Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Axxrael.1240]

 

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

Is there any information about the "approach" of using in-game data to build of the design notes? I would love to see design notes being at least connected to some type of in-game collected data as a foundational aspect of why things are changed. I think this would be an excellent addition to make the design choices have a bit more meaning. Hope things go well going forward regardless.

This seemed professionally written and a great response to what was likely a rough weekend.

[ClawfingerPL.5263]

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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

While the sentiment is great and appreciated, it's counterproductive to give acknowledgement to people who resort to this. It will motivate them further to do these things because they know they are heard.

If you were really listening to the feedback, you wouldn't release this patch considering what's happening right now. Be better.

[linkgannon.6275]

By no means am I absolving the issues with the new balance patch, but calling for the firing of devs / detah threats? Really? Should I be going to Twitter and publicly calling for the firing of the McDonalds employees every time I order a flurry and the "machine is down" (aka, the machine is gross and nobody wants to go through the laborious task of cleaning it)? Of course not, and just because the Elementalist is a flurry machine, I don't think that calling for an Anet employee to have their lively-hood removed and their ability to feed their family stripped away over an incorrect assessment of the game's balance is an appropriate response.

[score.2561]

5 minutes ago, Nyel.1843 said:

.. predicting this patch will kill the game or that patch will kill the game and yet, years later, they're still around playing. 

 

I will agree, that sort of sentiment is always silly in an MMO. I deeply care for GW2, I do not like the balance changes - will it kill it? Hell nah. I just want to be able to branch out from certain specs/classes without feeling like I'm gimping myself. Technically I can, but it doesn't feel right personally.

Edit in for an example:

I play support mech, but I prefer support scrapper. Firebrand does everything scrapper does but better. Quite a few strikes I've been in people would either want me to be firebrand or leave if they already have alacrity.

Edited June 27, 2022 by score.2561

[Agrios.1957]

Thx for the communication. Lets see what tomorrow will bring.

Just, don't balance things around the elites that can steamroll everything you throw at them.

Lemme try to explain.

An untrained standard adult male that weights around 75Kg can bench press around 55Kg. But an elite athlete of the same size can bench almost three times this. What if, for example, someone rules that now everyone has to lift 140Kg because there are people capable of doing it? Doesn't seem much fair, does it?

Then why some classes get nerfed because elite players can "overperform" using it?

 

It's the same reasoning. You just can't balance things around those 0,03%. You should try to get metrics around the average skill level of the game's population and start from there.

I'm with ANet since 2005 and not going anywhere soon. But please, take this into consideration.

[InfamousBrad.5879]

I mean, we'll all see how it goes, but absent any kind of design document, I feel like that patch-note preview doubles down on some flawed decision-making from around the time of Heart of Thorns.

Content that was designed for Team Casual can be completed by just about anybody with just about any build; at most, throw a couple more bodies at it. For example, if one person in a bad build with bad gear can't solo a Champion, certainly 2-3 of them can, and there's nothing stopping them from waiting until another 1 or 2 come along.

Content that was designed for Team Try-Hard was originally designed so that with reasonably good exotic gearing and the right runes and sigils, any combination of players who take their AoE heal and buff powers can stack enough heals and enough buffs to complete the content; you certainly can play almost all fractals that way, for example. But ever since around Heart of Thorns, more and more of the Team Try-Hard content has been designed around edge cases where, with just the right builds, the whole team can reach the buff cap. And content that that perfect team match can't just steamroller is unplayable by any team other than theirs.

That's how we ended up with a "meta" where if you're not a Mechanist or a Quickness Firebrand, you're a drag on the team. Remaking every profession and every build so that they can also push out the exact same list of buffs as a Mechanist and a Quickness Firebrand is not exactly how I would go with it. Me, I would accept the fact that the game will be stupidly easy with certain impossible-to-balance-for weird combinations of builds -- and make it so that there's no real incentive to do so, make it so that that doesn't get you any more rewards than the less optimized builds or any faster, through things like time gates. Let the edgiest edgelords on Team Try-Hard show off how fast they can clear Slothosaur or Su-Won, as long as what you give them for that doesn't make everybody else feel left out.

Edited June 27, 2022 by InfamousBrad.5879

[otto.5684]

Appreciate the response. The main issue I have, is that many changes seem to lack enough thought put into them. They seem to come out of nowhere. And based on all the info, it is not stretch to note is that they are usually made by decs who do not play the class, and consequently, do not understand it well enough. No matter how good you are as a designer, if you do not regularly use what you design, you could understand what is an issue, however, you would not know how to fix correctly. 

