Design Notes for June 28 Professions Update

[Ziegrif.5964]

Last night did some raid training.

Me as Specter, tank as Mesmer.

Everyone else?

4 mechanist, 4 firebrands.

I'd like it if your balance changes promoted some class diversity and not make the game Mechanists and Firebrands.

When they finally find me in my apartment I'll be in a corner in the fetal position mumbling "Mechanists and Firebrands, MECHANISTS AND FIREBRANDS!"

Edited July 9, 2022 by Ziegrif.5964

[TheGrimoire.4039]

34 minutes ago, Convet.2605 said:

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

I mean, the devs spend more time in his stream, and replying, than on their own official forums.

Tells you everything.

[yavi.3105]

14 minutes ago, TheGrimoire.4039 said:

I mean, the devs spend more time in his stream, and replying, than on their own official forums.

Tells you everything.

What is wrong about being interested in one of the main content creators for your game? And forums are ussually a cesspit of crying, dev time is lost on those - they should however be managed by community managers and well-phrased feedback should be forwarded to the devs.

[Shiina.4192]

Notice how they had plenty of time --not just weeks, but MONTHS, by the looks of it-- to come up with excuses behind these design decisions, but still ended up coming short in the end.

Please just admit that you've royally screwed up and stop lying. It's only harming your reputation more.

[yumi.5170]

@Josh Davis.7865How about you just admit you F up these balance patch, apologise to the players, sit down your balance team with instruction to reverse some of the bad changes (like you did suprisingly well and fast with the Soulbeast changes) and try for a better balance patch next time?

[zeyeti.8347]

"unfun gameplay has developed around Hammer autoattacks"

You say that and right away you gave engi rifle the most op AA of the game (sure you nerfed it , oufff) . Was doing 26 k on raid training golem afk (i was busy on toilets) and when i came back , i was like ... "hééé thats gameplay " feels like  a mobile game where you can "auto" gain levels.

For the catalyst i agree some people (maybe 0,01% of the playerbase) are doing insane damage on catalyst , but -20% damage , thats rough ! Can you just take a look at your recent endgame content ? Harvets temple cm , just look at the comp every hardcore guild is running : mechas , firebrands and virtuoso all over the place , now you see that , you gonna nerf them all i suppose ? your good point is to remove base quickness from catalyst , but the -10% damage dealt on quickness catalyst feels yuuuukkkk...

And tempest alac fresh air dps ?  hahaha doesnt see that coming out , community was asking for tempest heal ! But i just hope all those changes will soon be reviewed by you again .

Really some specs need a lot of love atm , banner for warrior (who are now a meme) and the whole élé , in endgame content élé has been the less played class , it's a fact ! https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity just near thief , who is finally coming out with specter (who's an amazing fun spec to play , no jokes !).

What is also really pissing of ppl about catalyst is you nerf it then buff , then nerf then buff, ... we are like " heh lets quickly play cata , its gonna be nerf in 2 months probably", just admit you cant balance the élé , so you made it crappy , neither of the 3 specs feels good atm , no matter the way you play it , you are a burden ... You thoughts it's normal i deal 20k doing my sweaty rotation on catalyst quickness , while i play with one hand quick firebrand and doing 26k , with more health boons and utility ...

I know my stuff here is not constructive at all , but i am pissed , i just want to throw up my élé to the garbage can forever , But if you want ideas :

For catalyst:

-Remove the -10% damage from spectacular sphere

-EE just increase efficiency of elemental empowerement to 100% , not only at 10 stacks.

For tempest :

-Remove the aura sharing from powerfull aura , and just add healing to nearby allies when you gain an aura (can make a base idea for catalyst heal too)

-Lucid singularity : make alacrity pop at the start of the overload , add a boon when successfully overloading , like 5 stacks of might ending fire overload or a little bit of stabilty share when ending earth , fury in air ( so we dont have to run air traitline as healer , this traitline is a dps thing !)

I am here talking about pve stuff , i dont play a lot of wvw or pvp , so i cant talk about balance in those contents .

