Don't lose sight as to why this situation is a problem.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

I know a lot of gw2 content creators are telling people "People overacting" Or "Whining over a balanced patch." This Isn't the case anymore. The death threats were uncalled for, and I hope the people who made them got banned, but lets be honest here. If you think that even 20% of the community are calling for the dev's head, you're sadly mistaken. At best there's maybe like 1% of the population who are most likely doing that, and even then I think 1% is too generous. Point is, The Extremely toxic groups are a few bad apples spoiling a bunch, and we shouldn't be paying attention to those type of people.

What you have to understand that this huge backlash didn't happen overnight. This have been building up for a while now. The end of Dragon meta was the first sign where people were slowly getting fed up. But let me make this clear. It wasn't the patch note that ultimately send the community into a frenzy, as conversational as it is. It was merely a stepping stone for what came after that really RILED people up. Anyone who were surprised by this outcome, or didn't think the community would be capable of such thing, they either haven't payed any attention at all, or were too naive to understand why all of this happen.

The truth of the matter is, Anet? The leaks have caused a huge distress among your community. That is something no one should pretend didn't happen. No matter how many purges you do, we're in a age where people can archive those type of information for all to see if people look hard enough. Any conspiracy theories people had about the dev team came into fruition, any faith people have with you are now gone. And people genuinely believe their class are bad because they're not being favoritize by the devs, and that's a problem. We shouldn't be in a situation where people now know that their class are garbage because the devs doesn't care about it.

This whole situation created a stigma where people understandably don't trust you guys anymore. Again, content creators goes on to tell people that Anet might not want to talk to us again, but how about the people who now know that their class isn't being given the "Favoritism" Treatment? Why bother giving feedback at all, when it's now confirmed that it gets dismissed, or at worst, patronized by the devs? Hell, one of the devs have to use Wiki as a reference so they can balanced a skill they know nothing about. That is embarrassing to a lot of folks, myself included.

I think this is important to point out because the last thing that should happen is to muddle the main reason people have such a problem with the patch, and why they acted the way they did, for good or ill. And I think this is something that needs to be addressed, and I didn't feel like anet did that in the follow up thread.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Tycura.1982]

48 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Why bother giving feedback at all

This sums up anything and everything I have to say. Thanks for listening to the community on this patch anet. I'm blown away by how much you care.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Tycura.1982

[Fueki.4753]

22 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

And people genuinely believe their class are bad because they're not being favoritize by the devs, and that's a problem.

Your wording here falls a bit short. We don't genuine believe it at this point anymore. We know it.

That aside, have there actually been threats to the physical well-being of Arenanet employees? To me, that kind of backlash sounds too extreme for something that's just a game, even if it's a money-sink.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Mesket.5728]

32 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

We don't genuine believe it at this point anymore. We know it.

Precisely.

 

This patch is not a bad move or an oopsie... this is a pattern. Players who have been here long enough know it so well its even predictable.

[Ashen.2907]

"content creators goes on to tell people that Anet might not want to talk to us again"

I am not sure that I would care. If ANet talking to us consists of misinformation, PR speak, and commitments that are not followed through, then talk is meaningless. If the results are not there to show that the talk matters I dont really need to hear the talk. I am not here as a personal friend to chat with my game developer buddies, I am a consumer of ANet's product.

[iamreb.9175]

The leaks are important because of that. only through leaks can we really see how "honest" the devs are and how dedicated are they to the game.

[draxynnic.3719]

It goes back waaaaaay before the EoD meta. For anyone who plays competitive, it goes back to pre-Covid. The 'CC skills do no damage' blanket change was supposed to be followed up with compensation for the professions that were most heavily hit by that. Still waiting. The 'passive activation traits have 300s ICD now' change was supposed to be a stopgap until they could be replaced by something more active. Not only are we still waiting, they added a new one.

The leak basically confirming all the conspiracy theories was just icing on the proverbial cake. The problem isn't that they're joking around. People wouldn't care how much they joked if the balancing was fair. The reason the leak added so much fuel to the fire was that it matched a pattern that had been observed for years.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

12 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

The leak basically confirming all the conspiracy theories was just icing on the proverbial cake. The problem isn't that they're joking around. People wouldn't care how much they joked if the balancing was fair. The reason the leak added so much fuel to the fire was that it matched a pattern that had been observed for years.

