Balance should be about creating variety.

[Gundam Style.8495]

I suggest to nerf only the classes that fall into the metabattle section, and those classes which see the most overall presence in the MAT and any class stacked in the finals. But avoid touching those in the great and below section, for now.

 

Avoid buffing anything in any major way that isn't the direct alternative to what is overperforming in a certain role in MAT.  If for example if core guardian is the best support, and druid and tempest and spectre are supposed to be alternatives, then if you buff alternatives, the support buffs should only affect "other ally". Self support translates to new roles like oppressive duelist.

 

Just snip and clip only meta, mat, and stack finals. The dramatic population will claim overnerf and play other classes perceived as strong. Buffing those that do well in conquest but not appear in MAT will only rotate the monsters.

 

Every class should have an opportunity to be a monster at a few roles with only flavor being the difference and not performance. So focus only on the top performing classes without trying to see the future.  Also, please bring back every rune, amulet, and sigil except celestial.

 

The goal should be to create a META that could fluctuate weekly, even daily. Not create a unvarying and sterile, static science project meta. Players should be forced to adapt every game, and not really know what to expect. You have to enhance the variety, and not limit it. Variety of builds and strategies and comps will be the best and easiest thing you can do to spice up pvp.

[Downstate.4697]

There is variety, except for prob warrior. A good player can make a great or even good build viable. This last MAT had the largest variety in builds and comps ive seen in awhile.

 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

definitely avoid metabattle and only look at MAT and plat + ranked popularity. baby steps, don't need complete reworks every time.

[Sereath.1428]

Huge mistake to exclusively balance around the top 0.1%. And it has already been done in this game and many others. Common trap.
They should have and use the numbers for the win ratio, usage and K/D ratio of every spec.

Edited April 28, 2022 by XxsdgxX.8109

[Master Ketsu.4569]

You want variety? Focus more on better animations and effective counterplay to mechanics so that skill matters more than build wars.

 

 

 

[Swagg.9236]

Balance is NOT about variety; it's about how established roles interact with each other.  GW2 has no consistent sense of balance because the game has historically never had any real roles amid the constant powercreep and arbitrary additions.

[felix.2386]

there's definitely no variety within warrior, no matter viable or no.

[Swagg.9236]

22 minutes ago, felix.2386 said:

there's definitely no variety within warrior, no matter viable or no.

It's only really limited by arbitrary nonsense like "class flavor."  Warrior has been very obviously creeping closer and closer to full thief mode like every other class, but flavor has really been the only thing stopping it from the full-commit like guard and rev.  That said, spellbreaker is almost a 1:1 copy of how 2014 thief plays except without teleports; and shout spam is basically just the PoF guard spec with even less buttons.

GW2 just lacks the necessary mechanical variety to support unique roles and playstyles for 9 classes.  It barely has enough for 3-4.

[myun.6395]

It's an MMO and it's a cycle.

If you nerf the current specs that are currently meta, specs like bladesworn which is viable, but not yet meta, will suddenly become the meta pick->people will start complain how bladesworn is unkillable and needs to be nerfed.

So again, a meta will always exist, even if they will nerf 5 specs into oblivion without making a single buff, passively some specs will shine among those nerfs and become the new meta.

For example if they really nerf support guardian to the ground that is no more playable, also harbinger and willbender, you will see tempests, catalysts bladesworn dominate the meta, it will be super refreshing the first week, but the again people will start crying how aura share is op, tempest support too good, catalyst too high damage, or too bunker in sidenodes, bladesworn too much sustain etc.

 

It's impossible to have a perfect balance in MMOs, what they should do it's bring the great specs into meta as well, so people have options, if you wanna run a willbender, but you wanna play shiro herald, you shouldn't insta lose at the same skill level like it is now, because willbender is a direct powercreep to shiro herald or any other roamer dps build.

 

They should buff the underdogs and make them viable as well, it would be great to have a meta section in metabattle with 25 lines of different specs and not just 5.

[Kozumi.5816]

12 hours ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

 baby steps, don't need complete reworks every time.

Yeah maybe in 9100 when I'm a floating brain in outer space pvp will finally be good.

[Zekent.3652]

Balance is about variety AND stopping dumb abuses.

[Arheundel.6451]

10 hours ago, Master Ketsu.4569 said:

You want variety? Focus more on better animations and effective counterplay to mechanics so that skill matters more than build wars.

 

 

 

Way too late for that....they should have never added quickness and alacrity ,superspeed  to the game and now gl trying to remove them

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

 

On 4/28/2022 at 9:21 AM, Gundam Style.8495 said:

I suggest to nerf only the classes that fall into the metabattle section, and those classes which see the most overall presence in the MAT and any class stacked in the finals. But avoid touching those in the great and below section, for now.

 

Avoid buffing anything in any major way that isn't the direct alternative to what is overperforming in a certain role in MAT.  If for example if core guardian is the best support, and druid and tempest and spectre are supposed to be alternatives, then if you buff alternatives, the support buffs should only affect "other ally". Self support translates to new roles like oppressive duelist.

