Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Demented Lemur.7861]

Ah nothing like another balance patch and people threatening to quit the game again like they do every patch

[Agincourt.2785]

As someone with a warrior main, I just want to say that I waited for months for this update just to get my heart broken.

Now, I will need to wait for another 5-6 months in suffering to most probably get it broken again.

 

You don't love me. It's okay, I understand.

But why do you hate me? What have I done to you?

[RigsInRags.4923]

As an experienced Warrior main, it's disheartening to see Warrior's unique mechanic- banners- get gutted this badly, while overperforming professions are once again buffed. This balance update is insultingly bad and will likely be the last straw for many players: Already half my static and I are, for now, moving on from this game.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 minute ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

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

Oh, there are reasons to nerf it. I actually have no problem with it on its own. It's just such a nerf should have been compensated in some way. I mean, it's not like power and condi Slb builds were overperforming if we ignore the unintended effects of late OWP buff. Condi Slb was lately only barely decent at best, and yet it got nerfed as well. And please, do not tell me they have to be nerfed first in order to be buffed later - any time i've heard such statements, the nerfs were followed by either further nerfs or years long silence.

Now, the explanation for Warrior crit bonus, added on a traitline only condi builds take, on a traits condi builds do not take - that is going to be really interesting to read.

[edelweiss.2637]

Soooo you decided to kill warriors anyways and move with the massive nerf on warrior. yeah that's it

[Einsof.1457]

2 minutes ago, edelweiss.2637 said:

Soooo you decided to kill warriors anyways and move with the massive nerf on warrior. yeah that's it

My Core Warrior Longbow build is still topping out around 7k dps in raids. Yeet yeet

[ShionKreth.1542]

I feel like I'm living through World of Warcraft Cataclysm class homogenization all over again... 

[Saer.7240]

5 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats

Death threats are extreme, yes, but you cannot possibly ignore the fact that if any of us had interacted with a customer like that in another line of work as we saw in that discord, we would be immediately looking for another job.

If you are going to hold your customers to certain standards, the minimal you can do is the same for your employees.

5 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

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.

The frustration from players is warranted, and I know that you may think that, but this post doesn't reflect that. Class/Profession balance is not just a tiny thing you can just sweep under the rug. It's something that needs to be monitored and adjusted, especially when it comes to actually listening and working with player feedback instead of just adopting a god complex and adopting buffs to professions/specializations that do not need it (looking at you, mechanist). 

Ignoring player feedback is what helped lead WoW to the absolute mess it is today, aside from the other issues that arose at Blizz. Devs adopted a god complex and players finally had had enough of it. 

It's been way too evident that you guys are favoring certain specs while others have been left to completely rot, most notably literally any of ele's specs. This needs to be addressed, and u guys need to start looking at everything overall. Once u start losing players on professions because of inane balance decisions to make op specs even moreso, it's going to be hard to bring them back. 

5 hours 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.

The big gesture that could have been done here would be to hold off on the update and adapt balance to player feedback. I'm not saying you absolutely have to do this, but because of the stagnation that has been experienced, we just can't trust you guys anymore on your words alone.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Saer.7240
Adding note about favoritism

[Einsof.1457]

2 minutes ago, ShionKreth.1542 said:

I feel like I'm living through World of Warcraft Cataclysm class homogenization all over again... 

Real talk, this is how all MMOs fizzle out. When they first come out, it doesn't even matter. Even Johanson said in the first announcement of WvW before the game came out that the point of WvW was and I quote "UNBALANCED" stupid fun big battles between worlds. At some point, MMOs just homgenize down to nothing. FFXIV, like WoW is in the middle of it. There are only 3 playstyles in FFXIV, and all "jobs" have the exact same skills in these 3 roles. They are just named differently. There are no builds, and stats generally don't matter. All that matters is your "item level" which is your aggregate gear strength. It's really bleak over there. 

 

The big problem is that devs eventually focus on balance rather than FUN. When Fun starts taking a sideline to balance, the end is near unless the ship is course corrected fast. 

