Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

10 hours ago, Berune.7408 said:

Ok. I don't think the game Devs should make decisions on changes to the game based on feedback from his 8 closest friends, so there's another issue. Also, the dev is an adult, and should be expected to act like one when working.

My understanding from the post was that the design notes for tomorrow's patch will not be released until sometime AFTER the patch, and the full design philosophy for class balance would not be available until much later than that. The only thing I see promised for tomorrow is the patch in it's current form.

All that said, thanks for trying to help clarify.

His an adult , he knew that the balance will get people angry , like february 2020 .

We have to wait 5-6more hours to understand the reasoning for each balance change .

They are at a "vacation-sumer time" and they resume+ give us the roadmap after they come back in september 😛

 

Spoiler

If they try to kneel , i will strike them where they stand - sincerely Kuroshitsuji

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Berune.7408]

10 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

(hello! its summer time ! excuse me they don't release faster +roadmap NOW in the heat... )

If game devs take the summer off, that's news to me.

Also, the roadmap and design philosophy should precede the code/configuration/changes.

[TwiceCookedPorkins.8940]

Good ol' GW2 Forums regulars. Asked not to be toxic, so you double down on toxicity.

[BloodRain.7865]

Thanks To kill my BS with this update. I go reroll maybe virtuoso or mechanist...

now I’m gonna play a class I don’t like to join squad.

No more use my money on your game, never.

Can you up mechanist plz ? I need heal,alac,quick,tank cdps on 1 mechanist build....

Edited June 28, 2022 by BloodRain.7865

[voltaicbore.8012]

1 minute ago, Ken Yuudachi.9807 said:

Delete all special skills and force the players to use the specific skills you 'balanced'?

This is sadly one of the exact things one of the devs stated in the leaked Discord conversations. He didn't like engineer kits, so his solution was to make mechanist signets so much better that it would be stupid for any player to even try using kits.

That's actually a legitimate choice a studio can make - instead of making sure all skills are somewhat on the same playing field, just overall simplifying gameplay is a balance solution. It's just not the kind of balance solution the most passionate GW2 players are interested in, and we've made that abundantly clear over the past few days.

I think this statement from @Josh Davis.7865is just flat-out nothing. It makes apologies with no substance, ultimately lets us know quite clearly nothing will change, and even manages to incorporate "civility" related jabs at some of the sharpest criticism. Very unironically, I give it a 10/10 for corporate messaging.

I think what this decision shows is that an absolutely enormous chunk of the playerbase are people who don't know or care about these sorts of changes. In a way, that's comforting, since that kind of person will be around and buying gems no matter how badly ANet misses the mark on gameplay. On the other hand, one has to wonder how long that will last when enough sweaty tryhards leave, and world bosses/meta events are no longer getting so easily carried.

[Berune.7408]

3 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

His an adult , he knew that the balance will get people angry , like february 2020 .

We have to wait 5-6more hours to understand the reasoning for each balance change .

They are at a "vacation-sumer time" and they resume+ give us the roadmap after they come back in september 😛

 

  Reveal hidden contents

If they try to kneel , i will strike them where they stand

 

Still was not an appropriate comment for a professional employee of a commercial entity.

Please reread the following paragraph from the OP. It does not state that the design notes will be published tomorrow, and instead it implies that they will be published AFTER the patch is released:

"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."

I don't see anything in the OP stating the Devs are on vacation. My apologies if that's stated elsewhere, I wasn't aware that they were on vaca or had the summer off.  

[Labjax.2465]

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.

Imagine lumping together death threats and calls for developers to be fired as the same thing, under "extreme toxicity." Do you want a community or a company town? Cause right now, it's looking like what you want is a company town. There's nothing civil about the way this company has been handling this situation, much less what brought it on. Part of what brought on such calls for firing in the first place was leaked uncivil words about the community. Then your mods proceed to delete every thread that even vaguely mentions it without names. This isn't your community. The players have built and maintained this community for you over the years and paid you for the tools that you provided for doing so. That's where it being your community ends. You can, of course, exclude whoever you want when you want. You can delete this whenever you want. In technical legal terms, your company has that kind of control over this community. But if you boot people out of the community who care about it, if you treat the community like they are immature because you couldn't handle the criticism that came your way when you messed up, expect that community to shrink.

Take it for granted, talk down to the people who support your game, and you companies will find every single time that people can find better places to contribute their time and energy.

The message you are sending is clear: give tepid feedback that can be easily ignored and we will welcome you into the community. Get loud enough that we are forced to actually acknowledge what's happening instead of the usual tweaks around the edges and you aren't welcome. That's what it boils down to. You (the company) are mad you have to actually do something this time. Of course you would much prefer people who put up with it and pay silently. That's the ideal customer for you, I'm sure.