 

Just snip and clip only meta, mat, and stack finals. The dramatic population will claim overnerf and play other classes perceived as strong. Buffing those that do well in conquest but not appear in MAT will only rotate the monsters.

 

Every class should have an opportunity to be a monster at a few roles with only flavor being the difference and not performance. So focus only on the top performing classes without trying to see the future.  Also, please bring back every rune, amulet, and sigil except celestial.

 

The goal should be to create a META that could fluctuate weekly, even daily. Not create a unvarying and sterile, static science project meta. Players should be forced to adapt every game, and not really know what to expect. You have to enhance the variety, and not limit it. Variety of builds and strategies and comps will be the best and easiest thing you can do to spice up pvp.

 

This is the common mistake people always make about this subject. You should really ask yourself a deeper question: How does one actually create variety? A question nobody really stops to think and ask right...Variety...Balance...What do those things even mean?...cause for example...here's an example of me giving you some variety :

 

Option A: I offer you a million dollars.

Option B: I offer you 5 dollars.

 

Clearly the two things here give you a kind of variety in choice. Get a million bucks and be rich or get 5 bucks and be able to barley afford a few candy bars.

 

But say we went along with your proposal to nerf and buff the options so that the two things are "balanced." 

 

Option A: I offer you $500 dollars

Option B: I offer you $500 dollars.

 

I nerfed option A down to 500 bucks from a million, and i buffed option b to 500 bucks from 5...clearly the two options no longer give you any variety because they are the same choice now. This is what i spent maybe 2 or 3 years on the forum trying to explain...that nerfs and buffs in an attempt to make things equal, destroys diversity and that the two are mutually exclusive...you can not both have a completely balanced game that is diverse...it simply is not possible.

 

This paradox extends and inserts itself a lot deeper...to the point where no matter what you do no matter how complex the system of spells you are talking about or dealing with, no two skills can ever in principle be balanced with one another unless you make them the same skills. Thus balance in this way is not achievable.

Edited April 29, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Gundam Style.8495]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

 

This is the common mistake people always make about this subject. You should really ask yourself a deeper question: How does one actually create variety? A question nobody really stops to think and ask right...Variety...Balance...What do those things even mean?...cause for example...here's an example of me giving you some variety :

 

Option A: I offer you a million dollars.

Option B: I offer you 5 dollars.

 

Clearly the two things here give you a kind of variety in choice. Get a million bucks and be rich or get 5 bucks and be able to barley afford a few candy bars.

 

But say we went along with your proposal to nerf and buff the options so that the two things are "balanced." 

 

Option A: I offer you $500 dollars

Option B: I offer you $500 dollars.

 

I nerfed option A down to 500 bucks from a million, and i buffed option b to 500 bucks from 5...clearly the two options no longer give you any variety because they are the same choice now. This is what i spent maybe 2 or 3 years on the forum trying to explain...that nerfs and buffs in an attempt to make things equal, destroys diversity and that the two are mutually exclusive...you can not both have a completely balanced game that is diverse...it simply is not possible.

 

This paradox extends and inserts itself a lot deeper...to the point where no matter what you do no matter how complex the system of spells you are talking about or dealing with, no two skills can ever in principle be balanced with one another unless you make them the same skills. Thus balance in this way is not achievable.

 

How about this:

 

I want a pizza. I order the pizza. It can be delivered in a variety of ways, but I expect the pizza to be as delicious or satisfying regardless of delivery. If the method of delivery is affecting the deliciousness or my satisfaction to a degree in which neither is achieved acceptably, then it is a bad method of delivery.

 

So, if I order a pizza and you order a pizza, and when the delivery is made YOU receive a pizza and I receive a hamburger  or a frozen pizza, one of us is going to be unsatisfied. I'm taking a wild guess that you and I both know who is unsatisfied. There is another scenario in which would be unfair in one of our eyes, regarding pizza.

 

Imagine we both order pizzas, we are both pizza lovers. We work at the same place and both love pizza. When our pizzas arrive, they are just as delicious and satisfactory, even if they are different flavors and one came by motorcycle and the other delivered by uber eats. We are both effectively good at being pizza lovers, except one of us was given a FREE soda, as an extra. You were given the free soda. I watch you gulp your soda, and washing down the pizza. While I am eating a delicious pizza, my throat is dry, and even more so by seeing you MORE effectively rinse your throat with soda. You are a better pizza lover.

 

 

 

Two classes are support, both bring support, and that effective support should be the same, even if delivered in different ways or different animations, and it should not have the extra soda over the other. The deciding factor is merely cosmetic and how attached the player is to that cosmetic output design, and not the performance.

 

In a way, that may be giving everyone sticks, appropriate for each role, but at least different color sticks will give the illusion of difference. The REAL magic is finding a point for each class at which they are most effective and least effective, and basically locking them in with refinements.

 

After those groups are found, pay attention to how their intended purpose is or isn't effective, and is or isn't misused in other ways. One of the biggest things I have noticed in this game is when supports get damage, they become very good duelists. And if side noders get too much support abilities, they become great at effectively everything.

