunching so we can find more inconsistencies with these changes.

After spending years updating there tool tips anet kind of messed up with this update where nearly all of them are giving you the wrong info. but at least aggressive and even healing effects show some update to there effect sadly def dose not a 40% protection or even 33% protection is now not what it shows.

Added note: Every one seems to forget Hardy Conduit is not aoe its only for the ele this is true for the eng one as well its a real shame that ele never did get the protection support roll it should of had from the tempest class and this update makes what protection support it had even worst.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 10/7/2021 at 4:48 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

On the other hand, it would be atypical and unlikely to introduce a change like this and not see it's impact in the game before making a decision on how to make a change to these low value reducers. 

You're right. It would be atypical for Anet. Usually they just introduce changes without carefully considering consequences, and then take years to fix the things that break as a result. Doesn't mean we should not be hoping for this "tradition" to change for the better, though.

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

7 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You're right. It would be atypical for Anet. Usually they just introduce changes without carefully considering consequences, and then take years to fix the things that break as a result. Doesn't mean we should not be hoping for this "tradition" to change for the better, though.

This is not exclusively an Anet thing. While it's not ideal, it's not uncommon either. The reality is that if the change doesn't affect how people play the game, then there ISN'T a consequence to consider. They won't know until it's out there for a while. 

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

The reality is that if the change doesn't affect how people play the game, then there ISN'T a consequence to consider. They won't know until it's out there for a while. 

And how would they know whether it will affect people without considering it first? A lot of things they managed to break in the past (and had to put a lot of effort into fixing later on) were things that would have been quite obvious if someone bothered to even think about it for a while. Some of those things were even pointed out to them beforehand, and just ignored. The issue is that they don't seem to take a more holistic approach to balancing. Rather, they aim to fix a singular issue, and don't even think about whether the thing they're changing is connected to other stuff as well.

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

They won't know until it's out there for a while. 

Yes. Which is why a lot of things they manage to break this way remain broken for months (or sometimes years) before they'll finally get around to fix them. Which won't prevent those things from getting broken in the next patch.

Wouldn't it be better if many of those issues were found out (and fixed) before they even got to the game?

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And how would they know whether it will affect people without considering it first?

They don't ... that's why it has to be in the game for a certain period of time before they make any more changes to it. 

Of course it's really easy to complain about having something taken away. The real measure of a changes impact is how it affects people choice to play Ele. If the change doesn't change people's choice to play the class, there is no consequence that needs to be fixed. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

They don't ... that's why it has to be in the game for a certain period of time before they make any more changes to it. 

Precisely. By looking only after the fact, without trying to think about the potential consequences beforehand, they reduce themselves to playing catchup with constant issues, many of whom might have been avoided had they bothered to think about them earlier.

 

I mean, there were case where they introduced changes that were very obviously a mistake, and left those for years before eventually addressing them. And some things are still in broken state.

It is way better to just do things right from the beginning, than introduce something that causes issues, and then fixing it for months or years (with each fix possibly breaking something else as a collateral).

Your approach might have been working if Anet were to be balancing this game on a very short schedule, with balance passes every week or so. With balance passes every quarter (if we're lucky), that simply does not work, because it guarantees that any issue will take a long time to address and fix even if devs would consider it a priority.

[Obtena.7952]

36 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Precisely. By looking only after the fact, without trying to think about the potential consequences beforehand, they reduce themselves to playing catchup with constant issues, many of whom might have been avoided had they bothered to think about them earlier.

 

I mean, there were case where they introduced changes that were very obviously a mistake, and left those for years before eventually addressing them. And some things are still in broken state.

It is way better to just do things right from the beginning, than introduce something that causes issues, and then fixing it for months or years (with each fix possibly breaking something else as a collateral).

Your approach might have been working if Anet were to be balancing this game on a very short schedule, with balance passes every week or so. With balance passes every quarter (if we're lucky), that simply does not work, because it guarantees that any issue will take a long time to address and fix even if devs would consider it a priority.