 

Have a nice day.

Edited July 9, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Gorem.8104]

4 minutes ago, yavi.3105 said:

What is wrong about being interested in one of the main content creators for your game? And forums are ussually a cesspit of crying, dev time is lost on those - they should however be managed by community managers and well-phrased feedback should be forwarded to the devs.

Why are you being so toxic? No one watches GW2 streams. Even the people who do are such a tiny minority, and the only reason they chat there is the heavy bias and of course banning of anyone with any form of criticism. In fact, the fact we can even talk constructive criticism here at all is because these forums are so ignored. They seem to be allergic to anyone not praising their every move. Just accepting dirt shoved in your face seems to be the only way to talk to them. 

Like, how dare they make the game good and fun to play right? We should just all re-roll Mechanist and Firebrands right? that's the true solution right? Why should other classes be allowed to exist? Choice?? Good fun gameplay? Hahahaha That's a thing of the past! 

[Hoshi.9704]

10 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Elementalist

Catalyst has recently begun to be meta-defining in raids, with a personal damage potential almost 20% higher than any other specialization, while at the same time eliminating the need for a quickness support role when stacked. We're making a key set of reductions to it to remediate these issues.

 

Sorry not to be salty, but I believe devs are living in a different universe than us? where did they see Cata being meta-defining? 

[Gorem.8104]

1 minute ago, yumi.5170 said:

@Josh Davis.7865How about you just admit you F up these balance patch, apologise to the players, sit down your balance team with instruction to reverse some of the bad changes (like you did suprisingly well and fast with the Soulbeast changes) and try for a better balance patch next time?

Exactly, stop with the PR speak, admit to your mistake, and just get to reverting/fixing it. And then apologise after its actually been fixed. Releasing the balance patch was a mistake. Admit to it. 

[XECOR.2814]

7 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You are wrong about the last part. most people dont understand or overvalue ferocity. 20% critdmg sound like a lot but its not when you go from 280 to 300. just a 7% increase if you have 100% critchance. a multiplicative mod will always increase your number by tits value. there are a lot of additive mods which create the same problem as critical dmg though.

the reaper change was a net dps buff in pve. pvp shroud nerf i guess. its dmg is still awful though. it was that bad before. playing reaper in raids/strikes is still trolling.

I understand how mod works and i understand its a net buff on same gear.
But new player doesn't understand that an equivalent mod is better than ferocity. he/she looks at power builds and thinks it should have high power precision and ferocity baseline. Other than that mods are good. This is their understanding.
Mod works on an extra layer of calculation and moving in this direction is not healthy as it makes the game more complex where it isn't required to be. Also this change is outright unnecessary, there are tons of things to fix anyway aside from this non-issue.

[EquinoxPower.4783]

You just copy pasted the patch notes so it would seem there was alot of explaining on this post, which there isn't, and added some random, baffling and completely nonsensical explanation about your "design philosophy" which with this post we can clearly see there is none, you guys just go with the flow. Get a grip.

[Karagee.6830]

7 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.  Why would it take so long to produce something that lacks so much?  Fundamentally I don't understand why you have such a hard time communicating to your player base.

So much this.

[Karagee.6830]

I have to say I very nearly reported @Josh Davis.7865 for impersonating an ANet employee as there should be no planet in the universe where a post like this coming from the game director who promised explanations would be realistic...

 

 

You'll get banned for misuse of the report system if you do report him this way, so don't do it.

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

10 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

One major goal for this update is for the same build and equipment to work both in and out of organized play

This is a bad goal. Raid/fractal builds are narrowly made to fulfil a single role. Open world builds are more rounded while suboptimal at specific functions like healing, dpsing etc. Raid builds are designed around the idea of sharing the burden among 10 players while open world builds are designed to be autonomous. Open world builds use more defensive attributes in order to do so. Trying to use the same gear in open world is just asking to get killed by the next veteran mob.

