Completely impartial and unbiased design of professions is a job requirement, full stop, no excuses.

[Puck.3697]

On 7/4/2022 at 6:20 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

The same conditions those wvw zergs can completely ignore so don't give two bits about? I couldn't give a care about dps numbers in wvw, because it's all movement combat, not npc lord fights.

Balancing by devs should be fine as long as they keep their personal bias out of it. They should be looking at all classes equally and not shoving everything onto a couple classes they like. The last expansion shows once again the major bais they have to guard necro engineer class.

But last expansion (PoF) revenant was in engineers position. 

I wouldn't really include engineer here, although mechanist is overpowered sure. It's not a repeated occurrence around this proffession. 

 

[Xenesis.6389]

8 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

But last expansion (PoF) revenant was in engineers position. 

I wouldn't really include engineer here, although mechanist is overpowered sure. It's not a repeated occurrence around this proffession. 

Ok? And?

Scrappers were pushed into main meta during POF with gyro and trait revamps.

They remain main wvw meta for EOD.

They have a new elite spec that's op.

Now also get a rifle revamp that's op.

But sure no bias there at all!

It was just a one time thing officer!

[Tammuz.7361]

Its fine for a class to feel powerful, but rifle revamp is over the top, now thanks to the rifle revamp as well as nerfs to other DPS classes that actually required some rotation to deal damage, new spec can top the DPS meters just by getting the rifle build and spamming 1 1 1 1 1.

[ThunderX.6591]

2 hours ago, Tammuz.7361 said:

Its fine for a class to feel powerful, but rifle revamp is over the top, now thanks to the rifle revamp as well as nerfs to other DPS classes that actually required some rotation to deal damage, new spec can top the DPS meters just by getting the rifle build and spamming 1 1 1 1 1.

After the 28/06 rifle rewamp, the rifle was doing similar damage as the old one (a bit better, cause more attack, (at least what they reported) for the same 3/4 sec), but after the hot fix of 01/07, time was moved to 1 sec, and i am sure i loose some damage too in the tooltip (coefficient was reduced), so, now, is equal if not less powerfull than old rifle (as pure number go), but considering the multiattack, can be more "usefull" for some trigger things. (but remember, rocket have 3 seconds internal cooldown, so pretty much nothing changed from the old rifle on that part with crit capped).

But i see a lot of people write "press 1, top the dps chart"...... and i go test it, and am TOTALLY off from the top, doing a tiny bit better than other "press 1" classes like soulbeast dagger condi (press 1 + condi istant skill), thx mostly to the robot damage even thought now they nerfed it, so, need to retest all again.

 

Ever tested a war AXE AXE 11111 with full buff how much can do? OR a Vindicator 1111 + dodge bonus damage? To get some number to the table, nothing more.

 

I think the OP people perceive from new rifle to depend from the extra sparkle and big sound it does, similar to rgb light in the case give more fps in game meme.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

You would think there would be some level of management overlooking the whole balance process and pointing out when certain classes have been neglected and need attention... But nope, seems like its just the balance devs doing whatever they want.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:56 AM, ThunderX.6591 said:

I don't know, i mean, if the balancer person play the class (guard whatever elite), AND the class after the balance patch, on the DPS side, is one of the most nerfed in damage as resulted from the change the patch had imported to the game, i really don't know what to think about all the "balance" ideas they have about the game.

Because, you need to remember, that DPS guard + elites are one of the classes who loose the biggest damage with this patch (expecially condi variant)...... and the guy who balanced them play them, right???

So, what the class would had became if he didn't play it?

Honestly? I don't think he realised how significant Sun Spirit was. Firebrand is still doing okay in the new Snowcrows benchmarks anyway.

 

On 7/6/2022 at 2:22 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

For anet, not for players. When players imagine the difference, it's just wishful thinking. The fact is that these class changes are not governed by ethics or morals or whatever people want to call it. If you look at history of this game, changes are determined by thematics more than anything. 

When op says there is some requirement to design classes in an unbiased, impartial way, they are wrong. It's not a requirement just because they want something

 

Customers have the right to demand better when a product isn't up to standard. In fact, this is a large part of what incentivises companies to do better in the first place.

The alternative is to quit. Most game developers I've talked to have expressed that they prefer constructive criticism to people silently leaving. Because then they know what the pain points that are causing people to leave are.