[Kodokuna Akuma.9570]

Sure this patch may not of been great. But the hate I get from many in the community is just absurd and seriously tests my faith in humanity sometimes.

 

Many people are already spouting how they wont / cant live with this patch for the next 3 months and in this very post Grouch himself has said that we should expect a follow up patch within the coming weeks. Which I imagine would either tweak or revert several or many of the coming changes. Before you seek to blindly cry in outrage, take a moment to think and format your complaints in a informative and non idiotic manner.

To the Devs are Anet.  This may appear as a drop in a bucket of toxicity but dont take any of the hateful or toxic remarks to heart there are plenty more reasonable voices out there who while they may not agree with you still understand and hold no malice.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Kodokuna Akuma.9570
I write like an ape

[RaveOnYou.2819]

we need someone like vallun to balance classes who can play ever spec in their best, not like person can only play firebrand. then we can discuss more but not in this situation.

[ShionKreth.1542]

7 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Real talk, this is how all MMOs fizzle out. When they first come out, it doesn't even matter. Even Johanson said in the first announcement of WvW before the game came out that the point of WvW was and I quote "UNBALANCED" stupid fun big battles between worlds. At some point, MMOs just homgenize down to nothing. FFXIV, like WoW is in the middle of it. There are only 3 playstyles in FFXIV, and all "jobs" have the exact same skills in these 3 roles. They are just named differently. There are no builds, and stats generally don't matter. All that matters is your "item level" which is your aggregate gear strength. It's really bleak over there. 

 

The big problem is that devs eventually focus on balance rather than FUN. When Fun starts taking a sideline to balance, the end is near unless the ship is course corrected fast. 

You summed it up nicely.

[LKEY.9567]

Ah, yes, the classic - community bad.

So, your forced diversity will bring us to play only Firebrands and Mechanists. It looks like playing favorites.. by any chance, are these "mains" of the balance team? Who would have thought that.

I reeeeeeeally want to read justification of Warrior's Arms, it will be funny as hell.

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by LKEY.9567

[Aries.7286]

Thank you for the heads-up of what we can hope for in the near future. I haven't always agreed with balance patch updates, though i can see how they were necessary, but of late i felt like balance team completely has ignored the community feedback, thank you for letting us know that we are being heard and our voice matters, looking forward to this new approach!

[MidnightStar.3457]

It's absolutely galling to me that after the almost universally negative feedback, and clearly incredibly biased balance devs, that you don't even acknowledge the obvious issues or cancel the balance patch. This half-kittened apology is just sad, and the balance team members need review. 

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

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

 

Edit: the irony of the confused reacts 😂

Edited June 27, 2022 by Elricht Kaltwind.8796

[clockworkcuttlefish.3254]

6 minutes ago, LKEY.9567 said:

It looks like playing favorites.. by any chance, are these "mains" of the balance team?

2k+ hours of firebrand, if you want to know. 🥴

[MidnightStar.3457]

Just now, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

Some of the comments here read like something written for a soap opera, or intended to be read atop Sarah McLachlan background music. Literally laughing out loud how dramatic some of you guys are because of a balance patch, and one that you're only speculating will be a misstep as it isn't even live yet.

 It doesn't take a genius to see how more buffs to already overpowered classes that the balance team lead themselves said they favor, as well as nerfs to already underpowered classes, is just sad and will make the game less fun to play unless you are a Firebrand or Mechanist player. 

[Kunavi.2407]

4 minutes ago, Aries.7286 said:

Thank you [...] for letting us know that we are being heard and our voice matters, looking forward to this new approach!

What? xD Do you realize that this balance pass is the epitome of not being heard, and not mattering? Any way, not attacking you personally, I am just surprised at this particular response in this context.

[schrodingerscat.3872]

This is coming from the same guy who asked for a list of GW2 bug fixes from a couple of streamers over a conversation stemming from him being in the same Twitch chat as them. Highly unprofessional. Same with the behaviour and words of that Dev in the leaked discord. 

