Is power creep a concern? [Merged]

[Sunchaser.9854]

Alright there we go. 35k dps is the 4 button DPS spec. 

 

100% alac is when the same player decides to talent into alacrity because the class can provide 100% while some other alac specs are fiddly/unreliable alac and nobody in their right mind takes 50% alac over 100% when you want 100% for a group. 

 

And as for the rotation. the dps is different but its a build 1/4th the rotation size of most other builds. The other classes rotations have 30 part sequences for openers, theres just a 7 part priority which is more buttons on a rifle with a made kit. Im going to copy paste the info so that should make it more accessible to those who don't click links. 

 

Power Alacrity Mechanist provides its subgroup with permanent Alacrity, 25 stacks of Might and Fury whilst dealing as much Power Damage as possible.

Power Alacrity Mechanist is additionally able to passively generate a small amount of Barrier as well as decent uptimes on other boons: ~38% Protection as well as access to Stability once every 24 seconds. It also has naturally access to moderately high amounts of Breakbar damage.

 

https://snowcrows.com/builds/engineer/mechanist/power-alacrity-mechanist

 

 

The dps is 25k because you change talents but play more than one class and people will pretty much unanimously say their class's also being finnicky. Tied to spirits or not reliable enough to put on demand is more of a other class alac concern than mechanists complaining alac or 35k dps is a lie... They are separate but trivially easy to save two builds and maybe a couple trinkets to switch between. Do you even play other classes, by chance? 

[itspomf.9523]

On 8/5/2022 at 11:37 PM, Susy.7529 said:

Ah, the more powercreep the better for me, but there is still too little powercreep here. 

I'll start to aknowledge powercreep only when we'll be able to breeze through HT cm with random pugs who never did it before.

I'd play devil's advocate and say that's PROOF of powercreep.

The fact that raid or whatever even exists and has earned its place as the butt-kicking nightmare most make it out to be kind of goes to show that Anet has needed to add progressively harder content to counteract powercreep.

No one really goes back to older content and says "Dang, yo, this dungeon fight be straight hard."  They just skip half the encounters, burn down the boss, and exploit stacking because enemy AI still hasn't been adjusted to compensate.

Even the difference of LS1 at release and its revival is telling.

[The Boz.2038]

31 minutes ago, Sunchaser.9854 said:

They are separate but trivially easy to save two builds and maybe a couple trinkets to switch between.

So. One build that does 35k ranged DPS and 100% alac with 4 buttons is *not a thing*?

Got it.

You sure spent a lot of words to say "yes, I was wrong", but eh. You got there in the end.

[Astralporing.1957]

16 minutes ago, itspomf.9523 said:

I'd play devil's advocate and say that's PROOF of powercreep.

The fact that raid or whatever even exists and has earned its place as the butt-kicking nightmare most make it out to be kind of goes to show that Anet has needed to add progressively harder content to counteract powercreep.

No. It's just the first time they made the content truly finetuned for around the ceiling of what player groups can do. Not even Dhuum CM was that - it ended up being lowmanned or run in undergeared/meme groups relatively fast, without any time for powercreep to change the playing field first.

The truth is that, due to the massive differences in effectiveness within playerbase, it is entirely possible to create a content that would be prohibitively hard (or plain impossible) for 80% of playerbase, while at the same time being laughably easy for top 1%. That's because the gap is massive not only between the bottom and top, or average and top, but also between top 10% and top 1%. And so it happens that Raids were designed (with some leeway) for the top 10%, Dhuum CM was made (again, with some leeway) for maybe top 5%, while HT CM was finetuned for that top 1% (and truly finetuned - if any leeway was included this time, it was much, much smaller).

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No. It's just the first time they made the content truly finetuned for around the ceiling of what player groups can do. Not even Dhuum CM was that - it ended up being lowmanned or run in undergeared/meme groups relatively fast, without any time for powercreep to change the playing field first.