[Labjax.2465]

18 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Customers have the right to demand better when a product isn't up to standard. In fact, this is a large part of what incentivises companies to do better in the first place.

The alternative is to quit. Most game developers I've talked to have expressed that they prefer constructive criticism to people silently leaving. Because then they know what the pain points that are causing people to leave are.

Speaking of that, one of the pain points for me with this game is that you get few mature opportunities to discuss pain points without getting bombarded with contrarian responses, snide presumptions of selfish and/or ill intent, info dumping that presumes it will fix your problem without really understanding it, or some combination of the three.

I am more likely to silently leave with this game than say why I'm going simply for the fact I don't want to be hassled dealing with the people who would give me trouble over voicing what my issues are.

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Customers have the right to demand better when a product isn't up to standard. In fact, this is a large part of what incentivises companies to do better in the first place.

The alternative is to quit. Most game developers I've talked to have expressed that they prefer constructive criticism to people silently leaving. Because then they know what the pain points that are causing people to leave are.

Sure ... but that doesn't change the fact that when customers imagine the difference between what is and what can be, that's not progress, it's just wishful thinking because customers don't get to say what the future state of the game is. 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Ascency.3580]

The issue with fb isnt its dps. Its the lack of idea how to aproach nerfing it. Dps fb should still be able to dps. Qfb should loose about 30% dps in order to apply quickness same as other classes. Hfb should not be able to upkeep 100% of quickness. Meaning it gets the same treatment as other proffesions = balance. The issue with that is it would require revamping the whole fb specialization tree becouse its imposible to do now. U can take the quickness perks without any tradeoff. As a result qfb is top dps among quickness supports, and hfb fills in 2 roles supereffectively since it also has insane utility.

Hfb even without quickness would still be one of the top picks for heal slot for its utility alone, but would stop dominating the meta to a point where almost no other support is ever seeing play. While at the same time open a slot for other quickness options.

Same should be true for mech and alacrity. 

Thats why tempest alac tradeoff is actually good.

Take scourge for example. How good it is even without the ability to apply quickness nor alac.

Role compression available on heal builds is the real issue. Becouse it doesnt come at any cost.

[Blumpf.2518]

Fixing Firebrand would be really easy.

Heres how:

Firebrand doesnt get all the 3 Tomes on F1-F2-F3, but must chose which F-Skill he wants to improve.

First 3 Traits to chose from:

- F1 becomes Tome of Justice

- F2 becomes Tome of Resolve

- F3 becomes Tome of Courage

 

Or what you could do if you want to keep all Tomes, you could remove the conditions and the boons and make it like:

First 3 Traits to chose from:

- Every F1-Skill applies 3 stacks of burning

- Every F2-Skill applies Regeneration, Vigor and Quickness

- Every F3-Skill applies Stability, Resolution and Protection

 

And then youd have to choose. Wanna play Condi-Firebrand? Then improve F1, but you will lose a lot of utility. Wanna be heal? Choose F2, but you wont be dealing that much damage then. Or wanna be a group supporter? Then chose F3, but heal and damage wont be that good then.

 

 

And btw. in general, aNet should do this for all the classes:

If the class is able to heal the group, only allow:

HEAL + Alac OR Quickness OR Barrier, but not 2 of these, cause its to strong.

Only allow Alac+Quickness or Alac+Barrier or Quickness+Barrier, if the class cant heal the Group.

 

But if you allow stuff like Mechanists Heal+Alac+Barrier,  it will be so overpowered that everyone will use it and it will destroy the meta like now. Heal-Alac-Mechanist + Quickness-Firebrand is the way to go if you do Raids or Strike CMs now, cause compared to this combo everything else is way to weak. And im saying this being an Engineer Main who plays Engi since GW2 release.

 

Oh and its also a bad idea to have Engi Weapons deal more Damage with Autohits than Engi-Kits with their Kit-Skills. The rifle made Bomb-Kit and Grenade-Kit useless for power-DPS cause rifle damage is higher than the Damage when using kits. If you want the people to use the kits, you have to make the Skills of Kits better than a Weapons Autohit.

 

[Puck.3697]

23 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Ok? And?

Scrappers were pushed into main meta during POF with gyro and trait revamps.

They remain main wvw meta for EOD.

They have a new elite spec that's op.

Now also get a rifle revamp that's op.

But sure no bias there at all!

It was just a one time thing officer!

