Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Drogo Barberia.6239]

Totally unacceptable, kill a class in the pve as it was done with the warrior and nothing be done against the heal mecha. The changes did not meet anything that was promised to the players. Any player sees this and there's no way the person in charge of the balance doesn't see it. After all the however disclosed showing solar conversations the least that the ARENANET should do would be to apologize and take this developer out of the balance function. Hire any experienced player for the role who will do a much better job than this guy. The content of the conversation disclosed is revolting and the company's indifference is even worse.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

Look, the death threats and all that are awful, and I hope you are taking legal action, or at the very least, banned them.

That being said, Lets not pretend this isn't a long time coming. Lets not pretend that people WEREN'T at a boiling point. This backlash, this toxicity? It didn't came out of no where. If you, or anyone (Mightyteapot to name a few.) Were surprised of the sudden toxicity, were clearly wasn't paying attention.

This have been build up for years now. The leaks was just enough to break the camels back. Does it excuse any of those extremely toxic behavior? No, Obviously not. But that doesn't take away any criticism people have. People were claiming there were class favoritism for years. The leaks ultimately confirms it, and as a result people lost faith in you guys. The Stigma Isn't gonna go away anytime soon, no matter how much you address it.

I hope this has been a wake-up call for you guys. For all of us.

[Jillian.4502]

1 minute ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Lets not pretend this isn't a long time coming. Lets not pretend that people WEREN'T at a boiling point. This backlash, this toxicity? It didn't came out of no where. If you, or anyone (Mightyteapot to name a few.) Were surprised of the sudden toxicity, were clearly wasn't paying attention.

 

THANK YOU! That's exactly what I think as well 

[Drogo Barberia.6239]

And I say more, canceling this patch notes would not delay any because with the patch the situation will be much worse than the current one. All the work has been poorly done and the company is to blame for not having checked before and approved these ridiculous changes and every player who has the least knowledge of the classes can see this.

[Jojo.6590]

GROUCH! Peekaboo I See you 😉. KOIN is still open if you want to run with us! You should come stop by and see who came back! (Hope I got a laugh out of you, good luck.)

[Saharo.5381]

8 hours 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. 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.

Release this list of "plenty of options" as soon as possible.

It's really a shame (if not damning) that you aren't sharing a list of potential action items & tradeoffs NOW as part of your response. Because if you have to take time brainstorming it up, we know you weren't actually considering any of it until this situation boiled to a head and lit a fire under your kitten. There's been player outcry for this for years, and it's clear you've been ignoring it.

Until there's a list of potential action items, I'll assume everyone is talking BS.

[Labjax.2465]

25 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

Thank you for saying this, in particular. The gaming community has a history of having their toxic, unhinged behavior enabled for way too long (Frankly, this includes by ArenaNet in the past), so it's heartening to see a director stand up for their team instead of throwing them under the bus. Video game communities would be a lot better if every developer was this intentional and surefooted about not tolerating toxicity.

Can you imagine people reacting this way for an equally minor thing in any other artistic medium? The way people use language like "consumer" and "customer" as a cudgel to demand they get exactly what they want is so unhealthy and disingenuous. Bunch of Karens demanding to speak to the manager because an employee dared to not lick every boot that comes their way

To the community: This isn't a utility product, folks, it's entertainment. It's subjective. It's art. It's in constant flux. Your disappointment in changes is valid. Your constructive feedback is valid. But the moment that you start harassing and threatening developers, your feedback loses all its value. Developers are people, and they are artists. They aren't making sure your car doesn't explode when it starts. They are making a silly fantasy video game. They are allowed to be human, act human, and have human opinions. That does not invalidate their expertise. So try to be better humans back at them--it will honestly make it far easier for you to have a positive influence in the experience.

Not really. The video game community has a history of the alleged actions of a tiny fraction of a given community being paraded around by studios and game "journalists" alike in perfect timing with said studio behaving poorly. It's such a repeating strategy, it's evident that whether such alleged actions are real or not, the point is not at all to call out the behavior or stop it from happening, but is to deflect attention away from any wrongdoing the studio may have done themselves.

