Would you rather Anet focus on making professions Fun and unique or Balanced and homogeneous?

[Rhokaz.1975]

Arenanet obviously pushed much on Inclusion and Diverstiy. You can feel it in many parts of the game. This very good on one hand - as it shows that everything has a place, on the other hand it feels like they create the monster they try to fight. They kill identity to try to open up room for better inclusion.The gut feeling that I get by this is that they want to win it all. And when one tries to win all, the person likely looses all. I hope this will not happen.

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, Rhokaz.1975 said:

Arenanet obviously pushed much on Inclusion and Diverstiy. You can feel it in many parts of the game.

Not in balance, though. I do not feel much inclusion for Warriors at the moment, nor do i feel much diversity among all those Firebrands and Mechanists.

[Rhokaz.1975]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not in balance, though. I do not feel much inclusion for Warriors at the moment, nor do i feel much diversity among all those Firebrands and Mechanists.

Yes, this is the very poor execusion of these ideals. Bad quality is what pops in my mind there.

[Shao.7236]

Homogeneous is seen in such a bad way, you can have things similar done differently and still have fun.

 

Not everything has to be exactly unique and without borrowing from existing concepts.

[Saharo.5381]

NO!

Aegis stability support thief NOW!

 

In all seriousness, the word "balanced" is loaded. Does that mean all classes have at least 1 spec that can output the same amount of DPS for the same amount of effort? Or solely from a benchmark perspective? Or 1 spec that can dish out the same amount of healing/boon uptime?

I'd rather prioritize class identity. Like make Chrono and maybe one or two others the only mother kitteners who can give alac, and cap alac at a low duration. That way alac doesn't swing group performance the way it currently does. This would require fiddling with the 100% boonuptime meta, which I doubt will happen.

I think you should give more specs diverse sprinkles of boons/profession buffs. That way you can slot different pieces in your squads and get different effects but still have a similar result with a variety of piece combinations.

 

[BeardedBacon.9328]

I remember when chrono weaver firebrand and engi had crazy rotations and the people that wanted that unique feel kept playing it while others were free to do simpler rotations (reaper dragonhunter etc) but if you wanted that unique role you'd learn it.

Now everyone has a faceroll rotation and the high ceilings aren't even worth learning 

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 6/29/2022 at 7:11 PM, Rhokaz.1975 said:

Arenanet obviously pushed much on Inclusion and Diverstiy. You can feel it in many parts of the game. This very good on one hand - as it shows that everything has a place, on the other hand it feels like they create the monster they try to fight. They kill identity to try to open up room for better inclusion.The gut feeling that I get by this is that they want to win it all. And when one tries to win all, the person likely looses all. I hope this will not happen.

That's NOT inclusion. That's homogenization. Homogenization is the loss of identity.

 

7 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Homogeneous is seen in such a bad way, you can have things similar done differently and still have fun.

 

Not everything has to be exactly unique and without borrowing from existing concepts.

Except that homogenization is kitten to an RPG. It renders the concept of an RPG pointless. If everybody is similar, why have roles then? What's the point?

[Shao.7236]

1 hour ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

That's NOT inclusion. That's homogenization. Homogenization is the loss of identity.

 

Except that homogenization is kitten to an RPG. It renders the concept of an RPG pointless. If everybody is similar, why have roles then? What's the point?

You can create "unique" without "overshadowing completely" everything else.

Balance IS about coming with concepts that results of the same but in a different way.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Shao.7236

[DeathsProphet.7460]

"Fun and Unique" without a doubt. The concept that each profession should be able to fulfill every role is lame and unrealistic, yet that seems to be the trigger for many players.

"X class has way more healing capability than Necro, we need a healing spec for Necro next." Have you ever read the lore behind a Necromancer? Why would we throw healing on the Necro when we have yet to see a minion, vampire, or spirit themed spec? 

Stop trying to destroy all lore and uniqueness because your class doesn't fill a certain role. Choose a different class.  I hope the next round of elite specs play more on the theme and uniqueness of each class, rather than attempting to arbitrarily fulfill a role that the other classes already do. 