True , they should carve a new path from now  , where they don't care about the dps output of each class in high lvl (the casuals wont ever reach them lol)

Hopefully till the  September ,  those 3 devs will consult each other , for what path they should follow from now . Rather than trying to continue with the old  ways that get ihereted by older devs  and they reshape it in their new image

 

Finger-cross , in 3 months we will know their final decision

PvP + WvW , like in this patch , they wont be effected (like for example PvP eles offer quickness in some spells , while they offer Fury in PvE)

Edited June 29, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[pallas.8150]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:17 PM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

I know a lot of gw2 content creators are telling people "People overacting" Or "Whining over a balanced patch." 

Let's be honest - they are ignoring it/ side stepping it because many have ANet partnerships that give them a little extra prestige and some $$$ in viewership. They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

[JTGuevara.9018]

8 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

Let's be honest - they are ignoring it/ side stepping it because many have ANet partnerships that give them a little extra prestige and some $$$ in viewership. They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

And thus they have no integrity or credibility to anyone who's been here for a while or has done their homework. Exactly right, you are.

[Gorem.8104]

Content creators using Anet's victimisation of itself to get away with a bad balance patch that got MASSIVE negative feedback is honestly rather annoying. 

 

2 years for an update that should take 4 hours that follows exactly inline with the balance bias we saw in the leak, with Anet defending such actions such as laughing at the "salt" he created by balancing off the wiki with no understanding of other classes or any effort to actually talk to people behind the other classes that involves this secret word "listening". Truly showing that they have no job accountability or just simply do not care and everything is pre-typed as damage control beforehand. 
Still, I have already stopped logging in, no more support to games that have these devs behind them I think. 

[Puck.3697]

47 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

Let's be honest - they are ignoring it/ side stepping it because many have ANet partnerships that give them a little extra prestige and some $$$ in viewership. They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

That isn't entirely true. Mighty teapot said this balance patch was a complete miss and went against anets balancing as a partner. 

While he's more polite about it for sure, he defiantly didn't side step or ignore it. 

 

[pallas.8150]

Just now, Daddy.8125 said:

That isn't entirely true. Mighty teapot said this balance patch was a complete miss and went against anets balancing as a partner. 

While he's more polite about it for sure, he defiantly didn't side step or ignore it. 

 

What you'll notice is that content creators really tend to be cautious discussing the Discord leaks - because honestly, that is the thing that has riled up the majority of the community. Even Josh himself didn't elaborate. When you have an employee essentially rigging the system in their favor because they have preferred professions, implement changes based on no inherent knowledge of other classes, mocking the community - that's bad. Yet no one really addresses it - and they won't.

[standardFoe.2983]

2 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

While he's more polite about it for sure, he defiantly didn't side step or ignore it. 

 

 

 

Not entirely true. He has completely ignored, as has every streamer and anet (AFAIK), the fact that two devs said in a chat to paying customers that they designed builds in the past to suit their preferred elite specs. That revelation is my personal hill in this situation.

[JTGuevara.9018]

54 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

What you'll notice is that content creators really tend to be cautious discussing the Discord leaks - because honestly, that is the thing that has riled up the majority of the community. Even Josh himself didn't elaborate. When you have an employee essentially rigging the system in their favor because they have preferred professions, implement changes based on no inherent knowledge of other classes, mocking the community - that's bad. Yet no one really addresses it - and they won't.

They won't because they KNOW. Even the supposed "bastion of free speech" known as reddit knows. Yet they were hush-hush as well.

That's ok! The public has the receipts.

[nutri.1385]

On 6/28/2022 at 6:17 PM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

The truth of the matter is, Anet? The leaks have caused a huge distress among your community. That is something no one should pretend didn't happen. No matter how many purges you do, we're in a age where people can archive those type of information for all to see if people look hard enough. Any conspiracy theories people had about the dev team came into fruition, any faith people have with you are now gone. And people genuinely believe their class are bad because they're not being favoritize by the devs, and that's a problem. We shouldn't be in a situation where people now know that their class are garbage because the devs doesn't care about it.

This whole situation created a stigma where people understandably don't trust you guys anymore. Again, content creators goes on to tell people that Anet might not want to talk to us again, but how about the people who now know that their class isn't being given the "Favoritism" Treatment? Why bother giving feedback at all, when it's now confirmed that it gets dismissed, or at worst, patronized by the devs? Hell, one of the devs have to use Wiki as a reference so they can balanced a skill they know nothing about. That is embarrassing to a lot of folks, myself included.

I think this is important to point out because the last thing that should happen is to muddle the main reason people have such a problem with the patch, and why they acted the way they did, for good or ill. And I think this is something that needs to be addressed, and I didn't feel like anet did that in the follow up thread.

