Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Kunavi.2407]

5 minutes ago, MidnightStar.3457 said:

I think it was sarcastic 

Ah, got me then I guess. It sounded so sincere! Good one!

[reapex.8546]

3 hours ago, Ronnie Hu.1694 said:

I guess this is the end.

It's not End Game xD.

[Kunavi.2407]

5 minutes ago, Taygus.4571 said:

If you have a role in mind for these classes, tell us.

I know what role they have in mind for Ele and Warrior... I'll give you a hint; If you see people dressed like garbage bins in Halloween, they're dressing up as Warriors and Ele.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Kunavi.2407

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

Sadly I feel like they are putting you out in front like they once did with Ms. Gray.  Suffice to say, we get it, the train is rolling out the door and y'all are far too invested in this patch now to throw on the brakes for...some reason...

But here's the thing: its a bad idea.  Now, i already know from tangling with anet in the past on this front that this and every other voice in here is falling on deaf ears, regardless of what is stated in the original post.  I understand this is a placation of sorts to buy time before a few token gestures are made to quite the largest section of voices.  Those changes will most likely come with some fanfare from the Black Lion Store, or maybe another sale on the game or some other thing like any good magician.  Unfortunately, none of that, or this patch are going to get more people to do raids or strike missions.  Its just not.  And honestly from what I read regarding the changes to WvW, the thought of trying to make zerging more rewarding just tells me that you as a company, still don't get it, no matter how much feedback you get, constructive or otherwise.

 

Instead of taking it all to heart though, understandably on some level, y'all get/got frustrated and probably said some things and then those things came to light.  Its a bad look, and while people (if there were actual threats) need to not say such things, we as a player base only stand to lose one thing if we stop playing.  One game in our roster of games.  As a company, however, if enough players actually walk away, well....  Just look at how well FDev fared after their community manager consistently bungled community concerns and communication in the past year.

[Gyousa.5609]

I do appreciate posts like this, so thank you.

Some insight I want to give as an end-game casual player who engages with harder and more organised content when I feel like it, I want to play it in different ways from time to time.

And I've had this weird, twisted, sickening fantasy of wanting to use Untamed in high end PvE content ever since it was revealed. But it's been 4 months since EoD released and Untamed is so far behind Soulbeast I wouldn't dare burden groupmates with such an underwhelming build. This patch changes basically nothing in that regard, and now it's another 3~4 month wait until the next patch which might? Maybe? Make Untamed functional, if that fits the vision of the game or whatever. Or it might not. 

I do not know, but it's the one thing I'd really like to do. And until I can do it, I feel very little of my casual drive to log in and engage with content.

[GoguSpatzialu.7948]

28 minutes ago, Kodokuna Akuma.9570 said:

Sure this patch may not of been great. But the hate I get from many in the community is just absurd and seriously tests my faith in humanity sometimes.

 

Many people are already spouting how they wont / cant live with this patch for the next 3 months and in this very post Grouch himself has said that we should expect a follow up patch within the coming weeks. Which I imagine would either tweak or revert several or many of the coming changes. Before you seek to blindly cry in outrage, take a moment to think and format your complaints in a informative and non idiotic manner.

To the Devs are Anet.  This may appear as a drop in a bucket of toxicity but dont take any of the hateful or toxic remarks to heart there are plenty more reasonable voices out there who while they may not agree with you still understand and hold no malice.

It has been 2 years and 4 months since the warrior defence spec's traits (along with many other classes' lines, btw) got 300 second ICDs. I forget the exact words, but they said something along the lines of "It's a temporary solution, and we will bring them to a better state soon".

If soon = 2 years, how long exactly is 3 months? They've burned so much good will in the past few years that I'm not surprised that nobody believes them and that some have extreme reactions to this bait and switch patch and their handling of it.