OK ... but I don't see why they would do it any other way. There isn't a reason for them to implement measures to curb the effect PRIOR to seeing how the change affects people's interest in choosing the class. 

I mean, there is also little too much assuming going on here. Maybe the change is going to give Anet EXACTLY the result they want for players choosing classes. They won't know until they see it. That takes time to get get the data. Either way, that's how they work. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

58 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... but I don't see why they would do it any other way.

To avoid introducing easy to fix issues? I mean, seriously, a lot of things they let slip in the past years were things that were obvious. Things people told them will cause issues, and things people gave solutions to immediately. In many cases, those issues were even implemented... months or years later.

Quote

There isn't a reason for them to implement measures to curb the effect PRIOR to seeing how the change affects people's interest in choosing the class. 

The reason is to not introduce more issues into the balance. Issues that will have to be dealt with at some point anyway.

Yes, even the less-used traits and skills should not be ignored. Because, quite often, they end up less-used exactly because they were ignored first. And the more issues you let to accumulate on the way -issues you could have fixed with much less effort initially - the more complex fixing and balancing other stuff becomes.

Quote

I mean, there is also little too much assuming going on here. Maybe the change is going to give Anet EXACTLY the result they want for players choosing classes. 

In theory, maybe. In practice, based on their balance history? Pretty unlikely.

Quote

They won't know until they see it.

Actually, they might have known if they thought about it a bit. I mean, in this specific case, the change has not been implemented yet, and yet people are already pointing out potential issues. Many of similar cases in the past were that way as well.

Quote

Either way, that's how they work. 

Yes, i know how they work. They could work better.

You seem to be thinking that most of the issues are impossible to predict, and they have to wait to see what's gonna happen. That's actually not true. I mean, there are always some surprises, but a huge majority of potential issues can (and have been) be predicted. And thus could be eliminated before they're even allowed to exist. If someone even bothers about considering them in the first place, that is.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Obtena.7952]

49 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

To avoid introducing easy to fix issues?

I can't respond to this... What easy to fix issue are you ralking about? I think this approach, whether we like it or not, is the approach Anet has to take. They make a change, they see how that change is reacted to by players, they make adjustments OR NOT, depending on if the change gave them the result they wanted. 'Result they wanted' can depend on any criteria they decide and in this case, isn't NECESSARILY limited to game mechanics. I have no doubt Anet's  criteria is heavily determined by the level that people play certain builds, as indicated by many recent patch notes. 

That can't happen without the change being in the game for a period of time to allow people to react to it. This is really easy ... if some massive percent of ele players just stop playing ele since last patch ... probably is related to the change. Probably hits Anet's radar pretty hard. Probably results in Anet doing something to get people playing ele to a level they are satisfied with. On the other hand ... if everyone keeps playing ele like they were before... there isn't anything for Anet to do here, unless they feel the change doesn't work for THEM. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Jski.6180]

The way it is listed now is far more misleading the just saying the dmg -%. 77% in coming dmg on a trait or skill that gives you protection but protection reads as -33% dmg taken. Nothing about reduction nothing about stacking effects just a number and incoming dmg its such a bad tool tip. It looks like anet is actively being misleading to new players or even old players. Its even worst if your class has an effect to makes the dmg -% stronger but still not an support effect. Eng and ele getting a stronger protection that dose NOT work for other ppl but the skills now read as if they do. It is anet going out of there way to hid a nerf.

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I can't respond to this... What easy to fix issue are you ralking about?

Many. All over this game's history there was not a single moment without at least a few of those. But if you want a specific case, just look at the whole history of Confusion changes, where they kept changing it for PvP only to break it for PvE, then after a time fixed it for PvE just to break it for PvP, and then went at it again to reintroduce the issues they've already had problem with before. All because they kept balancing stuff for a single thing without looking at a wider picture.

Hint: the last confusion rework? For PvE that was basically a revert to the situation before the previous rework. People were telling them that change was bad even before that previous rework went live. And what happened? Everything was exactly as predicted, with confusion in PvE being mostly useless in majority of encounters, but completely OP in some selected few.