 

Thank you for this post. I couldn't agree more.

I don't even care about the kitten balance. That leak and the contempt shown in those messages ruined my trust in this studio. Trust I've had for 15+ years. 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

To be honest I don't buy this white knighting of content creators or high level players. I've interacted with them in discussions for far too long, and my experience has always been, that most of these players are just as bad if not worse...and refuse to understand the actual problems of the game, because their mentalities are different and they don't actually know about how to address problems with diversity and balance.

 

Let me remind you the kind of mentality you are dealing with in terms of these elite players and content creators.

 

Developer — 12/22/2021
I'd also like the overall 'best/easiest' raid compositions to shift up on at least an 
annual basis, because frankly trying new things every now and then is fun. This content 
is not changing rapidly on you otherwise.

Scourge won't be nearly as 'passively supportive' next year. Neither will Firebrand.
That, and reduced target caps, will shake things up, and bring in new strategies.

 

A------ — 12/22/2021
glad to hear that scourge is getting hit
definitely a spec that should never have been created :PeepoGiggles:

 

Developer — 12/22/2021
Specifically, the base barrier values on all Scourge skills that provide barrier are 
being sharply reduced, and their healing power coefficients increased.
meaning that to bring high barrier, you need to have healing power.

Right now they just bring too much while in a decent DPS role.

 

A------ — 12/22/2021
I hope that even with significant healing power its still a reduction in effectiveness
its far too much of a hard carry"

 

I'm not here defending scourge or the dev nor his actions...but look at the difference in mentality. We get it...scourge is strong, and people want to see it nerfed...but what the dev at least says that he wants is new metas and new strategies. These top players only care about nerfing stuff...and playing their speed run comps...which a large majority of the conversation was about earlier on...complaining over not being able to do pre-encounter buffing with inventory and template swaps.

 

What I gleamed from the leak...was that this developer is simply not engaging with the right people to accomplish the thing he wants, which requires a completely different skillset and knowledge base. He needs to be speaking to other game designers or even consulting biologists and computer scientists if he aims to want to learn how to create new metas and strategies and diversity in a game...because understanding how a meta emerges is something those people understand in their fields of study. 

Maybe he wouldn't have made warrior a useless train-wreck if he just spoke to a biologist who would have told them on the first day that "usefulness is the driving force behind natural selection...so don't make them useless, make them useful."

 

If you left balance up to these people: content creators and top players, they would simply nerf everything they do not like...until there is nothing left to nerf because they nerfed it all into oblivion. That mentality is pervasive across the forum between both bad and good players alike and should clue people into what has really been going on since 2020. 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Labjax.2465]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:17 PM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Why bother giving feedback at all

Yep. We can rant and rave, we can write academic essays, we can write catchy and short summations, it doesn't matter. They might as well make these forums read-only.

[Mickey.4207]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:47 PM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

I know a lot of gw2 content creators are telling people "People overacting" Or "Whining over a balanced patch." This Isn't the case anymore. The death threats were uncalled for, and I hope the people who made them got banned, but lets be honest here. If you think that even 20% of the community are calling for the dev's head, you're sadly mistaken. At best there's maybe like 1% of the population who are most likely doing that, and even then I think 1% is too generous. Point is, The Extremely toxic groups are a few bad apples spoiling a bunch, and we shouldn't be paying attention to those type of people.

What you have to understand that this huge backlash didn't happen overnight. This have been building up for a while now. The end of Dragon meta was the first sign where people were slowly getting fed up. But let me make this clear. It wasn't the patch note that ultimately send the community into a frenzy, as conversational as it is. It was merely a stepping stone for what came after that really RILED people up. Anyone who were surprised by this outcome, or didn't think the community would be capable of such thing, they either haven't payed any attention at all, or were too naive to understand why all of this happen.

The truth of the matter is, Anet? The leaks have caused a huge distress among your community. That is something no one should pretend didn't happen. No matter how many purges you do, we're in a age where people can archive those type of information for all to see if people look hard enough. Any conspiracy theories people had about the dev team came into fruition, any faith people have with you are now gone. And people genuinely believe their class are bad because they're not being favoritize by the devs, and that's a problem. We shouldn't be in a situation where people now know that their class are garbage because the devs doesn't care about it.

