Design Notes for June 28 Professions Update

[Xenesis.6389]

The changes and direction still mostly suck, at least I didn't spend more than 1000 words telling you that.

P.S giving chronomancer two well traits, and two shield traits in the grandmaster tier, is going overboard. Profession mechanics usually get multiple traits, but weapons and utility skills usually only get one. Stop getting lazy with Mesmers designs *cough* one dodge *cough*

Edited July 16, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[DanAlcedo.3281]

It just gets worse and worse.

Holy 💀

[SassyNinja.9716]

I'm just gonna post what I posted elsewhere, because oh boy.

Alright I'm not afraid to admit that I'm usually the kind of person to side with devs on things, because game dev is hard, everyone has deadlines, things go wrong, etc. etc.
Not to mention that game dev communication is pretty bad across the industry, so I tend to give a little slack when a company at least tries.

But man, this is bad. This pretty much addresses nothing that people wanted to know about. Why do Firebrand and Mechanist get the pass to provide top DPS and support for little effort, but you're incredibly stingy on buffing support on other classes/specs? Why are Warrior banners in the state they're currently in? What was the design process/thought in that? What about putting the extra 5% crit chance in a trait line that goes relatively unused by majority of Warriors? Why do Elementalists have to struggle to be competitive, and the moment they are they get nerfed? Why do incredibly simple builds get to outperform classes like Elementalist where the skill floor is so high?

Sure, maybe you felt that some of that wasn't best addressed in a design notes doc, but in what world is "here's what we were thinking when we gutted banners to the worst version they've ever been in since launch, and here's our thought process to putting the extra 5% crit chance in a trait line no one uses" not worth putting in design notes at the very least? Especially considering those were the changes to Warrior specifically that people were most up in Arms about and could use at least some explanation. That's only talking about Warrior's changes in particular, that doesn't even cover things like the OWP nerf that went suspiciously unexplained in these notes.

I don't want to believe this is the case (and I doubt it is the case) but it feels like someone went "well kitten, we have to say something to calm the masses, but we also can't admit we were wrong or made any mistakes here" and just chose the safest version of the design notes to publish.

ANet, if you're going to post design notes, you have to cover everything. You can't just cherry pick the ones that make you look good. I know this isn't a great situation for you guys and you're trying to do right by people, but just playing things safe isn't helping your case. At some point you are going to have to address these concerns, even if it's just "we're aware this hasn't worked out as we hoped, here's what we're considering in order to fix this," that'd be far better than ignoring it entirely.

Edited July 9, 2022 by SassyNinja.9716
Formatting

[Myror.7521]

@Josh Davis.7865 Oke  seems like we need to wait for you talk about where the balance team want to go with each profession/class ..... so letz wait for it. Pretty sure they will redesign the Overall function of  the game. To me it seems to go like this: all classes could gain x boons for x seconds. But one class alone cant keep them up to 100% uptime so you will need to stack (maybe 2 classes with same boon gain focus) classes so you are still able to hold them. In that case there will maybe follow up some nerfs to classes that are still able to keep the boon uptime on 100% cap. Thats my gues how this balance might go over time and hmm it might be good but we will see !

 

To be fair keep the communication pls. Its good (even while some people seem to be a bit of toxic) and migth help alot in the future!

Edited July 9, 2022 by Pati.2438

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Just want to post here before this blows up as not sure how many pages get read.  

Anyway, for Ranger..."In addition, Rangers and Revenants can choose to tap into Fury with reworked versions of Spotter..."; just curious the rationale behind this? As spotter is in a trait tree where you literally have to tap into Fury with Furious Grip.  So if it's not about the ranger tapping into fury, it would be about group source of fury--but you already changed spirits to provide this if somehow its lacking.  

So other than a nerf on precision access, what is the real reason for the Spotter change? And if it is a nerf to precision access, that kinda goes against "When playing a power build, a major component of your damage output is in getting your critical chance capped at 100%"---doesn't it? 

I mean I can't wrap my head around this even from a pure design standpoint regardless of personal feelings.  It literally contradicts the design notes either way.  

[Aizenfaust.2708]

Thanks for the work i guess.

Still no explanation as to why WH4 on necro was changed to fear and unblockable removed.