 

I know in the past class design changes were purposed by a dev who plays the class extensively. This is why we had significant improvements to class and balance changes from 2015 to 2019. It seems 2019 was the break point where many things changed (class balance and many other things) to the worse. Lets go back to what worked well.

[Brokenangel.1389]

My dude,

 

While I fully and completely recognize you’re making this post to play the part of the peacekeeper, you do need to understand that the feedback you seem to be receiving is woefully one-sided (spoilers - not in your Balance Patch’s favor).

 

You've got a Balance Patch that is astonishingly anything-but-balanced in its blatant and obvious nerfing of Power builds (which appears to be specifically and purposefully targeting your end-game speed clearing communities). I mean good lord your changes to One Wolf Pack, just as an example, are absolutely soul crushing.

 

You’ve got a bunch of Devs that don’t know anything about the classes they’re “balancing” (as has been documented by numerous Discord leaks); who also appear to be flat ignoring feedback from players invited to participate in discussions concerning the balance, who have many, —many— hours on the classes they’re discussing.

 

And those same Devs are buffing (or making changes that don’t really affect much of anything) their pet classes (again, as per the aforementioned leaked Discord conversations) which are already some of the best classes in the game (I.e., Firebrand, Mechanist, Virtuoso, just to name a few).

 

Not to mention you’ve got Devs that are literally on record to have kitten-talked your player base, and/or indicated they live on the salt derived from their decisions.

 

Your reasons for doing so are so clear that you might as well title this Patch (and any similar reductions-in-skill-ceilings) “Steam Patch,” as what you’re doing is meant to entirely cater to your Steam release. After all, that presumed new influx of players will want to Strike and Raid and do all that jazz as AS as AP as possible.  Hence Raid Easy Mode and massive increases to Strike rewards.  And in doing so, class identity, in terms of how they provide support in groups is shrinking, as a majority of classes just provide boons.  And those classes that provide boons in an inefficient manner are becoming more irrelevant (I’m looking at you, Banners [I mean seriously, these have to be picked up and moved again?]).

 

I mean, it’s your game and all, but (Owen Wilson) WOW, maybe like, consider the feedback you’re being presented by your players before giving them the finger and saying “I do what I want.”

[Hotride.2187]

1 hour ago, Arilozen.2756 said:

As a warrior main I'm looking forward to embracing mechanist as the one true class.

Ahem you mean guardian. Please. Your sorry little engi can't keep the spvp meta on its shoulders. It might be trying to do that in pve and wvw... but it will be a titanic battle with no quarter given.

[Zek.8374]

Dear Arenanet employee

In Heart of Thorns and season 3 we had unique epic challenges both in combat and professions, we got to use our brains and we felt smart figuring out complicated mechanics.
But since then everything is getting more and more mindless and grindly rather than epic and challenging in a game where the success rate is already so high in almost all PvE content.

I can see your design goals are to make every player play all the content, which is a good thing but poorly executed.
Rather than letting us learn the game and feel good about overcoming an epic challenge, you lower the required skill until there are no cool challenges left, only mindless grind.

Let us grow at our own phase, let us feel good about learning the complicated aspects of the game, let the builds, fractals and raids be challenging rather than grindy. Don't remove the fun of the game.

[Karagee.6830]

Using 'toxic' to define those who have been calling for the developer in the chat, who says he can't do his job and needs to read the wiki to understand what skills and traits do, is bizarre. This situation is like someone being paid to revamp a menu in a restaurant and plainly admitting he's never tried or heard of a number of ingredients to be used.

I agree with the backlash on death threats, but calling for him to be moved to something else or fired is fair game and something most of us believe would be normal in our workplaces.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Mauti.3520]

Thank you for posting.

Even though I personally find several changes in this patch to be really a bit bothering (Quickness Catalyst fanboi here) I am also looking forward to give my Alacrity Tempest and Ranger big play.

Edit: People demanding certain persons to be fired are out of their mind imho.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Mauti.3520

[itspomf.9523]

1 hour 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. 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.

 

While it might be the least that can be done and far too late to do so -- as we saw how marginal an impact the incredible volume of player feedback, both positive and negative, had on End of Dragons specializations before release -- all the same, I thank you for at least making this commitment.

 

I will ask, however, that you maintain this commitment to early and earnest communication, and honor what feedback you do receive with more than passing care, even if it is ultimately not implemented or deemed irrelevant.  Not all of us have been the most eloquent (or even applicable) when it comes to expressing our concerns and grievances about changes both past and pending, but you're right that the community has an equally vested interest in the health of Guild Wars 2 moving forward, and we've gotten rather good at at least finding the things that just don't "feel right."