[Arewn.2368]

I understand the need to follow up a big controversy like this with a damage control post. And it's good to attempt to communicate with the community.

 

But the lack of dev notes is not the problem. This is completely sidelining the actual discussion.

 

We're not dumb. We don't need the developers to hold our hands and explain what the patch notes mean. Nor will notifying us of the intent behind the changes modify what those changes actually are.

It's nice to hear about the developer's design intent with changes, but most games don't do this and it's a complete non-issue there. It's also a non-issue here.

We don't need an explanation to understand what the patch notes mean. And your explanation of what your intent is with the changes doesn't fix the problems with them.

 

No point delaying the patch. Release it, then follow up with something better. While woefully inadequate, it at least gets the ball rolling on some things.

And then get someone to actually take the lead on class design and profession balance. You need a concrete vision of what balance and group dynamics look like in your game, and then shape it to achieve that vision.

Stop being led by the nose by the player base and constantly playing this reactionary game of balance whack-a-mole.

 

Why do we have something as nonsensical as a meta where you maintain 100% uptime on quickness and alacrity? Because it was thoughtlessly added to the game, changed into a boon, and allowed to be shared to the whole party. Players then did what players do. Optimized, and made groups comps that indefinitely maintain these buffs group-wide.

Then instead having an actual vision for balance and shaping the game accordingly, you chased after what the player base cobbled together and ended up with this mess of a meta.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

10 hours ago, Berune.7408 said:

Still was not an appropriate comment for a professional employee of a commercial entity.

Please reread the following paragraph from the OP. It does not state that the design notes will be published tomorrow, and instead it implies that they will be published AFTER the patch is released:

"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."

I don't see anything in the OP stating the Devs are on vacation. My apologies if that's stated elsewhere, I wasn't aware that they were on vaca or had the summer off.  

Yes people cannot jokes with their friends for areas that originally were meant to have a normal-relaxed conversation with some friends .

Even a casual can understand that having 2 character with copy-paste-same-aoes fury to the whole party (4s - 8cd) , is a different solution that having a static Boon-duration character .

Or that for 6 WHOLES YEARS, they avoid having a "meele traitline only" and try to spice up and put different things in different areas (War -5%crit in Arms -creating hybrid traitlines)

I am sorry , they didn't spelled that

Edited June 28, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Bombarder.4963]

First off, I usually don't get involved in forums like this. But in this case I'll make an exception. I really enjoy the game especially with this refreshing enthusiastic wind comming from the devs since EoD was announced.

It is a very good and noble way to keep in touch with the player base. There are some great examples of this, like Anno1800 or other games. So i've been very happy to see the stunning amount of information about the future of the game.

Sure, many information will lead to many conversations. And sadly there are always ppl who lack the ability to communicate. Maybe even to cooperate. But even if this ppl are the loudest of all, they aren't the majority.

I'm glad for the information and I trust in you devs to create a bright and exciting future for this game. Failure may happen, but it's the foundation of great success. Keep up your work! I'm looking foreward to this patch and to any following patches.

[Alexandra Moldovia.4752]

Personally, I'm not a high end player, and have no desire to be, I hear Mechanist made it out pretty well, so I honestly don't care about the whole debacle, just give me a single class that can basically solo the open world content without to much input from the player, so I can focus on the story and I'll be happy.

(For context I'm disabled, I love the game's story but find the high APM annoying a class that basically can 2-3 button spam something and win, is ideal for me.  and the Mech pet pretty much just tanks everything for me so I'm super happy with it.)

[Nighthawk.2401]

I didn't really expect anet to pull a patch the day before it goes live, but really man? You heard all our complaints, and the take away is "we need to explain better" ?

 

How much ego can the team have. Just admit there were bad changes instead of doubling down on them all being good and that it was just misunderstood. 

 

Ranger, Mesmer, Thief, Ele - the four WORST classes for large-squad WvW gameplay are all getting nerfed in WvW.

I had hoped EoD would release specs to help each class out in the game mode it struggled in. Instead the expansion was much more of a strike/raid advert. These classes didn't get anything to help them in WvW zerg/guild play. And now, after waiting months for a huge balance patch, we get this huge joke which literally is nerfing all four.

 

Even in solo WvW content, Celestial roaming is still meta and untouched, the only competing power based builds are being nerfed across the board, reinforcing the meta that people have been complaining about for months. 

 

It's clear as day that the balance team doesn't care about WvW, or is just entirely incompetent at it, and I'm so sad that the game mode which convinced me to buy GW2 on launch has been relegated to the dumpster.