Still no explanation as to why Catalyst has to nerf itself twice to give quickness while FB doesn't even have to recharge instant cast mantras.

Yes, let's nerf every catalyst player's auto attacks because of some niche fringe degenerate gameplay. Why not nerf RS auto attack then as well? Because there is some of that stow weapon degeneracy there too. Oh, reaper does nonexistent dps to be noticed? Okay.

Still no GS2 change for Virtuoso.

[Gorem.8104]

༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ UNSUMMON PATCH NOTES ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ

 

༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ UNSUMMON PATCH NOTES ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ

 

༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ UNSUMMON PATCH NOTES ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ

[Sporks.4395]

I don't even think I can word a response. This patch is an overall suck. 1/10

[Gorem.8104]

8 hours ago, zealex.9410 said:

Mech and firebrand are abit bellow half the class representation in pve content vut yeah sure catalyst was what needed the urgent nerf.

 

"Our discord leaks proved that we have a heavy class bias with the one un-professional person we pay a lot of money to heavily bias balance the classes, so his heavy bias classes being 50% of the pie is exactly intended" 

"Oh we better nerf Ele some more, we don't like that ele even has a single image on the board when you account for totals since the record started" 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Lmao Anet here grab the L

 

Warrior is not only Bladesworn btw. Remember that. Before you keep making a balance nightmare. 

[CombineFiftyFour.1632]

Only half-time interns with little to no experience could have came up with such boneheaded balance decisions.
I really hope that none of them will participate in development of the next game in the series.

The longcoming idea behind removing unique class boons - spotter, banners etc - is great as it improves diversity, but now some of the classes require another rework (especially Warrior).

 

And rollback the changes to SLB - this class has always been all about burst damage, which is why it was fun to play. If I'll want to play PDps class with great sustain damage, I'll pick Berserker.

[Knamliss.9148]

8 hours ago, Dragonzephir.6197 said:

I don't see the explanation for the 5% crit chance in arms for Warrior.

It's literally stated in the description of Arms as a specialization that it's precision and crit based. It makes sense to be in there. The issue is there isn't a second one for power builds. 

[Merloin.4816]

1 hour ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

It just gets worse and worse.

Holy 💀

 

Last two weeks in a nutshell

[Hotride.2187]

5 hours ago, Pyrial.2917 said:

7,337 words, 4,427 cut and paste of the patch notes, 2,910 additional words that gave some marginal insight into balance decisions which were overwhelmingly done for the sake of PVE.

Yeah no idea why it included the patch changes. So that it feels like it had text  where in reality it didn't?

[Coldtart.4785]

Hey guys I hear my class that people always get told not to play is meta defining!

[Lonecap.4105]

I just want to say that some people are being extremely unhelpful and damaging in this thread.

 

Grouch is being patient as best he can, and clearly yeah okay the patch was a complete disaster (and it was probably a mistake to even publish this apparent explanation)… but pointless taunting and non constructive criticism just hurts our relations with the developers and is self-destructive, ultimately harming the game and what we eventually want to see happen with it - good balance.

[Diktator.8927]

I wont go into the class specifics, as it really looks like you aren't playing/understanding the game, classes, and their gameplay. This really stood out to me though.

Catalyst has recently begun to be meta-defining in raids . 

9 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

When playing a power build, a major component of your damage output is in getting your critical chance capped at 100%.

Why is that the case? Why not introduce more diversity in builds, why should every power build stack 100% crit chance? Instead every power build just uses Berserker gear for endgame PvE content. It's boring. I get that this is a more difficult issue to solve, as it requires changes to tons of stuff, so we'll ignore it for now. 
I honestly don't remember playing a game where EVERYONE wanted or had to stack 100% crit dmg. There's no diversity in power builds (when it comes to pure DPS builds).

 

9 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Having high uptime on critical boons is the strongest indicator of success when playing in group content.

Again, why is this a thing? Why is it expected to have 100% uptime on boons? Why did you go in this direction for the past few years? Might as well just permanently give players more might, crit dmg, etc. and completely remove these boons from the game. The effect is the same. Boons should be strong, temporary, situational buffs. If you have 100% uptime on them, they lose their uniqueness, and it's just another pointless mechanic that adds bloat to your screen.