[Dante.1508]

On 6/29/2022 at 11:33 PM, Infinity.2876 said:

I liked it better when:

1: aegis came from guardian only

2: quickness and alacrity came from chrono only

3: stealth came from thief

And so on

 

I don't know if this is relevant

Engi could stealth as well.

[Puck.3697]

Kind of a extreme question. and both answers are wrong.

The game being Imbalanced has and will never be the issue, a perfectly balanced game is Extremely boring because it becomes stale.

however. a never changing balance alike GW2s will ALWAYUS be a issue. because it creates the EXACT Same loop a perfectly balanced game does just in a Worse way. because now not only are u going to sit on the exact same build and thing for extreme lengths of time. but u might not even like the choice u were forced to make in the first place.

GW2 doesnt change up its Meta. its Doesnt change up the totem pole. the same proffessions succeed for Years.

It doesnt feel bad to be one of the worser proffessions for a Month. however it gets Pretty intolerable after a Year or 2.

when the same classes are continously the meta. and the same classes continously suck. Players Reroll. which means the Strong proffessions end up amassing while the the worse proffessions simply stop getting played. this generates a Stale gameplay of the same thing happening againand again without variety continously.. which massively feeds into Burn out.

when u burn out, ur mind becomes Easier to become agitated. which leads onto Worse lash outs everytime round something doesnt change, til the player either over steps the line or Quits.

game doesnt need to be balanced.

Game needs to change more.

Over nerfs. Over buffs, providing within reason are healthy for a mmorpg. a sudden change that makes tempest thew Strongest PvE Support specc Wouild be good. it changes things adds diversity gives players time to experience something else then what they have been continously routinely doing.

Making warriors suddenly meta in SPVP is Good. it changes up the fights. how things are and how the team interacts with one another. it changes strats and what are the goals as u change the tool kits up that work best in the game mode.

the idea is to ensure balance patchs turn out at a good pace where no one feels like their time in the sun is too short. but also so metas dont drag out, this keeps the game refreshing and it keeps players coming back to try new things it also Stops burn out because it creates excitement to try those new things after each patch.

GW2 dont need to work on their ability to balance. they need to work on their ability to actually Impact. they're changes Dont actually shake up metas. they dont actually deliever anything to be excited about.

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[draxynnic.3719]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:19 PM, Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:

 

I'd rather prioritize class identity. Like make Chrono and maybe one or two others the only mother kitteners who can give alac, and cap alac at a low duration. That way alac doesn't swing group performance the way it currently does. This would require fiddling with the 100% boonuptime meta, which I doubt will happen.

They tried that. People just stacked enough chronomancers to do the job.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They tried that. People just stacked enough chronomancers to do the job.

There was no alternative for chrono then. In fact, there exist no alternative to that build even now. Chrono was a pure support build, giving boons but practically nothing else, Since then, Anet gave up on that idea, and instead went into incidental boon generation, where dps builds give a few boons as a sideproduct at only a small loss to their dps values.

Anet at that time could have introduced 2-3 other such pure support builds, and let players sort it out, but instead they preferred to push for the qFb/alacren meta (and as a result overbuffed Fb into orbit, just to solve a completely wrong problem).

Notice, that for the pugs it was easier to have a meta where you could change individual slots for their alternatives, instead of chaving to change half of the group makeup just because you lacked one specific build. Ironically, Anet has noticed it by now, and are trying to aim at making those new half-support roles (quick and alac) intechangeable, but at this point some of classes offering those are already overloaded on other stuff, thus making introduction of their alternatives problematic.

Personally, i think that having pure support slots (but with more than one option in it) would be far better to what we have now.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

There was no alternative for chrono then. In fact, there exist no alternative to that build even now. Chrono was a pure support build, giving boons but practically nothing else, Since then, Anet gave up on that idea, and instead went into incidental boon generation, where dps builds give a few boons as a sideproduct at only a small loss to their dps values.