 

 

I agree that anybody calling for death or violence has way more than crossed the line, and many of the one-line quotes taken out of context are really not that bad. But there's a lot of valid criticism about the patch itself which I really hope ANet addresses - and addresses fast... not in another 4-6 months. 

 

[Melian.5368]

I will just copy & paste this reddit post here, to give you an idea about how deceived we feel as players:

Quote

 

Patch reminds me of the removal of damage from all CC in PvP/WvW

This patch reminds one of the big balance patch and the removal of all damage from CC skills.  
Back then, just like now, the changes were hamfisted and promises were made that tweaks would follow to address problem cases. Prime light beam being a good example of a skill that shouldn't be dealing zero damage with its massive wind up and long kitten cooldown.   

It has been more than 2 years since that balance patch and none of the CC skills have been revisit as promised.   

I'm 99% convinced that the same thing will happen here with very little real improvement in the coming months being forthcoming.   

Anet has been promising regular and meaningful balance on the regular but never ever deliver.   

Edit: as a side note I'm actually ashamed I defended that patch trusting Anet to actually follow up.

 

 

[megamino.1430]

Appreciate the post, but I didn't see any "response" to the real issue rather what you WANT to do in the future updates... Personally, this is just an essay of PR damage relief or some sort to just say "we listened to feedback and we will do better" but again, that's the future...

And with you continuing the previous patch to be implemented which I assume because you already code the changes beforehand it's just not good. Having DESIGN PATCH whatever that is will not quell the player...

Also, if you are angry or didn't like the balance patch yourself, why not taking up to the team and said "please guys, don't do the changes" KEK

[Josh Davis.7865]

Hey folks - I've been in and out of meetings today, apologies for delay. Here's some responses to questions I've seen repeated a few times:

 

Q: Why aren't you holding the update?

This was discussed. The simple answer is that “holding the balance changes” is not feasible from a technical standpoint. We have a very sophisticated dev environment that gives us a lot of flexibility in areas like this, but we're well beyond that point. Now that the build is finalized and nearly ready for activation, unwinding the code and content changes in the June 28 balance update would be a significant and time-intensive effort that would likely result in a multi-week delay of not only the skills content, but also everything else in the release (new Challenge Mode, Core Updates, Mordremoth legendary, etc). Once all the right changes were stripped from the build, we’d need to QA those skills to verify they work as before, and we’d need to QA the rest of the release again to make sure that nothing was inadvertently broken in the process. We usually give QA 1-2 weeks to test a ‘finalized’ build, for reference. This would have a cascading impact on future releases (meaning things like LWS1E3 would also get pushed back).

I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the least disruptive option is to push the release and address issues in future builds.

Q: There's nothing concrete in this post, what are you doing to fix this?

I get wordy sometimes. Here’s a bullet point list of next steps:

•  The skills and balance team is drafting ‘design notes’ for the June 28 release. We’ll publish these as soon as we can. I don’t expect that you’ll agree with all of it – especially from the conversation we’ve been monitoring – but we owe you the explanations.
• I’m going to own resolving the internal process issue that prevented us from including the design notes upfront.
•  In the coming months, we’re going to publish a blog post that details the balance philosophy for Guild Wars 2.
•  I recognize that the way feedback is collected for balance updates is far from ideal. We need to preview updates earlier so we’re never in this situation again, and we need to solve for how we go about getting balance feedback from qualified individuals. Eliminate the unofficial backchannels. I’m going to own finding the right solution for this.
•  We added a follow up balance update in the coming weeks to our schedule.

I'll note that the post this morning was done at 11:30a on a Monday. We moved quickly and we don't have all of the answers yet.

Q: Why aren't you posting the balance philosophy today? Doesn't it exist?

The philosophy driving profession design and balance has changed a few times over the years, even by the ‘original developers’ of the days of yore. Elite specializations weren’t a part of the game’s original vision, for example. I considered getting a version of this posted in response to this weekend’s discussions, but on further reflection, I came to the conclusion that Cameron Rich taking over as the Lead Systems Designer (which Skills/Balance ultimately falls under) is a great opportunity for us to revisit the discussion internally before making a public statement. Cam brings a lot of great perspective to this area from his experience as the Lead Encounters Designer for GW2. We also recently had Floyd Grubb join the WvW team - and we'd like to have him involved there as well.

 

Q: A balance team was just created after End of Dragons? Why wasn't there a balance team before?