 

I believe the "everyone can do anything"  mindset that will continue the cycle. If there were somewhat rigid role divisions, then the game mode itself could be redefined to make things fair. IF the devs divided the roles into 3 or 4 immutable groups with only 3-4 classes per role, and the roles should not be complimentary, then the LEGENDARY balance may be achieved.

 

I wanted to suggest starting with the top to allow the "lessers" to catch up. If they surpass, then beef up those just a little.  Increase the overall amount of builds in the game, I don't want removal of anything, please. Give us more.

[greedywholesome.9081]

On 4/28/2022 at 9:21 PM, Gundam Style.8495 said:

I suggest to nerf only the classes that fall into the metabattle section, and those classes which see the most overall presence in the MAT and any class stacked in the finals. But avoid touching those in the great and below section, for now.

 

Avoid buffing anything in any major way that isn't the direct alternative to what is overperforming in a certain role in MAT.  If for example if core guardian is the best support, and druid and tempest and spectre are supposed to be alternatives, then if you buff alternatives, the support buffs should only affect "other ally". Self support translates to new roles like oppressive duelist.

 

Just snip and clip only meta, mat, and stack finals. The dramatic population will claim overnerf and play other classes perceived as strong. Buffing those that do well in conquest but not appear in MAT will only rotate the monsters.

 

Every class should have an opportunity to be a monster at a few roles with only flavor being the difference and not performance. So focus only on the top performing classes without trying to see the future.  Also, please bring back every rune, amulet, and sigil except celestial.

 

The goal should be to create a META that could fluctuate weekly, even daily. Not create a unvarying and sterile, static science project meta. Players should be forced to adapt every game, and not really know what to expect. You have to enhance the variety, and not limit it. Variety of builds and strategies and comps will be the best and easiest thing you can do to spice up pvp.

 

Yeah sure, I'm down for whatever so long as it's fun and exciting

[greedywholesome.9081]

On 4/29/2022 at 12:42 AM, FrownyClown.8402 said:

There is variety, except for prob warrior. A good player can make a great or even good build viable. This last MAT had the largest variety in builds and comps ive seen in awhile.

 

 

thanks for acknowledging the negligence warriors are going thru. 

Though I'm and a mesmer and ele main but play all classes, warriors are in a bad shape right now. 

[greedywholesome.9081]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

 

This is the common mistake people always make about this subject. You should really ask yourself a deeper question: How does one actually create variety? A question nobody really stops to think and ask right...Variety...Balance...What do those things even mean?...cause for example...here's an example of me giving you some variety :

 

Option A: I offer you a million dollars.

Option B: I offer you 5 dollars.

 

Clearly the two things here give you a kind of variety in choice. Get a million bucks and be rich or get 5 bucks and be able to barley afford a few candy bars.

 

But say we went along with your proposal to nerf and buff the options so that the two things are "balanced." 

 

Option A: I offer you $500 dollars

Option B: I offer you $500 dollars.

 

I nerfed option A down to 500 bucks from a million, and i buffed option b to 500 bucks from 5...clearly the two options no longer give you any variety because they are the same choice now. This is what i spent maybe 2 or 3 years on the forum trying to explain...that nerfs and buffs in an attempt to make things equal, destroys diversity and that the two are mutually exclusive...you can not both have a completely balanced game that is diverse...it simply is not possible.

 

This paradox extends and inserts itself a lot deeper...to the point where no matter what you do no matter how complex the system of spells you are talking about or dealing with, no two skills can ever in principle be balanced with one another unless you make them the same skills. Thus balance in this way is not achievable.

 

I see your posts from time to time and you seem to reference finance a LOT when using analogies to make your point. I think it's kinda cool. Im GreedyWholesome and I probably like money more than anyone here. 

 

Global wealth is literally dictated by the federal reserve and a million dollars, I'm assuming USD, is ok money.

 

Whenever a smartassss would talk down on someone on gold tier, I'd proudly say that in the commodities and precious metals market, gold is worth more than platinum by a ratio of almost 2:1 

 

🙂

[Shao.7236]

Honestly the variety is there, people are just too afraid to step out of their comfort zone. With EoD there's a bit of power creep but it's mostly under control. Ever since the 2020 patch there has been a lot more builds that can be played despite all the complains, much just refused to adapt and that's how we ended up here.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Gundam Style.8495 said:

In a way, that may be giving everyone sticks, appropriate for each role, but at least different color sticks will give the illusion of difference.

 

That's the thing. is that it's not an illusion.

 

If I called Option A: Light Beam, and I called Option B : Turtle Bash, and they both do the same operations, and hit for the same amount of damage or healing or whatever...then the only difference between them is their name. It is not an illusion...they are both just the same thing why bother even naming them different things.

 

I'm politely saying this, that the problem is not something you can just think on for 15 minutes and call it a day. It is a lot deeper, and it has nothing to do with what you and I believe or what you or I want...we are talking about an issue and a paradox that at it's core puts into question about what is even possible to do to analyze the problem, which extends beyond just the parameters of games.

