Why waste time doing 'new strikes' while you could be doing new Raid/Fractals?

[mindcircus.1506]

3 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

Certain professions can "do it all" (I'm trying to get away from my whipping boy Guardian) and they simply do everything with 1 build so much better than any other professions can do 1 thing with a build specifically geared that it really makes the balance off kilter.

This is a myopic view of balance and shows that you do not understand the concept.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

@mindcircus.1506 I'm not sure what you mean? I was saying that profession X with 1 build shouldn't be able to out dps, support, and cc other professions when they each have a build specifically geared to doing one of those things

For sake of argument lets say Profession X is using celestial gear with a build for all three of CC/dps/party support.

If, when using that build, profession X can provide more CC than profession A (gear/build solely for CC), equal dps to profession B (gear/build solely for DPS), and nearly the same support via heals/boons as profession C (gear/build solely for Support) there's a big issue in balance because profession X is effectively invalidating those 3 other professions.

In that case, the meta will shift to 3 of profession X (3 scourge meta in Fractals for a common example) rather than any of professions A, B, nd C because profession X does all 3 roles equally with 1 build.

It's a common balance focus among MMOs to make profession Z able to do 1, 2, but not 3. That way, you need profession Y to do 3.

When profession X can 1, 2, 3 there's no point to using profession Z (can't do 3) or profession Y (can't do 1, 2).

Could you please explain what you mean by myopic view of balance?

Edited January 26, 2022 by Geoff Fey.1035
Fixing to differentiate

[anbujackson.9564]

20 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

 

On the subject of old content becoming obsolete, have you ever tried running a Fractal composition in the old Dungeons? You see people heavily struggling with the paths unless they know them inside and out. The mentality of "just run past them" barely works there as people will get picked off and won't spawn near they group. It doesn't really make it obsolete--if anything the newer content makes people completely unprepared for the older harder stuff.

But overall I agree with your points

I have to disagree on the dungeon part, more or less.

You already said that (new) players struggle with dungeons if they never played them. You dont have many reasons to do them nowadays except meta runes for your armor. Sadly if they start running by everything only half as much and actually kill mobs, they would pretty much just rush through them anyway because stuff dies too fast. What kills them are probably the elite mobs which they underestimate (especially Arah elite undead), the bosses are pretty much the easy part (melt too fast, even with like only two people).

If they actually try to fight, then dungeons are easier than t4 fractals by a huge margin in my opinion.

Edited January 26, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Raizel.8175]

13 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

@mindcircus.1506 I'm not sure what you mean? I was saying that profession X with 1 build shouldn't be able to out dps, support, and cc other professions when they each have a build specifically geared to doing one of those things

For sake of argument lets say Profession X is using celestial gear with a build for all three of CC/dps/party support.

If, when using that build, profession X can provide more CC than profession A (gear/build solely for CC), equal dps to profession B (gear/build solely for DPS), and nearly the same support via heals/boons as profession C (gear/build solely for Support) there's a big issue in balance because profession X is effectively invalidating those 3 other professions.

In that case, the meta will shift to 3 of profession X (3 scourge meta in Fractals for a common example) rather than any of professions A, B, nd C because profession X does all 3 roles equally with 1 build.

It's a common balance focus among MMOs to make profession Z able to do 1, 2, but not 3. That way, you need profession Y to do 3.

When profession X can 1, 2, 3 there's no point to using profession Z (can't do 3) or profession Y (can't do 1, 2).

Could you please explain what you mean by myopic view of balance?

You're blowing the current situations in Fractal CMs way out of proportion. The balancing issue there isn't Scourge. It's Firebrand (role compression) and fractal and game mechanics (instabilities (esp. NPNG), Exposed, Agony, etc.) and the synergy between these aspects. Firebrand makes Scourge and Renegade viable for the current META in the first place. Besides: Scourge doesn't out-DPS, out-support or out-CC other builds at the same time. I agree that Plaguedoctor is strong, but not really better than a specialized build in a certain area. Having more or less 2 Scourges as META in 100 CM is due to the fact that one Epidemic isn't sufficient for Shades.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

@Raizel.8175 Oh I didn't mean that the Fractals is overbalancing the entire game, it was just the best example that I had in my head (it's what I mostly play). I wanted to give the thought process that I had that if 1 profession with 1 build can invalidate other builds, it means that class is far overperforming or the others are underperforming.

You're right that scourge doesn't out CC a specialized profession for it, however Epidemic actually invalidates even the need for someone to bring CC for those Shades.  It's true that all 3 scourges wouldn't be able to handle the breakbar specific phases on Ai.

I didn't want to discuss Firebrand because I always whine about Firebrand; trying to get away from that. As far as Firebrand enabling Revenant/Scourge Meta... I'm not sure. I haven't seen anyone try a different build or done a no-healer run.

(Sorry for offtopic)

 

[anbujackson.9564]

20 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

@Raizel.8175 

You're right that scourge doesn't out CC a specialized profession for it, however Epidemic actually invalidates even the need for someone to bring CC for those Shades.  It's true that all 3 scourges wouldn't be able to handle the breakbar specific phases on Ai.