If such behavior really was a pervasive, repeating issue, the answer would not be to vaguely scold it from an ivory tower, it would be to ask hard questions about where it's coming from and how anyone gets to that point.

And it's bizarre that you go to great length to point out the humanity of paid game studio employees, but you don't factor this at all into your scolding of video game fans. If studios are allowed to act human, then so are players. How do you reach the point, honestly, how do you even get yourself there intellectually to the point where you are essentially expecting players to be the ones who act professional and to forgive unprofessionalism from paid employees?

I'm all for solidarity with the working class, but that doesn't mean solidarity with top-down companies themselves. There is a big difference between understanding a developer is human and forgiving the officially sanctioned actions of a company by extension. If you erase that line, then there is no criticizing a company, even when it takes advantage of its employees, because you can just say the people who made the decision are human too. It makes no sense.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Labjax.2465
phrasing

[Drogo Barberia.6239]

I

You guys ended up with the warrior in pve. Removed the sources of precision and do not change the base of the class that depended on these bonuses to reach 100% critical. Took away empower alies, and banner bonuses. And to make matters worse put 5% critical on ARMS traitline. ARMS is cond traitline, everyone knows that. Take the time to check the used builds. 

[YTNyxBloom.7568]

9 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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: 

ty for the reply Grouch! You and the Guild Wars 2 dev team do so much for us. My main build didn't get touched that much this patch. Shouthealer! I have so many backup main builds if my current main gets hard nerfed or I might play even if it is nerfed. Going to stick with this game! So excited for the future of Guild Wars 2! Steam release? Maybe you can get ele longbow next expansion or next expansion after that maybe? But yeah ty for the update! Sorry to hear you guys got flamed and were hit hard by toxic people!

 

[draxynnic.3719]

5 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

Good, you should leave. You chose to interpret leaked private conversations in bad faith. You have the arrogance to believe that every game designer should kiss your feet at all times. How big does your ego need to be to believe that a professional game designer at this level--an extremely competitive and underpaid role--doesn't know how to do their job because they made choices that you personally don't like?

Every game community would be better if toxic Karens like you weren't in them. Maybe then devs wouldn't get threatened into silence every time they tried to open communications, and we could actually start to have some meaningful back and forth.

The problem is that the leaks pretty much confirmed every conspiracy theory that had been floating around for years. There was a perception for a while that certain professions were being favoured over others, and then the leak came and, surprise! The professions that people thought were hated were indeed the ones that the balancer was expressing a dislike for, and the professions that people thought were favoured included those the balancer played.

It'd be fine if the balancer joked around about hating one profession and liking another, as long as their actual decisions did not appear to reflect that bias. But there's been a perceived bias for a long time now, and when a leak comes up that seems to confirm that the balancers personal preferences and dislikes line up with the haves and have nots in practice... that doesn't feel like interpreting in bad faith. That feels like whoever leaked it was blowing a whistle.

Demanding that he get fired? Yeah, that's probably overkill. But at the very least, I think it is reasonable to say there should be a bit more oversight and accountability there.

[Kuma.1503]

I come from WoW where players would have killed for this level of communication. 

Obviously the patch wasn't perfect. It missed the mark on several issues, but at least there's a promise and a commitment to fix it moving forward as well as clear recognition of player frustration. 

The team has generally been doing a good job with frequent patches since the launch of EoD. There's a LOT of pent up frustration from the long dry spell following the pandemic, but there does seem to be a change of pace, and I'm liking the willingness to continue communicating with players. 

On that topic. Please... Do not send death threats to developers. I love this game as much as everyone else, but it's precicely that. A game. By all means, post a heated response on the forums, but don't threaten someone's life... this should be common sense. 

Props to you guys at Anet for willing to continue communicating with us. It would be a shame to lose that connection after... well... these last few days... 

[Luno.2638]

20 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Not really. The video game community has a history of the alleged actions of a tiny fraction of a given community being paraded around by studios and game "journalists" alike in perfect timing with said studio behaving poorly. It's such a repeating strategy, it's evident that whether such alleged actions are real or not, the point is not at all to call out the behavior or stop it from happening, but is to deflect attention away from any wrongdoing the studio may have done themselves.