The truth is that, due to the massive differences in effectiveness within playerbase, it is entirely possible to create a content that would be prohibitively hard (or plain impossible) for 80% of playerbase, while at the same time being laughably easy for top 1%. That's because the gap is massive not only between the bottom and top, or average and top, but also between top 10% and top 1%. And so it happens that Raids were designed (with some leeway) for the top 10%, Dhuum CM was made (again, with some leeway) for maybe top 5%, while HT CM was finetuned for that top 1% (and truly finetuned - if any leeway was included this time, it was much, much smaller).

 

I've seen numbers like "the top 1%" thrown around alot, but according to data about the number of active players in the game, the number of players who've cleared HT CM would only be about 0.1% at most, more than likely it would be close to 0.01% because of alt accounts.

 

If you take gw2efficiency data into account, which is already mostly non-casuals, and then compare that to the number of players that use gw2efficiency vs the overall population, it'd look more like this:

Does raids - 1%

Does Strike Mission CMs - 1%

Does Strike Missions (non-CM) - 5%

Does Fractal CMs - 5%

Does T4 Fractals - 10%

 

The majority of the population thinks Heart of Thorns open-world maps are too difficult. Most of the difficult content in this game doesn't even target the top 10% of players, which Fractal goers would already be included in. There's no way to know the exact numbers but trust me, its way lower than what players keep posting here.

 

Go and look at how many players are in PvP and what their ranks are, if you don't believe me. Its the exact same situation, and this is why ArenaNet doesn't develop these types of content anymore. In a game with hundreds of thousands of players, you can't target just 500-ish people.

 

Players who think HT CM targets the top 1% are being extremely optimistic.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Serephen.3420]

On 8/6/2022 at 1:36 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Power creep is definitely a concern, but people are equating the ease of Mechanist with an increase in power.  That's... not what it is.  Power creep is the increase in overall performance by increasing the numbers themselves (DPS, health).  Arguably feature creep is also a form of power creep, in which the sheer number of things that can be done at the same time can also be increased.  What the mechanist has is a low skill floor to doing decent damage.  I hear a lot of debates about the numbers (21k, 23k, 28k depending on circumstances) of the LI build, but nobody is talking about the high-impact builds.  Power mechanist does 36k DPS while cycling through kits and pressing 8 buttons.  Condi mechanist does 37.8k DPS with a two-kit piano rotation that I'm not even going to try to attempt.  Now, those numbers are quite decent, but on Snowcrows right now we have 42k untamed, 39k specter, 39k bladesworn, 38k harbinger, weaver, mirage, and 37k renegade, soulbeast, virtuoso, and catalyst.  The only profession that cannot either exceed or match the Mozart rotation of the engineer is Guardian, at 36k for firebrand (with teammates) and 35k willbender solo.

As the game itself goes, there's been two big moves recently.  One that increased power, and one that decreased power.  The removal for unique buffs from professions has resulted in a severe decrease in strike damage, and a more minor decrease in condition damage.  If you consider solo play a factor (which I do), then the proliferation of jade bot offensive and defensive buffs was a massive increase in power.  Solo and Yolo play received a massive buff from this, since solo boon capping gives players significant damage (at least +50%) and survival increases (at least 33%) without having to choose build your toon around boons and sacrifice raw damage bonuses.  Though this part is debatable, since organized groups that boon spam haven't been significantly improved with these buffs.

 

Pretty sure Cata presses way more buttons than mech as well as a few others you mentioned...but maybe I misread the point of your post🤔

Edited August 9, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[Yaki.9563]

20 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Fun fact: absolutely nothing has changed about Orr in those 7 years. And if you are running a 7 year old spec in a 7 years old gear, you aren't any stronger than you were then either - in fact, due to meta shifting, you're likely weaker. Which means the issue is not with the content changing, but with your memory being flawed.