Anet at that time could have introduced 2-3 other such pure support builds, and let players sort it out, but instead they preferred to push for the qFb/alacren meta (and as a result overbuffed Fb into orbit, just to solve a completely wrong problem).

Notice, that for the pugs it was easier to have a meta where you could change individual slots for their alternatives, instead of chaving to change half of the group makeup just because you lacked one specific build. Ironically, Anet has noticed it by now, and are trying to aim at making those new half-support roles (quick and alac) intechangeable, but at this point some of classes offering those are already overloaded on other stuff, thus making introduction of their alternatives problematic.

Personally, i think that having pure support slots (but with more than one option in it) would be far better to what we have now.

That's kinda the point - the big problem with the chrono meta, and to a lesser extent the firebrigade meta, is that most professions just couldn't play in that field at all. Which is what this patch was aiming to address but fell way short of the mark.

The specific point I was making, though, is that reducing durations so that one person can't 100% it just means that groups will take more. Is requiring 2 quickness and 2 alacrity per subsquad better than only needing 1 each?

[Astralporing.1957]

28 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

That's kinda the point - the big problem with the chrono meta, and to a lesser extent the firebrigade meta, is that most professions just couldn't play in that field at all. Which is what this patch was aiming to address but fell way short of the mark.

Indeed. And it is party, ironically, by splitting the role into two but adding the dps factor into it. And then allowing power creep on everything. Consider, how the once way too OP Chaos chrono build that was the cause of support chrono nerf slide into oblivion, would have not been good enough in today's meta. Because to use them you'd have to dedicate one slot per squad to a non-healer build dealing extremely low levels of damage.

28 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The specific point I was making, though, is that reducing durations so that one person can't 100% it just means that groups will take more. Is requiring 2 quickness and 2 alacrity per subsquad better than only needing 1 each?

Indeed. This is btw one of the reasons why i am not a fan of returning to 5-man boon and heal caps.

[draxynnic.3719]

Yeah, I've commented before that we could probably just have old boon chrono back into the current meta and people probably wouldn't blink as long as it was 5-man and it didn't do much else. Maybe aim the balance point so that a quick+alac chrono and a regular DPS provided roughly the same DPS as a quickness DPS and an alacrity DPS, and it might open up space for healers that don't provide either again.

[Kozumi.5816]

if I wanted homogenized gameplay, I'd go play FF14.

Anyone who wants that is currently playing  FF14. 

People are not going to come play GW2 to get that, stop trying to make this game FF14 without catgirl or cute outfits.

[The Boz.2038]

On 6/29/2022 at 3:24 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

I think you missed where I said this:

 

"The example isn't limited to just a single parameter...it extends to any arbitrary number of parameters"

 

I'm going to give you another example, and again I'm going to ask the exact same question. Perfectly balance the skills as one would on a scale:

 

Skill 1

Damage : 1000

Cast Time : 3s

3 seconds Immobilization

 

Skill 2

Damage :200

Cast Time : 1s

2 seconds fury

 

The above is a little more complex, But again the point of the exercise is to ask whether there are a set of operations that perfectly balances the two skills as if one could on a scale without just making them do both the same exact thing...and the answer is that there isn't.

 

Damage and cast time are easy concepts to understand why those two things can be lumped together and equated like one could on a scale but what about fury and immobilization? How does one even parametrize them, to place them on a scale where they would be equal? Is 3 seconds of immobilization worth 200 damage? or maybe it’s worth 1000 damage? Maybe it’s worth more than that? How would you know? 

 

Immobilization is useless in PVE for the most part...Fury is very important in PVE...Immobilization is very important for PVP... Fury not so much... thus, these two skills will always be imbalanced with one another, simply because these two environments exists. 

 

Think about other effects like Chilled and Stability...how do you place such mechanics on a scale with damage? Is there some magical duration of chilled that will always equal x damage being done to an opponent? How about stability? Does having some magical duration of stability always equate to dealing x damage to an opponent? 