 

 

Flesh golem and spectral grasp say hey. 🙂

Honestly though, necros can take amazing cc at borderline no dps cost. Spectral grasp over epi and plaguelands isnt that much of a dps increase (the durations of the damage conditions arent that long and the CD is high) so taking flesh golem is always an option if needed. These two x3 and you destroy everything, not even counting fear/torch/warhorn in.

Edited January 27, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Renegated.4132]

On 1/22/2022 at 9:27 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

No. Meaning that the devs themselves told us there was not enough raiders to justify further development of said content.

 

 

The question is: Why are there not enough raiders? Because they don't like raiding? Or maybe because the content comes in so low portions that when something new pops up people is already burned of that kind of content?

 

There's a descomunal amount of lore they can use from GW1, to the point of, if they want to, bring old raids from GW1 to GW2 with the excuse of "oh, a portal to the past, what can be awaiting us..." or even using the fractal lobby to do it, since it's in the mists you can use it for that purpose.

 

If people stopped doing raids it's not because they didn't like raiding, it's because it arrives a point where even if you like that content, your mind ends up telling you "I've had enough".

 

And I know what i'm saying, even after almost 2 years of not touching the raids, I tried raiding again and it was painfull to do just because of the huge burnout still being there.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

The question is: Why are there not enough raiders? Because they don't like raiding? Or maybe because the content comes in so low portions that when something new pops up people is already burned of that kind of content?

From what i see it, it's both. First makes it that there's not enough new players coming to raiding. Second makes it that even those that do make it and won't quit early due to not liking the content will eventually leave as well.

Notice, though, that when a developer tells us that there's not enough players in a certain content, it usually is not about absolute number of players. It's usually about the number of players compared to the amount of resources the developer is willing to put in. Basically, Anet at some point decided that the Return on Investment factor for Raids is too low. And while the population itself is something that can be increased by simply spending more resources on the content, this can easily make the content even less profitable.

So, sure, Anet could do more raids, and it would indeed bring in more raiders/slow the decay rate on the current raid community. But for one reason or another at some point Anet, on the basis of some data we are not privy to, decided that it's simply not worth the cost for them.

That's one reason why they are now experimenting with strikes, which are a far cheaper alternative. And one they can, at the same time, aim at a bigger population than the original raiding community.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Astralporing.1957]

Double post due to bad edit

Edited February 1, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Renegated.4132]

33 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

From what i see it, it's both. First makes it that there's not enough new players coming to raiding. Second makes it that even those that do make it and won't quit early due to not liking the content will eventually leave as well.

Notice, though, that when a developer tells us that there's not enough players in a certain content, it usually is not about absolute number of players. It's usually about the number of players compared to the amount of resources the developer is willing to put in. Basically, Anet at some point decided that the Return on Investment factor for Raids is too low. And while the population itself is something that can be increased by simply spending more resources on the content, this can easily make the content even less profitable.

So, sure, Anet could do more raids, and it would indeed bring in more raiders/slow the decay rate on the current raid community. But for one reason or another at some point Anet, on the basis of some data we are not privy to, decided that it's simply not worth the cost for them.

That's one reason why they are now experimenting with strikes, which are a far cheaper alternative. And one they can, at the same time, aim at a bigger population than the original raiding community.

 

The thing is that what makes the raids special and somehow fun it's the challenge they suppose. To put an example, Wing 4 can be done with exotic gear, to the point that the last boss, done with the ranged strat, leaves you with probably 4-5 mins of time with ascended gear, so doing it with exotic gear shouldn't be an issue. 

 

Telling the players things like "You need the best of the best to get here" only pulls people away. Plus, it's not that there are not enough players on raiding, it's that there are not enough players, on general. Releasing the Icebrood Saga when they released it knowing everyone was expecting the announce of the new expansion basically made a lot of people leave.

 

It would be something good that they added tiers for the raids or something like that, that allows players to go in with exotic gear on the first tier and allowing the players to farm without telling them "ascended it's a must". Then you unlock T2/T3 based on the KP of that wing you have achieved, 25 of each opens you T2, 75 of each opens you T3 and allows you to face the real challenge.

 

Plus, something good to allow is report due to "kick by low damage". There's an exagerated amount of people that thinks that everyone can do what snowcrows does, and that's not realistic, and under that argument, they kick you out. It's something that should be punishable.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Renegated.4132

[Astralporing.1957]

14 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

The thing is that what makes the raids special and somehow fun it's the challenge they suppose. To put an example, Wing 4 can be done with exotic gear, to the point that the last boss, done with the ranged strat, leaves you with probably 4-5 mins of time with ascended gear, so doing it with exotic gear shouldn't be an issue. 

 

Telling the players things like "You need the best of the best to get here" only pulls people away. Plus, it's not that there are not enough players on raiding, it's that there are not enough players, on general. Releasing the Icebrood Saga when they released it knowing everyone was expecting the announce of the new expansion basically made a lot of people leave.