 

Possible, but I'll go with your memory being the one more likely to be flawed since you've had 7 years of GW2 playing in between today and then. Surely you know that traits and core abilities changed, right? Just as a simple example, on my warrior running around with axe/warhorn I now get 2s of quickness and some fury to start a fight with while back then I had a lower cooldown but no such damaging boons. But hey, wield your arrogance some more and tell me about how I'm wrong about my experiences. It just makes you look the fool.

[Astralporing.1957]

26 minutes ago, Yaki.9563 said:

 

Possible, but I'll go with your memory being the one more likely to be flawed since you've had 7 years of GW2 playing in between today and then. Surely you know that traits and core abilities changed, right? Just as a simple example, on my warrior running around with axe/warhorn I now get 2s of quickness and some fury to start a fight with while back then I had a lower cooldown but no such damaging boons. But hey, wield your arrogance some more and tell me about how I'm wrong about my experiences. It just makes you look the fool.

Maybe, but as a reference, i will link something:

and this:

That's a pre-HoT core warrior, if you're wondering. It seems to me it's your memory that is flawed.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Zohar.4576]

I only recently came back after playing only at launch (having a blast btw, my mind is in a better place for this game now).

 

I can't be the only one who remembers this, but in Beta the game was wicked hard. I remember level 8 getting destroyed by mobs if you didn't take advantage of blocks, blinds, dodging, etc. One of the patches before release made the game so simple from what I remembered I think it colored my opinions at launch and caused me to look at the game in a jaded way.

 

Now about 10 years later after taking about a 8 year break from MMOs (and a brief stint in a wow before returning) I have a grand new appreciation for the game...but yeah, the trend to dumb things down and make it easier seems to be continuing still -- not just for GW2 either.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Jade Bots never should've provided stats. It should always have just been utility--the Waypoint/Res (10min CD for each) are enough of a godsend of utility that we don't need the others. I'm also not a fan of the whole battery system, but that's trifling.

ANet really needs to look at the boon system. We can se this is the direction everything is going but it's still just so bloated. If certain things are going to be assumed to be mandatory they might as well just simplify/combine them. 

• Alacrity/Quickness - Combine, +50% attack/action speed. Skills used while affected have their CD reduced by 25%.
• Resolution/Protection - Combine, 33% damage (all) reduction.
• Stability/Resistance - Combine, Ignore non damaging conditions. Stacks removed per each CC applied.
• Swiftness/Vigor - Combine, movement speed & endurance regen increased by 33%.

By further adding value to the boons it lets ANet focus on the accessibility/duration of them rather than "mash every button".

Look at things like Might & Fury, both are so stupidly easy to maintain by accident that one wonders what's the point of even having them exist anymore. Simplifying the number and effects of boons allows ANet to promote build/profession diversity through traits, weapons, and utilities rather than focusing purely on the boon.

(all of this is personal opinion, so take with a grain of salt--tired of seeing my "buff bar" going off the screen)

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Zohar.4576 said:

I only recently came back after playing only at launch (having a blast btw, my mind is in a better place for this game now).

 

I can't be the only one who remembers this, but in Beta the game was wicked hard. I remember level 8 getting destroyed by mobs if you didn't take advantage of blocks, blinds, dodging, etc. One of the patches before release made the game so simple from what I remembered I think it colored my opinions at launch and caused me to look at the game in a jaded way.

Yes, originally the game utilized GW1-based AI for mob behaviour. Mobs could move out of aoe, move away from you if ranged, or dogpile a single target, for example. They could also utilize the GW2 additions to the engine - they could dodge. And you remember right, that it made the game "wicked hard". You probably never thought out the consequences of this however. Anet had to massively nerf the mob AI then, because otherwise 90% of new players - and i mean of those that did ultimately remain for longer - would have just quit on the spot instead. You might have personally preferred the game to be like that, but with that level of difficulty it would not have survived till HoT (and probably not even to LS2). And you'd end up preferring a dead game.

That would be hardly an improvement.

[Bakeneko.5826]

On 8/8/2022 at 11:22 PM, Sunchaser.9854 said:

The mechanist afking to 28-32k dps is a lie because you couldn't find the video that was posted 4 times... 

