Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Trigarta.3841]

What you are explaining is all fine and good but the fact that you will still release this Patch, regardless of the negative feedback and concerns, is alarming. This feels like you haven't listened to Feedback at all. You may have scheduled another Patch to fix the most critical things, but one Patch probably won't be enough. 

And the next Balance Patch is in Mid-Fall? For players that is ages aways, while they have to cope with this mess of a Patch on a daily basis.

On one thing we agree nonetheless: Extreme toxicity and death threats are not the answer to anything and I hope that you understand that the vast majority of players are not like that.

[Lucentfir.7430]

8 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

It's just a question and there's no harm in asking.  Jeez.  I've received stuff in the past.  It's not that hard.

It's okay Chaba, i'm fairly sure  you can have the reworked banners and the 300s ICD traits that the leaving warrior players have. Not sure why you'd want those though. 

[TheHeretic.3529]

Thank you for working as hard as you do and being as involved with the community as you are. Some people just want to be angry 🤷

[clockworkcuttlefish.3254]

When did ANet hire 2012 Mass Effect 3 devs? Because this looks so familiar, to the point that I'm surprised Grouch didn't drop an ol' "artistic integrity" in there for good measure. 

Like, honestly, this is ridiculous. If I screwed my job up this badly, I would've been fired the second I clocked in on Monday. Saying someone who isn't doing their job properly should face consequences is miles away from death threats, but you've clearly indicated how you feel about job accountability. I shouldn't even have to point out the leagues of distance between those two concepts, and how insulting conflating them is. One is a call to accountability, one is illegal. 

Like, exactly what would constitute a fireable offense at ArenaNet, then? Because the discord logs drip with condescension, a lack of insight or foresight, and a general disregard for any community reaction to anything ("there will be a lot of salt"). Seriously, I'd be fired from my job so fast my head would spin for even half of the conduct in there, let alone whatever the hell is going on with the balance patch. 

This would have been so easy to smooth over. The dev in question issues an apology and states they'll do better in the future. The patch gets delayed and reviewed. The institution of public test servers (like a lot of other games). Listening to community feedback on how to improve those classes (i.e., more than just a select few in the community). Open and transparent communication regarding what got us to this point and what we've all learned from this situtation. Instead, we got "yeah, we're not gonna institute any consequences for the people involved in this, we aren't really going to learn from this and move forward in an open manner, and also screw you for being upset." 

You don't really need to explain the direction you're taking class balance in. It's clear. You want GW2 to be a carbon copy of other MMOs out there, instead of relying on what makes it unique. Part of that is going to be making every spec a generalist, because you're No Child Left Behind-ing your playerbase. Part of that is cheapening endgame content and professions by dragging everyone down to the level of a casual player, while alienating all the people the discord logs clearly indicate you have massive disdain for -- that is, highly skilled players. Which is a group I don't even feel I'm in, because I'm a mediocre player at best. 

Can't believe I typed this much to a brick wall, but here we are.

Edited June 27, 2022 by htewing.1690
spacing

[kidbuu.4071]

Thanks for the update 😊

[DylanLucas.6058]

I think ignorance might be a virtue as well???

 

Push that patch and for the love of god don't listen to us Anet.

[MaxG.9815]

I understand all the hype and disappointment coz of the upcoming patch but... I don't understand people who are going berserker mode all over this. I support being constructive and cool with any balance/rebalance patches. In this particular case, we see a miss-communication (devs did not suggest reasoning for any of the changes) - that's their fault and no1 argues. But again, if we we didn't receive an explanation, it doesn't mean that the changes are all pointless and bad. We've been enjoying the game for 10 years and with all certainty I truly believe that there is reasoning for these changes. 
My point is: my dear comrades, stay cool. If you think that the patch and changes are bad - leave constructive feedback for the devs. Do not go all this hate-speech mode (especially all this **** about death threats and stuff like that). Devs always try to make out beloved game better for as many people as possible. Of course sometimes there are misses and disappointments, but we should never go for the hate speech just because of something that we disagree. 
Like... I understand the nerfs and stuff is painful, but come on, the patch was not even implemented in the game, but some of the people already wrote death threats. It's not the first and not the last patch we'll be receiving. 
Stay safe!  