 

Let's talk about pizza. Your example...is a little confusing...so I'm going to simplify it a bit.

 

You have two options: 

 

Option A : A pizza

Option B : A Hamburger

 

And you wanted to ask, how does one "balance" the pizza and the hamburger here...what operations are involved with making them balanced? There is no clear identifiable way to do such a thing. How do you even measure that the two are imbalanced options to begin with? Say we want "satisfaction" to be a measure of balance...but what does that even mean? Satisfaction is arbitrary. Pizza has no meat, where hamburgers have meat so a vegetarian won't be so happy with the hamburger. Some people are Lactose Intolerant so they won't be satisfied with the pizza. So this notion of "satisfaction" is a relative term that you can't really quantify in any meaningful sense, so how can one curate even, a procedure to produce satisfaction. If such a thing could be done then we would all be wealthy, loved and satisfied with our lives would we not?

 

There is a tendency for people is to just skip immediately to giving out the answers because everyone wants to think they know everything...when really you should be asking questions. Nobody wants to learn anything... people just want to be the protagonist in the story and be the one who "Saved Guild Wars2 Balance" if only they had listened to you instead of this other guy who clearly did it wrong...

 

I'm not targeting you personally. I'm just trying to convey what is important...that one needs to step back and use the organ that took the earth 4 billion years of random particles bumping around in space to engineer. You have the right idea...you want variety and it is related to balance...I wouldn't have commented on this thread if I didn't think it wasn't worth my time...but talking about the problem requires asking questions about the nature of balance and what choices are and how those two things are connected, before we can even think about an answer...and that requires sitting and thinking really hard about what is being said. 

 

Lets put the above example and statements into perspective. Instead of talking about pizza's and hamburgers...let's just take some simple skills :

 

Skill A

Damage : 300

Healing : 450

Inflicts 2s Immobilize Condition.

 

Skill B

Damage 1400

Healing 100

Teleports 450 units away. 

 

If I were to ask you if this skill is balanced...would you be able to answer that question? If I had told you to nerf and buff these skills until they are balanced...what are the operations...the steps you would have to take to do that? Can you prove that the two things are balanced after such operations.

 

You'll find that the answer is that no...it's impossible to balance such an example...not only is it next to impossible to quantify those mechanics in a meaningful way, but even if you could, making them balanced involves making all those values and mechanics equal. Again the paradox rears it's head and you can't in principle follow a set of procedures that keeps the two options both balanced and diverse. If you think on that long enough...it actually makes obvious sense why that's the case... Two things that are the same can't ever possibly be different...and two things that are different cant ever possible be the same.

 

The key concept about diversity...variety...is that it's NOT about being equal and it never was. If diversity was a person you could speak with...you'd look at them, look into their eyes and realize that balance was NEVER it's intention. So you have to wonder why it can effortlessly produce balanced behavior like you would see in nature, vs this game where it seems human's struggle to engineer and manufacture it. The answers to those questions go deep...and by deep I really do MEAN this...a trip not for the faint of heart, and its counter intuitive...it's not a simple fix here, or a simple fix there, it requires a complete shift in thought about the problem as a whole. 

Edited April 29, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Gundam Style.8495]

21 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

That's the thing. is that it's not an illusion.

 

If I called Option A: Light Beam, and I called Option B : Turtle Bash, and they both do the same operations, and hit for the same amount of damage or healing or whatever...then the only difference between them is their name. It is not an illusion...they are both just the same thing why bother even naming them different things.

 

I'm politely saying this, that the problem is not something you can just think on for 15 minutes and call it a day. It is a lot deeper, and it has nothing to do with what you and I believe or what you or I want...we are talking about an issue and a paradox that at it's core puts into question about what is even possible to do to analyze the problem, which extends beyond just the parameters of games.

 

Let's talk about pizza. Your example...is a little confusing...so I'm going to simplify it a bit.

 

You have two options: 

 

Option A : A pizza

Option B : A Hamburger

 

And you wanted to ask, how does one "balance" the pizza and the hamburger here...what operations are involved with making them balanced? There is no clear identifiable way to do such a thing. How do you even measure that the two are imbalanced options to begin with? Say we want "satisfaction" to be a measure of balance...but what does that even mean? Satisfaction is arbitrary. Pizza has no meat, where hamburgers have meat so a vegetarian won't be so happy with the hamburger. Some people are Lactose Intolerant so they won't be satisfied with the pizza. So this notion of "satisfaction" is a relative term that you can't really quantify in any meaningful sense, so how can one curate even, a procedure to produce satisfaction. If such a thing could be done then we would all be wealthy, loved and satisfied with our lives would we not?

 

There is a tendency for people is to just skip immediately to giving out the answers because everyone wants to think they know everything...when really you should be asking questions. Nobody wants to learn anything... people just want to be the protagonist in the story and be the one who "Saved Guild Wars2 Balance" if only they had listened to you instead of this other guy who clearly did it wrong...