If such behavior really was a pervasive, repeating issue, the answer would not be to vaguely scold it from an ivory tower, it would be to ask hard questions about where it's coming from and how anyone gets to that point.

And it's bizarre that you go to great length to point out the humanity of paid game studio employees, but you don't factor this at all into your scolding of video game fans. If studios are allowed to act human, then so are players. How do you reach the point, honestly, how do you even get yourself there intellectually to the point where you are essentially expecting players to be the ones who act professional and to forgive unprofessionalism from paid employees?

I'm all for solidarity with the working class, but that doesn't mean solidarity with top-down companies themselves. There is a big difference between understanding a developer is human and forgiving the officially sanctioned actions of a company by extension. If you erase that line, then there is no criticizing a company, even when it takes advantage of its employees, because you can just say the people who made the decision are human too. It makes no sense.

The humanity that you're comparing here has one side saying things like "some people are going to be salty" and expressing a personal preference for a profession in the game they work on, and the other side has people forming a mob and calling for that person to be fired or worse. 

If you truly think those things are comparible, then I have some serious doubts about your "solidarity for the working class". The fact that you put journalists in scare-quotes and appear to be questioning the prevalence of toxicity in game communities makes me doubt that you're coming to this conversation in good faith at all.

I'm not caping for corporations, here--I'm just encouraging them to protect their actual employees. Criticize ANet as a whole all you like. I've got plenty of my own complaints. Corporations and gamers can both be horrible at the same time. In fact, they usually both are! But having been on both sides of things like this--individual game devs get WAY more crap than they deserve, and are basically always far more thoughtful and qualified than gamers give them credit for. Their jobs and their ability to exist in peace should not be at risk because of balance patches.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Luno.2638

[Luno.2638]

14 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Demanding that he get fired? Yeah, that's probably overkill. But at the very least, I think it is reasonable to say there should be a bit more oversight and accountability there.

Agreed! But this should be at a studio level, not an individual dev level. There are clearly systemic changes that need to be made. But let's try to focus on that instead of raising pitchforks about individuals with extremely limited context.

[Saharo.5381]

54 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

Can you imagine people reacting this way for an equally minor thing in any other artistic medium? The way people use language like "consumer" and "customer" as a cudgel to demand they get exactly what they want is so unhealthy and disingenuous. Bunch of Karens demanding to speak to the manager because an employee dared to not lick every boot that comes their way

...games are consumer products friend. Not the same type of commodity as art.

Players are the lifeblood of a game. If no one views art, it'll survive. Game with no players? Dead.

As for the dared to not book lick comment, people are mad because the dev clearly showed everyone he favored his own classes. That's indisputable at this point. I main guardian/mech, but I'm pissed for every other spec that got nerfed by this guy who clearly works to keep his own specs and the variations of them that he personally likes on the overperform list. Virt/Mech/Harb are way overperforming... coincidence? Nah

[Labjax.2465]

28 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

The humanity that you're comparing here has one side saying things like "some people are going to be salty" and expressing a personal preference for a profession in the game they work on, and the other side has people forming a mob and calling for that person to be fired or worse. 

If you truly think those things are comparible, then I have some serious doubts about your "solidarity for the working class". The fact that you put journalists in scare-quotes and appear to be questioning the prevalence of toxicity in game communities makes me doubt that you're coming to this conversation in good faith at all.

I'm not caping for corporations, here--I'm just encouraging them to protect their actual employees. Criticize ANet as a whole all you like. I've got plenty of my own complaints. Corporations and gamers can both be horrible at the same time. In fact, they usually both are! But having been on both sides of things like this--individual game devs get WAY more crap than they deserve, and are basically always far more thoughtful and qualified than gamers give them credit for. Their jobs and their ability to exist in peace should not be at risk because of balance patches.