No, beacause AFK means Away From the Keyboard, a.k.a. you target enemy - click 1 to initiate AA and do not touch anything, and it gets 28-32k DPS.

Also , I have no idea what "ranged" in video you posted means. Your attack might be ranged, but you still have to stand close to party (which is ~99% of the time - non-ranged) to get boon.

Also no. 2 - if it is rotation, it is not AFK. It is oxymoron

On 8/9/2022 at 12:36 AM, Sunchaser.9854 said:

100% alac is when the same player decides to talent into alacrity because the class can provide 100% while some other alac specs are fiddly/unreliable alac and nobody in their right mind takes 50% alac over 100% when you want 100% for a group. 

Which class after EoD gives 50% alac? Even condi alacren is 100% cover.

On 8/9/2022 at 12:36 AM, Sunchaser.9854 said:

The dps is 25k because you change talents but play more than one class and people will pretty much unanimously say their class's also being finnicky

So is it 32k, 28k or 25k? You made it sound like it does 32k and gives full boons, then downgraded it to 28k, and then it turns out to be 25k?

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

Well as a Reaper i find the topic absurd! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper! Buff Reaper!

[lezbefriends.7516]

No, the game was already easy. We went from one-shotting everything to one-shotting everything.

 

Also, new bosses are damage sponges since IbS and ANet just made World Bosses get more HP as well.

Edited August 10, 2022 by lezbefriends.7516

[Tails.9372]

3 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

So is it 32k, 28k or 25k? You made it sound like it does 32k and gives full boons, then downgraded it to 28k, and then it turns out to be 25k?

Just for context, for rifle based mech builds: 19k is "alac support AA only", 25k is "alac support with proper rotation", 28k is "DPS AA only", 32k is "DPS while using some of your other skills" and 36k is "DPS with proper rotation".

Edited August 10, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Luci.7018]

 

It's better if they bring other weapons up (Rifle -Ele Staff) first , before they care about DPS addons and the minuscule amount of people that uses them.

The majority will have a better time, than to serve the few and their numbers

Edited August 10, 2022 by Luci.7018

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

7 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

Jade Bots never should've provided stats. It should always have just been utility--the Waypoint/Res (10min CD for each) are enough of a godsend of utility that we don't need the others. I'm also not a fan of the whole battery system, but that's trifling.

ANet really needs to look at the boon system. We can se this is the direction everything is going but it's still just so bloated. If certain things are going to be assumed to be mandatory they might as well just simplify/combine them. 

• Alacrity/Quickness - Combine, +50% attack/action speed. Skills used while affected have their CD reduced by 25%.
• Resolution/Protection - Combine, 33% damage (all) reduction.
• Stability/Resistance - Combine, Ignore non damaging conditions. Stacks removed per each CC applied.
• Swiftness/Vigor - Combine, movement speed & endurance regen increased by 33%.

By further adding value to the boons it lets ANet focus on the accessibility/duration of them rather than "mash every button".

Look at things like Might & Fury, both are so stupidly easy to maintain by accident that one wonders what's the point of even having them exist anymore. Simplifying the number and effects of boons allows ANet to promote build/profession diversity through traits, weapons, and utilities rather than focusing purely on the boon.

(all of this is personal opinion, so take with a grain of salt--tired of seeing my "buff bar" going off the screen)

If you're going to complain about boons, at least understand how Alacrity and Quickness work.

 

Alacrity is only 20% increased skill usage and Quickness is only 33% increased attack speed, because the 25% and 50% (respectively) modifiers are applied multiplicatively instead of additively.

 

What actually creates powercreep is %damage modifiers from runes, sigils and traits, which are exponential (again, because they're applied multiplicatively instead of additively). This means when you have just one modifier its a flat rate, but when you get two or more modifiers it quickly goes out of control. This is why %damage always outstrips power past a certain threshold, especially when combined with ferocity.