 

This whole "we removed the precision in the fractal potion so that you now use the same gear when playing solo" is ridiculous. I'm not going to go to the open world in full berserkers. You add some marauders or knights so that you can take a hit.

 

This just shows the disconnect between the people working in balance and the reality of the game.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Clown fiesta game

 

The Bladesworn you Anet folk praise for it's strong ability in PvE is unbalanced asf in competetive. 

Remove Tactical Reload's ability to interact with shouts. Then we can talk. 

Remember Core Warrior and T2 and T3 bursts? And how burst traits should scale for a proper trade off to spB and Zerker? 

Remember how Zerker existed? 

Remember how you destroyed SpB in 1 and a half year to ensure the shiny new specs were uncontested? 

How about you sit thtough the warr forum and check the detailed rework posts? 

Me and others formed an entire Arms rework and you guys won't ever even think of using it or looking at it. 

Banners? Lol

Weapons? Lol

Trade-offs and spec revitalizations? Lol

Skills? Lol

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Feel free to contact NCSoft West to let them know your thoughts and opinions!
 

https://us.ncsoft.com/en-us
 

Public Relations Email
 

NCWPR@ncsoft.com

[yobrotom.5746]

ANet, stop homogenizing gameplay. it will only disenfranchise and alienate various categories of player-base.

 

Bring back unique boons.

Forget this philosophy that means gear has to be the same for fractals and everything else.

Your game thrives when it has the potential for complexity.

Edited July 9, 2022 by yobrotom.5746

[Duos.3217]

Sorry but the whole post is not providing the thought behind the changes but more like justifying the changes with a few contradicting statements. For instance:

"Salvation is another place we wanted to add more diverse tools for support revenant builds. Alacrity was something that needed to be removed."

 

[faythsrequiem.8301]

I was hoping for more of an actual explanation on the thought process/reasoning for these changes, but this seems like little more than slightly glorified patch notes 🙄 

[Sootser.9541]

Yeah. Thanks for these. Absolutely nothing were answered. 
 

Seems like the leaks are still our best explanation of the thought process of the balance team. Guardian and engineer make out 40-50% of ALL end game content. RWF had 6+ mechanists on every team. 
 

What is the thought process behind letting 2 professions dominate the PvE scene while providing healing, good dps AND critical boons at 100% uptime while smashing their heads on the keyboard? What is the thought process behind letting guardian have 4 top tier specs for PvP and Harbinger dominate there?

Edited July 9, 2022 by Geiir.7603

[Rising Blade.9206]

Quote

One of these standards is that your #2 skill should be damage-positive if possible- something you want to use whenever it is available as a regular part of your gameplay.

standardization for the sake of standardization? ok. i still stand by what i said with the reason you switched those two is because you just want mech rocket punch and net shot to go in tandem since you can't find a way to code it without breaking the skill system of the game, no need for the holier than thou reasoning.

Quote

We've also gotten in some longtime requests for Mechanist polish, such as making the mech's 'Rocket Punch' function with any equipped Engineer weapon and no longer interrupt Mech skills in progress.

you mean on the checklist since beta and is currently overshadowed by the fact that mechanist has been been very strong in PvE in release? would have been better to just remove the mech rocket punch since engineer already has a lot of tools for CC and defiance damage, now it just looks weird with the mech just instantly firing the skill without even a flinch

also a great double down to see how out of touch was the guy in charge in balancing with no idea how or why the meta exist with putting boon generation traits in the wrong places with contesting traits already exist in other traitlines, also forgetting that support roles exist for a reason, it's like they want to go back to pre-HoT meta with warrior/guardian/mesmer/ele  speedclearing dungeons but this time with just firebrand, mechanist, and mixed in with virtuosos

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

And this is EXACTLY why nobody ever takes you seriously Anet.

This actually says nothing. There is no rationale in this post, no design philosophy, no train of thought, just the patch notes copy pasted in again with more words. 