 

I'm not targeting you personally. I'm just trying to convey what is important...that one needs to step back and use the organ that took the earth 4 billion years of random particles bumping around in space to engineer. You have the right idea...you want variety and it is related to balance...I wouldn't have commented on this thread if I didn't think it wasn't worth my time...but talking about the problem requires asking questions about the nature of balance and what choices are and how those two things are connected, before we can even think about an answer...and that requires sitting and thinking really hard about what is being said. 

 

Lets put the above example and statements into perspective. Instead of talking about pizza's and hamburgers...let's just take some simple skills :

 

Skill A

Damage : 300

Healing : 450

Inflicts 2s Immobilize Condition.

 

Skill B

Damage 1400

Healing 100

Teleports 450 units away. 

 

If I were to ask you if this skill is balanced...would you be able to answer that question? If I had told you to nerf and buff these skills until they are balanced...what are the operations...the steps you would have to take to do that? Can you prove that the two things are balanced after such operations.

 

You'll find that the answer is that no...it's impossible to balance such an example...not only is it next to impossible to quantify those mechanics in a meaningful way, but even if you could, making them balanced involves making all those values and mechanics equal. Again the paradox rears it's head and you can't in principle follow a set of procedures that keeps the two options both balanced and diverse. If you think on that long enough...it actually makes obvious sense why that's the case... Two things that are the same can't ever possibly be different...and two things that are different cant ever possible be the same.

 

The key concept about diversity...variety...is that it's NOT about being equal and it never was. If diversity was a person you could speak with...you'd look at them, look into their eyes and realize that balance was NEVER it's intention. So you have to wonder why it can effortlessly produce balanced behavior like you would see in nature, vs this game where it seems human's struggle to engineer and manufacture it. The answers to those questions go deep...and by deep I really do MEAN this...a trip not for the faint of heart, and its counter intuitive...it's not a simple fix here, or a simple fix there, it requires a complete shift in thought about the problem as a whole. 

 

The game is close to nature because if builds having a hierarchy of success. Realistically, as soon as I identify specific examples as to why two classes with the same intended role, players will be defensive of the dominant class or sympathetic of the weaker class. 

 

Satisfaction isn't necessarily arbitrary if the measure of satisfaction is based on objective criteria. For example, a pizza should have cheese, red sauce, 1-3 toppings, and temperature should be 40-50 c.  Measurable criteria that can be reasonably met, that as long as within those thresholds given +/-  3% accuracy.

 

If the animations and cosmetics are different enough, it should be effective if both attack a and b deliver the same damage amount, with play as to whether it can be delivered in condi, power, or hybrid form.

 

 Four classes being the top out of nine, or 9 specs out of 36 being 90% of the pick  isn't even close a diverse game.

 

The toppings can even be different but the overall effect and values must be within +/-3% for intended roles, and any class that takes up that role, if intended.

 

I guess alternatively, the current greats could brought up to meta, and the lowest rated goods should be brought up to meta. 

 

To be fair, each profession should have 2 builds each, but from different specs. So minimally 18 meta builds, A++ tier, to be at an effective 50% diversity, and my decimal may be off, but I'm just not seeing that representation from top to bottom.

 

I will say your diversity increases as you go down the ladder in skill. So, that is why I suggest looking at the cream. Some things could be fixed about the MM on the same note.

 

I'd like to see every single spec as a meta viable pick for some function, but I feel the inability to cope and adapt is why things are narrowed down and rotated(occasionally)

[Gundam Style.8495]

45 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

That's the thing. is that it's not an illusion.

 

If I called Option A: Light Beam, and I called Option B : Turtle Bash, and they both do the same operations, and hit for the same amount of damage or healing or whatever...then the only difference between them is their name. It is not an illusion...they are both just the same thing why bother even naming them different things.

 

I'm politely saying this, that the problem is not something you can just think on for 15 minutes and call it a day. It is a lot deeper, and it has nothing to do with what you and I believe or what you or I want...we are talking about an issue and a paradox that at it's core puts into question about what is even possible to do to analyze the problem, which extends beyond just the parameters of games.

 

Let's talk about pizza. Your example...is a little confusing...so I'm going to simplify it a bit.

 

You have two options: 

 

Option A : A pizza

Option B : A Hamburger

 

And you wanted to ask, how does one "balance" the pizza and the hamburger here...what operations are involved with making them balanced? There is no clear identifiable way to do such a thing. How do you even measure that the two are imbalanced options to begin with? Say we want "satisfaction" to be a measure of balance...but what does that even mean? Satisfaction is arbitrary. Pizza has no meat, where hamburgers have meat so a vegetarian won't be so happy with the hamburger. Some people are Lactose Intolerant so they won't be satisfied with the pizza. So this notion of "satisfaction" is a relative term that you can't really quantify in any meaningful sense, so how can one curate even, a procedure to produce satisfaction. If such a thing could be done then we would all be wealthy, loved and satisfied with our lives would we not?

 

There is a tendency for people is to just skip immediately to giving out the answers because everyone wants to think they know everything...when really you should be asking questions. Nobody wants to learn anything... people just want to be the protagonist in the story and be the one who "Saved Guild Wars2 Balance" if only they had listened to you instead of this other guy who clearly did it wrong...