[Zaret.1450]

4 hours ago, Techstriker.4130 said:

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.

the thing is, in my opinion open world is like a sandbox mode, it doesnt realy matter wich build or elite you use, even those incredibly bad in raids (namely untamed for example) are good in open world and even builds that wouldnt work in any chalenging content are good there.

now once that said, and knowing some people just play open world, it has to be atmitted that raids, fractals, wvw and pvp are the real endgame content, dungeons are meh and strikes are raids in the end, of course you can not like it but out of archievements and world bosses open world doesnt have any chalenging content, if you balance for raids and fractals in pve, open world players wont realy feel those changes so i think its normal for pve balance to be oriented that way.

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

14 minutes ago, solemn.9608 said:

I mean yeah, for sure for some. But I'm also sure you can understand the disappointment in investing so much time into an mmorpg only to watch the devs make highly questionable balance choices for 4 years at extremely infrequent rates

Like to an extent yeah, I understand the disappointment and I'm also disappointed as my main build is getting nerfed. But I don't start publishing wildly-overreacting cringe just because I experience disappointment. 

 

"Son, I'm sorry I know I said we're having hamburgers tonight but I don't have enough so we're having pizza instead" "Wow. You do that and your fatherhood is dead."

 

I have 6,420 hours logged in Guild Wars 2 so it's definitely not an issue of time and energy invested lol

[Kunavi.2407]

Any way, congratulations ANet, you made Red Versus Blue 2 : Green Versus Blue...

[Bazs.1470]

Why does it have to be released?

Why?

Everyone told you what is wrong with the balance patch, why not postpone the release and do it right?

 

This wall of text, this worths nothing. You leading us towards the latrine pit, everyone shouting at you not do it. You turn back to us, saying "oh, dangit, you are right" and you still pull us all into the waste without giving us any good reason. Congratulations, top level leadership and directing.

[Morena.9312]

So the game can only be played then with Gurdian, Necro and Engi. All other class users should simply uninstall the game. Okay.

[Ruisenior.6342]

The most hated spec on beta has become meta Top1 XD.

 

So at this point can we ask to get something similar to GW1 Heroes? Cause on my perception, alot of those changes (pasive boons and stuff like that) and in particular this espec, the mech, favour a simple non active playstyle. Then most people wont complain of some classes being overpowered cause we would be able to make our teamcomp and just roll the classs that we love with no worries of not being accepted to play some group content.

[Keldey.8936]

I think all the reasonable people agree that the death threats are not acceptable in any situation. But you're seriously not going to say anything about how disrespectful the statements were being made about how the community was going to react to this balance? It was gleeful and they were excited for it. That's not an acceptable way to handle business and treat your consumers. Especially considering the literal thousands of hours most of us have put into the game thanks to /age. We don't need to know exactly how it was handled by any means but even a message stating that that the comment was disrespectful and is not how you operate as a company would've generated a lot of good will. The community isn't full of kids that don't understand what corporate statement looks like. Which is exactly what this is. This patch is the only time I've ever felt the need to say anything on the forums and it is sad that this is why. 

[Kunavi.2407]

2 minutes ago, Carmela.8756 said:

So the game can only be played then with Guardian, Necro and Engi.

That's 2 Green and 1 Blue. You only need 1 of the Green now, they fixed it ;3 And it's not Necro.

[Xerxez.7361]

7 minutes ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

The most hated spec on beta has become meta Top1 XD.

 

So at this point can we ask to get something similar to GW1 Heroes? Cause on my perception, alot of those changes (pasive boons and stuff like that) and in particular this espec, the mech, favour a simple non active playstyle. Then most people wont complain of some classes being overpowered cause we would be able to make our teamcomp and just roll the classs that we love with no worries of not being accepted to play some group content.

 

Why would you be accepted into a team comp when a mech can do your job better?

Edited June 27, 2022 by Xerxez.7361

[Ashen.2907]

To be honest, I would rather have a more open, less approval from the PR department, approach to communication from individual devs even if it means the occasional spicy or rough around the edges attitude coming through. I dont care that a dev said that some players are idiots (some of us are) or that he was excited to see the salty responses to the patch. I would rather have him be able and willing to just speak his mind without having to submit every word to an approval committee to water down into meaningless PR speak...

