I'm being that guy

[jbondo.9817]

I really don't find the new engi spec as an addition to the game and I'm seriously let down by it. 

I know I'm being that guy (based on the title)

 

I'm open to discussion about why, but I'd like to hear what other's would say in defending that it was a healthy addition to the game. 

 

[Kuma.1503]

It's an AI spec. It's going to get nerfed to the ground, and then the massive trade-off will make it useless until it gets a rework in 4 years like what happened to Scrapper. 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I think everyone knows what's wrong with the Especs, but nobody wants to say it...and I don't blame them because to be fair...Anet is a company made of people with feelings...and nobody wants to hurt their feelings and neither do I, so first and foremost me, and everyone else should respect the developers that make this game possible for us to play...

 

But...I'm just gonna go and say what everyone is thinking.

 

Most if not all of the new E-Specs are full of the February 2020 design philosophy.

 

1) Everything is a damage skill with 1 second of a condition or 1 second of a boon...

2) there is little to no synergy between the skills and the traits and the core of the classes

3) there is a lack of mechanical depth.

4) There is no meaningful choice...your choices are either "pick +100 healing power or +100 power or +100 condition." Which is the analog of WOW balance... in which your choices in traits was: "+3% damage to x spell or +2% to Y spell." 

 

And take a look at this:

https://i.imgur.com/OBOML1Z.png

 

They are SHIPPING new specs, with 300 second cooldown abilities. That means that everyone was sold a lie...they were never going to fix the 300 second cooldown nuked skills changed in February 2020...300second cooldown is here to stay.

 

Anyway...I played Mechanist all day. You can see that they put in effort to make this a fun spec to play, and same with the other specs...but this balance philosophy has to go because it's ruining the game. 

 

What happened to games where the mechanics and meaningful choice was more important then graphics and balance? It's like mechanics and meaningful choice have been thrown out the corporate window for a more streamlined "gaming experience."

 

Again...Anet is a company with people with lives and families, and anything I say is criticism meant to help this game, and not attack the people that put hard work into making it. Sometimes we all just need some tough love. 

[jbondo.9817]

I love them as well. I really love the game.

I wish there was just a different decision in some of these specs, I really would've enjoyed even just a new kit, they didn't have to try to go all out with AI. I don't believe it's suited for the class. 

[Kuma.1503]

37 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Most if not all of the new E-Specs are full of the February 2020 design philosophy.

 

This. I've been discussing the new elite specs with my friends, and this is the one thing that bugs me the most. 

It should come as a surprise to no one here at this point that I have a strong dislike for the Februrary patch. I don't like what it did to the game. I'm not a fan of Arena Net's "trade-off" philosophy, and I don't think nerfing things down to insignificant numbers so they don't overperform is good design. 

I like CMC, I can tell that he works hard and has a real passion for what he does, but I do not agree with his design philosophy. The result of that philosophy is playing out with these 9 elite specs. I know it's not an easy job to balance an elite spec, but at some point you've got to stop layering downsides on top of downsides and make sure your spec actually funtions. 

Otherwise you get Willbender/Catalyst

I'm also not a fan of how these new specs seemingly go out of their way to synergize with their respective core specs as little as possible. Willbender is trying it's absoute hardest to be as little of a Guardian as possible. The traits work with your virtue passives don't even work with the spec. 

Catalyst is trying to do too much at once, and its design conflicts with itself. You're supposed to spam auras to get the most out of your traits, which is clearly designed to empower aura spam. Yet blasting a combo field for auras has a 10 second ICD, and hammer has no fields. Jade sphere pulses 1 second boons and does 6 damage. Youre a melee bruiser spec with slow cast times, but you have the durability of a glass canon and none of the damage. 

Untamed doesn't even bother to add the untamed mechanic to other weapons, forcing you to run hammer to get the most out of the spec because, according to CMC, diversity of playestyles = power creep. This isn't surprising after he got rid of amulets and killed traits with 300 second cooldowns. 

Med Kit's heal skill doesn't even work with mechanist, and the lack of of a toolbelt kills a lot of would-be build options. Engi's utilities are balanced around their toolbelts, wheras signets are balanced to work without toolbelts. 

The trait that empowers Vindicator's f1 while increasing the cooldown is completely dead if you're running core legends. There's absolutely no point in running it. 

Altogether the specs feel half-finished at best and poorly designed at worst. Some of them are very fun. Mechanist, Bladeworn, Vindicator, and Virtuoso were a blast to play, but it's hard to ignore their flaws. Say what you will about the power creep of previous elite specs, at least they felt complete and didn't go out of their way to neuter their core specs or actively work against them. 

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

But... I'm usually "that guy."  I have the respective glasses, jean-jacket, and codpiece to go with it.  Anyway...