 

The answer is that, mechanics that aren't obviously simple, will behave with maximal sophistication, and that in most cases the only way to parametrize them, is for them to just "play out" to see what they do. It more or less will be undecidable, and so there will never be an "x damage" that will be equal to some "y" duration of stability where the answer is always the same. This complexity is not a mistake...it's one of the features being alluded to by the "balance of nature," and you mentioned it yourself about how things interact with other mechanics. That complexity is not attained by making things equal it is explicitly a feature of these elements not behaving the same as one another, because if they were, they would be obviously simple.

 

To clarify the statement above obviously simple refers to homogenous behavior. Anyway, I encourage you to just do the exercise of taking complex skills, and trying to perfectly balance them and asking whether you could prove that those things are actually perfectly balanced. will the answers always cancel out and be 0.

 

 

 

 

 

No.

[gideon.6492]

If you come join us warriors u can get neither

[Saharo.5381]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They tried that. People just stacked enough chronomancers to do the job.

Wouldn't be an issue if anet capped alac at per interval/had other comparable alac options besides chrono.

[Shao.7236]

9 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

The game being Imbalanced has and will never be the issue, a perfectly balanced game is Extremely boring because it becomes stale.

I beg to differ, you can have a perfectly balanced game where the skill ceiling is the only factor and still have fun.

 

A game where all setups have a clear set even and close DPS while the play style is the defining factor of their efficiency then add in the mix concrete situational advantages that those setups have. Asking that from GW2 is a huge task but it's no less a "possibility".

It's only when you have the meta addicts stepping in and telling you that they want to save that specific extra 5 seconds of their time that ruins the fun for everyone else.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Shao.7236

[Suyheuti.1732]

If it is not balanced, I wont get any fun. 

On the other hand, giving party wide quickness and alacrity to all classes is not good idea. This two boon should be unique to some characters. That is my idea, of course. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:28 PM, Einsof.1457 said:

Would you rather Anet focus on making professions Fun and unique or Balanced and homogeneous? 

You can have fun and unique classes that are balanced (see FFXIV).  GW2 struggles with this because the developers make stupid and obvious mistakes like daring to be different with non-trinity gameplay and then overemphasizing the support role when that game plan fails. 

In the current design they're on a quest to provide accessibility, but rather than design various difficulty modes to facilitate that they've opted to overtune the easiest specs to play.  Unfortunately, that does more than just provide accessibility at the low end, as evidenced by Teapot's stream this week running with 4-5 mechanists and 3 virtuosos (Oh, don't worry.  They still found room for 2 firebrands as well!).

Apparently it never occurred to them that if you overtune easy specs that have every advantage you can possibly have like strong AI pet, great sustain, top tier DPS from range, or every boon in existence you create a balance nightmare as specs that could compete in one area under contrived and specific circumstances (i.e. golem benchmarks) have no place in the meta when you take into account the realities of encounter design.

You might think that's a good thing.  After all, weren't we complaining about ranged DPS always playing second fiddle and stack-in-a-pile gameplay?  Yeah, we were.  But our solution to that wasn't to create a bunch of overtuned braindead ranged DPS specs.  It was to update your borked UI and allow for targeted boon support and healing from range.  But of course that would add complexity, which is bad.  So here we are.

[fungusjungus.4890]

I voted fun but I don't like this question. You can have balance AND uniqueness, you just have to balance considering more factors and be vigilant with how and how much classes are being used. Not every class needs to do everything, but if one class doesn't bring as much X, it should bring more Y and if it has low X and Y it should have a ton of Z.

 

Look at how hard warrior has to work to provide quickness while having subpar dps and no utility, compared to power quick scrapper with ok quickness and ok dps and some utility, compared to firebrand with easy quickness AND good dps AND strong utility. In this case, if condi firebrand is the baseline, scrapper should be buffed somewhat and warrior should have huge outrageous dps. They all get to be unique while still viable compared to each other.

[Rider.6024]

this false dichotomy is dumb

 

unique and balanced , they are not mutually exclusive