You absolutely are "caping for corporations" though. Look at how you talk about this. You downplay and misrepresent the actions of Anet (the way you describe what happened on their end is just untrue) and then characterize the actions of the community as a mob (I think it's safe to say virtually all of the reaction has been spontaneous action as a result of word of mouth + people reading forums with little to no direct communication between players on it, unless it's to say what happened to somebody else). A mob would imply any of this is organized, much less on the same page, and is lacking in rationality, when you can read through this thread alone and see that the reactions are not all the same and many of them are detailed and thoughtful.

Then you try to say you have doubts I believe in solidarity for the working class if I think the two things that you misrepresented as a comparison are equal. And think me putting journalists in scare-quotes somehow adds to this (really reaching). Video game journalists have long had an issue of being more or less on the same team as video game studios, it's a pretty well known thing. I'm not familiar with how much of an issue it still is, but it certainly was one at some point.

As to your last line about being on both sides of it, you're basically just admitting whose side you're on, which is the company side. Despite you throwing in a line about how both can be bad, the emphasis is on you preaching about what devs have to deal with and how players underestimate them, without acknowledging what video game fans regularly put up with on a customer end. Lastly, a lot of what game devs deal with at its worst has nothing to do with the players themselves and everything to do with the companies and how they are run.

Edit: Also, I think it's worth noting that it's definitely possible for a game studio to have a relationship with its players that is healthy and is one where trust is readily found. Though it's not necessarily the fault of random devs when that doesn't occur, it's possible to do and many studios instead treat their players effectively like free resources who happen to be playing their game; whose feedback is something to be considered only when it's convenient and does not conflict with their vision, in others words to be taken for granted. The result is that (unsurprisingly) game after game estranges players by making changes it doesn't communicate well, doesn't listen to the players on, and pushes out despite backlash.

It is one thing to have a vision on release before players have seen it, but after that (for MMOs in particular) it becomes in some part the game of the community that forms around it. And no matter how many forms say whose property it is, it is that community whose desire to stick around determines the health of the game going forward. So when that community is used like free resources only when convenient, instead of treated like partners in the development process, they predictably become estranged as the studio's vision inevitably goes here, there, and everywhere in ways that doesn't match. It is a repeating pattern beyond one game.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[voltaicbore.8012]

25 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

Their jobs and their ability to exist in peace should not be at risk because of balance patches.

No, but if your job is to be a balance dev and you openly and shamelessly implement imbalance based on your ignorance and bias, then your job should be at risk.

This is a matter of mismanaged competence (I've used the word "incompetence" elsewhere, but I feel that's too easy to misinterpret). I don't expect every single dev to have every single aspect of every single ability memorized. But if ANet gives a dev the power/responsibility for changing X skill... the dev should actually know how X skill works, period. To instead demonstrate a level of familiarity even inferior to that of many players is inexcusable.

The outrage and ire exists precisely because the leaks demonstrated that the balance work being done was neither "thoughtful" nor "qualified", even if the human being behind it allegedly is.

Edited June 28, 2022 by voltaicbore.8012

[Dunklord.5930]

I think everyone here in the thread should take a breather and really assess "why we are continuing to have this dialogue", and I'd like to personally recap a few points that I think everyone in this thread would agree too, even in part.

 

1. Constructive criticism is not a bad thing, and should not be considered toxic as a knee jerk reaction. Once curse words or insults are thrown into the criticism, then it becomes toxic. The patch has quite a few negatives to it, and should definitely be more thoroughly looked at by the balance team. 

 

2. One of the largest factors to the backlash of this patch is not just the patch itself, but the leaked discord conversation from an ArenaNet employee. This is an even larger problem because:

2a. Part of the balance team openly admitted to only buffing weapons they liked, while ignoring others. While this undoubtedly gave birth to Double Staff Mirage which was a wonderful idea, it also painted Axe Mirage in a bad light due to part of the balance team "not liking that weapon".

2b. The same balance team member openly admitted in a semi-public forum that the players (us) are idiots. While I am sure we can all agree that there are plenty of times we have thought a player, a customer, a human was an idiot- we also know that such things should be kept behind closed doors and not shared with your customer base. Such negligence by the employee should be punished, though its difficult to determine the "right" punishment for such an act, and I would leave such things up to ArenaNet management to figure out some suitable. 

