Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Josh Davis.7865]

Hi all,

Game Director Josh “Grouch” Davis here. On Friday we posted the profession update notes for the June 28 release and since then there’s been a lot of heated discussion about the changes and what they might mean for the game. I’ve read thousands of comments since Friday, and I think there’s plenty of reasonable feedback – there always is. I’m not here to address those issues individually, but rather, I’d like to share some of my own perspective and talk about our next steps as a team.

A Clear Direction

It’s clear that we should have provided better context for the changes. It’s much more difficult to assess a given change without a shared understanding of the underlying goal of the change and the problem it’s trying to solve for. I’m not saying that we think that the update is flawless or that this is purely a communication issue – there are always valid criticisms of execution, and we welcome that feedback.

For this update, we opted to forego including ‘design notes’ in the release notes that explain the ‘why’ behind the changes, and instead chose to provide a general overview in the June Studio Update blog. This wasn’t an arbitrary decision on our part, but in retrospect, it was the wrong decision. We’ll change our approach for future updates.

In the near-term, the team will be writing up the ‘design notes’ for the June 28 profession changes, which we’ll publish on the official forums as soon as they’re ready. I’d like to ask for your patience as we work on this while also supporting the release.

Perhaps more importantly, we need to share the long-term vision for Guild Wars 2 profession balance and how it applies to PvE, PvP, and WvW. This has been provided piecemeal over the years (and some of it has bubbled up through unofficial channels without full context), but we haven’t provided anything official. This is a good opportunity for us to introduce some new voices in the internal discussion as well–Cameron Rich for example, who recently took on the role of Lead Systems Designer for Guild Wars 2. This future post will be a larger collaborative effort that will take some time to complete, especially as we bring new voices into the process, but we’ll aim to have it ready before our next major professions update.

Feedback

As game developers, it’s our mission to deliver experiences that our players will love. One of the best ways to achieve this is by including the ‘voice of the player’ in the development process, before things ship live. I think this is especially true for a game like Guild Wars 2, where many of you have spent the last 10 years investing your time and energy into this world.

We can do better on this front. We don’t have a definitive solution yet – but there are plenty of options for us to evaluate, with different costs and tradeoffs for each. What I do know is that it’s my responsibility to the team and our players to ensure that our developers have the tools they need to do their job – and player feedback is one of the most powerful tools we have in our toolbox.

What I can commit to today is that going forward we’ll preview our profession changes much further in advance of a major update (not the Friday before), even if it means that the changes are still in-progress and the preview isn’t exhaustive. This will give the team time to assess feedback and make any necessary changes prior to an update going live. I think it’s especially important that we do this when we’re making larger changes to long-standing systems or mechanics.

Always Changing

I recognize that some of you are frustrated. Through the years, profession balance hasn’t always received the attention it deserves, and there’s always been a lingering concern that the next update may be a long way off. Before I was an ArenaNet employee, I was a Guild Wars 2 player, and I felt those frustrations myself. Your character and profession are the vehicle through which you experience the game, and the balance and feel of it have a significant influence on your moment-to-moment enjoyment of it. This is precisely why we created a dedicated profession balance team after the release of End of Dragons.

Guild Wars 2 is a “live” game, meaning that it will continue to grow and evolve in the years ahead. On the whole, it’s very different today compared to where it started 10 years ago, and those changes didn’t come all at once. Similarly, addressing core issues in profession balance and design is going to be a long-term, incremental effort. We can’t change everything at once, nor should we.

We’ll undoubtedly make mistakes along the way. My commitment to you is that we’ll listen, we’ll own and address our mistakes, and we’ll keep moving the game forward.

Wrapping Up

Tomorrow morning the June 28 release will go live along with the balance changes previewed on Friday. As soon as we can, we’ll follow up with the ‘design notes’ for the update. From there, we’ll be reading your feedback, evaluating the impact of the changes, and determining our next steps. We’ve added a follow up balance update to our release schedule in the coming weeks to address critical issues. Then, in mid-fall, we’ll have our next major professions update. Somewhere in between we’ll share our profession balance philosophy.

Finally, I’d like to thank those of you who have approached this discussion in a civil manner. To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats–you're not welcome in our community.

Josh Davis
Game Director

EDIT: Added some responses  here: 

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Josh Davis.7865

[Bookah pls.9352]

Quote

Tomorrow morning the June 28 release will go live along with the balance changes previewed on Friday.

I don't mean to be rude but the blunt honest truth is, Not for me it won't.

[Tycura.1982]

10 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

called for developers to be fired,

Does that mean the official stance is to back what was said in those discord chat logs? My job would fire me if I spoke about customers in such a way.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Tycura.1982

[Sonderm.4639]

Quote

To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats–you're not welcome in our community.

👍 Well put.

[dJembacz.1740]

6 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

One of the best ways to achieve this is by including the ‘voice of the player’ in the development process, before things ship live.

 

The issue many players (including me) have, is that this seems to not be that prevalent. There has been a lot of feedback regarding the current state of the proffessions, and only a very little amount of it has been reflected in this patch.

[Techstriker.4130]

May I suggest not focusing so hard on raid-like content as well? Between raid-like open world difficulty, strikes, and a general lack of alternative content, its pushing people who don't like raids, such as myself, out of the game.

Edit: For all the confused reactions, info came out that a lot of development, from balancing to strikes, is designed to train players for raids, so more people play raids, so they can design and make more raids. Rather than, you know, making a balanced game with a variety of content for a breadth of players.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Techstriker.4130
Clarification.

[Gajex.2386]

7 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Tomorrow morning the June 28 release will go live along with the balance changes previewed on Friday.