You are significantly underestimating the gap between top and average players in this game. Gear tier differences are peanuts compared to this.

Sure, top tier players can do Dhuum CM in green gear with cheap runes. At the same time, a group of average players in full ascended will not even come close to be able to kill Dhuum on basic version. I have seen groups taking 20+ minutes at Cairn, and managing to kill it only because there were 2-3 players in that group that could carry the others. And those (and possibly even worse than those) are the players you'd need to pull in in order to make raids more populated.

14 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

It would be something good that they added tiers for the raids or something like that, that allows players to go in with exotic gear on the first tier and allowing the players to farm without telling them "ascended it's a must". Then you unlock T2/T3 based on the KP of that wing you have achieved, 25 of each opens you T2, 75 of each opens you T3 and allows you to face the real challenge.

Well... Me and many other players vere very vocal about introducing easy mode raids since the very beginning,but the raiding community either wasn't interested, or was interested, but only in easy mode so designed it would end up even less popular than raids are.

14 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

Plus, something good to allow is report due to "kick by low damage". There's an exagerated amount of people that thinks that everyone can do what snowcrows does, and that's not realistic, and under that argument, they kick you out. It's something that should be punishable.

Do that, and you will effectively kill LFG groups and force everyone really serious about raiding into statics. See my signature? It should be equally true for everyone, casual and hardcore both. Trying to force people of differing playstyles an aproach to gaming together is only going to generate a lot of resentment and toxicity.

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You are significantly underestimating the gap between top and average players in this game.

Which is something I would blame every side for to some degree. The "average player" for usually not making any effort to improve their performance, A-Net for both its horrendous balancing and their "need" to force "complexity" into every area they can "just cause" and some of the "hardcore players" for vocally taking a stance against solutions they themselves would ultimately end up benefiting from (even if it wouldn't directly impact their actual gameplay experience (and I'm not just talking about "easy modes" here)).

[Drascious.5714]

2 options - you either fail to see how strike missions are infinitely better than raids or fractals as a system, or this is just a troll thread.

 

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Which is something I would blame every side for to some degree. The "average player" for usually not making any effort to improve their performance, A-Net for both its horrendous balancing and their "need" to force "complexity" into every area they can "just cause" and some of the "hardcore players" for vocally taking a stance against solutions they themselves would ultimately end up benefiting from (even if it wouldn't directly impact their actual gameplay experience (and I'm not just talking about "easy modes" here)).

Some (many) players indeed are not interested in putting enough effort into improving their performance for it to matter. There's no point in blaming them for this - it's just how things are. You might as well blame weather for the rain - sure, you can do that, but it won't make it stop raining.

Basically, if you want a certain group of players to play certain content, and find out that the requirements for the content require from those players more effort than they're willing to give (or can give), it is a fault of the design, not the players. You can either try to motivate them more (but there's a certain breakpoint here after which increasing incentives end up actually causing more negative consequences than positive ones) or lower the effort required, but there's no point in hoping the initial situation will change on its own due to players on their own suddenly changing their attitude (because that just won't happen, no matter how hard you might wish for it).

[yann.1946]

46 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Some (many) players indeed are not interested in putting enough effort into improving their performance for it to matter. There's no point in blaming them for this - it's just how things are. You might as well blame weather for the rain - sure, you can do that, but it won't make it stop raining.

Basically, if you want a certain group of players to play certain content, and find out that the requirements for the content require from those players more effort than they're willing to give (or can give), it is a fault of the design, not the players. You can either try to motivate them more (but there's a certain breakpoint here after which increasing incentives end up actually causing more negative consequences than positive ones) or lower the effort required, but there's no point in hoping the initial situation will change on its own due to players on their own suddenly changing their attitude (because that just won't happen, no matter how hard you might wish for it).

The motivating more does not need to be more rewards perse, a well designed difficulty curve does that to. 

 

Ofcourse the question becomes, what do we want to teach players. More PvP related skills, instanced content related skills or skills related to other areas of the game. There is merit however to increasing the average skill level of the playerbase independent of whether instanced content is a good idea or not, as it opens more designspace for the combat. 

[Nash.2681]

4 hours ago, Psykewne.3025 said:

2 options - you either fail to see how strike missions are infinitely better than raids or fractals as a system, or this is just a troll thread.

 

3rd option: one can simply have a different or even opposite opinion on this.

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

The motivating more does not need to be more rewards perse, a well designed difficulty curve does that to. 

Partially, yes. Although for that to work not only content needs to lead the player along the curve, but the players' self-improvement need to follow it as well. GW2 is not that game - here the improvement "curve" for players is not curve at all. The way the players can improve is not gradual, but rather a set of steps with massive gaps in between. And that is part of the issue. It's not the gaps in the content that are too big for many players to go over, but the gaps in that improvement curve. And that is not something Anet can fix. Not without redoing a large part of the core game systems, which is extremely unlikely to happen.