I am far more concerned with the idea of balance adjustments based on an individual dev's preferred class/build/weapon choices or a dev being made responsible for balancing a class that he doesnt know, understand, or play.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Abyssisis.3971]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, there are reasons to nerf it. I actually have no problem with it on its own. It's just such a nerf should have been compensated in some way. I mean, it's not like power and condi Slb builds were overperforming if we ignore the unintended effects of late OWP buff. Condi Slb was lately only barely decent at best, and yet it got nerfed as well. And please, do not tell me they have to be nerfed first in order to be buffed later - any time i've heard such statements, the nerfs were followed by either further nerfs or years long silence.

Now, the explanation for Warrior crit bonus, added on a traitline only condi builds take, on a traits condi builds do not take - that is going to be really interesting to read.

Late owp buffs? Do tell.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Maybe it is just because I am autistic, but I've always hated generic coorporate-style apologies.  It looks like this was written by a computer.  Avoid the fluff and be straight with us:  You're just writing this try to appear sensible without having to actually do anything.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[melodyspectrum.2980]

4 hours ago, Loke.1429 said:

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...

 

Whut? Scrapper needs buffs not nerfs. It's dead in engame pve rn. Aren't you also only looking at wvw as you're suggesting the devs do?

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Kitten, that's a whole post full of nothing. 

Glad that we're getting back "design notes" so we can have a laugh at the contradictions and inconsistencies such as the brilliant "we felt that mesmer needed help on sustain damage so we added 300damage on phantasm cast" when in reality it was a nerf on stealthed phantasm casting. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Qaju.2058]

What I witnessed as  GW2 Player on the eve of a decade long loyalty is that:

 

Player community feedback on the game's official forums isn't valued. Bug reports are adressed arbitrarily in an irrational manner.

 

Player community feedback on a third party website like Reddit get visibilty over this one, but that still isn't enough.
 

That there are shadow Discord servers backroom talks. 

 

And that none of it matters if we're all bound to endure the whims of a biased developper's own favoritisms.

 

Gamers all over the world have grown tired of seeing their favorite game IPs being mutilated. As a Belgian player, I will patiently yet with fervor await for more countries to follow suit and ban loot boxes and predatory gambling practices. GW2 included. Put a fix gem price on everything, and let the in-game gold/gem market handle it.

 

I wonder come Fall balance patch if Anet will do something about say a mechanist underwater where the spec doesn't even work exist? Or what design philosophy is behind the reason why we still aren't getting any new runes or sigils with End of Dragons expansion?

[Vaerinth.9125]

This entire situation seems to me to be because of miscommunication. I 100% agree certain members of the GW2 community have taken it too far with things such as calls for being fired or death threats and not only do they not have a place in the GW2 community they should not have a placed in any civil society. If you cannot handle other people having different opinions about a trivial video game and threaten harm because of it, well that is a person I don't want to have as part of the society I live in.

 

Attempting for a average player to get feedback to the developers is always a tricky thing so I hope this is the medium to do it. I would like to begin by stating that from dev blogs and from what sense I can gather from these changes is that the design philosophy of GW2 is heading towards homogeneity and inclusivity of all professions. This is something I am skeptical about, not because it will be bad, but rather that its implementation should be done carefully. Stripping professions of identity will have unintended consequences of player immersion, and I think having some focus in adding back in such role-playing elements in builds will be vital in keeping professions fresh and interesting. I am also glad, from what I can see, that the balance team seems to acknowledge this. Adding critical chance to the arms to tree, as the arms tree has some critical chance bonuses, is a nice way to add some of this role-playing element and create class identity, but this is done in detriment to reality of the gameplay as power warrior does not take arms, and this terrifies me.