Since the condition damage rework in 2015 we've had major confusion reworks 3 times already: in 2017, 2018, and now in 2021. The first time it took them 2 years to manage to get it working about right in PvE (only to break it again in the following year). the second time it took them 3 years. That is the issue with your approach to play catchup. It is easy to break things somewhere by fixing related issues somewhere else, but, with Anet's sparse balance schedule it often takes a very, very long time to get what you've just broken into working state again.

Remember, that only the most gamebreaking changes can count on being fixed "soon" (and even those often just get "Smiter's Boon-ed" and then have to wait for undefinite amount of time for actual fix). Most balance changes have to wait for major balance patches, which happen only rarely (once per quarter at best, with sometimes us waiting for much, much longer without any). You just can't have iterative balancing done right at those schedules. Additionally, your approach of not considering if the changes you intend to introduce would have wider consequences, and only finding out that after they've got introduced, means a large part of your balance passes are filled with fixes to issues you have introduced earlier, which you could have avoided. That's a very, very bad combination to have.

Introducing something you know has a potential to break things without checking first if you could eliminate some of the issues beforehand in this situation is basically agreeing to the situation where a lot of stuff will be in broken state for months at the very least.

8 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I think this approach, whether we like it or not, is the approach Anet has to take.

Considering it is not the only possible approach to balancing, i happen to disagree. It is an approach they choose to take, but they definitely had other options, they've just chosen not to use them.

8 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I have no doubt Anet's  criteria is heavily determined by the level that people play certain builds, as indicated by many recent patch notes. 

Yes. But their past history shows, that often in their balancing spree they attack specific builds, but do not, in fact, think about how changing some specific traits/mechanics might affect other builds and classes that use the very same traits/mechanics.

Just as in this case, it's extremely likely they went specifically at revenant "immortal" builds, and everything else is just collateral.

8 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That can't happen without the change being in the game for a period of time to allow people to react to it.

Untrue. many of the effects of the changes can be predicted beforehand, as long as the balance devs know their game well.

8 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

This is really easy ... if some massive percent of ele players just stop playing ele since last patch ... probably is related to the change. Probably hits Anet's radar pretty hard. Probably results in Anet doing something to get people playing ele to a level they are satisfied with.

And? By that time they fix this (in a year or two), some people might have already stopped playing due to this. And by the time they've managed to fix this, they've already broken two or three other things... and probably at least one of those will be a direct result of said "fix".

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And? By that time they fix this (in a year or two), some people might have already stopped playing due to this. And by the time they've managed to fix this, they've already broken two or three other things... and probably at least one of those will be a direct result of said "fix".

Not really a problem IMO. I mean, this approach isn't unique or exceptional and neither is people leaving or coming back either. Can't please everyone all the time. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Not really a problem IMO. I mean, this approach isn't unique or exceptional and neither is people leaving or coming back either. Can't please everyone all the time. 

Not even trying to please those you could is indeed not unique, nor exceptional. It's usually called indolence. And it's not something that deserves promoting.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not even trying to please those you could is indeed not unique, nor exceptional. It's usually called indolence. And it's not something that deserves promoting.

It's not indolence ... it's the fact that the game can't cater to individuals. Not all changes will appeal to everyone. That's not something that will change, EVEN if Anet takes a different approach to how they make those changes.  Again, do you think Anet made this change and thought they hit a home run with every player in the game doing it? No, of course not ... but they did it anyways. 

I mean, what I said wasn't wrong ... there is lots of evidence to suggest what I described is how Anet is operating. Whether people like that or not, or whether it's the best way or not is irrelevant. The fearmongering of "people leaving" ... well, people leave for lots of reasons. The question is if any specific  change leads to a significant number of leaves. I don't know, you don't know. I doubt Anet knows. The best they are going to do is follow their process and do what they think is best for the game. 

The bottomline here is that complaints about game changes can't be compelled by speculations on people leaving the game or individuals not liking the change. It's like you don't think Anet should make any changes as long as they have no negative impact on players. That just can't be how they operate. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

double post

Edited October 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952