And then you even have the gall to say that this does not reflect any design philosphy going forward, aka we still have nothing to go on. You had months to prepare that balancepatch and you release an absolute disaster filled with ridiculous changes, spearheaded by a balance dev that balances based on his own favouritism, has to search the wiki to understand what skills do, and actively gloats about the dissappointment of players.

 

Then you take 10 days....10 days...to come up with this text that says nothing at all. 

Did you even have any design notes? 

Or is this just a way to hide that you have no underlying balance philosophy at all, you just let your biased devs throw random darts around and just see what stick and hope for the best?

 

Do you know why there are so many negative memes flowing around about this company? 

About 'devs not playing their own game', 'devs being incompetent', ' 1111111111'? 

Because of things like this. 

And do you know why the community is up in arms now? 

Because you have been doing this for years and years. 

Everytime you ignore player feedback (you did it with this patch, you did it with the EoD beta feedback and you did it for every balance feedback in the years prior), make disastrous changes, and then you expect us believe you when you claim you have a 'vision', 'laying the groundwork', 'bigger patch is coming up' 'it is on the table' 'we are working on it' 'yes we consider that' and more of such claims?

 

You keep on disappointing us and then have the gall to ask us to believe you that you will do better next time. 

But you never do. 

You never do better. 

You never listen. 

You never care.

 

You always promise but never deliver. 

So no, we are not gonna be polite and wait for your next promise, or a next patch that will suddenly fix everything, or that in the future you will suddenly listen to us and do things better.

 

We have tried the polite feedback thing for years, and you just ignored it. 

We have believed in your promises for ages, but you simply don't deliver, it is always 'a next patch', but it is never 'this patch'. 

We held out hope for actual fixes, but they never come, not for balance, not for bugs, and at this point nobody believes you when it comes to sPvP or WvW Alliances either. 

We wanted to believe that you would listen to us and our feedback, but it falls on arrogant and deaf dev ears. 

Every patch you screw up you tell us you will do better in the future, yet somehow you never seem to learn.

 

Anet, you, as a company, are lying. 

Promising the world. 

But not delivering. 

Not even having the knowledge about your own game to know WHAT to deliver even if you actually COULD. 

With devs that mock the playerbase while making unchecked balance changes based on whatever they want, laughing at the mess they make.

 

And then, after all of that, you hit us with this empty PR speak, while you had promised actual design notes. 

We gonna wait for a next patch or update to get them? 

Wait for the next time? 

Again? 

No. 

 

This community finally has had enough.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Wielder Of Magic.3950

[Hell Nirvana.9045]

12 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

However, some particularly unfun gameplay has developed around Hammer autoattacks. Singing Strike, Hammer #1 in Fire attunement, deals its damage after half a second, but has another 700ms of 'aftercast' animation before it can naturally repeat.

I thought Tempest was the vocal specialisation 😁

[Xaylin.1860]

13 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

[...]

Thanks for those and making the effort. I think at least some changes are easier to understand now - although I have to admit that others, for example the changes to Soulbeast, didn't make sense until the hotfix. Which leaves the design notes with some slight after taste. In the end it might not matter whether the hotfix changes were plannend from the start or not. But it leaves me less confident in future balancing.

Now, there are notes that are very insightful. For example, the information on the Catalyst Hammer AA is very specific. I like those. It helps to understand the thought process behind some changes that appear a bit random at first. However, others are... not design notes at all. Guardian, Mesmer and Necromancer notes range from being mostly to literally a repetition of the changes in textform. That's a bit disappointing, to be honest. 

Now, the elephants in the room. At least for me. Why hasn't there been any meaningful balancing for FB and Mech? It is insane to think there won't be any changes for months to come. And how on earth is there no explanation on Banners aside from the stat removal? Quickness being linked to Soldiers Focus is fine for me personally. Not making any further comments on Banners, though... I just can't 🤣

Edited July 9, 2022 by Xaylin.1860

[Grand Marshal.4098]

8 minutes ago, Hell Nirvana.9045 said:

I thought Tempest was the vocal specialisation 😁

That would be Bladesworn in competetive.