Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Ashantara.8731]

10 hours ago, Rozespany Kot.1862 said:

If you are not a raider or striker you will not notice any difference, since banners in open world are useless, and everything else in this patch is pure buffs for open world players.

Uhm... no?

Banner rework certainly isn't the only problem here, and I can tell you that I, for one, certainly do notice stuff in open world gameplay as well (like that Untamed is a terrible elite spec that is useless for solo play as much as it is useless in raids/strikes, unless you enjoy pommeling a veteran enemy for hours until they are finally defeated).

[Pulsefire Jayce.4753]

The most basic, logical thing to do would be to only communicate changes via the forums.  Otherwise, why have them?  If you'd prefer discord, then only communicate via an official Guild Wars 2 discord.  If you'd rather use reddit, then use reddit.  Choose one and stick with it.

 

Stop this splitting of information across 3+ different platforms and then have to do damage control / public relations control to appease your customers.

[firedragon.8953]

Grouch, thanks for posting the follow up. As a customer, I appreciate the communication even if I disagree with a lot of the decisions made.

Things seem really messy, and if I'm being honest a lot of the decisions by the studio and conduct of the team that have manifested in this recent patch show a blind and amateur perspective of not only some of GW2s systems, but also the community. This patch was sold to be a "big" update that would look at some core issues with classes. Banners and spirits being even part of the "headline" even. Even if it wasn't sold to be hyped (even if nothing was said), a lot of these changes appear to be convoluted and even profession-breaking. 

As a warrior enjoyer, I feel like this just created more problems without resolving any long standing issues. The new way of playing with banners (as described in the notes) makes it feel like warrior would even be more of a banner slave if they chose to play it. Why did quickness become a banner-related thing and not a burst and utility skill addition? The new banner rework just does not sound fun. Other professions can also provide these boons much easier/fluidly (from the sounds of it). Obviously, I will have to see how the "patch" is in actual implementation when it is released, but much of the grief experienced by warrior mains over the years have been ignored at worst, or misinterpreted at best. This was the straw that broke the camels back...

I feel like I've lost confidence in the team's ability to drive the game forward in a fun and not annoying or seemingly pointless or even misguided way. I worry that the game I love may already be done for if changes like this are being "agreed" upon by the development team. I hope that maybe this backlash (not personal attacks/threats of course, that's always uncalled for) by the community indeed does come to a shock to the team and you guys can get your act together. Trust once broken is hard to gain back, when broken over and over...well...it becomes pretty unsalvageable and a form of abuse. This is "just a game" for us, but it is your team's profession. Please do better!

[Barraind.7324]

4 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

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. 

... no.

[Heretic.6928]

What happened to that 10% healing from damage untamed had... Oh nerfed.... 

All sustain builds... Nerfed.. if I had a tin foil hat, open world players (I myself play a lot of ow) imo have been maliciously targetted in previous nerfs just to then be abandoned now in favour of some influential toxic streamers who prefer raids, then made fun of and told "git good". The current events and what was exposed, to me, confirms this. I am glad I haven't spent a dime on the Game after work and will not do so until ANet gets a grip.

[Jillian.4502]

After a few hours of hiatus, I come back and this post still looks like a poor PR attempt at damage controling. You're gonna keep ignoring the community you claim to value so much "in hopes that we'll give you one more chance to do better in the future". Been there, done that. I'm just gonna be a filthy casual farming gold in fractals and buying a cute dress when I feel like it, and then I'll dip for a better game. 

[Pulsefire Jayce.4753]

3 minutes ago, firedragon.8953 said:

Trust once broken is hard to gain back, when broken over and over...well...it becomes pretty unsalvageable and a form of abuse.

I want to acknowledge this.  Unfortunately,  I do not forsee Anet changing anything moving forward because everything Grouch said in his post(s) today has been echoed multiple times before by multiple Anet developers and Game Directors before him that this just seems to be the go to response for the studio as a whole.

"We hear you and we're sorry.  We'll do better next time and moving forward."

Same problem happens again.....

"Oops, well, sorry.  We hear you and we'll do better moving forward."

Either break the cycle of abuse or be okay with losing players who will no longer take said abuse.