This whole situation created a stigma where people understandably don't trust you guys anymore. Again, content creators goes on to tell people that Anet might not want to talk to us again, but how about the people who now know that their class isn't being given the "Favoritism" Treatment? Why bother giving feedback at all, when it's now confirmed that it gets dismissed, or at worst, patronized by the devs? Hell, one of the devs have to use Wiki as a reference so they can balanced a skill they know nothing about. That is embarrassing to a lot of folks, myself included.

I think this is important to point out because the last thing that should happen is to muddle the main reason people have such a problem with the patch, and why they acted the way they did, for good or ill. And I think this is something that needs to be addressed, and I didn't feel like anet did that in the follow up thread.

If the DE meta didn't made me quite in frustration this patch surely will. I might come back in few months and see if anything changes. 

[Serephen.3420]

I'm in agreement with alot here, but as far as we know it's only one dev who did/said that. So I would be weary about using plurals here just yet. That doesn't remove accountability issues but let's try not paint all people with the same brush.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Serephen.3420
Why are people confused? Because I said it was only one dev as far as we know?

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

On 6/29/2022 at 4:39 PM, standardFoe.2983 said:

 

 

Not entirely true. He has completely ignored, as has every streamer and anet (AFAIK), the fact that two devs said in a chat to paying customers that they designed builds in the past to suit their preferred elite specs. That revelation is my personal hill in this situation.

What drives me insane the most is how many people actually believe that people are "Overreacting." It just goes to show you how much these content creator can control a narrative in Anet's favor. They made it sound like we're more mad at the balance patch, then we are at the fact that the leak showed some serious levels of incompetence. This isn't a mistake like the content creators are spewing. Mistakes is when you did something which has an unintended effect. The patch we have isn't that, and people are delusional if the patches we have ARE Mistakes. It's incompetence, plain and simple. Whoever in charge of the balance knew what they were doing. Or lack there of.

Hell, one moment in Teapot podcast, One of the guys flat out said Anet should have pushed the patch note eariler, so Anet can handle it better. Let me translate that for you in case people don't understand.

Teapot and crew wanted the patch note early so Anet could better damage control the situation, without fixing the core issues.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[standardFoe.2983]

2 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Teapot and crew wanted the patch note delayed so Anet could better damage control the situation, without fixing the core

 

 

Yup I lost a lot of respect for the streamers in this situation. This narrative being pushed that game population is either rabidly obtuse and willing to threaten the devs for a 'misunderstanding' or so stupid and lazy that every profession needs to be dumbed down to auto-attack is making me really not interested in supporting the game anymore.

[JTGuevara.9018]

4 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

What drives me insane the most is how many people actually believe that people are "Overreacting." It just goes to show you how much these content creator can control a narrative in Anet's favor. They made it sound like we're more mad at the balance patch, then we are at the fact that the leak showed some serious levels of incompetence. This isn't a mistake like the content creators are spewing. Mistakes is when you did something which has an unintended effect. The patch we have isn't that, and people are delusional if the patches we have ARE Mistakes. It's incompetence, plain and simple. Whoever in charge of the balance knew what they were doing.

Hell, one moment in Teapot podcast, One of the guys flat out said Anet should have pushed the patch note eariler, so Anet can handle it better. Let me translate that for you increase people don't understand.

Teapot and crew wanted the patch note delayed so Anet could better damage control the situation, without fixing the core

Yup, Teapot, WP and all those Anet apologists can put lipstick on a pig all they want, but I wasn't born yesterday. SICK of these influencers, grifters and their rabid fans ruining games.

[LSD.4673]

On 6/29/2022 at 8:51 PM, JTGuevara.9018 said:

And thus they have no integrity or credibility to anyone

That's the rule rather than the exception for anyone who labels themself a "content creator". 

They're like the guy who waves around the "SALE THIS WAY" signs with an inflated sense of self worth.

[Labjax.2465]

6 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yup, Teapot, WP and all those Anet apologists can put lipstick on a pig all they want, but I wasn't born yesterday. SICK of these influencers, grifters and their rabid fans ruining games.

I think a lot of those streamer/content-creator types mean well, it's just that their position biases them toward putting up with, and making excuses for, stuff that other people won't because they have so much more to lose. Like whether they make any money off it or it's just a hobby, if that's a huge part of their life, considering quitting the game may be a life-changing decision for them and being willing to criticize it harshly enough may drive them in that direction. Comparatively, for many of us, it's just a game we are choosing to play right now and we might be sad to leave it behind, but then we'll find something else to do.

Some of these types do content for more than one game, which I think makes it easier for them to criticize a game they're playing, but then you've got types like Teapot who has a whole huge community/guild they're tied up in, on top of the other ways they're invested in it.