I'd like to clarify my comment. Guild Wars 2 has had a balance team in the past, no doubt. For End of Dragons, our professions designers were asked to turn their full attention towards building elite specializations, which ultimately meant that live balance updates were few and far between. As we were building our dev plans for post-End of Dragons, I felt very strongly that we needed to staff a full-time balance team that supports the live game, even as we're building future expansion content. We're trying to get to a place where we can hit a consistent cadence with the updates, even as other work is in flight.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Josh Davis.7865

[Nero.7369]

6 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

Good thing, tho some will always complain and one can't make everyone happy. Balance also shouldn't be done on opinions of ppl who shout the loudest. But yea getting some external input doesn't hurt, these should also reflect on most of the playerbase in the end and that will be hard.

I wonder tho how some changes could even came up. And what is your base information. Cause often things feel kinda random.

dps.report is used by so many and I would expect that you might have similar datasets, where you can retrieve many information like

- how good performs a class/build on average

- how good performs a class/build in the hands of the top notch players

- what skills / trait synergies cause the most damage on build abc

- Which skill totally underperforms in those builds

- How's the overall boon generation on class xyz when running a support build

- how complex are the rotation of builds / how many skills of a build are actually used

- ...

I mean those are so valuable information which would back your decision and you can reason with.

Of course those information don't say anything about the vision how the overall state should be or how the feel, uniqueness or usability of a class is.

But it shows you which builds overperform and which ones underperform.

And imo kinda most important decisions in any aspect of life should be based on good information. Else it's impossible to make good decision and just gambling.

So yea giving us intentions of changes helps to understand how you want to achieve your vision how a class should feel or what roles it should do. But the balance itself and their numbers tweaks should be mostly data based.

Edited June 28, 2022 by NeroBoron.7285

[the krytan assassin.9235]

It's hard to read through this text that feels like a damage control marketing post that is not in a single bit actually trying to listen to the community. I do however admire the courage to post a message after the amount of critique the dev team has gotten. 

 

Please prove us wrong. Not only Read the profession posts, but actively contribute in the discussion aswell. Don't release the patch, but instead actually put in the effort for 1 month and release a proper balance patch after that. Not in 3 MONTHS!!!

 

Oh and last but not least, change & balance patches should be the logical consequences derived by the opinion of the public, not what the dev team wants to see in the balance patch. 

[lovemghool.7613]

6 hours 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.

I must say I agree with the stance of the dev in that discord on his customers and I hope they keep their job. 

[luigiormario.7305]

4 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the least disruptive option is to push the release and address issues in future builds.

 

Appreciate the clarification here, thank you for this!

[Bolthead.2567]

It's a few tweaks to abilities and players are assuming they know how things will be before actually playing it, crazy, they're reacting as though human female is getting removed from the game.

The toxic players that are sh*t talking the devs and say they are quitting the game, good. Maybe you'll take that time to go outside, into the real world for a while, realise that actually the devs probably care about your opinion more than anyone else in your life does, then you can come back to the game and enjoy it for what it is, a game.

Things need to change or they just grow stale, something new to play around with whether it's slightly better or worse is still better than nothing changing at all. If things don't work they can be reverted, but we won't know that unless we try, and that's the way to move ahead.

Edit: To clarify based on a response, when I say better or worse is always better, in terms of the outcome of skills being good or bad based on design changes, it's always better in the way that devs are looking at improving the experience, it might not go that way this update but eventually we should be in a place where players have more choice in what they play, I don't think the devs are intentionally making builds bad on purpose like some think. For example players say banner warrior is dead, they'll be kicked from raids, there's nothing unique any more etc. If things become more unified down the line, it means that maybe you get to take your warrior on a raid and not be expected to play banners and can have fun with different builds.

Thats my view on it anyway, I believe this is the right step towards opening up all characters to all content, especially as we near a steam release, new players don't want to get to the end of the game enjoying a certain class to find out oh, I should have instead gone another class to do raids becuase they do these things better, and if I'm wrong and classes do actually become unplayable then I'm sure we'll see things get changed back to how they were soon enough.

edit edit: nvm they f*cked up pretty big, not even making new banners nice to use, no skills while holding them or pulse quickness, meanwhile engineer gets a 1 button 30k dps build, I can take a good guess at what classes the devs play. F


 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Bolthead.2567
F

[Tails.9372]

This was a very corporate response and ultimately doesn't really mean anything concrete:

Quote

This wasn’t an arbitrary decision on our part, but in retrospect, it was the wrong decision.

Could be read as:

Quote

We knew what we were doing but we regret getting the negative PR.

similarly:

Quote

I recognize that some of you are frustrated. ... My commitment to you is that we’ll listen

Just means that they look at the feedback and are aware of the discontent, however this does not mean that they are actually wanting to do something about it. Just as well as this:

Quote

we’ll own and address our mistakes

Doesn't mean anything of substance either as: adressing an issue ≠ solving an issue (especially in a way that aims at the core of the issue instead of just the symptom(s)).