 

The majority of us are here to have fun and explore Tyria together, which I think we've lost sight of over the years.

[Yarusenai.7046]

I just started playing this game again for the first time since like 2013, but even I don't understand this balance patch or the willingness to go through with it despite everyone telling you how bad of an idea this is.

 

I think the funniest part about this post is that this patch was supposedly created and flagged as okay by an entire team. How?

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Thank you for the follow up post.

To anyone asking "why not delay it"--typically changes are put into place on a schedule and cannot be delayed or moved out of it. I'm not 100% on the implementation process but that's my understanding of it (programmer, DBA and sysadmin family members) so it makes sense that once it's in the queue you can't remove it.

In the future post discussing the long-term vision, will it detail each profession individually? An explanation as to why something is considered balanced, or why X was increased and Y was decreased compared to the other 8 professions would go a long way in helping players understand.

Laterally, would it be possible to have some sort of "Weapons/Heal/Utility/Elite usage by professions by mode" chart? There is the perception of certain weapons and skills being used much less than others but no official word one way or another.

If X skill is used 90% of the time by a profession in WvW, 70% of the time in PvP, but only 5% of the time in PvE, that could help people with looking into "why" on a mode-by-mode basis (ideally taking confirmation bias into account).

[mindcircus.1506]

1 hour 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.

Calls for developers to be fired are increasingly common on this forum Josh.
These posts are only actioned if they fall on one side of ongoing debares, otherwise moderators allow these posts when they support a specific narrative.

While I am glad to see you take a stand on this issue, it's important that this be applied regardless of what side of a debate posts it.

[SiEO.8430]

I believe what the development team needs is a direct sit-down with a lot of experienced unbiased players like, lets say for an example MightyTeapot (just an example of a person to pops into my mind), or people who know the game inside out from a CONSUMER-point of view, and then use their experience and their views to balance the game. 

Get the devs and players onto the level playing field and youll come out with way better balance patches. 

This patch is sadly a miss in terms of what we as a consumer, are after.  

[Rhokaz.1975]

@Josh Davis.7865Thank you that you step in for your team. This has gotten too far indeed and anything beyond normal frustration should not be.

Now something struck my eye. This passage:
 

Quote

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.

How does it relate to this:

?


I feel disconnected to be honest between what you write and what I read there. The deeper I dig the more I've got the feeling that this listening does NOT happen. It's rather a "Yes you said A?" "A, B, C, D, E" "Ok he said A". I am aware that thousands of opinions are hard to consume. You rather menally sum op the most common topics to simple things as a human. Makes sense. What does not make sense to me is HOW disconnected you (as a company) and the good players are. When I read Murus post I feel so bad and your message does not make it better anyhow. It gives me the feeling that you did the right: Defend your team and better announce transparency. But the wrong the same time: Do not address your obvious disliked route as a company regarding game balance and motiviation for players for high end content. Murus post and yours in combination leave a really bad gut feeling of this all.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Rhokaz.1975

[Xhieron.2168]

Hi there. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm someone who suggested over the weekend that devs should be called to the carpet over this mess, up to and including possible firing, and I stand by it. If I was responsible for the kind of debacle I've witnessed over the last few days involving the notes and the logs, I'd expect my clients to show me the door. If you never face consequences for bungling your job, then your boss isn't doing his. That's not the same thing as death threats, and everybody knows it.

However, perhaps unexpectedly, we're now being told that the people calling the shots at ArenaNet  don't make a meaningful distinction between those of us who suggested that that kind of employment accountability is appropriate and death threats, and honestly I'm not sure I could imagine a worse insult. Demonizing your customers when they call you out for doing a bad job isn't a good look.

If you don't ever entertain the possibility that you could lose your job if you do it poorly, you're probably overpaid, and if you can't tell the difference between a customer who thinks someone else could do your job better and someone who wants you dead, well, I don't really know what to say to that, but it's nice to know where you stand. I suppose if we show anything other than personal loyalty to the individual developers, we're not welcome in the community. Really? I expected better from you. At the very least, Mr. Davis, you owe us an apology for conflating loyal and passionate, albeit angry, customers with people who would send you death threats.

Ultimately, however, it's crystal clear in this treatment that the company intends to continue business as usual, with no meaningful change in the process, more whitewashing, and more promises, all capstoned with some heavy finger pointing back at customers who are rightly incensed at the catastrophic mismanagement demonstrated by this train wreck.