[Maximum Potato.5923]

10 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

 

I've been playing for almost ten years, and in that time I've provided feedback on Ranger throughout most of its life. I wrote in-depth posts on Druid feedback pre-HoT, and have done similar for Untamed each time feedback is requested for the class. I've spoken to other players in the community and discussed the positions classes are in, and what they need to succeed, and tried at every opportunity to make my voice heard to the development team. Now I'm not vain enough to think my ideas are perfect, but in all my years of play, I have never once seen any of the ideas I've brought forward acknowledged, let alone implemented into the game, and outside of a clogged profession thread every time a new elite spec releases, there's very few clear ways for players to communicate with developers. I've been playing fractals since HoT, I've raided for almost 3 years, I do EoD strikes on the daily, but am I to assume that my opinion isn't relevant because I'm not a streamer?

 

I, and many other players, have been trying to provide feedback for years, and after discussing with guilds what Ranger needs to succeed for months, I'm left with a bitter feeling that I've put more thought into the balance of my class than the actual developers have. I must confess that after today I don't intend to provide any feedback going forward, because it takes me a long time to plan out and articulate my findings, and quite frankly, I don't think it's ever been read. To be brutally honest, I don't think any member of the team is even going to read this post.

[Noro.2879]

I appreciate this, I just think the changes are BIG and ambitious. There's not much about it that's small/incremental. With that in mind; why are changes like the cooldown changes for reaper or the damage buffs for spellbreaker not given to these classes in pve? These are underperforming classes as it is and the odds of it actually causing a balance problem are slim to none.

I, for one, love playing both of those classes and am generally frustrated that they underperform and seem to go completely unnoticed in that regard. Why does spellbreaker have to remain a "pvp class" arbitrarily? I want to play my dagger warrior in pve. Please let me play my dagger warrior in pve. Warrior axe 5 is incredibly strong. Warrior dagger 5 could be good too. We don't need to have elite specs that serve no purpose. I can't speak for everyone, but I'd much rather have every elite spec given attention rather than adding more.

[mindcircus.1506]

10 hours ago, Rozespany Kot.1862 said:

If you are not a raider or striker you will not notice any difference, since banners in open world are useless, and everything else in this patch is pure buffs for open world players.

Please explain how a 10% reduction in Strike Damage is a buff for players picking Catalyst for Open World play.
Please explain how dumpstering One Wolf Pack helps the Open World Power Soulbeast,
Please explain how putting a crit chance buff into Arms helps the Open World Spellbreaker.
Please explain how the damage reduction in Amplified Wrath is a buff to Open World Firebrand.
Please explain how the changes to Strength in Numbers are a buff to Open World Guardians and not a change meant to accommodate raid aggro mechanics.

 

I'm not here to dump on this balance patch. I will play it before I offer feedback.
But the quoted statement is complete hogwash.

[solemace.8427]

These changes are rather extreme. The complete gutting of class unique buffs to bolster boons when most of party variety and class identity comes from these unique buffs and class aspects. I know I'm late to the party but even as an engi main , a class that is undoubtedly getting "spoiled", I don't really like mech I much prefer scrapper and holo using my kits, playing scrapper going fast being a buff machine. I don't really like the pet game play, and that's fine, but I don't want it to be the objectively best way to play the class. Pin point was a great thing to just slap on and help your raid group out, now it's just kinda, (pin)pointless. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by solemace.8427

[Anthony.8056]

The people that are defending them aren't even addressing the real problem which was the leak from the dev but are only talking about the patch itself and the death threats which is deflection. Years go by and it's the same story all over again nothing changes for the better at least for Ele which I stated I play in a previous post. My question is how many more years and patches will it take for this class to see some positive changes. It's getting old and tiring seeing this class be the joke of your game. As a person who plays casually since it was released and spent money on this game from the gem store, I wouldn't blame casuals or all the community which I always see in the reddit and from streamers, those casuals that you talk badly about fund the game that you are playing. The streamers defend Anet because they are partnered and one sided when it comes to content, they don't pay for gems or anything because they get it free from their followers or Anet. All I'm saying don't bite the hand that feeds you, even though i'm one person I have no problem taking my money elsewhere. 

[Daoyun.3157]

This balance patch is probably the worst one yet in Guild Wars 2, but I'm still holding on. I don't understand why you people are complaining so much even though the patch hasn't been released yet? Classes will always be playable in every content. Sure there may be people who won't let you in on their group, but there is plenty of people who are chill in the Guild Wars 2 community. If you want to quit the game because of this, then you should just quit. That isn't going to change Anet's mind.

 

Although this patch is a bit disappointing, I hope this is a way for the new balance team to step up on improving professions in the near future. Death threats are despicable especially if you're doing it over just some game.