The theme for each one of these specs seems to be the tradeoffs.  Each one of them sacrifices something pretty big to go with their new schtick.  So big that the functionality of each profession breaks in the process.  The best word I'd use to describe it is "incomplete," since so many professions are losing traits and abilities that are crucial to their survival.  Out of all 9 the only ones that seems like they're PVP viable are the Harbinger and maybe the Specter.  

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

35 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

This. I've been discussing the new elite specs with my friends, and this is the one thing that bugs me the most. 

It should come as a surprise to no one here at this point that I have a strong dislike for the Februrary patch. I don't like what it did to the game. I'm not a fan of Arena Net's "trade-off" philosophy, and I don't think nerfing things down to insignificant numbers so they don't overperform is good design. 

I like CMC, I can tell that he works hard and has a real passion for what he does, but I do not agree with his design philosophy. The result of that philosophy is playing out with these 9 elite specs. I know it's not an easy job to balance an elite spec, but at some point you've got to stop layering downsides on top of downsides and make sure your spec actually funtions. 

Otherwise you get Willbender/Catalyst

I'm also not a fan of how these new specs seemingly go out of their way to synergize with their respective core specs as little as possible. Willbender is trying it's absoute hardest to be as little of a Guardian as possible. The traits work with your virtue passives don't even work with the spec. 

Catalyst is trying to do too much at once, and its design conflicts with itself. You're supposed to spam auras to get the most out of your traits, which is clearly designed to empower aura spam. Yet blasting a combo field for auras has a 10 second ICD, and hammer has no fields. Jade sphere pulses 1 second boons and does 6 damage. Youre a melee bruiser spec with slow cast times, but you have the durability of a glass canon and none of the damage. 

Untamed doesn't even bother to add the untamed mechanic to other weapons, forcing you to run hammer to get the most out of the spec because, according to CMC, diversity of playestyles = power creep. This isn't surprising after he got rid of amulets and killed traits with 300 second cooldowns. 

Med Kit's heal skill doesn't even work with mechanist, and the lack of of a toolbelt kills a lot of would-be build options. Engi's utilities are balanced around their toolbelts, wheras signets are balanced to work without toolbelts. 

The trait that empowers Vindicator's f1 while increasing the cooldown is completely dead if you're running core legends. There's absolutely no point in running it. 

Altogether the specs feel half-finished at best and poorly designed at worst. Some of them are very fun. Mechanist, Bladeworn, Vindicator, and Virtuoso were a blast to play, but it's hard to ignore their flaws. Say what you will about the power creep of previous elite specs, at least they felt complete and didn't go out of their way to neuter their core specs or actively work against them. 

 

Sorry, but if class A does 100% of something then if it equip e-spec A and it does 200% of something then it's powercreep and it needs tuning down, that's exactly what happened with HoT and PoF and was needed to be nuked, to this day there's kitten load of leftovers of that bs.
Philosophy and idea are fine, but the execution is bad.
Let's take your pepe Guardian and it's e-speces as an example here.
Guardian = all rounder that can be built in anyway, normal F1-F3 skills act like an utility.
Dragonhunter = damage oriented powercreeped spec, with slightly altered F1-F3 skills in animation. They've added more "skills" to the pool of a class, but in reality it's simply core+ and nothing beside that, the change in gameplay is almost non-existant in long run.
Firebrand = abomination of a class that is questionable to this day how it was allowed to be released in it's current form, it have 15 additional utility skills at no cost, broken utility skills that doesn't change in the slightest how the class plays, it's just core 2.0. It also puts all other classes in shame.
Up to this point only Dragonhunter slightly changed how you play "Guardian", the Firebrand is overtuned core, so tell me: where is here "diversity" in reality?
Now they have released Willbender, which does change how skills F1-F3 behave, it does change how Guardian plays by a lot, but it's weak and fragile compared to the rest, because both Dragonhunter and Firebrand are both specces on steroids built on top of it's core, instead of being "alternatives" to it.
Then you have class like an Elementalist, with its Attument mechanic, it may sound great for core gameplay, but the moment we have that wonky system of e-speces it holds the whole class back af, since there isn't much you can do with it to alter it.
In case of Mechanist, the real problem is that the moment it'll gain access to core toolbelt skills at any given time it'll become core 2.0. IMO they could make big brain time and instead of making that AI based e-spec, they could go with something like Golemancer, which as an e-spec mechanic would allow to swap your F1-F4 with pressing F5(which would have like 20s cd or more to make some risk), this way you would have "2x F1-F4 skills", which you would have normal F1-F4 toolbelt skills and the second one would be these mechanist thingie skills from pet(like you click F1 and golem arms spawn on your shoulders to do pewpew from distance, or golem legs spawn near your legs to do stomp and create field). This way you would have something "new" and the tradeoff would be losing F5 forever while also being cut from your normal F1-F4 for x seconds.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

6 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I'm not a fan of Arena Net's "trade-off" philosophy, and I don't think nerfing things down to insignificant numbers so they don't overperform is good design. 