 

I'm not targeting you personally. I'm just trying to convey what is important...that one needs to step back and use the organ that took the earth 4 billion years of random particles bumping around in space to engineer. You have the right idea...you want variety and it is related to balance...I wouldn't have commented on this thread if I didn't think it wasn't worth my time...but talking about the problem requires asking questions about the nature of balance and what choices are and how those two things are connected, before we can even think about an answer...and that requires sitting and thinking really hard about what is being said. 

 

Lets put the above example and statements into perspective. Instead of talking about pizza's and hamburgers...let's just take some simple skills :

 

Skill A

Damage : 300

Healing : 450

Inflicts 2s Immobilize Condition.

 

Skill B

Damage 1400

Healing 100

Teleports 450 units away. 

 

If I were to ask you if this skill is balanced...would you be able to answer that question? If I had told you to nerf and buff these skills until they are balanced...what are the operations...the steps you would have to take to do that? Can you prove that the two things are balanced after such operations.

 

You'll find that the answer is that no...it's impossible to balance such an example...not only is it next to impossible to quantify those mechanics in a meaningful way, but even if you could, making them balanced involves making all those values and mechanics equal. Again the paradox rears it's head and you can't in principle follow a set of procedures that keeps the two options both balanced and diverse. If you think on that long enough...it actually makes obvious sense why that's the case... Two things that are the same can't ever possibly be different...and two things that are different cant ever possible be the same.

 

The key concept about diversity...variety...is that it's NOT about being equal and it never was. If diversity was a person you could speak with...you'd look at them, look into their eyes and realize that balance was NEVER it's intention. So you have to wonder why it can effortlessly produce balanced behavior like you would see in nature, vs this game where it seems human's struggle to engineer and manufacture it. The answers to those questions go deep...and by deep I really do MEAN this...a trip not for the faint of heart, and its counter intuitive...it's not a simple fix here, or a simple fix there, it requires a complete shift in thought about the problem as a whole. 

As to your point about 1 guy thinking about the issue, I don't know if problems can be solved by one person or more than one person, a group, but it may only take one insightful thought from one person, even if by luck to spark a chain of thoughts or refinements.

 

I don't know if my idea is the way, but from observing the pattern in gw2, not much deviation from the direction of repress and control and restrict, and probably to make things more predictable. The complexity of the game is making that hard, I imagine.

 

If we all remain civil, and continue the discussion without getting personal, someone is bound to have some insight triggered and contribute immeasurably.

 

Perhaps that will be you.

[Kuya.6495]

I know people tend to fixate on the bad but compared to PoF and HoT we actually have more balance and more variety this time. 

 

In fact, just in case most of you are forgetting, this latest expansion actually released betas with most of the new specs being underpowered vs the PoF ones and some of them even had trait lines with downsides! 

 

And then everyone in each profession sub forum had a meltdown that the EoD specs had trade offs and then anet buffed almost everything up since then. 🤷‍♀️

Edited April 30, 2022 by Kuya.6495

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Gundam Style.8495 said:

As to your point about 1 guy thinking about the issue, I don't know if problems can be solved by one person or more than one person, a group, but it may only take one insightful thought from one person, even if by luck to spark a chain of thoughts or refinements.

 

I don't know if my idea is the way, but from observing the pattern in gw2, not much deviation from the direction of repress and control and restrict, and probably to make things more predictable. The complexity of the game is making that hard, I imagine.

 

If we all remain civil, and continue the discussion without getting personal, someone is bound to have some insight triggered and contribute immeasurably.

 

Perhaps that will be you.

 

I agree, that is my intention, to keep things civil. But also what I'm doing is mentally preparing you for the can of worms that is this problem. Like I mentioned earlier, I started looking into this around 3 years ago...and like you, I was on the same path on looking at diversity and balance in this game. However, in those three years, the can of worms...the rabbit hole as I call it, went so deep that it took well... three years to really come down to an answer. 

 

The short of it is that this problem can not be solved without a Theory of Everything. I'll repeat this again. The problem of diversity and balance involves, and can not be solved without a Theory of Everything. As you know...there is no definite consensus yet on a Theory of Everything. The reason why the statement above is the case, is because Diversity and Balance in nature is a science that originated from the study of Biology, and one that you can study. Like you said, the game is close to nature, at least in the way that it behaves, and this was my initial reasoning for even studying that field because it is my view that to answer those questions would involve studying it. What you'll find upon studying biology, is it will eventually lead you to evolution, which eventually leads you to thermodynamics, which eventually leads you to Physics, which eventually leads you to Chaos and Complexity Theory, which finally ends with Computational Complexity. 

 

There's a lot I could say about what I believe is the solution to the problem...but it might just be easier to tackle the proposed arguments and show why they would be wrong instead, starting with this one:

 

Quote

Satisfaction isn't necessarily arbitrary if the measure of satisfaction is based on objective criteria. For example, a pizza should have cheese, red sauce, 1-3 toppings, and temperature should be 40-50 c.  Measurable criteria that can be reasonably met, that as long as within those thresholds given +/-  3% accuracy.