[FreshF.5793]

Why Not make a Beta Event before releasing it, just like with the EoD-Elite-Beta? 

[Hotride.2187]

37 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

People have the right to be salty, I'm salty too - I've been whining for days to/with my static, but directing it as some people are towards the devs isn't helping anything, and if you're sending someone death threats over this??? it's completely unacceptable.

Yeah this is where not deleting multiple entire threads would've been preferable. I personally didn't read a single comment that was a death threat. With the threads not deleted, they could've pointed and said "here, here and here". But alas...There definitely were comments (I think I read like 2-3?) about firing, that I can say.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Gotejjeken.1267]

The amount of green border posts here is amazing.  Hopefully they read them.

[Ashgar.3024]

2 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

The amount of green border posts here is amazing.  Hopefully they read them.

Hey, if i wanted to fit in and farm "karma" i know exactly what to write. A lot easier to go with the flow than being a voice of reason.

[dillius.2531]

Just came back to the game in June due to the 50% off HoT/PoF bundle Amazon was offering. Hadn't played since 2014-2015.

 

With all the elite specs I was kind of optimistic, seemed like a lot going on in the game! Lots to do!

 

Then I looked around for specs for my Mesmer for PvP and WvW... and realized that really not much had changed since 2015 in either mode in terms of balance.

 

But hey at least there's a lot of PvE to do? Seems like Mirage is fine for that somewhat...

 

But hey, in FF14 I could just... change classes and level up a new one really easily if I didn't like how my current one feels. Lots of people seem to think GW2 is alt friendly... leveling really isn't bad because of all the open world content, but trying to be a new player and going around getting Hero Points (without joining a train constantly) is just a nightmare. So maybe GW2 is alt friendly if you've got thousands of hours and the dragon mount? I don't really get it...

 

And now there's this giant mess. Boy am I glad I didn't immediately throw money in to get EoD already. Kind of thing I'll just finish up PoF and jump MMO's again if this giant balance mess is all that I have to look forward to in the "end game" and I have to put crazy amounts of time in to level up alts to try out other stuff.

 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Just now, Ashgar.3024 said:

Hey, if i wanted to fit in and farm "karma" i know exactly what to write. A lot easier to go with the flow than being a voice of reason.

 

I think the green borders are just more people being fed up than contrarian.  

[Ashgar.3024]

4 minutes ago, dillius.2531 said:

But hey, in FF14 I could just... change classes and level up a new one really easily if I didn't like how my current one feels. Lots of people seem to think GW2 is alt friendly... leveling really isn't bad because of all the open world content, but trying to be a new player and going around getting Hero Points (without joining a train constantly) is just a nightmare. So maybe GW2 is alt friendly if you've got thousands of hours and the dragon mount? I don't really get it..

I wish i could get into FF14 but watching Asmon's stream for like half an hour this week end reminded me its just a cheap knockoff of about every actually good single player FF that came before it :/.

I am overdue for another FFX playthrough though. To each their own i guess.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Soruf.4875]

edit: You know what nevermind. Toxicity is NEVER the answer. Doesnt matter.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Soruf.4875

[stormemperor.3745]

2 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

This is precisely why we created a dedicated profession balance team after the release of End of Dragons.

 

Your dedicated profession balance team put fury generation and 5% crit to condition traitlines .

I could do the same thing for free, why bother paying them?

[Larvath.9760]

7 minutes ago, Karagee.6830 said:

Ah and now we a champ here, who felt it was his duty to chastise people who don't behave like he thinks they should. One of my guilds is mass quitting, like they literally uninstalled the game already and...none of them has written a single word on forums, reddit, twitter and the rest of the platforms. What strange group of embarrassing petulant whiny children!