Quote

there’s always been a lingering concern that the next update may be a long way off

For many people this has long stopped being a "concern" and in fact turned into the exact opposite "the lingering concern that there might be an upcoming balance patch that screws things up even more". Have a build you like? Well watch it geting collateraled by an upcomming balance patch because the devs want to address something completely unrelated (or who knows what, them making seemingly random changes with "no explanation given" isn't anything new either and has already been heavily criticized in the past: ofc. to no avail).

Edited June 28, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Ashen.2907]

5 minutes ago, Bolthead.2567 said:

It's a few tweaks to abilities and players are assuming they know how things will be before actually playing it, crazy, they're reacting as though human female is getting removed from the game.

The toxic players that are kitten talking the devs and say they are quitting the game, good. Maybe you'll take that time to go outside, into the real world for a while, realise that actually the devs probably care about your opinion more than anyone else in your life does, then you can come back to the game and enjoy it for what it is, a game.

Things need to change or they just grow stale, something new to play around with whether it's slightly better or worse is still better than nothing changing at all. If things don't work they can be reverted, but we won't know that unless we try, and that's the way to move ahead.


 

No assumption necessary. ANet posted specific details which make informed responses/reactions possible. Actively choosing to make things worse is not better than not changing...by definition of the word worse.

[Elrey.5472]

One possible change that would make a lot of people happier and get you guys better feedback: A public test server (for balancing, not story. Let's avoid spoilers). Other MMOs already do it, they have a server where everyone (anyone that wants to create an account there) can test balancing, builds and theorycraft changes and gear min-maxing 1 month ahead of live release.  Those people interested in checking would undoubtely create an account there, while people not interested will just ignore it. But I feel that at least that's a lot better than a private discord with selected people. You would have better feedback and a more stable QA before release.

Please consider it.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Elrey.5472

[radiale.8027]

Quote

The philosophy driving profession design and balance has changed a few times over the years, even by the ‘original developers’ of the days of yore. Elite specializations weren’t a part of the game’s original vision, for example. I considered getting a version of this posted in response to this weekend’s discussions, but on further reflection, I came to the conclusion that Cameron Rich taking over as the Lead Systems Designer (which Skills/Balance ultimately falls under) is a great opportunity for us to revisit the discussion internally before making a public statement. Cam brings a lot of great perspective to this area from his experience as the Lead Encounters Designer for GW2. We also recently had Floyd Grubb join the WvW team - and we'd like to have him involved there as well.

So you openly admit that there has been no driving balance philosophy when considering the most recent balance patch - in fact, you go so far as to say that you still need time and devs to flesh out an actual, publicly presentable piece of reasoning behind any of the balancing in the game thus far. I don't understand why it's so hard to have a competent dev team with history playing the game, and I don't understand why the entire balance team continues to feign ignorance when there is clearly a lack of any driving philosophy behind any change beyond bias and "salt" as was so graciously leaked in the discord logs.

Edited June 28, 2022 by radiale.8027
grammar

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

Some of the comments here read like something written for a soap opera, or intended to be read atop Sarah McLachlan background music. Literally laughing out loud how dramatic some of you guys are because of a balance patch, and one that you're only speculating will be a misstep as it isn't even live yet. And don't get me wrong, I definitely think this patch sounds misdirected, but then I take my opinion and pocket it and resume my day.

 

Edit: the irony of the confused reacts 😂

Video game fans get called dramatic and overreacting time after time, meanwhile in many other industries, screwups of the kind that are a regular occurrence in the video game industry simply don't happen. Video game fans get expected to have saintly patience in the face of screwup after screwup and calmly explain how they would like things to be different while they continue to play and pay.

Being a video game fan is continual exposure to gaslighting. Being told over and over from different angles and people that your concerns don't matter, that you are exaggerating what is occurring, that you are acting out, and that you need to behave more. It doesn't matter if you rant or write an academic essay, you will still get dismissed by anyone and everyone, if not laughed at and mocked.

Meanwhile, the alleged (pretty much never is evidence provided) awful actions of a fraction of a fraction of a given game community get put front and center and paraded around as the representation of what video game communities are and suddenly said communities that are normally thought of as diverse and broad are talked at as if they are an organized, conspiring group that is supposed to be policing and/or taking responsibility for the alleged actions of a fraction of them. And the ones who have the patient of a saint are given a pat on the head for "behaving."

The cycle is never-ending.