[Hida Oni.7652]

How can game director confuse "ugly bad changes" for "lack of info and description"?
No matter how much description you put out there, or even if you wrote a whole book about "why THIS changes where made", it will not change fact that you failed, and failed badly, and not with words or description, you failed as a team that must do balance changes.
First of all, like many many people said, making changes for class based only on 0.01% of TOP players who always milk everything in raids, are DUMBEST idea, especially when majority can't do even 2/3 of same output. But changing it because of few people, and making class bad while not in raids? Did you forget that your game have not only Raids? Its also have open world, fractals, dungeons?
Then changes to traitlines to streamline and make them "universal" - another crappy idea, i had seen same in wow, when they decided "oh yeah, lets give bloodlust to EVERY class" - and that was when decline started.
I have better idea for you devs! Its even a lot simpler to do! Just remove all skills, and give all classes ability to use any armor and weapons, and make skills linked to weapons, not classes, and voila, you will get your "UNI" skills.

[Grisu.7534]

looking at the number of posts in this thread within 12h, it's even more controversal then the skill-ballance-thread; anet - do yourself a favour, and delay the patch!

[Galaxy.3127]

A very empathic and nice response from Josh.

 

When I scan through the replies though.. it's a mix of constructive (helpful, positive) and inmature (blaming, negative) responses, with the latter being in the majority it seems, so I hope ANet filters that out, because there is no added value except frustrations being vented and feeling good about that for a few seconds. Right. Well...

 

If you read carefully what he says, there is an opportunity. Josh mentions community involvement being the key and they seek on how to improve that. So you got 2 fair choices: disengage because you don't have the energy for it or give ideas on how you'd see that work because you do have the energy. That other choice: slam bam we already gave so much feedback man is just childish ego needs some attention play really. Do it somewhere else.

[kankanKk.2748]

3 minutes ago, Hida Oni.7652 said:

I have better idea for you devs! Its even a lot simpler to do! Just remove all skills, and give all classes ability to use any armor and weapons, and make skills linked to weapons, not classes, and voila, you will get your "UNI" skills.

I miss GW1 skill system. No balance but opportunity

[VIVIAN.8910]

@Josh Davis.7865

This is my very first time posting a reaction to any topic of this game.

 

First of all, I absolutely agree that sending death threats to game devs and calling them to be fired is unacceptable! Those people need to get a life.

 

Second, please review the composition of the design team at the company cuz it seems they are favouring their personal gain rather than balancing everything to be of the same effort and skill level.

 

Third, it is absolutely unacceptable of some of the devs enjoying the critical feedback from the community and ridiculing it. This is exactly where Blizzard started to go downhill.

 

Fourth, i can see from the balance patch where the design philosophy is heading to. It seems that all classes will be able to provide everything (like boons, etc) which is just going to homogenise all classes. The reason why people loved playing certain classes because of a very UNIQUE ability available to them only (like banners, spirits etc). I have characters of all nine professions myself. Now it is absolutely unnecessary for me to ever login to my ranger or warrior again.

 

Fifth, I saw several group sign-ups who were readying themselves for Harvest Temple CM. Almost 95% of the group's had almost the same group composition - 1 Heal Alac Mechanist, 1 Quick Firebrand, 1 Heal Quick Firebrand, 1 Alac Specter and 6 Scourges. This alone shows how bad the balancing in this game is. 

 

Lastly, you had told during the EOD balancing that the balance was focused more on the skills of the player rather than their class buffs. But it is actually getting overturned where now players are getting into groups for some of the broken class skills (*cough cough* Firebrand).

[yoni.7015]

Patch is not even live and people are complaining and sending death threats (!) to the developers - wow this community turned really ugly and toxic because of some balancing in a video game. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Voyant.1327]

I commend the response and how well it was articulated, I agree that all things should be discussed with a baseline of civility. If there are more voices like this one in the discussion the chances for actual meaningful action is higher.

Actions will always speak louder then words:
"The update is going live."

Why would I believe good things are coming if a mistake is simultaneously being acknowledged and committed?
"Forgive us for what we're about to do" isn't very encouraging. Not trying to come at or throw salt, but it doesn't give a vote of confidence. I'll keep an eye out and see if you guys actually change, but I think a lot of people are tired of hearing about the "in the futures" at this point.

(edit: and yes I heard the reasoning about why not delaying said content, MMOs simply do not work like this once the community has reached a breaking point. You cannot say "Hey just trust us one more time." It's essentially the Boy Who Cried Wolf, even if you do change no one is left to believe you.)