I mean good for them?

If this patch impacts them before even trying it, then they didn't care about the game in the first place, but you keep it up, champ.

[Lucentfir.7430]

11 minutes ago, Pizzous.4783 said:

 

How to not customer service 101.

I mean there is a point to it though it's kinda crossing the insane person line, and I stand by that notion with Grouch, death threats, threatening a job/livelyhood, physical harm over a game is not okay in any capacity. Outside of that, all the frustration and outrage dunking on Anet is totally warranted.  

[Karagee.6830]

13 minutes ago, Larvath.9760 said:

I mean good for them?

If this patch impacts them before even trying it, then they didn't care about the game in the first place, but you keep it up, champ.

No, no, no, I can't possibly compare to you champ of condescension. These are all high end players (people who have fastest kills that will not be breakable now in fractals for example) who have no interest in playing out the patch and are currently bombarding discord in a discussion on which game to play next.

Yeaaah they didn't care for the game they played for the best part of10 years. Very intelligent remark.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

In other words: 

You don't care, you don't listen, followed by you wanting us to play nice with you so you can ignore us even more. 

This only shows that giving feedback is useless. 

Thanks for letting me know I should not waste my time with voicing concerns, offering suggestions or otherwise spend energy on engaging with this company. 

You don't care anyway.

[MesmerizedNYC.2479]

One bit of advice. Create a public bug tracker for class bugs! Set it up so players can vote on their priorities and start fixing them. (As for balance, the test servers should be used for QA and assessment.)  This will create a tremendous amount of transparency and keep the devs honest to fixing what exists while expanding the game. The post with the mirage axe comment, srsly was awful to read. Most every dev studio maintains a dev and bug tracker in 2022.

[rivvyn.6257]

Thanks for some actual official statement, Josh.

Let's try and not play 'leak wars 2' anymore, then?
(With 'devs' apparently nerfing classes based on 'leaked' dps rotations from some 'tryhard' gangs, and players on the other hand reacting on 'leaked' discord comments of said devs due to the lack of official responses...)
 

2 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

Yes, please communicate more openly. Because at the moment the impression that (most of?) you 'just wanna make the game dirt easy' is kinda overwhelming. And that one is far worse than just an 'unconvincing' patch.

It would be a shame to lower the skill ceiling of this game such that tryhards don't have any challenge anymore.
A shame to equalize skill floor and skill ceiling.
Difficult rotations and builds are allowed to and should perform better than autoattacks and passive skills. (It's of course however fine to nerf things that are simply overperforming.)

I also understand that you wanna streamline the multitude of modifiers and give more classes more (support) options. But please take care to still keep the identity of the class and specilisation - don't make everything be the same blend, just with a different colour.
 

3 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

Yes, we all are humans, we make mistakes. Thus, it would also be fine to stop and contemplate the input the community gives you, or even adjust to some of it.
 

3 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Finally, I’d like to thank those of you who have approached this discussion in a civil manner...

Yikes, I don't event want to cite the rest of this...
Yes, let's stay civil and respectful, and listen to each other.

GuildWars2 is a great game that we all deeply care about.
Thanks for creating and maintaining it - and please keep up the great work!

[rsegames.3916]

So this is the actual response? Mmmm....

Well, going to join the S&M club as a M and give a try into warrior/elementalist to see what will happen tomorrow... Of course after all these years of BS on these classes they will be actually better tomorrow, right?

With actual zero expectatives i will be glad or just.. yeah wharever, back to any other game on my library.

Edited June 27, 2022 by rsegames.3916

[Abyssisis.3971]

I’m looking forward to reading what a developer who has never played ranger comes up with a reason to nerf one wolf pack… lol

[xfrozzenx.7528]

i mean good post and all & nice to see anet will still talk to the players, but the changes are still horrible and players are not feeling any better about them. i get not releasing them would be too drastic but maybe a bigger focus on adressing the biggest issues in this patch would have been a better thing to go for, today