 

So this is a form of the argument in which there assumes two things that 1) that criteria is objective and 2) that getting close to equal is good enough.

 

The reason these are both wrong ways to approach the problem is that Diversity and Balance are not two separate things...they lie on a kind of spectrum. The more equal two things become, the less diverse those things are and vice versa. The following is an informal proof of such a statement:

 

https://i.imgur.com/FeRJAK9.png

 

The first part of the image above shows two objects: A Hammer and an Apple. A hammer has some measurable qualities as to what makes a hammer a hammer...and an apple has some measurable qualities as to what makes it an apple. But imagine you could tweak these parameters as if you had a dial that you could notch up and down. The more you tweak the properties of these things to be equal to one another...the more the hammer just becomes the same as the apple...if they are both red, both have the same size, have the same malleability, the same shape, the same texture, refraction index and so on for every parameter one can find to describe the object, than in that limit the hammer and the apple objectively become the same object. 

 

For juxtaposition, you have a set of skills, also with measurable qualities...damage, range, cooldown etc...the more and more you tweak these parameters to be the same, the more those skills, like the above example, become the same skill.

 

Therefor Diversity and Balance are not two separate things...they share a spectrum together with each other, where as you make things more equal, they become less diverse...as you make things more diverse, they become less equal.

 

When things are on a spectrum like this it begs a critical observation...that the two concepts are in some way unified, and the question becomes how are the two things unified? The answer to that is that Diversity and Balance are not static concepts...they are dynamic processes, in that they change over time. In other words, systems move from Diverse -> Homogenous through a process of entropy, and can only be described as the following unified concept "System Evolution."

 

To further illustrate why that statement is true, consider you are playing a simple game, in which you have 10 pieces of paper of different colors where the colors represent classes...skills...builds or whatever. Each paper has a number associated with it. As players flip over the pieces of paper, players migrate and pick the color with the highest number.

 

https://i.imgur.com/Ch9vn1Y.png

 

The game starts out in a maximally diverse state where all colors are represented...as the game evolves, players migrate to the colors that have the highest number, and in the end, all players are playing the color with the highest number (Grey 458). The system moves from Maximally Diverse -> Maximally Homogenous over time. 

 

This is a very direct analog for how meta's appear...The game starts out presenting you with a set of choices...players explore the landscape of choices, and they settle onto the best builds with some method of measurement, and this creates the metagame. You can ask yourself what operations can actually effect the process, and you find that what doesn't effect the process in any way shape or form, is making the numbers equal. This is a hard statement about that operation...that nerfs and buffs do not change the dynamic process of diversity and balance.

 

It's a pretty important conclusion...it's also counter intuitive... how can it be that nerfs and buffs to numbers are meaningless?, but that's why...it's because the way diversity and balance actually works, those operations change nothing about how the system behaves. Like I said before...when you dig deeper into this problem, a complete shift in your world view is required.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Gundam Style.8495]

21 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

I agree, that is my intention, to keep things civil. But also what I'm doing is mentally preparing you for the can of worms that is this problem. Like I mentioned earlier, I started looking into this around 3 years ago...and like you, I was on the same path on looking at diversity and balance in this game. However, in those three years, the can of worms...the rabbit hole as I call it, went so deep that it took well... three years to really come down to an answer. 

 

The short of it is that this problem can not be solved without a Theory of Everything. I'll repeat this again. The problem of diversity and balance involves, and can not be solved without a Theory of Everything. As you know...there is no definite consensus yet on a Theory of Everything. The reason why the statement above is the case, is because Diversity and Balance in nature is a science that originated from the study of Biology, and one that you can study. Like you said, the game is close to nature, at least in the way that it behaves, and this was my initial reasoning for even studying that field because it is my view that to answer those questions would involve studying it. What you'll find upon studying biology, is it will eventually lead you to evolution, which eventually leads you to thermodynamics, which eventually leads you to Physics, which eventually leads you to Chaos and Complexity Theory, which finally ends with Computational Complexity. 

 

There's a lot I could say about what I believe is the solution to the problem...but it might just be easier to tackle the proposed arguments and show why they would be wrong instead, starting with this one:

 

 

So this is a form of the argument in which there assumes two things that 1) that criteria is objective and 2) that getting close to equal is good enough.

 

The reason these are both wrong ways to approach the problem is that Diversity and Balance are not two separate things...they lie on a kind of spectrum. The more equal two things become, the less diverse those things are and vice versa. The following is an informal proof of such a statement:

 

https://i.imgur.com/FeRJAK9.png

 

The first part of the image above shows two objects: A Hammer and an Apple. A hammer has some measurable qualities as to what makes a hammer a hammer...and an apple has some measurable qualities as to what makes it an apple. But imagine you could tweak these parameters as if you had a dial that you could notch up and down. The more you tweak the properties of these things to be equal to one another...the more the hammer just becomes the same as the apple...if they are both red, both have the same size, have the same malleability, the same shape, the same texture, refraction index and so on for every parameter one can find to describe the object, than in that limit the hammer and the apple objectively become the same object. 