If you can't even be bothered to acknowledge the fact that feedback was actually being reviewed well in advance of this change--just not the feedback of the playerbase at large--you shouldn't expect anyone to take you seriously when you promise things are going to be different going forward. I guess now people can learn about the changes a month or two in advance, so they can, what? get the frustration out of their system before everything goes live without any changes? It doesn't matter if you're listening to feedback if you're still demonstrating that you only care about the perspectives of a fraction of the community, and you're not going to act on that feedback even if it's months in advance anyway. We know this because we've already seen the logs. The cat's already out of the bag.

We're not the ones to blame here. ANet messed up--not its customers. I don't blame anyone for taking a hard line against death threats and unchecked vitriol, but some of us said this weekend that if you're not doing your job you should be fired. That's not a radical statement, and it's not personal. Believe it or not, your customers could wish you all the success in the world and still think that doing balance for Guild Wars 2 might not be the best fit for your skills. That's common sense for anyone doing any job, including yours. It was true when this started, and it's still true.

 

EDIT: And let me be clear: I actually agree with most of the positions of the developer in question (at least the one most people have been quoting this weekend). I think he's got a good philosophy, and I suppose if I were still welcome in the community I would be interested in reading more of what he has to say. But that doesn't change the fact that someone has dropped the ball here. I'm not even sure quite who--but if that kind of thing can just happen, everyone shrugs, and then the customers get attacked for being justifiably upset about it, then it tells me ANet needs to straighten out its priorities.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Xhieron.2168

[Ashgar.3024]

I just wish you guys would prioritize changes better. Part of the reason this patch feels so bad is that no offense but a LOT of the work the team put into it is going to be straight ignored, at least by anyone trying to maximize their winrate (which is the vast majority of Fractal/Raid/Strike players).

 

The Ventari rework is utterly pointless due to the fact Mecanist exists in its current state, same with Tempest having access to Alac.

 

Same with Herald and Warrior Quickness builds who need to overinvest in Boon Duration and completely gut their damage and utility potential while Firebrand exists as the game's ultimate swisss army knife at absolutely NO COST to its performances.

 

Some pure DPS builds are still left to perform worse than completely bloated ones like Scourge or Specter (i say that as a Specter main).

 

Speaking of Specter, the Shadow Arts redesign does basically nothing to make it a workable "main" support. Literally all this rework does is bring back extremely frustrating to fight Core/Daredevil builds into PvP. Nobody will run Shadow Arts in PvM still.

 

Some specs were also left to rot completely like Deadeye who's only useful on 2 PvE encounters in the entire game. If playrate is really a metric used to balance the game, how does a spec like that, that's completely ignored by the vast majority of the playerbase in ALL gamemodes recieves no attention at all?

 

Hell even entire professions like Warriors feel completely abandoned (with reason).

 

Not saying any of the abuse sent to the devs is warranted in any way, shape or form, that stuff is disgusting, but its definitively not hard to see why people are so disappointed, specially after how much this patch was hyped. This isn't the meta-shift we were promised, its barely a meta-nudge.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Eleazar.9036]

The concerns were real because we knew we would be stuck with that (un)balance a few months.
Announcing that we will have to do with this until mid-fall after all the concerns expressed is depressing... It just make me feel you guys don't care at all.

[Yeager.5420]

Thank you Supreme leader for this balance patch, bless your devs.

[Nyel.1843]

Is there a screenshot or link to what the Anet employee said - the stuff everybody is calling out here?

[Pocket.2740]

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

Thanks for the update Grouch.

This section of your post is the most important part for me. I think you're aware that what's really amplified the community reaction to this patch is the knowledge that devs were taking and responding to player feedback from a select group of players which made the wider community feel - rightly or wrongly - ignored.

You need to acknowledge feedback from the wider community. We're not qualified to come up with solutions, but when we air pain points / problems we need to know we're being heard, and 'trust us we read the forums' just doesn't cut it when a patch like this lands.

[Thundabolt.8541]

I don't really know what to tell you. The only people you accept feedback from are in a discord group with you. Do you trust those people to steer the game in the correct direction?

 

Just take a single look in the forums when you nerf something else about Elementalist. It just confuses everyone, and now we know why you don't respond to that confusion. It makes me wonder if someone in your feedback group is just trying to sabotage things for their own gain, the obtuse changes would make so much more sense from that perspective.

 

Of course it's not a real perspective. I hope.