 

That GW2 bugs document which included fixes to a bunch of speedrunning skips in fractals was made known to my bf Mrmeowgi (one of the few people in this game who invents such skips, with many of HIS skips in that document) and myself. Over the course of several weeks we tried again and again to reach Grouch (who btw accepted Meowgi's friend request on Discord) to try and get an answer on 2 things: 

 

1) What is his vision for the game, specifically, where will speedrunning be in his vision of the game? Because it feels very demoralising, to not only spend hours discovering something, perfecting the technique, and (possibly) hours/days/weeks recording a video getting that perfect take that demonstrates the skip, only for Anet to patch it in this secret document. We thought if we could reach Grouch and talk to him about what he thought of speedrunning we could even work WITH Anet to ensure that the content we put out would be approved, and they would get the benefit of learning what the actual problematic bugs in fractals are, instead of having people who have 0 knowledge in fractals simply copy and paste a bunch of YouTube fractal skips and present them as "high priority bugs to be fixed". 

 

2) If Anet is disapproving of the content we put out (we are in essence "breaking the game"/playing the game in an unintended way - which is the spirit of speedrunning) then we wondered and were concerned: Would Anet one day, all of a sudden, turn around and cite what we were doing was against ToS and ban us? 

 

We got silence. Even though I went as far as to track down Grouch in Teapot's stream (seems he has no problem "communicating"/dropping hints of his vision there, in a streamer's chat of all places), asking him to read Meowgi's DM to him on Discord, to which he replied "KK". Nothing ever came of that.

 

Which after everything we've seen I'm not surprised. And after my personal loss, of losing signet share (which is barely used nowadays anyway, and is used in 0 builds aside from specifically Perfect Inscriptions Heal Firebrand - which in itself takes skill to play well since you drop a lot of passive healing from taking Virtues, which again is ANOTHER sign that Anet doesn't know their own game), all I can feel is just an overwhelming sense of "disappointed but not surprised".

 

Will I be quitting the game entirely? No, I'll still log in for the apocalypse and to get my Harvest Temple CM and infusion, (props to Cameron Rich and his team and the art team respectively). 

And I'll still maybe log in from time to time, but as I saw somewhere else "The story for me has ended, Tyria is safe and they don't need me anymore. I finished the game."

(Edited to clarify and highlight that Meowgi's skips were included in that secret document.)

Edited June 28, 2022 by schrodingerscat.3872

[MidnightStar.3457]

2 minutes ago, Kunavi.2407 said:

What? xD Do you realize that this balance pass is the epitome of not being heard, and not mattering? Any way, not attacking you personally, I am just surprised at this particular response in this context.

I think it was sarcastic 

[reapex.8546]

4 hours ago, Joe.5310 said:

If this goes live, your game is dead.

That's definitely not true. 

[Taygus.4571]

People are too harsh! 

Its definitely a good idea to discuss bakance plans, ecen if those may change by patch day. It preps people for what may comr and can help people feel involved with offering feedback. 

I do think you need to deciew what role you want classes to fulfil and tell us. Id a harb supposed to be an ok healer? is scourge evwr to get a boon? why does ele have to compromise on healing to have alacrity? etc. If you havr a role in mind for these classes  tell us.

[solemn.9608]

Just now, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

Some of the comments here read like something written for a soap opera, or intended to be read atop Sarah McLachlan background music. Literally laughing out loud how dramatic some of you guys are because of a balance patch, and one that you're only speculating will be a misstep as it isn't even live yet.

I mean yeah, for sure for some. But I'm also sure you can understand the disappointment in investing so much time into an mmorpg only to watch the devs make highly questionable balance choices for 4 years at extremely infrequent rates

[Sugar Min.5834]

This long write out is... just another write out to buy time for the players to chill off.

We have seen countless assurances promising to gather feedbacks and consider them seriously; will make necessary changes moving forward; blah blah blah.  The thing is we did move forward. YET NOTHING CHANGED. Still the same old nerfs after nerfs patches, disregarding players' feedbacks (and many feedbacks are very constructive) and long explanation without any actual amending follow ups.

Schedule a time to fix all these? When? Same timing as the Warrior's 300 sec Cooldown trait skills fix? Another 1.5 years maybe?

Edited June 27, 2022 by Mil.3562