 

It affects healing, too. Once you pass about 900-1k healing power, %healing bonuses quickly outstrip any further increase in healing power except for barriers and self-healing, which aren't affected.

 

Powercreep is a real thing, and a big problem, but its not because of boons. Though more of them like Protection and Regeneration need to stack in intensity to remove some of their front-end power, as right now you only need one source of the boon to be 100% effective.

The problem has been, and always will be, strong and overstacked builds.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Zohar.4576]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, originally the game utilized GW1-based AI for mob behaviour. Mobs could move out of aoe, move away from you if ranged, or dogpile a single target, for example. They could also utilize the GW2 additions to the engine - they could dodge. And you remember right, that it made the game "wicked hard". You probably never thought out the consequences of this however. Anet had to massively nerf the mob AI then, because otherwise 90% of new players - and i mean of those that did ultimately remain for longer - would have just quit on the spot instead. You might have personally preferred the game to be like that, but with that level of difficulty it would not have survived till HoT (and probably not even to LS2). And you'd end up preferring a dead game.

That would be hardly an improvement.

 

You are certainly right. It would have turned so many players off, but at the time I certainly wasn't able to think about the bigger picture! I did enjoy it though 🙂

[TheQuickFox.3826]

A bit of power creep is fine to me. It is always nice to get some extra power with a major game release like an expansion or a living world season. Elite specializations and masteries may do this. And over time it allows more players to enjoy content that would otherwise be out of their ability level. Like emboldened with raids.

 

Overall I enjoy the Heart of Thorns expansion better with the current state of the game than right after the release, and emboldened made me get over my anxiety and get back into raids.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

If you're going to complain about boons, at least understand how Alacrity and Quickness work.

 

Alacrity is only 20% increased skill usage and Quickness is only 33% increased attack speed, because the 25% and 50% (respectively) modifiers are applied multiplicatively instead of additively.

 

What actually creates powercreep is %damage modifiers from runes, sigils and traits, which are exponential (again, because they're applied multiplicatively instead of additively). This means when you have just one modifier its a flat rate, but when you get two or more modifiers it quickly goes out of control. This is why %damage always outstrips power past a certain threshold, especially when combined with ferocity.

 

It affects healing, too. Once you pass about 900-1k healing power, %healing bonuses quickly outstrip any further increase in healing power except for barriers and self-healing, which aren't affected.

 

Powercreep is a real thing, and a big problem, but its not because of boons. Though more of them like Protection and Regeneration need to stack in intensity to remove some of their front-end power, as right now you only need one source of the boon to be 100% effective.

The problem has been, and always will be, strong and overstacked builds.

It's both, actually. The percentage-based boon bonuses are a part of that multiplicative stacking, while the flat bonuses are in turn balooned with those multiplicative bonuses. Full boons offer around +100-200% dps increase.

And while boons themselves are not part of any powecreep anymore, because the perma upkeep of current full complement of boons has been a staple of high end play since HoT (and, in fact, some boons got nerfed in effectiveness since then), the ability of builds to supply those boons while doing other things add up to the issue. Remember, that original primary boon providers (Support Chrono) were able to do it only at a cost of a massive reduction in their dps output. Current boon supporters are in fact dps hybrid builds, capable of outputting some significant amount of damage while doing their job.

Also, while boons themselves do not get better, the amount of dps increase they provide massively inflates even relatively small increases to traits and skills. So, while they may not be a part of powercreep directly, their indirect effect on it should not be overlooked.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

12 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

If you're going to complain about boons, at least understand how Alacrity and Quickness work.

Chill dude, it was a suggestion for simplifying boon structure since the balance team is focusing on them so obsessively (i.e. trying to make sure all professions have a build with access to alac/quick

 

12 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Alacrity is only 20% increased skill usage and Quickness is only 33% increased attack speed, because the 25% and 50% (respectively) modifiers are applied multiplicatively instead of additively.