Thanks for always listening to feedback, both positive and negative.

Now you just have to stop laughing at negative feedback and maybe we can reach a consensus.

[Joe.5310]

this is an unbelievable joke.

You can't be serious.

If this goes live, your game is dead.

 

8 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

"Tomorrow morning the June 28 release will go live along with the balance changes previewed on Friday. As soon as we can, we’ll follow up with the ‘design notes’ for the update."

 

[MrTJpwnz.4710]

7 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

My commitment to you is that we’ll listen, we’ll own and address our mistakes, and we’ll keep moving the game forward.

 

We'll listen but ignore the player base and keep pushing the balance patch anyways.

[TheSun.4321]

This is a great & refreshing post to see! Many thanks to the dev team for the integrity, honesty, and transparency despite the negativity from the bad eggs in the community.

[Loke.1429]

 

On 6/26/2022 at 8:32 PM, Loke.1429 said:

I was going to rant about how disappointed I was, but enough has been said by others. I hope they do a 180, changing balance team / approach, feedback collection and rework the patch. Tbh, many parts of the patch is quite good. Some parts are quite uesless / show lack of understanding. The awful ones are warrior, catalyst and how they implemented some new quickness / alac gain of certain profs. Given the information on reddit, they have some firebrand, mechanist, scrapper, willbender, virtuoso and harbinger (etc) nerfing to do ASAP. For me this is the most insane part of this patch, that they DARE to leave their favorites so far ahead STILL, and that studio managment seems to be IS onboard with that level of favoritism. Disgusting.

I underlined the part I believe you want to immediately solve here. Thanks for making the right choice and communicating. Not trying to sound rude, but please note that we also need to see results improving here really.
 

32 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

From there, we’ll be reading your feedback, evaluating the impact of the changes, and determining our next steps. We’ve added a follow up balance update to our release schedule in the coming weeks to address critical issues. Then, in mid-fall, we’ll have our next major professions update.

Ok Josh, I hope you personally ensure the swift nerfing of firebrand, mechanist, scrapper, willbender, virtuoso and harbinger (etc) in the modes they are so broken in. My anti-favorites radar was broken from going off the charts, so I cant deal with that anymore (as I wrote in first quote I'm downright disgusted). Also force your balance devs to play all the game modes and not just solo cap camps in wvw during less busy hours. Also putting considerable playtime into the classes they directly balance and some playtime into all the others would help. I believe it is necessary...
 

32 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

To those that have chosen extreme toxicity

I did not partake in anything extreme considering the circumstances, but please acknowledge that there was very toxic behavior on both fronts. Yes I am salty as fk. You dont want your customer to feel this way.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Loke.1429
gg

[gooddrakkarboi.4870]

That's the most "bla bla" answer that could have happened... Probably someone from the marketing department wrote that, it's full of phrases, promises and lacks a real apology.

[Gibson.4036]

@Josh Davis.7865thank you for this post. I appreciate it.

I'm sorry to hear that there were death threats, and agree that calls for firings are inappropriate.

It looks like you have ideas on how to change your systems and communication. I'm hoping that behind the scenes there is also a serious conversation happening about ArenaNet's internal culture and what you want it to be.

[Barraind.7324]

6 minutes ago, Tycura.1982 said:

Does that mean the official stance is to back what was said in those discord chat logs? My job would fire me if I spoke about customers in such a way.

Good thing the difference between "to" and "about" are absolutely massive, then, isnt it. 

[Xenesis.6389]

We heard your feedback before patch....

It doesn't matter...

Resubmit your feedback after patch and we promise to read it, for realz this time...

See you in the fall for next update cause the balance devs are back at their regular positions...

While we write up essays to fluff up the good points on the bad changes and we tell you we like boon spam and certain classes.....

Did I get that right?

🤷‍♂️

Edited June 27, 2022 by Xenesis.6389
added spice

[Gamora.1584]

5 minutes ago, Joe.5310 said:

this is an unbelievable joke.

You can't be serious.

If this goes live, your game is dead.

 

 

the dramatics

[VulcanPyroman.8571]

13 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

... Then, in mid-fall, we’ll have our next major professions update...

I get it, this stuff takes time to work out, but for players this is an eternity away.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, Barraind.7324 said:

Good thing the difference between "to" and "about" are absolutely massive, then, isnt it. 

In this case it was both "about" and "to", so I don't understand what you're saying.

[StonePower.8321]

I expected nothing so can't say im surprised by this wall of nothing of an essay.

[Whilyam.9356]

This was not the response that should have gone out. I feel so incredibly tired. No amount of explanation will justify this patch. It will only illuminate where the team went wrong. And ultimately it will waste your time.

[Storub.5907]

Choosing to release the update anyway, even with the level of feedback given, does not inspire confidence.

We will be stuck with these changes for at least 4 months, making several classes unplayable, with Guardian and Engineer dominating PvE yet again.

I have seen such approach ("release on time and kitten the consequences") in a game before.

That game is dead now.

I do not want this game to suffer the same fate.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Storub.5907
typos

[snebzor.4851]

Thanks for the update, Grouch. Appreciate the communication.

[Rising Blade.9206]

basically lip service, as expected. would've been better to just postpone the balance changes and re-evaluate said changes and move them to another date. never change, please keep doing what you're doing

[Anubis.4301]

18 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Somewhere in between we’ll share our profession balance philosophy.
 

Firebrand good, every other class bad.

 

no need to share it i just summed the whole thing up for you

[Merloin.4816]

I don't mean to be rude, but this post says many things but still just we will keep reviewing and updating the classes. Good ol' tactics