Edited June 28, 2022 by Voyant.1327

[Alexandra Moldovia.4752]

10 minutes ago, VIVIAN.8910 said:

Fourth, i can see from the balance patch where the design philosophy is heading to. It seems that all classes will be able to provide everything (like boons, etc) which is just going to homogenise all classes.

I honestly hope that is the case, cause that way any class could have the option of fulfilling any role.

Let me clarify, Uniqueness shouldn't come from What you can do (buff boon ect) but How you do it.  Everyone should be able to spec into providing what a group needs, but the Manner in which they do it, should be mechanically different for each class. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Alexandra Moldovia.4752

[Oraxis.9705]

5 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

So I assume none of your meetings discussed the reason a number of us went from annoyed at the patch notes to a frenzy, save to apologize to them for our outrage at their hurtful comments? I can't say a name for fear of a ban but that individual needs to be punished in some way. To be clear, I neither want that person fired nor harmed. But a public censure is warranted. That would certainly be a start towards reaching out to the community. Insisting that someone get a reprimand for their insulting and offensive behavior is not, as you implied in your initial release, a threat. We merely wish to see that person held accountable. 

[SoloMona.7345]

5 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

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. 

 

I actually disagree with most of this. Although I do haft to say yes please prove us wrong. There are a lot of sceptics who have had that one coming for a while.

However with the post is answering questions. Def not questions I asked, probably not questions you asked, there where a lot of questions but I certainly do consider it a part of interacting with the community, would love to see more, unless you know that they pulled all those questions out there butt for no reason and I missed something.

Next I can say it would be nice to see ANet aim higher for keeping in touch with their community and having them read and contribute in discussions. But doing that would be a challenge, and probably not what you would want seeing as they don't have a professional know it all for every player in the game. (I know that's extreme) but having ppl in chat answering questions or whatever may not be as impactful as you may think, there's a lot of shiz to read and responses written in 30 seconds aren't really going to help with that. It could make things worse. Besides can you name a GDS that makes you feel more heard than ANet?

ALSO PLEASE DON'T ASK THEM TO POSTPONE ALL THEIR PLANNS A MONTH OR MORE!!! Just let Game designers do what game designers do. We can put up with a little trouble knowing that they will likely be back soon, we've seen lots of profession changes recently, there's no reason to think we'll be stuck with this for long, just take a 3-4 week break from the game, you won't miss much, and that will get you through 90% of it.

And of course last but not least, This is Arena Net's game, I know it sucks to hear, but they arn't trying to make the best game for you, or the next person. And there isn't a game that if everyone got to pitch in, everyone would love, because everyone's idea's give and take and usually don't see the big picture. It Seems ANet want's a game that anyone can pickup and play the profession that seems most interesting to them and use it anywhere in the game to fill any role. That's the game they want, and it sounds pretty cool, but it's going to make a lot of classes feel generic, and the path there isn't always going to make sense, even worse that may not be their gol next year. That's kinda what you sign up for with "Live" games.

[Tyler.6874]

12 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

I recommend caution with this approach. While it may have its upsides, I worry that many players will jump to conclusions in the absence of information. If the balance team is working on something for the upcoming profession changes but aren't quite sure what the changes will be, then please mention this. For example, many hate the upcoming changes to warrior. If and when the team decides to revisit this and further changes haven't been finalized by the time the preview of the balance notes is due, a void of information on the matter would make some jump to the conclusion that the team finds the state of the warrior profession to be acceptable, despite the balance notes being explicitly non-exhaustive. I recommend that team mention in the notes that they are considering or working on potential changes to the relevant skills, traits, etc. Anyway, thank you for posting this update. Communication is always appreciated!

Edited June 28, 2022 by Tyler.6874
Typed the wrong word

[Puck.3697]

I think a big issue is I think the dev team needs to clarify what they identify as a large patch is. 

It's not the fact they are good or bad which annoys me. Every game always has a mix of the 2, my problem is the balance changes due today didn't change anything. .

When I think large I think big impacting changes which will shake up the meta.

What we got appears to be a attempt at continuing the same push in a condi direction and nerfing catalyst. 

Deleting unique buffs in replacement to boons Is a bigger change sure but they aren't mechanically changed realistically. 

This patch was hyped for months. And it was easy to believe this was gonna be alot bigger then it actually was. 

I feel for people being given death threats. Or being told to get fired, no one should be receiving that much harrasment.