 

What actually creates powercreep is %damage modifiers from runes, sigils and traits, which are exponential (again, because they're applied multiplicatively instead of additively). This means when you have just one modifier its a flat rate, but when you get two or more modifiers it quickly goes out of control. This is why %damage always outstrips power past a certain threshold, especially when combined with ferocity.

 

It affects healing, too. Once you pass about 900-1k healing power, %healing bonuses quickly outstrip any further increase in healing power except for barriers and self-healing, which aren't affected.

A lot of the boons are so easily maintained at 80-100% with minimal to no investment (keystrokes, traits, skill/weapon choices, gear, food) from the player that it begs the question why the boon even exists at all. They could just add a *% modifier to literally everything and get rid of worrying about boons altogether while having the same effect.

 

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Also, while boons themselves do not get better, the amount of dps increase they provide massively inflates even relatively small increases to traits and skills. So, while they may not be a part of powercreep directly, their indirect effect on it should not be overlooked.

Exactly--that's the thing. Being able to maintain the boons all the time while still fulfilling one (or two) of the GW2 trinity (Damage-Support-Control) is absolutely massive and adds to imbalances.I get ANet wouldn't want to balance encounters around not having the boons because that means it's easier without the boons, but they should revisit boon accessibility overall.

It's not 100% the only issue, but it's part of it. Boons aren't really seen as anything special these days. At one point, certain ones  were highly prized due to their relative scarcity, whereas now it's just assumed a given that they'll be 100% up in almost all encounters. 

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

It's not 100% the only issue, but it's part of it. Boons aren't really seen as anything special these days. At one point, certain ones  were highly prized due to their relative scarcity, whereas now it's just assumed a given that they'll be 100% up in almost all encounters. 

That's not really true. Perma upkeep was always a thing among those groups that cared about it. And while it is true that quickness was once extremely scarce, it was before it became a boon. Perma alacrity was possible from the very beginning it was introduced, even when it was an unique chrono effect and not a boon, btw.

In the end, it's not the ability to upkeep boons permanently that is the greatest issue. Nor is it even the apparent lack of cost you have to pay to have those boons up nowadays. The real issue was always in how massively strong those boons are. If they offered a modest increase of up to at best +25% dps (total, at full boons), they would be much easier to handle.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[frostbyte.9074]

I don't know if I'd say it's gotten easier, necessarily, but I have noticed that leveling an alt is getting way faster than it was even recently. I know experience and skill plays a part, but starting from level 1, with no boosters, you can get to level 10 without even finishing four renown hearts. And completing the character creation starter "tutorial" instance (e.g., Defending Shaemoor, for Human characters) used to only get me to level 2 no matter how many kills I got or other variables, but now it always gets me to at least level 3 and occasionally level 4. I know they did it to make it easier for new players, at least according to the game Update Notes, along with giving them a Raptor at level 10 (personally I think it should be at least level 20—even WoW makes you wait till level 20), but it does seem like it takes almost half the time it used to to level a toon from 1to 80, and I don't like that.

 

Having said all that, however, I still think GW2 does a much better job at keeping things "fun" than any other MMO I've ever played, and given my long history of online gaming and MMO's in particular that's saying a LOT.

 

Anyway, that's my "two cents". It's only my experiences and opinions, and I'm not disagreeing or even commenting on others' opinions. I'm sure there are other players who are more cynical or pessimistic than I am (no doubt they call themselves "realists" [sic]) and a few who are even happy about the changes, but like with many things, I'm a centrist (well, slightly to the optimistic side of center).

[Krzysztof.5973]

Every time anet tries to introduce content that requires from the player to press more buttons than just AA, the community of this game throws a temper tantrum. We had easy low-intensity builds that could pull decent numbers in the past, we are only getting more of these. There is turning back anymore. The target audience needs the power creep. The outrage over harder stuff in the game will only become more and more prevalent. 

[Zera.9435]

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis? There is no such thing as me doing too much damage. There has never been such a thing as me doing too much damage. There will NEVER be such a thing as me doing too much damage. I wish the power creep were real.