 

Furthermore, again from what I can gather, I like where the balance is headed. Tradeoffs for powerful boons like with catalyst are very interesting choices, although I feel like a flat damage reduction is one of the least graceful way of doing it. I believe complexity should not be by itself a reason to just be a better profession and do more, as this is a design blackhole to race to literally just replace every players keyboard with a piano just so they can say they did x dps. Complexity should, however, have greater flexibility than more simple rotations and give you more options to react and adapt.

 

The problem I reach is that, that perhaps you have already noticed, is that all of this is from what I can gather. This in the end just leaves me upset and confused. I am confused because death perception for necromancer is changed for no obvious reason. If you go power reaper and go soul stealer you are gutted, and if you are decimate defenses you don't need it. I can think of no reason for the implementation of this change for a very selfish dps class that provides very little utility and already does not provide a lot of damage comapred to other professions. This is when compared to other professions. The foundations for an interesting meta is now there, but with things like mechanist and the worst offender Firebrand, who has dominated the meta for dare I say years now, these changes make no sense. In a vacuum they are not terrible, but comparatively they do not stack up to other design choices made throughout the game. There is also the condi vs. Power meta where condi, where condi is more favored in seemingly more situations but that is another discussion for another time.

 

Thus, I am confused because these changes make no sense to me and no clear explanation is given. I am upset because this felt like a meteor so to speak. Patch notes on Friday, with a weekend to disrupt, a Monday, and then release. With no way to really give any monumental feedback in time. I am also upset because this confirms my greatest fears. These patch notes go live, and small changes come in WEEKS and any fundamental changes come in 3 MONTHS! The way to build back my trust in balance is to either wait with the patches until they are accompanied by proper explanations to fill in the gaps as to why warrior and catalyst must sacrifice so much for boons and firebrand gets them for free, and why seemingly non-sensical changes are made such as to power reaper. Aswell as time for proper discussion and feedback. Or delay these changes until the patch notes can speak for themselves so to speak in a few weeks or 3 months as right now they simply cannot as evident by this whole debacle. 

 

On the topic of trust I am more upset by a far larger concern. Ultimately games such as GW2 live and die by the trust their players put into the game. And you Anet have done such a wonderful job creating such a strong bond of trust over the last year(s) with implementation of dx11, EoD, announcing another another expansion, alliances, and so much more! And to watch so much of that trust disappear for some many members of the community for such a confusing and unneeded reason is just upsetting. The health of the game hurt for no discernable cause. I don't mean to be dramatic, but this is how I feel.

 

To then see you plow straight ahead is very much like put a blindfold on the passenger, unbuckle your seat belt, and say "watch this drive". As the passenger I have two choices to jump out, or to trust the driver. I will of course continue to play the wonderful game you and so many people have painstakingly created, but the tension of the blindfold for no reason is a cause for concern, and to say I am not a little terrified is a bit of an understatement.

 

Thank for your time.

[Kunavi.2407]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Now, the explanation for Warrior crit bonus [...]

Oh, no, what's really going to be interesting is explaining why BladeSworn is DOA. All I saw in that leaked document was "OOOOH, NUMBERS! HENCE, NERF!" without even a half baked attempt at actually compromising, or you know, balancing. And then it was all about confusion about Banners, and crit on Arms.

 

BladeSworn is so dead, that this Arms thing is making bigger ripples on its own than the whole BladeSworn spec. Negativity ripples, but that's not the point...

Edited June 27, 2022 by Kunavi.2407

[Brimstar.9036]

Hey Grouch! I appreciate your swift feedback about the whole situation and looking forward to the changes to come after this balance patch. The game is ever evolving and there is always room for iteration, even if we don't hit our mark. I completely understand why the patch has to be published. Whether I like or dislike the patch, the point is the communication is there and the desire to have that open discussion with us about balance before it drops next time is leaps and bounds better than I would have imagined.

Thanks again, keep doing what you do. I appreciate the team greatly. 

[X T D.6458]

5 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

 

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

Yikes...I have said some mean things in the past but kitten people it's a game...death threats.... wtf. When I am not happy with changes or balance updates, I go play or do something else. There is never any justification for that level of hate and vitriol.