 

Overall the direction this game has taken, and continues to take, is just awful. It's not suddenly that balance and design became an issue. Years of bad design decisions have lead to this.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Diktator.8927

[Coldtart.4785]

9 minutes ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

I just want to say that some people are being extremely unhelpful and damaging in this thread.

 

Grouch is being patient as best he can, and clearly yeah okay the patch was a complete disaster (and it was probably a mistake to even publish this apparent explanation)… but pointless taunting and non constructive criticism just hurts our relations with the developers and is self-destructive, ultimately harming the game and what we eventually want to see happen with it - good balance.

The biggest factor preventing good balance is currently the balance team itself.

[Gorem.8104]

13 minutes ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

I just want to say that some people are being extremely unhelpful and damaging in this thread.

 

Grouch is being patient as best he can, and clearly yeah okay the patch was a complete disaster (and it was probably a mistake to even publish this apparent explanation)… but pointless taunting and non constructive criticism just hurts our relations with the developers and is self-destructive, ultimately harming the game and what we eventually want to see happen with it - good balance.

What because people are not as dumb as they are pretending us to be we have to roll over and kiss the dirt they walk on because of some political fluff speech that is meaningless and truly tells us nothing and was pointless to even bring up or post, and on a Friday again? All they needed to say was "we'll revert this post and try again" and boom, better communication and outcome. 

Instead its "Cata was a meta defining class in raids at 2% representation"

They are bringing this on themselves. They are doing this on purpose. They control the game balance. They choose to ignore everyone even when people WERE 100% for them and with them before the leaks confirmed that the whole time the nay sayers were actually correct.  They lost all the goodwill they had and are still treating us like children who don't know any better. Treat us like adults and actually listen to the players and actually play your own game and hire a class balance dev who is actually professional and has no class bias. . 

Edited July 9, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Lonecap.4105]

Just now, Coldtart.4785 said:

The biggest factor preventing good balance is currently the balance team itself.

What use is there in people being brainless sheep and crying and copy pasting what each other said though?

 

Just save your breath or quit the game. They already got the memo.

[Psy.7386]

CATALYST WAS ONE OF THE MOST UNDERUSED SPECS IN RAIDING.

THE DEVS

KNOW NOTHING

ABOUT

THEIR GAME

AND IT SHOWS. 

[Convet.2605]

9 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Uh oh... Teapot is literally throat singing as he reads this.

He was likely in their secret discord saying what he wants for next patch

[Steviet.9184]

9 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Fury: Critical chance bonus increased from 20% to 25% in PvE only.

why not make this flat out %30 so most trait related issues are resolved?

[yavi.3105]

The goals of simplyfing the game and removing complexity are completely misguided. They rise the floor, lower the ceiling (for example the catalyst was wery hard to play optimally and a good reward for doing so!) and make everything same-ish.

The game doesn't have a problem of being too hard or too complex or too varied. The game has a problem of utility imbalance across the board, which is completely ignored year after year.

Open world should require a different build than a 10man group. It is correct design that should not be identitifed as a "problem", you should not be able to use same gear to do everything.

[kidbuu.4071]

When you stated this I was shocked. I get the rework in Shadow arts but I feel based on what was actually implemented it fell short. Shadow Savior has become all but completely obsolete for encounters in PvE in my opinion( The Savior part has been completely taken away). As a thief that would love to be able to play and compete as a healer in PVE content, It's very disheartening to see these changes fall short. We just can't compete with mechanist and heal brand. I get the idea about using stealth in a way that adds boons heals and barriers. As it says we still have many ways to enter stealth or even provide stealth to our group depending on how we play. My suggestion is if you could help us as thieves by allowing us to effectively rip more boons/ simultaneously providing more boons this would be a step in the right direction. If the shadow arts rework intention was not to provide a valid way for specter healers to bring the same caliber/ quality of life as druids HB and heal mech then let us know, We would love to be an additional healing option with a unique approach. I appreciate the additional information as to why you made these changes. There's still more than can be done.

Quote

This new behavior promotes using shorter duration stealth to quickly reposition and use a stealth attack instead of sitting in stealth to accumulate value. We're also taking this opportunity to add some additional support tools to the line to complement Shadow Savior in builds looking to provide a bit more group utility

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by kidbuu.4071
Additional clarification needed to be made