And scrapper sucked in HoT to stack and waited over a year to see any form of rework. 

It isn't one time thing lol. There's several points where engineer has sucked. 

Scrapper meta? I'm pressuming we are talking wvwvw here because scrappers not been mets in any other gameplay lol. 

Engineer has been both up and down. Which is considered normal balancing to mmorpg standards. 

It took a power revamp because the proffessions power tools were absolute dog**** the proffessions lacked any core access to a power build since the games launch. 

And p.s just so we are on the same page. 

That same power revamp which was OP. Got quite litterally nerfed 3 days later. A 35k power dps build isn't overpowered. 

After the ranger buffs

Untamed can do 41k dps in a condi build and holds the highest dps alacrity build right now. 

You gonna call untamed OP next??. Because those buffs have a considerably higher impact then people seem to believe currently. Condi ranger is 100% on the table currently. 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[The Boz.2038]

2 hours ago, Blumpf.2518 said:

Firebrand doesnt get all the 3 Tomes on F1-F2-F3, but must chose which F-Skill he wants to improve.

First 3 Traits to chose from:

- F1 becomes Tome of Justice

- F2 becomes Tome of Resolve

- F3 becomes Tome of Courage

This. Mandatory.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Blumpf.2518 said:

Or what you could do if you want to keep all Tomes, you could remove the conditions and the boons and make it like:

First 3 Traits to chose from:

- Every F1-Skill applies 3 stacks of burning

- Every F2-Skill applies Regeneration, Vigor and Quickness

- Every F3-Skill applies Stability, Resolution and Protection

 

And then youd have to choose. Wanna play Condi-Firebrand? Then improve F1, but you will lose a lot of utility. Wanna be heal? Choose F2, but you wont be dealing that much damage then. Or wanna be a group supporter? Then chose F3, but heal and damage wont be that good then.

An approach I've presented before is to note that it's problematic that the same traits buff all three tomes. So if you buff one tome, you naturally get buffs to other tomes.

So, proposal: Consolidate all the tome traits, and then split them back up according to tome. So if you have grandmaster that gives the benefit of all the traits, but only for F1. And then the same for F2 and F3. So you still have all three, but you have to choose which one you specialise in: if you go with, say, a Justice build, you don't get improved healing and boon tomes just as a side effect of traits you took to improve Justice.

Replace the adept and master tome traits with traits that provide some benefit regardless of your build (the middle line currently requires that you be using quickness to make them worthwhile, while the top adept and master require that you be using axe or mantras respectively).

Replacing two tomes with core virtues has the potential to be really unpredictable in the effect. People really underestimate the benefit of having instant-activation virtues on shorter cooldowns.

[Zaret.1450]

On 7/3/2022 at 3:46 AM, Daddy.8125 said:

I get what you mean. But sadly every nmorpg is guilty of this. 

This is why back in the old days. You had class devs. Was because this exists. The devs are human and will be human. 

It happens in every mmorpg. 

You cannot both play a mmorpg. And balance that same mmorpg without some level of bias. 

It's just company's now no longer structure the teams to deal with human emotion and leave 2 people to balance 9 proffessions while they will naturally have a main and obviously are more aware and experienced at dealing with the proffession their spending all their time on. 

Just sadly.. this one managed to get himself caught out by admitting to thar bias. But has always existed. Maybe not for the same proffessions from the start as devs change. But it's always existed. 

Saying anything right now would be considered damage control and wouldn't be believed sadly. So it wouldn't really fix anything. The only thing that could rectify the situation is the actions they make following this. 

Basically when we get to preview rhe August changes they need to be on point. The community from every proffession will need to feel listened to when they give us the opportunity to provide feedback to those notes. And the finished product will need to reflect that. 

If it doesn't nothing they say between now and then will fix the damage those leaks caused. 

if i had to say anithing is, if a game has 9 clases and needs a balance team there should be 9 people and each one should have a diferent main, its difficult but another option is for the team to work with 9 testers or players, so each tester is a main of onw class and so each class gets the buffs it needs without worring about other classes

[Rihar.3465]

I guess I'm missing something, but aren't there developers responsible solely for their game class or maybe two? I was sure that's a typical thing for a MMO company, even though these devs may report to the same senior lead. Is there any information about how many people are there in a balance team?