2c. Lastly, said balance team member also disclosing what the design philosophy is behind class balance and new specs going forward- this is something that should be more openly discussed with the player base at large. 

 

3. Bouncing off of point 2c - Design Philosophy. Guild Wars 2 is a wonderfully complicated game with its classes, and one of the few MMO's left that allow you to select traits, customize stats, and make a class that you can play you want. This is perfectly okay. --HOWEVER-- This is not okay when it comes to more difficult end game content, for instance, T4 Fractals, CM Strikes, and Raids. I 100% believe, since one of your own developers has openly stated what the new design philosophy is going forward, this should be openly addressed to the community. I would strongly advise the balance team to truly consider a few important factors though before making adjustments in the future:

 

How do I want this class to play? What is its identity?

Does it push a lot of buttons, or does it almost play itself?

Is the class intended to be beginner friendly, or is it more intended for advanced players? (Mechanist vs Power-Weaver, for instance)

What is the reward for playing a beginner friendly class? What about the advanced class? If damage is the same between easier and more difficult classes, you will lose a portion of your player base interested in playing those more difficult classes, and that is something that should be strongly considered.

What role does this fulfill in a 10 man squad? In Raid/Strikes? WvW?

 

Personally, I do not plan on logging in today, and possibly for the rest of the week. Nor do I plan on buying gems either. Its not about the balance patch. Balance patches come and go, things change, and thats just the nature of an ever evolving online game.  It's because the action of one employee that is quite condemning- its not even because they are ignorant. Its because they openly admitted their ignorance, called us (the paying customers) idiots, and ArenaNet, by not openly addressing the elephant in the room and issuing an apology to the player base, is saying simply that "This is okay.".

 

Those are my thoughts, and I hope that this reaches your minds before this thread devolves into more folk calling for "toxicity", or shameless white-knighting. 

[Luno.2638]

4 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Video game journalists have long had an issue of being more or less on the same team as video game studios, it's a pretty well known thing

I'm sorry but this is so wildly inaccurate that it supercedes any interest I might have in engaging with your further points. Where do you think all the recent stories about company misconduct came from? How do you think they have reached the masses? The past five years have been full of journalists putting pressure on game studios and platforming the developers that they've abused. Who do you think broke the stories about Activision/Blizzard? About Riot's mistreatment of its employees?

The core theme of your posts has been a conflation of "developers" with "corporations". They are not the same thing, but people love to pretend that they are in order to justify their abuse of individuals. The only reason I was positive about ANet in this thread at all is that I've become so used to corporations throwing their developers under the bus to appease their most toxic customers that I was pleasantly surprised. 

[Labjax.2465]

1 minute ago, Luno.2638 said:

I'm sorry but this is so wildly inaccurate that it supercedes any interest I might have in engaging with your further points. Where do you think all the recent stories about company misconduct came from? How do you think they have reached the masses? The past five years have been full of journalists putting pressure on game studios and platforming the developers that they've abused. Who do you think broke the stories about Activision/Blizzard? About Riot's mistreatment of its employees?

The core theme of your posts has been a conflation of "developers" with "corporations". They are not the same thing, but people love to pretend that they are in order to justify their abuse of individuals. The only reason I was positive about ANet in this thread at all is that I've become so used to corporations throwing their developers under the bus to appease their most toxic customers that I was pleasantly surprised. 

No it's not, but if you want to stop replying to me, you don't need to make up an excuse you can just stop. Some people in game "journalism" actually being journalists does not mean there were/are never any issues in game journalism. They can both be true. There is no gotcha contradiction there.

[Seremela the Elf Mage.1748]

If I remember correctly, your account info here is the same information you signed up with when you bought the game.