 

For juxtaposition, you have a set of skills, also with measurable qualities...damage, range, cooldown etc...the more and more you tweak these parameters to be the same, the more those skills, like the above example, become the same skill.

 

Therefor Diversity and Balance are not two separate things...they share a spectrum together with each other, where as you make things more equal, they become less diverse...as you make things more diverse, they become less equal.

 

When things are on a spectrum like this it begs a critical observation...that the two concepts are in some way unified, and the question becomes how are the two things unified? The answer to that is that Diversity and Balance are not static concepts...they are dynamic processes, in that they change over time. In other words, systems move from Diverse -> Homogenous through a process of entropy, and can only be described as the following unified concept "System Evolution."

 

To further illustrate why that statement is true, consider you are playing a simple game, in which you have 10 pieces of paper of different colors where the colors represent classes...skills...builds or whatever. Each paper has a number associated with it. As players flip over the pieces of paper, players migrate and pick the color with the highest number.

 

https://i.imgur.com/Ch9vn1Y.png

 

The game starts out in a maximally diverse state where all colors are represented...as the game evolves, players migrate to the colors that have the highest number, and in the end, all players are playing the color with the highest number (Grey 458). The system moves from Maximally Diverse -> Maximally Homogenous over time. 

 

This is a very direct analog for how meta's appear...The game starts out presenting you with a set of choices...players explore the landscape of choices, and they settle onto the best builds with some method of measurement, and this creates the metagame. You can ask yourself what operations can actually effect the process, and you find that what doesn't effect the process in any way shape or form, is making the numbers equal. This is a hard statement about that operation...that nerfs and buffs do not change the dynamic process of diversity and balance.

 

It's a pretty important conclusion...it's also counter intuitive... how can it be that nerfs and buffs to numbers are meaningless?, but that's why...it's because the way diversity and balance actually works, those operations change nothing about how the system behaves. Like I said before...when you dig deeper into this problem, a complete shift in your world view is required.

 

 

I understand, and tomorrow I will post a new topic on the "Theory of Conquest" because the whole construct needs to be addressed without allegiance to any class or build. I agree that more than just my direct approach of shaving the top won't resolve the problem of approaching homogeneity. (Sticks). But, I've had too many adult mountain dews to be an effective essayist.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Gundam Style.8495

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, Gundam Style.8495 said:

I understand, and tomorrow I will post a new topic on the "Theory of Conquest" because the whole construct needs to be addressed without allegiance to any class or build. I agree that more than just my direct approach of shaving the top won't resolve the problem of approaching homogeneity. (Sticks). But, I've had too many adult mountain dews to be an effective essayist.

 

That's good, and I'm glad that I could in some way help shed light on the topic. 

 

i mentioned that in order to solve the problem, requires a theory of everything. I just want to mention that I've looked into possibly every single theory of everything there is to look into, and none of them were able to address the problem to any capacity at all.

 

String Theory = Garbage

Supersymmetry = Garbage (Already disproven by experiments at the LHC)

Loop Quantum Gravity = Garbage

Cyclic Cosmology = Garbage

 

If you believe in any of the above theories of everything, just throw them in the garbage can right now. 

 

There was only one theory of everything that I found that not only addressed the balance/diversity paradox, but seems to be the inevitable path to which studying this problem leads to, which is a theory by a computer scientist named Stephan Wolfram called "Hypergraph Theory." The name of which was recently changed to just Wolfram's Physics Model.

 

The name "Hypergraph" sounds ridiculous and kind of tacky which is probably why the name got changed...but don't be fooled by the name. Hypergraphs are not little wacky strings...there are no multi-verses...nothing crazy or obscene like traveling backwards in time or invoking 100 hidden dimensions. The theory is based on experiments done by Stephan Wolfram in the late 1980's on Cellular Automatons, where he basically ran all of the simplest computer programs, and studied how they behave. He wrote a book that describes his findings, the implications of them and at the end derives a principle based on those studies...that principle being "Computational Equivalence" which is similar to the contribution made by Alan Turing's Computation Universality (Turing Completeness). The principle basically says that Simplicity = Complexity. What that means and why it's important is a long story...but that's what the book is written for. That principle is what provides the answer to our problem here in the diversity/balance situation...that the world works based on rules...and that all these rules are equivalent to each other in terms of computational sophistication...because of this equivalence, simple rules are able to create complex behaviors, and this is why nature is able to effortlessly create diversity. In essence, it's not numbers that create diversity or balance...it's rules and the behavior those rules have on systems. The analog here for us in gw2, is mechanics and the game's ruleset is what drives the behavior of the game's balance and diversity. 

 

If you really want to look into this problem and get to conclusions with which will have some meaningful impact, you should take the time (13 hours) to watch this 13 series of videos, where he basically reads the book to people and explains it. Even if you are not interested in digging deep into the problem...the book is just really cool and worth the time to look at the properties of these simple programs which are fascinating in their own right.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684