[Puck.3697]

15 minutes ago, zaswer.5246 said:

if i had to say anithing is, if a game has 9 clases and needs a balance team there should be 9 people and each one should have a diferent main, its difficult but another option is for the team to work with 9 testers or players, so each tester is a main of onw class and so each class gets the buffs it needs without worring about other classes

This is the issue they don't. 

And they also don't seem to spend much time reading player feedback. 

Combined this stuff happens. 

[Zaret.1450]

13 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

This is the issue they don't. 

And they also don't seem to spend much time reading player feedback. 

Combined this stuff happens. 

Look i could understand if they didnt listen to every player feedback, there are lots of coments after all, but i think they could make better job, comunicate more, instead of a balance patch each 4 months, make someone from the balance team spend time on the forums, making polls, looking through the coments, etcetera, the same goes for discords like sc etc, ittd be like a marketing investigation.

And would make their work easyer because the can make sure that after a patch they wont have all the comunity on their necks, maybe some people but much less than they have had till now.

[Cait Sith.4650]

57 minutes ago, Rihar.3465 said:

I guess I'm missing something, but aren't there developers responsible solely for their game class or maybe two? I was sure that's a typical thing for a MMO company, even though these devs may report to the same senior lead. Is there any information about how many people are there in a balance team?

From what the Balance Discord leaks seem to indicate each person balances three professions, or at least that dev did. So we can guess they are around 3 persons in total taking care of the balance, with at least one more overseeing them. So that would mean at least a higher-up thought they were good changes. I can't believe proper QA existed, or it would never have shipped in that state.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Cait Sith.4650

[Ascency.3580]

Heal specs should not be able to apply quickness nor alac honestly. Since those come at a cost if taken by dps. If healers can provide those its essentially compressing 2 roles and allowes for one more pure dps in the group. Which is obviously gonna be preffered by pretty much every group. Cousing fb and mech to be taken over any other support in the game. Supports being able to heal and provide defensive boons would probably allow for a lot better class diversity after balancing the professions around this idea.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think the biggest mistake they made was messing up boon distribution. Offensive boons like Quickness should belong to DPS builds, and defensive boons (including Alacrity) should belong to healing builds.

 

I consider Alacrity a defensive boon because its essential to group survivability despite its impact on DPS. In a game where everyone can heal themselves reasonably well having all those skills on a lower cooldown is something that is just too essential to have. its a flat increase of 20% to group sustain.

 

I think this is the main thing which has thrown class balance out of whack. If you have a healer than can bring Protection, Resistance, Resolution, Regeneration, Aegis, Stability, Alacrity, heals and cleanses, you're good. That's what a defensive support build is supposed to do. But that same character shouldn't be bringing 25 Might, Fury, Swiftness and Vigor (or in the case of Firebrand, all of the above with Quickness replacing Alacrity). This is where the problem lies; no clear distinction between offensive and defensive support roles.

 

The healer shouldn't increase group damage (beyond Alacrity), and the DPS booner shouldn't increase group sustain (beyond Vigor). If you look at the OP classes right now, its ones that are guilty of crossing this line.

 

You need to have damage or sustain in this game, not both at the same time.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Xenesis.6389]

17 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

And scrapper sucked in HoT to stack and waited over a year to see any form of rework. 

It isn't one time thing lol. There's several points where engineer has sucked. 

Scrapper meta? I'm pressuming we are talking wvwvw here because scrappers not been mets in any other gameplay lol. 

Engineer has been both up and down. Which is considered normal balancing to mmorpg standards. 

It took a power revamp because the proffessions power tools were absolute dog**** the proffessions lacked any core access to a power build since the games launch. 

And p.s just so we are on the same page. 

That same power revamp which was OP. Got quite litterally nerfed 3 days later. A 35k power dps build isn't overpowered. 

After the ranger buffs

Untamed can do 41k dps in a condi build and holds the highest dps alacrity build right now. 

You gonna call untamed OP next??. Because those buffs have a considerably higher impact then people seem to believe currently. Condi ranger is 100% on the table currently. 

 

TLDR Translation: DON'T NERF MY OP CLASS.

Don't worry buddy the devs play your class, you'll still get priority buffs.

[soul.9651]

On 7/8/2022 at 9:05 AM, Ascency.3580 said:

 Qfb should loose about 30% dps in order to apply quickness same as other classes.

Yep same treatment as they did with catalyst.

Edited July 11, 2022 by soul.9651