I find it extremely interesting that a number of the people defending (white-knighting, even) Anet's actions in this thread have made their accounts on the forum within the last few hours and have immediately jumped into this thread and started commenting on the most recent balance changes to be implemented and in some instances bashing and badmouthing other players. Their only posts are in this thread, their accounts are new. Low and behold the first thing a new player does is jump into an argument in a game they  just joined defending a developer they have...how much knowledge of exactly? Where is that loyalty coming from within an hour of account creation? When I get a new game, the first thing I do is go try it out, not defend a developer decision that the community AT LARGE decried as a huge mistake and begged to be reconsidered. So in your sub-one hour of being a part of this community, how much do you really know about the state of dissatisfaction of players, outrage at being dismissed and ignored for years, watching management stand behind employees who admitted to balancing around bias and calling the players/customers "idiots" and call the players who ask for said employee to be reviewed or replaced toxic (nice double standard by the way). How much does someone who just joined the game know about long standing balance issues, frustration, and dissatisfaction?

[voltaicbore.8012]

 

4 minutes ago, Luno.2638 said:

Where do you think all the recent stories about company misconduct came from? How do you think they have reached the masses? The past five years have been full of journalists putting pressure on game studios and platforming the developers that they've abused. Who do you think broke the stories about Activision/Blizzard? About Riot's mistreatment of its employees?

On the other hand, outlets have been all too willing to vilify players as entitled children, conveniently ignoring valid criticism regarding butchered franchises, the (pointless and dumb) incursion of West Coast political mores into game narrative, and shoddy betas being released as full games at full price. Guess what? It sounds a lot like your 5 posts: "stop being babies, devs are real people, cut them some slack."

Yes, devs are people, and deserve the dignity we afford to all humans. That does not make them immune to losing  (or getting reshuffled at) their jobs when they, you know, are doing an awful job.

[Ausar.9542]

has this issue been overblown?

Edited June 28, 2022 by Ausar.9542

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 minutes ago, Ausar.9542 said:

has this issue been overblown?

Probably.  I'm not sure how this became about Gamer Gate again.  To make a metaphor: the straw that breaks the camel's back was just a straw.  

[vectorfox.6894]

Thanks for the update Grouch,

I think Anet has been in a constant battle to win over players confidence as each positive patch comes with disappointment but I hope from these comments that means Anet is willing to talk to the players a bit more. I know its hard to ignore the people that go too far in their negativity but i feel like more casual communication at least lets us understand where the devs are coming from and i would say players are usually confounded more than mad when content doesn't hit the mark so discussion on how we can work together would be fantastic.

Now relating to balance, I'm curious where balance goes as a whole since some design philosophies like blast finishers mattering for boons anymore have sailed since classes just provide boons just from breathing, would we ever see a buff to those mechanics to incentivize that style of play or are we just having it there for mild flavour? So many questions to ask because many options don't feel like they are on the same playing field anymore .

[Labjax.2465]

20 minutes ago, Seremela the Elf Mage.1748 said:

If I remember correctly, your account info here is the same information you signed up with when you bought the game.

I find it extremely interesting that a number of the people defending (white-knighting, even) Anet's actions in this thread have made their accounts on the forum within the last few hours and have immediately jumped into this thread and started commenting on the most recent balance changes to be implemented and in some instances bashing and badmouthing other players. Their only posts are in this thread, their accounts are new. Low and behold the first thing a new player does is jump into an argument in a game they  just joined defending a developer they have...how much knowledge of exactly? Where is that loyalty coming from within an hour of account creation? When I get a new game, the first thing I do is go try it out, not defend a developer decision that the community AT LARGE decried as a huge mistake and begged to be reconsidered. So in your sub-one hour of being a part of this community, how much do you really know about the state of dissatisfaction of players, outrage at being dismissed and ignored for years, watching management stand behind employees who admitted to balancing around bias and calling the players/customers "idiots" and call the players who ask for said employee to be reviewed or replaced toxic (nice double standard by the way). How much does someone who just joined the game know about long standing balance issues, frustration, and dissatisfaction?

To be clear, because of the new forums they switched to at some point, somebody's join date can be relative to when they first started using the new forums, rather than account creation (my profile, for example, says Feb 18, but I joined the game first in 2014, I just took a long time away during which the forums changed and came back recently).

So it's technically possible some of it could just be people who never bothered to use the forums before. But nonetheless, I agree it's odd.