 

That's another thing that really makes me facepalm with these specs...is that tradeoffs get lumped in as being part of the blame for the bad design...but tradeoffs as a concept are absolutely 100% necessary for everything...for choices to have meaning, for balance of the game, and dynamic thoughtful gameplay. But these tradeoffs aren't good tradeoffs they are bad tradeoffs, and they are taking the brunt of most of the criticism of the specs...because tradeoffs are of course easy to target because they are the "negative" to the "positive" so to speak

 

A lot of people here on this particular forum and perhaps CMC as well... believe that opportunity cost, is the only tradeoff in existence and it's W.R.O.N.G. in big phat capital letters...straight up flat out, and it's that perception that "in order to play a different playstyle means giving that playstyle a cost to play it" is just straight up bad design and that's why it yields bad tradeoffs that don't work.

 

The fact that tradeoffs as a whole is getting the blame for that, rather then bad implementation of it depresses me. Makes me lose hope... I don't want Anet to abandon the concept of tradeoffs, because then there really will be no hope for game balance without them. But Anet has to do their homework and get with the program, and really look into and understand that there are more to tradeoffs then just slapping an opportunity cost on it and calling it a day.

 

I think a lot of the symptoms of the issues with the spec can be traced back to the attempt at implementing the bad tradeoffs. like you point out with the untamed where...

 

"The tradeoff is you can ONLY play this elite spec and have no diversity in playstyle."

 

For me this is just like...bruh I don't understand how this mindset had people convinced in 2020. It makes 0 sense to me...how can people believe that such a thing works, or would be good for the game, or that it's the only way tradeoffs can exist.

 

Anyway...there is no hiding anymore. These specs were designed with the 2020 design philosophy, and people got what they asked for...CMC was not "imprisoned..." like they say. He and whoever else is with him, designed them. He took time away from balance to do just that...so now there are no excuses.

 

Cheers,

Edited October 27, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[kainie.9032]

Personally i don't find the new spec that horrible, it's just mediocre to play.

The problem is how unfun it is to play against, i don't care if it will be top/high/mid/low tier, it has never been fun to lose the node because the enemy class had overtuned pets and it never will be

[GhandiBot.6257]

13 hours ago, jbondo.9817 said:

I'm being that guy

You're not that guy pal, trust me you're not that guy. 

[Liewec.2896]

its way too easy, i just rifle AA and watch things melt.

i'm going to enjoy it in pve

(i play a golemancer engi with the asuran golem elite and rune of golem, so it's gonna be amazing for me there.)

but for pvp i think it might be a little too good.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Liewec.2896

[Uvirith.9573]

8 hours ago, GhandiBot.6257 said:

You're not that guy pal, trust me you're not that guy. 

I am that guy.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I think everyone knows what's wrong with the Especs, but nobody wants to say it...and I don't blame them because to be fair...Anet is a company made of people with feelings...and nobody wants to hurt their feelings and neither do I, so first and foremost me, and everyone else should respect the developers that make this game possible for us to play...

 

But...I'm just gonna go and say what everyone is thinking.

 

Most if not all of the new E-Specs are full of the February 2020 design philosophy.

That is because CMC worked on them, and thus brought his failed philosophy to the new especs. But, hey I guess that means they won't be OP out the gate in competitive then.

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

1) Everything is a damage skill with 1 second of a condition or 1 second of a boon...

2) there is little to no synergy between the skills and the traits and the core of the classes

Gives a way to tweak Core with out tweaking the new especs directly though, so not bad exactly

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

3) there is a lack of mechanical depth.

4) There is no meaningful choice...your choices are either "pick +100 healing power or +100 power or +100 condition." Which is the analog of WOW balance... in which your choices in traits was: "+3% damage to x spell or +2% to Y spell." 

I mentioned to Kodama elsewhere that I get the feeling that they did that to see what sticks with the player base and then tailor the spec to what people enjoyed. But they definitely put their thumbs on the scale.

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

And take a look at this:

https://i.imgur.com/OBOML1Z.png

 

They are SHIPPING new specs, with 300 second cooldown abilities. That means that everyone was sold a lie...they were never going to fix the 300 second cooldown nuked skills changed in February 2020...300second cooldown is here to stay.

Yeah that is 🐴💩.

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Anyway...I played Mechanist all day. You can see that they put in effort to make this a fun spec to play, and same with the other specs...but this balance philosophy has to go because it's ruining the game. 

 

What happened to games where the mechanics and meaningful choice was more important then graphics and balance? It's like mechanics and meaningful choice have been thrown out the corporate window for a more streamlined "gaming experience."

 

Again...Anet is a company with people with lives and families, and anything I say is criticism meant to help this game, and not attack the people that put hard work into making it. Sometimes we all just need some tough love. 

There has been tremendous negative feedback from all the mains about each of the especs. One can only hope that they listen...